THE pile of unspent corporate cash that has built up since the start of the financial crisis is being held by an increasingly concentrated pool of companies that will be crucial to hopes of a pick-up in investment to stimulate the global economy.

About a third of the world’s biggest non-financial companies are sitting on most of a $2.8tn gross cash pile, according to a study by advisory firm Deloitte, with the polarisation between hoarders and spenders widening since the financial crisis.

This will have a big influence on whether 2014 will see a revival in capital expenditure or dealmaking, warned Iain Macmillan, head of mergers and acquisitions at Deloitte. He said: “Looking ahead, the wave of cash that many are expecting will depend on the decisions of a few, rather than the many.”

Of the non-financial members of the S&P Global 1200 index, just 32 per cent of companies held 82 per cent of the aggregate cash pile, the highest level since at least 2000. With nearly $150bn in its coffers, Apple alone was sitting on about five per cent of the total at the end of its fiscal year.

Such concentration has increased since 2007 when companies that held more than $2.5bn in cash or ‘near cash’ items — not including debt — accounted for 76 per cent of the aggregate cash pile.

The study focused on gross cash holdings rather than subtracting debt in an effort to simplify comparisons and identify how much money companies have on hand.

The study comes amid increasing investor calls for companies to step up capital spending. An influential survey of fund managers conducted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch released last week showed a record 58 per cent of investors polled want companies’ cash piles spent on capex. Less than a third of asset managers wanted companies to return more money to shareholders.

“A key issue that will determine the pace of recovery and return will be the extent to which companies step up to the plate and put their cash balances to work in generating growth,” said Keith Skeoch, chief executive of fund manager Standard Life Investments.

Recent analysis by Standard & Poor’s has shown how cash hoarding has damped investment. If the ratio of cash held by companies to their assets had followed a more ‘normalised’ recovery path in 2012 and 2013, an extra $900bn of cash would have been spent by the global non-financial corporate sector over those two years.

Cash hoarding is blamed by some economists for some regions’ slow emergence from the crisis. As companies keep operating costs low and do not invest in equipment, their wealth does not trickle down to benefit the wider economy.

However, the analysis of cash hoarding during the crisis is complicated by rising net debt levels since 2007, as companies have taken advantage of record low interest rates to issue debt. This could have an impact on the willingness to spend on M&A or capex.