The writer is the founder and managing director of capital markets think-tank New Financial In the latest round of self-flagellation over the state of the UK stock market and the City of London, it is worth remembering the words of American writer HL Mencken that “for every complex problem there is an answer that is

Every now and again, a news reporter will encounter a story where none of the explanations provided makes sense. Instinct will suggest a more complex and interesting story is lurking in the tapestry of obfuscations. Dead in the Water is a triumphant example of what happens when editors give reporters the time to pull at

It might seem like business-as-usual in the post-pandemic western art world, but some of the alternative models initiated during the lockdowns are finding their footing. One is the Fair Art Fair (FAF), an app launched last September by the London artist-gallerist Stacie McCormick, with some Arts Council backing. Despite its name, the platform operates more

Throughout her career as an economist, Lise Vesterlund has been struck by the number of male colleagues who were exceptionally good at teaching and writing research papers, yet “somehow when it comes to doing any kind of service work, they [have some defect] that somehow makes them never serve on a committee”. So the work

Accounting firm RSM has bought out most of the shares in the business held by its former UK partners, consolidating the power of its new management team two years after the entire board was ousted following an investor coup. The UK’s seventh-largest accounting firm by revenue was thrown into chaos in 2019, when its chief

It barely took half an hour to gravely wound the chances of an alliance on France’s far right that could turn the movement into a serious player in government instead of a token opposition presence. On Sunday night after Marine Le Pen lost the presidential election to Emmanuel Macron but achieved a historic score for

Facebook parent Meta posted its slowest revenue growth since going public, but its share price jumped as profits held up better than expected in the face of several headwinds including the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The company booked $7.5bn in profit in the January-March quarter, down 21 per cent from the same period

Rishi Sunak has hinted that he could perform a U-turn and introduce a windfall tax on UK oil and gas companies unless they ramp up investment in new energy projects. The UK chancellor has long argued against such a levy, which is backed by the Labour party, on the grounds that it would deter investment

Liz Truss, UK foreign secretary, has warned China to learn lessons from the west’s robust economic response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying Beijing will face consequences if it does not “play by the rules”. Truss, in a hawkish set-piece speech, argued that the Ukraine crisis had delivered a salutary lesson to the west and

Ministers are to unveil the biggest overhaul of broadcasting rules in almost 20 years, handing the BBC, ITV and a privatised Channel 4 far greater bargaining power with digital TV platforms such as Sky, Amazon and Samsung. Nadine Dorries, culture secretary, will on Thursday publish long-awaited plans to privatise Channel 4, revamp television regulations for

Bill Hwang, founder of collapsed family office Archegos Capital Management, has been arrested by US authorities and charged with racketeering, fraud and market manipulation. The indictment unsealed on Wednesday accused Hwang, 58, and former chief financial officer Patrick Halligan, 45, of using Archegos as an “instrument of market manipulation and fraud” with “far-reaching consequences for

McKinsey’s managing partner has pushed back against allegations that the consultancy breached conflict of interest rules by advising opioids producers on how to “turbocharge” sales while also working for US health regulators seeking to tackle a deadly painkiller overdose epidemic. Bob Sternfels told a US congressional committee on Wednesday that he regretted McKinsey did not

European stocks were volatile on Wednesday, following a bruising session on Wall Street where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite share index posted its biggest single-day decline since September 2020. The regional Stoxx 600 share index lost almost 1 per cent cent in early dealings before recovering to trade 0.4 per cent higher. Exporters were boosted by

Britain’s Conservative party has confirmed it is investigating reports that a male MP watched pornography on his mobile phone while sitting in the House of Commons chamber. The allegations, first reported in the Mirror and Sun newspapers on Wednesday, were discussed during a meeting of Tory MPs on Tuesday in which female members shared their

Tech investors have been on edge about this quarter’s earnings season ever since Netflix stunned Wall Street by revealing that its decade-long run of subscriber growth had come sputtering to a halt. Now, they are finding little to comfort them as more companies report their numbers. On Wednesday, despite insisting that its business is nothing

Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek has sought to distance his company from Netflix, telling investors the two are “vastly different businesses”, after the recent crash in the video streaming service’s stock price sliced Spotify’s value by a fifth. “I think a lot of people are grouping us and Netflix together . . . despite both being media companies and

Most of us are facing the challenge of re-entry into the “new normal”. My FT colleague Rana Foroohar perfectly captured the weirdness of this moment as “the cognitive dissonance of corporate life,” in this week’s Swamp Notes newsletter (and you can sign up here).  There is much to think about as we struggle to manage

A year and a half before the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Devi Sridhar, a professor in global public health at the University of Edinburgh, warned with eerie prescience of the pandemic looming on the horizon. The biggest threat to the UK, Sridhar told audiences at the Hay Literary Festival in

The BT Tower. A dank Soho alley. A pub. The highly anticipated anglicisation of the French series Call My Agent! begins with a montage reminding us that we’ve left Eiffel, Haussmann and café culture behind. The venue is now unmistakably London, but it’s a famous French idiom that comes to mind while watching the new

Higher interest rates and investor rotation into value sectors have squashed tech company valuations. When the businesses are listed in the UK, they already come with a discount to US peers built in. Cambridge-based Aveva added a third woe to the list on Wednesday. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will hit the profitability of the industrial