As the rich get richer, the post-coronavirus world will also offer new investment opportunities

Just like 2008, expect the billionaires to profit from a crisis, but watch for the investment world to change with chances to make money in farming, food, sustainable energy and staycation hotels, writes Chris Blackhurst

Farmland, which was a sure bet before the lockdown, is set to ascend even higher in value (AFP/Getty)

The voice on the phone sounded buoyant. Its billionaire owner was telling me how he was looking forward to the coming period. “Once it’s over,” he said, “there’ll be loads of opportunities.”

I know the rich are different, but listening to him I did feel as though I was hearing someone from another planet (as it was he was speaking from the Med, with his superyacht moored nearby). And I also remembered that after the crisis in 2008, the rich became even richer.

Indeed, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, between 2009 and 2019, billionaire wealth in Britain saw a more than fivefold increase (rising by 423 per cent). This, while much of the rest of the country was grappling with the aftermath of the banking crash and the effects of austerity.

Property developments may have faltered but that did not stop one real estate tycoon from quietly going around snapping up distressed building and construction firms. He did not want their expertise or their equipment and workers, but always their sites. He did the same with the supermarket chains, striking deals to buy their unwanted land banks.

Once the tide turned, and the market for new builds improved, he was able to exploit his new assets to their full potential. I would wager he is doing the same again, offering cash, promising to help someone in trouble to ease their difficulties, relieving them of parcels of land they can no longer use.

You watch, history is set to repeat itself again. Anyone who is cash-rich, debt-free, and has the nerve to take a longer-term view, who is able and prepared to accumulate now for further ahead, is set to win hugely.

Amid the talk of job cuts and furloughs, City phones are also home to discussions about possible acquisition and investment targets. They’re being selective, as you might expect, trying to predict what will be secure and likely to climb in value once the pandemic has passed.

Bricks and mortar retailing is of little interest – not unless they’ve got a slick, in-demand, internet operation as well. Large office floor spaces, too, have lost their appeal.

Residential property, especially where they can provide much-needed affordable homes, comes high. As does tech, and anything involving online distribution and delivery – the prices of sheds, giant out-of-town warehouses, are set to climb.

This meltdown has seen demand for oil plummet. It’s difficult to imagine, against a backdrop of increasing environmental concerns, that fossil fuels will ever recover

Along with pharma and biotechnology, and healthcare, food supply lines are on the must-have list. And that includes farming. Here’s a pub (sorry, virtual) quiz question: who now owns more farmland in Britain than the Queen, the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Bedford? A clue is that he is famous for state-of-the-art, or should that be science, domestic appliances.

Another is that he is so tech-savvy that during this emergency he has set his design and engineering teams to coming up with a new, more efficient type of ventilator for beleaguered hospitals to use for treating coronavirus. Yes, perhaps somewhat perversely given his reputation for modernism and slick gadgetry, he is Sir James Dyson. At the last count the billionaire self-starting inventor owned 35,000 acres of prime agricultural estates across the UK, easily surpassing royalty and nobility who mostly inherited theirs.

Dyson’s move is clever. People will always require food, and their first port of call will be domestically sourced produce – that does not entail climate-busting travel and run the risk of restrictions being imposed by foreign governments.

The bagless cleaner baron was making his play long before the label Covid-19 was attached to a new, dangerous virus. The outbreak, however, works to his advantage. One impact will see a surge in nationalism, in governments urging their populations to buy local, to boost jobs, morale and taxes, and to better safeguard supplies. We will be exhorted to “Buy British” and that will extend to food. Farmland, which was a sure bet before the lockdown, and has survived as a safe investment historically, is set to ascend even higher in value.

Likewise, UK holiday operators can expect a boom, as discretionary overseas travel – already at risk in the face of climate change – will take a beating. If you can get a hold of a caravan site or hotel with potential (to use the agents’ favoured vernacular) in a good location, do so – you may not get a second chance in the years ahead.

Now is the moment, too, to be looking at security for people and premises. We’re heading for high numbers of jobless, in a widening of the already yawning equality gap. Warnings are emerging of increased crime, of thefts and burglaries. Those who make and instal electric gates, CCTV systems, fencing, alarms should stand to benefit – certainly, if I had the spare money, they would be on my list.

On it, as well, would be renewable energy. This meltdown has seen demand for oil plummet. It’s difficult to imagine, against a backdrop of increasing environmental concerns, that fossil fuels will ever recover. Certainly, it would be a brave, if not reckless, investor who went into that sector today – far cannier to plump for solar and wind energy, in renewable production and all the attendant infrastructure, in the likelihood that more than ever they represent the way ahead.

So, there is plenty to aim for. Sadly, I will just have to stick to playing the EuroMillions. ​