Early indicators after the UK vote to “Leave” the EU are already showing the country is dipping into recession.  Nevertheless, large-cap stocks in the UK have held up surprisingly well.

This can clearly be seen in the results just announced yesterday by IHG.  The fear of markets before Brexit about hotels had been that the post-recession cyclical upsurge in vacationing had just about run its course–and that, as a result, hotel profits were just about to peak/had already peaked.  But the figures from IHG were good and the stock rose by about 3% on the news.

To see how this can be, it’s important to note    that the post-Brexit decline in the fortunes of the UK has been expressed almost entirely in a 10%+ decline in the British currency.  This is an unexpected boon for British-based multinationals.

As Richard Solomons, the CEO of IHG, put it in yesterday’s report to shareholders:

“Note that whilst the UK comprises around 5% of our group revenues,

approximately 50% of our gross central overhead and

40% of Europe regional overhead are in sterling.

At 30 June 2016 exchange rates, approximately 70% of our debt is denominated in sterling.”

All of these figures are now 10% less in purchasing power terms than they were pre-Brexit.  Without any price changes, revenues will be 0.5% lower in dollar terms than they would have been.  But overheads will be down by much more.  In addition, the dollar value of the company’s debt is sliced by about $128 million.

This situation has two positive effects in the minds of UK investors:

–profits will likely be higher than anticipated, making the stock more attractive, and

–to the extent that a company like IHG, which has the lion’s share of revenues outside the UK, is affected by Brexit, the influence is likely to be positive.  This means that it can act as a way for British residents to preserve the purchasing power of their savings.