TUESDAY 26 JANUARY 2021 WORLD BUSINESS NEWSPAPER ASIA

Cyber society Putin’s nemesis Brazil on the brink

The cheapfakes causing as much Navalny poses a real threat to the Pandemic offers a chance to tackle
harm as deepfakes — SPECIAL REPORT Russian state — GIDEON RACHMAN, PAGE 15 structural problems — FT VIEW, PAGE 14

Moderna launches vaccine trials Briefing

i Biden to beef up ‘buy American’ policy

to tackle new coronavirus strain

Joe Biden is to tighten “buy American” provisions as
part of his campaign pledge to boost manufacturing,
in a move that risks straining ties with US allies.
— PAGE 2; NOTEBOOK, PAGE 14; DAVID RUBENSTEIN, PAGE 15

i Tighter Covid rules hit airline shares

3 Jabs less effective on S Africa variant 3 Merck ends Covid programme 3 Tensions over supply
Hannah Kuchler — New York
Moderna is launching trials of a new
Covid-19 vaccine to tackle the corona­-
virus strain that has emerged in South
Africa after warning that its existing jab
was less effective against the variant.
Laboratory tests show that Moderna’s
Covid-19 vaccine still works against the
variant named 501.V2, which first
emerged in South Africa, and B.1.1.7,
which was first discovered in the UK,
the company said.
But it warned that its shot pro-
duced only a sixth of the antibodies in
response to the South Africa variant
compared with the original virus. That
has raised concerns that immunity to
the new strain produced by the com-
pany’s original jab may wane signifi-
cantly — particularly in older people.
Stéphane Bancel, Moderna chief exec-
utive, said the company was preparing
for a “worst-case scenario”, even though
he had “zero concerns” over the vac-
cine’s efficacy in the coming months.
“If something needs to be done in the
summer, we’ll do something, but we
cannot be late,” he told the Financial
Times. “We don’t want the virus to win,
we want the human race to win.”
Moderna is one of the top makers of
coronavirus vaccines, alongside rivals
from BioNTech/Pfizer and Oxford uni-
versity/AstraZeneca. Its vaccine is being
used in the US, which bought 200m
doses and funded the group with up to
$4.1bn, while the EU has ordered 160m
doses. The UK has ordered 17m, which
are set to start arriving in the spring.
Merck, one of the world’s leading vac-
cine makers, is ending its Covid-19 vac-
cine development after its two candi-
dates failed to elicit immune responses
as strong as those created by shots that
were already available.
New variants pose a potential prob-
lem to pharma companies that have
developed vaccines.
The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine works
against the UK-discovered B.1.1.7 but
An intensive the company has not announced test
care unit in results against the South African
France. A row ­variant.
has broken out Moderna hopes that by preparing for
between a potential booster shot now, it would be
Brussels and ready by the autumn if needed. Its mes-
AstraZeneca senger RNA technology can be quickly
over the drug adapted for new variants. If needed, the
group’s vaccine booster would be given to people who
Jeff Pachoud/AFP via Getty
had already had the Moderna vaccine.
Anthony Fauci, director of the US
National Institute of Allergy and Infec-
tious Diseases, said that other vaccine
makers may also want to act to “stay
ahead of the game”.
“We believe it is prudent to do to at
least get a start,” he told the Financial
Times. “Rather than just waiting until
all of a sudden you find out that you
have a variant that is dominant [and]
you need to make a response . . .
because the vaccine is not adequate.”
He added that he “very seriously
doubts” if a large multi-thousand per-
son trial will be necessary to authorise a
booster.
Shares in Moderna rose nearly 10 per
cent to $143.52 in afternoon trading in
New York.
In Europe, a row has broken out
between the European Commission and
AstraZeneca over shipments of its vac-
‘We don’t want the
virus to win, we want
the human race to win’
Stéphane Bancel, Moderna chief
cine. AstraZeneca said that its first-
quarter deliveries to the EU could be
more than 50 per cent lower than the up
to 100m shots the European bloc
expected, European officials said.
Emergency talks between the two
sides were set to take place last night.
Stella Kyriakides, EU health commis-
sioner, said AstraZeneca’s proposed new
supply schedule was “not acceptable”.
Brussels also plans to tighten its scru-
tiny of exports of vaccines produced in
the EU to countries outside the bloc, in a
sign of the short-term pressure on sup-
plies of jabs.
Additional reporting by Clive Cookson and
Anna Gross in London and Michael Peel in
Brussels
Merck abandons trials page 4
Anjana Ahuja page 15
Airline shares have nosedived as Britain prepares for
tighter immigration rules after fears that travellers
could spread new Covid-19 strains. Sweden, Belgium
and Germany also tightened curbs.— PAGE 5
i Shell buys electric-charging network
Shell has announced that it will
buy Ubitricity, the owner of the
largest public charging network
for electric vehicles in the UK,
as it expands its presence along
the power supply chain.— PAGE 7
i Wirecard ‘plot victim’ theory persisted
The head of Germany’s financial watchdog suggested
Wirecard might be the victim of an elaborate plot by
short sellers even after the payments group found
that €1.9bn of its stated cash was missing.— PAGE 5
i Putin denies Black Sea palace claims
Russia’s president has denied claims that a lavish
palace has been built for him, as the Kremlin tries to
res­pond to anger fuelled by jailed opposition activist
Alexei Navalny.— PAGE 3; GIDEON RACHMAN, PAGE 15
i US sanctions on Israeli billionaire lifted
Five days before Donald Trump left office, the
Treasury department eased sanctions, imposed for
alleged corruption in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, on mining tycoon Dan Gertler.— PAGE 2
i TikTok rival set for $6bn HK flotation
Kuaishou, the Chinese livestreaming and short video
group that competes with ByteDance’s TikTok, is set
to raise up to $6.3bn in a Hong Kong IPO in a test of
appetite for China’s tech sector.— PAGE 6; LEX, PAGE 16
Datawatch
Digital classroom In some of the
% of students whose teachers have world’s most
advanced
the skills to integrate digital tools
countries, fewer
Lithuania than two-thirds
Mexico of students have
US teachers with
UK the necessary
Germany skills to integrate
France digital devices
Japan
OECD average
into their classes.
In Japan, fewer
0 20 40 60 80 100 than a third are
Sources: OECD; Pisa, 2018 in that position.

Merger Monday for Spacs with record

$15bn of deals in ‘blank cheque’ groups
Arash Massoudi — London selling to a Spac versus doing an IPO the Other deals yesterday included a Spac
James Fontanella-Khan, Eric Platt
and Ortenca Aliaj — New York regular way.” launched by Richard Handler, the chief
The frenzied activity is being fed by executive of Wall Street investment
Special purpose acquisition companies the growing number of Spacs on the bank Jefferies Group, and Tilman Fer-
struck mergers worth more than $15bn market and a constant flood of new cap- titta, the owner of the Houston Rockets
Market froth triggers yesterday, in a sign of how Wall Street’s ital. There are now 129 Spacs searching basketball team, who agreed to merge
alarm over ‘epic bubble’ euphoria for launching “blank cheque” for private companies to target while their vehicle with the Hillman Group, a
vehicles is becoming a significant force new issuance of Spacs got off to a record private equity-owned hardware maker,
FT Series: Runaway markets i PAGE 8 for taking privately held businesses start in 2021. This year, 66 Spacs have at a $2.6bn valuation. Taboola, an Israeli
public. been launched and raised $18.3bn, out- company that runs online advertising
pacing the $13.2bn raised through initial networks, also agreed to merge with Ion
Australia A$7.00(inc GST) Five deals worth more than $1bn were public offerings globally. Last year, a Acquisition for a $2.6bn valuation.
China RMB30 reached with Spacs, led by the $7.3bn record $79bn was raised by Spacs. Spacs, which raise money from inves-
Hong Kong HK$33 merger of Alight, a cloud HR-benefits The litany of Spac listings and merg- tors by listing on the stock market, typi-
India Rup220 provider controlled by private equity ers has accompanied a US stock market cally have two years to hunt for a com-
Indonesia Rp45,000 group Blackstone, with a vehicle rally, with the S&P 500 up 75 per cent pany to take public using the proceeds
Japan ¥650(inc JCT) launched by US billionaire Bill Foley. from lows hit last March. The rally has they raise. Executives behind the vehi-
Korea W4,500 Christian Naglar, a partner at law firm been fuelled by trillions of dollars of cles pitch them as a faster route to pub-
Malaysia RM11.50
Kirkland & Ellis, said there was “an ava- stimulus from the Federal Reserve to lic markets compared with the tradi-
Pakistan Rupee 350
Philippines Peso 140
lanche effect” of privately held compa- support the US economy during the tional IPO process but concerns have
Singapore S$5.80(inc GST) nies selling to Spacs. “People are discov- pandemic but has led to investors piling been mounting over the quality of com-
Taiwan NT$140 ering that there are many advantages of into shares at unprecedented levels. panies listing through Spac deals.
Thailand Bht140
Vietnam US$4.50

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2 ★ † FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021

INTERNATIONAL

Manufacturing Executive order

Biden to strengthen buy-American policy Ban on US

transgender
Election pledge to control number of European countries, have
long complained that buy-American
Administration officials said Mr
Biden would also reiterate his support
western allies and some of his early
actions have been cheered. These
have frequently said that securing tril-
lions of dollars of new federal invest-
military
foreign role in federal
procurement takes shape
measures are an attempt to shut their
multinationals out of the US economy.
for the Jones Act, which requires goods
shipped within the US to use American
include the decisions to rejoin the Paris
climate accords, halt US withdrawal
ments in the US economy is the priority
before new trade deals are considered.
personnel
James Politi — Washington
Administration officials set out the
changes to procurement rules as an
effort to rebuild the “backbone of Amer-
vessels. They say this could help “invest
in building offshore renewable energy
from the World Health Organization
and scrap the entry ban on citizens of
several Muslim-majority countries.
In conversations at the weekend with
Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, and
Emmanuel Macron, French president,
reversed
Joe Biden is to tighten “buy-American” ica”. “[Mr Biden] believes that we can One exception was his decision to Mr Biden emphasised his desire for co-
provisions as part of a push to boost rebuild the vitality of American manu-
‘When we use taxpayer revoke the permit for the Keystone XL operation on issues such as climate Katrina Manson — Washington
domestic manufacturing in a move that facturing and our industrial strength, money to rebuild America pipeline connecting the US with Can- change, but there was no mention of
The administration of Joe Biden is
risks straining relations with US allies. and a big piece of that is centred around ada, which triggered unhappiness north trade, according to the White House
The president was expected yester- the idea that when we use taxpayer
we buy American. We of the US border, particularly in the accounts of the calls.
reversing Donald Trump’s ban on
transgender individuals serving in the
day to order an increase in domestic money to rebuild America we buy support American jobs’ energy-producing western provinces. One administration official said
military, framing it as “the right thing
content rules for federal procurement American,” said one official. “We sup- Mr Biden’s early move on procure- tighter procurement could help build
to do” and in the national interest.
contracts in line with a campaign pledge port American jobs, union jobs.” and put Americans to work doing it”. US ment is also likely to cement concerns the resilience of US supply chains, given
to boost US manufacturing as he aimed Mr Biden is expected to order an allies in Europe have long pressed the administration is not interested in the weaknesses that emerged during the “President [Joe] Biden believes that
to outflank Donald Trump in swing increase in domestic content require- Washington to repeal the Jones Act to returning to an agenda of liberalisation pandemic, so “we are never put in a gender identity should not be a bar to
states. ments for federal contracts, a $600bn allow greater competition in shipping. in trade and investment, after four years position where we are reliant on coun- military service, and that America’s
However, trading partners and strate- industry, and crack down on waivers Mr Biden’s arrival in the White House of Mr Trump’s trade wars. tries who don’t share our interests to strength is found in its diversity,” the
gic allies including Canada and a allowed for the use of foreign suppliers. has been broadly welcomed by the US’s Mr Biden and members of his team deliver critical materials”. White House said.
Mr Biden’s executive order yesterday
fulfils a campaign pledge to revoke the
ban. It is the latest move by the incom-
ing administration to rapidly undo
US politics. Republican diaspora much of Mr Trump’s legacy at home and
abroad.

Far-right pushes to recruit Trump die-hards “America is stronger, at home and

around the world, when it is inclusive.
The military is no exception,” the White
House said.
Mr Biden has promised to promote
diversity through his policies and
White nationalists target QAnon among his cabinet. Lloyd Austin, his
believers and use Capitol raid as pick as defence secretary, is the first
African-American Pentagon chief. Mr
battle cry to advance their cause Biden also picked Rachel Levine as his

Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan
London ‘America is stronger when
Hannah Murphy — San Francisco
it is inclusive. The military
White nationalists are seizing the
opportunity to further radicalise the
is no exception’
fragmented pro-Donald Trump move- White House
ment, after crackdowns by large social
networks scattered the former US presi- assistant secretary of health, who would
dent’s most ardent supporters on to be the first openly transgender federal
fringe platforms. official to be confirmed by the Senate.
In the run-up to Joe Biden’s inaugura- “If you are fit and you are qualified to
tion as US president, Facebook and serve and you can maintain the stand-
Twitter censored far-right narratives ards, you should be allowed to serve,”
and Mr Trump himself, while Parler, the Mr Austin said during his confirmation
popular rightwing platform, was forced hearing last week, endorsing Mr Biden’s
offline after Amazon cut its web hosting. aim to roll back the ban.
As such, remaining supporters of Mr Mr Trump ordered the transgender
Trump, particularly those who follow ban in a trio of tweets in 2017 that took
the QAnon conspiracy theory, have had Pentagon officials by surprise, coming
to migrate to alternative platforms such shortly after the ban had been lifted by
as Telegram, the messaging service. the Barack Obama administration. The
There, fascist groups have been quick defence department subsequently ruled
to infiltrate pro-Trump channels or cre- transgender service would be limited
ate their own, aiming to draw remnants solely to those pre-transition, among
of the movement towards the extreme other restrictions, in 2019.
right, say experts, with efforts intensify- Mr Trump claimed that having trans-
ing after Mr Biden’s inauguration. gender service members would “bur-
For instance, the nearly 15,000-strong den” the military with “tremendous
Parler Lifeboat, a group set up by the medical costs and disruption”.
pro-Trump Proud Boys for “refugees” Supporters of an event that contradicted a key predic- last day they felt they could make a dif- extremists is Telegram’s efforts to clamp Senior military leaders subsequently
from the rightwing platform, was QAnon are being tion that his presidency would not come ference in convincing Congress physi- down on public channels that promote testified to Congress that they were not
swiftly infiltrated by neo-Nazi users, approached on to an end. cally to do what they wanted.” violence. A number of the most popular aware of any problems resulting from
according to one antifascism researcher. apps such as For white nationalists and others on Experts say it is too early to gauge how have been closed, including at least one transgender individuals serving openly.
Megan Squire, a professor at Elon Uni- Telegram, below the extreme right, QAnon believers successful the extreme right will be in containing a large number of weapons A 2016 study requested by the
versity who has extensively studied the Joseph Prezioso / AFP
have often been objects of derision. co-opting the pro-Trump movement, and training manuals. defence department found that ena-
far-right on Telegram, pointed to “They find them to be quite naive,” said noting that forceful attempts to reshape Telegram said the app’s monitoring bling transgender individuals to serve
screenshots from the group showing Mike Rains, who runs the Adventures in conspiracy narratives such as QAnon team was sifting through user reports openly had no significant impact on
white nationalist users attempting to HellwQrld podcast and tracks the con- often run into a backlash. and removing public calls for violence. operational effectiveness or unit cohe-
win converts with neo-Nazi spiracy theory. “They really think “Wtf is all this talk about patriots and “Between Jan 6 and Jan 14 alone, mod- sion in foreign militaries. It would have
emblems and positive content almost nothing of these people except as Jews?! Seriously?!” responded one user ‘QAnon is erators blocked 182 public communities only a minimal impact on military read-
about Adolf Hitler. cannon fodder,” said Marc-André to a post featuring anti-Semitic senti- basically related to the US from disseminating iness and healthcare costs.
In other channels, members Argentino, a doctoral candidate at Con- ments. “Patriot here. WWII veterans calls for violence which could have oth- Palm Center, an independent insti-
post guides on how to engage with cordia University. daughter. Patriots SAVED THE JEWISH predicated erwise reached tens of thousands of sub- tute that researches sexual minorities in
Trump supporters. “Now the glo- But following the violence of the PEOPLE. AND NO ONE SHOULD FOR- on hating scribers,” it said, adding that the app the military, estimated in 2018 there
balists have delivered the Trump- Capitol Hill riots, white nationalists GET THAT.” works with anti-terrorist initiatives. were 14,700 transgender US military
sters into our hands here at Tele- have recognised the potential useful- Even so, as Mr Rains pointed out, people — Whether or not white nationalists service members, before Mr Trump
gram by the millions, we can use this ness of QAnon supporters, experts many of the underlying elements of radicalising succeed in drawing QAnon supporters took steps to ban them.
opportunity to accelerate HATE,” said. The continued belief that the QAnon are anti-Semitic. “Everything further to the right, experts warn that The institute argued last year that the
said one, encouraging users to begin election was stolen from them about the Illuminati and the New World further into January 6 has caught the imagination of ban had harmed military readiness
with relatively be­nign topics such as leaves them vulnerable to influ- Order, you can trace it all back to the that belief extremists. “There’s been the realisa- because it adversely affected recruit-
electoral fraud. ence by anti-democratic forces. Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” he said. tion that if this mob are able to do that ment, unit cohesion, morale and disci-
The grab for potential followers by the “A lot of [QAnon-type people] “QAnon is basically predicated on hat- system amount of damage, what can people pline. It also found the Pentagon spent a
extreme right comes as the QAnon have reached the ‘there is no ing people — radicalising further into really isn’t a who are waiting for a real chance at a tiny proportion of its heathcare budget
movement has been left rudderless by political solution’ endgame,” said that belief system really isn’t a stretch.” civil war do?” said Mr Argentino. on gender transition for the few years it
Mr Trump’s exit from the White House; Ms Squire. “January 6 was the A more pressing issue for rightwing stretch’ See Notebook and Opinion was legal.

Corruption allegations Legal action

MAKE A SMART INVESTMENT
Subscribe to the FT today at FT.com/subscription Trump’s Treasury eased Dominion accuses Giuliani of
FRIDAY 31 MARCH 2017 WORLD BUSINESS NEWSPAPER UK £2.70 Channel Islands £3.00; Republic of Ireland €3.00
sanctions on mining tycoon spreading poll fraud ‘Big Lie’
Trump vs the Valley A Five Star plan? Dear Don...
Tech titans need to minimise Italy’s populists are trying to woo May’s first stab at the break-up
political risk — GILLIAN TETT, PAGE 13 the poor — BIG READ, PAGE 11 letter — ROBERT SHRIMSLEY, PAGE 12

HMRC warns 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
SATURDAY 1 APRIL / SUNDAY 2 APRIL 2017

customs risks THE END

i US bargain-hunters fuel Europe M&A
Europe has become the big target for cross-border

of his sanctioned entities for at least the ing that Dominion had stolen their votes
dealmaking, as US companies ride a Trump-fuelled HOW DRIVERLESS

being swamped
equity market rally to hunt for bargains across the

OF THE
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
TECHNOLOGY IS
CHANGING AN
Tom Wilson and Neil Hume — London James Politi and Kiran Stacey
ROAD
more austerity has said patients will wait longer for
non-urgent operations and for A&E treatment while AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE
by Brexit surge
some surgical procedures will be scrapped.— PAGE 4 Censors and sensitivity
James Politi — Washington Washington
next 12 months. and fixed the election,” the lawsuit said.
i Emerging nations in record debt sales Warning: this article may be
FT WEEKEND MAGAZINE
FEBRUARY 4 2017

Developing countries have sold record levels of

government debt in the first quarter of this year,
upsetting — LIFE & ARTS
taking advantage of a surge in optimism toward
emerging markets as trade booms.— PAGE 15

3 Confidence in IT plans ‘has collapsed’

Credit Suisse Art of persuasion Mystery deepens
i London tower plans break records
How To Spend It
The reversal was met with criticism John Poulos, Dominion’s chief execu-
A survey has revealed that a
3 Fivefold rise in declarations expected record 455 tall buildings are
planned or under construction over disputed painting of Jane Austen

Donald Trump’s Treasury department Dominion Voting Systems has filed a

JAMES BLITZ — WHITEHALL EDITOR adjust its negotiation position with the in London. Work began on

A computer system acquired to collect
duties and clear imports into the UK
may not be able to handle the huge
surge in workload expected once Britain
engulfed in
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
press for certain options in Brussels.” The US secretary of state has failed to reconcile

fresh tax probe

from anti-corruption groups who called tive, alleged Mr Giuliani had “inces-
leaves the EU, customs authorities have In a letter to Andrew Tyrie, chairman tensions after talks in Ankara with President Recep
admitted to MPs.
HM Revenue & Customs told a parlia-
of the Commons treasury select com-
mittee, HMRC said the timetable for
Tayyip Erdogan on issues including Syria and the
extradition of cleric Fethullah Gulen.— PAGE 9
Chic new lodgings

eased US sanctions on Israeli billion- defamation lawsuit against Rudy

mentary inquiry that the new system
needed urgent action to be ready by
March 2019, when Brexit is due to be
completed, and the chair of the probe
said confidence it would be operational
in time “has collapsed”.
delivering CDS was “challenging but
achievable”. But, it added, CDS was “a i Toshiba investors doubt revival plan
in Scotland
complex programme” that needed to be In a stormy three-hour meeting, investors accused MAGAZINE
linked to dozens of other computer sys- managers ofhaving an entrenched secrecy culture
tems to work properly. In November, 3 UK, France and Netherlands swoop
and cast doubt on a revival plan after Westinghouse
HMRC assigned a “green traffic light” to filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.— PAGE 16
3 Blow for bid to clean up Swiss image

Setting up a digital customs system
has been at the heart of Whitehall’s
Brexit planning because of the fivefold
on the administration of President Joe santly repeated the false claims about
CDS, indicating it would be delivered on
time. But last month, it wrote to the i HSBC woos transgender customers
committee saying the programme had TheRALPH
bank has unveiled a range of gender-neutral it followed “a strategy offull client tax

aire Dan Gertler five days before the Giuliani, Donald Trump’s lawyer and
ATKINS — ZURICH
increase in declarations expected at been relegated to “amber/red,” which DUNCAN
titles such asROBINSON — BRUSSELS
“Mx”, in addition to Mr, Mrs, Misscompliance”
or but was still trying to
British ports when the UK leaves the EU. means there are “major risks or issues Ms, in a move to embrace diversity and cater togather the information about the probes.

FINANCIAL TIMES
About 53 per cent of British imports
come from the EU, and do not require
checks because they arrive through the
single market and customs union. But
apparent in a number ofkey areas”. Credit
needs Suisse hascustomers.
of transgender been targeted by
— PAGE 20 HM Revenue & Customs said it had
HMRC said last night: “[CDS] is on sweeping tax investigations in the UK, launched a criminal investigation into
track to be delivered by January 2019, France and the Netherlands, setting suspected tax evasion and money laun-
and it will be able to support frictionless back Switzerland’s attempts to clean up dering by “a global financial institution
Datawatch

Biden to undo it. “For a sanctions desig- Dominion voting systems on a range of
Theresa May announced in January that international trade once the UK leaves its image as a tax haven. and certain ofits employees”. The UK
Brexit would include departure from the EU . . . Internal ratings are designed
Terror attacks inwith
co-operating western Europe after
authorities
Japan: Nikkei Tokyo Newspaper Printing Center, Inc.,
The Swiss bank said yesterday it was tax authority added: “The international
reach
itsattacks — of this investigation sends a clear The lure of the exotic

both trading blocs. HMRC handles 60m
declarations a year but, once outside the
customs union, the number is expected
to hit 300m.
The revelations about the system,
former president left office, quietly former New York City mayor, seeking
to make sure that each project gets the Recent
focus and resource it requires for suc- offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam notably the message
2011 that there is no hiding place for
cessful delivery.” were contacted
Highlighted attack byOthers massacre bythose seeking to evade tax.”
local officials Robin Lane Fox on the flair
“concerning client tax matters”. Anders BreivikDutch in prosecutors, who initiated the
HMRC’s letters to the select commit-
tee, which will be published today, pro- AFP Norway, the
Dutch authorities said their counter- action, said they seized jewellery, paint- of foreign flora — HOUSE & HOME
parts in Germany wereBrussels attacks in Paris
also involved, ings and gold ingots as part of their

18th Floor, Nan Fung Tower

called Customs Declaration Service, are vide no explanation for the rating Lloyd’s of London chose Brus- insurers to follow. Most of the EU, with Dublin and Luxem-

1-10-5, Shinonome, Koto-Ku, Tokyo 135-0062

likely to throw a sharper spotlight on
while Australia’s revenue department and Nice, and the while French officials said their
probe;
change, but some MPs believe it was sels over “five or six” other business written in Brussels bourg thought to be more likely Norway Brussels suicide
said it was investigating a Swiss
Nice bank. investigation had revealed “several

nation . . . to have been privately media platforms”.

whether Whitehall can implement a caused by Mrs May’s unexpected deci- cities in its decision to set up an will be reinsured back to the homes for the industry. But Paris bombings — have
host of regulatory regimes — in areas sion to leave the EU customs union. EU base to help deal with the syndicates at its City of London Mr Nelson said the city won on The inquiries threaten to undermine thousand” bank accounts opened in
bucked the trend
efforts by the country’s banking sector Switzerland and not declared to French

ranging from customs and immigration
to agriculture and fisheries — by the
time Britain leaves the EU.
Timetable & Great Repeal Bill page 2
Scheme to import EU laws page 3
Editorial Comment & Notebook page 12
expected loss of passporting
rights after Brexit.
John Nelson, chairman of the
headquarters, pictured above.
The Belgian capital had not
been seen as the first choice for
issuing a licence that temporarily lifts $1.3bn for his alleged role in perpetuat-
its transport links, talent pool of generally low
and “extremely good regula- to overhaul business models and ensure tax authorities.
fatalities from
tory reputation”. customers meet international tax The Swiss attorney-general’s office
Sources: Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre terror incidents in
requirements following a US-led clamp- said it was “astonished at the way this

Central, Hong Kong Problems with CDS and other projects Philip Stephens & Chris Giles page 13 centuries-old insurance mar- London’s specialist insurance Lex page 14 western Europe
essential to Brexit could force London to JPMorgan eye options page 18 ket, said he expected other groups after the UK leaves the Insurers set to follow page 18
billions of dollars in fines.

Representative; Hiroko Hoshino; ISSN 0915-9460

down on evaders, which resulted in operation has been organised with the
deliberate exclusion of Switzerland”. It
The probes risk sparking an interna- demanded a written explanation from
tional dispute after the Swiss attorney- Dutch authorities.

City watchdog sends a clear message as

undercut under a cloud of haste and Mr Giuliani could not be reached for
general’s office expressed “astonish- In 2014, Credit Suisse pleaded guilty
ment” that it had been left out of the in the US to an “extensive and wide-
THE RISE OF ECO-GLAM

restrictions on the mining tycoon for ing the “Big Lie” about fraud in the
actions co-ordinated by Eurojust, the ranging conspiracy” to help clients
Escape the taper trap
banker loses job over WhatsApp boast
EU’s judicial liaison body.
Credit Suisse, whose shares fell 1.2 per

South Korea: Maeil Business Newspaper, 30-1, 1-Ga,

evade tax. It agreed to fines of $2.6bn.
Additional reporting by Laura Noonan in
cent yesterday, identified itself as the Dublin, Caroline Binham and Vanessa
subject ofinvestigations in the Nether-
lands, France and the UK. The bank said in Paris
Houlder in London, and Michael Stothard
Austen’s descendants insist the Rice portrait depicts her as a girl — see magazine Bridgeman Art Library
How high earners can evade
a pension headache — FT MONEY

secrecy at the very end of the Trump comment by phone and did not imme-
LAURA NOONAN — DUBLIN Berrys after discussions with regulators. media at work, but banks are unable to

Subscriptions and
JENNIFER THOMPSON — LONDON

Pil-Dong, Jung-Ku,
stance on Brexit Seoul, 100-728
Christopher Niehaus, a former Jeffer- ban people from installing apps on their

alleged corruption in the Democratic 2020 election.

A boastful WhatsApp message has cost
a London investment banker his job
and a £37,000 fine in the first case of
Shutdown risk as border
regulators cracking down on commu-
ies banker, passed confidential client
information to a “personal acquaint-
ance and a friend” using WhatsApp,
according to the FCA. The regulator said
private phones.
Brussels takes tough
Andrew Bodnar, a barrister at Matrix
Chambers, said the case set “a precedent
in that it shows the FCA sees these mes-
with Spain handed veto over Gibraltar
390_Cover_PRESS.indd 1 19/01/2017 13:57

wall bid goes over the top nications over Facebook’s popular Mr Niehaus had turned over his device saging apps as the same as everything
chat app. to his employer voluntarily. else”.

Customer Service Congressional Republicans seeking to The FCA said Mr Niehaus had shared Information shared by Mr Niehaus

Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings Ltd, 2 Jurong

administration strikes a terrible blow to diately respond to a request for com-
avert a US government shutdown after The fine by the Financial Conduct confidential information on the messag- included the identity and details of a
April 28 have resisted Donald Trump’s Authority highlights the increasing ing system “on a number of occasions” client and information about a rival of ALEX BARKER — BRUSSELS ambitious trade and airline access deals. mise. If Britain wants to prolong its

attempt to tack funds to pay for a wall
on the US-Mexico border on to
stopgap spending plans. They fear
that his planned $33bn increase in
problem new media pose for companies
that need to monitor and archive their
staff’s communication.
Several large investment banks have
last year to “impress” people.
Several banks have banned the use of
new media from work-issued devices,
but the situation has become trickier as
Republic of Congo.
Jefferies. In one instance the banker GEORGE PARKER — LONDON Gibraltar yesterday hit back at the status within the single market after
boasted how he might be able to pay off STEFAN WAGSTYL — BERLIN clause, saying the territory had “shame- Brexit, the guidelines state it would
his mortgage if a deal was successful. The EU yesterday took a tough opening fully been singled out for unfavourable require “existing regulatory, budgetary,
Mr Niehaus was suspended from Jef- stance in Brexit negotiations, rejecting treatment by the council at the behest of supervisory and enforcement instru-

Tel: (852) 5803 3388, subseasia@ft.com

defence and border spending could
force a federal shutdown for the first
time since 2013, as Democrats refuse
banned employees from sending client
information over messaging services
including WhatsApp, which uses an
banks move towards a “bring your own
device” policy. Goldman Sachs has
clamped down on its staff’s phone bills
feries and resigned before the comple-
tion of a disciplinary process.
Jefferies declined to comment while
Living wage rise to pile
pressure on care services
Port Road, 619088
Britain’s plea for early trade talks and
explicitly giving Spain a veto over any
arrangements that apply to Gibraltar.
Spain”. Madrid defended the draft
clause, pointing out that it only reflected
“the traditional Spanish position”.
ments and structures to apply”.
Mr Tusk wants talks on future trade
to begin only once “sufficient progress”

to accept the proposals. encryption system that cannot be
US budget Q&A and accessed without permission from the
Trump attack over health bill i PAGE 8 user. Deutsche Bank last year banned
WhatsApp from work-issued Black-
as iPhone-loving staff spurn their work-
issued BlackBerrys.
Bankers at two institutions said staff
are typically trained in how to use new
the heart of one of the most lauded and The legal claim against Mr Giuliani is ment sent to his consulting firm.
Facebook did not respond to a request Senior EU diplomats noted that has been made on Britain’s exit bill and
for comment. About 2.3m people will benefit from European Council president Donald Mr Tusk’s text left room for negotiators citizen rights, which Whitehall officials
Additional reporting by Chloe Cornish today’s increase in the national living Tusk’s first draft of the guidelines, to work with in coming months. Prime believe means simultaneous talks are
Lombard page 20 wage to £7.50 per hour. But the rise which are an important milestone on minister Theresa May’s allies insisted possible if certain conditions are met.

Subscribe In print and online World Markets

will pile pressure on English councils,
which will have to pay care workers a
lot more. Some 43 per cent of care
staff — amounting to 341,000 people
aged 25 and over — earn less than the
Representative, Anjali Mahindroo
the road to Brexit, sought to damp Brit-
ain’s expectations by setting out a
“phased approach” to the divorce proc-
ess that prioritises progress on with-
drawal terms.
that the EU negotiating stance was
largely “constructive”, with one saying it
was “within the parameters of what we
were expecting, perhaps more on the
upside”.
Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary,
reassured European colleagues at a
Nato summit in Brussels that Mrs May
had not intended to “threaten” the EU
when she linked security co-operation

The decision followed an appeal by lob- effective anti-corruption programmes part of a broader effort by the voting In the final months of his presidency,
www.ft.com/subscribenow new living wage and the increase is The decision to add the clause giving British officials admitted that the EU’s after Brexit with a trade deal.
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Letters to the editor in any manner is not permitted without the ties to Mr Trump. group The Sentry. from Mr Trump and his allies, which election as he sought to cling to his
letters.editor@ft.com publisher’s prior consent. ‘Financial Times’ and Mr Gertler was sanctioned by the A spokesman for Mr Gertler, who have turned it into a target for criticism office, culminating in the deadly assault
‘FT’ are registered trade marks of The Financial
Published by Times Limited.
Trump administration in December denies any wrongdoing, said he was among the ex-president’s supporters. by his supporters on the US Capitol.
The Financial Times (HK) Limited, 2017 under the Global Magnitsky grateful to the Treasury department for The lawsuit was filed yesterday in fed- “Dominion has been unfairly sub-
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Asia Editor: Jamil Anderlini of Practice: www.ft.com/editorialcode
which froze any US assets he held and forward “to demonstrating that all of his following a similar claim lodged by trust of tens of millions of American vot-
prohibited him from dealing in US dol- activities fully comply with the letter Dominion against Sidney Powell, the ers, and the elected officials who are
Printed by Reprints are available of any FT article with your lars or with any American entity. and the spirit of the OFAC License and lawyer who brought post-election litiga- Dominion’s actual and potential cus-
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Place, Marrickville, NSW 2204 (minimum order 100 copies). One-off copyright
Hong Kong: Kin Ming Printing Co Ltd, licences for reproduction of FT articles are also 15, those restrictions have been eased The Treasury department under Mr “[Mr Giuliani] and his allies manufac- and calls from their constituents
15/F BLK A, 18 Ka Yip Street, Ming Pao Industrial available. until the end of January 2022, authoris- Biden said it was “aware of the action” tured and disseminated the ‘Big Lie’ demanding that they avoid contracting
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ISSN 1025-918X or alternatively, email syndication@ft.com
and transact with Mr Gertler and dozens comment further. deceived millions of people into believ- machines,” it wrote in the lawsuit.
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 3

INTERNATIONAL

Navalny supporters bring spirit

Russia protests

of Minsk to the heart of Moscow
Kremlin resorts to level of force against Putin opponents that it feared would backfire in Belarus
Max Seddon and Henry Foy
Moscow
A casual observer on Moscow’s Pushkin
Square on Saturday could have been for-
given for mistaking the scene for events
that have wracked neighbouring Bela-
rus for the past five months.
One protester held a white and red
flag, the symbol of protest against Alex-
ander Lukashenko, the Belarusian
strongman. Others chanted “Long live
Belarus!” as cars honked in support and
blared “Changes”, a Soviet dissident
rock anthem adopted by protesters
there. Baton-wielding riot police in bala-
clavas and body armour beat people in
videos that circulated widely on Twitter
and Telegram.
If the protest, which attracted about
40,000 people in Moscow and thou-
sands more in 110 other cities, had more
than a whiff of Minsk to it, the outburst
of anti-government sentiment a short
walk from the Kremlin has put Russia in
a similar bind to Mr Lukashenko.
As protests surged, Mr Lukashenko
asked Russia to send riot police, warn-
ing “if Belarus falls, Russia will be next”.
Wary of antagonising Belarusians
against Moscow, Vladimir Putin, Rus-
sia’s president, declined the request.
But after the arrest of Alexei Navalny,
the opposition activist, prompted the
largest anti-Putin rallies in years, the
Kremlin’s own heavy-handed crack-
down risks misjudging public sentiment
and legitimising a national movement
against it much as Mr Lukashenko’s did,
analysts say.
Police arrested 3,711 people on Satur-
day, according to OVD-Info, the inde-
pendent monitor, a record in its decade
of tracking them. The protests were also
the first under Mr Putin’s rule where
Russians fought to break through barri-
cades, freed detainees from custody, or
threw snowballs to drive back police,
which state media claimed led to about
40 officers sustaining injuries.
“Nobody thought this could happen
before, just like in Belarus,” said Andrei
Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carne-
gie Moscow Center. “But the rise in pro-
test activity shows you that a huge
number of people are unhappy with the
government . . . People aren’t coming
out for Navalny so much as they are
because they’re tired of corruption and
bad governance.”
Mr Navalny, an anti-corruption activ-
ist, was jailed this week upon returning
from Germany where he had been
recovering from a nerve agent poisoning
he said was ordered by the Kremlin. He
faces up to 13 and a half years in prison
on two charges he claims are retribution
for his activism.
The day after his arrest, Mr Navalny,
44, released a two-hour video investiga-
tion claiming oligarchs had spent bil-
lions on a lavish palace for Mr Putin, 68,
on the Black Sea. The video racked up
78m views on YouTube by Sunday and
clearly inspired some of the protesters.
Some waved toilet brushes in refer-
ence to expensive home goods allegedly
procured for the palace, while others
Crowd control: chanted “Aqua disco!” in reference to a
law enforcement fountain outlined in the floor plans Mr
officers clash Navalny published.
with marchers Mr Navalny’s supporters are calling
on Saturday in for rallies next weekend in the hope
in Moscow, they can seize the initiative. “We know
where many what we need to do, we know what we
young people want and we believe that we can get him
were arrested out,” said Leonid Volkov, who runs Mr
Maxim Shemetov/Reuters;
Alexander Zemlianichenko/
Navalny’s regional network from self-
AP exile in Vilnius, Lithuania.
“Obviously, Alexei’s return has forced
Putin into a very unpleasant choice.
Either he arrests him, which is a bad
option, or he doesn’t, which is just as
bad an option.”
The Kremlin denies any involvement
in Mr Navalny’s poisoning and says Mr
Putin has no connection to the palace. It
has also sought to play down the pro-
tests as the work of an aggrieved minor-
ity. “Many are going to say that lots of
people came to the illegal protests. No,
only a few came out, but lots of people
vote for Putin,” Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin
press secretary, told state TV on Sunday.
Anecdotal data from Saturday, how-
ever, suggest the dynamic may be
changing. Alexei Zakharov, who led vol-
unteers from a monitoring group in con-
ducting 359 interviews in Moscow, said
42 per cent of those who attended had
never attended a protest before, while
nearly half of them were women.
“One issue in common [with Bela-
rus] is you’re seeing young people out
there on the streets and that is lending a
surge of energy and enthusiasm,” said
Philip Worman, managing director of
GPW, a political risk firm. “You have
young people who don’t care any more,
and that is slowly eroding away the col-
lective national willingness for status
quo, nostalgia and stability.”
Mr Navalny’s allies hope the public
show of support will convince the Krem-
lin to release him. In 2013, Mr Navalny
was sentenced to five-and-a-half
years in jail on fraud charges, but after
an impromptu rally of up to 7,000 peo-
ple outside the Kremlin a higher court
‘The rise suspended his sentence the next day.
More recently, unauthorised protests
in protest in Moscow in 2019 helped secure a rare
activity about-face for Ivan Golunov, an investi-
gative journalist arrested on drug
shows you charges the police later admitted were
that a huge fabricated.
The Kremlin, however, appears more
number of resolved this time to remove Mr Nav-
people are alny from the political playing field.
State television said protesters had com-
unhappy’ mitted “atrocities” against police and
claimed they were using “Maidan tech-
nologies” developed by US intelligence
‘Only a few during protests in former Soviet states.
That mirrors claims by Mr Lukash-
came out, enko, who has accused foreign powers of
but lots of using Belarusian protesters as “cannon
fodder” against his regime.
people vote “Given the example of the political
for Putin’ techniques tested in Belarus and Kyr-
gyzstan, we cannot rule out the possibil-
ity of similar destabilisation in our
country,” Alexander Gorovoi, Russia’s
first deputy interior minster, said on
Thursday, ahead of the protests.
Mr Kolesnikov, however, said the
Kremlin’s mistake was to “underesti-
mate Navalny’s level of support”.
“When people saw what was happen-
ing to Mr Navalny live on TV, and then
the film [about the palace], it provided a
strong emotional impulse for them to
take to the streets,” he added.
Gideon Rachman see Opinion
President
denies
ownership
of Black
Sea palace
Max Seddon — Moscow
Russian president Vladimir Putin has
denied claims about a lavish palace
allegedly built for him on the Black Sea,
as the Kremlin scrambles to res­pond to
a wave of anger fuelled by jailed opposi-
tion activist Alexei Navalny.
The president made the remarks in a
question-and-answer session with stu-
dents yesterday, two days after Mr Nav-
alny used a video linking him to the
property to drive turnout at the largest
protests against his leadership in years.
The denial came as Josep Borrell, EU
foreign policy chief, vowed to call for Mr
Navalny’s release during a trip to Russia
he is planning despite opposition from
some members, said bloc diplomats. EU
foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday
also held back from pushing for more
sanctions against Moscow over the Nav-
alny case, further underscoring the
bloc’s internal divisions over policy.
Mr Navalny, an anti-corruption activ-
ist, released the film a day after he was
jailed last week, using construction
plans and financial documents to allege
oligarchs had spent billions on the pal-
ace near Gelendzhik, complete with a
casino, wine cellar, what appeared to be
a strip club, and an “aqua disco”.
The video has had 86m YouTube
views since its release and was a trigger
for the protests on Saturday, as tens of
thousands of Russians called for Mr
Navalny’s release. Leonid Volkov, who
runs his regional network, said they
would hold similar protests on Sunday.
Mr Putin said “nothing listed there
has ever belonged to me or my close rel-
atives” but did not address most of Mr
Navalny’s main claims, which included
accusations that the palace is held via a
complex beneficial ownership structure
managed by close Putin associates and
guarded by presidential security.
“This is just a convenient moment to
cobble together all these materials to
brainwash our citizens and put it
online,” Mr Putin said.
“The very fact that Putin commented
on Navalny’s film is indirect acknowl-
edgment that popular anger is justified,”
Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of R Politik,
the political consulting firm, wrote on
the Telegram messaging app.
Officials have accused Mr Navalny of
using children as “human shields”, but
an informal survey of the Moscow rally
found that only 10 per cent were under
18. Mr Putin said: “You can’t push
underage people to the forefront. That’s
what terrorists do when they shove
women and children in front of them.”
Investigators have filed several crimi-
nal charges over the protests after police
detained a record 3,711 people, 195 of
them under 18, said OVD-Info, the inde-
pendent monitor.
Dmitry Kiselyov, head of Russia’s
main state news agency, said Mr Nav-
alny and his allies were “political paedo-
philes” who tricked young people into
“provoking violence”.
Additional reporting by Michael Peel in
Brussels

Reform programme Profile. Isabel Schnabel

Schäuble issues EU recovery fund warning ECB policymaker placates hawks

Guy Chazan — Berlin
Europe risks failing in its mission to
boost its growth prospects via the
€750bn coronavirus recovery fund,
Germany’s former finance minister has
warned, as he questioned whether
member states had the capacity to
implement tough economic reforms.
“There is a lack of real progress, a lack of
efficiency in the execution of [reform
programmes] in the member states,”
Wolfgang Schäuble told the Financial
Times. “These difficulties worry me.”
Mr Schäuble, who is president of the
Bundestag, said the EU had spent too
much time arguing about the size of the
fund and how the money should be dis-
tributed, and not enough “thinking
about what to spend it on”.
“We should long ago have defined
what areas the member states should be
investing these funds in: artificial intel-
ligence, digitisation, policies for tackling
climate change,” he said. “I hope we can
do this more quickly.”
His remarks chime with those of
other European officials who worry that
member states are dragging their feet
over submitting detailed proposals for
how they intend to spend the money
from the fund.
While German finance minister,
between 2009 and 2017, Mr Schäuble
came to symbolise the fiscally hawkish
policies pursued by the eurozone in the
aftermath of the global financial and
sovereign debt crises. He was in favour
of suspending Greece from the single
currency in 2015.
But since the pandemic broke out, he
has jettisoned his more conservative
views on fiscal policy and embraced the
extraordinary efforts taken by the EU to
rescue the bloc from economic collapse.
The centrepiece of those efforts is the
recovery fund, under which the Euro-
pean Commission will issue unprece-
dented levels of debt and distribute it in
the form of €390bn in grants to member
states. Mr Schäuble said that it was the
‘We should long ago have
defined what areas the
member states should be
investing these funds in’
“right response” to the corona crisis.
But the commission has tied the
release of recovery fund cash to eco-
nomic reforms designed to deliver last-
ing improvements to the growth pros-
pects of recipient countries, and, in par-
ticular, to boost innovation, digitisation
and facilitate the shift to a green econ-
omy.
EU countries have been asked to sub-
mit detailed reform plans to Brussels by
April, setting out how they plan to use
the fund’s loans and grants. The com-
mission will then scrutinise the reforms
with the aim of beginning disburse-
ments from the second half of 2021.
Valdis Dombrovskis, commission
vice-president, said last week that dis-
bursements would be subject to the
achievement of “specific and measura-
ble milestones” and that there remained
“a lot of work ahead”. Some member
states, he said, needed to be more pre-
cise in setting out exactly what events
would trigger payments.
Mr Schäuble said he was concerned
about how money from the recovery
fund would be spent, adding that the
commission had only “limited compe-
tence” to check how member states
invested their allocation. “But when you
ask what’s actually happening with the
money, it can even lead to government
crises, as we’re seeing in Italy.”
Earlier this month, Matteo Renzi’s
Italia Viva party withdrew from the Ital-
ian coalition government of Giuseppe
Conte after complaining that it was bun-
gling plans to spend the almost €200bn
that Italy is due to receive from the
recovery fund. Mr Schäuble said he was
worried the programmes presented by
individual countries would not be ambi-
tious enough.
But it is not just southern European
countries that have been criticised for
the reform plans they have submitted to
Brussels. According to officials in Berlin,
the commission is also dissatisfied with
Germany’s own initial proposals, and, in
particular, the lack of enthusiasm it has
shown for reforming its pension system.
German turns out to be vital
colleague for Lagarde as she
searches for council consensus
Martin Arnold — Frankfurt
The European Central Bank’s newest
German policymaker is emerging as a
crucial intermediary between its more
conservative council members and
president Christine Lagarde, who has
vowed to seek consensus over its multi-
trillion-euro stimulus programme.
Isabel Schnabel, a former economics
professor at the University of Bonn who
became one of the ECB’s six executive
board members a year ago, played a piv-
otal role in last month’s compromise
that led to the expansion of its main
stimulus programme, according to sev-
eral members of its governing council.
The agreement was secured by pre-
senting the ECB’s increased €1.85tn
emergency bond-buying programme as
a ceiling rather than a target; in public
statements the central bank has empha-
sised that it might not use the full
amount, but it could also raise it further,
depending on whether it judges financ-
ing conditions to be favourable.
The finely balanced proposal helped
to win widespread support on the ECB’s
25-person governing council, which sets
monetary policy, despite its more con-
servative members having long been
uncomfortable with bond purchases as
a stimulus tool. One council member
said Ms Schnabel had spoken to several
of the “hawks” to persuade them of the
advantages in the new approach.
“She was an important player —
someone who is very articulate and very
constructive,” said another council
member. “The fact she is German
means her views are often seen in that
light, but I don’t find her that rigid.”
Criticism of the ECB has often been
Isabel Schnabel
will play an
important role in
implementing the
new bond-buying
approach
fiercest in Germany, where it is often
accused of bailing out profligate south-
ern European countries at the expense
of prudent savers in the north, a view
echoed in a ruling by the country’s con-
stitutional court ruling last year.
Ms Schnabel has explained the bene-
fits of ECB policies to fellow Germans.
As head of its market operations, she
will also have a key role in implement-
ing the new bond-buying approach.
Any sign she is reining in the ECB’s
main stimulus tool to avoid spending
the full €1.85tn might please hawks but
it would also threaten to trigger market
jitters, as happened last week when Ital-
ian government bond prices dipped to
their lowest level since November.
Her work on drumming up the hawks’
support marks her out as a vital ally for
Ms Lagarde in what many economists
expect to be an increasingly difficult
struggle to preserve unity on the coun-
cil. Unlike her predecessor, Mario
Draghi, whose final easing measures in
2019 were marred by criticism from
several council members, Ms Lagarde
has a more collegial approach.
This month, she said she was keen to
preserve a consensus in the council over
its strategic review, which is tackling
potentially divisive issues such as the
inflation target and climate change, and
is due to conclude in September.
Economists predict this unity will
become harder to maintain once vacci-
nations control the pandemic and the
eurozone economy starts to recover,
helping to push inflation towards the
ECB’s target of just below 2 per cent.
Katharina Utermöhl, an economist at
German insurer Allianz, said that after
five consecutive months of negative
inflation, the ECB was still in a “sweet
spot”, able to cite the risk of deflation to
justify its vast stimulus measures. But
once demand bounced back and prices
rose, that could become harder, espe-
cially if a two-speed recovery saw coun-
tries such as Germany rebound while
others such as Italy and Spain struggled.
4 ★
Pharmaceutical research
Merck abandons Covid-19 vaccine trials
US company switches
focus to developing drugs
to treat coronavirus
Hannah Kuchler and Leila Abboud
Merck, one of the world’s leading vac-
cine makers, is ending its Covid-19 vac-
cine development after its two candi-
dates failed to elicit immune responses
as strong as those created by shots that
are already available.
The US pharmaceutical company also
said yesterday that its phase 1 trials
showed participants’ response was not
as robust as the immune response seen
in recovered Covid-19 patients. There
Dress rehearsal
Paris fashion
goes online
Seamstresses work on a couture
garment at Christian Dior’s workshop
in Paris in preparation for the French
capital’s fashion week, which is being
held online this year due to the
coronavirus pandemic
One of the high points of the yearly
fashion calendar, the latest edition of
Paris Fashion Week, which started
yesterday, was held without crowds as
brands replaced the runway
with online projections.
Reuters, Paris
Stephane de Sakutin/AFP
Millions of Iranians slide into extreme poverty
Devastating effect of pandemic
and US sanctions threaten
political unrest in republic
Najmeh Bozorgmehr — Tehran
This time last year, Mohammad could
still just about afford fruit and chicken
for his three children.
But as US sanctions and the pandemic
have devastated Iran’s economy and
spurred inflation, almost tripling the
price of fresh fruit, the unemployed 47-
year-old and his family survive on
bread, potatoes and eggs and only then
because he has received state “bonus­-
es”, sold some home appliances and
dipped into his savings.
“I receive about 9m rials ($38) in
monthly financial help from the govern-
ment and spend around the same
amount from my own money [and we
still] live like war refugees,” said
Mohammad, a polio survivor who
stopped selling cigarettes three years
ago because of his disability.
Millions have been pushed into
extreme poverty over the past year, add-
Pandemic Scientific estimates vary widely on risk from deadlier strain sweeping UK
Clive Cookson — LONDON
Amid good news for the UK about Cov-
id-19 vaccination rates increasing and
infections falling, prime minister Boris
Johnson shocked the country on Friday
by saying the more contagious new vari-
ant of coronavirus was more lethal.
After scientists first recognised in
mid-December that variant B.1.1.7 was
outpacing previous versions of the virus
with its rapid spread from south-east
England and across the UK, they had
said it was about 50 per cent more trans-
missible but seemed not to cause more
severe symptoms.
The variant is drawing global atten-
tion and has been detected in other
parts of the world, such as Canada,
Israel and Norway. In the US, the Cent-
ers for Disease Control and Prevention is
predicting that B.1.1.7 will become the
country’s dominant strain.
Is the new variant more lethal?
The UK government’s New and Emerg-
ing Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory
Group (Nervtag) considered studies
from three university teams and Public
were no significant safety issues. Dean
Li, president of Merck research labora-
tories, said the company remained “res-
olute in our commitment to contribute
to the global effort to relieve the burden
of this pandemic on patients, healthcare
systems and communities”.
Merck was slow to announce its entry
into the race for a Covid-19 vaccine,
despite previous successes in vaccines.
Instead, two of the first available shots
have been developed by companies that
previously had no vaccine products on
the market: BioNTech and Moderna.
Before Covid-19, Merck had devel-
oped a mumps vaccine in what was then
a record-breaking four years, created
the first Ebola vaccine approved by a US
Middle East. Hardship
ing to pressure on the regime in an elec-
tion year to resume talks on the nuclear
deal with new US president Joe Biden.
The Islamic republic boasts that the
economy has survived in the face of US
sanctions and the pandemic, in part
because of non-oil exports such as pet-
rochemicals and steel, bartering and the
sale of small amounts of crude to China.
But many Iranians are much poorer
than they were when Donald Trump
pulled the US out of the nuclear accord it
had signed with major powers.
“More than 60 per cent of Iranian
society live in relative poverty because
the workers’ wages are enough for about
a third of their costs of living,” said Fara-
marz Tofighi, head of the wages com-
mittee of the Islamic Labour Council, an
industrial relations group. “Half of those
who live below the poverty line struggle
with extreme poverty.”
Saeed Laylaz, a reform-minded econ-
omist, confirmed the figures cited by Mr
Tofighi and said the number of those
who struggled with extreme poverty
had increased fivefold in the three years
since the US quit the deal and reimposed
sanctions. There are no official govern-
ment figures available on poverty and
Health England, comparing death rates
between people known to have been
infected with B.1.1.7 and those with
older forms of coronavirus. They cor-
rected as far as possible for other factors
that might affect mortality, such as age,
location and ethnicity.
All of the studies found some increase
in lethality, though uncertainties about
the data resulted in a range of estimates.
Bringing their results together, Nervtag
scientists produced a model showing
someone infected with B.1.1.7 was 30 to
40 per cent more likely to die than
someone with a different variant.
Patrick Vallance, the government’s
chief scientist, quoted this estimate on
Friday. “I want to stress that there is a lot
of uncertainty around these numbers,”
he said, “but it obviously is a concern
that this has an increase in mortality.”
Most scientists who have commented
on Nervtag’s assessment believe the evi-
dence justifies the overall conclusion of
higher mortality, though the size of the
effect needs to be pinned down. Esti-
mates of the additional risk from B.1.1.7
in the studies considered by Nervtag
ranged from 7 per cent to 271 per cent.
FINANCIAL TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
regulator and launched the first vaccine
designed to prevent cervical cancer.
Merck will focus on developing drugs
to treat Covid-19. The company has a
deal with the US government worth up
to $356m to sell a drug to treat the
inflammatory response for severe Cov-
id-19 patients if it receives emergency
use authorisation.
The second drug is an antiviral in
phase 2/3 clinical trials, being devel-
oped with Ridgeback Bio. It could be
the first oral therapeutic.
Merck’s abandoning of its two experi-
mental vaccines against Covid-19 is also
a blow for France because one of them,
known as V591, was developed initially
by the Institut Pasteur, the country’s top
experts rely on purchasing-power data
to estimate deprivation.
Rising poverty has added to pressure
on the regime to reopen talks with the
US, said Mr Laylaz. “After the pan-
demic, if the Islamic republic cannot
curb poverty, it could face political and
social instability. The government has
‘If we cannot curb the
widening gap between rich
and poor, we shall see an
explosion of resentment
to compensate . . . for the huge pressure
on people over the past three years.”
The official annual inflation rate is
46.2 per cent compared with less than
10 per cent in May 2018 when the US
pulled out of the deal. The price of food
and drink is higher again; the cost of
chicken, rice and eggs has almost dou-
bled over the past year while the prices
for beans and vegetable oil have
increased by about three times. Youth
unemployment is 16.5 per cent and
many have lost their jobs over the past
year because of the pandemic. Many
How will the higher risk of mortality
affect individuals?
The central estimate is B.1.1.7 carries a
30 to 40 per cent higher chance of dying.
The impact of this relative risk on an
individual will depend on his or her
absolute risk — determined by age and
then by underlying health and other fac-
tors. The evidence considered by
Nervtag suggests the variant increases
Emergency: a patient is admitted to the Royal London Hospital — Neil hall/EPA-EFE
biomedical research institution. The
vaccine delivered a weakened form of
the Sars-Cov-2 virus that causes Cov-
id-19, using a measles vaccine as a deliv-
ery mechanism. Scientists had hoped
this would make it easier and cheaper to
manufacture given that many facilities
already exist to make measles vaccines.
The failure of the Pasteur vaccine also
means that France remains without its
own domestic producer, which has
prompted some politicians and public
health experts to lament the weakness
of the country’s pharmaceutical sector
and look with envy at the UK, Germany
and the US. Sanofi, the country’s leading
pharma company and one of the biggest
makers of vaccines globally, was hit with
would have starved were it not for
monthly state payouts to compensate
for the cut in energy subsidies as well as
payments to help ease the impact of the
outbreak, analysts say.
Iran’s smart cash payment system
covers about half of the 83m population
and targets those with no source of
income. The poorest families, with an
average of four members, are entitled to
a minimum of 5.7m rials each month,
enough to afford bread and potatoes.
This has helped make bread “affordable
for many families and helps them not to
starve”, said Mr Laylaz.
Ghodrat, the janitor at a residential
building in affluent northern Tehran
said his monthly wage of 18.5m rials had
risen to 24m rials since March but he
still struggles. He sends almost all his
salary to his wife and two children in
another city. “I have never felt under
such huge financial pressure in my life. I
eat much less these days and rely on
neighbours who sometimes give me
food,” he said. “But I sleep hungry or
only drink water or tea for breakfast.”
In Zahedan, one of the more deprived
regions, the situation is worse, charity
workers say. The charity Abid Vafa-
fatality rates across all age groups.
Sir Patrick took men in their 60s as an
example. The average risk was that
about 10 in every 1,000 would be
expected to die from the infection with
the old virus. With the new variant, 13
or 14 would die. For healthy children
and young adults, who are extremely
unlikely to die from Covid, the addi-
tional lethality of B.1.1.7 would have a
a significant setback in December when
its experimental Covid-19 vaccine,
being developed in partnership with
GlaxoSmithKline, failed in phase 2 trials
because of a dosing error, forcing it to
repeat the study.
The delay means Sanofi is unlikely to
be able to bring a vaccine to market
until the end of this year at the earliest.
Geoffrey Porges, an analyst at SVB
Leerink, said it was not “encouraging”
that two of the four largest vaccine com-
panies, GSK and Merck, were “effec-
tively out of the Covid race”. “This news
makes the results from Johnson & John-
son and Novavax even more impor-
tant,” he added.
Anjana Ahuja see Opinion
manesh supports 370 families, four
times as many as it did last year, partly
because of an exodus of poor from big-
ger, dearer cities. “Families with a cou-
ple of kids live in 12 sq m shelters. Break-
fast has no meaning for them,” he said.
The risk for the regime is that the pov-
erty could have political consequen­ces.
In November 2019, protests by the poor
were suppressed. Hundreds were killed.
“If we cannot curb the widening gap
between rich and poor, we shall see an
explosion of resentment and dep­ressed
feelings in society,” said Mr Tofighi.
While Mohammad has pinned a lot of
hope on Iran-US talks and the lifting of
sanctions, he said corruption and mis-
management were equally big prob-
lems. Leaders had to prioritise the “real
needs” of people such as their dignity
and basic economic issues, he said, over
“fake needs” like regional issues and
forcing women to observe Islamic dress.
“Today, if my father dies, I cannot
afford to travel to his funeral,” he said.
“This approach doesn’t even benefit rul-
ers, as people can be suppressed and
killed today but they will take guns
tomorrow to defend their right to live a
dignified life.”
tiny effect on their absolute risk. Con-
versely it would have a big impact on
people over 80.
It is worth remembering that fatality
rates are considerably lower than they
were in the first UK wave of the pan-
demic in the spring, because health
workers have learnt how best to treat
Covid-19 patients. Even if the new vari-
ant raises the risk of death by 35 per
cent, it would still be lower than for
someone with the original form of the
virus back in March.
How will this affect the NHS?
The increased transmissibility of B.1.1.7
has raised sickness to a level that is
severely affecting hospitals.
Nervtag’s analysis suggests the new
variant did not increase fatality rates
among people who were already in hos-
pital with Covid-19, said Rowland Kao,
professor of epidemiology at the Univer-
sity of Edinburgh. “The increase in
deaths is a result of more individuals
becoming severely infected and hospi-
talised, rather than more hospitalisa-
tions resulting in death,” he said.
“As such, it would appear that the
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Coronavirus
EU presses
AstraZeneca
to abide by
contract on
dose delivery
Michael Peel — Brussels
Anna Gross — London
The European Commission has piled
pressure on AstraZeneca over its
planned cut to first-quarter vaccine
dose deliveries, with emergency talks
between the two sides set for last night.
Stella Kyriakides, EU health commis-
sioner, told member states yesterday
that AstraZeneca’s proposed new sup-
ply schedule was “not acceptable” and
its explanations for the problems had
“not been satisfactory”.
The criticism highlights anger in the
EU over the AstraZeneca supply reduc-
tion announcement on Friday, which
comes with the bloc already lagging
behind the US and UK in Covid-19 vac-
cine rollout. The company said its first-
quarter deliveries could be more than
50 per cent lower than the up to 100m
shots the bloc had expected, EU officials
said.
AstraZeneca has said there is no
“scheduled delay” to shipments, but
“initial volumes” will be lower than
anticipated due to reduced yields at a
production site in the EU supply chain.
“The European Union wants to know
exactly which doses have been pro-
duced [and] where by AstraZeneca, so
far, and if, or to whom, they have been
delivered.” Ms Kyriakides said yester-
day. “The answers of the company have
not been satisfactory so far. And that’s
why a second meeting is scheduled for
tonight.”
Ursula von der Leyen, commission
president, had earlier held talks with
Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s chief exec-
utive, to urge the company to speed up
deliveries. Ms von der Leyen “made it
clear” to Mr Soriot that she “expects
AstraZeneca to deliver on the contrac-
tual arrangements” in the agreement by
the EU to buy up to 400m doses, the
commission said.
“She reminded Mr Soriot that the EU
has invested significant amounts in the
company upfront, precisely to ensure
that production is ramped up even
before the conditional market authori-
sation is delivered by the European
Medicines Agency,” it said, referring to
EU regulatory approval of the vaccine,
which could come as soon as Friday.
“Of course production issues can
appear with a complex vaccine, but we
expect the company to find solutions
and exploit all possible flexibilities to
deliver swiftly.”
AstraZeneca said it was doing “every-
thing it can” to deliver the doses as soon
as possible and was “doing everything it
can to bring its vaccine to millions of
Europeans as soon as possible”.
The AstraZeneca jab, made in collab-
oration with Oxford university, was the
first vaccine to be pre-ordered by the
European bloc. The 400m doses of the
two-shot course would cover almost
half the region’s 446m population.
The commission also plans to tighten
its scrutiny of exports of vaccines pro-
duced in the EU to countries outside the
bloc. Ms Kyriakides said the commis-
sion had proposed to force companies to
pre-notify it of plans for such ship-
ments, in a sign of the short-term pres-
sure on supplies of jabs.
While the UK has given more than 10
doses per 100 residents and the US
6.6 per 100, the EU has yet to reach two
doses per 100 residents, according to FT
data.
new variant is also responsible for the
increased, unexpectedly high burdens
in hospitals seen especially around Lon-
don,” he said.
Will vaccination need to change?
A more lethal variant is unlikely to alter
the medical debate over how to roll out
vaccines — and in particular the UK gov-
ernment’s decision to inoculate as many
people as possible with a first dose, even
if they have to wait as long as 12 weeks
for the second jab.
The British Medical Association
wants the period between the first and
second doses to be cut to a maximum of
six weeks for the BioNTech/Pfizer vac-
cine. But defenders of the current policy
say a more virulent variant makes it
even more important to vaccinate the
vulnerable as fast as possible.
Yvonne Doyle, medical director of
Public Health England, said the strategy
of “bearing down on transmission”
would cut deaths and reduce the chance
of more dangerous variants emerging.
“The more people that are protected
against this virus, the less opportunity it
has to get the upper hand,” she said.
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ † FINANCIAL TIMES 5

Value judgment The question is whether the investing school based on unloved stocks has really been reborn y MARKETS INSIGHT

BaFin chief Wrong result World’s richest football clubs set

to miss out on €2bn revenue because of Covid
Airline shares
tumble on
clung to notion prospect of
tighter rules
of Wirecard as Philip Georgiadis, Alice Hancock
and Jim Pickard — LONDON

victim of a plot
3 Missing €1.9bn failed to shift outlook
3 Bank letters seen as short sellers’ fakes
Olaf Storbeck — Frankfurt
The head of Germany’s financial watch-
dog suggested Wirecard might be the
victim of an elaborate plot by short sell-
ers even after the company discovered
that €1.9bn of its stated cash was miss-
ing, according to three people briefed on
the matter and a document seen by the
Financial Times.
Felix Hufeld, president of BaFin,
raised the possibility with Wirecard
chairman Thomas Eichelmann, accord-
ing to those sources, in a phone call last
June after the payments group’s auditor
EY was informed by two banks that doc-
uments purporting to confirm the com-
pany’s cash position were “spurious”.
Two of the people said Mr Hufeld told
Hufeld saw a 50-50 chance
the reports were part of an
attack by investors betting
against the share price
Mr Eichelmann there was a 50-50
chance the reported missing cash was
part of an attack by investors betting
against the company’s share price.
The documented incident shows how
strongly BaFin clung to the notion that
Wirecard was a victim rather than a per-
petrator of fraud even after EY refused
to audit its 2019 results.
For years, BaFin had dismissed
reports of fraud at Wirecard and filed a
criminal complaint against FT report-
ers, alleging they colluded in market
manipulation. The case was dropped
after Wirecard filed for insolvency, hav-
ing acknowledged that the €1.9bn prob-
ably did “not exist”.
BaFin said Mr Hufeld had several calls
with the chairman but denied that at
that point he believed short sellers
might be behind the group’s woes.
“In mid-June, BaFin did not have any
insights about potential short seller
attacks against Wirecard. In his talks
with Wirecard’s supervisory board, Mr
Hufeld at no point described such a sce-
nario as likely,” BaFin said, adding that
the written summary of the call seen by
the FT was “evidently wrong”.
Mr Eichelmann declined to comment.
According to the document seen by
the FT, Mr Eichelmann on June 18
briefed the supervisory board on his
conversation with Mr Hufeld. Accord-
ing to that account, the BaFin president
pointed out that “the content and word-
ing” of the letters from two separate
Manila banks to EY was “very similar”.
Mr Hufeld also was said to have noted
that one of the letters was signed by a
vice-president, a relatively low-ranking
employee. He was reported to have said
that the documents would appear like
“co-ordinated statements” and might
represent “a campaign that is directed
against the company”.
One person with knowledge of the dis-
cussion said Mr Eichelmann was “really
perplexed” by Mr Hufeld’s assessment
as it sounded similar to the view of
Markus Braun, Wirecard’s then-chief
executive. Until Mr Braun was pushed
out of the company on June 19, he
stressed that the bank letters reflected a
“misunderstanding” that would be res­-
olved soon. He is now in police custody.
In a conversation with Wirecard on
June 17, a different BaFin employee exp­-
ressed disbelief at the letters in which
the two banks pointed out that previous
balance confirmations were “spurious”.
BaFin told a lawyer for Wirecard it
was “incomprehensible” how two
letters from banks could “call all
facts . . . audited [by EY] into question”.
The Philippine central bank said days
later that Wirecard’s missing cash had
never entered the banking sys­tem. Wire­-
card filed for insolvency within a week.
Losers: Manchester United are among the clubs likely to suffer because of the pandemic — Martin Rickett/Reuters
Samuel Agini — london
The world’s 20 richest football clubs
are on course to miss out on €2bn in
revenue by the end of this season due
to the pandemic, underlining a bleak
outlook against which some teams
are accelerating plans for a breaka-
way “super league”.
Spain’s Barcelona was the highest-
earning club even though its revenues
fell 15 per cent to €715m in the
2019/20 season, according to
Deloitte’s annual “money league”
report. That put it narrowly ahead of
its La Liga rival Real Madrid.
Driven by victory in the Uefa Cham-
pions League, Europe’s top club tour-
nament, Germany’s Bayern Munich
saw revenues of €634.1m, allowing it
to leapfrog England’s Manchester
United’s €580m to become the third
highest earner.
The Bundesliga’s quicker resump-
tion of play in the 2019/20 season,
which was suspended as a result of the
pandemic, also played a part in Bay-
ern’s climb from fourth to third, with
German clubs able to recognise reve-
nue, in particular domestic broadcast
deals, sooner than those in rival
leagues.
Despite winning the Premier
League and, unlike Manchester
United, participating in the Champi-
ons League that season, Liverpool
could not finish higher than its Eng-
lish rival in the money league.
The €8.2bn in revenue generated
by the top 20 clubs last season repre-
sented a 12 per cent decline against
the one before. Deloitte warned that
match day revenue was likely to
remain negligible because of repeated
delays to the return of fans to stadi-
ums.
The potential losses have increased
the stakes as some of the leading clubs
work on plans to restructure elite
competition in European football, in a
The prospect of new restrictions on
international travel sent a shudder
through the travel industry yesterday,
piling pressure on companies already
reeling from a year of disruption.
Shares in European airlines tumbled as
the UK prepared to introduce tighter
immigration rules following concerns
that new strains of Covid-19 could
spread from international travellers.
Governments in Sweden, Belgium
and Germany also tightened travel
curbs over the weekend.
British Airways’ owner IAG led the
share price declines, falling 7.7 per cent,
while easyJet had dropped 6.7 per cent,
Ryanair 4.1 per cent and cruise operator
Carnival 6.5 per cent by the close.
Travel groups devastated by national
lockdowns and closed borders warned
that additional measures could be the
last straw as they would knock con-
sumer confidence during a key period
for summer holiday bookings.
“These travel restrictions will make
things catastrophic,” said Andrew Craw-
ley, chief commercial officer at Ameri-
can Express Global Business Travel.
Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister,
confirmed yesterday that he was “defi-
nitely looking” at making UK arrivals
quarantine in hotels.
Johan Lundgren, easyJet’s chief exec-
utive, said customer sentiment was
“reliant on newsflow”, but bookings
move that would radically alter the showed there was a pent-up demand for
finances of the sport. travel whenever there were signs of gov-
Founding clubs could be offered ernments relaxing restrictions.
€350m each to join the so-called Airlines and travel executives are
super league, which would have guar- resigned to the early months of this year
anteed spots for 15 members and a being a write-off. But there are mount-
further five open to clubs able to qual- ing concerns that the critical summer
ify season is under threat.
Fifa, world football’s governing The travel industry has been careful
body, regards the proposals seriously not to criticise public health measures
enough to warn that it will not recog- but has called for a pathway out of
nise such a league. It has also threat- restrictions in time for the peak season.
ened to ban players who participate “Tens of thousands of jobs and bil-
from taking part in the World Cup, the lions in lost trade are at stake and so we
top level of international football. need a road map out of these restric-
Dan Jones, a partner at Deloitte, tions as soon as possible,” said Tim
warned of the “disruption and the risk Alderslade, chief executive of Airlines
that comes with the super league”, UK, an industry association.
adding that he was “fundamentally Mark Manduca, analyst at Citigroup,
quite positive . . . that top level sport said Europe’s airlines could need fresh
will rebound well as we get some more cash if summer schedules were dis-
normality”. rupted. This would probably involve
“It feels like people are trying to fix raising fresh capital from shareholders,
something that isn’t broken,” he he added.
added. See Markets

Contracts & Tenders

Hertz and AMC highlight scope for change in Chapter 11 system
holders “would likely suffer a total loss
INSIDE BUSINESS of their investment”, a possibility that it
said yesterday was now “off the table”.
finance However, the SEC, unlike in the case
of Hertz, has not objected, despite the
Sujeet similar plights of the two companies.
The key distinction between the two:
Indap Hertz has formally entered bankruptcy,
a decision that has constrained its
options to raise cheap financing just
when it needs it most.
Given its efficiency and fairness, the
versity of Chicago professors, Anthony
Casey and Joshua Macey, wrote recently
about Hertz: “By giving senior investors
significant control rights, the absolute
priority rule reduces the likelihood that
junior creditors and shareholders will
provide new financing to a debtor in
bankruptcy even if those investors place
the highest value on the firm.”
Hertz argued that selling stock to will-
ing buyers was a great deal for all parties
in the case. It would have avoided hav-

T
he Hertz Corporation must
look at AMC Entertainment
and wonder what might
have been. Hertz, pum-
melled in the early weeks of
the pandemic, filed for Chapter 11 bank-
ruptcy last May. However, in the weeks
afterwards, its shares surprisingly ral-
lied around 800 per cent amid a surge of
buying by retail traders on the Robin-
hood app.
The rental car company quickly won
court approval to take advantage of its
quirky trading to sell new shares where
proceeds would partially fund its
restructuring. Ultimately it proved all
for naught as the US Securities and
Exchange Commission declined to sign
off on the risk disclosures made to
investors. Hertz would never sell its
shares, instead moving on to an expen-
sive senior loan.
Meanwhile, cinema chain AMC has
arguably been hammered at least as
much by lockdown orders as Hertz. In
its most recent quarter, AMC stated that
its US attendance was down 91 per cent
year-over-year. To stay afloat the com-
pany has executed a series of financial
engineering manoeuvres, including
debt issuances and swaps. But it also has
sold $250m of stock in recent months.
AMC in its disclosures had even
broached the possibility of a bank-
ruptcy filing and warned that stock-
US Chapter 11 process in many ways is
the envy of the world. But the Hertz saga
has some experts wondering if change is
needed to enhance the system.
For those making a risky bet on Hertz
shares after its bankruptcy, the worry
was not that its equity would remain
worthless forever. Rather, bankruptcy
law triggered the “absolute priority
rule”. According to
this standard, The absolute priority
every creditor at
the end of the standard has persisted
bankruptcy stint because, while blunt,
must be repaid 100
cents on the dollar it is straightforward
before any lower- and easy to apply
ranked claim
holder can receive a penny of recovery.
Hertz’s shareholders would have had to
hope that the company’s prospects
recovered quickly enough to pay off its
creditors before the bankruptcy ended
in a year or 18 months.
Analysts at research firm, Credit-
Sights, have estimated that the most
junior Hertz debt, which is trading at
under 50 cents, will be impaired in the
restructuring aiming to be completed in
2021. As such, the absolute priority rule
holds that shareholders, who rank
below junior bondholders, will have
their investment wiped out.
The absolute priority rule tends to
shift power to senior creditors. Two Uni-
ing to pay interest, or give up collateral
that a loan would require. Moreover,
since equity was at the bottom of the
totem pole, Hertz creditors did not
worry about being leapfrogged.
Profs Casey and Macey now argue for
a new “relative priority” standard in
Chapter 11, where junior creditors or
equity holders would have a chance to
wager on a sharp, but unlikely, turn-
round and, as such, would be willing to
provide cheaper financing in exchange.
“Unlike absolute priority, relative prior- Financial Legal Notices
ity allows junior investors to recover
their option value even if senior credi-
tors are not paid in full,” the pair write.
Absolute priority has persisted
because, while blunt, it is straightfor-
ward and easy to apply. Departing from
that could introduce complexity and
weaken the rights of senior creditors.
AMC’s junior debt is trading at severely
distressed levels. Those brave or foolish
enough to buy its shares are betting the
company will see a recovery before
being forced to file for bankruptcy.
Most companies try desperately to
avoid bankruptcy and restructure out of
court. The generic reasons are that it is Businesses For Sale
highly expensive and time-consuming.
Business for Sale, Business Opportunities, Business Services,
With the Chapter 11 absolute priority Business Wanted, Franchises
rule, the process has proven even Runs Daily
tougher for companies such as Hertz. .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Classified Business Advertising
UK: +44 20 7873 4000 | Email: acs.emea@ft.com
sujeet.indap@ft.com
6 ★
Technology
China TikTok rival set for $6bn IPO
Livestreamer Kuaishou
to test HK demand amid
Beijing scrutiny of sector
Hudson Lockett and Tabby Kinder
Hong Kong
Ryan McMorrow — Beijing
Chinese livestreaming and short video
group Kuaishou is set to raise up to
$6.3bn in a Hong Kong initial public
offering in a test of investor appetite for
China’s tech sector as it faces growing
regulatory scrutiny.
The deal could value Kuaishou, which
competes with ByteDance’s TikTok, at
up to $62bn and would be the largest
tech IPO since ride-hailing company
Uber went to market in 2019.
The listing will raise between $4.9bn
and $5.4bn, but that could rise to $6.3bn
Product life
Ikea designs
greener future
Ikea will begin offering spare parts to
customers globally as the world’s
largest furniture retailer seeks to
prolong the life of its products in a big
sustainability push.
The company provided 14m spare
parts in its financial year to the end of
August 2020 but has now developed
an online ordering system that will be
rolled out worldwide this year.
The flat-pack pioneer has also
started trialing selling second-hand
furniture, as well as buying back old
goods and leasing equipment.
It is aiming to become a climate-
positive, “circular” company — where
products are re-used, refurbished or
recycled — by the end of the decade.
Jon Abrahamsson Ring, chief
executive of Inter Ikea which owns
the brand and concept, said: “If we
want to make sustainability count, it
has to be affordable. That’s how we
help many people. Sustainability
can’t only be for the rich or for the
thick wallet.” Richard Milne
Oil & gas
Shale operators fear urge to keep drilling will spoil good times
Myles McCormick and Derek Brower
US shale producers, suddenly enjoying
a rare period of profitability thanks to
rising oil prices, are starting to worry
that “bad actors” in the sector will spoil
the rally with another drilling binge.
Less than a year after the oil crash
forced the heavily indebted industry to
slash spending and production, cash
flows have turned positive. The change
comes as operators pledge to prioritise
margins over supply growth and inves-
tors over rigs.
With the US oil benchmark now trad-
ing at $53 a barrel, most shale operators
can turn a profit, and resisting the urge
to start producing more crude may
prove difficult, say some executives.
“I think it will be easier said than
done,” said Matt Gallagher, an executive
at Pioneer Natural Resources, a pro-
ducer in the prolific Permian oilfield in
Texas.
“There are going to be bad actors
[who pursue] growth for growth’s sake.”
Mining
Outbreak spurs tech investment in mines
Richard Milne
Nordic and Baltic Correspondent
Miners are accelerating investment in
automation and technology to reduce
the number of staff on site during the
pandemic, according to the chief exec-
utive of the world’s largest drilling
equipment manufacturer.
Mining companies were already updat-
ing equipment to cope with lower-grade
material and deeper mines, which often
involve more water, and in response to
pressure from investors to reduce car-
bon emissions. More are using electric
trucks, for example, and every big
miner now has a net zero carbon target.
But Helena Hedblom, chief executive
of Sweden’s Epiroc, said the pandemic
had led to faster adoption of new tech-
nology as companies have acted to
reduce the number of workers on site.
“Given the pandemic, that has really
been identified as an area where
if bankers exercise an overallotment
option to increase its size, according to a
term sheet seen by the Financial Times.
Shares are expected to price on Friday
at between HK$105 (US$13.55) and
HK$115 and start trading on February 5.
The flotation comes as Chinese tech
companies face an increasingly uncer-
tain regulatory environment. The
$37bn Hong Kong and Shanghai IPO of
payments firm Ant Group was halted by
Beijing at the last minute in November,
while its ecommerce affiliate Alibaba is
subject to an antitrust investigation.
Kuaishou, which is backed by Chinese
internet group Tencent, reported an
operating loss of Rmb9bn ($1.4bn) on
Rmb41bn in sales during the first nine
months of last year.
It made Rmb25bn of those sales from
users sending virtual gifts to livestream-
Management teams across the shale
sector say that last year’s crash has given
way to a new era of capital discipline.
But confidence that all operators will
hold the line and keep another price-
sapping supply surge at bay is thin.
“There will be some,” said Pierre
Breber, chief financial officer at Chev-
ron, referring to operators that would
reinject extra cash flow into new drilling
— to shareholders’ dismay. “It just rein-
forces the behaviour that they’ve seen
now for the last 10 years, which has not
been rewarding to investors.”
Oil prices collapsed last April as the
coronavirus pandemic slashed demand
just as the market was flooded with
Saudi crude. Production fell from a
record high near 13m barrels a day to
around 11m now. But as economies have
recovered, so has the price of oil.
The horizontal rig count, a good proxy
for shale drilling, hit a low of less than
220 last July but has now risen more
than 60 per cent to 361, according to
data provider Enverus — a level analysts
automation and digitalisation can help.
With connected machines, when you
send a technician to site, you know what
the problem is. If anything, the pan-
demic has increased the transition to
new technology,” she said.
Ms Hedblom added that the industry
had “huge potential” to improve sus-
tainability, safety and productivity. The
average age of equipment in use was ris-
ing, offering opportunities in new sales
and in servicing old machines.
Epiroc was spun out of Sweden’s most
valuable company, Atlas Copco, two
years ago. It competes with Caterpillar
of the US, Japan’s Komatsu and Sweden’s
Sandvik, among others. Services are a
large and growing part of its business,
accounting for more than two-thirds of
revenues in the third quarter last year.
Ms Hedblom said Epiroc still had
room to grow in this market as it only
serviced about half the machines it sold.
The company is also increasingly
FINANCIAL TIMES
COMPANIES & MARKETS
ing hosts. The company and hosts
roughly split the income from virtual
gifts, which users buy for a few cents to
Rmb2,000. Advertising sales, which
‘The quality and size of
cornerstone investors are
some of the highest we
have seen in Chinese tech’
grew 213 per cent year-on-year during
the period to Rmb13bn, contributed 33
per cent of total sales.
Livestreaming rules announced in
November ban teenagers from purchas-
ing virtual gifts on platforms such as
Kuaishou and limit total spending by
any single user. The regulations also
tighten controls on livestreaming ecom-
say might already bring some output
growth this year.
Privately backed operators — which
account for about 30 per cent of shale
production but do not face the same
pressure as public companies to pay div-
idends — have driven a lot of this extra
US oil back above $50
West Texas Intermediate ($ per barrel)
60
40
20
0
-20
-40 2019
Jan 2020 Jan
2021
Sources: Refinitiv; Rystad Energy
rebuilding equipment part way through
its lifetime to boost productivity, includ-
ing by adding autonomous technology,
she added.
“We are a productivity provider in a
way. We have employees on the mine
sites 24/7 to make sure the equipment
delivers,” Ms Hedblom said.
From the first quarter of this year,
Epiroc will offer customers the option of
replacing a diesel motor with an electric
battery during a mid-life rebuild.
Electrification could be particularly
helpful as mines become deeper as it
removes the need for expensive ventila-
tion to extract diesel fumes, she said.
Most miners have equipment from
several manufacturers and Ms Hedb-
lom said a significant development
would be “mixed-fleet automation”
where one control system managed
machinery from different companies.
Epiroc is taking part in two trials on this
in Australia with Roy Hill and Newcrest.
merce, where video hosts promote
goods to shoppers, a growing business
for Kuaishou.
Kuaishou competitors including Tik-
Tok have faced criticism over their
operations and use of data amid ten-
sions between the US and China. In
December, a deadline for ByteDance to
restructure TikTok’s US operations
passed without a deal, and the company
remains in negotiations about the short
video app’s status in the country.
Kuaishou’s app had about 262m daily
viewers in the first nine months of last
year, who on average spent 86 minutes
per day watching videos.
The company has spent heavily on
bringing in new users as it faces an
increasingly crowded online video mar-
ket in China.
Cornerstone investors in Kuaishou’s
drilling activity. “The management
teams are running against a return
meter,” said Mr Gallagher. “There’s only
one way out for them to have a payday.
And that’s to build the scale and flip.”
But public companies in the patch
have a poor record of capital discipline
Drilling on the rise again
Rig count by company type
500
Public
400
300
Private
200
100
Supermajor
0 question that everyone — is asking, is:
20 21
Total number of horizontal oil rigs in Permian,
Eagle Ford, Bakken, Niobrara and Anadarko basins
Financials
SoftBank Vision Fund manager steps aside
Arash Massoudi — London
Miles Kruppa — San Francisco
Colin Fan is stepping down from his
role as managing partner at SoftBank’s
Vision Fund, marking the latest
shake-up at the fund’s tumultuous US
operations.
The former senior executive at Deut-
sche Bank, who joined the Vision Fund
in 2017, is moving to an advisory role in
the unit that manages the investment
arm of the Japanese group, according to
people with knowledge of the matter.
A trader who rose to co-head of
investment banking at Deutsche before
his exit in 2015, Mr Fan played a leading
role in the Vision Fund’s investment in
Greensill Capital, a UK-based firm that
specialises in supply-chain finance.
Other investments he led, including in
robot pizza delivery business Zume and
car leasing start-up Fair, have soured.
One person said Mr Fan would con-
IPO include asset managers Invesco and
Fidelity as well as Singaporean state-
backed investors Temasek and GIC,
which will buy shares worth up to
$2.5bn with a six-month lock-up period.
“The quality and size of cornerstone
investors are some of the highest we
have seen in Chinese tech companies to
come to market,” said one banker on the
deal. “It shows that the market is still
crying out for more liquidity in sizeable,
high-growth tech companies.”
Kuaishou will use the funds for pur-
poses including research and develop-
ment, acquisitions and investment and
expanding its ecosystem, according to
the term sheet.
Kuaishou has hired Bank of America,
China Renaissance and Morgan Stanley
to work on the IPO.
See Lex
Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP via Getty Images
too, amassing colossal debts by consist-
ently outspending cash flows in the pur-
suit of more supply growth. Investors
were fleeing the sector’s stocks even
before last year’s oil crash.
A bottom has been hit in recent
months, as the combination of rising oil
prices — helped by lower shale supply —
and deep spending cuts has improved
operators’ finances. This year could be
the industry’s best in cash flow terms,
said Rystad Energy, a consultancy.
For a sector that has often defined
itself by its success with the drill bit,
fighting the urge to begin deploying
more rigs will be difficult, say investors.
Thrift comes easy when companies
lack capital, said Ben Dell, managing
partner at private equity investor Kim-
meridge Energy Management.
“The question that the industry — the
when the commodity invariably rises,
will the industry have any discipline?
When the candy jar is full, can they keep
their hand out of it?”
tinue to work closely with Rajeev Misra,
who runs the Vision Fund and filled its
ranks with a number of his former Deut-
sche colleagues. Munish Varma,
another Deutsche alumnus, will relo-
cate from London to Silicon Valley to
assume some of Mr Fan’s responsibili-
ties as managing partner.
Mr Fan’s departure comes weeks after
SoftBank confirmed that Jeffrey House-
nbold, one of the fund’s top investors in
Colin Fan is moving from managing
partner to an advisory position
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Media
AMC says
bankruptcy
‘off the table’
after $917m
fundraising
Joe Rennison and Alice Hancock
The chief executive of AMC Entertain-
ment has said imminent bankruptcy is
“off the table” after the struggling cin-
ema operator raised close to $1bn
across debt and equity markets over
the past month.
AMC, which operates more than 1,000
cinemas worldwide, unveiled a £400m
lending facility yesterday, backed by the
assets of its UK subsidiary Odeon Cine-
mas Group. The new loan expands an
existing £100m facility at a hefty inter-
est rate of 10.75 per cent for the first year
and 11.25 per cent for the remainder of
its two-and-a-half year maturity.
Alongside equity sales and $100m
borrowed from Mudrick Capital Man-
agement through the sale of risky
payment-in-kind notes — which carry
an interest rate up to 17 per cent — the
company said it had raised $917m since
mid-December.
“Today, the sun is shining on AMC,”
said Adam Aron, chief executive, adding
that “any talk of an imminent bank-
ruptcy . . . is completely off the table”.
By AMC’s calculations, the facilities
give the company enough cash to sur-
vive until July, assuming no increase in
attendance levels. AMC suffered a slide
in attendance of more than 90 per cent
in the fourth quarter, compared with
the same period in 2019, and burnt
through an average of $124m a month.
The company said it would need
attendance to rise to 10 per cent of pre-
coronavirus levels in the first quarter, 15
per cent in the second quarter, 65 per
cent in the third quarter and 90 per cent
in the fourth quarter to see out the year
with its current funds.
The need for a rapid return by cin-
emagoers has left some investors scepti-
cal of AMC’s long-term survival pros-
pects. The company’s stock price
remains about a third below where it
started 2020.
AMC’s bonds are still trading at dis-
tressed levels, despite a recent rally.
Debt maturing in 2026 — raised last year
as part of an emergency fundraising — is
still changing hands below 50 cents on
the dollar, despite rising from close to 20
cents on the dollar at the start of the
year.
“I just don’t see folks rushing back to
the cinema. The pandemic accelerated a
shift already under way from cinemas to
streaming,” said John Dixon, a high-
yield bond trader at Dinosaur Financial
Group.
Tim Richards, chief executive of Vue
International, which operates in 10
markets, told analysts this month that
he was confident demand for cinema
releases would return but did not expect
box office revenues to rebound to 2019
levels until the second half of 2022.
Last week, MGM decided to delay its
latest James Bond film No Time To Die
until October this year — the third time
it has been postponed during the pan-
demic. The release is seen by many in
the industry as a bellwether for the
resumption of cinema going. The move
came after Warner Bros decided to
release all of its 2021 films for streaming
at the same time as in cinemas and the
announcement by Netflix that it
planned to release more than 70 films
on its platform this year.
AMC noted that the borrowing
announced yesterday was contingent on
agreement from affiliates of Silver Lake
Group, which owns most of the com-
pany’s convertible notes due in 2026.
Silver Lake did not respond to a
request for comment.
the US, plans to leave this year. Mr
Housenbold oversaw some of the fund’s
largest bets, including in the meal deliv-
ery company DoorDash, whose valua-
tion has soared to more than $60bn
since a public listing last month.
Michael Ronen, another managing
partner at the Vision Fund in the US, left
last year after expressing concerns
about “issues” at the fund.
The Vision Fund has been a source of
turmoil in SoftBank, undergoing multi-
ple reorganisations since Masayoshi Son
formed the group to bet on artificial
intelligence and other emerging tech-
nologies. The fund recovered recently
after early struggles from troubled
investments, such as in office services
group WeWork. SoftBank said it had
booked a cumulative gain of $9.6bn on
the fund’s investments at the end of the
third quarter. SoftBank declined to
comment. Bloomberg first reported on
Mr Fan’s new role.
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 7

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Global chip shortage brings vehicle

Automobiles

production lines to a grinding halt
Fiat Chrysler among carmakers to idle plants as tech sector soaks up semiconductor supply
Kana Inagaki — Tokyo
David Keohane — Paris
Yuan Yang — Beijing
Joe Miller — Frankfurt
China’s car market staged a dazzling
recovery in the second half of last year,
but it did so at a heavy price.
The rebound has left companies
including Volkswagen, General Motors
and Honda facing a microchip shortage
as a lockdown-driven boom in games
consoles, laptops and televisions sends
demand for semiconductors soaring and
threatens to overwhelm chipmakers.
Fiat Chrysler is one of more than a
dozen carmakers forced to idle plants
this year as contract chipmakers in Tai-
wan and China were caught off guard by
the multipronged surge in demand.
With workers having to be fur-
loughed, car executives are seeking gov-
ernment help in a bid to see if the supply
of chips — which do everything from
controlling power steering to anti-lock
brakes — can be accelerated.
“I am here to protect the fact that my
company is treated fairly,” Carlos
Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis,
the newly merged Fiat Chrysler and
PSA, told the Financial Times. “I will
look for all possible solutions. If I need to
I will fight back” to ensure chip con-
tracts are met, he added.
As the might of the carmakers con-
fronts the power of consumer electronic
companies, the crisis is also putting the
motor industry’s ever-increasing reli-
ance on chips — and their complicated
supply chains — under the microscope.
Given that just 10 per cent of semicon-
ductor fabrication plants are used for
automotive parts, carmakers do not
wield the same negotiating clout as con-
sumer electronics groups. With no
immediate fix available, the shortage is
expected to last at least six months.
The production of more than 280,000
vehicles has already been put on ice,
according to data provider AutoFore-
cast Solution. IHS Markit forecasts as
many as 500,000 vehicles could ulti-
mately be affected.
While it has left the car industry on
the back foot, it also comes at a period of
upheaval for chipmakers. Intel, which
this month installed a new chief execu-
tive, is trying to regain the crown as
leader in advanced chipmaking that it
ceded to Taiwan’s TSMC.
TSMC, meanwhile, is grappling with
the fallout from US sanctions against
Chinese telecoms group Huawei and
chipmaker Semiconductor Manufac-
turing International Corporation.
“The sanctions meant some clients
redirected their orders from SMIC to
other places, such as TSMC,” said a
China-based MCU chip supplier. “Inside
the industry, we are all pretty panicked
because the scope of the chip shortage is
too big, and affects too many types. In
the short term we can’t see any way of
resolving it.”
Although chipmakers have faced
capacity constraints before, industry
analysts say this crunch is made worse
because the groups have little incentive
to invest in extra capacity for the lower-
margin chips used in laptops and TVs,
which have been in high demand during
lockdowns.
Instead, meeting demand for higher-
margin chips critical for 5G networks,
data centres and the new gaming plat-
forms launched by Sony and Microsoft
late last year is far more attractive.
“Everything is run so tightly in semi-
conductor fabrications plants that you
always get this issue when there is a
demand surge especially after a down-
turn,” said Richard Dixon, senior princi-
pal analyst at IHS Markit.
As carmakers try to ensure that the
chips they do have are used in their most
important and profitable vehicles, such
as pick-up trucks, chipmakers are vow-
ing to fix the problem.
Dearth of chips takes toll
Estimated number of vehicles affected (’000)
100
At risk
Recoverable
80
60
40
20
0 0
North America Europe China Rest of Asia
Sources: AutoForecast Solutions; IDC; Refinitiv
Carmakers such TSMC said this month that it would
as General make the issue a priority. Last week,
Motors are Peter Altmaier, Germany’s economy
trying to ensure minister, wrote to his Taiwanese coun-
that the chips terpart Wang Mei-hua, urging her gov-
they have are ernment to intervene. In a letter seen by
used in their the Financial Times, Mr Altmaier
most important appealed for help in convincing TSMC to
and profitable prioritise German carmakers, whose
vehicles, such as recovery, he argued, was of importance
pick-up trucks to the entire global economy.
Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty
Meanwhile, Netherlands-based chip-
maker NXP and Japan’s Renesas Elec-
tronics said they are seeking to increase
prices in the wake of the shortage and as
raw material costs climb. Swiss rival
STMicroelectronics is weighing a similar
move, according to a person familiar with
the matter. STMicroelectronics declined
to comment.
Not every carmaker has been afflicted
in the same way. Toyota has escaped rel-
atively lightly after the Tohoku earth-
quake and tsunami in 2011 prompted it
to diversify its supply chain and hold
more inventory.
Hyundai Motor, the fifth biggest car-
maker, has avoided crippling shortages
because it did not cancel any chip orders
when the pandemic forced factories to
shut in early 2020.
But most keep limited inventory, rely-
ing instead on “just in time” delivery of
components to preserve cash. The
number of intermediaries in the supply
chain also varies, with some relying on
their parts makers to secure chips, while
others prefer to negotiate directly.
Markus Duesmann, the boss of VW’s
Audi, said his company had relied on a
Home working lifts demand for PCs
Traditional PC sales worldwide* (units, m)
Reduced supply due to
the outbreak of Covid-19
Q1 2019 2020
* Includes desktops, notebooks, and workstations
“tier four” supplier for its semiconduc-
tors, and there was “a very long chain
with different supply levels on the com-
ponents that we are short of”.
If the crisis has exposed the perils of
forecasting demand during the Covid-19
crisis, it also raises troubling questions
for a car industry whose fortunes are
expected to be ever more dependent on
chips as electric vehicles and autono-
mous driving become more widespread.
Although they only make up 3 per
cent of global car sales, the semiconduc-
tor content of electric vehicles is roughly
three times more valuable than that of a
petrol car, according to IHS Markit.
The changing nature of the technol-
ogy in cars, say analysts, is likely to her-
ald profound change in the relations
between car companies and chipmak-
ers. It is also expected to force semicon-
ductor groups to rethink how they out-
source parts of their manufacturing to
suppliers in Asia.
“Once we get out of Covid, the real dis-
ruption we are going to see over the next
couple of decades is how electrification
and autonomy takes shape,” said Joseph
McCabe, the chief executive of Auto-
Forecast Solutions. “After semiconduc-
tors, the next one is going to be poten-
tially when we run out of rare earth
materials to make batteries. There is
always that next thing that they’ve got
to keep their eye on.”
Some carmakers and automotive chip
specialists may consider taking more
manufacturing in-house. In an effort to
avoid a repeat of the crisis, VW said it
was considering bypassing its large sup-
TSMC shares
NT$
100 700
80 600
60 500
40 400
20 300
200
Q4 2019 20 21
‘Inside pliers, such as Continental, to develop
closer relationships with chipmakers.
the chip At the same time, possible entrants to
industry, the car market, such as iPhone maker
Apple, may seek to leverage their exist-
we are all ing negotiating power in chips to gain an
pretty advantage, according to Mr McCabe.
There is also pressure building in
panicked China for semiconductor companies to
because the produce their chips domestically after a
shortage that began last month is
scope of the threatening strong sales of luxury cars
shortage is and electric vehicles at home.
“This episode of chip shortages has
too big’ once again shown how urgent and nec-
essary it is to have autonomous and con-
trollable supply chains”, said Chen Shi-
hua, a senior official at the China Associ-
ation of Automobile Manufacturers.
The squeeze has not so far led to any
shortages in the supply of laptops and
TVs, which rely on the IC chips (DDI)
used to power electronics displays. But
with plenty of countries facing pro-
longed lockdowns or restrictions, ana-
lysts warn it may yet happen.
As more cracks emerge in chip supply
chains, carmakers appear to have little
option but to wait their turn.
“It is a question of fairness and equal-
ity. Everybody will get their share,” said
Ashwani Gupta, chief operating officer
at Nissan, which has been forced to cut
production of Note, its compact car, in
Japan.
“Everybody is adjusting their produc-
tions but we will come out of it soon.”
Additional reporting by Qianer Liu, Song
Jung-a, Edward White, Joe Kathrin Hille
and Leo Lewis.
Evergrande
unit’s $51bn
market cap
leaves Ford
behind
Christian Shepherd — Beijing
Shares in the electric car unit of China
Evergrande, the most indebted prop-
erty company, surged to a record high
as a $3.4bn cash injection catapulted its
market valuation past those of tradi-
tional carmakers such as Ford.
The company’s Hong Kong-listed shares
rose as much as 67 per cent yesterday, a
day after the group announced that
strategic investors had bought a 9.75 per
cent stake for HK$26bn (US$3.35bn).
The rally boosted the electric vehicle
unit’s market capitalisation by $17bn to
$51bn, overtaking established auto-
makers including Ford, which has a
market capitalisation of about $45.8bn.
The electric vehicle unit’s market cap
is now also far in excess of its parent
company. Evergrande, whose shares
rose 8 per cent yesterday, is now valued
at $28.8bn.
Evergrande Auto, as the electric unit
is known, has vowed to spend Rmb30bn
($4.6bn) between 2019 and 2021 build-
ing factories and acquiring technical
expertise in its bid to become a global
leader in battery-powered cars.
However, production delays, unfin-
ished factories and the company’s nam-
ing in an industry investigation by
China’s state planner have piled pres-
sure on Evergrande Auto, which has not
begun commercial sales of its vehicles.
Evergrande’s pivot into car manufac-
The business, which has
not started sales of its
vehicles, has been hit by
delays and a Beijing probe
turing also coincided with Beijing’s
move to increase scrutiny of the prop-
erty sector in a bid to cool red-hot
prices, such as by limiting the amount
that developers can borrow.
Evergrande Group, the parent com-
pany, has a nearly 68 per cent stake in
the electric vehicle unit.
The parent group’s early repayment
of a $2bn bond this month helped ease
investor concerns about Evergrande’s
debt burden, which as of June stood at
Rmb835.5bn. Last March, the company
pledged to reduce its borrowings by
Rmb150bn per year through 2022.
Investors in the Evergrande Auto fun-
draising included Greenwoods Global
Investment; Liu Minghui, chairman of
China Gas; and Chan Hoi-wan, spouse of
Joseph Lau, former chairman of devel-
oper Chinese Estate. They agreed to a
one-year lock-up of shares.
Evergrande Auto said the funds
would be used to invest in research and
development, production and paying
off debts.
Soaring interest in China’s electric car
makers has helped propel shares of
companies including Nio, Xpeng and Li
Auto as investors seek out the next
potential Tesla in the largest electric
vehicle market.
But some are sceptical that Ever-
grande Auto will be able to compete in
the crowded field.
Nigel Stevenson, an analyst at Hong
Kong-based accounting investigation
firm GMT Research, said that most of
the proceeds from Evergrande Auto’s
capital fundraising could end up being
passed on to the parent company. As of
June, Evergrande Auto’s debt stood at
Rmb75bn, most of which was either
owed to, or guaranteed by, its parent.
“Evergrande Auto remains primarily
a property company,” Mr Stevenson
said, adding that the company’s largest
cash outflow in 2019 was investment in
properties under development.
Evergrande Auto’s shares ended trad-
ing in Hong Kong about 52 per cent
higher yesterday.

Travel & leisure Energy

San Francisco 49ers bet on Leeds United
Samuel Agini — London
The San Francisco 49ers National Foot-
ball League team has ramped up its
stake in Leeds United in the latest sign
of US investor confidence in the English
Premier League, the world’s richest
domestic soccer competition.
49ers Enterprises, the investment unit
of the NFL team, now owns 37 per cent
of the Yorkshire club — up from its
previous 15 per cent stake.
Andrea Radrizzani, Leeds chairman
and majority-owner, said: “We are
delighted to welcome further invest-
ment into our club from 49ers Enter-
prises, and I am confident that this latest
partnership will help Leeds United con-
tinue to grow and develop into the team
our supporters deserve.”
This deal comes three years after the
49ers first invested in the club, when it
played in the Championship — the
second tier of English football.
Financial details of the transaction
were not disclosed but Mr Radrizzani
previously said he would be willing to
sell a minority stake at a £270m-£300m
valuation and that he hoped to turn
Leeds into a business worth £1bn.
The move is the latest US investment
in English football, following ALK Capi-
tal’s £200m purchase of Burnley at the
end of last year.
Leeds finished top of the Champion-
ship in the 2019/20 season to earn pro-
motion to the Premier League, where 20
clubs share billions of pounds in broad-
casting revenues.
These television contracts are vital
because Leeds has been losing signifi-
cant match-day revenue as stadiums
are forced to remain empty because of
pandemic restrictions.
The club made a pre-tax loss of
£21.4m on revenues of £48.9m in the
year ending June 2019. This compares
with a loss of £4.3m on revenues of
£40.7m the previous season, including
£12.6m generated by gate receipts at the
team’s Elland Road home ground.
Paraag Marathe, president of 49ers
Enterprises, will become vice-chairman
of Leeds United.
Shell buys Britain’s top EV charging network
Anjli Raval
Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy
Ubitricity, owner of the largest public
charging network for electric vehicles
in the UK, as it expands its presence
along the power supply chain.
Shell said yesterday it would buy
100 per cent of the company for an
undisclosed amount.
Ubitricity, founded in Germany, is a
leading European provider of on-street
charging for electric vehicles. The com-
pany, which integrates electric car
charging into street infrastructure such
as lamp-posts, has more than 2,700
charge points in the UK, giving it a mar-
ket share of 13 per cent.
Shell already has more than 1,000 fast
and ultrafast charging points at 430
Shell retail stations and a greater
number, including those owned by part-
ners and affiliates, at forecourts and
motorway service stations.
Subject to regulatory approval, the
deal is expected to close later this year.
Street charging is expected to expand
rapidly as customers who lack private
driveways and those who wish to charge
their vehicles overnight seek wider
options.
Istvan Kapitany, who heads Shell’s
mobility business, said: “Working with
local authorities, we want to support the
growing number of Shell customers who
want to switch to an [electric vehicle] by
making it as convenient as possible for
them.”
Like peers such as Total and Repsol,
Shell has been expanding along the elec-
tricity supply chain as it looks to build a
business that will be resilient through
an energy transition towards cleaner
fuels.
Investors and environmentalists have
demanded that oil companies take
greater responsibility for their role in
enabling climate change, forcing
Europe’s energy majors to make new
pledges for cleaning up their businesses.
Shell, like BP and others, said last year
it would become a net-zero emissions
business. It is expected to detail its plan
next month at its strategy update.
8 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021

COMPANIES & MARKETS

FT Series. Runaway Markets Equities

Amateur
Bubble signals flash red as bitcoin traders fuel
outsized gains
races to extremes and stocks surge for US picks
Philip Stafford

Shares in GameStop and BlackBerry

rocketed in New York yesterday as ama-
teur online traders continued their
assault on professional investors who
have bet that the stocks are overvalued.
Gaming retailer GameStop jumped as
much as 120 per cent and its stock was
repeatedly halted to calm volatile trad-
ing, before falling back to trade 10 per
cent higher. The outsized gains, without
significant corporate news, built on a
rally on Friday that exceeded 100 per
cent at its peak.
Shares in tech group BlackBerry
soared as much as 47 per cent yesterday,
taking the price to more than double its
level at the start of 2021.
The activity has underscored the
impact of social media and cheap trad-
ing on Wall Street in the past year, where
$500bn a day of deals are filtered
through a network of banks and bro-
kers, and executed in microseconds.
Both companies are popular among
amateur traders who share ideas and
tips on the r/wallstreetbets message
board on the website Reddit. Other
companies, such as Palantir Technolo-
gies, the US data analytics group, have
also been widely discussed.
One Reddit user said he had taken his
father’s life savings and put it all on
BlackBerry with a “you only live once”

Bit steep: an chases,” said Salman Baig, multi-asset

Retail buying spree sparks
fears while fund managers
go on alert for pullback
Katie Martin — London
Screaming stock rallies and wild specu-
lation by have-a-go amateur investors
are stirring fears among market veter-
ans over a bubble to rival anything seen
in the past century.
After a dramatic rebound from the
coronavirus crash last March, bench-
mark equity indices have toppled a
series of records in the early days of
2021. Bitcoin, the most speculative bet
of them all, has raced to extremes. Pop-
ular stocks such as Tesla continue to
defy efforts at sober valuation.
Baupost Group founder Seth Klarman
has warned that investors are under the
impression that risk has “vanished”, lik-
ening them to frogs being slowly
brought to the boil. GMO co-founder
Jeremy Grantham has dubbed the rally
since 2009 an “epic bubble” character-
ised by “extreme overvaluation”.
Fund managers are on alert for a pull-
back. “Timing the end of this frothiness
is hard. It can go on longer than you
think. I don’t see a huge move
lower . . . But we have become more
cautious,” said David Older, head of
equities at Carmignac.
But with markets floating on an
unprecedented wave of monetary and
fiscal support, yields nailed near his-
toric lows and investors — institutional
and retail — sitting on piles of excess
cash, outlandish patterns in stocks
could persist for some time.
In a note in mid-January, analysts at
Absolute Strategy Research produced a
Tech valuations climb towards dotcom levels
Ratio of market value to total revenues for Nasdaq 100 index
1991 95 2000 05
Source: Capital IQ
checklist of bubble indicators, setting
the rally in US “growth” stocks in the
same context as the boom and bust in
Japanese equities in the 1980s, the more
abrupt rise and fall of dotcom stocks in
the late 1990s, and the long round trip in
commodities stocks in the opening dec-
ade of the 2000s.
Common features include low inter-
est rates, stock valuations that tower
over earnings, runaway retail trading,
and rapid accelerations in equity gains.
On all these points, conditions look
alarming. ASR points out that more
than 10 per cent of stocks in the US blue-
chip S&P 500 benchmark are 40 per
cent or more above their averages of the
past 200 days — a phenomenon seen
only four times in the past 35 years.
“Clients are increasingly worried,”
said Ian Hartnett, co-founder of ASR.
But rallies could just be getting started if
interest rates stayed low and fund man-
agers felt pressure to hop on the band-
wagon. “There is career risk in the fear
of missing out. People find a way to
rationalise every bubble. They have to
explain to a chief investment officer or
10
8 tower over
6 explosion in
4 and rapid
2 stock gains are
0
10 15 21
to an investment committee why they
have gone long here.”
Some point to the explosion in trading
by amateurs as a concern. Seen as
flighty “weak hands” by fund managers,
intolerant of losses and quick to exit
bets, they have been on the ascendant as
lockdown boredom encourages them to
the commission-free trading offered by
start-ups such as Robinhood.
Americans were turning to stocks as
“the casinos are closed [and] a lot of
sports are shut down”, said Mr Older.
Much of their investment was focused
on “hyper growth” stocks such as elec-
tric vehicle makers. “There is no valua-
tion ceiling for these companies.”
Even given the warning signs, inves-
tors are not staging any rush to the exits.
In part this is because the surge in retail
trading may be less troubling than it
looks. Unlike previous episodes of retail
trading exuberance, analysts and fund
managers suspect that the bout may be
more robust and less likely to saddle
households with huge losses.
“It’s important to remember how
retail investors are financing these pur-
engineer works investment manager at Unigestion in
on bitcoin mining. Geneva, drawing a contrast to events
Low rates, share such as China’s 2015 bubble, where a
valuations that rise in margin finance sent stocks soar-
ing before a brutal crash. “Now, house-
earnings, an hold savings are high. People have built
up cash balances . . . It does not feel to
amateur trading us like a bubble. Rather, there are some
expensive stocks where there could be a
accelerations in meaningful correction.”
Optimists stress that professionals are
causing anxiety not demonstrating the same gung-ho
Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters
attitude. Instead, they continue to take
precautions against the risk of a set-
back. The Vix stands at more than 23
points, compared with a long-run aver-
age just below 20. At the start of last
year, it was at 14 points.
“The fact that people are still nervous
enough about future volatility suggests
people are not all in,” said Andrew
Sheets, chief cross-asset strategist at
Morgan Stanley.
Echoes with precursors to market
shake-outs are strong. But barring a
With near-unimaginable withdrawal of sup-
monetary port from central banks, or a burst of
inflation that jolts the bond markets,
and fiscal many investors agree that it is hard to
support, imagine what could trigger a large
reversal in risky assets.
yields near “I don’t think the bubble bugles are
historic lows acknowledging why stocks are so
expensive,” said Michael Kelly, head of
and investors multi-asset investment at PineBridge.
sitting on “In 2021, markets are going up because
earnings are going up and excess liquid-
piles of ity is still surging. We are in a structural
excess cash, growth in capital because of the rising
savings rate and, on top of that, quanti-
outlandish tative easing. We’ve never ever had that
patterns before.” It would take at least a decade
for this to unwind, he said.
could persist Additional reporting by Ian Smith
‘How do you gauge
sentiment in gifs or
memes? I don’t know’
Investment bank analyst
attitude. “Told him ‘it’s either retire-
ment on a yacht or foodstamps for him’.”
Friday’s drama in GameStop shares
came after short seller Citron Research
said their value should halve from $40
as it was “pretty much in terminal
decline”. Retail trading enthusiasts
retaliated by buying options in GME,
helping to push the stock above $65.
“All the sentiment positioning indica-
tors are geared towards the institutional
world,” said one investment bank ana-
lyst. “How do you gauge sentiment on
Tik Tok? How do you gauge sentiment
in gifs or memes? I don’t know.”
Small investors can influence share
prices by buying large amounts of call
options, which give the user the right
but not the obligation to purchase a
share later at a fixed price.
Typically, this means that wholesale
brokers such as banks need to purchase
shares on the open market in order to
hedge themselves against the event that
the stock price hits the strike price of the
option.
This hedging can have an outsized
impact on prices, particularly in smaller
In a series of stocks if a large percentage of the com-
articles, the FT pany’s stock is on loan for institutional
examines the investors to make a profit by selling
exuberant start short.
to 2021 across In the first hour of yesterday’s trade
global financial more than 400,000 options contracts in
markets GameStop had been purchased, higher
ft.com/ than totals on the full trading day over
runawaymarkets the past 50 days.
Additional reporting by Eric Platt

Fixed income Equities

Aircraft leasing bonds garner bets on
long-term rebound for travel sector
Joe Rennison — London
A string of successful bond deals for
aircraft leasing companies reflects a
view among investors that this niche of
the travel industry is a safer way to bet
on a recovery in the sector.
In total, seven leasing companies, which
own planes they lease to airlines, have
raised $14.9bn in January, according to
data from Dealogic, with several receiv-
ing cut-price borrowing costs.
Investors said the deals nonetheless
offered attractive returns in a corner of
the airline industry more protected
against further fallout from the spread
of coronavirus.
“Out of the whole travel sector they
are probably one of the better posi-
tioned,” said Monica Erickson, head of
the investment-grade corporate team at
DoubleLine Capital. “It’ll be a while
before anything normalises but the
types of planes they have will remain
out there. The terms they have with the
airlines . . . they can withstand the
expected downturn.”
Last week, Aircastle raised a $750m
seven-year bond with an additional
yield, or spread above US Treasuries, of
2.3 per cent, down from an early indica-
tion of 2.6 per cent when the deal was
first marketed to investors, according to
people familiar with the transaction. Air
Lease also raised $750m, this time for
three years at a spread of 0.72 per cent.
Earlier this month, AerCap raised
$1bn. The five-year deal priced with a
spread of 1.55 per cent, down from ini-
tially being marketed at 1.8 per cent.
Most lessors typically enjoy long lease
times, which enables them to straddle
difficult patches for the airline industry.
Jet lessors’ terms with airlines mean
they are viewed as relatively safe
Their main risks stem from airlines fail-
ing to pay rents, or even going bankrupt.
But since airlines have secured capital to
help survive the pandemic, that in turn
has bolstered the position of the lessors.
The returns on offer to investors from
the lessors’ bonds are historically low,
but they are still attractive compared to
other bonds in the market. Most lessors
sit at the bottom end of the investment-
grade rating spectrum, clinging to the
sought-after status while some airlines’
unsecured bond ratings have tumbled
into “junk”. The average investment-
grade rated corporate bond with a
maturity of five to seven years currently
carries a spread of just 0.77 per cent.
Lessors’ borrowing costs have fallen
significantly. Air Lease’s previous debt
issue in November was a 10-year bond
with a coupon of 3.13 per cent. As exu-
berance over the rollout of coronavirus
vaccines has intensified, the yield on the
bond has fallen to 2.75 per cent.
“We have had a lot of capital raises
and we are only three weeks into the
year,” said Helane Becker, an analyst at
Cowen Securities. “As more vaccine gets
into people’s arms I think people will be
more willing to travel.”
Hedge fund Element warns new virus
strain will hit European economy hard
Eric Platt — New York
Investors and policymakers are failing
to grasp how deeply the new variant of
coronavirus will damage the European
economy, Element Capital, one of the
world’s largest macro hedge funds, has
warned.
Expectations for economic growth need
to be cut as the B.1.1.7 coronavirus vari-
ant spreads beyond UK borders, and
lockdowns across the continent could
extend months beyond current esti-
mates, the fund’s head of markets Colin
Teichholtz said in an interview.
“What you are seeing in the UK today
you will see over much of continental
Europe, and I don’t think markets
[and] . . . policymakers are really
grasping that,” Mr Teichholtz said. “Are
policymakers getting this? Are people
updating their economic forecasts for
the second quarter to reflect a much
worse outcome in terms of the economy
being able to reopen? There is very little
indication of that in forecasts.”
Element has emerged as one of the
hedge fund success stories of the pan-
demic crisis, betting early that the
BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine would be
more effective than the broader market
anticipated. The fund returned 18.8 per
cent last year and has never reported a
down year since billionaire Jeffrey
Talpins launched the fund in 2005.
The pessimistic outlook from Mr
Teichholtz stemmed from low vaccina-
tion rates across the EU, with countries
such as Germany, France and Spain lag-
ging behind the pace of inoculations in
‘What you are seeing in the
UK you will see over much
of Europe, I don’t think
markets are grasping that’
the US and UK. Boris Johnson, the UK
prime minister, warned on Friday that
the new variant might be more lethal
and more infectious than the earlier
wave of the virus.
European Central Bank president
Christine Lagarde last week described
new virus variants first detected in the
UK and South Africa as “not so positive”
factors that “could require more strin-
gent measures” but asserted that the
central bank’s forecasts for 3.9 per cent
growth in 2021 remain “broadly valid”.
“That set of assumptions has to be off
by at least a quarter,” said Mr Teich-
holtz, “and that’s another three months
of people being stuck at home, people
being furloughed, many companies . . .
not being able to function,” he added.
He cautioned that lockdowns could
last until June if policymakers did not
take more aggressive measures across
the continent to contain the virus soon.
Mr Teichholtz declined to comment
on the fund’s positioning. Last August,
Mr Talpins told clients the fund was
wagering on a decline in European equi-
ties at the time and had taken a “signifi-
cant short position”.
Mr Teichholtz said the brisk pace of
vaccinations in the US would probably
insulate the country from the same out-
break that he envisions in Europe. Stock
markets in both regions have continued
to advance this year, with the bench-
mark Euro Stoxx 600 marginally out-
pacing the S&P 500.
“I would say whatever your assump-
tion is for global growth for the first half
of 2021, you should probably move that
assumption a little lower because of the
impact likely in Europe,” he said.
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 9

COMPANIES & MARKETS

The day in the markets Reports of value

What you need to know
investing’s demise
3 Yield on 10-year US Treasuries nears
were exaggerated
Treasuries rally as Biden stimulus plan faces resistance
two-week low
10-year US government bond yields (%)
3 Tech stocks among the biggest risers
during a cautious trading session
3 Tencent rally helps lift Hong Kong
stocks benchmark
1.20
Robin Wigglesworth
1.15
Big technology groups pushed higher as
Wall Street searched for direction ahead 1.10
Markets Insight
of a big week for corporate earnings and
further stimulus talks on Capitol Hill.
1.05

T
The blue-chip S&P 500 index was flat he tale of Tony Dye has have deserted them is often a contrarian fund launches marking the top of a
in afternoon trading in New York despite become folklore in some indicator. market cycle. But BlackRock’s decision
further gains for Apple and Tesla, while 1.00 corners of markets. Since Mr Aronson shuffled off the to launch one that sat squarely at the
the energy and financial sectors dragged. Some 20 years ago, the stage, MSCI’s index of value stocks glo- intersection of the stock market’s two
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite once-lauded money man- bally has climbed almost 16 per cent, most hated areas looks like it may have
was also close to flat overall, after settling 0.95 ager quit his job as Phillips & Drew’s compared with the growth stock bench- been the rare case of one being timed at
at a record high last week. investment chief and jetted off to the mark’s 11 per cent gain. Indeed, value the bottom.
Sector-by-sector performance 0.90 Bahamas to fish for bonefish rather than stocks have since mid-October even Since its launch at the end of October,
suggested that the rotation out of tech the undervalued stocks that had made beaten the technology-heavy Nasdaq SVAL has climbed 38 per cent, almost
and into economically sensitive sectors, his name. index. double the gains of the New York Stock
which had been sparked by the arrival of 0.85 The fund manager had by then Of course, this comes after a remarka- Exchange’s Fang+ index, which includes
Covid-19 vaccines, had been put on hold. Dec 2020 2021 Jan become known as the biggest bear in the bly long and painful stretch of lagging stock market darlings such as Tesla,
On both sides of the Atlantic, tech was Source: Refinitiv
City of London, insisting that the stock behind. Value stocks have enjoyed brief Netflix and Amazon, or China’s equiva-
among the leading sectors. market was in a once-in-a-century comebacks before, only to see them fiz- lents, Baidu and Alibaba. US small-caps
The market has pinned its hopes on mania. His performance withered. Cli- zle out. Many investors thought the more broadly are up more than 8 per
extra fiscal support for the world’s largest In Europe, the continent-wide Stoxx Tencent’s share price but also most ents left in droves. once-hallowed value strategy would cent already in 2021.
economy, but the scope of a relief bill is 600 and London’s FTSE 100 benchmark internet-related companies.” Eventually, Dye and Phillips & Drew The question is whether this is the
uncertain. Joe Biden, the new president, both dropped 0.8 per cent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 2.4 per decided that a divorce was the best out- start of a durable, powerful renaissance
has put forward a $1.9tn package that has Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax sank 1.7 per cent. cent while China’s CSI 300 index ended come — weeks before the bubble burst. The question is whether as happened after Dye’s departure from
faced resistance from some lawmakers Tech stocks led the charge in Hong 1 per cent higher. Dye quickly became an emblematic this is the start of a Phillips & Drew, or another frustrating
wary of passing another huge bill. Kong, with shares in internet group Attention will turn to a wave of casualty of the dotcom bubble, and his head fake.
The cautious mood improved the Tencent closing up almost 11 per cent. earnings results this week, with Apple, defenestration signalled a renaissance renaissance or another Judging by reams of investment
appeal of haven assets such as core Tencent-backed livestreaming platform Facebook and Tesla scheduled to for his “value” school of investing, frustrating head fake research, it seems Wall Street thinks it is
government debt. The yield on 10-year Kuaishou plans to raise up to $6.3bn in a release updates. Analysts will be focused on finding unfairly cheap and the former. Bank of America’s latest
US Treasuries fell 5 basis points to 1.04 Hong Kong initial public offering, the watching to see if earnings progress can unloved stocks. fund manager survey reveals that inves-
per cent, its lowest level in almost two Financial Times reported. support rising valuations, with some Whisper it, but perhaps Ted Aronson bounce back in 2020, only to see it tors agree, and have never been so sure
weeks, “as the narrative shifts from fiscal “We’re expecting Kuaishou will be very veteran investors warning of a “bubble” will prove to be this cycle’s Tony Dye. beaten up by the pandemic. that the two out-of-style investment
stimulus reflation to concerns over . . . the hot,” said Dickie Wong, head of research in prices. Mr Aronson is another celebrated A similar theme has played out in approaches will come back into vogue.
final size of the relief bill”, said analysts at at Hong Kong-based broker Kingston Matthew Rocco, Leke Oso Alabi and value investor, whose hedge fund AJO smaller stocks. These have historically The unanimity is enough to make even
BMO Capital Markets. Securities. “That is boosting not only Hudson Lockett Partners threw in the towel last October. outperformed larger stocks but have an optimist pause.
By then, its assets under management also spent much of the past decade in Much rests on expectations for a huge
had deflated from more than $30bn in the doghouse. The pain in small-caps US fiscal splurge coming true, the global
Markets update 2007 to about $10bn, as value stocks by has not been nearly as severe, extensive economy regaining its vim in 2021, and
one measure suffered their worst run of and long as that suffered by value climbing bond yields denting the lustre
underperformance in two centuries. stocks, but has still been notable. of rate-sensitive growth stocks.
“The drought in value — the longest When BlackRock last autumn There are also genuine, secular trends
US Eurozone Japan UK China Brazil on record — is at the heart of our chal- launched a small-caps value ETF, it elic- challenging many industries currently
Stocks S&P 500 Eurofirst 300 Nikkei 225 FTSE100 Shanghai Comp Bovespa lenge,” Mr Aronson wrote in his farewell ited some mirth in the investment com- classified as value, and for many smaller
Level 3834.97 1563.46 28822.29 6638.85 3624.24 117380.49 letter to investors. “We still believe munity. It was hard to think of anything companies being squeezed by big rivals.
% change on day -0.17 -0.80 0.67 -0.84 0.48 -0.80 there is a future for value investing; more against the market zeitgeist. But after the nightmare of the past
Currency $ index (DXY) $ per € Yen per $ $ per £ Rmb per $ Real per $ sadly, the future is unlikely to arrive fast Underlining the scepticism, the iShares decade, who would begrudge the adher-
Level 90.272 1.213 103.780 1.367 6.476 5.471 enough — for us.” Factors US Small Cap Value ETF — with ents of value and small-cap investing
% change on day 0.038 -0.329 -0.019 0.000 -0.023 0.306 But as Dye showed 20 years ago, the the ticker SVAL — has only gathered a some justified optimism?
Govt. bonds 10-year Treasury 10-year Bund 10-year JGB 10-year Gilt 10-year bond 10-year bond enforced retirement of once-lauded measly $45m of assets.
Yield 1.047 -0.552 0.034 0.261 3.132 7.810 money managers whose touch seems to There is a long and ignoble history of robin.wigglesworth@ft.com
Basis point change on day -4.240 -3.800 -0.360 -4.600 -0.700 37.300
World index, Commods FTSE All-World Oil - Brent Oil - WTI Gold Silver Metals (LMEX)
Level 438.03 55.44 52.24 1852.70 25.32 3516.10
% change on day -0.25 0.49 0.37 -0.50 -2.11 -0.18
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
3920 1600 7040

3840 6720
1560
3760
1520 6400
3680
| | | | | | | | |
3600 || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1480 || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 6080 | | | | | | | | | | |

Nov 2021 Jan Nov 2021 Jan Nov 2021 Jan

Biggest movers
% US Eurozone UK
Iron Mountain 9.47 Novozymes 5.41 Reckitt Benckiser 4.46
Kroger Co (the) 7.90 Coloplast 3.69 Ocado 2.38
Ups

Clorox 5.81 Philips 2.31 Severn Trent 2.18

Viacomcbs 5.62 Unilever 2.15 United Utilities 2.12
Coty 5.53 Terna 1.67 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust 2.11
%
Freeport-mcmoran -6.31 Edf -15.62 Int Consolidated Airlines S.a. -7.65
Royal Caribbean -6.05 Cnp Assurances -5.37 Melrose Industries -5.56
Downs

Westrock -5.96 Commerzbank -5.31 Compass -5.23

Technipfmc -5.71 Accor -5.11 Rolls-royce Holdings -4.81
Nov -5.67 Cnh Industrial -4.87 Informa -4.46
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

Kimberly-Clark climbed after the home of The return of positive earnings helped Boohoo bounced after the fast-fashion
Kleenex tissues and Andrex toilet paper send Siemens Energy higher. The turbine retailer agreed to buy the brand of
reported fourth-quarter net sales maker reported preliminary adjusted department store Debenhams, which
of $4.8bn, a 6 per cent increase compared earnings before interest, taxes, went into administration last April.
with the same period a year ago. depreciation and amortisation of €243m Boohoo, which will pay £55m for
The results prompted Kimberly-Clark’s for its first quarter compared with a loss intellectual property including customer
board to approve a 6.5 per cent rise in of €117m for the same period a year ago. data, plans to rebuild the Debenhams
quarterly dividend. Its directors also gave SE’s gas and power orders beat platform, which has about 300m UK
the go-ahead for a new $5bn share consensus estimates by around 12 per website visits a year.
repurchase programme. cent, said Citi analysts, with an intake Shore Capital described the deal as “a
News that Moderna was developing a worth €5.2bn for the quarter. sensible bolt-on acquisition”.
vaccine to tackle mutant Covid strains “A good G & P order print is reassuring The broker added: “It enables Boohoo
sent the biotech group higher. The given growth concerns, while the to enter adjacent markets — beauty,
Massachusetts-based company is underlying profit beat indicates good sports and homewares — and bolsters
launching a trial for a booster jab to traction with cost programmes that are their share in clothing across ladies and
immunise more effectively against a key to the midterm margin improvement menswear,” said the broker.
coronavirus strain identified in South story,” said Citi. “The big question in beauty is whether
Africa. But Merck slid after the pharma Philips climbed after reporting better the big beauty brands — Clinique and
group abandoned its bid to develop a than expected results. The Dutch health Chanel — will remain with Boohoo longer
coronavirus vaccine, saying that its phase tech group said sales for the fourth term,” added Shore.
1 trials showed participants’ response was quarter hit €6bn, representing Boohoo rival Asos also rallied on news
not as robust as the immune reaction comparable growth of 7 per cent. it was in exclusive talks to acquire the
seen in recovered Covid-19 patients. The Owing to the pandemic, the company Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge
New Jersey company will instead focus has been supporting “consumers in their bands, which were part of Arcadia, the
on developing drugs to treat Covid-19. homes with tele-health solutions such as fashion empire assembled by retail
The group has a deal with the US tele-dentistry services and remote tycoon Philip Green.
government to sell a drug to treat the monitoring”, said Frans van Houten, chief Any acquisition would be funded from
inflammatory response for severe executive officer. Comparable sales in cash reserves, said the online retailer.
Covid-19 patients if the medication Philips’ Connected Care businesses JTC climbed after the provider of funds
receives emergency authorisation. increased 24 per cent in the quarter. reported “strong new business growth”
GameStop built on last week’s rally to Finnair fell after Finland’s foreign for the full year ending December 31. The
soar again as a tussle between retail ministry announced stricter restrictions annualised value of new business won
traders and hedge fund short sellers on travel to and from the country. rose around 20 per cent to £17.9m.
intensified. Ray Douglas Ray Douglas Ray Douglas
10 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 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 € $ per £ ¥ per $ £ per € Oil Brent $ Sep Gold $

-0.17% -0.58% -0.84% -0.80% -0.25% -0.329% -0.019% -0.337% -0.50%

No change
0.20% 0.67% 2.41% 0.29%
Stock Market movements over last 30 days, with the FTSE All-World in the same currency as a comparison
AMERICAS EUROPE ASIA
Dec 26 - - Index All World Dec 26 - Jan 25 Index All World Dec 26 - Jan 25 Index All World Dec 26 - Jan 25 Index All World Dec 26 - Jan 25 Index All World Dec 26 - Jan 25 Index All World

S&P 500 New York S&P/TSX COMP Toronto FTSE 100 London Xetra Dax Frankfurt Nikkei 225 Tokyo Kospi Seoul
28,822.29 3,208.99
3,835.00 13,643.95
17,785.45 6,638.85
17,593.57 13,246.30 2,806.86
3,703.06 6,453.16 26,436.39
Day -0.17% Month 3.56% Year 16.37% Day -0.34% Month 0.93% Year 1.27% Day -0.84% Month 2.02% Year -12.55% Day -1.66% Month -1.48% Year NaN% Day 0.67% Month 8.06% Year 20.94% Day 2.18% Month 14.33% Year 42.87%

Nasdaq Composite New York IPC Mexico City FTSE Eurofirst 300 Europe Ibex 35 Madrid Hang Seng Hong Kong FTSE Straits Times Singapore
13,570.62 30,159.01
2,973.65
44,822.07 1,563.46
12,807.92 43,597.30 8,073.60
1,523.06 7,897.30 26,386.56 2,833.40
Day 0.20% Month 5.97% Year 45.68% Day 0.31% Month 3.23% Year -0.82% Day -0.80% Month 2.49% Year -5.63% Day -1.73% Month -2.64% Year -17.41% Day 2.41% Month 14.39% Year 7.99% Day -0.60% Month 4.60% Year -8.25%

Dow Jones Industrial New York Bovespa São Paulo CAC 40 Paris FTSE MIB Milan Shanghai Composite Shanghai BSE Sensex Mumbai
3,624.24
30,818.47 48,347.59
30,015.51 117,806.85 117,380.49 21,735.95
5,527.59 5,472.36 21,410.51
3,363.11 46,973.54
Day -0.58% Month 2.03% Year 6.29% Day -0.80% Month 0.64% Year -0.85% Day -1.57% Month -0.90% Year -9.16% Day -1.60% Month -1.87% Year -9.40% Day 0.48% Month 7.76% Year 21.76% Day -1.09% Month 2.93% Year 16.18%

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 47760.25 48470.91 Cyprus CSE M&P Gen 68.46 68.68 Italy FTSE Italia All-Share 23690.91 24058.38 Philippines Manila Comp 7071.50 7045.83 Taiwan Weighted Pr 15946.54 16019.03 Cross-Border DJ Global Titans ($) 454.89 454.63
Australia All Ordinaries 7111.40 7078.90 Czech Republic
PX 1061.07 1049.07 FTSE Italia Mid Cap 37262.16 37802.42 Poland Wig 57065.64 57304.69 Thailand Bangkok SET 1501.62 1497.88 Euro Stoxx 50 (Eur) 3550.85 3602.41
S&P/ASX 200 6824.70 6800.40 Denmark OMXC Copenahgen 20 1489.74 1482.27 FTSE MIB 21735.95 22088.36 Portugal PSI 20 4962.44 5040.63 Turkey BIST 100 1540.21 1542.45 Euronext 100 ID 1110.13 1123.64
S&P/ASX 200 Res 5490.40 5456.10 Egypt EGX 30 11525.25 11654.58 Japan 2nd Section 7146.63 6786.04 PSI General 3913.16 3959.85 UAE Abu Dhabi General Index 5617.85 5613.16 FTSE 4Good Global ($) 9449.36 9484.48
Austria ATX 2934.97 3002.26 Estonia OMX Tallinn 1442.71 1442.33 Nikkei 225 28822.29 28631.45 Romania BET Index 10321.38 10335.95 UK FT 30 2499.10 2543.30 FTSE All World ($) 438.03 439.13
Belgium BEL 20 3686.57 3743.25 Finland OMX Helsinki General 11306.02 11337.01 S&P Topix 150 1581.19 1577.21 Russia Micex Index 3397.48 3382.92 FTSE 100 6638.85 6695.07 FTSE E300 1563.46 1576.03
BEL Mid 8589.60 8664.38 France CAC 40 5472.36 5559.57 Topix 1862.00 1856.64 RTX 1412.02 1418.29 FTSE 4Good UK 6205.30 6253.81 FTSE Eurotop 100 2934.03 2959.48
Brazil IBovespa 117380.49 118328.99 SBF 120 4339.91 4415.62 Jordan Amman SE 1722.80 1717.56 Saudi-Arabia TADAWUL All Share Index 8846.95 8829.52 FTSE All Share 3752.00 3786.06 FTSE Global 100 ($) 2546.73 2552.34
Canada S&P/TSX 60 1053.84 1058.57 Germany M-DAX 31391.84 31635.51 Kenya NSE 20 1887.23 1888.89 Singapore FTSE Straits Times 2973.65 2991.53 FTSE techMARK 100 6382.76 6441.03 FTSE Gold Min ($) 2351.06 2383.41
S&P/TSX Comp 17785.45 17845.91 TecDAX 3364.93 3370.58 Kuwait KSX Market Index 6633.44 6603.51 Slovakia SAX 351.09 355.20 USA DJ Composite 10203.08 10248.19 FTSE Latibex Top (Eur) 4440.00 4432.20
S&P/TSX Div Met & Min 771.89 769.82 XETRA Dax 13643.95 13873.97 Latvia OMX Riga 1155.34 1168.39 Slovenia SBI TOP - - DJ Industrial 30818.47 30996.98 FTSE Multinationals ($) 2788.80 2798.49
Chile S&P/CLX IGPA Gen 22614.56 22622.86 Greece Athens Gen 762.13 778.98 Lithuania OMX Vilnius 868.75 867.52 South Africa FTSE/JSE All Share 64559.85 63987.92 DJ Transport 12746.95 12856.54 FTSE World ($) 773.16 776.38
China FTSE A200 14891.47 14697.04 FTSE/ASE 20 1815.79 1855.60 Luxembourg LuxX 1335.90 1347.60 FTSE/JSE Res 20 62256.06 62699.98 DJ Utilities 865.74 857.94 FTSEurofirst 100 (Eur) 3981.90 4021.87
FTSE B35 9000.71 8988.96 Hong Kong Hang Seng 30159.01 29447.85 Malaysia FTSE Bursa KLCI 1576.62 1596.74 FTSE/JSE Top 40 59408.05 58886.26 Nasdaq 100 13405.86 13366.40 FTSEurofirst 80 (Eur) 4878.45 4941.02
Shanghai A 3799.07 3780.66 HS China Enterprise 11960.49 11677.45 Mexico IPC 44822.07 44683.55 South Korea Kospi 3208.99 3140.63 Nasdaq Cmp 13570.62 13543.06 MSCI ACWI Fr ($) 666.69 669.62
Shanghai B 247.53 249.55 HSCC Red Chip 4075.71 4031.33 Morocco MASI 11563.73 11514.99 Kospi 200 437.30 427.13 NYSE Comp 14873.97 15097.28 MSCI All World ($) 2755.66 2765.57
Shanghai Comp 3624.24 3606.75 Hungary Bux 43188.94 43630.22 Netherlands AEX 658.24 660.53 Spain IBEX 35 7897.30 8036.40 S&P 500 3834.97 3841.47 MSCI Europe (Eur) 1650.67 1656.92
Shenzhen A 2577.47 2570.51 India BSE Sensex 48347.59 48878.54 AEX All Share 957.43 957.40 Sri Lanka CSE All Share 8694.35 8463.43 Wilshire 5000 40724.36 40783.63 MSCI Pacific ($) 3200.14 3220.18
Shenzhen B 1088.57 1096.77 Nifty 500 11743.70 11854.50 New Zealand NZX 50 13399.10 13333.43 Sweden OMX Stockholm 30 1975.06 1986.24 Venezuela IBC 1997191.90 1925396.50 S&P Euro (Eur) 1654.63 1677.30
Colombia COLCAP 1368.49 1383.59 Indonesia Jakarta Comp 6258.57 6307.13 Nigeria SE All Share 41001.99 41099.15 OMX Stockholm AS 795.65 803.20 Vietnam VNI 1166.05 1166.78 S&P Europe 350 (Eur) 1611.32 1625.39
Croatia CROBEX 2013.05 2011.29 Ireland ISEQ Overall 7206.59 7354.25 Norway Oslo All Share 1017.37 1006.88 Switzerland SMI Index 10925.70 10930.81 S&P Global 1200 ($) 3051.82 3056.43
Israel Tel Aviv 125 1641.65 1662.61 Pakistan KSE 100 46087.64 45868.04 Stoxx 50 (Eur) 3169.76 3188.77
(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 Jan 25 %Chg %Chg Jan 25 %Chg %Chg Jan 25 %Chg %Chg Jan 25 %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 122.5 142.59 3.52 Astrazeneca 209.6 7897.00 120.00 Asml Holding 498.6 461.35 -1.55 Softbank . 941.0 8664.00 -136.00 Sage 610.80 9.1 - Kainos 1274.00 15.4 - Treatt 930.00 23.3 - Software & Computer Services 2015.73 3.2 5.2
Amazon.com 67.3 3286.56 -5.68 Bhp 161.9 2092.00 -21.00 Siemens Ag Na O.n. 341.2 128.36 -4.44 Sony 537.8 10300.00 -180.00 Just Eat Takeaway.com N.v. 8422.00 7.8 - Diploma 2368.00 11.7 - Sme Credit Realisation Fund 72.81 18.4 20.7 Automobiles & Parts 4161.77 3.0 -9.3
Microsoft 33.2 226.98 1.03 Bp 131.0 280.65 -9.35 Sap Se O.n. 338.1 105.52 0.82 Fast Retailing Co., 469.4 94000.00 2180.00 Pearson 718.00 7.7 - Mitchells & Butlers 275.50 10.9 - Stobart Ld 38.70 18.0 - Food & Drug Retailers 4743.37 2.9 10.0
Facebook 28.8 275.27 0.77 Rio Tinto 131.0 5877.00 1.00 Allianz Se Na O.n. 288.2 190.48 -4.80 Takeda Pharmaceutical 373.1 3714.00 127.00 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust 1306.00 6.9 - Herald Investment Trust 2350.00 8.3 - Wanton 307.00 15.4 - Health Care Equip.& Services 6869.00 2.6 5.1
Advanced Micro Devices 27.8 93.28 0.49 Unilever 121.0 4465.00 87.00 Volkswagen Ag Vzo O.n. 278.9 158.64 -6.44 Tokyo Electron 334.3 43970.00 460.00 Ocado 2754.00 6.9 - Helios Towers 156.60 8.0 - Value And ome Trust 217.50 10.7 15.7 Personal Goods 37720.26 2.1 1.4
Alphabet 22.3 1877.33 -15.23 Int Consolidated Airlines S.a. 98.0 140.00 -11.60 Daimler Ag Na O.n. 269.4 57.44 -1.63 Toyota Motor 306.6 7677.00 17.00 Hargreaves Lansdown 1658.00 6.5 - Royal Mail 418.80 7.6 - Arrow Global 212.00 10.6 3.1 Industrial Transportation 3279.36 2.0 14.5
Netflix 21.0 556.60 -8.58 Anglo American 95.8 2515.00 -112.50 Total 261.9 35.35 -0.87 M3,. 302.0 10565.00 415.00 Reckitt Benckiser 6554.00 5.5 - Fidelity China Special Situations 442.00 7.4 17.9 Aptitude Software 594.00 10.0 32.6 Chemicals 14144.59 2.0 3.9
Boeing 18.1 201.09 -4.75 Glencore 89.2 259.75 -11.05 Airbus 257.1 84.87 -3.96 Fujitsu 227.5 16740.00 -210.00 Johnson Matthey 2893.00 4.7 - Indivior 127.90 7.3 25.5 Topps Tiles 63.90 10.0 13.6 Pharmaceuticals & Biotech. 16789.27 1.8 6.3
Nvidia 17.8 540.78 -7.73 Glaxosmithkline 87.4 1405.00 24.80 Basf Se Na O.n. 221.6 64.53 -1.75 Mitsubishi Ufj Fin,. 218.4 480.00 -3.00 B&m Eur Value Retail S.a. 526.80 4.5 - Baillie Gifford Us Growth Trust 354.00 6.9 - Devro 174.80 9.3 - Household Goods 17274.29 1.8 -1.8
Intel 17.8 55.00 -1.67 Hsbc Holdings 81.3 398.10 -9.25 Royal Dutch Shella 210.8 15.70 -0.39 Nippon Telegraph And Telephone 193.5 2740.00 40.50 Sainsbury (j) 249.10 4.3 - Hochschild Mining 205.80 6.9 - Manchester & London Investment Trust 626.00 8.3 -2.7 Gas Water & Multiutilities 4931.74 1.7 3.4
United Utilities 952.60 3.1 - Jtc 592.00 6.9 - Boot (henry) 280.00 8.1 8.8 Electronic & Electrical Equip. 10562.71 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
Astrazeneca 7897.00 3.1 - Oxford Biomedica 981.00 6.4 - Augmentum Fintech 148.25 7.6 10.5 Mobile Telecommunications 2928.22 1.6 5.9
price change chng% price change chng% price change chng% price change chng%
Ups Ups Ups Ups Losers Losers Losers Losers
Iron Mountain 33.01 2.86 9.47 Reckitt Benckiser 6554.00 280.00 4.46 Novozymes B A/s 50.52 2.59 5.41 Alps Alpine Co., 1543.00 89.00 6.12 Int Consolidated Airlines S.a. 140.00 -13.0 - Wood (john) 278.00 -20.3 - Amigo Holdings 7.40 -14.9 - Oil Equipment & Services 4912.62 -18.2 -11.6
Kroger Co (the) 36.21 2.65 7.90 Cineworld 69.00 2.90 4.39 Coloplast B A/s 127.66 4.54 3.69 Sumitomo Chemical , 500.00 27.00 5.71 Entain 1271.00 -10.1 - Hammerson 19.30 -15.8 - Metro Bank 117.55 -13.0 - Oil & Gas Producers 4841.23 -6.5 6.7
Clorox 214.11 11.76 5.81 Sirius Real Estate Ld 90.00 3.50 4.05 Philips Kon 46.69 1.06 2.31 Asahi Kasei 1204.50 60.00 5.24 Melrose Industries 165.70 -9.7 - Ao World 325.50 -13.8 - Newriver Reit 77.00 -12.7 -6.1 Travel & Leisure 7908.22 -6.0 -2.5
Viacomcbs 48.14 2.56 5.62 Petrofac 107.00 3.95 3.83 Unilever 56.58 1.19 2.15 Ube Industries, 2038.00 101.00 5.21 Barclays 137.12 -9.4 -7.9 Tui Ag 348.30 -12.5 - Ted Baker 101.40 -12.3 - Fixed Line Telecommunication 1596.02 -4.7 -0.9
Coty 6.68 0.35 5.53 Oxford Biomedica 981.00 28.00 2.94 Ericsson, Telefonab. L M Ser. B 9.86 0.20 2.08 Nikon 855.00 42.00 5.17 Informa 492.80 -7.7 - Dixons Carphone 110.00 -12.1 - Menzies(john) 205.50 -11.4 - Aerospace & Defense 3345.34 -4.3 -7.4
Land Securities 613.10 -7.7 -7.9 Carnival 1185.00 -11.2 - Go-ahead 995.00 -10.6 -1.2 Banks 2490.57 -4.2 -0.4
Downs Downs Downs Downs
Standard Chartered 454.90 -7.3 - Provident Fin 243.60 -11.2 - Superdry 215.00 -10.4 - Life Insurance 7232.70 -4.2 0.5
Freeport-mcmoran 28.57 -1.93 -6.31 Ssp 307.40 -26.80 -8.02 Edf 10.45 -1.93 -15.62 Sharp 2073.00 -83.00 -3.85
Bp 280.65 -6.6 - Easyjet 728.60 -10.7 - Stagecoach 71.40 -10.4 -6.7 Construction & Materials 6905.98 -3.8 0.3
Royal Caribbean 67.61 -4.35 -6.05 Energean 817.00 -70.70 -7.96 Cnp Assurances 12.68 -0.72 -5.37 Kobe Steel, 521.00 -18.00 -3.34
Lloyds Banking 33.84 -6.5 - Capita 33.50 -10.6 - Hunting 197.40 -10.2 - Mining 23202.89 -3.0 6.8
Westrock 43.89 -2.78 -5.96 Wh Smith 1593.00 -132.00 -7.65 Commerzbank Ag 5.50 -0.31 -5.31 Mitsui Eng & Shipbuilding Co., 426.00 -14.00 -3.18
Compass 1321.50 -6.2 - Ig Holdings 789.50 -10.4 - Premier Oil 18.99 -10.1 -4.6 General Industrials 6612.01 -3.0 -0.2
Technipfmc 10.57 -0.64 -5.71 Int Consolidated Airlines S.a. 140.00 -11.60 -7.65 Accor 28.06 -1.51 -5.11 Kubota 2360.00 -77.00 -3.16
Glencore 259.75 -6.2 - Premier Foods 97.00 -10.2 -7.1 Photo-me Int 43.65 -9.9 - Index - Technology Hardware & Equipment 2007.29 -2.7 -3.8
Nov 12.65 -0.76 -5.67 Itv 99.30 -7.15 -6.72 Cnh Industrial 10.65 -0.55 -4.87 Taisei 3500.00 -110.00 -3.05
Royal Dutch Shell 1320.40 -6.1 - Ssp 307.40 -10.1 - Bh Macro 3340.00 -8.9 -3.4 Real Estate Investment Trusts 2671.81 -2.5 -2.8
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
Jan 25 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Jan 25 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Jan 25 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Jan 25 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change
Argentina Argentine Peso 86.9048 0.3589 105.4158 0.0674 118.8067 0.4859 Indonesia Indonesian Rupiah 14020.0000 -15.0000 17006.3110 -77.8936 19166.6347 -21.2938 Poland Polish Zloty 3.7430 0.0141 4.5402 0.0013 5.1170 0.0191 ..Three Month 0.7316 0.0000 0.8872 -0.0031 - -
Australia Australian Dollar 1.2978 0.0026 1.5742 -0.0024 1.7742 0.0035 Israel Israeli Shekel 3.2768 0.0045 3.9747 -0.0085 4.4796 0.0060 Romania Romanian Leu 4.0186 0.0133 4.8745 -0.0009 5.4937 0.0180 ..One Year 0.7318 0.0000 0.8868 -0.0031 - -
Bahrain Bahrainin Dinar 0.3770 - 0.4573 -0.0016 0.5154 0.0000 Japan Japanese Yen 103.7800 -0.0200 125.8855 -0.4657 141.8767 -0.0332 Russia Russian Ruble 75.7175 0.5750 91.8456 0.3779 103.5127 0.7819 United States United States Dollar - - 1.2130 -0.0043 1.3671 -0.0001
Bolivia Bolivian Boliviano 6.9100 - 8.3819 -0.0294 9.4466 -0.0004 ..One Month 103.7800 -0.0201 125.8855 -0.4656 141.8767 -0.0332 Saudi Arabia Saudi Riyal 3.7511 -0.0007 4.5501 -0.0168 5.1281 -0.0012 ..One Month - - 1.2129 -0.1541 1.3671 -0.0001
Brazil Brazilian Real 5.4711 0.0167 6.6365 -0.0029 7.4796 0.0225 ..Three Month 103.7799 -0.0202 125.8856 -0.4654 141.8767 -0.0333 Singapore Singapore Dollar 1.3287 0.0010 1.6117 -0.0044 1.8165 0.0013 ..Three Month - - 1.2128 -0.1541 1.3672 -0.0001
Canada Canadian Dollar 1.2747 0.0030 1.5462 -0.0018 1.7426 0.0040 ..One Year 103.7795 -0.0210 125.8859 -0.4648 141.8767 -0.0335 South Africa South African Rand 15.2200 0.1463 18.4619 0.1133 20.8071 0.1991 ..One Year - - 1.2120 -0.1541 1.3674 -0.0001
Chile Chilean Peso 733.2550 6.4150 889.4408 4.6906 1002.4267 8.7292 Kenya Kenyan Shilling 110.1000 0.1000 133.5517 -0.3465 150.5168 0.1305 South Korea South Korean Won 1100.6500 -2.5000 1335.0923 -7.7235 1504.6891 -3.4798 Venezuela Venezuelan Bolivar Fuerte - - - - - -
China Chinese Yuan 6.4762 -0.0015 7.8557 -0.0294 8.8536 -0.0024 Kuwait Kuwaiti Dinar 0.3027 - 0.3671 -0.0013 0.4138 0.0000 Sweden Swedish Krona 8.3023 0.0076 10.0708 -0.0261 11.3501 0.0099 Vietnam Vietnamese Dong 23070.0000 -1.5000 27984.0043 -99.9667 31538.8764 -3.2829
Colombia Colombian Peso 3590.0900 62.2400 4354.7919 60.4951 4907.9827 84.8913 Malaysia Malaysian Ringgit 4.0445 0.0015 4.9060 -0.0154 5.5292 0.0018 Switzerland Swiss Franc 0.8887 0.0033 1.0780 0.0003 1.2149 0.0045 European Union Euro 0.8244 0.0029 - - 1.1270 0.0039
Costa Rica Costa Rican Colon 610.4400 -0.6250 740.4658 -3.3566 834.5273 -0.8887 Mexico Mexican Peso 20.1860 0.1935 24.4857 0.1497 27.5961 0.2634 Taiwan New Taiwan Dollar 28.0065 0.0245 33.9720 -0.0893 38.2874 0.0319 ..One Month 0.8243 0.0029 - - 1.1270 0.0039
Czech Republic Czech Koruna 21.5066 0.0496 26.0876 -0.0310 29.4015 0.0667 New Zealand New Zealand Dollar 1.3914 -0.0014 1.6878 -0.0076 1.9022 -0.0019 Thailand Thai Baht 29.9825 -0.0150 36.3689 -0.1458 40.9888 -0.0222 ..Three Month 0.8242 0.0029 - - 1.1269 0.0039
Denmark Danish Krone 6.1334 0.0223 7.4399 0.0011 8.3850 0.0301 Nigeria Nigerian Naira 394.7500 - 478.8331 -1.6786 539.6593 -0.0221 Tunisia Tunisian Dinar 2.7025 0.0086 3.2781 -0.0010 3.6946 0.0116 ..One Year 0.8234 0.0029 - - 1.1265 0.0039
Egypt Egyptian Pound 15.7075 -0.0023 19.0533 -0.0695 21.4736 -0.0040 Norway Norwegian Krone 8.5719 0.0726 10.3978 0.0520 11.7186 0.0988 Turkey Turkish Lira 7.4024 0.0104 8.9791 -0.0188 10.1198 0.0138
Hong Kong Hong Kong Dollar 7.7519 -0.0006 9.4031 -0.0337 10.5976 -0.0013 Pakistan Pakistani Rupee 160.5000 -0.2500 194.6870 -0.9868 219.4182 -0.3508 United Arab Emirates UAE Dirham 3.6732 - 4.4555 -0.0156 5.0215 -0.0002
Hungary Hungarian Forint 294.4353 0.5926 357.1510 -0.5307 402.5200 0.7937 Peru Peruvian Nuevo Sol 3.6409 0.0059 4.4164 -0.0083 4.9774 0.0079 United Kingdom Pound Sterling 0.7315 0.0000 0.8873 -0.0031 - -
India Indian Rupee 72.9400 -0.0325 88.4765 -0.3497 99.7156 -0.0485 Philippines Philippine Peso 48.0680 -0.0190 58.3066 -0.2275 65.7133 -0.0287 ..One Month 0.7315 0.0000 0.8872 -0.0031 - -
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 Jan 25 Jan 22 Jan 21 Jan 20 Jan 19 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 2499.10 2543.30 2563.50 2578.00 2559.40 0.00 3314.70 1337.80 Industrial Transport 14.42 NON FINANCIALS Index 3.65 Media 1.36 FTSE 100 Price Change FTSE 100 Price Change
Jan 25 chge% Index Jan 22 Jan 21 ago yield% Cover ratio adj Return FT 30 Div Yield - - - - - 0.00 3.93 2.74 Oil & Gas Producers 10.25 FTSE 100 Index 3.63 Fixed Line Telecomms 1.28 3I Group PLC 1134.5 -9.50 Land Securities Group PLC 613.10 -21.20
FTSE 100 (100) 6638.85 -0.84 5824.09 6695.07 6715.42 7585.98 3.56 1.56 18.01 2.24 6347.32 P/E Ratio net - - - - - 0.00 19.44 14.26 Oil & Gas 9.93 General Retailers 3.62 Financial Services 1.22 Admiral Group PLC 2945 -10.00 Legal & General Group PLC 256.20 -8.90
FTSE 250 (250) 20350.41 -1.20 17852.89 20596.91 20793.72 21763.94 2.28 1.41 31.06 9.38 16160.65 FT 30 since compilation: 4198.4 high: 19/07/1999; low49.4 18/02/1900Base Date: 1/7/35 Mining 8.82 Industrial Eng 3.36 Travel & Leisure 1.06 Anglo American PLC 2515 -112.50 Lloyds Banking Group PLC 33.84 -0.94
FTSE 250 ex Inv Co (183) 20762.66 -1.54 18214.55 21087.18 21310.67 23070.11 2.26 1.29 34.33 10.26 16818.16 FT 30 hourly changes Food & Drug Retailer 8.82 Life Insurance 3.15 FTSE 250 Index 0.53 Antofagasta PLC 1474.5 -30.00 London Stock Exchange Group PLC 9032 -88.00
FTSE 350 (350) 3776.85 -0.90 3313.34 3811.25 3827.22 4265.71 3.34 1.54 19.45 1.36 7196.46 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 High Low Basic Materials 8.50 Electricity 3.10 Beverages 0.49 Ashtead Group PLC 3748 -84.00 M&G PLC 190.75 -4.25
FTSE 350 ex Investment Trusts (281) 3675.20 -0.97 3224.16 3711.05 3726.50 4209.49 3.42 1.41 20.68 1.34 3613.83 2543.3 2524.4 2519.9 2493.1 2399.1 2395.8 2394.3 2414 2426.7 2439.2 2366.1 Industrial Metals & 8.49 FTSE All{HY-}Share Index 3.06 Personal Goods -0.33 Associated British Foods PLC 2200 -54.00 Melrose Industries PLC 165.70 -9.75
FTSE 350 Higher Yield (145) 2981.89 -1.41 2615.94 3024.67 3047.76 3670.77 4.80 1.45 14.36 1.12 6248.60 FT30 constituents and recent additions/deletions can be found at www.ft.com/ft30 Health Care Eq & Srv 6.83 Consumer Services 2.91 Consumer Goods -0.42 Astrazeneca PLC 7897 120.00 Mondi PLC 1781.5 -48.50
FTSE 350 Lower Yield (205) 4345.70 -0.40 3812.37 4363.18 4366.72 4524.90 1.92 1.76 29.64 1.49 5143.95 Software & Comp Serv 5.77 FTSE SmallCap Index 2.76 Nonlife Insurance -0.42 Auto Trader Group PLC 579.80 5.60 Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets PLC 187.00 0.20
FTSE SmallCap (255) 6334.89 -0.82 5557.44 6387.29 6433.14 6002.59 2.80 -0.68 -52.38 5.87 10082.74 Chemicals 5.72 Utilities 2.33 Real Est Invest & Se -1.03
FTSE SmallCap ex Inv Co (139) 4972.69 -1.30 4362.41 5038.14 5056.78 4923.92 2.63 -0.56 -67.87 1.25 8268.68 FX: EFFECTIVE INDICES Technology 5.33 Tobacco 2.32 Food Producers -1.07
Avast PLC 521.00 -2.50 National Grid PLC 888.00 12.20
Aveva Group PLC 3815 -15.00 Natwest Group PLC 151.55 -3.95
FTSE All-Share (605) 3752.00 -0.90 3291.53 3786.06 3802.30 4213.14 3.32 1.48 20.39 1.42 7222.05
FTSE All-Share ex Inv Co (420) 3612.94 -0.97 3169.54 3648.40 3663.56 4127.45 3.40 1.39 21.19 1.31 3608.17 Jan 22 Jan 21 Mnth Ago Jan 25 Jan 22 Mnth Ago Electronic & Elec Eq 5.33 Banks 2.21 Real Est Invest & Tr -1.85 Aviva PLC 341.30 -7.80 Next PLC 7882 -32.00
Mobile Telecomms 5.09 Gas Water & Multi 2.05 Household Goods & Ho -3.50 B&M European Value Retail S.A. 526.80 7.40 Ocado Group PLC 2754 64.00
FTSE All-Share ex Multinationals (536) 1198.38 -0.98 871.34 1210.19 1217.90 1278.12 2.68 1.46 25.54 0.84 2403.39 Australia - - - Sweden - - - Health Care 5.03 Industrials 2.01 Aerospace & Defense -4.71 Bae Systems PLC 471.20 -7.90 Pearson PLC 718.00 3.00
FTSE Fledgling (89) 10995.46 0.27 9646.03 10966.33 11016.24 9919.32 2.16 1.01 45.83 10.29 22661.67 Canada - - - Switzerland - - - Pharmace & Biotech 4.82 Support Services 1.90 Leisure Goods -5.57 Barclays PLC 137.12 -5.94 Pennon Group PLC 978.60 20.20
FTSE Fledgling ex Inv Co (42) 13293.60 0.71 11662.13 13199.65 13247.57 11773.73 1.84 6.02 9.05 6.07 26740.40 Denmark - - - UK 79.29 79.62 77.27 Telecommunications 4.03 Tech Hardware & Eq 1.54 Automobiles & Parts -7.83 Barratt Developments PLC 687.00 -6.20 Pershing Square Holdings LTD 2650 -5.00
FTSE All-Small (344) 4400.64 -0.76 3860.56 4434.35 4465.54 4158.80 2.76 -0.61 -59.49 4.08 8986.02 Japan - - - USA - - - Construct & Material 3.76 Equity Invest Instr 1.51 Oil Equipment & Serv -7.83 Berkeley Group Holdings (The) PLC 4423 -29.00 Persimmon PLC 2685 -31.00
FTSE All-Small ex Inv Co (181) 3723.58 -1.22 3266.60 3769.47 3783.40 3670.00 2.60 -0.37 -104.88 0.96 7843.08 New Zealand - - - Euro - - - Financials 1.39 Oil & Gas Producers -40.36 Bhp Group PLC 2092 -21.00 Phoenix Group Holdings PLC 691.00 -4.40
FTSE AIM All-Share (721) 1198.56 0.27 1051.47 1195.31 1198.09 965.91 0.73 0.29 467.52 0.51 1377.06 Norway - - -
BP PLC 280.65 -9.35 Polymetal International PLC 1679.5 -9.00
FTSE 100 (100) 6638.85 -0.84 5824.09 6695.07 6715.42 7585.98 3.56 1.56 18.01 2.24 6347.32 Source: Bank of England. New Sterling ERI base Jan 2005 = 100. Other indices base average 1990 = 100. British American Tobacco PLC 2740 1.50 Prudential PLC 1357 -38.00
FTSE Sector Indices Index rebased 1/2/95. for further information about ERIs see www.bankofengland.co.uk British Land Company PLC 429.80 -10.20 Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC 6554 280.00
Oil & Gas (12) 5014.43 -2.99 4399.03 5169.23 5233.74 8320.67 6.17 1.19 13.57 0.00 5641.07 Bt Group PLC 131.60 -3.35 Relx PLC 1867 -2.50
Oil & Gas Producers (9) 4863.67 -2.97 4266.77 5012.57 5073.04 8070.62 6.26 1.19 13.48 0.00 5673.49 FTSE GLOBAL EQUITY INDEX SERIES Bunzl PLC 2454 46.00 Rentokil Initial PLC 525.00 -1.00
Oil Equipment Services & Distribution (3) 4930.33 -4.62 4325.25 5169.25 5378.10 8174.54 0.23 17.16 25.50 0.00 4250.24 Burberry Group PLC 1687 -72.50 Rightmove PLC 623.40 -4.80
Jan 22 No of US $ Day Mth YTD Total
YTD Gr Div Jan 22 No of US $ Day Mth YTD Total YTD Gr Div Coca-Cola Hbc AG 2233 -35.00 Rio Tinto PLC 5877 1.00
Basic Materials (23) 7650.91 -1.68 6711.94 7781.27 7858.42 6242.61 3.30 2.68 11.31 0.41 9191.63
Chemicals (8) 15698.12 -1.39 13771.56 15919.19 15745.63 13752.71 1.47 2.03 33.59 0.00 15091.50 Regions & countries stocks indices % % % retn
% Yield Sectors stocks indices % % % retn % Yield Compass Group PLC 1321.5 -73.00 Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC 98.00 -4.95
Industrial Metals & Mining (4) 5677.76 -1.91 4980.95 5788.18 5847.47 3837.75 5.29 2.12 8.91 9.37 7650.80 FTSE Global All Cap 8948 752.14 -0.4 5.4 3.3
3.4 1159.99
1.8 Oil Equipment & Services 25 204.59 -0.9 -0.9 8.1 347.46 8.2 5.4 Crh PLC 3120 -100.00 Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1320.4 -39.20
Mining (11) 22216.74 -1.70 19490.17 22600.51 22875.87 17987.94 3.43 2.74 10.64 0.00 14093.31 FTSE Global All Cap 8952 740.29 0.0 2.8 1.7
1.8 1141.62
1.8 Basic Materials 353 631.71 -1.1 -1.1 3.5 1073.43 3.6 2.5 Croda International PLC 6474 50.00 Royal Dutch Shell PLC 1381 -39.00
FTSE Global Large Cap 1725 671.82 -0.5 5.4 3.1
3.2 1067.17
1.9 Chemicals 163 889.75 -0.5 -0.5 2.2 1497.02 2.2 2.3 Dcc PLC 5734 -92.00 Rsa Insurance Group PLC 676.40 -0.40
Industrials (97) 6001.54 -1.68 5265.00 6104.01 6127.27 6058.58 1.72 0.84 69.68 3.66 6680.98
Construction & Materials (16) 7290.08 -2.99 6395.40 7515.10 7571.14 7220.30 1.84 0.14 396.63 0.00 8422.27 FTSE Global Mid Cap 2227 943.92 -0.5 4.5 3.0
3.0 1369.58
1.8 Forestry & Paper 20 329.66 -1.2 -1.2 4.3 627.32 4.3 2.4 Diageo PLC 2895 -13.50 Sage Group PLC 610.80 3.80
Aerospace & Defense (9) 3540.48 -2.64 3105.97 3636.54 3653.83 5505.84 3.27 -2.01 -15.21 1.37 4133.03 FTSE Global Small Cap 4996 1059.24 0.1 6.5 5.3
5.3 1477.19
1.5 Industrial Metals & Mining 92 486.35 -1.4 -1.4 3.8 835.25 3.8 2.7 Entain PLC 1271 -9.00 Sainsbury (J) PLC 249.10 3.10
General Industrials (9) 5317.61 -2.13 4665.00 5433.40 5486.58 5016.35 1.99 1.32 38.21 0.00 6661.14 FTSE All-World 3952 439.13 -0.5 5.3 3.1
3.2 716.77
1.9 Mining 78 930.41 -1.8 -1.8 5.7 1614.75 5.7 2.9 Evraz PLC 514.00 -1.00 Schroders PLC 3460 -20.00
Electronic & Electrical Equipment (8) 12443.42 0.34 10916.29 12401.39 12431.47 10444.12 0.93 2.21 48.47 0.00 11954.74 FTSE World 2563 776.38 -0.4 4.7 2.6
2.7 1701.04
1.9 Industrials 736 536.14 -0.4 -0.4 2.3 826.35 2.4 1.5 Experian PLC 2608 -28.00 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC 1306 27.00
Industrial Engineering (9) 16434.08 -1.98 14417.20 16766.74 16910.93 14394.64 1.18 2.58 32.94 0.00 21486.64 FTSE Global All Cap ex UNITED KINGDOM In 8657 795.53 -0.4 5.3 3.3
3.4 1204.84
1.8 Construction & Materials 141 632.46 -0.8 -0.8 2.7 1023.29 2.7 1.8 Ferguson PLC 8990 -138.00 Segro PLC 988.20 14.00
Industrial Transportation (7) 4954.97 -0.28 4346.87 4968.65 4966.96 3713.78 2.82 0.50 70.47 1.73 5035.26 FTSE Global All Cap ex USA 7203 585.66 -0.7 6.9 3.9
3.9 985.65
2.3 Aerospace & Defense 36 710.01 -0.4 -0.4 -3.2 1077.75 -3.1 2.1 Flutter Entertainment PLC 14120 -235.00 Severn Trent PLC 2391 51.00
Support Services (39) 9536.77 -1.23 8366.36 9655.26 9653.56 9279.33 1.31 2.32 32.88 12.42 10614.65 FTSE Global All Cap ex JAPAN 7555 776.93 -0.4 5.4 3.4
3.5 1209.49
1.8 General Industrials 71 259.65 0.1 0.1 2.6 438.78 2.6 2.2 Fresnillo PLC 1082 -9.00 Smith & Nephew PLC 1611 -42.50
FTSE Global All Cap ex Eurozone 8311 793.21 -0.4 5.6 3.5
3.6 1198.15
1.8 Electronic & Electrical Equipment 139 721.94 0.0 0.0 7.9 1009.09 7.9 1.2 Glaxosmithkline PLC 1405 24.80 Smith (Ds) PLC 370.40 -13.00
Consumer Goods (42) 18395.75 0.69 16138.11 18269.85 18291.44 20852.20 3.94 1.49 17.08 0.00 15633.17
FTSE Developed 2132 709.41 -0.4 4.5 2.5
2.6 1103.25
1.8 Industrial Engineering 145 1090.25 -0.3 -0.3 6.4 1673.16 6.4 1.4 Glencore PLC 259.75 -11.05 Smiths Group PLC 1475.5 -19.50
Automobiles & Parts (2) 4183.10 -2.07 3669.72 4271.37 4313.79 4758.71 0.40 -7.08 -35.24 0.00 4280.22
FTSE Developed All Cap 5607 746.52 -0.3 4.8 2.8
2.9 1144.57
1.8 Industrial Transportation 122 908.70 -1.1 -1.1 -0.9 1409.32 -0.9 1.6 Halma PLC 2597 19.00 Smurfit Kappa Group PLC 3600 -70.00
Beverages (6) 22790.43 -0.49 19993.45 22902.51 22942.50 25765.71 2.47 1.62 24.92 0.00 17511.38
FTSE Developed Large Cap 830 663.74 -0.4 4.6 2.4
2.5 1050.55
1.9 Support Services 82 640.07 -0.2 -0.2 -0.5 930.66 -0.4 1.1 Hargreaves Lansdown PLC 1658 8.00 Spirax-Sarco Engineering PLC 11675 10.00
Food Producers (10) 6964.13 -1.20 6109.45 7048.66 7188.10 8240.91 2.62 1.79 21.23 0.00 6477.51
FTSE Developed Europe Large Cap 224 400.74 -0.3 4.5 2.0
2.1 749.62
2.5 Consumer Goods 531 622.76 -0.2 -0.2 1.9 1006.73 2.0 2.0 Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC 2494 -24.00 Sse PLC 1525 -22.00
Household Goods & Home Construction (14)14492.40 1.77 12713.81 14240.47 14300.40 15875.52 2.78 2.01 17.86 0.00 11678.62
FTSE Developed Europe Mid Cap 343 710.82 -0.8 4.5 1.8
1.8 1163.14
2.0 Automobiles & Parts 129 684.20 -0.3 -0.3 11.7 1076.56 11.7 1.3 HSBC Holdings PLC 398.10 -9.25 St. James's Place PLC 1180 -8.00
Leisure Goods (2) 26224.99 -1.23 23006.51 26550.74 27309.64 18238.92 1.71 1.62 35.90 0.00 27564.46
FTSE Dev Europe Small Cap 690 983.63 -0.8 6.0 2.0
2.1 1550.28
1.8 Beverages 67 703.73 -0.7 -0.7 -4.8 1147.52 -4.8 2.4 Imperial Brands PLC 1636 -13.50 Standard Chartered PLC 454.90 -7.00
Personal Goods (6) 32643.37 1.59 28637.19 32134.03 31983.62 33585.12 3.17 1.38 22.84 0.00 24451.12
FTSE North America Large Cap 224 848.17 -0.3 3.8 2.1
2.2 1239.36
1.6 Food Producers 132 708.83 0.2 0.2 -1.2 1168.40 -1.2 2.4 Informa PLC 492.80 -23.00 Standard Life Aberdeen PLC 302.90 -5.00
Tobacco (2) 29414.58 -0.12 25804.65 29449.65 29497.70 36364.23 8.11 1.32 9.33 0.00 24151.31
FTSE North America Mid Cap 411 1095.94 -0.3 4.1 3.4
3.4 1476.50
1.6 Household Goods & Home Construction 61 570.02 -0.1 -0.1 -1.1 917.00 -0.8 2.3 Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC 4562 -185.00 Taylor Wimpey PLC 156.15 -2.95
Health Care (15) 11996.43 1.19 10524.16 11854.97 11701.07 13060.01 3.51 1.12 25.42 1.34 10442.34
FTSE North America Small Cap 1290 1221.13 0.3 6.6 6.7
6.7 1586.56
1.3 Leisure Goods 44 344.14 0.1 0.1 4.3 474.96 4.3 1.0 Intermediate Capital Group PLC 1703 -39.00 Tesco PLC 243.80 1.90
Health Care Equipment & Services (6) 6988.43 -1.73 6130.77 7111.56 7028.27 8615.30 1.88 0.98 54.17 7.73 6446.50
FTSE North America 635 554.20 -0.3 3.9 2.4
2.5 827.45
1.6 Personal Goods 84 1032.92 -0.2 -0.2 -2.0 1541.45 -2.0 1.4 International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. 140.00 -11.60 Unilever PLC 4465 87.00
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology (9) 16729.85 1.53 14676.67 16477.32 16260.99 17942.75 3.69 1.13 23.99 0.00 13083.00
FTSE Developed ex North America 1497 301.09 -0.5 5.8 2.8
2.8 545.81
2.3 Tobacco 14 918.03 -0.3 -0.3 1.1 2334.48 1.1 6.7 Intertek Group PLC 5630 36.00 United Utilities Group PLC 952.60 19.80
Consumer Services (79) 5111.02 -1.68 4483.77 5198.28 5228.66 5607.29 1.81 1.42 38.89 0.03 5229.45 FTSE Japan Large Cap 178 464.94 -0.4 5.8 2.5
2.5 653.09
2.0 Health Care 309 708.63 0.0 0.0 3.3 1092.72 3.3 1.7
Food & Drug Retailers (5) 4927.42 1.06 4322.70 4875.92 4864.48 4263.00 2.68 1.33 27.99 0.00 6271.37 Jd Sports Fashion PLC 818.00 -11.00 Vodafone Group PLC 128.40 1.06
FTSE Japan Mid Cap 335 662.53 -0.3 5.4 2.8
2.8 882.24
2.0 Health Care Equipment & Services 113 1419.10 -0.6 -0.6 2.0 1711.00 2.0 0.7 Johnson Matthey PLC 2893 -102.00 Whitbread PLC 3035 -86.00
General Retailers (26) 2441.69 -1.24 2142.04 2472.41 2481.25 2350.48 1.11 2.03 44.22 0.00 3055.12
FTSE Global wi JAPAN Small Cap 880 716.31 -0.7 3.6 0.4
0.4 988.08
2.1 Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 196 462.81 0.4 0.4 4.1 758.84 4.2 2.3 Just Eat Takeaway.Com N.V. 8422 -128.00 Wpp PLC 768.80 -25.20
Media (13) 8150.84 -1.34 7150.52 8261.77 8207.95 9400.08 1.70 2.94 20.03 0.18 5493.55
FTSE Japan 513 191.93 -0.4 5.7 2.6
2.6 301.76
2.0 Consumer Services 440 706.25 -0.4 -0.4 2.4 989.93 2.4 1.0 Kingfisher PLC 270.80 -2.20
Travel & Leisure (35) 7775.13 -3.43 6820.92 8051.34 8209.86 9852.18 1.87 0.28 193.10 0.00 7979.61
FTSE Asia Pacific Large Cap ex Japan 923 950.19 -0.9 12.6 8.6
8.6 1645.90
1.9 Food & Drug Retailers 69 312.12 -0.1 -0.1 4.5 474.66 4.7 2.4
Telecommunications (6) 1866.78 0.00 1637.68 1866.76 1875.48 2299.40 7.33 0.57 23.82 0.00 2582.11 FTSE Asia Pacific Mid Cap ex Japan 893 1071.76 -0.8 8.6 4.4
4.4 1782.89
2.4 General Retailers 148 1318.64 -0.2 -0.2 4.1 1776.03 4.2 0.6
Fixed Line Telecommunications (3) 1654.57 -2.08 1451.51 1689.70 1703.36 2124.98 10.75 1.04 8.95 0.00 1815.54
Mobile Telecommunications (3) 2923.79 0.77 2564.96 2901.45 2911.33 3544.15 6.10 0.28 59.05 0.00 3675.48
FTSE Asia Pacific Small Cap ex Japan
FTSE Asia Pacific Ex Japan
1841
1816
675.04
739.38
0.0
-0.9
8.0
12.2
3.9
3.9
8.2
8.2
1097.62
2.2 Media
1360.62
1.9 Travel & Leisure
84 467.90
139 489.86
-0.5
-1.2
-0.5
-1.2
-0.3 660.21
-1.6 701.87
-0.2
-1.6
1.0
1.7
UK STOCK MARKET TRADING DATA
Utilities (8) 7332.47 0.63 6432.59 7286.91 7212.53 8200.56 4.93 1.15 17.66 27.34 10286.66 FTSE Emerging All Cap 3341 955.79 -0.9 10.4 7.4
7.4 1572.79
2.0 Telecommunication 91 156.16 -0.2 -0.2 1.4 342.02 1.9 4.5 Jan 25 Jan 22 Jan 21 Jan 20 Jan 19 Yr Ago
Electricity (3) 8964.74 -1.62 7864.53 9112.70 8906.16 8787.08 5.21 1.03 18.56 128.41 16676.28 FTSE Emerging Large Cap 895 930.40 -0.9 11.3 8.5
8.5 1540.71
1.9 Fixed Line Telecommuniations 40 116.63 0.0 0.0 0.3 287.85 1.2 5.8 - - - - - -
Gas Water & Multiutilities (5) 6517.80 1.44 5717.89 6425.18 6388.65 7606.42 4.84 1.19 17.37 0.00 9013.91 FTSE Emerging Mid Cap 925 1070.44 -1.1 5.6 2.2
2.3 1761.45
2.7 Mobile Telecommunications 51 189.22 -0.5 -0.5 2.8 360.98 2.8 3.0 Order Book Turnover (m) 67.04 75.24 75.24 90.45 211.06 379.82
Financials (306) 4453.68 -1.27 3907.09 4510.87 4552.09 5088.12 3.07 1.79 18.22 1.90 4650.44 FTSE Emerging Small Cap 1521 886.07 0.0 7.8 4.0
4.0 1398.31
2.3 Utilities 190 322.95 -0.1 -0.1 0.7 709.88 0.8 3.2 Order Book Bargains 1083561.00 916151.00 916151.00 872511.00 881166.00 874971.00
Banks (11) 2457.44 -2.59 2155.85 2522.74 2560.62 3598.18 3.82 2.22 11.82 0.00 2025.50 FTSE Emerging Europe 76 375.76 -2.7 5.7 1.5
1.6 713.73
4.8 Electricity 130 365.23 0.0 0.0 1.2 792.05 1.3 3.2 Order Book Shares Traded (m) 1527.00 1465.00 1465.00 1348.00 1436.00 1252.00
Nonlife Insurance (7) 3693.31 -0.97 3240.04 3729.66 3746.10 3689.84 2.98 1.86 18.01 0.00 7325.09 FTSE Latin America All Cap 244 791.96 -2.3 -1.7 -3.6
-3.6 1358.45
2.5 Gas Water & Multiutilities 60 319.67 -0.3 -0.3 -0.3 724.06 -0.3 3.1 Total Equity Turnover (£m) 5223.41 5164.75 5164.75 5774.82 6182.03 5229.01
Life Insurance/Assurance (6) 7355.50 -2.66 6452.79 7556.86 7673.35 8142.51 3.66 1.98 13.84 0.00 8361.92 FTSE Middle East and Africa All Cap 321 679.32 -0.8 4.8 4.0
4.1 3.0 Financials
1174.59 866 255.81 -1.1 -1.1 1.4 465.22 1.5 2.8 Total Mkt Bargains 1395877.00 1187056.00 1187056.00 1146269.00 1154317.00 1140016.00
Real Estate Investment & Services (17) 2456.35 -0.64 2154.89 2472.05 2465.62 2966.78 1.01 3.23 30.69 0.00 7077.46 FTSE Global wi UNITED KINGDOM All Cap In 291 327.30 -0.8 6.4 3.3
3.3 3.4 Banks
625.65 271 190.31 -1.2 -1.2 3.2 380.00 3.3 3.2 Total Shares Traded (m) 10210.00 8111.00 8111.00 9665.00 8385.00 9388.00
Real Estate Investment Trusts (40) 2398.56 -0.53 2104.19 2411.37 2404.40 2993.10 2.92 -2.45 -13.99 4.73 3420.33 FTSE Global wi USA All Cap 1745 966.92 -0.2 4.3 2.9
3.0 1.5 Nonlife Insurance
1363.37 74 296.54 -1.2 -1.2 -0.9 466.90 -0.7 2.9 † Excluding intra-market and overseas turnover. *UK only total at 6pm. ‡ UK plus intra-market turnover. (u) Unavaliable.
General Financial (40) 10331.43 -0.82 9063.50 10417.25 10511.91 10992.25 3.21 1.13 27.51 4.73 13383.54 FTSE Europe All Cap 1408 480.44 -0.5 4.7 2.0
2.0 2.4 Life Insurance
864.06 53 241.47 -2.1 -2.1 3.9 433.49 3.9 3.2 (c) Market closed.
Equity Investment Instruments (185) 13109.11 0.08 11500.29 13098.83 13178.93 11378.81 2.20 3.36 13.55 7.98 7853.39 FTSE Eurozone All Cap 637 469.71 -0.4 3.5 1.3
1.4 2.0 Financial Services
841.52 209 420.24 -1.2 -1.2 0.1 619.06 0.1 1.7
Non Financials (299) 4507.15 -0.77 3954.01 4542.27 4554.17 5030.70 3.41 1.38 21.25 1.63 7626.54 FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient All-World 3952 484.01 -0.5 4.6 2.5
2.6 2.1 Technology
729.96 309 550.17 -0.2 -0.2 5.7 705.98 5.8 0.8
Technology (17) 2137.47 -0.52 1875.15 2148.69 2156.08 2373.03 1.78 0.09 625.11 11.65 2999.74 FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient Developed Europe 567 379.91 -0.6 4.4 1.7
1.8 2.1 Software & Computer Services
634.07 166 872.68 0.2 0.2 3.8 1045.05 3.9 0.5 All data provided by Morningstar unless otherwise noted. All elements listed are indicative and believed
Software & Computer Services (14) 2300.46 -0.49 2018.13 2311.68 2317.75 2608.99 1.85 -0.14 -373.25 13.93 3418.06 Oil & Gas 127 277.22 -1.2 9.7 7.4
7.6 518.99
4.7 Technology Hardware & Equipment 143 460.20 -0.7 -0.7 7.9 630.38 7.9 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) 5110.36 -0.85 4483.19 5154.09 5209.43 4273.07 1.15 3.47 24.97 0.00 6343.68 Oil & Gas Producers 91 259.69 -1.3 9.9 7.5
7.6 496.75
4.9 Alternative Energy 11 280.90 -0.8 -0.8 4.6 399.24 4.6 0.6 guarantee that the information is reliable or complete. The FT does not accept responsibility and will not be
Real Estate Investment & Services 162 362.76 -0.9 -0.9 1.1 669.25 1.1 2.7 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 97 453.54 0.2 0.2 -0.3 1000.33 -0.2 3.6 For all queries e-mail ft.reader.enquiries@morningstar.com
FTSE 100 6714.02 6685.62 6681.71 6673.45 6652.44 6625.44 6632.32 6627.94 6628.69 6714.02 6610.67 FTSE Global Large Cap 1725 659.57 0.0 0.0 1.3 1047.63 1.3 1.9
FTSE 250 20685.25 20579.62 20564.27 20544.53 20473.74 20367.75 20398.47 20413.93 20396.28 20685.25 20313.33 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 6404.89 6390.26 6385.74 6381.95 6367.86 6349.93 6349.91 6346.56 6347.37 6405.33 6333.32
FTSE All-Share 3797.71 3781.33 3779.00 3774.59 3762.62 3746.80 3750.86 3749.30 3749.11 3797.71 3738.87 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:08:03:00 Day's Low16:09:30 FTSE 100 2010/11 High: 6873.26(08/01/2021) Low: 6571.88(04/01/2021) 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:08:03:00 Day's Low16:10:00 FTSE 100 2010/11 High: 3880.43(08/01/2021) Low: 3724.50(04/01/2021) 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 Aberforth Split Level Income Trust Int 39.662 35.269 20.840 18.540 0.00000 1.51000 - 2.695 4.220 date price(p) Sector code Stock price(p) +/- High Low Cap (£m)
price up date High Low Stock Price p +or- Altitude Group Int 4.443 - 0.601L - 0.000 - 0.00000 - - 0.000 - 01/13 10.00 AIM NGHT Nightcap PLC 17.00 4.28 18.50 10.90 2299.4
There are currently no rights offers by any companies listed on the LSE. Invesco Asia Trust Int 45.102 8.110L 66.980 12.220L 6.70000 3.40000 Nov 26 10.280 6.300 12/30 0.10 WCAT Wildcat Petroleum PLC 0.90 -0.06 1.57 0.20 2160.0
Newmark Security Int 7.857 10.147 0.267L 0.648 0.050L 0.230 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 12/29 38.00 AIM VCAP Vector Capital PLC 38.50 -0.40 41.95 37.02 1619.0
SThree Pre 1202.622 1324.703 30.595 56.801 12.800 31.800 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 5.100 12/24 3.00 PNPL Pineapple Power Corp PLC 9.50 -1.06 14.50 3.35 545.0
12/23 10.00 OHG One Heritage Group PLC 61.00 11.00 70.00 11.43 1830.0
12/22 1.00 RNEW Ecofin US Renewables Infrastructure Trust PLC 1.03 0.00 1.03 1.00 128.8
12/22 100.00 SBSI Schroder BSC Social Impact Trust PLC 103.50 1.17 105.00 100.00 7762.5
12/15 96.00 AIM ABDX Abingdon Health PLC 119.00 16.50 122.00 91.00 11388.2

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.
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 11

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♦ 28.84 -0.09 38.99 26.08 7.63 18.06 205531.66 Lowes♦ 173.60 1.20 180.67 60.00 1.37 23.13 127200.69
ANZ 24.68 0.04 27.29 14.10 4.18 20.70 54114.35 Nokia 3.83 0.44 4.35 2.08 - 28.27 26256.53 AstellasPh 1720 35.00 1987 0.00 2.48 22.00 30856.37 AtlasCpcoB 407.10 -2.50 416.20 223.20 1.60 33.88 19134.12 AutomData 162.19 0.21 182.32 103.11 2.37 26.63 69547.2 Lyondell 88.45 -3.03 99.86 33.71 5.02 23.56 29535.14
BHPBilltn 46.62 0.49 47.55 24.05 4.35 20.68 105824.29 SampoA 35.56 -0.13 42.46 21.34 4.31 16.03 23903.01 Bridgestne 4100 - 4111 2861.5 3.30 35.36 28195.83 Ericsson 99.32 2.02 110.15 59.54 1.48 23.33 36754.7 Avago Tech 462.32 -2.70 470.00 155.67 2.97 69.08 188031.61 Marathon Ptl 45.55 -0.20 60.35 15.26 5.27 -2.81 29637.14
CmwBkAu 85.27 0.18 91.05 53.44 5.00 21.30 116567.04 France (€) Canon 2225 33.00 3039 0.00 5.61 36.24 28595.33 H&M 175.50 -7.15 214.35 98.13 2.72 99.76 30876.55 BakerHu 22.08 0.09 31.26 20.09 3.24 -1.40 11412.93 Marsh&M 112.00 0.48 120.97 74.34 1.73 26.61 56805.34
CSL 275.54 0.94 342.75 242.67 1.05 41.45 96599.27 Airbus Grpe 84.87 -3.96 139.40 48.12 - -10.39 80726.29 CntJpRwy 14750 125.00 22570 0.00 0.99 103.77 29278.28 Investor 623.60 -1.40 634.80 370.10 2.04 6.17 34211.99 BankAm 30.81 -0.74 35.45 17.95 2.47 14.42 266527.37 MasterCard♦ 323.58 -5.41 367.25 199.99 0.50 45.95 319849.27
NatAusBk 24.13 0.01 27.49 13.20 4.61 22.23 61304.96 AirLiquide 131.40 -0.65 144.45 94.86 2.11 26.89 75496.14 Denso 5993 -37.00 6219 0.00 2.43 -41.64 45501.58 Nordea Bk 69.24 -1.68 86.73 48.00 - 12.01 33775.83 Baxter 79.62 0.11 95.19 69.10 1.24 42.54 40671.36 McDonald's 212.14 -1.24 231.91 124.23 2.49 30.63 158067.84
Telstra 3.21 0.01 3.94 2.66 3.08 21.22 29417.72 AXA 18.77 -0.44 25.62 11.84 3.98 15.82 55062.06 EastJpRwy 6840 80.00 9997 0.00 2.01 -9.76 24909.01 SEB 90.76 -2.04 104.90 59.80 - 12.24 23722.3 BectonDick 258.42 -0.33 286.72 197.75 1.29 90.18 75161.87 McKesson 184.63 -0.38 187.67 112.60 0.95 13.57 29645.01
Wesfarmers 54.34 0.93 54.48 29.75 2.78 38.36 47475.97 BNP Parib 41.23 -1.86 54.22 24.51 - 7.25 62505.09 Fanuc 26960 -110.00 27815 0.00 0.74 81.13 52455.38 SvnskaHn 84.88 -1.82 113.80 71.70 - 10.98 19882.64 BerkshHat 348595.13-2024.87 354837 239440 - 14.95 226302.38 Medtronic 116.69 0.11 121.41 72.13 2.03 42.28 157060.34
Westpc 21.79 0.01 25.96 13.47 3.61 34.78 61596.9 ChristianDior 440.60 -5.60 470.00 252.40 1.12 42.58 96472.12 FastRetail 94000 2180 95310 0.00 0.51 106.47 96077.51 Swedbank 161.44 -2.76 165.90 99.14 - 14.39 22011.96 Biogen 274.63 5.19 374.99 223.25 - 8.57 42260.5 Merck 80.74 -0.24 89.66 65.25 3.20 16.86 204282.57
Woolworths 41.21 0.45 43.96 32.12 2.47 45.21 40180.93 Cred Agr 9.50 -0.42 13.80 5.70 - 6.81 33610.55 Fuji Hvy Ind 2031 -12.00 2945 1671.5 2.87 13.87 15052.96 Telia Co 36.58 0.28 42.41 30.29 5.58 49.72 18018.84 BkNYMeln 41.21 -0.72 47.63 26.40 3.18 8.58 36517.66 Metlife 50.22 -0.65 53.28 22.85 3.79 7.73 45190.91
Belgium (€) Danone 54.70 0.14 74.50 46.03 - 18.35 45558.76 Hitachi 4398 40.00 4508 0.00 2.36 27.14 41017.15 Volvo 212.80 -4.60 220.80 95.00 - 26.30 40634.29 BlackRock 721.08 -13.97 788.00 323.98 2.08 22.65 109972.42 Microsoft 226.98 1.03 232.86 132.52 0.95 34.621716081.38
AnBshInBv 53.17 -1.61 71.47 29.03 2.48-105.98 109206.31 EDF 10.45 -1.94 13.61 5.98 1.47 19.25 39294.29 HondaMtr 2824.5 -27.00 3167 0.00 3.17 18.97 49300.25 Boeing 201.09 -4.75 349.95 89.00 2.16 -24.13 113521.27 Mnstr Bvrg 88.98 0.78 95.11 50.06 - 37.90 46974.03
Switzerland (SFr)
KBC Grp 56.92 -2.38 73.56 33.44 1.80 14.91 28770.32 Engie SA 12.93 -0.19 16.80 8.63 - -28.05 38195.33 JapanTob 2053.5 5.50 2345 0.00 7.80 12.08 39574.1 Booking Holdings 1968.57 -97.67 2290.04 1107.29 - 56.07 80622.65 MondelezInt 56.94 0.69 60.00 41.19 2.17 25.40 81433.47
ABB 26.59 -0.12 27.20 14.11 2.94 123.02 64871.23
EssilorLuxottica 120.55 -1.95 143.20 86.76 - -3922.35 64194.76 KDDI 3260 16.00 3451 2604 3.83 10.85 72380.27 BrisMySq♦ 64.94 0.38 67.80 45.76 2.93-204.69 146927.76 Monsanto - - - - - - -
Brazil (R$) CredSuisse 12.00 -0.18 13.75 6.18 1.18 7.67 33051.62
Hermes Intl 869.60 -6.00 898.20 516.00 0.54 80.38 111357.55 Keyence 57470 -180.00 59090 28905 0.36 72.90 134680.53 CapOne 101.59 -3.75 115.48 38.00 1.35 46.64 46466.97 MorganStly 72.43 -1.70 77.76 27.20 2.04 11.57 131040.23
Ambev 15.15 -0.46 19.03 10.36 3.31 27.05 43705.08 Nestle 101.80 0.78 112.62 83.37 2.75 21.01 330016.65
LOreal 299.00 2.70 321.40 196.00 1.32 50.49 203055.09 MitsbCp 2707.5 24.00 2948 0.00 5.19 10.35 38760.8 CardinalHlth 54.62 -0.78 60.69 39.05 3.74 16.24 16025.16 MylanNV 15.86 0.31 23.11 12.75 - 29.73 8586.21
Bradesco 21.92 -0.37 30.18 14.05 1.17 6.92 17823.54 Novartis 86.13 0.20 96.38 65.09 3.32 29.66 239099.75
LVMH 501.90 -9.60 525.30 278.70 0.98 55.74 307299.5 MitsubEst 1645.5 25.50 2283 0.00 1.90 14.15 22060.43 Carnival 19.09 -1.13 49.61 7.80 5.35 -1.79 13754.35 Netflix 556.60 -8.58 593.29 290.25 - 85.03 245900.89
Cielo♦ 3.61 -0.05 7.68 3.23 0.85 21.49 1798.1 Richemont 82.86 -2.60 87.94 44.64 1.23 190.84 48669.88
Orange 9.55 -0.03 13.55 8.63 5.36 9.52 30827.48 MitsubishiEle 1670 36.50 1693.5 0.00 2.24 19.27 34552.19 Caterpillar♦ 187.97 -3.97 200.17 87.50 2.32 29.43 102116.26 NextEraE 86.67 2.46 87.69 43.70 1.66 41.39 42448.24
ItauHldFin 26.09 -0.65 31.64 19.46 3.28 13.49 23716.74 Roche 320.80 2.35 357.85 265.75 2.91 20.68 253608.77
PernodRic 151.95 -1.15 170.40 112.25 2.10 117.72 48268.01 MitsuiFud 2054.5 18.50 3035 1538 2.23 15.22 19109.38 Celgene 108.24 0.11 110.70 58.59 - 12.71 77035.98 Nike 136.54 -2.81 147.95 60.00 0.73 79.13 173607.71
Petrobras 27.73 -0.36 33.00 10.50 1.95 -7.51 37836.84 Swiss Re 80.06 -1.28 117.05 52.68 7.44 -17.51 28602.27
Renault 32.96 -1.47 38.70 12.77 - -1.04 11821.36 MitUFJFin 480.00 -3.00 583.00 380.00 5.42 12.75 62819.04 CharlesSch 56.98 -1.42 62.04 28.00 1.32 24.95 102405.15 NorfolkS 243.12 -1.10 258.17 112.62 1.64 29.63 66689.3
Vale 93.17 -0.19 103.35 32.45 4.82 32.31 90266.6 Swisscom 477.40 8.00 577.80 446.70 4.71 14.58 27827.44
Safran 106.15 -4.40 152.30 51.10 - 66.42 55011.03 Mizuho Fin 1392.5 -15.00 1657 1084 3.08 13.43 34071.17 Charter Comms 653.25 6.56 681.71 345.67 - 49.15 130568.43 Northrop 299.82 1.66 385.01 263.31 1.95 19.33 49983.95
Canada (C$) Syngent 453.40 0.90 471.20 402.50 - 28.99 43035.76
Sanofi 81.50 0.04 95.82 67.65 3.96 8.99 124461.67 Murata Mfg 10580 85.00 10685 0.00 1.03 33.88 68894.46 Chevron Corp 90.26 -1.47 113.49 51.60 5.93 -13.90 168544.8 NXP 173.54 1.24 182.55 58.41 0.91-315.59 48547.74
BCE 55.22 0.48 65.28 46.03 6.01 21.71 39179.05 UBS 12.92 -0.23 13.81 7.00 2.63 9.04 56103.29
Sant Gbn 42.03 -0.57 43.99 16.41 3.02 17.06 27157.56 NipponTT 2740 40.50 2908 2127 3.70 11.38 102988.63 Chubb 151.44 -1.10 167.74 87.35 2.14 28.41 68353.29 Occid Pet 21.25 -0.24 43.60 8.52 7.96 -1.26 19788.2
BkMontrl 97.33 -0.27 104.59 55.76 4.40 12.75 49390.93 Zurich Fin 361.60 -7.60 439.90 248.70 5.66 16.78 61220.2
Schneider 124.70 -0.65 128.15 61.72 2.09 30.81 85775.65 Nissan Mt 549.50 -6.10 609.10 311.20 - -1.94 22348.05 Cigna 218.27 -5.15 230.90 118.50 0.02 14.46 78853.81 Oracle 60.18 -0.18 66.20 39.71 1.63 17.86 177171.97
BkNvaS♦ 69.36 -0.04 74.92 46.38 5.25 12.95 65918.93 Nomura 563.00 0.40 599.00 367.40 4.62 7.16 17541.88 Taiwan (NT$) Cisco 44.94 0.17 50.28 32.40 3.36 17.21 189910.25 Pepsico 139.33 0.74 148.77 101.42 3.00 26.09 192548
SFR Group 34.50 - 34.56 21.87 - -23.02 17905.81
Brookfield 48.81 -0.10 60.48 31.35 1.29-987.64 60342.46 Nppn Stl 1305.5 - 1600 0.00 6.22 4.19 11954.57 Chunghwa Telecom 109.00 0.50 120.00 103.00 3.96 25.02 30191.6 Citigroup 59.67 -1.66 80.77 32.00 3.62 11.02 124230.53 Perrigo 44.30 1.01 63.86 40.01 2.11-837.76 6046.56
SocGen 15.62 -0.72 32.11 10.77 - -18.63 16164.78
CanadPcR 436.69 4.98 482.74 252.00 0.79 25.67 45655.75 NTTDCMo 3880 - 3928 2678 3.25 19.99 120882.79 Formosa PetChem 95.90 1.20 104.00 66.10 3.09 208.90 32618.89 CME Grp 183.68 -0.36 225.36 131.80 1.90 28.95 65938.82 Pfizer 36.97 0.42 43.08 26.41 4.29 22.55 205466.13
Total 35.35 -0.87 48.02 21.12 7.47 -18.02 113765.08
CanImp♦ 110.35 -0.71 114.21 67.52 5.33 13.28 38691.13 Panasonic 1423 -27.00 1470 691.70 1.83 18.39 33642.53 HonHaiPrc 123.00 1.00 124.00 65.70 3.49 16.23 60884.04 Coca-Cola 48.54 0.05 60.13 36.27 3.55 23.78 208575.99 Phillips66 72.36 -0.19 102.13 40.04 5.26 -11.05 31606.86
UnibailR 190.00 0.35 236.45 177.35 2.94 -7.05 22215.04
CanNatRs 30.53 -0.43 40.65 9.80 5.45 -61.74 28287.21 Seven & I 4005 55.00 4419 2937.5 2.46 19.65 34208.9 MediaTek 910.00 -7.00 946.00 273.00 1.18 43.37 51666.85 Cognizant 78.88 -1.68 82.73 40.01 1.15 27.63 42172.48 PhilMorris 80.79 0.11 90.17 56.01 6.16 15.47 125815.55
Vinci 78.72 -1.74 107.35 54.76 2.65 26.87 56196.31
CanNatRy 137.26 1.26 149.11 92.01 1.66 28.52 76627.84 ShnEtsuCh 19635 315.00 19710 8751 1.17 27.14 78831.89 TaiwanSem 633.00 -9.00 679.00 235.50 1.62 32.11 586075.88 ColgtPlm 78.53 0.34 86.41 58.49 2.34 23.73 67313.47 PNCFin 148.25 -4.32 162.74 79.41 3.28 19.02 62813.68
Vivendi 26.28 -0.28 26.85 16.60 2.34 16.90 37806.85
Enbridge 44.01 -0.15 57.32 33.06 7.26 45.43 69922.28 Softbank 8664 -136.00 9039 2609.5 0.53 -60.50 174466.67 Thailand (THB) Comcast♦ 48.58 -0.10 52.49 31.71 1.96 20.60 221810.39 PPG Inds 138.31 0.49 153.81 69.77 1.58 28.81 32669.43
GtWesLif 29.96 -0.35 35.60 18.88 5.82 10.82 21807.86 Germany (€)
Sony 10300 -180.00 10860 0.00 0.50 13.23 125158.08 PTT Explor 40.00 0.50 45.00 23.60 5.45 27.57 38106.18 ConocPhil 41.71 -0.98 63.36 20.84 4.26 -35.53 44744.05 Praxair 164.50 -0.99 169.75 140.00 2.29 39.25 47306.22
ImpOil 25.35 -0.26 34.12 10.27 3.50 -41.87 14598.61 Allianz 190.48 -4.80 232.60 117.10 5.16 11.61 95261.52
SumitomoF 3316 -23.00 3987 2507.5 6.12 15.55 43903.62 United Arab Emirates (Dhs) Corning 38.12 0.52 38.84 17.44 2.39 138.65 29124.75 ProctGmbl 132.36 2.36 146.92 94.34 2.46 23.93 325933.33
Manulife 23.67 -0.48 27.42 12.58 4.65 8.85 36020.84 BASF 64.53 -1.75 69.24 37.36 5.23 -29.36 71894.02
Takeda Ph 3714 127.00 4526 2894.5 5.04 100.57 56414.57 Emirtestele 19.68 0.18 20.80 11.04 4.30 18.07 46595.47 Costco 360.81 -1.50 393.15 271.28 0.78 36.18 159820.46 Prudntl 81.27 -1.35 97.24 38.62 5.60-256.18 32182.92
Nutrien 66.05 -1.01 70.21 34.80 3.67 288.23 29490.93 Bayer 51.49 -0.87 78.34 39.91 5.56 -3.10 61359.79
TokioMarine 5409 -14.00 6317 4167 3.75 17.73 36588.15 United Kingdom (p) CrownCstl 161.12 2.20 180.00 114.18 3.15 95.23 69490.71 PublStor 223.09 0.30 240.75 155.37 3.79 32.51 39001.07
RylBkC♦ 105.44 -1.92 109.42 72.00 4.11 13.34 117778.24 BMW 70.21 -1.04 77.31 36.60 3.64 12.96 51268.9
Toyota 7677 17.00 8045 0.00 2.98 13.43 241376.29 CSX 86.99 -0.66 97.54 46.81 1.24 22.85 66523.95 Qualcomm 164.47 2.05 167.94 58.00 1.63 34.41 186797.43
Suncor En 22.21 -0.32 43.25 14.02 5.93 -5.24 26573.79 Continental 114.25 -4.30 126.50 51.45 2.68 -15.23 27717.96 AscBrFd 2200 -54.00 2730 1554 1.56 38.19 23810.4
Mexico (Mex$) CVS 72.52 -1.60 77.23 52.04 2.92 11.34 94922.41 Raytheon 116.96 -5.47 233.48 103.00 2.98 10.60 32566.46
ThmReut 104.86 1.14 115.66 75.91 1.93 20.74 40894.13 Daimler 57.44 -1.63 60.15 21.02 1.601873.05 74540.84 AstraZen 7897 120.00 10120 5871 2.75 53.73 136724.81
AmerMvl 14.40 0.11 16.82 12.33 2.42 13.94 32615.11 Danaher♦ 234.97 -3.07 248.32 119.60 0.32 51.92 166917.39 Regen Pharm 543.51 5.73 664.64 328.13 - 18.84 56990.99
TntoDom♦ 73.06 -0.52 76.10 49.01 4.30 11.24 104094.99 Deut Bank 8.61 -0.29 10.37 4.45 - -11.38 21580.27 Aviva 341.30 -7.80 417.60 205.70 2.78 6.22 18725.3
FEMSA UBD 147.00 0.10 180.00 112.72 1.97 295.61 15738.28 Deere♦ 298.09 -7.08 306.96 106.14 1.08 32.44 93725.86 S&P Global 313.13 -2.01 379.87 186.06 0.87 29.67 75339.08
TrnCan♦ 56.12 -0.27 76.58 47.05 5.72 11.76 41387.31 Deut Tlkm 14.92 -0.15 16.75 10.41 4.11 22.11 86172.93 Barclays 137.12 -5.94 184.00 73.04 - 11.93 31987.05
WalMrtMex 61.80 1.53 68.25 47.76 0.86 34.93 53458.61 Delphi 17.02 0.31 18.51 5.39 - -7.42 1469.67 Salesforce 225.37 -0.40 284.50 115.29 - 55.95 206214.37
ValeantPh 30.80 -1.06 36.02 14.01 - -4.20 8158.48 DeutsPost 42.22 -0.60 43.84 19.11 2.78 20.55 63325.22 BP 280.65 -9.35 508.70 188.52 10.02 -3.39 76468.75
Delta 38.98 -1.02 60.38 17.51 2.18 -2.22 24858.88 Schlmbrg 23.49 -0.92 36.53 11.87 5.63 -2.92 32698.78
E.ON 8.78 0.08 11.56 7.60 5.36 18.67 28130.49 Netherlands (€) BrAmTob 2740 1.50 3496.5 2362.5 5.62 9.90 69839.14
China (HK$) Devon Energy 16.94 -0.86 24.59 4.70 2.50 -2.44 6480.02 Sempra Energy 122.90 1.45 161.87 88.00 3.53 17.91 35452.99
Fresenius Med 68.98 -0.24 81.10 53.50 1.78 15.03 25473.14 Altice 5.34 -0.01 6.86 2.26 - -4.05 7096.86 BSkyB 1727.5 1.50 1740 893.50 0.76 36.60 38843.72
AgricBkCh 2.93 - 3.30 2.38 7.48 4.59 11618.35 DiscFinServ 87.92 -4.35 100.96 23.25 2.12 25.50 26947.16 Shrwin-Will 734.15 1.98 758.00 325.43 0.74 33.75 66678.36
Fresenius SE 37.57 -0.61 51.54 24.25 2.29 11.31 20602.94 ASML Hld 461.35 -1.55 475.15 177.52 0.53 56.77 234758.82 BT 131.60 -3.35 176.50 94.68 3.51 8.66 17850.39
Bk China 2.73 0.02 3.25 2.33 8.44 4.12 29449.26 Disney 170.26 -2.52 183.40 79.07 0.55-102.55 308896.56 SimonProp 97.90 2.41 147.80 42.25 5.94 21.04 32123.72
HenkelKgaA 79.00 0.85 87.75 54.65 2.37 18.95 24895.53 Heineken 87.10 -0.98 105.00 68.82 1.98 52.81 60856.17 Compass 1321.5 -73.00 1995.5 865.80 2.04 165.19 29711.34
BkofComm 4.35 -0.02 5.24 3.66 8.73 4.11 19646.91 DominRes 73.02 0.73 90.89 57.79 5.41 25.86 59571.11 SouthCpr 69.23 -1.80 72.00 23.43 2.14 39.44 53516
Linde 203.20 -5.00 226.40 130.45 1.61 55.76 129367.88 ING 7.36 -0.35 10.91 4.23 - 16.00 34833.48 Diageo 2895 -13.50 3277 2050.6 2.41 48.33 99633.69
BOE Tech 0.85 0.05 0.90 0.47 - -5.57 21.82 DowDupont 30.52 -0.65 48.38 30.06 3.83 -7.69 68559.76 Starbucks 103.12 -0.80 107.75 50.02 1.68 123.43 120541.44
MuenchRkv 223.30 -5.20 284.20 141.10 4.49 25.05 37947.71 Unilever 50.20 1.06 55.39 38.42 - 24.54 180439.72 GlaxoSmh 1405 24.80 1857 1284 5.69 11.12 94460.35
Ch Coms Cons 3.73 -0.15 6.40 3.21 7.52 3.26 2126.04 DukeEner 91.97 1.68 103.79 62.13 4.37 31.74 67686.11 StateSt 73.05 -1.12 81.82 42.10 3.01 11.00 25771.87
SAP 105.52 0.82 143.32 82.13 1.53 25.24 157243.78 Norway (Kr) Glencore 259.75 -11.05 287.10 109.76 3.08 -12.84 51222.54
Ch Evrbrght 3.40 0.10 3.97 2.40 7.56 4.87 5560.89 Eaton 122.22 -2.21 130.00 56.42 2.51 33.99 48716.89 Stryker♦ 238.55 -1.39 247.44 124.54 1.02 48.93 89642.98
Siemens 128.36 -4.44 133.26 53.02 3.11 25.84 132345.95 DNB 163.55 1.05 178.10 94.26 - 13.60 28732.42 HSBC 398.10 -9.25 599.00 281.50 1.96 -46.79 109120.64
Ch Rail Cons 4.70 -0.16 9.99 4.07 5.33 2.98 1258.86 eBay 58.14 1.68 61.06 26.02 1.13 16.51 40078.14 Sychrony Fin 36.01 -1.37 40.69 12.15 2.58 15.48 21019.44
Volkswgn 173.40 -6.10 182.70 99.16 2.83 20.99 62067.65 Equinor 146.85 3.10 187.20 95.20 5.47 -15.96 54024.17 Imperial Brands 1636 -13.50 1977.87 1142 11.35 10.35 21330.91
Ch Rail Gp 3.68 -0.11 4.85 3.33 5.48 2.98 1997.33 Ecolab 209.41 -2.98 231.36 124.60 0.95 48.30 59774.28 T-MobileUS 130.10 -0.26 135.54 63.50 - 46.43 161478.4
Hong Kong (HK$) Telenor 153.40 1.55 171.90 130.75 5.33 20.23 24326.12 LlydsBkg 33.84 -0.94 59.94 23.59 - 19.90 33336.79
ChConstBk 6.13 0.07 6.66 4.93 6.28 5.25 190114.8 Emerson 82.15 -1.58 85.39 37.75 2.57 23.98 49092.18 Target 190.40 -1.51 199.96 90.17 1.48 23.88 95347.21
AIA 102.10 1.70 109.30 60.05 1.37 26.41 159301.96 Natl Grid 888.00 12.20 1073.8 789.13 5.47 20.94 40747.96
China Vanke 29.40 -0.15 32.70 21.65 4.14 6.82 7181.46 Qatar (QR) EOG Res♦ 53.92 -0.94 82.24 27.00 2.60 -96.21 31455.77 TE Connect 127.53 -0.86 131.97 48.62 1.56-154.61 42218.24
BOC Hold 24.05 -0.25 28.15 20.05 7.07 7.62 32801.73 Natwest Group 151.55 -3.95 173.70 90.54 - 23.68 24791.5
ChinaCitic 3.66 0.18 4.32 2.93 7.91 3.75 7026.46 QatarNtBk 18.00 -0.10 20.80 15.71 3.52 13.40 45662.13 EquityResTP 61.70 0.14 87.53 45.43 4.07 22.88 22968.03 Tesla Mtrs 871.71 25.07 900.40 70.10 - 1567.18 826294.55
Ch OSLnd&Inv 18.48 -0.20 29.00 14.92 6.10 4.10 26111.63 Prudential 1357 -38.00 1509 682.80 2.73 33.40 47997.82
ChinaLife 17.32 -0.08 21.90 11.64 5.12 7.94 16625.74 Russia (RUB) Exelon 42.22 -0.33 50.54 29.28 3.78 16.43 41183.79 TexasInstr 172.25 -0.56 175.47 93.09 2.21 30.79 158115.53
ChngKng 40.25 -0.50 52.25 33.40 5.77 6.60 19177.17 ReckittB 6554 280.00 8191.3 5130 2.66 -16.95 63096.18
ChinaMBank 60.25 1.30 63.50 29.80 2.40 13.94 35681.81 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 145.59 -0.25 152.29 76.99 2.43 15.75 36878.59
Citic Ltd 6.13 -0.01 9.56 5.20 8.39 3.40 23003.71 RELX 1867 -2.50 2109 1382.86 2.45 28.46 49317
ChinaMob 47.15 -0.45 68.45 39.00 7.66 7.54 124539.67 Lukoil 4745.5 -157.00 6810 3663 10.47 32.79 44107.51 ExxonMb 46.58 -0.85 66.93 30.11 7.90 56.47 196951.15 ThrmoFshr 520.15 5.55 532.57 250.21 0.17 40.32 206153.75
Citic Secs 18.98 0.06 21.45 12.60 3.17 13.95 5578.33 RioTinto 5877 1.00 6378 2954 5.20 16.48 107758.71
ChinaPcIns 35.90 1.15 39.05 17.90 4.06 11.26 12852.75 MmcNrlskNckl 20150 -66.00 23656 13352 11.57 14.96 42774.79 Facebook 275.27 0.77 304.67 137.10 - 29.65 661740.54 TimeWrnr 98.77 0.82 103.89 85.88 1.54 15.09 77269.69
CK Hutchison 54.90 -1.60 72.50 45.05 6.39 5.54 27310.4 RollsRoyce 98.00 -4.95 243.99 34.59 1.61 -0.95 2491.72
ChMinsheng 4.79 0.11 6.06 3.85 9.31 4.10 5141.19 Novatek 973.20 -3.20 1382.2 682.80 3.05 46.54 39639.58 Fedex 252.10 -1.98 305.66 88.69 0.79 26.79 66824.3 TJX Cos 65.19 -1.72 70.96 32.72 0.75 101.08 78269.15
CNOOC 7.79 -0.01 12.74 6.24 11.12 6.98 44866.68 RylDShlA 1381 -39.00 2208.5 878.10 6.98 -8.30 86791.77
ChMrchSecs 27.10 0.82 28.18 13.10 - 24.40 31057.75 Rosneft 324.00 -11.00 489.90 229.80 9.45-126.68 46063.6 FordMtr 11.11 -0.42 12.15 3.96 2.86-262.54 43393.62 Truist Financial Corp 50.73 -0.45 56.39 24.01 3.75 16.60 68390.04
HangSeng 142.90 -1.00 165.20 110.00 6.12 12.38 35243.27 Shire# 4690 111.00 4780 2944 0.58 11.63 56567.13
Chna Utd Coms 4.28 -0.06 6.16 4.19 1.42 24.18 20181.47 Sberbank 188.91 -2.03 270.80 172.15 9.07 5.92 54705 Franklin 26.27 -0.20 27.60 14.91 4.35 15.62 13289.94 UnionPac 203.53 -3.60 221.28 105.08 2.02 24.52 137152.53
HK Exc&Clr 553.00 42.50 553.50 206.00 1.34 66.99 90444.13 StandCh 454.90 -7.00 695.20 334.25 - 22.71 20502.36
ChShenEgy 15.12 -0.24 16.32 11.94 10.12 6.29 6628.9 Surgutneftegas 35.13 -0.76 54.89 24.06 1.70 1.55 16833.73 GenDyn♦ 153.36 0.59 190.08 100.55 2.92 13.15 44008.61 UPS B 161.77 2.78 178.01 82.00 2.61 29.03 115700.5
MTR 43.35 -0.25 45.90 36.20 3.14 39.57 34564.86 Tesco 243.80 1.90 260.00 202.00 3.75 23.04 27289.42
ChShpbldng 4.16 -0.05 5.44 3.98 - -108.77 11744.67 GenElectric 10.97 -0.14 13.26 5.48 0.39 26.59 96066.02 USBancorp 45.36 -0.50 55.69 28.36 3.92 14.20 68332.04
SandsCh 30.40 -0.25 41.75 25.15 3.60 114.70 31726.37 Saudi Arabia (SR) Vodafone♦ 128.40 1.06 157.86 92.76 6.36 16.56 46821.86
ChStConEng 4.90 -0.04 6.02 4.76 3.80 4.82 31213.3 GenMills♦ 57.96 1.99 66.14 46.59 3.50 14.51 35435.81 UtdHlthcre 346.54 -1.02 367.95 187.72 1.42 18.82 328799.58
SHK Props 108.10 -0.90 116.40 87.60 5.07 12.03 40409.46 AlRajhiBnk 73.70 0.20 75.60 51.00 2.15 17.82 49118.93 WPP 768.80 -25.20 1015.5 450.00 2.95 -4.13 13307.08
ChUncHK 4.61 -0.16 6.92 3.84 3.90 9.51 18196.4 GenMotors 52.31 -3.09 56.97 14.33 1.54 22.18 74866.26 UtdTech 86.01 -5.36 158.44 69.02 2.69 144.88 74498.84
Tencent 766.50 75.50 767.50 325.20 0.17 58.97 948636.33 Natnlcombnk 44.80 0.25 47.35 30.50 2.83 11.51 35829.48 United States of America ($)
CNNC Intl 5.05 0.07 5.68 4.02 2.43 14.95 12137.64 GileadSci 66.85 -0.09 85.97 56.56 4.22 64.51 83798.36 ValeroEngy 58.92 -0.53 90.07 31.00 6.89-928.65 24026.94
SaudiBasic 102.40 -0.20 106.40 61.90 3.82-106.41 81895.98 21stC Fox A 30.96 0.80 39.42 19.81 1.57 11.05 10488.78
CSR 3.49 -0.03 5.43 2.53 5.18 8.53 1967.9 India (Rs) GoldmSchs 280.74 -8.65 309.41 130.85 1.88 15.29 96593.59 Verizon♦ 58.31 0.84 61.95 48.84 4.48 12.48 241292.28
SaudiTelec 111.60 1.40 117.00 72.30 3.79 19.69 59502.54 3M 171.71 2.67 180.59 114.04 3.60 19.04 99047.93
Daqin 6.43 -0.05 7.80 6.32 7.51 9.01 14760.79 Bhartiartl 580.75 3.90 612.00 361.75 0.36 -13.55 43437.26 Halliburton 18.60 -0.64 23.70 4.25 2.56 -3.54 16442.53 VertexPharm 240.91 3.32 306.08 197.47 - 22.31 62645.73
Gree Elec Apl 0.14 0.02 0.21 0.07 - -0.05 6.07 HDFC Bk 1462.85 19.30 1511.65 738.75 - 27.24 110458.98 Singapore (S$) AbbottLb♦ 114.96 2.12 115.40 61.61 1.29 57.83 203750.69 HCA Hold 165.70 -1.27 174.55 58.38 0.53 15.86 56068.69 VF Cp 84.18 0.32 89.68 45.07 2.41-331.70 32830.55
GuosenSec 12.91 0.01 16.14 10.38 1.56 17.35 16346.29 Hind Unilevr 2399.6 -9.75 2614.3 1757.3 1.50 73.97 77296.34 DBS 25.93 -0.24 27.47 16.65 4.53 13.69 49594.77 Abbvie♦ 110.33 -0.53 113.41 62.55 4.42 22.49 194784.74 Hew-Pack 25.00 -0.27 26.15 12.54 2.98 11.82 32240.91 ViacomCBS 48.14 2.56 51.29 10.10 2.11 21.17 27198.12
HaitongSecs 7.31 0.01 9.42 5.79 - 6.60 3215.19 HsngDevFin 2551.4 -38.05 2777.15 1473.45 0.86 26.42 62969.87 JardnMt US$ 57.84 -0.26 58.79 37.37 3.29-100.53 41657.29 Accenture♦ 251.77 -3.00 271.18 137.15 1.33 30.28 166453.99 HiltonWwde 103.86 -1.10 116.73 44.30 0.31 -85.41 28815.57 Visa Inc 198.57 -3.45 220.39 133.93 0.64 38.40 336710.53
Hngzh HikVDT 67.65 0.91 70.48 27.00 1.04 48.33 84563.98 ICICI Bk 538.05 4.25 561.00 268.30 - 24.50 50927.63 JardnStr US$ 27.39 -0.02 32.37 17.81 1.43 -31.34 30359.31 Adobe 471.07 -1.38 536.88 255.13 - 58.11 225978.82 HomeDep 285.03 1.03 292.95 140.63 2.17 23.30 306858.14 Walgreen 47.09 -0.36 54.53 33.36 3.99 88.69 40687.72
Hunng Pwr 2.87 -0.06 4.12 2.24 5.82 21.53 1740.22 Infosys 1325.1 -15.75 1392.8 509.25 1.38 29.62 77383.89 OCBC 10.57 -0.05 11.14 7.80 4.27 14.67 35585.25 AEP 81.99 -0.09 104.97 65.14 3.61 20.09 40698.8 Honywell 201.65 -0.60 216.70 101.08 1.89 27.36 141494.94 WalMartSto 145.29 -1.04 153.66 102.00 1.56 19.83 411066.95
IM Baotou Stl 1.17 -0.01 1.31 1.04 - -111.99 5722.81 ITC 207.80 -2.90 239.25 134.60 5.11 17.81 35056.29 SingTel 2.45 -0.03 3.42 2.00 5.15 23.36 30109.5 Aetna - - - - - - - HumanaInc♦ 404.72 -0.46 474.70 208.25 0.63 12.26 53561.23 WellsFargo 31.87 -0.03 48.50 20.76 5.41 77.28 131766.18
In&CmBkCh 5.06 0.02 5.61 3.96 6.26 5.32 56653.94 L&T 1361.3 -0.80 1396.4 661.00 1.38 63.24 26206.12 UOB 23.61 -0.09 26.38 17.28 4.91 10.45 29724.66 Aflac 46.12 -0.31 53.38 23.07 2.55 6.85 32396.77 IBM 118.95 0.34 158.75 90.56 5.78 12.74 105991.24 Williams Cos 21.52 -0.08 22.88 8.41 7.76 107.11 26116.36
IndstrlBk 22.91 -0.02 24.38 14.93 3.34 7.86 69390.32 OilNatGas 91.35 -1.40 118.50 50.00 5.72 33.87 15755.54 South Africa (R) AirProd♦ 279.33 -4.27 327.89 167.43 1.96 30.89 61745.63 IllinoisTool 200.98 -2.49 224.69 115.94 2.29 28.84 63612.66 Yum!Brnds 105.04 -2.05 110.66 54.95 1.84 28.96 31687.22
Kweichow 2175 95.05 2179.5 960.10 0.79 60.95 421887.93 RelianceIn 1941 -108.60 2369.35 867.40 0.35 29.53 179944.77 Firstrand 46.86 -1.31 62.91 31.13 6.16 15.93 17270.72 Alexion 160.82 1.09 161.75 72.67 - 35.53 35194.72 Illumina 418.49 12.24 425.71 196.78 - 91.82 61098.81 Venezuela (VEF)
Midea 0.69 - 1.00 0.52 - -1.74 19.14 SBI NewA 280.95 -2.75 331.90 149.45 - 10.22 34375.82 MTN Grp 64.96 0.63 89.78 26.25 8.21 7.35 8042.2 Allergan 193.02 0.03 202.22 114.27 1.54 -25.19 63659.11 Intcntl Exch 112.09 0.17 119.02 63.51 1.11 29.20 62914.3 Bco de Vnzla 84950 6950 84950 1300 434.01 - 187.79
New Ch Life Ins 31.00 -0.20 37.30 20.45 5.42 6.34 4135.41 SunPhrmInds 586.40 11.20 628.00 312.00 0.71 91.36 19289.41 Naspers N 3787.68 223.68 3888 1843.8 - 34.61 108382.16 Allstate 110.74 0.31 125.92 64.13 2.02 7.38 33670.97 Intel 55.00 -1.67 69.29 43.61 2.51 10.22 225369.51 Bco Provncl 2849000 169000 2849000 127000 - -17.00 186.21
PetroChina 2.45 -0.08 3.64 2.16 6.32 20.16 6668.31 Tata Cons 3291.3 -11.80 3339.8 1506.05 1.05 38.54 166913.74 Alphabet 1877.33 -15.23 1932.08 1008.87 - 34.33 564407.68 Intuit 366.21 -8.64 398.12 187.68 0.63 46.49 96220.15
South Korea (KRW) Mrcntl Srvcs 3000000 200000 3000000 120000 0.02 -3.25 110.71
PingAnIns 98.40 0.90 103.60 69.00 2.57 11.83 94537.01 Altria 41.79 -0.04 51.04 30.95 8.55 101.33 77663.34 John&John 165.70 2.15 166.09 109.16 2.50 24.64 436212.32
Indonesia (Rp) HyundMobis 347500-2500.00 405000 126000 0.86 20.96 30010.91
PngAnBnk 22.49 0.46 22.97 11.91 - 18.04 67390.75 Amazon 3286.56 -5.68 3552.25 1626.03 - 90.881649032.86 JohnsonCn 51.43 -0.92 52.92 22.78 2.14 57.90 37230.58
Bk Cent Asia 22300 200.00 24700 16800 - - 38879.26 KoreaElePwr 24450 300.00 30050 15550 - 170.61 14260.69 Closing prices and highs & lows are in traded currency (with variations for that
Pwr Cons Corp 3.86 -0.03 4.88 3.40 1.04 8.32 6642.4 AmerAir 15.34 -0.48 30.78 8.25 1.38 -1.05 9279.41 JPMrgnCh♦ 131.04 -2.76 142.75 76.91 2.91 16.18 399421.29
Israel (ILS) SK Hynix 135000 6500 140000 65800 0.74 32.34 89292.98 country indicated by stock), market capitalisation is in USD. Highs & lows are
SaicMtr 23.05 -0.52 28.80 16.90 3.84 12.48 41583.66 AmerExpr♦ 121.43 -4.72 138.13 67.00 1.12 28.42 97771.65 Kimb-Clark 138.87 6.66 160.16 110.66 3.23 19.06 47234.79
TevaPha 40.45 1.39 46.45 24.30 - -3.19 13547.87 SmsungEl 89400 2600 96800 42300 1.58 24.53 484893.98 based on intraday trading over a rolling 52 week period.
ShenwanHong 0.06 0.00 0.08 0.03 - -0.21 70.07 AmerIntGrp 39.24 -0.84 56.42 16.07 3.45 -6.38 33806.27 KinderM 15.33 0.01 22.58 9.42 7.07 289.91 34703.96
Italy (€) Spain (€) AmerTower♦ 224.43 0.51 272.20 174.32 2.04 50.17 99694.8 ♦ ex-dividend
ShgPdgBk 9.72 -0.07 12.69 9.22 6.21 5.93 44054.03 Kraft Heinz 33.44 0.53 36.37 19.99 5.06 -79.06 40884.6 ■ ex-capital redistribution
Enel 8.34 -0.01 9.05 5.15 4.02 19.41 102789 BBVA 3.89 -0.12 5.34 2.13 6.84 -42.25 31438.69 Amgen 255.06 1.56 264.97 177.05 2.59 19.44 148487.93
Sinopec Corp 3.87 -0.09 4.35 2.95 5.96 10.14 12737.07 Kroger 36.21 2.65 37.22 26.72 1.93 9.13 27568.38 # price at time of suspension
ENI 8.35 -0.19 13.62 5.73 6.73 -3.00 36532.68 BcoSantdr 2.49 -0.09 3.96 1.50 3.93 -6.21 50193.02 Anadarko 72.77 0.56 76.23 40.40 1.50 -63.37 36563.54
Sinopec Oil 1.85 -0.04 2.45 1.67 - 83.58 3440.11 L Brands 43.05 -2.24 48.30 8.00 1.47 -53.57 11971.18
Generali 14.41 -0.11 18.89 10.20 3.56 12.12 27538.85 CaixaBnk 1.99 -0.06 2.94 1.50 3.59 11.47 14442.06 Anthem 313.65 -0.45 340.98 171.03 1.23 15.30 78004.86
Denmark (kr) Iberdrola♦ 11.69 0.03 12.57 7.76 3.50 20.68 90005.38 LasVegasSd 52.50 -1.69 71.38 33.30 3.14 -50.14 40097.16
IntSPaolo 1.82 -0.06 2.63 1.31 - 5.18 42971.44 Aon Cp 208.77 2.31 238.19 143.93 0.89 25.44 47728.23 LibertyGbl 25.10 -0.04 26.63 15.24 - -8.02 4550.95
DanskeBk 110.15 -3.30 123.60 68.04 - 11.35 15483.89 Inditex 24.84 -0.75 32.28 18.51 1.43 48.06 93907.84
Unicred 7.42 -0.33 14.44 6.01 - -6.42 20136.45 Apple 142.59 3.52 145.09 53.15 0.59 41.112398829.07 Lilly (E) 211.00 4.86 211.98 117.06 1.44 32.71 201838.72
MollerMrsk 13660 -675.00 15400 4976 1.05 27.71 21007.52 Repsol 8.30 -0.15 13.50 5.04 11.28 -1.60 15377.72 ArcherDan 53.23 0.41 53.99 28.92 2.84 17.85 29616.59 Lockheed 342.76 2.88 442.53 266.11 2.96 13.85 95898.68
NovoB 449.65 5.15 467.90 331.70 1.95 24.86 132881.08 Telefonica 3.59 -0.05 6.57 2.71 11.20 70.18 23184.25

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
HK Exc&Clr 553.00 510.50 42.50 8.33 94.60 20.6 33.17 EDF 10.45 12.39 -1.94 -15.62 -1.70 -14.0 -16.73 Jan 25 date Coupon S* M* F* price yield yield yield US Jan 25 date Coupon S* M* F* price yield yield yield US
Tencent 766.50 691.00 75.50 10.93 121.50 18.8 33.50 Devon Energy 16.94 17.80 -0.86 -4.83 -2.63 -13.4 10.34 High Yield US$ US$
Nokia 3.83 3.39 0.44 12.92 0.53 16.0 20.43 Deut Bank 8.61 8.90 -0.29 -3.28 -1.07 -11.1 -11.09 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 -
Hngzh HikVDT 67.65 66.74 0.91 1.36 8.75 14.9 43.57 CaixaBnk 1.99 2.05 -0.06 -3.00 -0.24 -10.7 -6.94 High Yield Euro The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/28 5.00 BBB+ A3 A 117.21 2.47 0.00 0.32 -
FordMtr 11.11 11.52 -0.42 -3.60 1.28 13.0 25.00 Halliburton 18.60 19.24 -0.64 -3.33 -2.14 -10.3 -3.25 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 -
Apple 142.59 139.07 3.52 2.53 15.45 12.2 8.12 SaicMtr 23.05 23.57 -0.52 -2.21 -2.65 -10.3 -3.64 GTE LLC 04/28 6.94 BBB+ Baa2 A- 128.27 2.80 0.00 -0.11 -
Netflix 556.60 565.17 -8.58 -1.52 58.62 11.8 8.26 SocGen 15.62 16.34 -0.72 -4.43 -1.78 -10.3 -9.60 Emerging US$ United Utilities PLC 08/28 6.88 BBB Baa1 A- 130.43 2.62 -0.07 -0.22 -
Illumina 418.49 406.25 12.24 3.01 42.14 11.2 13.91 DiscFinServ 87.92 92.27 -4.35 -4.71 -9.84 -10.1 -0.59 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 -
Naspers N 3787.68 3564.00 223.68 6.28 379.08 11.1 27.72 OilNatGas 91.35 92.75 -1.40 -1.51 -10.05 -9.9 -1.93 Colombia 01/26 4.50 - Baa2 BBB- 112.75 1.70 -0.01 0.06 1.36
Brazil 04/26 6.00 - Ba2 BB- 118.20 2.27 0.03 0.12 1.93 Euro
Panasonic 1423.00 1450.00 -27.00 -1.86 137.50 10.7 21.20 CapOne 101.59 105.34 -3.75 -3.56 -10.94 -9.7 4.39 Electricite de France (EDF) 04/30 4.63 A- A3 A- 137.45 0.82 -0.01 0.10 -
Lilly (E) 211.00 206.14 4.86 2.36 20.23 10.6 26.67 MollerMrsk 13660.00 14335.00 -675.00 -4.71 -1465.00 -9.7 -0.65 Poland 04/26 3.25 - A2 A- 112.02 0.88 0.00 0.10 0.54
Mexico 05/26 11.50 - Baa1 BBB- 150.00 1.62 0.00 -0.43 1.28 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/31 3.00 BBB+ A3 A 124.42 0.68 0.00 -0.11 -
ChMrchSecs 27.10 26.28 0.82 3.12 2.42 9.8 24.25 BkNYMeln 41.21 41.93 -0.72 -1.72 -4.36 -9.6 0.51 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/31 3.00 BBB+ A3 A 121.70 0.93 0.00 0.02 -
Gree Elec Apl 0.14 0.12 0.02 14.05 0.01 9.5 32.69 Barclays 137.12 143.06 -5.94 -4.15 -14.20 -9.4 -11.31 Turkey 10/26 4.88 - B2 BB- 100.27 4.82 0.02 -0.05 4.48
Turkey 03/27 6.00 - Ba2 BB+ 101.26 5.82 0.00 0.17 3.07 Finland 04/31 0.75 AA+ Aa1 AA+ 111.08 -0.27 0.00 -0.05 -0.87
Facebook 275.27 274.50 0.77 0.28 23.91 9.5 2.96 BcoSantdr 2.49 2.58 -0.09 -3.53 -0.25 -9.1 -6.74
Peru 08/27 4.13 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 103.50 3.66 0.01 -0.02 0.80 Yen
Alphabet 1877.33 1892.56 -15.23 -0.80 149.71 8.7 8.20 EOG Res 53.92 54.86 -0.94 -1.71 -5.27 -8.9 8.53
Russia 06/28 12.75 - Baa3 BBB 169.29 2.46 0.06 0.13 - Mexico 06/26 1.09 - Baa1 BBB- 97.67 1.54 0.02 -0.02 1.22
Ch OSLnd&Inv 18.48 18.68 -0.20 -1.07 1.44 8.5 6.71 WalMrtMex 61.80 60.27 1.53 2.54 -5.96 -8.8 10.44
Wesfarmers 54.34 53.41 0.93 1.74 4.11 8.2 6.34 Carnival 19.09 20.22 -1.13 -5.60 -1.70 -8.2 -8.64 Brazil 02/47 5.63 - Ba2 BB- 111.13 4.87 0.02 0.45 - £ Sterling
HyundMobis 347500.00 350000.00 -2500.00 -0.71 26000.00 8.1 38.45 ChUncHK 4.61 4.77 -0.16 -3.35 -0.40 -8.0 3.60 Emerging Euro innogy Fin B.V. 06/30 6.25 BBB Baa2 A- 137.45 2.19 -0.03 0.02 -
Kroger 36.21 33.56 2.65 7.90 2.51 7.4 15.07 BNP Parib 41.23 43.09 -1.86 -4.31 -3.58 -8.0 -5.86 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
Siemens 128.36 132.80 -4.44 -3.34 8.52 7.1 7.11 ING 7.36 7.71 -0.35 -4.51 -0.61 -7.6 -7.01 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- 106.25 -0.04 0.00 -0.18 -0.15 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
Jan 25 Rate Current Since Last Mnth Ago Year Ago Day's Month's Year Return Return Jan 25 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 24.02 2.11 21.91 85.42 12.31 Jan 25 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 22.76 2.30 20.46 71.05 7.84 - - - - - - - - -
US Discount 2.65 30-09-2019 2.75 2.75 1.75 ABF Pan-Asia unhedged 226.37 -0.23 -0.44 -0.44 0.61 8.32 VXN 29.32 1.25 28.07 84.67 15.50 - - - - - - - - -
Euro Repo 0.00 16-03-2016 0.00 0.00 0.00 Corporates( £) 405.62 0.07 -0.79 -0.79 -0.62 5.37 VDAX 27.04 4.26 22.78 93.30 - - - - - - - - - -
UK Repo 0.10 19-03-2020 0.25 0.75 0.25 Corporates($) 338.03 -0.27 -1.02 -1.02 -1.02 -1.02 † CBOE. VIX: S&P 500 index Options Volatility, VXD: DJIA Index Options Volatility, VXN: NASDAQ Index Options Volatility. - - - - - - - - -
Japan O'night Call 0.00-0.10 01-02-2016 0.00 0.00--0.10 0.00--0.10 Corporates(€) 244.23 0.06 0.03 0.03 0.00 2.19 ‡ Deutsche Borse. VDAX: DAX Index Options Volatility. Tr 1.5pc '21 100.21 -0.04 -20.00 -20.00 33.33 -105.97 101.22 100.21 32.84
Switzerland Libor Target -1.25-0.25 15-01-2015 -0.75--0.25 -1.25--0.25 -1.25--0.25 Eurozone Sov(€) 261.54 0.04 -0.75 -0.75 -0.85 3.55 Tr 4pc '22 105.06 0.00 -100.00 -100.00 -100.00 -100.00 107.91 105.06 38.77
Gilts( £) 372.72 0.16 -1.71 -1.71 -1.90 4.30 BONDS: BENCHMARK GOVERNMENT Tr 5pc '25 121.22 0.02 -300.00 -300.00 -128.57 -96.00 124.55 121.22 35.84
INTEREST RATES: MARKET Global Inflation-Lkd 310.63 0.12 -1.23 -1.23 -0.59 10.20 Red Bid Bid Day chg Wk chg Month Year Tr 1.25pc '27 107.17 0.16 33.33 23.08 166.67 -70.37 109.23 103.96 39.34
Over Change One Three Six One Markit iBoxx £ Non-Gilts 392.08 0.08 -0.72 -0.72 -0.63 4.81 Date Coupon Price Yield yield yield chg yld chg yld Tr 4.25pc '32 142.32 0.47 11.90 6.82 27.03 -43.37 148.26 137.84 38.71
Jan 25 (Libor: Jan 22) night Day Week Month month month month year Overall ($) 281.61 -0.17 -1.07 -1.07 -1.07 -1.07 Australia 11/22 2.25 103.95 0.07 0.00 0.00 -0.02 -0.62 Tr 4.25pc '36 151.90 0.67 9.84 4.69 17.54 -33.66 160.46 145.12 30.41
US$ Libor 0.08625 -0.001 -0.839 -0.005 0.12475 0.21525 0.23600 0.31225 Overall( £) 374.07 0.14 -1.45 -1.45 -1.56 4.19 05/32 1.25 100.34 1.22 0.06 0.04 0.15 - Tr 4.5pc '42 173.01 0.85 6.25 2.41 11.84 -26.72 186.37 162.55 27.21
Euro Libor -0.58986 0.002 -0.164 0.008 -0.57729 -0.54500 -0.53214 -0.49957 Overall(€) 252.71 0.05 -0.50 -0.50 -0.57 2.91 Austria - - - - - - - Tr 3.75pc '52 178.71 0.89 7.23 2.30 12.66 -22.61 198.36 164.59 24.10
£ Libor 0.03775 0.000 -0.186 0.000 0.02763 0.03538 0.04350 0.08238 Treasuries ($) 259.25 -0.13 -1.18 -1.18 -1.18 -1.18 02/47 1.50 135.82 0.11 -0.01 0.05 0.10 -0.41 Tr 4pc '60 204.17 0.86 8.86 3.61 14.67 -21.82 231.12 186.33 24.12
Swiss Fr Libor 0.000 -0.80840 -0.76400 -0.72220 -0.60840 FTSE Belgium 09/22 1.00 102.56 -0.58 0.00 0.02 0.09 -0.08 Gilts benchmarks & non-rump undated stocks. Closing mid-price in pounds per £100 nominal of stock.
Yen Libor 0.000 -0.05717 -0.07133 -0.06783 0.04083 Sterling Corporate (£) - - - - - - Canada 11/22 2.00 103.32 0.16 0.00 -0.02 -0.03 -1.45
Euro Euribor
Sterling CDs
0.004
-
-0.55700
-
-0.54000
-
-0.52500
-
-0.49800 Euro Corporate (€) 104.47 -0.05 - - 0.54 -1.73 06/30 1.25 103.74 0.83 -0.02 0.03 0.13 -0.63 GILTS: UK FTSE ACTUARIES INDICES
Euro Emerging Mkts (€) 692.99 2.18 - - 8.44 22.68 Denmark 11/22 0.25 101.53 -0.59 -0.03 0.02 0.04 0.00
US$ CDs - - - - Eurozone Govt Bond 110.04 -0.19 - - -0.34 -0.64 11/30 0.10 116.95 -1.49 0.02 0.03 -0.12 0.01 Price Indices Day's Total Return Return
Euro CDs - - - - Fixed Coupon Jan 25 chg % Return 1 month 1 year Yield
CREDIT INDICES Day's Week's Month's Series Series Finland 04/23 1.50 104.94 -0.70 -0.01 0.01 0.04 -0.18
04/31 0.75 111.49 -0.35 -0.01 0.04 0.06 -0.39 1 Up to 5 Years 89.41 0.07 2491.07 -0.03 1.00 -0.09
Short 7 Days One Three Six One Index change change change high low 2 5 - 10 Years 186.57 0.32 3822.00 -0.28 2.33 0.15
Jan 25 term notice month month month year Markit iTraxx France 05/23 1.75 105.67 -0.66 0.01 0.03 0.05 -0.15
3 10 - 15 Years 225.06 0.56 4914.48 -0.58 3.21 0.45
Euro -0.74 -0.44 -0.73 -0.43 -0.70 -0.40 -0.65 -0.35 -0.67 -0.37 -0.67 -0.37 Crossover 5Y 264.29 10.54 4.82 - 264.29 243.40 11/26 0.25 104.79 -0.56 -0.01 0.03 0.05 -0.31
4 5 - 15 Years 195.09 0.38 4088.44 -0.36 2.59 0.25
Sterling 0.45 0.55 0.70 0.80 0.78 0.88 0.82 0.97 0.89 1.04 Europe 5Y 50.88 2.01 -0.47 2.43 66.97 45.31 Germany - - - - - - -
5 Over 15 Years 395.27 1.36 6523.09 -1.23 4.64 0.76
Swiss Franc - - - - - - - - - - - - Japan 5Y 50.92 -0.15 -0.63 -0.50 70.43 50.58 05/23 1.50 105.22 -0.74 -0.01 0.02 0.05 -0.15
7 All stocks 192.50 0.75 4135.73 -0.66 3.19 0.63
Canadian Dollar - - - - - - - - - - - - Senior Financials 5Y 61.60 0.87 -1.82 3.35 86.20 54.75 02/26 0.50 106.37 -0.73 -0.01 0.02 0.03 -0.25
US Dollar 0.12 0.32 0.03 0.23 0.06 0.26 0.13 0.33 0.15 0.35 0.21 0.41 08/50 0.00 102.95 -0.10 -0.02 0.04 0.10 -0.34 Day's Month Year's Total Return Return
Markit CDX Greece 02/26 3.65 118.35 0.61 0.04 -0.02 -0.04 -0.70
Japanese Yen -0.20 0.00 -0.20 0.00 -0.25 0.05 -0.20 0.10 -0.20 0.10 -0.15 0.15 Index Linked Jan 25 chg % chg % chg % Return 1 month 1 year
Emerging Markets 5Y 170.67 3.03 -0.58 13.55 245.71 150.45
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 0.00 101.08 -0.62 -0.01 0.04 0.05 -0.16 1 Up to 5 Years 301.52 0.09 -0.40 -1.91 2500.11 -0.03 -0.26
Nth Amer High Yld 5Y 304.82 6.60 0.60 6.96 421.26 290.61
Tullett Prebon; SDR, US Discount: IMF; EONIA: ECB; Swiss Libor: SNB; EURONIA, RONIA & SONIA: WMBA. 05/30 2.40 125.57 -0.31 -0.01 0.05 0.05 -0.38 2 Over 5 years 818.43 1.43 -2.78 1.63 6191.50 -2.73 1.99
Nth Amer Inv Grade 5Y 51.10 0.25 -0.87 -2.46 65.62 49.59
05/30 2.40 125.57 -0.31 -0.01 0.05 0.05 -0.38 3 5-15 years 511.26 0.55 -0.86 -0.26 4079.97 -0.68 0.48
Websites: markit.com, ftse.com. All indices shown are unhedged. Currencies are shown in brackets after the index names.
Italy 08/22 0.90 101.77 -0.26 0.04 0.09 0.17 -0.44 4 Over 15 years 1076.33 1.77 -3.50 2.32 7924.08 -3.50 2.54
02/25 0.35 101.36 0.01 0.04 0.10 0.19 -0.69 5 All stocks 728.02 1.31 -2.57 1.25 5610.54 -2.49 1.74
05/30 0.40 105.46 -0.18 0.07 0.12 0.01 -0.74
COMMODITIES www.ft.com/commodities BONDS: INDEX-LINKED 03/48 3.45 142.25 1.54 0.04 0.13 0.18 -0.81 Yield Indices Jan 25 Jan 22 Yr ago Jan 25 Jan 22 Yr ago
Japan 04/23 0.05 99.96 0.07 -0.01 -0.01 0.00 - 5 Yrs -0.06 -0.02 0.24 20 Yrs 0.79 0.85 0.99
Energy Price* Change Agricultural & Cattle Futures Price* Change Price Yield Month Value No of
04/25 0.05 99.98 0.06 0.00 -0.01 0.00 - 10 Yrs 0.32 0.37 0.53 45 Yrs 0.72 0.79 0.89
Crude Oil† Feb 52.22 0.15 Corn♦ Mar 499.50 -0.75 Jan 22 Jan 22 Prev return stock Market stocks
12/33 1.60 118.20 0.17 0.01 0.02 0.04 0.05 15 Yrs 0.63 0.69 0.85
Brent Crude Oil‡ 55.44 0.27 Wheat♦ Mar 634.50 -0.50 Can 4.25%' 26 132.77 -1.150 -1.099 0.63 5.08 80160.31 7
12/49 0.40 93.55 0.65 0.00 0.01 0.04 0.20
RBOB Gasoline† Jan 1.55 0.01 Soybeans♦ Mar 1311.25 1.50 Fr 1.10%' 22 104.88 -2.067 -2.107 0.21 19.85 251338.35 15
Netherlands 07/23 1.75 106.18 -0.72 -0.01 0.02 0.03 -0.17 inflation 0% inflation 5%
Heating Oil† - - Soybeans Meal♦ Mar 421.80 0.80 Swe 0.25%' 22 109.95 -0.892 -0.866 0.38 26.51 204742.58 7
07/26 0.50 106.43 -0.65 -0.01 0.04 0.03 -0.29 Real yield Jan 25 Dur yrs Previous Yr ago Jan 25 Dur yrs Previous Yr ago
Natural Gas† Jan 2.53 0.08 Cocoa (ICE Liffe)X Mar 1722.00 -12.00 UK 1.875%' 22 109.60 -3.183 -3.161 -0.01 15.74 776901.73 28
Ethanol♦ - - Cocoa (ICE US)♥ Mar 2502.00 -19.00 New Zealand 04/25 2.75 109.83 0.40 0.03 0.01 0.02 -0.84 Up to 5 yrs -2.62 2.74 -2.58 -2.29 -3.07 2.74 -3.04 -2.84
UK 2.50%' 24 355.61 -3.785 -3.786 -0.28 6.82 776901.73 28
Uranium† - - Coffee(Robusta)X Mar 1312.00 5.00 05/31 1.50 103.98 1.09 0.05 0.06 0.12 -0.60 Over 5 yrs -2.20 23.81 -2.14 -2.08 -2.23 23.87 -2.17 -2.10
UK 2.00%' 35 296.57 -2.590 -2.576 -2.58 9.08 776901.73 28
Carbon Emissions‡ - - Coffee (Arabica)♥ Mar 123.55 0.35 05/31 1.50 103.98 1.09 0.05 0.06 0.12 -0.60 5-15 yrs -2.70 9.38 -2.64 -2.50 -2.80 9.38 -2.75 -2.60
US 0.625%' 23 106.01 -2.001 -1.998 0.67 47.03 1685237.54 43
White SugarX 445.30 1.00 Norway 08/30 1.38 103.08 1.04 0.00 0.01 0.10 - Over 15 yrs -2.14 28.99 -2.08 -2.03 -2.16 29.00 -2.10 -2.04
Diesel† - - US 3.625%' 28 137.95 -1.356 -1.342 0.46 16.78 1685237.54 43
Sugar 11♥ 15.91 0.06 08/30 1.38 103.08 1.04 0.00 0.01 0.10 - All stocks -2.21 21.99 -2.15 -2.08 -2.24 22.07 -2.18 -2.11
Base Metals (♠ LME 3 Months) Representative stocks from each major market Source: Merill Lynch Global Bond Indices † Local currencies. ‡ Total market
Aluminium 2018.00 23.50 Cotton♥ Mar 82.10 0.54 Portugal 10/22 2.20 104.91 -0.63 0.00 0.01 0.11 -0.26 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 1920.00 60.00 Orange Juice♥ Mar 116.35 -0.75 02/26 3.30 118.56 -0.32 -0.01 0.03 0.05 -0.41 ©2018 Tradeweb Markets LLC. All rights reserved. The Tradeweb FTSE
amount.
Copper 8003.00 17.00 Palm Oil♣ - - Spain 10/22 0.45 101.73 -0.53 0.01 0.02 0.05 -0.23 Gilt Closing Prices information contained herein is proprietary to
Lead 2063.00 17.00 Live Cattle♣ Feb 116.55 0.00 BONDS: TEN YEAR GOVT SPREADS 11/30 1.00 120.40 -0.97 0.01 0.07 -0.08 -0.29 Tradeweb; may not be copied or re-distributed; is not warranted to be
Nickel 18290.00 85.00 Feeder Cattle♣ Mar 134.88 - Sweden 06/22 0.25 109.95 -0.90 -0.03 -0.06 -0.29 0.67 accurate, complete or timely; and does not constitute investment advice.
Tin 22430.00 460.00 Lean Hogs♣ Feb 70.05 0.00 Spread Spread Spread Spread 06/26 0.13 117.70 -1.58 -0.03 -0.08 -0.12 0.06 Tradeweb is not responsible for any loss or damage that might result from the use of this information.
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Palladium 2355.00 -39.00 TR/CC CRB TR 184.84 5.08 -0.73 Denmark -1.49 - -2.50 Portugal -0.32 - - 07/26 1.50 108.12 0.02 -0.01 0.01 0.09 -0.42 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 -0.35 - -1.36 Spain -0.97 - -1.98 07/47 1.50 114.57 0.88 -0.01 0.03 0.15 -0.25
Iron Ore 168.50 -0.10 UBS Bberg CMCI TR 13.20 4.85 -4.74 Germany - - - Sweden -1.56 - -2.57 United States 03/22 0.38 100.31 0.11 0.00 0.00 -0.01 - Data provided by Morningstar | www.morningstar.co.uk
GlobalCOAL RB Index 84.00 -0.50 LEBA EUA Carbon 34.23 9.54 38.81 Ireland -0.31 - -1.32 Switzerland -0.49 - -1.50 03/25 0.50 100.68 0.34 -0.01 -0.02 0.04 -
Baltic Dry Index 1765.00 -45.00 LEBA CER Carbon 0.29 0.00 52.63 Italy -0.18 - -1.19 United Kingdom - - - 02/30 1.50 104.19 1.01 -0.02 -0.01 0.16 -
LEBA UK Power 505.00 -52.67 -86.30 Japan 0.17 - -0.84 United States 1.01 - 0.00 02/50 0.25 116.43 - - - - -
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.
12
When the wall became a playground
A project that bridged the
divide between the US and
Mexico has won the Design
Museum’s annual award,
writes Caroline Roux
F
or just 40 minutes in July
2019, children and adults
played together on either side
of the ugly wall that divides
the United States from Mex-
ico, at an especially gloomy stretch
known as Sunland Park. Three shocking
pink see-saws had been inserted
through the fencing — not for long, but
long enough for a film to be made that
has since continued to be viewed by mil-
lions around the world. In it, people
with huge smiles bounce up and down,
dissolving the constraints of the barrier
between them. If ever a meaningful
moment was made for Instagram, this
was it. Last Monday, the project, known
as the Teeter-Totter Wall, was voted
the overall winner of the Beazley
Designs of the Year 2020 in the London
Design Museum’s annual round-up of
creative excellence.
The see-saws were the work of Ronald
Rael and Virginia San Fratello, a pair of
architects for whom the profession has
provided a springboard for social and
ecological activism, rather than a desire
to make tall buildings. They first
devised the idea of a binational see-saw
in 2009, and it later made it into a book
called Borderwall as Architecture. The US/
Mexico wall has been an ongoing project
since 2006. “So there was a certain
amount of curation in the timing,” says
Rael. “2019 was the moment of the
heightened tension about child separa-
tion. Trump was waging his war on
immigration, and the whole world was
paying more attention.”
Rael and San Fratello paid for the
project themselves (“It cost a few hun-
dred dollars”) and spent weeks
researching the feasibility of pushing
their long pink metal poles from one
side to the other, and screwing them into
place, with an operative team on either
side of the fence. “We knew we had five
to seven minutes,” says San Fratello,
“until the border guards would start to
arrive.” On the day itself, children
jumped on to the see-saws’ bicycle seats
as soon as they appeared. When the bor-
der guards arrived, they simply stayed
in their trucks.
“And then the kids got bored,” says
Rael, who promptly removed the equip-
ment as soon as the kids were done. The
visual metaphor is an enduring one,
though: that an action on one side of this
border affects what happens on the
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
arts
The Teeter-Totter Wall,
designed by Ronald Rael
and Virginia San Fratello
AFP via Getty Images
‘We knew we had five to
seven minutes until the
border guards would
start to arrive’
other. “It is about trade and labour bal-
ances,” says San Fratello. “There has to
be trust on both sides.”
When I speak to the pair, they are in
southern Colorado. This is where Rael is
from. “It was,” he explains, “the most
northern part of Mexico, which is now
part of the US. So I identify as indige-
nous, with roots to Spanish colonial-
ism.” San Fratello comes from a family
with Sicilian roots, though long resident
in rural Georgia. “We live in the urban
century, with urbanist ideals,” they say,
“but personally we don’t adhere to a
rural-urban divide.”
This, along with their architectural
training, is key to their range of projects.
Columbia, from where they graduated
in 1998, was the first school to run a
paperless architecture studio. “We were
thrown into really sophisticated digital
tools being developed and used in Holly-
wood,” they tell me. While their peers
went off to LA to make state of the art
movies, Rael and San Fratello took their
avant-garde skills in another direction.
“We work with digital technology, par-
ticularly with 3D printing, but within
the natural world.”
While both have professorships (San
It’s the women who call the shots
Gender stereotypes are
gleefully twisted in the final
series of the frothy French TV
series ‘Call My Agent!’,
writes Peter Aspden
T
he French series Call My
Agent!, just returned for its
fourth and final run on Net-
flix in most countries, is a
finely judged comic drama
on the relationship between actors and
their agents that refreshingly declines to
take sides in the perennial conflict
between creators and the money-raisers
who allow them to create.
Traditionally, French culture has
positioned itself on the side of the artist.
What romance is there in the book-
keeping side of the business? But the
actors who pepper the series — they
include Charlotte Gainsbourg, Juliette
Binoche, Monica Bellucci — seem to rel-
ish the chance to play their worst selves:
insecure, pompous, willing to sink any
project if their capricious demands are
not met. Those who pick up the bills are,
by contrast, relatively honest in their
more limited motivations.
Stuck in the middle are the agents of
ASK, a motley-staffed company that is
forced to switch between the needs of
client and patron without undue contor-
tion. The satire is, by Anglo-American
standards, light-touched. The cheesy,
retro music and cartoon villainy take
some getting used to. Plot-lines are
absurd, mixing high farce with improb-
ably extreme emotional outpourings.
But the whole is somehow winning,
held together by a fine central perform-
ance from Camille Cottin as ASK’s
boss Andréa, forever trying to balance
a ruthlessness which she does not pos-
sess with the desire for a richer, more
intimate life.
The new series arrives in the wake
of the infantile Emily in Paris, and
corrects some of that programme’s
vapid clichés on life in the French
Fratello at San Jose, Rael at Berkeley), in
their studio in Oakland, California, they
run a number of companies. One is
Emerging Objects, where they experi-
ment with the possibilities of trans-
forming materials, such as mud and
salt, into a substance that can be
3D-printed into usable parts, such as
bricks and tiles, or objects such as plates
and pots.
Sigourney Weaver brings grande
dame demeanour to the show
capital. Call My Agent!’s characters are
stressed out, unkempt and impervious
to sentimental city strolls. The sexual
liaisons in which they find, or lose,
themselves are rushed, or misguided, or
downright unsuitable.
Beneath the joshing and the cocktails,
there is a slow-flowing undercurrent of
necessary mendacity: small, casual
lies that get out of hand, and grow into
personal betrayals. The cynicism is
slight but corrosive. “He who loves, lies,”
says the limp-limbed, catty Hervé
(Nicolas Maury) to a colleague, with for-
tune-cookie glibness. “You have to hate
From left, Grégory Montel, Camille Cottin and Assaad Bouab — Shanna Besson
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Another is Forust — a manufacturer
of 3D printed wood. “You hear all about
the forest fires in California,” says Rael.
“So we’re finding ways to turn the
results of that, and of other wood waste,
into new products.” Their explorations
into salt — “Such a beautiful material,”
says San Fratello, “however thick or thin
you print it. And so resilient as a possi-
ble building material” — have created
flurries of interest in the Middle East,
where desalination plants are producing
tonne upon tonne of excess. And this
summer, they succeeded in building
tiny dome-like houses by 3D printing
mud. “A low-cost prototype, a proposi-
tion for the future.”
With an organisation called Secore,
they are investigating the rehabilitation
of coral reefs, dropping dainty little 3D-
printed forms into a carefully
researched zone. The forms are made in
concrete and ceramic and in a number
of shapes proven to be the most attrac-
tive to coral larvae. “They’re like egg
hatcheries,” says San Fratello. “And the
coral larvae are the client. We’ve learnt
that they like a slightly rough surface.”
What they themselves really seem to
like is telling stories. “That’s a rural tra-
dition,” says Rael. “And unlike architec-
ture with a capital ‘A’, with a good story,
you don’t know where it starts or stops.”
Next week, for example, on February
6, they will launch a new initiative called
Hornos Tras Fronteras, or Ovens across
Borders. For this, they will be construct-
ing ovens like huge beehives out of local
mud along the US/Mexican border —
the first in a migrant shelter in Nogales,
Sonora, where between 300 and 700
people live. “These ovens can provide
hundreds of loaves, and let people in dif-
ficult circumstances feed themselves,”
says Rael. “But my grandmother was
cooking on an oven like this, just three
generations ago.”
Not as cute as a pink see-saw, then,
but this time built to last.
Virginia San
Fratello and
Ronald Rael at
their 3D-printed
backyard cabin
in Oakland,
California
New York Times/Redux/
eyevine
someone to tell them the whole truth.”
Women dominate this final season,
not just among the principal characters,
where they comfortably out-hustle the
men, but also in more understated
ways. They play most of the films’
directors, the casting executives, the
meanest negotiators. They also make
the strongest statements about one of
the series’ recurring themes, the pathos
of growing old.
In the season’s strongest episode,
Hollywood’s Sigourney Weaver, out­-
performing her French counterparts in
grande-dame demeanour, is upset to be
cast opposite a man of her own age as
her love interest. She demands a
younger and more attractive consort.
Impossible, the entire French film indus-
try retorts, only to be outdone when
some jinks at Père Lachaise Cemetery
prompt a change of attitude.
It is an inspired mise-en-scène. Among
these poignant monuments, where art
weighs heavily and money seems to
matter not at all, the ghosts of French
culture seem to signal their approval of
Call My Agent!’s gleeful twisting of gen-
der stereotypes, and its ultimate com-
mitment to the brittle life of the artist.
AAAAE
On Netflix in most countries and France 2
in France
Tuesday 26 January 2021
The rise of Sheikh Tahnoon, point man to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, highlights the strategic
priorities of the monarchy in Abu Dhabi, where lines are blurred between the state and private sector.
D
ays after the United Arab
Emirates rocked the Middle
East by revealing it would
normalise relations with
Israel, the first publicly
announced meeting took place between
officials from the erstwhile foes. It
involved two of the countries’ most
powerful men, both of whom typically
operate in the shadows.
On one side was Yossi Cohen, head of
Mossad, Israel’s feared overseas spy
agency; on the other was Sheikh Tah-
noon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s
national security adviser. The meeting
in August last year in the UAE suggested
that intelligence co-operation would be
at the core of the new alliance. And it
thrust Sheikh Tahnoon — who has
emerged as one of the UAE’s most influ-
ential figures — into the limelight.
His rise over the past decade epito-
mises the nexus of power, business and
national strategic interest in Gulf states
such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar,
where a younger, tech-savvy and securi-
ty-minded generation of royals have
come to the fore. It also offers a glimpse
into the inner workings of Abu Dhabi’s
absolute monarchy, where the ruling
family and a clique of trusted lieuten-
ants dominate security and key sectors
of the economy, blurring the lines
between state and private enterprise.
“He oversees everything. He’s the
trusted under-the-radar guy,” says
Kirsten Fontenrose, former senior
director for Gulf affairs at the National
Security Council in the Trump adminis-
tration. “Part of that is mystique. He’s
quiet and he’s always everywhere. He’ll
‘He oversees everything
and is the trusted under-
the-radar guy. Part of that
is mystique. He’s quiet
and he’s everywhere’
be in the US, and the next thing you
know he’s in Tehran, but he won’t have
told you.”
A full brother of Sheikh Mohammed
bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s crown prince
and the UAE’s de facto leader, Sheikh
Tahnoon manages a sprawling portfolio
that straddles national security and the
often opaque corporate sector.
On foreign policy, the 51-year-old
martial arts expert is trusted by Sheikh
Mohammed, or MBZ, as he is known, to
handle the nation’s most sensitive and
challenging issues: the UAE’s Iran and
Yemen files, as well as security and
intelligence co-operation with the US,
Russia and the UK, former western offi-
cials say.
His interests extend across an array of
big businesses: chairman of ADQ, a state
holding company set up two years ago
which has rapidly become one of the
emirate’s most active investors; he also
chairs First Abu Dhabi Bank, the UAE’s
largest lender, in which the government
and ruling family have significant
stakes; Royal Group, a conglomerate;
and International Holding Company,
another conglomerate spanning fisher-
ies to healthcare whose assets quadru-
pled to about $4bn in 2020, the year
Sheikh Tahnoon took over as chair.
In January he was named chair of
Group 42, an Abu Dhabi-based entity
set up in 2018 that describes itself as an
artificial intelligence and cloud comput-
ing company. It was borne out of Sheikh
Tahnoon’s security role, and he has been
considered its patron since its incep-
tion. Such developments are not dissim-
ilar to ventures in Israel, where veterans
of the Israel Defense Forces incubate
tech companies while working closely
with the IDF and defence industry.
And in a sign of how security, national
strategy and royal or state-related inter-
ests often overlap, G42 was the first UAE
company to open an office in Israel after
normalisation. It has also partnered
with Chinese company BGI to open a
coronavirus laboratory in Abu Dhabi
and conduct trials for a vaccine.
With the pandemic sharpening Abu
Dhabi’s focus on health, technology and
food security, companies affiliated with
Sheikh Tahnoon have conducted deals
in areas of national strategic interest.
ADQ acquired an indirect 45 per cent
stake in Louis Dreyfus Company in
November. The deal included a long-
term agreement for the global merchant
and processor of agricultural goods to
supply the Abu Dhabi holding company
with agri-commodities. It is part of a
trend that has seen him become the
most active member of the ruling family
whose business interests overlap with
the state’s.
But one consequence of the increased
royal presence in business is a narrow-
ing of the space for the private sector in
an economy dominated by the state.
“If you have a guy who is playing
poker and he starts with two aces, better
not to play against him,” says a foreign
executive with years of experience in
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
FT BIG READ. MIDDLE EAST
By Andrew England and Simeon Kerr
At the nexus of UAE
security and business
Sheikh Tahnoon’s network
On board of Supreme Council for
Financial and Economic Affairs
Chair, First Abu
Dhabi Bank
Holds a
stake in
ToTok app
Chair, ADQ
Chair,
Group 42
Sheikh Tahnoon
UAE security
Part owned adviser
by Chair, IHC
Mubadala (International
Holdings
Chair, Company)
Royal Group
IHC acquires Trust International
Trust Group from Royal Group in 2019,
International Group before Sheikh Tahnoon became chair
Source: FT research
~$4bn Abu Dhabi. “You can’t compete against
the royal family when all the big busi-
ness is generated by the state.”
Assets of IHC in 2020, which have
quadrupled since Sheikh Tahnoon
Taking control
became chair
The blurring of lines between the state
and royal interests has long been a char-
45%
The stake in Louis Dreyfus
acteristic of Gulf states. But it has
become more pronounced in the UAE
acquired by ADQ, chaired by and Saudi Arabia at a time when the
Sheikh Tahnoon, in November countries’ leaders have become more
autocratic, security conscious and
determined to develop new sectors,
23
Age at which Sheikh Tahnoon set
often related to technological advances.
Steffen Hertog, a Gulf expert at the
up First Gulf Bank, which later London School of Economics, says the
merged with National Bank of leaderships are now more centralised,
Abu Dhabi to create the UAE’s with more control and less of a “power
largest lender balance between brothers, uncles and
nephews”.
“It’s strategic, and more intended to
have political control than rent-seeking,
and very much under the control of
MBZ in the UAE,” he says. “It’s a bit like
the new generation of royals in Saudi
Arabia who are all sidekicks of Prince
Mohammed [bin Salman].”
The Saudi crown prince has become
the key figure across security and the
economy — he was appointed defence
minister and head of a powerful new
Council of Economic and Development
Affairs, days after his father, King Sal-
man, ascended the throne in January
2015. As chair of the Public Investment
Fund, Prince Mohammed, 35, has trans-
formed the country’s $400bn sovereign
wealth fund into an omnipresent force.
Like the UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed, the
crown prince has also driven assertive
foreign policies.
A younger generation is also at the
helm in Qatar, where Sheikh Tamim bin
Hamad al-Thani became emir aged just
33. Under his watch, Sheikh Moham-
med bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, a 40-
year-old distant relative of the emir, has
become a rising star. He has been pro-
moted through the ranks to become the
wealthy state’s foreign minister and
most powerful investor as the hands-on
chair of Qatar Investment Authority.
But, says Ms Fontenrose, Sheikh Tah-
noon stands out both for the breadth of
his role and his ability to remain under
the radar. “I don’t think he has an equiv-
alent in other Gulf countries,” she says.
A former US diplomat describes
Sheikh Tahnoon as “very much a man in
the shadows”, adding: “He’s got a talent
for where foreign policy and national
security intersect.”
MBZ’s confidante
A son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-
Nahyan, the UAE’s founding father,
Sheikh Tahnoon is one of a group of six
powerful full-brothers, headed by
Sheikh Mohammed, who are known as
the “Bani Fatima six” in reference to
their mother. Others include Sheikh
Mansour, the billionaire owner of Man-
chester City football club. Another is
Sheikh Abdullah, the foreign minister.
With nine years of experience in the
armed forces starting from 1991, Sheikh
Tahnoon was appointed deputy to
Sheikh Hazza, then national security
adviser and another member of the
“Bani Fatima six”, in 2013. He replaced
his brother three years later.
His rise coincided with an era during
which Sheikh Mohammed pursued an
interventionist foreign policy, deploying
Abu Dhabi’s capabilities to push back
against Iran and Islamist movements
across the region while narrowing the
space for debate at home.
Today, the crown prince is arguably
the Arab world’s most influential leader,
with Sheikh Tahnoon as his point man.
“MBZ has a small circle of people he
talks these kinds of issues through with,
and Tahnoon would be number one,”
says another former western diplomat.
In 2015, a year before Sheikh Tah-
noon became national security adviser,
the UAE deployed troops to Yemen as a
senior partner of the Saudi-led coalition
against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.
In 2017, the UAE joined Saudi Arabia in
a regional embargo against Qatar. In
Sheikh Tahnoon, left, has the ear
of Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Zayed on the UAE’s most sensitive
issues. Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman, below, is Saudi
Arabia’s leading figure across
security and the economy — FT montage
Libya, it has supplied weapons and
other support to Khalifa Haftar, the ren-
egade general who in 2019 launched an
offensive on Tripoli.
Foreign officials describe Sheikh Tah-
noon as pragmatic, probing and analyti-
cal. The former US diplomat says he was
the first senior Emirati to raise the pros-
pect of the UAE pulling out of the war in
Yemen, realising it could not be won, in
2016. That was three years before the
Gulf state began withdrawing troops
after Abu Dhabi and Riyadh had
attracted widespread criticism for their
role in the conflict.
The former diplomat adds that the
sheikh gave the impression he was wary
of the UAE’s support for Gen Haftar, rec-
ognising he was “not a viable political
leader” and an “erratic” military leader.
Those UAE interventions damaged
the Gulf state’s image — UN experts have
repeatedly accused the UAE of violating
an arms embargo on Libya.
‘You can’t compete
against the royal
family when all
the big business is
generated by the state’
The US Defense Intelligence Agency
“assessed” that the UAE “may provide
some financing” for the Libya opera-
tions of Russia’s Wagner Group, which
has deployed about 2,000 mercenaries
to back Gen Haftar, according to a Pen-
tagon inspector-general’s report in
November. The same month, Human
Rights Watch released an investigation
alleging that an Emirati company, Black
Shield Security Services, recruited
Sudanese as security guards and then
dispatched them to fight in Libya. The
rights group said it was “just one exam-
ple of the UAE’s pernicious involvement
in foreign conflicts”. The UAE’s foreign
ministry did not respond to requests for
comment.
Security focus
The creation of companies such as G42
is viewed by knowledgeable observers
as an extension of the emirate’s national
strategic goals as it relies heavily on
technology in sectors ranging from
security to health. Its relationship with
Israel is expected to focus on these and
other areas such as agritech.
There have, however, also been alle-
gations of a darker domestic aspect to
13
the security-minded leadership. The
UAE authorities — which have per-
ceived threats from Sunni Islamists,
Shia militants and Iran over the past
decade — have been accused of using
surveillance to monitor domestic critics
and opponents. Ahmed Mansoor, an
Emirati human rights activist, was sen-
tenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for
insulting the “status and prestige of the
UAE and its symbols”. Activists have
alleged his phone was targeted by the
security services using spyware pro-
duced by Israeli firm NSO Group.
In 2019, a New York Times report
quoted US officials as saying ToTok, a
free messaging app launched in the UAE
that year, was used to spy on its users.
ToTok described the allegations as
being “misleading and outright false”.
ToTok, whose app was removed from
both Apple’s App Store and Google’s
Play Store, has insisted its privacy pol-
icy is compliant with international
standards and that it has no ties to the
government.
G42 has invested in the messaging
app. Osama al-Ahdali, who is part of
Sheikh Tahnoon’s “executive network”
of trusted lieutenants in business,
according to a person close to the senior
member of the ruling family, was until
last month listed as a ToTok director.
Hamad al-Shamsi, another member of
his network and a former IHC board
member, is the only director listed for
G42. In addition, Mr Shamsi is general
manager of the private office of Sheikha
Fatima, Sheikh Tahnoon’s mother.
The person close to Sheikh Tahnoon
says neither Mr Ahdali nor Mr Shamsi
had or have executive roles at ToTok or
G42.
G42 has been branching out. In Octo-
ber, it was part of a consortium that
signed contracts with the Afghan avia-
tion authority related to “security serv-
ices, operation management, ground
handling and aviation systems and tech-
nology”. And its ties to the state were
strengthened when Mubadala, a sover-
eign investment vehicle chaired by
Sheikh Mohammed, took an undis-
closed stake in G42 in November.
“The line between royals and business
[in Abu Dhabi] is getting blurred. I don’t
think it exists now; it’s very hard to say
what is the exclusive preserve of the pri-
vate sector,” says the foreign executive.
“I don’t think there are any credible pri-
vate sector players in strategic sectors.”
Royal ventures
When Sheikh Zayed was alive, Sheikh
Tahnoon handled the family’s “private
department”, says the person close to
Sheikh Tahnoon. He set up First Gulf
Bank, which later merged with National
Bank of Abu Dhabi to form First Abu
Dhabi Bank, when he was just 23. But
after Sheikh Zayed’s death in 2004, sev-
eral other sons such as Sheikh Mansour
pursued their own paths in business.
“If you wanted to negotiate a com-
mercial deal with the family, not at the
palace, you would approach through
Tahnoon,” says the foreign executive.
“As soon as they [the sons] got their own
pot of money when Sheikh Zayed died
. . . some of the guys wanted to do their
own stuff.” Sheikh Tahnoon was always
“very interested in business”, he adds.
“He would talk about the subject you
were talking about by referencing things
he read in his briefings.”
Over the past two years the holding
company IHC has been on a buying
spree, including the acquisition of Trust
International Group, a defence com-
pany, and other Royal Group assets. The
pandemic has created new opportuni-
ties for companies affiliated to Sheikh
Tahnoon, including Pure Health, a lab
operator 30 per cent owned by IHC, and
Tamouh Healthcare, which is owned by
IHC and has been involved in the UAE’s
testing programme.
The person close to Sheikh Tahnoon
says he is a huge believer in “technology,
especially in a post-Covid world”.
“He strives to scale his businesses
through technology, AI and digitisa-
tion,” the person adds. “Economic secu-
rity is a key component of any country’s
national security objectives, especially
in a country like the UAE, which aims to
create a knowledge-based economy less
reliant on oil.”
A veteran consultant in the region
says the confluence of his economic and
security roles makes Sheikh Tahnoon
the second most influential man in Abu
Dhabi, after Sheikh Mohammed. But he
adds that the royal could be reaching the
peak of his power as the crown prince’s
children take up prominent positions.
“The big question is whether we have
seen the high watermark of his influ-
ence,” the consultant says. “Or whether
the emergence of a new generation of
leaders means his responsibilities could
diminish.”
Sheikh Tahnoon’s longevity may rest
on the extent to which his projects boost
the UAE economy, says another
regional expert: “Who would be
Superman forever?”
14
TUESDAY 26 JANUARY 2021
Pandemic pushes Brazil’s
finances to the brink
Looming fiscal crisis provides a chance to tackle structural problems
“Spend as much as you can.” Most
countries have followed IMF chief
Kristalina Georgieva’s coronavirus
crisis advice to some degree, but few
with quite the alacrity of Brazil. Pres-
ident Jair Bolsonaro outspent every
other major emerging market, accord-
ing to the Institute of International
Finance, boosting central government
spending almost 40 per cent between
January and November.
Most of the money went on “corona
vouchers”: a flat-rate temporary
income boost for nearly a third of the
population. The move lifted beer sales
— and Mr Bolsonaro’s popularity — but
proved ruinous for Brazil’s already
shaky finances. Public debt now stands
at more than 91 per cent of gross
domestic product, one of the highest
levels of any emerging market. Plagued
by weak growth, Brazil has not bal-
anced its budget before debt servicing
costs since 2013.
Vital reforms to trim overgenerous
salaries and perks for public sector
workers remain stalled in Congress. A
much-touted overhaul of the convo-
luted tax system has yet to happen.
Privatisation is stymied by vested inter-
ests. The corona voucher scheme
expired at the end of last year but, as
virus infections jump again, Brazilian
politicians are lobbying for it to restart.
Paulo Guedes, Brazil’s Friedmanite
economy minister, has so far resisted.
But his hands are tied by a president
whose instincts are unabashedly pop-
ulist and whose overriding goal is re-
election next year. Mr Guedes’ prom-
ises that structural reforms remain
on track ring hollower and hollower;
several of his key lieutenants have
already jumped ship.
Should the international community
care? About 95 per cent of Brazil’s
debt is domestic, most of it held by
local investors. Few foreign creditors,
whether private or multilateral, would
Retail has a place on the
high street of the future
Fixing UK business rates is key to helping the industry survive
Coronavirus has proved a deadly reck-
oning for Britain’s department stores
and clothing chains. News that Boohoo,
the online retailer founded just 15 years
ago, is to buy the website and brand of
Debenhams, which traces its roots
back to 1778, is emblematic of the crisis
gripping the industry. Successive lock-
downs to stop the virus spreading have
forced shoppers online and prompted
the closure of thousands of bricks-and-
mortar shops. Once familiar brands,
including Laura Ashley, Oasis and
Warehouse, have all but disappeared
from the high street. Now Debenhams
and Topshop, which is in talks to be
bought by Boohoo’s rival Asos, are set
to survive only as online names.
In truth, there was overcapacity on
the high street even before Covid-19
accelerated the shift to online shop-
ping. Many retailers had failed to keep
up with the changing shopping habits
of young consumers and were unable
to compete with innovative online-
only rivals. Those still opening bricks-
and-mortar shops chose out-of-town
retail parks where rents were lower.
The roots of the particular problems at
Debenhams and Philip Green’s Arcadia
group also predate the pandemic. Pri-
vate equity bears part of the blame for
the collapse of Debenhams. During a
brief spell in private ownership, the
chain was laden with debt and much of
its freehold real estate sold and leased
back. The company reduced its debt
load after a return to the stock market
in 2006 but that left little for invest-
ment in stores and ecommerce. Simi-
larly, Sir Philip played a part in the
demise of his Arcadia fashion empire,
starving it of investment and innova-
tion over several years.
Irrespective of the reasons behind
particular company failures, there are
wider repercussions for Britain’s towns
and high streets that cannot be ignored.
Analysis by the Centre for Retail
lose money from a default. Brazil has
teetered on the fiscal brink many times
before, usually without falling over.
The risks this time are higher. Most
of Brazil’s R$4.8tn ($878bn) of debt is
short-term and maturities are getting
shorter: almost 30 per cent comes due
in the next year. Inflation, an old bug-
bear, is ticking upwards. Local markets
are pricing in sharp interest rate rises,
starting this year. Even Mr Bolsonaro
has declared that the country is broke.
Brazil has been one of the countries
worst affected by coronavirus and
the pandemic continues to take a heavy
toll, aided by Mr Bolsonaro’s stubborn
insouciance. A recent surge in cases
in the Amazon city of Manaus over-
whelmed hospitals and led to oxygen
shortages so bad that some patients
were left to asphyxiate. Venezuela’s
revolutionary socialist government
scored an improbable propaganda
coup by despatching oxygen trucks to
the border to help.
Brazil can still step back from the
brink. Unlike many nations caught in
the economic agonies of coronavirus,
its fate lies largely in its own hands. The
government can still fund itself. There
need be no conflict between providing
well-directed support to the economy
and curing the longer-term ills of pam-
pered civil servants, protected national
businesses and a privileged elite that
does not pay its fair share of tax in one
of the world’s most unequal societies.
Mr Bolsonaro would do well to
remember the second part of Ms Geor-
gieva’s pandemic advice: “But keep the
receipts.” Accountability and transpar-
ency have been lacking in Latin Amer-
ica’s biggest nation for too long and its
210m citizens have paid the price.
The pandemic should force a long-
overdue reckoning, not just of the
national accounts but of the grotesque
economic imbalances which have
blighted its society.
Research estimates that more than
15,700 shops closed last year, resulting
in some 176,700 retail job losses. At
stake is not just the future of interna-
tional fashion destinations such as
London’s Oxford Street, home to
Topshop’s flagship store and a vast
Debenhams outlet. Such shops acted as
high-street anchor tenants across the
country, attracting local trade and foot-
fall. Their demise puts the future of
hundreds of smaller town and city
centres at risk.
The government must play its part in
slowing the retail shake-out, in part to
preserve those activities that ought to
be saved and to allow time for a post-
Covid transition to the high-street of
the future. There is no reason why non-
food, bricks-and-mortar retail should
die. In fact, fashion ought to be one ele-
ment that can survive. One area where
the government should act immedi-
ately is to reform the business rates sys-
tem. The 12-month business rates holi-
day, introduced in March last year after
the pandemic first struck, needs to be
extended further. Successive relief
schemes have left many smaller busi-
nesses paying very little, while the rate
for those that do pay has jumped from
34 per cent of “rateable” values in 1990
to more than 50 per cent now. It is also
time to find ways to level the taxation
playing field with online-only retailers
whose absence of shops leaves them
paying much lower business rates.
There is no reason for the govern-
ment to subsidise retailers that would
otherwise collapse. In some cases,
shops can better be repurposed into
venues for alternative uses such as
cultural activities or entertainment.
But it makes little sense for Britain’s
high streets to lose retail outlets
altogether. All this is possible but it is
up to the government to put in place
the right conditions to help the
regeneration of the high street.
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
Letters
West needs to agree an approach that avoids demonising China
Philip Stephens is right that the biggest
and most complicated area of policy
where the EU and the incoming US
administration of President Joe Biden
need to coalesce is that of China
(Opinion, January 22).
While the goal of an agreed approach
is vital it will not be easy to achieve,
partly because Europe feels it has less
at stake in the Indo-Pacific region (in
hard security rather than economic
terms) and also because of the
ambivalence of European public
opinion towards “taking sides”
between the two powers. This last point
was illustrated by the recent polling
published by the European Council on
Environmentalists must
wake up to carbon capture
Observing the commentary on the UK’s
carbon capture push (Report, January
11) it is absurd how the environmental
movement still fails to understand that
it is prolonging fossil fuel industry
emissions by saying CCS will never
work so we shouldn’t even bother.
Some problems just need solving, not
just wishing away into a different
lifestyle.
The only way of stopping fossil fuels
from causing global warming, short of
a global ban, is safe and permanent
disposal of carbon to match the rate of
extraction. We clearly aren’t going to
agree a global ban in time, so we need
CO2 disposal. Multiple projects already
exist worldwide to show this is safe,
secure and affordable. Requiring CO2
disposal will almost certainly make for
a much smaller fossil fuel industry
than not requiring it — which seems to
be the preferred option of some
environmentalists. Climate effects are
now beyond doubt: either the oil
industry can co-operate and develop
CCS today to counteract their
hydrocarbon production, or the
taxpayer will have to ban fossil fuel
extraction and develop CCS in a panic
in the 2040s.
What is needed now is all the green
and behaviour remedies of extraction
decreases, efficiencies, fuel switching
and renewables as well as CCS on
emissions, biomass and air. It really is
that simple.
Stuart Haszeldine
Professor of Carbon Capture and Storage,
School of Geosciences, University of
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Myles Allen
Professor of Geosystem Science,
Environmental Change Institute
Leader, Climate Research Programme
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Recovery plan requires
buy-in of small business
I read with interest your editorial
“Britain risks own goal with labour
market plans” (FT View, January 18).
I hope the FT will follow up with the
same in-depth reporting on what
leaders of small and medium sized
enterprises need on this vital issue,
rather than — with the greatest respect
— focusing only on big business.
We should all listen to the widest
range of business interests as we
work on the post Brexit-Covid
recovery.
Tony Devenish
Chairman of Regeneration, London
Assembly, London SE1, UK
Biden brings
a return
to normal —
and to trivia
Washington
Notebook
by Courtney Weaver
Foreign Relations which revealed,
rather alarmingly from a western point
of view, how pessimistic Europeans are
about the US and how convinced they
are that China will overtake America in
the next decade. That is a measure of
the damage done by Donald Trump to
western cohesion which Mr Biden has
already started to address.
US policy must cease its zigzag
approach to China. There was nothing
more incoherent in US policy than
pulling out of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership in trade as Mr Trump did
at the beginning of his presidency then
to decry China’s growing economic
power in Asia-Pacific. And there can be
Luckily Brexit won’t hit
my meagre wine cellar
I’m no oenophile, but I read your story
on the increase in the price of
European wines due to Brexit with
dismay (“Wine lovers wake up to price
rises and less choice as Brexit hangover
kicks in”, Report, January 23). Then I
checked my modest wine rack and
realised that none of the bottles were
from Europe, but rather Australia and
South America. Phew! What a relief.
As for Google’s tantrum (Report,
FT.com, January 22) at Australia’s
suggestion that it should reimburse
local media outlets for their content it
displays on its sites, well done France
for standing up to the giant. What kind
of business model has Google
constructed that builds its profits on
other companies’ expenditure and
work? Is theft too strong a word?
Elizabeth Balsom
London SW15, UK
Don’t expect Trump
to behave like Nixon
Vernon Bogdanor (“A Senate trial is not
the right answer to Trump”, Opinion,
FT Weekend, January 16) writes that
“it would be better to pardon him,
allowing him to sink into disgraceful
oblivion”.
If only! What Professor Bogdanor
does not seem to understand is that
unlike Richard Nixon, who was content
with obscurity in his later life, Donald
Trump’s raison d’être is to be in the
limelight, at whatever cost.
Certainly, oblivion (disgraceful or
not) will not be one of his destinations
of choice after the White House.
MK Srinivasan
East Brunswick, NJ, US
Evidence of the new era was visible by
dusk on Joe Biden’s inauguration day.
The new US president and first lady
stood outside the door of the White
House. And waited. And waited.
The wait, as the New York Times
reported, lasted all of 10 seconds. Not
long enough to be of consequence —
but just long enough to merit a news
story from the paper.
Other stories that have merited a
mention in the Times: a piece
detailing Mr Biden’s love of his state-
of-the-art Peloton exercise bike, and
the various risks its price tag posed to
his “regular guy from Scranton”
image; and a separate article analysing
Mr Biden’s decision to wear a Rolex at
the White House inauguration — in
contrast to the plastic Timex watches
sported by predecessors Bill Clinton
and George W Bush, and the more
moderately priced Shinola worn by
Barack Obama.
Donald Trump, the paper
acknowledged, also wore a Rolex, as
well as other luxury brands such as
Patek Philippe and Vacheron
Constantin, but arguably the norm-
busting real estate tycoon was in a
different category.
Reaction to the Peloton and Rolex
stories have been two-fold. On one
corner of the internet, there has been
outrage. How dare the Times, or
anyone for that matter, bring
attention to Mr Biden’s $2,500 bike or
$7,000 wristwatch? Were they not
aware, as one person pointed out, that
Mr Trump’s daughter and senior
adviser, Ivanka, regularly sported
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
nothing more cynical than for the
former US president to have ignored
the plight of Uighur muslims in China
until it suited his geopolitical agenda to
make a fuss about it.
For China, a concerted approach by
Europe and the US will seem at first
like ganging up against China but
Beijing’s political leadership should not
react in this way. It is in China’s
interests for the west to take a calm,
coherent, strategic approach both in
the competitive aspects of the
relationship and the co-operative.
I write in a personal capacity and not
as honorary president of the Great
Britain China Centre. But clearly
Remote working is not the Venezuela’s ‘Brutalist brio’
same as being inclusive deserves a mention
Alicia Clegg’s piece on disabled workers
(“Disabled workers find an upside in
new working practices”, January 25)
was hopefully an eye-opener for many,
but highlighted one fundamental
problem: remote working alone doesn’t
make a workplace inclusive.
As the author mentions, working
from home (WFH) is beneficial for
those with mobility issues, but can be
problematic for those who struggle
with Zoom calls due to hearing
impairments, for example.
Consequently, a business labelling itself
as inclusive simply because it offers
working from home verges on
dishonesty. Remote working without at
least having the option to join
colleagues in the office is simply
another form of exclusion.
Flexible working is entirely
misrepresentative if it only flexes for
certain sections of the workforce —
that’s a problem when one in five
people in the UK have an impairment.
Many of us are looking forward to
when we can finally go back to the
office. If on the other hand, you have to
replace “when” with “if”, then your
employer will have failed.
The pandemic has given the business
world a pause to reconsider what the
workplace can and should be. Now is
our moment to get it right on
inclusivity.
Kevin Mar-Molinero
Kin + Carta Connect
London EC4, UK
I’m saddened by Britain’s
decision on the EU envoy
I read with sadness the decision of the
UK government to deny full diplomatic
status to the EU ambassador accredited
to the UK.
This was especially as the EU has
some 143 accredited diplomats
throughout the world, a result of the
Lisbon treaty of which the UK, at the
time, was a cosignatory (Report,
January 21).
No doubt in terms of strict
diplomatic definitions, the UK can take
this stance but the question must be
why. What does the government expect
to achieve with such a decision which is
certainly not worthy of a country of the
diplomatic reputation of the UK?
It is sadly in line with the behaviour
of an administration seemingly intent
on further isolating the UK from those
we consider our friends and allies, to
our own detriment.
Hugh Malim
Milan, Italy
$4,000 dresses? Or that Mr Trump
owned a gold-plated Manhattan
penthouse? Or that he had spent
much of his presidency frequenting
his own golf courses and using his
luxury Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida
for federal business?
To another set of people, however,
the articles signalled something else:
sweet relief. As Jonathan Reiner, a
George Washington University
professor and CNN commentator put
it: “I think it’s a sign of the nation’s
return to relative normalcy that the
@nytimes is printing this bullshit.”
Or, in the words of Ana Navarro-
Cárdenas, the Republican consultant
turned TV host: “Thank God. We’re
back to [the] good ol’ days of stupid-
ass, meritless scandals like watches,
tan suits & Dijon mustard” — a
reference to two of the biggest
controversies of the Obama years: the
44th president’s decision to don a
light-coloured suit on an August
workday in 2014 and his preferred
burger condiment.
While Mr Biden’s inauguration
ceremony was not normal in any
typical sense — from the near-uniform
mask wearing to the absence of
parties and mass crowds — it was in
many ways a return, if not to
normalcy, then to predictability. And
this will be a relief to both Democrats
and some Republicans who, in private
conversations, have been expressing
elation at Mr Biden’s arrival, as it
brings back a visible hierarchy and
transparency in the legislative
process. There are detailed briefing
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Email: letters.editor@ft.com
Include daytime telephone number and full address
Corrections: corrections@ft.com
predictability of western policy and
behaviour allows China to understand
better the terms on which the west
wants both to secure its interests
globally and share responsibility with
China in the international system.
If, as seems quite possible, China
wants to be a more responsible
stakeholder in a rules-based,
multipolar system, it is better that its
leaders know where they stand in
relation to the west. And in the west, it
is better our approach is governed by
those who take a balanced view than a
desire simply to demonise China.
Lord Mandelson
House of Lords, London SW1, UK
Edwin Heathcote’s article on Brutalism
(FT Weekend, January 16) was a tonic
to those of us conservative enough to
believe that conservation should not be
wilfully selective, an approach which
did as much disservice to the
Victorians as it is doing now to the
Brutalists. In my own college, which
contains a piece of mild Brutalism
(David Roberts’ elegant Sacher
Building) one knows what it is like to
nurture an affection that dare not
speak its name.
However, I would qualify his
assertion that Brazil represents the
zenith of Brutalism in South America
and add Venezuela. Forged in the
exuberance of an overheated oil
economy, Caracas is pickled in the
1970s: the detailing thankfully not
“improved” and replacements simply
unaffordable, it is a magnificent
assembly of Brutalist brio, from the
Parque Central to the Teatro Teresa
Carreño to the Ciudad Universitaria —
and many more. Despite the
inconveniences, I strongly recommend
a visit in due course before it is too late.
Miles Young
Warden, New College
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
An academic’s advice
serves as a timely maxim
Amy O’Brien’s obituary of Mary
Catherine Bateson (“Academic whose
book was a feminist touchstone”, FT
Weekend, January 23) presented
another welcome example of informing
me of the life and death of someone
who unfortunately had not been on
my radar.
Indeed this is the case with not a few
of those who you choose to so honour
in the FT Weekend edition. My
ignorance, however, was assuaged with
the timely maxim: “We are not what
we know but what we are willing
to learn.”
However, I had to read to the end to
benefit from the dictum she lived by.
Alec Sabin
Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK
Corrections
c New York state had vaccinated 3.9 per
cent of its population against Covid-19
by January 17, not 6.9 per cent as
wrongly stated in article on January 18.
c A graphic accompanying an article on
European bank bosses on January 25
wrongly included Deutsche Bank chiefs
in a list labelled UBS.
papers that lay out the new
administration’s policy objectives,
established political appointees whose
policy leanings are easily tracked and
anticipated, and clear timelines for
when policies will be passed.
As one Republican lobbyist who
cultivated close ties with the Trump
administration put it: sure, the new
president’s policies might be less
favourable to clients, but at least there
was some assurance that whatever
policy was being worked on would not
be scuppered by an errant tweet from
Mr Trump’s Twitter account — or
interference from a rival political
faction, such as people close to his
son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
In a Washington Post column last
week, the conservative pundit Max
Boot celebrated the inauguration as
“thrilling in its sanity, exhilarating in
its conventionality” — finding
parallels in Warren G Harding’s 1920
campaign slogan “Return to
Normalcy” in the wake of the first
world war and the 1918 pandemic.
GOP senators Lisa Murkowski and
Mitt Romney both praised Mr Biden’s
inauguration speech as what the
country “needed”. Even Kevin
McCarthy, the House of
Representatives’ top-ranking
Republican, was in a buoyant mood.
The bipartisan bonhomie will fade
quickly. No matter. Let’s enjoy this
news cycle of Pelotons, Rolexes and
non-scandal scandals while we can.
Long may it last.
courtney.weaver@ft.com
Tuesday 26 January 2021
‘Lazy’ Britons are not the reason for UK’s migrant workforce
EMPLOYMENT
MENT
Sarah
nor
O’Connor
L
ast spring, fearful the pan-
demic would cause a shortage
of migrant workers to harvest
the UK’s fruit and vegetables,
the government launched a
“Pick for Britain” campaign to attract
locals to do the job.
It was a perfect test of whether the
economy could wean itself off the use of
low-paid migrants, which is desired by
many Brexit supporters and the govern-
ment’s stated aim. This, after all, was the
sector that relied on them most: an esti-
mated 99 per cent of the UK’s seasonal
agricultural workers in the edible horti-
culture sector come from the EU. And
there were suddenly plenty of unem-
ployed or furloughed Britons in 2020
with time on their hands.
The campaign attracted many appli-
Navalny
is a real threat
to Putin
global affairs
Gideon
Rachman
T
wo years ago, a Russian
friend told me that he
thought that Alexei Navalny
posed a serious danger to
Vladimir Putin. I was scep-
tical. Russia had weathered the inter-
national condemnation and economic
sanctions imposed after its annexation of
Crimea in 2014. The country had just
staged a successful World Cup. President
Putin seemed well entrenched in the
Kremlin.
But my friend was right. Through his
bravery, determination and investig-
ative flair, Mr Navalny has galvanised
the Russian opposition. He has survived
an attempt to kill him and returned to
Russia to face arrest, imprisonment
and, possibly, death. His example
inspired mass protests across the coun-
try over the weekend. Whether Mr Nav-
alny ultimately succeeds or fails, he now
represents the most dangerous threat
that Mr Putin has faced in the two dec-
ades since he took power.
There have been big anti-Putin
demonstrations before. I was in Moscow
in early 2012, as thousands took to
the streets to protest against the
Russian leader’s return to the presi-
dency. I was there again last summer,
Vaccines have been oversold as the pandemic exit strategy
SCIENCE
Anjana
Ahuja
L
ogistics permitting, about
15m people in the UK will
have received at least one
dose of a Covid-19 vaccine
by some time in February.
Provided the second doses are delivered
in a timely manner, this should keep the
most vulnerable out of hospital.
This milestone will not, however,
push us much further towards normal-
ity. We do not yet know if the vaccines
curb transmission, though it is reason-
able to hope they might. Most working-
age people are unlikely to receive a first
dose before summer. Even if the elderly
can savour a newfound freedom, it is
unclear why unprotected individuals
should be expected to head back to non-
essential workplaces, especially amid
concern about a deadlier variant. Given
cants but few stuck with it. Pro-Force,
one of the UK’s biggest agricultural
labour agencies, received 15,000 appli-
cations but only managed to place 3 per
cent of them on farms. Of those 450,
fewer than 4 per cent were still on
assignment by the end of the season.
For some, this was proof that locals
are lazy. “Why is it that our young peo-
ple and our workforce are shying away
from hard work while Romanians,
Lithuanians and Bulgarians, et cetera,
seem to cope with it?” asked Derek Tho-
mas, a Conservative MP, in a recent
select committee hearing.
This narrative ignores the way the job
has transformed over the past 30 years.
Angus Davison, chairman of Haygrove,
a Herefordshire-based berry growing
company, remembers the harvest
brought in by students, Welsh miners
after the strike and “local ladies from
Ledbury” who wanted summer cash.
They were paid a piece rate and “the
slow ones could just be slow and nobody
minded”.
But while piece rates are still com-
mon, national minimum wage law now
requires farmers to top up the pay of
when there were further anti-Putin
demonstrations provoked by the rigging
of local elections.
But this time feels different. The pro-
tests have taken place in more than 100
cities across Russia — from Vladivostok
on the Pacific coast to Irkutsk in Siberia
and Kazan in Tatarstan. Experienced
observers say that the level of violence
used against protesters is increasing: the
police have swung their batons with
more abandon, and some demonstrators
have fought back. In 2012, the opposition
did not have a clear leader. Now it does.
Mr Navalny and his organisation have
stirred public anger with an extraord-
inary investigation into a palatial resi-
dence, apparently built for Mr Putin by
the Black Sea. A film and illustrated
essay, released to coincide with Mr
Navalny’s return to Russia, highlight the
extraordinary opulence of the palace.
Computerised mock-ups, said to be
based on leaks from disgruntled work-
men, show a casino, pole-dancing room,
amphitheatre and what looks like an
underground ice-hockey rink. The
place makes Donald Trump’s Mar-a-
Lago look like a shack. The total area
covered by the compound, which was
filmed by an airborne drone, is claimed
to be 39-times the size of Monaco.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokes-
man, says that while the palace appears
to exist, it does not belong to Mr Putin.
Which raises the obvious question —
who does own it?
The Kremlin still dismisses Mr Nav-
alny as a figure of little significance, and
until recently refused to utter his name
that vaccines have been sold as the main
exit strategy come spring, some serious
expectation management is now
required — together with an unrelenting
focus on suppressing the virus.
One source of gloom emerged at a
briefing last week. Academic research-
ers warned vaccination alone might not
induce sufficient herd immunity to
stamp out the virus. An unhappy com-
bination of imperfect vaccine efficacy,
suboptimal take-up and super-infec-
tious variants could derail attempts to
reach the herd immunity threshold,
when R falls below one and the virus
begins to dissipate. Modelling from the
University of East Anglia corroborates
this unpalatable possibility.
Another major worry is that countries
with poorly controlled transmission
might be acting as production lines for
dangerous new variants. While current
vaccines work against high-profile vari-
ants including B.1.1.7, now dominant in
the UK, this good fortune might not last.
One variant, first documented in
South Africa, shows some resistance in
the laboratory to neutralising antibod-
ies, scientists reported in an unreviewed
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
Opinion
workers who do not earn enough. The
minimum wage has ratcheted higher
and powerful supermarkets have put
pressure on prices while demanding
higher quality standards, leading to
what the University of Sussex’s Ben
Rogaly has called an “intensification”
of the job.
“We’re calculating [the pick rate]
through the day, so we’re telling people
Consumers will have
to pay more for food
if Brexit cuts the
flow of workers
through the day, you’ve got to get faster,
you’ve got to hit the target of however
many units it is,” Mr Davison told me.
“We try and train them, use two hands
not one hand, if you move like this
rather than that it’s easier, if you set
yourself a personal target for the next
hour that might help . . . it’s a mental
and physical discipline.”
The work is irregular and doesn’t stop
in public. Mr Putin’s supporters point
to opinion polls suggesting that Mr
Navalny enjoys little public support,
while Mr Putin remains relatively pop-
ular. But the regime is not prepared
to test this proposition by allowing Mr
Navalny to run in an election.
Mr Putin will be shaken, embarrassed
and alarmed by the emergence of a
younger, better-looking and braver
opponent. But the Russian state’s appa-
ratus of repression remains formidable.
Previous opposition leaders have
tended to end up in prison, in exile or
dead — like Boris Nemtsov, who was
killed near the Kremlin in 2015.
There seems little doubt that
Mr Navalny will be jailed for several
years. He may die in prison. Following
his imprisonment on his return to
The Russian state’s
apparatus of repression
remains formidable but is
showing signs of fragility
preprint last week. The key genetic
mutation responsible has also been
clocked in a Brazil variant. Yet another
has been linked to a surge in California,
where 3m cases have been recorded.
Researchers have previously sug-
gested that immunocompromised
patients who suffer lengthy infections
might act as Petri dishes for such irre-
pressible strains. But there may be
a plausible alternative hypothesis,
Inoculation must go
hand-in-hand with virus
suppression, not become
a substitute for it
according to Tulio de Oliveira, a bio-
informatician at the University of Kwa-
Zulu-Natal. He co-authored the preprint
on the South African variant and con-
tributes to the World Health Organiza-
tion’s Virus Evolution Working Group.
His tip-off led UK scientists to more fully
investigate the B.1.1.7 variant.
“We had an open discussion in the
at weekends, so migrants usually live on
site. Meanwhile the harvest season has
expanded from about six weeks to
between six and eight months. It is nei-
ther a summer job for students nor a
permanent job suitable for people with
families to support or rent to pay.
Britons aren’t lazy, they’re rational.
They will do tough or antisocial jobs if
the pay compensates sufficiently, like
working on an oil rig. But picking jobs
don’t pay a premium compared with
working in a shop or café. Migrants are
rational too. For them, UK farm work
does pay a premium compared with the
jobs at home. When the premium
shrinks, they stop coming. “We are
already seeing numbers dropping from
Romania,” the chief executive of a sea-
sonal labour provider explained in 2019.
“Because of such strong economies in
Romania and Bulgaria, they are keeping
their own labour and they are paying
them more, so they now earn three-and-
a-half to four times the salary when they
come to the UK, rather than the five to
six times of a few years ago.”
The UK government, while telling
farmers they must try harder to attract
Russia, Mr Navalny announced, via
social media, that he has no intention of
committing suicide. This was more than
a dark joke. It was an attempt to shape
the narrative before the authorities can
announce that he has died by his own
hand, or in a regrettable accident.
The probability is that there will be
further and bigger demonstrations to
come. Mr Putin and his support appar-
atus will hope that repeated arrests,
sackings, beatings and killings will even-
tually wear down the opposition.
Whether the Russian leader’s care-
fully burnished image as the champion
of ordinary citizens can survive such a
process of mass repression is another
question. As a keen student of the coun-
try’s history, Mr Putin will know that
tsarist rule was shaken by repeated
cycles of protest and repression before it
was eventually toppled.
What happens next in Russia will be
watched all over the world, particularly
in China. Together, Mr Putin and Presi-
dent Xi Jinping have formed an axis of
reaction — pushing back against pro-de-
mocracy movements around the world.
group recently about why these variants
were emerging independently in so
many places,” Prof de Oliveira says. “We
noticed a common factor about London,
the Eastern Cape [South Africa] and
Manaus [Brazil], where these three var-
iants appeared: they were very heavily
affected in the first wave of infection.”
That first wave, the hypothesis goes,
produced lots of people with antibodies
that then gradually declined over time.
In the second wave, some previously
infected individuals who re-encoun-
tered the virus lacked sufficiently
potent immunity to prevent reinfection
or kill the virus quickly. In effect, Prof de
Oliveira says, a person with waning nat-
ural immunity might play the same role
as an immunocompromised patient.
If regions with raging transmission do
act as breeding grounds for resistant
variants, then failing to control spread
will prolong the pandemic. Prof de
Oliveira stresses that Taiwan, China,
Australia and New Zealand, which have
chased elimination, are the role models
to follow. “This should be a wake-up call
for all of us to control transmission, not
just in our own regions but globally. This
local workers, has expanded a pilot
scheme that issues agricultural work
visas to people from poorer countries
such as Moldova.
They are skirting around a hard truth:
if the government really doesn’t want
migrant workers in the fields, pay and
conditions will need to be substantially
better, and that means higher food
prices in the shops. Automation might
square the circle eventually but the
technology isn’t advanced enough yet.
Many fear higher prices would hurt the
poor, some of whom are already relying
on food donations. But the UK is a rich
country, with the lowest food prices in
western Europe, according to Eurostat
data. The root problem isn’t the price of
food, it’s the inadequate floor on peo-
ple’s incomes, something the govern-
ment is also loath to address.
The UK government says it wants to
curb lower-paid migration to create a
“high wage, high-skill, high productiv-
ity economy”. It should level with peo-
ple — and with itself — about the trade-
offs that involves.
sarah.oconnor@ft.com
The recent uprisings in Hong Kong and
Belarus have seemed particularly
threatening, because they took place so
close to the power centres of Beijing and
Moscow — and could serve to inspire
Chinese or Russian opposition forces.
In Washington, President Joe Biden
has now broken with his predecessor
Donald Trump’s studied indifference to
the fate of democracy and human rights
in Russia. The Biden White House has
urged the immediate release of Mr Nav-
alny and his supporters.
The Kremlin will not listen. But US
expressions of support for Mr Navalny
and the protests will anger Mr Putin.
One of the reasons that the Russian
leader detested Hillary Clinton — and
worked to defeat her — was the support
that she expressed for anti-Putin dem-
onstrators in 2012.
The Russian state’s machinery of
repression is swinging into action. But
beneath the tough exterior, the underly-
ing fragility of President Putin’s regime
is once again apparent.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
virus will keep outsmarting us if we
don’t take it very seriously,” he says.
That means not just vaccinating but
fast testing, accurate and quick contact
tracing, quarantine and isolation. In
short, vaccination must go hand-in-
hand with virus suppression, not
become a substitute for it. A successful
vaccine rollout will count for little if the
country then becomes a crucible for
resistant variants.
Over the past year we have given the
virus many inches and it has taken
many miles. Even mild infections can
result in “long Covid”, characterised by
fatigue and breathlessness that linger
for months. The pandemic is also creat-
ing a secondary epidemic of trauma
among survivors and carers. Countries
with rampant transmission are saddling
themselves with a chronic health
burden, both physical and mental, for
decades to come.
Excellent vaccines are, thankfully,
reaching millions of arms, but suppres-
sion remains a crucial part of the
endgame.
The writer is a science commentator
15
Some fixes
for the flaws
in American
democracy
David
Rubenstein
T
he past four years have seen
many norms of US presi-
dential behaviour broken.
The most recent — Donald
Trump’s encouragement of
a march on the Capitol to reverse the
results of the 2020 election — are
deservedly receiving much attention.
But that outrage should not obscure
other weaknesses in the electoral proc-
ess and a range of inexcusable conduct.
Mr Trump may not have intended to
enhance the democratic process but, by
highlighting flaws in the system he
inherited, he arguably did so. Congress
should immediately correct these fail-
ings to prevent a future president from
exploiting them. This will help restore
trust in elections and institutions. Here
are some obvious first steps.
Count the votes sooner. Under an 1887
law, the new Congress counts the Elec-
toral College votes on January 6 of the
year after a presidential election. But it
is not required to wait until then by the
constitution and these days there is no
reason to delay the process. It merely
allows unfounded claims about fraud to
fester for months. Change the law and
require the outgoing Congress to count
the vote soon after the election.
Mandate income tax disclosure. Pres-
idential candidates and presidents are
not required to release their income tax
returns, and Mr Trump refused to do so.
This should change. Presidents and
presidential candidates should also be
required to disclose all debts as well as
financial ties to non-US entities.
Tighten the rules on financial deal-
ings. Presidential appointees must
Congress should correct
these failings to prevent
a future president
from exploiting them
obtain clearance from the Office of
Government Ethics for their financial
holdings, or liquidate them. Presidents
should be required to do the same or,
preferably, to set up a blind trust. Presi-
dents should also be barred from having
investments — other than Treasury bills
— related to the federal government.
That should include leases on govern-
ment property of the kind that Mr
Trump’s hotel chain had. The constitu-
tion also bars the president from receiv-
ing foreign emoluments, but doesn’t
define them. Congress should clarify
that foreign gifts or income are prohib-
ited, unless waived by the ethics office.
Control presidential relatives. A 1967
anti-nepotism statute bars presidents
from appointing their relatives to Cabi-
net-level positions. A similar bar should
apply to White House positions such as
that held by Ivanka Trump.
Protect transitions. An outgoing
administration should be legally
required to work with the office of the
president-elect rather than doing so
only with presidential approval.
Insulate agencies. The FBI director
typically serves a 10-year term but can
be fired, as in the case of James Comey.
Presidents should be able to fire an FBI
director only with the consent of a judi-
cial or congressional panel. The heads of
the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention and the Food and Drug Admin-
istration also serve at the pleasure of the
president. They, too, should not be fired
without independent oversight.
Ringfence the Department of Justice.
The attorney-general and other DoJ
officials should be prohibited from com-
municating with the president or his
staff about potential DoJ investigations.
Improve oversight of the cabinet. An
acting cabinet secretary can serve for up
to 210 days without Senate confirm-
ation. That limit should be cut in half to
provide greater congressional oversight.
Limit pardons. The constitution pro-
vides few constraints on presidential
pardons. But Congress could ensure
they are consistent with the constitu-
tion: it could require pardons to be con-
sidered only for those with no personal
or financial connection to the president,
and insist on a period of disclosure
before any pardon becomes effective.
These changes will not solve all of the
problems seen over the past four years.
Other presidents may find new ways
to circumvent established norms. But
acting now would help to re-establish
trust in the US presidency.
The writer is co-founder and co-executive
chairman of Carlyle
16 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021

Auto1/Carvana: pistons at dawn

The German car dealer is hoping to raise €1bn in next week’s initial public offering to fund a push into digital
retailing. Its wholesale business has suffered smaller recent losses than online US peers. Like them, Auto1
hopes to achieve a punchy multiple of expected revenues.

Online car vendors US online car vendors

Twitter: @FTLex
Scottish independence/
oil: gutsy
Haggis and Scottish independence
polarise opinion. Robert Burns was in
favour of the former but ambivalent
towards the latter. Nationalists have
nevertheless co-opted the great poet’s
words in a push for a separation
referendum. The latest poll, in 2014,
rejected a split whose long-term costs
the Scottish National party expected oil
revenues to help cover.
Six years on, sharply lower oil prices
and reform to production taxes have
weakened that economic case. The
other big change is that Britain has left
the EU. Scots will need to consider both
new factors in weighing arguments
concerning independence.
Oil matters less than it did to the
Scottish economy. According to data
from the devolved SNP government,
the value of oil and gas extraction was
an estimated £8.8bn in 2019,
representing 5 per cent of total Scottish
GDP in sterling terms. This compares
with an estimate of 13.2 per cent in
2012, a figure invoked during the
independence debate. A resurgence in
North Sea drilling and production will
not compensate for the decline.
One reason for the modest North Sea
rebound has been a reduction in
producers’ tax burden. In 2016, the UK
government lowered tax on their
profits to boost local output. UK tax
receipts have tended to follow the
trend of oil prices. That has changed in
recent years, according to earlier
calculations by the Financial Times.
The government’s estimated future tax
take on oil has fallen from about £10
per barrel in 2010 to just £2 per barrel.
A nerve-bolstering double whisky
will be needed by SNP ministers when
they rewrite their economic prospectus
for a split. Scotland’s estimated tax
take from oil would, if measured by
geographic share, have collapsed in
recent years. In the six years since
fiscal 2013-14, income would have
fallen from under £4bn to £724m,
according to Scottish government data.
Nationalists can instead talk up
prospects for renewable energy.
Electricity output from offshore wind
farms has been rising and will continue
to do so for years ahead. Scotland could
sell electricity to England and perhaps
other nations. But a limited number of
power buyers, relative to the droves of
oil customers, may impose a definite
ceiling on prices.
The SNP can tap deep emotions to
bolster its cause. Scotland’s out-of-
favour hydrocarbons, like Burns
himself, cannot be invoked so glibly.
China livestreaming/
Kuaishou: tipping points
In China, tipping your favourite
livestreaming host has become as
common as tipping a waiter. Cash spent
on virtual gifts on platforms such as
TikTok has surged. China’s second-
biggest short video app, Kuaishou, is
riding that wave. It is on track to be the
largest tech listing since Uber. Longer
term, online tipping exposes Kuaishou
to official disapproval.
The company is set to raise up to
$6.3bn in Hong Kong, valuing it at up
to $62bn at the top of the range. Pent-
up investor demand should ensure
shares are heavily bid. Hong
Kong dollar liquidity hit a record late
last year. This reflected the
postponement of Ant Group’s listing
coupled with the absence of
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company,
from the public markets.
Kuaishou is smaller than Douyin, the
Chinese version of TikTok, with about
half the users. But it has some distinct
advantages. Its smaller size has limited
the scrutiny of US regulators. It is also
less dependent on ad sales. The bulk of
revenue is a cut of virtual gifts viewers
buy for livestreaming hosts.
Commission runs as high as half the
price for gifts costing up to $300.
More negatively, this leaves Kuaishou
vulnerable to Beijing’s tightening
control on the sector. Curbs include
banning teenagers from making virtual
gifts on streaming platforms and limits
on the total spending by any single
user. Signing up and holding on to new
users — which rose nearly 50 per cent
in the first half last year — will be
increasingly expensive for Kuaishou
and Douyin as competition grows.
Kuaishou is expected to start trading
amid retail frenzy. Investors
uncomfortable with participating in
this directly can gain limited, lower-
risk exposure via Tencent. The local
gaming giant holds around a 22 per
cent stake in the company and should
be in no hurry to sell having invested
just about a year ago. Tencent’s Hong
Sales and margins, first nine months, 2020
Sales (€m)
3000
2000
1000
0 0
-1000
-2000
Auto1
FT graphic Sources: company; S&P Global; Refinitiv; FT research
Coronavirus may have halted buyers’
test drives, but not their desire to
purchase a new vehicle. Auto1 hopes
to raise €1bn of fresh capital in
Germany’s first large initial public
offering this year. The car dealer
wants to sell vehicles directly to
consumers, supplementing its
wholesale business. Yesterday, its
shares were priced at a range of up to
€38 ahead of its listing next week.
Auto1 follows in the tracks of US
online car dealers Carvana and
Vroom. Online-only car sales were
already attracting buyer interest pre-
pandemic. Video technology and the
better reliability of modern cars has
reduced the need for physical
interaction. Lockdowns accelerated
that process.
Kong-listed shares rose 11 per cent
yesterday. Expect more upside when
Kuaishou joins the market next week.
TP ICAP/Brexit:
broker Britain
TP ICAP has discovered a fresh pain
point at the intersection of Brexit and
Covid-19. Lockdowns kiboshed its plan
to relocate some 80 brokers to its EU-
approved Paris hub. The UK
interdealer broker hoped to go on
servicing EU clients from London for a
little longer. EU regulators were
unsympathetic. The UK interdealer
broker is saying au revoir to some of its
EU clients, for the time being at least.
City of London banks and brokers
Share prices (rebased to Vroom IPO)
Gross margin (%)
Operating margin (%)
30
20
2019
10 Valuations
Enterprise
value (€bn)
20
15
-10 10
5 1.0
-20 0 0
Carvana Vroom
Shares in Carvana have tripled since
the beginning of last year. Sales of $4bn
at the end of 2019 might double to
$8bn by the end of this year, on
analysts’ estimates.
Understandably, Auto1 wants to
expand its own online retail operations.
These accounted for about a quarter of
sales of €2bn in the first nine months
of 2020. Total turnover was €2.5bn in
the same period of 2019. Wholesale
demand sagged, with dealers forced to
close showrooms during lockdowns.
Profits have stalled for Auto1 and US
counterparts with growth in the
driving seat. US investors, preferring
speed to comfort, hardly care. Carvana
shares trade at almost three times
expected sales. Vroom, though now
trading below last year’s IPO price, is
have taken the view that they can flex
staffing of EU-based operations to
accommodate post-Brexit regulatory
demands. Coronavirus has made that
harder. TP ICAP says its Paris
operation will account for less than 10
per cent of revenues when staffed.
Even so, it appears to have been
particularly badly blindsided
This is just the latest setback for TP
ICAP. IDBs arrange trades between
banks, hedge funds and others.
Reforms after the 2008 financial crisis
shrank their business. Of late they have
been struggling to compete with
automated alternatives.
TP ICAP’s revenues flatlined last
year, on a constant currency basis. The
group expects them to come in just
below the previous year’s £1.8bn.
In a bid to diversify, the London
250
Carvana 200
150
100
Vroom
2020 2021
EV as multiple
next 12 months’ sales
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
0.5
Auto1* Carvana Vroom
*Estimated EV of 2x sales of €3bn in 2021
still worth twice its expected top line.
Similar multiples would value
Auto1 at about €6bn.
At the top of its published range,
the company would be worth €7.2bn.
The group is ahead of US rivals when
it comes to profitability, thanks to
tough cost-cutting last year.
Operating losses were just 1 per cent
of sales. Carvana’s losses equated to
6 per cent in the first nine months of
2020.
Whether consumers miss the
toothy smiles of motor dealers is
moot. Pandemic restrictions have
enabled online sellers to win over car
buyers easily. The risk for Auto1
investors is that these same buyers
apply the brakes once that need for
distance passes.
broker is buying Liquidnet for $575m,
aiming to secure a stronger footing in
electronic trading of credit and fixed
income products. It is in the throes of a
highly dilutive two-for-five rights issue
to fund the deal: when announced at
the end of last year, the capital raising
represented a fifth of the existing share
capital. But the sliding share price — at
215p, shares are roughly half year-ago
levels — means that proportion is now
nearer a quarter.
TP ICAP remains upbeat. It reckons
that the acquisition will help it produce
compounding revenue growth of 4 per
cent a year in the medium term. The
group hopes underlying operating
margins will expand from 15 per cent
in 2019 to 23 per cent. These
assumptions look bold in the wake of
Brexit and Covid-19.
AMC:
grindhouse
50
0 Cinema operators were the stars of
their own Covid-19 horror film in 2020.
In the latest plot twist, AMC
Entertainment, which was teetering on
the brink of bankruptcy just last
month, said it had secured $917m in
new financing allowing it to continue
operations “deep into 2021”.
Adam Aron, boss of the US-listed
business, said the fresh capital
injection meant that “any talk of an
imminent bankruptcy for AMC is
completely off the table”. Even so, no
happy ending is in sight.
The industry was in a secular decline
before the onset of Covid-19. Movie
fans and studios have realised that they
can live without cinemas. With nearly
$11bn in net debt — 266 times forward
ebitda — AMC will need more than
short-term financing to make it
through the whole of 2021.
Its predicaments were laid bare in
filings. Fourth-quarter attendance
tumbled 92 per cent in the US and 89
per cent overseas compared to a year
ago. The group burnt cash at a rate of
about $124m a month.
AMC reckons it can hold out until the
end of July without an increase in
attendance. This assumes that
landlords, who were owed $450m at
the end of December, will continue to
waive rent. Assumptions on attendance
— a bounceback to 90 per cent of pre-
Covid levels in the fourth quarter — are
also wishful thinking.
Even after cinemas reopen fully,
there is no guarantee people will go.
Hollywood executives have repeatedly
pushed back release dates. The
decision by Warner Bros to release its
line-up of 2021 films simultaneously in
cinemas and on streaming service HBO
Max will not help.
Cinema chains may have to accept
that packed screenings are a thing of
the past because of social distancing.
Mask requirements will hurt food and
drink sales.
Coronavirus is a cue for cinema
groups to trim networks, writing off
goodwill as they do so. Fewer venues
will be needed in future.
Lex on the web
For notes on today’s stories
go to www.ft.com/lex

CROSSWORD
No 16,693 Set by SLEUTH
        ACROSS
1 Britain, America and Sweden best as
 places for boarding (3,5)
5 Two pages studied following odds (6)
 
10 Operations from the east approved for
one with intelligence? (5)
11 Boxer among others in charge with a
hard-headed attitude? (9)
12 Park initially tended by old German is
  thing with four corners (9)
13 One on board dreadfully gutted to be
late (5)
14 Ambassador backed two-thirds of US
   state as perfect place (6)
15 Devious type cheers possibly after
pocketing money (7)

18 Old woman welcoming a civilised chap
in purple (7)
   20 Get in boat at sea (6)
22 Sailor otherwise designated in Japanese
 city (5)
24 Gourmet’s first taken with a stew too
   refined to be thrown out? (2,2,5)
25 Hateful person, Eastern European
citizen snubbed in part (2,1,6)
26 Rubbish about old soprano’s origins (5)
27 Repeat disappointing news from a
 
marathon organiser? (3,3)
28 Hills have this danger? It requires
disentangling (8)
DOWN
  1 Some sorts I bet turning up in eatery (6)
2 Put a stop to, say, front of grocery
offering snack? (6,3)
3 Dave got a fake tan stupidly for exploit
(4,9,2)
4 Model prince associated with part of
JOTTER PAD Spain (7)
6 Parent with noted eccentric gets to
enjoy celebrating? (5,3,4,3)
7 Go into headquarters in Georgia missing
leader (5)
8 Weed on cart turning up in place for
refits? (8)
9 Fears first to last to show affectionate
touch (6)
Solution 16,692 16 Frenchman supports prevailing
character in county town (9)
5 $ * $ 0 8 ) ) , 1 2 8 6 (
0 * 1 / 8 / &
17 Introduction by hotel employee for one
6 3 $ 5 / $ < + $ 1 ' 6 2 1 with business abroad? (8)
+ ( , 2 1 6 8 19 A teacher shortly in university faculty,
. 2 3 ( & . ) $ & ( & $ 5 ' ultimately, as a portent (6)
5 ( ) ( + * 20 Striking pottery, we’re told, gets to
* $ 8 1 7 / ( 7 2 3 ( '
( < + $ 2
remain (7)
* 2 1 * ( 6 3 $ / , ( 5 21 Place for retirement? It’s converted as
5 / 5 + 3 $ student accommodation (6)
% $ 6 , / , & $ $ 6 6 2 5 7 23 Large stove favoured once more (5)
7 * 9 1 5 2 /
6 , ' ( 6 $ ' ' / ( / $ , 5
2 1 / / 1 9 (
. 1 2 7 6 : ( ( 7 + ( $ 5 7

Sudan after the revolution
Tuesday January 26 2021
Long, hard task to rebuild a nation
Euphoria of revolution
is over. Now the push
for stability begins
By David Pilling
F
ive days before the coup that
brought the 30-year dictator-
ship of Omar al-Bashir to an
end on April 11, 2019, Muzan
Alneel found herself among
tens of thousands of protesters surging
through the streets of Khartoum. A
mechanical engineer in her early thir-
ties, she was part of nationwide demon-
strations pressing for an end to decades
of repression, misrule, civil war and
national isolation.
That day something extraordinary
happened. Parts of the crowd broke
through security lines and made it to the
military headquarters building. It was a
sign that the forces protecting Bashir’s
regime were wavering. Within days,
generals mounted a coup and one of the
world’s most entrenched dictatorships
was over.
Since then, under a hybrid military-
civilian transition, Sudan has set about
trying to repair both its deep domestic
wounds and its international relations.
Multi-party elections are supposed to
take place in late 2022.
Yet, perhaps inevitably, revolutionary
euphoria has faded among Sudan’s pub-
lic. The loose coalition of forces that
helped topple Bashir has fractured as
economic hardship bites and as the
treacherous nature of the transition
becomes apparent.
“Many people who had genuine hope
for positive change from this govern-
ment are probably pretty disappointed
Protesters brought down the military regime in 2019, but two years on disillusionment has set in
by now,” says Ms Alneel, speaking 20
months after the events that brought
down the dictator.
Ms Alneel worries that people’s
immediate needs for health, education
and jobs have been neglected as pres-
sure from the street recedes and as the
government reverts to what she consid-
ers failed economic recipes.
FT Special Report
www.ft.com/reports | @ftreports
“What do we have right now? An
economy falling apart and a govern-
ment pressing for more neoliberal poli-
cies,” she says, referring to planned pri-
vatisations and the gradual removal of
subsidies. “This solution is killing peo-
ple; there’s an economic famine in
Sudan.”
The disappointment felt by Ms Alneel
— Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images
and millions like her is hardly surprising
given the size of the political and eco-
nomic challenge.
“I knew that I was not coming to an
easy job,” Abdalla Hamdok told the
Financial Times in an October 2020
interview a little over a year after he
was sworn in as prime minister. A
former UN economist more used to
Inside
technocratic problem-solving than
hardscrabble politics, Mr Hamdok has
already survived a clumsy assassina-
Opinion Nima Elbagir
‘Two years on, where
tion attempt and must now navigate a
path between high public expectations is all the help the world
and economic reality. promised us?’
The civilian prime minister must also Page 2
share decision-making authority with
people closely associated with the
Bashir regime. Economy
Chief among those are General Abdel
Fattah Burhan, chairman of the sover- Fuel queues lengthen
eign council that is overseeing the tran- as lifting of US sanctions
sition, and Lieutenant General has yet to take effect
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, whose Page 3
break with Bashir in April 2019 was a
turning point of the revolution. Better
known as “Hemeti”, Lt Gen Hamdan, a Tense trio
former camel trader and warlord, is a The three men with the
militia commander and vice-chair of
the sovereign council. Many consider country’s future in their
him to be the most powerful man in the hands
country. Page 4
“For the military to accept civilian
power is going to take time,” says Mo
Ibrahim, a prominent Sudanese-British Foreign policy
businessman whose foundation pro- Khartoum seeks
motes good governance in Africa. “But
we will not have democracy unless we
to rebalance relations
have civilian control over the military.” with the
Nabil Adib, a prominent human rest of
rights lawyer, says the constitutional the
arrangements have been messy. He
regrets the failure to nominate a parlia- world
ment as stipulated in the draft constitu- Page 4
tion. He also blames the Forces of Free-
dom and Change, the broad coalition
that organised the street protests, for
what he says is unnecessary squabbling.
“We were all together under the slo-
gan of bringing down the old regime,” he Visitors welcome
says. “But it was also about establishing
institutions and laws that can bring Tourism hopes rest on
democracy to Sudan. What is going on archaeological treasures
Continued on page 2 Page 6
2 ★
Long task
ahead to
repair
a nation
Continued from page 1
now is some sort of populism rather
than democratic leadership.”
Yet Mr Adib says there have been real
achievements. He points to a more lib-
eral atmosphere after the removal of
some Islamist laws, including bans on
apostasy and women travelling alone.
“We must acknowledge that there is
now freedom of expression and free-
dom of organisation, even if it is not
everything we hoped for,” he says.
Osman Mirghani, a journalist, is more
critical, blaming Mr Hamdok for what
he calls indecisiveness. “Most of the
power is still in the hands of the mili-
tary,” he says. “This is not only because
the military seized power but because
the civilians [in government] are weak
and cannot handle it.”
Despite such criticism, Mr Hamdok
has put a brave face on progress. The
removal in October of Sudan from the
US list of state sponsors of terrorism was
“a game changer”, he says, that will
allow Khartoum to renegotiate $60bn in
debt arrears and unblock multilateral
funding and foreign investment flows.
Foreign businesses are already
exploring opportunities, he says, high-
lighting a recent memorandum of
understanding with General Electric to
provide power to 600,000 households
and to explore investments in rural
healthcare. Says Mr Hamdok: “It has
been almost three decades since we
have seen such important companies
engage with Sudan.”
The transitional government’s most
immediate problem is the ruinous state
of the economy, only worsened by the
Covid-19 pandemic. After decades of
mismanagement and the loss of three
quarters of its oil reserves when South
Sudan became an independent country
in 2011, Sudan had already fallen from
middle-income to low-income status.
But things have deteriorated further
in recent months. Inflation is running
at a calamitous 250 per cent and the
central bank continues to print money
to cover spending shortfalls. Basic food
and transport is beyond the reach of
many Sudanese. Bakers have taken to
reducing the size of loaves rather than
putting up prices.
The government accuses profiteers
and saboteurs, some of whom it says are
linked to the old Islamist regime, of try-
ing to vandalise the economy and derail
transition. Dollars are virtually unob-
tainable and the Sudanese pound is in
freefall. Many businesses have closed.
Osama Daoud Abdellatif, chairman of
the DAL Group, Sudan’s biggest con-
glomerate, says that the economic
storm is battering even his business.
“We are affected like every part of the
economy by this huge devaluation and
hyperinflation. Losses in exchange wipe
out most of your profits.”
Still, Mr Daoud says that the country,
endowed with large water reserves,
good agricultural land and natural
resources from gold to livestock, can
turn things around. “We have every-
thing. I don’t know why we are not a
FINANCIAL TIMES
Sudan after the revolution
very rich country already,” he says. “A
lot of companies are excited about com-
ing back to Sudan. I think you will see a
lot happening.”
Before that, there is the hard grind of
economic stabilisation. In October,
Sudan signed up to an IMF staff-moni-
tored programme, a prerequisite for
debt relief. The government has com-
mitted to curb spending and to rebuild
foreign reserves that have sunk to less
than one week of import cover.
In a move that will only further sap its
popular support, the government has
begun to remove fuel subsidies, which
cost at least $2bn a year, pushing up
transport and other prices further.
Mo Ibrahim says the government
should do a better job explaining that
those subsidies mostly benefit the small
proportion of the population that owns
cars and generators.
Amjed Farid, Mr Hamdok’s assistant
chief of staff, says the idea is to soften
the blow with direct cash payments to
the most vulnerable citizens. The plan is
to introduce a temporary basic income
of about $5 per head per month for a
substantial portion of the population,
though many worry the safety net will
arrive too late.
“It is natural in all revolutions that
things get worse before they get better,”
says Mr Farid.
A
s well as dealing with the
economic crisis, the new
government has sought to
end decades of civil war. In
October, it signed the so-
called Juba peace agreement with the
Sudan Revolutionary Front, a coalition
of rebel groups, though two powerful
fighting forces have refused to sign.
“That process itself has been very dis-
tracting,” says Mr Ibrahim. “It took
much energy out of the government, but
some reasonable progress has been
made and probably we’re almost there.”
One of the problems, he says, is that
former rebel groups want both a seat at
the table and compensation for their
people, neither of which is easy. “The
government doesn’t have the money
Two years on, where is all the
help the world once promised us?
OPINION
Nima
Elbagir
The legacy of any revolution is
unfortunately, and inherently, one of
disappointment. The passion and
poetry of resistance will give way to the
necessities of pragmatism and the
realities of compromise — and that is if
you are lucky.
In Sudan, that rude awakening has
come in many forms. The presence of
former President Omar Al-Bashir’s
army inspector, General Abdel Fattah
Burhan, at the head of the Transitional
Sovereign Council (TSC) was not likely
to fill the protesters’ hearts with joy,
but it was seen as tolerable.
The presence, though, of Lt Gen
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka
Hemeti, in the number-two slot in the
TSC, in spite of the fact that his troops
were not only credibly accused of
human rights violations in Darfur but
also of involvement in the June 3 2019
massacre of protesters at a sit-in in
Khartoum, was a deep blow.
Add to that the fact that almost two
years on, there have been no credible
prosecutions for the June 3 massacre,
which occurred after Bashir was forced
to step down as Sudan’s leader, and it
all starts to feel a little hollow for many
activists.
There is also a deep sense of
abandonment; that a world which once
cheered them on stood by as Sudan,
still without a working parliament, was
forced by the Trump administration to
agree a normalisation deal with Israel.
That was in spite of the fact that
Sudanese law demands the legislative
body ratify international agreements.
The deal did open the way for
Sudan’s removal from the US state
sponsors of terrorism list, which will
eventually allow the country to secure
debt relief and access to global lending
mechanisms. But for many Sudanese is
an unpopular move, which at one point
looked likely to trigger anti-
government protests, further
destabilising the country.
That experience left many Sudanese
with a sense of hurt. A sense they and
their country had been held hostage to
a geopolitical calculus that assigned to
them very little worth.
and it can’t meet all the political
demands,” he says. It will take years to
overcome the legacy of civil conflict, in
which hundreds of thousands of civil-
ians were killed and millions displaced,
many of them still in refugee camps.
Then there is the problem faced by all
revolutions: how to deal with the past. A
Sudanese court has already convicted
Bashir of corruption, handing him a
two-year sentence. But domestic courts
have not yet dealt with his alleged war
crimes in Darfur, for which he has been
indicted by the International Criminal
Court. Much of the military is reluctant
to see him tried by the ICC in a process
likely to uncover the crimes of others.
Few expect the former leader to be
handed over.
Mr Adib, the human rights lawyer,
says that is a mistake. Sudan, he says,
should wash its hands of the Bashir
problem. “He is complaining about
mosquitoes in prison,” he says of the
former dictator now imprisoned in
Khartoum. “I guess there are no mos-
quitoes in The Hague. Let him go there.”
Sudan’s removal from US state sponsors of terrorism list has come at a price
Sudanese friends and family
members asked me whether Sudan’s
shaky democratic transition was really
so irrelevant in the global scheme of
things. Do our nascent freedoms mean
so little to the world that they can be
risked in order to secure the outgoing
US president some sense of legacy?
These were not Islamists — who, by
and large, are people who are anti-
Israel on principle. These were people
who worried that what remained of
Bashir’s Islamists and their
fundamentalist allies could use this
move to foment anti-government
sentiment.
Many would argue that this was the
Trump administration being the
Trump administration — a chauvinistic
and self-interested entity — but it plays
into a larger discourse in Sudan.
‘Disappointment and
heartbreak for those who
were lost — the legacies
of this revolution’
Where is the help the world once
promised? The response for many
Sudanese seems to be: “OK then, we
will just do it ourselves”.
The world stood largely silent after
the first iteration of the TSC included
few women, even though it was women
who led and organised many of the
marches. Women’s rights activists
lobbied until they were heard.
They similarly worked to suspend
public morality laws and wrest a long
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok’s
most immediate problem is the state
of the economy
Mahmoud Hjaj/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
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sought-after commitment to end child
marriage and female genital
mutilation. They are the same activists
who spent the holy month of Ramadan
fasting peacefully in searing heat at a
sit-in site in Khartoum. They are the
same activists who continue to demand
prosecutions for the June 3 massacre.
In spite of the risks involved in
agitating against Hemeti, one of the
most powerful and wealthy men in the
country, they continue to call for
credible prosecution of former regime
officials, and to demand justice for the
blood spilled by Bashir in his three-
decade rule.
The disappointment is still there. In
Africa, Sudan’s inflation rate is second
only to Zimbabwe’s, and its devastated
economy has been burdened further
by a spillover of refugees from
Ethiopia’s Tigray region into the east.
The fuel queues, water and bread
shortages are not what people hoped
would unfold when they took to the
streets in their millions two years ago.
Disappointment and heartbreak for
those who were lost — those are the
legacies of this revolution. But the
bigger lesson? Persistence. The same
persistence that kept the protests
peaceful and steadfast in the face of
Bashir’s forces, with their bullets and
brutality. This is the persistence
fuelling the activists who continue the
fight to be heard, to continue the fight
to shape Sudan’s future.
Will they succeed? We cannot know
that yet, but despite the odds they
continue to hope and fight.
The writer is a Sudanese journalist
and senior international correspondent
at CNN.
Tuesday 26 January 2021
Citizens lose patience with economic hardship
Transition Fuel queues
lengthen, while the
lifting of US sanctions
has yet to take real effect
By Andres Schipani
T
he queues at petrol stations
are growing longer across
Sudan. So are the bread-
lines, as the transitional
government has been run-
ning out of hard currency to pay for fuel
and wheat imports.
What is getting shorter is patience
with Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah
Hamdok over a serious economic crisis,
bequeathed by three decades of the cor-
rupt dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir,
and worsened by US sanctions, which
were recently lifted.
“The situation is very bad, I have to do
this twice a week,” says 20-year-old
Mazin Abdallah, as he waits in a line for
two days to refuel the motor cart he uses
to deliver dates. “There’s no way to keep
sustaining ourselves. I hate to say that
economically the situation was better
with Bashir.”
Bashir was ousted in 2019 in a mili-
tary coup, after street protests triggered
by a rise in food and fuel prices. When
he took over as prime minister over a
year ago, Mr Hamdok, a respected
former official of the UN Economic
Commission for Africa, vowed to make
peace and rebuild the $30bn economy.
A 2020 peace deal with Sudan’s rebel
groups was a step towards a transition.
But economic uncertainty could lead to
trouble. Ahmad Yousef, a trader in
Khartoum’s gold market, says that “if
this continues the government would
collapse”.
Sudan sells oil, gold, sesame and gum
arabic (an ingredient in paint, cosmetics
and glue, among other applications).
Yet the value of imports surpasses
exports by 50 per cent, say officials. The
economy has been starved of foreign
exchange since South Sudan seceded in
2011, taking three-quarters of oil
reserves.
Lacking in hard currency to pay for
imports, the hardship has been exacer-
Motorcyclists queue at a petrol station in Khartoum: some citizens report waiting in line for two days to refill vehicles
bated by a plunge in the value of the
Sudanese pound on the black market to
300 to the US dollar, which in Sudan is
the currency used for 90 per cent of
imports and exports. The official
exchange rate is 55 Sudanese pounds to
the dollar. Black-market traders often
loyal to the old regime are pushing the
exchange rate to excess, officials, diplo-
mats and economists say.
“The current government has inher-
ited huge, humungous economic prob-
lems. There’s no doubt about that,” says
Abda El-Mahdi, a Khartoum-based
economist and consultant. “And from
the beginning, I always said that the
president, the new regime will have to
manage expectations. So people will
need to be patient. And things will not
change overnight.”
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
Sudan after the revolution
There are hopes for change. In
December, after almost three-decades,
the US removed Sudan from the state
sponsor of terrorism list. The move is
helping the country access debt relief,
multilateral lending and western invest-
ment for its battered economy.
The US put Sudan on the list in 1993
when Bashir’s regime was hosting
Osama bin Laden in Khartoum. The
country was cut off from the interna-
tional finance system.
Without full US backing, Sudan was
unable to write off $60bn in debts,
access multilateral lending or western
investment. Now, Sudan is in talks with
the IMF and World Bank and the US has
given it a $1bn grant to help pay arrears.
“We are cautiously optimistic,” says
Adam Elhiraika, the prime minister’s
3
economic adviser. “The removal of Sudan
from the sponsor of terror list together
with the peace dividend is expected to
boost the economy a lot in 2021.”
He forecasts growth of 1 per cent and
that inflation will decelerate to 95 per
cent in 2021, compared with 148 per
cent in 2020, one of the world’s fastest
rates after Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
“There are a lot of structural prob-
lems,” says Taha el-Tayeb, chairman of
Sudan’s Banking Association. “The gov-
ernment has started working on the
huge subsidies . . . that the government
cannot really handle, and the exchange
rate differential adds to that.”
In December, Sudan effectively
removed subsidies on imported gaso-
line and diesel. It will continue to subsi-
dise wheat, medicine, cooking gas and
electricity.
But it is considering phasing out some
subsidies from a group that totalled
some 36 per cent of government
expenditure in 2020. To offset the
impact, the government is due to roll
out a $1bn family support programme —
funded by international donors includ-
ing states and financial institutions — to
provide a monthly cash transfer to up to
80 per cent of Sudan’s 43m population.
Hiba Mohamed Ali Ahmed, finance
minister, says donors have pledged
$1.8bn to support the country pushing
through economic reforms.
— Andres Schipani / FT Thanks to the lifting of sanctions,
“Sudanese financial institutions can re-
establish banking relations with inter-
Sudanese annual inflation is running at over 200 per cent national banks,” she says.
Annual % change in CPI Sudan wants to merge the official and
black market exchange rates if it can
200 secure $2.5bn in financing. Doing this
“without a buffer could cause a huge
currency depreciation, which can lead
150 to further price spirals and make life
harder for ordinary Sudanese,” says Mr
Elhiraika.
100 Queueing for three hours to buy
bread, Suad Samel, a 40 year-old school
secretary in Bahri, northern Khartoum,
50 complains the price doubled in two
months. “This is untenable, yes, but I
[would] rather suffer through this,
0 through anything, than going back to
2011 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Bashir,” she says. “I'd rather have infla-
tion at 1,000 per cent than having those
Source: Refinitiv
people back. We need to look ahead”.
4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021

Sudan after the revolution

Three men who hold the fate of a country in their hands

For 30 years Omar al- Abdalla Hamdok
Bashir stood at the top Prime minister of Sudan
of the Sudanese power Mr Hamdok, 65, is an economist
structure. Now, power is and technocrat who had spent
years out of Sudan. After
more disparate. After a studying at the University
revolution in which of Khartoum in the
1970s, he earned a
women played a doctorate in
prominent role, three economics at
the University
men have emerged as of Manchester.
the central figures of the Erudite, mild-
spoken and
transition. They make academic, he is
not obviously cut
for odd bedfellows. out for the rough-
By David Pilling and-tumble of a country
in transition.
After a stint at Sudan’s finance
ministry in the 1980s, Mr
Hamdok spent most of the next
30 years working abroad
specialising in economic
development. After the
revolution he emerged as the
choice for prime minister ahead
of rivals with deeper Sudanese
roots and more experience in
opposition. Still, he was
welcomed by many as a hero.
Mr Hamdok is in a delicate
position. He must seek to
represent ordinary Sudanese,
take hard and mostly unpopular
economic decisions and work
with generals who once stood
with Bashir. There are rumours
of plots to remove him. “Yes,
there are challenges here
and there,” he said in
an FT interview
last year. “But I
think the
constitutional
document, and
the practices,
have allowed us
to, by and large,
operate in an
environment which
is helping us to steer
this process.”
Osman Mirghani, a journalist,
deems him too weak. “I don’t
think he can control things, or
even influence the future of
Sudan,” he says.
But Cameron Hudson, a Sudan
expert at the Atlantic Council,
argues Mr Hamdok may be more
wily than he is given credit. While
the generals accused him of
dithering, Mr Hamdok held out
for a better deal with
Washington, Mr Hudson says,
eventually winning $700m in
assistance.
“It was a dangerous gambit
but in the end it paid off.”
General Abdel Fattah Burhan
Chairman of sovereign council
On the day of the coup against
Omar al-Bashir, Gen Burhan was
one of three members of the
armed forces who told the
president it was time to go.
“I went to see him and
informed him,” he told the BBC
shortly after he had been named
head of the transitional military
council, which took power
immediately after Bashir’s
removal. “I told him the
leadership of the armed forces
had decided the situation was
getting out of hand and
therefore he should step down.”
The armed forces’ top general
only emerged as de facto
ruler 24 hours after the
coup and following
the sudden
resignation of Lt
Gen Awad Ibn
Auf. Gen
Burhan, now
chairman of the
military-civilian
sovereign council,
was considered more
moderate and less
associated with the Islamist
ideology adopted by Bashir.
Gen Burhan has spoken of a
clear break with the previous
regime, saying the military
intervened on the people’s side.
Born to a religious family, he
was educated to intermediate
level at a village school before
joining the army. He fought in
both Darfur and in South Sudan,
but has denied committing
atrocities.
Gen Burhan is close to Saudi
Arabia. As head of the armed
forces he helped supply soldiers
to fight on the kingdom’s behalf
in Yemen and has described
Riyadh as an “eternal ally”. As
chairman of the sovereign
council he is forbidden from
running in the election,
although some
observers think
that stipulation
may be
watered down,
and some
government
insiders worry
he is amassing
too much power.
Gen Burhan is
adamant he has no
long-term political ambitions.
As soon as the transition is
completed, he says, the generals
will return to barracks.
Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo
Commander of the Rapid Support Forces
Better known by his nickname of
Hemeti, Lt Gen Hamdan is a
former camel trader, who grew
up in a Chadian Arab clan,
receiving formal
education only up
to primary level.
He moved to
Darfur, where
he became
head of the
notorious
Janjaweed
horseback militia,
initially a rag-tag
force accused of
widespread atrocities.
Later the militia was
converted into the Rapid
Support Forces, a praetorian
guard formed to protect former
president Bashir, who did not
want power concentrated in the
armed forces.
Lt Gen Hamdan told some
people that he broke with Bashir
in April 2019 when the president
asked him to clear protesters
from outside military
headquarters at whatever cost
to human life. He said he
refused.
At the time of the protests, in
some people’s eyes, that
transformed his image from chief
protector of Bashir to hero of the
revolution.
However, after that
turning point, his RSF
militia was accused
of carrying out a
massacre of
protesters on
June 3 2019, in
which at least
120 people
were killed and
many bodies
dumped in the River
Nile.
Lt Gen Hamdan has denied
ordering the attack, the subject
of a long, and so far inconclusive,
investigation.
A savvy businessman, Lt Gen
Hamdan has amassed
considerable wealth through
interests including gold trading,
security operations and
organising mercenaries to
fight for Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates in Yemen.
With a militia of 50,000
soldiers under his control, he is
considered by many observers
to be the most powerful — and
the most unpredictable — man
in Sudan.

A vital effort to repair international relations

Foreign policy remained on the US list of state sponsors At a meeting last June in Berlin, 50 was a master at riding the tiger,” he says,
of terrorism. Even today, because of the countries and international organisa- adding that the former dictator courted
After years of tension, lingering effects of sanctions, emails tions pledged $1.8bn to Sudan. That fell Iran and Saudi Arabia, the UAE and
Khartoum strives to put sent to Sudan regularly bounce back
and international money transfers are
short of the $8bn Abdalla Hamdok,
prime minister, had requested, but it
Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. “He was adept
at managing big powers against each
relations on an even rejected by banks. signalled the west’s interest in keeping other for his own economic and political
Repairing relations with the west is, in Sudan’s democratic transition on track. agenda, but all those countries now feel
keel. By David Pilling some ways, the simplest task. Cameron While Mr Hamdok is comfortable in they have an ownership stake in Sudan.”
Hudson, a Sudan expert with the Atlan- European capitals, the military mem- Amjed Farid, assistant chief of staff to

S
udan’s foreign policy under
Omar al-Bashir was unpre-
dictable, opportunistic and
ultimately unproductive.
During 30 years of rule, Sudan
harboured wanted criminals from Car-
los the Jackal to Osama bin Laden.
Khartoum defied international opin-
ion through its genocidal war in Darfur,
only to cave to international pressure by
allowing the secession of South Sudan.
“Bashir was not a man of principle,”
says Nabil Adib, a prominent human
rights lawyer. “He was trying to get
something from everyone and in the
end they all hated his guts.”
Now that Bashir has been ousted, say
foreign policy experts, the task is to re-
establish relations with foreign capitals
from Riyadh to Washington, without
allowing outside actors undue influence
over its internal affairs. For a nation flat
broke and in desperate need of help,
that is no simple task.
For years Sudan was an international
pariah. Such was Khartoum’s isolation
from the west that, two decades after
Bin Laden was expelled, Sudan
tic Council, says it is in the interest of the
US to see a stable and democratic Sudan
in the Horn of Africa.
Neighbouring Ethiopia, long a US ally,
is undergoing an unpredictable transi-
tion of its own under Abiy Ahmed,
prime minister, who unsettled observ-
ers at the end of 2020 by launching a
military assault on the northern prov-
ince of Tigray. Some 50,000 refugees
fled Tigray across the border into
Sudan. Sudan is surrounded by fragile
neighbours, including Libya, Central
African Republic and South Sudan.
Somalia is perennially unstable.
“On the 10th anniversary of the Arab
spring, here is a country that has man-
aged change with relatively little blood-
shed,” says Mr Hudson of Sudan’s peace-
ful revolution. “There is a real national
security interest in making sure Sudan
isn’t pulled into cross currents that are
swirling around the Horn of Africa.”
The transitional government has
made a start by convincing Washington
to remove it from its list of state spon-
sors of terrorism in December. In
return, Khartoum paid $335m to com-
bers of the sovereign council have closer
ties with the United Arab Emirates and
Saudi Arabia. Lt Gen Mohamed Ham-
dan Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces have
previously consolidated ties with both
by supplying mercenaries to fight in
Yemen.
After years of western sanctions and
the loss of three-quarters of its oil to
South Sudan, trade with the Middle East
dominates. Sudan sends live animals
and animal feed across the Red Sea even
as it struggles to feed its own people.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi receives Burhan AP The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are
Sudan’s first, third and fourth trading
pensate families of victims of 1998 some Sudanese, but in return Khartoum partners respectively, between them
bombings by al-Qaeda of US embassies was awarded $700m in US aid and making up 65 per cent of its total trade,
in Kenya and Tanzania, having already Washington’s backing for the clearance according to World Bank data. With
paid an unspecified amount in compen- of $60bn in debt arrears. China, that rises to four-fifths.
sation for the 2000 al-Qaeda attack on The long process of debt relief has Such dependence on authoritarian
the USS Cole in Aden. begun with an IMF staff-monitored pro- states makes Sudanese democrats nerv-
As part of the deal, after a secret meet- gramme designed to restore macroeco- ous. “We need to guard against whoever
ing between General Abdel Fattah Bur- nomic stability. IMF conditions, includ- is trying to bring us back to despotism,”
han, chairman of the sovereign council, ing the removal of fuel subsidies, an end says Mr Adib. “We should insist on our
and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s to money printing and a transparent democratic system.”
prime minister, in Uganda last year, foreign exchange policy, will be painful. Mr Hudson of the Atlantic Council
Sudan agreed to recognise Jerusalem. But if the IMF is satisfied with progress, agrees. “Sudan has a lot of relationships
That concession has been criticised by the path to debt relief will be open. that were established under Bashir, who
the prime minister, says: “We want a
balanced foreign policy in which we do
not side with one country or another.
We do not need to engage in problems
that do not belong to our people.”
The other big pending problem is the
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam,
which has the potential to affect the flow
of the Nile through Sudan and Egypt.
In the past, Khartoum has appeared
closer to Ethiopia’s position that the
dam will help regulate the floodwaters
to its advantage. More recently it has
voiced concerns about Addis Ababa’s
determination to fill the dam without
first reaching an agreement with Khar-
toum and Cairo.
Mr Farid insists that, here as else-
where, the guiding principle must be
Sudan’s national interest. “Sudan is a
wealthy country that was ruled by
thieves for 30 years,” he says. “It was a
cake that many actors thought they
could have part of.”
Now, he says, the priority must be to
conduct foreign policy not for the bene-
fit of special interests, but in the inter-
ests of Sudanese people.

Stored riches in golden orbs What is gum

are waiting to be harvested
Commodities
Gum arabic, used in food
and cosmetics, is one of
Sudan’s biggest exports —
but little of its value stays in
the country. By David Pilling
Nearly 20 years ago, after stories began
circulating that Osama bin Laden held a
stake in Sudan’s then state-owned gum
arabic industry, there was a halfhearted
attempt to boycott the substance.
“Do the world a favour,” urged one
American campaigner outraged that US
consumers might unwittingly be sup-
porting the business interests of the
man behind the Islamist terrorist
attacks that brought down the World
Trade Center. “Don’t buy anything with
gum arabic in it.”
That was a near-impossible request.
Such was gum arabic’s importance to
global industries — including food —
that, after intense lobbying, Washing-
ton had already exempted it from sanc-
tions imposed on Sudan in 1997.
A sap — technically an exudate —
from acacia trees, gum arabic is a small,
but vital, ingredient in many items that
make the modern world go round, from
cat food to the glue on Rizla cigarette
papers.
Sudan, where it is used in the smoke-
bathing beauty ritual performed
by married women, accounts for
nearly 70 per cent of the world’s raw
exports.
For Sudan, there is a catch. As with
many global commodities from oil to
cocoa, relatively little value stays in the
country. According to the United
Nations Conference on Trade and
Development, global revenue from
crude gum arabic exports rose from an
annual $95m in the early 1990s to
$150m in 2014-2016.
Over the same period, income from
exports of processed gum rose from
$74m to $192m, 90 per cent of which
went to European producers.
“Sudan does not only have an advan-
tage, we almost have a monopoly,” says
Amjed Farid, assistant chief of staff to
Sudan’s prime minister.
“But corruption and mismanagement
of the previous regime has prevented us
from taking advantage of this great
wealth.”
Gum arabic is a polysaccharide that
has proved difficult, if not impossible, to
synthesise, though it can be substituted
by non-natural products.
It grows in the Sahel in the “gum belt”,
a semi-arid strip of land that stretches
from Mauritania in west Africa to Erit-
rea in the east. Of 600 species of acacia
tree only two produce it.
Gum is rarely produced in acacia
plantations. Instead, tappers scrape the
bark of wild acacia trees and return
weeks later to collect the gem-coloured
balls that form on the branches.
Van Dalen estimates that tappers
receive only 3 to 10 per cent of the final
price.
Partly as a result of the meagre
income, production collapsed at the
turn of the millennium.
It has since recovered to around
70,000 tonnes a year thanks partly to
stronger international demand for nat-
ural products. Urged by the World Bank,
Sudan liberalised its state monopoly in
2009. Today, about 140 Sudanese com-
panies export gum, 10 of them signifi-
cant.
Alland & Robert, a French company
that controls about a quarter of the glo-
bal gum arabic supply, obtains about 65
per cent of its product from Sudan. It
also sources gum from Senegal, Mali,
Mauritania, Chad and Eritrea.
Frédéric Alland, chief executive and a
fifth generation family member at the
company, visits Sudan regularly.
He estimates that the industry
employs 500,000 gum collectors and a
further 500,000 people who sort and
clean it. But the French company, which
first came to Sudan in 1884, employs
none of them directly.
Instead, it deals with local suppliers,
such as Nopec and Um-Al Gura, which
buy the gum at auction in towns in
arabic?
The properties of E414, as gum
arabic is designated in the food
industry, have long been known.
It was used 5,000 years ago in
ancient Egypt as part of the
mummification process. Today, the
natural emulsifier — also a
stabiliser, a binder and an agent to
enhance viscosity — can be found
in dozens of products, including
chewing gum, chocolate, ice cream,
laxatives, stock cubes, fertiliser,
paint, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics
and explosives.
It can be the gloss in glossy
magazines, the shine in liquorice,
the clarity in wine and the foam in
beer, says Dorrit van Dalen, author
of Gum Arabic: The Golden Tears Tappers scrape the bark of wild acacia trees, then return weeks later to collect
of the Acacia Tree. DP the precious gum balls ‘
Darfur, North Kordofan, South Kordo- and medicine.” Mr Alland says his com- where you do fresh milk to powdered
fan and Blue Nile states where gum is pany provides value-added services, milk.”
produced. including guaranteeing the integrity of DAL is now processing small quanti-
Mr Alland rarely goes to auctions supply. Most of the gum is shipped from ties in a converted factory in Khartoum.
himself, he says, for fear of revealing too Port Sudan to Le Havre in Normandy, Customers, including Coca Cola, with
much foreign interest. “If I’m in the city, where it is processed into a fine white which DAL already does business, are
the price jumps.” powder. happy with the quality, he says.
However, he disputes the accusation Processing gum to the exacting stand- Mr Daoud concedes it is a modest
that gum tappers, including in troubled ards of the global food industry is tech- start. “This market is dominated by
regions such as Darfur, are badly paid nically demanding, the company says. companies who have controlled it for
“They don’t need seeds, they don’t need “It seems to be simple, but it is not,” says years,” he says.
fertiliser and they don’t need pesticide,” Charles Alland, deputy general director. “Sudan has been exporting raw gum
he says. Osama Daoud Abdellatif, chairman of arabic for decades and some French and
“They just need their labour to get the the DAL group, Sudan’s biggest con- Irish companies make all the money.
gum. The farmers are getting important glomerate, disagrees. “It is not rocket They are not going to make it easy for
[good] money . . . to buy food, clothes science,” he says. “It is the same factory us.”
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 5
6 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021

Sudan after the revolution

New horizons Some of Africa’s most spectacular sites can be found in Sudan, but can international visitors be persuaded to come? By Andres Schipani

Tourism Tourism in Sudan

Number of tourist arrivals (’000)
800

hopes rest on 600

400

archaeological 200

treasures 1995 2000

Source: World Tourism Organization
05 10 15 18
0

W
hen the camel’s feet
sank into the sands of
the Nubian Desert, it
was time to get out of
the saddle — and look
up in awe at Sudan’s greatest archaeo-
logical treasure, rising from the dunes.
Here, the pyramids of the royal city of
Meroë, a site of the Kushite kingdom
dating from the eighth century BC, are
smaller than their Egyptian counter-
parts in Giza, at roughly 30m high.
But there are many more, about 100
some 200km from Khartoum, though
their tops were blown up in 1834 by Ital-
ian treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini as
he plundered their contents.
The site is largely unvisited by outsid-
ers, apart from the odd group of diplo-
mats, aid workers, and young residents
of Khartoum. Stepping alone into one of
the world’s greatest archaeological sites
may be marvellous for one lucky visitor,
but it is also testament to the sluggish
state of Sudanese tourism.
“This is the biggest concentration of
pyramids in the world. You don't see
such a number in one place anywhere
else,” says Mahmoud Suliman Bashir,
the archaeologist who manages the
Island of Meroë World Heritage Site.
“It is unique in that you have a site
just for yourself,” he adds, comparing
the experience with that of other sites
with pyramids in Egypt and Mexico,
usually teeming with global tourists.
With his face framed by a white tur-
ban, Abdelmageed Ali, Meroë’s long-
standing guardian, runs to open the
doors to the sole visitor of the funerary
chambers, to reveal walls covered in
hieroglyphic carvings. “We need more
tourists,” he says. In a country rich in
under-visited archaeological sites, his
wish may soon come true.
The revolution that ended three dec-
ades of dictatorship by Omar al-Bashir
in 2019, a peace deal with rebel groups
and Sudan’s removal from the US spon-
sor of terrorism list in 2020 make the
country more enticing for foreign visi-
tors.
They may finally be lured not only by
diving in the Red Sea, but also by some
of Africa’s most spectacular treasures,
such as the Temple of Amun at Jebel
Barkal, the lion-headed god Apedemak
in Naqa and the elephant carving at the
temple at Musawwarat.
“The main reason for tourism here is
the cultural and archaeological sites. We
are so optimistic for the future of tour-
ism and the future of archaeology,” says
Hatim Elnour Mohamed, who heads
Sudan’s General Authority of Antiquities
and Museums. The hospitable Sudanese
people — still unaccustomed to mass
tourism — are another reason, he adds.
He also complains, rightly, about a lack
of tourism infrastructure. However, the
numbers, yet it is ready for gradual
growth and the country needs to under-
stand that,” she says. Pavel Kroupkine,
Unesco’s representative to Sudan, which
has three heritage sites, says the poten-
tial is “huge”.
But tourism visas to enter Sudan and
official travel permits to roam outside
Khartoum are still cumbersome to
obtain, and western credit cards are
rarely accepted. Still, Sudan desperately
needs hard currency, “so the country
and its people merit all possible effort to
fix this,” adds Ms Piazza.
According to the World Bank’s latest
available data, international tourism
receipts amounted to about $1bn, or 3
per cent of Sudan’s gross domestic prod-
uct in 2018, which Ms Piazza described
as a “record” year. Officials expect that
proportion to rise to 5 per cent in the
coming years.
Growth potential: the ancient site of Meroë, one of Sudan’s three World It may be a hard slog. The coronavirus
Heritage sites, is largely unvisited, even by Sudanese — Joost Bastmeijer, for the FT pandemic has disrupted global travel,
forcing Meroë, a Unesco World Heritage
expansion of a permanent luxury tented Centre, to close for four months last year
camp on a ridge overlooking the pyra- — just as cultural tourism was starting to
mids, established by the Italian Tourism take off. The first wave of tourists came
Company (ITC), one of the largest pri- in 2017 after a visit by Qatar’s Sheikha
vate operators in the country, hints at ‘Sudan is not yet ready for Moza bint Nasser. In 2014, Qatar, then
the possibilities. big numbers of tourists, an ally of Bashir, granted Sudan $135m
“Sudan’s potential is incredible,” says to rehabilitate ancient relics, part of its
Carla Piazza, ITC’s director, who has yet it is ready for gradual package of financial aid to the African
been operating in Sudan for two dec- growth’ country. The money was partly used to
ades. “Sudan is not yet ready for big set up a visitor’s centre and walking
tracks, so “for the first time, we started
to have internal tourism, for the first
time Sudanese started to visit the pyra-
mids, because they saw that [visit on]
social media, and they came to see the
place,” says Mahmoud Suliman Bashir,
the archaeologist.
The second wave came in 2019 after
the street protests that led to the down-
fall of Bashir. The protests were mainly
led by women, known as Kandaka — the
term for queens of Meroë who led
armies into battle millennia ago.
“We started to have buses every week-
end full of young locals. We also had
more international tourists who wanted
to know about our civilisations as it was
safer and easier to come, as the previous
regime was restricting issuing visas to
some citizens of Europe and the US,”
Mahmoud Suliman Bashir recalls.
The sunset flashes across the pyra-
mids as nomads play zumbara flutes,
and camel caravans cross the site. Ali
Mohammed Ebd, who manages the
tented camp, reminds foreign visitors
that sundowners cannot yet be served in
Sudan, even after the lifting of some
Islamists laws last year. Alcohol is still
banned in most places.
“Still, post-Bashir, post-US sanctions,
post-civil war Sudan is quiet, so we can
have more tourists who can experience
this almost as it was thousands of years
ago,” he says.

Modernisation push
to ‘turn the desert green’
Agriculture Sudan exports
Exports of crop products ($’000)
Sudan needs strong export
0 200 400 600 800
infrastructure to expand
its crops and realise its Sesame

potential. By Andres Schipani Cotton (bales)

It has the feel of the fertile Argentine
pampas: fresh green pastures, harvest-
ing machines baling alfalfa, the smell of
wet, cut grasses.
But this massive agricultural oasis
lies in the Nubian Desert in northeast-
ern Sudan on the right bank of the Nile,
in circles of grassland sprayed 22 hours
a day by centre pivot irrigation systems.
“This is the desert, you know, but we
are turning it green,” says Osama Daoud
Abdellatif, chairman of the DAL group,
Sudan’s biggest conglomerate and one of
the country’s top private agricultural
investors. Step outside each grass field,
and the desert stretches to Egypt.
“We have the Nile, then we have many
other rivers, we have rain, we have
underground water, and we have one of
the flattest countries in the world,” he
says. “Under the layers of sand there is
good soil. So it’s not exactly difficult.
You know, everything is there, you need
to make it grow.”
DAL’s $225m greenfield project in
Abu Hamad — a joint venture with the
Royal Group of Abu Dhabi and about
10km from the banks of the Nile — is
watered by 18km of canals drawing
water from the world’s longest river,
which has nurtured desert agriculture
for millennia. The goal is to culti-
vate 170,000 acres — split into 750
rounded plots — of pastures, wheat,
grapefruits, and other crops. There are
50 plots in operation since the project
started last year.
“The key is irrigation. If you can make
irrigation work, you can make agricul-
ture work,” says Nazim Khalil, DAL’s
head of animal feed, grabbing a handful
of fresh alfalfa. “This is a tough place, we
often have sandstorms,” he says.
In Abu Hamad temperatures can rise
to 48 Celsius during the summer, which
makes irrigation challenging as the
water evaporates faster during the day.
As Sudan’s largest private company,
DAL is one of the few with enough finan-
cial muscle and knowhow to make such
a project work.
DAL has sales of more than $1bn a
year, and a foothold in nearly every sec-
tor of Sudan’s economy, from food to
Groundnuts
Gum Arabic
Watermelon seeds
Sorghum
Hibiscus flowers
Sugar
Source: CBOS
vehicles to property. The company was
started by Mr Daoud’s father to distrib-
ute Caterpillar tractors in the 1960s. It
expanded after he took over in 1980.
Today, food makes up two-thirds of
sales. At Abu Hamad, DAL is planting
potatoes and corn for a line of potato
crisps, in what it calls a “farm-to-fork”
approach. The group, with 9,500
employees, is the one of the biggest
wheat importers and millers in Sudan,
Mr Daoud says. It also bottles Coca-Cola
products and Safia mineral water;
makes pasta; has a state-of-the-art
600,000-litre-a-day dairy processing
factory; animal fodder grown on 24,000
acres of irrigated land , and a feedlot pel-
let processing plant.
“Agriculture, in our opinion, should
not be just about growing raw materials,
but adding value processing, by manu-
facturing, all sorts of things that comes
with it. And we believe agriculture also
should be integrated with animal pro-
duction,” says Mr Daoud.
That is what the technocratic transi-
tional Sudanese government wants to
hear. It must restore confidence after
three-decades of a corrupt dictatorship
that focused on oil production and
neglected agriculture.
“We are still importing our raw prod-
ucts. We want to build a strong basic
infrastructure for cultivating land, but
also for the value added elements for the
agricultural production,” says Abdelga-
dir Turkawi, Sudan’s agriculture minis-
ter. “We want to produce our own agri-
cultural inputs, we still import fuel and
fertilisers and fodder, we want to make
our own inputs.”
2018
2019
In a country lacking hard currency,
agricultural exports are even more
important, he adds, “so we are looking
forward to reduce these imports and
increase our exports of agricultural
products”.
For Amal El Tigani Ali, an investment
consultant in Khartoum, “agriculture is
the most promising sector in Sudan.
Mass agriculture has big potential.”
But big projects like DAL’s face prob-
lems such as Sudan’s ageing export
infrastructure, including its ports.
Eighty per cent of DAL’s alfalfa produc-
tion is sent abroad from Port Sudan on
the Red Sea, 450km east of Abu Hamad.
DAL hopes to gain authorisation to
build berths to increase its capacity..
Sudan must also increase output.
According to the UN Food and Agricul-
ture Organisation, Sudan’s agricultural
sector contributes to roughly a third of
the country’s gross domestic product,
and provides a livelihood to about two-
thirds of its working population.
“We are only using just about one-
third of our arable land. It requires a
huge investment to put all land into
agricultural production,” Mr Turkawi
says. Experts agree that the Guinea
savannah stretching from southern Sen-
egal to western Ethiopia, crossing
through southern Sudan, could be
turned into a farming powerhouse.
“Where in the world is there available
land like in Sudan? Most of the land eve-
rywhere in the world, except in Africa, is
used,” says Mr Daoud.
“Sudan is, basically, an agricultural
country,” he added. “Agriculture is the
future here.”

Tuesday January 26 2021
Women primed to fill talent gap
A focus on retaining
female appointments
offers value to business,
writes Alice Kantor
T
he pandemic-led jump in
homeworking has not only
resulted in more opportuni-
ties for hackers to exploit, it
has also increased demand
for more cyber security analysts.
“People are starting to understand the
role of cyber security in a business,
there is much more interest,” says Clar
Rosso, chief executive of (ISC)², a non-
profit group specialising in cyber secu-
rity training.
According to an April-June 2020 sur-
vey by the organisation, 3.1m people are
needed in cyber security worldwide,
with 22 per cent of companies reporting
a significant shortage of dedicated cyber
security staff in that period.
The best way to narrow the talent gap,
says Jane Frankland, a veteran cyber
analyst, is to hire and retain more
women, who make up just one-quarter
of the sector’s employees, according to
2020 (ISC)² data.
“Cyber is historically a very male-
dominated industry,” says Ms Fran-
kland, “and as it has been very tech-
nique-focused, it can feel intimidating
to women.”
Some institutions have aimed to
involve women from a younger age in
cyber to correct this discrepancy: the
UK government launched a CyberFirst
Girls Competition in 2017.
But the main hurdle facing recruiters is
retaining female hires, says Emily Stapf,
US cyber security leader at PwC, the
financial services group. “There is plenty
of talent,” she says, “but companies need
to create a culture and opportunities to
keep the few women they have.”
As well as reducing the talent gap, hir-
ing and retaining women could also con-
tribute to the evolution of cyber security
from simply protecting assets to creat-
ing value for the company, argues Ms
Stapf. “Many women have a risk man-
agement mindset, think differently
about balancing tasks and are able to
sort through the noise to identify a
threat,” she says. “Those skills are
essential.”
Carolyn Crandall, chief security advo-
cate and chief marketing officer of
Estonia leads way
in making digital
voting a reality
Elections
Patrick Mulholland examines
pros and cons of the Baltic
nation’s electronic first
The last time 23-year-old Eva-Maria
Tõnson attended a polling station, she
was a child accompanying her parents.
On the three occasions that the Estonian
has voted — in municipal, national and
EU elections — she cast her vote online.
As everyday transactions and services
migrate online, some countries have
sought to expand the digital revolution
to elections, creating internet voting
systems that they say can deliver free,
fair and secure results. Online voting
has been trialled in several countries,
but only Estonia has embraced it.
Steve Schneider, director of the Sur-
rey Centre for Cyber Security, a UK-
based research centre, calls the Esto-
nian system, which has been in place
since 2005, “state of the art”.
In the Baltic nation’s March 2019 par-
liamentary elections, more than 40 per
cent of ballots were cast using the “i-Vot-
ing” online system.
Underpinning this is Estonia’s policy
of e-governance. “People already use an
electronic ID card for filing tax forms
and logging into different government
services,” says Ms Tõnson. “Anytime I
access my online banking or patient
data — even when signing up for a Cov-
id-19 test — I use my ID card.”
Yet few other countries come close to
Cyber Security & Society
Attivo Networks, a cyber security
group, advocates “the creation of pro-
grammes which, for a period of time,
could subsidise the payroll of female
graduates or women who are looking to
change careers”.
“The women involved will gain valua-
ble skills and experience that could help
them advance in their cyber security
career and add value to their employ-
ers,” she adds.
Ms Crandall says the industry in gen-
eral should “be more welcoming to
women who are beginners or on a learn-
ing curve. Too much criticism and a per-
this level of digitisation. And while the
Institute of Engineering and Technology
(IET), one of the world’s largest socie-
ties of engineers, acknowledges there is
scope to improve access and conven-
ience through internet voting, satisfac-
tion with traditional methods of voting
in the UK, for instance, remains high.
The key is to have the supporting dig-
ital infrastructure in place beforehand,
says Anett Numa, digital transforma-
tion adviser at e-Estonia, a Tallinn-
based innovation hub. Only then, once
people are used to accessing public serv-
ices online, and trust in the system, will
internet voting become more widely
adopted elsewhere in the world.
In part, the goal of i-Voting was to
expand participation and keep young
people engaged with the political proc-
ess. Some 200,000 Estonians, out of a
population of 1.3m, live abroad, includ-
ing Ms Tõnson. As a student at Cam-
bridge university, Ms Tõnson doubts
there would otherwise have been
enough time for her to vote at the Esto-
nian embassy in London.
However, i-Voting has not increased
voter turnout, says Ms Numa — a find-
ing that has also been borne out by a
separate Norwegian study from 2013.
Instead, it provides another channel for
those who would otherwise have voted.
Yet there are cyber security concerns.
“The challenge is, how do you ensure
the integrity of the election without giv-
ing away the secrecy of the vote?” asks
Prof Schneider.
The answer is encryption. Once
authenticated, the voter casts their ballot
FT Special Report
www.ft.com/reports | @ftreports
ception that one cannot succeed is a
huge deterrent and can cause women to
give up. Providing a teaching environ-
ment and taking the time to edu-
cate women interested in learning will
pay itself back in spades.”
T
he lack of cyber security
analysts — regardless of
gender — is partly the result
of companies prioritising
revenue-making sections of
their businesses and often relegating
cyber security procedures to IT.
“Historically, cyber security grew out
Counted: Estonia’s policy of e-governance is resulting in fewer paper ballots
across a platform that routes to a central
database. The easiest analogy is to think
of an envelope, says Ms Numa.
The vote is encrypted, or put into an
“envelope” and marked with a virtual
signature. That “inner envelope” is then
placed into a second envelope, which is
signed with the identification code of
the voter.
From there, the contents of the inner
envelopes can be shuffled, decrypted
and calculated, or added together with-
out the need to decrypt. These methods
are known as mixnet and homomorphic
tallying, respectively.
Critics of this approach, including
Mike Specter, a researcher with the
Internet Policy Research Initiative at
MIT, focus on the value of decentralised
systems. At present, electoral officials
carry out risk-limiting audits, which use
a statistical sample of paper ballots, to
confirm that votes have been correctly
tabulated, says Mr Specter.
Without physical ballots, it becomes
more troublesome to have recounts.
This is compounded by the problem
of storing votes in one large integrated
database. If someone were to set fire
to a drop box for mail-in ballots,
that kind of attack is localised and not
scalable, whereas a bug in an i-Voting
Inside
abilities required as part of the role, and
the proper certifications or specific
degrees.
A recent addition to the industry is
John Watts, who was hired in September
as a cyber security analyst for a US gov-
Deepfakes, cheapfakes
ernment agency in Alabama straight
after graduation. On a starting salary of and shallowfakes
$75,000 and with analysts in demand, Digitally manipulated
the 23-year-old says his choice of the videos do not have to
cyber security industry has left him
feeling “very confident in my job pros- appear authentic to
pects [for the future]”. successfully spread
As the field is relatively new and few misinformation
educational institutions have dedicated Page 3
cyber security programmes, many
cyber experts have migrated from soft-
ware engineering backgrounds. SolarWinds hack
That is the case for 37-year-old Dhruv
Ahuja, who worked as a liability engi- exploited weaknesses
neer — a job that involves improving the Calling such cyber
resilience of his company on the cloud — attacks ‘extremely
before moving to a cyber security role.
“I had a knack for it and I had been sophisticated’ covers
working with similar software for 10 our embarrassment
years so it was a natural, lateral move,” and implies they cannot
he says.
Cyber security roles tend to provide
be stopped in future
secure and relatively high- Page 3
earning careers for those with the tech-
nical skills, says Mr Ahuja. “It is a How ‘cyber trauma’
great job to have,” he says. This past
year, (ISC)² noted a 15 per cent increase leaves mental scars
in people taking their cyber security The psychological and
exams compared with the same period financial damage
in 2019. “It's a growing field,” says
Ms Rosso. inflicted by cyberstalkers
Despite cutting back their hiring in and via ‘sexploitation’
2020 due to uncertainty related to the can be long-lasting
pandemic, companies are likely to
increase their spending on cyber teams
and life-changing
Montage : Esan Swan/FT
this year, according to Ms Rosso. “It has Page 3
been a pivotal year with many security
incidents shining a light on the need to
invest in tech and staff,” she says. “I
think we are going to see a lot of hiring
happening in 2021.”
as a sub function of IT teams,” says For trailblazing companies, cyber
Ms Stapf. “It has evolved since to security has evolved from being a
be considered a corporate risk impera- strictly reactive technical-minded field
tive, but some companies still to a more thoughtful and forward-
lag behind.” thinking part of the business, according
Cyber attacks cost targeted compa- to a 2020 PwC global digital trust
nies an average of $3.9m, according to a survey. Human rights under
2020 global survey of mostly mid-sizes According to newly employed cyber
companies across all sectors by IBM analyst Mr Watts, the outlook
digital pressure
Security, the US tech company’s cyber for women in the industry is The use of high-end
security arm. positive: “My director is a female,” he surveillance technology
Although most companies recognise says, “and I think we are going to see goes far beyond China’s
the need for robust cyber defence more and more women in these roles.
teams, some say finding the right candi- They bring in such great view points, we Xinjiang province
dates is challenging given the technical need them.” Page 4
Patients fall victim to
health ransomware
Healthcare
Hackers’ access to personal
data causes havoc at medical
facilities, writes Sooraj Shah
The WannaCry ransomware attack in
2017 caused severe disruption to the
NHS, costing the UK’s health service
£92m and leading to the cancellation of
19,000 patient appointments.
The attack, which stemmed from a
system may call into question an entire malicious code placed in commonly
election. used software, highlighted how disrup-
One way some academics and policy- tive ransomware can be for health sys-
makers are looking to improve trans- tems and prompted a renewed focus on
parency within these internet voting cyber defences.
systems is to apply the principles of The NHS is not alone. There have Hackers can target medical records
blockchain — distributed ledger tech- since been attacks on a variety of
nology — to create a database that is healthcare organisations around the more investment and more awareness.”
both decentralised and open to inspec- world including dental practices, pri- A September 2020 report from Ver-
tion. Potential hackers would need vate hospitals and smaller clinics. itas, a data protection company, found
more than half the entire computational In one case in Finland, the confiden- that 39 per cent of healthcare compa-
power used by the participants to inter- tial treatment records of thousands of nies around the world have been hit by a
fere with the encryptions, making it too psychotherapy patients were hacked ransomware attack at some point.
costly to alter votes. and leaked online — many patients were While businesses and organisations
Yet “a determined, well-resourced blackmailed to keep the data private. In are affected by cyber attacks, it is ulti-
threat, such as a hostile nation state, September 2020, a ransomware attack mately patients who suffer. The Wan-
would be capable of launching an effec- took down a chain of more than 250 US naCry attack resulted in services being
tive cyber attack”, says Prof Schneider. hospitals and clinics. taken offline, forcing the delay or can-
In addition, it is not just the security of Apart from blackmailing patients to cellation of healthcare procedures.
the system at stake, but the devices vot- keep data private as in the Finnish case, If healthcare workers are prevented
ers use to cast their ballots. Malware hackers can also use data for identity from accessing patients’ data, it could
could potentially misallocate or discard theft. also stop them from being able to
ballots before they show up in the sys- “There has been a significant fallout carry out procedures or provide
tem and without the voter realising. from WannaCry — the NHS is now much patients with test results. If the data is
Estonia has tackled these difficulties more concerned with how people are manipulated by hackers, it could lead to
by inviting scrutiny from experts, politi- handling security in their individual a misdiagnosis.
cal groups and the media. The electoral organisations,” says Adrian Byrne, chief Alterations can be made to physical
authority has improved the system by information officer of the University devices through cyber attacks that
making it open source and adding verifi- Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation could make them unsafe, according to
ability functions for individual voters Trust (UHSFT). Howard Holton, an analyst from
through a QR code, and the election as a “There’s more monitoring, expecta- GigaOm, a technology research and
whole through mixnet tallying. tions to achieve security standards, Continued on page 4
2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021
Tuesday 26 January 2021 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 3

Cyber Security & Society

‘Deepfakes’: to believe or not believe?

Media Digitally generated and shared huge data sets of
their own deepfake audio and video
manipulated videos do clips created for training AI-based
not have to appear deepfake detection models. But the
deep learning models used to create
authentic to successfully deepfakes — Generative Adversarial
Networks (GANS) — work by testing
spread misinformation, how detectable generated deepfakes
writes Carly Minsky are, and then refining them. Developing
AI tools that can get ahead of these
models at their own game is difficult.

Q
ueen Elizabeth had never
before included a dance
routine in her annual
Christmas message, nor
had North Korean dictator
Kim Jong Un previously warned
Americans that “democracy is fragile”,
but that is what they appeared to do in
videos that went viral last year.
Both those videos — and thousands
like them — were “deepfakes” that
manipulate the speech and actions of
politicians and celebrities, using static
artificial intelligence-generated faces.
Although many deepfakes are
produced for their comedic or shock
value with no intention of misleading
viewers, such videos have become a tool
for spreading misinformation.
“What is distinctive about deepfakes
is that the audiovisual element has a
more powerful effect on our psychology
than other types of media,” says Jon
Bateman, a researcher in Cyber Policy
Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace.
In principle, AI could automate the
process of media editing and
manipulation and make it accessible to
anyone, but this method of deception
requires huge amounts of training data
and technical skills. Other, more
straightforward, methods of attacking
targets or influencing public opinion
already provide a simpler pay-off.
Manipulated videos that do not use
deep learning algorithms — referred to
as “cheapfakes” or “shallowfakes” — are
widespread on social media and can
alter opinion even after they are
debunked. A video of Nancy Pelosi, US
House Speaker, apparently drunk and
slurring her words, was created by
slowing it down but went viral in spite of
its obvious fakeness.
“Deepfakes are a reality but they are
impractical to create.” says Andy Patel,
an AI researcher at F-Secure, a cyber
security group. “Shallowfakes are
quickly debunked but people still
Dancing queen: believe them — so why would you put
Deepfakes more effort into it?”
purporting to Beyond the eventual potential for
depict Queen anyone to create a convincing fake video
Elizabeth and using out-the-box AI tools, deepfakes do
Kim Jong Un offer new opportunities in high-stakes,
went viral highly targeted contexts. Mr Bateman
Montage : Esan Swan/FT/
calls these “narrowcast” deepfakes, as
Getty Images
opposed to deepfakes broadcast widely
online. Criminal and state-sponsored
hacking groups can use deepfakes to
impersonate specific people for
fraudulent purposes, he says.
Such attacks usually rely on email
communication or human
impersonations on a phone call, dubbed
“vishing”. Attacks using voice calls tap
into the emotive power of direct human
interactions, and AI can make it harder
to detect such impersonators. In 2019,
an unnamed UK energy company
transferred £200,000 to criminal
fraudsters who used deepfake
technology to impersonate the chief
executive of the German parent
company on a phone call.
Ed Bishop, co-founder and chief
technology officer of cyber security
company Tessian, says that while a deep
learning model requires huge amounts
of training data, it only needs a limited
sample of audio or video data of the
target to generate a personalised
deepfake — about one minute of audio
or 20 to 40 minutes of video.
Deepfake written communication,
which generates believable, casual
correspondence, is a big focus for
Tessian, since Twitter, LinkedIn and
public blogs are readily available public
data sets of personal communication
and could be harnessed by hackers.
Social media platforms are leading
the fight against malicious deepfakes,
although researchers and security
experts see targeted attacks as a bigger
threat than viral misinformation.
Both Facebook and Google have
Accenture’s Cyber Fusion Center, the
US consultancy's cyber security R&D
lab, used Facebook’s deepfake data set
to develop a detection tool that uses
different AI models analysing deepfake
features, and weights the indicators to
produce an estimation of authenticity.
Malek Ben Salem, a cyber researcher
who worked on the project, says
detection tools analyse metadata and
technical features, physical and
psychological integrity, and audio and
semantic irregularities.
Further advances could be made by
embedding a “proof of origin”
functionality at the source of media
creation — phones and other devices —
that would encode a digital stamp
specifying when and where the media
was recorded.
This could enable social media and
news media platforms to automatically
verify and label authenticity on media
that they publish. Microsoft has
partnered with media organisations on
Project Origin, to develop tools to create
and detect “digital fingerprints” on
media samples.
Yet the looming challenge is to strike a
balance between appropriate awareness
levels and radical scepticism, says Mr
Bateman. Deepfakes are unlikely to be
effective and universally undetected in
spreading misinformation, but they do
not need to be. The mere threat of
convincing deepfakes — along with viral
shallowfakes and unconvincing
deepfakes — are enough to undermine
‘Cheapfakes’ traditional sources of authority.
on social John Conwell, principal data scientist
at internet forensics group
media can DomainTools, emphasises the need for
alter public public education and usage of tools such
as reverse media searches, but also
opinion notes their limitations. “Relying on
even after individuals to verify media authenticity
doesn’t work when the fake information
they are matches their perception of reality,
debunked which is why political memes are so
effective.”

‘Cyber trauma’ SolarWinds hack exploited

leaves victims with
psychological scars
Online fraud
Mental and financial damage
inflicted by cyberstalkers
and ‘sexploitation’ can be life
changing, says Antonia Cundy
The jump in internet usage and home-
working prompted by the Covid-19 pan-
demic is opening new channels for
online criminals, who have taken
advantage of weak cyber security to
inflict both financial and psychological
damage to victims.
In the 12 months to June 2020, inci-
dents of fraud and computer misuse in
England and Wales rose from 4.84m
incidents to 5.94m year-on-year,
according to the Office for National Sta-
tistics. For every 1,000 people, there
were 94 victims of fraud and 35 of com-
puter misuse, up from 82 and 21 respec-
tively in the previous 12-month period.
“People are much more focused on
using IT to communicate so there are
more opportunities for fraud and cyber
crime. It’s got a lot worse,” says Mark
Button, director of the centre for coun-
ter fraud studies at the University of
Portsmouth.
While large organisations and institu-
tions often have sophisticated defence
barriers in place against these attacks,
individuals are largely left to fend for
themselves.
From phishing to social media hacks,
“the average member of the public is not
equipped, skilled or has the resources to
deal with that situation”, says Rory
Innes, founder and chief executive of
The Cyber Helpline, a volunteer organi-
sation run by cyber security experts.
Since the pandemic struck, the
number of victims contacting the hel-
pline has quadrupled. “Before the first
lockdown, we were probably handling
100 cases per month on average, and
then post March, it’s been somewhere
between 380 and 450 . . . We just saw
this immediate jump.”
Support for victims is complicated by
the personal and psychological nature
of much online crime, which is often
part of a wider problem such as domes-
tic abuse. “Twenty-two per cent of our
cases are cyberstalking and online har-
assment, so these are personal issues
like domestic abuse,” says Mr Innes,
who often partners with specialist chari-
ties to provide support for these cases.
Sophie Mortimer, manager at the
Revenge Porn Helpline, says “sexploita-
tion” cases have risen since the pan-
demic. These involve publishing sexual
images — or the false threat of publish-
ing sexual images — of the victim and
using them as a form of financial or
social blackmail. “It’s always been a con-
sistent 13 per cent of our caseload, but in
the first lockdown it rose to nearly 20
per cent and now is about 18 per cent.
We’ve seen twice the number of cases we
saw last year,” she adds.
Such cyber crimes can leave victims
with lasting psychological scars, says
Folami Prehaye, founder of the Victims
of Image Crime website. “You’ve got the
emotional turmoil to deal with, that
doesn’t go away straightaway, some-
times that takes years. You’ve got all
that self blame and it’s awful,” says Ms
Prehaye, who established the VOIC web-
site to support other victims after her
ex-partner shared intimate photos of
her on Facebook and porn websites.
‘You’ve got the emotional
turmoil to deal with that
doesn’t go away quickly’
Folami Prehaye, VOIC founder
Another consequence can be a fear of
technology, or “cyber trauma”, which
can leave victims isolated and unable to
carry out simple online tasks. “I deleted
Facebook and most victims do the exact
same thing, they in fact delete their
whole online life, and you can feel very
isolated because the world pretty much
lives online,” says Ms Prehaye. “Trust is
something that's broken and trust cov-
ers everything.”
Small-scale scams can be no less dam-
aging. “Even in a case where it’s someone’s
Cyber fraud is on the rise
name, address, date of birth, and email
that’s taken — you’d probably consider
that “small-scale” fraud — but in the right
hands it can lead to phishing emails that
then result in a bigger fraud,” says Rich-
ard Forrest, senior associate at Hayes
Connor solicitors, which specialises in
data breaches. “It enables someone to get
their foot in the door. It doesn't allow
them to take the finance in the first
instance but it allows them to maybe send
the email that can lead to that further
down the line.”
Mr Forrest says it is common for vic-
tims’ legal claims to include medical evi-
dence recommending they undergo
cognitive behavioural therapy. “If your
personal or financial details are infil-
trated, if fraudulent activity is carried
out, it can impact on someone's credit
score, and that can lead to problems
with re-mortgaging, getting a credit
card . . . The knock on effect of that in
terms of mental health can really snow-
ball far beyond what you initially per-
ceive as a financial loss,” he says.
Victims can go to the police, but the
authorities are often unable to help —
either because they do not have the
resources, or the electronic trail falls
outside national jurisdiction.
“There’s a shortage of cyber security
professionals in the UK and the global
market,” says Mr Innes. “And the pace
of change [of cyber crimes] has been
really fast . . . It’s relatively difficult
to take a police officer or someone non
technical and make them understand
this space.”
“If you look at the statistics, it’s a few
dozen each year that get prosecuted for
computer misuse while there are mil-
lions of incidents,” says Mr Button. “If
criminals think there is a low risk of get-
ting caught you’re always going to get
people who are tempted to do it.”
weaknesses we keep tolerating
OPINION
Robert Hannigan
The cyber attack in the US may turn out
to be the most serious nation-state
espionage campaign in history.
Assessing the possible damage and
clearing up the infection will take many
months and will extend to the
thousands of government departments
and companies in many countries that
used SolarWinds Orion for managing
their networks. It was the regular
upgrades to this software that delivered
at least part of the infection. If Russian
intelligence agencies were responsible
— which US security agencies in January
said was likely — we should assume the
damage goes beyond mere espionage.
They may use the access to alter,
monetise or destroy corporate and
government data.
The fact that most people will never
have heard of SolarWinds is important.
Even fewer knew of the small Ukrainian
accountancy software company whose
upgrades were used to deliver the
NotPetya ransomware in 2017, which
brought manufacturing, shipping and
other businesses across Europe to a halt
and cost an estimated $10bn. And when
Chinese state hackers launched their
successful Cloud Hopper attacks against
eight global IT service providers, the
real targets were their customers, not
the faceless enterprises themselves.
Each time these intrusions are
uncovered inside the supply chain of
governments and companies we
routinely describe them as “extremely
sophisticated”, indicating “nation state
capability”. This covers our collective
embarrassment and implies that there
is nothing we can do to prevent them.
But it is simply not the case. The truth is
that, however expert these malign cyber
actors may be, they are exploiting
weaknesses that we tolerate.
Of course, certain aspects of the
attacks are genuinely sophisticated. The
way that the malware hides, propagates
and communicates may be technically
dazzling. But more often than not these
attacks are delivered in the first place by
exploiting very basic security lapses.
After NotPetya, an investigation found
that the Ukrainian software company
had not patched its servers for several
years. Cloud Hopper gained access
through spear phishing — the
hackneyed trick of making emails
appear to be from a trusted sender. Poor
internal controls allowed attackers to
move around and linger. We do not yet
know how SolarWinds was
compromised, but there is a reasonable
chance that it will turn out to be through
a well-known vulnerability.
The truth is that enterprise IT and
software companies — and many of the
thousands of smaller companies in the
average supply chain — often have
significant weaknesses. Their
customers have not insisted on
improvements and governments have
failed to regulate them. Not
surprisingly, hostile state actors and
criminal groups have spotted this. Far
from being unforeseen and
unpreventable, these attacks are
becoming wearily predictable.
We can put this right. Joe Biden’s
administration should give cyber
security a much higher priority and
some strategic focus. It should start by
implementing the recommendations of
the refreshingly bipartisan cyber space
Solarium Commission. These include
mandating “secure by design” as an
objective, with appropriate testing and
regulation, and introducing some
Upgrades delivered the infection
Far from being unforeseen
and unpreventable, these
attacks are becoming
wearily predictable
liability for manufacturers of poor
security engineering. Raising the
baseline of standards will at least make
life more difficult for attackers.
But for the pandemic, there would
surely be pressure on governments to
act. The quiet tsunami of ransomware
attacks over the past two years has cost
tens of billions of dollars and disrupted
manufacturing, schools and healthcare.
In September, German police
investigated the death of a woman being
transferred from a Düsseldorf hospital,
which had been closed by ransomware,
as a cyber homicide — the first recorded.
Not all of these could be prevented, but
most could and the impact of any
successful attacks mitigated.
Beyond government, large companies
that have raised their own security
standards now need to help their
suppliers improve, if only out of shared
self-interest. Assessing whether a
vendor is effective, well priced and
broadly compliant is no longer enough.
What does that company look like in
real time from an attacker’s
perspective? If there are gaps, they need
fixing before the supplier ends up
delivering a product or a service that
already has “added value” built in,
courtesy of hostile intelligence agencies
or assorted cyber criminals (and the
line between the two is increasingly
blurred). Where the cyber supply chain
is concerned, we really are “all in this
together”.
These large-scale cyber attacks are at
root the result of exploitation of our
open economies, just as election
interference is the exploitation of our
open societies. We do not need to change
this openness but we can harden it
against manipulation. Political will,
better organisation, and the application
of good tech can make this possible.
The author is European chairman of
BlueVoyant and a former director of GCHQ
This article was originally published in the
Financial Times on December 21
4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Tuesday 26 January 2021

Cyber Security & Society

Surveillance Use of high-end tech goes far beyond

China’s Xinjiang, writes Sid Venkataramakrishnan

Human rights
come under
pressure from
digital controls
I
n his 1996 Declaration of the Inde-
pendence of Cyberspace, John
Perry Barlow, the late internet lib-
ertarian, did not merely assert that
the influence of national govern-
ments was unwelcome among netizens,
but also that they “have no sovereignty
where we gather”.
Yet as authoritarian regimes around
the world harness digital techniques to
undermine human rights and enable
mass surveillance, Barlow’s optimism
now feels misplaced.
Such techniques are not restricted to
dictatorships — these systems have
found a growing use in both the public
and private sector in democratic states.
The deployment of facial recognition at
London’s King Cross was only halted
after regulators intervened.
But in countries where the checks and
balances are even more limited, the
effects are amplified. The epitome of
cyber surveillance is China, with its
Golden Shield project, which has
evolved into the “Great Firewall” sys-
tem of internet controls.
“[China considers] data-driven tech-
nology to be a cure-all for governance,”
says Maya Wang, China senior
researcher at Human Rights Watch, an
advocacy group, describing Beijing’s
approach to data collection as a “free-
for-all” without laws to regulate it.
“The ministry of police has been col-
lecting data — from DNA to voice samples,
to people’s faces and iris scans — all with-
out any requirement of it having ties to
criminal investigations,” she says.
Beijing’s use of high-end technology
to target Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang
region is one of the most chilling exam-
ples of the government’s use of digital
surveillance tools. Last year, research by
Human Rights Watch found police in
Xinjiang were monitoring residents
using an app with access to the Inte-
grated Joint Operations Platform, a
mass surveillance database.
Citizens who are marked suspicious
by the IJOP — for reasons such as
lengthy travels abroad, the installation
of mobile apps such as WhatsApp or
being related to people held in detention
centres — can be taken into custody with
no right to legal redress.
A leaked list of more than 2,000
detainees from Aksu prefecture shows
other reasons for detention include
“links to sensitive countries”, according
to research released by Human Rights
Watch in December.
“The Chinese government targets
Uighurs as a group and considers them a
threat because of who they are,” says Ms
Wang. “It’s a circular kind of reasoning:
designate a group as security threats,
then anything they do that’s ‘unusual’ is
proof of a threat.”
Ms Wang emphasises that while the
treatment that Xinjiang residents face is
disturbing, it would be wrong to view
Watchful: digital the region as being a “test bed” for the
techniques are wider rollout of new technologies. “The
being harnessed Chinese surveillance state is a national
to undermine project,” she says. “If you look at the
human rights designs, they’re remarkably consistent
and enable mass across the country . . . You can see these
surveillance systems becoming more draconian in
FT Montage/Getty Images other parts of China.”
In the west, such technologies have
found a home in law enforcement,
where they have been justified as
important tools for security — in the
aftermath of the US Capitol Hill riots in
Washington DC, for example, the tech-
nology was reportedly deployed against
insurrectionists. In many cases, how-
ever, inaccurate and biased systems pri-
marily affect over-policed minorities.
China’s successful deployment of such
pervasive techniques is not mirrored
across all authoritarian states, with
many lagging Beijing’s high-tech and
often algorithmic approach to policing
dissent, says Aliaksandr Herasimenka,
a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford
Internet Institute.
Moscow has pursued an increasingly
tight-gloved approach to civil dissent.
Mr Herasimenka describes increasing
efforts to apply surveillance against spe-
cific individuals, including political
opponents and human rights activists.
“If an exchange of information between
two recipients is not encrypted, if it hap-
pens within Russia it might be inter-
cepted by the government,” he says,
with the government having control
over the mobile network and, at least in
part, the internet.
But Moscow has failed in its efforts to
clamp down on Telegram, the
encrypted chat app that has become a
favourite for dissidents, protesters and
others trying to avoid surveillance.
“They tried to censor it and failed,”
says Mr Herasimenka, pointing to Rus-
sian government efforts with deep
packet inspection — technology capable
of rerouting, filtering and blocking web
traffic. “They couldn’t distinguish
between Telegram and other kinds of
traffic.” In neighbouring Belarus, where
protesters have faced police violence,
Telegram has played a similar role.
“China is doing much better in that
respect,” he says. “The internet func-
tions differently and was developed dif-
ferently [to Russia or Belarus], which
have more links to the outside world.”
But authoritarian states have proved
highly capable of adapting their strate-
gies. “In Russia, they’re less advanced in
terms of surveillance, but more
advanced in terms of manipulation [of
narratives],” says Mr Herasimenka.
Anti-government protests in 2012 that
‘China’s revealed the strength of opposition to
surveillance Vladimir Putin’s administration were
met with propaganda, providing a play-
state is a book for efforts made to target the 2016
national US election.
Both Mr Herasimenka and Ms Wang
project. It’s raise concerns about how the pandemic
remarkably has accelerated the use of surveillance
by authoritarian regimes, and how pop-
consistent ulations react to it. “The situation of
across the Covid-19 has taken away some [nas-
cent] resistance of the small minority
country’ questioning the use of these technolo-
Maya Wang gies,” says Ms Wang. “It has normalised
these systems in peoples’ daily lives.”

Patients fall
victim to
healthcare
ransomware
Continued from page 1
analysis company. “If we look at the risk
of an MRI machine, X-ray machine or
dialysis machine, the potential damage
to the patient is huge. Life-saving
machines could also be turned into non-
functioning devices, leaving patients
without access to treatment,” he
says, adding that such attacks under-
mine patient trust in the health
organisations.
“When you’re engaging with a health
service, that’s when you’re often at your
most vulnerable and where you want to
know that the security is robust,” says
James Fleming, director of IT security at
the Francis Crick Institute, a charity
that uses pseudonymised data from the
NHS to research diseases to help pre-
vent, diagnose and treat illnesses.
In addition, there are mental health
implications for patients; delayed care is
likely to create anxiety and uncertainty,
while being blackmailed to retain the
privacy of data will cause fear and
embarrassment.
According to the 2020 Harvey Nash/
KPMG CIO Survey, more than half of IT
leaders in the healthcare sector said
their top technology investment was
security and privacy.
Despite this, more than a third experi-
enced an increase in cyber attacks dur-
ing the pandemic, mostly from phishing
or malware, suggesting that the shift to
remote working had increased exposure
from staff.
While the onus is on businesses to
maintain investment in technology,
On file: hackers have targeted
personal medical records
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
There are mental health
implications for patients;
delayed care can create
anxiety and uncertainty
many attacks are the result of staff mak-
ing mistakes or being tricked into click-
ing on a link or handing over data — not
all of which can be prevented by new
technology.
According to Mr Fleming, patients
need to have “a basic understanding of
their own data, and the understanding
of the services they sign up to online and
the use of their data”.
He adds: “We also need to move the
debate on from believing that only
health services should see my data —
people may want their data to be
used effectively in other ways but it’s
a hugely complex answer to make
that happen.”
For example, there is no portal that
shows UK patients where all of their pri-
vate medical data has been shared.
For the health organisations, it is a
question of “when” not “if” the next
attack or data breach will occur, says Mr
Byrne of the UHSFT.
“There will be future security events,
because it’s not just an individual in his
bedroom [launching malware]. There
are state actors involved in these
things,” he says.

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