THE GOVERNMENT’s failure to complete the security review of Nexperia’s takeover of Newport Wafer Fab risks hurting the UK’s semiconductor industry, CEO of British semiconductor startup Paragraf told City A.M. “Not making the decision is more damaging than making the wrong decision sometimes,” boss Simon ThomasThomassaid.described the looming national security review as the “elephant in the room” as industry waits for the government to publish its national semiconductor strategy. “Every day that goes by at the moment, we are falling behind the rest of the world. Look at the rate at which they’re pushing the Chips Act in the US. They’re going hell for leather on it, and we’re not even making a decision on a single company,” Thomas said. “I cannot understand how they will make a strong strategy if they haven’t even sorted out simple things like national security decisions,” he continued. “We’ve still got this elephant in the room that we’ve still not made a decision on and that is a major part of the supply chain,” Thomas said. Westminster launched an investigation into the takeover in May using powers given by the National Security and Investment Act. Nexperia is a subsidiary of Chinese firm Wingtech Technology.
MILLIEEXCLUSIVETURNER
FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 ISSUE 3,807 CITYAM.COM FREE INSIDE CITI SHUTS UP SHOP IN RUSSIA P3 ROYAL MAIL’S POSTMAN SPAT RAMPS UP P5 WONKY VEG GIVEN A CHANCE P6 PRUDENTIAL SLIPS P8 SPORT: LUKE CHADWICK P19 LONDON’S BUSINESS NEWSPAPER WASTE OF TIME? THE GREAT GRAD DEBATE IN OUR OPINION PAGES P14 IS NOPE A YES? YOUR GUIDE TO THE BEST WEEKEND FILMS, GIGS AND THEATRE P16-17
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NICHOLAS EARL AND JACK BARNETT ONE OF the UK’s big five energy suppliers has called for a historic government intervention to avoid tens of millions of Brits plunging into fuel poverty this winter.
He called on the government to intervene in the market to protect energy users, including an expansive fourstage plan to ease energy bills. This included VAT cuts, the £400 discount for energy users pledged by former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, a deficit tariff fund from January next year and a nationwide insulation scheme.
The energy regulator will announce the level of the price cap –what providers can charge for a default tariff –for October at 7am this morning. Commaret warned that the UK has some of the least energy efficient housing stock in Europe, and highlighted that even simple measures such as loft insulation and cavity wall insulation could shave £600 off consumer energy bills. EDF is the latest supplier to back a deficit fund, with Scottish Power, Octopus Energy, EON UK and Ovo Energy also supporting the concept. This is where suppliers would freeze energy bills at their current levels for two years and take out state-backed loans from banks which would be repaid by However,customers.callsto cap bills have gained momentum due to the huge surge in wholesale energy prices, following a Russian squeeze on European gasThissupplies.nowlikely means most households will struggle to pay bills without cutting back elsewhere, with Cornwall Insight forecasting the price cap will climb above £3,500 per year from October. Gas prices climbed a fifth in just a week at the beginning of August, the Office for National Statistics said yesterdayReflectingmorning.thescale of the crisis, Wall Street firm Bank of America warned that if the government intervened in the market and held bills at their present level of around £1,900 for two years, “support would run to £125bn”, around double the cost of the furloughMeanwhile,scheme.Harbour Energy increased its share buyback programme by 50 per cent to £254m yesterday, with a cash flow of £1.2bn for the first half of the year amid soaring oil and gasBossprices.Linda Cook said “our strategy to build a global, diversified oil and gas company focused on safe and responsible operations, value creation and shareholder returns remains valid”. Harbour’s profits will inevitably restart a debate about a further windfall tax on North Sea operators. PACKAGE COULD COST £125BN
Phillipe Commaret, managing director of customers at EDF, told City A.M. the government needed to think about consumers, and that rising bills risked reaching a point where they were “not durable.”
Nexperia delay the ‘elephant in the room’ for UK chip industry’s future
FRANK DALLERES PREMIER League football clubs are flexing their financial muscle by smashing spending records in the current transfer window, according to TheDeloitte.£1.5bn spent by English topflight teams is already more than in any previous window, with a week still to go until the 1 September transfer deadline. Clubs are also on track to make more signings than ever before and double the number of deals worth £30m or more, analysis by the business advisory firm shows.
“This summer’s transfer spend has already surpassed the previous record, set in the summer 2017 window, and is far higher than last summer’s total transfer spend of £1.1bn,” said Chris Wood of Deloitte’s Sport Business Group. “The record levels of spending that we’ve seen in this summer transfer window so far provides a sign that the business models of Premier League clubs are rebounding postCovid-19,” he said.
HEY, BIG SPENDERS Premier League clubs splashing the cash
EDF ADDS TO CALLS DEFICITFORFUND
£ SHELL FINED: PAGE 4 ANALYSTS SUGGEST ENERGY
THE FINANCIAL TIMES BBC DEFENDS IMPARTIALITY AFTER MAITLIS ACCUSES IT OF ‘BOTH-SIDES-ISM’ The BBC has defended its impartiality “on every subject” after the broadcaster came under fire from Emily Maitlis, the former Newsnight presenter, for “bothsides-ism” over Brexit.
Sunak said that ministers were told to bat back questions about the side-effects of effectively shutting down the country by Number 10. “The script was not to ever acknowledge them. The script was: oh, there’s no trade-off, because doing this for our health is good for the economy,” heThesaid.potential next PM, who is currently lagging badly in polls to his rival Liz Truss, said research from JP Morgan on the Omicron variant helped the Cabinet conclude there was no need to lock down last winter. Sunak said had the side-effects been taken into more consideration, Britain could have had a “shorter, different, quicker” lockdown.
RISHI Sunak’s recounting of the toarounddecision-makinglockdownappearsconfirmmanyofour
WHAT MORNINGSAYPAPERSOTHERTHETHIS
STANDING UP FOR THE CITY THE CITY VIEW
Sunak: Putting the scientists in charge led to a longer than necessary lockdown
worst fears. It was apparent from the off, even externally, that the ‘SAGE’ scientists were running the show –even down to briefing the media on their worst case scenarios, rather than being told to stay in their box and leave it to politicians. That led to decisionmaking ‘following the science’ and ignoring other factors; the implications of which are becoming clearer every day. But unfortunately for Sunak, his account only leads to one question: why, as Chancellor, did he not push back harder against the consensus? He claims he did –frustrating fellow Cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister and the scientists in meetings behind closed doors. But as he saw SAGE and its myriad sub-bodies take over the levers of government decisionmaking, why was the Treasury’s significant muscle not applied to a similar group of economists? Why did the Chancellor –in theory the second most important person in the country –reduce his resistance to lockdowns or school closures to the occasional snipe in meetings? What Sunak may believe makes him look like the lone voice of sanity in government throughout the pandemic also makes it appear that he was at best adjacent to decision-making, rather than at the heart of it. That the Cabinet swallowed Niall ‘Professor Lockdown’ Ferguson’s excess deaths predictions is one thing; that the Chancellor did not bring the entire weight of the Treasury to bear on policy making is another. There were, to Sunak’s credit, numerous briefings against him and his ‘economic focus’ during the pandemic. But a failure to leverage his position and his department contributed in large part to the fact that the SAGE disastrists were allowed to run riot –and leave our economy heading south. It is an error that, regrettably, the rest of us are still paying for today.
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Sunak continues to trail rival Liz Truss in polling to become the next Prime Minister
CITY A.M. REPORTER RISHI Sunak has said government “shouldn’t have empowered the scientists in the way we did” at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The former Chancellor told The Spectator magazine that there was a failure to “acknowledge trade-offs from the beginning” and that lockdown’s impacts on other health services, as well as schools and the economy, were barely mentioned in the early stages of lockdown.
Earlier this week revisions to economic calculations suggested the UK shrank a record 11 per cent in 2020, worst than first feared and the largest fall in some three hundred years. Sunak also suggested in his interview with the magazine that the number of workers who have left the workforce “is a problem” and indicated that the exit of older workers from work was a trend not spotted “until it was tooSunaklate.” said he would have had a “more grown up conversation with the country” if he was in charge.
THE GUARDIAN SHELLING PLANTZAPORIZHZHIADISCONNECTSNUCLEARFROMUKRAINEGRID
THE TIMES SUE BRITAIN OVER CHANNEL SEWAGE, FRENCH TELLS EU Three French MEPs are urging the European Commission to take legal action against the UK for “dirtying” the English Channel and North Sea with sewage, claiming Britain has dropped environmental standards post-Brexit.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY?” Noemie, a bactrian camel, is given the once-over as part of London Zoo’s annual weigh-in –and doesn’t look overly thrilled by the conclusion Sunak was right –but more should have been done at the time
Fires caused by shelling cut the last remaining power line to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant yesterday, temporarily disconnecting it from Ukraine’s national grid for the first time.
Chip sale slows progress on UK industry growth
03FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 NEWS
£ HAD
The company said it should approve the sale of the country’s biggest chipmaker to build a “healthy” semiconductor industry.
The Wall Street giant had the largest presence of any US bank in Russia until 2021 JAMES SILVER AMERICAN giantCitigroup will shut up shop in Russia after failing to find buyers for its operations there.
CITYAM.COMCITYA.M.REPORTER
The bank’s boss for ‘legacy franchises’ Titi Cole said it had pursued a number of options but it was “clear that the wind-down path makes the most sense given the many complicating factors in the environment”. ing more and receiving a lower-quality service,” said Stuart McIntosh, chair of the CMA inquiry group. “The negative impact would have ultimately fallen on taxpayers at a time when they are feeling the pressure of the cost of living crisis. “Given our concerns about the merger, we have concluded that Veolia must sell most of the operations it took over in the UK when it acquired Suez. “We will now work with Veolia to ensure that appropriate buyers are found so that businesses, councils – and ultimately taxpayers – will not lose out.”
Citi to wind up Russia operation after failing to find willing buyer
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“The government is committed to supporting the UK’s semiconductor industry and is reviewing our capability and working closely with the industry so we can grow the sector and ensure greater supply chain resilience,” they added.
The government has recently been keen to be seen to flex its muscles on Chinese involvement in UK infrastructure, including booting Huawei out of the 5G network. YOUR CHIPS? 11
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Watchdog bares teeth on VeoliaSuez megadeal
The Wall Street titan had announced plans in 2021 to exit its retail business there and added its commercial side to that plan when Russia invaded Ukraine earlier this year. Having failed to find a buyer, Citi will close their operation and expects to incur around $170m (£143m) as a result of the move.
THE COMPETITION watchdog has demanded French refuse giant Veolia sell off vast chunks of the UK operations run by Suez which they picked up as part of a megamerger last year. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had already said that the merger would risk higher charges for localVeoliacouncils.agreed a deal to sell Suez UK’s assets to Aussie operation Macquarie earlier this month in an effort to make peace with theButregulator.yesterday the CMA said that further services would need to be put on the block.“Local authority budgets are already under strain, and this deal is likely to lead to them pay-
Veolia and Suez generate around £2bn and £1bn of their global revenues in the UK, around 10 per cent and seven per cent of their total annual revenues.
Toni Versluijs, UK managing director at Nexperia, told City A.M. that the government should approve the sale of the country’s biggest chipmaker to Nexperia to build a “healthy” semiconductor industry.“Itwould not be appropriate for government to provide a running commentary of the national security review,” a government spokesperson said.
Energy firm run by former Tesla exec picks up UK cleantech starlet
NICHOLAS EARL SHELL Energy’s supplier business has been fined over half a million pounds for overcharging customers on defaultOfgemtariffs.hassanctioned the energy giant’s retail arm and ordered it to refund and compensate 11,275 prepayment customer accounts it has overcharged on its default tariffs. The supplier must also pay £400,000 to the watchdog’s voluntary consumer redress fund and £30,970 in goodwill payments to affected customers, equating to a total payment of Customers£536,970.wereovercharged to the tune of £106,000, and refunds will be issued automatically to affected energy users. The average amount being refunded to affected customers is £9.40 In March 2022, Shell Energy Retail discovered that due to operational errors with the implementation of its default tariffs, it had overcharged some of its customers for periods of time between January 2019 and September 2022.
Anglo MiningPacific:keyto a greener future
ILARIA GRASSO MACOLA
FoundedMoixa.two years ago by Kunal Girotra, the US company will acquire Moixa’s software to ramp up the electrification of homes worldwide. Lunar has raised $300m (£250m) in two funding rounds led by South Korean telecoms giant SK Group and US solar panel provider Sunrun. Moixa makes smart batteries which are installed with solar panels on residential properties.
Lunar Energy raised $300m in two funding rounds led by SK Group and Sunrun
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MINING is essential for a sustainable transition to a greener future, argued Anglo Pacific Group boss Marc Lefleche in an interview yesterday. He told City A.M. investment and production of commodities such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium for electric vehicle batteries and renewable technologies such as wind turbines were essential to meeting consumer demand as economies shift from fossil fuels. Lefleche said: “There is a fundamental intersection of the global climate change objectives and the mining sector. The reality is without the supply of the raw materials and commodities like copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium, and others it’s just not going to be possible to meet global net zero targets.” The portfolio boss argued that the mining sector is producing commodities in a more sustainable way, and that it can go hand in hand with decarbonisation plans. He highlighted the company’s portfolio of nickel exposure, which sits amongst the lowest emitters of carbon per unit of nickel produced in the world.
“Lunar Energy’s hardware, paired with Gridshare software for smart charging, fleet management and optimization, will provide a complete offering to our customers and help us deliver on our mission,” said Girotra. Moixa’s ‘Gridshare’ tech is used across the UK and Japan and is regarded as one of the UK’s brightest cleantech prospects. Girotra spent five years at Tesla, pioneering products including Powerwall. Lunar was founded in 2020 but has just emerged from what it called “stealth mode”.
Ofgem slaps Shell with fine after it overcharged customers for energy
Anglo Pacific is a major player in natural resource royalties. Yesterday, it posted robust half-year results for the first six months of trading this year, with a record portfolio contribution of £78.5m powered by a commodities boom. This is 303 per cent higher than this time last year (£19.4m) and 8.4 per cent higher than the whole of 2021 (£72.43m).
Planning law shake-up crucial to reviving fracking
This follows reports, first covered in The Telegraph, that the Treasury will advise the next Prime Minister to greenlight fracking again after a three yearUKOOGmoratorium.estimates there could be as much as 3.76 trillion cubic metres of shale gas under the ground, with 10 per cent enough to help meet the country’s energy needs for the next fiveThedecades.Treasury reportedly believes fracking can help ease soaring energy bills as soon as next winter.
He said: “In other words, it’s not just a matter of supplying the goal to the battery manufacturers to produce electric vehicles (EVs). It’s also about producing that nickel in the first place with a very low carbon footprint to really magnify the benefits on the electrification trend.”
The company has shifted in recent years from coal projects and fossil fuels to more projects focusing on the transition to renewable energy and a greener future. The International Energy Agency has warned that the energy transition will significantly boost mineral demand over the next 20 years. By 2040, it estimates that mineral demand from clean energy technologies could potentially quadruple, with EVs and battery storage driving mineral growth.
“There is no larger challenge than society’s fight against climate change,” said Simon Daniel, chief executive of Moixa. “The Moixa team has pioneered and developed innovative energy optimization algorithms over the last 15 years that remain unparalleled,” said Girotra, who used to be senior director of energy operations at Tesla until February 2020.
More than 10,000 prepayment customers were overcharged by the firm NICHOLAS EARL ONE OF the UK’s leading energy bodies has warned that a revival of fracking has to be married with planning reform. UK Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG) told City A.M. this was essential for ensuring supplies can be produced at a rate to ease ultra-high energy bills over the coming years. The industry group argued that the government needs to update planning laws so that local authorities could not reject sites out of hand, or obstruct developments at key sites such as the UK’s two remaining horizontal shale wells in Lancashire, currently owned by Cuadrilla. Charles McAllister, director of policy at UKOOG, was confident if reforms were made, fracking could play a key role in meeting the UK’s energy needs and driving down bills for businesses andHeconsumers.said:“Shale gas is able to deliver more energy per acre per year than any other technology. So, it is logical that the Treasury sees its merits. The British government should act on precedent and unlock the great economic, environmental and geopolitical opportunity waiting under our feet.”
A US BATTERY start-up founded by a former Tesla boss has acquired UK operator
UK Onshore Oil and Gas believes restarting fracking could help to meet the country’s energy needs for the next five decades
NESTLE has become the latest company to give in sweets2016,Comparedthreeeverywhichinshrunkconfectioner50g.Streetofreducingskrinkflation,tothesizeitsQualitytubbyThelastthetub2019,beforeitshrunkyearforyears.totubsare20down.
Royal Mail faces national security probe as industrial action begins
Nestle
Ukraine, have also driven up the price of raw materials in limiting supplies of Russia’s major exports, including iron, wood, copper, and aluminium, to Europe and the US. The situation means existing insurance policies may increasingly fail to cover the actual costs of fulfilling claims, leaving properties underinsured in the case of either natural or man-made events.
“Those based around coastal regions, which are more exposed to extreme weather are at greatest risk,” Gilliland said.“Policyholders need to review their coverage to ensure that they will not be left underinsured should their homes and business premises suffers damage.”Risingcosts in the automobile sector, due to supply chain issues, have also driven up car insurance premiums.
Amigo reports losses ahead of trading return
FRENCH streaming platform Deezer said it lost 300,000 subscribers in the first half of the year, just as the firm begins to recover from its IPO flop. In its first set of results since it went public on the Euronext last month, the French streaming platform posted a 2.9 per cent drop in subscribers, with numbers dropping from 9.7m to 9.4m as of the end of June.Itsaid the 18 per cent drop in its subscriber count in the rest of the world came alongside a 10.7 per cent increase in its French subscriber base. Deezer’s shares plunged over 35 per cent on its market debut in July as investor anxiety sunk in about whether it could compete with the US giants Spotify and Apple Music. Despite seeing a fall in its subscriber base beyond its home market, Deezer’s overall first-half sales climbed 9.9 per cent year-onyear to €219m (£184m). The company notably lost 104,000 subscribers in the first quarter alone following its exit from the Russian market.
Subscribers down at music streamer
Hays shareholders to catch £170m windfall thanks to skills shortages
“We continue to engage positively with the FCA around our return to lending,” CEO Gary Jennison said in a statement yesterday.
Shares fell nine per cent yesterday.
LEAH MONTEBELLO
05FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 NEWSCITYAM.COMLOUISGOSS
LEAH MONTEBELLO WITH a summer of strikes on its plate, Royal Mail is now facing a national security investigation over concerns that Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky is planning to hike his stake in the company. Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told the delivery firm yesterday that he “reasonably suspects” that Kretinsky was looking to boost his 22 per cent stake to over 25 per cent via Vesa Equity Investment.
“Performance in all regions was excellent,” Cox noted, citing the firm’s ability to capitalise on “longterm structural opportunities, acute skill shortages and strong markets, supported by our ability to increase fee margins and the benefits of wage inflation”.“Ourfocus is now on leveraging the investments we have made and increasing our already strong consultant productivity,” he added.
Deezer as firm recovers from IPO flop
SOARING inflation in the construction sector threatens to create a major “insurance gap” amongst UK policyholders, London-headquartered insurer Chaucer has warned Sharp increases in the costs of building materials could leave homes and businesses underinsured, as policies fail to cover the cost of repairing and rebuilding damaged properties, research carried out by the Lloyd’s of London broker showed. Building materials costs have surged over the last year due to the impacts of the global energy price shock. According to UK government figures, the cost of cement has increased 15 per cent between June 2021 and June 2022. The cost of imported wood has also jumped 24 per cent, while the cost of structural steel has surged 46 per cent over the same period. The higher costs of building materials come as soaring global energy prices and worldwide supply chain disruptions have driven sharp increases in the price of manufacturing and transportation.Sanctionsimposed on Russia, following its decision to send troops into Soaring inflation risks creating UK ‘insurance gap’
“This is the next step in our recovery, ahead of a proposed capital raise and would enable a new start for the business having taken on board the learnings from the past.”
QUALITY OVER QUANTITY? shrinks Quality Street tubs by 50g amid rising costs
The move would in turn trigger an investigation under the National Security and Investment Act. Kretinsky is a major investor in West Ham United and also holds a stake in Meanwhile,Sainsbury’s.Royal Mail is today facing the biggest strike of the summer, with 115,000 postal workers joining the ‘summer of discontent’ in a series of walkouts in a bid for a “dignified, proper pay rise”. Members of the Communication Workers Union will take further action next Thursday as well as on 8 and 9 September.
Royal Mail and the Communication Worker Union have been in talks for four months Deezer’s shares tanked over 35 per cent on its market debut in July
Chance Gilliland, head of global property delegated authorities at Chaucer said that rapid inflation in building costs risked “creating an insurancePolicyholdersgap”. with properties most vulnerable to natural catastrophes, such as storms or floods, are most at risk of being underinsured.
MILLIE TURNER HAYS is planning to return nearly £170m in dividends to its shareholders, as the FTSE 250 recruitment giant benefits from ongoing skills shortages. Chief executive Alistair Cox said yesterday that the firm plans to dish out some £47.3m in core dividends, and a special dividend of £121.2m, rewarding shareholders with “significant cash” worth £168.5m. The group has capitalised on “acute skills shortages”, which have allowed the firm to hike its fees.
Fees in the UK and Ireland have risen 31 per cent in the 12-months to 30 June, driven by booming interest in the private and temp sectors, while they have hit a record in Hay’s largest business in Germany. The company’s revenue grew by a third, surpassing £1.1bn over the past year, while operating profit also surged nearly 130 per cent, jumping from £95.1m to a little over £210m, despite inflationary pressures. The company’s shares closed up 1.87 per cent.
MILLIE TURNER AMIGO’s customer base has halved over the past year, despite promises it will return to lending by February and undergo a capital raise. The beleaguered lender, which stopped lending in 2020 in order to deal with mis-selling complaints, recorded a revenue of £10.4m in the three months to June, down 70 per cent year-on-year, it revealed yesterday.Subject to consent by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Amigo will return to the market with a revised guarantor loan and an unsecured non-guarantor loan product. The new products will be released under the Rewardrate brand, in what the business has called “a new start”.
The capital raise, which requires shareholder approval and must cover a minimum £15m contribution to Amigo’s compensation scheme, must be completed by next May to allow the company to return to trading. Supervisors from audit giant PwC will publish a report on Amigo’s progress in early September.
LEAH MONTEBELLO SPREADEX was yesterday slapped with a £1.36m fine by the gambling watchdog after it found a number of customer failings. The investigation by the Gambling Commission found that the sports and financial spread betting platform neglected to provide effective financial alerts, which would stop customers from losing significant amounts of money. One customer was able to deposit £1.7m on Spreadex and lose £500,000 in just one month, whilst another paid out £365,000 and lost £284,000 within three months. For anti-money laundering failures, the commission revealed that one Spreadex punter had been met with a £25,000 financial deposit alert, but was allowed to increase the alert for further review to £100,000. Spreadex will now pay the money to socially responsible causes as part of a settlement with the Gambling Commission.
MILLIE TURNER
Lidl chief executive Ryan McDonnell said the company would not be labelling items as drought-affected, stating that this created a “false market”. Meanwhile, the more upmarket retailer Waitrose has said it will use the difficult climate for farmers as an opportunity to bolster its ‘A Little Less Than Perfect’ range over the coming months.Itsaidit will also be diverting millions of units of crooked carrots and other seasonal veg into its own label lines including soups and smoothies.
Love Hemp, which sells cannabinoid oils, has been the subject of an AQSE probe tions,” John Hardy, head of FX strategy at Saxo Bank, said. “There is some chance that the Powell speech focuses a bit more energy on quantitative tightening as an important factor from here rather than super-size rate hikes, which would be an interesting test for the bond market,” he added.
Just last week the regulator whacked the betting shop giant Entain with a record £17m fine for its own “completely unacceptable” antimoney laundering and social responsibility failures. The watchdog said the Ladbrokes owner repeatedly failed to protect problematic gamblers from betting huge sums in their shops and online casinos. The news comes as the betting industry continues to brace itself for the gambling white paper, which has been shelved until autumn.
Gambling watchdog slaps Spreadex with £1.36m fine over punter failings
Anthony Joshua-backed Love Hemp shares delisted in fundraise qualm
LEAH MONTEBELLO
Inflation storm looms large over central bankers
JACK BARNETT THE GLOBAL central banking elite are convening at the US Jackson Hole resort with a bleak inflation backdrop looming over the annual event for the first time in decades. Chiefs of the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England will deliver remarks that will be closely watched by investors for clues on how quickly they will hike rates in the coming months. Top of the event’s bill is Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s speech today. Investors are watching Powell for indications of whether the doves or hawks are in charge at the Fed. Wall Street’s rate hike expectations had cooled after a series of new data indicated stateside inflation may have peaked. The US’s consumer price index dropped to 8.5 per cent last month, a steeper fall than analysts’ wereHowever,expecting.Fed officials have reaffirmed their commitment to squeezing inflation with more rate rises, reigniting investors’ expectations for the world’s most influential central bank to keep tightening policy rapidly. Powell’s speech “may not bring much new to the table, relative to expecta-
PLAYSTATION-FLATION Gaming giant Sony hikes Playstation 5 prices in the UK
You wonk believe it: Lidl and Waitrose welcome misshapen fruit and vegetables
SONY yesterday said it would be upping the price of its Playstation 5 due to inflationary pressures. The company said the hikes would not impact the US, but would mean UK gamers will need to pay an extra £30 for the console.
SHARES in cannabis products firm Love Hemp have been suspended over a fundraising issue, which has seen the company hit with a £100,000 fine. The Anthony Joshua-backed firm has been delisted from the London Acquis Stock Exchange (AQSE), the company announced yesterday. It follows an investigation by AQSE, in response to the resignation of its corporatePeterhouseadvisor.resigned as Love Hemp’s corporate advisor after an investor in the company’s February raise failed to complete their £1.2m investment. According to AQSE, the firm failed to update the market on the investor’s lack of payment on the due date.
The world’s most influential central bank has started selling assets it hoovered up during the pandemic, putting upward pressure on yields on US government debt. Bond prices and yields move inversely. However, consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics said Powell will “emphasise that the Fed wants to move rates above neutral but that the pace of the tightening is data-dependent. He likely will note that the July inflation numbers were encouraging but that the battle is not yet won.” London investors will be watching governor Andrew Bailey’s speech to see whether another 50 basis point rate hike is coming on September 15. Bank of America said yesterday the BoE may have to launch a 75 basis point rate hike in November, the biggest since 1989, if the expected energy bill package fuels inflation.
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Love Hemp, which sells cannabinoid oils, has agreed to pay the settlement early, allowing it to fork out just £70,000 for the levy in total. Chairman Graham Mullis said: “I am pleased the company has been able to resolve the situation with AQSE and look forward to appointing a new corporate advisor and lifting the trading suspension shortly.”
The National Farmers Union called on supermarkets to start accepting more “wonky” products, which may have before been previously deemed unacceptable for sale.
BOTH Waitrose and Lidl said yesterday they would be relaxing size and shape guidelines for fruit and vegetables following drought-like conditions forSupermarketfarmers. suppliers have been battered by the recent hot and dry weather, lowering yields and causing misshapen growth for fruit and veg.
The agreement was signed yesterday by Grant Shapps and his Ukranian counterpart ILARIA GRASSO MACOLA
07FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 NEWSCITYAM.COM
WINDS of change are blowing in Wizz Air’s boardroom with the low-cost carrier yesterday appointing nonexecutive director Stephen Johnson to the role of deputy chair. On the same day, chief executive Jozsef Varadi told Reuters Wizz was considering a Saudi operating licence. The airline also announced the creation of a safety, security and operational compliance committee to oversee policies and practices as the carrier plots its expansion.
“As Wizz Air continues to grow, establishes new AOCs and adds more bases and aircraft in Europe and beyond, the addition of the new safety, security and operational compliance committee will reinforce the group’s strong safety culture and enhance oversight of the group’s expansion plans,” Franke said in a statement issued yesterday.
A TURNAROUND specialist who has previously led rejigs of Tie Rack and Jigsaw is fronting a consortium to buy Paperchase, it has been reported. Steve Curtis, an operating partner at Rcapital, is expected to be confirmed as the greeting cards retailer’s new owner by the end of the week, according to reporting by Sky News’ Mark Kleinman. The firm was battered by Covid-19 lockdowns and has been on the block for around 18 months since a prepack administration during the second UK-wide lockdown. Curtis is believed to back plans to expand the store’s physical presence from around 100 stories to 150 over the coming years. A source close to the firm told Kleinman that revenue is forecast to double between 2021 and 2024 and that the company had seen healthy digital growth over the past year. Permira Credit has owned the business since the administration in January 2021 and is the selling shareholder in the deal.
UK pledges to support Ukraine to rebuild war-damaged infrastructure
Figures revealed that British Airways (BA) had cut the highest number of flights at 380, followed by Flybe with 130, and Easyjet with 90. The legacy carrier had a difficult summer, plagued by travel chaos and the threat of strike action. BA was forced to cancel 20 per cent of its summer schedule to guarantee a smoother run of operations amid labour shortages and soaring demand. Following Heathrow’s decision to extend its daily passenger cap, BA also cut around 10,000 flights from its winter schedule.
The news comes on the heels of Wizz Air’s chief financial officer Jourik Hooghe stepping down earlier this week. Hooghe left the carrier to pursue “opportunities outside the company” and will be replaced by Ian Malin, chief commercial officer at aviation supplier Unical. The airline is hoping to reverse its fortunes after it posted a quarterly loss of €285m (£240m) due to increased fuel costs and a slump in load factor.
900 flights axed over Bank Holiday weekend
THE UK government has pledged to help Ukraine rebuild its wardamaged transport network by sharing private sector expertise. The agreement was signed by transport secretary Grant Shapps and its Ukrainian counterpart Oleksandr Kubrakov yesterday, a day after the country’s independence day and six months since the Russian invasion.
ILARIA GRASSO
JAMES SILVER
Prime Minister Boris Johnson made an impromptu visit to Kyiv to show support on the day. According to the plan, UK experts will work alongside Kyiv’s Ministry of Infrastructure, offering their knowhow about reconstructioninfrastructureaswellasidentifying training opportunities for aviation staff.Ukraine will also receive a £10m support package for the country’s railwayAnnouncedsystem.by Johnson during the G7 summit, the funding will help buy tunnel repair equipment as well as over 120 shipping containers to mobilise Ukrainian grain trains.
The greeting cards retailer is believed to be looking to expand into more physical sites despite the economic climate
Skyrocketing fuel prices saw the budget airline post a quarterly €285m loss
Johnson, who took on the role on 26 July, will deputise for chairman William Franke when he is away while maintaining his role as American Airlines’ executive vice president.
Wizz Air: Winds of change as nonexec director made deputy chair MACOLA
Pocketbooks out for Paperchase
ILARIA GRASSO MACOLA AROUND 900 flights for the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend have been cut from flight schedules since July. While on 1 July there were 14,030 UK flights with an estimated 2.4m planned for 26 to 30 August, new data released by aviation analytics firm Cirium shows those numbers dropped 6.4 per cent. Services for the extended weekend are also 21 per cent below 2019Accordinglevels. to Francesco Ragni, professor of aviation at Buckinghamshire New University, the staggering number of cuts is testament to the impact of this summer’s operational issues.
“These numbers demonstrate the economic damage caused by operational issues such as labour shortages,” he told City A.M. “Cutting 900 flights means leaving up to 100,000 people on the ground in one of the busiest weekends of the year.” “This will certainly lead to a significant loss of potential revenue.”
JAMES SILVER
FEARSFOR BEERS TICS P16 ES TO THOF LONDON P Energy bossesrallyrounddfii CARBON DIOXIDE SHORTAGE SET TO HIT DRINKS MANUFACTURERS The UK appears
Peloton needs time to get fit, says CEO
The 174-year-old firm, first founded in London but later transformed into an east Asia-focused life insurance business, posted sharp drops in its new business’ profits over the first half of 2022, due to the impacts of China’s zero-Covid policy. In its most recent results, the insurer claims fast-paced population growth –which is set to see Asia’s population increase by 1.5bn by 2030 –paired with low levels of insurance coverage across the continent will drive growth in the long term.
The insurer has faced calls from activist investment fund Third Point to split itself in two, with a view to freeing up its more valuable AsianHowever,business.Prudential warned of “challenging” market conditions over the coming year, despite signs the impacts of Covid-19 are beginning to Thestabilise.firm’s new CEO, Anil Wadhwani, will take the reins in February of next year as the firm looks to bounce back.
Prudential shares continue to slip as stringent Covid policies harm profits
Wadhwani will join the Pru from Manulife’s Asian branch, and reside in Hong Kong
JAMES SILVER PELOTON chief Barry McCarthy yesterday urged investors for more time to turn around the lockdown darling after it reported a sixth-straight quarterly loss. The home-exercise firm grew dramatically during Covid-19 lockdowns but has found the post-pandemic period more challenging. Shares are down 90 per cent since this time last year as fitness addicts have returned to the gym and running paths.
LOUIS GOSS SHARES in Asia-focused insurer Prudential continued to slip yesterday as investors maintained their scepticism towards the firm’s claims that its recent losses are simply the result of Covid-19. The London listed firm’s shares have lost more than 30 per cent of their value since the start of 2022, as stringent Covid-19 policies across Asia have hammered Prudential’s new business.
“This raisesseriousconcernsthesustainablesupplyof tothebrewingand industry,” told A.M.,City urgingthegovernmenttoensure“reliable”supplies.governmentspokespersonsaid“sincelastautumn,the...market’sresiliencehadimproved”butofficialswereexaminingoptionstoincrease suppliesoverthelongerFertilisers theywillbeabletomeet ammonia andtherebenodisruptiontofertilisersupply.set for another carbon dioxide shortage
LloyddrumCitybuildandlargplaLolapUS CFFertilisersyesterdayannouncedtheywerehaltingproductionammonia theirTeessidefactoryinsteadimportingthegasfromUnitedCarbondioxideisproducedas by-productofammoniaproduction,andCFFertilisersare oftheUK’s everythingfrommedicalkittocraftandCFprovides significantamountofUK’soverallsupply.Lastyear,CFFertilisersreceivedshort-termbailoutfrom UKgovernment continue productionammoniadespitehighenergycosts.So-called‘foodgrade’CO2 tocarbonatewaterandalcoholicdrinks,dispense inpubs, animalsbeforeslaughterandcruciallytokeep understandsthatthegovernmentisconfidenttherewillsufficient cover nationalinfrastructuredemand,such thatrequiredfortherunningofnuclearpowerplantsand medicalsupplychain, thatother includingdrinkmanufacturersmayexperiencesomeLastshortages.nightEmmaMcClarkin,chiefexecutive British andPubAssociation,said“thetimingofthisnews
McCarthy took over in February as part of a wider restructuring plan, with a host of layoffs already undertaken. Wall Street was spooked as revenue forecasts came in well under estimates. Peloton is one of a number of ‘stay at home’ stocks which have fallen out of favour as the world returns to a version of normal. Shares in Zoom, the video-conferencing technology, have fallen 75 per cent since last summer. They now sit just six per cent over where they were in the spring of 2019.
THERE will be no repeat of a taxpayer-backed financial package to shore up the country’s carbon dioxide supplies, City A.M. understands. Ammonia producer CF Fertilisers announced Wednesday it would be halting production of the fertiliser at its Teesside plant due to too-high energy costs. Carbon dioxide is produced as a by-product of that process and CF’s decision to shut has created doubts about the UK’s supply of the gas, used in everything from medical supplies to dispensing beer in Lastpubs.night government sources suggested there would be no financial package to encourage CF to restart production, as occurred last autumn in similar circumstances. Government sources estimate other sources will only provide around 50 to 60 per cent of UK demand. British Beer and Pub Association boss Emma McClarkin told City A.M. it was imperative a solution was found with pubs already facing rising costs.
No taxpayer bailout for fertiliser firm as industry braces for CO2 shortage
CITYAM.COM08 FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022NEWS
chief executive Samuel Moody said the firm was “delighted” with the result, adding that the decision will have “very positive financial implications for Rockhopper”. Its case against Italy was financed by a specialist litigation funder, which took a 20 per cent cut of the settlement.
Germany to set up crimewhite-collarauthority
CITYAM.COM10 FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022LOUISNEWSGOSS
GERMANY has set out plans to create a new federal financial crime authority with a view to strengthening the country’s response to sanction breaches and white-collar crime. The plans will see Germany’s finance ministry combine the country’s more than 300 financial crime agencies into a new federal agency.
Italy banned oil and gas exploration off the coast of Abruzzo in Southern Italy following a campaign against the firm’s drilling plans
Rockhopper paid £160m after Italy blocked drilling
Germany’s finance minister Christian Lindner said: “Germany must no longer have the reputation of a moneylaundering paradise.” “We have the courage to make a big splash: with efficient and effective structures, we will ensure that honest merchants are protected from those who do not follow the rules.”
Germany said it will also look to train a new cohort of “highly qualified financial investigators” to work at the authority.
LOUIS GOSS THE ITALIAN government has been ordered to pay €190m (£160m) to British oil and gas company Rockhopper Exploration over its decision to block the firm from drilling in the Adriatic Sea.
An arbitration hearing ruled that Italy’s 2015 decision to block the Wiltshire fossil fuel company from drilling off its coastline contravened the international Energy Charter Treaty (ECT).
The country blocked Rockhopper’s plans to build an oil rig off the coast of Adrazzo in Southern Italy, in line with a wider ban on all oil and gas exploration within five miles of Italy’s coast. First signed in 1994, the ECT sets out an international framework for crossborder cooperation in the energy sector, including procedures for settling disputes industry investors and ECT membersAlthoughstates.Italy officially withdrew from the ECT in 2016, the terms of the treaty let states and investors file claims against Italy until 2036, under a 20-year sunsetRockhopperclause.
The efforts will also see Germany digitalise its registers of beneficial ownership and combine them onto a single platform to boost the effectiveness of the streamlined body’s response to white-collar crime.
The proposals come following a series of high-profile fraud cases, including the multi-billion-euro Wirecard scandal, which also undermined the reputation of Germany’s financial watchdog, known as Bafin. Recent allegations of fraud against Berlin property firm Adler, which the firm denies, also heightened concerns about the efficacy of Germany’s financial regulators, after KPMG refused to sign off on the firm’s accounts inThisApril.month the Financial Action Task Force warned Germany, as the EU’s largest economy, faces “significant money laundering and terrorist financing risks”.
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T HE UK is in urgent need of a strategy to bolster its semiconductor industry. Maintaining a steady supply of semiconductors will be critical to the electric vehicle transition and rollout of 5G infrastructure.
ONE DOOR TO KNOCK ON Industry chiefs are also calling for one point of contact for firms with queries about the country’s chip sector.
If the strategy is done right, the benefits could be huge. A solid blueprint for industry’s future could create numerous high productivity jobs “at a time when a lot of people are thinking about the next steps for the economy,” said Pullen. Thomas added it is feasible the UK could net significant inward investment from companies that want to diversify away from China and Taiwan as geopolitical tensions escalate. Done wrong, the UK risks losing the industry it has. Paragraf CEO Thomas revealed earlier this year that he had been approached by an American governmental body trying to lure his business to relocate stateside.
If Britain’s eagerly anticipated semiconductor strategy is done right, the benefits could be huge. Done wrong, and the UK risks losing what industry it has left, argues Millie Turner
TIME IS RUNNING OUT While there are several critical points that the strategy must get right, it needs to be published soon.
11FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 NEWSCITYAM.COM
Paragraf chief executive Simon Thomas (left) and Nexperia’s UK managing director Toni Versluijis (right)
David Harold, chief marketing officer at UK semiconductor design firm Imagination Technologies, said that he hopes to see expanded R&D tax credits to tempt firms to operate in the UK.
How did Taiwan and Korea get that lead? They invested heavily.
“It has to be this year,” Pullen told “Because if you look at what other countries are doing, they have their strategies ready and they’re moving into the investment phase.”
The US Chips Act, passed earlier this month, includes $52bn (£43bn) worth of support for any semiconductor businesses operating in the US. The EU Chip Act, launched in February, hosts around $49bn worth of investment into the sector. And China dwarfs them both, boasting over $130bn worth of state and private funds to be issued out between 2020 and 2025. The UK, on the other hand, is desperately lacking inward investment in its semiconductor industry, from both state and private sector. UK industry bosses are hoping for a clear and unambiguous plan for the semiconductor sector, which will clarify key questions such as whether the country will look to become a semiconductor-manufacturing hub or expand its already successful niche of chipButdesign.theindustry will only be able to attract private investment once the roadmap becomes clear. Investment will be the primary driver to competing on the global stage, said Tim Pullen, chief financial officer at British semiconductor company IQE, as other governments look to lure businesses with subsidies and other attractive“Howincentives.didTaiwan, Korea etc, get that lead? They invested heavily,” Pullen told City A.M. “Our hope is that the UK government will do the same for our industry… The only way you play seriously is when you have seriously largescale facilities.” The UK doesn’t even need to match the level of investment seen in the US and Europe, bosses argue. But any investment must be targeted in the areas the UK has an advantage in, such as compound semiconductor design, rather than silicon-based chips, which other countries, such as the US and Taiwan, already have a lead in.
A government spokesperson saidthe strategy will be published “later this year”, adding that it was “working closely with the industry so we can grow the sector and ensure greater supply chain resilience”.
The long-awaited strategy is expected to be published this autumn, although it may well be pushed back. While the UK government has been dragging its heels, other countries, most notably the US, Europe, China, Korea and Taiwan, are much further ahead, having heavily invested in their respective chip makers.
“Most people who know me, know how passionate I am about growing a UK business,” Thomas noted, before cautioning that if the environment in the UK fails to improve, then his company will be “left with no other choice” but to explore other options overseas.Ifthestrategy falls through on clarity, investment and other incentives, the government can ultimately expect to “scare away” activities already in the UK, Versluijs said. “If those conditions are not met, then the UK semiconductor activities will gradually fade away.”
Simon Thomas, chief executive of British graphene-based semiconductor startup Paragraf, said that the number of government entities currently involved in decisions regarding the semiconductor industry is “confusing,” with both the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy responsible for overseeing the sector.Hesaid the government should create a “targeted board of advisers to specifically deal with the semiconductor questions.”ToniVersluijs, UK managing director at Nexperia, also told City A.M. that the industry needs one person or group to contact, “so both parties know of each other, what’s cooking, what’s required” and do away with the current “fragmented” approach.
CAN UK CHIP A WAY IN TO SEMICONDUCTOR LEAD?
ANNOUNCEMENTS LEGAL AND PUBLIC NOTICES
China is widely believed to be engaging in widespread human rights abuses against a Muslim minority in its Xinjiang Province
NOVARTIS plans to spin off its generics unit Sandoz to sharpen its focus on its patented prescription medicines, the Swiss group said yesterday, acknowledging it had not received any offers for the business to date. The company started a strategic review of Sandoz last Octoberexamining a range of options, including retaining the business, spinning it off or selling it –following a protracted period of underperformance driven largely by mounting pricing pressures in the offpatent drug sector. Novartis has not received any formal binding offers for Sandoz so far –but if any “highly attractive” bids did emerge Novartis would fully consider them, CEO Vas Narasimhan told a media briefing yesterday. However, “the most likely case –in all scenarios –is that we will see through a spin,” he said.
Novartis looks at spinning out generics unit SILKE KOLTROWITZ
The report has been in the works for three years and promised for months but has not been published for unclear reasons.
ReutersReuters
CITYAM.COM12 FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022NEWS
CEO Alan Joyce’s positive remarks came despite the airline posting a £1.1bn loss last year. However, the airline’s chief financial officer warned that a combination of supply issues and fuel costs would hamper the industry and Qantas’ recovery.
Although Novartis had reportedly received interest from private equity buyers, the spin-off announcement will not come as a surprise, given it was seen as a likely outcome due to poor market conditions and the struggling broader market for generics, analysts said. Narasimhan said the market for generics was “highly attractive” going forward, citing $400bn to $500bn of branded products expected to go offpatent over the coming decade.
“We are trying very hard to do what I promised,” Bachelet said, referring to a pledge to release the report before the end of her term on AugustAsked31.to elaborate on why it has not been released, Bachelet said she needed time to integrate new information from her visit and to review input on the report’s contents fromRightsChina.groups have accused Beijing of abuses against Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10m in the western region of Xinjiang, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps. The United States has accused China of genocide. China has vigorously denied the allegations.Reutersreported last month that China had asked Bachelet to bury the report, according to a Chinese letter that was confirmed by diplomats. Bachelet confirmed yesterday having received that letter, adding that her office would not respond to such pressure.
UN rights chief in ‘soft on China’ storm
Totalenergies under fire over report of links to Russian jets
Clement Beaune, who said he did not have enough information to take sides on the matter, was the first French government official to comment on the allegations which could undermine President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to push for peace in Ukraine.
Totalenergies pulled out of Russia more slowly than other western oil firms
“This is an extremely serious subject, so it needs to be verified whether, voluntarily or involuntarily, there has been a bypass of either the sanctions or the energy that a company, French or other, has produced,” Beaune said.
Vanessa Hudson said domestic fares would need to increase 10 per cent and international fares 20 per cent in order to cover higher fuel prices this year.
THE UN human rights chief yesterday said she is still aiming to release a long-anticipated report on China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority in Xinjiang by the end of her four-year mandate next week amid “tremendous pressure” from allButsides.the lack of a firm commitment by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet in her final press conference stoked further criticism from civil society groups who have accused her of being too soft on China since a May visit.
The airline said international travel demand is exceeding 2019 levels but supply remains limited due to partner airports. Qantas also announced a surprise share buyback of just north of £200m, sending shares northward yesterday.
Aussie and Kiwi carriers start to enjoy a recovery
“We always knew travel demand would recover strongly but the speed and scale of that recovery has been exceptional,” Joyce said. The upbeat tone was matched by Qantas’ Kiwi rival across the Tasman Sea.
Air New Zealand’s chief financial officer Richard Thomson said the airline had seen a “significant improvement in profitability” but that “it’s very hard to give assurances that we can get back to profitability” due to rising fuelBosscosts.Greg Foran said the airline had seen a significant uptick in international travel demand and would soon be launching a direct flight between Auckland and New York. The carrier reported a loss of £381m last year, with international travel only restarting to New Zealand in February.
GV DE CLERCQ THE FRENCH transport minister yesterday said a report that French oil major Totalenergies was involved in supplying jet fuel to the Russian military via a joint venture raised an “extremely serious” issue that demanded clarification.
Le Monde newspaper reported on Wednesday that Totalenergies was involved in supplying gas condensate to make jet fuel that might have been used by Russian warplanes in Ukraine, via the French firm’s stake in a venture with Russia’s Novatek.
CITY A.M. REPORTER THE “EXISTENTIAL” threat posed by Covid-19 appears to be over, the boss of Aussie airline Qantas said yesterday. The carrier has been battered over the past two years by some of the world’s most aggressive travel restrictions.
CITY A.M. REPORTER
Investors hold fire until central bankers give rate hike
PERSHING BNY Mellon’s Pershing, a financial business solutions provider, has appointed an ex-London Stock Exchange Group manager as the new chief executive officer of its Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) business. Cécile Nagel, currently the boss of the trade body European Central Counterparty, will become a member of Pershing’s global executive committee and lead the EMEA management team through its next phase of growth.Joining the company in London in October, subject to customary regulatory approvals, Nagel is also hoped to unlock opportunities for Pershing in the UK, Channel Islands and Ireland. Following a competitive selection process, we have chosen a high-quality industry professional who shares our vision for growth,” Pershing CEO Jim Crowley said. “Cécile has a demonstrable track record of leading successful, technology-enabled businesses and their people to deliver outstanding client service.” a lot riding on US Fed chair
Best
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CHESTERTONS London’s oldest estate agency Chestertons has recruited a fresh head of sales to oversee the firm’s 31 branches. Matthew Thompson, who launched his career at Foxtons, brings over 15 years’ experience in London’s property markets. The incoming head joins from Keller Williams, which he moved to last year following a stint at Douglas and Gordon.
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13FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 MARKETS
CITY MOVES WHO’S SWITCHING JOBS
NORTHERN TRUST Financial services and investment firm Northern Trust has bolstered its asset servicing business development division with a former Blackrock senior consultant in its LondonBenjaminoffice.Bobroff is set to join the digital solutions consulting team, alongside Laura Ghaemian who will also be based in the capital, as well as Pamela Clifford and Donald Marden who will be based in the US. “Pamela, Donald and Laura, under Ben’s leadership, bring a wealth of experience and expertise to support organizations as they look to boost decision-making, business resiliency and oversight through the use of data, advanced analytics and technology solutions,” president of the asset servicing division, Pete Cherecwich said.
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Unlocking cash from ailing businesses has been Melrose’s track record for over a decade now, prompting Peel Hunt analysts to recommend buying the firm’s shares. Since May 2005, it has generated a 19 per cent annual return on equity investments. Its model has held up well through economic downturns. The City’s consensus forecast for its first half profits are just over £160m. appear in of the Brokers,
RUSS MOULD, AJ BELL
Increased supply from a more efficient mine will keep Hochschild Mining’s bottom insulated from higher costs, according to broker Peel Hunt. The Peruvian miner’s share price has collapsed nearly 50 per cent so far this year, underperforming other big commodity producers that have been boosted by elevated metals and energy prices. Peel Hunt recommends buying the stock, though.
MELROSE INDUSTRIES Wall Street’s rate hike expectations had been rolled back by a series of new data indicating inflation across the pond is cooling. The US’s consumer price index dropped to 8.5 per cent last month, a steeper fall than analysts’ were However,expecting.Fed officials have reaffirmed their commitment to squeezing inflation with more rate rises, reigniting London, US and European investors’ expectations for the world’s most influential central bank to keep tightening policy rapidly.
CITYAM.COMLONDON BEST OF THE BROKERS
ONDON’s FTSE 100 struggled for direction yesterday driven by investors seemingly holding positions until central bankers signal at Jackson Hole how firm they will be with taming inflation. The capital’s premier index added 0.11 per cent to reach 7,479.74 per cent, while the domestically-focused midcap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, fell 0.25 per cent to 19,257.87 per cent. The annual summit of the world’s top central bankers in the US state of Wyoming kicked off last night. It is the first Jackson Hole symposium in decades in which monetary authorities are responding to soaring inflation. Investors are second-guessing how hawkish or dovish US Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell will be in his centrepiece speech today.
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FTSE 100-listed retailers JD Sports and Ocado lost over 2.3 per cent, mainly driven by investors betting consumers will pull back spending in response to inflation. The energy regulator Ofgem will today announce the new energy price cap for October. The pound rose against the dollar.
Roughly half the world’s population relies on fertiliser use for their food supplies
Y OU always knew you had reached an intellectual dead end when foreign policy grandees sat around a table and recommended sanctions as an all-purpose answer to any problem.Whilesuch an initiative almost never practically worked in terms of changing the policy of the offending country, it made political sense in a Washington sort of way. The beauty of such an outcome is that countries that enact sanctions are seen to be “doing something” about an important foreign policy problem while at the same time not doing enough to risk an escalation of the crisis. However, more often than not, it led to unintended consequences that made the sanctions cure worse than the original disease. Alarmingly, a recent example of this doleful pattern is brewing. The prospects of a food crisis, as a result of Western sanctions on those companies connected to the agribusiness and fertiliser industry, could unwittingly damage the fragile global ecosystem. Such a crunch is increasingly likely, primarily caused by skyrocketing prices for fertilisers previously supplied from Russia and Belarus. For the past three generations, mineral fertiliser has played a decisive role in alleviating global famine. According to the UN, since 1960, global food production has skyrocketed by 211 percent. The clear reason for this is the industrialization of ammonia production, the game-changer in terms of the world feeding itself. Today, roughly half of the world’s population (48 per cent) depends on fertiliser use. There is no getting away from its importance, or from the fact that at present Russia and Belarus are both key players in the global fertiliser market, with a combined share of 16 percent of global production of mineral fertilisers and 22 percent of their export. Globally, 2 billion people depend on the import of fertilisers, with the two sanctioned states feeding a substantial 450 million of this number in 2019.
HulsmanJohn
H UNDREDS of thousands of students will walk into university campuses for the first time next month. They have been sold a dream about intellectual nourishment, greater life opportunities, and a step up into a professional career. In practice, most will spend much more time down at the pub than in class. Universities have expanded in recent decades under the guise of building a modern high-skill economy. The proportion of graduates in the working age population has risen from 17 per cent to 42 per cent between 1992 and 2021. And indeed, the median graduate receives an annual salary premium of £10,000 compared to non-graduates. Yet not all is so rosy. The value of a degree has dropped as more people have one. The Higher Education Statistics Agency, in a 2021 report, found that graduates born in 1970 benefited from a 17 per cent wage premium by age 26. By comparison, graduates born in 1990 had a benefit of only 10 per cent – and just 3 per cent for those who pass with a lower second or below grade. It's also not clear that the graduates who earn more do so because the university imparts valuable knowledge. It is equally possible that universities are largely a sorting process; that is, by picking the top students from schools and giving them further examination, universities signal who is the most intelligent and diligent to employers rather than providing meaningful skills. Thus, universities act as glorified human resources departments.TheBritish generalist model demonstrates this phenomenon. Many bankers, consultants and politicians studied subjects like classics and go on to barely use anything they learned in their day-to-day work. Or, to put it differently, how much of all that knowledge from exam cramming can you remember, let alone is useful to yourEconomistjob?
Former Newsnight host Emily Maitlis has sparked a fresh war over the BBC this week. She accused the broadcaster of bowing to pressure from No10 and ‘Conservativehaving agent’, Robbie Gibb on its board. One top Beeb boss, Charlotte Moore was‘nothereclaimedyesterdaywasway’ittrue
£ John Hulsman is a columnist at City A.M. and a foreign policy expert
CITYAM.COM14 FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022
Bryan Caplan, in The Case Against Education, highlights research that demonstrates the graduate salary premium falls by more than half after controlling for IQ test scores, school results, teacher ranking, family background and location and measures of conscientiousness and conformity. Caplan also finds that the wage premium is much higher for those who complete their degrees compared to those who do one less year (known as the “sheepskin effect”) – indicating that the fact of having a degree, rather than the education you receive in those years, is what matters. He even points to evidence that most graduates do not have improved critical analysis skills and are incapable of transferring learned concepts into new settings. That is not to say that everything you learn at university is useless; there’s clearly underlying knowledge necessary to be a doctor or a chemical engineer, and maybe even concepts from a statistics course can come back in handy in the workplace. But the idea universities significantly improve human capital is suspect. There may be other positives from a university education – like broader intellectual horizons, building networks and a few years of partying before entering the workforce. It is also rational, at an individual level, to go to university, so you too can signal your ability. But these benefits should be balanced against the associated debt and lost earning potential, along with the need to consider alternatives like on-the-job learning,vocational education and apprenticeships.“Incollege,philosophy majors study if the glass is half full or if the glass half empty,” comedian Jay Leno says “See, this prepares them for careers later as waiters.”
A global food crisis could spell a bigger catastrophe than Vladimir Putin’s war
EDITEDOPINIONBYSASCHA O’SULLIVAN
£ Matthew Lesh is head of public policy at the Institute of Economic Affairs
BEEB YOURSELF
Let’s be honest, spending three years at university is a waste of time for too many LeshMatthew
OPINION
The EU’s feel-good sanctions have already heavily affected the global supply of mineral fertilisers, but the trade off is unclear. In Ukraine, the war wages on. One example will suffice. Eurochem, headquartered in Switzerland and founded by Russian businessman Andrey Melnichenko, is the world’s second largest mineral fertiliser company by sales. European sanctions have hit the company at almost every conceivable level, in terms of finance, sales, logistics, production, and procurement, decimating this vital conduit for food production. As a result, the company has been forced to close two critical fertiliser plants in Belgium and Lithuania, which stands to hurt the neediest people in the world. In fact, so far sanctions have led to a decrease in Russian fertiliser exports of 34 per cent in the first three months since their imposition, sufficient to feed 134 million people on an annual basis. And this is just the beginning. Overall, due to EU sanctions, more than 20 per cent of the global fertiliser trade is under threat, potentially affecting an astounding 750 million people.Ofcourse, there is a distinct geopolitical component to such folly. Limiting the fertiliser supply could lead to the threat of crop failures and famine in the most fragile countries in the tottering Middle East and North Africa, with catastrophic consequences for Europe itself. Refugees could then well flood across the Mediterranean, leading to further political radicalization in an already shaky southern Europe. As for North Africa, anarchy and chaos worse than the 2011 Arab Spring could easily take place in faminestricken countries if the food crisis gathers pace. Radical Islamists under the banner of jihad are well trained in using hardship to buoy themselves to power - a nightmare scenario for Europe and the world. Beyond the horrendous human suffering, Europe may well come to reap the whirlwind of its sanctions-happy folly. What should the UK do about all this? First, the new government should encourage its European partners (and to do so itself) to look specifically at every sanctions plank and package from the commonsense realist notion of whether it helps or hinders global stability. Sanctions are neither always useful nor always disastrous. In the case of indirectly sanctioning the mineral fertiliser industry, London should strongly encourage Brussels to look at fertiliser and food security as a humanitarian issue and remove such strictures from imperiling the global food ecosystem.Nooneis doubting that the Putin regime must be checked, or that some specific sanctions on Moscow are absolutely necessary. The question is one of policy, of how to do this in the most effective way, one which will not leave millions of people in danger of starvation.
St Magnus House, 3 Lower Thames Street, London, EC3R 6HD Tel: 020 3201 8900 Email: news@cityam.com Printed by Iliffe Print Cambridge Ltd., Winship Road, Milton, Cambridge, CB24 6PP Our terms and conditions for external contributors can be viewed cityam.com/terms-conditionsatDistribution helpline If you have any comments about the distribution of City A.M. please ring 0203 201 8900, or email distribution@cityam.com Editorial Editor Andy Silvester | News Editor Ben Lucas Comment & Features Editor Sascha O’Sullivan Lifestyle Editor Steve Dinneen | Sports Editor Frank Dalleres Creative Director Billy Breton | Digital Editor Michiel Willems Commercial Sales Director Jeremy Slattery 15FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 OPINIONCITYAM.COM E NERGY prices are rising to record levels, and households are understandably worried about how they’re going to pay their energy bills. Some opponents of the net zero target have used this as an opportunity to blame green policies for an increase in global energy prices, despite it being clear that high gas prices are the main issue. They argue that we can only reach net zero by drastically changing how we live our lives and spending huge amounts of money. But the truth is quite different. Yes, there is a role for people to change their behaviour, for example using more public transport. But much of it will come from an adoption of new technologies, which can make our lives better, not worse. When the new prime minister takes office in September, this is the positive and practical vision for net zero they need to paint. Rather than requiring people to overhaul their way of life, as much as two-thirds of the emissions cuts we need will come from sectors such as energy and transport, according to analysis from Onward. These companies will have to invest in new, clean technologies like renewables and electric vans and lorries. Recently, the price of new technology such as offshore wind, solar and batteries has plummeted, demonstrating that a cleaner option can also be a cheaper option.Individuals do have a big part to play. We will all be responsible for around a third of future emissions cuts. But these changes aren’t just about walking and cycling, flying less or eating a vegan diet. Many of the net zero sceptics claim our personal lives would need to be upended in order to reach our ambitions. It’s true, individual behaviour changes like these would make a difference, but the main contribution we can make is through the adoption of things like electric vehicles and heat pumps. In terms of regulatory change to encourage take up, the government should invest in projects like public charging networks across the UK so electric vehicles are practical for those in flats and terraced streets as well as those with driveways and home chargers.Withenergy bills reaching astronomical heights, it’s a difficult time to sell net zero, especially when it has taken on unfair ideological baggage of simply being “too expensive”. The next prime minister should put forward practical and cost-effective ideas that won’t hurt people's finances. This should include initiatives like a stamp duty rebate for those who retrofit their homes within two years of moving in, or creating tax-efficient savings schemes for green technologies like heat pumps. There will be a daunting in-tray of problems for the next occupant of No10. Dealing with the most immediate problems must take precedent, but they must also embrace practical ideas for net zero. If they don’t, they risk breaking a promise made at the last election and throughout Boris Johnson’s premiership. This is a political risk. We’ve seen a similar battle play out in Australia, where a centre-right party lost an election after refusing to push forward with climate action. The same risk applies here in the UK, with swing voters saying they are much less likely to back those who hit the breaks on net zero, according to Onward polling. It could cost the Conservatives 1.3 million votes, and it could cost us, as individuals, much more in the future.
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BirkettEd
Katy Wigdahl, Speechmatics till 01/07/2022 will all aboutbutemissionsresponsiblebeforcuts,thisisn’tjustgoingvegan
£ Ed Birkett is head of energy and climate at Onward, a think tank
Giving up on net zero could cost the Tories an election AT: cityam.com/opinion
All those traffic queues LA is famous for will soon be stacked full of Teslas. Well, not quite but California is set to ban the sale of any new cars which aren’t electric or hybrid by 2035. The UK will ban new petrol or diesel cars from 2030.
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CALIFORNIA DREAMIN The US state is set to ban all new gas cars by 2035
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Scale-up our scale-up visas Certified Distribution from 30/5/2022
[Re: From crypto to talent, smarter rules for the City will help an economic recovery, yesterday] There has been a lot of discussion about scale-ups laying off staff due to market turbulence and over-hype over the last couple of years. Whilst this is the case for some, for many of us, we have significant growth journeys ahead and a high-quality talent pipeline is critical to that growth. The new Scale-Up Visa goes some way to reducing the blockers we have experienced since Brexit but the gap between available talent and demand is still immeasurable. This is a great first step but I look forward to seeing more from the government as for the UK to keep and grow its place on the international innovation stage it is going to take much more than this.
“The actors did those types of gradients and climbs and inverts and all those hard pulls all the time, every day, sometimes twice a day. That’s absolutely what they were doing.”
Three months of intense training –
Aerial coordinator Kevin LaRosa was in charge of conducting the fine symphony of the shoots. His job has three elements: helping actors fly, act while flying, and, well, touch back down again alive. “When we were getting started, Tom said to the crew ‘We’re at a disadvantage because we need [this film] to reach a level of cinematic perfection that’s never been obtained before,’” says LaRosa. “The night before the mission, that’s what resonated with me most. How are we going to make this amazingThirty-six?” years after the original Top Gun, Cruise has called Maverick “a love letter to aviation.” Filmed at real US navy bases and using actual F-14 Tomcat jets capable of hitting 2,485
Mostly Top Gun Maverick’s legacy, at least in LaRosa’s view, is to inspire other filmmakers to step outside more often and use “real” environments to film in rather than relying on computer generated imagery. “CGI is great when used properly, but when we can use real practical stunts, I think people like seeing that.” There’s just one final pressing question, the answer to which is probably as unbelievable as those hairbrained stunts. What on Earth did the insurance cost to send Cruise hurtling through the air? LaRosa normally gives me lengthy answers but on this topic he’s tight-lipped. “That’d be above my pay grade,” he says, smiling.
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Top Gun: Maverick is available to stream and own on digital devices now
EDITED BY STEVE DINNEEN @steve_dinneen Main: Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Mavericks; Cruise working with the cast; Cruise’s aerial coordinator Kevin LaRosa
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GOING OUT
LaRosa worked with naval coordinator Ryan Ferguson to help them act as they flew: “Ryan would give the actors tips on what a fighter pilot would be doing at any particular time, and I would give tips on where an eye line might be in formation somewhere.”
km/h, every flying scene featuring an actor in a plane is actually that actor flying. It’s entirely, staggeringly real, and it’s obvious when watching the film. Aerial scenes have a visceral quality, like you’re actually there as planes perform tricks and spin in formation, with 80 per cent of the screen the brilliant blue of the sky, the other 20, the actor’s face warped by G-force. Flying in planes loaned by the US Department of Defence, some reportedly for $11,000 an hour, the actors didn’t actually pilot the jets, but sat behind military pilots. Most of their job was to try to act without barfing, due to the g-force, which frequently hit the upper limit of 7.5G. To give some idea of the intensity, during an early test run Cruise actually threw up, and he’s had his pilot licence since the mid-90s. In LaRosa’s words, his biggest challenge was “pushing us right to the very edge of where we didn’t compromise safety so we could come back with the best product possible.”
Top Gun: Maverick has ascended like a graceful jet to become the sixth highest grossing film in US history. Quite some doing given it was only released three months ago. A mixture of cynicism and wonder drove people back to the cinema. The promise of Tom Cruise flying in real fighter jets at hundreds of miles per hour, trying to act while under the influence of 7.5Gs is tempting even to those who rarely watch films. On paper the stunts sound frankly unbelievable: it’s fair to say that nothing like this has ever been filmed before. We’ve all read about the baffling, pioneering technology, from placing IMAX cameras inside real fighter jets to the Cinejet tech developed especially for the film to get fully stabilised in-flight shots for the first time. But how did it actually feel to take to the sky in pursuit of an Oscar nomination? (One’s not yet come in, but is highly tipped.)
FLYING WITH TOM CRUISE IN TOP GUN: MAVERICK
There are bonus features available on the digital copy, now available in the UK, galvanising some of the 800 hours of leftover aerial footage. But with all that left over, what about another movie? There haven’t been conversations yet according to LaRosa but he hints he’d be keen. “I don’t know how it’d be applied. Absolutely, if there’s a project to be had in the future, I think the world would take kindly to that.”
Despite having a “prep hard, shoot easy” outlook, it was essential to allow spontaneity and the ability to change and adapt shoots. As LaRosa puts it: “To let yourself, as a filmmaker and a creative person, be out there in the elements, flying, open the window of creativity.”Couldit have actually been Cruise flying during the epic, much-hyped final scene when –not to give much away –the planes looked almost as if they were traversing upwards at 90 degrees, skirting a mountainside of jagged coffee-coloured rocks with actors subjected to “hard pulls” which made them experience the 7.5G force? LaRosa laughs at the suggestion Cruise was subbed out for a stunt man during these scenes, or that they could have been CGI: “They took the F-18 to its maximum structural limit,” he says.
“lots of preparation mentally, tons of briefs” –made these shots possible. When they were ready to film, fixed cameras around the aircraft captured actors in their new roles as pilots.
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LIZ KINGSMAN With her one woman show called... One Woman Show, Liz Kingsman marks herself out as one of the most talented comics working today. It’s loosely a parody of the trauma memoirs of 20something women like Little Scratch or Fleabag but the comedy is entirely inward facing and the delivery is second to none. If you see one show this weekend, make it this one.
17FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 LIFE&STYLECITYAM.COM
L et’s tackle the elephant –or should that be the lion? –in the room. The concept of new Idris Elba film Beast is flatly ridiculous. It features a deadly serious scene in which Elba fights a lion with his bare hands. It’s about a man-munching lion skulking around Africa tearing limbs off locals as aperitifs before the main course: will it nosh on Nate Samuels, the doctor character played byWhetherElba? or not you enjoy Beast depends on whether or not you can suspend your disbelief enough to get on board with the absurd story. The fact this film takes itself seriously will be jarring for purists who might have expected Beast to be a B-movie the likes of Snakes On A Plane, but I found myself wanting to scream: “Bring me more of these motherfucking lions!” Elba, of course, is good, as is the chemistry between him and his two daughters, played by Jess and Sarah. You buy into the grief they’re going through in light of the mother character passing from cancer, especially with nuanced writing by xx in the establishing parts that actually feel lifted from real tense family arguments. In a particularly effective scene set during a dinner soon after the family land in South Africa, when the kids can’t help but blow up in front of family friend Martin, a local anti-poacher played by Sharlto Copley. Copley is great as the long-haired white dude with verbal diarrhoea about The Big Five who drives around in his Land Rover gesticulating at deer, rhino and, you’ve guessed it, lions. And - not to give too much away - he’s pretty good at playing the guy who’s whimpering in fear in front of a salivating big cat. Elsewhere there’s an admirable reference to Jurassic Park, giving Beast slight B-movie credentials, with one of the daughter characters wearing a vintage 90s t-shirt with the JP branding on the front. There are some hammy, not very scary, lion moments, but mostly, Beast is actually like a contemporary Jurassic Park, with tense parts, scary parts and, perhaps surprisingly, and definitely commendably, a decent story.Inreal life, poaching of lions has increased over the past few years, and with all poaching, there is a conversation around the morality of poaching and being an anti-poacher, the type of person that goes around in pursuit of poachers to try and stop them.
PENELOPE CRUZ SHINES IN BITING MOVIELAND SATIRE
Flitting effortlessly from surreal jokes about having pandas for hands to recounting genuinely devastating anecdotes about gender, sexuality, bullying and his relationship with his father, Paul Currie is my surprise favourite of the Fringe. This is the comedian you’ll go home telling your friends they need to watch before he becomes a massive star.
Some will reject the whole idea in the first place, but I say feed them to the lions.
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A real-life anti-poacher was the subject of another recent film, Where The Crawdads Sing, so the conversation is having a moment, and Beast is progressive in humanising the poachers, who are typically from lower socio-economic backgrounds and often poaching to survive. Things start to drag towards the end. I don’t know how many more times I could stomach Elba leaning through a car window whispering “trust me” to his daughters before disappearing in pursuit of the bloody thing, there are a few too many cycles of near miss attacks, and close-up shots of the eventually beleaguered animal are rich in CGI but not a whole lot else, making it at times hard to buy into the seriousness the story purports to. But Beast is ultimately entertaining in all the right ways, while gently threading in a worthwhile message.
O ne thing Hollywood loves to celebrate is itself. There are numerous movies of the highs, lows, and in-betweens of the American film industry, but not as many that focus on European cinema. New comedy Official Competition puts prestige cinema in the spotlight, and comes up with a winner. Set in Spain, an elderly millionaire (José Luis Gómez) tries to soften his legacy by financing a film that will be guaranteed to win awards. He buys the rights to a Nobel prize winning book, and hires maverick filmmaker Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz) to direct, who in turn casts beloved actors Félix River and Iván Torres (Antonio Banderas and Oscar Martínez) in the leads. Despite the promising company, egos and eccentricity threaten to derail the production before a single scene is shot. Industry comedies that are full of injokes can be tedious, so it’s a relief that this film chooses to mock rather than congratulate. The pomposity of the artistic process is exposed in moments such as a scene where Lola makes her stars act a scene underneath a dangling boulder, or Banderas’ covering his co-star in spit during his vocal warm ups. Just when you think things are taking a dark turn, one of the characters is on hand to remind you that this is a world of narcissism, where nothing is a disaster as long as the lighting is right. Martínez gives a clever performance as Iván, the thespian who pretends to not be interested in awards but secretly resents his colleague’s acclaim. In contrast to his artsy turn in Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory, Banderas is all surface as a beloved A-lister whose sincerity is as fake as his oncamera tears. The film belongs to Cruz, however, brilliantly skewering the invasive methods of the auteur, who uses borderline abusive techniques in the name of innovation. The trio’s contrast of bravado and vulnerability keeps things interesting until the hilarious climactic twist. While not on the level of Robert Altman’s The Player, Official Competition is an observant send up of the self-importance of the festival circuit. Cinema buffs may squirm at the derision, but few can deny the accuracy of this caricature. DUPRAT, MARIANO COHN BY JAMES LUXFORD
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IDRIS ELBA FIGHTS THE JAWS OF LIONS WITH HIS BARE HANDS AND IT’S GOOD, ACTUALLY
T he stale genre of costume dramas has been given a boost in recent times by productions that have opted for a more diverse approach in casting. Amando Iannucci’s David Copperfield and Netflix smash hit Bridgerton have all the hallmarks of the classic tales, but with stars that revive character tropes with a different approach, and who represent a wider audience than in previous generations. Here, a spectacular cast brings to life Suzanne Allain’s 2009 novel Mr Malcolm’s List. Set in 19th Century England, Sope Dirisu plays Mr Malcolm, an eligible bachelor who is yet to find a suitable match due to high standards for relationships. After being slighted by Malcolm, Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) discovers he has a list of requirements that all potential wives must meet. Infuriated, she hatches a plan of revenge involving the sweet natured Selina Dalton (Frieda Pinto). While lacking the racy nature of Bridgerton, the plot is standard fare for those who love Jane Austen-like misadventures. The script is funny, if not entirely surprising, and fits in with the witty games of one-upmanship we’ve seen on screen in recent years (such as Whit Stillman’s 2016 comedy Love and Friendship). Where the film excels is its cast, who seem perfectly matched for their roles. Diversity for the sake of it can be counterproductive, but here director Emily Holly Jones has found the right actor for each role, not just the poshest. Ashton is delightfully acidic as the antagonist, while Dirisu does a great job of revealing vast insecurities beneath the Mr Darcy-like stiffness. Pinto glides through the self-involved crowd with a performance that is sincere without being dull, a hard balance to strike in comedy. Mr Malcolm’s List may be a by-thenumbers period piece, but the story it tells is entertaining enough to check the boxes of any fans of the genre. BY JAMES LUXFORD
EDITOR’S PICKS: LAST WEEK AT THE ED FRINGE
Football Fun Factory is about enjoying the journey and learning life lessons in sport without the be all and end all being becoming a professional.“We want to change the way that children are coached. There’s a huge amount of fantastic work in grassroots football and some not so good work around coaches, their own ego and winning an under-eights’ tournament when in reality it doesn’t matter a jot at that age.”
Frank Dalleres WHEN Luke Chadwick joined Manchester United as a shy teenager it was not the culture of excellence so much as the welcoming environment that Sir Alex Ferguson had cultivated which made the biggest impression.United’slegendary manager favoured the personal touch, as Chadwick found before a trial match. “Sir Alex came into the dressing room and introduced himself to everyone. I was from a little village down in Cambridge and was thinking ‘this is absolutely crazy’,” he tells City A.M. “He took an interest in the whole of the club. When I was a first-team player in the canteen there was a group of under-10 academy players and the manager came in and knew every one of their names. It was an incredible gift that he had and built a dynasty.”
TORMENT Chadwick, who also played for West Ham United and Stoke City, returned to prominence early in the pandemic when he accidentally became a spokesperson for mental health causes.
Chadwick, who made his debut for United when Ferguson’s team were the European champions and played alongside the likes of David Beckham, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, admits that he lost his way for a while after hanging Cambridge United but found that he didn’t enjoy that side of the professional game, nor who he became.
WE NEED TO LETLOVEFALLCHILDRENINWITHFOOTBALLINTERVIEW nowtv.com £
It is that welcoming environment and emphasis on inclusion that Chadwick is trying to replicate in his postplaying career as a director of Football FunTheFactory.Premier League-winning former midfielder, 41, identifies and recruits coaches for the company, which uses inflatable pitches and goals in football sessions for children aged from two to 12 where enjoyment is prioritised above improving“Inskills.most countries we’re putting too much emphasis on development without fully falling in love with the game first,” says Chadwick. “When kids are at a club from eight or nine years old they can get to 13 or 14 and it feels like a job to some of them. Maybe the destination becomes more important than the journey, which is a backward way of looking at it. “In reality, less than one per cent of these children will go on to become professional footballers.
Drawing on the personal torment he had felt at cruel jibes about his appearance as a young player at Manchester United, he used social media to encourage anyone struggling in a world darkened by Covid-19 to talk. “I was just saying ‘don’t do what I did, don’t keep it inside; if you are struggling, find a way of talking about it because it does take massive weight off your shoulders,” he says. “It got way more attention than I thought it would. I wouldn’t call myself an advocate or anything but the response I got was really positive and helping other people was a fantastic thing that I never expected.”
19FRIDAY 26 AUGUST 2022 SPORTCITYAM.COM Ex-Man Utd star Luke Chadwick is out to coaching,transformhetells
“I couldn’t stand the sound of my own voice, moaning at people, shouting at the referee. It didn’t seem like there was enough enjoyment,” he says. Chadwick heard about Football Fun Factory and signed up as a head coach. Eighteen months ago he joined founders James Cutting and Jonny Martin on the board as the business began got a hell of a lot of work to do but having that massive goal will drive us on. “I really struggled at the end of my career. I wasn’t the footballer that everyone knew me as, so now what am I going to do? “I went down the coaching path but didn’t find the joy I thought I would. But I’m really engaged with what I’m doing now with the Football Fun Factory and really enjoying being part of its growth.”
MURRAY TIPS UP THE BRITS
View the kit: www.castore.com/collections/amc
WIEGMAN NAMED UEFA COACH OF THE YEAR £ Victorious Lionesses boss Sarina Wiegman was yesterday announced as the Uefa Women’s Coach of the Year following her success in the Women’s Euro 2022. The Dutch boss guided England to their first major tournament trophy since the men’s team won the 1966 World Cup. Wiegman saw off Lyon manager Sonia Bompastor and Germany’s Martina Voss-Tecklenburg.
A NDY Murray has backed defending champion Emma Raducanu and British men’s No1 Cameron Norrie to flourish at the US Open, which starts on Monday. Raducanu, 19, has struggled to live up to her incredible Grand Slam triumph 12 months ago but has shown signs of a return to form, beating former major winners Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka in Cincinnati last week.
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GROUPS REVEALED £ Last year’s Champions League finalists Liverpool have drawn Ajax, Napoli and Rangers in their group. Tottenham Hotspur have drawn Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt, Sporting Lisbon and Marseille. Elsewhere Chelsea will face AC Milan, Salzburg and Dinamo Zagreb while Manchester City are set to play Sevilla, Dortmund and Copenhagen.
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BALLANCE APOLOGISES FOR USE OF RACIST SLUR £ Former Test cricketer Gary Ballance has apologised for racial language he used against Azeem Rafiq. Rafiq, who has spearheaded calls for cricket to look into discriminatory behaviour and language, accepted the apology, adding: “All I ever wanted was acceptance and apologies.”
the heat and humidity is a positive for him and the ball bouncing and jumping a lot can help certain parts of his game.”Murray, meanwhile, has undergone tests in an attempt to banish bouts of cramp that have plagued him in recent matches in time for the US Open.
Jimmy Anderson took three wickets on the first day of his 100th home Test yesterday at Old Trafford as England bowled South Africa out for 151 before closing the day at the crease on 111-3. Anderson’s three wickets included two in two balls while Stuart Broad, Ben Stokes, Jack Leach and Ollie Robinson – on his return to the side – all helped restrict the Proteas to a below par score. Despite Alex Lees falling early, fellow opener Zak Crawly batted out the rest of the day at the crease, scoring 17. Elsewhere Nick Pope contributed 23 runs while Jonny Bairstow begins today not out on 38 runs.
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100 UP England in good position as Anderson takes three wickets in centenary home Test
“Physically I feel pretty good but the cramping the last few weeks has been frustrating. I’m trying to get to the bottom of that,” he said. “It’s not as simple as just changing how much I drink or what I’m drinking. There’s probably a little bit more to it, so I need to get some answers.” The 35-year-old, who won the first of his three Grand Slams at the US Open 10 years ago, is also searching for a run or form having won back-to-back matches just once since June. Murray said the solution was to “probably just trust in my game a little bit more”. He added: “At times I’ve done it and at times I haven’t. It’s just not been consistent enough and consistency is what matters over the course of the year.” The world No49 also hailed sometime mixed doubles partner Serena Williams as the 23-time Grand Slam winner prepares for her swansong at the US “She’llOpen.godown as the greatest female player of all time, in my opinion,” he said. “She’s had an impact on lots of the players but she’s had an impact far bigger outside of the sport as well.” Murray played down hopes that Williams could go deep at her final tournament, however. “She’s hardly played in the last few years, really, so expectations on her should be very low,” he said. “I do think the celebration of her career and what she’s achieved should be really really high.”
Andy Murray is wearing The Drive Collection from his signature AMC range at this year’s US Open, created to deliver a new standard in tennis performance clothing.
Frank Dalleres
LUKE CHADWICK Ex-United star who is out to change children’s coaching RADUCANU’S RUN TO US OPEN DEFENCE DECIDED £ Reigning US Open champion Emma Raducanu could face a quarter-final against fourth seed Paula Badosa after her potential run to a title defence was revealed yesterday –she will face Alize Cornet in the opening round. Elsewhere British men’s No1 Cameron Norrie starts against Benoit Paire and could face Rafael Nadal in the last eight while Andy Murray begins his title charge against Francisco Cerundolo.
“I think she played really well last week,” said Murray. “I think the balls that they use over here help. They’re a lot lighter – that allows her to get a little bit more on her shots and serve, and she seemed like she enjoyed the conditions last week. I’d imagine with them being quick here as well in New York that she’ll enjoy them. I’d her expect her to play well next week.” Murray believes playing in the States could also suit world No9 Norrie, who won the biggest title of his career at Indian Wells last year, tipping the Wimbledon semi-finalist to benefit from Novak Djokovic’s absence from the US Open at Flushing Meadows. “I think it’s definitely more open this year,” he said. “I’d imagine that some of the guys that you’d expect to go deep will do, like [Daniil] Medvedev, Rafa [Nadal], [Carlos] Alcaraz, [Stefanos] Tsitsipas. “But I do think there is going to be an opportunity there for Cam. He’s been very consistent against the guys ranked beneath him for the most part this year. I think he probably prefers the court slightly slower, but certainly
Former atandconfidentchampionRaducanuNorriewillshineUSOpen,writes
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