Thursday 13 July 2023

LONDON’S BUSINESS

WOMEN’S ASHES ALIVE ENGLAND BEAT AUSTRALIA TO DRAW SERIES LEVEL P28

SORRY

SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD

FORMER REGULATOR CHIEF AND NOW THAMES WATER BOSS REFUSES TO APOLOGISE FOR SECTOR FAILINGS

OFWAT’s former boss refused to apologise yesterday for allowing the water industry to rack up an eye-watering £65bn of debt, which has led to Thames Water’s desperate scramble to secure funds and avoid collapse.

“I won’t apologise for my role at Ofwat, no,” Cathryn Ross (pictured) said, during yesterday’s grilling with MPs when Labour MP Darren Jones scrutinised her record.

As chief executive of Ofwat for four years between 2013 and 2017, Ross signed off the watchdog’s price review in 2014, which enabled former Thames Water owner Macquarie to hike Thames Water’s debts from £3bn to £10bn before later selling the supplier.

She is now interim co-chief executive of Thames Water, following the trou-

UXBRIDGE HEADS TO THE POLLS THE BORIS BYELECTION P9

PRIMED Zelensky hits back at UK’s ‘We’re not Amazon’ comment

bled company’s boardroom exodus and pressing financial difficulties – which has seen the UK’s largest supplier scramble to secure £750m in funds from stakeholders as it struggles beneath a £14bn debt pile.

Ross also confirmed households will be on the hook for improvements to Thames Water’s creaking infrastructure and poor operational performance, with customers footing the bill for billions of pounds of investment needed to tackle sewage spills, wastewater flows and leaking pipelines.

“It is an unfortunate truth that the only source of ultimate funding for that in the current model is the customer,” Ross said.

Water suppliers are pushing for hikes in customer bills of up to 40 per cent to fund their improvement plans, as they struggle with the present

challenges of debt and poor infrastructure, and the future issues of climate change and population growth which will weigh on supply and demand.

Ofwat is currently working on the 2024 price review, which will set price controls for water and sewerage companies for 2025 to 2030.

Exposing the crisis water suppliers are facing, Ofwat chief executive David Black refused to rule out the potential nationalisation of Thames Water – confirming they had made contingency plans to place the supplier in a special administration regime if the firm buckles under its debts.

However, Black played down the prospect of any imminent breakdown for Thames Water, and expected a special administration regime “won’t be needed”. The watchdog is now confident Thames Water’s £4.4bn liquidity position and recent £750m reprieve from shareholders will ensure the supplier stays afloat.

UKRAINIAN President Vlodymyr

Zelensky told the British defence secretary to tell him “how he would like us to be grateful” after a testy end to this week’s NATO summit.

Ben Wallace told reporters that western countries were “not Amazon” and that Ukraine could do a better job of winning over sceptical politicians, particularly in the US.

Rishi Sunak distanced himself from Wallace’s remarks, saying Zelensky

had consistently shown “gratitude” for the UK’s support with armaments in the war against the Kremlin. Zelensky had already expressed exasperation with NATO leaders for failing to put a timeline on Ukraine’s accession to the defensive alliance. However, yesterday he welcomed “signals” from NATO leadership, including secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, that the country would be able to join the group –which guarantees mutual defence –in due course.

HS2 boss quits £660,000 role as train-less network goes looking yet again

GUY TAYLOR

HS2’s longest serving chief executive has announced his resignation from the project amid ongoing criticism over soaring costs and delay.

Mark Thurston will depart at the end of September after six and a half years at the helm, stating yesterday that “someone else should lead the

organisation and programme through what will be another defining period for HS2”.

Sir John Thompson, HS2 Ltd’ chair, will fill in as interim CEO as the search begins for a successor.

The departure comes as HS2 Ltd, the firm overseeing the project, and the Department for Transport (DfT) grapple with mounting costs of the

rail route.

HS2’s price tag has risen from £33bn ten years ago to upwards of £100bn, with the project also undergoing a significant reduction in scope. Its initial opening date of 2026 has also been pushed back to between 2029 and 2033.

The Euston section of the project – which involved plans to build an 11 platform station – has come under particular scrutiny in recent months after being paused in March, with MPs describing its initial £2.6bn budget as “completely unrealistic”.

Last week, an investigation from the Public Accounts Committee concluded that the Euston project’s “floundering” leadership had failed to be transparent about its cost.

Transport secretary Mark Harper said “the government remains committed to unlocking all the benefits of this flagship infrastructure scheme”.

JAMES SILVER

NICHOLAS EARL

STANDING UP FOR THE CITY

Truss got her timing wrong, but the UK must now plan for growth

SO, WOULD Liz Truss’ plans for growth have worked out in the long term? That was what she argued yesterday at the launch of her “growth commission”, a gathering of global economists all of whom share the view, broadly, that growth isn’t where we need it to be to face the challenge of an aging western population. In the abstract there is some merit to Truss’ argument; but in reality, markets had their say about the

THE CITY VIEW

timing, as we all recall.

Fighting last year’s war won’t do much for either Truss or Britain, but starting work on a long-term strategy for long-term growth is no bad thing. Both Rishi Sunak’s cabinet and Sir Keir’s advisors could do with more of it. The fear

is that the small state ship may have sailed.

In the States, Joe Biden’s splurge on green infrastructure has provided a Keynesian spark to the economy not seen since the days of FDR and the New Deal. That has forced the hand of European rivals, with the EU developing their own version. The UK appears to be lagging. The answer, perhaps, may be somewhere in between Truss’ small state utopia and state-

ON YOUR BARKS, GET SET Woofs joined woops yesterday at the Tour de France as spectators gathered to watch the 11th stage of the 110th edition of the cycling race

backed innovation. Specifically, if the government could speed up approvals, build infrastructure faster and row in behind private enterprise, we may have the best of both worlds. Britain’s state is inefficient; our planning system on everything from energy hookups to housing is a mess. Any growth commission for the UK should start there; Britain’s industrial strategy should be to get out the way, and speed up where it absolutely has to be involved.

WHAT THE

THE FINANCIAL TIMES

SUNAK POISED TO BACK SIX PER CENT PAY RISE FOR PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS

Rishi Sunak is today expected to back pay rises of about six per cent for public sector workers in 2023-24, but only after ministers were ordered to find significant savings from their Whitehall budgets.

THE GUARDIAN HORNSEA FOUR OFFSHORE WINDFARM FINALLY GIVEN GREEN LIGHT

One of the UK’s largest planned offshore windfarms will move ahead after the government gave the green light to a giant project off the Yorkshire coast after a five-month delay.

THE TIMES

HOUSE SALES TUMBLE TO SLOWEST RATE IN A DECADE

Property is selling at its slowest rate for a decade as buyers hit by rising mortgage interest rates balk at the demand of sellers, according to estate agency Hamptons, whose figures show it is taking home sellers on average 19 days longer to receive an offer than a year ago.

US inflation slips to lowest level in over two years

JACK BARNETT

INFLATION in the US has slumped to its lowest level in more than two years and is now far below the UK’s rate, official figures out yesterday revealed.

American inflation fell to three per cent in June on an annual basis, down from four per cent in the previous month, according to the US Labour Department.

Core inflation – which strips out volatile food and energy prices –dropped to 4.8 per cent. Both measures came in lower than Wall Street’s expectations.

Rapidly declining energy costs, down 16.7 per cent over the last year caused

by international oil and gas prices scaling lower after they were jolted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, led headline inflation lower.

US treasuries sold off rapidly on the news. The yield on the two-year government bond, which is highly sensitive to interest rate expectations, dropped 11 basis points to 4.76 per cent. Yields and prices move inversely.

The Wall Street Journal US dollar index – which measures the greenback against a basket of rich nation countries – dropped 0.66 per cent.

Price increases have fallen dramatically in the US since inflation reached a peak of more than nine per cent last summer in stark contrast to the

UK INFLATION REMAINS STUBBORNLY HIGH

UK’s experience.

British inflation peaked at just over 11.1 per cent last October and has been more resistant to downward pressures. It is stuck at 8.7 per cent, while services and core inflation is running at more than seven per cent. UK headline inflation is the highest in the G7.

UK and European inflation has been primarily driven by supply-side shocks, while US inflation has been engineered by rampant consumer spending and strong labour demand. Despite the consumer price index falling to its lowest level in over two years, analysts still think the Federal Reserve will resume raising interest rates at its meeting later this month.

OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING

UK banks proven ‘resilient’ after BoE stress test

CHRIS DORRELL

THE UK’s largest lenders have passed the Bank of England’s stress tests with flying colours, even as concerns grow around the health of the mortgage market.

In its latest stress test, the Bank of England concluded that banks were “resilient”, enabling them to withstand persistently higher inflation and a deep global recession.

“The UK banking system has the capacity to support households and businesses through a period of higher interest rates, even if economic and financial conditions were to be substantially worse than expected,” the Bank of England said.

Lenders started the stress test with improved asset quality and higher deposit balances than in 2019, the last cyclical stress test. This meant that banks had to use less capital in order to get through the test even though the stressed sce-

nario was broadly similar.

Banks’ capital ratios remain well above the required capital rate in the stress, falling from an aggregate start-point CET1 ratio of 14.2 per cent to a low point of 10.8 per cent. The CET1 ratio is a measure of a bank’s financial strength.

“By far the most striking thing about the stress test is the fact that the capital drawdown of capital is really quite a lot smaller than last time we ran a test on this scale,” Sam Woods, head of the Prudential Regulation Authority said. No individual bank was required to strengthen its capital position as a result of the test. The Bank noted that the resilience of lenders relies partly on their ability to cut dividends and bonuses.

“All banks were safely above the hurdle rates for CET1 and leverage ratio. However, there is a clear warning to investors that in the event of a severe stress, banks would reign in distributions,” Peter Rothwell, head of banking at KPMG said.

Corporate debt swells to hit record £6 trillion

CHARLIE CONCHIE

THE DEBT pile sitting under global corporates has swelled to record levels in the past year, new research has revealed.

Companies around the world took on some $456bn of net new debt in the financial year to March, pushing the outstanding total pile to a record $7.8tn, according to the annual Janus Henderson Corporate Debt Index.

The Bank of England’s 13 consecutive rate hikes have been bad news for estate agents

Winkworth issues profit warning as rate hikes prove challenging

LAURA MCGUIRE

ESTATE agent Winkworth was yesterday forced to issue a profit warning due to soaring interest rates and a fresh slump in mortgage approvals.

The company said the sales market proved more challenging in the second quarter of the year on the

back of rate hikes and hot inflation, with the cost of a two year-fixed mortgage now at a 15-year high. Its preliminary half year figures showed sales revenues were down 20 per cent compared with H1 2022. The estate agent said H1 profits would come in below last year and the outlook for sales in the second leg of the year remained “uncertain”.

Borrowing surged 6.8 per cent on the previous year and topped the previous 2020 peak after adjusting for swings in exchange rates. However, Janus Henderson’s fixed income portfolio managers James Briggs and Michael Keough said the spike in debt did not signal looming instability in the financial system. “Debt levels may have risen but they are very well supported, and the global economy has remained remarkably resilient,” they said.

“This resilience and the extraordinarily high levels of profitability companies have enjoyed in the last two years reflect vast sums of government deficit spending and central bank liquidity stimulus during the pandemic.”

UK digital bank Monzo in early stage merger talks with Nordic rival Lunar

CITY A.M. REPORTER

MOBILE banking app Monzo is reportedly discussing a potential merger with Danish rival Lunar Group.

The discussions are at an early stage, according to Bloomberg which first reported the news.

Monzo declined to comment, while Lunar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

News of the potential tie-up comes after Monzo said that it had managed

to tip to a profit over the start of the new financial year.

The coral-carded lender, which has become one of the UK’s most highprofile fintech firms, did not give a figure but said last month that the milestone was reached in March and that it expects to achieve a full year of profitability over the year ahead.

The digital lender has also hinted at its ambition to go public, but failed to set out any sort of timeline.

The bank’s chief executive, TS Anil, told Reuters previously that the bank

Mifid tweaks not enough to solve City research fall

RIPPING UP EU-era ‘unbundling’ rules on investment research will not be a silver bullet in reviving the quality of corporate analysis in the UK, City lawyers have warned.

The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said on Monday that the government would throw its weight behind a slew of recommendations in a Treasurycommissioned review of the UK’s investment research landscape designed to revive the quality and depth of research into UK listed firms.

The measures included a review of EU-era stock and bond trading requirements known as MiFID II and a rule requiring brokers to itemise or “unbundle” their customer charges for research on stock picks.

Post-financial crisis MiFID II rules have been blamed in part for gutting European and UK research and a subsequent lack of investment in UK plc.

However, legal experts have warned that the changes might not have the desired effect.

“Although the review revealed some of the technical issues with the regulatory regime for investment research, there are also two significant

and more practical hurdles,” Tom Callaby, a financial services Partner with law firm CMS said.

“There is now a degree of ‘change fatigue’ in the industry, particularly given the resources firms put into in preparing for MiFID II and then Brexit,” he added.

The government called in Hogan Lovells lawyer Rachel Kent to lead the review earlier this year to try and scope out a new framework for the market.

Corporate Finance Partner at law firm Taylor Wessing, James Homan, added that while the proposal to allow “re-bundling” will give flexibility to asset managers combining the cost of research with execution charges, there were still potential gaps in the model.

“The change is welcome, however, there’s still questions surrounding the proposal and whether it will make a material difference,” he told City A.M.

“The main point here is that, combined with the host of other reforms being implemented, they should enhance London’s competitiveness as a listing venue where companies can IPO and thrive on the market.”

was “some ways down the road” towards an IPO, but said it is too early to say whether the firm will float in New York or London.

Monzo was founded in 2015 by Tom Blomfield –who recently took up a role as a partner at San Francisco start-up accelerator Y Combinator –and has swelled to become Britain’s seventh largest lender by customers with a base of some 7.4m active users. Over 1.6m customers signed up to the firm in the year to February, the bank said.

FCA warns AI could spark rise in fraud scams

CHARLIE CONCHIE

THE CHIEF of the Financial Conduct Authority has said that artificial intelligence (AI) could disrupt the financial services sector in “ways and at a scale not seen before”, warning that the regulator would look to take action against AI-based scams.

In a speech yesterday, Nikhil Rathi said AI could offer opportunity to the market but open up major risks if “unleashed unfettered”, pointing to a rise in scams and a number of hoaxes that have spread on social media and shifted the market.

JP Morgan hires new bankers to expand push into startup sector

JP MORGAN has bolstered its ranks with a series of hires as it attempts to expand its offering to start-ups and high growth companies following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

The Wall Street giant has hired almost 20 new bankers to support fast growing businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including several new executives.

Some of the new hires are joining from SVB, such as Rosh Wijayarathna, who has been hired as a managing

director for the UK and Ireland, and Folake Shasanya, who will be a managing director leading venture capital coordination in the region.

The majority of the hires will be based in London.

Earlier this week, the bank hired John China, who had been at SVB for 27 years, to be co-head of the bank’s ‘innovation economy’ team.

“We want to be the leading bank for venture-capital backed companies with high-growth potential,” Andrew Kresse, head of corporate client banking international, said.

“Generative AI can affect our markets in ways and at a scale not seen before,” Rathi said.

“Just last week, an online scam video used a deep fake, computer generated video of respected personal finance campaigner Martin Lewis to endorse an investment scheme,” he added.

Cyber fraud, cyber attacks and identity fraud were also ramping up in scale and sophistication, he said, meaning that firms will have to rapidly build up their fraud prevention and cyber resilience initiatives.

“We will take a robust line on this – full support for beneficial innovation alongside proportionate protections,” he said.

The comments come as the UK aims to carve out a world-leading role in AI regulation.

Fiinu’s shares fall over 60 per cent as banking licence slips out of reach

CHRIS DORRELL

THE SURVIVAL of fintech firm Fiinu was left hanging by a thread yesterday after it confirmed that it had not secured enough funding to resubmit its application for a banking licence.  Shares in the AIM-listed digital lender, which offers short-term credit to customers, dropped over 60 per

after it updated the market.

Back in April, Fiinu warned that it did not have enough funding to allow its subsidiary, Fiinu 2, to exit its mobilisation period, a period of time when a firm can only offer limited banking services.

As a result it applied to withdraw its application for a banking licence, with the aim of re-applying once it had

secured more funding.

However, Fiinu yesterday confirmed that it had not been able to secure necessary funding to seek reapplication due to “challenging market conditions”.

It will now slash costs at its subsidiaries, including cutting staff and terminating or negotiating agreements with its suppliers.

CHARLIE CONCHIE

The majority of the new hires will be based in London

Many fintech firms have been struggling to access cash as interest rates rise

CHRIS DORRELL

The coral-carded lender has hinted at its intention to go public

Channel 4 bosses decline pay rise as revenues dip

ELLIE LORIZZO

CHANNEL 4 boss Alex Mahon (pictured) said the broadcaster’s top executives declined a pay rise and deferred their bonuses to stay “in line” with staff who are battling the cost of living crisis amid a “tough downturn” in the advertising market for the channel.

The broadcaster’s annual report published yesterday said it had to “significantly” tighten the reins for the second half of 2022 following a decline in the TV advertising market, which it relies on to generate money to commission shows.

Chief operating officer Jonathan Allan said the downturn was a result of “fairly extreme economic conditions largely down to the outbreak of war in Ukraine”, adding: “As many other businesses are having to do this year, we have

TRY AGAIN UK watchdog open to new Microsoft-Activision deal

unfortunately had to pull a few levers.”

At a press briefing yesterday, Channel 4 chief executive Mahon confirmed the top executives at the channel had also “declined to take a pay rise this year” and had “deferred indefinitely taking a retention bonus”.

She later said: “I don’t doubt that it’s difficult for people, especially now with cost of living and inflation pressures, which is why we’ve tried to err on the side of making decisions for the lowest paid staff in the organisation in terms of pay rises where the bulk of staff goes there, because I don’t think it’s easy to live in the UK this year if you’re at the lower paid end.”

It came as the broadcaster’s annual report showed revenue was down two per cent in 2022 but a “record amount” was spent on content at £713m.

THE CMA yesterday said a restructured deal between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard could satisfy its concerns, subject to a new investigation, marking a climbdown in its opposition to the biggest gaming deal in history. It comes after a US court ruling on Tuesday waved through the $69bn deal, which was blocked by the UK watchdog in April.

Nvidia considers investment in Arm as chipmaker seeks $80bn valuation

JESS

JONES

NVIDIA is reportedly engaged in discussions with Arm about becoming an anchor investor in the chip designer ahead of its initial public offering in New York.

The two chip companies are currently thrashing out a valuation, the Financial Times reported.

Nvidia is said to be seeking a longterm stake that would value Cambridge-based Arm between $35bn and $40bn (£27bn and £31bn), while

Arm is aiming for a valuation closer to $80bn.

US firm Nvidia joins a list of more than ten companies that have shown interest in taking a long-term stake in UK-based Arm, according to the report.

This development comes after regulatory authorities thwarted Nvidia’s previous attempt to acquire Arm for $66bn last year due to concerns it could harm competition.

Reportedly, this time round the technology giants have proposed a

Supreme Court backs Barclays in APP fraud case

CHRIS DORRELL

BANKS will not face extensive new duties to prevent authorised push payment (APP) fraud after the Supreme Court sided with Barclays in a closely watched case.

The ruling means banks will not be held liable for fraudulent transactions requested by customers, avoiding a potential wave of fraud litigation.

“There will definitely have been some deep sighs of relief this morning,” Mike LaCorte, chief executive of Conflict International, a private investigations firm, said yesterday.

“The Court could have ratcheted up banks’ duty to protect consumers against potential fraud, possibly exposing them to a mountain of liability.”

Back in 2020, Barclays was sued by Fiona Philipp after she was tricked into transferring £700,000 into two bank accounts based in the UAE.

She claimed Barclays owed customers a duty of care – under the Quincecare Duty – to not carry out a payment instruction if they believed those instructions were a result of fraud.

The Quincecare Duty had previously only applied to instructions from a customer’s agent, rather than the cus-

tomer itself. Philipp claimed it also applied in her case, even though she had directly requested the payment.

“This reasoning does not apply to cases like this one where there is no agent involved and the customer herself gives a payment instruction to the bank. In this situation the validity of the instruction is not in doubt,” the judgement said.

White & Case partner Lawson Caisley, who led the team representing UK Finance, an intervener in the case, said the decision provided “much needed clarity for the banking industry and consumers alike”.

A Barclays spokesperson said: “We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision in this case which provides certainty and clarity on an important issue of law.”

The Payment System Regulator is currently consulting on proposals which would force banks to reimburse victims of fraud.

Gerard Heyes, partner at Farrer & Co, said: “Whilst this is unwelcome news for victims of APP fraud who fall outside the scope of the current protections, it will not deter ongoing efforts by government and regulators to see that the banks play a central role in the prevention of APP fraud.”

minority investment in the range of low hundreds of millions of dollars. They have also approached regulators ahead of time to pre-emptively appease any concerns that may arise, the report said. Arm declined to comment, while Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

The update comes after UK chipmaker Arm snubbed London last year for its IPO in spite of a charm offensive from the government.

HOLIDAY SPIRIT Hostelworld celebrates record results thanks to ‘bed price inflation’

Elon Musk looks to disrupt UK energy market

NICHOLAS EARL

THE ENERGY market could be shaken up by a bold challenger, with Elon Musk’s Tesla unveiling plans to launch a new household supplier in the UK.

The electric vehicle giant already runs an energy supply business in the US, and now aims to sell electricity to British households –according to a recent job listing.

The advert for a head of operations, which was first reported by The Daily Telegraph, called for a new executive “with a healthy scepticism of the status quo” to manage the company’s entry into the UK’s domestic market.

It said that Tesla Electric would be able to “support the transition of the entire electricity grid to 100 per cent renewables”.

Tesla Electric will look to lure in customers with the option to store electricity when it is cheap, and later sell it back to the grid when market prices are higher.

Tesla Electric supplies electricity to customers in the US that own Tesla products such as cars or batteries –a model that analysts have said will not translate to the UK, where companies can’t act as a retailer without offering a tariff to everyone. Tesla first waded into the British energy market three years ago –applying to Ofgem to be an electricity generator, which granted them a licence in June 2020.

Brace for record airport drop-off charges this summer, RAC warns

GUY TAYLOR

DRIVERS taking relatives and friends to the airport should “brace themselves” for record drop-off charges this summer, the breakdown firm RAC has warned.

RAC’s investigation, which analysed charges across the UK’s busiest airports, revealed seven in 21 airports

have hiked fees in the last year, with London Stansted topping the table at £7 for 15 minutes.

Airports have hiked the prices of socalled ‘kiss and fly’ fees by nearly two thirds since the pandemic as they scramble to recoup losses.

RAC head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said raising drop-off charges had “become something of an annual

ritual” for airports.

“This year is no different with seven out of 21 increasing their fees. Drivers should brace themselves for jawdropping prices when they drop their loved-ones off at the terminal.”

A spokesperson for Stansted said revenues from drop-off charges were invested in “sustainable access improvements”.

Chipmaker Arm hopes to be valued at $80bn at its upcoming IPO in New York

HOSTELWORLD yesterday welcomed record first half revenues of €51.5m (£43.3m) on the back of resurgent demand for big trips to Asia and Australia, while “bed price inflation” helped prop up margins. Shares in the group closed up over three per cent.

Cheap pints fuel sales success for JD Wetherspoon

LAURA MCGUIRE

JD WETHERSPOON yesterday hit back at critics over its decision to sell off a flurry of pubs, telling investors it was a “misinterpretation” to claim it was a purely “money-raising” move.

The budget boozer, which recently sold, closed or surrendered to the landlord 28 pubs, said that while the move raised a small bit of capital, the decisions were largely due to the fact there was another Wetherspoon pub nearby.

“The disposals outlined above have been characterised in a small number of newspaper articles as a ‘money-raising’ exercise, provoked by the difficult trading circumstances for the hospitality industry in recent

years. This is a misinterpretation,” JD Wetherspoon said.

Some 22 pubs remain on the market, or are under offer and the company currently has a trading estate of 827 pubs. It comes as the pub chain yesterday revealed its net debt had been slashed to £688m, approximately £114m lower than it reported in its interim results for the 2020 financial year.

With its preliminary results in October, the business said it has also invested £116m in new pubs, £82m in freehold reversions and had raised equity of approximately £240m.

The budget pub chain also reported a boost in sales, with like for like sales in the first 10 weeks of the final quarter of the financial year up by 11 per cent.

The upbeat result sent shares flying over 10 per cent.

Loungers looks to expand as cooling inflation boosts chain

LAURA MCGUIRE

CAFE and bar operator Loungers yesterday reported a 19 per cent jump in revenues during the year, as the owner of the Lounger and Cosy Club was bolstered by 29 new site openings.

The London-listed hospitality chain recorded earnings of £47.3m, which

Hipgnosis told to sell songs to revive shares

JESS JONES

INVESTORS in Hipgnosis Song Management, which owns songs by Rihanna, Nirvana and Justin Bieber, have called on the company to sell some of its holdings as the firm’s share price flounders.

Hipgnosis’ share price – which trades as Hipgnosis Songs Fund on the FTSE 250 – has fallen around 30 per cent over the last year.

“The big thing to get the share price moving would be to dispose of less attractive catalogues in the portfolio and give a meaningful return to shareholders,” CCLA’s Solomon Nevins, one of the investors, told the Financial Times.

“There must be something in the portfolio that makes sense selling, to buy shares back,” he said.

represents growth of 66 per cent since it first listed on the stock exchange in April 2019.

However, operating profit declined to £14.8m, which Loungers said reflected the impact the end of government support measures. The group, which plans to open a further 34 sites next year, noted a rise in sales in the 12 weeks since the year

This approach could offer an escape route for Hipgnosis, which has been grappling with obstacles in expanding its holdings due to the constricting effect of its declining share price on fundraising efforts.

The calls come as the firm prepares to announce its financial results today.

Hipgnosis declined to comment.

The bar and cafe chain runs over 100 sites across the UK

JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin

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THE BORIS BY-ELECTION

TUCKED just inside the M25, the west London town of Uxbridge was, until last month, the parliamentary home of a former prime minister.

Boris Johnson held Uxbridge and South Ruislip for the past eight years before dramatically quitting the Commons.

Formed in 2010 by blending the former seats of Uxbridge and RuislipNorthwood, the constituency has never had a Labour MP. Uxbridge has only had two dating back to 1885.

Labour’s candidate Danny Beales (pictured right) is hoping to change all that when voters head to the polls on 20 July. His party is eager to demonstrate ballot-winning potential ahead of a hotly anticipated general election next year.

One might think that the downfall of Boris could make this an easy win for Labour.

But according to a recent poll, Labour is only narrowly ahead by eight points.

Speaking to voters, it appears that local issues, rather than the antics of the former PM, will play a more important role in how they vote in the upcoming election.

High up the list of local talking points is the expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone, or ULEZ.

Conservative candidate Steve Tuckwell (pictured left), 54, and seemingly everyone I stop and talk to are united in opposition against the policy.

“I think ULEZ is disgraceful in this neck of the woods,” Tom Meredith, 77, a retired builder, says. “Sadiq Khan, all he’s doing is generating money for himself.”

Beales certainly has his work cut out for him.

Speaking after a hustings event organised by the Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce, Beales, who is currently a councillor in Camden, tells City A.M. the campaign is a “tough battle”.

“That’s what we always expect,” he adds. “I grew up here, [we’ve] never had a Labour MP in my life.

“They’re throwing everything at it but I think we’re running a

strong campaign with a hopeful, positive message.”

Beales and Tuckwell are slugging it out over a series of hyper-local issues.

Beales’ campaign is focused on health, with a pledge to support the local hospital, and crime, promising to save Uxbridge police station from closure – a local campaign that has been rumbling on for years.

But it is the hatred of ULEZ putting Beales under pressure, forcing him to be slightly critical of Khan’s plans.

Uxbridge residents, he insists, are “in favour of clean air but it needs to be done in a socially just way”. Beales wants to see the government invest in the scrappage scheme to support people in replacing more polluting vehicles with cleaner alternatives.

But there are other issues too.

Cabbie Nitin Khosla, 41, wants the government to put in more parking

spaces in the town centre to boost the high street’s desirability.

Meanwhile at a hustings last week, one woman was emphatic about the issues facing schools in the borough thanks to a lack of special educational needs support and placements.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

While Boris might not be key in dictating the result, residents aren’t shy in sharing their feelings about him.

Phlebotomist Carol, 64, and 73-yearold retiree Diane are enjoying a coffee on the high street. Maybe it’s the caffeine, but neither are shy with their praise for the ex-PM.

“I thought he was quite genuine,” Carol says. “He came over quite well, he did quite a bit for Uxbridge which was good. The vaccines I’m sure were down to him to some degree.

“I think a lot of people think it’s time for a change but I don’t know if it’s a good change.”

Diane is even more emphatic: “I’m not moving over. We’ve always been Tory.

“The Liberal Democrats –that’s a waste of a vote to my mind. Obviously Boris didn’t behave himself during Covid which was wrong, but with everything else he was alright,” she said.

Their words will be music to the ears of Tuckwell. The former school governor, who was also born and raised in Uxbridge, is trying to pitch himself as the local man, dubbing Beales the ‘Camden candidate’.

We chat as he shows me around one of the town’s shopping centres.

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Is Uxbridge about to turn red, or will the ULEZ expansion keep it blue, Jessica Frank-Keyes asks

That’s what we always expect. I grew up here, we’ve never had a Labour MP in my life.

MARK KLEINMAN

MARK KLEINMAN IS SKY NEWS’ CITY EDITOR

BREAKING BUSINESS STORIES AND ANALYSIS

Germans could be on the line at Jansen-less BT

HANGING-UP time is fast-approaching for Philip Jansen, whose plan to step down as CEO of BT Group next year –revealed by me last weekend –was confirmed on Monday.

Sources have told me that Jansen has been approached about several jobs with big US technology companies. The defection of another big corporate name across the Atlantic might underscore the point –made recently by Julia Hoggett, the London Stock Exchange chief –that British companies are falling behind their American counterparts on boardroom pay.

But it will also come as BT faces the biggest threat to its independence since it was privatised in 1984.

Friends of Jansen say he has been left frustrated at a share price which now stands at little more than half the 230p it traded at on February 1, 2019, his first day in the job.

Rightly, that serves as investors’ principal benchmark of any CEO’s tenure: so by that reckoning, his stint might be deemed a failure.

Yet the headwinds into which Jansen has faced –Covid-19 and soaring costs driven by inflation –and the foundations laid for the longterm health of the company suggest that BT’s share price performance masks the real value of his legacy.

Cancelling the dividend for 18 months and rebasing it at half its previous level was a bold thing to do, and an act of corporate bravery that

WHAT is going on at Palace Capital, the AIM-listed property company which has seen fit to double its chairman’s salary even as net asset value has shrunk and the company has been hit by a boardroom exodus?

I understand its AGM later this month promises to be a heated

affair, with restive shareholders keen to question Steven Owen, interim executive chairman, about alleged conflicts of interest, his financial incentives for the sale of the company’s assets and the logistics of the annual meeting itself.

“He stands to earn an additional £1m in a role where as chairman

should ultimately be viewed as being in the national interest.

Jansen’s £15bn programme to build Britain’s digital infrastructure –“like fury”, in his words –while trying to improve BT’s shoddy customer service and investment in 5G has been a tough one to pull off in the public markets. Longtermism of this kind has become worryingly rare in FTSE-100 boardrooms, particularly since a pandemic which forced substantial balance sheet reinforcement and dividend cuts.

Couple that with Jansen’s growing disenchantment, fomented under the previous chair, Jan du Plessis, and culminating in the bizarre rebuke he received from Ofcom for predicting that the proliferation of altnets building fibre infrastructure “will end in tears”.

All this might explain why Deutsche Telekom, the German communications giant which owns a 12 per cent stake in BT, is reported to be circling its British peer.

Deutsche CEO Tim Hottges said earlier this year that his investment in the company –struck in 2015 as part of its sale of EE, the mobile operator, to BT –was his “biggest mistake”. That statement was typically clever sophistry. Whether the government would allow any foreign takeover of BT is debatable, but don’t be surprised if Jansen’s departure opens a window for Hottges, or Altice’s Patrick Drahi, to try to prise open.

he is already earning £221,000 in an underperforming company where shareholders are losing,” said one institutional investor. Palace Capital’s market capitalisation stood yesterday at less than £100m. Its directors should abandon their delusions of grandeur and focus on delivering in the interests of its shareholders.

No make-up can disguise this ugly corporate row

IT MAY not quite be applying lipstick to a pig, but the row consuming Revolution Beauty and Boohoo, its biggest shareholder, ranks among the City’s ugliest of 2023.

Revolution’s brazen attempts to ignore the wishes of its largest shareholder, after a protracted period in which its shares were suspended amid concerns about accounting irregularities, might win awards for the most audacious boardroom behaviour of the year.

Boohoo has accused Revolution’s bosses of greed, arguing that recent actions were

motivated largely by the desire to hand directors millions of pounds in share awards. Now, having reinstated chief executive Bob Holt within hours of him being resoundingly voted out of a job at last month’s annual meeting, Revolution seems to have decided that he should go after all. As I reported this week, Holt’s scalp is part of a compromise deal being thrashed

out between the two companies that would avoid the rigmarole of an EGM. Further details of the truce are unclear ahead of a formal announcement, although it seems like Revolution has tied itself in knots to keep Boohoo’s nominees (who include the former New Look chief Alistair McGeorge) off its board. Even a rudimentary glance at their respective CVs would

suggest that McGeorge’s corporate experience is more relevant to an online beauty products retailer than that of Holt. Among Revolution’s brickbats fired at Boohoo was that it was itself no stranger to controversy about lavish pay awards. This is true, but the key difference is that the fashion retailer behind the Debenhams brand at least allows its shareholders a binding vote every three years on those awards. To hand millions of pounds out within moments of having its stock reinstated after a seven-month absence should have seemed a bridge too far.

Renault and Aston Martin backer Geely to launch new UK-based firm

GUY TAYLOR

RENAULT and Aston Martin backer Geely yesterday announced the launch of a new UK-based powertrain technology company to manufacture low-emission hybrid and internal combustion engines.

An investment of up to £6bn will

injected into the new outfit, which will employ 19,000 workers.

The two automakers said the new group would operate 17 engine plants and five R&D hubs across three continents, with the firm’s headquarters located in Britain.

It will aim to produce 5m ICEs and hybrid engines yearly, supplying companies including Nissan,

Mistubishi and Volvo with the goal of becoming a “global leader” in developing and manufacturing the technology.

The Saudi-backed oil titan Saudi Aramco is also evaluating an investment, according to the statement, and would contribute research and development for synthetic fuel and hydrogen tech.

The firm expects to create 19,000 jobs through the venture

Unrest at the Palace over interim boss Owen’s 2023 pay bump

THE INSURERS TRYING TO GET THEIR HEADS AROUND THE NEW WORLD OF WAR

WE KNEW what war was.

Wars used to look like people dropping bombs and people with guns,”

Tom Murray tells me from the distinctly unwarlike setting of an Aon meeting room.

“It was relatively easy to understand. Now we suddenly have this incredibly rapidly evolving field of cyber war –which could be a fundamental threat to a business, or a really detrimental impact to a country where a country shuts down. We’re trying to think about how to define that.”

Murray’s role as a broker at Aon forces him to confront questions like that just about every day.

At its heart, the insurance industry is about defining risk –what could happen, what the impact would be, and coming up with a pol-

icy that gives the insured the confidence to go ahead with an investment or a transaction and gives the insurer enough juice to make the policy worth the risk.

But as Murray notes, those risks are changing all the time –and, for him, that makes it a fascinating industry to work in.

REWARDING

Just like the risks he’s dealing with, the world of insurance has changed since Murray’s career began as a broker on the floor of ‘The Room’

“I probably joined at the end of the old world. When I joined, underwriting was occasionally done without Excel spreadsheets, and deals were down on pieces of paper, and information packs that were two sides of A4 did still just about

exist,” he says.

“That’s 100 per cent gone now. It’s a complete revolution: everything about pricing and risk,” he reflects. Analytics, and ‘talking numbers’, is now more important than ever. Reinsurance, Murray’s field, is particularly like that: effectively providing a backstop to insurers in the market, whilst also working with clients to ensure that their risk is minimised. That means modelling, balance sheet analysis and sophisticated, forwardlooking analysis. But it maintains the fun of unpredictable demands.

“As a broker, you’re responding to client challenges. They can be quite” –he pauses, deliberately –“quite immediate.”

“You are straight into helping clients understand the best way of going about a problem: on a continuum from aggressively legal to doing a commercial deal,” he says. Working through Covid-19, he says, was the kind of “good pressure” that brings its own rewards.

“The market got itself locked up around contract language. And we managed to unpick that, gradually, and got the money flowing. We got money flowing right down through the market, to customers, and you say to yourself: that’s good, that’s what should be happening.”

AN ACCIDENTAL CAREER

Murray –who tells me he joined the insurance industry over other sectors as a graduate because the job interview was in the Lloyd’s marketplace itself, and the building was livelier and more interesting than the other corporate offices he had been heading to –is, like most at Aon, a real advocate of the sector. Colleagues of his have described it as “the best kept secret” in professional services due to the range of work done across the piece. He doesn’t disagree.

“You can have an exponentially successful career.

“I’ve done 16 or 17 years, and they’ve been very good to me. And there’s a huge runway of more –and that’s something I’ve found pretty cool about Aon. And I’d also say to people –and I’m just waking up to this fact –we need so many more people.

“As the game has changed, and it’s become more technical, we need more people. So it’s not saturated at all.”

THINKING BIG

So, back to cyber war. “Are cyber hackers soldiers,” he asks me, thankfully rhetorically. It’s those sort of challenges that the insurance industry –and perhaps only the insurance industry –has to grapple with every day.

“This isn’t theory. It’s real. It’s happening right now.”

the insurance industry continues to throw up new challenges

There’s a huge runway of more –and that’s something I’ve found pretty cool about Aon

THERE are few more nervy moments in the life of an entrepreneur than standing atop the balcony of the London Stock Exchange, ringing the figurative bell and handing their pride and joy over to the whims of the public market.

Speaking at a conference, London bourse boss Julia Hoggett recalled the founders of money transfer firm Wise being “visibly moved” as they floated their company in 2021. So too were the chiefs of fintech firm CAB Payments as they shifted their company onto the public markets last week, she said.

However, for Hoggett, that emotion is the symptom of a problem. “You should not have such a cliff-edge event for a company [Wise], where this was a 10year-in-the-making realisation of any value by those individuals,” she said.

Now, Hoggett and the London Stock Exchange have set out to create a novel world-first solution to that.

FICKLE NO MORE

The LSE is targeting the launch of a new ‘Intermittent Trading Venue’ next year which will function as a sort of hybrid private and public stock market. In theory, it will provide a venue for firms to trade their shares periodically and privately, rather than leaving a chunk of their company exposed to the fickle swings of the market.

The idea received the full-throated backing from Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on Monday who said the government would now work with regulators and officials to launch the market by the end of next year.

Speaking with City A.M., the London Stock Exchange’s head of new primary markets chief Darko Hajdukovic says the venue will essentially look to solve the fault lines in the private sphere using the tried and tested mechanisms of the public markets.

“What we see currently [in the private markets] is fragmented liquidity, we see lack of transparency, we see uncertainty in terms of execution, and uncertainty in terms of timing of execution,” Hajdukovic tells City A.M.

“And as Julia says, that huge cliff-edge effect that you are either in a private world or in a public world.”

Under the current plans, firms will be able to opt in to trade shares at a set number of auctions every year. Importantly, the new venue will be only a secondary market, meaning firms cannot issue new equity to investors. Employees, investors and other equity holders will be able to cash in shares while not waiting for an IPO, and new bigger investors may be able to snap up a stake in growing companies at an earlier stage.

The plans are part of a slew of measures to breathe life again into London’s

CAN A PART-TIME MARKET GIVE LONDON A LIFT?

sectors in what bosses hope will change perceptions of London’s exchanges, writes Charlie Conchie

faltering capital markets ecosystem. But the move is also a strategy play for the under-fire bourse.

The IPO market has had its own cliffedge over the past year as founders pull back from a historically volatile time globally. Just 18 firms raised a total of £593m in the first half of this year according to EY’s latest IPO tracker –roughly the same as last year but well below the record levels of 2021 when 47 floats in London raised £9.4bn in the first six months.

“We’re cognizant of the fact that IPOs are getting delayed, maybe even not happening,” Hajdukovic adds. “Private markets have grown [and] they’re here to stay, and we would like to have an of-

fering both in the private space... but also in public space.”

Hajdukovic says the exchange has already received interest from around the world with firms lining up to trade on the market. Those companies are from across industries, he adds, with a particular focus on the scale-up tech firms that many fear are fleeing the UK for overseas in search of capital.

While Hajdukovic says the plan won’t be to funnel firms towards the main market, lawyers think otherwise.

“It should increase the familiarity of UK private companies with the London market which may be helpful when it comes to considering listing venues,” says Chris Haynes, a partner at law firm

Gibson Dunn.

Haynes tells City A.M. that his firm is “already receiving enquiries from private company clients who are interested to learn more” about the market.

Some are less sure. London already has two junior exchanges for smaller listed firms in the LSE’s own AIM market and the Aquis Stock Exchange, both of which are deemed ‘unlisted’ for tax rules. The new venue could have the effect of unintentionally crowding out the existing offer.

“The Chancellor’s Mansion House comments on] establishing ‘an entirely new kind of stock market that allows private companies to access capital markets without floating on a stock ex-

change’ [are] intriguing, not least because AIM companies are regarded as unlisted for tax purposes and there is no free-float requirement for companies traded on AIM,” says Jason Hollands, managing director of Bestinvest.

The key difference London Stock Exchange officials will be keen to carve out is the new venue’s periodic sales rather than the relentless grind of daily trading. But as Hajdukovic is quick to caveat, the new Intermittent Trading Venue is a work in progress.

As scrutiny intensifies and the strains on the IPO market continue to grow, pressure will be on the LSE to provide concrete answers or risk firms pulling away from the cliff-edge entirely.

Has the Coutts debanking Farage-o had an impact on royal lender?

ON 29 June, Nigel Farage posted a six-minute video stating that his bank account had been closed “with no explanation” – speculating that he may have run afoul of “politically exposed person” rules, or been victimised for campaigning for Brexit. The bank in question, Coutts, responded that the erstwhile UKIP leader had fallen below the financial threshold required to hold an account, and had been offered a standard account at Natwest.

Despite the clarification, it appears the story has led to some negative publicity for Coutts. Buzz scores, which measure whether people have heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the past two weeks, fell from 0.4 to -4.6 (-5.0) between 29 June–9 July, and correspondingly, Impression scores (which measure overall positive and

Stephan Shakespeare

negative sentiment towards a brand), declined from 4.8 to -1.8 (-6.6).

We can also see a deterioration in Coutts’ Quality scores, which fell from 9.6 to 6.0 (-3.6) over the same period. Reputation scores, which measure whether consumers would be proud or embarrassed to work for a brand, also went from 11.4 to 7.9 (-3.5), suggesting that the story has negatively affected perceptions of Coutts as a potential employer.

It would be wise to avoid overstating

the effect of this story. Consideration scores, for example, which track whether customers would select a brand out of a list of other brands, actually increased from 2.5 to 3.5 (+1.0) over this period. As a bank that caters to a well-heeled target customer with either £3m in savings or £1m to invest, a temporary downturn in general public opinion might not matter too much anyway. But whether true, untrue, or something in between, stories about political figures being denied bank accounts could be an unwanted headache. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, for example, is reportedly “deeply concerned” about “blacklisting” at major banks – and just this week revealed that he had been denied a Monzo account himself.

Stephan Shakespeare is the co-founder and CEO of YouGov

HOW COUTTS CLOSING NIGEL FARAGE’S ACCOUNT DUE TO LACK OF FUNDS AFFECTED THE BRAND’S BUZZ AND IMPRESSION SCORES

ARAMCO TEAM SERIES LONDON

HOME GIRLS

Best of British and Irish in women’s golf ready to take on some of the game’s biggest stars as $5m series returns to UK

LEONA Maguire has made a career out of firsts. As a 17-yearold, she became the first home winner of the Irish Girls Open Strokeplay Championships and since then has become the first Irishwoman to win on the LPGA Tour, make the cut in a major, play for Europe at the Solheim Cup and, most recently, reach the top 10 of the world rankings.

Now 28 and entering her sixth year as a professional, she is only just getting started. This week she will seek her first Ladies European Tour win at the Aramco Team Series - London and holds strong claims of breaking her major duck before August is out. It would be no surprise to see the former world amateur No1 occupy first place in the pro rankings before long.

“I think everybody that plays sports at an elite level always wants to be the best in the world,” says Maguire.

“I suppose for me it’s been quite a steady climb. Breaking into the top 10 in the world [last month], that’s been a goal for a long time. It’s a nice milestone to reach but we’re by no means done yet.

“It’s obviously a validation of a lot of hard work, and I know I’m playing really well, and I think ladies’ professional golf is arguably as competitive now as it’s ever been. So it’s a nice place to be, but you can’t rest on your laurels.”

Maguire is doing anything but resting. Her appearance at the Aramco Team Series - London is one of six tournaments she is playing over a period of eight weeks. That includes two majors, foremost of which is the Women’s Open next month at Walton Heath, where Maguire will be aiming to improve on her tie for fourth place last year.

“I’m going to play Walton Heath on Monday, so I’ll use that as a little bit of a warm-up. I have a busy summer in Europe coming up,” she says.

“I think that’s been the challenge this year; managing the schedule. We always know the summer’s going to be busy when it’s a Solheim Cup year. And the fact that our majors are very condensed into a few weeks, it seems like we waited a long time for the major season to kick off, but now it’s underway, it’s probably going to be over in a flash.

MOMENTUM

“The Evian [Championship, the next major] and British Open are nearly back to back so it is a quick turnaround. We know what we’re getting at least with Evian, we’ve been going back there for so long. It maybe requires a little less preparation than

FIRST LAD

“I feel like my game’s in really good shape. We’ve plenty of events between now and the British Open, so hopefully I can continue that momentum and get a bit more experience under my belt before I arrive in Walton Heath.”

Maguire showed her major potential once again at the Women’s US PGA Championship last month. Just days after winning her second LPGA Tour title at the Meijer Classic, she led after 54 holes only to fall away in

tournaments, but knowing that you can compete with the best golfers in the world and at a major, at a venue like Baltusrol, I take a lot of confidence from that,” she says.

“I think Baltusrol was one of the toughest tests we’ve had. It was a really, really good golf course and a really good test. So it’s nice to know that my game stacks up at a venue like that. It’s all about putting myself in positions to contend. That’s exactly where you want to be on Sun-

home – a treat for a player who went to the US to start college in 2014 and has been based there since. Sandwiching the Women’s Open are appearances at the Women’s Scottish Open and a homecoming at the Women’s Irish Open.

“It’ll be nice to spend a week at home, sleep in my own bed, and get a few home-cooked meals for a change,” she says. “I always enjoy playing in Europe. I think there’s a familiarity there. I know all the girls

FIVE EVENTS, $5M UP FOR GRAB

THE ARAMCO Team Series is back on the Ladies European Tour for 2023 and once again calling at five venues across three continents.

The difference this year, however, is that four of the five venues are new to the series, with this week’s London leg – played at Centurion Club in St Albans – the only one to be retained.

Last year’s first stop, Bangkok, was replaced by Singapore’s Laguna National Golf Resort Club,

where Pauline Roussin won the individual prize and Christine Wolf’s quartet the team honours at the curtain-raising tournament in March.

There was another European winner when the series called at Florida for the first time in May.

Spain’s Carlota Ciganda took the individual honours while Roussin captained the winning team.

Centurion Club, which also stages LIV Golf’s London leg, is the

first venue to host three Aramco Team Series events.

After London, the stars of women’s golf head east to Hong Kong Golf Club, which has replaced Sotogrande in Spain as the penultimate leg of this year’s series, on 6 to 8 October.

And in a final change, the 2023 Aramco Team Series will culminate in Riyadh, which replaces Jeddah as the stage for the finale on 27 to 29 October.

Leona Maguire is blazing a trail all the way to the very top of golf, writes Frank Dalleres

that plays sports at an elite level wants to be the best in the world. Breaking into the top 10 is nice but we’re by no means done yet

world are going to be there so I think it’s going to be a really good event,” she says. “All of us are competitive, so you want to do well.

“I played [the 2022 Aramco Team Series] in New York and I played in the Aramco Saudi Ladies Invitational at the start of the year. They have a semi-major feel to them where we stay in really nice places, play at really nice golf courses, the food’s really good. We’re treated very well, so I know all the girls enjoy the events.”

GIFTS OF THE GAB: VERSATILE COWLEY ON CHOOSING GOLF

IN ANOTHER life, Gabriella Cowley might be playing in the Women’s Ashes or heading to the Women’s World Cup with the Lionesses instead of teeing it up at the Aramco Team Series - London this week.

Cowley was a sporting child prodigy who excelled at football and cricket before being introduced to golf by her father, a former Millwall centre-back whose career was cut short by injury, and finding that she preferred swinging a club to a bat or a boot.

Now 27, she is one of the rising stars of the Ladies European Tour and is hoping to continue her steady year-onyear progress with a first title on the circuit at Centurion Club in St Albans, where play begins on Friday.

“My dad used to be a professional footballer and he played golf in the afternoons. He used to take me to golf with him. We went to the range a few times and it just came from that,” she

“I used to play all different sports – I used to play cricket for Essex, I used to play football – so golf was actually the last one and I was probably better at the other sports, to be honest, but I really enjoyed golf and I could see the rewards were a lot bigger in golf too.”

Cowley earned the biggest payday of her career last month when she banked £52,000 for finishing tied for fifth at the Scandinavian Mixed, which features LET players going up against their male peers from the DP World Tour. For the second year running she was the second best-placed woman in the field.

“It was really good to play with the guys. I feel like I know quite a few of them anyway. Just to be around them, see what they do, how they prepare, I felt was a great experience,” she said.

“I feel like I play better that week. I was playing pretty well leading into it, I just felt that kind of kick-started how I’ve been playing. The events after that I’ve been playing really nicely.

“I like the format. Obviously it’s really difficult to get the course set up fairly. I feel in that aspect it probably favoured the guys a little bit more this year, with the length. For me to finish top five, I obviously played really well.

“I’ve been putting in a lot of hard work so to get a good finish and good result was a big week for me. I’m just trying to get my win on the LET and I’ll keep doing the right things to get there but I feel like that was a big step in the right direction.”

MAIN GOAL

Two weeks after that Cowley was around the top of the leaderboard again, this time finishing tied for fourth at the Czech Ladies Open – her fourth top-10 finish on the LET this season and her ninth since 2021.

The former English Girls’ Under-15 champion has steadily improved with each campaign. Having finished 33rd on the LET order of merit two years ago, she was 24th last year and currently lies 19th this season. A top-10

spot would boost her chances of fulfilling her ambition of qualifying for the LPGA. She has won five tournaments as a pro, all since 2020 and all in the Rose Ladies Series. As non-LET events, they have not satisfied Cowley’s craving for a first win on the tour.

“It’s pretty much my main goal. I feel that it’s close but it’s tough to win out there; there are a lot of good players and lots of competition. You’ve just got to keep doing the right thing and

know that the time will come when the time is right,” she said.

“For me it’s just about getting better every year. I try to get better every day and then at the end of the year I analyse and see how that went. It’s nice to see that the results are coming and the hard work is paying off.”

Harlow-born Cowley is looking forward to home comforts when she plays at Centurion Club this week. Having thrived at the Scandinavian Mixed and finished tied for sixth at a previous Aramco Team Series event she has shown an adaptability to different formats that could serve her well.

“A lot of my friends and family are coming. We don’t get to play at home that much so it will be nice for them to watch me play,” Cowley said.

“The Aramco Team Series is a really good concept and everything that Aramco is doing for the tour is great. Obviously it’s a hard situation because we still do play our own result. If you’re playing well then the team is doing well.”

2023 ARAMCO TEAM SERIES

English rising star turned her back on both football and cricket to follow her heart, she tells Frank Dalleres

I was probably better at other sports but I really enjoyed golf and I could see the rewards too

HOME HOPES TAKE FIGHT TO KORDA

The major-winning US superstar tops the bill at Centurion Club this week but a host of British and Irish players stand in her way

WORLD No2 Nelly Korda is targeting a first win on British soil when she returns to the Aramco Team Series at Centurion Club this week.

The 2021 Women’s PGA Championship winner, 24, has been prolific in her short career, claiming 12 titles including an Olympic gold medal in Tokyo two years ago. As one of the stars of the LPGA Tour, Korda has made only a handful of appearances in the UK, although she finished in the top 10 at the 2019 Women’s Open Championship.

But she can take confidence from previous Aramco Team Series events, including a win in Sotogrande, Spain, last year, when she tees it up at the Ladies European Tour tournament on Friday.

“The Aramco Team Series is a special event that showcases a unique blend of individual talent and team dynamics in golf, and I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to once again compete alongside top professionals and amateurs,” said Korda.

“I’ve had great performances in the past three Aramco Team Series events I’ve played in, so I hope to deliver a top performance for the fans in London and cap-

Charley Hull arrives fresh from finishing runner-up at last week’s US Women’s Open

ture my second Aramco Team Series title.”

The American will face competition in St Albans from some of the best golfing talent from the British Isles, including Leona Maguire, Georgia Hall, Charley Hull and defending champion Bronte Law.

Hall was runner up at last year’s Aramco Team Series - London, where she was beaten only by a monster eagle putt from fellow Englishwoman Bronte Law. The world No14, a former LET order of merit winner, has had two runner-up finishes this season but is still seeking her first win.

Hull arrives fresh from narrowly missing out on a first major title at the US Women’s Open at Pebble Beach last week, where she finished tied for second place.

The Kettering-born star has shone at previous Aramco Team Series events, winning two years ago in New York and only missing out in a play-off in Jeddah last year.

Also among the home hopes is rising star Lily May Humphreys, 21, who won her first LET Tour tournament in Johannesburg earlier this year.

South African Nicole Garcia and Germany’s Olivia Cowan, who captained the winning teams in the two previous editions of this event, are back this week.

Nelly Korda is the highest ranked player in the field while Georgia Hall (inset) was runner-up here last year

Lily May Humphreys, 21, won her first LET title earlier this year

Bronte Law is defending champion at Centurion Club

THE SQUARE MILE AND ME

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB?

I was a paper boy, aged around 14, in Surrey. I had to get up ridiculously early and the biggest challenge was to avoid the dogs who appeared to lay in wait for me, whilst trying to feed the bulky papers through letter boxes and avoid them getting shredded.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST JOB IN BUSINESS?

I joined a bank called Keyser Ullman in the late 70s, based on Milk Street just at Cheapside. It was a propertyfocused merchant bank and I was on a three-year management training programme, so had exposure to trade finance, money market dealing, lending and foreign exchange, amongst others.

It was one of the exclusive ‘Accepting Houses’ in the City at that time, so it could accept (guarantee) bills of exchange, which were eligible for re-discounting at the Bank of England. However, it meant that if you left the office to meet somebody in that capacity, you had to wear a top hat.

That bank was acquired by Charterhouse Bank on St Paul’s Courtyard in 1981, where I worked as a credit analyst, moving on to become a lending officer.

WHEN DID YOU FIRST KNOW YOU WERE IN THE RIGHT JOB?

I joined UBS in 1983 and early on I was dealing with much more complicated transactions. The nature of the role evolved from corporate banking to corporate finance, which meant getting involved in M&A.

One stand-out deal was the financing of Liverpool City Council because it was a very political and public deal. The publicity was intense. I remember we negotiated a deal with the Council’s treasurer, shook hands at 6pm, and headed back home for the evening to see the deal being the first item on the main 9pm TV news. We had no warning at all. I was in my mid-20s but those events make you age more quickly. Towards the end of my time at UBS, I was tasked with setting up their first Financial Institutions Group. Given the powerhouse they are today in this space, it’s hard to imagine one never existed before 1987.

WHO IS THE BUSINESS / CITY OF LONDON FIGURE YOU MOST ADMIRE?

Sir Eddie George, the former governor of the Bank of England. I worked with him and a young Andrew Bailey on a bank rescue following the failure of banks in the early nineties. He was able to manage and solve the crisis without it becoming a front-page drama. It was resolved discreetly and calmly, and no one even knew it happened, although to be fair times are very different today.

WHAT’S ONE THING YOU LOVE ABOUT THE CITY OF LONDON...

The City is steeped in history but is so adaptable to change. It has remained the leader in so many global sectors of finance, despite the world changing significantly. If you think of its origins, it was a finance centre

for the trade coming into London from all over the world; coffee houses were used by merchants and evolved into banks and other institutions.

... AND ONE THING YOU WOULD CHANGE?

I would like to see regulation made more proportionate to help improve competition and better outcomes for consumers and businesses.

WHAT’S BEEN YOUR PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT?

Managing Paragon through the 2007/08 financial crisis, as it was terminal for a number of banks, and subsequently restructuring the company to create a banking group that has gone from strength-tostrength. Pre-crisis, we had one product line and were mostly funded through securitisation. Today, we have a number of successful, diversified lending streams and a thriving £12bn retail savings business, which provides a great funding base, alongside the strong capital base.

QUICKFIRE ROUND

FAVOURITE... FILM: MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN

BOOK: TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

ARTIST: COLDPLAY AND ED SHEERAN TEA OR COFFEE?: COFFEE

Back then, the environment was febrile. I remember one evening in November 2007 when I was travelling on the train to see friends, one man was reading the Evening Standard with a photo of me and the headline ‘From hero to zero’. I was just begging him not to look up!

The global financial crisis was an incredibly tough time and placed a

huge strain on a great number of people who worked for the company. We were the first to launch a rights issue and many employees made huge sacrifices to support that. I’m proud we were able to navigate it without losing many of our people, so when we emerged, we had the skills needed to hit the ground running. From the low point our share price has increased 1,800 per cent.

WHAT’S YOUR MOST MEMORABLE MEETING?

It’s more of a faux pax. We were negotiating the acquisition of a consumer finance business in 1998 from one of the clearing banks. The negotiations were at a very tense stage and the whole thing was on the verge of falling apart. An early morning meeting was set up and I knew we had to be tough in our stance.

It was deep winter, and I remember getting up early and getting dressed in the dark. It was only when I got to the meeting taking off my overcoat to find I had put on a completely

different suit jacket and trousers, hugely contrasting, looking exactly like I had got dressed in the dark! It diffused the tension somewhat.

WE’RE GOING FOR LUNCH AND YOU’RE PICKING –WHERE ARE WE GOING?

The Hawksmoor on Basinghall Street. Incredible steaks, incredible red wines and for dessert you must have their homemade Rolos.

AND DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE POST-WORK WATERING HOLE?

The Lamb in Leadenhall Market. It’s such a vibrant and historic setting, and close to our London office on Fenchurch Street.

ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC FOR THE REST OF 2023?

I am yes. The UK economy is way more resilient than people give it credit for, so I remain optimistic. We have to work our way through this elongated spike in inflation, but it will come down, the employment rate is still strong, and the credit profiles of consumers and businesses are holding up; broadly they are in good health.

However, the financial markets are incredibly jittery, but we must recognise the difference between the real economy and the markets.

GIVE US ONE BOLD PREDICTION FOR THE CITY THIS YEAR?

The City will realise that AI is not just about the large tech companies, it will bring significant – and widereaching – benefits to the financial services sector.

Its potential is immense, from customer service to credit, I don’t think there will be a part of our lives that it won’t touch.

The valuations of AI tech companies are huge, but people don’t seem to have recognised how the technology will transform banking as our valuations are miles apart.

WHERE’S HOME DURING THE WEEK?

Surrey, but during the week I’m often in London or Solihull, where Paragon is headquartered, and from where I regularly work.

AND WHERE WOULD WE FIND YOU ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON?

Crying at Chelsea usually! I went to my first game at the age of 7 with my father and grandfather, and had my first season ticket at the age of 11, so, yes, I was there when we were rubbish.

Today, I go with my sons and sometimes my grandchildren, so that’s five generations of Chelsea fans.

If I’m not at Chelsea, I’m usually getting beat by my sons at golf or watching the grandchildren play various sports for their schools.

YOU’VE A WELL-DESERVED TWO WEEKS OFF –WHERE ARE YOU GOING, AND WHO WITH?

Portugal with the family; beautiful climate with such warm people.

We dig into the memory bank of the City’s great and good: this week, Nigel Terrington, chief executive of Paragon Bank, takes a stroll down memory lane

CITY DASHBOARD

YOUR ONE-STOP SHOP FOR BROKER VIEWS AND MARKET REPORTS

LONDON REPORT BEST OF THE BROKERS

FTSE 100: UK lenders surge on back of Bank of England stress test

LONDON’s FTSE 100 was yanked higher yesterday by Britain’s biggest banks surging after being given a clean bill of health by the Bank of England this morning. The capital’s premier index notched one of its best days in weeks, surging 1.83 per cent to 7,416.10 points, while the domestically-focused mid-cap FTSE 250 index, which is more aligned with the health of the UK economy, soared 2.42 per cent higher to 18,579.54 points.

All of the UK’s largest banks were judged by the Bank in its bi-annual stress test, released today, to be able to withstand the recent surge in interest rates and an economic slump.

“UK banks would be resilient to a severe stress scenario that incorporated persistently higher advanced-economy inflation, increasing global interest

rates, deep and simultaneous recessions in the UK and global economies,” the Bank said.

Lenders included in the test surged on the FTSE 100. Natwest skyrocketed 3.57 per cent. Barclays followed close behind, up 3.3 per cent, as did Lloyds Bank, up 2.66 per cent. House builders were also in the green yesterday, likely due to the Bank’s upbeat assessment allaying concerns about banks retreating from the housing market to protect their balance sheets from riskier borrowers. Persimmon jumped more than four per cent.

Soft data from the US that showed inflation is falling faster than expected, down to three per cent, supported the FTSE 100’s rise yesterday by allaying bets on more Federal Reserve interest rate rises. The Bank is expected to raise borrowing costs above the Fed’s peak.

Helical and TfL have signed contracts on their London office development, announced in February. The partnership will deliver three new “best-in-class” developments. Analysts at Peel Hunt said the scheme will deliver “a strong pipeline of opportunity” to offer the market new central London office space over the coming years. They held a ‘buy’ rating with a target price of 400p.

N0 BREAK FOR HOMEOWNERS

Hostelworld reiterated its guidance for the year in yesterday’s trading update. Analysts at Peel Hunt said there was “scope for upgrades” had it not been for the risk of disruption from air traffic control. “Management continues to build on the differentiated strengths of the social platform with plans to make sure that all users are presented with events or trips to enhance their travels,” they said. They maintained a ‘buy’ rating with a target price of 200p.

“It will be cold comfort to the millions of homeowners facing increasing mortgage payments that the UK banking sector has proved itself robust enough to weather the coming storm. Lenders will come under increasing pressure to use their improved net margins to reward savers.”

DANNI HEWSON, AJ BELL

Powerful real-time thought leadership, insights and news delivery mechanism fuelling the most up-to date reporting, adding critical context for decisions that require consciousness, education and thought leadership.

OPINION

EDITED BY SASCHA O’SULLIVAN

Businesses need to stop looking for a public pat on the back and gold stars

how can my business become part of the national conversation? The final option requires a firm to identify the three or four topics on everyone’s lips right now – the economy, cost of living, inflation, interest rates – and offer up information, insight or analysis that can hit those areas.

EVERY few days, I find myself telling businesses that, no matter how great they are, no matter how positive their purpose is or impressive their fundraising, simply bragging about their success won’t guarantee a spot on the front page of every newspaper.

Perhaps I’m doing my job wrong and I should just say “yes, of course we can action that”, then, either don’t do it, or try to reverse engineer it. But maybe overpromising is a column for another day. The truth is “business does well” isn’t news. As a journalist, when I received the calls from companies asking me to write about how great they are, I would tell them it isn’t one for me and asked if they’d like to be put through to the advertising department instead. I would typically tell them the example of a hospital curing a patient. If I was to read that story in a newspaper, my first instinct will be “how bad is the hospital that curing a patient becomes news?”

On the weekend, a perfect example of this genre came along to underscore this. I think it could usurp my hospital analogy.

The story was a look at how excellent the passport office is. With summer hol-

idays almost upon us, the report went into details about how quickly applications are being processed and how great staff morale is. A perfect story the Home Office press team will be proud of. But you don’t have to think back far to remember just how awful the passport office was a year ago when a huge postCovid backlog and staff shortages threatened to ruin holidays for thousands desperate to get away.

Newspapers were scathing, laden with case studies of families in situations where one member couldn’t get a passport, meaning the entire holiday collapsed.

Politicians shouted about something needing to be done, as they reeled off

their own constituents’ examples, and the government tried to reassure the public that it was dealing with the backlog.

Therefore, in this case, the positive story was “news” by virtue of the fact the passport office pulling itself together was worthy of attention.

Hopefully this example can be seen by business leaders as to why the simple idea of landing “positive” news is so tricky.

The options for them are essentially: you can ensure your business goes through an existential crisis, then herald the turnaround and reflect on what went wrong.

Or, the second option is to accept that “our company is great” is more likely to appear in a publication as an advert rather than a news story.

The third route is asking yourself:

Let’s be honest, nationalising the water companies would mean even higher bills

THERE are few more revolting images than human faeces streaming into Britain’s rivers and seas. Not just the stench, but also environmental damage and closed beaches. The ongoing sewage debacle has driven righteous anger with Britain’s privatised water companies and the imposition of large fines.

But the situation may not be so simple. These “storm overflows” prevent an even worse fate during heavy downpours: poo flowing back into people’s homes and onto streets. It’s also not easy to solve. Increasing the treatment capacity in Britain’s Victorian-era sewage system will cost tens of billions of pounds, ultimately paid through higher consumer bills.

There are no easy solutions for Britain’s embattled water and sewage providers, just trade-offs and open questions. This is particularly true for Thames Water, which has been staring down the barrel of renationalisation after recent financial woes. Industry critics claim Thames Water and its ilk have taken out huge debts and provided generous returns to shareholders

Matthew Lesh

while dumping sewage and failing to address leakage. Thus, they argue, the entire privatised model is broken and should be reversed.

Indeed, water is a quintessential “natural monopoly”: an industry that is only efficient for a single provider (it doesn’t make much sense to have multiple pipes running to every household). Accordingly, the usual competitive dynamics that improve services and push down prices do not exist. It is easy for companies to take advantage.

But a state takeover is far from a panacea. It would not only be extremely expensive – either costing up to £90bn or requiring expropriating assets and turning the UK into a banana republic – while doing little to fix the underlying challenges.

The water industry requires invest-

ment, but there’s little reason to believe that our cash-strapped government would provide the necessary capital injection. We know this tendency from the experience before privatisation: decades of underinvestment, poor water quality and polluted rivers and beaches. Politicians tend to prioritise health and pension spending today over longer-term infrastructure investments. By contrast, £160bn has been invested in water since privatisation. Two-thirds of beaches are now classed as excellent (up from less than one-third) and wildlife has returned to rivers that were once considered “biologically dead”. Meanwhile, water bills are lower in real terms than a decade ago.

Globally, studies indicate that privatised water provision provides significant environmental, public health and economic benefits. This is because private providers are incentivised to improve efficiency – unlike politicians and bureaucrats – so much so that they can make a profit, lower bills and invest in the system.

The challenge is ensuring private companies act in the broader public interest. This means carefully specifying require-

ments, incentives and oversight. In the UK, this role is handed to Ofwat – who have largely allowed financial shenanigans to go unchecked. But there’s no reason to believe an entirely nationalised system would be any better. There would be nobody to hold the bureaucratic managers accountable, along with a lessened ability to tap private markets for investment.

Professor Steve Hanke of John Hopkins University, who has been studying water management since the 1960s, has called for the UK to adopt the Frenchstyle franchising model. This means competitive auctioning off the right to provide water services at regular intervals, with well-specified contracts and careful oversight. The French model may be hard to replicate – as it depends on competent state oversight, which seems to be lacking in the UK government. Nevertheless, the idea of a “back to the future” return of state control is only likely to result in higher bills and a dirtier environment.

£ Matthew Lesh is the director of public policy and communications at the IEA

There are opportunities for businesses to make a mark in that space. Think, for example, of Wise, the fintech, offering savings accounts which pass on the Bank of England’s interest rate hikes. Meanwhile, the rest of the banks have faced a bollocking from MPs.

Another example of this phenomenon could be the high street lenders.

If they wanted to, they should be talking about new mortgage products or support they are giving to victims of fraud.

But any business in that space would also need to recognise that the positive story about supporting customers is only of interest now, because the perception of the sector is one of failing to protect people.

If a company is happy with taking ownership of the problems and issues that have come before – either at their business or in their sector – they can emerge as a true leader.

If they want to think they can get a “well done” without any acknowledgement that it must be juxtaposed with the bad bits, I wish them the best of luck.

PRIME

£ Simon Neville is head of Media Strategy and Content Director at SECNewgate. He was formerly City Editor at Press Association

Simon Neville The passport office made headlines because of the poor quality of the service it was offering

DELIVERY Ben Wallace has insisted he ‘isn’t Amazon’ after Ukrainians continued to ask for more and more weaponry. The Defence Sec, who was hoping to be the next Nato boss, told Zelensky to display ‘more gratitude’.

Perhaps it is time for the Ukrainian leader to start a daily gratitue list.

Bragging about passport processing speeds only shows how slow they once were

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Wishing for a Soho of old

[Re: London has a Soho problem. We need to fix it now, June 29]

Eliot Wilson does not know the Soho I’ve experienced for well over thirty years. Arriving here in 1990, many pubs and restaurants chose to to remain closed at weekends as the midweek workers in film and advertising stayed home, replaced by those furtively searching out the carnal activities of the sex industry proliferating what were once high street shops - butchers, shoe shops, delicatessens, fishmongers and bakeries. Now I look out onto thousands of revellers pouring down Old Compton

Street every night of the week. Impossible to get into fully booked restaurants, many queueing outside. Pubs and bars burst at the seams, spilling onto the pavements.

Cafes and shops folding? Only because of the clamour for more alcohol-led establishments, bringing with them bigger profits and higher rents.

After a sleep again broken by the screams of 3AM drunken brawls, I wake up to another street cordoned off by police tape and reports of another stabbing or grevious bodily harm.

Soho is not “dying on its feet”. It is on its knees in a gutter, suffocating and choking in its own vomit. And yes, Soho does have problem. It’s becoming a fat, violent, greedy alcoholic.

Jason Fisher-Jones Moor Street, W1

THE PLOT THICKENS Nadine Dorries to publish book on Boris ‘assassination’

As Turkey hitches itself to Nato and the EU, it is a litmus test for a Russia on the wane

Daniel Sleat

IN MAY last year, Turkey said it would not be able to support Sweden’s application to join Nato. Just over a year later, President Erdogan changed his position and said Turkey would support Sweden’s membership, partly on the condition the Scandinavian country would, in turn, aid Ankara’s accession to the European Union.

This isn’t just about Sweden or Turkey, however. This combination of outcomes will likely put Russia on the back foot both in Ukraine and globally. Its efforts to weaken Nato and the West by invading Ukraine have backfired spectacularly.

Under Donald Trump’s presidency, the question surrounding the defence alliance was not so much what shape its future would take, but whether it had one at all. At the same time, Jeremy Corbyn, who was famously sceptical of Nato, was the opposition leader in the UK. The importance of the alliance was, many foreign policy

Nadine Dorries, the erstwhile cabinet minister and loyal friend of Boris Johnson, will publish a book on how the former PM was ousted in a ‘political assassination’. She calls him ‘the most charismatic politician of his generation’ and claims there were ‘unaccountable forces’ manufacturing his downfall.

EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: HEATWAVE OVERTAKES EUROPE BUT SPARES THE UK, FOR NOW

Even if it doesn’t feel like it at the moment in the UK, this summer is dangerously warm. A heatwave is overtaking much of Europe, with temperatures in Italy potentially reaching a European record this week. Temperatures are expected to go above 40C in Sicily, in the south of the country, because of the anticyclone Cerberus.

Spain, France and Germany are also experiencing temperatures well above 35C. The numbers are particularly worrying as

research out this week revealed the heatwave of last summer killed more than 60,000 people in Europe. The countries worst hit were Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal - all in southern Europe. But last summer the heatwave also made it to the UK, bringing temperatures to a record 40C. This June was the hottest recorded in the UK, but temperatures are not expected to reach startling heights this month.

ELENA SINISCALCO

experts predicted, on the wane. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed that. Putin’s assumption that Western weakness would be exposed was partly based on his assessment that Nato was fading in relevance and capability, particularly after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Events over the past year have undermined that thesis. Nato responded in a more unified and speedy manner than many expected, while the alliance found a new vigour and rationale, attracting new members like Finland and soon, Sweden.

On the battlefield in Ukraine, Nato allies have been critical in putting Ukraine in a stronger position. The news that Sweden is on course to join the alliance will be a further blow to Putin in his increasingly hollow effort

to portray the war in a positive light at home.

One of the most significant elements of this week’s news, however, is what it says about the direction of Turkish foreign policy. After President Erdogan’s re-election in May, he signalled his willingness to moderate his policymaking and seek closer relations with the West. The deal struck with the Swedes, the commitment to the extension of the Black Sea grain deal, and the construction of a manufacturing plant in Ukraine for Turkish drones, all points to an important shift in Ankara’s stance.

In the final hours of negotiation, Erdogan unexpectedly raised renewing efforts towards Turkey’s membership of the EU as a price for support for Sweden. It’s more likely that progress toward US support for Turkey’s defence sector is what swayed Erdogan. However, the last-minute inclusion of EU accession was no accident and should be seen to signal a desire for deepening structural ties with

the West.

Given that Erdogan has previously sought to balance Turkey’s position between East and West in general, and the West and Russia in particular, this pivot to the West is a sign of how badly the war is going for Russia in Ukraine, along with the discontent with Putin domestically, and the unity of much of the international community against Moscow. Turkey wants to be on the winning side, and they have decided Nato is it. Erdogan is a pragmatist and he is using his leverage with the West to shift closer to Europe and its allies in exchange for beneficial concessions to Turkey.

In a sense, its historical tip-toeing around East-West and wrangling with Sweden over Nato membership, has put Turkey in a strong position. That Erdogan has chosen this moment to call his cards will have sent off the warning bells in Moscow.

£ Daniel Sleat is a senior policy adviser at the Tony Blair Institute

Putin assumed that Nato was fading in relevance - a theory recent events have put paid to

President Erdogan is aiming to develop closer relations with the West

GOING OUT

EDITED BY STEVE DINNEEN @steve_dinneen

A SMART, PRESCIENT TAKE ON RACE AT THE YOUNG VIC

THEATRE

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YOUNG VIC

BY STEVE DINNEEN

Kwame Kwei-Armah’s play (which he also directs) Beneatha’s Place is a more straightforward proposition than its circuitous history might suggest. It’s the first UK staging of his 2013 work, which premiered in Baltimore and acts as an unofficial sequel to Lorraine Hansberry’s seminal 1959 play about the African American experience.

You don’t really need to know any of that, but it’s useful background and helps to explain the rather strange cold-opening of this new staging, which places a young, black, female activist against the backdrop of the student protests of the 1950s.

It then zips several years forward and some 5,000 miles east, where the titular, American-born Beneatha (Cherrelle Skeete) is moving into her new home in the suburbs of Lagos

alongside her new husband Joseph, a patriotic Nigerian academic with political aspirations.

This is very much a play of two halves, the first a tense, occasionally very funny political thriller in which various factions attempt to manipulate the principled Joseph, including local councillors and a shady (white) American diplomat who lives in the same village. It explores the legacy of racism and colonialism, which the couple find they cannot escape by simply leaving the US – if anything it seems even more insidiously entrenched on the African continent.

This legacy is given physical manifestation in the couple’s home through Joseph’s collection of racist masks, posters and ephemera shipped over from the States, an uncomfortable, tangible reminder of what the couple have tried to leave behind.

The second half represents an about turn: decades later Beneatha returns to the Lagos house, having lived in America in the intervening years. Now a respected university professor, she’s accompanied by a posse of (predominantly white) academics, brought there to discuss the next year’s curriculum: namely whether African American Studies should be replaced by

Critical Whiteness Studies.

The white, performatively woke lecturer most strongly advocating the change argues that black students are put off by the former’s legacy of oppression, while the central role of white people in the toxic miasma of racism should be properly stated.

It’s not an entirely successful structure, the first half teeing up fascinating questions which the second then addresses in the most literal of ways. It reminds me a little of Jonathan Spector’s play Eureka Day, which came to London last year, in the way its characters are unashamedly used as ciphers for the Big Issues at hand.

What is remarkable is how prescient Beneatha’s Place was, its ideas having been dragged kicking and screaming into the cultural conversation in the decade since it premiered. It’s also exceptionally well acted, especially Skeete who manages to convincingly age 50 years through subtle changes in tenor and bearing.

While bordering on the didactic, the fiercely relevant issues discussed (updated since the original), canny direction and excellent acting make this another worthwhile staging by a Young Vic which seems to rarely put a foot wrong these days.

THE LOWDOWN: PLAYWRIGHT MICHAEL WYNNE ON CUCKOO

We caught up with the creator of this new play, a dark comedy about three generations of women in one family

WHERE DID THE INSPIRATION FOR CUCKOO COME FROM?

It started with being interested in things you’re allowed to say and talk about, about having opinions and people disagreeing.

I also wanted to write something set in Birkenhead again, because it’s a world I know so well, and I just keep coming back to and feel really inspired by.

It’s about a family of women, and I do write for women a lot and really love that. But initially I didn’t intend to write a female-only play.

The characters just started speaking to me, and the path the plot took just happened –it wasn’t my intention. I followed it, and it ended up becoming central to the whole piece.

TELL US ABOUT THE IDEAS IN CUCKOO

We’re living in a time which can feel quite strange and uncertain, with the pandemic, and Brexit, and weird weather.

The characters are working class people who don’t have massive security. And when tenets of society, like education and health, perhaps aren’t working in the way they did before, things become even more uncertain. Especially with mental health and how people don’t quite know how to deal with those issues.

There’s also this idea about the way we use technology, and especially phones, how these mini computers have taken over our lives. Maybe some things are crazier than they were. Or maybe it’s the fact we get newsflashes in the middle of a conversation about something we wouldn’t have known about in the past.

So, it’s about all that. But it’s also the idea of a cuckoo in the nest, and there are two in the play –the phone is one, and Megyn is another. But I should say, a huge caveat is that it is a comedy! It’s the absurdity of how we live, and ultimately, it’s three generations of a family just trying to get on.

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO YOUR PHONE?

It’s hard not to be – they design them to become addictive.

We sit down on a train or a bus or the Tube and we just pick up our phone. We also have everything on them, our whole lives; we’re so reliant on them. You can see other people on their phones and think ‘look at them’, but I think we’re all just as bad.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO YOU TO TELL WORKING-CLASS STORIES?

We just don’t see most of the population on stage. And I think that was always a bit of the case.

But thinking about the angry young men and kitchen sink dramas, and then people like Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale and Jim Cartwright and even Shelagh Delaney, all these wonderful writers, I feel that I don’t know who the writers are at the moment. I worry about not seeing many working-class plays, or any workingclass actors. What’s the world a young writer or actor is going to be inspired by?

WHAT DO YOU HOPE AUDIENCES WILL TAKE AWAY FROM CUCKOO?

Life is complex. Different characters have different struggles. But it’s hard to know what I want people to ultimately take away. Maybe if we all binned our phones, we might be a bit happier?

With a lot of my plays, it’s quite funny at the beginning but then it gets quite dark. Hopefully we’ve got you by then and you want to stay. There’s a lot of theatre out there at the moment which can feel like you’re taking medicine or doing your homework. I think we need a bit of a laugh and also, yes, to have the world reflected back at us. But also to let go a bit and have a good night out.

£ Cuckoo is on at the Royal Court, tickets are on sale now

BIRDBOX IS BACK –AND NOW IT’S IN BARCELONA FILM

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BY VICTORIA LUXFORD

Birdbox became a massive hit for Netflix in 2018, not just in terms of viewership but in the way it seemed to capture people’s imagination. Where most Netflix films disappear into the algorithm, the sight of a blindfolded Sandra Bullock leading children from unseen horrors stayed with movie fans. A sequel was inevitable, but interestingly the streamer has chosen to expand the world. Nine months after the events of the first film, Sebastián (Mario Casas) and his daughter Anna (Alejandra Howard) join survivors travelling through a ruined Barcelona, trying to evade the monsters that, once looked upon, make victims kill themselves.

The first in a number of planned spin-offs that will take the Birdbox concept all over the world, what’s immediately obvious is how closely it sticks to the original format. From the set up to the layering of timelines, so much of this feels like the same story in a different setting. There are some gloriously chilling moments, such as a sequence on a bus that takes your breath away, and the film’s primal fear still lingers as you beg the characters to keep their eyes covered. It just isn’t vastly different from Susanna Bier’s film, which leads to less-thanfavourable comparisons.

Casas, best known to Hollywood audiences for biopic The 33, brings some conflict and humanity to his lead that distinguishes him from his predecessors. However, this can’t prevent Birdbox Barcelona from feeling like a well-made bonus adventure.

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SQUARING THE CIRCLE

BY VICTORIA LUXFORD

AWest End musical may be the furthest thing imaginable from a Hollywood superhero blockbuster, but the 1998 National Theatre revival of Oklahoma! has a special place in superhero history.

An album cover may have a different context in the era of endless streaming, but the designs on the front of LPs could make you a legend in the 1960s, as this documentary from Anton Corbijn (Control) illustrates.

Squaring The Circle documents the rise and personal fall of Hipgnosis, the design studio formed by friends Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey "Po" Powell. Through interviews and still pictures, those who were there show the genius that led to iconic album covers like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon and various classics from Genesis, ELO, and Wings.

Considering the creatives involved, it’s a slight disappointment that the documentary follows such a familiar path. Famous faces line up to offer their perspective on what the duo’s work meant to them, and how artists could express themselves in every facet of the record process.

It’s also impressive to see so many legends line up for a chat, from collaborators like Pink Floyd members to Paul McCartney, to superfan Noel Gallagher. There’s some emotion weaved in with the nostalgia, as Powell talks about how the weight of success eventually tore him from his partner (Thorgerson died in 2013). Entering the film with a portfolio of their work tied to his back, he’s keen to show the pressure of creativity as well as its rewards.

The bar was set high for Squaring The Circle, pairing an intriguing subject with a visionary director. It doesn’t quite live up to those expectations, but serves as an entertaining entry into a chapter of art and pop history.

BY VICTORIA LUXFORD

AWest End musical may be the furthest thing imaginable from a Hollywood superhero blockbuster, but the 1998 National Theatre revival of Oklahoma! has a special place in superhero history.

It’s the production that gave star Hugh Jackman recognition outside of his native Australia, with the actor auditioning for Wolverine during the show’s run. The rest, of course, is history, and with Jackman returning to the character for Deadpool 3, it’s an apt time for this original cast recording to hit cinemas.

Directed by Sir Trevor Nunn, it’s an all-singing, all-dancing adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein production, perhaps best known from the 1955 film adaptation.

Set in the Oklahoma Territory in 1906, just as America was becoming a Union, Jackman plays Curly McClain, a cowboy madly in love with farmgirl Laurey Williams (Josefina Gabrielle), but unable to get past their combative

friendship. In the buildup to the anticipated Box Social, the pair try to reconcile their feelings in spite of various obstacles.

Opening with the iconic “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'”, at its best the production feels like a warm, nostalgic hug. From the deceptively simple staging to the high energy dance routines, it's clear to see why this is still considered a big moment in West End history, even 25 years on.

It might be tempting to believe Jackman has just always been an A-lister, but it’s fascinating to see him at the point just before he hit real fame. He’s every bit a star, creating simmering chemistry with spirited co-star Gabrielle and fitting a lot of nuance into a role that requires him to burst into song every few minutes. Elsewhere, Vicki Simon brings the laughter as Ado Annie, a young woman torn between two men. Maureen Lipman has a prominent role as the sage Aunt Eller, but her shrill delivery can wear you down.

Oklahoma! shows its age in parts, and a ballet dream sequence midway through stops the story dead. But overall it’s a pleasure to revisit an iconic production that will leave musical fans in raptures.

DIR. ANTON CORBIJN

A SOHO STALWART

properly, has sort of carried on through.”

More recently Balans has opened outposts across London. But Taylor has decided to invest more in the original restaurant rather than multiplying it into more and more smaller, less distinguished clones.

THE FUTURE OF BALANS

David Taylor is the sort of restaurateur who has no idea how good his restaurant is. You may not either: but Balans on Old Compton Street is open all night on Fridays and Saturdays, so you can get a lamb shoulder at 4am, served to you by a warm-hearted throng of staff, some who’ve been working there 20 years. “When are last orders?” I asked naively on my first visit when the clock had chimed well into the bleary hours. “‘For you, we serve until anytime,” one male waiter flirtatiously replied.

I was around 20, and that comment was one of the earliest, most formative, flirtations with another man that I’d had.

It’s not that Balans is overtly gay - but as one of only a handful of Soho institutions that opened in the 1980s that’s still in operation, it has simply been there through the neighbourhood’s interlocking web of cultural facelifts. It was there for the AIDS pandemic, when gay bars existed discreetly behind small glass windows, in opposition to the ostentatious lights of today’s watering holes, and throughout the nineties, when acid house DJs exploited Soho penthouses for after parties before the licensing laws shredded those parties into pieces. For those that like to go out in Soho, Balans is the trusted and familiar stalwart that’s so trusted and familiar you forget to go, then go again and remember how you really should go more.

“We were adopted by the scene, the various scenes going on here,” says David Taylor, Balans founder, reflecting on how the restaurant came about. “It’s quite strange really. Even the idea that you had to have somewhere gay friendly. If you said that now, people would say, ‘what?’ Back then, there were no places where it was safe. It was just more our mindset that we couldn’t give a fuck who you were. If you were a customer we’d take care of you.”

BRITISH BURRATA AND SEAFOOD

In Balans one July lunchtime, Taylor and I share plates of calamari and burrata that is actually made in Acton. (“You like that? Apparently I’m supposed to talk about sustainability… I think it’s really good.) When we meet, Taylor asks me “why are you here?,” but in a way that suggests he’s genuinely puzzled by the interest rather than in any way snobbish. Beforehand, the lady sitting opposite stopped Taylor to say she’s a fan of the restaurant. “You talk about institutions, but when you’re in the middle of something, you have no idea it’s an institution,” he says. “No idea quite how other people see it. You don’t see it when you’re in the middle.”

Taylor and his former business partners Sally and Prady Balan began working together in 1989, alongside another partner, Charles Cotton. They served sandwiches, and with no money, it took them six months to save for a coffee grinder. They worked with machine-like efficiency. “Brady and I served virtually every customer, seven days a week, 24 hours,” says Taylor. “When we opened this place most

restaurants shut at three o'clock in the afternoon, opened at six for dinner service, shut at eleven. Well bollocks to that. It’s Soho. Late night. Breakfast all day. If you want it, that's what we’re going to do.”

Go for some British-made cheese at 2am and be met by riotous groups of theatre performers who’ve clocked off for the night but fancy food not clubbing. It’s common for spontaneous per-

formances to happen when the wine gets flowing and even though takings have slipped for late-night service due to licensing laws prohibiting nightlife, it’s “still fairly healthy” overnight at weekends. He puts their success down to their militant approach to service standards. Then let the fun follow after. “Ultimately the ethos is very uncool, but having a customer first service, really focussing on doing the job

It’s a good idea: the flagship is where 36 years of history is, where the footfall is, and where the restaurant has its cult following. A new art gallery celebrates local queer artists; one-off music nights will happen, although Taylor is keen to make sure events don’t sell out so the locals can always get a table. It’s about cherishing the history, and spreading the word more, about a London institution that despite its cultishness still remains unknown to more than it should. “We’re a well-kept secret in a way, which is not a great business strategy.”

It’s well reported that Soho establishments are closing at a rate of knots, and Soho’s challenges are perhaps the strongest reason why the district needs

to promote and celebrate its cultural bastions more now than ever. There are barely any clubs left, and even though Eat Out To Help Out was a huge commercial success during the pandemic, resident complaints have halted a campaign for it to return permanently. It’s the same few residents who campaign to stop nightlife.

“I’m afraid a handful of people said you can’t have it, whereas you could have really built on that,” says Taylor. “Less traffic… I think that’s what most people who visit, and most people who live here, think. But they’re not the ones who make the noise.”

“The problem is that the residents vote for the councils, and the rest of England, the rest of the world, who come to Soho to have a good time don't have a vote. I think that power with the residents has got too strong. There are a handful of people in one or two residents’ groups who hold a lot of sway. Every application for licensing for an extension is the same two or three complaints, but it’s a life’s work.”

Aged 64, Taylor would “quite happily sit in the garden.” And yet, he has more growth on his mind, this time “to replicate in another city”, honouring the spirit of the flagship elsewhere. “The answer is there is something special about this,” he says, pausing, and glancing around during a busy lunchtime service.

To book visit balans.co.uk; 020 7439 2183

Clockwise from top: the Balans Cafe on Old Compton Street; founder David Taylor; a dish from the menu at the flagship

The Balans flagship restaurant in Soho, which opened in 1987 and serves all night

Soho institution

Balans is finally realising how good they are - Adam Bloodworth meets the founder

Millionaires are still piling into crypto as 2023 uplift continues

HIGH net worth investors are continuing to show growing confidence in cryptocurrencies as the robust start to 2023 rolls on.

A remarkable 85% of high net worth clients have considered, or currently already are, investing in cryptocurrencies, according to a first half of 2023 survey carried out by independent financial advisory deVere Group.

The poll’s findings were up from 82% of the organisation’s HNW clients with between £1m and £5m of investable assets who sought advice on cryptocurrencies throughout 2022.

Nigel Green, chief executive and founder of deVere Group, said the research pointed to a remarkable turnaround for digital assets following the trading slump of 2022.

“This sustained market bounce is quite incredible considering just how dark the 2022 crypto market was, with a string of serious headlinegrabbing events triggering a domino effect of financial losses that led to a shattering of investor confidence in cryptocurrencies,” he said.

“Last year's price drops also came as investors reduced their exposure to risk-on assets, including stocks and crypto, due to heightened concerns about inflation and slower economic growth.”

Among other incidents May 2022, the TerraUSD and Luna stablecoins crashed, taking billions of dollars of investor equity down with it. The market was further rattled by the bankruptcy of crypto exchange FTX in November.

“It really was about as bad as it could’ve been for the crypto market

last year. And 2023 has, so, far been characterised by the US Securities and Exchange Commission ramping up oversight in the digital asset space,” Green added.

“The fact Bitcoin has gained 80 per cent already in 2023, putting it on track for its best annual performance since 2020, is truly impressive.

“Against this backdrop of the socalled ‘crypto winter’, and the macro-

economic headwinds, HNWs are consistently seeking advice from their financial advisors about including digital currencies into their portfolios, or increasing their exposure to them.”

The CEO added that, despite the surveyed group being “typically more conservative”, he believed the interest stems from Bitcoin’s core values of being digital, global, and borderless.

He also noted cryptocurrencies were

CRYPTO NEWS IN BRIEF

CRYPTO CRIME FALLING, SAY CHAINALYSIS

BLOCKCHAIN analytics platform

Chainalysis has revealed that crypto crime is significantly down in 2023. Releasing its mid-year crime update last night, the cybercrime specialist reported that crypto inflows to known illicit entities are down 65 per cent, compared to where they were at the same time in 2022. It also found that crypto scammers took almost $3.3 billion less by June 2023 than they did by June 2022. The total taken by scams in the first six months of the year was still, however, an eye-watering $1bn. Despite the reported fall in crypto crime, ransomware attacks were on course for their second-biggest year ever, having extorted at least $449.1 million through to June. If this pace continues, ransomware attackers will extort $898.6 million from victims in 2023, trailing only 2021’s $939.9 million.

BOE TURNS TO NUGGETS

LONDON-based payment platform

now experiencing “upside momentum due to global cooling inflation trends which will improve the outlook for risk-on assets”.

“If HNWs are continuing to express such huge interest in crypto, as market conditions steadily improve, they’re going to be amongst the first to capitalise on the anticipated continued price rises of the major digital currencies,” he added.

Volatility seems to have evaporated from crypto

BITCOIN continues to plod steadily sideways, wading genially along like a bear through mud.

If you enjoy the rollercoaster nature of crypto, then the market leader offered little by way of entertainment this week, staying largely flat over the past seven days between $30-31k. By last night it was trading for $30,800 –up one per cent over the past seven days. Those looking for excitement may also want to avoid looking at Ethereum (ETH), which is down 0.6 per cent over

the same time frame. Solana (SOL) has done a bit more to send pulses racing though, shooting up more than 20 per cent in price.

The price jump follows the announcement of collaboration between Coca-Cola in Serbia and Solana NFT platform SolSea for a non-fungible token.

Even Wednesday’s better-than-expected Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers in the US were unable to shake Bitcoin from its stasis, with a small spike in the immediate aftermath of the announcement that the

US inflation rate had slipped again. The fell to three per cent on a year-over-year basis in June from four per cent in May and way down from a peak of 9.1 per cent in 2022.  Will we see a turnaround? Standard Chartered Bank seems to think so. They’re a massive bank and very important. They said in a research report on Monday that Bitcoin could rise to $50,000 by the end of this year and up to $120,000 by end-2024, citing bank sector crises as a potential catalyst to send the cryptocurrency soaring.

The price prediction also goes past the next halving, which is now less than a year away. The halving will again cut the rate of supply, an event that has in the past been cited by analysts as precipitating several significant bull runs. Will 2024 be the same?

Nuggets has revealed it is working with the Bank of England on a technology experiment to design a privacy layer for the UK’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). If a CBDC was introduced, the identity layer would be required to help empower users to maintain privacy and control their data.  However, while promising to increase financial inclusion and facilitate easier and cheaper cross-border payments, CBDCs have faced a raft of complaints surrounding inherent privacy and security challenges. Nuggets’ intention is to design a system that is private and secure and prevents tracking and correlation of transactions while maintaining standards of fraud and antimoney laundering prevention.

BITSTAMP AND QI TEAM UP

COMPANIES, banks and payment providers can accept cryptocurrency stored on Bitstamp as regular payment following a new partnership between the exchange and Qi Digital.

The move means businesses in the UK, Europe, Middle East and North Africa will be able to accept payments through combining Bitstamp’s crypto exchange and settlement service with Qi’s crypto payment platform.

INCHING ITS WAY UP

LONG-forgotten digital asset 1inch woke from a lengthy slumber to provide some entertaining sport for investors this week.

The Ethereum token powering the 1inch decentralised exchange sprang into life to pile on around 10 per cent in value yesterday – up six per cent on the week, and almost 25 per cent in a month.

The $318m market cap coin last night touched $0.34 and boasted a 24-hour trading volume of 280 per cent.

FOR ALL THE LATEST NEWS, VIEWS

ANALYSIS

Ed Warner

FOOTBALL may be a big industry, but it still operates like a village. Everyone knows everyone else –and their business – and is still prepared to trust their creditworthiness, often in spite of abundant evidence to the contrary. Much like ticks available at the local store or the chalkboard of debt behind the bar at the Dog and Duck. Not so much a house of cards as a whole village made of them.

I’ve had a sneak preview of an analysis of the sustainability of English men’s professional football published today by consultants LCP. Its football analytics team have drawn on the firm’s core capability of assessing the ability of companies to support their pension schemes (so-called covenant analysis), to create a financial sustainability matrix for all 92 clubs in the country’s top four leagues. What shines through is the systemic risk to the game from the interconnectedness of clubs, and specifically the debts between them.

The big numbers in LCP’s study are eye-catching. In the 2021-22 season, the 92 clubs generated £6.5bn of revenue and lost £1.2bn in the process. They had a whopping £5.6bn of “football net debt” outstanding under Uefa’s definition. This is essentially a measure of the monies owed to lenders and other clubs. When a distressed club defaults on its obligations to other teams –for example to pay deferred player transfer fees – there is a multiplier effect through the industry.

CHAMPIONSHIP EXPOSED

While Premier League clubs dominate the headline revenue and debt statistics, the risks of failure are greater lower down the football pyramid, with Championship clubs unsurprisingly most exposed. We’ve always known that chasing the Premier League rainbow is risky, but it is still a jaw-dropper to learn that Championship debts falling due within 12 months are almost 80 per cent higher than clubs’ annual revenues. By contrast, League One and Two teams have short-term debts that are half their annual revenues, and in the Premier League itself aggregate income is five times higher than near-term debt. Championship wage

TENNIS

MULTI-CLUB OWNERSHIP IN ENGLAND?

bills alone exceed these clubs’ overall income.

LCP’s sustainability matrix plots each of the 92 clubs’ footballing success against their financial strength. It provides an insight into which outperform their balance sheet on the pitch and those that fall short. Fun though that is to pick over for fans it is the financial scores that are most instruc-

TRANSPARENCY

The three metrics that LCP gives heaviest weight to are the proportion of revenue committed to wages, football net debt, and the debt owed to a club’s owners. This last factor explains a low score accorded to Brighton, widely re-

dwarfs that of any other Premier League team. It also is the reason why Chelsea’s score swung dramatically from low to high when the club’s debts to Roman Abramovich were wiped out after the club’s sale.

The LCP team makes three calls: for increased financial transparency;

greater due diligence on owner funding; and a system to reward good behaviour by clubs.

As asset values at the top end of football have inflated, so consortium ownership has become more fashionable, and with it multi-club networks. Cross holdings in teams across the globe and minority consortium members with interests in other clubs are proving a challenge to the football authorities.

It is hard to see these trends reversing though. There are bound to be spectacular fallouts within consortia as misaligned ambitions, timeframes and egos collide. But they do provide the opportunity to spread financial risk, network for footballing talent, and provide some sort of challenge to the

seemingly bottomless riches of the sovereign funds.

I was taken by a recent Joe Pomp podcast interview with Steve Pagliuca, owner of the Boston Celtics NBA team and Atalanta in Serie A. He suggested that if three Premier League clubs were owned by sovereign funds then effectively the other 17 would be fighting for a single Champions League place each season. It offended my footballing heart, but romantic notions only take you so far.

What I can see emerging over the coming years is a lowering of the barrier to ownership of more than one club within the English system. A prohibition on outright control of two or more rival clubs is likely to remain, but the need for capital throughout the pyramid, the hoarding of young players by the big teams who need to find game time, and the fad for consortium investment, all point towards minority cross-holdings being permitted in time. Not saying I’d vote for it myself, but I can envisage the question being posed to the new football regulator if or when it is created.

£ Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes at sportinc.substack.com

Women’s Wimbledon final story guaranteed

IT IS semi-finals day in the Ladies’ Singles at Wimbledon and two seeds, a wildcard, a non-seed – all different nationalities – are involved as four become two at the All England Club.

We’re guaranteed at least one surprise in the final with the two nonseeds playing in the first match and the two seeds facing off in the evening semi-final. Potential final storylines include Europe versus Africa, Belarus against Ukraine, seed versus wildcard and Grand Slam winner versus wannabe champion.

Arguably the match between Elina Svitolina and Marketa Vondrousova is the most intriguing.

Svitolina has been making headlines on her comeback to Wimbledon since she became a mother late last year. The

Ukrainian has also been vocal about the conflict in her homeland and has copped both support and criticism for her refusal to shake the hands of Belarusian and Russian athletes before and after matches.

She’s toppled three seeds on her way to the final four, including world No1 Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals but, surprisingly, is not favourite with the bookies today.

Instead they favour Vondrousova, who has beaten four seeds in a row to reach the semi-finals, each ranked 12th, 20th, 32nd and fourth. Her win over Jessica Pegula was mightily im-

pressive and was completed in under two hours, despite it going to a deciding set.

There is a feeling that the Centre Court crowd will be backing the Ukrainian wildcard today given the storyline following the 28-year-old. But whoever wins this battle of the nonseeds, a higher-ranked, more fancied challenger will await.

ONS HER WAY

Ons Jabeur made history last year when she became the first African and Arab woman to reach a Wimbledon final. Last year she lost in the final to

Elena Rybakina; she ensured there would be no repeat of that when the Tunisian beating the Kazakhstani yesterday in the quarters. She takes on Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, the only semi-finalist in the women’s draw who has a singles Grand Slam to her name – the 2023 Australian Open. Sabalenka reached the semifinal at Roland Garros, too, so she’s got form when it mat-

Sabalenka is the only Slam winner remaining

ters. She also reached finals in Madrid, Stuttgart and Indian Wells, losing to players – Swiatek and Rybakina –who are no longer in the WimbleSabalenka is favourite with the bookies for this seeded clash on Centre Court with the winner –whomever it is – backed to go on and lift the famous grass court title.

Wimbledon always throws up surprises and those have often come in the women’s draw, and with the world No1 out and the 2022 winner dispatched there’s room for yet another astonishing storyline.

It is semi-finals day at the All England Club and both matches promise a final rich with narrative, writes Matt Hardy

We’ve always known chasing the Premier League rainbow is risky but Championship clubs are so exposed

Steady Eddie has time, some other nations aren’t quite so lucky

EDDIE Jones’s first match in charge of Australia was never going to be easy given the state the Wallabies were left in, but having to front up against South Africa last weekend looked brutal.

Their 43-12 loss to the Springboks at Loftus Versfeld would have been crushing for the team given the positivity Jones has been pumping into the side.

But Jones also took the first opportunity he had to go after the press following the loss. It’s good to see that nothing’s changed in that respect. Jones always did bring the theatre to the international game.

The reality is that Jones can afford to see his side lose a couple of games this summer while they’re building towards the World Cup in September.

Australia begin in France against Georgia and Fiji and, while those two will provide stern opposition, it’s a whole two weeks before they clash with Wales in what many expect to be the most decisive match in Pool C.

Contrast that to Argentina, who open against England; New Zealand, who begin against hosts France; and South Africa, who start against Scotland.

Some teams have huge clashes in their opening fixtures and those sides will need to be up and running as they get to the tournament. Australia can almost grow into it.

Argentina coach Michael Cheika, for example, will have been seething at his side’s 41-12 loss to New Zealand in their own back yard at the weekend.

He coached me at Stade Francais and one thing is for certain, he will have spoken his mind in the changing rooms. Cheika is an honest man, brutally so sometimes, and he’ll expect a reaction from his side this weekend when they take on the Wallabies.

The Rugby Championship doesn’t match up to the Six Nations as a product but there are such quality sides in it that some of the logistical downsides can be overlooked.

The Springbok team to take on New Zealand this weekend is monstrous; it could quite easily win a World Cup final, and it

BAROMETER

PLAYER OF THE WEEK Winger Kurt-Lee Arendse

RUGBY COMMENT

Ollie Phillips

doesn’t even include some of the stars from Saturday’s win.

But as I said last week, you can never write off the All Blacks.

WORLD CUP FEVER

I cannot deny that this year’s World Cup is an exciting one. The winner could come from three pools and there are bound to be upsets throughout.

But as I have previously stated, some teams have much bigger openers than others, and I do worry about the choices some sides have made in terms of their preparation fixtures.

England, for example, play Wales home and away and Ireland in Dublin and then a lighter – arguably non-contact – match against Fiji before their huge World Cup opener against Argentina.

The Boks and New Zealand have their Rugby Championship fixtures before they play each other at Twickenham at the end of August – a huge game just a couple of weeks out from a World Cup. Ireland have handed themselves a pretty calm summer before they play Romania in their opener – they’re almost at risk of going in under-prepared and urgently needing to fire themselves up during the tournament. Every country will have different approaches, but at least Australia and Jones have the odd extra game to perfect their plan given their big game is not up first. And boy do they need the time.

£ Former England Sevens captain Ollie Phillips is the founder of Optimist Performance, experts in leadership development and behavioural change. Follow Ollie on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

AUS, NZ, ARG AND SA WORLD CUP MATCHES

Being a winger or full-back in South Africa is difficult as the standards are so high to even get a sniff at an international match. So for eight-cap Kurt-Lee Arendse, who started for the Springboks in their 43-12 win against Australia on Saturday, nothing short of near perfection would have done if he wanted to keep his spot. He scored a hat-trick at Loftus Versfeld and shone throughout. Ironically, his perfect performance was not enough to retain his place in this weekend’s squad, but there’s little doubt that a fit Arendse heads to the Rugby World Cup.

WHO’S HOT WHO’S NOT

Tom Hooper made his debut for Australia in their loss to the Springboks last weekend. He was replaced inside the opening 40 minutes.

Back row Marco van Staden was a stand-out for South Africa in their 43-12 win over Australia. He was everywhere, all of the time.

Michael Cheika is seen as one of the world’s best coaches but his Argentina hardly fired a shot in their disappointing 41-12 loss to New Zealand.

Jordie Barrett was man of the match in New Zealand’s win against Argentina and linked up with his brother Beauden to score.

Go pro: Carney review demands two full-time women’s tiers

FRANK DALLERES

THE Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship should become fully professional, according to a major review of domestic women’s football authored by former England captain Karen Carney.

Women’s football also needs its own dedicated broadcast slots to ensure maximum exposure and reduces the risk of it being eclipsed by coverage of the men’s game, says Carney’s review, which is published today.

The report was commissioned by the government in September, following England’s success at the Women’s Euros and in line with recommendations in last year’s fan-led review of governance in men’s football.

“Following the Lionesses’ unforgettable success in 2022 and as we look ahead to the World Cup, it is clear that domestic women’s football has reached a defining moment,” writes Carney, now a media pundit and sponsorship consultant.

“This review has enabled us to get a comprehensive understanding of the state of the game, and how we can capitalise on the current momentum.

“It is clear that the women’s game in this country can become a world leading sport that not only generates immense economic and social value, but sets the standards for women's profes-

CRICKET

sional sport globally.

“These recommendations must be a blueprint for how this can be achieved, and must be acted upon with urgency.”

The report, titled Raising the Bar –Reframing the Opportunity in Women’s Football, makes 10 recommendations, chief among them expanding professionalisation to the English second tier.

The WSL has been full-time for five years but some Championship clubs remain part-time and Reading confirmed they would revert to semi-pro status next season following their relegation.

Carney’s review calls

Carney has made 10 recommendations for women’s football

for both divisions to have minimum standards for salaries, contact hours and player care, and says the NewCo set to take over running the competitions from the FA must “not settle for anything less than world leading standards” for all stakeholders.

It also urges the FA, Premier League, EFL and broadcasters to agree on a dedicated slot for televising women’s football. Other recommendations include attracting investment to improve the talent pipeline; addressing a lack of diversity on and off the field; and introducing minimum standards of support for fans.

Record England chase leaves

Women’s Ashes finely poised

MATT HARDY

CAPTAIN Heather Knight hit an unbeaten 75 as England chased down a record total to beat Australia in the first series ODI to keep the Women’s Ashes alive. England and Australia are level on six points each in the points-based Ashes with four points remaining. The hosts still need three of the four remaining points to regain the Ashes form Australia.

The Southern Stars set a total 264 to win with Beth Mooney hitting 81 not out and Ellyse Perry, Phoebe Litchfield and Jess Jonassen all getting above 30.

Alcaraz on for final against Djokovic after win over childhood friend Rune on Centre Court

MATT HARDY

WORLD No1 Carlos Alcaraz took a step closer to a possible Wimbledon final against Novak Djokovic after the Spaniard toppled childhood friend Holger Rune in yesterday’s quarter-final.

The 20-year-old from El Palmar beat the player from Denmark in straight 7-6 6-4 6-4 sets to set up a semi-final against No3 seed Daniil Medvedev.

The winner of that battle will take on either Italian Jannik Sinner or, more likely, defending champions Novak Djokovic, who has won 90 matches at Wimbledon.

“Honestly, it is amazing for me. It’s been a dream since I started playing tennis,” Alcaraz said.

“Making good results at Wimbledon, such a beautiful tournament, for me it’s a dream to be able to play a semi-final here.

“I am playing at a great level, I didn’t expect to play a great level on this surface. For me, it is crazy.”

On playing his childhood friend Rune, Alcaraz added: “It was tough. At the beginning I was really nervous playing quarter-final at Wimbledon, but even more against Rune. Someone the same age as me playing a great level. It was tough to play against him but once you get

into the quarter-finals there’s no friends.”

Medvedev booked his spot in the semi-finals after beating one of the stories of the Gentlemen’s Singles draw.

Christopher Eubanks beat British No1 Cameron Norrie and Stefanos Tsitsipas on his way to the quarterfinals but fell to Medvedev in five sets, going down 4-6 6-1 6-4 7-6 1-6. Alcaraz will play Medvedev and Sinner will take on Djokovic tomorrow with today’s action focusing in on the women’s semi-finals.

Tammy Beaumont got England off to a motoring start, hitting 47 off 42 balls, but regular wickets fell in the chase as Alice Capsey fell for 40 and Natalie Sciver-Brunt was dispatched for 31. It was Knight’s steady score alongside Kate Cross’ late 19 from 20 balls that did it for England and the duo came home with 11 balls to spare with two wickets in hand. England will take on Australia in the second ODI on Sunday in Southampton before the two sides face off in the potential decider in Taunton next week.

Before yesterday evening, Australia had lost just one of their last 42 completed ODI matches.

Sexton’s

judgement day as No10 faces conduct panel

MATT HARDY

JOHNNY Sexton will today face a disciplinary panel over misconduct charges relating to the aftermath of the European Champions Cup final in May.

In a story broken last month by City A.M., the talismanic Ireland No10 could miss some or all of this year’s Rugby World Cup in France after the fly-half was accused of using pointed language towards officials following his Leinster side’s 27-26 loss to La Rochelle in Dublin in May.

Sexton did not feature in the game having suffered a groin injury playing for Ireland against England in the Six Nations but was present on the pitch

following the final whistle.

“Misconduct complaints against the Leinster Rugby player, Johnny Sexton, and against Leinster Rugby, arising from the Heineken Champions Cup final on Saturday 20 May 2023, have been lodged by EPCR,” a European Professional Club Rugby statement confirmed last month.

Sexton will face the panel virtually with no public announcement on a punishment expected until Friday at the earliest.

It is likely that any ban received by Sexton could be halved given the player’s disciplinary record but it is understood that EPCR are pushing for a lengthy punishment.

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