THURSDAY 18 MARCH 2021 WORLD BUSINESS NEWSPAPER ASIA

Read the label Polls apart Art of the deal

Vaccine highs might not last long for Voting rights battle reignites old Crypto-crusaders find new paths to
Big Pharma — BROOKE MASTERS, PAGE 17 conflicts in US states — BIG READ, PAGE 15 quick bucks — NOTEBOOK, PAGE 16

Irish ayes Briefing

Dublin builds i AstraZeneca defends quality checks

on US support
AstraZeneca and a main supplier have hit back after
the EU regulator said that it was investigating
whether manufacturing defects occurred in specific
batches.— PAGE 6; BROOKE MASTERS, PAGE 17
US president Joe Biden holds a video call
from the Oval Office with Irish premier i Ex-Blackwater head faces Libya heat
Micheál Martin to mark St Patrick’s day Erik Prince, the US private security contractor and
yesterday. ex-head of Blackwater, tried to help a rebel general
Amid increasingly frayed relations take control of Libya and “at the very least” helped
between the UK and the EU, Martin told evade an arms embargo, UN inspectors said.— PAGE 4
Biden the two sides must “stand by what
has been agreed” on post-Brexit rules on i ByteDance targets Singapore engineers
trade between Great Britain and North- Beijing-based ByteDance, the
ern Ireland. He also called on London owner of video app TikTok, has
and Brussels to “move forward with a launched a Singapore hiring
positive relationship”. spree, deepening operations
Ahead of the talks, Washington law- outside the mainland to try to
makers published a resolution warning satisfy watchdogs.— PAGE 9
that they would oppose any UK-US
trade deal unless the UK government i Von der Leyen warns on jab controls
upheld the terms of the 1998 Good Fri- European Commission president Ursula von der
day peace agreement. Leyen has warned that the EU is ready to introduce
Full story page 2 emergency controls on Covid-19 vaccine production
Erin Scott/EPA-EFE and distribution if needed.— PAGE 2

i Greensills jettisoned shares in 2019

Fed revises up US growth forecast

Lex Greensill and his family sold about $200m of
shares in Greensill Capital during a SoftBank Vision
Fund-led fundraising round in 2019, two years
before the UK fintech company collapsed.— PAGE 8

but signals no rate rise until 2024

i Trawling emits same CO2 as aviation
Ocean trawling, condemned by the green lobby for
destroying marine habitats and depleting fish stocks,
generates a similar volume of carbon emissions as
the global aviation sector does, a study says.— PAGE 3

i HSBC nears sale of French retail network

3 Expansion of 6.5% expected this year 3 Jab rollout and $1.9tn stimulus spur optimism
JAMES POLITI — WASHINGTON
COLBY SMITH — NEW YORK
Federal Reserve officials sharply
upgraded their growth forecasts for the
world’s largest economy but signalled
that they expected to keep interest rates
close to zero until at least 2024.
The median estimate from Fed offi-
cials now predicts that the US will grow
6.5 per cent this year, compared with 4.2
per cent in its December forecast. The
rosier projections came at the end of a
two-day meeting of the Federal Open
Market Committee yesterday.
The meeting was held against a back-
drop of growing optimism for the US
economy in the wake of Joe Biden’s
$1.9tn fiscal stimulus and the country’s
swift vaccination rollout.
Core inflation is expected to rise to 2.2
per cent — above the central bank’s 2 per
cent target — compared with a smaller
rise to 1.8 per cent predicted in Decem-
ber. The unemployment rate is now
forecast to fall to 4.5 per cent by the end
of the year, instead of 5 per cent.
“Following a moderation in the pace
of the recovery, indicators of economic
activity and employment have turned
up recently, although the sectors most
adversely affected by the pandemic
remain weak,” the FOMC said.
The policymaking committee made
no changes to its ultra-loose monetary
policy yesterday, pledging to maintain
rock-bottom interest rates until the
economy reached full employment,
with inflation hitting 2 per cent and on
track to exceed that target.
It also reiterated that it would con-
HSBC is in final talks to sell its French retail network
to a unit of US buyout firm Cerberus, as the bank
continues to shed underperforming western assets
tinue to buy bonds at the rate of $120bn terest rates until at least 2024, an overall and sharpen its strategic focus on Asia.— PAGE 8
a month until “substantial further assessment that was unchanged yester-
progress” was made towards its goals. day despite the better outlook.
“The path of the economy will depend But four out of 18 Fed officials are now Datawatch
significantly on the course of the virus, forecasting a rate increase in 2022,
including progress on vaccinations. The while seven are expecting one in 2023,
ongoing public health crisis continues to The Fed’s sharp signalling that US central bankers are Pandemic mental health More than a fifth
weigh on economic activity, employ- upgrade of its turning more hawkish, according to yes- US levels of psychological of US adults
ment, and inflation, and poses consider- projections will terday’s projections. stress, Feb 2021 (%) report high levels
of psychological
able risks to the economic outlook,” the intensify debate The Fed meeting comes at a delicate High Medium Low distress, based on
FOMC said. among investors moment for the $21tn market for US
All surveys of anxiety,
The sharp upgrade to the Fed’s sum- over when it will government debt. Men sleeplessness,
mary of economic projections will test ease its support Treasury yields, which rise as prices Women depression,
the central bank’s willingness to keep for the economy fall, have recently shot higher during Aged 18-29 loneliness and
that stance in the years to come, and will bouts of frenetic trading as investors Aged 65+ other symptoms.
intensify investor debate over when the have revised their growth and inflation Upper income Females, those on
central bank will start removing its sup- forecasts higher while also pulling for- Lower income low incomes and
port for the economy. ward the expected timing of the Fed’s 0 20 40 60 80100 the young report
In December, the median of Fed offi- first interest rate increase. Source: Pew Research Center much more stress.
cials’ estimates did not signal a rise inin- Day in the markets page 11

Scientists create first living models of

human embryos to research defects
CLIVE COOKSON — SCIENCE EDITOR development five to 10 days after an egg by reprogramming adult cells or
has been fertilised. For ethical reasons extracted from embryos.
Scientists have for the first time grown
there is an internationally accepted 14- After being cultured for a week or so,
living reproductions of human
day limit on growing human embryos the cells had become blastoids of a simi-
embryos in the lab — with all the cell
for research and so far scientists work- lar size and shape to natural blastocysts.
types, biochemical activity and overall
‘Strange creatures’ take structure of real embryos.
ing on living models such as blastoids They contained more than 100 cells that
Stripe out of the woods have observed the same limit. were beginning to differentiate into the
The research, which aims to help under- The International Society for Stem various cell types that would later pro-
Star of Silicon Valley i PAGE 9 stand problems that cause miscarriages Cell Research, the field’s professional duce different tissues in an older foetus.
and birth defects, may raise fears over a body, aims to address ethical concerns Some blastoids mimicked implanta-
slippery slope towards human genetic by issuing guidelines soon for creating tion in the uterus as they attached to the
Australia A$7.00(inc GST) engineering and cloning. embryos from stem cells. culture dish. But Jun Wu, leader of the
China RMB30 But the scientists conducting research “Blastoids will allow scientists to Texas team, said blastoids “would not
Hong Kong HK$33 at both Monash University in Australia study the very early steps in human be viable embryos”.
India Rup220 and the University of Texas in the US say development and some of the causes of Meanwhile, research into artificial
Indonesia Rp45,000 their creations, called blastoids, are not infertility, congenital diseases and the reproduction of mice, unconstrained by
Japan ¥650(inc JCT) perfect replicas of real embryos and are impact of toxins and viruses on early ethical issues, has moved much further.
Korea W4,500 not suitable to implant into a womb. embryos — without the use of human Scientists at the Weizmann Institute in
Malaysia RM11.50
The research teams have reported in blastocysts [from IVF],” said Jose Polo, Israel reported in the same issue of
Pakistan Rupee 350
Philippines Peso 140
the journal Nature their creation of blas- leader of the Monash project. Nature that mouse embryos had grown
Singapore S$5.80(inc GST) toids — cellular assemblies resembling Both teams grew their blastoids in lab healthily for 11 days — half their normal
Taiwan NT$140 blastocysts, the stage of embryonic dishes from stem cells — derived either gestation period — in an artificial womb.
Thailand Bht140
Vietnam US$4.50

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2 ★
Covid injections
Von der Leyen hints at vaccine controls
Export blocks considered
to ensure EU’s citizens
can receive inoculations
MICHAEL PEEL AND JIM BRUNSDEN
BRUSSELS
SEBASTIAN PAYNE — LONDON
The European Commission’s president
has warned the EU is ready to introduce
emergency controls on Covid-19 vaccine
production and distribution if needed to
deal with the “crisis of the century”.
Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc
was considering “all options” to ensure
“Europeans are vaccinated as soon as
possible”, in a sign of concern the EU has
exported jabs to the UK and US but
received none from them. The commis-
Welcome back
Iceland open to
more tourists
Iceland will open its borders to
vaccinated foreigners from today,
making the north Atlantic island one
of the first countries in the world to
reopen to tourists after coronavirus.
Iceland had already allowed
vaccinated travellers from the EU to
enter without quarantine, but the
new decision will give entry to
visitors from its main tourist
destinations of the US and UK.
Visitors will have to show proof of
full vaccination from a jab approved
by the European Medicines Agency,
which excludes vaccines from China,
as well as Russia’s Sputnik V.
Pre-pandemic, in 2019, tourism
accounted for 8 per cent of Iceland’s
gross domestic product. Richard Milne
Macron unleashes hardliner to thwart Le Pen
Crackdown on Islamists will
help save France from extreme
right, insists interior minister
DAVID KEOHANE AND VICTOR MALLET
PARIS
Emmanuel Macron’s rightwing interior
minister is unapologetic about his
crackdown on Islamists in France. But
his campaign is aimed not only at curb-
ing homegrown extremism, he says it is
also a ploy to defeat far-right leader
Marine Le Pen in next year’s elections.
Gérald Darmanin, whose planned law
against Islamist “separatism” is aimed
at bolstering France’s secular republi-
can values, has been accused of Islamo-
phobia and pandering to the far right
after suggesting Le Pen was “softer than
we could ever be” in a recent television
debate. But Darmanin, 38, was unre-
pentant. The danger, he argued, was “to
let Madame Le Pen become president of
the republic because we’ve shown our-
selves to be too naive, too soft”.
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FRIDAY 31 MARCH 2017
Trump vs the Valley
Tech titans need to minimise
political risk — GILLIAN TETT, PAGE 13
HMRC warns
customs risks
being swamped
by Brexit surge
3 Confidence in IT plans ‘has collapsed’
3 Fivefold rise in declarations expected
JAMES BLITZ — WHITEHALL EDITOR
A computer system acquired to collect
duties and clear imports into the UK
may not be able to handle the huge
surge in workload expectedonce Britain
leaves the EU, customs authorities have
admitted toMPs.
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sion president warned Brussels was
ready to halt exports of vaccines to
countries that did not reciprocate in
sending life-saving jabs to the EU.
“If the situation does not change, we
will have to reflect on how to make
exports to vaccine-producing countries
dependent on their level of openness,”
von der Leyen said.
While she did not mention the UK,
Brussels has repeatedly complained
about a lack of shipments of the Oxford/
AstraZeneca vaccine from Britain.
The EU has emerged as one the big-
gest Covid-19 vaccine production hubs
with companies including Pfizer and
Moderna of the US manufacturing
much of their international supply in
the bloc. The EU shipped more than
“There are between 60 and 70 per
cent of French people who say there is
too much immigration in France, that
Islam is not compatible with the repub-
lic, that there could be civil war,” he said.
“When 47 per cent of people are ready
to vote for [Le Pen], you have two solu-
tions. Either you call them all idiots —
but if you insult people, it’s rare they end
up voting for you — or you try to under-
stand what they’re going through.”
An Elabe opinion poll for BFMTV on
Thursday showed 58 per cent of voters
agreed with Le Pen on some issues some
of the time, while 48 per cent thought
her likely or certain to win in 2022.
Le Pen reached the second and final
round of the 2017 presidential election,
only to lose to Macron by 66 per cent to
34 per cent following a disastrous TV
debate performance. Now, with surveys
showing her within a whisker of winning
the presidency next year, Darmanin
insisted it was best to engage with Le Pen
head on about immigration and Islam-
ism while pointing out her weakness on
issues, such as the economy and the EU.
“The people who vote Front National
WORLD BUSINESS NEWSPAPER UK £2.70 Channel Islands £3.00; Republic of Ireland €3.00
A Five Star plan?
Italy’s populists are trying to woo
the poor — BIG READ, PAGE 11
Dear Don...
May’s first stab at the break-up
letter — ROBERT SHRIMSLEY, PAGE 12
Lloyd’s of Brussels Insurance market
to tap new talent pool with EU base
UK £3.80; Channel Islands £3.80; Republic of Ireland €3.80
Briefing
THE END
i US bargain-hunters fuel Europe M&A
Europe has become the big target for cross-border
dealmaking, as US companies ride a Trump-fuelled
equity market rally to hunt for bargains across the
HOW DRIVERLESS
OF THE TECHNOLOGY IS
Atlantic.— PAGE 15; CHINA CURBS HIT DEALS, PAGE 17
i Report outlines longer NHS waiting times
A report on how the health service can survive CHANGING AN
ROAD
more austerity has said patients will wait longer for
AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE
non-urgent operations and for A&E treatment while
some surgical procedures will be scrapped.— PAGE 4
i Emerging nations in record debt sales
FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE
Developing countries have sold record levels of
government debt in the first quarter of this year,
taking advantage of a surge in optimism toward
emerging markets as trade booms.— PAGE 15
Credit Suisse
Art of persuasion Mystery deepens
i London tower plans break records
A survey has revealed that a
record 455 tall buildings are
planned or under construction over disputed painting of Jane Austen
engulfed in
adjust its negotiation position with the in London. Work began on
EU, a Whitehall official said. “If running almost one tower a week
our own customs system is proving during 2016.— PAGE 4
much harder than we anticipated, that
ought to have an impact on how we i Tillerson fails to ease Turkey tensions
fresh tax probe
press for certain options in Brussels.” The US secretary of state has failed to reconcile
In a letter to Andrew Tyrie, chairman
of the Commons treasury select com-
tensions after talks in Ankara with President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan on issues including Syria and the
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FINANCIAL TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
34m jabs to 31 high- and middle-income
countries covered by its export control
regime between January 30 and March
9, according to the bloc’s data, including
9.1m to the UK and almost 1m to the US.
Both countries have rolled out vac-
cines much faster the EU, which has
grappled with limited supplies and
logistical failings in member states.
“All options are on the table” to speed
up Europe’s vaccine rollout, von der
Leyen said yesterday. “We are in the cri-
sis of the century. I am not ruling out
anything for now because we have to
make sure that Europeans are vacci-
nated as soon as possible.”
Dominic Raab, UK foreign secretary,
said the threat “cuts across” previous
assurances from the European Commis-
Interview. Gérald Darmanin
[the former name of Le Pen’s Rassem-
blement National] . . . may think Mad-
ame Le Pen is right about immigration,
but they say to themselves that she is
useless on the economy,” he said.
Darmanin’s grandfather was an Alge-
rian who fought for France in the former
colony’s 1954-62 war of independence.
‘[People] may think Le Pen
is right about immigration,
but . . . that she is useless
on the economy’
His father ran a bar and his mother was
a cleaning lady, which makes him an
advertisement for France’s attempt to
assimilate those from former colonies.
At 16, he joined the Gaullist Rassem-
blement pour la République, became a
protégé of former president Nicolas
Sarkozy, and in 2012 was elected mayor
of Tourcoing, not far from the tough
Valenciennes suburb of his birth.
Macron appointed him budget minis-
ter, then put him in the interior ministry
EU clash
Tension on LGBT+ rights overshadows Poland-France meeting
JAMES SHOTTER — WARSAW
DAVID KEOHANE — PARIS
MICHAEL PEEL — BRUSSELS
SATURDAY 1 APRIL / SUNDAY 2 APRIL 2017
The meeting yesterday between
French president Emmanuel Macron
Censors and sensitivity
Warning: this article may be
FEBRUARY 4 2017
upsetting — LIFE & ARTS
and Polish prime minister Mateusz
How To Spend It
Morawiecki in Paris was meant to focus
Chic new lodgings
on economic co-operation. But the
build-up has been dominated by a topic
that puts Paris and Warsaw at logger-
heads: LGBT+ rights.
In an interview last week, Clément
Beaune, France’s Europe minister and a
confidant of Macron, said the European
Commission should open infringement
proceedings against Poland over resolu-
tions adopted by dozens of municipali-
ties in the strongly Catholic nation
declaring themselves free from “LGBT
ideology”. He said he had been pre-
vented from visiting one such area dur-
ing a recent official visit to Poland.
Warsaw denied that Beaune, who
came out as gay last year, had been
blocked from visiting the region. His
intervention elicited a sharp response
from Polish officials. “This is definitely a
hostile move, a hostile declaration,” said
one. “Politically speaking, this is defi-
sion that “they weren’t aware of any
plans to restrict lawfully contracted
supply to the UK”.
Raab added: “Frankly, I’m surprised
we’re having this conversation. It is nor-
mally what the UK and EU team up with
to reject when other countries with less
than democratic views than our own
engage in that kind of brinkmanship.”
Von der Leyen said the bloc could
even activate Article 122 of the EU’s
treaty, which allows it to take emer-
gency measures to control the distribu-
tion of essential goods if “severe difficul-
ties arise” in securing supplies. The cri-
sis powers were conceived largely to
deal with energy shortages, but would
provide for steps such as forced sharing
of patents between pharmaceutical
last year as authorities tackled the tail-
end of the gilets jaunes anti-government
protests. He then chose Darmanin to
lead a crackdown on Islamist radicals
accused of taking control of Muslim-
dominated suburbs and of fomenting
terror attacks such as the beheading of
schoolteacher Samuel Paty last year.
While lauded by conservatives and
police unions, Darmanin, who has even
complained about “communitarian”
supermarket shelves of halal or kosher
food, has become a divisive figure. He
has faced calls to resign over a rape alle-
gation, which he denies; last week, he
was called as a witness in the case. He
has also been criticised by some on the
left and some Muslim leaders for his
handling of the fight against extremism.
The new law includes measures to ban
“virginity certificates” for Muslim wom-
en, curb home schooling and extend a
public sector ban on religious clothing to
private contractors working for the
state. The text does not specify “Islam-
ist” or “separatist”, but Macron’s team
have said it is to rein in Islamist extrem-
ism. Darmanin said he had already
nitely perceived as a negative in French-
Polish relations. Doing this ahead of a
visit is at least careless, if not something
more.”
The spat is the latest sign of how the
anti-LGBT+ rhetoric adopted over the
past two years by Poland’s conservative-
nationalist ruling Law and Justice party
(PiS) is drawing increasing attention in
the EU. It also follows a string of broader
clashes between Warsaw and Brussels
over the rule of law, which led to Poland
and Hungary threatening to veto the
EU’s budget deal last year.
The anti-LGBT+ rhetoric peaked dur-
ing last year’s presidential election,
when incumbent Andrzej Duda, an ally
of PiS, faced a close race against his lib-
eral challenger Rafal Trzaskowski. Dur-
ing the campaign, Duda branded the
LGBT+ rights movement an ideology
“more destructive” than communism.
One PiS member of parliament shared a
cartoon comparing gay marriage to a
union between a man and a goat.
Another PiS MP claimed LGBT+ people
were “not equal to normal people”.
The anti-LGBT+ moves have contin-
ued. Last week, Poland’s justice minis-
ter, Zbigniew Ziobro, unveiled legal
companies. The EU’s 27 members are
due to hold talks on vaccines next week.
Von der Leyen also said the bloc
needed to review whether to keep send-
ing vaccines to countries that were both
producing jabs themselves and outpac-
ing the bloc in inoculating their people.
“Open roads run in both directions,”
she said. “If needed, we’ll reflect on how
to adjust our exports based on reciproc-
ity and, in the case of countries with
higher vaccination rates than us, pro-
portionality.”
But she played down the prospect of
action against the US, saying though the
US had not shipped vaccines to the EU
the flow of raw materials back and forth
had been “seamless”.
Brooke Masters see Opinion
Tourists visit Skogafoss waterfall
near Skogar, south Iceland, in 2018
Maja Hitij/Bongarts/Getty
closed 17 mosques accused of promoting
extre mism and four clandestine
schools, and wanted the bill, which is
being debated in parliament, to break
down “the atmosphere of separa-
tism . . . the atmosphere that encour-
ages people to commit [terrorist] acts”.
But the law has triggered accusations
that the pair are stigmatising France’s
estimated 5.7m Muslims. Darmanin
defended laïcité, or secularism, as a way
of binding disparate groups together
into a nation, even if it took decades, as
it did with Protestants and Jews.
“It will take 50 years or a century, but
[Muslims], like the Catholics, the Jews,
the Protestants, will assimilate, provid-
ed we don’t lower our guard,” he said.
The political danger is that courting
the right will alienate leftwing voters.
That could destroy the traditional “rep-
ublican front”, under which voters
choose a candidate they dislike to keep
another out in a second-round run-off.
Asked whether France might finally
succumb to the populist wave if Le Pen
won in 2022, he said: “That’s what we’re
here to prevent.”
changes that will ban same-sex couples
from adopting children.
Polish officials say the measures are
necessary to defend the central Euro-
pean country’s traditional family val-
ues, which they say are under threat
from the liberal mores of western Euro-
pean states, and that Brussels has no
right to intervene.
“What we have in our constitution,
which defines marriage as a union of a
woman and a man, I can imagine that
some countries can disagree with that.
But this has been in our legal system for
decades and if indeed there is now a
Police escort: LGBT+ activists join a
pride parade in Plock, Poland, 2019
Thursday 18 March 2021
Brexit
Irish premier
tells Biden EU
and UK must
back Good
Friday pact
AIME WILLIAMS — WASHINGTON
LAURA NOONAN — DUBLIN
Micheál Martin, Ireland’s prime minis-
ter, told Joe Biden the UK and EU must
“stand by what has been agreed” on
post-Brexit rules on trade between
Britain and Northern Ireland.
Martin said by video link in a St Patrick’s
day meeting with the US president that
the UK and EU must “move forward
with a positive relationship” on the
Northern Irish protocol, which is
designed to prevent a hard trade border
on the island of Ireland.
Brussels launched legal action this
week after Britain took unilateral steps
to ease rules on trade with Northern Ire-
land, allegedly in breach of the Brexit
treaty with the bloc.
US politicians including Biden have
insisted there be no return to a hard bor-
der and that the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement underpinning the peace set-
tlement in Northern Ireland be upheld.
Biden touted his Irish heritage yester-
day, and quoted Irish poet Seamus
Heaney. Martin said he wanted to thank
Biden for his “unwavering support for
the Good Friday Agreement”. He added:
“It has meant a lot and it has mattered,
including as we negotiated Brexit.”
At a separate St Patrick’s day event
hosted by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Martin said
the protocol was “the only way that
could be found to manage the unique
complexities of Northern Ireland” while
avoiding a return to a hard border.
He urged US lawmakers to continue
to pay attention to Ireland and speak
out in support of the agreement. “Once
again, the eyes and the interest of the
United States can continue to make a
difference at a delicate time,” he said.
Biden administration officials have
struck a cautious note on the protocol
but lawmakers on Capitol Hill have
been outspoken.
A senior White House official said on
Tuesday: “The administration is inter-
ested in having strong relations with
both the UK and the EU, and we hope
that they’re able to find ways to work
well together, particularly ways that are
in the interest of political and economic
stability for the people of Northern
Ireland.”
But Brendan Boyle, a Democratic con-
gressman from Philadelphia and mem-
ber of the Irish caucus on Capitol Hill,
said the attitude of Boris Johnson, UK
prime minister, towards the protocol
was “deeply concerning”.
“Obviously this protocol is complex,
and it’s a complex situation. It wouldn’t
have taken four-and-a-half years to
negotiate and conclude if it weren’t
complex,” said Boyle. “But we want to
see no unilateral action from either side,
and we believe there needs to be co-op-
eration between the UK and EU to
implement this in good faith.”
Several lawmakers from both parties
have also threatened to block a UK trade
deal with the US if the Good Friday
Agreement is threatened.
Most recently, lawmakers including
Bob Menendez, the chair of the Senate
foreign relations committee, issued a
resolution that said any new trade deals
with the US should take account of
whether the conditions of the agree-
ment were met.
problem with this, the same issue
existed when we joined the EU. So what
has changed?” said the Polish official.
“Changes in public opinion in certain
countries do not have any effect on the
Polish legal system . . . We can talk, we
can argue which model is better. But we
do not impose anything on anyone. And
we simply believe that we shouldn’t
[have things imposed on us] either.”
Analysts are sceptical that pressure
from individual countries such as
France will have much impact on
Poland’s stance. “What is certain is that
it is not France alone that will change
Poland,” said Pascal Boniface, head of
French international relations think-
tank IRIS. “Rather what is needed, at
the least, is pressure from other Euro-
pean countries which agree with
France’s position.”
Another source of pressure could be
the European Parliament. Last week, it
passed a resolution declaring the whole
EU a “LGBTIQ Freedom Zone”. Widely
seen as a response to the declarations by
Polish municipalities, it drew attention
to the “increased discrimination and
attacks against the LGBTIQ community
in Poland”.
Thursday 18 March 2021
US warns China over Iran oil supply sanctions
Washington denies turning blind eye to trade in effort to encourage Tehran to join negotiations on 2015 nuclear agreement
KATRINA MANSON — WASHINGTON
ANJLI RAVAL — LONDON
NAJMEH BOZORGMEHR — TEHRAN
The Biden administration has told Bei-
jing it will enforce Trump-era sanctions
against Iranian oil as shipments from
the Islamic regime to China have soared,
a senior US official said.
Iranian oil exports to China have been
increasing “for some time now”, the sen-
ior administration official familiar with
the Iran issue said. Some observers had
questioned whether the rise indicated
that Washington was turning a blind eye
to the trade in an effort to encourage
Tehran to join negotiations over a 2015
nuclear accord the US abandoned in
2018. The Biden administration has
made returning to the deal a priority.
“We’ve told the Chinese we will con-
tinue to enforce our sanctions,” the sen-
ior administration official said. “There
will be no tacit green light.” The official
indicated that sanctions could be
Myanmar business fears protesters’ ‘dangerous game’
Companies support right to
oppose putsch but warn
economy will be paralysed
JOHN REED — BANGKOK
PATRICIA NILSSON — LONDON
KATRINA MANSON — WASHINGTON
A civil disobedience movement resist-
ing Myanmar’s military regime has par-
alysed the economy as workers strike,
businesses withhold taxes and the
ousted government asks foreign inves-
tors to shun the junta.
The movement has won mass support
from tens of thousands of government
and private sector employees opposed
to General Min Aung Hlaing’s coup on
February 1, in which he ousted Aung
San Suu Kyi’s National League for
Democracy. Railway workers, bank
employees, medical workers and civil
servants have joined a general strike,
disrupting transport, logistics, banking,
commerce and Myanmar’s Covid-19
vaccination drive.
Yet the chaos has alarmed businesses,
most of whom support their employees’
right to protest but privately warned the
turmoil threatened to wipe out a decade
of economic gains.
“The CDM is succeeding in bringing
things to a halt,” one chief executive
said. “I guess that is its purpose, but it is
a bit of a dangerous game.”
The supply chain in garments, a sec-
tor that employs 500,000, mostly
women, is fracturing as foreign compa-
nies suspend orders. Goods are piling up
at ports for lack of customs agents to
clear them. Most banks have been
closed since the coup, disrupting pay-
rolls and international invoicing and
prompting consumers to hoard cash.
Farmers are struggling to get crops to
market at the same time that prices for
seed and fertiliser are rising.
The UN World Food Programme
Carbon pollution
Ocean trawling emits as much Hong Kong wary of dissident’s Asian-American murders
CO2 as aviation, study finds art appearing at new museum raise hate crime concerns
CAMILLA HODGSON — LONDON
Ocean trawling, condemned by green
groups for destroying marine habitats
and depleting fish populations, gener-
ates a similar volume of carbon emis-
sions to the global aviation industry,
driven by activity in Chinese national
waters, the journal Nature has said.
Bottom trawling, which involves drag-
ging nets across the seabed, is responsi-
ble for between 0.6 and 1.5 gigatonnes of
carbon emissions a year, compared with
the aviation industry’s emissions of
close to 1Gt, researchers found. Global
aviation produces about 2 per cent of all
human-induced carbon emissions.
Most of this pollution occurs in under
4 per cent of the ocean, in the sovereign
fishing waters of coastal nations called
“exclusive economic zones”, they said.
Trawling in Chinese waters generates
by far the greatest volume of emissions,
or about 770m metric tonnes of CO2,
followed by trawlers in the economic
zones of Russia, then Italy, followed by
the UK at 370m metric tonnes.
“The ocean floor is the world’s largest
carbon storehouse. If we’re to succeed in
stopping global warming, we must leave
the carbon-rich seabed undisturbed,”
said Trisha Atwood of Utah State Uni-
versity, co-author of the paper.
waived during hoped-for talks between
Washington and Tehran to revive the
multi-party nuclear deal.
Enforcement could take the form of
“secondary sanctions”. In 2019, the
Trump administration imposed sanc-
tions on a Chinese state-run energy
company and several tanker companies
it said were trading Iranian oil in viola-
tion of US restrictions. China’s embassy
in Washington did not immediately
reply to a request for comment.
The comments come as US secretary
of state Antony Blinken and national
security adviser Jake Sullivan are due to
meet their Chinese counterparts in
Alaska today for the first time since they
took office.
China imported about 478,000 bar-
rels of oil a day from Iran on average in
February, according to data from energy
research company Kpler, and this is
expected to increase to about 1m b/d in
March, one of the highest monthly pur-
High risk: demonstrators prepare to
clash with the police during a protest
in Yangon this month. Below,
Chinese-owned factories are set
ablaze on Sunday — Lynn Bo Bo/EPA-EFE
Oceans cover about 70 per cent of the
earth’s surface and play a critical role in
absorbing heat and CO2. The study said
governments could achieve the triple
benefits of carbon savings, increased
marine biodiversity and greater fishing
yields by protecting larger areas of sea.
It also endorsed an international initi-
ative which is likely to be a feature of
this year’s China-hosted COP15 biodiv-
ersity conference to safeguard at least
30 per cent of the oceans by 2030.
Sediment on the sea floor acts as a
long term carbon “sink” where emis-
sions are stored, but nets disrupt the
seabed and release the gas back into the
water. That means the ocean has less
capacity to absorb CO2 from the atmos-
phere, and some of the newly released
carbon is likely to escape into the air,
said Enric Sala, study lead author.
Using satellite data based on fishing
activity between 2016 and 2019, the
researchers said roughly 1.3 per cent of
the ocean was trawled each year, releas-
ing up to 1.5Gt of CO2, a finding they said
was “a preliminary best estimate”.
Governments could halt the practice,
said Sala: “We need to make sure that
the trawling effort vanishes.”
He added that a study was under way
to include the impact of ending the
trawling on jobs and food security.
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
Hong Kong
Biden imposes penalties
on two dozen officials
The Biden administration has accused
two dozen Chinese and Hong Kong
officials of undermining autonomy in
the territory, signalling it would
maintain its tough stance towards
Beijing ahead of its first high-level
meeting with the rival power.
Antony Blinken, secretary of state,
said the US had identified 24 officials
whose actions had “reduced Hong
Kong’s high degree of autonomy” after
China passed an election law for the
city last week.
The move subjected the officials to
sanctions under the Hong Kong
Autonomy Act, which was introduced
by the previous US administration.
Military coup. Civil unrest
warned this week that higher prices for
food and other essentials increased the
risk of poor families, who were already
in trouble because of the pandemic,
going hungry.
Chinese-owned factories in Yangon
were set on fire on Sunday, while the
regime killed at least 39, a single-day
record for protest-related fatalities. Jap-
anese brand Uniqlo said on Tuesday
that two of its clothes factories had been
set ablaze.
Since the coup, 202 have been killed
by security forces and 2,181 arrested,
said the Assistance Association for Polit-
ical Prisoners, a human rights group.
Eurasia Group, the risk consultancy,
warned there was a growing risk Myan-
mar could become a failed state.
Security law
PRIMROSE RIORDAN AND NICOLLE LIU
HONG KONG
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong leader, has said
officials will be “extra cautious” to
ensure the new M+ museum of visual
culture does not undermine national
security, as China cracks down on free-
dom of expression in the territory.
The Herzog & de Meuron-designed M+
museum was set to feature the work of
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei after
one of the world’s most prolific collec-
tors of contemporary Chinese art, Uli
Sigg, donated the majority of his collec-
tion to Hong Kong.
The museum’s opening, expected
later this year, is one of the most antici-
pated in the Asia-Pacific region. After
facing delays, the construction of the
65,000 sq m TV-like building was com-
pleted last Friday.
“We will be extra cautious about this
matter,” Lam said yesterday, adding
that M+ management should be able to
decide whether their exhibitions were
in breach of China’s new national secu-
rity law.
The security law was introduced to
Hong Kong by Beijing last year in
response to the 2019 pro-democracy
protests, one of the biggest challenges to
central authorities on Chinese soil in
Blinken warned any financial
institutions that did significant
business with the officials would also
be subject to sanctions. The state
department yesterday also expanded
the number of officials targeted from
10 singled out by the administration of
Donald Trump. The decision illustrated
President Joe Biden’s commitment to
maintaining the tough approach
towards China adopted by Trump.
The electoral law dilutes the
proportion of democratically elected
lawmakers in Hong Kong. The
measure is the latest attempt by
Beijing to crack down on the pro-
democracy movement. Zhao Lijian of
China’s foreign ministry said the US
attempt to set the agenda before the
talks was “doomed to fail”.
Demetri Sevastopulo and Primrose
Riordan
“If Myanmar collapses into chaos,
there would be a significant destabilis-
ing impact on neighbouring Thailand
and regional supply chains,” said Peter
Mumford, an analyst.
Businesses are mostly keeping quiet
about their concerns for fear of being
publicly branded junta supporters.
“Wider boycotts and ‘social punish-
ment’ through peer pressure and Face-
book are damaging the wider economy,
particularly through their impact on
banking and logistics,” a Myanmar busi-
ness analyst said. “This means employ-
ers can’t pay suppliers or staff, including
those they have tacitly allowed to skip
work and participate in protests.”
The economic paralysis highlighted a
profound challenge faced by the pro-
decades. The law ushered in a broad
crackdown on Hong Kong, targeting
political opposition in an attempt to
bring the territory in line with the main-
land.
The city’s previously freewheeling
civic society has not escaped
untouched. Teachers have been dis-
qualified, journalists arrested, curricu-
Works by Chinese
dissident artist Ai
Weiwei could fall
foul of Beijing’s
tough new national
security law
lums changed and civil servants have
been forced to swear loyalty oaths.
Lam made the remarks after Eunice
Yung, a pro-Beijing politician, suggested
the museum’s exhibits might spread
hatred against China and be in breach of
a new law. Lam said “as a cultural and
art centre” the government would
respect freedom of expression.
Twenty-six of the 1,450 works Sigg
has donated to Hong Kong are by Ai, and
the collection has an estimated value of
$163m. Sigg said last year that his friend
Ai claimed he would rather have all his
things thrown into a lake “than given to
China”.
chases on record. Iran had been offering
steep discounts, energy analysts said.
Iran’s ghost tankers are hard to track
and often include exports of petroleum
products as well as crude oil that has
been stored at sea for months, said Am-
rita Sen of consultant Energy Aspects.
“We always knew these barrels would
come out; it was a question of when.”
Iran had exported crude and conden-
sate, an ultralight oil, to China by dis-
guising its barrels most recently as
Omani ones, Kpler said this week. Four
tankers removed their transponders
and transferred them to other vessels at
an Omani port. They then went to Iran
to load almost 8m barrels of oil collec-
tively after which they returned to
Oman to pick up the transponders on
the way to China.
Iran’s economy has been devastated
by US sanctions and Covid-19 but Ira-
nian traders have said they are already
seeing signs of new business.
‘If Myanmar
collapses
into chaos,
there would
be a
destabilising
impact on
Thailand
and regional
supply
chains’
testers and foreign governments and
activists who support the people’s quest
to regain their democracy: mass action
aimed at opposing the coup is starting to
hurt millions of people, and could sap
the strength of the protest movement.
The US and some other western coun-
tries have imposed sanctions targeting
the junta’s leaders, their families and the
companies they control and have sought
to avoid harming others. But the
regime’s use of violence, internet shut-
downs and other tactics to quell protests
have stoked an increasingly angry
response from demonstrators that
together are damaging business.
“We want to have maximum impact
on the junta and minimal impact on the
people of Myanmar,” said Tom And-
US shootings
LAUREN FEDOR — WASHINGTON
Washington lawmakers decried vio-
lence against Asian Americans yester-
day, after at least eight were killed in
shootings in the Atlanta area, raising
concerns about a surge in hate crimes.
Law enforcement officers in Georgia
arrested a 21-year-old man in connec-
tion with the shootings at three spas and
massage parlours late on Tuesday. Sev-
eral of the victims were Asian-American
women, although police said the suspect
indicated the killings were not “racially
motivated”.
“Our country, the president and I and
all of us, we grieve for those lost,”
Kamala Harris, the vice-president, said
yesterday. “The investigation is ongo-
ing, we don’t yet know, we’re not yet
clear about the motive. But I do want to
say to our Asian-American community
that we stand with you.”
Jen Psaki, the White House press sec-
retary, said President Joe Biden would
be briefed by Merrick Garland, the US
attorney-general, and Christopher
Wray, the FBI director, on the shootings.
The FBI is working with local enforce-
ment teams to investigate the incident.
Rodney Bryant, Atlanta’s acting chief
of police, said yesterday he did not rule
out calling the shootings a hate crime.
3
“Many foreign companies are no
longer scared of sanctions since Biden
has been elected,” said a trader.
The nuclear agreement, which was
also signed by China as well as France,
Germany, the UK and Russia, gave sanc-
tions relief in exchange for imposing
limits on Iran’s nuclear programme.
Washington and Tehran have both indi-
cated they want to revive the nuclear
pact. But neither side wants to take the
first step. Since Trump withdrew from
the pact, Iran has stopped complying
with many of its terms.
Blinken testified to Congress last
week the US would not give sanctions
relief until Iran was in full compliance
with the deal or was on what one law-
maker called “a negotiated path toward
full compliance”.
The senior official said the US could
relieve sanctions if Washington reached
understanding with Tehran on the 2015
nuclear accord.
rews, UN special rapporteur on human
rights in Myanmar.
Human rights groups want govern-
ments and companies to impose sanc-
tions against MEHL and MEC, two mili-
tary-controlled conglomerates whose
subsidiaries Andrews said include more
than 100 companies.
The US has also imposed sanctions
against three subsidiary gem compa-
nies. Human rights groups have called
for further measures against Myanmar
Oil and Gas Enterprise, a state-owned
group in the junta’s control, which
Andrews recently called “the single
largest source of revenue to the state”.
Inside Myanmar, protesters have
called on companies to withhold paying
taxes and avoid dealing with the junta or
military-linked enterprises. At the
weekend, a parallel government set up
by NLD officials in hiding declared any
permits issued by the state’s Myanmar
Investment Commission “will not be
honoured when the legitimate govern-
ment of the Republic of the Union of
Myanmar returns to power”.
The unrest has put multinationals
under growing pressure.
“In February we were asking brands
not to leave the country, but that was
when people weren’t being killed,” said
Khaing Zar Aung, president of the
Industrial Workers Federation of Myan-
mar. Now, she added, “if businesses stay
in the country, they’re supporting the
military by paying tax”.
Clothing chains H&M, C&A and Indi-
tex said they would suspend orders
from Myanmar. Thulsi Narayanasamy
at the Business & Human Rights
Resource Centre said local unions were
united in support of sanctions to help
restore democracy. Unions have called
for brands that suspend production
there to support garment workers’ right
to protest without risk of job loss.
“Brands need to use the enormous
leverage they have now to support
workers,” Narayanasamy said.
“We cannot make that determination
at this moment,” Bryant said. “Even
though we have made an arrest, there is
still a lot more work to be done.”
But law enforcement officers in neigh-
bouring Cherokee County, where one of
the shootings took place, claimed they
were “not racially motivated” and cited
a possible “sex addiction”.
“He apparently has an issue, what he
considers a sex addiction, and sees these
locations as something that allows him
to go to these places, and it is a tempta-
tion for him that he wanted to elimi-
nate,” Captain Jay Baker, of the Chero-
kee sheriff’s office, said.
Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of
Atlanta, said she would not “get into vic-
tim blaming”: “As far as we know in
Atlanta, these are legally operating busi-
nesses that have not been on our radar.”
She said law enforcement had “deter-
mined that the suspect was on his way to
Florida . . . perhaps to carry out addi-
tional shootings”.
“We know that many of the victims,
the majority of them, were Asian. We
also know that this is an issue that is
happening across the country. It is unac-
ceptable, it is hateful, and it has to stop.”
The House judiciary committee will
today hold a hearing on discrimination
and violence against Asian Americans.
4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Thursday 18 March 2021

INTERNATIONAL
GLOBAL INSIGHT
UN allegations

Ex-Blackwater chief faces Libya claims

INDIA

Security contractor denies
helping in evasion of
provisions of arms embargo
HEBA SALEH — CAIRO
Erik Prince, the US private security con-
tractor and former head of Blackwater
Worldwide, tried to help a renegade
general take control of Libya and “at the
intervened on the side of his opponents.
An interim unity government was
sworn in this week, raising hopes for the
return of stability.
Days after the war began, Prince met
Haftar in Cairo and made a proposal for
a private military intervention, said the
UN inspectors. The alleged $80m con-
tract included assault aircraft, cyber
capabilities and the ability to intercept
Turkish ships at sea. One component of
personnel, or military equipment to
anyone in Libya.”
He also denied there had been a meet-
ing in Cairo with Haftar. “Prince was not
in Egypt at any point in 2019 — as travel
records confirm — and has never met or
spoken to [Haftar]. This alleged meet-
ing is fiction and never took place.”
The report said three UAE companies
were used for the planning, manage-
ment and finance of the operation and it
Amy
Kazmin
Project was unimpressed with the replacement
aircraft procured for the operation and
Opus
included
made threats against the team manage-
ment”. Within days of their arrival in
Libya, 20 mercenaries had to be evacu-
Hiring quota tries the
plan to
‘kidnap or
ated in a hurry across the sea to Malta
aboard two inflatable boats.
patience of investors
terminate
Prince was once the darling of the US
government, which paid his company in wealthy Haryana
individuals more than $2bn to provide military sup-
port in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

very least” helped evade a UN arms
embargo on the country, UN inspectors
have said.
Khalifa Haftar, a general from eastern
Libya, launched a war in April 2019 to
overthrow the UN-backed government
in Tripoli. His offensive scuttled a UN
process aimed at uniting the country
and ending years of chaos since the
overthrow of Muammer Gaddafi, the
former dictator, in 2011. Haftar’s 14-
month offensive — backed by the UAE,
Egypt and France — failed after Turkey
the operation, dubbed Project Opus, identified a South African citizen as the
was to “kidnap or terminate individuals team leader on the ground.
regarded as high-value targets in Libya”, The UN report said military aircraft
said the inspectors. Prince violated a for Project Opus were to be procured
Security Council resolution on Libya “in from Jordan, but senior officials can-
that, at the very least, he assisted in the celled the sale after they suspected they
evasion of the provisions of the arms would be used in an illegal operation.
embargo in Libya”, they added. Six former military helicopters were
Matthew Schwartz, a lawyer for bought from South Africa and three
Prince, told the Financial Times his cli- other aircraft were supplied by compa-
ent “had absolutely no involvement in nies controlled by Prince.
any alleged military operation in Libya But Project Opus, said the inspectors,
in 2019. He did not provide weapons, ran into trouble because “Khalifa Haftar
Afghanistan. Troop numbers
J
regarded as But Blackwater became mired in con-
high-value troversy for the massacre of 14 unarmed
Iraqi civilians by its operatives in Bagh-
targets’ dad in 2007. Three years later, Prince
sold the company.
Prince’s lawyer said the UN inspectors
had failed to provide his client with any
information about the investigation.
However, the report said Prince was
contacted by several emails and letters
but no response was received.
Additional reporting by Katrina Manson in
Washington
ust beyond India’s colonial-era capital, the pros-
perous state of Haryana has capitalised on its
proximity to New Delhi’s corridors of power, and
its ample available land, to emerge as a hub of
business and industry.
Its gleaming offices house local headquarters of around
75 per cent of the Fortune 500 companies operating in
India. They are also home to a good chunk of the outsourc-
ing industry, local tech darlings such as Zomato and Grof-
ers, and IndiGo, the country’s largest domestic airline. Its
Factories make cars, motorbikes and components.
But despite a reputation for business friendliness, Hary-
ana has thrown a googly at the investors that flocked there.
The state government, run by Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya
Janata party, has chosen to restrict companies from hiring
workers from other states.
Restrictions signed into law this month mandate 75 per
cent of people hired for jobs paying less than Rs50,000 a

US envoy races to broker Taliban deal
As May 1 withdrawal deadline
approaches, much depends on
efforts of a former US envoy
KATRINA MANSON — WASHINGTON
STEPHANIE FINDLAY — NEW DELHI
FARHAN BOKHARI — ISLAMABAD
As Joe Biden seeks to bring America’s
longest-running war to a close, a long-
time Republican is leading the US presi-
dent’s efforts to shepherd a peace settle-
ment in Afghanistan that would put the
Taliban into government.
Zalmay Khalilzad, Donald Trump’s
former envoy to Afghanistan, is spear-
heading renewed US talks following a
deal he struck on behalf of Washington
with the Taliban last year. This month,
Washington proposed a conference of
Afghan and Taliban leaders to move
towards an interim power-sharing gov-
ernment.
At stake is whether the Biden admin-
istration will keep to a May 1 deadline to
pull out the 2,500 US troops who are
officially still stationed in Afghanistan,
and deliver on Biden’s promise to end
the so-called forever wars.
Afghanistan-born Khalilzad is known
as a well-connected geostrategist who
has worked on the region for four dec-
ades, including as US ambassador to
Afghanistan under George W Bush. But
Biden’s special representative for
Afghanistan reconciliation has also
drawn criticism in Kabul for giving
short shrift to the civilian government
that Washington spent almost two dec-
ades fighting a war — and an estimated
$1tn — trying to support.
Khalilzad’s efforts are a “last-ditch
attempt to try and salvage something
after a very non-productive year of
negotiations since the deal was signed”,
said Ahmed Rashid, author of books on
Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Taliban,
of the US envoy’s new aim to broker a
power-sharing agreement. “The Tali-
ban have a great habit and skill at play-
ing one neighbouring state off another,”
he said, adding that co-ordinating an
international consensus would be cru-
cial for any chance of success.
US withdrawal risks the collapse of
Homecoming: civilian rule in Afghanistan and the
soldiers at prospect of takeover by the Taliban,
Fort Drum, which has vowed not to co-operate with
New York, al-Qaeda and other groups that threaten
are briefed US security in exchange for troop with-
on Covid-19 drawals. If the US stays, it could be tar-
quarantine geted by the Taliban or al-Qaeda again.
procedures after As US vice-president, Biden opposed
returning from troop increases during Barack Obama’s
Afghanistan administration that pushed the number
John Moore/Getty
of forces above 100,000. The Biden
administration has yet to decide
whether it will withdraw after May 1,
but the US foreign policy elite has begun
to lay the groundwork for a temporary
extension, or even a lasting presence.
Khalilzad tweeted that the Afghan gov-
ernment and the Taliban “must find a
path to a political settlement and a per-
manent and comprehensive ceasefire”
following his talks in Kabul this month.
Turkey has offered to host talks next
month and Russia, which has lent sup-
port for a government that includes the
Taliban, will also host talks later this
week that Khalilzad will attend. Khalil-
zad may prove crucial to such efforts.
“He knows the faults of both sides, he
knows the personalities involved,” said
Rashid, who has known him since the
1980s. “He’s got longevity.”
Washington has made clear one of its
chief interests is ending the threat of
attacks from al-Qaeda and others on US
soil, but sees a lasting political settle-
ment in Kabul as central to the task —
elusive twin goals.
“The feeling is, and this has been
expressed in the negotiations I believe,
that [the Taliban] haven’t sufficiently
separated themselves from al-Qaeda
and that there hasn’t been the dimin-
ished levels of violence that were
expected to flow from the agreement,”
said James Dobbins, former US special
envoy to Afghanistan for whom Khalil-
zad used to work.
But crafting a deal to fuse the Taliban’s
Islamist ideology with civilian demo-
cratic rule may prove impossible to rec-
oncile, especially over durable national
security arrangements and the rights of
women, which have seen gains since the
US overthrew Taliban rule in 2001.
Khalilzad is no stranger to policy set-
backs. He secured Kabul government
support for his plan to reach out to the
Taliban in 2005, but failed to deliver
reconciliation. He blamed what he said
was Pakistan’s “double game” and its
hold over the Taliban, but he also felt
repeatedly let down by his own capital.
Khalilzad has begun pressing Paki-
stan to influence the Taliban in Afghani-
stan to abide by the terms of the peace
agreement, a senior Pakistan govern-
ment official told the FT.
Dobbins, who has authored multiple
papers with Khalilzad, said the US faced
undesirable outcomes on all sides and
that any time-bound commitment to
withdraw US troops unrelated to
progress in negotiations was “flawed”.
“If the US leaves before there’s an
agreement, there’ll never be an agree-
ment,” he said.
But Farkhonda Akbari, an Afghan
academic at the Australian National
University, said no one in Kabul had
believed Khalilzad could pull off a seri-
ous peace process since talks first
started in October 2018.
“I think the new plan is pulling a rab-
bit out of the hat,” she said. “If someone
believes in magic this is it.”
month be awarded to Haryana residents of at least five
years’ standing. The law comes after violent protests by
locals struggling to move from farming to the jobs market.
Opponents say companies need flexibility to choose
staff and point out the constitution bars discrimination
based on birthplace and guarantees free movement.
But Haryana’s rules reflect a spreading parochialism as
politicians confront public frustration at the lack of jobs to
absorb the estimated 12m young Indians joining the
labour market each year. The problem has been exacer-
bated by the coronavirus pandemic.
“Such rules reflect a larger malaise in the Indian econ-
omy, which is that it is not
generating enough jobs,”
said Mahesh Vyas, man-
Rival parties in
aging director of the Cen- Tamil Nadu are
tre for Monitoring the
Indian Economy. “Once
also promising
you do not generate jobs, job reservation
there are political pres-
sures on local govern-
rules for locals
ment to do something
about it.”
Besides Haryana, Jharkhand, a centre for mining and
heavy industries such as steel, will require private employ-
ers to reserve 75 per cent of jobs with salaries of Rs30,000
or less for state residents. Rival parties in forthcoming
elections in Tamil Nadu, a hub of textile and automotive
production, are also promising private sector jobs reserva-
tions for locals. Other states are watching with interest.
Vyas said local hiring requirements would be “very
counterproductive” and likely to drive investment away
from states that adopt them. In Haryana, the thriving
back-office process outsourcing industry will be hard hit as
it now draws educated, technically skilled and highly
mobile young workers from a nationwide talent pool.
Reetika Khera, economics professor at Delhi’s Indian
Institute of Technology, said Haryana’s job reservations
reflected the “policy confusion” of Modi’s BJP, which had
vowed to improve the ease of doing business in India.
“On one hand, they want to bring in FDI and open the
economy, and on the other hand they want to protect
Indian businesses,” she said. “Now it’s being taken down to
a lower level. You say, ‘one nation, one market’ but for
labour you don’t want that ‘one nation one market.’ You
say only ‘Haryana labour for Haryana’.”
Companies are going to court to challenge the rules,
which analysts predict will not withstand judicial scrutiny.
AK Automatics, a motorcycle components maker, and the
Gurgaon Industrial Association have both filed cases call-
ing the restrictions unconstitutional.
But the battle could take years and in the meantime cast
a cloud of uncertainty for investors. Khera predicts the
emergence of “a whole racket of getting fake domicile cer-
tificates” to assist job seekers, while the state may also
offer exemptions in response to industry demands.
But pressures for state-level labour market protection-
ism are unlikely to abate without a dramatic pick-up in
job-generating investment. For employers, pressures to
increase local hiring will be just another complication.
amy.kazmin@ft.com

Shifting attitudes Vaccine Rising Infections

Japanese court rules against
ban on same-sex marriage
ROBIN HARDING — TOKYO
Japan’s refusal to marry same-sex cou-
ples is unconstitutional, according to a
landmark court ruling that will stoke
the country’s debate about gay rights.
In a case brought against the govern-
ment by three same-sex couples, the
Sapporo district court ruled that pre-
venting them from marrying violated
Article 14 of the country’s constitution,
which outlaws discrimination on
grounds of race, creed, sex, social status
or family origin.
It was the first time a Japanese court
has ruled for same-sex marriage on con-
stitutional grounds, and came alongside
a shift in social attitudes towards homo-
sexuality in Asia’s richest democracy.
Although the ruling did not immedi-
ately create the right for gay people to
marry, it will put pressure on the govern-
ment to change the law, boosting a move-
ment that has led to local authorities
issuing symbolic partnership certificates
to same-sex couples. “When I read what
the judge said about how [the marriage
system] is discriminatory I just couldn’t
stop crying,” said Ryosuke Kunimi, one
of the plaintiffs in the case. “For a man
like me in his mid-forties, who’s been liv-
ing with his same-sex partner for 20
years . . . to have a judge say so clearly
that the only difference between opposite
and same-sex couples is sexual orienta-
tion, that’s really wonderful.”
The case in Sapporo was one of five
nationwide brought by campaigners for
same-sex marriage. Judgements are
expected in the coming months.
The court refused the plaintiffs’
demands for compensation and
awarded costs against them. However,
the decision to reject a monetary award
means the government cannot appeal
and the ruling is final.
“The difference between heterosex-
ual and homosexual people is simply a
matter of sexual orientation, which a
person cannot change, and whatever
somebody’s sexual orientation, there
can be no disparity in their rights under
the law,” wrote presiding judge Tomoko
Takebe in her decision.
UAE offers third Sinopharm
shot in low-immunity cases
SIMEON KERR — DUBAI
The United Arab Emirates is offering
people who have shown weak immu-
nity after two doses of the Sinopharm
vaccine a third shot of the Chinese jab
as a booster.
Anyone who fears they are not immune
after taking an antibody test following
their second dose has been told to
return to the centre where they were
vaccinated.
“The vast majority of people have
taken Sinopharm and it shows a good
response,” said a doctor working at a
government hospital. “The booster is
only needed if you don’t mount an
immune response after two jabs.”
A health official told local media last
month a third dose might be needed for
a minority shown to have insufficient
levels of antibodies in subsequent tests.
The Sinopharm shot has helped the
UAE deliver 67 doses per 100 residents,
second only to Israel in countries with a
sizeable population. Only a handful of
other countries including Bahrain,
Egypt, Hungary, Pakistan and Serbia,
have authorised the use of the Sinop-
harm shot amid questions over the
transparency of its trial data. The state-
backed company says the jab has an effi-
cacy rate of 79 per cent in phase 3 trials.
Many vaccinated locals are seeking
antibody tests three weeks after their
second dose to find out if they need a
third shot. A booster is also available for
those who had their first dose more than
six months ago.
Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the
national Covid-19 clinical management
committee, said initial data suggested
immunity would last four to six months.
She estimated less than 1 per cent of
those vaccinated were not generating
enough antibodies. “It is not significant
at all,” she added.
G42, Sinopharm’s regional distribu-
tor, said: “A select group of people are
being administered a third shot to
observe the immune system response.”
The UAE government and Sinopharm
did not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
Australia urges EU to export
jabs for Papua New Guinea
JAMIE SMYTH — SYDNEY
Australia has appealed to the EU to
reject “vaccine protectionism” and
allow the export of 1m doses of the
Oxford/AstraZeneca jab to address a
Covid-19 emergency in Papua New
Guinea.
Canberra said yesterday that the gov-
ernments of PNG and Australia would
make a formal request to AstraZeneca
and European authorities to allocate 1m
doses of Australia’s contracted supplies
for distribution in PNG, one of the
world’s poorest and most remote
nations.
The initiative followed a warning this
week from James Marape, PNG prime
minister, of a looming public health
catastrophe in the country because of a
“staggering” increase in Covid-19 cases.
He said the infection rate could soon
reach “one person to every three or
four” and clog the health system.
Scott Morrison, Australia’s prime
minister, said PNG’s coronavirus crisis
posed “very real risks” to northern Aus-
tralia, which is only about 150km from
its closest neighbour.
Canberra has suspended commercial
flights to and from PNG and is sending
medical supplies, personal protective
equipment and 8,000 Covid-19 vaccine
doses to inoculate health staff.
In a direct appeal to the EU, which this
month blocked a shipment of vaccines
to Australia amid concerns about its
own supplies, Morrison urged the bloc
to allow the export of shots contracted
by Canberra to aid PNG.
“Those [1m doses of] vaccines and
their deployment would therefore, I
think, be following through on the very
public statements that have been made
in the European Union about their com-
mitment to ensure there is no vaccine
protectionism and that vaccines do go to
those most in need,” Morrison said.
Covax, the World Health Organiza-
tion-backed Covid-19 vaccine facility,
has only recently begun sending small
quantities of vaccines to Pacific islands.
Additional reporting by George Russell in
Hong Kong
Thursday 18 March 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 5
6 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Thursday 18 March 2021

This is unreal Non-fungible token mania represents another fast-buck opportunity for creatures of the cryptosphere y NOTEBOOK

AstraZeneca On the line Eurostar in talks with Paris and

London to head off cash crunch, says SNCF
Spac boom
eclipses 2020
and supplier fundraising
record in
defend vaccine single quarter

quality checks
ORTENCA ALIAJ AND AZIZA KASUMOV
NEW YORK

Blank-cheque companies have already

surpassed last year’s fundraising
record in the first quarter of this year,
reflecting the insatiable appetite for
special purpose acquisition companies
among both institutional and retail
3 Pharma group cites strict batch tests investors.

3 EU probes process after blood clots Spacs have raised $79.4bn globally since
the start of the year, eclipsing the
$79.3bn that flooded into vehicles in
DONATO PAOLO MANCINI — ROME is then shipped to “fill and finish” facili- 2020, according to data provider Refini-
HANNAH KUCHLER — NEW YORK
ties where the drug product is manufac- tiv, as of Tuesday night.
AstraZeneca and one of its key Euro- tured and put into vials. So far in 2021, 264 new Spacs have
pean suppliers have defended their One of AstraZeneca’s fill and finish been launched, overtaking last year’s
Covid-19 vaccine production process facilities is the Anagni plant in Italy, run record 256.
after the EU drugs regulator said it was by US company Catalent. That plant The fundraising comes amid a
investigating whether there could have produced two of the batches that ini- broader effort from European cities
been defects in specific batches. tially triggered the suspension of vacci- such as Amsterdam and Frankfurt to
The European Medicines Agency nations in Austria and Italy, ABV 5300 match the boom in listings in the US.
inquiry follows reports of possible side- and ABV 2856. Blank-cheque companies have
effects, including blood clots, that have Those batches are not being used in become a staple on Wall Street, boosted
led at least 16 European countries to the UK, according to UK health officials, by record-low interest rates and an
suspend or limit use of the shot. The but they have been distributed widely abundance of cash from investors look-
EMA has said that it was unlikely the across Europe. ing for yield.
reported adverse events were con- Cooke said that an initial investiga- Figures ranging from Wall Street vet-
nected to the vaccine or specific batches tion after Austria’s suspension of the erans Michael Klein and Bill Ackman to
but a link could not yet be ruled out. ABV 5300 batch had yielded no “plausi- sports stars Shaquille O’Neal and Alex-
Emer Cooke, the head of EMA, said on ble” link between that batch of vaccine ander Rodriguez have raised money
Tuesday that the agency was investigat- and the reported adverse events. through Spacs.
“As we’re seeing more events reported However, the pace of listings, particu-
across Europe we’re seeing more larly by backers with little financial
‘All documentation [was] batches are involved,” she said. A Eurostar train at St Pancras in London: travel has fallen at least 95 per cent since last March — Niklas Halle’n/AFP via Getty expertise, has raised concerns that the
once again reviewed by Mario Gargiulo, the president of the market is overheated.
European biologics division of Catalent, cent of the shares, is at risk of bank- Eurostar, which has its headquar- “The Spac is a good product, but the
Catalent, AstraZeneca and told the Financial Times that every
DAVID KEOHANE — PARIS
PHILIP GEORGIADIS AND
ruptcy following a drop in travel since ters in London, has held conversa- volume has been incredible this year, so
the Italian regulator, AIFA’ batch shipped from Anagni had met rig-
JIM PICKARD — LONDON
March last year of at least 95 per cent. tions with the UK government over you are going to see some indigestion,”
orous quality specifications and testing. Eurostar is in advanced discussions Shareholders, which also include the possibility of a state-backed com- said Rob Fullerton, global head of lever-
ing “the possibility or plausibility of any “All documentation and quality to seal aid from the UK and France Canadian institutional fund manager mercial loan to help it through the dis- aged finance at Jefferies.
events linked to specific batches” of the assessments pertaining to these batches that it needs by next month to head Caisse de dépôt et placement du ruption, although there is no guaran- London Stock Exchange chief execu-
Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, as well as “any were once again reviewed by Catalent, off a looming cash crunch, said the Québec, Hermes Infrastructure and tee of an agreement, according to two tive David Schwimmer warned earlier
differences in manufacturing . . . that AstraZeneca and the Italian [drugs] reg- head of SNCF, France’s state-backed the Belgian state rail operator, have people familiar with the discussions. this month that there was “froth” in the
might lead to some disparities across ulator, AIFA,” he said. Italian regulators rail group and largest shareholder in already pumped in €200m to keep Eurostar has discussed £60m of US Spac market, which “could end
batches”. will inspect the plant a third time this the Channel Tunnel train operator. Eurostar going during the crisis. loans backed by UK Export Finance, poorly for some of those opportunities
AstraZeneca said each batch of its week, officials said. “We hope that it will be weeks [not which helps UK companies gain and those investors”.
vaccine was subject to “more than 40 AstraZeneca’s drug substance facility “We are getting closer to the moment months] because the financial situa- access to finance and was originally The overwhelming majority of Spacs
different quality control tests”. at Seneffe in Belgium is run by Thermo when Eurostar will have real cash flow tion is going to be very difficult at the set up to support businesses following this year — 257, which raised $78.4bn —
“Regular quality control testing is car- Fisher Scientific, which declined to problems . . . By next month, we have end of May, start of June,” said Faran- Brexit, said one of the people. have listed on US exchanges.
ried out at every stage of production, to comment on the EMA probe. The facil- to conclude these discussions,” said dou, who would not be drawn on the People close to the discussions in In Europe, Amsterdam is emerging as
ensure the production process is well ity at Leiden in the Netherlands, run by Jean-Pierre Farandou, SNCF chief overall size of any French loan or France also warned that there was no a hub for blank-cheque vehicles, leaving
controlled and results are consistently Halix, is yet to supply vaccine ingredi- executive, in an interview with the whether it would go through SNCF or guarantee of an agreement. Eurostar London largely in the dust. Only one
within required levels.” ents to the EU. Oxford BioMedica in the Financial Times. directly to Eurostar. and both the French and UK govern- Spac has gone public on the LSE since
In Europe, where most of the reported UK, which is also approved to provide Farandou said the French and UK SNCF has itself already received bil- ments declined to comment. the beginning of last year.
blood clot events have been recorded, drug substance for AstraZeneca in the governments were in “very advanced lions in French government support The UK government has for months Short-sellers have upped bets against
Oxford/AstraZeneca’s vaccine is manu- EU, also declined to comment. discussions” with Eurostar over possi- after Eurostar traffic plummeted insisted that Eurostar is not a British the vehicles. Since the beginning of the
factured in a multi-step process. Additional reporting by Guy Chazan in ble state-backed loans that would because of Covid-19 travel restric- company and that the French state year, the value of such bets against Spacs
The active ingredient is supposed to Berlin, Michael Peel and Sam Fleming in allow the struggling train operator to tions, which came on the heels of should take the lead with any finan- has more than trebled, from less than
be produced at plants including one in Brussels, and Sarah Neville in London get through the coronavirus crisis. strikes by labour unions over reform cial support. The UK sold its stake in $800m to $2.8bn, according to data
Belgium and one in the Netherlands. It See Markets and Opinion Eurostar, in which SNCF holds 55 per to pensions and of the company itself. the train operator in 2015. from S3.

Contracts & Tenders

Suez-Veolia battle tests French state’s power over mergers
some 12 cases and appeals have been
INSIDE BUSINESS brought before the French courts and
one case before EU regulators.
EUROPE Suez or its unions have challenged
Veolia’s right to launch a bid, to vote its
Peggy shares, and its handling of obligatory
consultation with Suez employees. Veo-
Hollinger lia, meanwhile, is challenging Suez dis-
posals and, most importantly, its deci-
sion to use an obscure Dutch law to
ringfence its French water assets in a
their orders from Suez, nor does the
company own it.
Veolia has challenged the establish-
ment of the stichting without share-
holder approval and is threatening to
vote against directors who created it at
Suez’s forthcoming annual meeting.
But a court this month allowed Suez
to maintain the stichting for up to four
years, although the waters assets have
not yet been transferred. A separate

P
ity Emmanuel Moulin. There
can be few more dedicated
civil servants than the
52-year-old director-general
of the French Treasury.
He has demonstrated his mettle dur-
ing successive crises — subprime and
foundation whose board members
would have veto rights over any disposal
of the business.
It is this last that potentially has the
greatest significance. The move, if acti-
vated by the Suez board, in effect blocks
Veolia from being able to sell the French
water business, a disposal regulators are
case will decide the basic merits of Veo-
lia’s case — whether the foundation
breaks French law, which requires
directors safeguard corporate interests.
That ruling will take many months. It
could define whether these instruments
continue to be used in France. But even
with an adverse decision, it is not clear

Businesses For Sale eurozone — as an adviser first to former

finance minister Christine Lagarde and
then to ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy.
But those challenges must have been a
piece of cake compared with his latest
task: trying to bring together the war-
ring camps at the world’s two largest
waste and water groups, Veolia and
Suez.
Moulin was recently asked by the
French finance minister to intervene as
an informal peacemaker in the hostile
bid battle between the two longtime
rivals, which threatened to become a
political embarrassment — and poten-
Business for Sale, Business Opportunities, Business Services,
Business Wanted, Franchises tially a focus for industrial unrest. But
Runs Daily not everyone wants to play.
......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Hostile bids for all or parts of a busi-
Classified Business Advertising
ness are relatively rare in continental
UK: +44 20 7873 4000 | Email: acs.emea@ft.com
Europe. France has had just five since
2010, roughly on a par with Spain and
Notice to Advertisers Italy, according to Dealogic. So when
Calls to the Financial Times Advertising Department may be monitored. they do happen, they tend to be fairly
controversial.
Acceptance of any advertisement for publication will be subject to the then current terms and conditions of insertion
of advertisements in FT publications. Yet rarely has a French bid battle been
as litigious as this one, say lawyers. Since
A copy of the terms and conditions of insertion of advertisements in FT publications can be obtained from Veolia bought a 29.9 per cent stake in its
+44 (0)20 7873 3000, or viewed at www.FT.com/advertising
bitter rival Suez in October last year,
expected to require should its bid be
successful.
Stichtings, as
these foundations Hostile bids are relatively
are called, were
first used in a take- rare in continental
over outside the Europe, so when they
Netherlands in
2006 when Euro- do happen they tend to
pean steel group be fairly controversial
Arcelor was fight-
ing tooth and nail to fend off a bid by
India’s Mittal Steel.
Arcelor put its North American
Dofasco steel business into Strategic
Steel Stichting, barring the division’s
sale as required by US regulators.
Although Arcelor eventually suc-
cumbed to Mittal, the move gave the
target time to rally support.
But these Dutch foundations are
risky, as the merged ArcelorMittal
found. When it sought to sell Dofasco to
Thyssenkrupp, the stichting’s inde-
pendent directors refused. It took years
for ArcelorMittal to regain control.
Suez’s stichting could backfire too.
The foundation’s directors do not take
how a French ruling could lead to the
unwinding of an entity already incorpo-
rated under a foreign law, say Paris-
based lawyers.
People close to the situation suggest
Suez is unlikely to make its foundation
irrevocable by transferring the assets, as
some shareholders have denounced the
poison pill. That would be seen as the
ultimate act of hostility and could be
used by Veolia to sue Suez directors,
says one Paris lawyer.
That is a controversy the government
would like to avert.
Perhaps the most significant lesson
from the battle is the impotence of the
French state. In exchange for allowing
Veolia to buy the Suez stake, the govern-
ment insisted any approach should be
friendly to avoid controversy ahead of a
presidential election. Yet this fight has
been anything but. France may have
reinforced its powers to fend off foreign
bids last year. But when it comes to con-
trolling its own, the state might just have
to let this battle run its course.
peggy.hollinger@ft.com
Thursday 18 March 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 7
8 ★
Financials
Greensills dumped shares before collapse
Family offloaded about
$200m of stock during
2019 funding round
ARASH MASSOUDI, ROBERT SMITH
AND STEPHEN MORRIS — LONDON
Lex Greensill and his family sold about
$200m of shares in Greensill Capital in
2019, cashing out during a fundraising
round led by SoftBank Vision Fund two
years before the company collapsed.
Three people with knowledge of the
matter said Greensill and his family
Car-charging trailblazers fuel up on Spacs cash
Investors bet lossmaking
ventures will race ahead with
help from green legislation
GREGORY MEYER — NEW YORK
Big plans to build more battery-
powered cars have led the companies
that charge them to Wall Street in a
fusion of two buzzy trends: the electric
vehicle and the special purpose acquisi-
tion company.
Groups such as ChargePoint Holdings,
EVgo Services and Volta Industries are
entering US stock markets by merging
with Spacs, blank-cheque companies
that raise money to acquire private
businesses and take them public.
The charging companies aim to pro-
vide the public power cords for a new
generation of EVs demanded by govern-
ments and promised by General Motors,
Volvo and other carmakers.
But they are losing money and their
path to profitability remains unsettled.
‘We will see a change in
the electric vehicle
market that we have not
seen in the last 20 years’
Some companies sell electricity, some
sell equipment and software and one
sells advertising that flashes from charg-
ing stations where the energy is free.
“It’s difficult to earn a return just pro-
viding the charging service,” said Nick
Nigro, founder of Atlas Public Policy, a
consultancy.
ChargePoint last week reported
$146.5m in revenue and a loss from
operations of $121m for the fiscal year
that ended in January. The company
merged with a listed Spac last month
and now has a market capitalisation of
$7.2bn.
ChargePoint projects turbocharged
growth in the years ahead. A presenta-
tion preceding the Spac merger mod-
elled revenue of $2.1bn in 2026, yielding
adjusted earnings before interest, tax,
depreciation and amortisation of
$340m. Companies that go public via
Spacs are allowed to show projections
that they cannot make in traditional
public offerings.
Pasquale Romano, chief executive,
emphasised the company was not in the
business of selling electricity. Rather, it
sells hardware and subscription soft-
ware to businesses and property owners
that want a charging station on their
premises. “I’m not a charging company,
per se,” Romano said.
Its closest rival is EVBox, a subsidiary
of Engie of France, which also sells
equipment and subscriber software and
Technology
Founder bows out at Alibaba rival Pinduoduo HSBC closes in on sale of French retail outlets
RYAN MCMORROW — BEIJING
Colin Huang, the founder of highflying
Chinese ecommerce group Pinduoduo,
has unexpectedly quit his executive
roles to explore “new, long-term
opportunities”.
Huang, who steered the company to a
New York initial public offering in 2018,
said that Pinduoduo had “become a
youth entering adolescence”.
He said he was resigning as chair to
make way for a new generation of lead-
ers, and that Pinduoduo “will have its
own growth journey regardless of
whether I am nervous, excited or fright-
ened as its guardian”.
Pinduoduo, valued at close to $200bn
after taking a substantial share of
China’s online shopping market, saw its
shares fall 10 per cent in early trading.
Huang said he would turn over voting
rights for his 29 per cent stake to the
board and pledged to not sell any shares
were able to sell part of their stake after
the technology fund ploughed $1.5bn
into the business in 2019, valuing the
company at about $3.5bn.
The news makes Greensill the latest
start-up founder to benefit personally
from SoftBank’s investment before the
business fell into distress.
SoftBank in 2019 invested billions of
dollars in WeWork, the office-sharing
group, allowing founder Adam Neu-
mann to cash out huge sums before the
company was forced to call off a planned
stock market listing and focus on a fight
for survival.
Automobiles. Electric vehicles
Los Angeles-based EVgo has more than 1,400 public ‘fast chargers’ in the US and is set to go public through a merger with a blank-cheque company — Alamy
has a strong position in Europe. The
company intends to list in New York
through a Spac, with a $1bn enterprise
value and a forecast to break even in
2023 on revenue of €372m, more than
five times 2020 levels.
The companies’ financial projections
rest on rapid growth in the electric car
market. Globally, sales will rise fivefold
to 8.5m passenger EVs in 2025, forecast
BloombergNEF, a research group.
“The next four years, we will see a
change in the electric vehicle market
that we have not seen in the last 20
years,” said Arshad Mansoor, chief exec-
Coastal states had head start in electric
vehicle charging
Public outlets by state (’000)
0 5 10
California
New York
Florida
Texas
Washington
Massachusetts
Georgia
Colorado
Maryland
Virginia
Rest of US
Sources: US Department of Energy; S&P Global Market Intelligence
for three years. Until yesterday, he held
control through his ownership of a sepa-
rate class of shares with 10 times the
voting rights, but Pinduoduo said these
would be cancelled with his resignation.
In a letter to shareholders, Huang
said: “It is about the right time to
explore what’s next if we want the same
Chair Colin Huang
is ‘stepping out of
the comfort zone
to embark on a
journey of
exploration’
quality and pace of growth in 10 years.
As the founder of this company, I am
probably the most suitable person to
take on this task by stepping out of the
business and the comfort zone to
embark on a journey of exploration.”
The company has appointed Chen Lei
as its new chair after he took on the title
FINANCIAL TIMES
COMPANIES & MARKETS
SoftBank is expecting to lose its entire
investment in Greensill after the com-
pany filed for administration in the UK
last week.
SoftBank declined to comment, as did
Greensill and Grant Thornton, which is
handling the insolvency.
The jobs of Greensill’s several hun-
dred employees are at risk after talks to
sell parts of the business to private
equity group Apollo Global Manage-
ment fell apart last week.
Greensill founded the business in
2011 as an upstart in supply chain
finance, a sector that is considered a
utive of the Electric Power Research
Institute.
Most EV drivers recharge at home.
Yet public charging stations are still crit-
ical to winning over new drivers anxious
about running short of power as well as
people who live in housing without a
place to charge, Nigro said.
In the US, President Joe Biden aims to
get 500,000 public charging cords
installed by 2030, up from almost
100,000, as part of a push to decarbon-
ise the energy system.
EVgo is set to go public through a
merger with a Spac led by David Crane,
EVgo’s Spac partner takes wild ride
Climate Change Crisis Real Impact I Acquisition Corp share
price ($)
15 20 25 30 35
EVgo announces
Spac merger
Nov 2020
of chief executive in July. He was a class-
mate of Huang’s at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison and worked along-
side him on several of his ventures.
The announcement came as Pinduo-
duo overtook Alibaba by annual
shopper count for the first time, with
788m people buying on its platform in
the past year, compared with 779m for
Alibaba.
But Pinduoduo’s rapid growth has
been powered by cheap deals, and it
remains heavily in the red. Revenues in
the fourth quarter rose 146 per cent year
on year to Rmb26.5bn ($4.1bn), while it
recorded a loss of Rmb1.4bn, narrowing
from Rmb1.8bn a year earlier.
The company spent Rmb14.7bn on
sales and marketing fees during the
quarter, which include the consumer
subsidies, or about 55 per cent of reve-
nue. It marks an improvement from
earlier quarters when expenses at times
exceeded revenues.
low-margin business and which is domi-
nated by the largest banks.
Lauded as one of the UK’s leading fin-
techs, it attracted former prime minis-
ter David Cameron as an adviser and
targeted a $7bn valuation.
The Greensill family put money back
into the business as it entered financial
difficulties last year. In a witness state-
ment to court last week, Lex Greensill
said that a family trust in his brother
Peter’s name lent the company $60m in
October 2020.
The same month, Credit Suisse pro-
vided Greensill Capital with a $140m
former chief executive of power pro-
ducer NRG Energy. The Los Angeles-
based company has more than 1,400
public “fast chargers” in the US that can
replenish a car battery in minutes.
EVgo’s main source of revenue is sell-
ing electricity, whose inflation-adjusted
price has declined for decades in the US.
The company reported adjusted losses
of $29m on $14m in revenue in 2020 but
projected that revenue would reach
almost $1.3bn and adjusted ebitda
would surpass $500m in 2027.
Cathy Zoi, chief executive, said EVgo
was more than a commodity supplier,
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
2021 Mar
Banks
DAVID KEOHANE — PARIS
PHILIP STAFFORD AND STEPHEN MORRIS
LONDON
HSBC is in final negotiations to sell its
French retail network to a subsidiary of
US private equity firm Cerberus, as the
bank continues to dispose of underper-
forming assets in the west and sharpen
its strategic focus on Asia.
“I have just informed unions that we
have decided to progress discussions
with [Cerberus subsidiary] MyMoney-
Group,” Jean Beunardeau, HSBC France
chief executive, told employees yester-
day. “Discussions are still ongoing and
are expected to be for some weeks.”
Beunardeau added that the scope of
the potential deal included retail bank-
ing but not insurance or asset manage-
ment, according to two people familiar
with the matter. They would not be
drawn on the potential value of a sale
but warned that it could still fall through
loan, to bridge another planned capital
increase. While the Swiss bank’s debt
ranks ahead of the Greensill family
trust, Credit Suisse said that it could
take a hit on the loan or other aspects of
its relationship with the company.
A personal guarantee from Lex
Greensill or a pledge on his assets at
Credit Suisse’s private bank was initially
discussed as security for the loan,
according to three people familiar with
the matter.
Greensill denied to the Financial
Times that was part of the loan’s final
agreed terms, however.
operating chargers that were reliable
and located at shopping centres and
supermarkets. “It’s more than just being
a pass-through of electricity: it’s actually
a sophisticated network of fast chargers
across the country that we keep running
at 98 per cent uptime,” she said.
EVgo is going up against companies
such as Electrify America, a subsidiary
of Volkswagen whose $2bn, 10-year
investment plan was funded by a legal
settlement over the German carmaker’s
diesel emissions scandal.
The company expects to have about
3,500 fast chargers installed or under
development by the end of this year.
EV leader Tesla, meanwhile, has its
own exclusive network of “Supercharg-
ers” that plug into the cars it makes.
Volta, a charging company with a deal
to go public via Spac, forecast revenue
rising from $25m in 2020 to more than
$800m in 2025, breaking even on an
ebitda basis in 2022.
The San Francisco-based company
allows drivers to charge for free and sells
advertising at its stations.
Chris Wendel, Volta’s co-founder and
president, said: “We are not at all in the
business of reselling kilowatt-hours.
We’re in the business of delivering
consumers to new locations where fuel-
ling happens in the background of their
regular day.”
and other bidders could come back into
the frame. HSBC and Cerberus declined
to comment.
The move comes as lenders including
Spain’s Santander, Sweden’s Han-
delsbanken and Société Générale in
France weigh up their physical distribu-
tion networks and the role of bank
branches as the coronavirus pandemic
has hastened customers’ shift online.
The long-awaited sale of HSBC’s
French consumer operations is part of a
plan announced a year ago to shift more
than $100bn of capital to Asia and cut
35,000 jobs in Europe and the US. The
lender confirmed last month that it is
also exiting its 150-branch US retail arm
after years of unsuccessfully trying to
restore it to profitability.
Advisers have previously suggested
that the sale of the 230 retail branches in
France could be for a token amount, and
said that HSBC might have to recapital-
ise the French network by as much as
Thursday 18 March 2021
Oil & gas
Shell and Eni
cleared of
corruption
over Nigeria
licence deal
ANJLI RAVAL — LONDON
NEIL MUNSHI — LAGOS
SILVIA SCIORILLI BORRELLI — MILAN
Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s Eni and sev-
eral of the energy groups’ current and
former executives were cleared of cor-
ruption charges yesterday in an Italian
case over a 2011 oil deal in Nigeria.
After dozens of hearings over three
years, judge Marco Tremolada said he
had acquitted all 15 defendants because
“a crime was not committed”.
Prosecutors had accused the compa-
nies and senior managers of knowing
that most of the $1.3bn they paid in 2011
for the licence to the OPL 245 block
went towards bribes for businessmen,
middlemen and Nigerian officials, par-
ticularly Dan Etete, the former oil min-
ister who had previously been convicted
of money laundering in a separate case.
They had sought prison sentences of
eight years for current Eni chief execu-
tive Claudio Descalzi and his predeces-
sor Paolo Scaroni, 10 years for Etete and
88 months for former Shell executive
Malcolm Brinded, along with a total of
$1.1bn in fines. The defendants had all
denied wrongdoing.
“Descalzi’s and Eni’s reputations were
finally restored,” Paola Severino, the
chief executive’s lawyer, said after the
decision.
Nigeria, which has argued that it has
been the victim of a serious fraud, said it
was “disappointed” in the ruling and
that it would await the written judg-
‘Nigeria will continue to
hold those responsible for
the OPL 245 fraud
accountable’
ment “before considering its position”.
“Nigeria will continue to hold those
responsible for the OPL 245 fraud
accountable,” the government said.
The verdict is the latest twist in one of
the oil industry’s most notorious cor-
ruption cases, a saga that began in 1998
when Etete awarded OPL 245 to a com-
pany he allegedly controlled, Malabu.
Shell agreed to acquire a 40 per cent
stake in the plot from Malabu in 2001,
only for the government to revoke the
Nigerian company’s licence months
later. That set in motion years of legal
wrangling over the plot’s ownership.
Eni entered into talks with Malabu
and Shell to buy a stake in OPL 245 in
2010. The $1.3bn deal a year later for the
plot off the Niger Delta, which remains
undeveloped, was meant to settle the
ownership dispute but instead led to the
bribery probe in Milan and investiga-
tions in the US and the Netherlands.
Nigeria is pursuing separate legal pro-
ceedings in the UK against JPMorgan
Chase, which it alleges knowingly facili-
tated the misappropriation of $845m in
state funds related to OPL 245 via trans-
fers from Malabu accounts. The bank
denies wrongdoing.
A fast-tracked 2018 Italian trial of two
middlemen involved in the OPL 245
deal found both guilty of corruption.
The oil majors, which still operate in
the country, have said the deal was legit-
imate and sanctioned by the state.
Money, they have said, was transferred
into a government account and they had
no part to play in what happened to it
afterwards. “We welcome today’s deci-
sion by the Milan tribunal,” said Shell
chief executive Ben van Beurden. “We
have always maintained that the 2011
settlement was legal”.
€500m as part of an agreement. HSBC
arrived in France in 2000 when it
bought Credit Commercial de France for
€11bn.
For HSBC, the sale of its French retail
network would remove roughly 4,000
employees from its payroll. Concerns
over steep restructuring costs have led
other big French banks to demur from
bidding, leaving Cerberus as one of the
few options on the table, the people
familiar said.
Talks also took place back in 2017
with another private equity firm,
AnaCap Financial Partners, which had
previously taken over Barclays’ French
retail network, according to other peo-
ple familiar with the deal.
Cerberus is a shareholder in Ger-
many’s Deutsche Bank and Commerz-
bank. It is also the largest owner of
shares in Hamburg Commercial Bank.
Last year it failed in a takeover bid for
the UK’s Co-operative Bank.
Thursday 18 March 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 9

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Payments group Stripe becomes star

Technology

of Silicon Valley with $95bn valuation
Digital pioneer founded by pair of Irish brothers has global ambitions to shake up sector
TIM BRADSHAW AND NICHOLAS MEGAW
LONDON
MILES KRUPPA — SAN FRANCISCO
Even the co-founder of Stripe admitted
there was nothing obviously attractive
or exciting about the digital payments
technology that is the company’s focus.
“It’s low-margin . . . It’s very competi-
tive,” said John Collison, who launched
Stripe in 2010 with his brother Patrick,
in an interview with the Financial
Times. Stripe’s staff are “the strange and
weird woodland creatures who are pay-
ments fanatics”, he added.
Silicon Valley’s most prominent start-
ups are normally consumer internet
ventures such as Facebook and Uber —
aggressive, fast-growing companies on a
relentless drive for global domination
and the huge brand awareness that goes
with it.
Yet it is Stripe — a name unfamiliar to
most outside the tech industry — that
now sits atop the list of Silicon Valley’s
most prized private companies after
investors valued it at $95bn this week.
Stripe’s software makes it simple for
any website or app to accept payments,
without having to obtain their own
licences or strike deals with the many
banks and card operators the company
‘One of the things we’re
very focused on is being
able to serve customers all
across the size range’
has already integrated. Underpinning a
near-tripling of Stripe’s valuation in the
past year is a belief from investors,
including Ireland’s National Treasury
Management Agency, Fidelity and
Sequoia Capital, that the digitisation of
commerce and payments still has some
way to run.
“The size of the opportunity is some-
thing that people caught on to,” said
Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s finance
chief. “It’s not very often you see a com-
pany where it is already so big, but still
there’s so much more growth left to go.”
With the internet economy shifting
away from advertising and towards
ecommerce and payments, Benedict
Evans, a tech industry analyst,
described Stripe’s opportunity another
way: “They are a 3 per cent tax on the
future of the internet.”
One of Stripe’s key competitive
advantages is doing more with less. It
has about 3,000 staff, a third less than
Facebook had in 2012 when it went pub-
lic at a similar valuation. Its online tools
are designed to be easy for businesses to
adopt without needing a large sales
force or support team.
That has allowed it to remain capital-
efficient, even as it expanded to more
than 40 countries. Stripe has raised
$2.4bn to date, compared with Uber’s
$14bn in equity financing before its ini-
tial public offering in 2019.
Stripe recorded about $2bn in gross
revenues in the third quarter of last
year, according to one person who has
seen the numbers. Those revenues
translated to more than $120m in earn-
ings before interest, tax, depreciation
and amortisation, this person said.
Stripe declined to comment on the fig-
ures, which may not be calculated or
presented in a way that is directly com-
parable to publicly listed peers.
The numbers imply that the company
is valued on a revenue multiple not dis-
Stripe, founded by John and Patrick Collison, is said to have recorded $2bn in gross revenues in the third quarter, which translated to $120m in ebitda — FT montage
similar to other online payments groups
that offer a similar set of services, such
as Adyen, which has a market capitali-
sation of €60bn, or PayPal, which is val-
ued at almost $300bn.
Conor O’Kelly, chief executive of Ire-
land’s NTMA, said he was “very com-
fortable” investing in Stripe at a $95bn
valuation, given how fast it was growing.
“Even if they weren’t to do much further
innovating — which of course they will
be — they are already embedded in the
largest secular trend of our time: the
acceleration of digitisation and the
growth of digital commerce,” he said.
In a sign of strong investor appetite,
Stripe has held talks about a deal that
would allow investors to buy between
$500m and $1bn worth of shares from
existing shareholders at or near the
same price as the recent financing, said
people familiar with the discussions.
Stripe’s mission statement to
“increase the GDP of the internet” is no
less grandiose than Facebook’s scheme
to connect everyone on the planet. But
unlike social media apps or gig economy
Stripe’s rising price
Valuation ($bn)
Series A Series B Series C Series D Series E Series F Series G Series H
Sources: PitchBook; news reports
start-ups, Stripe operates in an intensely Suryadevara described the second
regulated industry where Silicon Val- part of Stripe’s business as “building for
ley’s “move fast and break things” platforms” — launching extra services
approach cannot apply. that can save meaningful amounts of
There are two aspects to Stripe’s busi- money at a large scale or for which
ness model that got investors excited. Stripe clients can charge their own users
One is the fundamental infrastructure extra, bringing in new revenue streams.
of payments processing, for which One new Stripe customer, Matches-
Stripe typically takes a fee of roughly 2.9 fashion, initially switched because its
per cent of each transaction — or 1.9 per technology was easier to use. But the
cent in Europe, where card fees are typi- London-based luxury retailer also sells
cally lower. high-priced items to buyers in more
Stripe’s is not the cheapest rate availa- than 170 countries — creating just the
ble but key to its appeal is speed and kind of cross-border transaction that
simplicity of integration, especially for bank systems can mistakenly block.
the small businesses and start-ups upon Nicolas Pickaerts, vice-president of
whom it built its business. global development at Matchesfashion,
“There was a lot of white space for said Stripe had increased its acceptance
small companies who didn’t qualify for rate — the frequency with which pur-
a merchant account,” said Dayna Ford, chases successfully go through — by
payments analyst at Gartner. “They about 2 percentage points. “Given the
didn’t have to take market share away size of our business, it’s worth a lot of
from the large incumbents.” money,” he said.
That core payments business is “self- To introduce more new products, and
sustaining”, said Suryadevara. “We expand its geographic coverage, Surya-
don’t necessarily need to raise more devara said, Stripe is “investing like
money in order to grow that business.” crazy in 2021, with an eye towards the
next decade”.
But others spy the same opportunity
to join up the world’s fragmented pay-
ment systems. “Taking a credit card
100 payment has gotten a lot more competi-
tive because it’s been commoditised,”
80 said Lily Varon, payments analyst at
Forrester.
60
To expand beyond its core market of
small businesses, Stripe has to beat back
competition both from more traditional
40 payments companies such as Global
Payments, Worldpay and Fiserv but also
20 other next-generation companies,
including PayPal, Adyen, Checkout.com
0 and a growing swarm of smaller start-
ups looking for a piece of a multitrillion-
dollar market.
Guillaume Pousaz, chief executive of
London-based Checkout.com, said in a
January interview that he expected his
company’s payments volume to more
than double this year after tripling in
2020. He said net revenues roughly dou-
bled last year, thanks to an international
footprint that supports more currencies
than Stripe.
“Our moat has always been built
around actually having all these licences
all around the world,” Pousaz said.
Collison insisted Stripe was also
expanding rapidly into Europe, Asia
and Latin America, attracting larger
corporate clients such as Facebook’s
Instagram and software provider Atlas-
sian. He cited 50 customers that process
more than $1bn a year in payments as
evidence that it has made “tonnes and
tonnes of progress in the enterprise seg-
ment”. “One of the things we’re very
focused on is being able to serve custom-
ers all across the size range,” he said.
John Doran, general partner at ven-
ture capital firm TCV, which has backed
payments companies including Revolut
and Amsterdam-based Mollie, predicts
Stripe will find it harder to grow in
Europe than it did in the US. “Given the
size and fragmented nature of the Euro-
pean payments market . . . we believe
there is space for multiple winners.”
While its rivals may be able to high-
light support for a greater number of
countries, payment types or even
cryptocurrencies, Collison argued that
Stripe’s ability to defend its business
from its rivals is driven not by any spe-
cific product or feature, but an outlook.
He referred to the “global perspec-
tive” of a Silicon Valley company
founded by two young Irish immigrants
and its ability to plan five or 10 years
ahead. “The [payments] infrastructure
is global and you have to have a long-
term mindset,” he said.
ByteDance
embarks on
Singapore
hiring spree
STEPHANIE FINDLAY — NEW DELHI
MERCEDES RUEHL — SINGAPORE
ByteDance, owner of viral video app
TikTok, has launched a hiring spree in
Singapore, as the Chinese group deep-
ens operations outside the mainland to
satisfy global regulators.
The Beijing-based group controlled by
Zhang Yiming is hiring hundreds of
engineers and managers in the city-state
for TikTok as well as its enterprise soft-
ware business Lark and other products.
GlobalData job analytics data showed
that ByteDance had posted 338 jobs in
Singapore in the past six months. By
comparison only five jobs were posted
in India, where TikTok was shut in June
last year on security grounds.
Singapore is viewed as a neutral city
by Chinese tech companies amid ten-
sions between Washington and Beijing.
Tencent and Alibaba announced last
year that the city would serve as a hub,
with Alibaba spending half a billion dol-
lars to buy a skyscraper in the heart of
the financial district in May.
ByteDance has not confirmed which
of its international offices is its global
hub outside China, but its expansion in
Singapore — it moved into larger
premises in an office tower late last year
— comes amid setbacks in India, the US
and the UK, where it has been blocked
or accused of breaching privacy rules.
“As we grow our presence in Singa-
pore, we continue to look for the best
global and local talents to support our
business and augment local skills and
capabilities,” the company said.
The Financial Times reported last
year that ByteDance could seek to turn
TikTok and other units into a global
business separate from its Chinese
entity. Joe Biden’s administration is
reviewing an executive order from Don-
ald Trump that sought to force the sale
of TikTok’s US operations.
In China, where ByteDance makes
most of its money, it runs the mainland
version of TikTok called Douyin and
businesses including edtech unit Dali.
One lawyer who helped advise the
company on its new office space said
that it “had all the hallmarks of a global
hub. ByteDance seems to be spending
more on this office than any other out-
side of China”.
A consultant in the city said: “I think
they are hedging their bets given
the rapidly evolving regulatory
environment.”
The hiring spree in Singapore will
support ByteDance’s push into south-
east Asia. The group has created an edu-
cation portal to test a seller marketplace
in Indonesia, the region’s biggest ecom-
merce market, called TikTok Shop
Seller University.
TikTok’s migration to Singapore to
cater to the Asia market was part of a
trend of corporates moving out of China
and Hong Kong, said Jayanth Kolla, tech
analyst at Bangalore-based consultancy
Convergence Catalyst.
For the south-east Asia market, Sin-
gapore was seen as “neutral” ground
that could be viewed more favourably
by regulators, said Kolla.
“Singapore is increasingly becoming
for all practical purposes the official
south Asia and south-east Asia hub. The
government has been accommodative
and is jumping on the opportunity.”
TikTok has laid off the majority of its
2,000 employees in India, formerly its
biggest market with 200m users. Some
of that headcount was being transferred
to Singapore, a person familiar with the
company’s plans said.

Financials. Market strategy

Investors flock to Lending Club after it shifts gear and becomes a bank
Status change gives fintech
chance to lower funding costs
and diversify product offering
ROBERT ARMSTRONG — NEW YORK
When Lending Club was founded in
2006, it was hailed as a pioneering
“fintech” company — a consumer
lender that operated online without the
regulatory burdens of a bank.
This year, under chief executive Scott
Sanborn, Lending Club has shifted gears
and obtained a banking charter, reckon-
ing that extra attention from the gov-
ernment is a fair price to pay for an
opportunity to lower its funding costs
and diversify its product offering.
With last month’s acquisition of Bos-
ton-based digital bank Radius, Sanborn
told the Financial Times, Lending Club
will be able to move away from its
dependence on “partner banks” that
financed its loans until they could be
sold to investors.
“We don’t need to pay somebody else
to issue our loans. We don’t need to pay
somebody else [to] warehouse our
loans,” he said. “Over the past two years
on average we paid issuing banks alone
$20m a year. Now we can recapture
that.”
Investors seem to like the change.
After discussing its plans for Radius last
week, along with its fourth-quarter
earnings, Lending Club’s shares have
risen more than 60 per cent to nearly
$18, adding some $600m to its market
capitalisation.
The rally also has been encouraged by
Lending Club’s biggest investor, tech-
stock evangelist Cathie Wood’s ARK
Investment Management, which has
added to its position in the company.
“Being a bank is transformative on a
number of fronts: it gives you access to
lower-cost funding [and] it also lets you
test out, for example, auto lending as a
product,” said William Coffey of Wed-
bush Securities. “You can go to Radius
depositors and say, ‘You need a line of
credit.’”
Lending Club’s core product is unse-
cured personal loans, which borrowers
use to refinance higher-rate card and
car loans. Demand for the loans and
their credit performance have both
been relatively consistent across the
company’s 15 years of existence. But
Lending Club’s dependence on partner
banks to finance the credits put pres-
sure on its profitability.
“In the first quarter of last year we
held a billion dollars in loans, and our
average cost of funding was about 330
basis points,” Sanborn said. “Our total
cost of funding today at the bank we
acquired, which has more than $2bn in
deposits, is 35 basis points. Our borrow-
ing costs just went down by 90 per cent.”
The core checking account at newly
acquired Radius offers depositors a
yield of 0.10 per cent, Lending Club
says. By contrast, a key rival, Goldman
Sachs’ digital bank Marcus, pays deposi-
tors 0.5 per cent.
Lending Club plans to retain about a
fifth of the loans it originates and sell
Scott Sanborn, CEO, says the new
model will be 40% more profitable
subprime loans to investors — asset
managers, hedge funds — with higher
risk appetites. Marcus, by contrast,
retains its loans, pushing it to focus on
prime customers.
Sanborn estimated that Lending
Club’s new business model will be 40
per cent more profitable than the old
one and he expects the company to gen-
erate a return on equity superior to that
of a traditional bank.
“We’ve got a really high-yielding asset
and we’ve got a really low cost of capi-
tal,” he said. “You put the two together,
we’ve got a real economic engine.”
Consistency of revenue will also be
improved with a banking charter, San-
born said. Last year, as the pandemic
hit, the company issued $4.3bn in loans,
down from $12.3bn in 2019.
“The typical fintech marketplace
model, your primary revenue stream is
directly tied to loan originations,” he
said. “Let’s say a global pandemic hap-
pens, and the market pulls back by 70,
80, 90 per cent. Guess what happens to
your revenue?”
It was an attempt to even out demand,
by setting up an asset management
company that bought Lending Club
loans, that helped get the company’s
founder and former chief executive,
Renauld Laplanche, in trouble. The
FDIC alleged that the loan purchases
were misrepresented to investors;
Laplanche resigned in 2016 and was
banned from the securities industry
under a settlement with the SEC.
Loan investors, particularly banks,
pulled out following the regulatory
problems and Lending Club shares,
worth more than $100 in 2015, fell
below $5 last October.
To win back investors, Sanborn said,
the company increased compliance
efforts to bank-like levels, so he does not
expect having the charter to signifi-
cantly increase its administrative costs.
10 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Thursday 18 March 2021

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Fixed income. Syndication Commodities

IEA pushes
Europe’s bond order books back against
jump to ‘ridiculous’ levels talk of oil
supercycle
ANJLI RAVAL
SENIOR ENERGY CORRESPONDENT

The expectation of Wall Street banks

that oil has entered a new and sustained
period of dramatic price rises is
misguided, said the International
Energy Agency yesterday.
The Paris-based body said “oil’s sharp
rally to near $70 a barrel has spurred
talk of a new supercycle and a looming
supply shortfall. Our data and analysis
suggest otherwise”.
Those forecasting a return to $100-a-
barrel crude — last hit in 2014 — say
huge fiscal stimulus measures will boost
demand just as spending on new
production declines, fuelling a longer
lasting price surge.
Brent crude, the international oil
benchmark, is up 80 per cent since the
end of October 2020 to $67.56 a barrel,
driven by optimism about the rollout of
vaccines and production cuts by some of
the world’s biggest exporters.
But the IEA said “oil inventories still
look ample compared with historical
levels” even as the stock overhang from
2020 — as the pandemic crushed
demand for crude — begins to dissipate.
Opec countries and allies outside the
cartel, including Russia, agreed last
April to cut production by a record 9.7m
barrels a day. The group has since grad-
ually reduced the curbs to about 8m b/d.

ECB asset purchases inflate
what was once a key yardstick
for judging investor interest
JOSHUA OLIVER
Investors have been toppling records
this year with outsized orders for a rush
of new eurozone government debt but
bankers say the true scale of demand for
the bonds is becoming harder to
discern.
Spain attracted more than €130bn of
orders for a 10-year syndication in
January, the second record deal in 12
months.
In February, an Italian 10-year sale
drew €108bn in orders, breaking a
record set last summer.
Former bailout recipient Greece has
also drawn a crowd with new 30-year
debt — its first since the financial crisis.
The supersized order book sizes have
helped countries’ public debt offices
secure more favourable borrowing costs
but it has also made what was typically a
staid process of “book building” more
fickle, and made it harder to judge
whether orders really reflect demand
for the bonds.
“Back in the day, an order book was
viewed as a reasonable gauge of
demand,” said Lyn Graham-Taylor,
senior rates strategist at Rabobank.
The size of order books started to rise
in 2017, he said, but “skyrocketed” in
2020 and so far this year, reaching
“frankly ridiculous numbers”.
Across the eurozone, the average
bid-to-cover ratio for syndications — a
standard measure of demand — jumped
by about 40 per cent in 2020 compared
with the previous year and has pushed
higher this year, according to figures
Rising demand for eurozone Eurozone governments
sovereign bond syndications increase use of syndication
Average bid-to-cover ratio for borrowing
10 Syndication as a percentage
of total issuance
France and Germany
Spain and Italy 8 20
Rest of eurozone
6 15
4 10
2 5
0 0
2015 16 17 18 19 20 21 2015 16 17 18 19 20
Source: Rabobank
compiled by Rabobank. Private sector working the phones to reconfirm and
demand for eurozone government debt then reallocate orders, dragging out the
is backed by a vast bond-buying length of the deal. They have also added
programme from the European Central pressure on managers of subsequent
Bank, which is seeking to shore up offerings to understand how buyers will
financial conditions and an economy react to new pricing.
hobbled by the shock of coronavirus. “Headline orders suggest issuers can
Since last March, the central bank’s tighten pricing quite a lot but some of
emergency Covid-19 bond-buying the demand remains very sensitive
programme has absorbed more than and will drop if prices tighten”, said
€760bn in public sector debt, buying Kerr Finlayson, head of the frequent
after it is issued in the secondary borrowers group at NatWest Markets.
market. That leaves investors “You can’t just say that, because you
clamouring for new issues when they have a €100bn book, you can set any
need debt for their portfolios. price you want. You need to balance the
But some of the apparent interest in high-quality ‘buy-and-hold’ versus the
these deals from fund managers proves fast money.”
fleeting. In both the Italian and Spanish European governments raised an
deals earlier this year, about half the unprecedented €3.6tn in debt in 2020,
orders fled the book as the government according to the Association for
debt agencies sought cheaper borrowing Financial Markets in Europe.
costs. Although auctions remain the domi-
Several bankers said orders from nant tool for government borrowing,
hedge funds are particularly sensitive to syndications allow national treasuries
price changes as they may be aiming to issue larger chunks of debt and have
quickly to resell the bonds at a profit on helped them to meet the financing
the open market. demands of the Covid-19 response.
These collapses leave bankers The share of debt issued by syndica-
Towering: tion climbed last year. Issuance through
the European auctions has, meanwhile, faced limits
Central Bank’s from banks’ capacity to act as market
makers by holding bonds on their books
emergency
bond-buying until they can sell them on to investors.
has absorbed “Banks’ ability to warehouse bonds
more than has been reduced and therefore it’s
€760bn of public more difficult to get bonds in size,” said
sector debt Graham-Taylor.
Ralph Orlowski/Reuters
This has pushed more demand to
syndications from investors who want
big chunks of debt.
When syndication deals draw more
orders than they have bonds to sell,
investors are allocated a percentage of
the amount they bid for.
Some investors have inflated their
orders to make sure that they still walk
away with the amount they need,
bankers and analysts said.
“This behaviour, which has been
observed across government bond syn-
dications internationally, can result in
sizeable but potentially misleading
order books and therefore should not be
taken as an indicator of the level of
demand,” the head of the UK’s debt
agency, Sir Robert Stheeman, wrote in a
letter to MPs in December.
The UK has also seen big orders for
gilt syndications. A 25-year gilt deal in
January attracted £60bn in orders,
prompting the country to up the size of
‘Back in the issuance to £6.5bn.
The surge of volatility in bond
the day, markets in recent weeks may make
an order investors more cautious about bidding
for large orders of bonds.
book was But Jean-Luc Lamarque, global head
viewed as a of syndicate at Crédit Agricole CIB, said
he is not anticipating immediate
reasonable changes in syndication investors’
gauge of behaviour.
“For the time being, there is still a lot
demand’ of confidence in the market,” he said.
‘There is more than enough
oil in tanks and under the
ground to keep markets
adequately supplied’
A rebound in demand and continued
production restraint by the so-called
Opec+ group point to a sharp decline in
inventories later this year. But, for now,
“there is more than enough oil in tanks
and under the ground to keep global oil
markets adequately supplied”.
The IEA said the cuts implied there
was significant spare production
capacity — at about 9.3m b/d — that
could be brought on by these countries
quickly, should the market tighten too
much.
Oil producers have been wary about
unleashing more barrels on to the
market, given the unpredictability of
the virus. This month, Opec+ decided
against increasing supply by 1.5m b/d
from April.
In a separate report released by the
IEA yesterday, it said that, while
oil markets had rebounded from
the big demand shock triggered by Cov-
id-19 they “still face a high degree of
uncertainty”.
The IEA said: “The staggering inven-
tory surplus that built up last year is
being worked off and global oil stocks,
excluding strategic reserves, will return
to pre-pandemic levels in 2021. And yet,
there may be no return to ‘normal’ for
Our global the oil market in the post-Covid era.”
team gives you Oil demand, which hit close to 100m
market-moving b/d in 2019, is not expected to recover
news and views, back to this level until 2023, the IEA
24 hours a day noted. But a peak in consumption is not
ft.com/markets expected. By 2026, global oil demand is
projected to reach 104.1m b/d.

Equities Equities

Biotech start-up behind AstraZeneca
jab raises $168m to fund similar trials
HANNAH KUCHLER — NEW YORK
Vaccitech, the Oxford start-up that
owns the biotech platform behind the
AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, has
raised $168m as it seeks to use similar
technology to treat other infectious
diseases and cancer.
Vaccitech is preparing to go public in the
coming months, according to a person
familiar with the matter, after its latest
round valued the start-up at about
$425m after the fundraising.
The series B round was led by Lon-
don-headquartered M&G Investment
Management and investors included
Californian biotech group Gilead Sci-
ences, Chinese tech group Tencent and
Monaco’s constitutional reserve fund.
Sarah Gilbert, a vaccines expert and
co-founder of Vaccitech, led the devel-
opment of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vac-
cine. The company is built on technol-
ogy spun out of the University of Oxford
and backed by Oxford Sciences Innova-
tion, a fund trying to help the institution
commercialise more of its intellectual
property like US universities do.
Bill Enright, Vaccitech’s chief execu-
tive, said the financing would help push
its lead programmes forward in clinical
trials. “We now look forward to advanc-
ing key programmes towards generat-
ing proof-of-concept data in indications
with significant need of effective new
treatments,” he said.
The fundraising was announced as
distribution of the AstraZeneca shot has
been suspended in many European
countries while the regulator investi-
gates a possible link with a serious side
effect called thrombosis. The suspen-
sion is precautionary and the European
AstraZeneca has rights to use
Vaccitech’s platform for its vaccine
Medicines Agency, the EU’s drugs regu-
lator, says there is no evidence that the
vaccine is causing the blood clots.
AstraZeneca has commercial rights to
use Vaccitech’s platform for its Covid-19
vaccine. The jab is being distributed on a
non-profit basis for the duration of the
pandemic but afterwards Vaccitech will
get an undisclosed share of the revenue.
While Vaccitech will not profit from
the Covid-19 shot in the short term, it
has proven its platform — using a chim-
panzee adenovirus vector to deliver
active ingredients — in millions of peo-
ple. This vector is combined with an
immune system booster, based on a
modified vaccinia Ankara virus,
derived from a smallpox vaccine. The
viruses are used as delivery mecha-
nisms and cannot replicate in humans.
The funds raised will support early-
stage clinical trials of a treatment for
patients with chronic hepatitis, a treat-
ment for persistent high-risk human
papillomavirus and a treatment for
prostate cancer. Vaccitech is also work-
ing on vaccines for Mers, another respi-
ratory illness caused by a coronavirus
that first emerged in 2012, and zoster,
the virus that causes shingles.
Baidu set to raise more than $3bn
in ‘homecoming’ HK stock listing
HUDSON LOCKETT — HONG KONG
MERCEDES RUEHL — SINGAPORE
Baidu is set to raise more than $3bn in
a Hong Kong stock market listing,
marking the latest “homecoming”
share sale by a Chinese technology
group against a backdrop of tension
between Washington and Beijing.
The New York-traded search engine
company told investors yesterday that it
expected to price shares for its Hong
Kong secondary listing at HK$252
($32.45) each, according to two people
familiar with the matter.
That represents a discount of about
2.7 per cent against the most recent clos-
ing level for its Nasdaq-listed American
depositary receipts.
That would put Baidu on track to
bring in at least $3.1bn through the sale
of about 24m shares. That could rise to
more than $3.5bn if banks organising
the listing deem that demand is strong
enough to exercise a “greenshoe” option
and sell another 3.6m shares.
The Hong Kong listing would make
Baidu the final member of the so-called
BAT stocks to list in the city after
Chinese internet groups Alibaba and
Tencent. Baidu also joins a host of New
York-listed Chinese tech groups such as
JD.com and NetEase that have sought
secondary placements closer to home.
US authorities have said they will
delist Chinese companies from Ameri-
can exchanges if they do not comply
with local accounting rules.
The New York Stock Exchange earlier
this year delisted the ADRs of state-run
Baidu, known as China’s
answer to Google,
has been expanding
into new businesses
Chinese groups including China Mobile
and China Telecom following an execu-
tive order by Donald Trump, the former
president, that barred US investors
from holding stakes in groups suspected
of having ties to China’s military.
One person familiar with the matter
said strong institutional investor
demand — particularly from long-only
investors and hedge funds — had helped
Baidu’s share offer weather recent
volatility in global equity markets.
The Hong Kong listing will open up
the company’s stock to more Chinese
funds and retail investors.
Baidu, known as China’s answer to
Google, has been expanding into new
businesses including electric vehicles
and video streaming in a bid to increase
its revenues and shift away from its
stagnating core business.
These include a partnership with
Chinese carmaker Geely Auto to make
electric vehicles.
Investor interest in China’s electric
car market — the world’s biggest — has
been buoyed by US group Tesla’s success
in the country.
The company is also following rivals
into crowded new business lines such as
short videos, a sector already domi-
nated by ByteDance and Kuaishou.
“We believe Baidu’s growth outlook is
promising,” said Alicia Yap, an analyst
at Citi, pointing to the company’s
diversification efforts.
Baidu’s Nasdaq-listed ADRs have
risen more than 20 per cent this year.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and
Citic are joint sponsors and global co-or-
dinators for Baidu’s Hong Kong share
sale.
Thursday 18 March 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 11

COMPANIES & MARKETS

The day in the markets UK value stocks

What you need to know
hold bargain
3 US long-term bonds under pressure as
opportunities
Federal Reserve upgrades GDP forecast
US long-term bonds under renewed pressure
3 Stocks on Wall Street follow bond Treasury yields (%)
prices lower, led by tech
3 Treasury sell-off spreads to other
countries including the UK and Germany 30-year
2.5
Rob Arnott
US long-term government bonds sold off
yesterday as markets turned jittery ahead 2.0 Markets Insight
of the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting in

P
which the bank kept rates on hold but
sharply upgraded its growth forecast for redicting when markets will And, with the UK among the world’s At the start of 2021, UK value stocks
the US to 6.5 per cent for the year. 1.5 turn or what catalysts will champions in mass vaccinations, they were trading at very nearly their cheap-
The yield on the benchmark 10-year 10-year trigger the move is more a fun are unlikely to materialise in future. est ever relative to both the market and
Treasury note gained as much as five parlour game than a reliable Likewise, the recent Brexit deal means to growth on metrics such as price to
basis points to more than 1.67 per cent. tool for investment strategy. that UK businesses can operate with sales, price to dividends and price to
That brought one of world’s most 1.0 Even so, sometimes long-term pros- much less uncertainty. cash flow
closely watched measures of borrowing pects seem clear. That is notably the As with most crises, Covid and Brexit Granted, they have recently rallied,
costs to its highest level since February case now for UK stocks. have changed the UK’s relationship with up nearly 20 per cent in excess of their
2020. The yield on 30-year bonds also We have been saying since the the world, but not drastically. growth counterparts from October 1
rose, hitting 2.44 per cent. 0.5 autumn that UK shares may be the On a five-year horizon, it seems 2020 through to February 28 2021. This
Stocks on Wall Street followed bond trade of the decade, in particular so- unlikely that Brexit will leave the UK may lead some to ask if the value stock
prices lower, led by the technology sector. Jan 2020 2021 Mar called value stocks that appear cheap isolated from global trade and that in uptick is merely a bounce or the begin-
The blue-chip S&P 500 was down 0.4 Source: Refinitiv compared with benchmarks, such as fact the UK will actually remain a ning of a sustained move.
per cent by lunchtime in New York while dividend payouts or assets. That is still vibrant and competitive economy, The good news is even after the
the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sank the case. enjoying robust trade with its global rebound, UK stocks are still trading at
more than 1 per cent. “They have not stated exactly the research at WisdomTree Investments, What created this potential bargain? partners. very attractive levels relative to their
Borrowing costs have been rising with extent of the overshoot they are said that, even though the US was closer Over the past year, Brexit-related perils history — now very cheap versus excep-
the 10-year yield increasing from about comfortable with or for how long,” said to a rate rise than economies that were coupled with concerns of sweeping tionally cheap earlier this year.
0.9 per cent at the start of this year as Dall’Angelo. “From a market perspective, recovering more slowly from the bankruptcies amid the pandemic They are priced to earn a What does all this mean in terms of
markets anticipated a jump in inflation this brings uncertainty and volatility.” pandemic, it made sense for fears about understandably induced investors’ return a notch higher than potential return for the long-term inves-
from President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus The bond sell-off in the US spread to tighter US monetary policy to spread fears. tor? UK stocks stand out as offering the
and the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines. other countries yesterday, taking the around global bond markets. Brexit drove UK stocks to valuation emerging markets equities most attractive risk-return trade-off
Bond markets were likely to stay yield on the UK’s 10-year gilt up 5bp to “The US central bank is giving levels that were the cheapest compared with considerably less risk across the main global asset classes and
volatile, said Silvia Dall’Angelo, senior 0.83 per cent. investors a window into the pace at which with other developed world markets. are indeed are priced to earn a return
economist at Federated Hermes, because The yield on the equivalent German other central banks will eventually Then Covid-19 fears drove value stocks even a notch higher than emerging mar-
the Fed’s move to average inflation Bund rose by the same margin to minus tighten,” she said. globally to near-record lows relative to Consider that the OECD projects UK kets equities with considerably less risk.
targeting — which allowed the central 0.29 per cent while Canada’s 10-year yield Across the Atlantic, the Stoxx Europe growth stocks, in many countries lower economic growth rates in 2021 and 2022 An annualised total return of 8 per
bank to be more tolerant of price climbed 4bp to 1.61 per cent with yields 600 equities benchmark fell 0.5 per cent even than at the peak of the tech bubble of 5.1 per cent and 4.2 per cent respec- cent over the next 10 years may not
increases overshooting — made it harder also rising in Australia, Brazil and Greece. and London’s FTSE 100 dropped 0.6 per in 2000. tively. That compares with global sound like much, but in a world of near-
for investors to predict monetary policy. Lidia Treiber, director of fixed income cent. Naomi Rovnick and Colby Smith This exodus created bargain prices in growth expected of 5.6 per cent in 2021 zero bond yields, it is tremendous. Fur-
UK value stocks, which even after a and 4.0 per cent in 2022. ther, that is before the 4 per cent incre-
recent rebound, still offer a compelling Are UK equities risky? Of course, but mental return we are expecting for
Markets update opportunity. no more than other developed economy value stocks.
As of end-December 2020, the ratio of stock markets. Our forecast for global developed
the price of UK value stocks to the bal- We gauge potential long-term returns equities is that they would deliver an
ance sheet value of their assets was 0.97 as the sum of dividend yield, expected annualised total return of 4.0 per cent
US Eurozone Japan UK China Brazil compared with 1.61 for the broad UK capital growth and changes in valuation over the next 10 years. That means
Stocks S&P 500 Eurofirst 300 Nikkei 225 FTSE100 Shanghai Comp Bovespa equity market ratio and 2.89 for global multiples (which usually mean revert investment growth of just over 25 per
Level 3944.32 1637.03 29914.33 6762.67 3445.55 115136.95 developed equity markets. towards historical norms). cent in six years.
% change on day -0.46 -0.34 -0.02 -0.60 -0.03 0.98 While most investors are transfixed For the FTSE 100 stocks over the next In contrast, a 12 per cent return for
Currency $ index (DXY) $ per € Yen per $ $ per £ Rmb per $ Real per $ by the pandemic crisis and Brexit, sur- 10 years, this means returns of 3.2 per UK value stocks would double an inves-
Level 91.981 1.190 109.220 1.389 6.503 5.656 prisingly few ask: “Will these events cent from yield, 4.1 per cent from capi- tor’s money in just six years.
% change on day 0.161 0.000 0.183 0.000 0.032 1.376 matter much in five years?” tal growth and 0.8 per cent per year
Govt. bonds 10-year Treasury 10-year Bund 10-year JGB 10-year Gilt 10-year bond 10-year bond Covid-related shutdowns have not from a reversion to historical valuation The writer is founder and chairman of fund
Yield 1.666 -0.292 0.088 0.829 3.253 8.445 after all led to sweeping bankruptcies. norms. manager Research Affiliates
Basis point change on day 5.730 4.400 -0.580 4.600 -0.700 10.000
World index, Commods FTSE All-World Oil - Brent Oil - WTI Gold Silver Metals (LMEX)
Level 445.32 67.23 63.80 1735.00 26.08 3816.80
Executive Appointments
% change on day -0.46 -1.95 -1.85 0.66 -0.08 -1.53
Yesterday's close apart from: Currencies = 16:00 GMT; S&P, Bovespa, All World, Oil = 17:00 GMT; Gold, Silver = London pm fix. Bond data supplied by Tullett Prebon.

Main equity markets

S&P 500 index Eurofirst 300 index FTSE 100 index
4000 1680 6880

1640 6720
3840 1600
6560
1560
| | | | | | | | |
3680 || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1520 || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 6400 | | | | | | | | | | |

Jan 2021 Mar Jan 2021 Mar Jan 2021 Mar

Biggest movers
% US Eurozone UK
Lennar 7.05 Volkswagen 15.83 Bt 6.49
Dow 3.77 Bay.motoren Werke 6.16 Rolls-royce Holdings 3.54
Ups

Lyondellbasell Industries Nv 2.86 Kbc 4.27 Intertek 2.41

Roper 2.71 Solvay 3.11 British American Tobacco 2.25
Northrop Grumman 2.68 Renault 3.10 Standard Chartered 1.89
%
Nrg Energy -15.42 Rwe -2.68 Ocado -4.84
Viacomcbs -8.20 Thyssenkrupp -2.41 M&g -4.08
Downs

Abbvie -5.53 Muench Rueckvers -2.23 Anglo American -3.94

Fox -4.98 Novozymes -2.16 Evraz -3.84
Discovery -4.72 Deutsche Boerse -2.12 Legal & General -3.50
Prices taken at 17:00 GMT Based on the constituents of the FTSE Eurofirst 300 Eurozone
All data provided by Morningstar unless otherwise noted.

Wall Street Europe London

Strong results sent cyber security BMW revved up after laying out a road SSP Group sank after announcing its
company CrowdStrike higher as total map in which it aims to make at least half intention to raise £475m from another
revenue for the fourth quarter hit of its vehicles fully electric by 2030. rights issue.
$264.9m, a 74 per cent increase on the Deliveries of fully electric models will The owner of Caffè Ritazza and Upper
same period a year earlier. grow “well over 50 per cent annually” on Crust added that it had secured an
During the quarter, annual recurring average by 2025, said the premium extension of its bank facilities that were
revenue increased 75 per cent year over carmaker. due to mature in July 2022 to January
year, growing to $1.05bn as of January 31, Shorter term, the German group 2024.
of which $142.7m was net new ARR. forecast a “solid year-on-year increase in Both measures were aimed at
UBS reaffirmed its “buy” rating for the deliveries” for its automotive division with strengthening the company “if the global
California group off the back of its its margin for earnings before interest travel sector experiences a more
“robust” quarter and a “healthy above- and tax of between 6 per cent and 8 per prolonged recovery from the pandemic”,
consensus (and we think beatable) cent for 2020, edging above it said in a statement.
outlook”. consensus estimates, said Citi analyst “Business has dried up for [SSP’s] cafés
Mobile gaming platform Skillz tumbled Angus Tweedie. and restaurants in airports and train
after announcing a public offering of 32m The company’s outlook was “marginally stations, forcing the company to go cap in
shares, of which 17m would be offered by ahead of sellside consensus expectations”, hand and ask for more funds until
the San Francisco group and 15m sold by added Tweedie, “and the further details travellers return,” said AJ Bell. “Much
existing stockholders. on the electrification are somewhat uncertainty remains over when travel
Proceeds from the shares being offered reassuring given investor concerns over restrictions will be lifted in the various
by Skillz are earmarked for working BMW’s electric vehicle strategy”. countries in which SSP operates.”
capital and general corporate purposes Schoeller Bleckmann, the oilfield BT Group rallied after its mobile
but the company would not receive any equipment group, sank after scrapping its network, EE, secured spectrum in an
funds from the selling stockholders. dividend for 2020 and reporting a post- Ofcom auction.
Skillz rallied last month after signing a tax loss of €21.7m against a profit of The telecoms company paid £452m for
multiyear deal with the National Football €32.3m a year earlier. 3.6-3.8GHz and 700MHz spectrum, the
League to host a game developer “The exceptional global situation and latter being “crucial for reach and indoor
challenge. the drop in demand for oil and gas led to coverage”, said the group.
Uber went into reverse following news a decline in sales and results,” stated the An upbeat trading update helped lift
that its UK drivers would be reclassified Austrian company. Hargreaves Lansdown after the
as workers, meaning they would be However, chief executive Gerald investment platform said it expected
entitled to extra benefits such as holiday Grohmann said he expected to see a pre-tax profit for its financial year ending
pay and automatic enrolment into a moderate increase in activities in the first June 30 to be “modestly above the top
pension scheme. Ray Douglas half of this year. Ray Douglas end of analyst expectations”. Ray Douglas
12 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Thursday 18 March 2021

MARKET DATA

WORLD MARKETS AT A GLANCE FT.COM/MARKETSDATA

Change during previous day’s trading (%)
S&P 500 Nasdaq Composite Dow Jones Ind FTSE 100 FTSE Eurofirst 300 Nikkei Hang Seng FTSE All World $ $ per € $ pe r £ ¥ per $ £ pe r € Oil Brent $ Sep Gold $

-0.46% -1.27% -0.60% -0.34% -0.02% -0.46% -1.04%

No change No change
0.30% 0.02% 0.183% 0.117% 0.66%
Stock Market movements over last 30 days, with the FTSE All-World in the same currency as a comparison
AMERICAS EUROPE ASIA
Feb 18 - - Index All World Feb 18 - Mar 17 Index All World Feb 18 - Mar 17 Index All World Feb 18 - Mar 17 Index All World Feb 18 - Mar 17 Index All World Feb 18 - Mar 17 Index All World

S&P 500 New York S&P/TSX COMP Toronto FTSE 100 London Xetra Dax Frankfurt Nikkei 225 Tokyo Kospi Seoul
3,944.32 18,865.83 14,596.61 3,163.25
3,932.59 6,748.86 6,762.67 30,084.15 29,914.33
18,492.50 14,064.60 3,047.50

Day -0.46% Month 0.32% Year 55.94% Day -0.04% Month 2.69% Year 48.75% Day -0.60% Month 0.92% Year 27.91% Day 0.27% Month 0.39% Year NaN% Day -0.02% Month -1.76% Year 76.05% Day -0.64% Month -3.66% Year 77.71%

Nasdaq Composite New York IPC Mexico City FTSE Eurofirst 300 Europe Ibex 35 Madrid Hang Seng Hong Kong FTSE Straits Times Singapore
14,047.50 47,991.74 3,109.65
1,637.03 8,599.50 30,746.66
13,299.93 1,614.37
44,157.49 8,153.70 29,034.12 2,935.34

Day -1.27% Month -4.77% Year 81.32% Day -0.44% Month 6.45% Year 30.13% Day -0.34% Month 2.15% Year 43.18% Day -0.67% Month 5.87% Year 32.33% Day 0.02% Month -5.63% Year 25.81% Day 0.13% Month 6.07% Year 24.75%

Dow Jones Industrial New York Bovespa São Paulo CAC 40 Paris FTSE MIB Milan Shanghai Composite Shanghai BSE Sensex Mumbai
32,923.03 6,054.82 24,281.05 52,154.13
119,428.72 3,603.49
31,522.75 115,136.95 5,786.53 23,440.81
3,445.55 49,801.62

Day 0.30% Month 4.14% Year 55.01% Day 0.98% Month -4.31% Year 54.35% Day -0.01% Month 5.01% Year 51.68% Day 0.08% Month 4.78% Year 58.59% Day -0.03% Month -5.73% Year 23.53% Day -1.12% Month -4.42% Year 58.65%

Country Index Latest Previous Country Index Latest Previous Country Index Latest Previous Country Index Latest Previous Country Index Latest Previous Country Index Latest Previous
Argentina Merval 49393.02 49646.77 Cyprus CSE M&P Gen 68.46 68.68 Italy FTSE Italia All-Share 26419.89 26417.61 Philippines Manila Comp 6566.83 6559.08 Taiwan Weighted Pr 16215.82 16313.16 Cross-Border DJ Global Titans ($) 452.27 455.99
Australia All Ordinaries 7048.00 7079.00 Czech Republic
PX 1082.14 1078.08 FTSE Italia Mid Cap 42640.98 42862.89 Poland Wig 57867.02 59088.73 Thailand Bangkok SET 1566.76 1564.03 Euro Stoxx 50 (Eur) 3853.51 3850.96
S&P/ASX 200 6795.20 6827.10 Denmark OMXC Copenahgen 20 1437.08 1466.29 FTSE MIB 24281.05 24261.12 Portugal PSI 20 4769.73 4835.17 Turkey BIST 100 1562.11 1570.42 Euronext 100 ID 1183.44 1184.32
S&P/ASX 200 Res 5171.60 5245.10 Egypt EGX 30 11068.37 11190.80 Japan 2nd Section 7534.70 7521.54 PSI General 3531.95 3592.37 UAE Abu Dhabi General Index 5746.17 5749.07 FTSE 4Good Global ($) 9602.65 9670.58
Austria ATX 3153.33 3176.99 Estonia OMX Tallinn 1480.71 1485.66 Nikkei 225 29914.33 29921.09 Romania BET Index 10810.53 10844.45 UK FT 30 2708.90 2720.20 FTSE All World ($) 445.32 447.38
Belgium BEL 20 3883.74 3859.99 Finland OMX Helsinki General 11456.41 11579.65 S&P Topix 150 1670.94 1670.34 Russia Micex Index 3507.91 3589.83 FTSE 100 6762.67 6803.61 FTSE E300 1637.03 1642.61
BEL Mid 8880.96 8881.20 France CAC 40 6054.82 6055.43 Topix 1984.03 1981.50 RTX 1493.66 1552.81 FTSE 4Good UK 6354.43 6403.85 FTSE Eurotop 100 3084.51 3090.05
Brazil IBovespa 115136.95 114018.78 SBF 120 4771.37 4771.78 Jordan Amman SE 1733.76 1719.70 Saudi-Arabia TADAWUL All Share Index 9602.26 9660.27 FTSE All Share 3854.27 3879.81 FTSE Global 100 ($) 2547.81 2561.99
Canada S&P/TSX 60 1124.68 1123.74 Germany M-DAX 31867.40 32098.29 Kenya NSE 20 1922.70 1923.04 Singapore FTSE Straits Times 3109.65 3105.51 FTSE techMARK 100 6483.96 6581.09 FTSE Gold Min ($) 2160.79 2155.99
S&P/TSX Comp 18865.83 18874.01 TecDAX 3372.79 3386.27 Kuwait KSX Market Index 6633.44 6603.51 Slovakia SAX 370.62 367.78 USA DJ Composite 10878.61 10855.69 FTSE Latibex Top (Eur) 4440.00 4432.20
S&P/TSX Div Met & Min 809.45 826.65 XETRA Dax 14596.61 14557.58 Latvia OMX Riga 1112.82 1119.31 Slovenia SBI TOP - - DJ Industrial 32923.03 32825.95 FTSE Multinationals ($) 2825.31 2816.45
Chile S&P/CLX IGPA Gen 24580.30 24682.80 Greece Athens Gen 857.19 860.26 Lithuania OMX Vilnius 855.01 856.66 South Africa FTSE/JSE All Share 66494.49 67289.37 DJ Transport 14082.06 14020.73 FTSE World ($) 791.01 794.68
China FTSE A200 13689.68 13655.24 FTSE/ASE 20 2064.04 2072.52 Luxembourg LuxX 1451.76 1462.11 FTSE/JSE Res 20 67133.88 68759.24 DJ Utilities 853.59 859.04 FTSEurofirst 100 (Eur) 4259.12 4266.96
FTSE B35 9000.71 8988.96 Hong Kong Hang Seng 29034.12 29027.69 Malaysia FTSE Bursa KLCI 1624.97 1623.96 FTSE/JSE Top 40 60810.17 61623.63 Nasdaq 100 12985.51 13152.28 FTSEurofirst 80 (Eur) 5258.66 5257.29
Shanghai A 3611.55 3612.77 HS China Enterprise 11358.66 11329.43 Mexico IPC 47991.74 48203.95 South Korea Kospi 3047.50 3067.17 Nasdaq Cmp 13299.93 13471.57 MSCI ACWI Fr ($) 677.96 676.99
Shanghai B 244.55 245.53 HSCC Red Chip 4219.37 4158.19 Morocco MASI 11487.27 11417.87 Kospi 200 414.01 417.31 NYSE Comp 15642.63 15775.50 MSCI All World ($) 2823.69 2821.85
Shanghai Comp 3445.55 3446.73 Hungary Bux 43504.47 44268.77 Netherlands AEX 680.71 683.65 Spain IBEX 35 8599.50 8657.70 S&P 500 3944.32 3962.71 MSCI Europe (Eur) 1714.44 1703.17
Shenzhen A 2321.03 2298.25 India BSE Sensex 49801.62 50363.96 AEX All Share 975.79 981.43 Sri Lanka CSE All Share 7044.56 7119.70 Wilshire 5000 41754.29 42013.83 MSCI Pacific ($) 3228.20 3207.50
Shenzhen B 1114.00 1110.42 Nifty 500 12319.90 12512.70 New Zealand NZX 50 12622.21 12689.05 Sweden OMX Stockholm 30 2172.86 2180.14 Venezuela IBC 2699170.75 2668313.50 S&P Euro (Eur) 1775.03 1776.74
Colombia COLCAP 1350.14 1356.98 Indonesia Jakarta Comp 6277.23 6309.70 Nigeria SE All Share 38720.81 38561.84 OMX Stockholm AS 864.00 870.93 Vietnam VNI 1186.09 1179.90 S&P Europe 350 (Eur) 1693.82 1699.97
Croatia CROBEX 2013.05 2011.29 Ireland ISEQ Overall 8048.34 8079.89 Norway Oslo All Share 1017.37 1006.88 Switzerland SMI Index 10922.49 10944.48 S&P Global 1200 ($) 3116.76 3130.77
Israel Tel Aviv 125 1647.90 1669.09 Pakistan KSE 100 45450.31 44857.06 Stoxx 50 (Eur) 3284.93 3289.49
(c) Closed. (u) Unavaliable. † Correction. ♥ Subject to official recalculation. For more index coverage please see www.ft.com/worldindices. A fuller version of this table is available on the ft.com research data archive.

STOCK MARKET: BIGGEST MOVERS UK MARKET WINNERS AND LOSERS

AMERICA LONDON EURO MARKETS TOKYO Mar 17 %Chg %Chg Mar 17 %Chg %Chg Mar 17 %Chg %Chg Mar 17 %Chg %Chg
ACTIVE STOCKS stock close Day's ACTIVE STOCKS stock close Day's ACTIVE STOCKS stock close Day's ACTIVE STOCKS stock close Day's FTSE 100 price(p) week ytd FTSE 250 price(p) week ytd FTSE SmallCap price(p) week ytd Industry Sectors price(p) week ytd
traded m's price change traded m's price change traded m's price change traded m's price change Winners Winners Winners Winners
Apple 53.1 122.66 -2.91 Rio Tinto 206.7 5460.00 -150.00 Volkswagen Ag Vzo O.n. 1015.8 230.80 22.95 Softbank . 1016.2 10400.00 -220.00 Rolls-royce Holdings 127.20 12.6 - Hammerson 37.69 17.6 - Menzies(john) 310.50 29.4 20.5 Fixed Line Telecommunication 1816.08 10.5 13.0
Boeing 29.5 257.61 2.40 Astrazeneca 176.9 7138.00 -94.00 Asml Holding 399.4 461.10 -2.30 Rakuten . 708.3 1419.00 -89.00 Flutter Entertainment 16700.00 11.4 - Cineworld 115.55 12.7 - Photo-me Int 65.00 27.5 - Mobile Telecommunications 3121.72 5.6 13.0
Amazon.com 28.8 3085.06 -6.80 Bp 152.8 313.80 2.55 Daimler Ag Na O.n. 354.8 71.33 0.07 Toyota Motor 445.2 8308.00 39.00 Bt 152.50 11.1 - Cmc Markets 430.00 12.6 - Dignity 646.00 21.9 - Aerospace & Defense 3800.73 5.2 5.4
Facebook 21.5 278.56 -0.72 Unilever 140.8 4025.00 11.00 Bay.motoren Werke Ag St 324.2 85.46 4.96 Fast Retailing Co., 405.0 96000.00 810.00 Burberry 2095.00 6.7 - Drax 414.80 11.4 - Pendragon 18.54 18.8 46.9 Tobacco 28781.54 4.9 0.0
Microsoft 20.4 233.83 -3.89 Bhp 127.1 2074.50 -50.00 Unicredit 303.8 9.47 0.17 Sony 372.4 11575.00 -10.00 British Land 525.80 5.9 - Gamesys 1610.00 11.0 - Volution 366.00 16.6 35.4 Electricity 8326.30 3.8 -5.8
Walt Disney (the) 16.9 195.24 1.00 Glaxosmithkline 124.8 1287.40 -3.60 Intesa Sanpaolo 291.2 2.31 0.02 Takeda Pharmaceutical 368.1 4255.00 105.00 Vodafone 136.92 5.9 - Ncc 286.00 10.9 - Capital & Regional 86.40 14.3 16.8 Industrial Transportation 3582.16 3.3 25.0
Viacomcbs 15.1 88.35 -7.89 Barclays 117.9 181.32 -1.70 Total 288.0 40.61 -0.16 Mitsubishi Ufj Fin,. 342.7 615.30 0.80 Kingfisher 311.30 5.7 - Serco 139.50 10.5 - Ecofin Global Utilities And Infrastructure Trust 181.00 11.7 -4.0 Personal Goods 34807.65 2.8 -6.3
Advanced Micro Devices 13.3 80.95 -1.80 Anglo American 111.5 2889.50 -118.50 Sap Se O.n. 252.2 103.00 -0.02 Tokyo Electron 338.2 42100.00 -100.00 Int Consolidated Airlines S.a. 216.20 5.3 - Capital & Counties Properties 183.80 10.0 - Georgia Capital 558.00 11.6 1.5 Travel & Leisure 9454.92 2.7 16.7
Nvidia 12.4 521.55 -10.10 Glencore 105.7 282.30 -4.20 Siemens Ag Na O.n. 238.0 135.98 0.56 Sumitomo Mitsui Fin,. 247.5 4092.00 8.00 British American Tobacco 2750.50 5.0 - Watches Of Switzerland 684.00 9.6 - Card Factory 73.70 10.7 - Food Producers 7595.11 1.8 8.0
Abbvie 10.6 104.71 -6.13 Vodafone 105.2 136.92 2.40 Bnp Paribas Act.a 222.0 51.68 0.49 Tokyo Electric Power ,orporated 217.6 354.00 -40.00 Next 7938.00 5.0 - Meggitt 501.00 9.5 - Lsl Property Services 296.00 10.4 - Real Estate Investment Trusts 2805.45 1.8 2.4
Intertek 5602.00 4.9 - Avon Rubber 3155.00 8.8 - Medica 145.00 9.4 22.1 General Retailers 2671.43 1.7 5.7
BIGGEST MOVERS Close Day's Day's BIGGEST MOVERS Close Day's Day's BIGGEST MOVERS Close Day's Day's BIGGEST MOVERS Close Day's Day's
Rentokil Initial 487.00 4.8 - Savills 1144.00 8.0 - Sthree 372.50 9.1 24.0 Health Care Equip.& Services 6196.32 1.7 -5.0
price change chng% price change chng% price change chng% price change chng%
Ups Ups Ups Ups Losers Losers Losers Losers
Lennar 94.96 6.25 7.05 Bt 152.50 9.30 6.49 Volkswagen Ag St O.n. 308.80 42.20 15.83 Odakyu Electric Railway Co., 3320.00 90.00 2.79 Evraz 540.20 -7.0 - Petrofac 93.70 -29.6 - Amigo Holdings 11.20 -17.2 37.1 Oil Equipment & Services 5039.30 -10.6 -8.8
Dow 65.56 2.38 3.77 Rolls-royce Holdings 127.20 4.35 3.54 Volkswagen Ag Vzo O.n. 230.80 22.95 11.04 Keio 8130.00 210.00 2.65 Johnson Matthey 3017.00 -5.8 - Provident Fin 188.80 -25.8 - Galliford Try Holdings 127.10 -9.1 - Chemicals 14082.33 -2.7 3.8
Lyondellbasell Industries Nv 108.37 3.01 2.86 Helios Towers 157.20 4.40 2.88 Bay.motoren Werke Ag St 85.46 4.96 6.16 Takeda Pharmaceutical 4255.00 105.00 2.53 Berkeley Holdings (the) 4355.00 -5.0 - Playtech 420.10 -17.8 - Rps 84.90 -8.7 - Construction & Materials 7444.13 -1.7 8.1
Roper 398.49 10.51 2.71 Intertek 5602.00 132.00 2.41 Kbc 64.00 2.62 4.27 Comsys Holdings 3400.00 80.00 2.41 London Stock Exchange 7268.00 -4.9 - 4imprint 2400.00 -11.1 -9.4 On The Beach 441.50 -6.4 - Oil & Gas Producers 5360.61 -1.7 18.7
Northrop Grumman 314.04 8.20 2.68 Chemring 272.50 6.00 2.25 Solvay 106.20 3.20 3.11 Nec 6670.00 150.00 2.30 Persimmon 2975.00 -4.2 - Ibstock 216.80 -10.6 - Costain 63.70 -6.3 - Mining 23500.83 -1.2 8.7
M&g 214.10 -3.9 - Wood (john) 291.40 -8.7 - Saga 369.00 -5.8 - General Financial 11741.55 -1.0 -3.2
Downs Downs Downs Downs
Just Eat Takeaway.com N.v. 6992.00 -3.7 - Hg Capital Trust 320.00 -7.4 - Allied Minds 27.00 -5.6 - Banks 2879.43 -0.7 15.1
Nrg Energy 36.74 -6.70 -15.42 Hammerson 37.69 -4.01 -9.62 Rwe Ag Inh O.n. 31.24 -0.86 -2.68 Tokyo Electric Power ,orporated 354.00 -40.00 -10.15
Hsbc Holdings 430.60 -3.5 - Ssp 318.40 -7.0 - Hyve 124.00 -5.3 - Industrial Engineering 15358.70 -0.4 2.5
Viacomcbs 88.35 -7.89 -8.20 Ssp 318.40 -27.40 -7.92 Thyssenkrupp Ag O.n. 10.92 -0.27 -2.41 Rakuten . 1419.00 -89.00 -5.90
Rio Tinto 5460.00 -3.3 - Energean 866.30 -6.9 21.4 Studio Retail 270.00 -5.3 -3.9 Gas Water & Multiutilities 4685.62 -0.4 -1.7
Abbvie 104.71 -6.13 -5.53 Games Workshop 9445.00 -735.00 -7.22 Muench.rueckvers.vna O.n. 258.80 -5.90 -2.23 Kobe Steel, 714.00 -25.00 -3.38
Phoenix Holdings 714.80 -3.2 - Helios Towers 157.20 -6.4 - Metro Bank 117.70 -4.9 - General Industrials 6626.19 -0.3 0.0
Fox 41.98 -2.20 -4.98 Computacenter 2184.00 -158.00 -6.75 Novozymes B A/s 52.92 -1.17 -2.16 Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal 1780.50 -60.50 -3.29
Bhp 2074.50 -2.8 - Wizz Air Holdings 5110.00 -5.9 - Premier Oil 29.85 -4.4 49.9 Nonlife Insurance 3172.77 -0.3 -3.0
Discovery 72.23 -3.58 -4.72 Tullow Oil 55.50 -3.94 -6.63 Deutsche Boerse Na O.n. 138.60 -3.00 -2.12 Taiheiyo Cement 2762.00 -87.00 -3.05
Hikma Pharmaceuticals 2213.00 -2.6 - Ti Fluid Systems 269.50 -5.7 - Forterra 274.50 -4.4 - Industrial Metals 5894.72 0.1 19.4
Based on the constituents of the S&P500 Based on the constituents of the FTSE 350 index Based on the constituents of the FTSEurofirst 300 Eurozone index Based on the constituents of the Nikkei 225 index
Based on last week's performance. †Price at suspension.

CURRENCIES
DOLLAR EURO POUND DOLLAR EURO POUND DOLLAR EURO POUND DOLLAR EURO POUND
Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's Closing Day's
Mar 17 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Mar 17 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Mar 17 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Mar 17 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change
Argentina Argentine Peso 91.2055 0.0700 108.5754 0.1737 126.6479 0.0339 Indonesia Indonesian Rupiah 14427.5000 17.5000 17175.1956 35.1200 20034.0579 14.3184 Poland Polish Zloty 3.8727 0.0105 4.6102 0.0163 5.3776 0.0119 ..Three Month 0.7202 0.0004 0.8572 0.0011 - -
Australia Australian Dollar 1.2974 0.0069 1.5445 0.0095 1.8016 0.0086 Israel Israeli Shekel 3.2961 0.0014 3.9238 0.0050 4.5770 -0.0003 Romania Romanian Leu 4.1057 -0.0022 4.8876 0.0015 5.7012 -0.0059 ..One Year 0.7203 0.0003 0.8567 0.0011 - -
Bahrain Bahrainin Dinar 0.3771 - 0.4489 0.0004 0.5236 -0.0003 Japan Japanese Yen 109.2200 0.2000 130.0207 0.3461 151.6628 0.2020 Russia Russian Ruble 74.1550 1.4050 88.2777 1.7447 102.9716 1.9005 United States United States Dollar - - 1.1904 0.0010 1.3886 -0.0007
Bolivia Bolivian Boliviano 6.9100 - 8.2260 0.0068 9.5952 -0.0048 ..One Month 109.2200 0.1999 130.0208 0.3462 151.6628 0.2020 Saudi Arabia Saudi Riyal 3.7504 - 4.4647 0.0037 5.2078 -0.0026 ..One Month - - 1.1904 -0.1988 1.3886 -0.0007
Brazil Brazilian Real 5.6555 0.0768 6.7326 0.0969 7.8532 0.1027 ..Three Month 109.2199 0.1998 130.0209 0.3464 151.6628 0.2018 Singapore Singapore Dollar 1.3471 0.0016 1.6037 0.0032 1.8706 0.0012 ..Three Month - - 1.1902 -0.1989 1.3886 -0.0007
Canada Canadian Dollar 1.2478 0.0028 1.4854 0.0046 1.7327 0.0030 ..One Year 109.2195 0.1989 130.0212 0.3471 151.6628 0.2014 South Africa South African Rand 14.8975 0.0313 17.7347 0.0519 20.6867 0.0331 ..One Year - - 1.1894 -0.1988 1.3888 -0.0007
Chile Chilean Peso 730.3100 4.7550 869.3960 6.3798 1014.1083 6.0989 Kenya Kenyan Shilling 109.8000 0.1000 130.7112 0.2278 152.4682 0.0627 South Korea South Korean Won 1130.2500 0.6000 1345.5037 1.8339 1569.4647 0.0485 Venezuela Venezuelan Bolivar Fuerte - - - - - -
China Chinese Yuan 6.5026 0.0021 7.7410 0.0089 9.0295 -0.0016 Kuwait Kuwaiti Dinar 0.3020 0.0001 0.3595 0.0004 0.4193 -0.0001 Sweden Swedish Krona 8.5180 -0.0025 10.1402 0.0055 11.8281 -0.0094 Vietnam Vietnamese Dong 23066.0000 -17.0000 27458.8735 2.6387 32029.5184 -39.6484
Colombia Colombian Peso 3577.9150 21.0650 4259.3229 28.6031 4968.2924 26.7801 Malaysia Malaysian Ringgit 4.1215 0.0075 4.9064 0.0130 5.7231 0.0076 Switzerland Swiss Franc 0.9277 0.0016 1.1043 0.0028 1.2881 0.0016 European Union Euro 0.8400 -0.0007 - - 1.1665 -0.0016
Costa Rica Costa Rican Colon 610.3450 1.0150 726.5839 1.8123 847.5249 0.9862 Mexico Mexican Peso 20.6758 0.0878 24.6134 0.1249 28.7103 0.1076 Taiwan New Taiwan Dollar 28.2870 0.0230 33.6742 0.0554 39.2793 0.0123 ..One Month 0.8399 -0.0007 - - 1.1664 -0.0016
Czech Republic Czech Koruna 21.9653 0.0013 26.1485 0.0233 30.5009 -0.0134 New Zealand New Zealand Dollar 1.3964 0.0057 1.6623 0.0082 1.9390 0.0070 Thailand Thai Baht 30.7825 0.0175 36.6450 0.0513 42.7446 0.0029 ..Three Month 0.8398 -0.0007 - - 1.1663 -0.0016
Denmark Danish Krone 6.2462 -0.0054 7.4358 -0.0002 8.6735 -0.0118 Nigeria Nigerian Naira 410.2800 0.5400 488.4169 1.0490 569.7147 0.4653 Tunisia Tunisian Dinar 2.7556 -0.0101 3.2803 -0.0092 3.8264 -0.0159 ..One Year 0.8390 -0.0007 - - 1.1658 -0.0016
Egypt Egyptian Pound 15.7110 0.0523 18.7031 0.0778 21.8163 0.0617 Norway Norwegian Krone 8.5107 0.0298 10.1315 0.0439 11.8179 0.0355 Turkey Turkish Lira 7.6287 0.1243 9.0816 0.1554 10.5933 0.1673
Hong Kong Hong Kong Dollar 7.7670 0.0016 9.2463 0.0097 10.7853 -0.0031 Pakistan Pakistani Rupee 155.5500 -0.9400 185.1742 -0.9639 215.9967 -1.4140 United Arab Emirates UAE Dirham 3.6732 - 4.3727 0.0036 5.1005 -0.0026
Hungary Hungarian Forint 308.7740 -0.2344 367.5794 0.0273 428.7635 -0.5401 Peru Peruvian Nuevo Sol 3.7079 0.0013 4.4141 0.0052 5.1488 -0.0008 United Kingdom Pound Sterling 0.7201 0.0004 0.8573 0.0011 - -
India Indian Rupee 72.5438 -0.0138 86.3596 0.0555 100.7342 -0.0695 Philippines Philippine Peso 48.7250 0.0825 58.0046 0.1464 67.6595 0.0808 ..One Month 0.7202 0.0004 0.8573 0.0011 - -
Rates are derived from WM Reuters Spot Rates and MorningStar (latest rates at time of production). Some values are rounded. Currency redenominated by 1000. The exchange rates printed in this table are also available at www.FT.com/marketsdata
UK SERIES
FTSE ACTUARIES SHARE INDICES www.ft.com/equities FT 30 INDEX FTSE SECTORS: LEADERS & LAGGARDS FTSE 100 SUMMARY
Produced in conjunction with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Mar 17 Mar 16 Mar 15 Mar 12 Mar 11 Yr Ago High Low Year to date percentage changes Closing Day's Closing Day's
£ Strlg Day's Euro £ Strlg £ Strlg Year Div P/E X/D Total FT 30 2708.90 2720.20 2688.70 2688.20 2667.30 0.00 3314.70 1337.80 Oil & Gas Producers 23.21 General Retailers 5.15 Equity Invest Instr -0.41 FTSE 100 Price Change FTSE 100 Price Change
Mar 17 chge% Index Mar 16 Mar 15 ago yield% Cover ratio adj Return FT 30 Div Yield - - - - - 0.00 3.93 2.74 Oil & Gas 22.89 FTSE 250 Index 4.97 Gas Water & Multi -1.14 3I Group PLC 1197 -13.00 Land Securities Group PLC 692.30 -13.50
FTSE 100 (100) 6762.67 -0.60 6145.93 6803.61 6749.70 5080.58 3.09 1.35 24.01 54.05 6516.03 P/E Ratio net - - - - - 0.00 19.44 14.26 Industrial Transport 22.75 FTSE All{HY-}Share Index 4.83 Electronic & Elec Eq -1.27 Admiral Group PLC 2973 8.00 Legal & General Group PLC 281.10 -10.20
FTSE 250 (250) 21558.55 -0.95 19592.47 21764.49 21522.35 13008.19 1.89 1.67 31.61 51.67 17154.66 FT 30 since compilation: 4198.4 high: 19/07/1999; low49.4 18/02/1900Base Date: 1/7/35 Industrial Metals & 20.00 NON FINANCIALS Index 4.72 Financial Services -1.70 Anglo American PLC 2889.5 -118.50 Lloyds Banking Group PLC 41.46 -0.02
FTSE 250 ex Inv Co (183) 22382.47 -1.10 20341.26 22632.40 22368.55 13376.03 1.77 1.05 53.74 42.06 18156.97 FT 30 hourly changes Travel & Leisure 16.87 Oil Equipment & Serv 4.70 Consumer Goods -2.20 Antofagasta PLC 1708.5 -7.50 London Stock Exchange Group PLC 7268 -244.00
FTSE 350 (350) 3874.32 -0.66 3520.99 3900.25 3867.06 2804.29 2.87 1.39 25.11 27.01 7431.83 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 High Low Banks 14.51 FTSE 100 Index 4.66 Food & Drug Retailer -2.71 Ashtead Group PLC 4275 -25.00 M&G PLC 214.10 -9.10
FTSE 350 ex Investment Trusts (281) 3779.57 -0.65 3434.88 3804.42 3772.42 2763.99 2.92 1.19 28.85 27.09 3742.20 2720.2 2713.5 2713.3 2666.2 2399.1 2395.8 2394.3 2414 2426.7 2439.2 2366.1 Life Insurance 13.83 Industrial Eng 4.10 Utilities -2.76 Associated British Foods PLC 2461 -33.00 Melrose Industries PLC 180.95 -1.05
FTSE 350 Higher Yield (145) 3139.66 -0.46 2853.33 3154.13 3139.59 2341.57 3.97 1.11 22.65 30.78 6642.38 FT30 constituents and recent additions/deletions can be found at www.ft.com/ft30 Mining 12.91 Beverages 4.09 Real Est Invest & Se -2.84 Astrazeneca PLC 7138 -94.00 Mondi PLC 1818.5 -25.00
FTSE 350 Lower Yield (205) 4344.00 -0.87 3947.84 4382.28 4327.68 3063.96 1.75 2.03 28.23 17.76 5161.60 Basic Materials 12.41 Industrials 3.86 Nonlife Insurance -2.97 Auto Trader Group PLC 564.80 -11.20 Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets PLC 177.55 -0.65
FTSE SmallCap (249) 6775.40 -0.47 6157.51 6807.35 6758.27 3721.13 2.18 -0.37 -125.13 28.43 10821.60
FTSE SmallCap ex Inv Co (134) 5649.16 -0.42 5133.98 5673.22 5635.66 2859.46 1.52 -1.11 -59.09 14.48 9417.37 FX: EFFECTIVE INDICES Construct & Material
Mobile Telecomms
11.74
9.52
Automobiles & Parts
Support Services
3.27
2.99
Tech Hardware & Eq
Tobacco
-3.45
-3.64
Avast PLC 467.80 5.80 National Grid PLC 831.40 -19.00
Aveva Group PLC 3378 -56.00 Natwest Group PLC 187.60 1.90
FTSE All-Share (599) 3854.27 -0.66 3502.77 3879.81 3846.97 2764.48 2.85 1.34 26.17 26.50 7468.00 FTSE SmallCap Index 8.22 Media 2.56 Health Care -5.15
Mar 16 Mar 15 Mnth Ago Mar 17 Mar 16 Mnth Ago Aviva PLC 391.50 -2.20 Next PLC 7938 -40.00
FTSE All-Share ex Inv Co (415) 3722.49 -0.65 3383.01 3746.80 3715.42 2704.36 2.89 1.17 29.68 26.34 3743.03 Consumer Services 7.81 Fixed Line Telecomms 2.30 Pharmace & Biotech -5.15 B&M European Value Retail S.A. 537.20 -3.40 Ocado Group PLC 2083 -106.00
FTSE All-Share ex Multinationals (530) 1253.20 -0.92 943.95 1264.89 1249.43 808.65 2.22 1.59 28.32 3.48 2518.75 Australia - - - Sweden - - - Telecommunications 7.52 Software & Comp Serv 2.23 Health Care Eq & Srv -5.23 Bae Systems PLC 501.00 -2.20 Pearson PLC 798.40 -14.80
FTSE Fledgling (86) 11681.70 -0.06 10616.36 11689.13 11632.42 6197.10 2.04 2.24 21.91 33.54 24125.57 Canada - - - Switzerland - - - Food Producers 7.35 Aerospace & Defense 1.69 Electricity -7.27 Barclays PLC 181.32 -1.70 Pennon Group PLC 962.60 -19.60
FTSE Fledgling ex Inv Co (40) 15203.85 0.58 13817.30 15115.53 15058.93 6630.23 1.61 7.11 8.74 32.15 30638.17 Denmark - - - UK 81.83 81.60 80.63 Chemicals 5.43 Real Est Invest & Tr 1.64 Personal Goods -8.01 Barratt Developments PLC 755.40 -14.60 Pershing Square Holdings LTD 2605 -35.00
FTSE All-Small (335) 4704.93 -0.45 4275.85 4726.06 4692.59 2579.31 2.17 -0.23 -198.05 19.40 9640.23 Japan - - - USA - - - Financials 5.15 Technology 1.63 Leisure Goods -11.25 Berkeley Group Holdings (The) PLC 4355 -101.00 Persimmon PLC 2975 -41.00
FTSE All-Small ex Inv Co (174) 4231.27 -0.38 3845.39 4247.60 4219.96 2129.20 1.53 -0.77 -85.42 10.76 8934.77 New Zealand - - - Euro - - - Household Goods & Ho 0.59 Oil & Gas Producers -40.36 Bhp Group PLC 2074.5 -50.00 Phoenix Group Holdings PLC 714.80 -15.20
FTSE AIM All-Share (717) 1201.28 -0.47 1091.72 1206.97 1199.34 589.63 0.72 0.17 798.84 1.57 1381.40 Norway - - -
BP PLC 313.80 2.55 Polymetal International PLC 1486 -23.50
FTSE 100 (100) 6762.67 -0.60 6145.93 6803.61 6749.70 5080.58 3.09 1.35 24.01 54.05 6516.03 Source: Bank of England. New Sterling ERI base Jan 2005 = 100. Other indices base average 1990 = 100. British American Tobacco PLC 2750.5 60.50 Prudential PLC 1537 -23.50
FTSE Sector Indices Index rebased 1/2/95. for further information about ERIs see www.bankofengland.co.uk British Land Company PLC 525.80 -6.20 Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC 6332 -
Oil & Gas (12) 5563.83 0.14 5056.42 5556.29 5656.12 3708.35 4.16 -1.95 -12.34 49.13 6319.12 Bt Group PLC 152.50 9.30 Relx PLC 1766 25.00
Oil & Gas Producers (9) 5399.59 0.18 4907.16 5389.94 5483.91 3599.94 4.22 -1.93 -12.27 48.35 6359.98 FTSE GLOBAL EQUITY INDEX SERIES Bunzl PLC 2266 -10.00 Rentokil Initial PLC 487.00 1.60
Oil Equipment Services & Distribution (3) 5259.27 -2.87 4779.64 5414.47 5710.56 3435.30 0.21 -23.91 -19.52 0.00 4533.81 Burberry Group PLC 2095 4.00 Rightmove PLC 555.80 -17.60
Mar 16 No of US $ Day Mth YTD Total
YTD Gr Div Mar 16 No of US $ Day Mth YTD Total YTD Gr Div Coca-Cola Hbc AG 2342 -38.00 Rio Tinto PLC 5460 -150.00
Basic Materials (23) 7763.95 -2.38 7055.90 7953.50 7934.15 4104.08 3.69 2.57 10.57 149.95 9495.17
Chemicals (8) 15666.71 -1.47 14237.95 15900.83 15762.31 10382.32 1.61 1.86 33.53 31.52 15091.35 Regions & countries stocks indices % % % retn
% Yield Sectors stocks indices % % % retn % Yield Compass Group PLC 1540 -55.50 Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC 127.20 4.35
Industrial Metals & Mining (4) 6349.55 -0.84 5770.49 6403.49 6317.29 2474.23 4.00 2.74 9.12 113.45 8698.30 FTSE Global All Cap 8930 768.41 0.1 -0.7 5.6
5.9 1.8 Oil Equipment & Services
1187.99 26 220.48 -1.8 -1.8 16.5 377.97 17.7 5.1 Crh PLC 3359 -20.00 Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1455.8 -3.20
Mining (11) 22499.65 -2.54 20447.75 23086.88 23056.62 11546.85 3.90 2.59 9.89 478.22 14553.10 FTSE Global All Cap 8952 740.29 0.0 2.8 1.7
1.8 1.8 Basic Materials
1141.62 352 651.19 -0.3 -0.3 6.7 1114.79 7.5 2.7 Croda International PLC 6256 -42.00 Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1523.8 0.40
FTSE Global Large Cap 1725 679.63 0.3 -1.4 4.3
4.7 1.8 Chemicals
1082.42 163 908.93 -0.3 -0.3 4.4 1532.15 4.6 2.2 Dcc PLC 5952 -88.00 Rsa Insurance Group PLC 680.60 2.20
Industrials (96) 6247.07 -0.61 5677.36 6285.12 6217.87 3839.86 1.50 1.31 51.12 4.92 6955.77
Construction & Materials (16) 7892.34 -0.73 7172.58 7950.10 8019.51 4164.99 1.70 -0.04-1369.22 0.28 9118.38 FTSE Global Mid Cap 2226 991.54 -0.3 1.3 8.2
8.4 1.7 Forestry & Paper
1441.82 20 342.39 0.3 0.3 8.3 652.85 8.5 2.4 Diageo PLC 3045.5 -7.00 Sage Group PLC 581.20 -15.00
Aerospace & Defense (9) 4025.79 0.70 3658.65 3997.81 3952.31 3417.56 2.46 0.55 73.96 1.94 4700.31 FTSE Global Small Cap 4979 1106.24 -0.6 0.5 9.9
10.1 1.4 Industrial Metals & Mining
1545.43 92 526.04 -0.9 -0.9 12.3 914.17 13.6 2.9 Entain PLC 1519 -3.00 Sainsbury (J) PLC 239.70 -2.90
General Industrials (9) 5331.78 -1.21 4845.54 5397.23 5320.45 3329.28 1.98 1.08 46.73 0.00 6678.90 FTSE All-World 3951 447.38 0.2 -0.9 5.0
5.4 1.8 Mining
732.10 77 946.45 0.0 0.0 7.5 1667.46 9.1 3.3 Evraz PLC 540.20 -21.60 Schroders PLC 3446 -26.00
Electronic & Electrical Equipment (8) 11646.32 -1.10 10584.21 11776.28 11605.65 8005.53 0.87 2.10 54.50 4.63 11193.38 FTSE World 2563 794.68 0.1 -0.2 5.0
5.4 1.8 Industrials
1745.81 737 556.74 -0.2 -0.2 6.3 859.88 6.5 1.5 Experian PLC 2464 -37.00 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC 1139 -38.00
Industrial Engineering (9) 16664.57 -0.60 15144.81 16764.49 16624.99 10150.95 1.16 2.51 34.30 0.00 21787.99 FTSE Global All Cap ex UNITED KINGDOM In 8643 812.07 0.0 -0.8 5.5
5.8 1232.67
1.7 Construction & Materials 142 656.35 0.0 0.0 6.5 1062.85 6.6 1.7 Ferguson PLC 8882 -184.00 Segro PLC 909.60 -19.20
Industrial Transportation (7) 5463.08 -0.21 4964.86 5474.68 5363.72 2302.04 0.30 1.63 201.46 1.73 5551.59 FTSE Global All Cap ex USA 7190 591.59 0.6 -2.0 4.9
5.2 998.23
2.2 Aerospace & Defense 36 790.48 -0.8 -0.8 7.8 1202.69 8.1 1.9 Flutter Entertainment PLC 16700 -70.00 Severn Trent PLC 2231 -67.00
Support Services (38) 9872.08 -0.68 8971.77 9939.96 9800.73 5761.64 1.22 2.14 38.25 16.08 10992.10 FTSE Global All Cap ex JAPAN 7538 794.14 0.0 -0.6 5.7
6.0 1239.51
1.7 General Industrials 71 273.32 -0.7 -0.7 8.0 464.77 8.7 2.0 Fresnillo PLC 941.40 -25.40 Smith & Nephew PLC 1394 -11.00
FTSE Global All Cap ex Eurozone 8294 809.68 0.1 -0.8 5.7
6.0 1226.19
1.7 Electronic & Electrical Equipment 139 696.09 0.2 0.2 4.0 973.63 4.1 1.2 Glaxosmithkline PLC 1287.4 -3.60 Smith (Ds) PLC 398.00 -3.10
Consumer Goods (41) 18284.15 0.09 16616.68 18268.51 18064.55 15413.80 3.84 1.41 18.53 123.53 15648.37
FTSE Developed 2132 726.97 0.1 -0.1 5.0
5.4 1133.59
1.8 Industrial Engineering 145 1135.38 -0.3 -0.3 10.8 1744.89 11.0 1.3 Glencore PLC 282.30 -4.20 Smiths Group PLC 1512.5 -45.50
Automobiles & Parts (2) 4775.47 -0.79 4339.96 4813.43 4824.20 2340.16 0.75 -14.18 -9.43 35.65 4921.72
FTSE Developed All Cap 5594 766.80 0.0 -0.1 5.6
6.0 1178.68
1.7 Industrial Transportation 122 955.36 -0.1 -0.1 4.2 1486.06 4.5 1.6 Halma PLC 2302 -20.00 Smurfit Kappa Group PLC 3334 -54.00
Beverages (6) 24034.27 -0.30 21842.41 24107.37 23804.39 17210.98 2.36 0.74 56.83 199.86 18627.20
FTSE Developed Large Cap 831 675.82 0.3 -0.5 4.2
4.6 1072.64
1.8 Support Services 82 669.40 -0.2 -0.2 4.1 974.28 4.2 1.0 Hargreaves Lansdown PLC 1572 22.50 Spirax-Sarco Engineering PLC 11520 -55.00
Food Producers (10) 7711.68 -1.22 7008.40 7807.31 7713.64 5422.93 1.24 3.54 22.83 0.00 7172.83
FTSE Developed Europe Large Cap 225 407.76 0.6 -0.1 3.8
4.3 2.3 Consumer Goods
765.84 532 616.21 0.1 0.1 0.8 997.89 1.1 2.0 Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC 2213 -31.00 Sse PLC 1386 -28.50
Household Goods & Home Construction (13)15082.97 -0.85 13707.45 15212.71 14946.43 11464.67 2.73 1.80 20.41 78.71 12218.70
FTSE Developed Europe Mid Cap 343 735.57 0.9 0.4 5.3
5.5 1204.61
1.8 Automobiles & Parts 130 646.08 -1.3 -1.3 5.5 1017.03 5.5 1.2 HSBC Holdings PLC 430.60 7.80 St. James's Place PLC 1250.5 -25.50
Leisure Goods (2) 24152.12 -6.82 21949.52 25919.88 25265.23 10578.24 1.86 1.60 33.66 0.00 25385.71
FTSE Dev Europe Small Cap 684 1030.06 0.9 0.5 6.9
7.0 1625.13
1.5 Beverages 67 708.07 0.7 0.7 -4.2 1160.26 -3.7 2.4 Imperial Brands PLC 1432.5 4.50 Standard Chartered PLC 500.60 9.30
Personal Goods (6) 30142.51 0.26 27393.60 30065.83 29804.66 28648.08 3.35 1.39 21.46 256.58 22782.39
FTSE North America Large Cap 224 867.93 0.1 0.0 4.5
4.9 1271.34
1.6 Food Producers 132 710.75 0.4 0.4 -1.0 1173.18 -0.8 2.3 Informa PLC 575.00 3.60 Standard Life Aberdeen PLC 282.30 -6.10
Tobacco (2) 28781.59 1.90 26156.79 28244.53 28075.75 27953.79 8.00 1.43 8.72 170.67 23776.06
FTSE North America Mid Cap 410 1161.33 -1.0 1.9 9.5
9.8 1568.85
1.5 Household Goods & Home Construction 61 575.84 0.5 0.5 0.0 928.10 0.4 2.4 Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC 5150 -68.00 Taylor Wimpey PLC 182.30 -2.40
Health Care (15) 10942.60 -0.87 9944.67 11038.71 10755.90 10522.93 3.77 0.98 27.03 171.87 9675.21
FTSE North America Small Cap 1284 1281.67 -1.4 0.8 12.0
12.2 1668.19
1.2 Leisure Goods 44 334.71 1.5 1.5 1.4 462.25 1.5 0.9 Intermediate Capital Group PLC 1896 -33.00 Tesco PLC 225.70 -0.60
Health Care Equipment & Services (6) 6335.27 -0.80 5757.51 6386.23 6325.90 5040.59 1.91 1.99 26.29 7.73 5843.99
FTSE North America 634 571.17 -0.2 0.4 5.5
5.9 854.92
1.6 Personal Goods 84 1042.29 0.2 0.2 -1.1 1558.38 -0.9 1.4 International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. 216.20 0.60 Unilever PLC 4025 11.00
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology (9) 15270.76 -0.88 13878.11 15406.15 14983.67 14966.29 3.97 0.93 27.11 264.52 12152.38
FTSE Developed ex North America 1498 305.13 0.7 -1.2 4.1
4.5 554.80
2.2 Tobacco 14 965.31 0.5 0.5 6.3 2460.28 6.5 6.3 Intertek Group PLC 5602 132.00 United Utilities Group PLC 887.40 -24.00
Consumer Services (78) 5480.15 -0.95 4980.38 5532.71 5497.83 3366.91 1.13 1.01 87.66 0.03 5607.14 FTSE Japan Large Cap 178 466.54 0.7 -3.5 2.9
2.9 1.9 Health Care
655.53 309 681.85 0.5 0.5 -0.6 1055.32 -0.2 1.8
Food & Drug Retailers (5) 4375.69 -1.93 3976.64 4461.85 4350.08 4061.64 3.38 1.25 23.69 0.00 5569.15 Jd Sports Fashion PLC 859.80 4.40 Vodafone Group PLC 136.92 2.40
FTSE Japan Mid Cap 335 697.32 0.5 0.5 8.2
8.3 929.44
1.8 Health Care Equipment & Services 113 1378.67 -0.3 -0.3 -0.9 1664.35 -0.8 0.8 Johnson Matthey PLC 3017 -103.00 Whitbread PLC 3439 -48.00
General Retailers (25) 2532.22 -0.58 2301.29 2546.95 2525.90 1413.16 0.37 5.54 48.73 0.00 3168.39
FTSE Global wi JAPAN Small Cap 879 743.09 1.3 0.9 4.2
4.3 1026.34
1.9 Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 196 442.64 1.1 1.1 -0.5 729.57 0.1 2.4 Just Eat Takeaway.Com N.V. 6992 -190.00 Wpp PLC 921.00 7.00
Media (13) 8462.14 0.43 7690.42 8426.15 8349.37 5963.91 1.52 2.57 25.69 0.18 5703.37
FTSE Japan 513 194.37 0.7 -2.7 3.9
3.9 305.73
1.9 Consumer Services 441 714.09 0.2 0.2 3.5 1002.18 3.7 0.9 Kingfisher PLC 311.30 1.30
Travel & Leisure (35) 9328.48 -1.67 8477.75 9486.97 9509.63 4303.94 0.55 -3.68 -49.24 0.00 9573.81
FTSE Asia Pacific Large Cap ex Japan 922 919.05 0.6 -6.4 5.1
5.3 1595.88
2.0 Food & Drug Retailers 70 314.00 0.4 0.4 5.1 479.12 5.7 2.5
Telecommunications (5) 2024.22 2.90 1839.62 1967.24 1936.15 1603.77 4.26 0.91 25.76 0.00 2799.88 FTSE Asia Pacific Mid Cap ex Japan 893 1087.56 0.8 -1.1 5.9
6.2 1814.06
2.4 General Retailers 148 1261.12 0.1 0.1 -0.4 1700.49 -0.3 0.6
Fixed Line Telecommunications (2) 1882.71 5.97 1711.01 1776.60 1722.70 1566.57 0.26 39.71 9.85 0.00 2065.87
Mobile Telecommunications (3) 3116.99 1.82 2832.73 3061.33 3028.53 2417.61 5.72 0.28 62.70 0.00 3918.36
FTSE Asia Pacific Small Cap ex Japan
FTSE Asia Pacific Ex Japan
1837
1815
685.58
718.38
1.1
0.6
-1.6
-5.9
5.5
5.8
5.2
5.4
1117.54
2.1 Media
1325.24
2.0 Travel & Leisure
84 510.48
139 549.36
0.5
0.1
0.5
0.1
8.8 720.65
10.3 788.37
8.9
10.5
0.7
1.4
UK STOCK MARKET TRADING DATA
Utilities (8) 6921.84 -2.17 6290.59 7075.12 6977.48 7074.67 5.18 1.54 12.55 30.41 9714.71 FTSE Emerging All Cap 3336 936.55 0.5 -5.7 5.3
5.4 1543.58
2.0 Telecommunication 89 161.79 0.9 0.9 5.1 354.75 5.7 4.0 Mar 17 Mar 16 Mar 15 Mar 12 Mar 11 Yr Ago
Electricity (3) 8307.40 -1.84 7549.79 8463.33 8310.68 6628.45 5.62 0.93 19.16 128.41 15453.49 FTSE Emerging Large Cap 894 900.95 0.5 -6.9 5.0
5.2 1494.41
1.9 Fixed Line Telecommuniations 38 119.58 0.3 0.3 2.8 295.53 3.9 5.1 - - - - - -
Gas Water & Multiutilities (5) 6192.52 -2.28 5627.78 6336.83 6258.55 6806.12 5.03 1.77 11.22 3.68 8568.95 FTSE Emerging Mid Cap 925 1104.43 0.7 -0.3 5.5
5.7 1819.92
2.6 Mobile Telecommunications 51 198.40 1.5 1.5 7.8 378.84 7.9 2.8 Order Book Turnover (m) 458.34 73.63 48.56 48.56 48.56 52.63
Financials (305) 4681.35 -0.65 4254.43 4711.76 4663.97 3351.01 2.38 2.70 15.56 29.49 4917.30 FTSE Emerging Small Cap 1517 913.40 0.7 -0.8 7.2
7.3 1443.31
2.2 Utilities 190 316.95 0.3 0.3 -1.2 700.67 -0.5 3.3 Order Book Bargains 1052966.00 991426.00 876680.00 876680.00 876680.00 1096651.00
Banks (11) 2839.52 0.86 2580.56 2815.23 2808.20 2564.22 1.59 5.11 12.32 40.68 2374.26 FTSE Emerging Europe 76 407.17 0.4 3.9 9.9
10.1 773.42
4.6 Electricity 130 358.62 0.3 0.3 -0.7 782.52 0.1 3.4 Order Book Shares Traded (m) 1630.00 1399.00 1565.00 1565.00 1565.00 1628.00
Nonlife Insurance (7) 3631.85 -0.34 3300.64 3644.40 3605.23 2735.81 3.03 1.73 19.14 0.00 7203.21 FTSE Latin America All Cap 244 774.57 0.7 -4.2 -5.8
-5.1 1336.33
2.5 Gas Water & Multiutilities 60 313.37 0.3 0.3 -2.3 713.18 -1.8 3.2 Total Equity Turnover (£m) 6524.96 5644.35 4666.50 4666.50 4666.50 5665.71
Life Insurance/Assurance (6) 8258.25 -1.83 7505.12 8412.46 8320.91 4412.09 3.26 2.15 14.27 0.00 9388.19 FTSE Middle East and Africa All Cap 321 713.12 0.5 0.9 9.2
9.7 2.8 Financials
1238.34 866 277.95 -0.2 -0.2 10.1 506.99 10.6 2.5 Total Mkt Bargains 1355879.00 1291608.00 1151736.00 1151736.00 1151736.00 1375705.00
Real Estate Investment & Services (17) 2429.44 -1.61 2207.88 2469.30 2414.97 1898.81 1.10 2.76 33.07 2.71 7007.66 FTSE Global wi UNITED KINGDOM All Cap In 287 340.92 1.1 1.0 7.6
8.3 2.9 Banks
656.21 271 213.52 -0.3 -0.3 15.8 428.04 16.4 2.8 Total Shares Traded (m) 15782.00 13766.00 12826.00 12826.00 12826.00 11766.00
Real Estate Investment Trusts (40) 2521.31 -1.49 2291.38 2559.45 2493.25 1935.35 2.63 -2.51 -15.15 12.98 3607.31 FTSE Global wi USA All Cap 1740 996.46 -0.3 0.3 6.1
6.4 1.4 Nonlife Insurance
1408.32 74 318.96 -0.5 -0.5 6.6 502.85 6.9 2.6 † Excluding intra-market and overseas turnover. *UK only total at 6pm. ‡ UK plus intra-market turnover. (u) Unavaliable.
General Financial (40) 9997.88 -1.62 9086.10 10162.46 10028.07 6699.85 3.25 1.58 19.45 31.38 12984.21 FTSE Europe All Cap 1403 492.38 0.7 0.1 4.5
4.9 2.2 Life Insurance
888.27 53 256.84 -0.8 -0.8 10.5 462.48 10.8 3.0 (c) Market closed.
Equity Investment Instruments (184) 12931.12 -0.79 11751.84 13034.17 12907.28 7651.72 2.20 4.61 9.86 52.75 7773.30 FTSE Eurozone All Cap 636 484.39 0.4 0.3 4.5
4.7 1.9 Financial Services
868.81 209 450.53 -0.1 -0.1 7.3 665.18 7.6 1.5
Non Financials (294) 4593.19 -0.66 4174.31 4623.85 4587.45 3296.52 3.01 0.96 34.52 32.52 7825.57 FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient All-World 3951 503.34 -0.1 1.2 6.6
7.0 2.0 Technology
761.10 308 544.00 0.9 0.9 4.5 698.83 4.7 0.8
Technology (16) 2070.60 -1.81 1881.77 2108.81 2077.29 1426.07 2.01 0.89 55.57 15.18 2910.89 FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient Developed Europe 568 389.55 0.8 0.3 4.3
4.5 1.9 Software & Computer Services
651.00 166 885.66 0.7 0.7 5.4 1061.46 5.5 0.5 All data provided by Morningstar unless otherwise noted. All elements listed are indicative and believed
Software & Computer Services (13) 2236.48 -1.74 2032.52 2276.05 2239.85 1562.89 2.10 0.76 62.80 18.17 3329.34 Oil & Gas 127 308.66 -1.7 6.8 19.6
20.7 582.14
4.0 Technology Hardware & Equipment 142 441.62 1.2 1.2 3.6 605.80 3.7 1.2 accurate at the time of publication. No offer is made by Morningstar or the FT. The FT does not warrant nor
Technology Hardware & Equipment (3) 4793.34 -2.48 4356.20 4915.11 4884.43 2702.65 1.23 3.00 27.05 0.00 5950.16 Oil & Gas Producers 90 295.91 -1.8 8.6 22.5
23.6 4.0 Alternative Energy
570.23 11 230.28 -0.2 -0.2 -14.3 327.30 -14.3 0.7 guarantee that the information is reliable or complete. The FT does not accept responsibility and will not be
Real Estate Investment & Services 162 373.25 0.9 0.9 4.1 689.33 4.2 2.6 liable for any loss arising from the reliance on or use of the listed information.
Hourly movements 8.00 9.00 10.00 11.00 12.00 13.00 14.00 15.00 16.00 High/day Low/day Real Estate Investment Trusts 97 478.34 0.5 0.5 5.2 1059.58 5.7 3.4 For all queries e-mail ft.reader.enquiries@morningstar.com
FTSE 100 6796.99 6783.41 6784.35 6781.44 6766.73 6769.84 6777.61 6762.61 6768.70 6805.40 6754.13 FTSE Global Large Cap 1725 659.57 0.0 0.0 1.3 1047.63 1.3 1.9
FTSE 250 21704.10 21612.77 21641.41 21666.16 21624.12 21630.06 21618.26 21587.03 21571.77 21704.10 21558.55 The FTSE Global Equity Series, launched in 2003, contains the FTSE Global Small Cap Indices and broader FTSE Global All Cap Indices (large/mid/small cap) as well as the enhanced FTSE All-World index Series (large/
mid cap) - please see https://research.ftserussell.com/Products/indices/Home/indexfiltergeis?indexName=GEISAC&currency=USD&rtn=CAP&segment=global-developed–emerging. The trade names Fundamental Index®
Data provided by Morningstar | www.morningstar.co.uk
FTSE SmallCap 6804.55 6789.36 6786.47 6785.01 6772.39 6771.83 6773.22 6770.21 6766.25 6804.59 6765.00
FTSE All-Share 3874.87 3865.59 3866.86 3866.30 3858.11 3859.69 3862.84 3855.04 3857.23 3877.65 3851.19 and RAFI® are registered trademarks and the patented and patent-pending proprietary intellectual property of Research Affiliates, LLC (US Patent Nos. 7,620,577; 7,747,502; 7,778,905; 7,792,719; Patent Pending Publ.
Time of FTSE 100 Day's high:08:14:15 Day's Low14:49:45 FTSE 100 2010/11 High: 6873.26(08/01/2021) Low: 6407.46(29/01/2021) Nos. US-2006-0149645-A1, US-2007-0055598-A1, US-2008-0288416-A1, US-2010- 0063942-A1, WO 2005/076812, WO 2007/078399 A2, WO 2008/118372, EPN 1733352, and HK1099110). ”EDHEC™” is a trade mark
Time of FTSE All-Share Day's high:08:14:00 Day's Low14:49:00 FTSE 100 2010/11 High: 3880.43(08/01/2021) Low: 3641.93(29/01/2021) of EDHEC Business School As of January 2nd 2006, FTSE is basing its sector indices on the Industrial Classification Benchmark - please see www.ftse.com/icb. For constituent changes and other information about FTSE,
please see www.ftse.com. © FTSE International Limited. 2013. All Rights reserved. ”FTSE®” is a trade mark of the London Stock Exchange Group companies and is used by FTSE International Limited under licence.
Further information is available on http://www.ftse.com © FTSE International Limited. 2013. All Rights reserved. ”FTSE®” is a trade mark of the
London Stock Exchange Group companies and is used by FTSE International Limited under licence. † Sector P/E ratios greater than 80 are not shown.
For changes to FTSE Fledgling Index constituents please refer to www.ftse.com/indexchanges. ‡ Values are negative.

UK RIGHTS OFFERS UK COMPANY RESULTS UK RECENT EQUITY ISSUES

Amount Latest Company Turnover Pre-tax EPS(p) Div(p) Pay day Total Issue Issue Stock Close Mkt
Issue paid renun. closing Advanced Medical Solutions Group Pre 86.796 102.368 10.089 24.257 3.990 8.810 1.20000 1.05000 Jun 18 1.700 1.550 date price(p) Sector code Stock price(p) +/- High Low Cap (£m)
price up date High Low Stock Price p +or- Alpha FX Group Pre 46.217 35.378 17.137 13.545 31.700 27.700 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 2.200 03/12 175.00 AIM AMTE Amte Power PLC 327.00 56.00 330.00 175.00 11335.8
There are currently no rights offers by any companies listed on the LSE. Anpario Pre 30.522 29.046 5.350 4.394 20.630 18.100 6.25000 5.50000 Jul 30 9.000 8.000 03/08 88.00 AIM TEAM Team PLC 90.00 -1.80 91.90 84.00 1490.3
Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon Pre 159.519 39.023 55.910 13.850 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 03/02 197.00 AIM VINO Virgin Wines UK PLC 225.00 -0.50 236.65 200.00 12563.5
Capita Pre 3324.800 3678.600 49.400L 62.600L 0.850 3.890L 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 02/26 5.00 CBX Cellular Goods PLC 11.25 -0.05 30.00 8.55 5677.4
Centaur Media Pre 32.400 39.600 2.600L 8.100L 10.000L 1.300 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 1.500 02/23 600.00 ATG Auction Technology Group PLC 824.80 4.80 839.00 734.63 82480.0
Dignity Pre 357.500 338.900 19.600L 44.100 51.000L 61.200 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 02/17 118.00 AIM 4BB 4basebio UK Societas 350.00 -15.00 744.00 175.00 4311.1
Empiric Student Property Pre 23.970L 54.772 3.970L 9.080 0.00000 1.25000 - 0.000 2.500 02/16 100.00 CORD Cordiant Digital Infrastructure Ltd 99.50 0.90 101.00 97.40 36815.0
Ferrexpo Pre 1700.321 1506.724 747.860 459.575 1.081 0.686 0.00000 3.30000 - 6.600 9.900 02/16 7.00 AIM CUSN Cornish Metals Inc 8.63 -0.01 13.00 7.70 2304.1
Fidelity European Trust Pre 107.711 225.513 25.860 54.260 0.00000 3.88000 - 2.600 6.470 02/09 1.48 MXC MGC Pharmaceuticals Ltd 4.17 0.29 9.30 2.00 9453.3
Hostelworld Group Pre 15.364 80.672 50.495L 3.011 0.457L 0.086 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 4.100
JPMorgan Claverhouse Investment Trust Pre 47.390L 91.907 81.650L 162.220 10.00000 10.25000 Mar 5 16.500 16.500
Manchester & London Investment Trust Int 6.475 7.144 17.270 23.320 7.00000 7.00000 May 4 13.962 15.000
River and Mercantile Group Int 34.257 36.333 4.555 5.655 3.940 4.860 3.89000 3.89000 Apr 15 6.118 6.490

Figures in £m. Earnings shown basic. Figures in light text are for corresponding period year earlier. §Placing price. *Intoduction. ‡When issued. Annual report/prospectus available at www.ft.com/ir
For more information on dividend payments visit www.ft.com/marketsdata For a full explanation of all the other symbols please refer to London Share Service notes.
Thursday 18 March 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 13

MARKET DATA

FT500: THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMPANIES

52 Week 52 Week 52 Week 52 Week 52 Week 52 Week
Stock Price Day Chg High Low Yld P/E MCap m Stock Price Day Chg High Low Yld P/E MCap m Stock Price Day Chg High Low Yld P/E MCap m Stock Price Day Chg High Low Yld P/E MCap m Stock Price Day Chg High Low Yld P/E MCap m Stock Price Day Chg High Low Yld P/E MCap m
Australia (A$) Finland (€) Japan (¥) Sweden (SKr) AT&T 30.10 0.11 34.06 26.08 7.42 18.56 214646.83 Lowes 175.00 -0.33 180.67 60.00 1.38 22.95 128226.5
ANZ 28.37 -0.19 29.55 14.10 3.70 23.43 62221.02 Nokia 3.58 -0.05 4.95 2.19 - 25.51 24160.67 AstellasPh 1813 -16.50 1982 0.00 2.43 22.58 30904.77 AtlasCpcoB 426.30 -0.40 438.00 223.20 1.59 34.04 19529.28 AutomData♦ 188.25 -0.03 190.50 103.11 1.98 32.12 80559.75 Lyondell 108.37 3.01 110.97 35.60 4.16 28.42 36209.95
BHPBilltn 46.07 -0.77 50.93 25.69 4.47 20.12 104602.44 SampoA 36.78 -0.29 40.37 22.44 4.31 16.02 24263.36 Bridgestne 4347 -44.00 4498 2984 3.32 35.07 28405.47 Ericsson 114.85 -2.30 117.65 64.66 1.34 25.89 41425.76 Avago Tech 474.89 -3.30 495.14 155.67 2.94 69.86 193896.65 Marathon Ptl 55.01 -1.20 59.93 15.26 4.43 -3.35 35826.63
CmwBkAu♦ 87.11 -0.07 89.20 53.44 3.48 23.93 119112.67 France (€) Canon♦ 2363.5 -15.00 2517.5 0.00 5.64 36.01 28862.39 H&M 221.30 -2.10 229.50 98.13 2.24 120.71 37948.67 BakerHu 22.08 0.09 31.26 20.09 3.24 -1.40 11412.93 Marsh&M 119.26 0.48 120.97 74.34 1.57 29.80 60606.33
CSL 261.00 -0.81 332.68 242.00 1.13 38.66 91554.33 Airbus Grpe 101.00 -0.78 103.98 48.12 - -11.95 94282.37 CntJpRwy 17565 -230.00 19165 0.00 0.86 -31.55 33129.37 Investor 683.60 -1.40 686.20 375.10 1.94 6.49 36554.24 BankAm♦ 37.85 0.21 38.36 17.95 2.04 17.44 326498.37 MasterCard 380.71 -1.68 389.50 199.99 0.54 58.83 375050.36
NatAusBk 26.24 -0.01 27.10 13.20 4.30 23.80 66712.38 AirLiquide 135.50 - 144.45 97.88 2.11 26.79 76410.02 Denso 7491 118.00 7500 0.00 2.01-216.55 54042.26 Nordea Bk 82.83 -0.22 83.93 48.88 - 13.79 39382.18 Baxter♦ 79.55 0.62 95.19 69.69 1.22 36.76 40181.01 McDonald's 222.85 2.99 231.91 124.23 2.41 31.68 166150.75
Telstra♦■ 3.19 0.07 3.54 2.66 3.19 21.05 29241.93 AXA 22.45 -0.17 23.01 11.84 3.45 18.28 64622.59 EastJpRwy 8518 26.00 8881 0.00 1.67 -8.61 29474.71 SEB 105.65 0.05 107.30 61.24 - 13.67 26915.07 BectonDick♦ 240.53 0.98 284.97 197.75 1.35 45.62 69888.39 McKesson♦ 186.91 0.37 189.72 113.71 0.90 -6.89 29749.99
Wesfarmers♦ 50.81 0.10 56.40 29.75 3.04 30.00 44403.15 BNP Parib 51.68 0.49 53.66 24.51 - 8.84 76890.53 Fanuc 26995 -185.00 29700 0.00 0.76 66.75 49907.41 SvnskaHn 99.36 1.94 99.82 71.70 - 12.33 22685.26 BerkshHat 384133.55 1413.55 407750 239440 - 16.22 245748.29 Medtronic 118.92 -0.02 120.53 72.13 2.02 42.43 160312.82
Westpc 24.67 -0.06 25.30 13.47 3.24 38.77 69755.96 ChristianDior 514.00 4.50 516.50 252.40 0.99 48.00 110450.78 FastRetail 96000 810.00 110500 0.00 0.54 100.34 93234.49 Swedbank 159.46 -1.08 165.90 99.14 - 13.64 21191.55 Biogen 264.58 4.66 363.92 223.25 - 10.50 40304.99 Merck♦ 77.23 0.42 87.80 65.25 3.39 15.87 195416.28
Woolworths 39.35 -0.34 42.05 33.82 2.63 42.51 38377.15 Cred Agr 12.17 0.06 12.65 5.91 - 8.43 42256.26 Fuji Hvy Ind 2157 -29.00 2683.5 1671.5 2.79 13.37 15190.55 Telia Co 37.28 0.46 39.16 30.75 5.70 48.62 17898.72 BkNYMeln 46.43 0.19 46.90 26.40 2.87 9.52 40712.47 Metlife 59.91 0.60 62.05 22.85 3.23 9.08 52979.94
Belgium (€) Danone 59.84 0.12 65.68 46.03 - 19.39 48913.02 Hitachi 5410 21.00 5424 0.00 1.99 14.25 47942.31 Volvo 236.80 -0.60 240.80 95.00 - 28.08 44147.4 BlackRock♦ 724.37 1.30 788.00 323.98 2.10 22.41 110563.38 Microsoft 233.83 -3.89 245.92 132.52 0.91 34.30 1763558.6
AnBshInBv 53.35 1.18 59.51 29.03 2.44 -38.06 107538.47 EDF 11.22 0.12 13.58 5.98 1.42 19.96 41386.68 HondaMtr 3292 -45.00 3348 0.00 2.90 20.68 54598.26 Boeing 257.61 2.40 278.57 89.00 0.81 -12.15 150185.82 Mnstr Bvrg 87.59 -1.80 95.11 50.06 - 36.73 46259.52
Switzerland (SFr)
KBC Grp 64.00 2.62 64.02 33.44 1.65 16.19 31747.4 Engie SA 12.07 -0.04 13.87 8.63 - -25.30 34991.9 JapanTob 2064 8.00 2234 0.00 8.29 11.36 37795.28 Booking Holdings 2417.74 21.18 2450.26 1107.29 - 67.80 99034.97 MondelezInt 57.91 0.13 60.00 41.19 2.11 23.08 81768.49
ABB 28.57 -0.07 29.04 14.43 2.91 124.67 66775.17
EssilorLuxottica 134.55 -2.35 142.80 88.66 - -4229.92 70319.62 KDDI 3523 -41.00 3584 2604 3.66 11.45 74323.62 BrisMySq 62.37 0.47 67.16 45.76 3.00 -15.39 139738.44 Monsanto 9.67 -0.12 9.80 9.57 - - 241.75
Brazil (R$) CredSuisse 12.03 0.11 13.50 6.18 1.25 7.25 31743
Hermes Intl 981.80 6.80 1018 516.00 0.49 87.69 123387.6 Keyence 50370 610.00 59310 30070 0.43 62.23 112162.34 CapOne 129.56 1.07 134.70 38.00 1.08 58.55 59498.71 MorganStly 83.28 0.74 85.08 27.20 1.81 13.10 150881.48
Ambev 15.22 0.17 16.91 10.36 3.47 25.80 42346.19 Nestle 101.38 0.22 112.62 88.11 2.93 19.73 314855.59
LOreal 326.00 2.60 326.40 199.95 1.23 49.25 217278.46 MitsbCp 3203 -2.00 3239 0.00 4.53 13.46 43570.52 CardinalHlth 58.09 0.82 59.46 39.05 3.39 12.30 17057.68 MylanNV 15.86 0.31 23.11 12.75 - 29.73 8586.21
Bradesco 22.40 0.45 25.15 14.05 1.20 6.71 17566.35 Novartis 79.24 -0.34 89.34 67.48 3.62 23.89 210736.71
LVMH 568.20 7.90 569.20 282.15 0.85 58.39 341424.16 MitsubEst 1951.5 24.50 1957 0.00 1.65 16.23 24859.71 Carnival 28.31 0.06 30.12 7.80 1.84 -2.06 26398.66 Netflix 516.07 -7.96 593.29 290.25 - 83.56 228564.96
Cielo 3.66 0.20 5.93 3.15 1.96 18.35 1758.21 Richemont 89.84 -0.16 92.06 47.40 1.20 195.15 50554.07
Orange 10.45 0.05 11.88 8.63 5.08 10.05 33075.76 MitsubishiEle 1726 -18.50 1759.5 0.00 2.24 20.28 33932.16 Caterpillar 231.55 5.09 231.80 90.64 1.81 41.75 126262.38 NextEraE 73.33 -2.05 87.69 43.70 1.94 48.77 143717.61
ItauHldFin 24.63 0.32 29.38 19.46 3.66 12.09 21593.6 Roche 311.00 -1.30 357.85 273.70 3.09 17.66 235538.18
PernodRic 162.50 0.60 166.45 116.45 1.71 147.88 50659.44 MitsuiFud 2633.5 4.00 2638 1538 1.80 13.17 23274.76 Celgene 108.24 0.11 110.70 58.59 - 12.71 77035.98 Nike♦ 144.93 0.28 147.95 60.00 0.72 78.72 184275.42
Petrobras 23.53 0.62 32.34 10.50 2.42 -6.05 30964.7 Swiss Re 90.86 -0.60 92.58 52.68 6.95 -18.74 31097.72
Renault 39.64 1.19 41.42 14.50 - -1.21 13953.18 MitUFJFin 615.30 0.80 621.90 380.00 4.52 15.29 76515.26 CharlesSch 65.85 0.38 68.21 28.01 1.16 28.38 118730.84 NorfolkS 258.93 2.54 264.86 112.62 1.48 32.51 70489.14
Vale 96.70 0.19 104.00 33.37 4.89 31.84 90356.06 Swisscom 485.60 1.50 548.00 456.30 4.83 15.42 27116.93
Safran 123.60 -1.50 127.45 51.10 - 74.73 58941.8 Mizuho Fin 1639.5 6.00 1657 1156 2.70 38.43 38116.65 Charter Comms 636.72 -2.93 681.71 345.67 - 40.70 123352.4 Northrop 314.04 8.20 357.12 263.31 1.83 16.24 52356.24
Canada (C$) Syngent 453.40 0.90 471.20 402.50 - 28.99 43035.76
Sanofi 81.82 -0.91 95.82 69.99 4.08 8.72 122626.92 Murata Mfg 9105 -145.00 10835 0.00 1.24 35.32 56336.52 Chevron Corp 107.20 -0.44 112.70 51.60 5.07 -16.25 206507.59 NXP 205.51 2.73 206.82 58.41 0.78-367.93 56926.57
BCE♦ 56.12 0.31 60.14 46.03 5.88 22.19 40682.69 UBS 14.53 0.23 14.80 7.01 2.48 9.59 60424.51
Sant Gbn 48.35 0.26 49.79 16.41 2.72 18.96 30660.31 NipponTT 2909 29.50 2913.5 2127 3.60 11.23 103894.86 Chubb 173.09 0.67 176.40 87.35 1.90 31.97 77927.18 Occid Pet♦ 28.20 0.03 32.52 8.52 6.09 -1.65 26271.71
BkMontrl 110.19 0.59 110.79 55.76 3.87 14.52 57140.19 Zurich Fin 391.30 0.10 399.80 253.40 5.02 16.25 63466.89
Schneider 126.35 -0.70 130.70 61.72 2.14 30.16 85294.53 Nissan Mt 596.30 -9.10 664.50 311.20 - -2.01 23043.5 Cigna♦ 242.61 0.92 247.63 118.50 0.02 15.83 85361.26 Oracle 66.52 -0.33 73.62 41.66 1.50 19.44 195837.14
BkNvaS 79.41 0.49 79.96 46.38 4.56 14.91 77175.94 Nomura 662.80 -9.10 680.80 402.50 4.19 7.88 19622.84 Taiwan (NT$) Cisco 49.21 -0.46 49.74 33.31 2.96 20.36 207754.07 Pepsico♦ 133.84 -0.17 148.77 101.42 3.05 25.73 184646.82
SFR Group 34.50 - 34.56 21.87 - -23.02 17905.81
Brookfield 55.51 1.11 56.10 31.35 1.13-1129.65 70127.61 Nppn Stl 1780.5 -60.50 1886.5 0.00 - -7.71 15492.1 Chunghwa Telecom 110.50 - 117.00 103.50 4.01 24.72 30303.61 Citigroup 73.47 0.14 75.59 32.00 2.98 13.36 153355.25 Perrigo 41.55 0.16 58.83 38.20 2.29-773.58 5530.15
SocGen 21.96 0.29 22.43 10.77 - -25.31 22309.03
CanadPcR 468.43 2.58 482.74 252.00 0.74 27.69 50041.05 NTTDCMo 3880 - 3928 2678 3.25 19.99 120882.79 Formosa PetChem 98.20 -1.80 104.00 66.10 3.10 208.51 33069.94 CME Grp♦ 208.20 1.08 216.75 131.80 1.70 32.31 74744.52 Pfizer 35.71 -0.12 43.08 26.41 4.51 21.45 199177.15
Total 40.61 -0.16 42.19 21.12 6.73 -20.00 127137.2
CanImp 125.57 1.18 126.20 67.52 4.66 15.20 45070.82 Panasonic 1379.5 15.00 1520 691.70 1.95 16.86 30989.66 HonHaiPrc 126.00 2.50 128.00 65.70 3.50 16.21 61750.48 Coca-Cola 51.38 0.16 54.93 36.27 3.41 24.79 221412.43 Phillips66 84.18 -0.75 90.59 40.04 4.59 -12.66 36780.44
UnibailR 190.00 0.35 236.45 177.35 2.94 -7.05 22215.04
CanNatRs 39.01 0.30 41.05 9.80 4.24 -79.34 37064.48 Seven & I 4432 -25.00 4461 2937.5 2.42 20.04 35970.62 MediaTek 908.00 -18.00 1010 273.00 1.21 42.18 51046.34 Cognizant 77.67 -0.39 82.73 40.01 1.15 29.75 41212.81 PhilMorris 88.83 0.63 88.94 56.01 5.42 16.95 138348.45
Vinci 91.52 -0.02 92.38 55.06 2.36 30.18 64446.01
CanNatRy♦ 147.39 1.07 149.11 95.10 1.55 29.63 83968.01 ShnEtsuCh 18330 175.00 19710 8820 1.29 25.29 69927.02 TaiwanSem 604.00 -8.00 679.00 235.50 1.74 29.86 553680.02 ColgtPlm 75.95 0.09 86.41 58.49 2.46 22.59 64448.34 PNCFin 178.75 2.17 181.53 79.41 2.76 22.58 75793.66
Vivendi 28.03 0.38 32.35 16.60 2.27 17.41 39581.65
Enbridge 45.22 -0.13 46.75 33.06 7.13 30.71 73405.29 Softbank 10400 -220.00 10695 2609.5 0.45 23.96 198993.5 Thailand (THB) Comcast 56.90 -1.14 58.59 31.71 1.64 24.57 260101.95 PPG Inds 145.83 1.03 153.81 69.77 1.52 29.91 34553.89
GtWesLif♦ 32.88 0.14 33.85 18.88 5.30 10.42 24453.03 Germany (€)
Sony 11575 -10.00 12545 0.00 0.46 12.48 133645.45 PTT Explor♦ 40.50 -0.25 45.00 24.60 5.62 26.77 37579.76 ConocPhil 56.19 -0.39 61.14 20.84 3.06 -22.04 76122.54 Praxair♦ 164.50 -0.99 169.75 140.00 2.29 39.25 47306.22
ImpOil♦ 30.61 -0.07 32.67 10.27 2.88 -50.85 18007.76 Allianz 210.10 -1.35 216.20 117.10 4.84 12.37 103119.91
SumitomoF 4092 8.00 4153 2507.5 5.12 152.43 51479.33 United Arab Emirates (Dhs) Corning♦ 41.10 0.11 41.62 17.44 2.18 74.92 31579.92 ProctGmbl 129.59 0.65 146.92 94.34 2.44 24.11 319106.11
Manulife♦ 26.93 0.22 27.50 12.58 4.14 9.24 41896.19 BASF 70.76 0.67 72.84 37.64 4.93 -31.11 77369.05
Takeda Ph 4255 105.00 4258 2900 4.55 34.50 61413.03 Emirtestele 21.14 0.20 21.14 12.40 4.06 19.11 50052.25 Costco 327.64 0.39 393.15 278.42 0.87 32.34 144989.56 Prudntl 92.77 1.38 94.85 38.62 4.98-287.90 36829.57
Nutrien 72.01 -0.19 73.59 34.80 3.35 316.04 32858.04 Bayer 52.81 -0.10 73.63 39.91 5.61 -3.07 61762.6
TokioMarine 5551 41.00 5746 4167 3.78 24.71 35678.46 United Kingdom (p) CrownCstl 163.80 -1.25 180.00 114.18 3.15 95.31 70648.88 PublStor 242.14 -3.19 246.52 155.37 3.55 34.74 42323.59
RylBkC 116.22 0.23 117.22 72.00 3.71 14.79 132664.52 BMW 85.46 4.96 85.53 36.60 3.10 15.25 61244.38
Toyota 8308 39.00 8497 0.00 2.94 13.59 248205.29 CSX 92.28 0.34 97.54 46.81 1.14 25.23 70363.97 Qualcomm♦ 131.64 -2.01 167.94 58.00 1.98 22.19 149543.04
Suncor En♦ 28.50 0.16 29.55 14.02 4.59 -6.76 34834.75 Continental 120.75 3.05 130.85 51.45 2.63 -15.55 28750.18 AscBrFd 2461 -33.00 2523 1554 1.39 42.73 27054.23
Mexico (Mex$) CVS 73.44 -1.63 77.23 52.04 2.77 13.22 96305.91 Raytheon 116.96 -5.47 233.48 103.00 2.98 10.60 32566.46
ThmReut 108.65 -1.28 115.66 75.91 1.85 21.62 43123.48 Daimler 71.33 0.07 73.06 21.02 1.332247.38 90844.86 AstraZen♦ 7138 -94.00 10120 6319 2.88 39.99 125528.18
AmerMvl 14.25 -0.05 16.50 12.33 2.54 13.26 31391.87 Danaher 214.66 -1.24 248.86 119.60 0.36 46.69 152881.75 Regen Pharm 492.22 10.05 664.64 424.01 - 15.88 51822.36
TntoDom 82.60 0.45 82.85 49.01 3.78 12.78 120376.09 Deut Bank 10.50 0.10 11.25 4.70 - -13.41 25838.96 Aviva 391.50 -2.20 399.00 205.70 2.43 7.13 21817.46
FEMSA UBD 154.22 -1.51 162.97 112.72 1.96 298.09 16120.18 Deere 377.03 3.51 378.69 106.14 0.87 40.40 118175.88 S&P Global 349.57 0.96 379.87 186.06 0.78 35.62 84141.5
TrnCan 58.14 -0.19 67.89 47.05 5.49 12.25 45569.83 Deut Tlkm 16.63 0.14 16.76 10.50 3.82 23.81 94234.98 Barclays 181.32 -1.70 185.81 73.04 - 16.06 42963.32
WalMrtMex 64.78 -1.51 68.25 47.76 0.85 35.19 54709.02 Delphi 17.02 0.31 18.51 5.39 - -7.42 1469.67 Salesforce 211.18 -3.30 284.50 115.29 - 51.61 193229.7
ValeantPh 30.80 -1.06 36.02 14.01 - -4.20 8158.48 DeutsPost 45.42 -0.16 45.75 19.11 2.68 21.36 66858.09 BP 313.80 2.55 376.54 188.52 8.96 -3.79 86846.44
Delta 49.58 0.19 52.28 17.51 0.82 -2.50 31636.12 Schlmbrg♦ 27.85 -0.21 30.41 11.87 3.19 -3.62 38941.67
E.ON 8.73 -0.10 10.81 7.60 5.58 17.93 27443.91 Netherlands (€) BrAmTob 2750.5 60.50 3308.5 2362.5 5.60 9.93 71209.75
China (HK$) Devon Energy♦ 23.27 -0.24 26.13 4.70 1.83 -3.38 15663.04 Sempra Energy 129.89 -1.34 137.47 88.00 3.39 18.63 39303.59
Fresenius Med 60.78 -0.48 79.96 53.50 2.09 12.79 21191.21 Altice 5.34 0.00 6.86 2.26 - -4.03 9137.97 BSkyB 1727.5 1.50 1740 893.50 0.76 36.60 38843.72
AgricBkCh 3.21 0.01 3.30 2.38 6.95 4.94 12703.74 DiscFinServ 98.32 -0.30 104.49 23.25 1.92 28.08 30119.84 Shrwin-Will 716.04 -1.01 758.00 325.43 0.77 32.41 64158.52
Fresenius SE 36.30 0.03 46.51 24.25 2.45 10.56 19543.29 ASML Hld 461.10 -2.30 502.60 177.52 0.58 52.08 230268.67 BT 152.50 9.30 153.50 94.68 3.03 10.03 21010.72
Bk China 2.93 0.04 3.19 2.33 8.01 4.35 31544.83 Disney 195.24 1.00 203.02 79.07 - -70.66 354412.12 SimonProp 117.46 0.27 121.92 42.25 5.03 24.85 38584.84
HenkelKgaA 81.25 1.85 86.10 54.65 2.39 18.83 25128.47 Heineken 90.92 - 94.48 68.90 1.96 53.26 62343.94 Compass 1540 -55.50 1626.5 865.80 1.75 192.50 35168.62
BkofComm 4.62 0.01 5.09 3.66 8.37 4.29 20825.76 DominRes♦ 73.56 -0.73 87.34 57.79 5.46 25.65 59263.48 SouthCpr 72.89 -0.91 83.15 23.43 2.06 40.88 56349.31
Linde 226.40 -0.20 228.10 136.30 1.50 60.03 140913.51 ING 10.23 0.13 10.57 4.23 - 21.49 47512.72 Diageo♦ 3045.5 -7.00 3125.1 2050.6 2.29 62.79 106462.26
BOE Tech 0.75 - 1.10 0.47 - -4.83 19.21 DowDupont 30.52 -0.65 48.38 30.06 3.63 -8.38 68559.76 Starbucks 109.71 -1.63 112.34 50.02 1.56 189.47 129161.58
MuenchRkv 258.80 -5.90 267.10 141.10 4.01 28.05 43162.79 Unilever 46.93 0.06 53.66 40.17 - 22.94 171321.63 GlaxoSmh♦ 1287.4 -3.60 1772.51 1190.8 6.21 10.19 87915.67
Ch Coms Cons 3.88 -0.01 5.51 3.21 7.36 3.33 2207.25 DukeEner 92.79 -0.23 98.88 62.13 4.40 31.53 71324.29 StateSt 84.25 0.60 85.78 42.10 2.65 12.49 29638
SAP 103.00 -0.02 143.32 84.02 1.62 23.80 150634.43 Norway (Kr) Glencore 282.30 -4.20 310.55 2.44 2.83 -13.95 56545.27
Ch Evrbrght 3.50 -0.02 3.97 2.40 7.47 4.93 5713.29 Eaton 137.79 0.96 141.37 56.42 2.26 37.73 54852.21 Stryker 237.35 -0.69 250.02 124.54 1.01 55.63 89289.41
Siemens 135.98 0.56 137.52 53.02 2.99 25.19 137595.54 DNB 187.35 1.35 187.90 94.26 - 15.53 34129.1 HSBC 430.60 7.80 523.00 281.50 1.81 -50.61 119885.96
Ch Rail Cons 5.05 -0.07 8.95 4.07 5.05 3.15 1349.97 eBay♦ 57.58 0.16 64.85 26.02 1.13 16.01 39180.07 Sychrony Fin 42.60 0.40 43.24 12.15 2.10 18.47 24873.36
Volkswgn 308.80 42.20 310.00 99.16 1.64 36.12 108478.05 Equinor 171.95 0.80 176.80 98.74 4.69 -18.62 65594.28 Imperial Brands♦ 1432.5 4.50 1758 1142 12.96 9.06 18971.44
Ch Rail Gp 4.16 -0.02 4.85 3.33 4.93 3.31 2253.48 Ecolab 211.23 -1.72 231.36 124.60 0.96 47.97 60380.09 T-MobileUS 126.97 -0.81 135.54 63.50 - 44.61 157798.83
Hong Kong (HK$) Telenor 151.75 0.70 163.80 132.00 5.41 19.94 24953.18 LlydsBkg 41.46 -0.02 59.94 23.59 - 24.39 41491.54
ChConstBk 6.58 - 6.74 4.93 5.96 5.54 203674.34 Emerson 90.19 1.13 93.38 37.75 2.26 25.73 54116.68 Target 178.76 -1.45 199.96 90.17 1.60 22.08 89132.63
AIA 97.60 0.10 109.30 60.05 1.46 24.81 151983.86 Natl Grid 831.40 -19.00 998.80 789.13 5.84 19.61 38750.97
China Vanke 33.35 0.25 35.00 21.65 3.71 7.60 8130.43 Qatar (QR) EOG Res 70.68 0.03 77.15 27.00 2.01-124.16 41246.27 TE Connect 133.29 -0.72 135.53 48.62 1.45 468.59 44102.51
BOC Hold 28.65 -0.05 29.00 20.05 6.04 8.92 38999.39 Natwest Group 187.60 1.90 193.40 90.54 - 29.31 31171.52
ChinaCitic 3.90 0.01 4.05 2.93 7.56 3.93 7472.63 QatarNtBk 17.32 -0.18 19.20 16.35 3.52 14.32 43928.08 EquityResTP 73.49 -0.29 76.13 45.43 3.47 26.83 27387.02 Tesla Mtrs 667.50 -9.38 900.40 70.10 - 1026.70 640702.21
Ch OSLnd&Inv 21.10 0.20 28.50 14.92 5.44 4.60 29732.68 Prudential 1537 -23.50 1581 682.80 2.41 37.83 55219.83
ChinaLife 16.40 -0.04 21.90 11.64 5.50 7.38 15711.89 Russia (RUB) Exelon 42.79 -0.57 46.02 29.28 3.79 16.39 41777.49 TexasInstr 176.65 -0.49 181.80 94.15 2.14 29.13 162560.25
ChngKng 45.90 -0.15 50.55 33.40 5.15 7.40 21826.45 ReckittB 6332 - 8020 5393 2.76 -16.37 61918.01
ChinaMBank 63.10 -0.50 69.45 29.80 2.33 14.35 37296.76 Gzprm neft 185.71 -3.02 272.68 158.17 - -71.33 58976.64 ExpScripts 92.33 -3.47 101.73 66.93 - 11.10 52061.19 TheTrvelers♦ 156.53 0.06 159.04 76.99 2.19 14.65 39479.11
Citic Ltd 6.77 -0.01 8.68 5.20 7.74 3.69 25355.95 RELX 1766 25.00 2000 1427 2.59 26.92 47389.91
ChinaMob 53.60 0.55 63.75 39.00 6.86 8.42 141300.28 Lukoil 4745.5 -157.00 6810 3663 10.47 32.79 44107.51 ExxonMb 59.05 -0.06 62.55 30.11 6.33 70.48 249986.76 ThrmoFshr 445.29 -1.14 532.57 250.21 0.21 33.98 175352.25
Citic Secs 15.58 0.04 21.45 12.60 3.93 11.26 4570.12 RioTinto♦■ 5460 -150.00 6561 2954 5.60 15.31 101687.79
ChinaPcIns 33.25 -2.20 42.75 17.90 4.46 10.24 11880.78 MmcNrlskNckl 20150 -66.00 23656 13352 5.44 13.99 42774.79 Facebook 278.56 -0.72 304.67 137.10 - 27.18 670061.71 TimeWrnr 98.77 0.82 103.89 85.88 1.54 15.09 77269.69
CK Hutchison 62.05 -0.60 64.05 45.05 5.75 6.16 30807.05 RollsRoyce 127.20 4.35 159.43 0.90 1.24 -1.23 3285.04
ChMinsheng 4.91 - 6.06 3.85 9.24 4.13 5259.76 Novatek 973.20 -3.20 1382.2 682.80 3.05 46.54 39639.58 Fedex♦ 263.86 3.06 305.66 88.69 0.77 27.60 69940.2 TJX Cos 67.72 1.00 71.06 32.72 0.73 103.37 81306.74
CNOOC 8.95 -0.12 10.60 6.24 9.85 7.88 51447.26 RylDShlA 1523.8 0.40 1607.6 878.10 6.32 -9.16 97273.01
ChMrchSecs 19.61 - 28.18 13.41 - 17.31 22382.69 Rosneft 324.00 -11.00 489.90 229.80 9.45-126.68 46063.6 FordMtr 12.44 -0.06 13.62 3.96 1.23 -38.25 48594.03 Truist Financial Corp 58.79 0.55 61.26 25.51 3.29 18.94 79201.8
HangSeng 150.90 -1.10 156.30 110.00 5.90 12.85 37143.72 Shire# 4690 111.00 4780 2944 0.58 11.63 56567.13
Chna Utd Coms 4.50 -0.07 5.72 4.01 1.38 24.93 21132.7 Sberbank 188.91 -2.03 270.80 172.15 9.07 5.92 54705 Franklin 29.98 0.22 30.16 14.91 3.69 18.92 15152 UnionPac♦ 212.60 0.90 221.28 105.08 1.85 26.56 142405.72
HK Exc&Clr 454.60 1.40 587.00 206.00 1.66 54.11 74205.61 StandCh 500.60 9.30 519.80 334.25 - 24.99 22917.02
ChShenEgy 14.98 - 16.32 11.94 10.39 6.13 6514.01 Surgutneftegas 35.13 -0.76 54.89 24.06 1.70 1.55 16833.73 GenDyn 177.78 2.46 177.87 100.55 2.47 15.91 50892.13 UPS B 161.02 -1.81 178.01 87.79 2.66 28.45 115851.35
MTR 45.55 -0.15 49.00 36.20 3.04 40.85 36249.27 Tesco 225.70 -0.60 329.33 217.10 5.14 16.84 25660.88
ChShpbldng 4.11 - 5.44 3.94 - -105.36 11556.34 GenElectric♦ 13.43 0.28 14.42 5.48 0.30 22.40 117709.62 USBancorp 54.29 0.45 54.75 28.36 3.32 16.74 81567.23
SandsCh 39.25 0.15 40.55 25.15 2.83 145.51 40887.95 Saudi Arabia (SR) Vodafone 136.92 2.40 142.44 92.76 5.96 17.66 50714.1
ChStConEng 5.16 -0.03 5.70 4.68 3.68 4.98 32252.7 GenMills 59.43 0.05 66.14 46.88 3.47 14.65 36337.68 UtdHlthcre 357.86 3.26 367.95 187.72 1.40 19.14 338292
SHK Props 117.10 0.30 126.00 87.60 4.76 12.80 43688.41 AlRajhiBnk 95.30 -0.90 99.90 51.10 1.60 22.13 63526.55 WPP 921.00 7.00 936.20 450.00 2.46 -4.95 16192.29
ChUncHK 4.61 -0.03 6.70 3.84 3.97 9.34 18160.9 GenMotors 58.18 1.06 59.62 14.33 0.66 13.23 83829.28 UtdTech♦ 86.01 -5.36 158.44 69.02 2.27 -41.47 74498.84
Tencent 624.50 -6.00 775.50 325.20 0.22 47.21 771435.81 Natnlcombnk 51.50 -0.30 52.80 31.00 2.37 13.82 41195.61 United States of America ($)
CNNC Intl 5.46 -0.20 5.77 4.02 2.29 15.85 13069.7 GileadSci♦ 64.21 0.20 85.97 56.56 4.47 61.00 80685.85 ValeroEngy 78.14 -1.18 84.39 31.00 5.28-1212.51 31925.1
SaudiBasic 110.00 -1.40 112.00 63.50 3.61-112.56 87990.6 21stC Fox A 41.98 -2.20 44.80 19.81 1.11 16.21 14036.07
CSR 3.57 -0.04 4.22 2.53 5.15 8.57 2009.07 India (Rs) GoldmSchs♦ 342.69 0.98 352.42 130.85 1.57 18.38 118500.27 Verizon 55.92 0.28 61.95 48.84 4.75 11.78 231405.27
SaudiTelec 116.00 -3.00 120.00 80.30 3.70 20.15 61860.06 3M 189.31 2.46 189.63 114.04 3.16 20.15 109629.42
Daqin 6.87 -0.09 7.30 6.32 7.17 9.44 15706.77 Bhartiartl 522.90 -6.40 623.00 361.75 0.39 -9.53 39323.98 Halliburton 22.82 -0.05 24.74 4.25 1.40 -6.73 20278.6 VertexPharm 216.52 -2.47 306.08 197.47 - 20.71 56286.55
Gree Elec Apl 0.12 0.00 0.21 0.07 - -0.04 6.53 HDFC Bk 1495.35 -16.80 1641 738.75 - 27.82 113594.96 Singapore (S$) AbbottLb 117.22 -1.00 128.54 61.61 1.28 58.05 207658.67 HCA Hold♦ 187.85 2.33 194.01 58.38 0.47 17.70 63853.5 VF Cp♦ 77.22 1.30 89.68 45.07 2.54-165.25 30254.15
GuosenSec 11.78 -0.14 16.14 10.39 1.74 15.52 15991.03 Hind Unilevr 2226.3 -17.75 2614.3 1757.3 1.70 69.50 72105.7 DBS 28.02 0.12 29.02 16.65 4.31 13.16 52860.17 Abbvie 104.71 -6.13 113.41 62.55 4.73 21.01 184905.47 Hew-Pack♦ 30.55 0.12 30.98 12.54 2.48 14.22 38077.35 ViacomCBS♦ 88.35 -7.89 101.97 10.10 1.17 38.26 50142.14
HaitongSecs 7.14 0.01 9.42 5.79 - 6.34 3134.31 HsngDevFin 2515.55 5.15 2896 1473.45 0.84 25.15 62539.48 JardnMt US$ 64.20 -0.29 66.40 37.37 3.01-109.86 46214.25 Accenture 263.93 0.41 271.18 137.15 1.29 31.25 174493.39 HiltonWwde 125.61 1.65 128.92 44.30 0.12 -47.92 34868.93 Visa Inc 224.50 -0.20 228.23 133.93 0.55 45.57 380777.5
Hngzh HikVDT 53.50 0.20 70.48 27.00 1.34 37.48 67154.24 ICICI Bk 589.50 -5.45 679.40 268.30 - 26.81 56187.31 JardnStr US$ 32.95 -0.10 37.47 17.81 1.21 -37.11 36522.06 Adobe 443.14 -7.40 536.88 255.13 - 39.34 212582.67 HomeDep 281.93 -0.15 292.95 140.63 2.23 22.69 303526.06 Walgreen 53.59 -1.12 56.12 33.36 3.59 -65.22 46303.99
Hunng Pwr 2.58 -0.05 4.12 2.24 6.59 19.02 1561.33 Infosys 1387 3.00 1406 509.25 1.52 31.90 81446.93 OCBC 11.58 -0.04 11.82 7.80 4.02 13.05 38453.04 AEP 83.16 -0.34 95.77 65.14 3.62 20.06 41302.4 Honywell 213.54 1.73 217.00 101.08 1.73 31.28 148517.32 WalMartSto 132.21 -1.18 153.66 106.85 1.75 17.76 374059.89
IM Baotou Stl 1.80 -0.05 2.24 1.04 - -168.94 8768.57 ITC 210.60 2.75 239.20 139.00 4.86 19.35 35730.73 SingTel 2.38 0.01 2.86 2.00 5.46 22.04 28849.7 Aetna - - - - - - - HumanaInc 407.87 4.75 474.70 208.25 0.64 12.16 52619.65 WellsFargo 39.72 0.37 40.44 20.76 4.41 94.82 164206.72
In&CmBkCh 5.53 - 5.75 3.96 5.83 5.71 61795.62 L&T 1437.65 -24.15 1593 661.00 1.26 66.95 27830.68 UOB 25.52 0.12 25.99 17.28 4.68 10.97 31690.47 Aflac 51.57 0.47 52.23 23.07 2.31 7.54 35510.44 IBM 128.69 0.45 135.88 90.56 5.43 13.57 114996.62 Williams Cos♦ 23.22 - 24.69 8.41 7.31 113.78 28184.21
IndstrlBk 23.98 -0.63 28.07 14.93 3.26 8.06 72336.34 OilNatGas 109.35 -5.75 122.35 57.50 4.83 40.13 18963.14 South Africa (R) AirProd 272.58 -1.93 327.89 173.91 2.00 31.46 60315.65 IllinoisTool 220.94 2.42 224.69 115.94 2.03 32.80 69963.36 Yum!Brnds 110.29 1.49 110.66 54.95 1.78 29.94 33093.1
Kweichow 2030.36 19.86 2627.88 960.10 0.86 55.79 392232.98 RelianceIn 2055.35 -45.25 2369.35 867.40 0.32 31.61 191586.69 Firstrand 52.98 -0.87 59.82 31.13 5.42 18.12 19949.02 Alexion 152.42 -0.95 162.60 75.57 - 55.16 33509.23 Illumina 413.69 -5.84 555.77 196.78 - 91.51 60357.37 Venezuela (VEF)
Midea 0.62 0.01 0.85 0.52 - -1.72 24.03 SBI NewA 368.15 -10.40 427.70 149.45 - 14.05 45291.24 MTN Grp 89.38 -1.83 92.56 26.25 5.93 10.17 11304.98 Allergan 193.02 0.03 202.22 114.27 1.54 -25.19 63659.11 Intcntl Exch 114.29 -0.37 119.02 63.51 1.07 29.84 64197.45 Bco de Vnzla 116900 -90.00 125990 2100 354.57 - 233.60
New Ch Life Ins 30.05 -0.55 37.30 20.45 5.69 6.04 4000.87 SunPhrmInds 584.75 -17.55 654.40 312.00 0.69 57.69 19340.2 Naspers N 3383.52 -36.48 3888 1843.8 - 31.10 98913.27 Allstate 115.94 0.10 117.30 64.13 1.96 7.61 35113.63 Intel 63.99 -0.79 65.73 43.61 2.10 12.75 259991.37 Bco Provncl 3300000 - 3300000 127000 - -17.51 194.98
PetroChina 3.01 -0.02 3.19 2.16 5.24 24.33 8176.46 Tata Cons 3112.95 2.90 3339.8 1546.75 1.30 37.08 158731.29 Alphabet 2050.67 -33.22 2145.14 1008.87 - 34.44 616711.61 Intuit 388.62 -6.80 423.74 187.68 0.60 48.57 106419.65
South Korea (KRW) Mrcntl Srvcs 3950000-49990.00 4000000 120000 0.02 -3.81 131.77
PingAnIns 96.65 -1.20 103.60 69.00 2.62 9.96 92674.59 Altria 49.62 0.18 49.95 30.95 7.32 118.45 92228.18 John&John 161.43 0.06 173.65 109.16 2.61 23.63 424997.82
Indonesia (Rp) HyundMobis♦ 296000-7500.00 405000 126000 1.05 17.12 24825.26
PngAnBnk 21.20 -0.46 25.31 11.91 - 14.99 63267.22 Amazon 3085.06 -6.80 3552.25 1689.24 - 72.601553527.45 JohnsonCn 60.54 -0.03 62.40 22.78 1.75 55.18 43563.06
Bk Cent Asia 22300 200.00 24700 16800 - - 38879.26 KoreaElePwr 24600 -150.00 30050 15550 - 164.58 13972.41 Closing prices and highs & lows are in traded currency (with variations for that
Pwr Cons Corp 4.00 -0.09 4.88 3.40 1.02 8.46 6855.37 AmerAir 24.61 0.14 25.94 8.25 0.87 -1.66 15739.22 JPMrgnCh 154.39 0.88 157.63 76.91 2.50 18.76 471122.08
Israel (ILS) SK Hynix 140000 -500.00 150500 65800 0.74 32.15 90175.03 country indicated by stock), market capitalisation is in USD. Highs & lows are
SaicMtr 20.52 0.21 28.80 16.90 4.40 10.89 36869.03 AmerExpr 143.02 -0.28 151.46 67.00 1.22 37.34 115215.34 Kimb-Clark♦ 134.03 -0.40 160.16 110.66 3.24 19.20 45302.19
TevaPha 36.69 -0.21 46.23 24.30 - -3.01 12205.65 SmsungEl 82300 -500.00 96800 42300 1.79 21.65 434694.19 based on intraday trading over a rolling 52 week period.
ShenwanHong 0.08 0.01 0.10 0.03 - -0.26 87.94 AmerIntGrp♦ 47.65 0.32 48.92 16.07 2.89 -7.62 41207.28 KinderM 16.04 0.12 17.97 9.42 6.57 315.68 36310.46
Italy (€) Spain (€) AmerTower 221.51 -1.33 272.20 174.32 2.10 48.75 98434.57 ♦ ex-dividend
ShgPdgBk 10.92 -0.19 12.69 9.22 5.63 6.53 49291.93 Kraft Heinz♦ 38.75 0.01 39.71 20.67 4.19 131.54 47398.06 ■ ex-capital redistribution
Enel 8.16 -0.08 9.05 5.28 4.25 18.37 98783.94 BBVA 4.77 0.10 4.84 2.13 5.77 -50.10 37871.13 Amgen 244.23 3.91 276.69 177.05 2.66 19.53 141059.04
Sinopec Corp 4.35 -0.12 4.69 2.95 5.39 11.20 14289.06 Kroger 35.48 -0.34 42.99 27.33 2.00 8.81 27012.59 # price at time of suspension
ENI 10.30 0.06 10.53 5.73 5.65 -3.58 44210.4 BcoSantdr 2.93 0.01 3.07 1.44 3.46 -7.06 57904.82 Anadarko 72.77 0.56 76.23 40.40 1.50 -63.37 36563.54
Sinopec Oil 2.05 -0.01 2.37 1.67 - 90.81 4277.88 L Brands 60.02 -0.25 62.08 8.00 1.07 -73.54 16692.41
Generali 16.75 -0.14 17.27 10.20 3.17 13.62 31426.48 CaixaBnk 2.57 0.01 2.62 1.50 2.88 14.34 18328.38 Anthem♦ 343.24 -0.34 345.24 171.03 1.14 16.48 84060.2
Denmark (kr) Iberdrola 10.68 -0.23 12.57 8.25 3.96 18.26 81600.31 LasVegasSd 64.81 -0.16 66.77 33.30 1.24 -28.87 49504.66
IntSPaolo 2.32 0.02 2.33 1.32 - 6.36 53548.22 Aon Cp 226.58 -0.17 235.88 143.93 0.83 27.18 51203.53 LibertyGbl 26.20 -0.23 26.66 15.31 - -9.55 4751.51
DanskeBk 120.45 -1.90 124.95 68.04 - 21.48 16626 Inditex 29.10 -0.47 30.79 19.40 1.26 54.40 107967.15
Unicred 9.47 0.17 9.47 6.01 - -7.91 25227.19 Apple 122.66 -2.91 145.09 53.15 0.67 32.552059227.86 Lilly (E) 187.91 -2.99 218.00 117.06 1.60 27.24 180097.77
MollerMrsk 14555 305.00 15400 4976 0.97 15.82 21979.7 Repsol 10.74 -0.02 11.14 5.04 9.03 -2.00 20036.79 ArcherDan 57.55 -0.23 59.12 28.92 2.67 19.00 32136.73 Lockheed♦ 353.43 6.30 417.62 266.11 2.82 14.20 98996.96
NovoB 446.00 -7.15 467.90 341.95 2.01 23.74 129422.22 Telefonica 4.09 0.00 5.01 2.71 10.16 77.37 26927.54

FT 500: TOP 20 FT 500: BOTTOM 20 BONDS: HIGH YIELD & EMERGING MARKET BONDS: GLOBAL INVESTMENT GRADE
Close Prev Day Week Month Close Prev Day Week Month Day's Mth's Spread Day's Mth's Spread
price price change change % change change % change % price price change change % change change % change % Red Ratings Bid Bid chge chge vs Red Ratings Bid Bid chge chge vs
Volkswgn 308.80 266.60 42.20 15.83 64.60 26.5 26.45 BOE Tech 0.75 0.75 0.00 0.00 -0.08 -9.6 -23.47 Mar 17 date Coupon S* M* F* price yield yield yield US Mar 17 date Coupon S* M* F* price yield yield yield US
MTN Grp 89.38 91.21 -1.83 -2.01 15.01 20.2 25.39 Lilly (E) 187.91 190.90 -2.99 -1.57 -18.20 -8.8 -8.98 High Yield US$ US$
Franklin 29.98 29.76 0.22 0.74 3.92 15.0 8.35 Oracle 66.52 66.85 -0.33 -0.49 -6.12 -8.4 7.17 HCA Inc. 04/24 8.36 BB- Ba2 BB 113.75 4.24 0.00 0.12 - FleetBoston Financial Corp. 01/28 6.88 BBB+ Baa1 A- 129.00 2.54 -0.01 -0.05 -
AmerAir 24.61 24.47 0.14 0.55 3.01 13.9 36.69 ChUncHK 4.61 4.64 -0.03 -0.65 -0.39 -7.8 1.99 High Yield Euro The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/28 5.00 BBB+ A3 A 117.21 2.47 0.00 0.32 -
EDF 11.22 11.10 0.12 1.04 1.33 13.4 5.95 CredSuisse 12.03 11.92 0.11 0.92 -0.88 -6.8 -5.28 Aldesa Financial Services S.A. 04/21 7.25 - - B 71.10 28.23 0.00 0.64 25.98 NationsBank Corp. 03/28 6.80 BBB+ Baa1 A- 127.69 2.72 -0.01 0.06 -
RollsRoyce 127.20 122.85 4.35 3.54 14.20 12.6 -98.76 OilNatGas 109.35 115.10 -5.75 -5.00 -7.40 -6.3 5.40 GTE LLC 04/28 6.94 BBB+ Baa2 A- 128.27 2.80 0.00 -0.11 -
NXP 205.51 202.78 2.73 1.34 21.69 11.8 8.26 RelianceIn 2055.35 2100.60 -45.25 -2.15 -135.70 -6.2 -0.20 Emerging US$ United Utilities PLC 08/28 6.88 BBB Baa1 A- 130.43 2.62 -0.07 -0.22 -
Boeing 257.61 255.21 2.40 0.94 27.00 11.7 19.37 MTR 45.55 45.70 -0.15 -0.33 -2.95 -6.1 0.88 Peru 03/19 7.13 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 104.40 2.60 - - 0.34 Barclays Bank plc 01/29 4.50 A A1 A+ 96.46 5.02 0.00 0.02 -
ShenwanHong 0.08 0.07 0.01 6.85 0.01 11.4 27.87 BHPBilltn 46.07 46.84 -0.77 -1.64 -2.92 -6.0 -1.98 Colombia 01/26 4.50 - Baa2 BBB- 109.50 2.33 0.16 0.52 1.28
Brazil 04/26 6.00 - Ba2 BB- 115.15 2.78 -0.01 0.65 1.73 Euro
ChinaMBank 63.10 63.60 -0.50 -0.79 6.40 11.3 -5.83 ICICI Bk 589.50 594.95 -5.45 -0.92 -35.60 -5.7 -10.46 Electricite de France (EDF) 04/30 4.63 A- A3 A- 137.45 0.82 -0.01 0.10 -
BT 152.50 143.20 9.30 6.49 15.25 11.1 -98.83 ChinaPcIns 33.25 35.45 -2.20 -6.21 -2.00 -5.7 -9.04 Poland 04/26 3.25 - A2 A- 111.22 0.98 0.03 0.16 -0.07
Mexico 05/26 11.50 - Baa1 BBB- 149.00 1.61 0.00 -0.12 0.56 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/31 3.00 BBB+ A3 A 124.42 0.68 0.00 -0.11 -
ViacomCBS 88.35 96.24 -7.89 -8.20 8.69 10.9 45.03 Firstrand 52.98 53.85 -0.87 -1.62 -2.86 -5.1 3.60 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/31 3.00 BBB+ A3 A 121.70 0.93 0.00 0.02 -
Walgreen 53.59 54.71 -1.12 -2.05 5.13 10.6 8.13 Schlmbrg 27.85 28.06 -0.21 -0.75 -1.50 -5.1 3.65 Turkey 03/27 6.00 - Ba2 BB+ 101.26 5.82 0.00 0.17 3.07
Turkey 03/27 6.00 - B2 BB- 102.88 5.43 0.14 0.83 4.38 Finland 04/31 0.75 AA+ Aa1 AA+ 111.08 -0.27 0.00 -0.05 -0.87
L Brands 60.02 60.27 -0.25 -0.41 5.51 10.1 23.62 SBI NewA 368.15 378.55 -10.40 -2.75 -19.45 -5.0 -8.50
Peru 08/27 4.13 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 103.50 3.66 0.01 -0.02 0.80 Yen
KBC Grp 64.00 61.38 2.62 4.27 5.72 9.8 9.07 Naspers N 3383.52 3420.00 -36.48 -1.07 -176.48 -5.0 -11.24
Russia 06/28 12.75 - Baa3 BBB 168.12 2.48 0.07 0.05 - Mexico 06/26 1.09 - Baa1 BBB- 98.73 1.34 -0.02 -0.14 0.27
HonHaiPrc 126.00 123.50 2.50 2.02 11.00 9.6 11.01 L&T 1437.65 1461.80 -24.15 -1.65 -70.65 -4.7 -7.22
Ch OSLnd&Inv 21.10 20.90 0.20 0.96 1.84 9.6 13.66 SunPhrmInds 584.75 602.30 -17.55 -2.91 -27.85 -4.5 -7.35 Brazil 02/47 5.63 - Ba2 BB- 101.48 5.52 0.08 0.80 - £ Sterling
AmerTower 221.51 222.84 -1.33 -0.60 18.81 9.3 -2.14 HDFC Bk 1495.35 1512.15 -16.80 -1.11 -67.15 -4.3 -8.07 Emerging Euro innogy Fin B.V. 06/30 6.25 BBB Baa2 A- 137.45 2.19 -0.03 0.02 -
China Vanke 33.35 33.10 0.25 0.76 2.75 9.0 10.45 GenElectric 13.43 13.15 0.28 2.09 -0.58 -4.1 13.05 Brazil 04/21 2.88 BB- Ba2 BB- 103.09 0.05 0.01 -0.09 -1.19 innogy Fin B.V. 06/30 6.25 BBB Baa2 A- 128.68 3.20 0.00 -0.01 0.40
Denso 7491.00 7373.00 118.00 1.60 585.00 8.5 8.22 EOG Res 70.68 70.65 0.03 0.04 -2.93 -4.0 11.21 Mexico 04/23 2.75 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 107.76 0.76 0.00 -0.07 -1.56 Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company. US $ denominated bonds NY close; all other London
Mexico 04/23 2.75 - Baa1 BBB- 106.48 -0.26 - - -0.36 close. *S - Standard & Poor’s, M - Moody’s, F - Fitch.
Based on the FT Global 500 companies in local currency Based on the FT Global 500 companies in local currency
Bulgaria 03/28 3.00 BBB- Baa2 BBB 117.04 1.00 0.02 -0.15 -1.42
Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company. US $ denominated bonds NY close; all
other London close. *S - Standard & Poor’s, M - Moody’s, F - Fitch.

INTEREST RATES: OFFICIAL BOND INDICES VOLATILITY INDICES GILTS: UK CASH MARKET
Mar 17 Rate Current Since Last Mnth Ago Year Ago Day's Month's Year Return Return Mar 17 Day Chng Prev 52 wk high 52 wk low Red Change in Yield 52 Week Amnt
US Fed Funds 0.00-0.25 15-03-2020 1.00-1.25 1.50-1.75 1.25-1.50 Index change change change 1 month 1 year VIX 20.59 0.80 19.79 85.42 19.33 Mar 17 Price £ Yield Day Week Month Year High Low £m
US Prime 4.75 30-10-2019 5.25 5.25 4.25 Markit IBoxx VXD 19.59 0.79 18.80 71.05 7.84 - - - - - - - - -
US Discount 2.65 30-09-2019 2.75 2.75 1.75 ABF Pan-Asia unhedged 217.55 0.15 -1.95 -4.32 -3.81 6.00 VXN 30.53 1.26 29.27 84.67 24.96 - - - - - - - - -
Euro Repo 0.00 16-03-2016 0.00 0.00 0.00 Corporates( £) 392.34 0.02 0.16 -4.03 -1.56 9.37 VDAX 19.16 0.19 18.98 93.30 - - - - - - - - - -
UK Repo 0.10 19-03-2020 0.25 0.75 0.25 Corporates($) 326.85 0.13 -1.33 -4.30 -1.33 -4.30 † CBOE. VIX: S&P 500 index Options Volatility, VXD: DJIA Index Options Volatility, VXN: NASDAQ Index Options Volatility. - - - - - - - - -
Japan O'night Call 0.00-0.10 01-02-2016 0.00 0.00--0.10 0.00--0.10 Corporates(€) 242.65 -0.02 0.31 -0.62 -0.24 5.94 ‡ Deutsche Borse. VDAX: DAX Index Options Volatility. Tr 8pc '21 101.80 -0.07 0.00 0.00 0.00 -124.14 102.75 100.21 24.59
Switzerland Libor Target -1.25-0.25 15-01-2015 -0.75--0.25 -1.25--0.25 -1.25--0.25 Eurozone Sov(€) 258.31 -0.05 0.50 -1.97 -0.41 3.65 Tr 4pc '22 103.91 -0.02 -33.33 -33.33 -66.67 -106.45 107.70 103.91 38.77
Gilts( £) 353.59 0.10 0.65 -6.76 -1.40 -3.27 BONDS: BENCHMARK GOVERNMENT Tr 5pc '25 118.74 0.25 13.64 31.58 212.50 -37.50 124.02 118.74 35.84
INTEREST RATES: MARKET Global Inflation-Lkd 306.21 0.39 0.90 -2.64 -1.21 12.45 Red Bid Bid Day chg Wk chg Month Year Tr 1.25pc '27 104.41 0.54 8.00 20.00 92.86 22.73 109.23 104.27 39.34
Over Change One Three Six One Markit iBoxx £ Non-Gilts 380.03 0.03 0.20 -3.77 -1.33 6.48 Date Coupon Price Yield yield yield chg yld chg yld Tr 4.25pc '32 134.91 0.96 5.49 14.29 39.13 43.28 147.41 134.91 38.71
Mar 17 (Libor: Mar 16) night Day Week Month month month month year Overall ($) 273.02 0.13 -0.96 -4.09 -0.96 -4.09 Australia 11/22 2.25 103.64 0.08 0.00 -0.02 0.00 -0.40 Tr 4.25pc '36 142.60 1.15 4.55 13.86 29.21 38.55 158.29 142.60 30.41
US$ Libor 0.07850 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.10813 0.19000 0.19788 0.28075 Overall( £) 356.97 0.08 0.52 -5.95 -1.38 -0.65 05/32 1.25 94.50 1.80 -0.10 -0.09 0.38 0.78 Tr 4.5pc '42 160.14 1.31 3.15 11.02 21.30 31.00 184.05 159.99 27.21
Euro Libor -0.58071 0.000 0.003 -0.001 -0.57914 -0.54957 -0.52400 -0.49143 Overall(€) 249.89 -0.02 0.40 -1.60 -0.34 3.35 Austria - - - - - - - Tr 3.75pc '52 161.76 1.33 3.10 10.83 17.70 38.54 196.84 160.62 24.10
£ Libor 0.04088 0.004 0.001 0.000 0.05013 0.07800 0.10113 0.15663 Treasuries ($) 251.40 0.15 -0.80 -4.18 -0.80 -4.18 02/47 1.50 127.11 0.40 0.00 -0.01 0.04 0.02 Tr 4pc '60 183.16 1.28 3.23 12.28 17.43 43.82 230.92 180.90 24.12
Swiss Fr Libor 0.000 -0.80220 -0.75580 -0.71160 -0.59100 FTSE Belgium 09/22 1.00 102.34 -0.58 0.01 0.00 0.01 -0.05 Gilts benchmarks & non-rump undated stocks. Closing mid-price in pounds per £100 nominal of stock.
Yen Libor -0.003 -0.06617 -0.08333 -0.05150 0.04650 Sterling Corporate (£) - - - - - - Canada 11/22 2.00 103.02 0.18 0.00 -0.01 0.03 -0.42
Euro Euribor
Sterling CDs
-0.007
-
-0.56300
-
-0.54200
-
-0.52000
-
-0.49100 Euro Corporate (€) 104.47 -0.05 - - 0.54 -1.73 06/30 1.25 98.05 1.48 0.02 0.09 0.45 0.67 GILTS: UK FTSE ACTUARIES INDICES
Euro Emerging Mkts (€) 671.53 -16.47 - - -5.52 58.84 Denmark 11/22 0.25 101.19 -0.46 0.01 0.01 0.06 0.37
US$ CDs - - - - Eurozone Govt Bond 110.04 -0.19 - - -0.34 -0.64 11/30 0.10 118.14 -1.62 -0.05 -0.15 -0.21 -0.14 Price Indices Day's Total Return Return
Euro CDs - - - - Fixed Coupon Mar 17 chg % Return 1 month 1 year Yield
CREDIT INDICES Day's Week's Month's Series Series Finland 04/23 1.50 104.56 -0.67 0.00 0.00 0.00 -0.19
04/31 0.75 109.16 -0.15 0.00 -0.04 0.03 -0.24 1 Up to 5 Years 88.10 -0.06 2472.17 -0.39 0.31 0.21
Short 7 Days One Three Six One Index change change change high low 2 5 - 10 Years 179.70 -0.31 3681.31 -1.81 -1.08 0.69
Mar 17 term notice month month month year Markit iTraxx France 05/23 1.75 105.32 -0.66 0.00 -0.02 -0.01 -0.19
3 10 - 15 Years 210.33 -0.48 4619.33 -2.74 -2.89 1.07
Euro -0.74 -0.44 -0.70 -0.40 -0.71 -0.41 -0.64 -0.34 -0.67 -0.37 -0.67 -0.37 Crossover 5Y 243.64 1.97 -5.93 7.30 277.03 236.32 11/26 0.25 104.11 -0.46 0.00 -0.03 -0.02 -0.42
4 5 - 15 Years 186.31 -0.37 3910.60 -2.09 -1.55 0.86
Sterling 0.45 0.55 0.70 0.80 0.78 0.88 0.82 0.97 0.89 1.04 Europe 5Y 47.68 0.66 -0.83 1.54 66.97 45.31 Germany - - - - - - -
5 Over 15 Years 353.24 -0.85 5840.03 -4.18 -6.27 1.30
Swiss Franc - - - - - - - - - - - - Japan 5Y 45.81 -0.13 -1.85 -2.27 70.43 45.60 08/23 2.00 106.64 -0.72 0.00 -0.02 -0.01 0.11
7 All stocks 180.03 -0.48 3880.84 -2.52 -3.03 1.14
Canadian Dollar - - - - - - - - - - - - Senior Financials 5Y 56.18 0.72 -1.69 0.54 86.20 54.75 02/27 0.25 105.25 -0.62 0.00 -0.05 -0.01 0.03
US Dollar 0.11 0.31 0.02 0.22 0.05 0.25 0.12 0.32 0.14 0.34 0.20 0.40 08/50 0.00 94.40 0.20 0.00 -0.01 0.04 0.34 Day's Month Year's Total Return Return
Markit CDX Greece 02/27 4.30 120.42 0.77 0.03 -0.06 0.11 -2.48
Japanese Yen -0.15 0.05 -0.15 0.05 -0.15 0.05 -0.15 0.05 -0.15 0.15 -0.15 0.15 Index Linked Mar 17 chg % chg % chg % Return 1 month 1 year
Emerging Markets 5Y 189.24 -0.17 -8.93 25.67 245.71 150.45
Libor rates come from ICE (see www.theice.com) and are fixed at 11am UK time. Other data sources: US $, Euro & CDs: Ireland 10/22 0.00 100.94 -0.59 -0.01 -0.02 -0.01 -0.22 1 Up to 5 Years 302.79 -0.06 0.10 -0.03 2511.05 0.12 1.66
Nth Amer High Yld 5Y 299.68 3.12 -9.87 12.60 421.26 283.37
Tullett Prebon; SDR, US Discount: IMF; EONIA: ECB; Swiss Libor: SNB; EURONIA, RONIA & SONIA: WMBA. 05/30 2.40 123.43 -0.14 0.00 -0.03 0.01 -0.50 2 Over 5 years 791.86 -0.35 0.04 7.54 5993.12 0.08 7.92
Nth Amer Inv Grade 5Y 51.96 0.38 -3.07 1.46 65.62 49.59
05/30 2.40 123.43 -0.14 0.00 -0.03 0.01 -0.50 3 5-15 years 499.99 -0.29 -0.75 1.74 3992.09 -0.70 2.49
Websites: markit.com, ftse.com. All indices shown are unhedged. Currencies are shown in brackets after the index names.
Italy 08/22 0.90 101.81 -0.41 0.00 -0.03 -0.02 -1.78 4 Over 15 years 1037.02 -0.37 0.36 9.83 7637.79 0.39 10.06
11/25 2.50 111.89 -0.05 0.01 -0.06 0.02 -1.85 5 All stocks 706.73 -0.32 0.05 6.50 5448.70 0.09 7.01
05/30 0.40 109.19 -0.58 -0.01 -0.15 -0.10 -2.51
COMMODITIES www.ft.com/commodities BONDS: INDEX-LINKED 03/48 3.45 143.26 1.49 0.02 -0.06 0.11 -1.21 Yield Indices Mar 17 Mar 16 Yr ago Mar 17 Mar 16 Yr ago
Japan 04/23 0.05 99.98 0.06 0.00 -0.02 -0.01 - 5 Yrs 0.39 0.35 0.28 20 Yrs 1.34 1.30 1.01
Energy Price* Change Agricultural & Cattle Futures Price* Change Price Yield Month Value No of
04/25 0.05 99.95 0.06 -0.01 -0.04 -0.02 - 10 Yrs 0.91 0.86 0.58 45 Yrs 1.24 1.21 0.87
Crude Oil† Mar 64.05 -0.67 Corn♦ May 554.75 1.25 Mar 16 Mar 16 Prev return stock Market stocks
03/34 1.50 116.11 0.24 -0.01 -0.03 0.02 -0.01 15 Yrs 1.21 1.16 0.88
Brent Crude Oil‡ 67.23 -1.34 Wheat♦ May 642.00 -4.50 Can 4.25%' 26 130.68 -0.968 -0.968 0.56 5.00 74611.31 7
12/49 0.40 93.21 0.66 -0.01 -0.03 -0.01 0.33
RBOB Gasoline† Mar 2.05 -0.05 Soybeans♦ May 1414.75 -7.00 Fr 1.10%' 22 104.88 -2.396 -2.396 0.29 19.85 256456.01 16
Netherlands 07/23 1.75 105.78 -0.71 0.00 -0.04 -0.02 -0.07 inflation 0% inflation 5%
Heating Oil† - - Soybeans Meal♦ May 401.80 -3.90 Swe 0.25%' 22 110.65 -1.143 -1.143 -0.45 28.26 211966.46 7
07/26 0.50 105.89 -0.58 0.00 -0.05 -0.03 -0.21 Real yield Mar 17 Dur yrs Previous Yr ago Mar 17 Dur yrs Previous Yr ago
Natural Gas† Mar 2.54 -0.02 Cocoa (ICE Liffe)X May 1735.00 -7.00 UK 1.875%' 22 109.36 -3.476 -3.476 0.07 15.74 772788.32 30
Ethanol♦ - - Cocoa (ICE US)♥ May 2510.00 -22.00 New Zealand 04/25 2.75 107.63 0.84 -0.03 -0.06 0.23 0.15 Up to 5 yrs -3.03 2.60 -3.05 -2.03 -3.40 2.60 -3.42 -2.52
UK 2.50%' 24 356.64 -3.141 -3.141 0.33 6.82 772788.32 30
Uranium† - - Coffee(Robusta)X May 1408.00 0.00 05/31 1.50 97.49 1.77 -0.08 -0.12 0.33 0.55 Over 5 yrs -2.09 23.50 -2.10 -1.75 -2.10 23.54 -2.12 -1.76
UK 2.00%' 35 289.65 -2.422 -2.422 1.18 9.08 772788.32 30
Carbon Emissions‡ - - Coffee (Arabica)♥ May 132.70 -2.15 05/31 1.50 97.49 1.77 -0.08 -0.12 0.33 0.55 5-15 yrs -2.54 9.24 -2.57 -2.18 -2.61 9.24 -2.64 -2.25
US 0.625%' 23 106.51 -2.408 -2.408 0.61 47.03 1625289.20 44
White SugarX 458.30 -4.50 Norway 08/30 1.38 99.92 1.38 -0.04 -0.05 0.11 0.47 Over 15 yrs -2.04 28.75 -2.05 -1.69 -2.04 28.76 -2.05 -1.70
Diesel† - - US 3.625%' 28 135.28 -1.144 -1.144 0.64 16.78 1625289.20 44
Sugar 11♥ 16.04 -0.23 08/30 1.38 99.92 1.38 -0.04 -0.05 0.11 0.47 All stocks -2.10 21.67 -2.11 -1.75 -2.12 21.73 -2.13 -1.77
Base Metals (♠ LME 3 Months) Representative stocks from each major market Source: Merill Lynch Global Bond Indices † Local currencies. ‡ Total market
Aluminium 2222.50 27.00 Cotton♥ May 86.65 -0.35 Portugal 10/22 2.20 104.63 -0.70 -0.01 -0.05 -0.07 -0.74 See FTSE website for more details www.ftse.com/products/indices/gilts
value. In line with market convention, for UK Gilts inflation factor is applied to price, for other markets it is applied to par
Aluminium Alloy 2222.50 -2.00 Orange Juice♥ May 118.80 -0.60 02/26 3.30 117.75 -0.26 0.01 -0.06 -0.01 -0.97 ©2018 Tradeweb Markets LLC. All rights reserved. The Tradeweb FTSE
amount.
Copper 9071.00 147.50 Palm Oil♣ - - Spain 10/22 0.45 101.61 -0.54 0.00 -0.03 -0.03 -0.48 Gilt Closing Prices information contained herein is proprietary to
Lead 1918.00 -13.00 Live Cattle♣ Apr 118.23 -0.78 BONDS: TEN YEAR GOVT SPREADS 11/30 1.00 121.34 -1.07 -0.02 -0.13 -0.12 -1.42 Tradeweb; may not be copied or re-distributed; is not warranted to be
Nickel 16145.00 20.00 Feeder Cattle♣ Mar 134.88 - Sweden 06/22 0.25 110.65 -1.16 0.21 0.19 0.23 0.30 accurate, complete or timely; and does not constitute investment advice.
Tin 25680.00 430.00 Lean Hogs♣ Apr 92.75 2.28 Spread Spread Spread Spread 06/26 0.13 118.54 -1.67 0.05 0.00 0.08 -0.15 Tradeweb is not responsible for any loss or damage that might result from the use of this information.
Zinc 2826.00 30.00 Bid vs vs Bid vs vs 06/30 0.13 116.87 -1.49 0.05 -0.01 0.13 -0.17
% Chg % Chg Yield Bund T-Bonds Yield Bund T-Bonds Switzerland 05/22 2.00 103.31 -0.77 -0.01 0.01 0.01 0.00 All data provided by Morningstar unless otherwise noted. All elements listed are indicative and believed accurate
Precious Metals (PM London Fix)
Gold 1735.00 11.35 Mar 16 Month Year 05/30 0.50 107.92 -0.35 -0.01 -0.03 -0.01 0.02 at the time of publication. No offer is made by Morningstar, its suppliers, or the FT. Neither the FT, nor
Australia 1.80 - - Netherlands -0.58 - -
Silver (US cents) 2608.00 -2.00 S&P GSCI Spt 486.87 2.90 77.77 United Kingdom - - - - - - - Morningstar’s suppliers, warrant or guarantee that the information is reliable or complete. Neither the FT nor
Austria - - - New Zealand 1.77 - -
Platinum 1209.00 -4.00 DJ UBS Spot 85.48 0.31 37.82 Canada 1.48 - - Norway 1.38 - - 07/23 0.75 101.53 0.10 0.00 0.01 0.08 -0.25 Morningstar’s suppliers accept responsibility and will not be liable for any loss arising from the reliance on the
Palladium 2496.00 106.00 TR/CC CRB TR 204.05 1.76 47.52 Denmark -1.62 - - Portugal -0.26 - - 07/26 1.50 105.90 0.39 0.00 0.04 0.17 0.04 use of the listed information. For all queries e-mail ft.reader.enquiries@morningstar.com
Bulk Commodities M Lynch MLCX Ex. Rtn 231.14 -9.84 -33.05 Finland -0.15 - - Spain -1.07 - - 07/47 1.50 104.26 1.31 -0.01 0.07 0.10 0.36
Iron Ore 165.85 -0.45 UBS Bberg CMCI TR 13.20 4.85 -4.74 Germany - - - Sweden -1.49 - - United States 03/22 0.38 100.27 0.11 0.01 0.00 0.02 - Data provided by Morningstar | www.morningstar.co.uk
GlobalCOAL RB Index 94.00 1.25 LEBA EUA Carbon 42.30 11.96 47.85 Ireland -0.14 - - Switzerland -0.35 - - 03/27 0.63 97.24 1.10 0.00 0.03 0.32 -
Baltic Dry Index 2105.00 88.00 LEBA CER Carbon 0.29 0.00 52.63 Italy -0.58 - - United Kingdom - - - 04/32 3.38 146.42 - - - - -
LEBA UK Power 1790.00 -29.67 43.20 Japan 0.24 - - United States - - - 02/50 0.25 102.99 0.14 -0.02 0.06 - -0.14
Sources: † NYMEX, ‡ ECX/ICE, ♦ CBOT, X ICE Liffe, ♥ ICE Futures, ♣ CME, ♠ LME/London Metal Exchange.* Latest prices, $ Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company. Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company.
unless otherwise stated.
14
Washington elevates a humdrum drama
This week’s new film releases,
reviewed by Danny Leigh
and Raphael Abraham
H
ow strange to see a film like
The Little Things in this of
all weeks. A humdrum
crime thriller elevated by a
terrific Denzel Washing-
ton, it has such familiarity that you will
spend most of the running time con-
vinced you must surely have seen it
before, possibly twice. But the déjà vu
goes deeper than that. In the wake of the
killing of Sarah Everard in the UK, with
women protesting against male violence
in London and Australia — and the Brit-
ish police under fierce scrutiny — it
arrives as that oldest of chestnuts, the
brooding cop procedural built on the
murders of women. And yet it is the
men of the film — cops, in fact — who
claim its drama. Theirs is the torment
we are asked to empathise with. Women
are simply wives, ex-wives and dead
bodies. In that, of course the movie is no
different from half the noirs in cinema
history. But cinema history has long had
some catching up to do.
The film comes dated by design. Octo-
ber 1990, a title card announces. Period
details are scattered about, a poster for
brat-pack vampire movie The Lost Boys
tacked to a wall. If it feels as if John Lee
Hancock’s script itself might be a relic,
congratulations on your own detective
work. The project dates back to 1993,
spending almost three decades in devel-
opment hell attached to directors
including Steven Spielberg and Clint
Eastwood. Now the gig finally falls to
Hancock himself.
His hero is Joe “Deke” Deacon (Wash-
ington), a weary beat cop in Bakersfield,
California, about to experience his own
tumble back through history. An errand
recalls him to LA, where in a past life he
was star detective of the homicide
department. A certain reputation now
precedes his return. “Deke’s got his own
style,” an ex-colleague says. Of course.
Less so the film, which must surely
still closely resemble what Hancock
crafted on a word processor in the early
months of the Bill Clinton presidency. A
killer is at large as Deke comes home, his
victims local women. Another body is
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
ARTS
found; under pressure to get results, an
LAPD hotshot (Rami Malek) reaches
out to his predecessor. Dramatically,
much of what follows could best be
described as “et cetera”. Two-way
Above: Denzel
Washington and
Jared Leto in
‘The Little
Things’.
Left: Ewen
Bremner
and Suki
Waterhouse
in ‘Creation
Stories’
mirrors are glared through in interroga-
tion scenes. Deacon slips down a rabbit
hole of old, unsolved cases.
What saves the movie is the star.
Malek is stuck at surface level, but with
Washington you see the soul-deep
breakage of a character whom the abyss
has gazed back into. It’s a powerful turn,
given a dash of professional intrigue by
the actor having once rejected a role in
David Fincher’s Seven. That film has its
prints all over this one, the clearest
being the dynamic between haunted
veteran and ambitious protégé. There is
also the extravagant character actor
who crops up midway out of nowhere.
As with Fincher’s movie, they haven’t
paid him just to say “Hello”.
But the film belongs to Washington —
and Deke. In one brief exchange, he says
it himself. His obsessive pursuit of jus-
tice? “I’m doing it for me.” It stands out
as a shard of awkward truth.
Yet the movie sticks with Deacon any-
way, his sidekick and their suspect,
all awaiting the killing of the next
woman whose name the script will men-
tion in passing. DL
On digital platforms now
In his last film, Fyre: The Greatest Party
That Never Happened, documentary-
maker Chris Smith told the story of the
Fyre festival, an outlandish scam that
saw ticket-holders pay thousands of dol-
lars to end up stranded and hungry on a
wind-torn Bahamian island.
The same fascination with high
deception now inspires Operation
Varsity Blues, a flawed but watchable
precis of the 2019 US college admissions
scandal which led to dozens of parents
facing jail time, among them successful
business figures and Hollywood actress
Felicity Huffman.
Smith takes a creative gamble early.
Like the case mounted by the FBI, much
of his film comes straight from the wire-
tapped phone of Rick Singer, master-
mind of the scheme to offer fraudulent
“side door” entry to the US’s most pres-
tigious colleges. But talking heads and
transcripts are not enough, and Smith
punctuates them with dramatised re-
enactments, Singer played by actor
Matthew Modine. The fit is odd, but you
get used to it.
Even so, Singer remains an enigma, a
cold fish who simply steps conscience-
free from inflating his own résumé to
doing the same for students trans-
formed with Photoshop and bribery into
star athletes and academic prodigies.
What the film does well is refusing to
paint him as a lone bad apple. Smith
doesn’t flinch from a grim conclusion —
that for a large number of wealthy par-
ents, Singer only extended the logic that
had always defined their children’s edu-
cation. You buy one advantage and then
you buy the next. DL
On Netflix now
“Names have been changed to protect
the guilty,” declares music industry
biopic Creation Stories, a mission state-
ment to make you fear the Spinal Tap
worst. The subject is record label impre-
sario Alan McGee, whose discovery of
Oasis was only one high point — both
meanings apply — in a career begun as a
1970s Glasgow schoolboy. Nick Moran’s
cheaply cheerful movie offers a con-
veyor belt of nostalgia: The Sex Pistols
on the telly, fabled groups in pub back
rooms, the ecstasy of rave (and ecstasy),
lucre and triumph with Britpop. Tri-
umph, of course, is precisely where
things fall apart.
Moran makes his first wise decision in
casting the fail-safe Ewen Bremner as
McGee. In another, he recognises that for
all the gifts of the groups McGee champi-
oned — among them My Bloody Valen-
tine and Primal Scream — the inner lives
of bands rarely make for compelling
drama. Instead, the hustle is the draw,
mostly wrapped up as dervish comedy.
The script is co-written by Irvine
Welsh, the tone similar to the film of his
Trainspotting. At his most excitable, this
McGee might be a cousin of Bremner’s
character there, the frantic Spud. (You
know you are in need of a rest when any-
one played by demonstrative actor Ste-
ven Berkoff — in this case the ghost of
occultist Aleister Crowley — advises you
to calm down.)
Creation Stories is at least partly a story
about money, a subject that fascinates
McGee, though less as a route to the high
life than a private game with the world.
Finally accepting a takeover by Sony is
treated like a kind of death: inevitable
but dull to be stuck with afterwards. Yet
bigger regrets are to come.
“What do you think of this Tony Blair
dude?” McGee asks ahead of the 1997
election. He soon answers his own ques-
tion, publicly throwing his lot in with
New Labour, embraced in turn as
keeper of the youth vote. What follows
is the best of the film, a mordant
account of bitter disillusion. Peter Man-
delson preens for the cameras; Blair
greets McGee at Chequers with a victors’
grin and Jimmy Savile at his side. McGee
exits in much unease, ahead of the curve
as always. DL
On Sky Cinema from March 20
Thursday 18 March 2021
The Little Things
John Lee Hancock
AAAEE
Operation Varsity Blues
Chris Smith
AAAEE
Creation Stories
Nick Moran
AAAEE
Silk Road
Tiller Russell
AAAEE
As cyber crime swells into a $1.5tn a
year business, law enforcement strug-
gles to keep pace. So too film-makers,
still wrestling with a nagging question:
how to make cyber crime sexy?
And so we get the fitfully entertaining
Silk Road, a wannabe dark-web noir
based on real events. It pits an old-
school cop against a libertarian
millennial web pirate fixated on chang-
ing the world one click at a time
and becoming a bitcoin billionaire in
the process.
“I’m a door-kicker,” growls Rick Bow-
den (Jason Clarke), a redeployed DEA
dinosaur who will be disappointed
when he finds out what RAM is. His Plan
A is to hit the streets and bash heads
together, which is like bringing a knife to
a cyber-fight.
Clearly this is no underworld for old
men but at least Rick is willing to learn a
new skill. Soon our “Jurassic Narc” is
frowning over “introduction to the
internet” videos. Meanwhile his adver-
sary Ross (Nick Robinson, in regulation
hoodie and bum-fluff beard) is building
a drug-dealing empire armed only with
a laptop and fleet fingers. Yes, the char-
acterisation is as binary as that — and
writer/director Tiller Russell wants us
to know that he knows it.
“You’re a walking cliché!” Rick is told
by his irritatingly young boss. Mean-
while, Ross’s increasingly alarmed girl-
friend implores: “This isn’t a movie!” —
the sort of thing people say only in mov-
ies. But such meta moments are an
insufficient firewall against the general
air of overfamiliarity: drawing attention
to a cliché doesn’t stop it being one.
Still, the game of cat-and-mouse is
diverting enough, tension simmering as
things get real IRL and the net closes in
around Ross. There is even some blur-
ring of moral boundaries as cracks start
to appear in Rick’s Old Fashioned Val-
ues. What doesn’t help is that both men
are saddled with tired and thinly drawn
backstories: a failing marriage and frag-
ile daughter for Rick; an impossible-to-
please daddy for Ross.
All of this is designed to distract from
the central problem: the innate tedium
of watching people stare blankly into
computers, even when lives or large
sums are at stake.
In that respect, Silk Road is no game-
changer. For film-makers, the vexing
irony remains: crimes committed on
screens just don’t make for scintillating
screen entertainment. RA
On digital platforms from March 22
Below:
Alexandra Shipp
and Nick
Robinson in
the truth-based
‘Silk Road’.
Left: Matthew
Modine as
William Singer
in ‘Operation
Varsity Blues’
Thursday 18 March 2021
As Republicans in swing states push bills that make it harder to vote, Democrats want to revive a key civil
rights law. The parties’ electoral efforts will shape the outcome of the country’s next elections.
America’s battle over voting rights
W
hen Jimmy Carter first
ran for the Georgia state
senate in 1962, he lost —
before challenging the
result.
The Democrat contended his oppo-
nent had “stuffed” ballot boxes with
fraudulent votes cast in the name of
people who had died or moved out of the
area. A judge agreed with Carter, and he
was declared the winner after a recount.
Nearly six decades later, Carter, now
96, is a mild-mannered former US presi-
dent. But he cited his first election when
he criticised Georgia Republicans this
month for their attempts to enact
sweeping changes to voting laws that
would significantly reduce the opportu-
nities to vote outside of election day.
“As our state legislators seek to turn
back the clock through legislation that
will restrict access to voting for many
Georgians, I am disheartened, saddened
and angry,” Carter said, in a nod to the
southern state’s long history of racial
strife, from slavery to segregation to the
civil rights movement.
Less than three months after a mob
ransacked the US capitol, spurred on by
Donald Trump’s false claims about
voter fraud, the battle lines are already
being drawn for America’s next election.
Carter was reacting to a bevy of bills
being considered by the Georgia state
legislature that would, if signed into law,
do everything from sharply restricting
‘The marker that Biden is
issuing with the executive
order [on registration] is
the core importance of
making voting easier’
access to absentee voting to preventing
in-person early voting on Sundays —
something Democrats say amounts to
an attack on black voters, who have often
cast ballots as part of “souls to the polls”
efforts at African-American churches.
After Democrats won both the state’s
Senate seats in January’s run-off, two
high-profile bills have passed the GOP-
controlled Georgia state house and sen-
ate respectively, though it remains
unclear what versions would be sent to
Brian Kemp, the Republican governor,
and whether he would sign them into law.
But that has not stopped the propos-
als from generating huge amounts of
national interest and reviving calls for
the restoration of the Voting Rights Act,
a key piece of federal civil rights legisla-
tion from 1965 that was partly disman-
tled by the US Supreme Court in 2013.
With the stimulus bill passed, Demo-
crats in Washington now see a narrow
window to push for federal legislation
that protects and expands voting rights.
If they do not succeed, some argue, they
could end up losing the 2022 midterms
or the 2024 presidential election simply
because of efforts to make it harder for
people to vote. In Georgia, one of the key
swing states that Joe Biden won in
November, his margin of victory was
just over 12,000 votes; in Arizona, it was
closer to 10,000.
“Everything is at stake. We must win
this race, this fight for this bill,” Nancy
Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the
House, said this month at the US Capitol
ahead of the lower chamber’s vote on
one of the proposed voting rights bills.
According to the non-partisan Bren-
nan Center for Justice, as of last month,
legislators in 43 states had proposed
more than 250 bills that would make it
harder to vote — more than seven times
the number of bills that had been put
forward at this time last year.
Republicans argue the changes in
Georgia and other states are an essential
stopgap against the widespread fraud
and corruption that Trump and his sup-
porters falsely claim “rigged” last
November’s presidential election in
Biden’s favour. November saw a higher
share of the US voting population cast
ballots than in any election for more
than a century; a record 101m people
voted early either by mail or in person,
according to the University of Florida’s
US Elections Project. Early voting was
expanded in response to public health
fears amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Democrats accuse Republicans of
perpetuating Trump’s “big lie” and
undermining faith in America’s elec-
toral system — and contend the Georgia
proposals are the tip of the iceberg when
it comes to GOP efforts to keep their
supporters out of the polling booths in
next year’s midterm elections, when the
parties will vie for control of the US
House of Representatives and the
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
FT BIG READ. US POLITICS
By Lauren Fedor
Above: a polling
station during
Senate, as well as dozens of state
governor races.
Georgia’s runoff Many of the most aggressive changes
votes in January. are being floated in states such as Ari-
Bottom: John zona and Florida, where, as in Georgia,
Lewis (holding Republicans control the legislatures and
bottle) on the the governor’s mansions. All three were
march for civil crucial swing states in last year’s presi-
rights from dential election and will see closely
Selma in 1965.
The Voting
fought races in the midterms.
“The voter suppression efforts we are
Rights Act was seeing are widespread. They are racist,
passed later that and they are clearly a calculation by
year. Below: Republicans that the only way that they
voting rights feel like they can win elections is to
activist Stacey make it more difficult for Americans to
Abrams could vote,” says Sean Eldridge, founder of the
again challenge
Brian Kemp in
progressive group Stand Up America.
“Any politician should want to win
the Georgia their race, or a political party should
gubernatorial want to win their races, by convincing
race — Bloomberg the majority that they can do the best
job, not by making it harder for the
other side to vote,” he adds.
Republican officials defend their
actions, with many saying outright the
changes would increase their chances of
winning.
“I’m like a dog with a bone. I will not
let them end this [legislative] session
without changing some of these laws,”
Alice O’Lenick, the Republican chair of
the board of elections in Gwinnett
County, outside of Atlanta, was quoted
as saying this year. “They don’t have to
change all of them, but they’ve got to
change the major parts of them so that
we at least have a shot at winning.”
‘Old battles become new’
Fierce battles over voting rights, partic-
ularly for black people, have been a fix-
ture of modern American history, from
the civil war to Reconstruction to the
segregationist Jim Crow era to the civil
rights movement of the 1960s.
A turning point in the civil rights
movement came in March 1965, when
John Lewis, a 25-year-old student activ-
ist, led hundreds of peaceful marchers
across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Alabama, only for the protesters
to be brutally beaten by police.
The scenes in Selma spurred then
president Lyndon B Johnson to sign the
Voting Rights Act, the landmark law
that prohibited racial discrimination in
voting and regulated elections, later
that year. Lewis, who died last year at
the age of 80, would go on to be a long-
time congressman from Georgia and an
icon of the civil rights movement.
The Voting Rights Act, however, has
been the subject of more than a dozen
high-profile legal challenges, most nota-
bly Shelby vs Holder, a case that
resulted in a 2013 landmark decision
from the Supreme Court that struck
down a key provision of the law.
The court ruled, 5-4, to wipe away the
“coverage formula” that determined
whether certain states and localities
needed to have any changes to their
election laws preapproved by the fed-
eral government. Writing the majority
opinion, chief justice John Roberts
argued the formula was unconstitu-
tional because it was based on old infor-
mation and created rules for states that
‘I will not let them end
this [legislative] session
without changing some of
these laws . . . so that we
have a shot at winning’
no longer discriminated against voters
in a way they once did.
In her dissent, the late liberal chief
justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said voter
discrimination had only declined
because the Voting Rights Act existed.
Activists say the Holder decision
opened the floodgates for laws restrict-
ing ballot access — a trend that only
accelerated during the Trump era, and
ramped up even more after the former
president led a campaign to undermine
public faith in November’s election
result. The Supreme Court this month
heard arguments in a separate case
involving voting restrictions in Arizona
that have been in place since 2016. A
decision is expected later this year. That
decision could see the court further
weaken the Voting Rights Act.
“We have seen old battles have
become new again,” says Terri Sewell, a
Democratic congresswoman from Ala-
bama, who represents Selma and the
surrounding area in the House. “I would
have never thought that the cause for
which John Lewis and those footsoldiers
marched 56 years ago would now
become our cause, too.” She adds: “It is
going to require congressional action
once again to fully restore the protec-
tions of the Voting Rights Act.”
Sewell is the lead sponsor of HR4, also
known as the John Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act, which would restore
the Voting Rights Act by, among other
things, writing a modern formula that
would require states to have voting law
changes approved by the federal gov-
ernment. The House, which is control-
led by Democrats, is expected to pass a
bill in the coming months that Sewell
says would hold up to any legal scrutiny.
The lower chamber of Congress this
month separately approved, in a party-
line vote, HR1, or the For the People Act,
another sweeping piece of voting rights
legislation that includes provisions for
automatic voter registration, a require-
ment that states guarantee a time
period for early voting, and the restora-
tion of voting rights for offenders who
have completed their sentences. Repub-
licans accused Democrats of trying to
launch a “federal takeover” of elections
that would remove safeguards that pre-
vent voter fraud.
As federal legislation, HR1 and HR4, if
signed into law, would supersede the
state-level measures being proposed in
Georgia and other states. But the bills
are unlikely to move beyond the House
and gain approval in the Senate, thanks
to Republican opposition and an upper
house custom known as the filibuster,
which in effect requires the support of
60 senators to consider a proposal.
In the current Senate, which is split
50-50 between Democrats and Republi-
cans, that means 10 Republican law-
makers would need to cross party lines.
Democratic split
The circumstances have piled pressure
on Biden and a handful of moderate
Democratic senators to call for scrap-
ping the filibuster altogether, something
the president has been loath to endorse.
That said, this month Biden signed an
executive order intended to boost voter
registration, in a move White House
officials say underscores his commit-
ment to enshrining voting rights into
law and ensuring states do not crowd
out voters — even if he does not have the
power to stop the state laws outright.
Biden’s unilateral action, signed on
the 56th anniversary of Bloody Sunday
in Selma, directs federal agencies to pro-
mote voter registration and participa-
tion, and to work with states to help reg-
ister voters. It also mandates federal
authorities to overhaul the Vote.gov
website, ensure federal employees are
given time off work to vote or volunteer
as poll workers, and provide more
resources to make sure people with dis-
abilities, military personnel on active
duty, other overseas voters and Native
Americans have opportunities to regis-
ter to vote.
“He is leaving no cards on the table,
and he is acting this early in his adminis-
tration, five or six weeks into his presi-
dency, on this topic,” says one senior
Biden administration official.
“The president cannot through exec-
utive order prevent state legislatures
15
>250
Bills, proposed in 43
from rolling back vote by mail,” the
official adds. “But the president can put
a marker in his hand that demonstrates
states, that would
make it harder to
what he thinks is important for democ-
vote, according to racy, and the marker that President
the Brennan Center Biden is issuing with this executive
for Justice order . . . is the core importance of
making voting easier, not harder.”
101m
Early voters in last
Motivational moves
In Georgia, the stakes could not be
year’s election — a higher. In next year’s midterms, Rap-
record — either by hael Warnock will seek to defend the
mail or in person, Senate seat he won only two months ago
according to the in a hotly contested run-off against
University of Florida
Kelly Loeffler; Stacey Abrams, the vot-
ing rights activist, is expected to chal-
~10,000 lenge Kemp in the governor’s race again.
Abrams narrowly lost in her bid
Biden’s vote-winning against Kemp in 2018 in a contest
margin in Arizona, a marred by accusations that Kemp, then
key swing state the state’s secretary of state, had sup-
pressed the votes of some black citizens
by removing them from voter rolls.
More than two years later, analysis by
the Brennan Center has found that
Georgia Republicans’ voting restriction
proposals currently being debated at
the state house would disproportion-
ately hurt black voters, whether by
curbing “souls to the polls” or severely
limiting access to mail-in voting. Black
voters account for about a third of the
electorate in Georgia and tend to over-
whelmingly back Democrats.
Jason Shepherd, the Republican party
chair in Cobb County, an affluent area
outside of Atlanta, calls the claims
“completely ridiculous”.
“I think Democrats are using this as a
talking point and a fundraising point,
and what is more, they are spreading
disinformation,” Shepherd says. “No
one is losing their right to vote. This is
not voter suppression.”
“There used to be no option for early
voting,” he adds. “We have become used
to it, but prior to about 15, 20 years ago,
you only had a chance to vote on elec-
tion day, and everyone showed up on
election day. Does that mean we were
suppressing the vote all of those years?”
Lewanna Heard-Tucker, the Demo-
cratic party chair in neighbouring
Fulton County, which compromises
most of Atlanta, vehemently disagrees.
“It is unfair to certain communities,
and we know that, and [Republicans]
know what communities this impacts,”
she says. “That is what they are banking
on, that these people won’t show up.”
But Heard-Tucker says she is confi-
dent that even if the proposals are
signed into law, they will further moti-
vate black voters whose support was
seen as key to both Biden’s victory and
the two Senate run-offs.
“We are obviously going to do what-
ever it takes to keep this ball rolling and
continue to keep Georgia blue, but the
antics have already started, and we are
ready to go to war,” she says.
16
THURSDAY 18 MARCH 2021
Germany’s Christian
Democrats are in trouble
Regional defeats change political calculus before Bundestag elections
A heavy defeat for the Christian Demo-
crats in two German regional elections
has blown wide open the national politi-
cal race six months before the country
votes in parliamentary elections. The
CDU slid to 24 per cent in Baden-Würt-
temberg, eight points behind the
Greens, and to 28 per cent in Rhineland-
Palatinate, where it lost to the Social
Democrats. It was the centre-right’s
worst ever performance in regions that
were once considered bastions.
It can no longer be discounted that
the CDU, still Germany’s most popular
party after 16 years in office, could be
locked out of federal government by
the end of this year when Chancellor
Angela Merkel retires from office.
It would, however, be unwise to draw
firm national predictions from regional
polls. The two votes on Sunday were
won by popular politicians with a
strong local profile. They may also have
been used as an opportunity by some
voters to register a protest, especially
when the country is still under Cov-
id-19 restrictions with no immediate
end to the pandemic in sight.
Nevertheless the elections confirm
the ascendancy of the Greens, who now
look assured of a place in the next coali-
tion and can plausibly aspire to take the
role of chancellor. That would have
consequences beyond Germany’s bor-
ders: a second stint in power for the
Greens after the red-green coalition of
1998-2005, would reshape Berlin’s atti-
tude to public investment, fiscal disci-
pline, climate action and relations
towards Russia and China, with
knock-on effects for the rest of the EU.
In Baden-Württemberg, the stronger
Greens now have an alternative to
their existing coalition with the CDU —
a tie-up with the Social Democrats
and a revived Free Democratic party.
This so-called traffic light coalition
has won re-election in Rhineland-
Palatinate. If that combination took
Uber has taken half a
step on workers’ rights
Enhancing drivers’ status is welcome but working time is a grey area
“We have decided to turn the page,”
wrote Dara Khosrowshahi, the Uber
chief executive, in an opinion piece in a
London local newspaper after the com-
pany decided to extend more rights to
its British drivers. Instead of trying to
fight the UK Supreme Court decision
that its drivers should be classified as
workers and not self-employed, it
would change its business model. “The
path that we chose shows our willing-
ness to change,” he said.
Complying with the law after a five-
year legal battle does demonstrate just
how happy the company is to change —
although not in the way that Khosrow-
shahi means. So, too, does the decision,
unmentioned in his oped, not fully to
respect its spirit.
While the Supreme Court concluded
that Uber ought to pay the minimum
wage to drivers for the full time they
use the app, the ride-hailing company
will only classify “working time” as
when they are assigned to trips. The
supreme court’s judgment that drivers
were workers and not self-employed
was based on the fact that they must
take direction from the company
whenever they are using its app. Uber
relies on a vast fleet of underused
workers to ensure that its customers
can swiftly find a ride; having to pay
them whenever they are taking direc-
tion from the company would imperil
its business model.
Partly, the company’s decision
reflects the genuine changes in the
ride-hailing market since drivers origi-
nally brought the case in 2016. As com-
petition to Uber has increased, more
are using multiple apps, logging in to
both Uber and its rivals to find a wider
range of clients. While the company
could instead demand that its workers
drive exclusively for it when logged on
to its app — a more standard employ-
ment relationship — it argues that its
drivers value their freedom. More
power in Baden-Württemberg, it might
become more likely at federal level too.
It could encourage the Greens to fight
the general election in outright opposi-
tion to the CDU, rather than as future
partners. A risk for the Greens is that
this prospect emboldens the party’s
radical wing against its realists. But
the party triumphed in Baden-Würt-
temberg precisely because voters like
and trust its business-friendly and
pragmatic leader there, Winfried
Kretschmann.
The option of a traffic light coalition
could be healthy for German democ-
racy. Voters have real choices. It is less
good for the CDU, which plays up the
threat of a radical alliance of greens,
centre-left and far-left. Sunday’s elec-
tions show the CDU badly needs a fresh
offer to shore up support. It has been
slipping slowly away for six months,
having recovered last year thanks to
Germany’s impressive handling of the
coronavirus first wave.
Faltering testing and vaccination
programmes have badly dented the
CDU’s reputation for competence. The
scandal of centre-right MPs making
money out of face mask procurement
deals leaves it open to claims it has
been corrupted by a long stint in power.
The CDU has entered a protracted
electoral season without Merkel as
figurehead, its trump card. There is
another regional poll in June and three
more on the same day as the Bundestag
election. The defeats on Sunday are a
terrible start for Armin Laschet, who
took over as party leader this year.
Laschet’s prospects of becoming the
centre-right candidate for chancellor
are in jeopardy.
His task now is to equip the CDU with
some bold ideas for renewal. That the
Christian Democrats have traditionally
been a party for the status quo has been
an electoral strength. After four terms
in office, it is looking like a vulnerability.
options for companies to drive for
means this flexibility is not as one-
sided as it once was.
Uber’s attempts to push the envelope
as far as it can are understandable for a
disrupter. Entrepreneurs exist to spot
opportunities. In many countries over-
regulation is common and Uber has
provided a necessary corrective to a
dysfunctional taxi market; often, how-
ever, it has taken advantage of legal
grey areas where enforcement is weak
and the rules are unclear.
It is government’s job to establish
clear boundaries and ensure would-be
innovators obey the law. That means
proper enforcement, preventing
drivers from having to rely on a slow
journey through the courts to achieve
justice.
In Britain, three different agencies
are responsible for enforcing labour
standards: the Gangmasters and
Labour Abuse Authority, the Employ-
ment Agency Standards Inspectorate
and the part of HM Revenue & Customs
that oversees minimum wage compli-
ance. The job of director of labour
market enforcement, created in 2019
to set strategy for all three organisa-
tions, is vacant.
Change in legislation will, eventually,
be needed too. Neither the current reg-
ulation of the labour market nor of taxi
companies is suitable for the digital
age. In British employment law “work-
ers”, as the drivers are classified, are an
intermediate category between
employees and the self-employed,
enjoying some but not all rights. Clari-
fying these distinctions and bringing
them into line with the definitions used
in the tax system — many drivers
would prefer to be self-employed for
tax purposes but workers for rights and
the minimum wage — would prevent
the kind of regulatory arbitrage that
Uber and its competitors have
exploited in the UK.
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
Letters
WTO boss must stick to role as honest broker in vaccine talks
Your newspaper has been generally
supportive of the newly appointed
director-general of the World Trade
Organization Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and
her efforts to resolve the tricky
question of intellectual property and
access to Covid-related medical
products, including vaccines (Opinion,
March 3). The most recent council
meeting of the WTO’s trade-related
aspects of intellectual property rights
(Trips) body ended unsurprisingly in a
continued stalemate.
Past directors-general of the WTO,
and the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade before it, have aspired to be
“honest brokers” in trade negotiations,
Why is Israel not giving
more Palestinians the jab?
I am puzzled why Mehul Srivastava’s
article (Report, March 13) on Israel’s
brilliant Covid-19 vaccination
campaign makes no mention of the
Israeli government’s refusal to provide
vaccines to all Palestinians who live
under occupation on the West Bank or
are blockaded in Gaza.
Though the government of Israel has
provided 2,000 vaccine doses for
Palestinian health workers and
reportedly started vaccinating the
130,000 Palestinians entering Israel or
the settlements for work, this
represents only a tiny proportion of the
population under its effective control
as an occupying power.
Israel continues to refuse to accept
its legal duty to ensure rapid,
comprehensive and equitable
vaccination coverage for all
Palestinians, leaving the population
dependent on occasional donations.
Over half of the Israeli adult population
has had two vaccinations. Less than
1 per cent of Palestinians on the West
Bank and Gaza have been immunised.
Srivastava writes: “With warehouses of
unused jabs, the world’s fastest
vaccination drive has run out of adults
to vaccinate.” No it hasn’t.
Gene Feder
Professor of Primary Health Care
Bristol Medical School
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
My father took train from
Russia to avoid Spanish flu
There has been much comment about
the changes to all our lives as a result of
the pandemic (“History shows
pandemics rarely end neatly or with
complete eradication”, Report, March
13). My own family was affected by the
Spanish flu. Both my late father’s
parents, who lived in Russia, died in
the pandemic of 1918-20.
My father was 12 years old at the
time. To protect him, his older siblings
put him and another 12 year-old boy
on a train to Paris, a journey that then
took three days.
My father was looked after by a
French-Jewish aristocrat and educated
at a Paris boarding school. He returned
to Baranoviche, which is now in
Belarus, in about 1931 to visit his
siblings. There he met and eventually
married my mother. However, as an
acculturated Frenchman, my father
did not wish to stay in eastern Europe,
so they left, first for Paris and then the
UK in 1933.
My parents never saw most of their
vast extended families again, as they
NFTs are
the latest
get-rich-quick
scheme for the
‘cryptosphere’
Notebook
by Jemima Kelly
famously holding “green room”
meetings with the key players in order
to thrash out differences. The director-
general’s skill lies in inviting the right
members, asking the right probing
questions and teasing out the
differences in order to bring members
to a point where the most feasible
solution emerges. It is still uphill from
here to find a consensus among the
entire membership but trust in the
director-general’s impartiality is key
to success.
There is no doubt that Okonjo-Iweala
is well-intentioned and quite sincere in
wanting to lead from the front in
finding a realistic solution quickly to
were killed in the Holocaust. I do
wonder what my father would have
said about the possible after-effects of
today’s pandemic.
Jeannette Josse
Cambridge, UK
Stable populations are the
goal, not improved fertility
Jeremy Grantham’s article (“The severe
cost of the world’s baby bust”, Opinion,
FT Weekend, March 13) rightly draws
attention to the dangers posed to our
future wellbeing from artificial organic
chemical compounds that we use in
everyday life.
But he then falls into the familiar
trap of focusing on the need to grow
total gross domestic product as
providing the answer. Leaving aside
Robert Kennedy’s remark that GDP
measures almost everything except
what matters, from a societal point of
view the key metric is not total GDP
but average, or better still median GDP
per head and any growth therein.
Secondly, shifts in the dependency
ratio (the ratio of those in work
compared to those in education or
retirement) will undoubtedly present
challenges. But enabling older people
who are living longer and facing rising
retirement ages to work longer can
help offset this. At present, a
substantial proportion of the over-50s
cannot get jobs.
Finally, the key cause of global
warming is human activity and more
humans inevitably means more human
activity. So, governments need to be
planning not for ways to improve
fertility but for ways to live with a
stable population.
Lord Robin Hodgson
House of Lords, London SW1, UK
We are in the midst of a new mania. A
species of digital asset as unsexy-
sounding as the “non-fungible token”
— or the only marginally sexier “NFT”
— is taking over the front pages, social
media and, sadly for me, my life.
Over the past two weeks I have
been added to a WhatsApp group
named “crypto NFTs”; been invited to
two chats about the tokens on
Clubhouse; and had three friends call
and ask me to try to explain this
strange new phenomenon. On top of
this are the dozens of NFT-flavoured
press releases thwarting my
increasingly vain attempts to reach
inbox zero.
Google Trends — a rough but useful
metric — shows global interest in
the term NFT began to surge about a
month ago, with searches now
exceeding those for “blockchain”.
Last week, after Christie’s sold a
digital collage for $69.3m, we got
another indicator that the tokens had
gone mainstream: a segment on BBC
Radio 4’s flagship Today programme.
And, on Monday, Elon Musk, a man
who appears able to provoke a
frenzied rush into any asset he
mentions on Twitter, released a music
video (which he also said he would sell
as an NFT, though he later changed
his mind) in honour of the non-
fungible goodies.
So what is this new craze all about —
and what explains the stratospheric
prices? These supposedly unique
tokens are secured using blockchain
technology and are “akin to a digital
certificate of authenticity”, as digital
If you are not satisfied with the FT’s response to your complaint, you can appeal
to the FT Editorial Complaints Commissioner: complaints.commissioner@ft.com
achieving equitable access to Covid-
related products. But it is unfortunate
that she has spoken publicly of a “third
way” that would involve licensed
manufacture in order to increase the
supply of much-needed Covid vaccines
in poorer countries.
It does not matter that her idea
makes eminent sense; what matters is
how many members now believe she is
an honest broker. Also, is it really the
role of the WTO to convene meetings
with vaccine developers and
manufacturers to examine the
adequacy of vaccine manufacturing
capacity, as is apparently being
suggested by Australia, Canada and
Fears of Hong Kong
exodus are overdone
Your correspondent Tom Mitchell
(“Hong Kong executives are quietly
wary of Beijing’s next step”, Inside
Business, March 17) overlooks your
own reporting that HSBC has
announced that the bank is moving
three of its most senior executives to
Hong Kong from London (“HSBC woos
investors with plan to base ‘heart’ in
Asia”, Report, February 24).
In the past three months in Hong
Kong I’ve met senior employees of
“magic circle” law firms and “white
shoe” professional services firms,
major US banks and from Jardines and
Swire. None of them have shown a hint
of moving from Hong Kong.
Your correspondent’s latest analysis,
together with the article “Expats
caught in Hong Kong Covid quarantine
voice alarm” (Report, March 16) are
beginning to give an impression to
some of your readers here that your
paper is intent on building a narrative
that there is shortly to be an exodus of
capital and people from Hong Kong.
That is not how a lot of people —
including clearly HSBC — view recent
developments, difficult as some of
those are for residents.
Peter Beckingham
Hong Kong
Sunak’s tax break should
be for all businesses
Announcing the “super-deduction” tax
break in his Budget speech Rishi
Sunak, the UK chancellor, rightly said:
“We need to do even more to
encourage businesses to invest right
now . . . we need an investment-led
recovery.” With that argument, why is
the super-deduction allowance for
plant and machinery investment
limited to those businesses that are
incorporated but excludes those that
are not (“Investors fear chancellor’s
corporate tax raid will make UK less
attractive”, Report, March 5)?
When the tax regime should be
neutral between business structures
and the economy is crying out for
investment to improve productivity
and achieve recovery, why is a large
part of business and a larger number
of businesses discriminated against in
this way?
Investment by limited liability
partnerships, other partnerships and
sole traders is just as wanted and just
as valid. This should be open to all.
Jeremy Moody
Secretary and Adviser, Central Association
of Agricultural Valuers
Longhope, Gloucestershire, UK
artist Brendan Dawes told Today. If
you believe the crypto evangelists,
they are the future of art, music and
asset ownership more broadly.
In reality, NFTs are just the latest
way that what we might call the
cryptosphere — the industry that has
sprung up over the past decade
around blockchain, bitcoin and other
tokens — has found to make a quick
buck. After the record-breaking
auction of the digital sketches by the
artist Beeple, it emerged that the
pseudonymous buyer, MetaKovan,
owns the world’s biggest NFT fund
and was already the biggest owner of
Beeple’s work. So the sale should not
be thought of as representing the true
market value of NFTs, but as PR
expenditure.
“This is just about the pure desire to
get rich that drives everything in the
crypto space right now. It’s another of
these bubble manias,” says Frances
Coppola, a finance and economics
commentator.
The most notable related bubble
mania came in 2017, with the boom in
“initial coin offerings”. Like NFTs, the
barriers to entry to make and sell
these coins were low, meaning
thousands of versions were created,
pulling in billions of dollars of
investment. Ultimately, however, the
ICO bubble burst, with the public
cottoning on to the fact that the
scarcity claimed for these digital coins
was undermined when so many were
being flogged.
NFTs face the same problem.
Anyone can create one of the tokens,
Thursday 18 March 2021
Email: letters.editor@ft.com
Include daytime telephone number and full address
Corrections: corrections@ft.com
others, taking a cue from her own
words?
One can only hope that she is not led
astray, that she can take a page from
the book of past directors-general, win
the trust of all sides and begin the
arduous task of building consensus for
issues within her remit, leaving it to
other organisations like the World
Health Organization to look into the
issue of global expansion of vaccine
manufacturing capacity.
Jayashree Watal
Former Staff Member, WTO’s Intellectual
Property Division
Honorary Professor, National Law
University Delhi, New Delhi, India
Blame it on Franklin’s
‘positive’ frame of mind
As an engineer and longtime FT
reader, allow me to point out an
ambiguity, or dare I say a potential
mistake, in the “fuel cells” diagram in
the excellent article “Europe
carmakers wary of hydrogen ‘hype
cycle’”(Report, March 11).
You correctly show the electron flow
outside the cell between the anode and
cathode. However, electrical “current”
flows in the exact opposite direction,
between cathode and anode.
This contradiction is said to arise
from perhaps America’s greatest
polymath, Benjamin Franklin. After
expertly investigating electricity,
Franklin had to make a somewhat
arbitrary decision — which he had no
way of verifying experimentally — as to
whether the particle, which carried
electrical charge, was itself positive or
negative. Franklin, being of a positive
frame of mind, chose positive; hence
current flows from “plus” to “minus”.
As it happens, it was not until many
years later that JJ Thomson, the British
physicist, and others found that this
free particle was the electron, with a
“minus” charge, and that Franklin’s
choice was hence incorrect. Thus, the
standard nomenclature is that while
electric current flows from positive to
negative outside the cell as in the
diagram, the electron flow is from
negative to positive.
However, Franklin may have had the
last word. In quantum physics — which
is proven billions of times a second in
each and every mobile phone and
computer — a key intellectual
component is a virtual positive particle
called the “hole” or the absence of an
electron. It is this that permits today’s
transistor-based devices to function.
Hy Chantz
Scarsdale, NY, US
At least Michigan’s leading
airport is not crumbling
Distressing as it is to be held up as the
model of the US’s crumbling
infrastructure, it is even more so for
Michiganders to live with the reality
every day (“Michigan: a tale of US
neglect”, Special Reports, FT.com,
March 15).
One bright spot that the article might
have noted is the excellent Detroit
Metro airport, which holds its own
among the best in the country, and is
far superior to those of much larger
and more important cities, such as
New York.
Cristina Sunstrum
Dearborn, MI, US
even if they did not make the asset
being tokenised. That means that
while the Beeple NFT was indeed
created by the artist, so the buyer is
able to prove they have the “original”,
anyone else could create an NFT of
exactly the same digital collage, or of
someone else’s tweet, GIF or anything
else on the internet. The value is not
conferred by the artwork itself, but by
the idea that a digital certificate of its
provenance is valuable in its own
right.
“What we need to understand is
that what is being traded is not the
artwork, it’s the participation,” says
Edmund Schuster, an associate
professor of corporate law at the
London School of Economics. “And
why not? People can subjectively
assign value to something, and that is
not something that we can really
argue against, even if NFTs have no
objective value whatsoever.”
Schuster is right: value is in the eye
of the beholder. And the NFT craze
will probably stick around for a bit
longer because the novelty and the
hype surrounding it currently hold
some value.
But that does not mean NFTs
represent the future of art. We value
original pieces not just because of the
bragging rights they bring but because
of their history, their aura, their smell,
the way they feel. The emotional and
visceral connection we have with the
physical world cannot be replicated by
digital strings of ones and zeroes.
jemima.kelly@ft.com
Thursday 18 March 2021
Pharma is on a vaccine high, but reputational risks loom
BUSINESS
Brooke
Masters
P
harmaceutical companies
have never had it so good.
The rapid rollout of Covid-19
vaccines has made household
names of Pfizer and Astra-
Zeneca and the whole industry is win-
ning praise for co-operation.
But the decision this week by some
governments to suspend use of the
Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine over fears
of possible blood clots shows just how
fragile public trust can be. What has
been a public relations triumph could, if
handled badly, turn out to be a trap.
Big Pharma’s reputation has been
down in the dumps for years, after a
series of scandals involving Medicare
fraud, improper payments to doctors
and poorly tested drugs that damaged
health. Recently, the opioid epidemic
Johnson must
put the safety
of women first
BRITAIN
Robert
Shrimsley
G
overnments are always
more comfortable tackling
definable problems than a
societal malaise. So when
the issue is the fear and
anxiety of half of society, the instinct
can be to retreat into familiar solutions.
The murder of Sarah Everard,
abducted and killed while walking
home in London, could force a new
approach. In the way that certain mur-
ders capture a moment, this case (and
the alleged killer is a police officer) has
uncorked a wave of rage and anxiety
among women, which spoke to the fears
not only of violence and assault but also
to harassment and routine feelings of
dread when out alone.
This has unbalanced the government,
especially after the heavy-handed polic-
ing of a vigil over her murder was juxta-
posed with new laws to restrict disrup-
tive protests. This exposed ministers to
charges they cared more about safe-
guarding statues and property from
protesters than protecting women, an
attack made punchier by the maximum
jail time under the protest laws being
higher than some rape sentences.
In truth, this government hardly has
qualms about locking up rapists. Nor,
Matthew
Harries
T
he UK’s decision to raise
substantially the self-
imposed cap on its nuclear
stockpile to 260 warheads is
a striking reversal of a two-
decade push towards nuclear disarma-
ment. An equally important part of the
government’s integrated defence and
foreign policy review is that it will no
longer make public the number of
Trident missiles and nuclear warheads
deployed on its submarines.
Taken together with the rest of the
review, which refers to greater global
competition and developments in
technology and nuclear doctrine, the
country seems to be descending from
the diplomatic high road and instead
sending a message of deterrence.
The effect of these changes on the
military balance with Russia, China and
other potential adversaries is hard to
and high charges for both new and old
medicines have further alienated the
public. Political pressure was mounting
in the US, the most profitable market.
Covid-19 changed all that. Since Janu-
ary 2020, the share of the US public that
has a positive view of the sector has
nearly doubled from 32 to 62 per cent,
the highest since the survey began in
2003, says Rob Jekielek, managing
director at The Harris Poll. And 56 per
cent in the UK told The Association of
the British Pharmaceutical Industry in
January that their view of pharma had
improved during coronavirus.
Drug companies, previously seen as
avaricious, anonymous corporations,
were revealed to be full of responsible,
hardworking scientists. Russia distrib-
uted jabs that weren’t fully tested, and
western regulators allowed drugmakers
to use shorter “emergency” approval
procedures.
Yet the big companies opted not to
take all the shortcuts. Last autumn, the
nine biggest makers agreed not to
release jabs without large clinical trials.
Eli Lilly chief executive David Ricks
says the sector has a “once in a genera-
with the criminalisation of revenge porn
and upskirting and a domestic abuse
bill, is it ignoring these issues (though
this is owed more to the previous prime
minister Theresa May). But the prob-
lems are legion, from gaps in police data
and information sharing on domestic
abusers to delays in bringing cases to
court. Rape prosecutions, already low,
dropped from 3,043 to 2,102 in the year
before the pandemic. And it is true that
ministers have not shown the same zeal
for this issue as they have for curbing
unwelcome protests.
Yet perversely, the contrast also offers
a glimpse of a way forward. The protest
curbs show ministers prioritising those
they see as the victims of public disorder
over the rights of disruptive protesters.
For all the civil liberty concerns, the
public supports crackdowns on those
who shut down airports, disrupt com-
mutes or deface memorials. “Most peo-
ple don’t go on protests but they do go to
work,” says one Tory strategist. Having
found a public order enemy, ministers
have been ruthless.
Perhaps the error, then, has been not
seeing the protection of women through
a similarly wide lens and acting with the
same ferocity. For what greater public
security issue can there be than half the
country routinely feeling unsafe in their
everyday activities?
Too often violence and harassment of
women are seen as a series of separate
criminal justice issues rather than
part of a bigger picture. Where an easily
defined wrong is identified, laws are
made. But where does catcalling fit
UK’s strategic defence review goes nuclear
calculate. The UK government explains
only in general terms why its policy is
changing. But its references to global
competition suggest that it could be
looking beyond Russia, the traditional
driver of UK deterrence requirements.
China, while not mentioned in the same
breath, is expanding and diversifying its
own nuclear arsenal.
The government also cites “doctrinal”
threats — insider language probably
best understood as code for Russia’s
apparent interest in limited nuclear war
— as demanding a response in kind. The
review’s references to changes in tech-
nology may also imply concerns about
improvements in the kinds of ballistic
defences that UK weapons might have
to penetrate. Still, changes in the strate-
gic military balance may not be the only
driver for the higher stockpile cap.
There could be practical issues, such as
the way nuclear warheads are main-
tained and upgraded, that make
increasing the cap useful for entirely
different reasons.
If the benefits of bolstered deterrence
are up for debate, one immediate cost of
lifting the stockpile cap is clear: the hit
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
Opinion
tion opportunity to reset” its reputa-
tion. Some of the worst problems have
already been addressed: since 2013,
companies have had to disclose pay-
ments to US doctors and more clinical
trial data is being released, although
databases remain incomplete.
Some companies are even applying
public relations muscle to increase
wider understanding. Pfizer paid
If side-effects prove severe,
the result could be even
tougher scrutiny of new
products and higher costs
National Geographic to come into its
labs and follow the vaccine develop-
ment process, resulting in online con-
tent and a video that aired last week in
the US. Johnson & Johnson’s social
media video series about its search for a
jab has drawn 90m views in 100 coun-
tries, with more episodes planned.
But there are significant risks for the
sector if it appears to be trying to cash in
into this? Or random abuse in the street?
These fall below the criminal radar
and yet are key to the dread in women’s
everyday lives.
There is a model for a public order
approach, albeit a failed one. Under-
standing that for many the greatest
blight on daily life was not crime but
antisocial behaviour, Tony Blair’s gov-
ernment introduced new civil remedies
to give individuals respite from the
offending activity, be it noise or intimi-
dation. His antisocial behaviour orders
have since been rethought, but they
showed a new way of thinking which
grasped the distress caused by what is
seen as lesser disorder.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, was
already working on a new strategy but
the initial response of the government
A traditional criminal
justice response is not
enough. A more coherent
approach is needed
to the UK’s reputation in multilateral
nuclear diplomacy. At home, opposition
leader Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the
higher nuclear stockpile cap as it is not
explained “when, why or for what
strategic purpose”. The international
reaction may be even stronger.
In multilateral forums, such as review
conferences for the nuclear non-prolif-
Britain seems to be
descending from the
diplomatic high road to send
a message of deterrence
eration treaty, the UK often presents
itself as a leader on disarmament among
nuclear-armed states. Both the previous
target of 180 warheads, and declara-
tions about the number of deployed
weapons, have been a regular part of the
UK’s diplomatic catechism. Britain has
worked for more than a decade on the
science and technology required to ver-
ify future nuclear arms control agree-
on the goodwill. “We know the world is
closely watching how . . . we move for-
ward as an industry after the pandemic
is over,” says Stephen Ubl, president of
the US industry group PhRMA.
AstraZeneca insists there is no evi-
dence that its jab increases the risk of
blood clots, and the EU drugs regulator
says the benefits outweigh the risks.
Still, the furore is a harbinger of prob-
lems. Any side-effects are frightening
because they involve healthy people
becoming sick. Yet, because these are
unavoidable, many countries have com-
pensation programmes for those who
are harmed.
The rapid development and rollout of
the Covid-19 jabs means there has been
less chance to find and prepare the pub-
lic for side-effects, and the AstraZeneca
suspensions show just how quickly
opinion can shift. Though drugmakers
took only partial advantage of the looser
Covid rules, if vaccine side-effects prove
severe, the end result could be even
tougher scrutiny of new products and
higher costs.
Nor can the industry wave off com-
plaints about pricing and access. If any-
since the killing has been formulaic and
discouraging. Boris Johnson held an
emergency ministerial meeting but his
promise of more money for CCTV and
street lights smacked more of a need to
have something to say. Even as minis-
ters were meeting, Tory peers were vot-
ing, unsuccessfully, to block an amend-
ment to a Domestic Abuse bill which
required stalkers and domestic abusers
to be added to a national register.
The need for a new approach is clear.
Since the killing, more than 100,000
people have responded to the consulta-
tion for Patel’s strategy. Their stories,
recognisable to all women, are of fear of
taxis, empty streets and deserted sta-
tions, of walking with keys between
their fingers, not knowing if some ran-
dom abuse could turn violent.
There are things that can be done.
Ministers can accept the Lords amend-
ment on a national register for stalkers
and abusers. They can try to speed cases
through the courts, further raise sen-
tences, force better data sharing and
fund more specialist police units.
But it is also obvious that more than a
ments, partnering with disarmament-
leaning non-nuclear states like Norway.
It is possible the government calcu-
lates that its policy change will prove lit-
tle more than a messaging problem.
Non-proliferation treaty members
might also be angry, but there is little
they will do in practice. Nor will any
country go nuclear simply because of
the UK’s increased target. Maybe so, but
the country should not be too confident
this is as far as any damage will go. The
attitude it shows to non-nuclear-armed
states in the non-proliferation treaty
clashes with the emphasis that the
defence review places on multilateral-
ism. If multilateral diplomacy and stick-
ing to the spirit of international commit-
ments is key to the battle against
climate change, why not for keeping the
nuclear peace?
The policy shift is likely to make life
harder for non-nuclear countries that
the UK has encouraged to spread the
gospel of incremental disarmament
(versus more radical demands posed by
the new nuclear ban treaty, which aims
to make nuclear weapons illegal). The
shift may also make British partners in
thing they could become worse if
vaccine makers appear to profit from
the pandemic after receiving govern-
ment support.
AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson
have promised not to profit from their
jabs “during the pandemic”. Yet Pfizer
said last month that it expected to sell
$15bn of its Covid vaccine this year, with
profit margins in the “high 20s” as a per-
centage of revenues. The company
notes that under its tiered pricing strat-
egy, low-income countries pay a non-
profit price. But the rollout to poorer
countries has been slow.
If the pharma companies are seen to
favour those who can pay higher prices,
that would reinvigorate the debate over
the pricing of other medicines. Already,
US campaigners are demanding an anti-
trust investigation of rising prices in the
insulin market. “We should now be
holding pharma companies to a higher
bar because they’ve shown us what they
can do,” says Olivia Webb, a health pol-
icy analyst at the American Economic
Liberties Project.
brooke.masters@ft.com
Ellie Foreman-Peck
traditional criminal justice response
is needed. A cultural shift demands a
more coherent approach — almost an
integrated review — which takes in
social services, local government and
education, as well as criminal justice.
Listening to the stories of everyday
abuse, it is hard not to see the case for a
new offence of street harassment. This
would follow the principles of the public
order approach, addressing the every-
day aggravation which plays such a
large role in the feelings of fear. It is not
an easy fix — random street harassers
are hard to trace — but it would make a
strong statement about the standards
society demands of men.
There is no simple answer to the
risks faced by women but existing
approaches are not working. A different
mindset, which addresses issues at both
the lower and most extreme end of the
spectrum, may show that the govern-
ment and the country are ready to make
the everyday security of half the popula-
tion a genuine national priority.
robert.shrimsley@ft.com
verification research suspicious that
their efforts have been little more than a
fig leaf for a state uninterested in
seriously pursuing disarmament.
The UK is not responsible for the
world’s descent into an era of greater
nuclear competition; arguably, it was
down to great power rivalry and Russian
fear. Nor is the country primarily
responsible for frustrations of non-nu-
clear states that disarmament has not
gone faster. But, in the event that global
arms control does progress and the UK
is drawn in, its new warhead ceiling
could approximate to the number that
the UK might negotiate down from. So
its policy change should be kept in per-
spective and all hope should not be lost.
Still, the defence review talks of a shift
away from simply preserving the rules
and institutions of the post-cold war sta-
tus quo and towards shaping a new glo-
bal order. Given that, it is reasonable to
worry that the UK may be leaving
behind the vision of a gradual lifting of
the nuclear shadow.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the
Royal United Services Institute
17
Syrian peace
remains a
mirage after a
decade of war
WORLD AFFAIRS
David
Gardner
T
he civic uprising against
Bashar al-Assad’s heredi-
tary tyranny in Syria, which
turned into a savage civil
war that still rages and radi-
ates chaos across the Middle East and
Europe, began 10 years ago this week.
Syria is really three conflicts: the
minority Assad regime waging total war
on its own people; an ethno-sectarian
conflict in which the Iran-led Shia axis
took the field against Syria’s Sunni
majority; and a regional war in which
external powers — including Russia,
Iran, Turkey and the US — have used
Syria to pursue their own interests.
The recklessness of the US-led inva-
sion of Iraq in 2003 seeded proxy wars
between Sunni and Shia across the
region and proliferated jihadism. The
fecklessness of western powers egging
on the Syrian rebels but outsourcing
arming and supplying them to the Gulf
and Turkey helped guarantee that
mainstream Sunni rebels would be out-
flanked by Islamists.
The Assads and their apologists have
nurtured the alibi that they are a secular
bulwark against extremism, rather
than incubators of poisonous forces to
which they present themselves as the
antidote. They emptied Syrian jails of
jihadis in 2011, betting they would hijack
the rebellion, just as they had fomented
sectarianism in Lebanon and funnelled
Sunni extremists into US-occupied Iraq.
The rebels nevertheless came close to
toppling the regime in 2012, 2013 and
2015. Assad was trapped in a shrinking
The fecklessness of western
powers guaranteed that
mainstream rebels would
be outflanked by Islamists
rump state until first Iran and then
Russia came to his rescue. Now, he has
recovered about 70 per cent of Syria,
although swaths of this are held by
regime-allied warlords and racketeers.
The price is horrendous. Russian and
Syrian air strikes and artillery have
reduced cities including Aleppo and
Homs to rubble. Most of the more than
500,000 dead were civilians, slaugh-
tered by barrel bombs and ballistic mis-
siles, starvation and sieges, nerve gas
and other chemical weapons, targeting
markets, schools and more than 800
medical facilities. Half the population
has been displaced, many for good. The
minority regime, short of manpower,
likes the new demography, and licenses
war profiteers to effectively expropriate
refugee property. As well as the Covid
emergency, famine is stalking Syria.
Complacency about the defeat of Isis
and its cross-border caliphate is mis-
placed. Its forerunner in Iraq was
reborn in Syria after being reduced to
600 fighters; security experts reckon it
now has up to 40 times that number,
enough for a resurgence in two rotting
states. Europe, as well as the Middle
East, knows from bitter experience
that jihadi cut-throats are not confined
to the killing fields of Iraq and Syria.
What of Syria’s future? Assad, despite
his vainglorious bombast, is the ward of
three states: Russia, Iran and Turkey —
with the US half-in and half-out of the
arena. The Syrian president, the locus of
instability, blocks a new constitution
pushed by Moscow that might check his
despotic power. Turkey, with neo-Otto-
man nostalgia, has taken four enclaves
of north Syria to push US-allied Kurds
from its borders. Russia and Turkey,
moreover, keep coming to blows. Might
Iran, paradoxically, be more biddable?
US president Joe Biden wants to
return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran
that Donald Trump tore up. And then,
along with Iran’s neighbours, work to
restrain its missiles and militias’ efforts
to forge an axis of Shia power across the
Levant and down into the Gulf. That
axis is actually now an arc of failed
states — Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and
Yemen — that Tehran and its proxies are
struggling to control.
Any solution would need a new
regional entente and security architec-
ture, followed by massive reconstruc-
tion that Gulf Arab actors could profit
from as they diversify away from oil.
Right now, that looks more like a mirage
than a vision. That does not mean there
is any viable alternative.
david.gardner@ft.com
18 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Thursday 18 March 2021

Crédit Agricole: on a terre

High exposure to asset management through its shareholding in Amundi supports the high rating of
France’s second-largest bank. A hefty weighting of insurance and retail banking keeps capital requirements
low. That has produced outsized returns for shareholders.

European bank valuations and asset management earnings

Twitter: @FTLex
Uber/worker rights:
driving test
Uber hit a roadblock last month when
it lost a five-year legal battle over
drivers’ rights in Britain. On Tuesday,
the ride-hailing company said it would
reclassify them as workers, entitled to
minimum wage, pensions and holiday.
That is not quite the concession it
appears. Even so, the traffic is heading
just one way: towards much tougher
regulation of disruptive tech giants.
The offer is a “day late and a dollar
short”, according to the claimants.
Further legal challenges are likely, as it
is debatable whether the concessions
fully comply with the ruling. Drivers
will not receive minimum wage during
the time before they have been paired
with a passenger. Even so, it is likely to
push up prices to compensate. Plans to
post a profitable quarter — on an
adjusted ebitda basis — before the end
of the year should not be knocked off-
course, says Uber. London is one of its
few profitable markets worldwide.
The Supreme Court’s decision rattled
other companies engaged in the gig
economy, which also rely on the
flexibility of the self-employed. But the
judgment relied on specific facts about
the relationship between Uber and its
employees. Significantly, Uber is not
extending the change in classification
to couriers in its food delivery business,
Uber Eats, who remain self-employed.
The difference is likely to stem from
the fine print of contracts. In deciding
whether people are workers — a
different category to employees or the
self-employed under UK employment
law — it matters whether or not they
could ask someone else to substitute
for them. That is not possible in ride-
sharing for security reasons, but other
gig economy businesses are not so
limited. Deliveroo, the food delivery
company about to join the market, has
won three legal battles in the UK over
the self-employed status of its riders.
Uber and other gig economy groups
do not just have to deal with the quirks
of UK employment law. Tax is another
battleground. An argument over VAT
that raises similar issues to the
workers’ rights dispute could cost Uber
more than £1bn. There are conflicts
over employment rights in at least 40
countries. Only last month, Italian
prosecutors levied a heavy fine on Uber
Eats and other food delivery groups.
Gig economy companies will end up
bound by more regulation. The days of
being able to exploit ambiguities in the
law are coming to an end. Their
transition from freewheeling
innovators to rule-takers has begun.
SSP:
it kneads the dough
SSP depends upon time-poor, cash-rich
travellers dashing through airports and
stations. A near cessation of travel
meant that the purveyor of food-on-
the-go almost went under, saved only
by government loans and friendly
creditors. A well-flagged £475m rights
issue should put this former UK stock
market darling back on its feet.
The capital raising gives the
sandwich specialist some much-needed
filling between its assets and liabilities.
Lenders have agreed to extend the
maturities of loans and credit facilities
worth £523m to January 2024 and to
ease debt covenants. With an estimated
£300m of unrestricted cash by June,
SSP should have the leeway to survive a
slow resumption of travel.
Reflecting that, the shares fell just 6
per cent by noon — far less than the 37
per cent implied by the theoretical ex-
rights price. All this matters when
some of SSP’s debts come due next
year, including a Covid Corporate
Funding Facility of £300m in February.
The group is burning up to £30m
monthly. SSP may not get to break-
even free cash flow until summer 2022,
according to Berenberg.
Raising a meaty sum from
shareholders makes sense. The new
funds should do wonders for leverage
ratios. SSP’s net debt to forward ebitda
ratio should ease to 1.3 times in the
year to September 2022, down from at
least quadruple that.
Most travellers who have caught the
last flight out of a trouble zone would
sit back and relax. Not SSP. Instead, it
is talking up opportunities. The group
operates worldwide — the UK provides
only about 30 per cent of its top line.
Already it sees opportunities to catch
up to its bigger rival Autogrill of Italy.
SSP is bidding for the previously highly
priced sales space other competitors
have given up in airports and stations.
It is a fragmented market, of which
two-thirds belongs to smaller peers.
This rights issue will neutralise a
Price to tangible book
1.5
Lloyds
Banking
Group
1.0
0.5
Société Générale
Commerzbank
0 and-loss statement is one of the great
0 20
Crédit Agricole outperformance
Total returns (rebased)
Amundi
Euro Stoxx Banks index
Crédit Agricole
2016 2017 2018
FT graphic Source: Refinitiv
Crédit Agricole’s no-nonsense
approach reflects the bank’s farming
heritage. Its refreshing slogan is
“common sense has a future”.
France’s second-largest lender
wants to expand abroad, planning to
absorb Italian peer Credito
Valtellinese. Clearance from the
European Central Bank came
yesterday. But with Creval shares
trading above the November bid
price for a market worth of €850m,
Crédit Agricole needs to offer more.
Cross-border deals are fiendishly
hard to pull off in the EU. Crédit
Agricole’s stolid character and
Creval’s small size will make it easier.
Banking supervisors might even
have preferred a bigger acquisition —
Banco BPM, for example.
hefty slice of risk. That gives SSP
upside if travel resumes faster than
current gloomy forecasts say it will.
Chocolate/coronavirus:
their dark materials
In dark times, people turn to chocolate.
The pandemic curbed gift buying but
not personal consumption, according
to Swiss chocolate maker Lindt. US
confectioner Hershey reported a jump
of 40-50 per cent in demand for its
milk chocolate bars in zip codes with
high rates of infection. Cadbury owner
Mondelez reported that its market
share expanded as consumers went
back to brands they knew and trusted.
Overall, the pandemic held back a
SEB
Natixis
Credit Suisse Crédit Agricole BNP Paribas
40 60
Share of earnings from asset management (%)
Tier 1 capital
2021 estimate 0
200 (%) NatWest
Barclays
150 HSBC
Lloyds
UniCredit Group
100 BBVA
Société Générale
50 BNP Paribas
2019 2020 2021 Crédit Agricole
A slow and steady approach is
advisable. Creval, with total assets of
€24bn, according to Refinitiv, still offers
plenty of scope for Crédit Agricole to
roll out its bancassurance model. The
French bank, left a basket case by the
financial crisis, is now highly rated by
investors. That is a result of an emphasis
on retail savings and low exposure to
unpredictable investment banking.
Last year’s results showed the
benefits of diversification: underlying
net profits were 44 per cent higher
than expected. Derivatives losses
incurred by other French banks were
absent. Shareholders have received the
benefits. Total returns have been 50
per cent higher than the wider
European sector over the past five
years, outperforming BNP Paribas.
global chocolate industry worth more
than $100bn. Sales collapsed at
airports, snack bars and speciality
shops. Farmers were hard hit amid
tension between manufacturers and
west African producers over prices.
Shares of leading chocolate groups such
as Lindt, Hershey and Switzerland’s
Barry Callebaut are worth 5 per cent or
so less than a year ago.
Longer term, the premium chocolate
market is growing at about 4 per cent a
year. Lindt is a pure play that explains
its lofty valuation. Its trailing
enterprise value-to-ebitda ratio is 29
times according to S&P Global, almost
50 per cent higher than Hershey and
Barry Callebaut. British chocolatier
Hotel Chocolat is not far behind on a
multiple of 24 times.
Chocolate makers cannot rely on
EFG Int'l
UBS Group
80 Source: Citi
5 10 15 20
Source: Citi
The business model would be
difficult to replicate. The listed Crédit
Agricole is best thought of as the
wider group’s product factory. From
here it serves its network of regional
client banks in France. Majority-
owned asset manager Amundi is the
best-known brand but earnings from
insurance are greater.
Stable business lines mean the
bank targets one of the lowest core
equity tier one capital ratios of a large
EU bank, at just 11 per cent. It was the
only one of them to raise its payout,
made partly in shares, last year. About
half of the current 200 basis points of
excess capital is expected to go towards
unwinding measures dating from the
financial crisis. That is set to boost
earnings and returns to shareholders.
tried-and-tested favourites. There is
competition from new brands with an
ethical or healthy eating slant.
An example is Tony’s Chocolonely, a
challenger brand focused on
eradicating child slavery from the
cocoa industry.
Paleo-inspired chocolate bar maker
Hu uses unrefined, vegan ingredients.
It was bought in January by Mondelez,
a sign that niche dietary preferences
are moving into the mainstream.
Chocolatiers have proved their
defensive qualities. There will be drive
to tackle obesity as nations come out of
lockdown. But people will also socialise
more, bearing sweet gifts to friends and
family as they do so. After a pandemic
that has entrenched socio-economic
divides, the opportunities for investors
are at the upper end of the market.
Lending Club: new
member, new privileges
The balance sheet versus the profit-
rivalries in corporate America. Lending
Club now aspires to bridge the great
divide. The fintech has purchased a
conventional financial institution,
Radius, and rebranded itself as a
“digital marketplace bank”. It is a
counter-intuitively shrewd move
After the financial crisis, fintechs
threatened to eat the lunch of stodgy,
paralysed banking titans. Algorithms
would give them an edge and a lack of
branches would make them agile.
Lending Club was among the first.
A decade later, banking looks less
boring. The Radius deal has doubled
Lending Club shares. Tough regulation
and steep capital requirements are
evidently prices worth paying for
cheap funding from deposits.
The legacy Lending Club depended
on fees from matching lending banks
with consumer borrowers. Loans were
originated by the company but funded
externally then sold off to third-party
investors. Marketing expenses
remained stubbornly high. In 2019,
Lending Club had just $2m of adjusted
net income on $760m of revenue after
originating $12bn in loans.
Financing lines were expensive at
more than 3 per cent. As a bank with
deposits costing 35 basis points,
charges are much lighter. The rub is
that Lending Club will now retain loans
originated from this funding source.
According to its maths, interest
income, even netted against accounting
losses, will generate $12m of revenue
over two years. This compares against
$4m of immediate fee revenue in its
historical role as an intermediary.
The missing part of the equation is
the capital Lending Club will need to
hold on its balance sheet against loans.
This will curtail return on equity. Still,
its loans charge around 15 per cent.
With good underwriting and lower
marketing costs, banking should still
be a good business. Lending Club will
keep its agency business as the bulk of
operation, so should be able to find the
sweet spot between the two models.
Lex on the web
For notes on today’s stories
go to www.ft.com/lex

CROSSWORD
No 16,737 Set by MOO
• ‘  ‰ …  } y ACROSS
1 Boy dropping round, shot accidentally
(2,6)
5 Veteran sommelier pocketing pay-off
u •¸ (6)
9 Penny sporting dreadful Mohican, or a
•• number one? (8)
10 Give a wave to dictator (6)
•‘ •
12 Boris in trouble with the Soviets once?
(9)
13 The end of Athens, as described by
Homer? (5)
14 American cops procuring tart (4)
•‰ •… •
16 Worried by underwriter’s return in
spring (7)
•} •y 19 Right to abandon wretched woman in
the dock? (7)
•u ‘¸ ‘• 21 Aunt Sally’s derrière (4)
24 Almost everyone’s after my woman (5)
‘‘ ‘ 25 Sport for which girls went mad (9)
27 Nick, youth I eventually ensnare (6)
‘‰ ‘… ‘ 28 Reduce international attendance at
Cambridge University (8)
29 Some Tory supporters are cheats (3,3)
30 Vicar always has to tear about (8)
‘} ‘y DOWN
1 Writer tied to bedpost from time to
time? It shows flexibility! (6)
2 Posh girl carrying crummy case? The
‘u ¸ opposite (6)
3 First Lady was tempted by such
wealthy company (5)
4 Boasted about Meghan finally being
made queen? (7)
6 Satanists abroad? Help! (9)
JOTTER PAD 7 Penny-pinching painter taken in, one
to be wary of (8)
8 Married a smarter woman with quite
an appetite (3-5)
11 Island once part of Murdoch’s domain,
they say (4)
15 Resignation statement of Emmanuel
Macron? (4,2,3)
Solution 16,736 17 Crashed car into back of Merc, under
influence of this? (8)
ã Ý B Ò ‚ × N N ª N Ð ‚ × × 18 Arachnid found in house at noon (8)
N ‚ E : 8 N E 20 What makes duckling fluffy and sad?
æ ã
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8 N Ý ~ Ô × B æ B 7 Ú × 22 Outburst of one that’s stuck in traffic
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