UBS Investment Chief Says Virus Has No Effect on China Bull Case

(Bloomberg) --
 

China’s intense effort to contain the deadly new coronavirus is causing major damage to the nation’s economy and sending ripples through global financial markets. But it hasn’t shaken the conviction of Barry Gill, head of investments at UBS Asset Management, who is bullish on China’s long-term prospects as the nation continues to shift to a consumer-oriented economy. He joins the “What Goes Up” podcast this week to discuss.

Some highlights of the conversation:

“I think the trends taking place in China are inexorable in nature. They’re truly structural. The growing middle class, the focus on the domestic economy … I’m bullish both on the consumerization of the Chinese economy, the premiumization phenomenon that’s taking place there as people get wealthier, and then a whole bunch of disruptive things that are taking place from the technology standpoint over there. And I think that those are going to play out over the next 10 or 20 years and nothing like this will get in the way.”

“When you have an event like this and you have to shut down factories, what you figure out is, well hang on a second, we now have people in these factories, we’ve now just shut down the productive capacity of a region because of this event, how do we actually figure out how to automate from here? So in some ways it’s going to accelerate some trends that are already in place.”

Also joining the show is Bloomberg consumer-team editor Sally Bakewell, who discusses how the coronavirus is affecting U.S. companies.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Topher Forhecz at tforhecz@bloomberg.net

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.