Standard Life Aberdeen's Martin Gilbert urges the PM to spend big and boost the economy

Veteran investor Martin Gilbert today backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson and urged him to spend big to boost Britain’s stagnant economy.

Speaking in Davos, the outgoing Standard Life Aberdeen vice chairman said Johnson was “the right man for the time, at the moment, I think he will give the country confidence”.

A recent slew of poor economic data, including a 0.3% fall in GDP growth in November reported last week, has left departing Bank of England governor Mark Carney with his finger on the trigger, ready to cut interest rates from their current level of 0.75%. But today’s upbeat unemployment figures relieved some of that pressure.

Gilbert told CNBC: “I think everyone is speaking about infrastructure spend, where we’re going to spend it, all of the things we should be doing. I’ve been a believer in borrowing at these, sort of, 200-year low interest rates, and investing in the infrastructure of the country, which will get the economy going.”

Johnson made a string of spending pledges in the run-up to December’s election, but faces crunch decisions on big projects including the future of HS2.

Gilbert revealed last year he is to step down this September after 36 years of running the funds giant. Today he defended the merger of his Aberdeen business with Standard Life in 2017. He said: “I think I had achieved all I could, and really done my bit putting the two businesses together, but the industry is going through the first systemic downturn that I’ve seen in my career, with this rise and rise of passive, and the rise of private markets, and fee compression. So it’s a tough time for the industry, so having done the merger, it was absolutely the right thing to [do].”

On a busy day in the Swiss Alps, there were appearances from bosses at Citigroup, Walmart and AB InBev, although the UK contingent was relatively small.