Nuggets of wisdom from Britain's super well-paid

Most of the investment advice at the annual gathering of Britain's super well-paid was simply hot air, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But there were a few gems.

I flew from Scotland to London with my children on Thursday. Everyone was in a remarkably good mood possibly because they were either flying on or working for British Airways rather than Ryanair and the captain asked us in to see the flight deck.

It went well. No one pressed any buttons they weren't supposed to and everyone was polite to the pilots. But I was not altogether thrilled to be reminded just how complicated a cockpit is so many buttons, so much risk.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.