Monday 31 July 2023

LONDON’S BUSINESS NEWSPAPER

BANK LOOKS SET TO SEND RATES HIGHER

BOE EXPECTED TO HIKE INTEREST RATES TO 5.25 PER CENT

JACK BARNETT

THE BANK of England is tipped to hike interest rates for the 14th time in a row this week as it extends its fight against roaring inflation.

Members of the nine-strong monetary policy committee (MPC) are on Thursday expected to back a 25 basis point increase to the UK’s official interest rate, which would send it to 5.25 per cent –its steepest level since March 2008.

Such a move would mark a slowdown from June’s larger 50 basis point jump, a decision taken by the MPC in response to higher than expected core and wage inflation.

There is likely to be some dissent within the group, with one external member, Swati Dhingra, possibly calling for borrowing costs to remain unchanged.

Just a couple of weeks ago, money markets thought Bank governor An-

drew Bailey (pictured) and the rest of the MPC would repeat last month’s chunkier rate increase.

However, a sharper than forecast reduction in headline and core inflation rolled back bets on a larger move.

CPI inflation fell to 7.9 per cent in June, bang on the Bank’s forecast and down from 8.7 per cent in the previous month.

Deutsche Bank analysts said a strengthening pound and rapidly falling energy prices means the Bank can afford to ease off the

The Bank is almost certain to revise down its inflation projections in a new set of forecasts this week, indicating Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will meet his goal of halving the cost of living to around five per cent

STUMPED Broad send-off could be dampened by potential series loss

by the end of the year. Growth may receive a downgrade.

There is a chance the MPC will go harder to make sure inflation is finally killed off.

“A hike is almost guaranteed. But the magnitude of the hike remains highly uncertain, given the Bank’s June surprise 50 basis point hike,” Deutsche Bank said. Core and services inflation –which the Bank monitors closely –are still very high at around seven per cent. Wages are also rising at their joint fastest pace on record.

Although the Bank has already tightened borrowing costs at its fastest pace since the 1980s, launching its first rise in December 2021, markets think yet more pain is to come for families and businesses, which has reignited recession concerns.

Traders reckon two more rate rises are in the pipeline and that they will peak at 5.75 per cent. Cuts aren’t expected until the second half of next year at the earliest.

Tortilla boss ‘quietly confident’

LAURA MCGUIRE

DESPITE battling soaring costs, the boss of fast-food chain Tortilla Mexican Grill, Richard Morris, said he remained “quietly confident” about the firm’s future and its mission to expand into Europe.

Morris said rising costs and a

tumultuous two years for restaurants had seen the sector hit “quite badly” by a lack of investment.

Since Tortilla floated in 2021 on London’s junior AIM market, Morris said it has been “challenging” to get people to invest in Britain’s fastcasual dining sector.

“The truth is that the restaurant

ENGLAND’s hopes of rescuing an Ashes draw are in the hands of Mother

Nature after rain at the Oval yesterday left England needing 10 wickets today to level the series. Australia have retained the Ashes but are looking for their first series win in England since 2001.

despite investment and

sector has been hit quite badly from an investment perspective,” he told CityA.M. “It has had more headwinds [than] probably most other businesses,” he added, citing rising energy bills, staff and food costs. This year, the hospitality group has opened five new restaurants in London, which he said “has been

Like at Old Trafford rain has stopped play and though today's forecast looks more appealing – highs of 22 degrees –it has left England with the possibility of Stuart Broad’s cricketing swansong becoming a damp squib after the pacer confirmed he’d retire at stumps today.

£ FULL REPORT ON PAGE 20

Brexit challenges

incredibly resilient during all these challenging times”.

Morris said he was keen to further expand Tortilla’s presence in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, recently opening its first store in Belfast.

But Morris said that Brexit had made this harder.

“There are still quite a lot of logistical challenges and a lot more sign-offs on getting products into Northern Ireland,” he said.

Like many businesses, Morris said he is “hanging his hat” on the Windsor Framework, which will hopefully restore the smooth flow of trade.

MATT HARDY

BON APPETIT A MICHELIN STAR SUPPER IN MEGEVE? YOU’LL HAVE TO FORAGE FOR IT THOUGH P16

OPINION HOW TECH COULD SOLVE OUR HOUSEBUILDING PROBLEM P15

STANDING UP FOR THE CITY

Contrary to group think, businesses have a right to choose clients

AS SHAKESPEARE would have surely written were he alive today, what a tangled web we weave, when we first practice to debank a former UKIP leader. The fallout from Nigel Farage’s spat with Coutts and, in turn, Natwest, will continue for some time yet, but the details of the saga are less interesting than the philosophy. It has become trendy in recent weeks for people to say that, well, no bank should have the right to terminate a

THE CITY VIEW

customer. Commentators from left and right have nodded at each other sagely; Farage himself has found himself in common cause with Gina Miller, arguably Britain’s best known anti-Brexit campaigner. Except banks do, just as any private business does. The

issue is not that Coutts ditched Farage; it’s that they failed to be transparent about it. In a competitive marketplace, there should be nothing to stop a bank indeed making a virtue of who its customers are. Far from Go Woke Go Broke, an appropriately virtuesignalling lender may well make a killing out of advertising that it won’t accept clients like Farage. Go Woke, Don’t Go Broke? After all, there should in theory be plenty of other banks willing to

take him on and offer him banking services. The problem is that Coutts, for all their ESG committees in the background filing 40-page dossiers on individuals like Farage, lack the balls to do it in public. And that, there, is how insidious right-think creeps into the corporate world. Quiet committees. Growing, unchallenged departments. And CEOs and HR bosses either too distracted or too carried away to prevent political thinking

SOCIAL WUTHERING People dressed in red take part in a mass dance event to Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights as part of the Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever in Folkstone

Banks warn rates rise boon dimming as HSBC and Virgin prepare to issue results

CHRIS DORRELL

THE UK’s HIGH street banks have warned the boon from rising interest rates might be coming to an end as customer behaviour and a competitive mortgage market hits margins.

With tightening margins, all eyes will turn to how HSBC performs tomorrow alongside Metro Bank. Virgin Money will report on Wednesday.

Despite concerns in the rest of the market, analysts at Jefferies reckon HSBC might lift its net interest income guide for the year from $34bn to $36bn.

Any upgraded guidance would likely

reflect “a promising turnaround in macro conditions in Hong Kong and mainland China and better than feared growth in the UK”, analysts at UBS said.

Virgin Money is hoping to put a poor start to the year behind it when it reports results for the third quarter on Wednesday.

The bank saw its profit fall by a quarter in the six months to March as it set aside funds to cope with bad loans.

Earlier this month, it announced the closure of a number of its physical branches in an attempt to cut costs.

Unlike other high street lenders, Virgin Money failed to see a net interest

margin (NIM) expansion over 2022, with it remaining at 189 basis points. It is guiding for a full year NIM of around 190 basis points.

Last week, Natwest, Barclays and Lloyds recorded bumper profits, but investors were dismayed by the more cautious outlook.

Both Natwest and Barclays UK lowered their forecast for the full-year NIM on the back of an increasingly competitive deposit and mortgage market.

All banks reported customers are increasingly shifting deposits into higher yielding savings accounts while many are using savings to pay down debts.

infiltrating what should be corporate decision making.

If Coutts want to debank Farage and a host of other customers whose views don’t match up with whatever imagined values the bank has, go for it. Stick it on a poster. Send your customers a purity test, or ask them for their views on the Rwanda plan. It’s a free market. And the marketplace, we suspect, would let Coutts knew what they thought of the plan pretty quickly.

WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING

FINANCIAL COST OF GRENFELL TOWER DISASTER SOARS TO NEARLY £1.2BN

The cost of the Grenfell Tower disaster has reached nearly £1.2bn, 4,000 times the amount that was initially saved by replacing fire-retardant cladding with a cheaper combustible alternative.

THE INDEPENDENT CO-FOUNDER OF TITANIC SUB DISASTER FIRM SETS HIS

SIGHTS ON VENUS

The co-founder of the company that operated the ill-fated submersible trip told Insider his new company aims to host a colony of 1,000 humans on the hottest planet in the solar system.

THE FINANCIAL TIMES

TRUMP’S COSTS MOUNT AS HE BATTLES LEGAL PERIL ON SEVERAL FRONTS

A fundraising vehicle for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign spent more than $40mn on legal costs in the first half of the year, campaign finance filings are expected to show today.

Consumer Duty comes into force in regulatory shake-up

CHRIS DORRELL

THE CITY watchdog’s flagship new regulation, the Consumer Duty, comes into force today with experts describing it as the most important regulatory change in a decade.

The new principle aims to ensure firms deliver good outcomes for consumers on the quality and price of products and services, and make sure a higher standard of consumer support is provided.

Pinsent Masons financial services regulation lawyer Venetia Jackson, said: “Firms are expected to take pro-

active steps to ensure that if there is a risk of consumer harm, it is identified and any remediation is calculated and paid without waiting for customer complaints.”

They will also have to prove to the regulator that their desired outcomes are being met and the FCA has warned that it will take action against non-compliance.

Not everyone has been supportive of the reforms. Research last week showed 70 per cent of financial advisers thought the FCA had been unclear and more than half are now more worried about penalties.

THE GUARDIAN

Bank account closures since 2016 skyrocket

CHRIS DORRELL

THE NUMBER of bank accounts being closed climbed to nearly 350,000 last year as banks adopted an increasingly vigilant stance towards their customers.

According to data from a freedom of information request submitted by the Daily Mail to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the number of accounts being closed has increased from under 50,000 in 2016 to 343,350 last year. The data covers nearly 250 banks that shut accounts due to financial crime risks. “We have seen firms increase their monitoring of accounts over the past couple of years, which may account for the increase in the figures,” a spokesperson for the FCA said. A spokesperson for bank industry body UK Finance said: “When dealing with financial crime issues firms are often restricted in the information they can disclose.”

The issue of ‘debanking’ has become prominent in recent weeks after the controversial closure of Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank account.

However, some have pointed out that these problems associated with bank de-risking has been ongoing for years.

Back in July 2021 the Treasury Committee wrote to the FCA about the issue of “blanket de-risking”, warning that bank accounts were being closed for “no apparent reason”.

In reaction to the Farage case, the Treasury announced plans to increase the termination notice period to 90 days and require banks to explain why accounts are being closed. Exceptions will be made where the rules conflict with banks’ obligations to clamp down on financial crime.

UK Finance said these were “important changes” and that it will work with the government and regulators on implementing them.

UK private economy wilts amid high inflation and interest rates

JACK BARNETT

BRITAIN’s private sector economy is being trapped by high inflation and elevated interest rates and companies fear growth will continue to contract, a new survey out today shows.

Research by the lobby group the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has found that activity across the private

Half of UK SMEs battling unpaid tax with HMRC

JACK BARNETT

OVER half of British mid-sized firms are locked in disputes with the taxman over potential unpaid tax, a sign of the troubles companies encounter when trying to navigate the UK’s complex web of levies.

Some 61 per cent of 500 firms surveyed by consultancy BDO are embroiled in a tax dispute with HMRC.

BDO pointed out that in HMRC’s annual report the organisation said it takes on average 36 months for large businesses to resolve an enquiry. There were 39,500 open tax tribunal appeals at the end of March, an eight per cent jump from 2022.

sector contracted six per cent in the three months to July.

And output is likely to shrink in the coming months, albeit at a slower pace, with firms anticipating activity to drop three per cent in the next quarter.

Consumer services were the biggest drag on the private sector as a whole, the CBI said, leading to companies laying off staff.

Talia Greenbaum of BDO said: “The UK’s tax system can be very complex and difficult to navigate, so it’s no surprise this can result in business tax disputes. Simplifying and modernising the system would help to reduce these difficulties.”

An HMRC spokesperson told City A.M. “we seek to make it straightforward to get tax right and hard to get wrong” and flagged their “efforts on developing customer insight” around SME tax experience.

A drop in business volumes in the last quarter saw UK companies lay off staff

Argos primed to face Amazon, says director

HENRY SAKER-CLARK

ARGOS is “well positioned” to face up to the challenge of Amazon and other online retail giants, according to bosses at parent firm Sainsbury’s.

Paula Nickolds, the boss of the grocery giant’s general merchandise business including Argos, said the retail brand has maintained its “strong emotional bond with customers” despite changes to its operations amid shifting consumer habits.

It comes as the high street stalwart marks 50 years since it was founded by Richard Thompson in July 1973. The originally catalogue-oriented retailer rapidly grew across the UK to become one of the UK’s most recognisable high street brands.

Argos was taken over by Sainsbury’s, the UK’s second largest supermarket

chain in 2016, as part of its £1.4bn takeover of Home Retail Group.

Three years ago, Argos announced it would discontinue production of its recognisable printed catalogue, blaming weaker demand.

Nickolds said the retailer has reinvented parts of its business over the years in order to keep up with what customers want.

When asked whether

The catalogue-famed retailer said customers held nostalgia for the firm

changes will help Argos against the challenge of industry titan Amazon, Nickolds said: “Everything we’ve been doing recently means we are very wellposition to face that challenge.

“The breadth of our business gives us a unique position when it comes to next day delivery and collection across the country.”

Strikes by Aslef this week follow last week’s strike by members of the RMT union

Commuter disruption to continue amid train drivers’ overtime ban

ALAN JONES

RAIL SERVICES will be disrupted again this week because of a ban on overtime by train drivers as part of a longrunning dispute over pay. Members of Aslef at 15 train companies in England will refuse to work overtime from Monday to Saturday and from 7 to 12 August. The union said its members involved

Gen Z and millennials shrugging off inflation woes to buy ethical goods

LAURA MCGUIRE

GEN Z AND millennial shoppers are most likely to prioritise reputation when choosing where to spend, according to American Express.

A third (33 per cent) of 18-34-year-olds are more loyal to brands with a “positive corporate reputation” and “values” aligning with their own, compared to one in seven shoppers

Retail in peril as half cut back on buying clothes

LAURA MCGUIRE

RETAIL and hospitality industries continue to be bruised by the UK’s cost of living crisis as 59 per cent of people have cut their spending on eating out and a further 51 per cent have cut spending on clothing, according to new data.

Figures from Oxera also showed that in the last 12 months insolvencies of retailers in the UK rose 56 per cent from 1,243 to 1,942.  Restaurant insolvencies have also jumped 45 per cent over the last year, from 1,324 to 1,916.

in the dispute have not had a pay rise for four years and general secretary Mick Whelan said the government had not met its members since April.

The union said services will be seriously disrupted as none of the train companies employs enough drivers. A Department for Transport spokesman said the government had “facilitated improved offers on pay and reform” and it was now up to unions.

The cost of living crisis was always going to result in spending cuts “but it’s shocking to see just how hard the retail and hospitality trades have been hit,” Robert Catherall, principal at Oxera, said.  Rising interest rates, higher costs and a stagnant economy have led to many businesses crumbling.  While inflation fell to 7.9 per cent in June, this dip has not yet been passed down to customers who have to limit the amount of money they spend on disposable goods.  Oxera reported that some 81 per cent of Brits  now perceive eating out to be a luxury compared to 71 per cent 18 months ago.

aged over 55, a new study by American Express has shown.

Coined ‘purposeful shopping’, Gen Z and millennial shoppers are also the most likely group to donate points or cashback earned from loyalty programmes to charitable causes.

Just 29 per cent of Gen Z and millennial shoppers claim a poor instore experience would make them less loyal compared to 63 per cent for

older generations.  Kate Nightingale, chief behavioural officer at brand strategist Humanising Brands, said: “Consumers are seeking reassurance from retailers, and want services that make their lives easier, while also feeling valued by the brands they choose to support. It’s clear that alongside price, both purpose and authenticity are important factors that build trust and support loyalty.”

Despite the squeeze on living standards, younger generations still value brand ‘ethics’

Apple sales dip not expected to deter investors

JESS JONES

ANALYSTS predict that Apple will report a dip in sales on Thursday, but are unsure if this will stop its record-breaking share price surge.

It is anticipated the tech giant will report a two per cent year-on-year dip in sales down to $81.7bn (£63.5bn) for the third quarter, as consumers cut back on high-value tech purchases.

“This is perhaps unsurprising given the substantial economic uncertainty swirling,” Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst Hargreaves Lansdown, said. She pointed out that the outlook statement will be important to monitor demand, especially for Apple’s key iPhones, which have shown “resilience” lately.

Apple has experienced declines in sales, net income and earnings per share year-on-year in three of the last

four quarters, with operating free cash flow also declining year-on-year in all four. Despite this, Apple shares have rocketed to an all time high, rising 57 per cent to $195.83 since the start of the year, and its market capitalisation of $3.1trn now exceeds that of the entire FTSE 100.

Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell, put the share price swell down to factors such as hype around artificial intelligence and its new headset.Consensus estimates indicate a 10 per cent earnings growth for the year ending September 2024.

“At least expectations are low”, said Khalaf, adding that Apple is “particularly good at managing [and then exceeding] those”.

Apple’s shares have hit a record under Tim Cook

UK still at top of European fintech scene

CHRIS DORRELL

FINTECH investment in the UK slumped 57 per cent in the first half of the year as rising rates, high inflation and geopolitical tensions dampened investor sentiment.

Total UK fintech investment dropped to $5.9bn (£4.6bn) in the first half of the year, down from $13.8bn in the same period last year, according to data from KPMG.

The UK was part of a global trend, with both the number of deals and their value dropping. Worldwide there were 2,885 deals worth $63.2bn in the second half of last year. This fell to $52.4bn across 2,153 deals in the first half of this year.

In the UK, 215 fintech deals were completed in the first six months, whether through private equity, venture capital or M&A, which was down nearly half on the 392 deals

completed last year.

However, the UK remained the European centre for fintech investment with British fintechs attracting more funding than peers in the rest of EMEA.

John Hallsworth, client lead partner for banking and fintech at KPMG UK, said “the UK remains at the centre of European fintech innovation with British fintechs attracting over half the funding of Europe”.

Despite a significant drop in investment, the UK’s fintech sector continued to lead Europe in the first half of the year

Ovo exits parent firm in founder Stephen Fitzpatrick’s latest reshuffle

NICHOLAS EARL

BIG SIX energy supplier Ovo has cut ties with its long-standing parent company Imagination Industries as it shifts into a new corporate entity. Ovo Group revealed in its results last week the company has been transferred to Energy Transition Holdings, with founder Stephen Fitzpatrick the majority shareholder

alongside long-term backers.

The decision was overshadowed by a £200m investment boost from backers Mayfair and Morgan Stanley, and a slump in profits from £159m in 2021 to £20m in 2022.

Fitzpatrick’s latest move could ease some of the scrutiny on his business decisions, with the Ovo boss grilled by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee last year

concerning brand licence fees and loans to directors.

Imagination Industries was originally set up as Fitzpatrick’s investment vehicle to incubate companies in the early stages. Once investments rise in scale they are spun out of the group, with Ovo’s exit following the listing of Vertical Aerospace in December 2021, which was also part of Imagination.

Eyes on BP as oil giant prepares to report profits

AUGUST GRAHAM

BP WILL be hoping it can avoid the fate of its fellow London rival Shell tomorrow, when the oil major discloses how profitable it was in the second quarter of the year.

Analysts expect the oil giant to unveil billions of dollars in profit. But shareholders might be nervously eyeing Shell’s results announcement on Thursday ahead of the BP report.

Shell reported a $5.1bn (£3.9bn) profit in adjusted earnings, showing that its finances are returning closer to pre-energy crisis times.

But that was half a billion pounds lower than the $5.6bn that the company’s analysts had expected it to make.

Analysts already expect BP to make less money –about $3.5bn in underlying replacement cost profit –but investors might hope that it will not miss those expectations.

Shell said its profit had reduced due to it receiv-

ing lower prices for the oil and gas that it sells.

The business also reported lower margins at its refining unit, sold less liquid natural gas (LNG) than the quarter before – LNG is generally more popular during winter in the northern hemisphere – and its LNG trading business also fared worse.

The fates of both companies often track each other closely. In May, both companies reported expectation-beating profits, Shell by £1.4bn and BP by about half a billion pounds.

Then, as now, their profits sparked calls for more to be done to ensure that the windfall from higher energy prices –which was sparked by Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine –does not benefit oil companies while ordinary people suffer. Labour and the Liberal Democrats on Thursday called for changes to the windfall tax after Shell and British Gas owner Centrica announced their results.

It is likely that the same will happen tomorrow when BP reports.

Oil prices rally due to revived hopes of Chinese demand amid Opec cuts

NICHOLAS EARL

OIL PRICES have seen five straight weeks of gains with investors convinced supply cuts and fresh risk appetite will cause markets to tighten.

Both major benchmarks will begin trading today having reported a five per cent upsurge from the previous week –and are on track to gain over 13 per cent in prices for the month.

Brent Crude began the week up 0.89 per cent at $84.99 (£66.16) per barrel,

while WTI Crude is up 0.61 per cent at $80.58 per barrel.

This comes with increased sentiment towards investment and economic activity in the US. China has also pledged to step up stimulus measures. On the supply side, prices have also been boosted by supply cuts from Opec and its allies –the Opec+ alliance.

Saudi Arabia is likely to extend its oil output cut for another month to include September, Reuters reports, which will also support the market.

Global oil prices have been driven up by supply cuts from Opec+

How we reported on BP’s record £23bn profits in Feb

Marlboro boss defends shift in business model

LAURA MCGUIRE

THE BOSS of cigarette company Philip Morris International (PMI), Jacek Olczak, has said he thinks he can “come up with an even better business”, as the Marlboro-maker steams ahead with plans to sell more smoke-free products.

“We need to do something. I think we can come up with an even better business,” Olczak told The Sunday Times in reference to his decision to steer the company away from cigarettes. In 2021, the firm acquired pharmaceutical giant Vectura, which makes asthmatic inhalers, for £1bn. However, the group’s health and wellbeing arm has faced challenges over the last year, with Philip Morris booking a $680m (£529m) impairment charge due to unsuccessful clinical trial results for its inhalable

aspirin. The hit means PMI is no longer on track for the $1bn revenue it thought it would achieve by 2025.

Olczak defended the tobacco firm’s diversification into health products.

“The combustible business actually provides the resources for the smoke-free business. When we were acquiring Vectura, people were telling us it was unethical because we will now make money on the drugs when we are selling the cigarettes,” Olczak told The Times.

“If they continue that sort of narrative, I don’t do Vectura and I don’t invest beyond tobacco. If we go backwards into that thinking, the only thing this company will continue doing is selling cigarettes. So there is no logic in this.”

“It has always been my dream to help people with their finances. I am hoping to open up my own accountancy practice with my BSc (Hons) Accounting & Financial Management” Jolanta,

Chief executive of PMI Jacek Olczak

ACTIVIST fund manager Sparta Capital has allegedly bought stock worth “tens of millions of pounds” in London-listed footwear brand Dr Martens, according to reports by Sky News. It is said that Sparta is also engaging in talks with the board to help the brand as it struggles. The cult bootmaker’s value has dropped significantly following its initial public offering two-and-a-half years ago.

Move faster on data sharing or risk UK’s lead, warns competition tsar

CHRIS DORRELL

JOHN PENROSE, the government’s competition tsar, has urged the government to move faster in enabling the safe sharing of customer data or watch global competitors “leapfrog” the UK.

Alongside a coalition of business groups –including the Payments Association and Open Banking

Excellence –Penrose argued that the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill needs greater clarity to catalyse business investment in data sharing.

Although the Bill introduces provisions to improve data sharing, it does not include a timetable for how fast changes will be introduced. This means the UK is at risk of falling behind global competitors, despite it

being one of the earliest adopters of open banking.

Penrose warned that “other countries are trying to leapfrog and overtake us. If they succeed, all those juicy global opportunities will happen somewhere else instead.”

“We need firm implementation plans and timetables from ministers right away, so businesses can get cracking,” he said.

Legal experts call for financial services tribunal

A FINANCIAL services tribunal could boost the City’s competitiveness by providing a body of consistent case law and a route for firms to seek justice, experts told City AM.

Speaking to City A.M., Richard Samuel, barrister at 3 Hare Court Chambers, said “London’s common law dispute resolution system is a key part of what makes it competitive for financial firms”.

He argued that regulators have increasingly been given extensive powers to impose rules without corresponding checks or balances. Since Brexit, this trend has only accelerated after powers previously held at an EU-wide level were passed to the UK’s financial regulators.

This potentially poses problems for the financial sector, Samuel argued, because regulation is “inherently less predictable as it establishes broad obligations such as ‘fairness’”.

“Worse, no judges have the power to write any reasoned judgments which clarify their regulations,” he continued.

To temper the extensive regulatory powers, Samuel suggested that a financial services tribunal – modelled on tribunals

in other sectors – should be introduced to help resolve disputes and establish clear case law.

“As the costs of compliance with regulations continue to increase, London needs to reap the competitive advantage of its common law dispute system by putting future regulatory disputes into a Financial Services Tribunal,” he said.

He argued a tribunal would also ensure firms had access to a reliable dispute resolution system in place of the ad hoc redress schemes established in response to various banking scandals since 2008. This problem is particularly acute for SMEs, which rarely have enough funds to pursue dispute in the courts and cases often too big and complex for the Financial Ombudsman Service.

William Wragg, co-chair of the APPG on Fair Business Banking, said a tribunal could “correct the power imbalance inherent in disputes between businesses and large financial institutions”.

While the Business Banking Resolution Service was established in 2019 to resolve many of the more complex disputes, Wragg said it was “a painfully inefficient” exercise. “It has become clear that voluntaryschemes do not work,” he said.

McKinsey stays committed to China despite consultancy crackdown

CITY A.M. REPORTER

MCKINSEY has said it remains committed to the Chinese market despite a series of raids on fellow US consultancies.

Speaking to the Financial Times, global managing partner Bob Sternfels said it was segmenting IT systems to continue operating in the country, but wasn’t preparing to exit altogether.

“This is de-risk, not decoupling,” he said.

“Many of the world’s biggest challenges aren’t confined by borders –they too are global –and we’re going to continue to try and stand for that idea, and relentlessly pursue sustainable and inclusive growth,” Sternfels added.

Earlier this year, Chinese authorities raided the Beijing office of Mintz Group, where five staff were arrested, and Bain’s Shanghai office, as the state becomes more suspicious of such firms after broadening the country’s antiespionage laws.

CHRIS DORRELL

Partner Bob Sternfels said the firm would continue to pursue “inclusive growth”

Electric freight trains pulled as costs mount up

NICHOLAS EARL

DB CARGO UK, one of Britain’s biggest rail freight operators, is pulling its electric trains from service and replacing them with diesel models.

The firm, which is owned by German state railway Deutsche Bahn, blamed the high cost of energy which has made the trains too expensive to run.

It announced last week that its 24 class-90 electric engines would either be sold or scrapped and its class-66 diesel vehicles would be used instead.

In a note to staff, DB Cargo chief executive Andrea Rossi admitted that the move presented a challenge to the company’s green credentials.

“We are facing acute economic challenges, but this does not mean our actions will be at the expense of decarbonisation,” he said.

The freight boss also confirmed DB would continue to lobby for the devel-

opment of cleaner synthetic fuel to use in its diesel engines.

Rail freight accounts for about 10 per cent of surface freight moved in Britain, with the government aiming to boost the sector. Earlier this year, transport secretary Mark Harper said: “We cannot overstate rail freight’s untapped potential for green growth.”

However, total freight moved by rail dropped seven per cent year-on-year in the quarter to March, according to the Office for Road and Rail.

Partly to arrest this decline, the government has set up a strategic freight unit to oversee new growth targets.

DB’s decision to ditch its electric trains follows a similar move by rival Freightliner in 2021, which temporarily axed electric trains due to costs.

DB Cargo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story was first reported in The Sunday Times.

Mobico and friends posit plans to build rival Eurostar rail service

LUCY KENNINGHAM

A GROUP of firms including Mobico, the rail and coach company formerly known as National Express, have held a series of talks about launching a UKFrance rail service to rival Eurostar, according to the Financial Times.

The service would be the first to challenge Eurostar’s monopoly of the cross-

HS2 project ‘unachievable’, says watchdog

HELEN WILLIAM

THE HS2 programme has been given an “unachievable” rating by the official infrastructure watchdog. A “red” rating was assigned to the plans for the construction of the first two phases of the rail line, from London to Birmingham and then on to Crewe, by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA).

The red rating, contained in the IPA’s annual report on major projects released last week, states: “Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable.

Channel route.

The newspaper said the Spanish Cosmen industrialist family was one among the consortium, which has already had investor discussions over funding and routes.

Insiders cited by the paper said the service would be called Evolyn and could start running as early as 2025. Mobico was contacted for comment.

“There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.” HS2 was initially scheduled to open in 2026, but this has been delayed to between 2029 and 2033 due to construction difficulties.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said the government was “committed to delivering HS2 in the most cost-effective way for taxpayers.” PA

The new UK-France rail service would be named Evolyn and could run from 2025

MPs: Nuclear ‘wish list’ needs a clear strategy

NICHOLAS EARL

GOVERNMENT plans to revive the country’s nuclear ambitions are more of a ‘wish list’ than a strategy, a leading Westminster panel warned in its new report on the flagging industry.

The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee argued government hopes of building a new reactor per year lacked the comprehensive detail and strategy needed to meet such lofty ambitions – particularly those around funding and skills.

It is now calling for a comprehensive nuclear strategic plan to be drawn up, consulted on and ratified before the end of the current parliament.

There will also need to be an increase of the current nuclear workforce from 65,000 to as many as 215,000 people. This will require coordinated actions across the whole sector including government, existing nuclear operators,

developers and regulators.

Meanwhile, the report also said the government should continue to back nuclear fusion even though it is unlikely to contribute to net zero ambitions.

Greg Clark, chair of the committee, said the government is right to target a ramp-up in nuclear generation but labelled its ambitions as “stretching”.

Downing Street’s target of ramping up nuclear generation from 7GW to 24GW over the next three decades is nearly double the highest installed capacity UK nuclear has ever reached. It is particularly challenging with 85 per cent of the country’s current nuclear generation set to go offline in the next 12 years.

When approached for comment, a department for energy security and net zero spokesperson confirmed the government plans to publish a nuclear roadmap and consult on alternative routes to market by the end of the year.

Haleon, which spun off from GSK last year, is the world’s largest standalone consumer health business

Sensodyne-maker Haleon set for job cuts

CITY A.M. REPORTER

HALEON, which makes Sensodyne toothpaste and Panadol painkillers, has hired consultants to help with its restructuring plans as it looks to cut hundreds of jobs, according to a report.

McKinsey and EY have been drafted in to advise the firm on the costcutting exercise, where the firm hopes

to save £300m over the next three years, the Sunday Times reported.

Haleon, which split from Glaxosmithkline (GSK) last year, employs 24,000 people globally, with 1,700 staff based in the UK. It is unclear where the firm could cut jobs.

Haleon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson told the Sunday Times that as it entered the consultation

process it was “fully committed to supporting colleagues who may be impacted”.

The news comes ahead of its halfyear results announcement on Wednesday, with analysts expecting profit to come in slightly lower than this time last year before the GSK split. Haleon reported £3bn in revenues on May, but has struggled under the pressure of rising inflation.

ENERGY

FARMERS RAISE FEARS OVER FOOD PRODUCTION

OFGEM RISKS LOSING PUBLIC TRUST AFTER BRITISH GAS’S PROFIT BONANZA

gas prices eased this year.

The UK’s largest supplier, home to 7.5m household customers, raked in nearly £1bn from just six months of trading –a bottomline global fossil fuel producers would be proud of.

This is a marked contrast from last December when British Gas consisted of just £72m of Centrica’s £3.3bn bumper global earnings amid a worldwide commodities boom, with the company now powering nearly half of its £2.1bn half-year profits with a chunky £968m contribution. While oil and gas giants like Shell and BP rode the wave of a freak spike in energy prices last year, retail suppliers have been constrained by tight profit limits and a rigid price cap, weighed down by elevated wholesale costs which have powered the profits of producers.

This has softened scrutiny towards the industry over the past couple of years, with Westminster’s crosshairs instead focused on oil and gas producers – which have posted hundreds of billions in collective earnings since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, with rival Big Six players EDF and Scottish Power now also posting massive profits, the domestic energy crisis which saw the collapse of 30 energy firms and year-long de-facto nationalisation of Bulb from late 2021 has never seemed more distant.

HOUSEHOLDS SUFFER PRICE CAP PAIN

The turnaround follows Ofgem’s changes to the price cap formula this year, with the watchdog bringing in generous allowances to enable suppliers to recoup costs incurred from the pandemic and claw back vast

profits. Scottish Power also highlighted the measure in its swing from an £86m loss to £576m in the green.

Ofgem has pledged that this situation will be a one-off. It said the huge earnings from suppliers this week is a temporary adjustment, with allowances set to be tightened this year again amid the regulator’s focus on financial discipline.

To that end, the watchdog has brought in new capital adequacy rules establishing requirements for net asset value, following the introduction of ringfencing requirements for renewable payments, and a market compliance review on fiscal stability.

Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley has also written to suppliers warning companies against paying out dividends if they are loss-making.

However, all eyes will now be on Ofgem from Whitehall to Fleet Street, as its latest tinkering with the price cap has placed suppliers in the same conversation as profit churning banks this week, powering a growing perception that the industry is profiting from the pain of customers.

While the watchdog argues allowances have been necessary to stabilise the sector and shore up suppliers, it has also helped sustain energy bills at near double conventional levels amid a cost of living crisis, with British Gas expected to have made £66

people live in fuel poverty – meaning over 10 per cent of their income is spent heating their home.

PRESSURE ON OFGEM TO EASE ENERGY BILLS

Centrica boss Chris O’Shea expects British Gas’s profits to ease to around £150-£200m over the coming years, and has pointed to the company’s £100m support package for households – around a tenth of the supplier’s monster earnings –in its defence. Nevertheless, its key focus appears to be its shareholders, with dividends now up a third and buybacks soaring to £1bn, helping the FTSE 100 firm’s shares spike to a fouryear high of 133p per share.

Centrica was also exposed in January for its use of third-party agencies to forcibly install prepayment meters in vulnerable people’s homes, which also raised questions over Ofgem’s regulatory abilities. That is not to say everyone in the industry is unaware of the challenges ahead for UK

Utilita Energy chief executive Bill Bullen has called for £6bn of support to shave £600 off household energy bills for up to 10m customers this winter – paid for through scrapping legacy renewable contracts in the industry. This would be smaller in scope than the Energy Price Guarantee, but targeted at the most vulnerable customers, with millions not included in

the coldest months of the year without government support packages, with an elevated price cap coming two years into a stagnant economy following the pandemic. Such a mix is likely to see more households switching off energy supplies and choosing between heating and eating.

If the energy sector wants to maintain the trust of customers, it is time for suppliers to come up with a plan to support low-income households, which Ofgem should be compelling them to do.

The government has stepped in with costly multi-billion pound provisions for households and businesses for nearly two years, provided to every consumer in the country. This was driven partly by the fact suppliers could only afford so much support when suffering losses.

Now, as they return to profitability, Ofgem should be pushing energy firms into finding more ambitious solutions ahead of winter for vulnerable customers. Otherwise, Ofgem risks being accused of serving the firms it is supposed to regulate rather than customers.

Simply put, £100m is a scandalously low amount for Centrica to be offering . This might seem like a stark call for intervention in the energy market, yet higher bills risk the energy industry losing the trust of customers and the regulator no longer having the confidence of government – which threatens all sorts of volatile solutions such as nationalisation or breaking up suppliers.

If the energy sector wants to head off these threats, coming up with solutions this winter is vital – and as August approaches, the clock is ticking.

The National Farmers Union has urged the government to “look closely” at potential risks to domestic food production after the closure of the UK’s largest ammonia facility. Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the industry body that represents over 46,000 farming businesses, said relying on overseas imports for a vital tool in managing fields and crops was “concerning” and exposed the country’s fertiliser market “further to global volatility”. This follows CF Fertilisers last week confirming the closure of ammonia production at its facility in Billingham, Teesside, due to high UK gas prices putting pressure on profit margins – 10 months after first shelving production. It has already closed its plant in Cheshire. CF Fertilisers argues there is “ample availability” of ammonia for import, and that its decision will lead to more efficient and competitive production in the UK.

TECK MULLS COAL SALE AMID GLENCORE INTEREST

Teck Resources is considering a partial sale of its coal business, its chief executive Jonathan Price has revealed. Glencore made an $8.2bn bid for the unit earlier this year, but Teck is courting suitors in the hopes limited global coking coal mines will drive up its valuation. “This business is positioned to capitalise on the global supply gap from existing mine depletion and a lack of new projects coming into production,” Price told news agency Reuters, after the company reported quarterly earnings that missed analysts estimates. He did not reveal the names of the other potential suitors, but confirmed Teck was “actively” engaged in the process when analysts asked whether there will be a fresh update by October. Whether Glencore makes a fresh bid remains to be seen.

SEND US YOUR THOUGHTS

What can we do to retain trust in the energy sector? Email energy editor Nicholas Earl at nicholas.earl@cityam.com

City A.M.’s energy editor Nicholas Earl delves into the sector’s challenges in his weekly column

Jonathan Brearley has led Ofgem’s crackdown

THE NOTE BOOK

British cynicism can mean we overlook our success stories

HEADING east out of the City towards the Strand one passes the ugly, brutalist facade of King’s College London, nobody’s idea of an architectural landmark.

Combining dark grey, pebbledash and concrete, the only bright spots are the portraits of former students and staff who have made their mark in the world.

One of them is Rosalind

Franklin, the former King’s researcher whose work was central to the discovery of DNA. The discoveries she made led to Nobel Prizes for a host of her colleagues and informed those of successors in her field, who also won Nobels. She is a British success story, largely unknown to most British historians –let alone Brits at large.

We aren’t, as a country, particularly good at celebrating our own success stories. That’s true in British business, too. The company Darktrace is a good example: a UK business built on genuinely world-leading

A NEW COMPETITOR FOR AIRLINES IS NO BAD THING

technology that somehow fails to get the credit it deserves. JD Sports is another, a retail powerhouse. Yet ask most people even in the City and the former will be best known for a short-seller report that turned out to be deeply exaggerated and the latter for just about the only misjudgment in former boss

Peter Cowgill’s career, when he met a takeover target’s CEO in a car park for an informal chat.

The benefits for those investors who are able to see past the headlines and look at the fundamentals of a business, however, are obvious.

Darktrace’s share price has shot up around 40 per cent since the firm was given a clean bill of health by auditors at EY. And anybody who has stuck around on the JD Sports bandwagon has done very well indeed, with the stock up 70 per cent over the past five years.

Long-term investors can still find British success stories if they look hard enough.

The launch of Global Airlines has attracted plenty of scepticism, but there is good reason to believe that this latest attempt to break the monopoly of the big carriers on transatlantic routes might have some more positive momentum than others. Perhaps the best sign is that rather than undercutting low-margin fares, the airline appears to be pitching for quality worth paying for. British Airways may have a fight on their hands.

£ Last week I met Andrew Carter, the CEO of Chapel Down, the profit-making English winery. We’ll publish my full interview with him tomorrow, but as we sat overlooking the pitch at The Oval ahead of the fifth Test against Australia, we found common ground on the need for Britain to adopt a little of the ‘Bazball’ mentality. Risk is out of fashion in everything from politics to the economy. It is vital we get it back.

Italy: Joining China’s Belt and Road was a poor call

ALVISE ARMELLINI

ITALY made an “improvised and atrocious” decision when it joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) four years ago as it did little to boost exports, Italian defence minister Guido Crosetto said yesterday.

Italy signed up to the BRI under a previous government, becoming the only major Western country to have taken such a step. Crosetto is part of an administration that is considering how to break free of the agreement.

The BRI scheme envisions rebuilding

ANNOUNCEMENTS

the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with large infrastructure spending, although critics see it as a tool to spread its influence.

“The decision to join the [new] Silk Road was an improvised and atrocious act” that multiplied China’s exports to Italy but did not have the same effect on Italian exports to China, Crosetto told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“The issue today is: how to walk back [from the BRI] without damaging relations [with Beijing]. Because it is true that China is a competitor, but it is also a partner,” he said.

LEGAL AND PUBLIC NOTICES

SEARCH NOTICE

Re: Lau Kwok Leung Tso (“the Tso”)

We, the undersigned have instructions to represent the Tso in dealing with the Tso’s property and would like to invite Mr Kwai Fong, the issue / son of the late Mr. Lau Shu Sang (deceased) to contact our Mr. Peter Yeung / Ms Peggie Ho at (852) 25861881 or peteryeung@hlly.com.hk so to arrange for a meeting of the Tso to resolve the matter regarding the disposal of the Tso’s property.

Hau, Lau, Li & Yeung

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Tower 1, Admiralty Centre, 18 Harcourt Road, Admiralty, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2586 1881

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PAGE 19

£ A heartening sign as I walked into the office this weekend was a crowd of construction workers busying themselves in the new City arm of The Wolseley, loosely pegged to open next month. Taking up the ground floor of the former House of Fraser at the top of London Bridge, the new iteration of one of the capital’s oldest and most feted restaurants appears to be a welcome vote of confidence in the Square Mile’s magnetism.

CAN I QUOTE YOU ON THAT?

I

Elon Musk’s tweet about the end of Twitter and dawn of ‘X’

With the summer holidays on the way, there’s nothing like getting away from work and reading something totally alien –or so I’m told. I find myself instead ploughing through ever more books on the world of finance, and few have entertained me recently as much as Robin Wigglesworth’s Trillions. Charting the birth of index funds may not sound the most compelling topic for a book, but this is a pacey, readable history of an invention that revolutionised global finance, for better and for worse.

Zelensky said he would do everything in his power to protect Ukraine’s power grid from Russian attacks this winter

Ukraine predicts winter power grid attack

OLENA HARMASH

PRESIDENT Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday said that he expects Russia to resume its attacks on Ukraine’s energy system once cold weather returns later this year, and vowed to do everything possible to protect the power grid.

Nearly 40 per cent of the Ukrainian energy system was damaged in Russian missile and drone strikes over the past winter, which plunged Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold in what Kyiv called a deliberate strategy to harm civilians, a war crime.

Moscow says it launched the attacks to reduce Ukraine’s ability to fight.

Since warm weather returned, strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have subsided in place of attacks on other targets.

But Zelensky said during a visit to the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk yesterday he expected attacks on energy to resume.

“It is obvious that this fall and... in the winter the enemy will try to repeat the terror against the Ukrainian energy industry. We should be ready for this in any case,” Zelensky told senior government, security, and regional officials.

“At the government and security level, we will do everything possible.”

Zelensky said the government, security officials and energy workers were working to protect the energy system from physical damage, sabotage or cyberattacks.

Every city and town in Ukraine should be ready to handle energy sector emergencies, he added.

Fast repairs, often relying on backup energy equipment sent by Kyiv’s Western partners, helped the country get through the past winter.

Energy minister German Galushchenko expressed confidence this week that Ukraine could meet its generation needs during the cold months.

Reuters

SPORT We want to expand further in the US, and to India, with our model

SIXES CRICKET FOUNDER ON HOW BAZBALL AND BOOZE MAKE FOR A GREAT COMBO

Where the City’s movers and shakers get a few things off their chest. Today, City A.M. editor Andy Silvester takes the pen

knew birds weren’t real... We just proved it

A BOOK ON INDEX FUNDS HAS ME HOOKED

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Big tech, banks and BAE Systems prepare to update the market

WHILE the corporate results calendar is quieter than last week, there are still a host of major updates to whet investors appetites.

One of the world’s largest arms manufacturers BAE Systems is set to issue its half year results on Wednesday. It was one of the best performing stocks in the FTSE 100 in 2022, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw defence spending rocket. But the shares have been weaker in 2023, up 7.6 per cent year-to-date.

“Their modest gain leaves them ranked 37th at the time of writing, but they do trade within 10 per cent of their all-time high,” Laith Khalaf, head of investment analysis at AJ Bell, said.

“Since February’s full-year results for 2022, BAE Systems has said precious little, other than to reaffirm its full-year

guidance for 2023 in May’s trading update.” Investors will be all ears.

Elsewhere, tech giant Amazon and Apple will issue their Q2 and Q3 results respectively. Amazon has previously warned that growth in its cloud computing business is cooling. but Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, noted: “This warning about future growth doesn’t appear to have diminished enthusiasm for the shares, with the shares strongly higher since then.”

Finally, while HSBC will post its half year results tomorrow, high street bellwether

Next reports its Q2 results on Thursday. While Next has been one of the few retailers to buck the negativity surrounding the UK economy during the first half of this year, Q2 sales are expected to dip slightly. Analysts will look to see if it revises its sales guidance for the rest of the year ahead.

Polling supremo YouGov now expects full-year revenues to be at the lower end of the consensus range (£257m-£274m), news which has seen its shares tumble over 10 per cent. However, its ongoing focus on selling high-margin products and services has resulted in better-than-expected margins, while net cash is robust at £104m. Peel Hunt still says ‘buy’ with a target price of 1,360p per share.

WHEN DOVES CRY “A 14th interest rate rise in a row is expected on Thursday. The MPC looks a much more hawkish outfit now that Silvana Tenreyro has left. Swati Dhingra will prop up the dovish vote, but she now looks like the only one left on the ninestrong panel that prefers to lean on the side of caution. As a result, the Bank may yet meet market expectations of lifting rates to a peak of 5.75 per cent.”

JACK BARNETT, ECONOMICS EDITOR

Speedy Hire has teamed up with AFC Energy to develop a hydrogen-powered generator plant hire business. Broker Peel Hunt expects that as demand rises for these generators, the companies will enjoy enhanced growth and significant competitive advantage. The investment analyst group has opted for a ‘buy’ stance at 70p per share.

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

Crying misogyny over Alison Rose’s downfall won’t do Labour any favours

Eliot Wilson

IF THE great South African golfer

Gary Player had been entirely right when he observed that the harder he practised, the luckier he got, then the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, would be the most fortunate of current senior frontbenchers. But the diligent MP for Leeds West, who has worked at the Bank of England, the UK Embassy in Washington and the Bank of Scotland, is discovering that judgement and timing can be equally important. Last week, she waded into the row over Nigel Farage and the suspension of his services by prestigious wealth managers Coutts & Co, and the results have not been universally acclaimed.

The downfall of Dame Alison Rose, chief executive of Coutts’s parent Natwest, in the early hours of last Wednesday, happened at great speed, and many were caught off-guard.

Reeves was unlucky that an interview she gave to Channel 4 News on the issue was pre-recorded, at the mercy of events. It was filmed not only before Rose resigned but also before she admitted that she had disclosed information about Farage’s relationship with NatWest to the BBC’s business editor, Simon Jack. Nevertheless, the political judgement she exercised in analysing the story has been clumsy.

Reeves perceived the story, and especially the involvement of senior minis-

ters, as reflecting an explicit, misogynist culture of bullying and what she saw as the distorted priorities of Rishi Sunak’s administration. “I don’t like… what I see as bullying attitudes towards her,” she told Channel 4. Implicitly in defence of Rose, she went on, “She’s the first female chief executive of NatWest. She took over at a time when that bank had real, big problems. It seems to me that Alison Rose has done a good job turning that bank around.

Another Labour MP, Angela Eagle, also said the banking boss had been “thoroughly cancelled” after the Farage furore.

It is true that Rose was one of only

nine female CEOs at FTSE 100 companies, and that progress on closing the gender gap at that level has been disappointingly slow; a government-approved target set in 2022 said that boards should be at least 40 per cent female, but half of FTSE 100 companies are still not meeting that, and more than 90 per cent of female directors are non-executive. The glass ceiling may have substantial cracks in it, but it is made of toughened glass and shows no sign of shattering. Nevertheless, Reeves’s apparent unqualified defence of Rose on grounds of her sex seemed like special pleading. Even before the revelations which led directly to her resignation, Rose

had not handled the Farage crisis with great skill or deftness, allowing partial or inaccurate information to gain currency, and her organisation had let the bareknuckle populist frame the narrative on his victimised, freedom-ofspeech grounds. Her swing at ministers did not wholly connect either. “If I was in the Treasury at the moment… I’d be spending my time this summer trying to ensure that families… are properly protected during this cost of living crisis rather than picking a fight with banks on behalf of Nigel Farage.” However, Conservatives were entitled to observe that Natwest is 39 per cent owned by the taxpayer, and there was

Northern Triangle tech start-ups should be prime targets for Square Mile investors

THE recent report by the Treasury Select Committee on the UK's Venture Capital industry should ring alarm bells for the City. The Committee found that for many British businesses wishing to grow their operations beyond the early funding stages, access to UK domestic capital has been a barrier. As I said in my evidence to the Committee, this often leads to UK firms looking overseas for funding. Alongside a range of concerning findings over diversity in the sector, the report also highlighted a lack of venture capital investment outside London and the South East.

This means that throughout most of the UK regions and nations, opportunities for investment in high-growth businesses are more limited than they ought to be. This may be undercutting the potential for economic growth across the country. Part of the reason for this is that the company age limit for tax relief schemes puts companies

Nicholas Lyons

outside London, which typically take longer to launch, at a disadvantage.

The City of London Corporation stands firmly behind the findings of this vital report, which emphasises the crucial question of how capital is deployed across the UK.

In the last few days I have been visiting businesses and universities in Leeds and Sheffield. Leeds is a leading financial and professional services hub, while Sheffield is a centre for advanced manufacturing and energy research. The so-called Northern Triangle tech start-ups – those based in Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester –

have raised £1.3bn in funding over the last five years. The advances made in Leeds made it a logical place to play host to the launch of the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology in February this year.

Firms in the Northern Triangle are a perfect example of the UK’s ability to get start-ups off the ground whilst lacking the deep pools of later-stage venture capital businesses need to accelerate.

The City of London should be able to help thanks to the newly signed Mansion House Compact, which saw nine chief executives from some of the UK’s largest defined contribution (DC) pension schemes commit to allocating at least 5 per cent of assets to unlisted equities by 2030 – unlocking £50bn by the end of the decade. The signatories – Aviva, Scottish Widows, L&G, Aegon, Phoenix, Nest, Smart Pensions, M&G and Mercer – represent around twothirds of the DC market.

They will invest into tech, life-sci-

ences and bio-tech companies via existing investment vehicles or new ones to boost returns for pension savers and support the development of high growth firms.

The UK must make best use of its pools of capital to back innovative and dynamic homegrown businesses, which will form the future of a successful UK economy, and to make British ownership an attractive option. The Mansion House Compact promises to be a pivotal step towards this goal, fostering increased investment in growth companies across the UK while benefiting savers nationwide. Addressing the barriers to access to capital will also be essential to promote inclusivity, empower diverse entrepreneurs, and unlock the full potential of all the UK's regions. That is where venture capital must venture further.

£ Nicholas Lyons is lord mayor of the City of London Corporation

a growing sense, particularly but not only among Conservative voters, that Natwest had got this wrong, seeming to want to “de-bank” public figures because it disliked their views, rather than for financial or administrative reasons.

There is growing fatigue at the automatic injection of identity politics into every issue in the media. The treatment of Dame Alison is not unprecedented: last year, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, called for the resignation of Peter Hebblethwaite, CEO of P&O Ferries over the unlawful dismissal of 800 employees without consultation. Shapps may be a smaller fish than Hunt or Sunak, but the government had the right, if only as shareholders, to express a view on Coutts and Farage.

Reeves was finally undermined when the leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer, acknowledged that Natwest had “got this one wrong, and that’s why Alison Rose had to resign”. He even expressed muted sympathy for Nigel Farage.

Inevitably Reeves was guilty of bad political judgement and a victim of bad luck; she could not have foreseen the speed at which Rose’s position would unravel, but she made a misjudgement in choosing her line of attack and choosing to go in hard. Nigel Farage vs a female-led, partially public-owned bank must have seemed an obvious choice for the shadow chancellor, but she forgot a cardinal rule of politics. Sometimes your friends screw up and hand the advantage to your enemy. You have to fight the battle you are in, not the one you want.

TRULY

£ Eliot Wilson is co-founder of Pivot Point and a columnist at City A.M.

Rachel Reeves accused a ‘bullying culture’ of pushing Alison Rose out

UNFAIR?

As the de-banking row rumbles on into its third week, Gina Miller is the latest politician to claim to be a victim of having her bank account closed, this time by fintech Monzo. But the firm say they made a mistake in opening an account for a ‘political party’ which is against its policy.

WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR VIEWS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Overhauling business rates

[Re: UK lost 6,000 store fronts due to covid and ‘crippling’ business rates, July 28]

The British Retail Consortium is right to point the finger at crippling business rates for the devastating 6,000 retail closures in the past five years. However, this does not tell the whole story about the reform needed to aid both tenants and landlords.

The recent extension of business rates relief for retailers from 50 per cent to 75 per cent is welcome but short-sighted. It only helps smaller operators and, without any tapering relief, once it ends in April 2024 they face a huge hike in rates.

To reform the broken business rates system, at the very least the six months’ relief for empty industrial properties should be extended to the beleaguered retail industry. Properties are staying empty due to lack of demand, not because landlords are too greedy to let them at a reasonable rent. We also need to reform the method of calculating rates which is resulting in the highest rates bill in Europe. To help retailers navigate the twists and turns of the economic landscape, we need to see more frequent revaluations which consider the bigger picture.

Anything other than kickstarting comprehensive reforms will be kicking the can down the road.

Katherine Campbell

Reed Smith

BUY NOW, PAY BIG LATER As many as 8 million Brits ‘anxious and at risk’

Labour or Conservative, all of our plans for the housing crisis are an anachronism

Michael Beckerman

IN THE past few months, we’ve seen political parties announce a new solution to tackle the housing crisis every week. At the end of May it was Labour’s turn when it declared it would end the “hope value” – the value of land that assumes that it will achieve planning permission – in compulsory purchase orders by local authorities. The idea being it would make it cheaper, and easier, for local authorities to buy land to force through new housing. Earlier this month it was Housing Secretary Michael Gove taking up that idea and inserting it into a broader plan to fix housing and build new, “beautiful” homes.

As someone with a more distant yet deeply affectionate perspective, based in the US although visiting London as often as I can, it can be more than a bit frustrating. Not that politicians are seeking to tackle the housing crisis –but that the vast majority of what some are suggesting is so analogue in a digital age.

EXPLAINER-IN-BRIEF: WHY ARE PLANE TICKETS STILL SO EXPENSIVE?

If you’re still thinking about how painful the price of your summer flights was, you’re not alone. Meanwhile, the owner of British Airways, IAG, reported bumper profits late last week.

Its operating profit before exceptional items for the second quarter of the year was more than four times that of last yearrising from around €295m (£250m last year to around €1.25bn (£1.07bn) this year.

IAG is not alone. Budget airlines easyJet and Ryanair also recently reported record profits. There are reasons beyond profiteering driving the price of

tickets up. Inflation is making everything more expensive. The price of oil is still high, and since the pandemic there have been staffing shortages that airlines haven’t been fully able to resolve.

There are also fewer planes than there should be, because Boeing and Airbus have had to delay their big plans for new aircraft because of supply chain problems.

But ultimately, it boils down to the fact that airlines exist in a monopoly-like world. As long as we want to travel, we’ll pay what they ask us to.

So many of our societal problems, from the housing crisis to the climate catastrophe, are interlinked. At the beginning of July, the UK’s energy price cap was lowered – but households aren’t expecting to see much benefit. UK homes are among the draughtiest in Europe, and energy security is still so very far from being properly in place. Look at another news story recently: Ukraine has completed more wind turbines than the UK in the past year.

This is not unique to the UK. In New York, over 15 per cent of the population faced energy poverty in 2019 according to analysis by the Manhattan Institute. Likewise, more than 70 per cent of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions are from the built environment.

What we need is more investment in technology. Tech ensures we aren’t siloed in tackling some of the biggest challenges we face in London, New York or anywhere else.

There is a lot of clever capital going into climate tech right now. According to HolonIQ, in 2022, more than $70bn was invested globally into climate technology solutions. That’s up 89 per cent in 2021 and 40 times larger than a decade ago. Meanwhile, climate tech focused on the built environment attracted a record $9.7bn across more

than 330 deals (up 56 per cent year-onyear). But there is still a mismatch. The built environment is responsible for around 40 per cent of carbon emissions, yet attracts less than 14 per cent of climate tech funding. That means there’s a huge opportunity to invest in the tech that will address a huge chunk of global emissions.

Thankfully, the smart money is going somewhere. There is a burgeoning ecosystem of tech start-ups that are already making an impact, helping London to build new homes and to tackle its carbon emissions.

A couple of shining examples for you. Modulous, which is backed by developers such as Regal London, aims to eliminate the global deficit of 500 million homes while improving housebuilders’ efficiency. It does its magic by using artificial intelligence to identify the feasibility of sites, looking at patches of land to identify in seconds how exactly a sustainable development with minimal waste can be created on site. In London, with the need to develop on brownfield

sites, it could be a gamechanger.

When it comes to existing homes in the city there’s the likes of SimplyPhi which enables public sector bodies and private companies to acquire new homes at economies of scale, which in turn can increase professionalism of the rental experience for Londoners and identify improvements on environmental efficiency.

These are just a few of the tech startups that are making an impact on the housing and the climate crises. There are numerous others that could go further, faster, if more investment was secured.

What gives me hope is that the solutions are out there. There are tech firms doing brilliant work and that, by addressing these challenges, will make a lot of money in doing so. Investors ought to plough into climate tech and set the tone for politicians to follow.

£ Michael Beckerman is chief executive officer of CREtech and CREtech Climate.

Michael Gove announced new plans to ease the housing crisis last week

New research from the consumer group Which? has showed 15 per cent of the UK population are turning to credit and buy now pay later schemes to make ends meet. The ‘anxious and at risk’ group are most likely to take on debt.

France’s Savoyard region is wonderful for foraging and Michelin-starred food. Olivia

It’s high summer in Megève, an alpine town in the Savoyard region of France.

It is one of those pretty as a picture, pinch-me places that remind you why the French do life best; all sun-kissed slopes melting into valleys blanketed in acid green, ablaze with wildflowers and dotted with bijou wooden chalets.

Established as a ski destination by Noémie de Rothschild in the 1920s, by the 1950s Megève was so renowned as a playground for the rich and famous that Jean Cocteau referred to it as “the 21st arrondissement of Paris”.

It’s not all retro charm: the town’s Mediaeval centre has an enduring relationship with one of the world’s wealthiest dynasties that lends the resort a gilded edge. The de Rothschilds own 1,112 acres of prime real estate in the town, home to the only golf course in the area, a slew of excellent restaurants and a particularly charming Four Seasons property, the town’s only skiin, ski-out hotel, located at the foot of the Mont D’Arbois.

Built in local timber and stone, the 55room property feels more private chalet than hotel, designed and decorated by Ariane de Rothschild herself and filled with a personal collection of art and curiosities.

Impressive details include a vast art-deco style spa – a tribute to Noémie – and a wine cellar with glass staircase where some bottles ring in at more than 300,000 Euro.

There’s also La Dame de Pic – Le 1920, a restaurant by legendary French chef Anne-Sophie Pic. When it was awarded a Michelin star less than a year after its 2020 debut, Pic earned the title of the most highly decorated Michelin-starred female chef in the world.

Pic appears unfazed by her achievement when we meet in the vast Mont Blanc suite of Four Seasons Megève. Warm and jovial, her mischievous eyes twinkling behind thick-rimmed spectacles, she’s the antithesis of the egomaniacal superstar chef trope. With nine Michelin stars under her belt (three in Valence, two in Lausanne, two in London, one in Paris and one in Megève) it feels as if she has nothing to prove.

Pic’s love for the outdoors forms the bones of her food philosophy. “I want people to experience a sense of place when they eat my food,” she says. “It makes people happy.”

Now professionally linked to Megève as a region, Pic has taken her knowledge of the terroirs and its produce to the next level and trained in specialist foraging, getting her close to the nature she loves so much.

“It’s truly a lifetime’s work,” explains Pic. “Plants change at high altitude. I’ve come across so many inspirational new flavours.

I used to stare up at the sky and now I’m always focused on the ground.”

Four Seasons can arrange guided forage hikes into the hills. Trails suit all fitness levels and lead directly from the chalet up into the mountains; come summer, hike along a via ferrata, meander through meadows on horseback, or borrow an e-bike and explore sun-dappled forests. The winter season serves up some of the finest skiing in the Alps, plus heli-skiing, dog-sledding, glacier snowshoeing and hot-air ballooning.

The 18-hole Mont d’Arbois links golf course, located moments from the hotel, is one of the oldest in the region, and serves an

‘NO MORE MICHELIN STARS, PLEASE’

THE TRAVEL HACK

New research by Spabreaks.com shows a 346% increase in men using spas to look after their mental health.

Holiday at home with a trip to Claridge’s where their newly opened spa is one of the capital’s finest

excellent bistro-style lunch. There's also paragliding, canyoning and climbing.

Even closer to home is the hotel spa with thermal pool with sub-aqua sound system, sauna, hammam, hair salon and a nail bar. After a day in the mountains there’s nothing quite like a massage from healing hands to tie a restorative ribbon around the day.

But the laziest way to find the fruit of the region is at the restaurant. La Dame de Pic – Le 1920 is comfortable and refined, with a lofty, vaulted ceiling and views of the mountains adding drama in the dining room, buoyed by wafts of otherworldly aromas drifting from the open kitchen. With the doors to the terrace flung open on a balmy evening, the boundary between inside and the outdoors is blurred, allowing the scent of summer and the chime of cowbells to fill the air, and the odd pop of a champagne cork.

The six-course menu showcases local

proteins and dairy, centering largely around freshwater fish, game and cheese. It gives pride of place to plants and herbs, gathered either from the wild or from the hotel’s garden.

You won’t be surprised to hear the food is remarkable. Pine buds feature in a starter of gin-marinated fera, a freshwater fish, lending a delicate herbal edge to the white fish carpaccio, enhanced by a lactic vinaigrette made with marigold oil and smoked pickerel’s eggs. Pic’s signature ‘berlingots’, Turkish manti-esque dumplings that appear in various guises at every Pic restaurant, ooze with beaufort and absinthe, the intensity offset by a zingy tomato broth infused with aromatic meadowsweet and ground ivy. Local char arrives hidden under a coffee and lovage emulsion, with undertones of parsley and anise.

Pic also throws in impeccably sourced ingredients from further afield. Hojicha tea

from Japan goes with roasted pigeon, blackcurrant buds and cacao nibs; Madagascan vanilla is paired with a brie de Maux, curious marriages that were meant to be and highlight an affinity for creating dialogue between cultures.

In Pic’s kitchen the journey varies but the destination is always the same: “flavours, flavours, flavours.” Contrary to the tenets of traditional French cuisine, Pic uses scant butter in her cooking, hardly any cream and little sugar. Even her signature dessert of millefeuille blanc is featherlight with only a hint of sweetness from leatherwood honey with eucalyptus, offset by wild blackcurrants.

“When I first started in the kitchen I opened my mind to other arts for inspiration, instead of being focused on straight up cooking,” says Pic. “Cuisine is chemistry, whether you make a distillation of alcohol, a sauce, a wine or a perfume, the

Palamountain went hungry and left sated

BOOK THIS

Google searches for “best solo holidays” have increased lately, so why not join the thousands booking a solo trip?

The five-star Hotel Granbaita in the Dolomites has meditative forest walks, hikes and mountain biking. Hotelgranbaita.com/en

process is all linked.”

Powerful flavours are distilled into delicate dashi broths, humble vegetables are juiced and reduced into explosive concentrates and sauces are made using a technique called enfleurage, using fat to capture the fragrant essences in plants. The magic ingredient in Pic’s kitchen, however, is always “emotion”.

Pic’s litany of Michelin stars somehow feels less surprising after eating this incredible food. But I’m surprised to learn she isn’t aiming for a second at La Dame de Pic – Le 1920 - yet.

“I asked my chef [Alexandre Alves Pereira] to hold back a bit when we launched, actually,” says Pic, wearing a coy smile. “I didn’t want two stars, too quickly.”

NEED TO KNOW

Nightly rates at Four Seasons Hotel Megève start from £1,400 in winter and from £460 in summer

MARRAKECH LE ROYAL MANSOUR THE LONG WEEKEND

THE WEEKEND: Darling Marrakech is Morocco’s bohemian jewel, a soulful city surrounded by sand, anchored by an ancient Medina and crowned by the sultry peaks of the Atlas Mountains. Just three hours from the UK, there is no comparable weekend-worthy escape as bewitching, or as bonkers. There are hotels and then there is Le Royal Mansour. This vast estate functions like a miniature kingdom where guests are considered royalty. Just a 10minute drive from the airport, expect VIP treatment as soon as you touch down, courtesy of Royal Mansour’s fleet of Bentley SUVs, one of which will whisk you to what I reckon is Morocco’s finest hotel.

THE STAY: Maximalists rejoice! There’s nothing subtle about this hotel (except the service). Replacing rooms and suites are 53 extravagant private riads set in a maze of winding alleyways and fragrant gardens designed to echo traditional Islamic village life. Each of the three-storey residences celebrates Moroccan craftsmanship –zellige tiling, intricately carved custom furniture and hand-woven fabrics – and comes adorned by a rooftop plunge pool and fireplace. Up there, take in the views and listen to the soundtrack of the daily calls to prayer. There’s also a spa, pool and art classes in the garden studio.

THE FOOD: Michelin-starred chef Hélène Darroze has recently replaced Yannick Alléno as culinary director for the hotel’s restaurants: La Grande Table Marocaine for fine north African cuisine, and French brasserie, La Table. Her first foray outside of Europe, Darroze’s menus offer the chance

BOOK A TRIP

Inspiring Travel offers a threenight stay at Royal Mansour from £2,339pp, based on two sharing a Riad Superior on a b&b basis. This includes return economy class flights from London Gatwick and private transfers. Visit Inspiringtravel.co. uk or call 01244 729749

to taste her terroirs-driven French cuisine: tarte friande, langoustine ravioli or a rich Saint-Honoré patisserie. More Michelin magic comes from Massimiliano Alajmo. The youngest chef in the world to earn three stars, his menu at the hotel is an homage to Venetian fine dining with dishes like grilled squid and smoked coconut milk.

WHAT TO DO: The medina is the city's historic heart – a must visit, no matter how many times you’ve been to Marrakech. Get lost in the rose-tinted ramparts then explore the tangle of souks and quissariat (covered markets). Haggle for brass lamps, technicolour babouches and vintage kelims. Nervous about driving a hard bargain? Don’t be. Word has got round that tourists prefer a softer sell, and shopping is no longer the ordeal it once was. When you’re done in the labyrinth, squeeze past pyramids of rainbow spices and piles of entrails en route to Jemaa el-Fna square for a refreshing mint tea in a rooftop café. The hipster areas of Gueliz and Hivernage showcase the city’s progressive eye, with art galleries, concept stores and tagine-free eateries, such as the Aussie-inspired small plates at Plus61, a favourite with locals. On a scorching day try a stroll through the Jardin Majorelle, or head west to the Bahia Palace in the Jewish Quarter for a lesson in the tenets of Islamic architecture and design. Marrakech's location at the foothills of the Atlas Mountains offers easy active escapes – cruise into the desert for lunch at the Terres des Etoiles glampsite, hike through atmospheric Berber villages or conquer the peak of Mount Toubkal, North Africa's highest summit.

FORMULA 1

F1 takes a break from headliner Verstappen

AS MAX Verstappen crossed the damp line yesterday at SpaFrancorchamps in Belgium, it marked the conclusion of the opening act of the hit theatre show that is Formula 1.

And with an intermission lasting until the end of the month, there’s considerable time to ponder over the season thus far.

Red Bull and Max Verstappen have been the dominant force, McLaren have gone from zero to underdog hero in four months and off the track the circus of Formula 1 has continued to provide juicy storylines for Netflix’s Drive to Survive.

Here are the key moments with half of the season over.

THE

NEW, OLD AGE

Formula 1, over the last 15 years, has been a sport of eras. First it was Sebas-

tian Vettel and constructor Red Bull, then Mercedes and, mainly, Lewis Hamilton. Now we are well and truly in the era of Max Verstappen.

The Dutchman and his Red Bull outfit have been the dominant force this season. Verstappen has won all but two of this year’s races, the outliers going to his teammate Sergio Perez in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan – in Hungary the team beat McLaren’s record of 12 wins in a row.

And sure, Red Bull cannot be blamed for their dominance – they’ve got more out of their resources than other teams have with theirs – but that doesn’t mean fans can’t be right when they call the processions slightly boring.

Formula 1 will be hoping for other winners in the latter parts of the season because without it, the brand loses value for fans.

RUSSIAN ROULETTE

Seasons away from the track are never smooth and tranquil, they’re as chaotic as much of the race action. This season has seen a driver in Nyck de Vries sacked from his seat for AlphaTauri and replaced with former Red Bull and McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo.

The Australian is a fan favourite and draws in the crowds, but he’s yet to score a point in his car. Alpine, before the weekend’s Belgian

Grand Prix, parted ways with team principal Otmar Szafnauer and sporting director Alan Permane. Another grandee of the constructor Pat Fry has joined Williams.

The off season saw Williams, McLaren and Ferrari all make major structure changes as teams look towards 2026 and major engineering changes to the cars.

It looks as if, then, no one is safe in the world of Formula 1, and it’s almost a certainty that a number of drivers who’re gracing the tracks of the

globe this year will not be next season. The sport needs change. It’s as simple as that.

No number of mass changes off race or extra episodes added to the sport’s Netflix roster can get away from the fact that Formula 1 is becoming less interesting to fans who have followed the sport since before Drive to Survive. It’s a global phenomenon, but it is a predictable one. It should be an issue for the sport’s chiefs, and one that needs addressing.

But that’s for another day, because F1 fans the world over can actually chill out and relax for a month before the circus turns up in the Netherlands at the end of the month ahead of nine further races across four continents.

Ricciardo replaced De Vries this month

CLEARING BOUNDARIES

want to grow and we also want to grow the game of cricket as well.”

LOOKING BEYOND

WHEN City foodies hear the names Andy Waugh and Calum Mackinnon it would only be natural to associate them with the now closed Mac & Wild restaurant, which once sat in Devonshire Square near Liverpool Street.

But the pair have gone left field; staying in the hospitality sector but offering a product entirely different to their former business.

Sixes as a brand began in 2020 amid the gloom of the Covid-19 pandemic, but as Waugh talks to City A.M. during what has been an incredible Ashes series, the cricket-themed venue has expanded not only to Manchester and Brighton but to the United States too. And with a franchise model which could soon see openings in the likes of Australia and India, Sixes is a good news story for British entrepreneurship and the food and drink industry.

“We opened our first site in 2020, which is quite poetic with the format of Twenty20 cricket,” Waugh tells City A.M.

“It was probably one of the worst times, they only got seven days trading before locking down for six months.

“We’ve only got eight sites in the UK, all very different places. I like Brighton [their new opening, with outdoor nets] because it is a very different model, it is right on the beach front.”

Sixes combines the past time of drinking and eating with cricket nets, offering an interesting take on a night out. And much like its darts equivalent Flight Club, Sixes has taken a sport and created an entertainment space around it – and it’s not just happening here in the UK.

“We were obviously conscious about what was happening in the USA and we wanted to be open before MLC [Major League Cricket] started,” Waugh

adds. “We’re very aware of the energy that’s there and the World Cup launching between them and the West Indies next year.

“But we would always want to operate in the UK, we can play on that Englishness and London is one of the main capitals in the world.

“We’re never going to neglect that, there’s a good strong business in the UK as well, there’s a good argument to be opening here. So we

But the company – which includes pacer Stuart Broad, England Test captain and bowler Jofra Archer among its investors through their group 4CAST –are looking far beyond the shores of the UK and the growing market of the US. Cricket is played around the globe and it’s no secret that India has taken the sport and made it their own. A captive audience of over one billion people combined with a strong Test team and globally watched franchise league draws commercial eyes to the subcontinent.

“We are looking to open more sites in the US but globally we’ve had 400 franchise opportunities around the world,” Waugh says. “So we have signed on India [Delhi and Mumbai] and South Africa, we have [other] partners that we have signed on and we’re looking for ones in Australia and New Zealand – basically anywhere that wants to have this kind of operation.”

And why are this duo, famed for their Michelin Guide level dining, succeeding here? Well take away the business itself and cricket in the UK, especially Test cricket, has become watchable again – it’s attractive.

Sixes is fascinating, because it’s taken the traditional image of consuming cricket – picture a local field, probably with some playing nets, and the sport taking on a supporting role to a social occasion –and commercialised it.

Surviving post-Covid has been a challenge in the hospitality industry, so seeing a couple of Brits thriving and trying to clear traditional cricketing boundaries offers a good news story for the rest of us.

Sixes won’t leave London behind, but expansion shows value in cricket, writes Matt Hardy

The Dutchman has dominated and Formula 1 will hope the break offers others chance at closing gap, writes Matt Hardy

We’ve had 400 franchise opportunities around the world, including India and South Africa

Sixes owners Calum Mackinnon and Andy Waugh (left) and England captain Ben Stokes in the nets (main)

SPORT

England need 10 wickets to earn Ashes draw in Broad swansong

leave Australia on 135 without loss heading into today’s final day.

HIT FOR SIXES How two Brits are taking on the world with business of bats, balls and booze

PAGE 19

ENGLAND will need 10 wickets today at the Oval if they’re to rescue an Ashes series draw against Australia.

The tourists lead 2-1 in the series and have retained the Ashes but England can deny the Baggy Greens a first series win on these shores since 2001.

But in what is Stuart Broad’s final cricket match – the pacer announced that come stumps today he would retire – England will need 10 wickets to ensure his swansong is a winning one.

Broad and fellow veteran, 41-year-old James Anderson, began the day at the crease as they looked to add to England’s total on Sunday morning.

Broad hit what turned out to be his final Test ball for six before Anderson was trapped leg before wicket to leave England on 395, a lead of 383.

The six was Broad’s 55th in Test cricket – only Ben Stokes, Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Flintoff and Ian Botham have scored more.

The 37-year-old bowled England’s first over to David Warner, a batter he’s got out 18 times in international cricket, but was unable to dismiss the Australian.

Both Warner and his opening partner Usman Khawaja batted out the rest of the day’s play, which was cut short due to heavy rain in the capital, to

GOLF

Broad conceded 15 runs in his six wickets while Anderson’s 10 overs went for 34 runs.

Woakes averaged one run in each of his five overs while Chris Wood’s three went for 16.

Moeen Ali and Joe Root’s combined 14 overs went for 58.

Warner will begin day five on 58 runs while Khawaja has 69 runs to his name.

If Australia can pick a further 249 runs, they’ll take a 3-1 victory in the Ashes and return home with the urn.

Verstappen wins eighth F1 race in row at Spa

MATT HARDY

calendar without a win and still claim a third world title.

was raining but not how much.”

England need 10 wickets to avoid losing the series with the Test team not in action again after today until early next year, when the side tour India across five matches. Should England lose the series, there will be questions over how the Bazball side managed to go 2-0 down in the Ashes – with losses at Edgbaston and Lord’s – before getting into gear and winning at Headingley –the two sides drew in Manchester.

Eyes will also look to England’s tour to the subcontinent and who will fill the boots of Broad, as well as potential vacancies left by the ageing Anderson and spinner Moeen.

MAX Verstappen inched closer to a third consecutive Formula 1 world championship yesterday with a dominant win at the Belgian Grand Prix, despite starting sixth.

The Dutchman claimed his eighth consecutive win and 10th in all this season after coming through the field and beating his teammate Sergio Perez to the top step of the podium – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc claimed his third podium of the season.

The result puts Verstappen 125 points ahead of Perez in the Driver Standings going into the summer break. The championship leader can go the remaining nine races on the

“[Winning from sixth] is a new spot, that’s for sure,” Verstappen said after the race. “I knew that we had a great car, it was just about surviving turn one. I could see that it was all getting tight, I have been in that position before so I wanted to stay out of that.

“From there onwards, I just got a little bit stuck but once that cleared I could do my own pace. It was really enjoyable.

“We all look at the tires and this track is hard on the tires so you don’t want to do any unnecessary things.

“It was tricky in the laps where it was raining because you could see it

NETBALL

Lewis Hamilton finished fourth, ahead of former teammate Fernando Alonso while British duo George Russell and Lando Norris came home in sixth and seventh. Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda completed the top 10. Red Bull have 503 points in the 2023 Constructor Standings having won every race of the season thus far. Mercedes are best of the rest on 247 points with Aston Martin (196), Ferrari (191) and McLaren (103) making up the top five.

The Formula 1 season returns at the end of the month in the Netherlands.

Roses keep 100 per cent record in Netball World Cup

MATT HARDY

CELINE Boutier says “nothing else matters” after she became the first ever home winner at the Evian Championship yesterday.

The 29-year-old world No12– who is just the third French woman to win a golf major – had a three-shot lead heading into the final round and shot a 68 on the final 18 holes in southern France to finish on 14 under, winning by six shots.

Canada’s Brooke Henderson –who won last year – finished second on eight under with Celine Borge, Gaby Lopez, Yuka Saso, Nasa Hataoka and Kim A-lim all sharing

third on seven under.

Scotland’s Gemma Dryburgh finished best of the Brits in a solo eighth place on six under par.

“Honestly it has been my biggest dream since I started watching golf,” Boutier said. “This tournament has always been very special to me, even just watching as a teenager and just to be able to hold this trophy is pretty unbelievable.

“I think nothing else matters this year now that I have this trophy. I’m really good for the rest of the year.”

Boutier is set to pocket $1m

(£778,000) from the win at Evian Resort Golf Club.

MATT HARDY

ENGLAND’S Roses topped their pool at the Netball World Cup as they maintained a perfect record against Scotland yesterday.

England won 62-37 in South Africa to keep their 100 per cent win rate.

Having beaten Barbados, Malawi and yesterday Scotland, the Vitality Roses will head into the next phase of the World Cup and will face Australia, Fiji and Tonga this week.

The Netball World Cup sees pools merge after three matches before a secondary pool stage, but points carry over so score difference in matches remained important for England and

Scotland – who were both through prior to the fixture.

“We’ve got to have a bit of confidence, keep inside our bubble, focus on what’s next and take every game as it comes,” wing attack Chelsea Pitman said yesterday. “We want to have a successful campaign but it’s about breaking it down and being present and reflecting on what we’ve got now.

“We’ve got a good connection in midcourt, myself with Jade [Clarke] especially playing at club level.

“We’ve been pretty seamless with the changes so we’ve got to keep doing that and focus on what’s next.”

England play Tonga today, Fiji tomorrow and Australia on Thursday.

MATT HARDY

£ SUMMER BREAK REVIEW P19

Broad said he will retire after stumps this evening

Max Verstappen finished clear of this teammate to win his 10th Formula 1 race of the year, and eighth in a row

Boutier says ‘nothing else matters’ after major win