Savings 'an Olympic loser'

The boss of investment management group Henderson claims people have forgotten about savings amid "the excitement of the Olympics".

Chief executive Andrew Formica said: "Investors were already wary but in the last couple of weeks we have seen incredibly low levels of activity and I don't see that changing until the end of the summer."

Henderson's headline profit fell by 9 per cent to £71m in the first half but, more worrying, customers withdrew £2.1bn more than they put into savings.

Mr Formica added: "Equities look good value over the long term but it is hard to convince people of that.

"Yields on sovereign bonds are down to ridiculously low levels so we are trying to encourage people into either corporate bonds or high yielding shares which have global earnings."