LONDON, July 10 (Reuters) - Top executives at leadinginvestment houses managing 10 trillion pounds ($15.5 trillion)in assets have written to Britain's finance minister offeringtheir backing to plans to boost the country's productivity.
Legal & General Investment Management, Schroders and Standard Life Investments were among thebackers of a government plan to raise productivity from a levelthat remains 16 percent below pre-crisis levels.
"We would like to offer practical support... a collaborationbetween government, business and finance to increase investment,productivity, competitiveness and exports, through enhancedlong-term investment," they wrote.
That support would focus on three areas. The first, tosupport best-practice, would see the group, in conjunction withtrade body the Investment Association, come up with an actionplan by the end of the year.
Secondly, they would look to make sure companies make theright calls on investing in their companies for the longer term,as opposed to always returning money to shareholders, andchallenge those who do badly.
The group added it would also work to make needed changes tothe capital markets to help encourage more long-term investing,such as improving access for companies to both equity and debtmarkets.
Other signatories to the letter were Allianz GlobalInvestors, Aviva Investors, BlackRock,Newton Investment Management, Columbia Threadneedle,Woodford Investment Management and the Investor Forum.($1 = 0.6452 pounds) (Reporting by Simon Jessop)