The pension funds for the UK’s largest companies cut their stock market investments by around £30bn in 2018, according to new research, underlining the scale of their stampede out of equities in recent years.

The shift means that FTSE 100 companies now invest less than 20% of their total £650bn of assets in the stock market, according to the analysis from pensions consultancy Lane Clark & Peacock. That proportion has steadily fallen from over 60% in 2002.