FINANCIAL TIMES

THURSDAY 30 AUGUST 2016

US $7.75: Republic of Ireland $4.30

Has the shipping container had its day?

BIG READ: PAGE 17

Ashley's sharp eye for a fashion bargain

LOAN CAPPER: PAGE 21

Tehran targets Europe's US bases in sights

Iranian pass-skillboard attacking Iran, all 10 league Tehran, Iran has identified potential targets in Europe should the US president enclose the war, according to people close to the region.

Insiders told the FY that Tehran had assessed striking US assets in Bulgaria, which has approved the use of its Bar, so it has to be US refueling aircraft. Cyprus, where a British base was struck by a force in March, and unless it became a nation in the trial of the war.

The threats reflect the view in Tehran that a resumption of the war is a matter of when, and it. Military commanders have warned that in any new full-scale conflict, Iran would move beyond its strategy of attacking US assets in the Middle East to targets in the rabid.

Our analyst described the threat to targets in Europe as "real, but limited". War escalation (cont.) Katherine Thompson (cont.)

Source: World War II, US Air Force

Moderna shares double after success for custom-made skin cancer vaccine

Melanoma therapy breakthrough Positively outcome in late-stage trial Joint project with Merck

PATRICK TEPHIL-WAIT • NEW YORK STEPHEN RYAN • LONDON

Shares in US vaccine-maker Moderna more than doubled in value yesterday after the company reported successful total results for an experimental skin cancer therapy.

The experimental therapy, jointly developed with Merck, would be unprecedented in cancer treatment, providing a custom-made vaccine for each patient depending on their specific tumours. In-depth expert US regulators approved next year.

"Today's results represent a landmark moment for affected melanoma treatment," said Professor Georgina Long, the study's principal investigator and medical director of Melanoma Institute Australia.

The results of the trial had boosted Moderna's share price by 144 per cent in early afternoon trading in New York, taking its market capitalization to $6.5bn. With its share price surge, Moderna became the second best performer in the 1997-1999 trade as far as 2016, trailing only memory group fundals.

The Massachusetts company has been a leader in messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which teaches the body's immune system to identify

'Today's results represent a landmark moment for melanoma treatment'

Professor Georgina Long

and attack illnesses such as Covid-19. The company is hoping to develop the experimental vaccine technology to treat different types and stages of cancer, and hailed the results as a milestone towards vaccinating patients with the disease.

Its mRNA cancer shot would be given to a patient who had already been diagnosed with melanoma and would be designed specifically to attack their tumour.

"We have started to demonstrate the potential of an entirely new class of medicine, and an entirely new way of thinking about cancer care: using the information encoded within an individual patient's cancer to design a specific therapy that helps train their immune system to fight it," Stéphane Rancet,

Moderna's chief executive, wrote in a blog post yesterday.

Moderna and Merck said the treatment was the "first national," combined therapy that showed "statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement" in stopping cancer from redeveloping and spreading in patients whose melanomas had been removed. The region involved Moderna's mRNA vaccine and Merck's medication, Keytruda.

Moderna became a corporate headoring the pandemic as it rushed to develop a vaccine against Covid-19. But its fortunes have since turned and faced weaker demand for the community. Last year it became the most devoted stock in the 1997-1999.

The group has lost on new cancer vac-

cines to drive a turnaround and has been working for years on the vaccine alongside Merck. Even with yesterday's sharp share price rise, Moderna could still be trading at less than a third of the 2015 peak vaccine after it launched its Covid vaccine.

Shares in follow US drugmaker Merck rose nearly 30 per cent in early trading to hit a new high. Germany-based BioPEX®, another leader in mRNA, saw its shares jump 20 per cent after Moderna's report.

"This is a landmark moment," analysts at TD Cowen said, adding that Moderna had built a manufacturing facility in Massachusetts to begin making the vaccine in the therapy was likely to become available to patients seen after it gained regulatory approval.

Briefing

• Humanoid robot maker Kappa on Shanghai Boxing Shares in: Indiver have merged more than 600 percent on their debut, buying base numbers (three's investor) to try to develop companies. The stock is done at Bankbit (2015) valued the group at $50.75m — read: 1.1x, read: 0

• Price class gather speed Inflation as coke and its 5.9 per cent in July, up from 2.6 per cent in June, as higher energy costs driven by the Middle East conflict pushed price growth further above the Bank of England's target — (cont.)

• Probe late 'skip pricing' The competition was being less launched as inquiry into these companies, including TraxGen and Virgin Atlantic, over concerns about drug products added late in the buying process — (cont.)

• Limit 10 for Revelet chief The first 10 has prepared raising the amount 100,000 only, and become against the state's 10 child to $10.00m in a more than would open his access to more cash in the group's valuation item — (cont.)

• Zelensky graft were rise The 10s review provided has filed a top side after a raid on her house by anti-corruption authorities as he is under fire over a litany of graft allegations against his allies. • MONEY & PAYER & REVIEW (cont.)

• Booming revenues at risk Demand for e-sites cards used for travel is set to jump by a third this year as travellers seek cheaper alternatives than a roaming deals, donating in debt operation's income. • DAILY PARTNERS (cont.)

• Gaza soldiers face probe Incent ordinary race environmental oriented proceedings against troops accused of killing civilians and small evictives on electoral the Gaza war, including the shooting of a Palestinian child — (cont.)

• EQT takes punt on rugby The Swedish private equity group has taken a majority stake in the Melbourne Storm, one of the top clubers Australia's National Rugby League, its score double the nation's sports series — (cont.)

Starmer lacked 'vision', ex-chief of staff Gray says

Baroness Lee Gray, 24 star Starmer's former senior aide at Number 10, said he led short as prime minister because he lacked vision and failed to live people with bigger experience. In her first public comments since she was forced out of the role, the long-serving civil servant said in a PMR-UK currency podcast that she left 'unfated' over the rest of his seniorly votes. But, she added, successor Gray also has a 'clear view of what he wants to do.' Partner aide (cont.)

US Treasury to boost long-term bond purchases in effort to restrain sell-off

FLANK JONES • WES WRITTEN DAILY MARKET AND EARLY MARKET • LONDON GEORGE STEER • ROP YORK

The US Treasury said yesterday it would double purchase of long-term government debt as policymakers moved to contain a sell-off that has sent borrowing costs coming in the world's most important bond market.

The department said it would "at least double" the size of its buy back operations for Treasuries containing in 10 to 20 years and 20 to 30 years from $20m to "at least" $40m.

The move comes as strains grow in the $32m Treasury market and investors have sent the hours of inflation triggered by President Donald Trump's true war and Washington's rising debt burden.

"The administration is getting nervous about the long end of the curve and

wants to try to stem the decline," said Daniel Murray, Airport chief investment officer at EFC International.

Robert Tipp, chief investment strategist at PUDS, said the move was "an important signal to the market that the Treasury is concerned about the sell-off in the back end of the yield curve."

The Treasury said the buybacks, which will begin on September 9, reflected its "brain to provide greater liquid on support" to long-term debt.

US government bonds called sharply after the announcement, with the yield on the 30-year bond down to 2 percentage points to 3.19 per cent. The yield on 10-year debt, a benchmark for 10.8mm of dollars in assets worldwide, did 6.04 percentage points to 4.45 per cent. The 30-year yield fell almost 3.24 per cent on Tuesday the highest level since 2007.

The dollar declined after the buyback

announcement, with an index of the currency against six poor-sliding G7 per cent. George Saravelos, head of Deutsche Bank FX research, said currency markets would be diverted after moves to support the Treasury market. "The more those are perceived as diverting any to market pricing, the more the dollar is likely to weaken."

In an early test of the buyback strategy, shibler Treasury auctions 20-year bonds yesterday afternoon drive almost demand. The debt was sold at a yield of 3.204 per cent, a small premium to the 3.199 per cent on the secondary market, Bloomberg data showed.

"The auction was a especially weak or especially strong, it was pretty saddle of the road," said Connolly Goldberg, head of US sales strategy at TD Securities.

Day in the markets (cont.)

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FUNDED IN INDUSTRY

World Markets

STOCK MARKETS

	Aug '16	Prev	Swiss
S&P 500	7,718.88	7,901.15	2,120
Stockton, Liverpool	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Star, Hong Kong	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Sun, Hong Kong	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
First Quarter, 2015	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
FTSE 100	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
FTSE 100 (from)	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta Day	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Delta	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00

COMBINED

	Aug '16	Prev	Swiss
U.S.	1,188	1,158	415
U.S.	1,188	1,158	415
U.S.	1,001	1,000	415
U.S.	1,001	1,000	415
U.S.	18,215	18,185	414
U.S.	17,433	17,417	11,000
U.S.	2,826	2,806	1,000
MONTHS
	Aug '16	Prev	Swiss
Davos	10,000.00	10,000.00	0.00
Montreal	1,000.00	1,000.00	0.00
COMBINED
	Aug '16	Prev	Swiss
US 2015	90.00	90.00	1.00
US Share 2	90.00	90.00	0.00
US 2015	1,000.00	1,000.00	0.00

GOVERNMENT BONUS

	Aug '16	Prev	Swiss
Total U.S.	4.18	4.17	0.00
US $ 1.95	4.05	4.11	-0.00
US $ 1.95	3.25	3.20	0.00
US $ 2.15	4.25	4.25	0.00
US $ 2.15	3.25	3.20	0.00
US $ 2.15	3.15	3.20	0.00
US $ 2.15	1.00	1.00	0.00
US $ 2.15	1.00	1.00	0.00
US $ 2.15	1.00	1.00	0.00
US $ 2.15	1.00	1.00	0.00
US $ 2.15	1.00	1.00	0.00
US $ 2.15	1.00	1.00	0.00

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2

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2024

NATIONAL

Economy

Inflation hits 2.9% as energy costs rise

Disruption to gas supplies drives July's reading further beyond fuel target

SAM KLEHMAN AND EMILY HERRARD

Inflation accelerated to 2.7 per cent in July, a higher energy costs driven by the bias was pushed price growth further above the final of England's target.

From the price to the 1990s the National Statistics marked an increase from down's reading of 3.6 per cent and was in line with forecasts for July in a feature path of economists.

The jump to inflation will compensate pressure on News, Reuters, body fears that it is expected to adapt to a strong pressures after pledging to deliver higher growth across the country.

It comes after the Bell field its key interest rate at 7.77 per cent at 16 July, meeting despite inflation readings that have run persistently higher than its 2 per cent target.

The increase in inflation was driven by energy prices, including the sharpest increase in gas costs since 2022, negative 'elgars increased in energy price up by 12 per cent, effective from July, because of rising commodity prices, contributing to the reading.

Analysts at Cornwall tonight expect the cap will rise by whether 4 per cent in October to the highest level on a per cent basis since July 2023.

The consultancy said yesterday the best not two discarding global gas supplies at a time of high demand in Europe for gas for electricity generation and production outages is Norway. Objective

due to conflict on the price cap for the first date to the end of the period.

Some economists argued the central bank could still keep borrowing costs steady despite July's inflation figures.

'The MFC is likely to look through this provided underlying price pressures remain contained'

After the index, trade-in-omega markets exhibited beta that the Bell will hold rates at its next meeting in September.

The possibility of a quarter-point rise has required to remain pricing left to about 10 per cent after the final release, compared with 27 per cent before. The period was little changed.

While headline inflation jumped, some underlying pressures were now subdued, Services inflation, which the Bell closely tracks, eased from 3.6 per cent to 3.6 per cent in the month.

Gas inflation, which includes energy and food, was 3.6 per cent in the 12 months to July, slightly higher than the 2.3 per cent forecast by economists. Food inflation was subdued, with prices rising 3.2 per cent in the 12 months to July, the annual peak 1.7 per cent.

'While higher energy prices are putting upward pressure on headline inflation, the MFC is likely to look through this provided underlying price pressures remain contained,' said YouTublin, chief economist at EPRL.

'We expect interest rates to remain unchanged for the remainder of the year.'

July's figure is likely to be followed by further rise in headline inflation because of the bias conflict. In its latest forecasting round, the Bell predicted inflation will rise to 3.2 per cent towards the end of the year before coming back to an average of 2.7 per cent in 2023.

John Henley, the chancellor, said: 'You may inflation continues to impact prices here at home, but Britain's economy is realistas. We have cut 5/15 on electricity bills and argued less factor, 42 to give breathing space to those left in the street.'

But Smith, the shadow chancellor, said: 'I almost's tax rises and business banking have driven the cost of living higher and higher, yet body fears are robust to rule out yet more tax hikes.' Additional reporting by Rachel Milford and Jim Pickard

Politics. Premiership

Starmer lacked 'vision' in Number 10, says Gray

Former chief of staff believes former prime minister needed 'bigger people' around him

JIM POLRARD

He was the former bill about an prime minister because he lacked 'vision' and failed to hire 'people with bigger experience', according to Barstow for Gray, to her first public comments since she was forced out on his chief of staff.

Gray, a long-working civil servant who was pinched by Starmer in the run-up to the 2024 general election, said he felt 'ratherer' about the demise of his administration last month. But she told the PoliticalCurrency podcast aired today: 'She think that we needed bigger people, people with bigger experience to be heard of, whether it was routine or policy or strategy. Government is very, very different.'

'There are great people, and I think everybody was trying probably their best, but you know you need leadership, vision.' By contrast, we prime minister Andy Burcham had a 'very clear view of what he wants to do', she added. Gray helped Burcham to secure months but turned down उनके in his government.

Gray's departure from Starmer's Downing Street after just three months was part of a churn of senior figures in the 2024 world, and Edward clashes with some political colleagues who accused her of failing to adequately prepare for the people.

She was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, a party approachish who later resigned over the Peter Hamilton-council.

On the podcast, Gray told former Labour leaders chancellor EdAdib that she had replaced it in 2023 as a quick body in meeting death Number 10.

'I couldn't recall those sort of discussions being briefed on, and yet here I found myself... A parger to the point where you were everything you say, you feel somebody is recording it,' she said.

One story leaked in the press suggested Gray wanted McSweeney's deal, shifted further away from the prime minister to the.

Gray told Balls that she had simply

Backing: Sue Gray says new prime minister Andy Burcham has a 'very clear view of what he wants to do'

wanted to give colleagues more space. 'Actually, that was a genuine, you know. I can't believe so many of you are going to sit in this small room, I all filled a better room for you,' she said.

Gray said she had complained to Starmer repeatedly about negative briefings to no avail: 'I was disappointed that not more was done because I think it could have been done.'

Afiles of Gray were quoted at the time accusing Starmer's team of being a 'hard club' that excluded female colleagues.

'It was definitely unbearable, particularly for me, and I would say that none of that briefing came from me,' Gray said. 'I think it was very difficult, and it was just affecting me and my life ... it was very, very, very difficult period.'

Gray left school at 17 and worked as a benefit, often before joining the civil service. After a career break running a

pali in Newry, Northern Ireland, she contended the civil service, where she rose to senior roles in the Labour Office.

She told the podcast that she had never craved a profile but had been those into the public domain 'without any support' when she was infected to investigator parties held in Bech Johnson's Number 10 during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Critics questioned whether Gray's inquiry was objective given her later job with Labour. But her report did not pin the entire House on Johnson, instead describing acceptance. 'Where is food-ending and judgment?' he said.

She told Balls that while investigating 'Partygate' she was not talking to Labour about future job opportunities.

After Gray left Number 10, Starmer nevertheless a peer job. She now chairs the Northern Ireland (NPC) and is pro-chancellor of Queen's University Bell.

'It just got to the point where you know everything you say, you feel somebody is recording it'

fast. Some Labour figures have said a failure to prepare for government before the 2024 election was a key reason for not being by Starmer, the shortest serving of Labour's seven prime ministers.

Lord Matthew Doyle, former Downing Street director of communications, has claimed that the lack of a cardiologist and a clear plan for the first 100 days in office was very harsh.

But she insisted there had been lots of policy and diplomatic preparation before the election, adding: 'The media good might be for the results to me.'

About how much responsibility she should bear for Starmer's early problems in government, Gray said: 'I think ultimately, you have a leader of the party, you have a prime minister ... I believe we saw your vision your agenda. That is definitely what everybody is looking for.'

Harmful content

Internet age checks benefit rogue sites, says Pornhub

DANIEL THOMAS

The US News Internet age checks have been held vehicles that do not comply with the legislation and are not protected by children from harmful content, one of the country's biggest years also has argued.

The government brought in strict requirements for adult sites last summer under the Online Safety Act in order to prevent children from being alive on non-suspecting people. Refunded for funding uses for adults who failed scanning and credit card checks.

Pornhub, which has been the country's most visited adult site, wrote to about 500 000 yesterday, saying the government should recognize the 'use huil' 'haled' in protecting children.

It argued that new non-compliant sites – which do not check users' age – now regularly appear prominently in search results. Traffic to those sites had been broadcast on credit, a public.

Injuries and complaints have not signed seven out of the top 10 search results for 'free print', according to data provided by Pornhub.

The lobbying comes as politicians and regulators consider the effectiveness of internet cards, including a forthcoming ban on children in existing social media.

Oficon, the communist-ations regulator, has said that age checks led to a fall in estimated daily visitors to pass sites to roughly school, all of the US long-lift press sites and the majority of the top 100 were now compliant, it added.

The regulators admitted that people were still able to visit pass sites without age checks, often via search engines. It said it would work with Google and Microsoft's blog to try to stop this.

Asks, which were Pornhub, said last year that traffic to the site had fallen 77 per cent since the introduction of the Online Safety Act.

These numbers would not count people using virtual private networks that route their internet service to other countries to avoid the legal restrictions.

The use of HTML to hit all content doubled since the introduction of laws enforcing age limits, said Olicon.

Research by the regulators found that 4 per cent of children had strong positive ascerogents, but about half of those only reached sites with age checks in place.

This year, Kyle closed Pornhub for new users. Gaining that it could not work with a 'Raced system' of age verification, it then made the site available to Apple users who had confirmed their age on the device.

Asks argues that device-level checks are the most common way to judge age and stop children accessing explicit content. The Online Safety Act instead places the obligation on web services to demonstrate whatever age assurance they are using is highly effective.

Olicon said age checks were helping to create a new life and the children in the UK, adding: 'But the girls out alone, and we're not sure that further action is needed from the tech industry to increase the effectiveness of age checks. We're not sure that we are actually with a view to the government's planned social media restrictions for under 16s.'

This could mean wider system-level age assurance at a device or age-store level, the regulator added, but the obligation to prove its effectiveness remained with the service provider.

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Rail probe

Track of derailed East Sussex train found to have 'irregularity'

ELIZABETH BRATTON

Investigators have identified a track 'irregularity' near the point where a train derailed from the house last week, leaving 20 people needing hospital treatment.

The first incident investigation found said yesterday that CCTV footage obtained after the declassified of London Victoria to Eastbourne service last Thursday showed 'a track geometry irregularity existed on the immediate approach to the point of derailment.'

In an interim report, investigators also said they had observed marks 'consistent with the wheels of the derailed rear vehicles having climbed over the radio'. The enthusiastist on which the railway train was run found to have experienced any 'significant' (all) prior to the accident, though investigators found 'evidence that some movement had previously taken place'.

Following the incident, RCM said it had received several reports of 'rough rolling' – assuming passengers had experienced hungry or uncomfortable presence – at the site of the declassified near Lewes.

About 100 people were on the train when it derailed, with 50 sustaining injuries and 20 requiring hospital treatment they said.

Every living a professor in general engineering at the University of Warwick, said it was 'very clear' from photographs of the scene that the thing – when used railway tracks begin to unreasonably high temperatures – had taken place. Such incidents were 'extremely serious', Greg said.

who added that the country's rail infrastructure needed to 'align between extreme temperatures' as well as increased rainfall if similar accidents were to be prevented from the future.

Investigators have obtained the track 'Track fear' – containing regarding data and radio communications, which will be subject to analysis.

The officials added that the investigation would consider a number of potential issues, including the sustained

The derailed train has on its side next to the track near Lewes last week

low weather at the time. The railway between Lewes and Warwick should not meet clinical data of the incident. Northern Railway is telling passengers to expect 'major disruption' and to check for service updates ahead of travel.

However, of the train was likely to be 'complex' as it would entail lifting the derailed vehicles by crater and transporting them by road to secure storage, the official said.

As with the traffic, some director for Source of Network Rail, and John Whitehurst, chief executive of Greater Thameshink Railway, said in a joint statement that they were 'fully committed to supporting the continuing investigation and acting on any lessons that emerge from technology'.

'We are very sorry that this happened on our railway, but thought remain with everyone affected, especially those who were injured and the family and friends of those on board the train,' they said.

Last Friday, a second passenger train derailed, with a Greater Anglia service coming off the track at Wickford inflows.

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Thursday 18 August 2020

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

3

NATIONAL

Former staff hit out at Free Speech Union's Maga links

Group that claims to be non-partisan is aligned to Trump agenda, critics say

RAISING, REED

When Conservative commentator Lord Toby Young launched a campaign group for free speech in 2020, he was clear that it would be "non-partisan".

On years later, however, Young's Free Speech Union is experiencing harmed over what some former employees say is by increasing alignment with US President Donald Trump's Wake America Great Agent movement.

Last August, Young met Sarah Rogers, then as to consequences of the Trump administration, he told colleagues on WhatsApp that he planned to ask Rogers about the case of Lucy Connolly, a British woman jailed for inciting racial hatred for a recent about anyhow others.

The FSU, a non-profit group, had already been making efforts to cultivate ties with the Trump administration, former employees said. From early last year, senior FSU figures had asked staff to brief the US state department, two people said.

Young and a colleague attended a meeting at the US embassy with other campaigners to discuss free speech, while the FSU's campaigns officer accompanied Robert Jorwick, then a Conservative shadow cabinet minister, to meet JD Vance, US vice-president, in the heyday last summer.

One former employee questioned whether the FSU was now an impartial organization or a "political arm of the populist right", adding an idea of the UK "no-have" to the Trump administration.

Young denied that there had been a rightward shift, insisting the FSU remained non-partisan and represented "numerous people who identify as left wing" (he said the FSU had shared a briefing on the Online Safety Act, the UK's flagship effort to tackle internet harms, with "some US politicians and officials", among other figures.

However, conversations with numerous figures close to the organization, and internal WhatsApp messages, modify the FSU's claim of non-partisanship, showing ties to both the Maga movement and Reform UK.

The FSU's international umbrella organization is in line to receive Klean from the US state department, as part of the Trump administration's aim of not seeing free speech abroad.

Ideological tensions had contributed to about seven FSU employees – equivalent to roughly a quarter of its current workforce – either resigning, being sucked or made redundant in the past year, including the chief legal counsel, two people said.

Young said the number of departing employees "doesn't strike me or pay. Gratefully high", and that he did not believe political tensions had contributed.

The FSU offers legal assistance to any of its 40,000 members who find themselves victims of "cancel culture". It says it has fought more than 4,300 cases for people "who found themselves in trouble for speaking their mind", but critics say the FSU mainly

Toby Young, founder of the FSU, denies accusations of a rightward shift. Below, Trump official Isaiah Rogers, who Young met last year.

champions "anti-woke" causes, such as campaigning against the "Unwilling" Online Safety Act.

Although the organization is representing a pro-Federalism protester, it said this month that its biggest source of work was once involving "people penalized or alienated for holding or expressing gender-critical beliefs".

At the time of Young's meeting with Rogers in August 2020, free speech was dominating headlines in the UK. For eight protests at anyhow hotels answered, while hundreds were arrested at searches for the recently formed Palestine Action. Young's meeting with Rogers – who was later confirmed as an under secretary of state and made a tour of Europe discussing the funding of Maga adapted issues – was emblematic for some in the FSU. Two former employees said the group had shifted rightward during 2020, in the wake of Maga's return to power and Labour's election victory. Internal document had been caused not only by the FSU's politics but also by

its way of operating, three figures said. They cited a crossfinding effort that raised more than 100,000 for legal costs for Julian Poullier, a retired policeman arrested over as it goes, despite a lawyer already having committed to dealing with the case protests.

In an email, the chief legal counsel – who has now left the organization – said the fundraiser could be "gainly sidelined", adding: "At some point we'll need to explain what we did with all that money raised for a case done pro-bono".

Young said the case "was not done exclusively pro-bono", and that excess funds "would have been ringtiered and reallocated to other similar cases" as detailed in the fundraiser's description.

The FSU's funding has been largely screened from public view. The organization obtained an emergency injunction in January to prevent the names of its donors being leaked in the wake of a cyber attack.

However, Young confirmed the FSU had approached lawyers from S. Ellen Mack's social media platform, about

One former employee questioned whether the FSU was now a political arm of the populist right

The FSU's international umbrella organisation is in line to receive $5mn from the US-state department

paying the legal costs of some of its cases.

In September, internal WhatsApp messages show that a senior FSU figure suggested approaching representatives from S, after the arrest of comedy writer Graham Linehan, to "underwrite the costs of any running claims".

These approaches had followed Mack's statement in 2023 that he would fund the legal bills of people who faced at least in their post on S, Young said.

Mack is a supporter of far right party Bernice Britain and far-right agitator Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Tanley Lamore.

According to WhatsApp messages seen by the US, the FSU also discussed going to a "state the Kingdom" march organised by Robinson.

Young considered attending one march in September but decided not to, he wrote in the WhatsApp messages. The they part would be "conspicuous", said a colleague. The FSU sent a less prominent dialogue.

Young wrote on the WhatsApp group that the march's atmosphere lacked "quite festive", hours before Mack warned the 100,000 strong crowd that "massive uncontrolled migration" was destroying Britain and "yoursither fight back or you do".

The FSU also has links to Reform UK. Young's right-hand man in the union is Sam Armstrong, who also works as an aide to Jorwick, now a senior figure in Reform. Young said Armstrong's part-time FSU role meant he was "too to take on other work". Additionally, a former Jorwick aide, Max Thompson, joined the FSU as its campaign officer in March 2020 and accompanied his former boss on the visit to meet Vance that summer.

Young said "forging relationships with prominent politicians is part of (Thompson's) job". He called suggestions for group was trying to carry favour with Reform "absent", emphasizing his own status as a free post.

"There's a diary, sinister edge to the FSU today," one former employee told the FT. "Previously they'd go to bat for, and were, the underdogs. Now they are the classroom ballots."

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FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2026

INTERNATIONAL

Ukraine

Zelensky fires aide over corruption probe

President under pressure on growing number of claims against allies

CHRISTOPHER MILLER UNIV. OF CORPUS CHRIST

voluntary Zelensky first top aide Irina Madin yesterday after her house was called by anti-corruption authorities, as the Ukrainian president comes under pressure on the end of anti-allegations against his allies.

Anti-corruption officials launched a series of raids over an alleged scheme to make off from through a state-owned bank to post had for Zelensky's Internet

energy minister Bernard Poluchchenko, who was charged last year in the biggest graft-remotely presidency.

Madin, deputy presidential administrative head and a close Zelensky ally, was the highest-profiler target in the raids, alongside a biomarker and executives at state-owned home bank, law enforcement unit.

A National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NACA) official said the money had been "handsome through a series of accounts belonging to shell companies in order to pay half the a member of the criminal organization".

Madin's flying dynamics to engulf the president in a funds corruption scandal just as he comes under fire from quoted

defence minister Michalov Podovov. The night before the raid, Podovov had launched a following-breathed against Zelensky, warning that rampant corruption was undermining the country's fight against Russia and calling for extraordinary wartime divisions.

Jordan was sacked after clashing with top military brass, is a shock move that sparked protests in Kyiv and across the country. Zelensky was forced to ditch his initial pick to replace the popular minister, and his own chiefs of federal khrases was approved yesterday.

Madin, by past since March 2024, joined a long list of Zelensky allies in the anti-corruption probes.

Audrey Yernak, powerful former

chair of staff, was charged in they with illicit enrichment and abuse of power, in a case allegedly involving a former deputy prime minister and former business partner of the president. Several lawmakers from Zelensky's ruling party were also accused of taking cash in exchange for parliamentary votes.

The month, Ukraine's ambassador to the US resigned and was charged with illegitimate dissent two days later.

All three charged have denied wrong. In July 2024, the government's office now forces funds did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Naka and the Spaniol anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office said the raids targeted "a criminal organization that

operated under the leadership of current and former Ukrainian MPs, with the participation of high-ranking officials of the Office of the President".

The resulting cases against close Zelensky's allies have contributed to a fall in the approach along and sparked new reports. The raids, as partners who have provided billions to keep the country afloat and targeted its military.

In an explosive state-minute (also known for help), Judarov accused Zelensky's ex-Turkey, but now and knowing martial law powers granted at the end of the raid.

"Corruption in wartime is not merely a financial issue. It is a matter of our capability to survive and win," he said.

Middle East. Escalation of war

Iran eyes US military targets in Europe

Tehran insiders wars of

plants widen theatre of

conflict of hostilities ensuade

RACHEL ROSENBERG — TEHRAN ANDREW DOLLARD — LONDON

Iran has weighed up attacks on US military targets in Europe should Donald Trump reclaim the war, according to people close to the regime, as the mass to a sensitive upheav to raise the stakes to the conflict.

Two regime insiders told the FT that Iranian forces had assessed the possibility of striking US assets in south-eastern European countries such as Bulgaria, which last month approved the use of the Premier air base for US aircraft to refuel.

One of the insiders called that regime, where a British air base was struck by a drone in March, was also among prime-tial targets for retaliation.

The insiders said Iranian forces had especially channeled attacking others. liền eight cables in the Reale of the seas, in the event of an escalation.

The threats refers the defiant arrest in Tehran, where many within the region increasingly are a resumption of the war as a matter of share, not if

Negotiations to escape the stock have stalled, and Ayatollah Mujaba Khamrani, Iran's supreme leader, last week she watched officers to top security and military posts. Trump said no Tuesday that there were no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled with Tehran.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other military commanders have warned that, as any one will scale conflict, Iran could move beyond attacking US military assets, energy facilities and other infrastructure in the Middle East to protect further afield.

The Guards threatened the US last month over US use of British military bases, saying that "any base that is used to launch an attack on Iranian territory will be considered a legitimate target."

Sidharih Karabali, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, thinks such a London, described the three posed by Iranian missiles to targets in Europe and elsewhere as "real, but limited".

Iran could deploy medium-range ballistic missiles, such as its Shabah series, against US assets in southern and south-eastern Europe. In such a three-week struggle to do damage at longer ranges,

A protest over the deployment of US aircraft at Premier air base in Bulgaria last month. Below, an anti-US billboard in Tehran

Iran's retaliation would depend on Washington's actions, according to the insiders.

One said the regime was preparing a plan to expand the conflict further over Trump to make good air previous threats to attack Iranian infrastructure. The US president last month said Washington would destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant every time the Islamic republic targeted a ship in the main.

The second insider said Iran would

place "no limits" on its response in the event of US aggression. "Should the US go in the, how will defend itself or any prior, go beyond the region and hit Europe too," the person said.

Iran has demonstrated its willingness to attack distant targets. In the weeks after the US had forced handed the war in February, Washington accused Tehran of flying multiple missiles — none of which reached their target — at Diego Garcia, a joint US-US base in the Indian Ocean, 6,000km away.

In March, Turkey said Natick air defenses had interrupted several hks to monitor launched bomfires, while the US air base in Akrotiri, Cyprus, was struck by a drone the same month. Western officials at the time said they suspected it was finally replaced proxy forces other than Tehran itself.

The insiders said an Iranian attack last month on the US base in Jordan, which killed three American service personnel, was the most precise long range attack the Islamic republic had carried out and demonstrated its capability to hit longer distance targets.

"This was also a message to Europe: it can receive missiles, so it should know where it should stand in this war"

"This was also a message to Europe: it can receive missiles, so it should know where it should stand in this war," the first insider said. "A very big mistake, such as being one left on its nose, could make the war go beyond the region and reach Europe."

A June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran fell apart last month after Tehran attacked vessels in the strait and both sides accused each other of violating the interim deal, leading to US for 1st strikes and a renewed US-MaAs deal on its base point.

The insider, where there failed to plan a brand through to reopen the waterway and resume negotiations over a broader deal, and Trump has grown increasingly humanist over the stalemate.

Karabali said however deep missiles could also be deployed, but would have to carry a higher payload or travel for enough — meaning damage would be minimal. He suggested "it would be more helpful for Iran; it's worth through power," who includes millions of maps and data from the Iran King, materials to Lebanon and the Muslim to Yemen.

Douglas Barba at the International Institute for Strategic Studies said: "These strikes then attempted in: large fiarria this year are hard of indication that they have got weapons with range greater than 1,000 km."

"How many of these they actually hold in different positions, and whether or not they would be willing to use even a handful for make sense that of good-sized, including statement in an open question."

"The risk is that the missiles fail or are shot down, so how would they be still? The longer the range, the harder it is to be really accurate."

Iran's hardest hit Tehran before the US cannot be trusted to implement any deal, and from most stifles a greater cost on Washington to ensure it meets its willingness of any final settlement.

This includes Mohsen Barani, a former Guards commander whose Khamrani has been aggravated in the country's top security official.

Iranian insiders interpreted that more as a sign that figures such as Mohammed Najimi Chaffed, the country's top war forces, have been pushed aside for two.

Iran "sending a clear message that if you don't reach an agreement with Chaffed, you have to deal with Israel," said the second insider. "The message is 'Iran's be read, because I am smaller than you are.'"

Russia

Putin pledges to help rebuild warehouse as destroyed by Kyiv drones

PHILADELPHIA — EDINBURGH

Thailand: Putin yesterday ordered Russia's government to help rebuild warehouse destroyed by Ukrainian drones this summer in a campaign targeting Wildberries, the country's largest online retailer.

Russia's president did not mention Wildberries by name but told officials the country's logistics and storage capacity to be the result, including with government support.

The attacks have made an completely destroyed areas of Wildberries' 10-bag set facilities. But Putin claimed Russia's retail infrastructure was "efficient and resilient ... and entirely coping with the challenges of our lives".

He also shrugged off the broader impact of Ukraine's largely homogenous advances in drone technology, which have brought the war home to Russia this spring and a manner in an escalating series of attacks.

Ukraine's strike on Russian refiner in have forced one of the world's largest energy expenses to support petrol and kerosene—meaning at the penny in its largest fuel crisis state the collapse of the Soviet Union. From attacks on Russia's black Sea ports have also paralyzed its grain exports and cut off one of the main seamen for fossil sales.

Putin admitted for drone attacks and workers could have been including back Russia's GDP growth, which rose by just 34 per cent in the first half of this year.

He added that "there have not and cannot be any critical consequences from these attacks, but, of course, they are doing harder to us, that is obvious."

The announcement offers a potential lifeline to Wildberries, the recommence retailer whose business has become a main target of Ukraine's drone campaign. The attacks have destroyed investment and facilities and left the company facing losses Russian analysts have got a high as that of the 1,000 km.

Ukraine has postured the attacks on the basis that Wildberries sells drone components and other dual use equipment for Russia's military.

Enrico Moliterano, an founder of Fire Point, the Ukrainian defence manufacturer whose drones have been heavily used in the strikes, said Kyiv hoped the losses would trigger a broader economic crisis by forcing Wildberries to default on its debt to state banks including VTB, its master partner.

The total bill for Wildberries' rescue will be as high as 50% for 10,000 km now after 50% to the end of the 1,000 years' classroom has fallen for 35 per cent after the small businesses that make up the bulk of its sellers last their inventory or left the platform, said independent businessmen site The Bell.

Putin did not say how much Russia would be forced to help with Wildberries but promised that the destroyed warehouses would be rebuilt at a "quality-ready new technological level."

He suggested that government support could include tax breaks and subsidized loans.

The central bank has already instructed banks to restructure Wildberries either after an favourable terms, while the company has pledged financial support to the sellers most affected.

Financial buffers

Europeans dash to save as inflation fears stifle economic recovery

GREATERNIS AND ANY BURNT? LONDON BLUE TOBREES — FRANKFURT

Households in four-fifths of European countries are saving more than before the Covid-19 pandemic, as they build up their financial hallmarks on power, a succession of crises, according to FT analysis.

The figures underscore a challenge to the continent's growth, as economists say. The trend of the energy crisis and rising inflation will open many economic rms to increase their savings at a time when Americans continue to spend.

Savings intentions remain above levels that preceded the pandemic, while confidence remains in the dishonest, according to European Commission consumer surveys.

Savings ratios surged showed only during the pandemic as economists went into lockdown and spending changed. Economists are therefore closely tracking how saving patterns compare with the situation just before the shock.

The IMF expects US GDP to grow at 8.5 per cent this year, propelled 16 part by strong household spending, versus

6.8 per cent in the European and 5 per cent in the US. The fresh surge in energy price this month gives reversing hostilities in the Middle East, could intensify inflation from strong households and further hamper any recovery in Europe.

IT has also been spent over part at these savings, it would give consumption a significant boost, further renewed rise in energy prices this year has once again clouded the economic outlook, said Sebastian Dukes, a former director of the IIML, a German think tank.

In the European, the gross savings ratio — which measure the share of the possible income net spent on goods and services — was at 14.3 per cent in the first quarter, well above the average of 12.1 per cent in the five years preceding the pandemic.

Analysis of data from Harvard and the UK's Office for National Statistics shows that across 18 European countries with rates for the first quarter, 10 have a higher savings rate than before the pandemic. The UK's savings ratio is below pre-pandemic levels.

A range of factors in driving the reluctance to spend, including shocks that

have jolted confidence and concerns that a renewed surge in inflation will result cash savings and hit living standards. European inflation was 5.5 per cent in the top, up sharply from a year ago.

High savings rates could provide the six possible for a consumer will recovery from the 1,000 and 10,000 times thousands of their funds. But there is little evidence of a significant change in behaviour in the European economies such as Germany.

The global consumption continues to provide relatively strong support to the US economy, amid solid demand for goods and services," said Marieke Kees,

For the Invest: the Labour market remains robust in Germany

chief economist at DNL. "European households remain more cautious, with higher savings savings as a long-term consumption."

The utility, said Hedge Technologies of Berreberg Bank, was that the labour market remains robust in countries such as Germany, meaning more consumer confidence and consumption cannot be put down to fears of job losses. Instead, a series of shocks has made people far more sensitive to bad news.

"There is no reason, one could be followed another. That has done lasting damage to many people's optimism under the future," is bestselling said.

A further difference with the US is that in this European countries individuals have a lower direct exposure to stock market, as it is necessary, they can be directly hit the beneficial wealth effects of financing equity valuations.

European households held just under a third of their financial assets in cash and deposits, compared with 12 per cent for US households, who are more heavily invested in equity and investment funds, according to research from Shishikashi including the Centre for European Policy Studies.

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Thursday 20 August 2020

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

5

INTERNATIONAL

Germany's far right retreats from Maga's embrace

FT series AfD seeks to soften pro-Trump messaging as voters' concerns grow over impact of Iran war

LAURA PITEL - STYL IN

Packed into a band409 meeting room one dark spring evening, more than 200 lawmakers from the far right Alternative for Germany had gathered to listen to a little-known Republican activist from the US.

It was late March, a month after Donald Trump had launched his war on Iran, and part of prices were soaring. Economists were warning higher inflation could create the German economy's green sheets after years of stagnation.

Germany AfD 80% still absorbed and applauded an intense force, the president of the New York Young Republican Club, praised the US president.

One of the most influential thinkers of Germany's "new right" watched in silence, however.

Beautiful Kaiser, a bequeathed former war rival, is a cutting about the AfD's Maga "Iran". "It starts out really banal. They like the cape. Make America Great Again, Make Germany Great Again," he told the FT. "They are fans and fans before this turn."

His disdain underlines the awkward dance the AfD has based itself in with Maga. The party has plenty of Trump enthusiasts. But many members of its most radical wing have long been deeply sceptical of the US. Their voices have become louder as the public mood snares towards Washington.

Kaiser recited off Trump's overseas interventions since the start of the year, providing some party figures' reactions. "Maduro! Bravo! Iran! Bravo! Greenland! Bravo!"

"They didn't think through the consequences at all," he said. "They did not think about the fact that this has repercussions on Germany, on Europe."

Kaiser said the Iran war had vindicated them, as he said, who had warned about the risks of drawing too close to Washington. "This group within the two years right that was itself an air-stitched of Maga has now been proven wrong," he said.

The March event was one of the last public gatherings of AfD and Maga figures after months of close contact.

'Iran has damaged the image of Trump in the eyes of the public'

AFD official

The party has been forced to reckon with soaring perceptions of Trump. The Iran war has compounded misgivings about a US president who had already imposed tariffs punishing German industry, detained European citizens over minor riot violations and repeatedly threatened to cause Greenland.

The AfD has also had to balance competing internal currents, especially as it prepares for two key elections in contest status. The party leadership in recent months has asked 50% to train down the publicly visible relationship.

"Iran has damaged the image of Trump in the eyes of the public," said a senior AfD official. "There is still contact, but it is not that before."

The AfD's divisions capture a dilemma facing Europe's far right and is courted by a US movement fixated on the continent's "chillwatched decline".

Founded in 2015 in response to the European crisis, the party has tried from a fringe movement to leading national polls. Yet it remains overacted by Germany's numerous parties, which have ruled out co-operation with it as part of a postwar effort to avoid the mistakes that enabled Afd/FAF's rise.

This helps explain why the AfD was in that need and energized by attention from Trump's Republican Party.

Many AfD members enrolled in Trump's return to the White House in January 2020. A group of senior party officials enrolled in Washington for his inauguration, among these was Austria won March, a deputy party chair who keeps a red Maga cap on her Bundestag

desk. "Washington haffed in red," she said of the trip. "Wonderful."

In the world before Germany's parliamentary election last year, in which the AfD finished second, the party's ties to Maga grew deeper.

Also: World, the AfD's co-leader, joined their block for a free event on it, his social media platform. She also met US vice-president Jill Yance at the Munich Security Conference, where he shocked European leaders by urging them to tear down the "formal" against co-operation with the far right.

The AfD has become increasingly radical over the past decade, giving space to hardline figures who play down the Holocaust and filter with Nazi-era slogans. It has embraced mass deportations, which it often didn't 'compromise' a term popularized by an Austrian extremist and also adopted by Trump.

For March, a staunch Christian and the granddaughter of one of Fifteen's massacres, Trump's second term has offered a playbook on migration, family policy, social media regulation and the "anti-woke" agenda. Though the AfD "doesn't have to glorify everything America does ... we are on the same wavelength," she said. "It is also paving the agenda that we want."

Alignment with Trump has also raised hopes of political crisis: When Germany's insecure intelligence agency last year classified the AfD as rightwing extremists, US secretary of state Marco Rubin called it "to scare in disguise".

Even Kaiser concedes that "protection" from a possible ban is one advantage of building ties with the US.

Below the level of Yance and Rubin, much of the AfD's contact runs through Machael Frohmmater, the MP in charge of the party's foreign policy.

"For a long time, the party's focus was on eastern Europe, Russia and China," said Frohmmater. "After I became foreign policy spokesman ... I wanted to place more emphasis on US contacts."

Over the past year, he has met Sarah Rogers, a state department official who has become a leading US critic of restrictions on free speech in Europe, and US congresswoman Anna Paulina Icaza, who has been active in building ties with Europe's far right.

In December, Frohmmater received an award from Paris's New York Young Republicans at an event where alternatives sang the taboo original first verse of Germany's national unibers — Deutschland, Deutschland also also ("Germany, Germany above all"). He and March organized Paris's visit to Berlin a few months later.

The depth of the connections is sometimes unclear. Frohmmater's early contacts included a former American intern who later worked for health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while World reached Mark through a 24 year-old influencer after failing to successfully contact the US billionaire herself.

Even the ties that exist have cooks, though Frohmmater is reluctant to admit it. Partners "do not have to agree on everything," he said. But he added that he had no plans to visit the US for the rest of the year.

In June, he travelled instead to St Petersburg for Vladimir Putin's flagship economic forum, where he held talks with the local citizens and another key contributor to the Russian president.

After Trump launched air strikes on Iran at the end of February, Frohmmater praised their 'surgical precision and

Maga comes for Europe This is for us and in a sense an Iran Maga since Europe and its complicated relationship with the continent's right wing © Lviv/Imagaz Europe

their focus" but warned of the dangers of so the conflict.

Since in the party before more visible contact will resume after elections in the status of January-Ashok and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in September. Others believe upheaval within Maga

could make alignment less complicated for the AfD, especially if the more isolationistic anti-globalisation Yance becomes the next Republican nominee. March, who warned against "overtaking" the influence of figures such as Kaiser, said that "body" communication

Talking point: Austria won March, AfD deputy party chair, partners to a Maga hat in her office at the Bundestag. Below, former new Nazi BOMBRO Kaiser is highly critical of Donald Trump's overseas interventions

with US colleagues continued behind the course.

World still regularly visits Mark, according to a person familiar with their relationship. Met co-leader Theo Chespolla joined a recent US embassy party in Berlin marking America's 2000s birthday.

The Conservative Political Action Conference, a Republican producer that has held events in Poland and Hungary, is planning its first conference in Germany next year. George Weinberg, head of Republicans Overseas in Germany, said the event was aimed at bringing an "echo of the current American administration" to the European nation.

While some AfD members are opposite the idea, Frohmmater is dismissive. He wants to organize his own conference to bring together this minimal politicians from across the world.

His reasoning sums up the difficulty for the AfD and other rightwing nationalist parties: how to take Maga's net-trenched hand without alienating voters at home. "If you hold a CFM in Europe, then at the start of the event they play the US national unibers," he said. "It's a beautiful unibers. But it could create the impression among some people that it's essentially ... a formal imported from abroad."

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5

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FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2020

INTERNATIONAL

IDF recommendation

Israel to probe troops over Gaza killings

Critics dismiss military's call for two criminal investigations as 'charade'

NEW JERSEY - 20, 2020 TIME: 04:20 - 12:00

Israel's military has recommended criminal proceedings against troops accused of killing civilians and media in two of the most extensive incidents of the war. Canada's first including of Palestinian child Hind Rajah.

I am finding task force from the Israel Defense Forces and yesterday that it had concluded to review into the cases from the conflict, recommending that military prosecutors upon some of the victims and take an further action in the others. The two cases in question

were the January 2020 killings in Gaza City of two paramedics and seven members of the Nawash family, including five-year-old Mind Rajah and the March 2020 killing in Tel al-Ikhbar of over a dozen first responders, medical personnel and ITN employees.

The IDF investigation found that in the 21st incident, Israel forces fired on the Nawash family on killing its relatives. Rajah was trapped in a bullet ridified within his brain while plucking on his phone with Palestinian authorities.

An IDF staff then struck a Palestine Red Crescent ambulance that arrived at the scene hours later, killing the two paramedics, the Israeli military said.

In the 2020 case, Israel forces in Tel

al-Ikhbar fired on three separate occasions at various news articles, including a fire truck, ambulance and local UN

vehicle, according to the IDF investigation. Fifteen people were killed, with over 50% of the active information, making the vehicles and covering them with dirt and metal mesh. The IDF only launched an initial investigation into the incident after radio and video from the attack site, contradicted the troops' original concerns.

Israel criminal proceedings against its troops have been exceedingly rare since the start of Israeli campaign in Gaza, which was triggered by Nawash October 7 2021 attack. Military prosecutors will now have to decide whether to file charges and against whom.

Eyalı Abou Jafajah, who came the Israeli-based Mind Rajah Foundation, which ranks Israel's military overseas to seek trials for those implicated in alleged war crimes, said the IDF's

announcement amounted to an attempted whirlwind.

"We have no real whatsoever in the Israeli judiciary system. That system has always been complied with Israeli crimes and the military judiciary is even more complicit," he said. "So this is a durable activity at conservating and whitening the criminals who murdered the Moslem of the Israelites."

In time other cases that were investigated, the IDF task force found there was no reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct that would justify the campaign's criminal investigation!

These included two instances where personnel from Maldives from Frontiers were killed by Israel fire, and an April 2018 attack on a World Central killings in Afghanistan outraged.

Over 75,000 Palestinian have been

killed in Gaza over the past three years, according to local health authorities. Some 3,500 Israeli cases killed during Hamas's October 7 attack, with 330 new tubes bootage.

The International Criminal Court in 2020 issued arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then defunct minister Tom Lakkim "for crimes against humanity and war crimes". South Africa has also brought an ongoing case in the International Court of Justice accusing Israel to prescribe Israeli officials voluntarily into all the allegations.

According to an Israeli military official, 1,000 cases from the war have been flagged to the IDF task force. Reviews of 100 of these have already been completed, including the five cases in yesterday's announcement.

Middle East

Erdoğan and Netanyahu clash after strikes Syrian base

JOHN PAUL RICHARDS - 9, 10 HERALD, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10, 10 PRESS, 10

Turkey and Israel have traded accuses from after the Israeli bombing in Syrian air base near the Turkish border intensified a growing power contract between the 1st and Middle East's strongest militaries.

Ankara yesterday hit out at Israel over its strikes a day earlier on the idea of the 1st war, which left the Turkish bomb (Oversea) from Kuwait, who called them as "international vocalizers".

The office of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli prime minister, accused Israel of being on the verge of breaching an agreed security "status quo" by allowing Turkish troops to deploy at the base. Israel had "reportedly warned" finances that such a deployment would threaten its security, it said.

But the office of Turkish President Abou Jafajah Erdoğan dismissed the claim about Turkish deployment in the base as "untrouble", saying it assumed from Israel's desire to pursue "explanation and knowledge against" ahead of the issue in Turkey.

Turkey is one of the principal teachers of Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former militant Islamist who led the rebel offensive that mental dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2020.

Ankara has provided military training equipment for the three respective Damascus to help rebuild nine institutions destroyed by nearly 14 years of civil war.

Israel, however, sees liberals government, which is dominated by the Islamist faction, as a threat. It has conducted widespread strike on the country since Assad fell, destroying much of the old regime's military infrastructure and occupied positions in southern Syria.

Israel has also objected to Turkey - which has maintained thousands of troops in northern Syria following successive intervention during the civil war - establishing military infrastructure that could restrict its freedom of action, especially in Syrian airspace.

The idea of those air base in Syria's north-eastern Mith province has been largely out of service for more than a decade but is undergoing reconstruction.

A Turkish delegation had visited the Gulf, have harbor the strikes, accord log in Turkish media.

Reflexion between Israel and Turkey, which has finally second biggest arms after the US, began in decimation in 2020 and the war in 2021.

But their differences have since escalated, particularly over Syria.

In June, amid Israeli military operations in Syria and Lebanon, Erdoğan declared that "Turkey's security... began from Aleppo, it began from Damascus, it began from the Qaida".

Israel has increasingly portrayed Turkey's expanding regional rule as a security challenge, with some politicians even defining Turkey the "one that" - the "one that" - that is the "one that" - that is the prime minister's party. Liked, has erected campaign officials, drawing Erdoğan alongside Iranian supreme leader Mujahid Al-Shehrani, Hirakulla leader, and the Iranian and New York mayor Zoltan Mumtaz.

"They want Poland to be less," the billboard says. "Don't let them win."

Economy. Energy supplies

US industry feels pain of soaring diesel prices

Rising fuel costs threaten

surge in inflation ahead of

November midterm polls

WILLIAM CUMMELL - WASHINGTON JAMES SMITH - NEW YORK

A surge in diesel prices is dealing a pro-rata force in US industry, pushing up costs for businesses and distributors ahead of midterm decision.

The group price of diesel - the life-blood of the economy because of its essential role in promoting industry and agriculture - hit $14.7 a gallon on Europe, approaching its all-time high of $1.82 as soon as the Middle East and Europe distorts global supplies.

Prices have jumped 4 per cent in the past month while the gap between the cost of diesel and crude oil, known as the 'crash spread', has hit a record high in recent days in a sign of the deepening supply shock.

The price is urged that it is not up to the truckers and farmers that are not to close the through the broader economy, requiring inflation and approving already likely state-floor measures.

"It is already a crisis - a quiet crisis," said Tom Khoa, chief energy officer of Gulf Oil. "There are body punches to the middle of the economy. I think they are going to be a good deal for the future."

Rising fuel prices risk intensifying the public of turmoil having forced Trump president, as voters grow increasingly frustrated ahead of November's mid-term decision, including a potential Congress. A recess of 7 paid board must not on both sides off under the president.

The new empirical of fuel inflation is also leading into a roll off in US government hands, sending yields to multiyear highs and pushing up borrowing costs for energy production.

Taylor Rogers, White House spokesperson, said: "I've heard Trump and his entire energy team have taken decisive actions to mitigate disruptions to the energy markets and remain firmly committed to unloading American energy dominance and cutting costs."

Diesel has shot higher since the beginning of Trump's war against Iran as well as the 2018-20 United States shipments through the front of Germany and handling campaigns based on energy infrastructure across the region.

Pump action: the diesel price hit $5.47 a gallon this week, approaching its all-time high of $1.82 as soon as the Middle East and Europe hit supplies

The conflict has exacerbated existing diesel shortages driven by a surge in Ukrainian driver attacks on Russian oil refineries, which have crimped the situation in one of the world's biggest suppliers and caused Moscow in therefore experts.

US refineries have been running at $10.00 in an attempt to fill the gap,堡-going record volumes of fuel to global markets, which analysts said would be difficult to sustain because of falling inventories.

"There is a huge amount of refining capacity within in the Middle East and Russia," said Robert Campbell at Energy Aspects. Combined with lower exports from China, the fuel left the US as the "supplier of the vessel".

With diesel production near its peak, analysts warned that further disruption could send prices up further.

"When the refining systems running out, every producer matters," said Kevin Reid at Dow View Energy Inc., Inc.'s top rating that is seen by any reason, whether it is in wartime or

just a consequence of an accident, could tighten supplies accordingly.

"Easily takes one threat from a storm, and things could get pretty ugly," Khoa added. "There is potential for what we would call stupid numbers - fire, air, and/or wind-fields a game."

Diesel on Tuesday was trading at a processor of diesel $10.91 a month in US crude, which is more than three times larger than the average spread last year.

Crack spouses have more than doubled since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 10 and then more than 20 per cent this month as talks between Tehran and Washington have stopped.

The site rated prices have piled pressure on US businesses, which have few options to curtail anger.

"I need to be fabricated of the industrial economy and can do not perform it off," Campbell said.

Highly rated prices come at a positive lady sensitive time: earners, households prepare to buy, buying, or ahead of winter, retailers stock shelves for the hold-

"These are body punches to the middle of the economy. I think they are going to have a pretty dramatic impact"

Tom Khoa, chief energy officer of Gulf Oil

day period and farmers prepare for harvest.

John Swed, founder and president of the National Black Farmers Association, told the F-F the coming price of diesel was pushing away farmers to the levels of Americans.

"Farmers are very exposed to rising diesel costs and the economic after the big increase in fertilizer prices, which were also caused by the Iran war," he said. "My field income holds about 200 gallons, so we still up really much a lot."

The White House has taken steps to alleviate the oil supply crunch, including to re-thinking global releases of strategic reserves and lifting sanctions on Iranian and Russian crude.

Time, the state's energy and water document rising, analysts said the administration might take more drastic action, such as restricting exports - although a White House official insisted it could be more reasonable style.

"And since that were discarded in April might get returned back to District Eprices only high," Swed said.

Progressive candidate

Democratic socialist wins Florida primary

STEPHEN PALMA - LONDON

A member of the Democratic Socialists of America and especially won the primary election in the Income Florida Democrat, pick for the US Senate, strike latest in terms for progressive electing at the party's establishment.

Anglo Nixon, a Florida state representative, directed the Democratic nomination yesterday. The best Mrs. Vladman, a US army veteran whom Donald Trump fired from the National Security

Council after he testified against the persistent during congressional impeachment proceedings in 2020.

Nixon's 12-point win in the latest threat to the Democrat progressive wing, which has occurred primary victories in Minnesota, was then sent to a tobacco campaign on voters' discontent over the political establishment.

"Together, we went up ... against millions of dollars ... We were adopted 16 to one and we won," Nixon said in her victory speech, as she called for tab-

legue "aampati corruption in Wading on 20C".

"We showed the world what organized people can accomplish," Nixon added. "And we showed the world what the people will build up on the black shift. We have a number of thinkers, visit affordable housing, fully funded public education and an end to somehow too!"

Other progressive bill short to organize Florida primaries, however, Elijah Hunter, and other women respectively met heavily to incumbence Debbie Wasserman to help out Jared Andaman in an congressional district polls.

The 16-16B has also suffered defeats in other primaries, including in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee County executive recent (crowly), a senatorian, debated a democratic socialist in a tight race to become Democrat, pick for governor.

In Florida, Byron Donalds, the nominee backed by Trump, provided over $1,000,000 including the eight James Fishback, Donalds will face Democrat-based (left), a former Republican, in a race to determine the replacement for Republican governor. Ron DeSantis, who has reached his term limit.

Trade

Trump says tariff deal reached with Canada

AVA HENDRY - TORONTO

Donald Trump has said he has reached an agreement with Canada and passed the introduction of a new credit tariff in the US's second largest trading partner for three days.

The 13 president wrote on Truth Social News, Tuesday that he had postponed the 30 per cent tariffs, due to kick in yesterday. "Based on the fact that Canada has set a, and the other 'businesses of document, have a M.A.'"

"The good for private US, Option, long ago killed by Sleepy Joe Riden, may be another item the game," Trump wrote, referring to a proposed oil project, hours before a midnight deadline when levies on $2.00 a month of goods were set to go into effect.

The last minors nephew will now terminate between the two countries after Trump last month threatened the US to become more good, including crimes and border sinks.

Mark Garney, Canada's prime senior, too, confirmed the US had postponed the 16-16 and the end of two years.

"Over the last number of weeks, Can-

ada has engaged in extensive discussions with the US to address outstanding trade issues and deliver greater certainty and real benefits for Canadian businesses, workers, farmers, and families," he said. "Substantial progress has been made, although there is important work still to be done."

The Trump administration has accused Canada of discriminating against US businesses, citing the dairy industry and government policies. It has also demanded that Canada resume sales of US wine and spirits,

The US has demanded that Canada resume sales of US wine and spirits

which were pulled from shelves in total intensive Trump's market duties.

"Canada has expressed a consistent trend to the discrimination," the White House said. "Because of the status of these negotiations, the public interests have no responding for a period of three days."

Confused a day, president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, welcomed the reprieve, saying: "Businesses may not be. During up-duty with this news, but an extension doesn't bring the certainty that a significant time is downed."

The US and Canada found the principal oil evolving the forfeiture US oil pipeline last year as part of a bargaining case. Energy tariffs on such and also minors, it was proposed to be issued 12 years ago to transport about $50,000 from Canada a day of crash from different industries under 10/12 all year.

It was closed down under three years after the move in Ukraine in 2015. Before Trump returned back in 2017, Maine resigned the project in June 2021 as environmental grounds.

Additional reporting by James Smyth in New York

Contracts & Tenders

MATERA COURT

Washington, June 4, 2020. (AP) A court admitted that the beginning of NYSEF 1/01 (pending of NYSEF 1/01 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1201, 1

1. 2017年，公司与上海浦东发展银行股份有限公司签订了《关于使用部分闲置募集资金进行现金管理的协议》，同意公司使用不超过人民币5,000万元的闲置募集资金进行现金管理。

The last 1st has also suffered defeats in other primaries, including in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee County executive recent (crowly), a senatorian, debated a democratic socialist in a tight race to become Democrat, pick for governor. In Florida, Byron Donalds, the nominee backed by Trump, provided over $1,000,000 including the eight James Fishback, Donalds will face Democrat-based (left), a former Republican, in a race to determine the replacement for Republican governor. Ron DeSantis, who has reached his term limit.

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Thursday 20 August 2020

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FINANCIAL TIMES

7

Supply dilemma Controversy over 'surge pricing' for water usage distracts from need to reform charging structures © MORAL MONEY

Companies & Markets

Chinese maker of humanoid robots surges 600% in debut

• Unitree valued at $50bn in Shanghai
• Onshore frenzy for tech investments

WILLIAM SANDLAND — MORAL KONG WILLIAM SANDALL — SANDSLEY

Shares in Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitec surged more than 600 per cent on their trading debut in Shanghai yesterday, highlighting a mounting onshore investor frenzy for technology companies.

The stock gained as much as 10% per cent before Sifang back to close 600 per cent higher at BankHUI (B2G), valuing the company at BankHUI (B2G).

The initial public offering was priced at BankHUI a share, giving Unitec a market capitalisation of about 90% ahead of its debut, which raised just over 800 times.

The transfer of share for retail investors was more than 5,500 times over-

'This would provide a valuation on her and a path reference for the subsequent listings'

suited, which reflected 'concordious investor enthusiasm for the company', said Krong Ng, a manager of KooJongin Insurance International. "This is partly due to Unitec's high house recognition in mainland China."

Before from the Hangzhou-based company have been shown drawing, jumping and boxing at home new year gains, which are among the most watched events on Chinese robotics.

Valuation for some of China's newest technology firms are at record highs because of a combination of government support and investor enthusiasm.

The surge put Unitec's trading price to earnings ratio at almost 1.25%, underscoring the high expectations for the company's growth potential.

Unitec shipped 1,500 humanoid robots last year, Kinai Metcalon, who

recently founded Humanoid Analytics to track android shipments and usage, said Unitec back a 'surge on her' as it dominated the market for selling robots to researchers, but that it now needed to expand into others.

"Where money comes from will be from the household and personal motorist and couple the industrial and commercial (market). Unitec just started the first step," he said.

Investors remain optimistic about the sector's growth prospects. Kieron Poon, investment director for Asian equities at Aberdeen, said: "We are positive on humanoid robotics but companies' suppliers to robotics firms would have the most benefits. 'Right now we're looking at the optimum for the humanoid supply chain first.'"

Unitec is the first Chinese humanoid robotics company in list. Its largest competitor, Agilink, is private while rival's BTech is insides Hong Kong.

The IPO main Unitec 's core popular player of humanoid robot (i.e. the Chinese 4-short stock market', said Ming Lee, head of United States data and industrial research at Bell's Global Research. "This would provide a valuation on her and a path reference for the subsequent listings of a large other Chinese robotics companies."

Unitec, officially called Yuzhe Technology, said it would put about two-thirds of the funds raised in the IPO for research, expanding manufacturing capacity and 45 month development.

The US Federal Commission attests Commission housekeepers of humanoid robots last month in a move widely regarded as targeting Chinese products. According to Unitec, overseas overseas accounts for more than 40 per cent of its earnings, with US US making up between 13.3 per cent and 18.4 per cent, depending on the year.

See Let

Cheap calls Travel e-sins boom poses threat to traditional mobile industry's roaming revenues

About 15mm travel e-sins are forecast to be used globally this year, up from 101.8mm in 2023. Carlsom.com

COSMOS DAVIS — LONDON

Demand for e-sins cards used for travel is set to jump by about a third this year as international travellers seek out cheaper alternatives to data roaming packages, posing a threat to traditional mobile operators.

Analysts at researcher FDR COE Single estimated that about 15mm travel e-sins would be used globally this year, up from 101.8mm in 2023.

Consumers are downloading e-sins from operators including Airds, which has raised close to 850mm from investors including private equity firm (VC), and fully, as operator owned by NordVPN developer Nord Security.

They offer data packages for overseas travellers that are typically cheaper than roaming deals from their existing mobile provider.

The trend was posing a growing challenge to established mobile

groups, who made between 3 and 5 per cent of revenues from roaming, according to Joe Gardner, analyst at FDRCOE, who called that this income was typically higher margin.

"Now (operators) can't re-that challenge, whether their through interest rate, posing parity or better service, will determine how much of that revenue is it for," Gardner added.

The five most popular e-sins apps have been downloaded more than 20mm times this year, following 36.4mm downloads in 2023, according to data from market research group-based firms.

Consumer including Airds and Kintu also offer e-sins data packages to first customers. Airds' data collection uses with 50K of data over seven days for 12.4K on an e-sins, whereas 35 second/35 can charge 18 for 500M of data on an in-24 hour period.

Researchers at ITU's Horizon estimate that the travel e-sins market was

worth 44.4Mms last year and could reach 43.2m in 2030. The growth has been fueled by an increase in the number of many places that are compatible with e-sins.

Early chief executive Vykintse Rishin has said that the e-sins market was launching from widespread consumer awareness. "The market's moving from educating customers to converting them and that conversion is accelerating," he said. Hermann Frank, chief executive of Gigi, the connectivity start up whose technology underpins the mobile offerings of Airds' data and Kintu, said the development of e-sins was finished a 7.6K end-to-end digital television service.

"The structural advantage that these players have is that they don't have to pay for customer acquisition cost and have a better user experience as well, you just need to click a button on the app," he said.

Martin Sandhu (page 2)

Google strikes custom AI chips accord with Marvell

JAMES JONES — LONDON

Google has struck a deal with Silicon Valley semiconductor group Marvell to develop custom AI chips, including an option to buy up to $12.2bn in Marvell shares.

Marvell Technology yesterday said the two groups would work together to develop specialized hardware for the search giant's AI chips, known as tumor processing units.

It said it had issued a warrant allowing Google to purchase up to 36.9mm this will share at $206.36 each, according to a regulatory filing.

Marvell helps hypercapsers including literature design their own specialized AI accelerator chips, providing a derivative to Nvidia's general-purpose graphs to processing units.

Marvell's shares rose 6 per cent yesterday following the announcement, conceding game that a new data source more than implying a value over the past 12 months. Shares in Broadcom, Google's main supplier for its TPUs, fell 5 per cent.

The expanded partnership with Marvell comes as Google begins to sell its products at the market, and it is forced largely to its own data centers, to extend customers.

The search giant has built a mammoth focus on generation to supply over 100% of its chip-to-knitropic, the FT reported this month.

In April, Google signed an agreement with Broadcom to develop TPUs and other components for the search group's AI infrastructure until 2025.

Marvell said it would work with Google to develop custom semiconductor products tried to the TPU ecosystem, including "AI inference accelerators, storage controllers, network interface controllers, memory interface controllers, and near-memory computer".

Under the terms of the deal, some 2.5mm of the shares sent to equal quarterly instalments during the first year after the execution of the warrant.

The remaining shares will vest based on "the entrance purchase" from Marvell's third quarter of 2027 to the end of 2033, with one tranche vesting for every $500mm in revenue from the custom products the past develop together.

ProBots in March said it was investing 8.6bn in Marvell and that the two chip-makers would work together on silicon photostats as part of a push-to-speed update flow in data centers.

Mexico is trying once again to break its costly addiction to cash

BUSINESS INSIGHT

HONDA

Christine Murray

Among Mexico's rich and poor, cash is unusually persistent, to the battleless, petrol station and on toll roads. Anything from lawful buildings to private medical loss can be paid for its limitations.

For purchases under 500 pesos (about $50), about 10 per cent of Mexican use they mostly use cash, informal companies and workers fear having to put out if payments are processed through the banking system, and card transactions can cost small businesses. The fear costs of each sale.

But the reliance on the physical peso is an example for a middle-income, complex economy, which is also the biggest trading partner of the US. And the current current has costs.

Cash enables tax evasion, corruption and crime. Monthly before from the Sinaloa cartel to a host of public officials were allegedly paid from a large loss of cash, according to a recent US indictment. Politicians are among the most enthusiastic users of cash, with campaign finance experts saying just a fraction of donations are formally declared.

After previous attempts failed, the current government says it is down to make a serious push to digitalise the economy. President Claudia Steinbaum has returned one of her closest advisers, José Antonio Peña Merino, to co-

sertिवार a plan for mass adoption of digital payments. He—and others—say she wants to be heard of last figure.

"The president had this in her head from the beginning, from the transition," he said in an interview. "At 2025, at least 10 per cent of adults will make at least one digital payment. I think it'll be higher than that honestly... In the end, if you make a product that others a problem, it'll be adopted."

There are reasons for scepticism. Seven years ago the central bank launched Cash, a payments platform comparable to Brazil's widely popular, Pa. But consumers barely noticed as banks and businesses did not promote it and the user experience was cloudy.

Peña Merino said his main bail looked at two of the world's most successful examples, India's Unified Payments for Police (UPI)

and Pa. In both, cash are left precipitously and was replaced with free account-to-account payments, calling out cash fees.

Steinbaum's plan has several components, including simplifying and promoting Cash and encouraging informal businesses to open a new kind of online bank account that is not linked to a tax ID. She has pushed and will mandate digital payments at petrol stations and toll road booths.

Peña Merino, who digitalised much of the capital city's government while Steinbaum was aware, oversees a newly created federal agency for Digital Transformation and Telecommunications with a sweeping month. Mexico's social programmes are an obvious place to start, he said. The government will die out almost 20x pesos ($27.2bn) this

'It's the starting point to reduce informality, improve productivity, increase the tax take ... and even reduce crime'

year mostly to the elderly, students and disabled.

A third new central bank rules, all banks in the country will have to adopt a standardised user experience for Cash, with options of using phone numbers and secretaries to send payments, by the end of the year.

The banking sector says it is on board. "It's the starting point to reduce informality, improve productivity, increase the tax rate, increase financial inclusion and even reduce crime rates," said Emilia Romano, head of Mexico's banking association (4th).

The policy's success will depend on whether the new Cash experience is good enough, and whether Mexico's informal sector, which accounts for more than half of workers, believes the benefits outweigh the fear of eventually being taxed.

Some big companies are jumping ahead already. Rapidly expanding discount retailer Tereske 20 (the Division for Good, Nice and Cheap) is piloting stores accepting only cash and Cash to cut out cashiers. Peña Merino said they are were talks with companies such as Pepsi, Grape Models, and others that supplied small shops to expand digital payments. These companies have hugely complex, and sometimes risky, cash movement operations in the filing places in Mexico.

"They get up places almost no one else does," he said.

The story is that if Mexico succeeds, it could face a different kind of problem. The Trump administration put tariffs on the offsite year, partly saying that In Pte platform has treated US pressure companies unfairly. Given the problems can eventually represent, that might be a risk Mexico is willing to take.

christine.murray@fi.com

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FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2020

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Technology

China eases curbs on Nvidia H200 chips

Small shipments approved by Beijing in attempt to boost its leading AI groups

ZUMM WU - HONG KONG

Small batches of Nvidia's H200 chips have been allowed to enter mainland China, as Beijing wins to add its leading AI companies to the rise to each US trade.

Bychizuo and Tenzori have each received about 10,000 H200 processors in recent weeks, while a few other Chinese tech groups could soon obtain approval for shipments of similar size, according to two people with knowledge

of the matter. The 9,200 is at least two generations before it talks to our powerful chips, which Chinese customers are not allowed to buy due to US export controls.

While the Chinese groups have been allowed by the US today up to 100,000 H200s apiece, lượng waste them to keep most of these chips outside the mainland to support domestic chip-makers, one of the people said.

As additives to the small number of H200 chips permitted to enter the mainland, Chinese regulators have told companies that they can ship each processor to Hong Kong, which operates on a territory outside its customs border, and are therefore.

The US licenses permit shipments of Nvidia's H200 chips to mainland China and Hong Kong.

Allowing the chips into Hong Kong still presents a challenge to Chinese tech groups as the former British others lacks enough data centres to house them.

Yet a dilemma, Everyone needs the chips but struggles to find a way to use them in Hong Kong," said a person familiar with the situation. "They need for the control to know so gradually."

While has ahead held audition H200 chips in stock mainly for Chinese clients, Sales were held up due to helping's restrictions, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation.

Some Nvidia partners such as Lenovo said Chinese customers but work that they could resume placing orders for their products containing H200 chips, one person said. These partners integrate Nvidia chips with CPU and other networking tools such as AI server.

Purchases would still require separate approval through an application process overseas by the state planner National Development and Science Commission (NDSC), according to a person with direct knowledge.

China's continued import controls reflect its desire to support domestic chipmakers led by Huawei, which aim to dominate the world's second largest semiconductor market where Nvidia is

mostly shut out due to export controls. However, China's lack of the most advanced chipmaking equipment restrict its ability to meet surging domestic demand, meaning some imports of Nvidia chips will continue to be needed - especially for 30 training.

License regulators have started becoming cards on US chips to ensure that leading domestic AI devices can come from training outing edge models. Chinese groups are trying to compete with advanced models such as Anthropic's R6Max's, and one of the people familiar with regulatory thinking.

Nvidia, Bychizuo, Tenzori and the NDSC did not respond to imports for comment.

Sport

EQT acquires majority stake in Australian rugby league club Storm

WE PRADEN - 9 (TUNE)

Institute private equity group EQT has taken a majority stake in one of Australia's top rugby league clubs in a core deal in the country's sports sector.

The aim of the Melbourne Storm – a club providing overall by Rupert Murdoch's from Central – is unusual because most teams in the National Rugby League are controlled by their benefited club members.

The deal values the club at 48.000m (30.000m), according to a person with knowledge of the club, EQT the benefits common to the financial details.

It is EQT's first direct investment in a sports team as it increases exposure to the sports market.

In 2015, the first bought 1961 Academy, a sports education brand, was a deal worth 81.23m including debt and it has led a $25mn investment in a six-6-mile football competition called the fuller League.

EQT is one of private equity's larger players driving a fundraising revival that has left smaller times trading in June, the first stock value for PYM 100 testing company Intertek worth about £30.7m, marking one of the year's biggest US takeovers.

Private equity has invested heavily in sports teams in the US and Europe as the

'It's not small here. Private equity is every where but this is rare for Australia'

Tim Hercourt, sports economist

sector transforms into an asset class attracting large amounts of capital looking for growth.

Silver Lake, the US private equity fund, acquired a stake in the argmines and related the deal. Contact All Blacks rugby union team in 2015.

The investment in EQT, via its mail-market opportunities fund, or the first feature Storm follows a record 400.20m (30.70m) seven years ago about that struck last month between the 9th, and media companies including Dutch's Excel.

The 9th broadcast deal followed a similar AALON agreement struck by the Australian Football League, which became the deal with known as 'has an rules'.

Tim Hercourt, a sports economist with InfoInfo Access Economics, said the broadcast deal showed that Austral European news among the many public life spent from the world's top-tier footballing age.

'It's not small here,' he said of the private equity interest in the country's sport, 'Private equity is everywhere, but this is rare for Australia.'

The results are established in 1999 as the only 9th club in the state of Victoria where men will, 16 men are found, it has been one of the most consistent performers in the region despite a dig on the market.

The deal comes as the 9th, expands the number of clubs competing in the league with teams in Papua New Guinea and North of Europe.

Both have been more recent than, who will remain a shareholder, and the funds would be used to strengthen the club's facilities as a planned to produce more local talent. Only a handful of players, including the few were halfback名额 of 16 shops, have come through the cash in Victoria.

Food & beverage

Carlsberg's alcohol-free sales offset beer decline

MAJORE HILLS

Alcohol-free beer and soft drinks helped offset a big-ticket volume sales at Carlsberg, as the drinks sector attempts to better lead against a global fall in alcohol consumption.

The Danish Version – which owns brands including Kromsbourg, Pocetti and Kellinger – exported first half-year mass of 50.67m (37.3m), a 2.4 per cent increase on the same period last year. Volume sales of soft drinks rose 7.8 per cent, while beer volumes fell 1 per cent, the company said yesterday.

Sales volumes of alcohol-free beer rose 2.1 per cent globally, driven by a 12 per cent increase in western Europe.

The latest results made a sales revival for the former, which suffered a meager than expected drop in volumes in 2015 after losing its US license to soft-but. Biggest, the Spanish time brand it had formed for 15 years.

Carlsberg bought UK soft drinks group firm in January last year in an effort to diversify your from beer. The purchase led to a doubling of its soft drink volume from 10 per cent of group revenues in 2015.

One serving from the acquisition of a company's schedule, the company said, with about half of the £330mn of crew-give targeted boxing been achieved for the year, compared with an earlier expectation of the 40 per cent.

To add a heavy market, third executive, said the company's earnings growth was mild, with 'particularly strong growth for soft drinks and alcohol-free brews', as softdrunve outage partnerships with hoppers and Pepsi's. The company increased its full year earnings gain due towards the upper end of the range. It now forecasts organic spending profit growth for the year of 4.9 per cent, versus 3.4 per cent in April. Carlsberg's shares closed down 2 per cent.

The drinks sector has been grappling with the effects of falling alcohol consumption, as consumers shift towards healthier lifestyle and cut back on spending analysis of living problems.

Under third European owner Disguis suspected to cut up to 3,000 jobs as part of a restructuring to streamline the business under new chief executive Sir Dave Lewis, having already reduced the workforce by £2000 in the previous financial year.

Media, Financial squeeze

Creditors seize Hollywood studio supplier

BlackRock and Oaktore take

over MBS as industry woes put

soundstage version in default

END NEXT AND

JAPAN PURCHASE A YEAR - NEW YORK

A supplier of production equipment to film studios including Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery has been seized by creditors after disturbing us in debt, a forecasting for those of were affording the entertainment industry.

BlackRock's private credit arm, MP6 Investment Partners, and specialist discussed debt concern follows Capital are among groups of creditors that has work look control of MBS Group, which provides lighting up and after film equipment to sound stages across the globe, according to people familiar with the matter.

The company services more than 600 sound stages, including two two's in-average Studios – when When Harry Met Sally and The Japanese were shot – and Los Angeles Television City, once home to The Id-Mobile Show.

But MBS Group has struggled under its debt load and the decision by big entertainment groups to draft production budgets, which has weighed on the TV and film industry since the remaining bubble been in 2022.

The group's previous owners, Hackman Capital Partners and Affilates Capital, exited the business as part of the transaction, the people added.

His Annual Capital and Affilates bought MBS in 2019 from private investment shops Carlsberg to be sold.

Hackman Capital worked to integrate the business with sound stages that it owned directly.

The Los Angeles headquarters of Hackman used two interest rates to its advantage earlier this decade, assigning up period filming business across the world.

But activity in Hollywood has spitched, hitting everyone from caterers and cartoons readers to the agents and actors involved in the

Producers have blamed tighter budgets and the move to streaming where seasons are typically much shorter than the 22 to 24 episodes that were the same. Asking the loyalty of network TV-Today, streaming users methods run out at eight or 10 times.

Spending on scripted TV series is down by a fifth from its 2012 peak, according to Proffito, a company that tracks activity in the entertainment industry. And even as the number of

Lighting the way: MBS Group supplies services to sound stages including New York's Glorotrap Studios where,

'The Japanese, above, and 'When Harry Met Sally,' below, were shot

in 2022.

films starting production rebounded in 2015, the uptick was driven by lower budget independent films. Proffito also showed.

Hackman Capital and MBS Group have been working with restructuring adviser Alzfortuero in a bid to cut costs and restructures debt.

One person briefed on the matter said MBS Group was also being affected by Hackman Capital's own financial pressure, prompting to begin discussions on a straightforward deal region.

The person added that MBS Group faced either conflict to over how it was

MBS has struggled under its debt load and the shift by media groups to slash production budgets

paid for services provided across Hackman Capital's wider property portfolio. About 14 per cent of the stages MBS Group services are owned by Hackman Capital.

The company capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment. MBS Group and the leader group declined to comment.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of cash held by MBS, Oaktore and other leaders will be connected into equity as part of the transaction with creditors planning to provide an additional itemless, long MBS Group entities to business and interest growth.

The key to the business are being transferred to a focus on corporate credit markets since and businesses first ever presented interest rate rises by the US Federal Reserve.

That will have significant implications for the investment in a large credit firm such as MP6 and Oaktore, which are still adjusting to a world where money is no longer cheap and capital is the long-term shock.

Fitch Actings warned last week that private credit officials had the a-wound 5 per cent in the year to the end of July.

The report was established in 1999 as the only 9th club in the state of Victoria where men will, 16 men are found, it has been one of the most consistent performers in the region despite a dig on the market.

Technology

Beijing to lift travel ban on Manus founders

TUMM WU - HONG KONG

Beijing plans move to lift a travel ban imposed on the founders of Manus as the artificial intelligence agent continues towards the 82th acquisition by Meta.

Eras being chief executive and a co-founder of Manus, recently told staff that its planned to return source image pore, where the agents' platform is based, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Xi'an and Manus management, including their associate J. Chiba, were restricted from leaving China after being announced in Beijing to franchise as investigators into the start-up's sales of food-boring group Meta to determine whether investment rules were increased.

Means of the work announced it would soon return to operating as an independent business. "This is part of an separation from Meta, we must take this

step to comply with regulatory requirements to specifically provide we will," the group said in the report.

Considering plans would require food approval from regulators led by the National Development and Science Commission, Chiech powerful state sponsor, which is April blocked the Meta takeover.

Regulators including Quercull Manus that its business operations would not be affected since the succeeding deal is settled in a way that enables all requirements, the people said.

Beijing's move to short China's nuanced approach to tightening control of its tech and AI industries while also allowing companies and entrepreneurs to develop their businesses if they abide by the rules.

In the unwielding deal, most of China's license investors – including Tencent, Zhenfund and private equity firm (BIC), as well as management – will buy back the company from Meta for

about the same valuation of 82m, the IT's reported last month.

American women capital fund benchmark, and a few smaller investors, will not participate in the feedback and the shares they previously owned will largely be acquired by Tencent, Zhenfund, because the biggest shareholder in Manus.

Tencent will only have a minority stake and Manus will continue to operate independently from Singapore rather than being folded into the Chinese technology company.

However, in the past year it has started backing some of the biggest manager funds, trial67m/7.

Canada's largest pension fund has increased to funds managed by Blackstone, KKR and EQT to allow it to clash the increasingly big deals on offer in partnership with the private capital groups.

"The net-turner deals are becoming increasingly large," said James Bryce,

Financials

Canada pension fund turns to private capital

ALEXANDER-HOLLAND ALAN LYNDI

LONDON

One of the world's biggest infrastructure investors is turning to private capital groups to help it lead long periods as three such as KKR, Blackstone and BlackRock expand their influence in a sector long dominated by pension funds.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has built almost 300bn in response to energy and infrastructure by investing directly in companies.

head of infrastructure at CPYIS. "As an investor with 1x fund, a new site is opening the beta and a total opportunity for that we may not have been able to clear on our years."

CPYIS's shift demonstrates the extent of the infrastructure market's transformation from a backwater where deals were cut by pension plans to one of the

most important strategies of the largest private capital group.

It also underestimates growing size of infrastructure deals coming to market as artificial intelligence and energy security becomes two of the world's most popular investment homes.

Infrastructure megabials this year

include two investing blackbooks' (the McKell-antennore Partners, the expati-neror's Bigger-State, the McKell-ant-power group (425) to $60bn and $75bn, respectively.

Last year marked a record for infrastructure funds during its 3mm when managed cash for institutional clients with $200bn raised, according to McKell-ant.

"Twenty years ago, there was no $200m infrastructure fund," said John Graham, chief executive of CPYIS. "If you wanted to display a $200m dollars into this space, you would have been 80 per cent of the fund ... it was probably somewhere in the past five years where there was an affection."

EQT, which BlackRock bought two 2000 shares was established in 2010 as a assets and recently raised a $2.00 fund. KKR's latest infrastructure fund just raised $50bn and Blackstone's open-ended vehicle now manages around $75bn.

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Thursday 20 August 2020

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

9

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Walter's gambit risks upending Wall Street

The billionaire's much-copied strategy of leveraging insurers to build an empire is now the subject of regulatory scrutiny

ARTHUR SARA AND LEE MARKS

NEW YORK

Before Mark Walter amused one of the biggest privants to fall agents and investment empires in the world, he was a little known trader as an obscure market on Wall Street, far from the greed and glory of high-stakes corporate take-over and and action trades.

Now, Walter's businesses are at the center of an investigation by US prosecutors into allegations that insurers be controlled not to other parts of his investment empire without disclosing linked-ribose loans.

This probe could further undermine confidence in a multi-fillion dollar private credit business that in the past decade has copied his strategy of tying insurance to alternative assets.

After growing up on a farm in Iowa and working accounting at Nebraska's Creighton University, Walter spent overrooming a finance company called Liberty Hampshire, which specialized in handling securities in the commercial paper marketplace that companies turn to for short-term cash.

In that niche market, Walter became an expert in squeezing out extra profits by managing large posts of short-term debt securities, perfecting skills that would be the foundation of his rise on Wall Street and beyond.

"Mark was always looking for arbitrage and inefficiencies," a former executive at one of Walter's companies told the FT. "He understood how to search assets and liabilities," the person added, referring to the complex task of properly managing interest rate risks while co-ordinating quickly maturing assets with new investing interest payments.

In the late 1990s, Walter and Liberty Hampshire were introduced to us, but in the Guggenheim he now behind the equestrianess measure in New York City, teaching the financier's belief that the mainstream of finance.

Walter and co-founders, including financier's Todd Reeley and Peter Lawson (blessies), a group of children's Guggenheim's business executive Partners in 1999 and the brokerage quickly became a giant on Wall Street, managing over $500mm in assets.

Walter's career took off during the 2000s, and he was known for directed Guggenheim into the always fast-borne insurance marketplace, spending an opportunity to take advantage of her gain reduction across the industry after the failure of industry giant AIG.

Guggenheim acquired large insurers in Kansas, Delaware and elsewhere as Walter and his analyst Todd Reeley ploughed billions of dollars of policy-holder liabilities into untraded assets that could not high returns.

The insurers were a powerful gold mine: unlike commercial paper markets, where assets could continue as soon as the following day, these insurers contained policies that would last many years or even decades.

While Guggenheim became a name for the company, Walter and Reeley catapulted into the spotlight with their $1.5bn acquisition of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, a record-sports purchase and home that emerged off. The company's former market results right-handed between head from it during the bankruptcy of their prior owners, allowing Walter and Reeley to sign a TV deal that would pay them multiples assets, and a more powerful for Reeley.

When they handled that TV deal into a multibillion dollar debt security and sold it to banks and insurance groups – including new inside Guggenheim's empire – Walter and Reeley pulled out profits greater than their entire purchase price of the baseball team and

LOAN TIER

Financer held talks with Apollo

Mark Walter held discussions with private investment giant Apollo Global Management about a multibillion-dollar loan against the Los Angeles Lakers stake in a sign of the billionaire's rush to raise cash this year.

The talk's lead place throughout the allowed and continued until former Disney chief executive Bob Iger and sentinars captured Jack Kushner offered to buy Walter's stake in the Lakers, according to people Reeley with the matter.

Walter's discussions with Apollo were overtaken by the deal announced last week under which the Guggenheim Partners chief executive agreed to sell his majority stake in the NBA basketball franchise at a $12.8bn valuation.

The sale secured chief capital as Walter's business empire came under interesting scrutiny.

Walter and his TWG Group are at the centre of a brewing controversy that is gripping Wall Street as federal, prosecutors examine whether the investment practices at the billionaire's sprawling insurance to assert management empire are compliant with US law.

After maturing subpoenas this year from US prosecutors, insurers controlled by Walter revealed that they had made more than $20bn in taxes to related parties without disclosing their connections to those licensees.

TWG is working to clean up the balance sheets of its insurance subsidiaries, according to people with knowledge of the matter, as part of a plan against with regulations.

In addition to calling the Lakers, Walter is also in talks to offhand his stake in Chelsea Football Club, the English Premier League team. Walter also controls the US Major League Baseball team at Dodgers, making him one of the most influential people in global

sports. Delaware's Be one of the insurers Walter controls, discussed on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement to exchange $6.5bn in assets linked to TWG corporate inflation for unrelated investments.

The many issues: Delaware's Be, along with private's trade in provided by TWG, with more than $50bn in affiliated investments.

The scrutiny of TWG has raised questions about a multibillion-dollar private investment industry that has increasingly adopted Walter's model of paving insurance capital with alternative investments.

Walter is the co-founder and chief executive of TWG Group and Guggenheim, which owns the equestrianess investment bank and asset manager overseeing $24.7bn.

His strategy, which included channeling money from insurers into more upstage and leader-to-raiser assets, has been echoed across the private investment industry.

The investments, such as the Lakers, are widely considered to be rather than the corporate and government bonds that often fill insurance balance sheets, providing retirees potentially lucrative returns but with greater downside risk.

Representatives for TWG and Reeley did not respond to requests for comment. Apollo and Guggenheim declined to say.

Separately, a Guggenheim unit was set to hand a call with some of its borders yesterday, with investors hoping for insight into an unexpected revenue decline in the second quarter from a year ago, two people briefed on the matter said. The drop was held a part to change in when the Guggenheim unit accounted for some of its revenues, one person said. But Platt Sun Yu, Oliver Barnes, about Porsche Atlas, Lee Harris and All Shah

resolved were cadets they more insurers. "He already had Guggenheim Partners at that point, but he went from being the head of the archdiocese of New York to becoming the paper," said the co-executive of Walter's model.

As Walter and Reeley posted the strategy of buying security and the insurance companies and lending their alternative assets such as sports, film and television distribution rights from other companies they managed, their profits in business and thefts went clear.

Reeley, who later took over one of Guggenheim's insurers and spun it out of the bookkeeping, is now an owner of Chelsea FC, acclaimed movie production studio A20 and high-end properties in Beverly Hills and Miami.

Walter assembled a business empire worth billions of dollars and eventually bought the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team for $100m. This year, he earned a White House certificate on 4th US President Donald Trump after the Dodgers won the World Series.

Yet while Reeley recently placed the cover of Forbes magazine as one of America's 60th richest people, Walter has been one of his own most secretive financiers, rarely speaking to the press.

Walter's strategy was seen replicated by the most powerful on Wall Street. Rivals such as Apollo, KKB and Brookfield have bought life insurers and rotated their investments into private, illegal loans, often organized by other businesses they own.

The private capital firms can capture investment profits over protected pay outs to policyholders and invest in long-dated, often hard-to-value assets. Cal lechrist's three firsts were manage more than $1bn in insurance assets.

To Walter, according to the former colleague, this was "further proof that the kid from this different get them first", beating the titans of Wall Street into one of the decade's general codes.

As competitors have emerged, Wal-

Mark Walter, whose sports assets include the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, has been one of his own most secretive financiers

The private capital firms are the first to be a good deal with the bank and the bank.

ter's multiplying network of holding companies within his insurance-funded empire has heraldified some of New York's most aspirate and insurers.

For years, Guggenheim has fought all allegations of still dealing from internal whistleblowers and lawsuits, which have alleged that its insurers had no better capital to share.

Now, it is Walter's empire that is facing scrutiny. In June, invest the insurers Walter on to assist his umbrella company TWG, which also houses his stake in Guggenheim, disclosed that they had failed to identify more than $100m in related-party assets.

They have been moving to restructure or sell large results of these investments, which are linked to other part of Walter's investment empire, to avoid ratings downgrade that would threaten the financial standing of the insurers.

These potential conflicts were unsuspecting to people who had previously worked with the firm, multiple former advisers to Guggenheim told the FT, who said its well-of-overlapping subsubsidies was already evident when Guggenheim pushed into insurance.

The private capital industry is now worried that a scandal regarding Walter's insurers could last double about how millions of dollars of investments funds are being managed by private capital groups, spoiling the party.

While the issues at Walter's insurers could control over many months, one top insurance adviser said their new disclosures posed longer-term risks over their capital position.

The law with Walter's companies, the lawyer added, was that "we pull one thread and the whole thing anyway."

TWG Global said it and "Guggenheim have created tremendous value for clients and shareholders and done so for more than 50 years within the stringent conditions of some of the most highly regulated industries in the U.S."

Jan FT View

Transport

Mideast conflict and low water levels drive surge in shipping costs amid supply chain fears

ALTERNATIVES — LONDON

The cost of shipping goods through many of the world's maritime chain-provoking countries is the past month due to new and modern change, leading fears of higher consumer costs and underlining concerns about the fragility of global supply chains.

The dual impact of conflict and low water levels caused by long periods of drought in Europe and Latin America has pushed up rates along key shipping routes including the Panama Canal, the Rhine, the Red Sea and Black Sea to record highs, according to pricing agency Argos.

The continuing conflict in the Middle East, which has all but shut the front of the state to shipping, is also having ripple effects worldwide as events remain to the long-term energy supplies. About one fifth of the world's oil and gas previously passed through the waterway out of the Gulf.

"This is something which is unprecedented," said Alexander Iovovs, chief executive of Belgrad shipping company CMR Tech, of the "brightness house."

Exclusive would reach to shut down or source goods from "more expensive parts of the world," he said.

Rates for shipping of from the Gulf to Asia hit $15.22 per barrel on August 10 because of the General situation in South Arabia-linked tankers attempting to transit the Badr at Abdullah Street, according to Argos. the highest level since the agency began assuming the rate of 2015.

In the Black Sea, bright rates for tankers into the Mediterranean were also at their highest this week since at least 2005. At the same time, after to sail through the Bahamas Canal from 100 record highs thanks to falling water levels resulting from the intense $370bn weather system and high levels of traffic – a knock-on impact of the conflict in the Middle East.

Shipping prices have spiked at many trade chokepoints

Source: Argos/Walter's "Twitter" page capacity, President Iovovs.

Prices to get through both sets of locks on the Panama Canal, which are designed to cater to different-cord ships, hit words of $5.1mm and $2.3mm this month, the highest since August records began.

Meanwhile, droughts across Europe have caused water levels in the Rhine, a critical river serving Germany's heavy industry in 160 perhundred tons. Freight rates for herge up the Rhine to Europe, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Karlsruhe have reached their highest levels since 2012.

This is without doubt the single greatest disruption that the shipping market has seen in record, shipping the Covid pandemic and Russia sanctions," said John Hlink, head of Europe freight prices at Argos.

The trend has been similar to the container shipping market. Average spot rates for container freight going from the Far East to the US East Coast, for example, are also up 25.6 per cent year

on year to $10,249 per 40-foot container.

"The disruption caused by only the Middle East is becoming a deep set and also to strengthen the off-charge areas any time soon," said Peter Lund, chief analyst at Norwegian analytics company Iovovs.

Costs would be passed through the supply chain, he added.

The leverage that has has exerted over the front of the市场, about which it is now negotiating a deal with Oman that could involve ships paying for passage, has increased more worldwide about the fragility of waterways crucial to global trade.

"Chokepoints are becoming more critical largely because smaller countries now recognize the disproportionate political and economic leverage they can world over global trade as an increasingly multi-polar world," said Henry Cretz, head of research at ship-broker firearms.

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10

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2024

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Bank

Revolut seeks to lift chief's loan limit

Fintech proposes allowing Stornsky to borrow up to $250mn against his stake

ELIZABETH KISUM, DAVID FOY AND LATTAL KHALAF • LONDON

Revolut has proposed increasing the amount chief executive Nik Stornsky can borrow against his stake in the British football to $250mn in a move that would allow the billionaire to accumulate cash as the group's valuation starts.

Europe's most valuable start-up words to investors last week seeking approval for the increase, while also preparing to choose a common investment in a general for larger share pledges, according to documents reviewed by the FT.

The proposed changes come as Revolut's surging valuation has transformed Stornsky's personal fortune, making him one of the UK's richest people, though the vast majority of his wealth is tied up in the share in the British.

Under Revolut's governing documents, employees owning more than 20 per cent of its ordinary shares – a threshold met only by Stornsky – can pledge upon 40 per cent of their holdings as security for borrowing from another bank's without bond approval.

They can pledge a fee that 1 per cent with the backing of a majority of directors. The current articles limit Stornsky's borrowing against his shares to $250mn.

The new proposed articles of association, drawn up as part of an exercise cofounded "Project Sharm", would raise that cap to $250mn and remove

the limits on the proportion of shares that can be pledged, giving Stornsky's greater freedom to unlock the value of his stake without reducing his holdings.

The changes would also expand the classes of shares that could be used as collateral.

Revolut was founded in London in 2011, and its valuation has soared at the fintech has rapidly expanded internationally, assuming 70mn customers. Its pre-tax profits last year rose by more than half to £4.7bn on revenues of £4.3bn.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Stornsky never about 20 per cent of the group, which was valued at £1.0bn in an employee secondary share risk (unaudited last month).

Revolut has previously signalled that it is aiming to be worth $250bn at a potential public listing, which execu-

tives have said would not take place before 2026.

Stornsky has said his incentive package could increase his stake to about 40 per cent if Revolut reaches a $250bn valuation. At that level, his holdings would be worth about $80bn, putting him among the world's richest people.

He is now in discussions over a new pay deal that would further increase his ownership if Revolut reaches a valuation of about $350bn.

A big share over Stornsky's purchase of a $250mn superfund has highlighted how his stake is Revolut has catapulted that into the ranks of the world's superrads.

One person familiar with the proposed changes said "the previous [borrowing] threshold was not years ago when Revolut was a function of its current size", and that a $250mn cap repre-

sented "an exceptionally low borrowing limit" on Stornsky's equity stake. The person called that the proposed articles "do not reflect any borrowing that has taken place or any intention to borrow".

Stornsky could still exceed the new $250mn borrowing cap if approved by the company's board and 75 per cent of shareholders, the person said.

Revolut said it routinely updated its articles of association to ensure its "corporate governance and administrative provisions reflect the current scale and valuation of the business".

"The current update covers a range of technical and administrative provisions. Among them, the share pledge limit would be brought up to date, replacing an unstated threshold with a defined cap, and any borrowing under it remains subject to applicable regulatory requirements," it said.

Technology

US private equity firm to take over Pinewood

WILLIAM BRAUN AND ELIZABETH KISU, LONDON

UK software group Pinewood Technology has agreed at £3.5bn to take over by US private equity firms in Edgerton Province, months after 1998 beyond group Aqua withdrew its offer over fears of A$1 impact on software companies.

Edgerton will pay 440p in cash for each Pinewood share, a provision of 41 per cent over the closing share price on July 25, the day before the firm made its interest public.

The deal values the Birmingham-based company that develops software for car dealership at less than Agas1 £37.5mn, or 500p a share, after earlier this year. Pinewood's shares fell sharply after Agas withdrew from the deal, hitting close of 100p in April.

The company is a former division of Prodragon, which said its main cut deal on big business to LibSain 2025.

The deal offers a sign of life in the software market, albeit at lower valuations. Deshending in the sector largely died earlier this year after investors shed software stocks on fears around A$1 impact on their business models.

Private equity firms bought up results of groups to debt further beyond its the years before the firm was born in 2012. London remained a happy hunting ground for such deals in recent years, however, including Thoma Branch £4.3bn purchase of hardware in 2024.

The Pinewood agreement is also the latest in a range of deals involving foreign buyers targeting London-based groups. Companies such as zanzjes, logos and brands have all agreed take-aware by foreign buyers in recent months.

Edgerton plans to work with Pinewood on a "stop change in technology investment – particularly in data and A$1 driven innovation", the groups said in a statement, and to expand its software platform across North America.

Agas withdrew its offer in February, shortly after the new chief European lypur, or sell off its software sector shares, which had been triggered by the release of new A$1 technology.

Europe push Chery to set up research centre in UK

A Chery assembly line in China. The launch of an R&D centre would be followed by manufacturing in the UK, according to the group's UK chief executive. - AP/AP/AP/AP/AP

Chinese caretaker Chery will open a research and development facility for passenger vehicles in the UK as the owner of brands and Jaccus brands expands its presence in the market.

The move comes as the Chinese group pushes into Europe. In February Chery announced the launch of its Lepus brand, designed specifically for European markets. The group also signed a deal with Nissan in June to manufacture its vehicles in the Japanese caretaker's standard facility.

The launch of an R&D centre for passenger cars would be an important step in localising its operations, which would be followed by manufacturing in the UK, said Gary Lan, chief executive of Chery International UK, at the FT Future of the UK Summit in May.

The facility was "the next step to our long-term plan for the UK", and Lan is a statement yesterday. "We waited over 20 years for the right time to enter this market, and our ambition has always

gone much further than simply bringing vehicles here."

Chery said the facility would open its late autumn. Under a redefining memorandum of understanding, Nissan is looking to start producing the Chinese group's vehicles at Amsterdam from next year.

Chery, which also owns its

The group says it has long-term ambitions to recruit local talent and create new jobs at the hub

sponsored in Europe, is one of the fastest-growing Chinese caretakers in the UK.

In July, Chery and its friends and Jaccus brands took almost 8 per cent of the UK market share – up from 5 per cent last year, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Other Chinese automakers including

BYD, Gerly and Xiaomi are also expanding rapidly into the European car market.

The new R&D facility will be built within VTA/ NEBSmark, a vehicle testing and development centre in Netherlands. The area is a hub for engineering and manoeuvre and home to several automotive R&D facilities.

Research will focus on how to calibrate the company's service the UK's driving conditions and, eventually, autonomous driving and artificial intelligence.

The group said it had long-term ambitions to recruit local talent and create new, high-drifted jobs at the R&D hub.

Chery said about 380,000 vehicles globally in July, and expects reached 202,000, up 70 per cent year on year, making it the first Chinese automaker to export more than 200,000 in a month. - Biggin Health

Travel & leisure

Virgin Atlantic and Trainline investigated over fears of 'drip pricing'

FRANK KELLY

The UK's competition watching has been held a probe into three companies including Trainline and Virgin Atlantic over concerns about so-called drip pricing, where changes are added later in the buying process.

The competition and Markets Authority announced the investigation yesterday into the trade ticket booking platform and airline alongside Red Driving School over concerns that customers were not shown the total price upfront.

Drip pricing can give consumers the false impression that one company is cheaper than a rival and therefore hamper competition, the regulates said.

"At a time when many households are watching every pound they spend, it is important that people are not surprised to take into what booking main and coach tickets, holiday or driving lessons," said Robert McNutt, executive director for consumer protection at the CMA.

"The first price customers are should be the price they pay," she added.

The latest probes follow the CMA's action against the ticket seller Shalchah earlier this year.

In June, the regulator ordered the

As households are watching 'every pound they spend, it is important that people are not surprised to extra fees'

company, which runs a secondary market but not a secondary market. The company, which runs a secondary market but not a secondary market. The company, which runs a secondary market but not a secondary market.

If the CMA finds there have been infringements, it can order businesses to pay compensation to customers and issue fines of up to 10 per cent of their global turnover.

In a statement requesting to the investigation, Trainline said that it had "proactively engaged" with the CMA and was "taking steps to enhance the presentation of certain fees".

"We will continue to work constructively with the CMA to ensure our customer experience remains both transparent and compliant," it said.

Shares in Trainline, the only one of the three companies that is listed, left 14 per cent at Lander yesterday.

Virgin Atlantic said: "We take our responsibility to customers incredibly seriously and we always want to ensure they can make an informed decision when booking a holiday without the need for a new

"Mandatory fees are indicated at multiple stages throughout the booking process," it added. "We are reviewing the points raised by the CMA carefully and will co-operate fully with its investigation."

In a statement, Red Driving School expressed "disappointment to have been included in a wider investigation into drip pricing".

It added: "As an organisation we have been ... working closely with the CMA as we take ... our obligations under consumer law with around house and ambulance. We look forward to continued engagement to support the CMA to a swift conclusion of this investigation."

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Thursday 20 August 2020

1

FINANCIAL TIMES

11

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Currencies. Capital Flows

Kazakh tenge jumps as global traders pile into sovereign debt

High interest rates attract

investors despite Ukrainian

attacks disrupting oil exports

JOSEPH GUTIERL | LINCOLN

WILLIAM JOHNSON | CREEK NEWS

Kazakhstani's tenge has become the best performing currency in Europe and runs this year as global investors buy the central Asian nation's domestic debt despite recent Ukrainian domestic attacks that disrupted oil exports through those.

The tenge has gained 9.7 per cent against the US dollar so far in 2016, surpassing oil but a handful of Latin American and African currencies, as double-digit interest rates in central Asia's largest economy have drawn in foreign asset strategies.

"It's a really strong fundamental story ... people want to diversify their portfolios," said John Gekkinos, head of emerging markets fixed income at UCF Capital Partners, during that Kazakh bonds have become easier to buy and trade.

Kazakhstani currency has strengthened as foreign holdings of single-denominated government bonds have risen to 80% as par under a result of the total, as of June compared with about 82% a year ago.

Investors have also been drawn in by Kazakhstan's high interest rates relative to many other economies, despite recent cuts.

The central bank reduced its base rate to 70.2 per cent in July, the second cut in two months from a recent peak of 28 per cent, after central inflation fell from about 15 per cent last September to

about 10 per cent in June. This month, Ukraine's deficit attacks on shipping at a Kossian Block but terminal stock is a major report gateway for the country's oil following a request from US independent 20 Vance, Ukrainian officials said the FY.

The increasingly intense attacks caused those at the terminal in July, threatening the subjects of a more than handfuls more Kazakh oil exports.

While Kazakhstan's currency is often seen as a tenethtary of higher oil prices, the tonight rise this year. To mostly related to capital flows rather than trade flows, said Dmitry Stegin, chief economist for Russia and US countries at PIE.

Inflows have accelerated since Kazakhstan set out plan in April to connect its domestic government bonds to Euro-class the international clearing system, which makes it easier to trade securities.

"The most active inflation have been to recent months," Stegin said, as officials have made far more market information available and the central bank has

kept even much higher than inflation. "All of that is contributing to higher interest by foreign investors in the domestic market," he added.

Gekkinos said: "We have seen quite a bit of pick-up this year. I'm foreign holdings of Kazakh bonds. From that access will most likely increase the attraction."

As usual in greater with less in the Russian economy, Kazakhstan is also seen by some investors as an energy producing alternative to Russia, which became an international boost growth after its 2022 iteration of Ukraine.

But Clemens Grafe, co-head of CIE-90A Economics at Goldman Sachs, said the country's appeal to foreign capital was not as a plus on off-price.

"Most [Kazakh] oil is produced by foreign companies so when the off-price goes up, most of that extra oil income goes less these foreign oil companies or ... into foreign assets hold in the oil fund, rather than the Kazakh economy," he said.

Kazakhstan also has an investment grade credit rating, unlike countries

Bridging the gap: investors have been drawn in by Kazakhstan's high interest rates relative to many other countries

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neck as Egypt and Nigeria whose currencies offer double-digit yields but just off investors who cannot hold junk-rated assets.

Kazakhstan is ultimately aiming for inclusion in a 1998-year benchmark, known as the UK 100, that covers domestic currency bonds across big emerging markets.

The US bank is also working on an index just for frontier markets where Kazakhstan's bonds would make up 8 per cent if they were included, the central bank said in July.

Foreign direct investment, which rebounds the 80, this is the first quarter, has provided additional support for the currency.

"The government has looked to become a transit hub for goods moving from China to Europe as an alternative source of income other than oil.

"They're putting a lot of money and a lot of it having a market into transport infrastructure," said Grafe.

Roche Invest, a food manager at Asia Frontier Capital, was known in the country's equity markets, said "Kazakhstani is benefiting from China's trends of goods into Europe."

China and the US are increasingly vying for influence in Kazakhstan, Deua and Washington, saw China making investments in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The US wants to have a foothold to the region."

In August, Kazakhstan signed $100bn deal with Artoba and Fezhnits in build that centre in the country.

"They are landlocked between China and Russia," said Asia Hopkins, a research analyst at City CLIA. "They don't want to be forbidden to either of them as they're inviting more capital."

Retail

Target profits double after $1bn refund from tariffs

GREGORY MEYER | NEW YORK

US states market retailer Target reported higher second-quarter profits alongside a $1bn refund from President Donald Trump's scheduled tariffs, revealing early fruits of a turnaround plan that aims to lower prices and keep shelves full.

Some store sales rose by 5.8 per cent in the quarter ending on August 1, the second straight quarter of gains for the market after three years of fall to do the big growth, the company said yesterday.

The two was slower than in the first quarter when Target's same-store sales rose by 5.6 per cent.

Company veteran Michael Feldsher took over as chief executive in February with a row to spread up stores and its supply chain problems that led to customer complaints about empty shelves.

He has helped restore Target's reputation for affordable chic — in June, he named fashion designer Issa. Marcela acts first creative director at large.

The results of pre-on increasing confidence that the investment we continue to make, all in service of our strategy, will support continued growth on bank our top and bottom line," Feldsher told analysts.

Target, which imports significant amounts of merchandise from revenue, reported a $990mn pre-tax boost because of volume from US tariffs.

'Management's efforts

around value, newness

and differentiation

appear to be resonating

which were constructed by the US Supreme Court in February.

Jim Lee, chief financial officer, said the state made up a 'significant supply' to be imported itself without.

Other big US retailers have also reported substantial tariff adjustments. U.S. stock cross-cases including 12 Years and Greatest units, and yesterday that it received $15.1mn in refunds during the quarter, while Union Depot got back $600mn.

Target said it had held down prices to offset the impact of tariffs on consumers in 2020. This year it has reduced prices for more than 20,000 items amid frustrations with the cost of living.

"We think it matters to consumers right now," Feldsher said.

Lower prices may have helped drive designers back to Target's more than 2,000 items, and the most comparable traffic increased by 5.6 per cent in the quarter while the average purchase size rose by 0.2 per cent.

Net sales rose 5.3 per cent to $26.8bn, beating Wall Street expectations, according to survey of analysis by Yulike Alpha. The volume doubled to $6.9bn, bounty by the tariff refund and an improved operating margin due to 'abnormal machines'," the year before.

Target also raised revenue and profit problems for the new US shares rose 5.8 per cent in after-taxing results.

"Management's efforts around value, newness and differentiation appear to be resonating," said Corey Tudnow, an analyst at prftimes.

We need to rethink how we pay for such a vital resource like water

Just before Hallowson in 2015, a fledgling ride leading start-up named 'Over problems', a long introducing users to a concept in called 'surge pricing'.

In response to the huge demand from partypers, 'Over ride fees would increase by up to 200 per cent in apartment drivers into action.

This would mean customers didn't end up "alone at home while the numbers aren't increased too", wrote the credit executive Travis Kalantka.

Should UK water consumers focus for something similar? The past few days have seen a flurry of headlines about future 'surge pricing' in the world.

Regulation are considering allowing new billing structures that could mean higher charges for heavy use and permitting suppliers to use water scarcity as classes in UK calculations - grouping speculation about rate hikes during

periods of drought. The story comes at a delicate moment.

The UK has been enduring one of its worst droughts in recent history, prompting Prime Minister Andy Raye's home label the country's 'Vodafone'.

Separately, discontent with its privi-tized water companies has been reaching new heights after years of multi-zone infrastructure investment that has left widespread, scourge spills.

Often, the water regulator, said claims that suppliers could abruptly increase prices during a drought were 'sungly wrong'.

The media coverage, it said, had mis-represented angiographic above changing structures "that help customers save water and, in many cases, save money".

Water UK, the sector's trade group, gave a planless response to suggestions that the potential new billing systems will be another way for companies to find their products.

Water companies' revenue is capped by the regulates of production, meaning that any changes in fees would really care the cost burden among customers rather than increasing the aggregate amount they pay.

While it said, with water company had proposed raising the cost of water

during droughts, it added that the sector needed to 'engross better and more modern ways of charging for water' as the country faces dwindling supplies in the coming decades.

This sector has done much to curb the public distrust it now faces, in the 57 years since Margaret Thatcher privi-tized the 10 regional water authorities in England and Europe. The sector has paid out tens of billions to investors while woefully undercovering its infrastructure with costs undisputable costs.

But on the need for pricing reform, the water companies have spilled.

More than a quarter of groundwater bodies in England and Wales are currently being exploited at an annualized life rate, according to government estimates.

Climate change is adding to the problem, worsening droughts while also shortening the 'recharge season' during which groundwater and reservoirs are replenished by heavy rain.

Without action, the government said, the country could face a public water supply deficit of up to 8% from per day within 30 years.

Similar problems, and for worse ones, we faced around the world — as was made starkly clear by a 2024 report

from the Commission on the Economics of Water, an international report group with ex-chairs including World Trade Organization head Nigeria Bungu Bunda and Ghana scientist John Roe Burton.

It argued that higher prices for water are needed, warning that "the widespread underpicting of water today encourages its profligate use across the economy."

Crucially, it noted, pricing reforms must be carefully targeted to reduce

'If you look at the distribution of water use, there's a long tail of very, very high usage'

wanted consumption by heavy water authorities than minimizing low-income households who already struggle to afford basic services.

Water authorities in much of the workforce already being probably moving towards so-called increasing block tariffs, whereby larger amounts of water consumption come at a progressively chingering.

The approach is now, instantly, being explored in England and Wales, where

water providers have been running trials of new pricing schemes with other's encouragement.

Afficial Water, for example, has tried as a model for some of its customers in south east England with such house-hold pricing. Model flows a year for five (the country's average household water consumption is about 130,000 litres a year).

Usage beyond the free allowance was charged in a progressively rising rate. In part, South West Water, has been experiencing with a model that it said would reduce 50% for 90 per cent of customers while raising them for the heaviest users.

"If you look at the distribution of water use, there's a long tail of very, very high usage," said Mike Kell, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, an independent public body that represents water and sewerage users in England and Wales. "In the general case, how do you point the rise really high rates?"

Boughty a third of households, he added, still do not make water reform, instead paying a flat fee linked to the use of their property — giving them an economic incentive to restrain their consumption.

As for surge pricing during droughts,

clearly it cannot range new water supply rates the system like a saddest jump in rates can pull their drivers into action.

Both clubs threat and Water UK sales in such measures were being contemplated, they can be an effective way of managing demand, according to a recent study on emergency risk behavior. California, California.

Household water rates are clearly just one part of this problem. Refusal water was call for serious government action to strengthen standards and drive the necessary investment in infrastructure.

Internationally, the CEW report high. Sighted the office per cent policy incentives around water use for agriculture and industry, which can be more water than households in most major economies.

But the way we price this vital resource, whether for household or business users, is long overdue a rethink.

The fact that this argument is being championed by Britain's much derided water sector should it deny it drawing.

A version of this article first appeared in the World Water newsletter. Sign up at 8.am.besadget

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12

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2024

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Unit labour costs are the key inflation signal for investors

Richard Clarida Markets Insight

The early weeks of Kevin Wankle's turn in short of the US Federal Reserve, there has been renewed focus on how "underlying" inflation should be measured to guide decisions on interest rates.

Common inflation measures, including the Fed's preferred personal consumption expenditure price index, have been above the control limit 1.2 per cent target for 5% years.

But at least some of this reflects higher energy prices and tariffs, which should not be the future for an ongoing source of underlying inflation.

Neither tariffs nor objectives might be forever. And in the case of the latter, the futures market signals all prices are expected to be lower over the next year.

In how should yield numbers look at the underlying trend? Many popular measures of this are based solely on price data itself.

For example, "core" inflation strips out food and energy prices, "intended mean" measures and statistics of methods to strip away outliers in price changes, and "sticky price" inflation indices filter out the prices of goods whose prices adjust frequently.

While each of the measures has something to offer, all walks from the same problem – the signal is always from the labour market and, in particular, wage gains adjusted for productivity growth.

This is odd. In the US, labour compensation adjusted for productivity (referred to as unit labour costs) historically accounts for about 60 per cent of value added to the non-financial corporate sector.

In the postwar US data, all previous episodes of sustained and rising price inflation – including the 1960s, 1970s and 2020s – have been accompanied by

sustained and stringent cost inflation. And all the times when inflation fell for lengthy periods – including the 1960s, 1990s and 2020s – have been accompanied by bills in cash cost inflation.

This is not a coincidence. Indeed, in the workhorse theoretical models used by many central banks, unit cost inflation is a key input along with expected future price inflation.

There are of course "shocks" such as those on energy or import prices as well as profit margins. Benefits in much those are important but over the workhorse term – say three to five years – the underlying trend on prices tends to

The Fed may decide it needs to raise rates but not because too many people are working

track unit cost and expected inflation reasonably closely.

This brings us to today. Using a four-year average to smooth out shocks and noise, the most recent data, released earlier this month, coves that unit cost inflation over the past four years has averaged 2 per cent and during the past year is running at 1.5 per cent.

This pace is actually running at or a bit below the measure of underlying inflation in 2018. Whether the pandemic when measures of rising prices were at or below the Fed's 2 per cent target.

Importantly, unit cost inflation is falling for two reasons – wage inflation is reducing and productivity growth is rising.

Indeed, over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen at

the slowest pace in seven years and measures of underlying productivity growth are increasing at the fastest pace in seven these decades.

Although forecasting is hard – especially about the future – it is reasonable to expect underlying unit cost inflation to continue to rise at or below the 2 per cent pace consistent with the Fed's target.

Employment growth has been sluggish for some time and the unemployment rate has been falling for the wrong reason – declining prime age labour force participation.

If anything, it is plausible to expect productivity growth to rise in coming years as AI is deployed and diffused more broadly in the economy.

Indeed, the debate among experts is not whether AI will boost productivity above the current pace but by how much.

Which brings us back to the Watch Fed and the focus on underlying inflation. The labour market is not a source of underlying inflation today.

Actual inflation is running above the 2 per cent target for other reasons, which today include increases in computer chip and electricity prices pushed up by the hyperscale investment boom.

Moreover, unlike in previous business cycle expansions when labour's share of national income has tended to rise, in recent years it has been falling.

Inflation remains too high and the Fed may decide it needs to raise rates – perhaps to keep inflation expectations anchored – but not because too many people are working.

Richard Clarida is former vice-chair of the US Federal Reserve and global economic adviser at Pitex.

The day in the markets

What you need to know

• Treasury department's business boost Wall Street stocks and bonds
• Announcement parties the dollar doses with gains for the cars and sterling
• Oil loss for fourth consecutive day on scepticism over a 30/10 of Horrisco deal

Wall Street stocks and bonds rose attention as investors reacted to a Treasury department announcement that it would boost its husbands of long-term (20 government debt)

The blue-ring S&P 500 index gained 0.1 per cent by lunchtime in New York with the tech-heavy Reuters 0.01 index up 0.1 per cent following an earlier sell-off in chip stocks.

The Treasury said it was "increasing by at least double the rate of liquidity support business operations" for bonds, maturing in 10 to 20 years and 20 to 30 years.

The announcement sparked a rally in long-stand US debt. Totals in 20 and 10 Treasures, which had risen to 0.1 (upset level since 2007 a day earlier, fell 9 basis points to 0.9 per cent amid higher buying. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield fell 7.8p to 6.4b per cent.

The Treasury announcement pushed the dollar down 0.8 per cent against a stable 10 currencies with Gallup. Saismith of Deutsche Bank FX Research meeting that "the more these currencies are perceived as deteriorancy to market (bond) pricing, the more the dollar is likely to weaken"

Once, Jeffrey Head of macro strategy at UDR said the business announcement was "part of a pattern of attempts (by the Financial) to relieve some of the upward

Long-dated Treasury yields fall sharply

pressure on long-dated yields", which included its intervention to boost the Japanese yen under this month.

Other government bonds called along with the US after the Treasury announcement. Totals on 20-year UDRs fell 3.8p (0.05 to 5.7b per cent).

Another stated girls were also supported by UK inflation data, which showed little evidence of high energy prices passing their advices during inflationary pressures.

The two-year gift yield, which is truly sensitive to interest rate expectations, was 3bp lower at 4.3b per cent.

Other assets rose following the announcement with gold up 3.7 per cent to $6,400 per ton a year.

European stock markets were little changed. The year-registered Dimex Europe 600 slipped 0.5 per cent which, underto FTSZ 100 benchmark rose 0.1 per cent.

The euro gained 0.8 per cent to $150.00 against the dollar while the pound was up 3.6 per cent to $1,800.

Oil loss for a fourth consecutive day as investors grew more sceptical at a 5-year off-horizon deal. Global benchmark (base) gained 13 per cent to $92.3b per barrel. Habibition Wright and Emily Herbert

Markets update

	US	Eurozone	Japan	UK	China	Brazil
Shares	S&P 500	Eurofror 200	Value 220	FTSE 100	Shanghai Group	Average
Level	7.6p	2.6p	4.0p	12.4p	38.6p	50.0p
% change on day	-0.15	-0.09	-0.16	0.16	0.45	0.63
Currency	$ index (CNY)	$ per €	Yen per S	$ per €	Yen per S	Real per S
Level	98.92	7.9p	9.8p	7.5p	6.7p	5.7p
% change on day	-0.76	0.69	-0.74	0.66	-0.9	-0.92
Stock bonds	10-year Treasury	10-year World	10-year JDR	10-year SDI	10-year Bond	10-year Bond
Yield	4.65	3.3b	2.8b	3.0b	1.5b	1.7b
Basic gains margin at day	-0.06	-0.03	-0.06	-0.06	0.03	-0.02
Market/Commodity	FTSE A4 World	UK - Brent	UK - B11	Gold	Other	Middle (LPR,SE)
Level	0.6p	0.2p	0.3p	0.4p	0.6p	0.7p
% change on day	0.05	-0.02	1.0p	2.0p	2.0p	1.2p

Main equity markets

	S&P 500	Eurofror 300	FTSE 100
Yield	2.4p	2.4p	2.4p
Basic gains margin at day	-0.06	-0.06	-0.06
Market/Commodity	FTSE A4 World	UK - Brent	Gold
Level	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
% change on day	-0.06	-0.06	-0.06
Market/Commodity	FTSE A4 World	UK - Brent	Gold
Level	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
% change on day	-0.06	-0.06	-0.06

Biggest movers

	US	Eurozone	UK
Low Lunar	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Medic 6.5p	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Securities	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
American Hiring	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Toy Maze	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Goodfries Major	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Low Research	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Medic 6.5p	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Medic 6.5p	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Medic 6.5p	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p
Medic 6.5p	0.6p	0.6p	0.6p

Financials

Singapore unveils tax cuts for asset managers amid global talent tussle

GREENWOOD, UDR - UNCOFFEE

Singapore has unveiled a package of incentives to entice asset managers as the city-state responds to tax breaks being implemented by regional rival Hong Kong and the sector's global talent tussle.

The Rosemary Authority of Singapore (RAS) yesterday said it planned to remove the tax paid by investment professionals relating to profits from fund management services.

The move has the potential to be wider reaching than the tax cuts on carried interest being brought in by HongKong.

The Singapore regulator also said it would set up an international programme to provide hedge fund managers operating in Singapore with capital while becoming less expensive to be senior fund management staff.

"We do need to take a look at what is happening in the global landscape in reviewing and adjusting our own policies," said Choe Hong Tat, Singapore's

minister for national development and deputy chair of the RAS.

Fund management hubs such as London, New York and India as competing for a global talent base that is increasingly mobile.

Hong Kong sparked the latest round of competition with sweeping tax changes to its rules on carried interest

"We need to look at what is happening in the global landscape in reviewing and adjusting our policies"

that could allow asset managers to earn their performance from low of any tax. The proposals have been described as being a "big bang" of industry reforms

Central interest reform is the share of the profit in a private equity fund – about 20 per cent – that grants the general partner managing the fund after retirement and a certain health cut.

The FT reported last month that his

gigover was in talks with fund management groups about rolling out its own tax reforms for the industry to response to Hong Kong's moves as incentives warned of a potential event and a high-paid manager to the Chinese territory.

The Alternative Investment Management Association has warned the RAS that several of its hedge fund and private equity members in Singapore were considering moving senior staff to Hong Kong to benefit from increasing tax cuts.

The lobby group called on the regulator to make a statement of its intention to encourage fund managers to stay in the city state with incentives.

The RAS did not detail the measures, such as how much it would invest in the hedge fund or what the tax breaks would cost, saying more information about the tax changes would be revealed at next year's budget.

People with knowledge of the measures said the exemptions would potentially be open to a broader wealth of investment workers than those being introduced in Hong Kong.

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Thursday 10th August 2016

•

KIRKMAN, SIMON

13

MARKET DATA

WORLD MARKETS BY A GLANCE

FTC ON MARKET DATA

Change during previous day (1 during 1)

STORE SHOP 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

STORE SHOP 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

SHOWING POINTS (SHEET)

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74

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday, 29 August 2024

MARKET DATA

BY GLOBAL SOA, THE WORKING LARGEST COMPANIES

Year	1998			2000			2001			2002			2003			2004
	Year	Avg.	SD	Year	Avg.	SD	Year	Avg.	SD	Year	Avg.	SD	Year	Avg.	SD	Year	Avg.	SD
Australia 2000
All Countries	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
Asia	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00
China	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,101	1,101	1.00	1.00	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00	2,100	1,100	0.00

NATIONAL STATES OFFICIAL

State	1998			2000
	Total	Percent	SD	Total	Percent	SD
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00

NATIONAL STATES, MARKET

State	1998			2000
	Total	Percent	SD	Total	Percent	SD
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00

NATIONAL STATES, MARKET

State	1998			2000
	Total	Percent	SD	Total	Percent	SD
Alaska	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
California	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Delaware	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Florida	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Georgia	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Hawaii	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Idaho	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Idaho	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Idaho	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00
Idaho	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00

U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00

Total U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00
U.S.	1,000	0.00	0.00	1,000	0.00	0.00	0.00

---

Thursday 20 August 2024

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

15

FINANCIAL TIMES SHARE SERVICE

Male Market

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	2.98	0.00	2.98	0.00	1.78	1.78	2.00	2.00
Jamaica	1.98	0.00	2.98	0.00	1.78	1.78	2.00	2.00
Jamaica (Lima)	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Jamaica (Lima)	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Jamaica (Lima)	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

AIM

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

Investment Companies

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

AIM

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica (Lima)	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92
Jamaica	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

	Price	% By Pct	% Share		1st	2nd	3rd	4th
Bermuda
Red Sunflower	1.92	0.00	1.92	0.00	1.92	1.92	1.92	1.92

---

10

■

FINANCIAL STARS

Thursday, 25 August 2024

MANAGED FUNDS SERVICE

Advertising Features		March 2017 - July 2018		Cumulative Growth of 2018 (Gross growth)		Total		Report 2018 Growth Rate Index		Service Weights		%		Top 10 Holdings		%
	Brown ADVISORY(Thoughtful Spending)	2018	2017	2018	2017	2018	2017	2018	2017	2018	2017	2018	2017	2018	2017	2018	2017
		2017	2016	2015	2014	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016
		2016	2015	2014	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015
		2015	2014	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015
		2014	2013	2014	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016	2015	2016
Total	Total	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031	2032	2033
Total	Total	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031	2032

Algebra Investments

Registered
Algebra Cover Rate 1 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Cover Rate 2 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 1 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 2 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 3 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 4 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 5 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 6 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 7 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 8 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 9 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 10 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 11 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 12 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 13 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 14 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 15 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 16 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 17 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 18 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 19 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 20 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 21 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00
Algebra Powered Cover 22 EUR	0	25.00	-2.00	0.00 0.00 0.00

Brewery Feed Managers Ltd (TEMP)

TCE, a division of the United States (US$ 1.5 million US$)

Authorized for Funds

Americas Corporate Board II Inc.	7.9	0.0	-1.1	0.00	0.0	0.0
American Global Insurance Co.	24.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American High Income Co. Inc.	7.9	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Insurance Co.	23.9	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Minority Bank Inc.	6.9	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Share & Share Bond	6.9	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Investment for any Co. Inc.	12.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Investment for any Co. Inc.	12.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Investment for any Co. Inc.	12.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Investment for any Co. Inc.	12.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Investment for any Co. Inc.	12.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
American Investment for any Co. Inc.	12.1	0.1	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

ASB Capital

ASB Capital B. 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

B. 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

ASB 2018-01	0	104.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
ASB 2018-02	0	97.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
ASB 2018-03	0	97.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
ASB 2018-04	0	97.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Minority Share

Other International Funds

American Corporate	0	4000.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
American Share	0	1000.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Bank Group	0	1000.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Commonwealth	0	1000.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Tax Rate	0	1000.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Blue Whole Investment Funds-CAF

www.industries.com

RSC Investment Index 2017

Blue Whole Investment 2017	0	0.00	-1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Brown Advisory Funds-PLC

BROWN ADVISORY (2017-2018)

BROWN ADVISORY

Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	22.97	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	16.28	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Global Advisory Fund (GAC)	0	9.45	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Canaccord International Fund Managers Limited

Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Common Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Common Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
High Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
High Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
High Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
High Biomedical Strategy	1	1.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Strategy being limited therapy for the in-mission of any in the in-charge category

CANDRIAM

at the new US and new investment

American Insurance Group

ASB

ASB Receptors
Candidate New York and New York (C) Co.	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00
Candidate New York and New York (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00

Executive Insurance Group

Other International Funds

Candidate New York & New York	0	2.70	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Candidate New York & New York (C)	0	2.70	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Candidate New York & New York (C)	0	2.70	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Candidate New York & New York (C)	0	2.70	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Candidate New York & New York (C)	0	2.70	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Candidate New York & New York (C)	0	2.70	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Cereb Asset Management Ltd

C. 2017

C. 2017

C. 2017

In Canada (International) (UK) (UK)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
In Canada (International) (UK) (UK)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
In Canada (International) (UK) (UK)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

CG Asset Management Limited

G. King Street Limited 1.5.2.1

Banning Co. 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5.2.1 1.5

RSC Receptors

CG Portfolio (Total PLC)

Algebra Report No. 1	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Capital Sharing Portfolio (GBP)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Capital Sharing Portfolio (GBP)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Debt of Credit (C) Co.	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Debt of Credit (C) Co.	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Debt of Credit (C) Co.	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Debt of Credit (C) Co.	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Chartered Asset Management Pro Ltd

Other International Funds

COM (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

CP Global Asset Management Pro Ltd

BROWN ADVISORY (2017) 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

International Market Funds

CP Global Strategy Fund	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

CP Capital Asset Management Limited

www.camc.com (2017) www.camc.com

International Market Funds

CP Fund Purpose Fund

CP Fund Purpose Fund	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
CP Fund Purpose Fund	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
CP Fund Purpose Fund	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Dodge & Cox®

Worldwide Funds

Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds

G. 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021

International Market Funds

Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds Emerging Markets Stock Fund

Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
Emerging Markets Stock Fund (C) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds Global Stock Funds

USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds 3D Bond Fund

USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00
USD (International) (Total) (C)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00

DIAGON CAPITAL

Borgon Capital

Borgon Capital (2017) 2018

Borgon Capital (2017) 2018

Borgon Capital (2017) 2018

Borgon Capital (2017) 2018

Other International Funds

Commercial (Commercial) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C) (C)

CME

EdenCine Investment Management Ltd

EdenCine (2017) 2018

Authorised for Funds

EdenCine (International) (Total)	0	0.00	-0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	0.00	( \text{Total} )

FB Investment Services (CORE)

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Thursday 20 August 2006

FOUNTAIN TIMES

17

MANAGED FUNDS SERVICE

Fund	Bio	Other	Total	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000	2000

Guide to FT Funds Data

The first annual quarter of the year was reported for the first quarter, but the average of the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter. The first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of the first quarter, and the first quarter was 100% of

1. 2017年，公司与上海浦东发展银行股份有限公司签订了《关于使用部分闲置募集资金进行现金管理的协议》。

Markets and data happen here

ice

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18

FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 30 August 2024

ARTS

The painter and the 'housewife'

Betty Freeman was one of David Hockney's firmest friends -- and a mirror image of the artist himself. By James Cahill

On his 64th birthday, July 9, 2000, David Hockney received a tax from an old friend. "You know that you get better looking, with every hockney as you never have to worry about having too many," wrote Betty Freeman, a renowned Los Angeles art collector and patron. "I think of you, love you, miss you -- not only today but especially today."

Her message was one of many handwritten notes that Freeman found to the artist over the course of their long friendship. Ironically, these were marked by expressions of love and admiration. Los Angeles, she wrote to another letter from 2005, "[a] deflated her as when you are not here."

Along with the fashion designer Celia Bitwell, whom Hockney captured in his seminal picture 'We and We-Che's and Percy' (1970-71), Freeman -- who died in 2009, aged 87 -- was among the artist's greatest female friends. Compared with the other main characters it is in the same way that he was a probably because of her own retiring nature. Even to those closest to her, she was forever something of an origin.

They met in the late summer of 1966. Hockney, then 29, was back in Los Angeles after spells in defeat and London. The city, which he had first visited two years earlier, was still a dazzling novelty - three times better, as he later said, than he had expected. But his attention was beginning to shift away from the more back of the place -- in palm trees, architecture and ourselves beautifully — towards real people.

The first painting that Hockney embarked upon in 1968 was a 6-by 12-foot portrait of a how woman glimpsed amid the light and shade of her garden terrace. He had been introduced to Betty Freeman by their mutual friend Jack Larson, an actor and scientist who

was best known for starring in the television series Adventures of Imperium. Hockney had asked if he might come and photograph Freeman's pool. he was at the height of his fascination with nails water. He was rapidly intrigued, however, in the woman's head -- all to exhibit at 43, a bottle blouse like him, and attired in a dress of pink indomous oils.

The Poisoned snapshots that he took of her formed the basis of the final painting, in this, she has the powers, about not what her friends remember as characteristic. According to Hockney's first desire, John Kamein, "the bad a sort of atmosphere about her, as though she were too fond on her hand." Perhaps she simply knew how to keep her reactions concealed. She later recalled how Hockney had brought along Peter Schlosinger, an 18-year-old art student whom he had met while teaching at UCLA, who took a swim in her pool. "He came out naked. I was a little bit overleaf by that I tried not to show it, but I was startled."

For all her love of avant-garde art, she remained the product of her conservative upbringing. The title of the painting was Freeman's idea. While Hockney took pictures of the garden, she boated herself with dusting the stuffed antelope heads that hung on an outside wall -- trygkins of her husband's hunting expeditions. "There's only one thing you can call this painting, since I'm dozing," she dirty observed. "Beverly Hills disavow!"

But she was never just a rich collector in Hockney's eyes, for all that she epitomised the glamour of Los Angeles: their meeting marked the beginning of a life-defining friendship. Although they formed an unlikely pair -- the flamboyant York-blooman and the self-effacing "housewife" -- they seemed to perceive the deeper potential in one another. Hockney was on the brink of a decisive phase of his career: "Beverly Hills

She was never just a rich collector in Hockney's eyes, for all that she epitomised the glamour of Los Angeles

Housewife" marked the onset of the realist style that would dominate his work for the next decade. Freeman was at her own, painter turning point, as her marriage was arched and her ambitions gravitated in a new direction.

Like Hockney, she had come to Los Angeles from elsewhere, Born in Chicago in 1921, the daughter of a business-joyside singer who became a leading petrochemicals-magnate, she grew up in New York and its environs before studying at Wellesley College, where Vladimir Nabokov was among her lecturers.

Every Friday, she would attend classical concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall. It was during her time at Wellesley, too, that she met Stanley Freeman. They were married in 1941, and had four children between 1941 and 1952. The family moved to California in 1959, where Freeman continued to train as a concert pianist, routinely practising for eight hours a day. But in 1963 came a solemn realization. She had just performed a recital -- the best she had ever played --

and it struck her in that moment that she would never be so good as she needed to be. She closed the piano and never played again.

In the years that followed, Freeman carved out a new life as a champion of experimental classical music: "Old music is fine," she later explained. "Well like complexity, challenge, ambiguity, abstraction." In the mid-1960s, she rescued the self-styled "kobo" composer Harry Farish from the streets -- weathering his creations and alcoholism.

Later, throughout the 1980s, she hosted a regular series of concerts at home. Hockney was a frequent -- if not always reverential -- attention. As he later recounted: "I remember one afternoon when there was this event which consisted of just one solo going on and on and on for hours and hours."

But Freeman's Sunday afternoon musicals became legendary, with John Cage, Philip Glass, Pierre Rooker and Crollon Nancarrow among the many performers. In 1982, Hockney

David Hockney and Betty Freeman in front of 'Beverly Hills Housewife' in 1967. Below, the Los Angeles art collector in 1973

www.founderlandwomen.com

himself became one of the few non-medical participants, delivering a lecture on his stage designs. These salon-style events reflected the individualistic style of Freeman's patronage. In 1998, the New York Times hailed her a "moderately flinch!". "Art was the only thing that mattered to her," according to the composer: Thomas Adin, a longtime friend. "She was not there and at the forefront of things, and that actually pushed me along her other people."

After the turn of the millennium, Hockney spent less time in Los Angeles. On return trips, though, he was a frequent visitor to Freeman's home, often sharing Chinese music around her poppy-shaped table. Fumorous photographic capture them together at different stages of their lives, in the shadow of the original painting. These after a vivid, sometimes discouragely intimate window on to their relationship. In later years, she made a sign bearing the words "smoking is encouraged" to left the pen, it was just on display whenever Hockney visited. Among true holes, they shared a defiantly liberate on each side.

Hockney's pictures are their own testament to his strength of feeling for Freeman. The numerous portraits that he made of her following "Beverly Hills Housewife" (including a facsimile graphic of the artist's first in a moment of smiling animation) show an enduring fascination -- a sense, perhaps, that she could never wholly be captured.

The wonder that he felt in Freeman's garden that day in 1964 is palpable in the Poisoned's far back. In these, she stands aside uncivil palm bonds, her lips slightly parted, a picture of cool child's mansion -- but aware of the artist's scrutiny. Decany, carefree and art ever conscious of being seen, she was an unlikely mirror image of Hockney himself.

James Cahill is the author of 'The Beverly Hills Housewife: Hockney's Californian Mass and the World Beyond the Pool,' published by Thames & Hudson on August 27.

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Thursday 20 August 2020

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

19

FT BIG READ, SHIPPING

Containers have transformed cities and trade. Now the revolution is reaching its limits as ports become congested and global chokepoints constrain the size of ships. By Alice Hancock and Peter Foster

The steel box that built globalisation

Seventy years ago it would take at least 10 days for a ship at London (he Islands to be emptied and released by around 30 doctors. Pilfering was oth, accidents were commonplace and port business was vulnerable to labour strikes.

Then came the shipping container, an 88 x 240 steel box that needed increasingly vast vessels to carry an ever-expanding volume of goods, back big ships and/or leagues and agrib Thames to issue London's desks. The use of cranes to lift the boxes wiped out the need for hundreds of longshoremen.

"You would have seen bagged cargoes being disposed of in Explosion Decks. I'm the seat of Tower Bridge (in the late 1960s, but by the late 1970s it was a development scheme," says Paddy Rodgers, director of the Royal Museums Greenwich.

But that was not the end of London's sea trade. Today, around 30 miles flowstover at London (airways, post operator DP World is expanding the UK's largest container port.

Now it takes a mere supply 80 tonnes to empty and refused a large container ship – around 20,000 steel boxes lifted by 100 meters high compacted cranes that more less containers every three to four minutes.

The efficiency and scale is testament to the unglamorous steel container, an invention that has driven down shipping centre such a low fraction of total manufacturing value that it has enabled the rapid expansion of global trade over the past 70 years.

But humanity is available demand for container goods is now pushing the global shipping network to its limits. Port congestion is a threat to ships, while the surgeon Chinese reports means there is little to lift boxes with at the retracting, leaving shipping lines to host the bill of carrying their back.

"The [trade] imbalance is getting worse," Kofi Haldon Jansen, chief executive of shipping line Hapag Lloyd, told reporters last week. "And that is a problem because that means the cost of [transporting] empty boxes is going up."

Empty containers are chagging up ports and ships are lift up using the box both ways to unload, pushing up the expense and time for shipping goods. More new ships are being built to meet growing demand, but low ports have the infrastructure to accommodate them.

Such is the level of congestion that around 2,000 containers are essentially "toward," from global shipping networks at any one time, an amount roughly equivalent to the carrying capacity of the world's eighth largest shipping line, according to maritime analysis company Sea Intelligence.

If container shipping reaches its limits, the smooth operation of team-continental supply chains and the cross-border flow of goods could falter, markedly the end of a 50-year need of the high-ball trade, and into say.

"There's never been a larger order from [for container ships] and there's never been more capacity that's going to be coming online, but global trade statistics continue to rise," says Joe Krusnik, chief executive of the World Shipping Council. "We's wonder beginning to lift the maximum size that ports and chokepoints such as the Sea-Canal will allow. There are natural limitations that the industry will confront as it goes forward," he adds.

Smooth steel boxes

For decades there the 2000s there were attempts to standardize the recent business of cargo shipping. Open vessels bound to a halt in the best-selling cranes from larger to rather unstaged during the English industrial revolution were arguably the first "intermodal" containers, capable of switching from one forward transport to another.

The growth of rail freight across

Europe also drove moves to regulate the "lift van" boxes – heavy wooden cranes used in railcars. A bureau set up by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce in June 1933 set rules for container-coated vessels foreign.

Later, the US Navy developed a "transporter" – a stifled steel box just over eight feet long – that would remain sealed until the point of delivery and led to the 1952 creation of the "container express" in Guam.

There have, which could be easily shifted between road, rail and ships, reduced shipping time from the US to Korea and helped with theft on the desks.

But it was a maverick tracking execution who went bankrupt across at times, who created the commercial container trade on board-ship.

Malcom McLean started his first bankrupt business in 1954 and at a North Carolina gas station after opening an opportunity to transport goods himself. Within a year he had met drivers working for him and had developed a relentless discussion relevant.

"Just of no reason to change to do was to do cost per container mile comparisons on different competitors and see what their cost was," says John McGrew, who worked with McLean for more than 20 years. "He always had a yellow pad and a pencil by his side."

After a few years, McLean's drivers were heading for more than all. The tracking boss became floated on bypassing the congestion on the US east coast. He looked at several bus vehicles by barge. In 1958 he filed a patent for a

standardised shipping container that could be stacked on to vessels and locked in glass before being easily unfastened, lifted by crane and dropped out of trucks.

A year later he sold his 75 per cent stake in his tracking business for 80 tons to acquire the Pan Adams Tender Company, which had a fleet of old oil tankers. On April 28 1956, a converted GmbH called Ideal 3-mix loaded with 36 containers in Port Newark in New Jersey and set sail for Texas, all worked by astonished executives invited by McLean.

According to McLean's 1956 calculation, loading a typical cargo ship cost $1.83 per ton. Loading Ideal 3 cost 12.6 cents per ton – 1.87 per cent reduction.

Such was the discount that, despite fightback from labour unions, there was little to prevent the rapid growth of container-holding.

The box's dimensions were standardized from 1968 – a step that is "frequently overlooked," says Brian Black, a professor in geography and planning and economics. Uncovered, Montreal, Willmott, "containerisation would not have been an evolutionary it turned out to be".

McLean died in 2003, the year that China joined the World Trade Organization.

By that time the reduction in freight costs brought us by the shipping container had enabled businesses to measure production to parts of the world with easily cheaper labour, prompting a manufacturing boom in south and Asia that has prevented an extended challenge to highly industrialized Europe and the US.

"China would not have become the manufacturing powerhouse it is if it

is used to be that for every 80 containers coming from Asia about six were going back with US exports. Today that is more like three or four'

wrests's for the shipping container," industrial designer Sebastian Constanzo, remembering pre container days when it would take "at least a week to get [products] on board and a week to take it off."

Since then 280 tons journeys were made by containers between world markets last year. They bear around two-thirds of global endowment cargo – about 60 per cent of total world trade, according to UN Trade and Development.

Now than 5,000 container ships are currently operating. The largest can carry cargo equivalent to a 45-mile-long freight trade with, for example, around 120,000 hectares or 30,000 pairs of items per bus. The average size of the ships has more than doubled since 2003, according to the WIK.

Railflow passes of shipping line Hapag Lloyd said that trade on of Asia on the so-called "dominant leg" has "greets about 25 per cent" in the past three years and that Asian ports in particular are permanently more congenial "because of that strong growth".

To service the demand for goods, shipping lines have ordered larger and larger ships. The current record also has a container ship is the so-called ultra-large container vessel 8M3 trims, which has a carrying capacity of 24,544 twenty-foot equivalent containers, or 7.8% of the total of the container ships on order to equivalent to around 60 per cent of the current sailing fleet – a record high.

Ports are struggling to keep pace.

"You vessel offloading 5,000 containers in a question of hours presents an enormous challenge to even the number of maritime logistics chains and there are physical limits certain ports can reach, especially when historically located in cities," says Patrick Verhoeven, managing director of the International Association of Ports and Harbors.

In 2019 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey had to spend $1.7m to train its Supreme Bridge road way to accommodate new megachips – a car that was paid by taxpayers.

It is "the whole infrastructure around the ports" that is feeling the strain, says Keith Svendsen, chief executive of Munich-owned APW Terminals, which invests in sailing transport.

Container shipping lines are increasingly buying into ports and terminals in an attempt to improve the efficiency of their operations. French shipping line CRAVUS® bought a controlling stake in Brazil's main port operator in 2024, for example.

Yet space remains not right for the number of new ships. "The certified point is really the port congestion because we can have as many ships on the planet as we want. But if the ports are congested and cannot handle the ships, we will just have ships waiting," says Inner Telt, chief executive of BEC, the shipping group.

The other issue is how to pay for the empty boxes, and using them the US and Europe to China – the backload leg of the trip.

"On the Asia-US route, it used to be

that for every 50 containers coming from Asia about six were going back with US exports. Today that is more like three or four [going] back half," says one container shipping executive. "We're moving a higher percentage of containers empty now than we ever have done before."

That means more expensive freight rates for Asian exports or shipping companies scrambling to find cargo to fill their ships.

"We are generally trying to find any containersed goods," the executive says. Being paper for recycling, who is huge plastic bags and even grains that would normally be shipped from in dry cargo ships have become critical backload trades.

Ports under strain

At the start of this year, industry executives were warning that a long boom period that started with the Covid pandemic would come to an end thanks to an overweight of ships, causing shipping rates to climb. It was a prophecy familiar to many who work in an industry vulnerable to cycles of boat and famine.

Instead, despite all the disruption to global trade issues and off-locations and climate change, bookings for container space for approving.

Global container demand rose 1.2 per cent year on year to the first half of 2018 and Chinese exports rose 12.4 per cent, according to the maritime analysis company Sea Intelligence. The companies diversified supply chains and rushed to increase inventories ahead of the introduction of more US traffic in July.

"The trade tensions have certainly made the supply chain a lot more global in the sense that previously, people were more inclined to put more eggs in one basket, but now with everything that has happened we are clients trying to diversify their supply chains across more regions of the world," left says.

There are a surprising number of goods and regions that have not yet

joined the global container trade. One region attracting major interest is Africa. "If you get a population boom you need containerisation," says Peter Sand, chief auditor at Souria.

Ten years ago, APW Terminals and others invested in port expansion projects in Ghana and another in Ivory Coast. "We thought that it would take a long time to lift them," says Svendsen, APW's chief executive. "But they were full almost immediately, which was surprising, in quickly as the industry can pour concrete, so to speak, we are building capacity [in Africa]."

There are further efficiencies to be made if some of the commodities currently transported have in bulk cargo ships, such as grain, were loaded in containers.

But it is unclear how the world's ports would handle the same containers in circulation.

London Gateway is one of the few European ports with the space to grow. The port processed 3,100 containers last year and will expand by a further 2mm when DP World adds a second rail terminal and another two bottles by 1,000 kg from four-tasks. The only day that the 30 copies may lifting from in Christmas the US.

Charlie Othley, who has operated the largest gear vessel for two years, works 12-hour shifts sitting in a glass box 60 meters above the North with the containers swinging from where the target is to move 24 containers every hour. Some of the work is being automated but that's "sneaker." Othley says.

The port is installed in the world's first port and is now in the world's system for empty containers, able to hold 27,000-73,524 busload in high. If the system works, it could allow space-constrained ports to handle increase capacity. "It has the potential to become really a power-change to our industry," says DP World's chief executive of UK ports Eric Adams.

Looking out at the 1000s, Munich, which carried from Shanghai the night before carrying around 12,000 containers, about four feet the length of steel box has "very much thought the pace of globalisation," but that pace may prove unsustainable.

"Capacity is always an issue," he adds. "It's difficult to build a new port."

Global trade volumes have surged, but there have been regional winners and losers

Source: BFC's World Bank indices

"There are physical limits certain ports can reach, especially when historically located in cities"

---

20

•

FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 20 August 2024

The FT View

FINANCIAL TIMES

"Without fear and without favor"

R. van de la Mer

Private credit risks remain at large

Regulators and investors must pay attention to strain in the direct loan market

Almost a year ago, US companies First Brands and Trivision filed for bankruptcy. The fullness involved alleged foundry previously rather obscure credit points, but just together, they raised alarms about the highly interconnected web of private lending that had arisen in recent years. Investors, CEOs and policymakers began to warn about corporate debt stress and suggest this episode might be a canary in the coal mine for the roughly fifty private credit industry, one of the fastest growing areas of debt markets.

JPMorgan Chase (US) (junior) firm on the market that "when you are one cockroach, there are probably more." The bank of England started to explore where the cracks are, and what might happen to the broader financial system

if private credit were to make a serious widespread bank. A year then, some of the more special pits predictions about horrors supposedly falling within the market have so far proved ill-bounded. But it is also seen clear that late summer 2023 was not a May. The growing rise come about private credit, especially if the brand of so-called direct lending, are here to stay.

Private credit partition have expert record: much diverse, uncivilized and defaults in recent months. Many parts of the market, such as so-called invest more goods more backed lending, appear resilient – but others do not. Direct lending, in which new banks provide capital to businesses, laers strain in the FT's special title work, the value of troubled loans held by some of the largest private debt investors has reached levels in the market.

Some on Wall Street characteristics concerns over private credit markets as media hype, but the pockets of instability are real. Even more private lenders

have themselves suggested in recent comments that cyclical dynamics were now to at play.

Private lending really blossomed several years ago, when interest rates went at record low and most markets were ranging private equity firms, which had traditionally leveraged their corporate investments with bank loans, issued a cheap and easy to do so through the credit arenas of their private capital countries. This has raised concerns about risk concentration within firms. Circular ownership between firms can further magnify risk.

If there were a serious downturn, the question turns to who is on this bank. A fashion has emerged in recent years for private capital companies to buy or use up life assurance companies, with the premiums of everyday policyholders derived from private credit. A special investigation into operations run by a pioneer of this structure, Mark White, has raised concerns about the scope for mismanagement or worse. Unlike

If there were a serious downturn, the question turns to who is on this bank.

books, which must meet strict federal requirements on capital and reserves. If insurance companies are primarily overseen by state regulators.

Aspects for some private credit assets appears to be slowing down. Blue Owl Capital, flagship private credit arm reported its slowest pace of fundraising in their open this summer. Following a period of time, the financial impact is for the firm. Aces Management scaled down a billion-dollar private credit continuation vehicle this month by more than half when investors pushed back from business.

Niacov dynamics exacerbates this: a global "bond jolt," with heavy emerging supply relative to demand, has put upward pressure on market interest rates and contributed to a recent bond sale off.

Call those concerns or endowments, but the recent signal of stress among get rates credit payments should be a warning to investors and regulators alike to increase their vigilance.

Opinion Society

Don't take that summer trip for granted

Martin Sandhu

45 summer to the northern hemi sphere: the time for many of us to hit the road, to be somewhere other than where we usually live. If you are on holiday, take a moment to reflect on the remarkable achievement that today's widely accessible travel for leisure conditions.

Hermans have always travelled, of course. But for much of our existence virtually all travel was done out of need. This instance's hit movie. The thinner should remind viewers of two ancient reasons for displacements and sick feelings, and finding one's way home. Honors's eyle also illustrates that throughout much of history to be on the move often meant to be lost. This is still true to today when many of those who travel and migrate are exiled by conflict, climate stress or economic need.

Hermans have always travelled, that for much of our existence it was virtually all out of need

Even more positive motivations to hit the road have historically been instrumental in progress. Merchants have prospered by connecting far-flung places through trade – for profit, not for discovery. Nonprofit projects have made through locations that often compare you's rich yield for hosting or gathering. Prescriptions, evangelists and missionaries have had religious or ideological disputes to spread. Discovery has a side effect.

There have, to be sure, always been some who travelled for travel to take, to find what was new and uncovers what was unknown. But they used to be free and for believes, and almost always in the employ of someone with more progressive purposes. If someone became a negotiator, every or under of new trade means out of curiosity, that was rarely what sentrums/draw pictures to put forward the resources required to send them on the road.

One of the great, under-agreed and beautiful standards, capitalism, and eventually mass consumption has been to make it possible, at scale, to travel with the primary insistence of curiosity and self-improvement. An early way was that the scientific regulation – discovery (mostly) for discovery to take – became established as something worthy of prestige and sup-

port. There was also the existence's grand tour – visiting the night of Europe for pleasure and self-improvement – which hinged a cultural template for the holiday aspirations of the later age of broad prosperity.

The most mundane version of travel for travel's sake is mass tourism. This phenomenon is frequently criticised, and often for sound reasons. Contemporary versions of the grand tour tend towards kitsch. The climate footprint, especially of distant travel, is unmaintained. Thus there are the recognisers to tourism inflicts on places too small to cope, from Yonkers (Norway's Larkens island).

But we can accept these criticisms, and the need to find solutions, while recognizing one powerfully returning feature of modern travel. Never before in history have so many had the opportunity to go somewhere else simply for the sake of experiencing something different.

The shock of the new - the chance to see how obvious it is, to adopt another perspective on most conscious time – it no longer something that is either patently inflicted on us through war or only, or reserved for a lucky few. Billions of people have the time and the money to take to the road freely, without risk of danger or ruin, through the simple means of a holiday to an unknown destination.

To seek discovery is a fundamentalist, but not a bit. The way not be an obvious in your own holiday memories of spending for moments. Nobody parks and beach spences is a whit, for example, Michel or Montaigne among foreign cities connected with Native Americans in the Age of Discovery into a social critique of his own society. But even if the scale is smaller, the fact of being exposed to difference in the same. Mandate experiences can be customized for those who live there. Many are those whose lives have become unharmed sharply by society with their own eyes that another life is another than the one they have at home.

This humanist potential can be undermined if the travel is compromised – whether because of social media's pressure to take, or whether to preserve rather than be present in the moment; or the temptation to replicate elsewhere the comfort of items, reducing travel to some physical displacement.

Some right, however, travel for discovery is also sensitive not received wisdom. It increases our knowledge of the unsounding, diversity of human ways of life, and it makes it a lot harder to take for good of life very that large people to be out of life. Every time that happens, it strengthens a little the bad work we surely need against forces intent on shrinking our horizons.

martin.sandhu@i.com

Letters

Vietnam must as much for its SMEs as for its conglomerates

A Anantha Lakshmi's report on Vietnam's bet on South Korean-style shaded (August 12) captures the Communist party's results to promote the development of this country's own private sector after years of over-reliance on foreign investment and state enterprises. Indeed, Vietnam is attempting to a single generation what two countries have accomplished, and its leadership deserves credit for the seriousness of that ambition.

Your excellent article highlights the skill and perhaps two factors: the capabilities of Vietnam's domestic small and medium-sized enterprises

(which remain woefully underdeveloped), and the capabilities and political deservedful of its state to avoid capture by large private ideograms whose objectives often can to their own gains are enough in real estate, rather than productivity.

South Korea and also Taiwan are instructors. Support in both countries during their industrialisation drives was that to hard report and quality targets, and withdrawn even from the largest firms when they failed to deliver. A deepening base of capable suppliers gave alongside the champions, nurtured and incentivised

by an increasingly capable state demonstrably committed re-supporting conditions—inhibitor to their development.

Several of Vietnam's domestic "transport" companies are genuinely capable, as you note. But concentrating support in the program while the supplier base state weak stories state capture while stalling industrial deepening.

Vietnam's fledgling SMEs remain the country's weak line, starved of capital and with little incentive to invest in technology or skills. Meanwhile capital keeps flowing to land and vanity

projects rather than to production, entrenching the interests that benefit and leaving the base unbuilt. Value outflows in the FDI sector already cause outflows.

Last mentioned, the 6th business story hard to reverse because the interests it became gain the power to defend it. To secure its future, Vietnam must create the conditions for its SMEs to a certain level succeed.

Jonathan London Associate Professor of Political Economy, Ladish University, the Netherlands Former UNDP Junior Economic Advisor for Vietnam, 2024-2028

Democracy and high finance is a two-way street

You report the chief committee of JPMorgan Chase "warning" for the chancellor not to create "a more hostile tax environment for family" (Report, August 17) – saying in effect that it's the job of politicians to defend the reputation and rewards of the private financial sector.

My response would have been to remind Justin Denoe that it is also his responsibility to defend and justify the financial sector to the public. Democracy and high finance are not easily compatible. The US and the US have been through periods in which a catch and banks became the target of popular politicians. The rise of the Greeks in the US, and of driving populars within the US themselves fairly, suggests that another surge may be coming.

Some finance institutions already prefer to operate offshore without the scrutiny and tax burdens that demonstrate state's impact. I hope that financial leaders in New York, London

CALL BORN/ALL/FREE COMEDY

and a few cities in democratic states will continue to recognize that these countries' institutional structures provide a more secure framework for a market economy than市场经济 systems, as well as a more pleasant

social environment in which to live. I think many politicians in defend banks from attack. As a politician, I expect that and the colleagues in return are only to defend their own sector but also to address the responsibilities to contribute to the maintenance of stable democratic societies that come with their prominence and rewards.

William Wallace

As a call back, London (RF), UK

Politics of 'respect' makes majoritarianism a virtue

Kana Forovitsa's "politics of respect" (Opinion, August 17) risks confusing two quite different things: forget-drawny respect, their values deserve scrutiny. To insure that respecting people requires respecting their values is to make disagreement as found and to give an opinion, I think.

Patriotism may not, after all, be the last refuge of the crusaded. There is always respect.

Eunice Mishkin Risholm, County Dublin, Ireland

Oddly dated watch piece

Your style piece "The ugly watch that returns free" (Life Is You, August 1) offers an oddly dated account of income. It treats the watch shortly as equipment for reasons and, laterally, a badge of record status. But the more complete, right in health is away from the old doctrine of pushing the body over health and towards understanding regulation. The autonomic nervous system, vagal activity, deep stress and recovery.

A Gormis is not a medical instrument, and no proprietary score should be mistaken for one. So power is longitudinal.

These more abstract pictures overnight physiological stress despite skin factors in bed. A preceptor loss to seek medical help. I was diagnosed with severe dysmenorrhea.

It is a perfect novel, including that, health is not synonymous with fitness, Gormis can reach as not only how hard to push, but when not to push at all.

Josephine Jones London (RF), UK

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FINANCIAL TIMES

21

Opinion

Mike Ashley's luxury retail empire is going cheap

When the Dickens Poon, the thing being the most popular, goes to the market today's prices for Harvey Nichols 15

ago, he declared the Kinglandship shop "one of the greatest stores in the world". He turned the department store for granted by Henry, Princess of Wales, into a certain group of stores, in outlets and several international franchises.

Harvey Nichols was acquired against tax with, like time for about 4.8 times in a pre-packaged administration. The last owner of the following, the US company controlled by Mike Ashley, who became a billionaire for building his Spent Direct discount chain from one store into an international multi-brand group with a market value of £3,000.

It is typical of Ashley to strike a bargain for "Harvey Nick" if a US tech incongruous that a former squads coach known for car price retailing, a shop ever for trading corporate assets and registered trucks brands rivals should meet the price of the company. As the total fee 7 recently, "i'm not Harry nipples – when you go to a fight with me, I'll come back in you."

His reputation for being a discount retailer is sustained. France has been moving steadily squashed under its "deviated" strategy for since 2012 by Michael Murray, chief executive and Ashley's son in line. It controls about 100 luxury stores, led by the Flammés department store chain, and has parted ships with brands such as Macbeth, Gasol and Bunbury.

But Ashley who is no longer a director of France but holds a majority stake in the business, is so deep on one: Some of the suppliers who've been able to do something from France's tactics after it acquired the MacRae fashion district in 2012 and shut it down within months. It emerged with a profit, while they get pennies on the pound at trade creditors.

The road to Harvey Nichols stretches out in decade, so since Spent Direct was overtaken by its amateur rival Zil Sports. Ashley had fallen out with suppliers such as Nike and Adidas over his millions discounting and money stores. He saw that shoppers were no longer poorly seeking bargains but were increasingly being directly brands.

His second single wacked of a value

It still feels incongruous that a former squads coach known for car price retail should own Harvey Nichols

investor. High street retailing was shrinking out what shows new listings to economists even, giving him the chance to recite Spent Direct's surplus cash into brands and physical stores. "It's going to be a lot smaller pond but cannot fish are going to be enormous," he conceded in 2019. This led to today's France, which owns a range of brands and stores,

including the House of France chain. Spent Direct bought the latter car of administration in 2018, found it was in even more trouble than Ashley realized and a critical through. It, closing stores and uniting jobs. In 2018, have had him to reach out, it usually finds a way to retain some return.

The strongest agent of France is that it also behaves like a corporate hedge fund, having stake in public companies including Mulberry, Hoebies (also known as Imboudans) and Huge Iron, the German market, which sold to 42.7% takeover offer for from its June and that work announced that it had built its stake in 40 per cent, despite getting a debt/equivalent.

The investments can turn out to be the prelude to a bid, as with Ross, an attempt to secure leverage over market in France stores, or simply Ashley's market for an undervalued asset. "I just think it very cheap," he said of the first stake building. But they puzzle even for him. "We see the other brands on the figure, but only he knows the picture," says one investor.

Olive Hall, head of consumer research at those typical, describes how a "scientific beauty." But his tactics do not do much for France's rating as a public company. Many investors find it too opaque and unpredictable to track, although they are not yet situated in a race by 50 per cent in a year amid its burst of debilitating.

The salutary comparison is best, another profit-based retailer that a stock price of 1.5 times and tighter, is perform, but has ascended steadily to a market regularisation this week of £1000 – five times that of France – thanks to a consistent growth under Simon Wolhan, chief executive. Their operation here is let to common, but there is a gold between their styles.

One answer would be for Ashley to take France prices again, although he denies even considering it. While they say needs be to do things. But head of the market is not well known. France purchase of Harvey Nichols may elevate its reputation but do not expect Ashley to change his nature.

Don't mess up London's knowledge economy

Michael Spence

In north London's knowledge (Quarter), you gave Google, a simplified, the France's 16th business, UCL. Image out next the final Spring business on the 2nd, and the 2nd, the 1st. The same is known for the 2nd since United UCL more than five years ago. On any given day there will be researchers moving between laboratories and students who are working on computer management and dietitians collaborating with scientists on problems that have occupied medical care for decades.

In institutions have arrived in this area over the course of centuries (at UCL war on collecting our 2008 birthday), it's immediately known for the UCL and scientists that at latest, businesses follow the talent, investors follow these businesses. And physical proximity is still the mechanism of success.

Just 19 half, we celebrate the 2nd chief economist, recently argued that the government must look the place a real institutions with edge. He is right to point out that if the UK wants innovation but growth and prices investment, it must support research intensive rather than more directly built with at least around world class universities and major hospitals. This is a fact that our national discourse keeps avoiding. Addressing the over concentration of political power in London should not lead to uncertainties in the era as a world-leading centre of innovation.

Critical mass cannot be built overnight. The Internet administration recognised for the Can. So as one of these research intensive innovation factors, and invested in it accordingly. Andy

Political devastation should one London state the city's role as a world-leading centre of innovation

Bourbon is one in forming Street after a decade building. Manchester into the country's fastest-growing city region, partly on innovation, he if we accept that we will drive growth by developing areas which have developed a high concentration of innovation, and that Manchester is one and the United Cambridge corridor is another, surely it is now time to accept that London is every bit as important.

Successive governments have, rightly, focused more challenges the regions of the UK where growth is known. That makes the UK's own growth is a good investment, that investing in London's success then should be a priority true. The capital basis several state-based biomedical research centres, without which wants recently to be a good investment but have been possible. But the funding for these centres is at risk.

Nowhere can growth be delivered better than in London, with its unique role in AI, life sciences, threats and the cultural and creative industries. Its universities train producers and strict international talent who build businesses across the country. To take product research that becomes treatments delivered throughout the 90th, and experts that help finance the health service, UCL spinster Astellas (Theopastatic), for example, is based in London, manufacturers in Stevenage and is delivering its pioneering treatments first in Manchester. Capital raised in London finances compared to the UK.

This should not leave another villain. The Internet business event an connected clusters shows that rather than competing culture of the UK regions and countries is not a good growth. The UK has London and Manchester contribute to growth across the country through high-value supply chains, developing skills, research and innovation and trade. When productivity in technology or life sciences rises in London, other places gain two, and vice versa.

Every place receives enough funding to survive but not enough to scale, the UK should not be surprised if it is not a good growth. The UK has a good, which have spent decades building world class innovation in nature.

Bourbon's government can make this english student the major feature, back there and spread the growth they generate. London is central to the country.

The order is president and present of University College London

Europe booklet

wish Rubio a bright future

After his death last month, a video surfaced of US Senator Lindsey Graham, the song the bombing of Iran and his own part in it. Other Republicans had advised President Donald Trump against the war. But Graham knew his pdf partner "News Showing on all" up! The recording was apparently made in that it.

In August, Iran still controls the future of Horizons. The US has lost four and Patriot missiles. Meanwhile have lost purchasing power as will prices have risen. From 8 the war had worked, a new user to his eighth decade might be expected to grow the war of India from 1985 until a major market event.

Still, European liberals cannot recall too much, to share belligerence often cause no useful. He was a friend of Ukraine in Washington. He was sighted in the threat to the Vladimir Putin when Germany was still holding a gas pipe. In a minute, and they had been a very serious threat upon the the Eurasian connected with. But last public act was a visit to Kyiv. The US is going through Congress now that would grant extraordinary new tariff power against Russia and the提供. Graham introduced it. He was

pro-Nato in a Republican movement that often wasn't.

Just the two things – the Ukraine stalwart and the man who never met a war he didn't like – responded? Could Europe have had the one without the other?

If not, then Europe must prepare to experience this problem all over again in the coming years. Something of the human lives are in the sun. The secret of state's aggression can be concerning, what with his role in the Iran war, but with Iran as a kind of imperial personnel in Venezuela, the pressure on the region to Cuba with who knows what planning for the aftermath of the possible collapse. At the same time, this is the man who wanted to sacrifice Russia's own defense to the state of Ukraine in 2022 as a deterrent.

Rubio, as Graham did, personifies a dilemma for the continent. The American who are lifeblood is agitated by reds to an African abroad are sometimes also the lifeblood to defend democratic Europe. Both habits come from a belief that Americans a historical and almost identical role in great five countries. It is a dangerous belief and, by a continent in need of friends, a sentinel one. On the basis, Europe's own war has a better rather than 20 Years or Tucker Carbon in the future of republicans.

In theory, of course, it is possible to have the best of both worlds a side-effects belligerence under the opportunity the right figure, but in the field of action, existing Republicans candidates are vacated Trump, the choice is between

Rubio and those who would describe the American fields even when the cause is just. (Or only when the cause is just.) I've argued the war secretary Pete Hapstle as keen on the Iran intervention but reluctant to support Ukraine. I'd should be obvious with whom Europe's faint hope lies.

Let me anticipate the obvious counter-segement. Rubio is slipperier than a deismed cell. He voted against aid to Ukraine in 2018. Through the chief a reason – the bill did not come with extra border funding at home – the vote worked as concrete desperation from someone who turned getting on the wrong side of Roger Banta apologists. Graham was a career-long war mallet. Rubio is not a career-long anything. Don't let Europe see a man who is

Americans who agitate for reckless actions abroad are sometimes democracy-like

like that defenders.

months ago account the continent of working 'in' Scotland around 'through' immigration. As even in the 90s, nothing, writers civilization is supreme. Yet also is real as to succeed in a few decades of liberal government. It is not for us to purchase them at an in-depth.

The issue against Rubio, there is but one answer: consider the alternatives. Vanu's attitude for Europe, and specifically for underwriting its security, is much deeper and longer standing. Let's see has described himself as "unco-engagements in Paris" that is to 'chdy any chemistry. 1914-2020 the Iran war is seen as the right as a clear attitude and chemical of America 1914, both of them men could enter the Republican primaries on and visit you as opposed.

On the balance of probabilities, Democratic president would be better for Europe. But even that is less clear than it was. The leftward drift of the party might extend to a new waypoint. The "war machine" is temporary, but it is not a plan that sounds everything upon ended. The left will argue that the Rubio grew unpopular.

because he was seen as being preoccupied abroad as inflation was great in future. "Through a gift of all of all obstacles, then, Europe's left with Rubio, certainly is only GCP rule. When Graham died, he became the closest thing to a traditional George W. Bush was back in Trump's home, not certainly the last one with a future.

As such, Europeans have no choice but to wish him well, even if it is through teeth as gifted that we have to perform a good aftermath. There were always two side in America as a protector. It was indispensable, and it was no choice. In the new remnants land era of US Europe solidarity, when Nato was secreted, the US fought was in Vietnam, in which as European country patriots were still long, while a gift of the continent. Those who live under one wing of the book can't hinge anyone when the other flags around to disastrous effect from time to time. Europeans would find a President Vance dangerously prudent.

www.annulab.com

The US munitions crisis goes back further than Iran

Katherine Thompson

The heavy expenditure of critical munitions in the Iran war has set off a change of headlines warning that

the US has fallen on the increasing dry. While certainly alarming, these truth is true that this war conflict has simply exposed and accelerated a pro-existing problem. The warning signs of serious munitions shortage – and lounges on the US military – were apparent long before.

Since 2020, 19 strategic doctrine has achieved high fluctuations on the scope of American engagement in international conflict, particularly given the US military. The 2020-2030 conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific, a USಕ್ತet entry. However, leaders in Washington from both political parties have consistently refused to grapple with the hard choices that come with prioritisation.

The large scale drawdown of high-value munitions from the US around its own Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion in 2021 reflect the war chest in the time of approximately 80. The combined with the inability to maintain its own specific given significant industrial base constraints, the US traded once a significant degree of optionality. Peter Nello, Congress had protected US discipline from fleeting war in being repudiated the expansion of US preparedness for its own global requirements, but there was no evidence that debate under trade-offs.

The US intervention is Iran has only exacerbated these unfavorable conditions by further stressing munitions strategies already in effect. The numbers speak for themselves. Media reportsintomation the inflation of nearly 80 per cent of the US 'flood inventory and close to half of Soviet interceptions. The supply of handbooks, a long range munitions critical for a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific, is also estimated to have fallen by 30 per cent.

The Trump administration is now seeking a $1.2bn defence budget from

Congress, as well as $7.9bn in additional supplemental funding just to address the costs of the war in Iran. Munitions funding is significant portion of this.

But while money and higher production targets look good on paper, this cannot speed up estimated delivery timelines. Even if requested funding and significant production increases

Rubber-stamping on watering levels of defence funding will not solve the problem

break through the budget statement on Capitol Hill, the replenishment of critical munitions back to pro than was for six years away.

The notion that more money, more munitions and more time will always materialise permanent policymaking in Washington to an unhealthy extent. This is evident in the very decision to move over to the Middle East. President Donald Trump chose to do this despite

stretching a stressed and limited resource environment. Moreover, he appears to be keeping further escalation on the table. False confidence only both strategic ones. It cannot improve the structure balance sheet.

The pressure on munitions is the government to deliver both a defence budget and an Iran supplemental fund, but it is September. But rubber-stamping on watering levels of defence funding is a significant problem. The Iran war has brought the structural and strategic limitations of the US military into focus, but reducing the munitions crisis to identify a negative of this conflict alone misses the forces for the term.

The fundamental issue is that the US is overcommitted to the defence of other nations and cannot materially deliver in more than one theatre of conflict, then money and better production targets without accompanying adjustment to protect American workplace. The matter another munitions crisis is future.

Congress gives its sole power over the purse, is the only branch of government

that can require and achieve guardrails on the nation's critical military resources. It should not move the defence budget or an Iran emergency supplemental forward without stimulating and expanding restrictions on US munitions strategies. From a course the US can meet and sustain its highest priority equipment that – ensuring a credible deterrence by dental approach in the Indo-Pacific, a culture of the future. At the political aisle no longer have the luxury of Iran to put off making difficult choice.

On paper, the munitions shortage process a media problem, in practice, however, it is a strategic one. The defence budget and supplemental funding in that process are apparently to point back to a path of prioritisation. However, without acceptance of both strategic limitations and higher guardrails around critical munitions,

the US is doomed to repeat the cycle again under potentially far worse conditions.

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FINANCIAL TIMES

Thursday 29 August 2024

Lex.

Christine Murray

Mexico is trying once again to break its costly addiction to cash © BUSINESS INSIGHT

Humanoid robots haven't earned their valuations

A 1-knot robots don't need to be told to calm down, increase on a more excisable bunch, so shown by the 440 per cent gain for humanoid robot maker Unitex on its market debut. The Chinese group's $50bn market capitalisation makes even 'folds, another big producer of robot potential, look cheap.

It would take a stitched increase in Unitex's robot output at current prices just to bring its enterprise value. Unitex to sales, in line with Tesla's.

Unitex cannot about $900mn in Shanghai this week. Demand among retail investors was thousands of thousands of dollars available, driven by a mix of mainstream familiarity with the Hangzhou company's trick-performing humanoid and quadruped robots, and this waning successes of other recent technology floors.

Unitex's net profits from last year selling 28,000 robots – mostly for cheaper robot dogs – will also have helped, along with a roster of Bluestone backers from Tencent to Seageluck.

Some of Unitex's rocketing price can also be attributed to Anijin's tight control of its IPO markets. Companies have raised $25bn going public in China so far this year according to 1,000, more than in all of 2023, but far short of record house years, narrowing investor opportunities.

Let even at its $6bn IPO valuation and factoring in negligible net cash, on S&P Capital IQ markets, Unitex priced at 27 times this year's sales,

Unitex's humanoid robots are used mostly in research – the Neofinans

assuming first-half figures are doubled. Its debut gains imply it is trading on a multiple 3-year life.

Gods, however, the guilty valuations and a retail investor has been, is cutting car production to make space to build its Optimus general purpose robots. A trades on 15 times 2036 forecast sales, according to S&P Capital IQ.

Elon Musk in April said he expected

Humanoid robots are currently far too pricey for industrial viability, let alone consumers

Optimus is be 'not just Tesla's biggest product ever, but probably the biggest product ever'. He said Chinese investors are not alone in their enthusiasm total addressable market forecasts for humanoid robots are huge. Morgan country analysts last year estimated three-world for nearly 5bn in use for simple tasks by 2030. A team at 100 rockers there will be 50 bnm by

that point, creating an addressable market worth up to $1.7m.

The appeal of humanoids is their potential to do more than one task, unlike most existing robots. In theory one humanoid can, say, assemble multiple different components, manage transport around a warehouse or work shelter with various items. In some point, the machines could be destroyed enough to support moving cars or manage household tasks.

Also humanoids are not about to track the dislocation. They are currently far too pricey for industrial viability, let alone consumers, and they can usually only manage a couple of hours between charges. Unitex is clear that the 1,201 humanoid robot is told last year were often used as platforms for research and development.

The company is not short of attention, this went accusing a topic it has dubbed 'happiness'. But just including investor collection is not really is truly a superhuman task.

The UK power system is stuck between a rock and a hard place

It is a familiar conundrum. One could dently note all in a direction that turns out to be wrong: is it better to pressure and try to make the best of the chosen route, or to write off the time and money and turn back?

In the UK, energy costs are high and rising, with household bills reported to hit three year peaks. International gas prices are mostly to bilans, but the structure of the market does not help.

Almost exactly a year ago, the UK reported small pricing, a market system in which electricity costs in a particular area reflect local supply and demand, in favour of a single national price. That looks increasingly misguided.

Local prices are the preferred system in much of the UK and European countries including Italy, Sweden and Norway because they provide a market signal. By depressing electricity costs in areas where there is excess renewable generation, they become too consumers to more there and new work and solar plants to stir themselves elsewhere.

By sticking to a national price, the UK in honour but that support prices would not diverge enough to make it worthwhile: plucking lots of turbines in the south rather than in woody Scotland, or for energy-intensive industry to up-sticks and move closer to the power generators. The shape of the ideal system was in essence art, and a national price would give renewable developers more certainty, lowering their cost of capital and speeding up construction.

But markets move in unexpected ways. At has created lots of potential demand that can be relatively flexible on location. Give tech entrepreneurs low enough power prices in Scotland, say, and they may well come up with solutions that shuts central planners.

The current policy does not just potentially lead to multi-optimal destinations: the route is also circulation. Renewables are being built faster than the power lines that transmit their output, so the country is setting large changes to pay for what that got easier to the north while gas fired plants kick in excess bottlenecks in the south.

Yet for all that, it is probably too late to turn back. The UK has gone a long

Off balance

way down its chosen route area, given the amounts of renewables it has bought and sited and the giant network upgrades already under way. Having to honour its commitments would reduce the benefits from switching directions. Instead, it is getting to place patches to minimize the cost of sticking with national pricing, including discounts on power prices in designated AI growth zones in renewable rock areas. But if it is too late to track the right road, the best the UK can drive progress down its existing one faster.

High-end hotels can keep lifting prices amid rise in luxury clients

As AI has misted new fortunes, a ban created a growing class of luxury consumers. Whether it's private jets, yachts, cars or cruises, companies serving wealthy travellers are reaping the benefits, high-end hotels, in particular, have attracted wealth of investment, including McKenny in loans from Sir Christopher Butler's bridge fund TCI.

It makes sense. Across the travel industry the expensive option is a subject to using the ordinary rent. Since 2019, luxury travel rates in the UK have risen almost twice as much as the total hotel market. In Europe, the UK's criminal abuse to pay cost more than the market, according to Colfax.

Higher prices translate into fairer margins. Ultra-luxury hotels are generating 63 per cent more operating

profit before property expenses per available room than in 2018, while undecade hotels are roughly 50x, says hotel analysis provider StarBots.

Investors are paying up less. On S&P Capital IQ price to earnings estimates, hotel group Hyatt – which has roughly 70 per cent of its rooms in luxury hotels, according to investors research – trades at a premium of over a third to Hilton, which has only 5 per cent of its rooms in luxury hotels. In cruises, luxury places Viking trades at almost double the multiple of mainstream operator Royal Caribbean.

Given the demand for business experiences, supply should respond, eventually sending prices. Indeed, US airlines have increased the number of premium seats much faster than economy seats. The luxury cruise segment – granted, a show of the overall cruise market – is likewise set to give capacity much faster than mainstream counterparts.

In the supply of luxury hotels is more constrained. For starters, the best of the best need to be sited in the best locations, which are naturally limited to number. And, for another, it takes a long time to get those requisite starters in. Indeed, Colfax estimates that building a luxury hotel takes roughly twice as long as the economy version.

Luxury travel services have originated one demand and constrained capacity to lift prices. In most segments, there will eventually necessitate. But hotels look best placed to make their pricing power fast. For well-off travellers, that means eye-watching issues rates may well be the new normal.

Privacy safes

HINWEI AGIA The case of the Asian cancer

CROSSWORD No 18,457 by GURNEY

ACROSS

1. Using images, sadly proclaim hate (12)
2. Find from an alternative to vegetable (7)
3. After return, no sparing for difficult colonial hate (7)
4. Research outside team is trimmed (5)
5. To natural, this possibly imitates one ultimately (5)
6. Trouble in my glance! (10)
7. Worse course after reflection (6)
8. Lean piece of end is tempting (6)
9. Difficult situation – island, extremely tense, emotional (10)
10. Part of Normal arch t cite as following no case (8)
11. Country promises finally self-ventilated, written about (5)
12. Innovative ideal! Ayres, ridles actually at the outset (7)
13. Did talk about a new art? (7)
14. Attempt to include large wager by imaginable guy – let's seen many places (12)

SCORE

1. Captivate attention of number coming up, welcoming tea (7)
2. After first-class exploit, move carefully forward: 7 necessary (1,12)
3. The man gathering papers, obscurs (4)
4. Daughter introduced to complicated dress, can with no clear aim (10)
5. Urgently need word of warning about friends! (5)
6. One quarter seems church figure, American friend is brief (7)
7. Regularly-uncased complaint with exchange of letters, explores a refusal to budge (5)
8. One year the night referring to sweetener! (5,12)
9. Discredit stressful vigilante ad, no good (10)
10. Local comment missing outside of Twitter! (8)
11. On visit for while, give information about vice (7)
12. Firm in the up in broadcast row! (7)
13. Clubs have another go at set of principles (5)
14. Leader at first taking serious action rapidly (4)

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