WEDNESDAY 4 JANUARY 2023 INTERNATIONAL NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR EUROPE

Inequality soars in China’s Covid generation How many board seats is too many?
BIG READ, PAGE 15 ANJLI RAVAL , PAGE 6

War dead Briefing

Russians find i EU to impose Covid tests

fault in officers for travellers from China

The “overwhelming majority” of
the 27-country bloc has called for
pre-departure tests. Measures are
Mourners lay flowers at a ceremony in expected in days.— PAGE 3; BIG
Samara, Russia, yesterday in memory of READ, PAGE 15; ANJANA AHUJA, PAGE 16
Russian soldiers killed in the war
against Ukraine. i German inflation slows
Russia’s defence ministry has admit- Price pressures in the eurozone’s
ted that at least 63 soldiers were killed in biggest economy have subsided
Ukrainian strikes on New Year’s eve at a more than expected, providing
temporary barracks in Russian- relief for the European Central
occupied Makiivka. Bank in its inflation fight.— PAGE 2
Russian nationalists and some law-
makers have demanded punishment for i $4bn Blackstone boost
commanders they accuse of ignoring The University of California’s
risks before one of the deadliest strikes endowment has said it will invest
of the Ukraine conflict. Kyiv and some in the firms’s real estate trust,
Russian bloggers have put the death toll boosting Blackstone shares by
in the hundreds, though pro-Russian 3 per cent after the news.— PAGE 6
officials deny the estimates.
Meanwhile, diplomats in the EU are i Israel minister stirs anger
growing more concerned that divisions New far-right national security
between Ukraine and Hungary might minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has
hurt the bloc’s ability to help Kyiv beat visited the al-Aqsa mosque
Moscow’s next onslaught. compound in Jerusalem, long a
Hungary-Ukraine feud page 4 flashpoint for tensions.— PAGE 4
Albert Dzen/Reuters

i TV show bonanza to end

Media analysts have predicted

Tesla shares slide after slowdown in

that the decade-long spending
boom will slow as lossmaking
streaming sites and traditional
channels cut back.— PAGE 6

demand as Apple’s value loses $1tn

i Asset managers eye cuts
Consultants have reported an
increase in requests for advice on
“efficiencies” from fund chiefs
facing hard choices on where to
invest for growth.— PAGE 7

3 Car deliveries fall short 3 Stock plunges 14% 3 iPhone maker hits logistics snags 3 Fears for tech sector
RICHARD WATERS — SAN FRANCISCO
Tesla shares tumbled on the first day of
trading in 2023 after the group’s new
vehicle deliveries fell short of Wall
Street expectations, on a day the US tech
rout also pushed Apple’s market capital-
isation $1tn below its peak.
Fears that the electric-car maker
faces a slowdown in demand sent Tesla
shares down more than 14 per cent
yesterday.
Apple’s market value fell below $2tn
in early trading, a stark reversal from
the first trading day of 2022 when it
became the only company ever to reach
a $3tn valuation.
The tech sector has been hit by inves-
tor fears of looming recession, persist-
rates, as well as severe disruption to sup-
ply chains because of Covid-19 in China.
Recent months have been chaotic for
Apple, which in November said it was
experiencing “significant” disruptions
in the assembly of high-end iPhones,
following an outbreak of Covid at a
megafactory in Zhengzhou, which is run
by Foxconn, its biggest assembler.
Tom Forte, an analyst at DA Davidson
& Co, said the Covid outbreak in China
was “the biggest wild card” for the com-
Elon Musk needs to steer
the carmaker through a
‘dark macro storm’ instead
of focusing on Twitter
pany’s results in 2023. Manufacturing
problems in China and the uncertain
economic outlook in the US have also
raised concerns over Tesla’s prospects.
Like Apple, the carmaker struggled
with production and logistics challenges
in 2022, including the closure of its larg-
est production plant in Shanghai early
in the year. Chief executive Elon Musk
also warned last month of “stormy
weather ahead” as higher interest rates
weighed on demand.
Tesla said it had delivered 405,278
vehicles in the three months to the end
of December, an 11 per cent increase
from the record it hit in the preceding
quarter. Most analysts had expected
deliveries to reach 420,000-430,000.
Daniel Ives, an analyst at Wedbush,
Tesla, adding that Musk needed to steer
the company through a “dark macro
storm” instead of focusing on Twitter,
his new purchase, “which remains a
distraction”.
The disappointment over the fourth-
quarter shortfall came despite record
quarterly deliveries in the latest three
months, as Tesla’s new plants in Berlin
and Texas continued to increase
production.
Apple was the first publicly listed
company to reach $1tn in market value
in August 2018, before hitting a $2tn val-
uation in August 2020 and then $3tn
last year. There are now no tech compa-
nies worth more than $2tn but Apple is
the largest, followed by Microsoft at
$1.8tn.
formed strongly during the coronavirus
pandemic and in the 12 months to Sep-
tember it reported a record $394bn of
revenue and nearly $100bn in net profit.
According to Counterpoint Research,
the company shipped just 14 per cent of
all smartphones globally in the first nine
months of the year, but it accounted for
43 per cent of all revenues and 82 per
cent of all profits — its highest profit
share since 2015.
However, recent months have been
chaotic for the tech giant, while the
threat to its production has grown in
recent months after Beijing loosened its
strict Covid restrictions. Cases in the
country are soaring.
Shopify ads fill Apple void page 7
Day in the markets page 10
Datawatch
High remand
Prisoners awaiting trial in England
and Wales
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
Sources: MoJ; HM Prison and Probation Service
The number of prisoners in England and
Wales awaiting trial or sentencing is at
its highest for at least 50 years. A quarter
are being held for non-violent drugs
offences, while one in eight has been held
on remand for more than a year

ently high inflation and rising interest said the “Cinderella ride” was over for The iPhone maker’s business per- Lex page 18

Reinsurance costs soar by up to 200%

as war and extreme weather take toll
IAN SMITH — LONDON published the report yesterday, “For property, this is the year that
described it as a “very late, complex and reinsurance has got back in the driving
The war in Ukraine and extreme
in many cases frustrating renewal”. seat and they’ve been very firm,” Gal-
weather events have driven up the cost
The cost of aerospace reinsurance lagher Re’s international chair James
of reinsurance by as much as 200 per
rose by between 150 per cent and 200 Vickers said. “They haven’t cracked.”
cent in crucial January renewals,
Meta faces tough choices according to a report, threatening to
per cent, as reinsurers adjusted for past He described the reinsurance talks as
over Trump and Facebook raise premiums and reduce what insur-
losses, as well as expected payouts from the “toughest [market] since 9/11”.
stranded planes and a legal battle with In another report published yester-
ers are willing to cover.
Analysis i PAGE 8 leasing companies in the wake of Rus- day, broker Howden said the cost of
January 1 is the key policy renewal date sia’s invasion of Ukraine. property catastrophe reinsurance had
for reinsurers, which share losses with Property catastrophe reinsurance, increased 37 per cent globally in the Jan-
Austria €4.30 Morocco Dh50
Bahrain Din1.8 Netherlands €4.30
primary insurers and so have a vital role which shoulders losses from hurricanes uary renewals, the largest rise in compa-
Belgium €4.30 Norway NKr45 in what can be insured and at what and other natural disasters, also rable data since 1992. Howden called it
Croatia Kn32/€4.25 Oman OR1.60 price. This year’s renegotiation of rein- jumped, with rates in the US increasing “one of the hardest reinsurance markets
Cyprus €4.00 Pakistan Rupee350
Czech Rep Kc120 Poland Zl 24
surance policies has been the most chal- by between 45 per cent and 100 per cent in living memory”.
Denmark DKr43 Portugal €4.00 lenging in years as reinsurers respond to for loss-hit policies, according to Gal- Higher reinsurance prices typically
Egypt E£80 Russia €5.00 pressure from spiralling inflation and lagher Re’s figures. feed through to the prices that insurers
France €4.30 Serbia NewD530
Germany €4.30 Slovenia €4.00
large losses from natural catastrophes, The broker put the rise down to the charge, although they can also choose to
Greece €4.00 Spain €4.00 as well as the fallout from Russia’s inva- impact of Hurricane Ian, which struck write business “net”, or without reinsur-
Hungary Ft1350 Switzerland SFr6.50 sion of Ukraine. Florida and South Carolina last year, as ance cover. The reinsurance price rises
India Rup220 Tunisia Din7.50
Italy €4.00 Turkey TL50
James Kent, global chief executive at well as the threat from inflation, which are expected to fuel an upswing in insur-
Luxembourg €4.30 UAE Dh23 reinsurance broker Gallagher Re, which drives up payouts. ance prices that has persisted for years.
Malta €4.00

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2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

INTERNATIONAL

France braced for price headwinds

Eurozone

after weathering financial storm
State aid shielded businesses from rising energy costs but many now face renewal of fixed-term contracts
SARAH WHITE — PARIS
MARTIN ARNOLD — FRANKFURT
France has so far avoided the bread
price rises sweeping Europe, an indica-
tion not just of the baguette’s role in the
country’s culture but also of Paris’s rela-
tive success in holding down inflation.
“Our prices have gone up at the slow-
est rate in Europe,” said Dominique
Antract, who heads France’s main fed-
eration for its 33,000 pastry makers and
bakeries.
From his shop in Paris’s well-heeled
16th arrondissement, Antract hails the
baguette’s “almost . . . sacred status”,
which has made many producers reluc-
tant to pass on increases despite the ris-
ing cost of flour. But he and the country’s
bakers and bread eaters have also been
helped by government measures that
shielded the economy from big swings
in energy costs.
While Europeans have, on average,
seen the price of a loaf rise by almost
a fifth, data from Eurostat, the Euro-
pean Commission’s statistics bureau,
showed annual bread prices in France
rose 8.2 per cent.
Economists maintain that energy
subsidies to businesses and households
lie behind France’s relative success in
keeping in check the galloping price
rises that have afflicted shoppers across
the continent.
Other European countries acted to
curb prices only after Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine sparked a surge in energy
costs, as well as in the price of wheat.
But French energy subsidies, spear-
headed by President Emmanuel
Macron ahead of his re-election last
April, meant Paris “got in very early”,
said Ludovic Subran, chief economist at
insurer Allianz. “It pretty much worked
— it was a good call.”
Unlike in other major European econ-
omies, including Germany, Spain and
the Netherlands, consumer price infla-
tion in France is unlikely to enter dou-
ble-digit territory, peaking at 7.1 per
cent in November, well below the
regional average of 11.1 per cent.
“France’s specificity is that it inter-
vened much earlier than elsewhere,”
said Anne-Sophie Alsif, chief economist
at consultancy BDO France. The lower
level of inflation had meant a less severe
cost of living crisis than faced elsewhere,
she pointed out.
France is now forecast, unlike most
EU countries, to avoid a recession in
2023, according to the country’s statis-
tics agency Insee, which even so fore-
casts that the country’s output con-
tracted in the fourth quarter and
expects growth to slow sharply this year.
The measures appeared to have been
inspired by political calculations, ana-
lysts said.
In the run-up to last year’s election,
Macron was keen to avoid a repeat of the
gilets jaunes protests that followed his
attempt to introduce a fuel tax in 2018.
He made the decision to freeze con-
sumer gas bills in November 2021, and
to offer energy support of €100 to just
under 6mn households in December
that year.
Since early 2022, rises in power bills
have been capped at 4 per cent for con-
sumers and the smallest businesses.
The measures, which included dis-
counts at the pump and cuts to electric-
ity taxes, cost the government just over
€34bn last year.
Turkey Turkish inflation fell for the second
CPI falls month in a row in December as
lower fuel and food costs drove a
more than steep drop in consumer prices and
expected in central bank policies eased
boost for pressure on the country’s currency.
Erdoğan Annual consumer price inflation
before poll was 64.3 per cent in December,
according to data from the state
statistics office yesterday. It was
the fastest drop in the annual rate
since 1995 after inflation reached
84.4 per cent in November. In
October, inflation hit a 24-year high
of 85.5 per cent.
Economists polled by Reuters
had forecast price growth of 66.8
per cent in December. The lower
annual rate benefited from an
easing of Turkey’s currency crisis.
Measures to prevent price rises,
which have included government
price inspections at grocery stores,
have “protected our citizens’
purchasing power”, finance minister
Nureddin Nebati said on Twitter
after the data were released.
Rampant inflation has harmed
the government’s popularity in
opinion polls ahead of elections
due by June. President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan recently
announced a round of spending
measures, including a minimum-
wage increase and early retirement
for millions, which could shore up
support for the ruling Justice and
Development (AKP) party.
The party is considering moving
the election “slightly forward” to
avoid the summer holiday season.
Ayla Jean Yackley, Istanbul
“There was no reason at the time to
bring in a power price shield for con-
sumers other than to stop people from
taking to the streets just before an elec-
tion,” said Subran.
Other factors helped tame inflation in
2022, economists say. French wage
increases were on average lower than
elsewhere in the EU, said Eric Dor, direc-
tor of economic studies at the IÉSEG
School of Management. France also had
a fiercely competitive supermarket sec-
tor, with large retailers using their mus-
cle to obtain low prices from suppliers,
he added, although some were now also
warning of rising prices.
Paris plans to spend close to €46bn on
further household energy protection in
2023, including limiting increases in gas
and power bills to 15 per cent. The gov-
ernment has also earmarked €10bn in
aid for companies to curb energy bills.
But some businesses are warning the
help may not be enough. Cofigeo, a food
group known for its William Saurin
France is avoiding the worst of the rising
prices faced by its European neighbours
CPI annual growth rate (%)
2018 19 20
Sources: OECD; National Statistics Offices
On display: canned cassoulet, has already said it will
sandwiches in temporarily halt production at four of
the window of its eight French factories in January,
a delicatessen since its renewed electricity contract
in Paris on means its bill is due to jump tenfold.
Monday. Figures Some energy-intensive businesses
out tomorrow such as steel and glassmakers have also
are expected to cut output. The largesse with subsidies
show a small could store up other problems, given
uptick in France’s debt level, warn economists.
inflation Following the €240bn in state aid
Cyril Marcilhacy/Bloomberg
rolled out to help French companies in
2020 and 2021 during the pandemic,
public debt is far higher than the euro
area average of 94.2 per cent, at more
than 110 per cent of output.
S&P, which recently revised the out-
look for France to negative from stable,
said there could be less room to move if
further economic shocks materialised.
“Higher interest rates [in 2023] will
challenge the strategy taken by the
French state,” said Sylvain Broyer, S&P’s
chief economist for Europe.
While inflation is falling elsewhere in
the eurozone, figures tomorrow are
expected to show a small uptick in price
growth in France. Inflation is likely to
peak in the first quarter of 2023, accord-
ing to the French central bank.
Many businesses, which do not bene-
12 fit from the power price caps but have
10 been protected by the fixed terms of
EU27 their energy deals, face renewal of the
8 contracts.
At Antract’s bakery, power costs are
6 set to rise fourfold in 2023 but state sub-
4 sidies should cover around half the rise.
France If bakers put up prices by 10 or 20 cents
2 per loaf, he said, most could muddle
0 through. “Some are freaking out, saying
they’ll have to close . . . but I’m telling
21 22
breadmakers they need to start passing
on some increases.”
German
inflation
slows to 9.6%
after relief
on gas bills
VALENTINA ROMEI — LONDON
German inflation slowed more than
expected in December, sliding into sin-
gle digits for the first time since the
summer and providing some relief for
the European Central Bank in its battle
to control price rises.
Consumer price inflation dropped to 9.6
per cent in the year to December, well
down on the 11.3 per cent registered the
previous month, after Berlin imple-
mented measures to shield consumers
from high gas prices.
The figure, published by the federal
statistical agency yesterday, was also
lower than the 10.7 per cent forecast by
economists polled by Reuters.
The eurozone’s largest economy is the
latest country to experience a sharper
than expected drop in price pressures.
The German data, down from a seven-
decade peak of 11.6 per cent in October,
follows a sharp fall in inflation in Spain
and may ease pressure on the ECB,
which meets to set rates on February 2.
Together, the German and Spanish
figures suggest that eurozone inflation
could drop lower than the 9.7 per cent
forecast by economists when data are
published on Friday. Robin Brooks,
chief economist at the Institute of Inter-
national Finance, a trade body for global
finance, said the fall meant that “the
peak of ECB hawkishness is behind us”.
The euro traded 0.9 per cent lower
against the dollar on the day, at $1.056.
“Headline inflation in Germany
seems to have reached its peak and,
unless there is another large surge in
energy prices, double-digit inflation
numbers should be behind us for a long
while,” said Carsten Brzeski, an econo-
mist at ING Bank.
But others cautioned that the nature
of the slowdown, in large part driven by
the government’s gas price brake,
meant the ECB remained likely to raise
rates by 50 basis points in February.
Energy inflation, which soared after
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, slowed to
24.4 per cent in December from 38.7 per
cent the previous month and well below
a peak of 43.9 per cent in September,
reflecting the government subsidies.
Meanwhile, services inflation, a better
measure of underlying price pressures,
accelerated to 3.9 per cent from 3.6 per
cent in November.
Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone econo-
mist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said
the services inflation figure was “un-
pleasant” and would embolden rate-set-
ters to continue on the hawkish path set
out in the December meeting. Vistesen
warned that, by boosting demand, the
government subsidies risked stoking
underlying inflation.
The 9.6 per cent data reflected so-
called harmonised prices, a pan-Euro-
pean measure. Separately, the German
consumer price index reading was 8.6
per cent, down from 10 per cent in
November.
Franziska Palmas, senior Europe
economist at Capital Economics, said
she expected German inflation to rise in
January, when gas and heating subsidies
end. “Headline inflation is still likely to
decline rapidly in March, but we think
the core rate, which probably rose in
December, will end the year well above 2
per cent,” she added.
Additional reporting by George Steer

Financial regulation

FSB chief says banks need incentives to tackle climate change

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LAURA NOONAN — BASEL
Attempts to convince banks to counter
climate change would fall short with-
out financial incentives such as a global
carbon tax, a leading regulator over-
seeing policy in the area has warned.
Dietrich Domanski, who as secretary-
general of the Financial Stability Board
helped to oversee attempts to put green
issues to the fore in banking, said in a
valedictory interview with the Financial
Times: “In the end we are talking about
profit-orientated institutions.
“As long as you do not provide the nec-
essary price signals, which then trans-
late into profits or profit expectations,
there is a limit to what one can expect,”
he said, adding that those “price signals”
would “ideally [be] a global carbon tax”.
Domanski’s remarks come after a
bruising year for banks and regulators
over climate-related reforms. A number
of US lenders threatened to quit Gfanz,
the green alliance set up by Mark Car-
ney, former Bank of England governor,
citing fears of legal ramifications.
Top global banks cut their fossil fuel
funding only slightly in 2021, according
to figures from the widely accepted
Rainforest Action Network. Domanski
also took aim at supervisors’ increasing
use of stress test exercises to police cli-
mate risk. He said a “market-based
solution” was likely to prove more effec-
tive than spending time on “detailed
and very expensive planning” exercises
into the cost of climate change.
The BoE carried out stress tests that
predicted up to £225bn of climate-re-
lated losses among the UK’s top banks,
while the ECB reviewed its banks’ expo-
sure and warned they had “signifi-
cantly” understated climate risks.
The outgoing secretary-general of the
FSB, which is responsible for studying
global risks to financial stability and
devising policies to mitigate them, said
climate change was one of the topics
that dominated last year’s meetings of
finance ministers, regulators and cen-
tral bankers in Basel. Others were
cryptocurrencies, rising interest rates
and the sharp growth in non-bank
financial institutions.
Global co-operation on financial serv-
ices regulation peaked in the aftermath
of the financial crisis, when policymak-
ers came together to deliver a landmark
package of banking reforms that forced
a sea change in how banks assessed and
prepared for risks.
The final piece of the post-crisis pack-
age, known as Basel 3.1 to regulators but
often referred to as Basel 4, was due to
come into force this month. But its
implementation has been delayed by
two years in big markets, including the
EU and the UK.
The EU has proposed so many devia-
tions to the original deal that its own
regulators warned the bloc risked being
deemed “materially non-compliant”.
Asked if the EU’s deviations could cast
doubt on the coherence of post-crisis
Dietrich Domanski has criticised
increasing use of stress test exercises
global policymaking, Domanski said
that if a main jurisdiction departed from
the global framework “my view is that it
does raise questions”. He added that the
impact would depend on a “separate
question” on the extent of the devia-
tions, and how “important” those differ-
ences were.
“After a global crisis in 2008, in the
face of this huge unprecedented shock,
there was a clear and very strong sense
of the need to act [decisively] at global
level,” Domanski said. “As the memory
of that crisis fades, that sort of momen-
tum becomes less strong.”
The FSB’s key climate change road
map, published in 2021 and updated
last year, called for regulators to seek
better climate-related data from the
financial sector, to conduct analysis of
financial institutions’ vulnerabilities to
climate change and to monitor risks.
Some national and regional regula-
tors, notably the EU, have mooted more
dramatic measures. These include cre-
ating “green supporting factors” to give
preferential regulatory treatment for
the financing of environmentally
friendly projects, or “brown penalising”
ones that pull in a different direction.
Wednesday 4 January 2023
Xi’s credibility
‘badly wounded’
by growing
Covid death toll
War games with Russia and sabre-rattling
over Taiwan fail to distract from crisis
EDWARD WHITE
CHINA CORRESPONDENT
As an unparalleled coronavirus out-
break swept through China in Decem-
ber, President Xi Jinping remained
mostly silent on the health crisis in the
world’s most populous country.
But during an annual pre-recorded
New Year’s Eve address on state televi-
sion on Saturday, China’s leader finally
made a call for unity while defending his
handling of the pandemic.
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic,
we have always put people first and life
first, adhered to scientific and precise
prevention and control, optimised and
adjusted prevention and control meas-
ures according to the time and situation,
and maximised the protection of peo-
ple’s lives and health,” he said.
“After arduous efforts, we have over-
come unprecedented difficulties and
challenges . . . While it is still a struggle,
everyone is working hard with perse-
verance, and the dawn is ahead. Let’s
work harder; persistence means victory,
and unity means victory.”
The ruling Communist party’s
attempts to play down and distract from
the worsening health crisis that has fol-
lowed Xi’s decision to drop almost all
Covid restrictions reflect the damage
wrought on his credibility at home and
abroad, just as he embarks on a third
term in power, say experts.
“Xi Jinping is badly wounded in the
sense that his prestige and authority
have suffered tremendously,” said Willy
Lam, a Chinese politics expert at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong. “His
claim the Chinese system is the best is
now subject to serious questioning.”
Before Saturday’s speech, Xi had not
directly addressed the pandemic’s
impact over the past three weeks, even
as infections hit fresh records and hospi-
tals and crematoria overflowed with the
sick, dying and dead. Instead, as hun-
dreds of millions got Covid-19, the mili-
tary went on naval war games with Rus-
sia, launched its third-largest air force
incursion around Taiwan and flew a
fighter jet within metres of a US military
aircraft in the South China Sea. On Fri-
day evening, Xi held a virtual meeting
with Russian president Vladimir Putin
and reaffirmed his support 10 months
after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
China on Friday reported just one
coronavirus fatality for the day before,
despite forecasts suggesting this win-
ter’s wave would cause millions of
deaths. The party has been left with the
awkward task of releasing obituaries for
deceased top cadres too noteworthy to
ignore. State propagandists have par-
roted party-speak but offered little by
way of explanation to citizens.
Lam said that for Xi, who had claimed
victory over the pandemic, one detri-
mental long-term threat was that the
harm was being felt “not only by ordi-
nary people, not only the disadvantaged
classes, but even senior cadres”.
Censors have struggled to staunch the
flood of complaints on social media.
Most have focused on the lack of prepa-
ration for the thinly resourced health-
care system ahead of the reopening.
“If [China] opens at the end of the
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
Infections The EU is expected to impose pre-
EU to require departure Covid tests on travellers
from China within days to try to
pre-travel prevent a surge in infections
tests on spreading to Europe.
visitors The “overwhelming majority” of
from China the 27 EU members asked for the
move at a meeting in Brussels
yesterday, a European Commission
spokesman said. France, Spain and
Italy have said they will introduce
controls on visitors from China,
such as a negative Covid-19 test or
proof of vaccination. EU health
commissioner Stella Kyriakides said
an emergency meeting today would
make the final decision.
The European Centre for Disease
Prevention and Control said the
variants in China were already
prevalent in Europe. Beijing
rejected an EU offer to send it
western-made Covid-19 vaccines.
Andy Bounds and Henry Foy
year, then what is the reason for so
many cities being closed down for three
months this year?” said one social
media user. “Why choose to open up in
winter when the virus is the most active
and the people’s immunity is weakest?”
John Delury, a China expert at Yonsei
University, Seoul, said “at a minimum”
the party leadership faced a “narrative
problem” of “how they explain to their
public what the hell is going on”.
“Some serious damage is being done
to public trust,” he said. “It’s going into
the public calculus about how compe-
tent their government is. This is the
worst possible start to Xi’s third
term. There’s no question that this
rebounds on his stature.”
The sudden pivot last month from
relentless lockdowns and mass testing
followed slowing growth in the econ-
omy, as well as rising public frustration
with officials’ draconian enforcement of
the zero-Covid strategy that culminated
in rare public protests in cities nation-
wide in late November.
3
‘Some serious
damage is being
done to public trust’
John Delury, China expert
Yun Sun, director of the China Pro-
gram at the Stimson Center, a US think-
tank, argued that the political legacy of
the zero-Covid policy would undermine
confidence in Xi’s decision-making.
“The question most contested is the
best timing for opening and the prepa-
ration the government should have
made,” she said. “The core is not
whether Xi lost credibility because he
changed the zero-Covid policy. Instead,
it is, if changing the policy was inevita-
ble, [why] didn’t he do a better job pre-
paring for the consequences?”
Diana Fu, an expert with the Brook-
ings Institution think-tank, said Xi’s
U-turn might have come too late to sal-
vage his reputation. “This reversal of
policy may be evidence the political sys-
tem under Xi is still adaptive and
responds to the cries of its citizens. Yet it
also underscores the degree of discre-
tionary power the top leader wields. The
lives of 1.4bn citizens hinge on what Xi
and his advisers decide on when to shut
down and when to open up the country.”
The image of competent virus man-
agement cultivated by Xi’s administra-
tion has suffered a heavy blow on the
global stage. Countries including the US,
Overwhelmed: Italy and Japan imposed negative Covid
a hospital in test requirements for air passengers
Sichuan from China amid a dearth of official data
province on and rising fears of new variants.
Saturday after Elizabeth Freund Larus, at the Pacific
Xi Jinping, Forum, a US foreign policy research
below, ended institute, said the measures highlighted
restrictions a “lack of trust” in Xi’s administration.
Chinatopix/AP
“US officials believe that the Chinese
government has been less than forth-
coming about the origins of Covid-19
and less than truthful about the number
of positive cases in China,” she said.
“The government allowed millions
to travel for lunar new year in 2020
knowing there was a new coronavi-
rus infecting the population. When
the mortality and infection rate
became evident . . . it was already
out of control in the US. Washington is
not going to make the same mistake
twice.”
Additional reporting by Xinning Liu and
Ryan McMorrow in Beijing
See the FT Big Read and Lex
Anjana Ahuja see the FT View page
4 ★
Jerusalem
Israel’s security
minister raises
tensions with
visit to holy site
Netanyahu coalition ally
Ben-Gvir in surprise trip to
al-Aqsa mosque compound
NERI ZILBER — TEL AVIV
Israel’s new national security minister
made a surprise visit to a flashpoint holy
site in Jerusalem yesterday, less than a
week after the new far-right govern-
ment led by Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu assumed office.
Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the al-
Aqsa mosque compound, Islam’s third-
holiest site known to Muslims as the
Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Tem-
ple Mount, just after dawn under heavy
Israeli security protection. His tour
lasted about 15 minutes and passed
without incident, authorities said.
Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician con-
victed of anti-Arab incitement in 2007,
was appointed national security minis-
ter in Netanyahu’s new coalition gov-
ernment, with expanded powers over
the Israel police. He has long called for
Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa.
The site is historically a flashpoint for
Israeli-Palestinian tensions. Hamas, the
Palestinian militant group, fought an 11-
day war with Israel in 2021 after weeks
of escalating clashes at al-Aqsa.
Five years of violence and bloodshed,
known as the second intifada, or Pales-
tinian uprising, erupted after an inflam-
matory visit to the site in 2000 by Ariel
Sharon, then Israeli opposition leader.
Yesterday’s visit comes as tensions
have mounted again between Israelis
and Palestinians in the West Bank, with
the past year the deadliest for Palestini-
ans in the territory since the end of the
second intifada, and the most lethal for
Israelis in at least six years, according to
Palestinian human rights organisations
and the Israeli military.
Ben-Gvir last visited the site in Octo-
ber as an MP, just before the November 1
election that returned Netanyahu to
Contracts & Tenders
Legal Notices
FINANCIAL TIMES
INTERNATIONAL
power at the head of a coalition govern-
ment considered the most rightwing in
Israel’s history. No Israeli minister had
ascended to Jerusalem’s holiest site in
about five years, analysts said.
Ben-Gvir later tweeted: “The Israeli
government of which I am a member
will not surrender to a vile murdering
organisation . . . if Hamas thinks if it
threatens me it will deter me, let them
understand times have changed.”
The Palestinian Authority foreign
ministry called the visit “an unprece-
dented provocation”, while Hamas said
it was “a continuation of the Israeli
occupation’s aggression against the holy
sites and its war on its Arab identity
. . . al-Aqsa mosque was and will remain
Palestinian, Arab and Islamic, and no
fascist force or person can change this”. Business goes on: an Egyptian street vendor waits for customers in old Cairo — Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters
Hamas has so far refrained from
threatening to respond with rocket fire
on Israel. The Israeli military said no
special deployments, such as increased
air defence cover, had taken place. Foreign currency crunch frustrates
key imports for Egypt’s businesses
Yair Lapid, Israel’s former prime min-
ister and current opposition leader, on
Monday called Ben-Gvir’s planned visit
a “deliberate provocation that will put
lives in danger and cost lives”.
Arab states, including Jordan, which
holds special custodianship at the site,
had warned the new government ag-
ainst any steps perceived as altering the Country struggles to bring in
“status quo” arrangements at al-Aqsa.
Under arrangements at the site, Jew- food and goods essential for
ish worshippers are allowed to visit the industry as reserves falter
compound but not pray, but ultrana-
tionalist groups recently have stretched
the meaning of “visit”, walking with po- HEBA SALEH — CAIRO
lice escorts and chanting incantations. With foreign currency in short supply in
“Jordan condemns in the severest of Egypt, importer Rafik Clovis spent
terms the storming of the Aqsa mosque December anxiously waiting to find out
and violating its sanctity,” its foreign whether his bank would be able to pro-
ministry said yesterday. The US said its vide the $67,000 he needed to fund the
ambassador had “been very clear in purchase of a consignment of car parts
conversations with the Israeli govern- from Europe.
ment on the issue of preserving the sta- But by the end of the year, the dollars
tus quo in Jerusalem’s holy sites. Actions were still not available. As a result,
that prevent that are unacceptable.” Clovis’s imports last year were just a
tenth of a normal year’s amount.
“Conditions are catastrophic,” he said.
“There are no dollars and I have no idea
how it will be resolved. I have five
employees, and now we are surviving off
what we made in previous years.”
The importer’s predicament is shared
by many businesses as Egypt struggles
with a foreign currency crunch. The first
three weeks of Russia’s full-scale inva-
sion of Ukraine in February led to $20bn
of outflows from the Arab world’s most
populous country as foreign portfolio
investors rushed to safe havens.
Despite $13bn in deposits from the
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and
Qatar and another $3.3bn in asset sales
to the UAE in 2022, foreign currency has
remained in desperately short supply
for the import-dependent country.
A week ago, PresidentAbdel Fattah al-
Financial Sisi said banks would secure the foreign
Europe
Hungary-Ukraine feud threatens EU unity on Russia
MARTON DUNAI — BUDAPEST
Ten months ago, Hungarian premier
Viktor Orbán denounced Russia’s inva-
Businesses sion of Ukraine and sheltered refugees
from its neighbour.
For Sale But since then, he has done little to
change his reputation as a friend to
President Vladimir Putin and a threat to
European unity in its support for Kyiv.
The populist prime minister has
diluted sanctions against Russia, denied
the transfer of weapons and other mili-
tary assistance to Ukraine and blocked
Kyiv’s talks on drawing closer to Nato.
So when Budapest lifted its veto on an
€18bn EU aid package to Ukraine last
month, diplomats and experts saw it as
just a temporary respite in a fraught rel-
ationship between Hungary and Uk-
raine. They said the countries’ divisions
could hit the EU’s ability to help Ukraine
beat Russia’s next onslaught.
“Ukrainian ties in Hungary’s thinking
have always been subordinated to Rus-
sian ties,” said András Rácz at the Ger-
man Council on Foreign Relations.
“Hungary was ready to ditch Ukraine
aid in the absence of an EU deal.”
Business for Sale, Business Opportunities,
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Hungary has used the Ukraine aid as a
Business Wanted, Franchises bargaining tool on its EU financing
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recovery funds worth billions of euros.
When the EU approaches that decision,
Middle East. Dollar outflows
currency necessary to clear a backlog of
imports within four days, without going
into detail. According to Mostafa Mad-
bouly, prime minister, $9.5bn worth of
goods are still held up at Egypt’s ports.
The Ukraine war’s inflationary
impact on prices for basic commodities
such as wheat — Egypt is the world’s big-
gest importer of the grain — has added
to pressures on the country’s foreign
currency reserves, forcing the Central
Bank of Egypt to devalue the pound
twice, in March and October. Inflation in
November reached 18.7 per cent, its
highest rate in five years.
For the fourth time in six years, Egypt
has had to go to the IMF, which last
month approved a $3bn loan over four
years. At the heart of the agreement is a
commitment by Cairo to move to a flexi-
ble exchange rate regime in which mar-
ket forces determine the currency’s
value — something Egyptian govern-
ments have long resisted.
In an effort to conserve foreign cur-
rency, the central bank placed restric-
tions on imports in March. A require-
ment to use letters of credit slowed the
process and created a backlog of unful-
filled demand for dollars. The bank can-
celled the requirement on December 29.
The two devaluations have reduced
the value of the pound from about E£16
to the dollar to E£24.7. The black mar-
ket rate is even lower.
The central bank increased interest
rates by 300 basis points on December
22, taking the overnight deposit rate to
16.25 per cent. The rise surpassed ana-
lysts’ expectations and reflected
any issue that requires unanimous
agreement, such as further aid to
Ukraine, might again fall hostage to
Hungary, other member states fear.
“The basic disagreement with Hun-
gary is unchanged and this will resur-
face as an issue in the spring,” said one
EU diplomat of the talks. “The EU was
willing to tolerate that unfinished busi-
ness now. The alternative would have
been complete isolation for Hungary.”
“An independent and sovereign
Ukraine is in Hungary’s national inter-
est,” Orbán said last month. “[But]
we’re not interested in decoupling the
European and Russian economies once
and for all, so we try to save all we can
from Russian-Hungarian co-operation.”
Hungary found itself in a precarious
position at the start of the full invasion
of Ukraine in February. It is among the
most dependent in the EU on Russian oil
and gas, and has been embroiled in long
disputes with Kyiv, especially over
minority rights for ethnic Hungarians.
Still, after securing exemptions on as-
pects such as energy import bans, Buda-
pest has voted for every EU sanctions
package against Moscow. And in recent
weeks, it has frozen €870mn of Russian
assets, the Népszava newspaper said.
Hungary intends to keep an open dia-
logue with Russia. It threatened to veto
sanctions in June unless symbolic lead-
ers, such as the pro-war Orthodox patri-
arch Kirill of Moscow, were spared.
increasing concern about inflation and
the falling pound, according to London-
based consultancy Capital Economics.
Businesses have been badly hit in a
country that imports most of its food
and many of the inputs for its industries.
As policymakers ponder when and how
to move to a flexible exchange rate
regime where the pound is not propped
up by the central bank, entrepreneurs
complain they have no certainty.
“We are working day by day,” said the
head of a poultry business who said
shipments of grain, mainly soya and
corn used for feed, were stuck at ports
‘Conditions are
catastrophic. There are no
dollars and I have no idea
how it will be resolved’
because of the dollar shortage. “Every
day we have to find feed, and we some-
times run out and the birds are not fed.”
He said the agribusiness had been
forced to “depopulate” some flocks by
selling birds at a loss. “The price is way
below cost and we know some of our
competitors have had to kill chicks.”
The lower supply of chickens being sold
for meat had increased prices by more
than 50 per cent, he said.
Mohamed Abu Basha, head of macro-
economic analysis at Cairo-based
investment bank EFG-Hermes, said the
shift to a flexible exchange rate could
not “happen overnight” and that the
authorities needed to “ideally first build
Hungary last month threatened to sink
the EU’s ninth sanctions package until it
won exemptions for Russia’s energy,
health and sports ministers. “Orbán is
openly offering escape routes for Krem-
lin officials,” said one senior EU official.
While other countries expelled scores
of Russian diplomats over allegations of
spying, Hungary hosts an embassy with
twice the staffing of Moscow’s missions
in Warsaw, Prague and Bratislava com-
bined, according to Political Capital
director Péter Krekó in Budapest.
Many Hungarians harbour a mistrust
of their eastern neighbours. Kyiv’s ban
on minority-language education, main-
ly targeting Russian speakers, has aff-
ected more than 100 schools for ethnic
Hungarians in western Ukraine. Buda-
pest has blocked Ukraine’s hope to draw
Viktor Orbán: Hungary premier has
diluted sanctions against Moscow
Wednesday 4 January 2023
up a buffer of foreign currency to help
clear the backlog of demand”.
Farouk Soussa, economist at Gold-
man Sachs, outlined the difficult
options facing Cairo as it sought to build
up liquidity to deal with near-term
demand for dollars.
“The CBE could clear the market by
continuing to raise rates, floating the
currency and restricting the money sup-
ply, but the implications for prices and
growth are problematic,” he said. “The
authorities’ preferred option is to wait
for inflows from the Qataris, the Emira-
tis and the Saudis to buy assets in Egypt,
but that is also uncertain.”
As policymakers weigh up the
options, the outlook for many busi-
nesses is uncertain. A senior manager
in a multinational car components com-
pany said his business had fared better
than most because it was also an
exporter, giving it access to foreign cur-
rency. But those reserves were being
depleted and the company was unsure
whether to accept new orders.
“I am not certain that I will be able to
clear imported inputs for a new order
and have to pay thousands in [holding
fees] as I wait for dollars,” he said. “If my
supplier abroad agrees to defer pay-
ment and I can get the goods out of the
port, maybe the dollar will have gone up
by the time I have to pay.”
He added: “It is also possible the auto-
mobile manufacturer I am supplying
here will have problems because [sup-
ply] of a different part has fallen
through, so there is no final product and
we all fail.”
closer to Nato, demanding it restores
these minority rights. At a November
meeting of Nato foreign ministers, Hun-
gary opposed the invitation of Ukraine’s
Dmytro Kuleba to formal sessions.
One Budapest retiree said the Ukrain-
ians “brought this war on themselves”
as its effort to join western alliances pro-
voked Russia, parroting a line often seen
in Hungary’s pro-Orbán media.
Zsolt Bayer, a publicist and associate
of the premier, has railed against Uk-
rainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy
as “an arrogant, dumb, corrupt, chau-
vinistic pig fed from America . . . ”
Ukrainians mistrust Hungary: 42 per
cent in a recent survey saw Hungarians
as hostile to Ukraine. Kuleba said last
week that bilateral ties would not
improve while Orban remained in
power. “Ukrainian-Hungarian ties are
at a minimum level,” the EU diplomat
said. “EU-Hungary ties are also abysmal
and Budapest turns to the Russians, who
welcome them and send them gas.”
Orbán anticipates a Russian victory,
saying in July that “the Ukrainians will
never win a war against Russia”.
“Hungary expected the war to go like
the annexation of Crimea in 2014,” the
diplomat said. “They wanted to wait
until it blows over. But things changed.”
He added: “Hungary is ill-prepared
for the complete decoupling from Rus-
sia that others now pursue.”
AdditionalreportingbyHenryFoy,Brussels
Wednesday 4 January 2023 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 5
6 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

FTX fallout Platform’s implosion sees global sports sector rethink lucrative sponsorship deals with digital asset groups y MARKETS

US university Down stream Decade-long spending boom on

original television content expected to slow
H20 hit with
record €75mn
invests $4bn fine by French
regulators
in Blackstone CYNTHIA O’MURCHU AND ROBERT SMITH
LONDON

property fund
French regulators yesterday imposed a
record €75mn fine on asset manager
H2O and banned its chief executive
Bruno Crastes from the industry for
five years over investments in illiquid
debt linked to controversial financier
Lars Windhorst.
3 California move locked in until 2028 The Autorité des Marchés Financiers

3 Outlay shores up confidence in Breit
ANTOINE GARA — NEW YORK
One of the largest endowments in the US
is making a $4bn investment into Black-
stone’s private real estate investment
trust, in a move intended to shore up
confidence in a $69bn fund that put lim-
its on investor withdrawals last year
after suffering heavy redemptions.
The University of California’s endow-
ment, which manages more than
$150bn of assets, said yesterday that it
would make the investment in the
Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, or
Breit, at its current net asset value. That
means that it is taking a large position at
the same valuation as more than
200,000 existing investors in the fund.
But Blackstone will in effect guaran-
‘We consider Breit to be
one of the best positioned,
large-scale real estate
portfolios in the US’
tee an 11.25 per cent minimum annual
return for six years. In exchange, the
endowment has agreed to lock up its
capital in the fund until 2028 while pay-
ing higher overall fees if the vehicle per-
forms well. Other investors do not bene-
fit from the same arrangement.
The investment was a “validation” of
Breit’s investment portfolio and per-
formance, said Blackstone chief execu-
tive Stephen Schwarzman.
In November, Blackstone limited
investor withdrawals from Breit after
breaching monthly and quarterly limits
on redemptions, an announcement that
cast doubt on the future expansion of
the fund and prompted a sharp slide in
the private equity group’s shares.
Breit has grown quickly in recent
years and accounts for a fifth of the
group’s fee-based earnings, according to
analysts. Blackstone shares increased
more than 3 per cent in early New York
trading following the announcement.
Its stock price has plunged more than
40 per cent over the past 12 months.
After the restriction on withdrawals
was put in place, Jagdeep Singh Baccher,
chief investment officer at the Univer-
sity of California, contacted Blackstone
to propose making a large direct invest-
ment in the fund. On December 8, he
spoke to Blackstone president Jonathan
Gray to propose the investment.
“We consider Breit to be one of the
best positioned, large-scale real estate
portfolios in the US, managed by one of
the world’s top real estate investors,”
Singh added. “This is an opportunity
that comes only through strong, trusted
partnership.”
While the university will be buying
common shares in Breit, it will then
move the investment into a strategic
venture it has created alongside Black-
stone. Its $4bn investment will be com-
bined with $1bn in shares Blackstone
already owns in Breit and moved into a
separate fund that carries a perform-
ance fee above an 11.25 per cent hurdle
rate. Blackstone would receive a 5 per
cent cash performance payment on any
returns in excess of that hurdle rate, the
group said in a statement.
Those fees would be on top of Breit’s
costs for all investors, including the Uni-
versity of California. Investors pay a 12.5
per cent performance fee to Blackstone
above a 5 per cent annual hurdle.
If the fund does not achieve an 11.25
per cent annual return, Blackstone will
return fees to the university until it
receives its guaranteed return.
Blackstone said that the investment
was advantageous to the firm and its
shareholders. It said it would make
money on the investment if Breit
returned an annualised return of at least
8.7 per cent over the next six years.
Despite hit series such as ‘Stranger Things’, Netflix plans to cut back on commissions for shows — Tina Rowden/Netflix
ALEX BARKER — LONDON
A decade-long spending boom on
original television shows is expected
to slow to a crawl this year as loss-
making streaming platforms moder-
ate budgets and traditional channels
cut back on commissions.
Analysts predict 2023 will be a pivotal
year for the video media industry,
which has been hammered by the
deteriorating economy and an expen-
sive transition from traditional televi-
sion to streaming, where most plat-
forms’ soaring content costs have yet
to be matched by revenue gains.
Overall spending growth on original
content is expected to fall from 6 per
cent last year to just 2 per cent in
2023, according to research group
Ampere Analysis.
Excluding production shutdowns
during the pandemic, the rate of
expansion is the lowest in more than a
decade where total worldwide spend-
ing jumped from $128bn to $243bn.
Commercial broadcasters such as
RTL, Mediaset and ITV face some of
the most severe pressure. Ampere
predicts total original spending will
fall by 3 per cent as the sector tries to
cope with an advertising downturn,
rising production costs and declining
audiences.
But streaming services have also
begun to enter more straitened times,
as media groups rein in costs to man-
age slower than expected subscriber
growth and ballooning losses.
Total content spending for sub-
scription streaming services, such as
HBO Max, Disney Plus and Netflix,
will continue to increase but at a rate
of 8 per cent rather than the 25 per
cent breakneck growth in 2022.
“Services will continue to focus on
original content to compete in a
crowded, cost-sensitive market, but
we are already seeing a shift in con-
tent commissioning to incorporate a
greater volume of cheaper unscripted
formats,” said Hannah Walsh,
research manager at Ampere.
Netflix, which accounts for about 25
per cent of spending on original
streaming shows, said it was holding
spending steady at about $17bn a year,
while trying to make its shows more
“impactful”.
Meanwhile, big legacy media com-
panies such as Disney, Paramount
and Warner Bros Discovery are facing
another year of heavy streaming
losses, with Morgan Stanley estimat-
ing content costs per subscriber will
be almost double that of Netflix while
revenue per member will be lower.
Excluding Netflix, Morgan Stanley
estimates streaming services suffered
operating losses of about $10bn in
2022. Losses are expected to peak for
some services in what analysts called
a “tipping point year” where it will be
clear costs are reaching “unsustaina-
ble levels”. “Streamers are raising
prices and cutting costs,” the Morgan
Stanley analysts wrote in a note to cli-
ents. “If these moves do not deliver
meaningful streaming profits, we see
two options (not mutually exclusive):
give up and/or consolidate.”
announced the fine on the same day that
H2O Asset Management said it would
start paying back investors some of the
€1.6bn trapped in its funds for more
than two years, in response to a repay-
ment by Windhorst’s firm, Tennor
Holding.
The French asset manager said yes-
terday that Tennor last month made a
“partial repayment” on a bond H2O
holds, which would reduce the amount
of debt outstanding by €250mn.
H2O added that this would allow it to
begin the “first repayment phase” in the
coming days, more than two years after
the asset manager hived off illiquid
assets linked to Windhorst, trapping the
savings of thousands of smaller inves-
tors.
“With this new milestone, H2O reaf-
firms its commitment to the full dis-
posal of the segregated assets,” the com-
pany said.
The announcement suggests that
investors will initially receive only a
portion of the €1.6bn frozen in specially
created sub funds that H2O set up to
hold Windhorst-linked assets in 2020,
after France’s financial watchdog asked
it to suspend several of its flagship funds
because it was worried about the valua-
tion of these assets.
The AMF also said yesterday that it
would fine Crastes €15mn, plus a €3mn
penalty for chief investment officer Vin-
cent Chailley, over what it has previ-
ously described as “grave” rule breaches
related to the Windhorst-linked invest-
ments.
H2O is also under investigation by the
UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and is
facing litigation in France from a group
of more than 3,000 clients, which last
year obtained a court order to appoint
an expert to review H2O trades linked to
Windhorst.
H2O said yesterday that all of its
investors would be “treated equally in
the execution of these repayments”.
H2O did not respond to a request for
comment. Windhorst declined to com-
ment.

Investors move to limit ‘overboarding’ roles of company directors

have taken a harder line, adopting a
INSIDE BUSINESS points-based system to assess whether
an individual is overcommitted.
TECHNOLOGY In the US, Institutional Shareholder
Services says it largely recommends
Anjli voting against or withholding votes
from directors who sit on more than five
Raval public company boards; or are CEOs of
public companies who sit on the boards
of more than two public companies
besides their own. In the UK, it has a
panies and not those at private firms,
charities or public institutions.
But the business world needs to get to
grips with overboarding. Not least
because the workload is increasing and
board meetings are more frequent. The
pandemic, the war in Ukraine and a glo-
bal energy crisis are just a few factors
destabilising corporations.
A heightened regulatory environ-
ment has also meant that the oversight

O
ne of Silicon Valley’s big-
gest names in venture cap-
ital learned the hard way
last year the limit of inves-
tor acceptance over how
thinly company directors can stretch
their time.
In May, the majority of Twitter share-
holders decided that Silver Lake’s chief
executive, Egon Durban, who made bets
on companies such as Alibaba and Air-
bnb, was juggling too many director-
ships on top of the day job and voted
against his reappointment.
It was a sign of how “overboarding”, as
it is put in corporate governance speak,
is a growing issue. But how many board
seats are too many? The answer
depends on who you ask. One UK busi-
ness leader I spoke to quivered at the
use of the word, wondering if I was going
to name and shame him as a serial direc-
tor. Others are pre-emptively declining
offers of board seats for fear of investor
wrath. Chairs are also turning away
high-calibre candidates.
The UK Corporate Governance Code
says if you are a top executive at a com-
pany, you should only take on one FTSE
100 non-executive directorship. For
chairs or other non-executive directors,
there is no limit but the individual must
“allocate sufficient time to the company
to discharge their responsibilities”.
Investors and proxy voting advisers
five-mandate limit where a non-
executive directorship counts as one
mandate, a non-executive chair counts
as two, and a position as executive direc-
tor is counted as three.
Most directors say numerical limits
are arbitrary. They do not account for an
individual’s own ability to manage their
time, the different requirements of each
board and the demands on individual
directors — for
example, whether ‘The expectations and
that person is on a
committee or not. demands of the role
Those who serve have increased even
on multiple boards
say frequently as the social credit is
overlooked is their probably less’
ability to share
experiences and expertise. “There are a
million shades of grey here that are not
being recognised,” said Kit Bingham,
head of the UK board practice at Heid-
rick & Struggles.
“The need to have sufficient time to
perform all your duties is sensible. But
when you put rules around this, that’s
where it gets tricky. It requires a more
detailed debate. But proxy advisers
can’t have a meaningful conversation
with every director so they go for a for-
mulaic approach.”
Even critics of those who collect board
seats believe the existing mechanism is
too narrow. Calculations tend to assess
board positions at publicly listed com-
role of a board has grown and compa-
nies need greater support from their
directors in navigating issues, such as
shaping a corporate response to political
matters. “When the company has a cri-
sis, then it can be daily calls and meet-
ings,” said Patricia Lenkov, an expert on
board recruitment.
While board positions can be lucra-
tive, the reputational risk has also risen.
A string of scandals in recent years —
from Boeing to Theranos — has brought
to light how a poorly functioning board
can lead to corporate disasters. “The
expectations and demands of the role
have increased even as the social credit
is probably less,” said Patrick Dunne,
who advises boards globally.
So what next? There is no easy maths
on overboarding. Ideally, there should
be a more nuanced conversation on
roles rather than strict limits. Keeping
tabs on attendance and the acceptance
of new board seats — which requires
more work for a director — is also key.
As for Twitter, Durban offered to
resign but was retained despite the
shareholder vote.
Just months later, Elon Musk dis-
solved the entire board after he took
over the company. Durban will not find
himself at a loose end, however. His Sil-
ver Lake profile page still lists 10 board
roles outside the company.
anjli.raval@ft.com
Wednesday 4 January 2023 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 7

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Financials Technology

Asset managers face a squeeze on costs Shopify plans

Hiring freezes and cuts in
bonuses loom after falling
markets put a dent in fees
BROOKE MASTERS — NEW YORK
HARRIET AGNEW — LONDON
Global asset managers are facing a long-
delayed reckoning in 2023 as falling
assets force them to cut costs and make
tough decisions about where to invest
for growth.
Revenues were down across the
industry last year, after a record 2021, as
falling markets across almost all asset
classes hit both management and per-
formance fees. In the US, total assets in
mutual and exchange traded funds
dropped 17 per cent between the start of
2022 and the end of October, the most
recent figures available from the Invest-
ment Company Institute showed.
Further, most money managers are
under pressure to find money to up-
grade their technology and win new cus-
tomers. As a result, they are squeezing
personnel costs through hiring freezes
and bonus cuts in the hope of avoiding
mass job losses. Consultants also
reported a sharp uptick in requests for
advice on “efficiencies”.
“There has been a lot of complacency.
A lot of players now really need to get
their act together,” said Markus Habbel,
a partner at Bain who focuses on the sec-
tor. “If you don’t have scale, it is getting
tougher.”
While the initial reaction to last year’s
turmoil has largely been generic belt-
tightening and small across-the-board
cuts, analysts predict this year will
require more strategic decisions.
“The temptation is to take a little bit
off everything. In reality, it doesn’t move
the dial,” said Julia Hobart, a partner in
the wealth and asset management prac-
tice at Oliver Wyman. “Managers will
need to decide what they will and won’t
focus on. Big structural changes need to
be made to take costs out of a business.”
Jeremy Taylor, who heads Lazard
Asset Management’s UK-based busi-
ness, added: “What does an asset man-
ager do as revenues go down? You tend
to do less of what hasn’t worked over the
past three to five years and put greater
Media. Regulation
scrutiny on things that haven’t
grown . . . you don’t give up on any scale
product.”
In fact, the stronger asset managers
are keen to press for gains while their
weaker rivals are making cuts.
“We continue to invest via the market
cycle into long-running trends that are
strategic priorities for us, including sus-
tainable investing, alternatives, active
management and exchange traded
funds,” said Patrick Thomson, chief ex-
ecutive for Europe at JPMorgan Asset
Management.
“If you invest significantly into those
trends through a downturn, it puts you
at an advantage where others may have
to cut back.”
Many asset managers are hopeful that
bond funds, which saw big price drops
and massive outflows as interest rates
rose, will start to recover in 2023.
Some also predict the downturn will
accelerate the shift by clients from tra-
ditional mutual funds and brokerage
accounts to newer ways of investing,
including ETFs, separately managed
accounts and model portfolios.
“Whenever there are super shocks in
the market, people make big changes to
portfolios. This is when people do defer-
red maintenance,” said Martin Small,
who heads BlackRock’s US wealth advi-
sory business and is its incoming chief
financial officer. “In US retail markets,
there’s a move from brokerage accounts
to fee-based advisory, that means more
model portfolios and more ETFs.”
advertising
push to fill void
left by Apple
crackdown
TIM BRADSHAW — LONDON
Shopify is seeking to fill a lucrative gap
in marketing data left by Apple’s pri-
vacy crackdown by offering retailers a
new way to target potential customers
through the world’s largest ad plat-
forms.
Harley Finkelstein, Shopify’s president,
said that after striking alliances with
Meta and Google in 2022, its “Audi-
ences” marketing tool was a key area of
focus at a time when an ecommerce
industry slowdown was forcing the
$46bn company to make cutbacks in
other parts of its business.
The new tool allows retailers to pool

Warner Music sidesteps ex-staffer’s board battle
Former talent scout fails to win
seat but US groups face wave of
challenges under new SEC rules
ANDREW EDGECLIFFE-JOHNSON,
PATRICK TEMPLE-WEST AND
ANNA NICOLAOU — NEW YORK
Warner Music has dodged a former
employee’s attempt to nominate herself
to its board, the highest-profile attempt
to date to use new governance rules to
wage a board fight, as US companies
brace themselves for a wave of similar
activist challenges.
Former WMG executive Dorothy
Carvello launched a campaign in early
December to put herself forward for a
board seat, relying on Securities and
Exchange Commission rule changes
that went into effect last year.
Carvello, who has separately sued the
company behind Lizzo and Bruno Mars,
has alleged a culture of sexual assault
and harassment going back to her time
as a secretary and then talent scout for
its Atlantic Records label in the 1980s.
But Carvello had failed to meet the
paperwork requirements for the com-
pany’s board nomination process, WMG
told the Financial Times. She intended
to try again this year, her spokesperson
said.
In September, the SEC made it easier
for even small activist shareholders to
canvas large investors. It also allowed
investors to vote for any combination of
board nominees, rather than having to
choose between rival slates picked by
the company and its antagonists.
“The SEC made this law that a minor-
ity shareholder can run for the board of
directors and I’m a shareholder of the
Warner Music Group and I wanted to
take advantage of it,” Carvello told the
FT last month.
Although WMG gave Carvello more
time to remedy errors in the notice
nominating her to its board, she did not
fulfil certain requirements under its
bylaws, a company spokesman said. She
was not a registered shareholder, having
bought her shares through Robinhood,
the online brokerage.
Carvello had been all but certain to
fail to secure a board seat, as WMG vice-
chair Leonard Blavatnik holds a con-
trolling stake. Even so, Elizabeth
Gonzalez-Sussman, a partner in Olshan
Frome Wolosky’s activist investment
practice, described her tactics as “a
smart strategic move”, probably costing
less to raise awareness of her claims
than pursuing them through litigation
would do.
Lizzo, a star WMG said it had made “significant
under Warner enhancements” to its policies and pro-
Music’s Atlantic cedures in recent years, adding that it
Records label. took allegations of misconduct seriously
Former WMG and was “consistently working toward
employee eliminating all forms of discrimination
Dorothy and harassment”.
Carvello, below The SEC rule changes heralded “a
Timothy Norris/Getty Images,
Amy E. Price/Getty Images
more active proxy [voting] campaign
season with many more entrants and
new insurgents,” said John Coffee, a
Columbia Law School professor.
“We are going to see a lot of new,
smaller insurgents who could not afford
the cost of a traditional proxy battle, but
[now] could nominate a single candi-
date,” he said. “So we are going to see a
lot of one-shot, single-candidate [nomi-
nee] slates being pushed by often a pub-
lic interest firm or someone who is not
an established player in this field.”
Shareholder activism had slowed in
the US early in the coronavirus pan-
demic and in 2021, as a roaring stock
market kept aggrieved investors at bay.
But 2022 saw a resurgence as stocks fal-
tered.
Many companies have a window open
until spring to nominate new directors,
raising expectations that the coming
weeks will bring more campaigns
fuelled by the SEC’s changes.
Aimco, a $5bn real estate investment
company, said last week that activist
investor Land & Buildings had secured
enough votes for one of its two board
nominees to replace the company’s
investment committee chair.
The new rules had also been used in a
campaign at a small biotech company,
Aim ImmunoTech, but the Aimco vote
marked the first time that they had
played a role in toppling a sitting direc-
tor.
These campaigns have caught the
attention of law firms that advise large
companies on defending themselves
against activist attacks, leading some
companies to rewrite their bylaws to
make it harder for activists to nominate
directors.
SEC rule Carvello’s campaign also illustrated a
looming fear for companies: that the
changes SEC’s new rules offer activists an inex-
herald ‘a pensive way to gain the attention of
large institutional investors even if their
more active campaigns are likely to fail.
proxy Strive Asset Management — a con-
servative-leaning investor that has criti-
[voting] cised sustainable investing — claimed
campaign victory at ExxonMobil last month when
the oil major announced two new board
season with directors. Last year Strive had called on
many more the company to replace directors it
characterised as being excessively
entrants’ focused on climate change risks.
Although it said ExxonMobil had
pushed back on its proposals, Strive
greeted the directors’ appointment as
evidence of its “shareholder impact”.
“[Companies] are worried about
these single-issue directors,” said
Melissa Sawyer, a partner at law firm
Sullivan & Cromwell.
The SEC’s rule change “significantly
lowers the cost of running a campaign
for activists” because they could now
mail a postcard to solicit shareholder
votes rather than a big package of mate-
rials, she said. Activists “still have to
mail something, but it is now two pages
versus 100 pages. When you have to
mail to 100,000 shareholders, that cost
is actually a meaningful difference.”
their customer data and upload it to
Meta and Google’s advertising plat-
forms. Marketers are then able to target
ads at “lookalike” customers who might
be more likely to buy their products
because they bought similar items from
another retailer.
The system is designed to skirt
Apple’s rules against tracking iPhone
users, which put a multi-billion-dollar
dent in the online advertising industry
last year, and compete with Amazon’s
fast-growing ads business.
Though Shopify Audiences is not yet a
significant money-spinner, it could offer
a much-needed growth opportunity at a
time when a looming recession and
‘Especially right now,
merchants want to be able
to find more customers’
Harley Finkelstein
cash-strapped consumers are squeezing
retailers. “Especially right now, mer-
chants want to be able to find more cus-
tomers,” said Finkelstein.
Shopify’s stock price increased almost
fivefold between the start of the pan-
demic and November 2021, as lock-
downs forced retailers and consumers
to turn to ecommerce in unprecedented
numbers. But its shares have lost three-
quarters of their value since 2021’s peak,
leaving them close to where they were
before the pandemic hit.
Finkelstein said Shopify was prioritis-
ing initiatives with a “much shorter-
term payback”, including expanding its
business lending arm, Capital, to new
regions, and its fulfilment network,
which was boosted by its $2.1bn acquisi-
tion of Deliverr in July. While fulfilment
and lending are years-old initiatives,
Shopify’s Audiences marketing tool is its
newest project.
Advertising has already become a big
business for Shopify’s rival Amazon,
which allows third-party merchants to
promote their products on its site. Ama-
zon’s advertising revenue grew by 30 per
cent, excluding currency fluctuations,
in the third quarter of 2022 to $9.5bn.
Shopify’s pitch is that it can offer
retailers similar targeting capabilities as
Amazon but beyond the confines of the
Seattle-based retailer’s online store,
including through Instagram, Google
search results and YouTube. Merchants
can opt in to adding their customers’
information to a pool that Shopify says
also constitutes “first party” data.
But some retailers are nervous about
sharing data with a larger group that
might include rivals, who could then
target their customers. “There’s always
going to be some apprehension about
sharing data,” Finkelstein said. “But
that’s often offset by, net net, am I mak-
ing more money, am I selling more?”

Industrial goods Travel & leisure

Panasonic targets growth in US and China
ERI SUGIURA AND KANA INAGAKI
TOKYO
Panasonic will pursue growth in the US
and China as the Tesla supplier bolsters
cash management to navigate the
headwinds of the technology dispute
between the world’s two largest econo-
mies.
Chief executive Yuki Kusumi said the
Japanese conglomerate would also con-
duct a review to streamline its vast busi-
ness portfolio, which spans car batter-
ies, air conditioners and microwave
ovens, after two years of trying to make
its operations more nimble and cost-ef-
ficient.
“It is true that the decoupling of the
US and China is becoming a bigger chal-
lenge for us,” Kusumi said. “But both . . .
are major markets that will steadily
grow. For us, both markets are impor-
tant, and we will bring each of these
businesses to a state where they will be
less vulnerable to political influence.”
The US is a particularly important
market for Panasonic’s car battery busi-
ness. The Japanese group runs a $5bn
gigafactory in Nevada with electric vehi-
cle maker Tesla.
Panasonic plans to invest $4bn to
build a plant in Kansas, a decision
Kusumi said was aided by the passage of
US president Joe Biden’s Inflation
Reduction Act, which includes $369bn
of incentives to fund clean energy.
The Kansas factory is likely to be
partly funded by the ¥400bn ($3bn)
Panasonic has set aside to invest in
growth areas such as EV batteries, sup-
ply chain software and air conditioners
until March 2025. Another ¥200bn has
been earmarked to develop hydrogen
fuel cells and other new technologies.
But Panasonic has also made an
aggressive wager on the expansion of its
home appliances and housing equip-
ment business in China. Kusumi said
the company might try to sell products
made in China in Asian markets that do
not fall under US export controls
designed to obstruct Beijing’s access to
advanced semiconductors.
“To be frank, we cannot be optimistic
about the market conditions,” Kusumi
said, adding that the tougher outlook
would increase the need for each of Pan-
asonic’s divisions to be more vigilant
about inventory management.
In late October, Panasonic down-
graded its annual operating profit fore-
cast by 11 per cent to ¥320bn, blaming a
slowdown in its automotive business
and US supply chain specialist Blue Yon-
der, which it acquired for $7bn in 2021.
The geopolitical challenges have
emerged as Kusumi tries to take Pana-
sonic to its next phase of growth. Since
taking over as chief executive in April
2021, he has shelved a restructuring of
non-core assets and pivoted the group to
focus on green transition efforts. “We’re
going to shift to a new form of portfolio
management that involves more than
just carve-outs,” he said.
Cineworld to seek a buyer for all its assets
ALISTAIR GRAY — LONDON
Cineworld, the cinema operator in US
bankruptcy protection, is to sound out
prospective buyers as the London-
listed company tries to avoid being
picked apart piecemeal.
The world’s second-biggest cinema
operator said it would launch a formal
sales process this month to find poten-
tial buyers for all of its assets, not just
some of them.
The company’s larger US-based rival
AMC said last month that it had held
talks with some lenders to Cineworld,
which have an influential role in deter-
mining its future, to buy some of its cin-
emas in the US and Europe.
But in its statement yesterday Cine-
world, run by chief executive Mooky
Greidinger, said neither it nor its advis-
ers had been party to those discussions.
The company added: “Cineworld also
understands that neither the ad hoc
group of lenders under the group’s 2018
credit facility nor its advisers were party
to discussions with AMC.”
Despite the recent release of block-
busters including the Avatar sequel and
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Cine-
world warned that shareholders were
still at risk of having all their financial
interests wiped out. There was still “no
guarantee of any recovery” for equity
‘[Cineworld] has not
initiated a . . . process for
the sale of any of its assets
on an individual basis’
owners as a result of the financial
restructuring, the company said.
Cineworld has become a prime exam-
ple of the financial woes of the cinema
industry, which was hit hard by
enforced closures during the pandemic
and has had mixed success in wooing
audiences back. The company’s prob-
lems have been compounded by its debt
burden, which was accumulated in part
to fund the acquisition of Regal Cinemas
in the US in 2017 and stood at $5.2bn at
the end of June. An abandoned takeover
of Canadian rival Cineplex, and ensuing
legal battle, added to the pressure.
Cineworld, which runs Picturehouse
and the namesake chain in the UK as
well as cinemas in several countries in
eastern Europe, burnt through $145mn
of cash in the first half of last year.
It filed for Chapter 11 protection in the
US in September after its recovery in
admission numbers fell short of those
required to avoid bankruptcy.
AMC, which owns Odeon in the UK,
said last month that no agreement had
been reached with Cineworld’s lenders
and no talks were ongoing.
Cineworld said it had “not initiated
and does not intend to initiate a sepa-
rate marketing process for the sale of
any of its assets on an individual basis”.
See Lex
8 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Meta prepares for divisive decision

Technology

Google builds
free tool to
on lifting Trump’s Facebook ban police online
terrorism
Former president’s potential return to social media platform raises issues of free speech and censorship
CRISTINA CRIDDLE — LONDON

Google is developing a free moderation

HANNAH MURPHY — LONDON
Meta is preparing to announce whether
it will allow Donald Trump back on to
Facebook and Instagram, in what is the
most polarising moderation decision
that the US tech giant has made to date.
Trump, whose use of social media
helped him secure the presidency in
2016, was suspended from Meta’s plat-
forms for inciting violence soon after a
group of his supporters stormed the US
Capitol in January 2021.
The $300bn company has previously
said it will decide whether to allow the
former president to return by January 7.
But that decision is now expected to be
announced later in the month, accord-
ing to a person with knowledge of the
deliberations.
Trump’s fate, just as he ramps up a
2024 bid for the White House, will be the
biggest test of authority yet faced by
Meta’s president of global affairs Nick
Clegg, according to insiders. The former
UK deputy prime minister is to oversee
the decision after taking on an expanded
role, leading the company on policy
matters.
Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg, who has
previously made the final decision on
moderation matters, is now focused on
product and his metaverse vision — but
could yet step in as chief executive, chair
and controlling shareholder.
The company has set up a working
group to focus on the matter, according
to people with knowledge of its opera-
tions. The group includes staffers from
the public policy and communications
teams, the content policy team headed
by Monika Bickert and the safety and
integrity teams led by Guy Rosen.
Clegg declined to comment. In Octo-
ber, he said at a conference held by the
Council for Foreign Relations: “We
believe that any private company — and
this is really regardless of one’s personal
views about Donald Trump — should
tread with great thoughtfulness when
seeking to, basically, silence political
voices.”
The outcome will be divisive. Experts
say that continuing to bar Trump from
the platform will inflame tensions with
Republican allies of the former presi-
dent who accuse Meta of censoring con-
servative views; other left-leaning
groups argue that it is irresponsible and
harmful to democracy to allow his
return.
“It’s still a judgment call,” said Katie
Harbath, fellow at the Bipartisan Policy
Center and a former Facebook public
policy director managing elections.
“It’s an impossible trade-off and both
decisions come with some tricky conse-
quences.”
It comes after Elon Musk, Twitter’s
new owner, recently revoked a perma-
nent ban of Trump on his platform after
polling users, although the former presi-
dent has yet to post anything there since
the reversal.
Trump has mainly posted messages
on Truth Social, a rival social media site
that he set up and controls.
The decision will also have implica-
tions for Meta’s $118bn-a-year business,
potentially driving away advertisers if
Trump’s content is viewed as danger-
ous, while also bringing in more busi-
ness if his campaign chooses to adver-
tise on the platform ahead of the 2024
election.
The former president was sus-
pended “indefinitely” the day
after the attack on the US Capi-
tol building in Washington, for
what Zuckerberg described as
his decision “to incite violent
insurrection against a demo-
Above, from cratically elected government” and
left: Mark “condone not condemn”.
Zuckerberg, That decision was upheld by Meta’s
who imposed oversight board, a Supreme Court-style
the ban; Donald body made up of academics and experts
Trump, who was that assesses moderation decisions and
accused of that Clegg was instrumental in setting
inciting up. But the board took issue with the
violence; and lifetime ban, ordering Meta to revisit its
Nick Clegg, who decision within two years.
will oversee the Meta has said it would consult experts
decision on and undo its strongest rebuke of a global
whether to leader only when the risk to public
reinstate the safety had receded. If lifted, there would
ex-president. be a “strict set of rapidly escalating sanc-
Below: Monika tions that will be triggered if Mr Trump
Bickert, head of commits further violations in future”, it
Meta’s content said in June, citing the permanent
policy team removal of his pages and accounts as the
FT montage/AFP via Getty
Images/Dreamstime
harshest potential punishment.
Meta declined to comment further on
its process for deciding whether Trump
is to remain barred, and which experts it
has been consulting.
Some academics argue that Trump’s
rhetoric remains a risk to public safety.
Last month, a study by left-leaning
advocacy group Accountable Tech sug-
gested that 350 posts from Trump’s
account on Truth Social would violate
Facebook’s policy rules.
Among them, there were more than
100 posts amplifying followers and
sympathisers of QAnon, the pro-
Trump conspiracy group that Meta
banned from its platforms after the
FBI labelled it a domestic terror
threat. Around 240 posts were ped-
dling “harmful election-related
disinformation”, according
to the report.
“If Facebook looks at
what Trump has been
putting out publicly in the
past few years, it is clear he
is not a reduced threat to
‘If Facebook safety. If anything, he has gotten more
emboldened,” said Nicole Gill, co-
looks at founder and executive director of
what Accountable Tech. “Facebook has a
huge responsibility here.”
Trump has Anupam Chander, a professor in glo-
put out, bal internet regulation at Georgetown
University, agreed but noted one diffi-
it is clear culty for Meta was that Trump’s speech
he is not was often vague enough that it could be
“read in more ways than one”.
a reduced He said: “It depends on how you want
threat to to read the statement. The internet plat-
forms are in an impossible place.”
safety’ Some of Trump’s Republican support-
ers argue there is no clear imminent
threat to safety linked directly to the
former president. Other experts raise
concerns around the implications for
free speech.
“If they do keep him off . . . political
speech is among the most protected and
‘If they do I really worry about the direction this is
going to send us in,” said Harbath, who
keep him is also the director of technology and
off . . . I democracy for the International Repub-
lican Institute.
really She and others warn that barring a
worry presidential candidate from a platform
sets a dangerous precedent that could
about the embolden leaders in other countries to
direction try to suppress speech from rivals.
“Meta is making these decisions in the
this is context of US politics,” said Casey Mat-
going to tox, senior fellow for free speech at the
right-leaning Charles Koch Institute.
send us in’ “But the reality is that the decision that
it makes in US circumstances has impli-
cations outside of the US context.”
Mattox added: “Authoritarian gov-
ernments are no doubt looking at argu-
ments made by democracies that are
intended to protect the democracy —
but that also provide tools for authori-
tarian governments to . . . protect their
own power.”
tool that smaller websites can use to
identify and remove terrorist material,
as new legislation in the UK and EU
compels internet companies to do
more to tackle illegal content.
The software is being developed in part-
nership with the search giant’s research
and development unit Jigsaw and Tech
Against Terrorism, a UN-backed initia-
tive that helps tech companies police
online terrorism.
“There are a lot of websites that just
don’t have any people to do the enforce-
ment. It is a really labour-intensive
thing to even build the algorithms [and]
then you need all those human review-
ers,” said Yasmin Green, chief executive
of Jigsaw. “[Smaller websites] do not
want Isis content there, but there is a
tonne of it all over [them],” she added.
The move comes as internet compa-
nies will be forced to remove extremist
content from their platforms or face
fines and other penalties under laws
such as the Digital Services Act in the
EU, which came into force in November,
and the UK’s Online Safety bill, which is
expected to become law this year.
The legislation has been pushed by
politicians and regulators across Europe
who argue that Big Tech groups have not
gone far enough to police content
online.
But the new regulatory regime has led
to concerns that smaller start-ups are
not equipped to comply and that a lack
of resources will limit their ability to
compete with larger tech companies.
“I have noticed a big shift in the [lead-
ing] platforms becoming much more
effective at moderating, and that pushes
terrorist content and Covid hoax claims
to [other sites],” Green said.
A report by the Global Internet Forum
to Counter Terrorism in 2021 estimated
that for every 10,000 posts on Face-
book, six would contain terrorist or
extremist content. On smaller plat-
forms, this figure could be as high as
5,000, or 50 per cent of content.
GIFCT, a non-governmental organisa-
tion founded by Facebook, Microsoft,
Twitter and YouTube in 2017 to foster
partnerships between many tech plat-
forms, is supporting the project by Jig-
saw. The non-governmental organisa-
tion has a database of terrorist content
shared across its membership of tech
companies, which moderation systems
can use to detect existing materials.
On December 13, Facebook and Insta-
gram owner Meta launched open-
source software that other platforms
can deploy to match terror content to
existing images or videos in the data-
base and highlight them for urgent
human review.
Jigsaw’s tool aims to tackle the next
step of the process and help human
moderators make decisions on content
flagged as dangerous and illegal. It will
begin testing with two unnamed sites at
the beginning of this year.
Jigsaw has about 70 staff, primarily
based in Google’s offices in New York.
Green, who became chief executive in
July, said the lossmaking division was
not expected to become profitable, add-
ing: “There’s an understanding that
there’s a long-term business
return . . . Google needs a healthier
internet. We are helping Google and
helping the internet in a way that deliv-
ers value even though it isn’t monetary.”

Energy. Investment

US nuclear industry enjoys revival as public and private funding pours in

Backers hail ‘inflection point’
after carbon reduction drive
brings sector in from the cold
MYLES MCCORMICK — NEW YORK
The US nuclear industry has hailed
2022 as an “inflection point”, with surg-
ing private investment and unprece-
dented government support breathing
new life into a sector that fell from
favour in recent decades.
Federal legislation enacted in the past
18 months will pump about $40bn into
the sector over the coming decade,
according to industry estimates, while
roughly $5bn in private funds has
flowed into companies designing new
types of reactor in the past year alone.
“It’s a really great investor environ-
ment — both publicly and privately,”
said Ryan Norman, analyst at energy
think-tank Third Way. “There’s federal
recognition that nuclear energy tech-
nologies have a key role to play in the US
energy future,” he said. “No matter how
you cut it, we’re talking about billions of
dollars being poured into these
advanced reactor companies.”
The influx of funding comes as
nuclear power, long dogged by safety
concerns and investor skittishness
over costs, has re-emerged as a central
element in the fight against
climate change.
Nuclear can provide a baseload of car-
bon-free power at scale 24 hours a day,
regardless of weather, making it much
more reliable than intermittent renewa-
ble sources such as wind and solar.
“What we’re going through now isn’t
so much a renaissance as it is an enlight-
enment,” said Craig Piercy, head of the
American Nuclear Society. “Leaders in
industry and in government are really
getting down to the hard math of ‘how
do we get on the path toward deep
decarbonisation?’”
The US has the world’s biggest nuclear
fleet, with 93 reactors that provide
about 20 per cent of the nation’s power
— and half of its carbon-free power.
In recent years high-efficiency tur-
bines, cheap natural gas and renewable
generation supported by subsidies have
driven down wholesale power costs.
Nuclear, where costs are largely fixed,
has found it difficult to compete. Thir-
teen reactors have been closed since
2013, prompting warnings that
without intervention half the existing
fleet would be out of action by the end of
the decade.
But a concerted push by the federal
government to support the sector has
stemmed the decline. The Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law passed in late 2021
set aside $6bn to prop up ailing reactors
through a civil nuclear credit pro-
gramme. California’s Diablo Canyon
plant in November became the initia-
tive’s first beneficiary, staving off shut-
down with a $1.1bn award.
The passage of the Inflation Reduc-
tion Act in August offered more federal
The Diablo
Canyon nuclear
power plant in
California has
been saved from
imminent
closure by a
$1.1bn federal
government
award — Lionel Hahn/
Abacapress.com
handouts to struggling reactors, intro-
ducing a production tax credit of up
to $15 per megawatt hour to prop
up plants.
“What we’ve witnessed in the last 12
to 18 months is a generational invest-
ment,” said Piercy, who estimates the
two pieces of legislation combined could
provide as much as $40bn in support.
That would be the most since the indus-
try’s infancy in the 1950s and 1960s,
when the Department of Defense
invested heavily in naval reactors that
were later spun out into commercial
power-generation technology.
“I think this year will be remembered
as a positive inflection point for
nuclear,” he added.
Private funds are also flowing rapidly
into the sector as companies look to
develop new types of reactor that are
nimbler, smaller, cheaper and safer
than traditional large-scale nuclear. The
Nuclear Energy Institute estimates that
more than $5bn in private investment
has been pumped into advanced
nuclear companies globally over the
past 12 months alone.
Capping the year off, US government
scientists achieved a breakthrough in
the development of nuclear fusion tech-
nology, seen by many as the holy grail of
energy generation, by achieving a net
energy gain for the first time.
Unlike the fission process used in
modern reactors, which splits atoms to
create power, fusion melds them
together and could in theory provide
limitless power without creating long-
lived radioactive waste.
Despite the breakthrough, adoption
of fusion and the infrastructure to sup-
port it remains years off. But support for
the technology has taken off in the past
two years, according to Chris Kelsall,
chief executive of UK-based fusion
developer Tokamak Energy.
“It’s been a palpable inflection in the
level of awareness, interest and engage-
ment with the investment community
— and also a noticeable enlargement in
the breadth, depth and diversity of
counterparties that are interested in
participating in the fusion journey,” he
said. “There’s a bright future for nuclear
technology, both fission and fusion.”
Wednesday 4 January 2023 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 9

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Fixed income. Reduced exposure

US junk loan investors braced for

jump in defaults and downgrades
Shrinking demand for risky
corporate debt could threaten
ability of groups to refinance
HARRIET CLARFELT — NEW YORK

The biggest buyers of US junk loans are

expected to shrink their exposure to the
$1.4tn market in 2023 as the Federal
Reserve’s campaign of interest rate rises
sparks rating downgrades and defaults.
Collateralised loan obligation vehicles
own roughly two-thirds of America’s
low-grade corporate loans — but may be
forced to reduce their exposure because
of credit downgrades, which could
unsettle the markets and make it harder
for companies to obtain financing.
CLOs, which package up such loans
into various risk categories before
selling the slices on to investors, have
performed well during tough economic
times but analysts say mechanisms
designed to protect investors holding
higher-quality tranches could reduce
the vehicles’ appetite for loans to risky,
highly indebted borrowers.
US CLO issuance ballooned during
the depths of the pandemic, reaching
an unprecedented $183bn in 2021 as
near-zero borrowing costs sparked a
broader explosion of capital market
activity.
Even as the Fed tightened monetary
policy last year to tackle inflation and
other parts of the global fixed income
market stuttered, CLOs raised a further
$126bn — the third-largest annual
figure on record, according to data from
Refinitiv.
But CLOs have caps on how much
very low-grade debt they can hold
with a typical threshold of 7.5 per cent
for triple C buckets containing highly
risky loans carrying ratings near the
bottom of the quality spectrum.
Against a backdrop of higher Walking back: bit,” said Steve Caprio, head of 2022 was third-strongest year on record for US CLO issuance reducing their demand for loans ranked
borrowing costs sparked by Fed rate Wall Street’s European and US credit strategy at just above this level.
$bn
rises and fears of recession, analysts are big banks have Deutsche Bank Research. “We’re talking But “that in and of itself, before the
warning that those limits will be pulled away about CCCs potentially going as high 200 problem emerges, will actually cause
breached. from the top as 12 to 15 per cent in the worst-case some issues within the loan market”.
When these protective switches are triple A tranches scenario.” 150 The pace of CLO issuance has slowed
tripped, cash flows to investors holding of CLO debt this Analysts at Bank of America expect in recent months while leveraged loan
the riskiest CLO tranches, known as year, analysts triple C buckets to increase to “8-10 per 100 sales were last year just over a third of
“equity”, can sometimes be cut off, are warning cent in a stress and potentially even 15 what they were in 2021. Even at the top
redirecting payments to investors Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
per cent in a severe stress scenario”, 50 of CLOs’ capital structures, demand has
higher up the pecking order. noting that the peak Covid triple C weakened.
Such a situation could also potentially concentration in CLOs was 10 per cent. “The US big banks have really pulled
0
reduce demand for fresh leveraged Swiss bank UBS also said “a surge in back” from the top triple A tranches of
lending just as many riskier borrowers leveraged loan credit deterioration 2000 05 10 15 20 22* CLO debt this year, Stroll said, “and have
start to think about how to refinance should increase [triple C] holdings in * Year to Dec 16 basically been out of the market for a
Source: Refinitiv
themselves after a burst of debt issuance CLOs to [about] 15 per cent, drying up host of reasons”. That “buyer base on
during the cheap money days of the demand from CLOs”. the [triple As] is just much, much
Covid crisis. Caprio added that it would be “There’s a lot of cushion before it vintages from the 2016 commodity smaller and so the ability to get transac-
“Leveraged loans, the underlying “difficult to entice a new investor” to really is a problematic dynamic for crisis”, said Rishad Ahluwalia at tions done is much more difficult”.
collateral in CLOs, are expected to face wade into the lowlier rated CLO CLOs,” said Jeff Stroll, chief investment JPMorgan. “The [triple C] ratios in the Many corporate borrowers
increased stress as interest costs are tranches when the risk of having regular officer at Post Advisory Group. last two to three years of CLOs are a lot refinanced and issued new loans when
rising and earnings are likely to drop payments turned off is “actually quite Stroll added that to reach a situation lower than the average.” interest rates were low, loading up on
simultaneously,” analysts at Barclays elevated”. where cash flows are diverted from the Ahluwalia said CLOs are now also cash and pushing out debt maturities.
wrote in December. “In our view, CLOs’ risk exposure varies and many riskiest CLO tranches there would need buying fewer loans from the ratings However, “it is critical to note the
issuers will likely face cash flow managers have built up protection to be “a lot of downgrades”, noting: “In category just above triple C out of majority of US and EU loan demand
pressure, eventually resulting in rising against overflowing low-grade debt our deals, we’d probably have to see concerns that if they are downgraded, originates from CLO managers”,
downgrades and defaults.” buckets. close to 20 per cent [triple C] baskets.” they will move down a notch and count Deutsche Bank said in a report last
For some CLOs, that would mean The share of triple C rated loans in Still, “there has been this kind of against the threshold. Our global month. “CLO formation depends on the
an uncomfortable overflow of triple C CLO portfolios has fallen to about 4 per sentiment shift you can feel towards Anticipating “very, very elevated” team gives you availability of investors to buy tranches
buckets and a desire to reduce exposure cent, Barclays said. “Thanks to CLO proactively trying to manage this as best downgrade rates for B and B minus market-moving ranging from [triple A] rated to B rated
to corporate borrowers at risk of managers’ active trading, defaulted as possible”, he said. rated loans into triple C buckets, Caprio news and views, credit quality. And that demand for
downgrade. assets in CLO portfolio has always been Concerns about overflows of low- concurred that CLO managers “will 24 hours a day [triple B] rated tranches and below in
“We’re not talking about breaching lower than the broader leveraged loan quality loans in CLOs were “probably probably try to avert the problem” of ft.com/markets particular will be severely tested in the
the 7.5 per cent threshold by just a little default rate.” more valid for pre-Covid and especially breaching 7.5 per cent thresholds by next recession.”

Crypto

FTX failure forces rethink on global sports sponsorship by digital asset groups
SAMUEL AGINI
The collapse of FTX is reverberating
beyond the worlds of crypto and
finance as the global sports industry
contemplates the future of lucrative
sponsorship deals with digital asset
companies.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the now-
disgraced founder of the crypto trading
shop once valued at $32bn, targeted
new audiences through brand-boosting
partnerships with top sports teams
across basketball, motorsport and
baseball.
Before filing for bankruptcy in
November, FTX plastered its logo on the
uniforms of Major League Baseball
umpires and the Mercedes Formula 1
cars driven by Lewis Hamilton and
George Russell.
In a 19-year deal inked last year worth
$135mn, the home of the Miami Heat
basketball team was renamed the FTX
Arena — while NFL quarterback Tom
Brady became an ambassador for the
crypto brand.
The deals were symbolic of the boom
in sports-crypto tie-ins that emerged
from the coronavirus lockdowns as
clubs and leagues looked to recoup
some of the billions of dollars lost as a
result of cancelled events and the
crypto industry found itself flush with
cash.
This included the likes of Crypto.com,
which struck a deal to sponsor this
year’s Fifa World Cup while blockchain
provider Tezos slapped its brand across
the training kit of English Premier
League club Manchester United.
Many European sports groups were
“quick to take the money”, said Steve
Martin, global chief executive of
M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment,
especially as they sought to replace
betting partners due to bans, or
potential bans, of gambling advertise-
ments in some jurisdictions.
“When crypto started to come in, it
felt like it was new and about
innovation,” Martin said. You have to
question how much due diligence was
done.”
Clubs and leagues began to pin their
hopes on such partnerships for future
revenues.
In February, Nielsen, a data provider,
projected that the value of sports
sponsorship deals with crypto,
blockchain and digital assets players
would reach $5bn by 2026, almost nine
times greater than in 2021.
But this would still be a fraction of the
total $46bn that sports marketing The threat is twofold: sp orts FTX’s implosion has set back the
agency Two Circles said was spent on businesses are at greater risk of trajectory of crypto sports sponsorship
sports sponsorship globally in 2019 — reputational damage if FTX-style by as much as five years, said Haider
the final full year before the pandemic. blow-ups become more prevalent. In Rafique, marketing chief at crypto
Nielsen warned it would be “vital for addition, crypto companies themselves group OKX, which sponsors English
organisations to properly vet sponsors are less able to splash out on Premier League champions Manchester
and not let revenue impede due sponsorship deals as the price of tokens City and the F1 motor racing team,
diligence”. falls and faith in the industry wanes. McLaren.
Rafique predicted a slowdown in new
sports sponsorships, though he
expected OKX to remain active in the
sector. “I think you’re going to see few
and far between,” he said. “There’s not
many of those companies that are able
to afford, you know, $50mn, $100mn,
$300mn deals over the course of a few
years.”
On top of the loss of trust associated
with FTX, a December report by sports
media company IMG and its digital
agency, Seven League, said the collapse
in crypto prices had weakened the
appetite for digital sports collectibles —
tokens known as NFTs that are issued in
partnership between digital asset
companies and sports groups and then
sold to fans.
The report found that the “conver-
sion” of sports fans into NFT enthusiasts
had been “a lot slower than expected”.
Sports clubs are likely to change tack
Pitted: FTX sponsored Mercedes Formula 1 cars — Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty in how they use the tokens. “For sport,
it’s likely in 2023 that the innovation
won’t be focused on using these new
technologies to solely make money
but instead to improve the relationship
with fans and customers,” the IMG-
Seven League report stated.
A December survey by the European
Sponsorship Association showed that
many in the sports industry said they
felt cautious about crypto partnerships
“or said they had already been
negatively affected by an alliance that
did not last”.
Rating agency Fitch also said it could
prove harder for sports clubs and
leagues to strike deals with potential
sponsors from all sectors this year
in the “worsening macroeconomic
environment” as cost pressures forced
companies to cut marketing budgets.
The pressure on sports clubs and
leagues to heavily scrutinise potential
sponsors will mount in the wake of
FTX’s collapse, said M&C Saatchi’s
Martin.
“People are now going to go into a
situation where they’ll be incredibly
wary because of the FTX fallout,” he
said. “They’ll have been banking on
millions in the coming years. If these
deals are unravelling, they’ve got to go
replace them.”
10
Venture capital’s
day of reckoning
looms closer
Daniel Rasmussen
Markets Insight
A
fter about a decade of signif-
icant outperformance cul-
minating in a Covid boom,
tech investors faced a sharp
reversal last year. By the
end of June, Nasdaq was down 29.5 per
cent and the Goldman Sachs Unprofita-
ble Tech index was down 52 per cent.
Yet one corner of the tech market was
strangely unaffected. The US Venture
Capital index compiled by Cambridge
Associates was down only 12.5 per cent
through the end of June (the last
available data). This gap between pri-
vate markets and public markets is the
largest since the dotcom bubble burst.
Few would argue that these venture
capital marks are accurate in aggregate
in any meaningful way — though
probably most venture capitalists
believe their own portfolio valuations to
be right. They reflect an accountant’s
appraisal of value, rather than the
market’s capricious judgment — and
thus tend to be significantly less volatile.
Academics have found that venture
capital returns tend to lag behind public
markets; the venture capital index looks
roughly like an average of the past five
quarters of public market benchmarks.
There aren’t many investors in VC
funds complaining. Both they and the
fund managers seem quite happy with
the smoothed marks. Yet perhaps this is
not the costless ploy that it appears on
the surface. Consider an institutional
investor looking to add growth/tech
exposure at the start of 2020.
They could choose between allocating
to Cathie Wood’s Ark Innovation
exchange traded fund or to a VC fund.
The ETF was on a great run, beating
both the Nasdaq and VC indices by
about 15 per cent annually over the pre-
vious three years. But, other than the
★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023
COMPANIES & MARKETS
The day in the markets
What you need to know
3 Tesla leads S&P 500 lower in
European stocks begin 2023 with a bang
downbeat start to year on Wall Street
3 European equities post broad gains as Stoxx Europe 600 index is up 2 per cent this week
German inflation eases
3 Nickel prices jump, extending a long
period of volatile trading
438
436
US stocks started 2023 on a downbeat
note as shares in electric-car maker Tesla
continued falling, drawing a contrast with 434
the more optimistic new year’s
State of Wisconsin Investment Board, tion to venture capital. The average buy- performance across the Atlantic.
endowments, foundations and pensions out and VC allocations for a university Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 and 432
do not appear on the list of top 100 with a $1bn endowment were 16.6 per the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.7
investors in the ETF, according to cent and 13.4 per cent, respectively, at per cent and 1.2 per cent, respectively.
Capital IQ. Scepticism about Ark was so the end of June last year, according to Tesla’s shares have declined since mid- 430
widespread that Tuttle Capital launched the US National Association of College September by about 65 per cent and
an ETF (SARK) explicitly designed for and University Business Officers. were the worst-performing member of
investors who wanted to short Ark. Some investment consultants recom- the S&P 500 yesterday, the first US 428
But despite the doubts about Ark, mend that clients should take private trading day of the new year.
which had handily outperformed the allocations (which also include private In contrast, the pan-regional Stoxx
venture index during the bull market, real estate and other private assets) Europe 600 gained 1.2 per cent, 426
institutional investors dumped money higher than 40 per cent, arguing that extending gains from an upbeat start to Mon Tue
into VC funds. In 2021 and 2022, institutions with higher allocations to 2023 the previous day. Source: Bloomberg
investors allocated an unprecedented privates do better in market downturns. London’s FTSE 100, which was closed
Perhaps investors have been lulled on Monday, kicked off the year by rallying
into complacency, paying an illiquidity
Scepticism about Ark was premium for the “phoney happiness” of
1.4 per cent.
Outside of the US, yesterday was “a
In currency markets, the dollar gained
0.9 per cent against a basket of six other
per tonne, versus an average of $15,000
per tonne in the years before the nickel
so widespread that an ETF private marks. case of new year, new optimism, even if currencies though it has fallen almost 9 market crisis. Prices later cooled to
By doing so — instead of receiving a
was launched explicitly premium as economic theory suggests
there’s nothing specific [investors] are
going off”, said Neil Birrell, chief
per cent from its September peak.
The pound fell 0.3 per cent against the
$30,500 per tonne.
Asian stocks rallied, with Hong Kong’s
designed to short Ark — there is bound to be a drag on returns. investment officer at Premier Miton. dollar to $1.20 while the euro slipped 1 per Hang Seng index up 1.8 per cent, taking
As research from Harvard economist The moves came in a trading session cent to $1.054. its gains since the start of November to
Andrei Shleifer has shown, there are during which fresh data showed German Nickel prices jumped, continuing an 37 per cent.
$270bn to US VC, according to Preqin. three ingredients to a financial crisis: inflation slowed more than expected in extended period of volatile trading since China’s CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and
Back in 2014-17 there was only $30bn- consensus optimism, leverage and illi- December with consumer prices the market for the metal was plunged Shenzhen-listed shares added 0.4 per
40bn of VC capital raised per year. quidity. And private markets exhibit all increasing 9.6 per cent on the year, from into chaos last March. cent as the country continued to battle
Hating Ark and loving venture capital three characteristics. Illiquidity may be 11.3 per cent in November. The benchmark three-month contract large outbreaks of Covid-19 following the
seems intellectually inconsistent. The fine on the way up but, as investors in A survey by Reuters showed in London for the metal used in stainless relaxation of measures designed to slow
underlying companies are similar. the Blackstone Real Estate Income economists had expected a reading of steel and electric car batteries shot up as the spread of the virus. George Steer and
The valuations of companies should Trust are discovering, it’s not ideal when 10.7 per cent. much as 4.9 per cent yesterday to $31,475 Harry Dempsey
be comparable across both the private market conditions change. Blackstone
and public markets. Ark was outper- limited withdrawals from its $125bn
forming venture in the good years but it real estate investment fund last month Markets update
presented a problem that venture does following a surge in redemptions.
not: true mark-to-market volatility on After the dotcom bubble burst, it took
small and unprofitable groups’ equity. all the way until the end of 2014 for the
While most institutional VC manag- VC index to regain the high water mark US Eurozone Japan UK China Brazil
ers acknowledge the smoothing effect it set in early 2000. If the current Stocks S&P 500 Eurofirst 300 Nikkei 225 FTSE100 Shanghai Comp Bovespa
and make internal adjustments, we listed equity market downturn persists, Level 3805.65 1715.28 26094.50 7554.09 3116.51 105627.60
think the reported marks are what truly marks will eventually converge nearer % change on day -0.88 1.16 0.00 1.37 0.88 -0.70
drives decision making. Just think: if an to reality, leaving institutions nursing Currency $ index (DXY) $ per € Yen per $ $ per £ Rmb per $ Real per $
institution told you they had 15 per cent very real and illiquid losses. Level 104.592 1.056 130.755 1.201 6.904 5.395
of their portfolio in Ark, you might % change on day 1.034 -1.031 -0.902 -0.166 -0.683 2.186
question the degree of the bet. But many Daniel Rasmussen is founder and chief Govt. bonds 10-year Treasury 10-year Bund 10-year JGB 10-year Gilt 10-year bond 10-year bond
institutions have well over that alloca- investment officer of Verdad Advisers Yield 3.792 2.382 0.411 3.650 2.865 13.697
Basis point change on day -8.610 -6.500 0.000 -1.200 0.200 137.400
World index, Commods FTSE All-World Oil - Brent Oil - WTI Gold Silver Metals (LMEX)
Level 398.83 82.70 77.48 1813.75 23.95 3983.80
% change on day -0.43 -3.74 -3.46 0.58 0.38 -0.61
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
4160 1760 7680
7520
4000
1680 7360
3840 7200
| | | | | | | | |
3680 || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1600 || | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 7040 | | | | | | | | | | |
Nov 2023 Jan Nov 2023 Jan Nov 2023 Jan
Biggest movers
% US Eurozone UK
Paypal Holdings 4.21 Swatch 5.64 Rolls-royce Holdings 6.13
Newmont 3.95 Brenntag 4.98 Ocado 5.16
Ups
Dxc Technology 3.36 Casino Guichard 4.48 Persimmon 4.56
Wynn Resorts 3.27 Commerzbank 4.02 Barratt Developments 4.44
Las Vegas Sands 3.18 Caixabank 3.53 Prudential 4.39
%
Tesla -13.40 Rwe -4.52 Centrica -4.75
Etsy -6.29 Tenaris -3.45 Sse -2.83
Downs
Enphase Energy -5.20 Oci -3.39 Coca-cola Hbc Ag -1.75
Apa -5.01 A.p. Moller - Maersk B -2.51 Beazley -1.69
Molina Healthcare -4.96 Thales -2.38 Glencore -1.45
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
Lodged at the bottom of the S&P 500 German chemical distributor Brenntag Hotel Chocolat rallied on announcing that
index was electric-car maker Tesla, which rallied on news that it was pulling out of it had signed a new strategic partnership
delivered more than 405,000 vehicles in talks to acquire its US peer, Univar. with Japan’s Eat Creator Corporation.
the fourth quarter — short of the Back in November, when the move was The chocolatier would hold a 20 per
420,000 units Wall Street had expected. first mooted, Brenntag slid more than 9 cent stake in the newly established
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ per cent. Since then, activist shareholder vehicle that would initially include 21
Bell, said that there was “genuine concern PrimeStone Capital, which owns a 2 per branded Hotel Chocolat stores.
about demand” for Teslas — with waiting cent stake, has argued against the deal. Eat Creator would provide “growth
lists “shortening fast” for new vehicles. Among PrimeStone’s concerns was a capital, new supply-side knowhow and
“Add in the competitive threat from the possible exodus of Brenntag customers, proven expertise in food brand
established car manufacturers and new spooked that their options to source development”, said the group.
challengers in Asia and you can supplies would be reduced following the GENinCode, which is developing
understand why sentiment towards Tesla takeover of a smaller rival. genetic tests to predict which patients
has undergone such a gear shift,” he France’s Gaztransport & Technigaz, are at risk of developing heart disease,
noted. which specialises in supplying maritime soared after gaining licensing approval
Plant-based milk producer Oatly tanks for liquefied natural gas, sank after and clinical certification for its laboratory
surged on news that it would be announcing that it was “ceasing its in California.
transferring its leases and production activities in Russia”. Matthew Walls, chief executive, said the
capacity at two US facilities as part of a This followed “an in-depth analysis of green light would enable it to begin
co-packing agreement. European sanction packages . . . notably selling “products across the US market”.
Canada’s Ya YA Foods would be prohibiting engineering services with Home Reit, which invests in sheltered
acquiring a majority of the assets and Russian companies”, it said. housing for homeless people, suspended
take on the property lease of Oatly’s A downgrade weighed on Sweden’s trading after missing a regulatory
production facility in Utah and assume Getinge, with JPMorgan lowering its deadline to publish its annual report.
responsibility for completing the recommendation of the healthcare The delay was blamed on “an enhanced
construction of another facility in Texas. product provider from “neutral” to set of audit procedures” following a short
This move, said Oatly, was part of a “underweight”. seller’s critical report that contained
shift towards an “asset-light supply chain The broker said the supply chain issues allegations that were “inaccurate and
strategy”. and slowing orders that had hit Getinge’s misleading”, said Home.
The US-listed shares of China’s So- performance last year were “unlikely to The real estate investment trust said
Young International, a cosmetic surgery unwind in early 2023”. that it intended to restore its listing upon
platform, jumped after increasing its It added that “hopes for additional the release of its 2022 results, which
share buyback programme from $15mn to demand from a strong flu season” had would be “published by as soon as
$25mn. Ray Douglas not materialised. Ray Douglas practicable”. Ray Douglas
Wednesday 4 January 2023 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 11

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 $

-0.88% -1.28% -0.60% -0.43% -1.031% -0.166% -0.902% -0.902% -1.20%

No change
1.37% 1.16% 1.84% 0.58%
Stock Market movements over last 30 days, with the FTSE All-World in the same currency as a comparison
AMERICAS EUROPE ASIA
Dec 04 - - Index All World Dec 04 - Jan 03 Index All World Dec 04 - Jan 03 Index All World Dec 04 - Jan 03 Index All World Dec 04 - Dec 30 Index All World Dec 04 - Jan 03 Index All World

S&P 500 New York S&P/TSX COMP Toronto FTSE 100 London Xetra Dax Frankfurt Nikkei 225 Tokyo Kospi Seoul
4,076.57 14,529.39
20,525.45 28,226.08 2,419.32
7,573.05 7,554.09 14,169.25
3,805.65 19,615.59 26,094.50 2,218.68
Day -0.88% Month -6.57% Year -13.50% Day 0.18% Month -5.01% Year -8.97% Day 1.37% Month -0.03% Year 0.95% Day 0.80% Month 1.33% Year NaN% Day 0.00% Month -6.82% Year -9.66% Day -0.31% Month -8.86% Year -25.95%

Nasdaq Composite New York IPC Mexico City FTSE Eurofirst 300 Europe Ibex 35 Madrid Hang Seng Hong Kong FTSE Straits Times Singapore
11,482.45 1,751.99 8,397.40 20,145.29
51,234.37 8,382.60 3,292.73
1,715.28 19,518.29 3,245.80
10,332.51 49,109.85

Day -1.28% Month -9.88% Year -24.98% Day 0.01% Month -4.38% Year -5.05% Day 1.16% Month -2.10% Year -7.03% Day 0.33% Month 0.18% Year -3.42% Day 1.84% Month 7.87% Year -14.22% Day -0.17% Month -1.36% Year 3.82%

Dow Jones Industrial New York Bovespa São Paulo CAC 40 Paris FTSE MIB Milan Shanghai Composite Shanghai BSE Sensex Mumbai
34,395.01 6,742.25 24,621.72 24,436.47
109,401.41 6,648.01 62,834.60
3,156.14 3,116.51 61,294.20
32,947.48 105,981.60

Day -0.60% Month -4.31% Year -3.85% Day -0.70% Month -5.67% Year -3.09% Day 0.44% Month -1.76% Year -6.11% Day 1.15% Month -0.75% Year -9.32% Day 0.88% Month -1.11% Year -14.12% Day 0.21% Month -2.50% Year 5.30%

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 198411.11 207637.73 Cyprus CSE M&P Gen 68.46 68.68 Italy FTSE Italia All-Share 26499.43 26185.59 Philippines Manila Comp 6586.01 6566.54 Taiwan Weighted Pr 14224.12 14137.69 Cross-Border DJ Global Titans ($) 401.71 405.09
Australia All Ordinaries 7131.10 7221.70 Czech RepublicPX 1218.87 1207.70 FTSE Italia Mid Cap 40258.38 39755.32 Poland Wig 58705.92 57694.00 Thailand Bangkok SET 1678.97 1668.66 Euro Stoxx 50 (Eur) 3887.59 3856.09
S&P/ASX 200 6946.20 7038.70 Denmark OMXC Copenahgen 20 1885.79 1858.25 FTSE MIB 24436.47 24158.28 Portugal PSI 20 5829.84 5829.15 Turkey BIST 100 5626.57 5626.57 Euronext 100 ID 1257.36 1252.02
S&P/ASX 200 Res 5885.80 5934.70 Egypt EGX 30 15068.13 14960.66 Japan 2nd Section 7228.27 7239.06 PSI General 4469.64 4482.57 UAE Abu Dhabi General Index 9222.93 9251.11 FTSE 4Good Global ($) 9365.18 9424.64
Austria ATX 3197.94 3159.71 Estonia OMX Tallinn 1787.89 1779.27 Nikkei 225 26094.50 26093.67 Romania BET Index 12013.54 11616.55 UK FT 30 2492.80 2454.10 FTSE All World ($) 398.83 400.55
Belgium BEL 20 3789.06 3753.22 Finland OMX Helsinki General 10995.60 11009.70 S&P Topix 150 1617.01 1620.95 Russia Micex Index 2436.57 2445.30 FTSE 100 7554.09 7451.74 FTSE E300 1715.28 1695.59
BEL Mid 9794.59 9775.04 France CAC 40 6623.89 6594.57 Topix 1891.71 1895.27 RTX 1245.71 1212.57 FTSE 4Good UK 6809.46 6711.27 FTSE Eurotop 100 3386.31 3344.74
Brazil IBovespa 105627.60 106376.02 SBF 120 5085.11 5063.88 Jordan Amman SE 2545.10 2510.52 Saudi-Arabia TADAWUL All Share Index 10660.94 10578.34 FTSE All Share 4131.41 4075.13 FTSE Global 100 ($) 2403.53 2425.78
Canada S&P/TSX 60 1171.76 1168.91 Germany M-DAX 25917.57 25475.53 Kenya NSE 20 1676.10 1665.64 Singapore FTSE Straits Times 3245.80 3251.32 FTSE techMARK 100 6392.85 6328.30 FTSE Gold Min ($) 1745.29 1745.29
S&P/TSX Comp 19418.86 19384.92 TecDAX 2942.60 2906.58 Kuwait KSX Market Index 6633.44 6603.51 Slovakia SAX 334.74 334.74 USA DJ Composite 10897.73 10962.83 FTSE Latibex Top (Eur) 4440.00 4432.20
S&P/TSX Div Met & Min 1555.26 1566.81 XETRA Dax 14181.67 14069.26 Latvia OMX Riga 1161.30 1157.73 Slovenia SBI TOP - - DJ Industrial 32947.48 33147.25 FTSE Multinationals ($) 2589.44 2583.85
Chile S&P/CLX IGPA Gen 26989.25 27606.58 Greece Athens Gen 943.00 936.15 Lithuania OMX Vilnius 953.63 949.40 South Africa FTSE/JSE All Share 74436.48 73048.57 DJ Transport 13328.77 13391.91 FTSE World ($) 721.17 725.10
China FTSE A200 10312.63 10287.07 FTSE/ASE 20 2288.20 2265.54 Luxembourg LuxX 1502.80 1487.20 FTSE/JSE Res 20 71841.99 70805.03 DJ Utilities 959.90 967.40 FTSEurofirst 100 (Eur) 4569.04 4521.37
FTSE B35 9000.71 8988.96 Hong Kong Hang Seng 20145.29 19781.41 Malaysia FTSE Bursa KLCI 1473.99 1495.49 FTSE/JSE Top 40 68360.71 66955.47 Nasdaq 100 10794.39 10939.76 FTSEurofirst 80 (Eur) 5290.80 5254.17
Shanghai A 3266.76 3238.19 HS China Enterprise 6833.98 6704.94 Mexico IPC 48999.96 48993.24 South Korea Kospi 2218.68 2225.67 Nasdaq Cmp 10332.51 10466.48 MSCI ACWI Fr ($) 606.31 605.38
Shanghai B 284.64 281.97 HSCC Red Chip 3768.48 3695.99 Morocco MASI 10709.14 10720.25 Kospi 200 289.58 289.79 NYSE Comp 15108.26 15184.31 MSCI All World ($) 2607.25 2602.69
Shanghai Comp 3116.51 3089.26 Hungary Bux 44614.96 43551.73 Netherlands AEX 707.63 701.16 Spain IBEX 35 8397.40 8369.70 S&P 500 3805.65 3839.50 MSCI Europe (Eur) 1739.72 1723.29
Shenzhen A 2096.55 2066.68 India BSE Sensex 61294.20 61167.79 AEX All Share 972.02 962.24 Sri Lanka CSE All Share 8511.54 8509.60 Wilshire 5000 37732.14 38073.94 MSCI Pacific ($) 2623.43 2623.43
Shenzhen B 1160.68 1157.33 Nifty 500 15557.80 15523.65 New Zealand NZX 50 11473.24 11538.45 Sweden OMX Stockholm 30 2090.03 2075.76 Venezuela IBC 20907.62 20947.68 S&P Euro (Eur) 1748.69 1735.14
Colombia COLCAP 1261.61 1260.21 Indonesia Jakarta Comp 6888.76 6850.98 Nigeria SE All Share 51251.06 50300.00 OMX Stockholm AS 801.77 795.85 Vietnam VNI 1043.90 1007.09 S&P Europe 350 (Eur) 1758.59 1738.30
Croatia CROBEX 2013.05 2011.29 Ireland ISEQ Overall 7293.45 7108.82 Norway Oslo All Share 1017.37 1006.88 Switzerland SMI Index 10978.64 10729.40 S&P Global 1200 ($) 2871.09 2887.77
Israel Tel Aviv 125 1807.08 1801.02 Pakistan KSE 100 40630.64 40815.90 Stoxx 50 (Eur) 3733.58 3685.66
(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 03 %Chg %Chg Jan 03 %Chg %Chg Jan 03 %Chg %Chg Jan 03 %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
Tesla 128.0 106.67 -16.51 Shell 216.7 2367.00 41.00 Iberdrola 425.5 10.97 -0.04 Fast Retailing Co., 664.1 80530.00 1530.00 Jd Sports Fashion 129.70 8.5 3.2 Molten Ventures 375.80 10.0 6.1 Secure Trust Bank 762.00 19.1 1.6 Automobiles & Parts 1514.85 4.9 1.8
Apple 65.1 124.74 -5.19 Glencore 205.5 544.40 -8.00 Nestle N 404.0 109.98 1.80 Mitsubishi Ufj Fin,. 612.5 889.00 7.50 Rolls-royce Holdings 98.91 7.9 5.6 Abrdn Private Equity Opportunities Trust 449.00 9.2 -0.7 Superdry 136.60 16.4 6.7 Personal Goods 31382.34 3.6 2.0
Nvidia 30.7 141.39 -4.75 Astrazeneca 183.4 11534.00 316.00 Novartis N 326.6 86.66 2.26 Softbank . 513.8 5644.00 26.00 Next 5956.00 6.2 2.9 Liontrust Asset Management 1158.00 8.2 3.4 Restaurant 33.58 13.7 6.4 Construction & Materials 7071.31 3.6 3.1
Microsoft 25.4 238.20 -1.62 Diageo 173.6 3612.50 -37.50 Roche Gs 294.1 296.66 3.33 Tokyo Electron 398.2 38880.00 -230.00 Prudential 1177.00 5.4 4.2 Dr. Martens 196.00 7.6 2.8 Up Global Sourcing Holdings 163.50 13.5 -0.8 Banks 3385.98 3.4 3.0
Amazon.com 24.3 84.44 0.44 Unilever 145.0 4193.50 11.50 Asml Holding 274.9 522.20 5.30 Toyota Motor 385.2 1812.50 -4.50 Crh 3406.50 4.2 3.3 Tritax Eurobox 64.30 7.2 4.7 Trustpilot 105.90 11.4 9.7 Life Insurance 7245.20 3.1 2.7
Meta Platforms 22.6 124.02 3.68 Bp 139.3 483.35 8.45 Intesa Sanpaolo 263.0 2.17 0.05 Sumitomo Mitsui Fin,. 306.5 5296.00 34.00 Melrose Industries 136.35 4.0 1.8 Osb 504.50 6.7 4.5 Keller 849.00 10.0 6.2 Real Estate Investment Trusts 2288.00 3.1 2.6
Advanced Micro Devices 15.3 64.10 -0.68 British American Tobacco 107.9 3342.50 61.00 Totalenergies 231.2 59.13 -0.89 Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, 278.6 2787.00 70.00 Hsbc Holdings 529.90 3.8 2.7 Future 1334.00 6.6 5.3 Pod Point Holdings 64.00 9.3 4.9 Aerospace & Defense 5220.07 2.0 1.8
Alphabet 11.1 88.75 0.52 Johnson Matthey 94.8 2119.00 -8.00 Unicredit 214.0 13.91 0.46 Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha 263.4 3110.00 24.00 B&m Eur Value Retail S.a. 424.20 3.8 2.8 Ti Fluid Systems 137.40 6.5 2.8 Saga 137.10 9.2 9.0 Household Goods 10263.38 2.0 3.5
Netflix 8.8 292.40 -2.48 Homeserve 94.0 1198.00 1.00 Novo Nordisk B A/s 199.9 130.20 3.54 Nintendo Co., 260.5 5532.00 -76.00 Barclays 163.60 3.7 3.3 Oxford Instruments 2285.00 6.3 1.8 Civitas Social Housing 65.50 7.9 3.8 Mobile Telecommunications 2175.47 1.8 1.9
Boeing 8.7 193.74 3.25 Rio Tinto 93.3 5839.00 41.00 Eni 195.6 13.79 0.08 Sony 257.5 10035.00 -80.00 Land Securities 641.00 3.7 3.2 Sirius Real Estate Ld 77.20 6.2 4.3 Dignity 425.50 7.7 2.5 Pharmaceuticals & Biotech. 21455.73 1.8 2.1
British Land 408.20 3.6 3.3 Baltic Classifieds 144.60 6.0 2.7 Hochschild Mining 74.70 7.3 6.3 Mining 11286.63 1.6 1.2
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
Ocado 648.60 3.5 5.3 Ashmore 244.00 6.0 1.3 Halfords 215.00 7.2 2.9 Industrial Transportation 3518.75 1.6 1.5
price change chng% price change chng% price change chng% price change chng%
Ups Ups Ups Ups Losers Losers Losers Losers
Paypal Holdings 74.22 3.00 4.21 Ip 60.25 4.50 8.07 Richemont N 128.54 7.47 6.17 Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, 2787.00 70.00 2.58 Centrica 91.94 -4.9 -4.7 Wizz Air Holdings 1898.00 -8.9 -0.3 Hostelworld 113.40 -6.7 -1.6 Electricity 10344.52 -2.8 -3.1
Newmont 49.06 1.86 3.95 Rolls-royce Holdings 98.91 5.71 6.13 Cs N 2.93 0.14 4.92 Fast Retailing Co., 80530.00 1530.00 1.94 Sse 1663.50 -2.5 -2.8 Ferrexpo 162.80 -5.8 3.5 Porvair 614.00 -5.7 -0.3 Beverages 27552.90 -0.9 -1.0
Dxc Technology 27.39 0.89 3.36 Molten Ventures 375.80 21.60 6.10 Prosus 68.83 2.67 4.04 Nippon Sheet Glass , 567.00 10.00 1.80 Glencore 544.40 -2.4 -1.2 Harbour Energy 293.00 -4.8 -3.5 Zotefoams 331.00 -4.3 -2.6 Industrial Metals 7823.68 -0.6 -0.1
Wynn Resorts 85.17 2.70 3.27 Currys 56.85 3.25 6.06 Swiss Re N 90.45 3.13 3.58 Omron 6405.00 110.00 1.75 Beazley 668.00 -1.5 -1.7 Drax 671.50 -4.3 -4.5 Foresight Holdings 431.00 -4.2 -0.9 Industrial Engineering 13881.81 0.2 0.5
Las Vegas Sands 49.60 1.53 3.18 Travis Perkins 938.20 48.80 5.49 Mowi 16.08 0.55 3.52 Takara Holdings . 1045.00 16.00 1.55 Frasers 720.00 -1.1 1.4 Petershill Partners 162.40 -4.1 -3.9 Topps Tiles 46.60 -3.9 3.6 Oil & Gas Producers 8257.79 0.3 1.7
Diageo 3612.50 -1.0 -0.9 4imprint 4310.00 -3.8 0.8 Mears 197.50 -3.7 -2.4 Health Care Equip.& Services 10901.81 0.3 -0.2
Downs Downs Downs Downs
Weir 1659.00 -0.9 -0.4 Tullow Oil 36.34 -3.6 -2.1 Sig 29.20 -3.6 -1.4 Food & Drug Retailers 4152.52 0.3 0.8
Tesla 106.67 -16.51 -13.40 Centrica 91.94 -4.58 -4.75 A.p. M__ller - M__rsk B A/s 2137.27 -55.13 -2.51 Nexon Co., 2962.00 -63.00 -2.08
Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust 716.60 -0.7 -0.8 Easyjet 330.00 -3.1 1.7 Home Reit 38.05 -3.4 - Chemicals 11778.48 0.4 0.4
Etsy 112.25 -7.53 -6.29 Drax 671.50 -31.50 -4.48 A.p. M__ller - M__rsk A A/s 2104.33 -49.75 -2.31 Jgc 1678.00 -34.00 -1.99
Coca-cola Hbc Ag 1938.50 -0.6 -1.5 Coats 66.30 -2.9 0.2 Aberdeen Diversified ome And Growth Trust 90.80 -3.4 -2.4 Gas Water & Multiutilities index 5664.08 0.5 0.0
Enphase Energy 251.19 -13.77 -5.20 W.a.g Payment Solutions 76.00 -3.40 -4.28 Totalenergies 59.13 -0.89 -1.48 Ajinomoto Co.,. 4031.00 -72.00 -1.75
Rs 903.50 -0.6 0.9 Telecom Plus 2155.00 -2.9 -1.1 Capital & Regional 58.00 -3.3 -6.5 Tobacco 36237.97 0.7 1.7
Apa 44.34 -2.34 -5.01 Petershill Partners 162.40 -6.60 -3.91 Dsv A/s 149.99 -1.41 -0.93 Kikkoman 6940.00 -120.00 -1.70
Unilever 4193.50 -0.5 0.3 Qinetiq 355.80 -2.6 -0.3 Georgia Capital 726.00 -3.2 -0.5 Software & Computer Services 1779.52 0.8 0.6
Molina Healthcare 313.83 -16.39 -4.96 Harbour Energy 293.00 -11.40 -3.75 Inditex 25.38 -0.22 -0.86 Idemitsu Kosan Co., 3070.00 -50.00 -1.60
Flutter Entertainment 11450.00 -0.4 1.4 Capricorn Energy 252.20 -2.6 -3.7 Macfarlane 101.50 -2.9 -2.4 General Financial 11629.47 0.9 0.6
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 3 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Jan 3 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Jan 3 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change Jan 3 Currency Mid Change Mid Change Mid Change
Argentina Argentine Peso 178.4550 1.3405 188.3689 -0.6561 214.2703 1.2181 Indonesia Indonesian Rupiah 15597.5000 30.0000 16464.0220 -150.3647 18727.8894 1.6132 Poland Polish Zloty 4.4306 0.0444 4.6767 -0.0045 5.3198 0.0436 ..Three Month 0.8331 0.0015 0.8788 -0.0081 - -
Australia Australian Dollar 1.4829 0.0083 1.5653 -0.0085 1.7805 0.0067 Israel Israeli Shekel 3.5325 0.0040 3.7287 -0.0370 4.2415 -0.0030 Romania Romanian Leu 4.6717 0.0357 4.9313 -0.0165 5.6094 0.0326 ..One Year 0.8336 0.0016 0.8779 -0.0081 - -
Bahrain Bahrainin Dinar 0.3771 0.0002 0.3980 -0.0042 0.4527 -0.0006 Japan Japanese Yen 130.7550 -1.1900 138.0189 -2.7990 156.9971 -1.7204 Russia Russian Ruble 72.9750 -0.0250 77.0290 -0.8800 87.6208 -0.1913 United States United States Dollar - - 1.0556 -0.0117 1.2007 -0.0022
Bolivia Bolivian Boliviano 6.9100 - 7.2939 -0.0808 8.2968 -0.0153 ..One Month 130.7545 -1.1911 138.0187 -2.7995 156.9965 -1.7214 Saudi Arabia Saudi Riyal 3.7598 0.0018 3.9687 -0.0420 4.5144 -0.0061 ..One Month - - 1.0553 -0.1473 1.2008 -0.0022
Brazil Brazilian Real 5.3951 0.1154 5.6949 0.0601 6.4779 0.1269 ..Three Month 130.7534 -1.1932 138.0181 -2.8007 156.9955 -1.7235 Singapore Singapore Dollar 1.3437 0.0025 1.4183 -0.0130 1.6134 0.0000 ..Three Month - - 1.0549 -0.1473 1.2010 -0.0022
Canada Canadian Dollar 1.3637 0.0087 1.4395 -0.0066 1.6374 0.0075 ..One Year 130.7484 -1.2033 138.0146 -2.8077 156.9965 -1.7280 South Africa South African Rand 16.9725 -0.0425 17.9154 -0.2438 20.3788 -0.0886 ..One Year - - 1.0534 -0.1473 1.2015 -0.0022
Chile Chilean Peso 853.6000 1.6500 901.0208 -8.2206 1024.9145 0.0985 Kenya Kenyan Shilling 123.5000 0.1000 130.3609 -1.3374 148.2860 -0.1526 South Korea South Korean Won 1271.1000 6.6000 1341.7146 -7.8196 1526.2054 5.1305 Vietnam Vietnamese Dong 23510.0000 -65.0000 24816.1126 -344.2849 28228.4130 -130.1642
China Chinese Yuan 6.9042 -0.0475 7.2878 -0.1314 8.2898 -0.0724 Kuwait Kuwaiti Dinar 0.3063 0.0002 0.3233 -0.0034 0.3677 -0.0004 Sweden Swedish Krona 10.5485 0.1290 11.1345 0.0143 12.6655 0.1319 European Union Euro 0.9474 0.0104 - - 1.1375 0.0104
Colombia Colombian Peso 4831.9300 -16.9550 5100.3624 -74.5978 5801.6823 -31.0717 Malaysia Malaysian Ringgit 4.4060 0.0010 4.6508 -0.0505 5.2903 -0.0085 Switzerland Swiss Franc 0.9383 0.0131 0.9904 0.0030 1.1266 0.0136 ..One Month 0.9471 0.0104 - - 1.1374 0.0104
Costa Rica Costa Rican Colon 593.7050 -4.3750 626.6876 -11.6117 712.8595 -6.5747 Mexico Mexican Peso 19.4265 -0.0607 20.5057 -0.2920 23.3253 -0.1160 Taiwan New Taiwan Dollar 30.6940 -0.0415 32.3992 -0.4032 36.8542 -0.1177 ..Three Month 0.9467 0.0104 - - 1.1372 0.0104
Czech Republic Czech Koruna 22.7853 0.1533 24.0511 -0.1028 27.3582 0.1341 New Zealand New Zealand Dollar 1.5996 0.0185 1.6885 0.0010 1.9207 0.0187 Thailand Thai Baht 34.4075 -0.2275 36.3190 -0.6451 41.3130 -0.3497 ..One Year 0.9452 0.0104 - - 1.1363 0.0104
Denmark Danish Krone 7.0457 0.0778 7.4371 0.0006 8.4597 0.0780 Nigeria Nigerian Naira 460.5000 -0.2500 486.0825 -5.6517 552.9207 -1.3183 Tunisia Tunisian Dinar 3.1354 0.0163 3.3096 -0.0193 3.7647 0.0127
Egypt Egyptian Pound 24.7732 0.0884 26.1494 -0.1953 29.7451 0.0516 Norway Norwegian Krone 10.0424 0.1914 10.6003 0.0868 12.0579 0.2080 Turkey Turkish Lira 18.7293 0.0098 19.7697 -0.2086 22.4881 -0.0297
Hong Kong Hong Kong Dollar 7.8127 0.0078 8.2467 -0.0831 9.3807 -0.0079 Pakistan Pakistani Rupee 226.6000 0.2250 239.1885 -2.4096 272.0778 -0.2301 United Arab Emirates UAE Dirham 3.6726 -0.0001 3.8766 -0.0430 4.4097 -0.0082
Hungary Hungarian Forint 379.2479 4.0311 400.3165 -0.1325 455.3615 4.0110 Peru Peruvian Nuevo Sol 3.8111 -0.0024 4.0228 -0.0471 4.5760 -0.0113 United Kingdom Pound Sterling 0.8329 0.0015 0.8791 -0.0081 - -
India Indian Rupee 82.8875 0.1575 87.4922 -0.8011 99.5227 0.0063 Philippines Philippine Peso 55.7900 0.0625 58.8893 -0.5857 66.9869 -0.0481 ..One Month 0.8329 0.0015 0.8790 -0.0081 - -
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 03 Jan 02 Dec 30 Dec 29 Dec 28 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 2492.80 2454.10 2475.70 2462.80 2451.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Leisure Goods 3.26 Consumer Services 1.87 Equity Invest Instr 0.88 FTSE 100 Price Change FTSE 100 Price Change
Jan 03 chge% Index Dec 30 Dec 29 ago yield% Cover ratio adj Return FT 30 Div Yield - - - - - 0.00 3.93 2.74 Industrial Metals & 3.10 Fixed Line Telecomms 1.79 Industrial Eng 0.82 3I Group PLC 1340 -1.50 Intertek Group PLC 4091 57.00
FTSE 100 (100) 7554.09 1.37 6684.47 7451.74 7512.72 7384.54 3.60 1.61 17.23 0.00 7762.65 P/E Ratio net - - - - - 0.00 19.44 14.26 Construct & Material 3.06 Aerospace & Defense 1.78 Financial Services 0.81 Abrdn PLC 187.85 -1.40 Jd Sports Fashion PLC 129.70 3.55
FTSE 250 (250) 19134.34 1.49 16931.63 18853.00 18996.45 23480.81 3.18 0.78 40.50 0.00 15938.39 FT 30 hourly changes Banks 2.95 Household Goods & Ho 1.78 Consumer Goods 0.69 Admiral Group PLC 2163 26.00 Kingfisher PLC 239.50 3.40
FTSE 250 ex Inv Co (171) 19607.93 1.68 17350.70 19283.20 19467.00 24345.43 3.28 1.62 18.86 0.00 16665.34 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 High Low Oil Equipment & Serv 2.75 Automobiles & Parts 1.76 Health Care Eq & Srv 0.69 Airtel Africa PLC 114.30 2.50 Land Securities Group PLC 641.00 19.60
FTSE 350 (350) 4170.99 1.39 3690.83 4113.78 4147.11 4228.67 3.54 1.50 18.79 0.00 8505.76 2454.1 2500.8 2514 2505.2 2487.8 2490.5 2499.5 2495.4 2506.4 2515.4 2454.1 Life Insurance 2.73 Tobacco 1.66 Technology 0.58 Anglo American PLC 3267 30.50 Legal & General Group PLC 252.10 2.60
FTSE 350 ex Investment Trusts (268) 4112.05 1.42 3638.68 4054.43 4088.70 4122.32 3.59 1.70 16.38 0.00 4333.77 FT30 constituents and recent additions/deletions can be found at www.ft.com/ft30 Food & Drug Retailer 2.70 Oil & Gas 1.66 Nonlife Insurance 0.57 Antofagasta PLC 1562 16.50 Lloyds Banking Group PLC 47.13 1.72
FTSE 350 Higher Yield (132) 3605.33 1.41 3190.29 3555.19 3582.74 3328.67 4.96 1.74 11.61 0.00 8299.69 General Retailers 2.63 Food Producers 1.66 Personal Goods 0.45 Ashtead Group PLC 4800 80.00 London Stock Exchange Group PLC 7146 10.00
FTSE 350 Lower Yield (218) 4307.71 1.37 3811.81 4249.48 4285.47 4884.27 2.06 0.91 53.28 0.00 5306.24 FT WILSHIRE 5000 INDEX SERIES Real Est Invest & Tr 2.38 Oil & Gas Producers 1.66 Software & Comp Serv 0.44 Associated British Foods PLC 1627 51.00 M&G PLC 189.45 1.60
FTSE SmallCap (235) 6303.18 1.01 5577.57 6240.03 6245.48 7459.43 3.47 -0.24 -118.89 0.00 10617.85 Real Est Invest & Se 2.31 Industrials 1.61 Chemicals 0.30 Astrazeneca PLC 11534 316.00 Melrose Industries PLC 136.35 1.85
FTSE SmallCap ex Inv Co (126) 5071.94 0.91 4488.07 5026.45 5023.54 6268.00 3.67 2.32 11.72 0.00 8881.39 Dec 30 Dec 30 Pharmace & Biotech 2.05 Tech Hardware & Eq 1.52 Industrial Transport 0.21 Auto Trader Group PLC 520.40 4.80 Mondi PLC 1417.5 8.00
FTSE All-Share (585) 4131.41 1.38 3655.80 4075.13 4107.39 4208.02 3.54 1.46 19.36 0.00 8507.81 Health Care 1.97 FTSE 250 Index 1.49 Basic Materials 0.02
FT Wilshire 5000 38905.76 FT Wilshire Mid Cap 5317.58 Aveva Group PLC 3218 5.00 National Grid PLC 999.00 1.60
FTSE All-Share ex Inv Co (394) 4037.81 1.41 3572.98 3981.51 4014.66 4061.34 3.59 1.71 16.29 0.00 4320.71 Travel & Leisure 1.97 Support Services 1.40 Beverages 31.66
FT Wilshire 2500 4981.68 FT Wilshire Small Cap 4751.83 Aviva PLC 448.90 6.10 Natwest Group PLC 271.10 5.90
FTSE All-Share ex Multinationals (522) 1078.16 1.55 793.06 1061.67 1069.78 1345.56 3.95 0.82 31.08 0.00 2299.41 Mobile Telecomms 1.95 FTSE All{HY-}Share Index 1.38 Gas Water & Multi -0.02
FT Wilshire Mega Cap 4950.01 FT Wilshire Micro Cap 4636.07 B&M European Value Retail S.A. 424.20 12.90 Next PLC 5956 150.00
FTSE Fledgling (81) 11639.14 0.52 10299.27 11579.42 11584.18 13249.99 3.74 3.06 8.72 0.00 25262.61 Electronic & Elec Eq 1.95 FTSE 100 Index 1.37 Mining -0.04
FT Wilshire Large Cap 5011.15 Bae Systems PLC 862.20 6.20 Ocado Group PLC 648.60 31.80
FTSE Fledgling ex Inv Co (31) 15309.98 1.41 13547.52 15097.54 15164.70 17747.97 3.52 7.68 3.70 0.00 32234.23 Financials 1.93 NON FINANCIALS Index 1.24 Utilities -0.84
Source: Wilshire. Wilshire Advisors LLC (Wilshire) is an investment advisor registered with the SEC. Further Barclays PLC 163.60 5.08 Pearson PLC 945.00 5.80
FTSE All-Small (316) 4393.56 0.98 3887.78 4350.72 4354.41 5188.69 3.48 -0.05 -590.88 0.00 9492.75 Telecommunications 1.90 Media 1.09 Beverages -1.01
information is available at https://www.wilshire.com/solutions/indexes . Wilshire® is a registered service Barratt Developments PLC 414.40 17.60 Pershing Square Holdings LTD 2920 5.00
FTSE All-Small ex Inv Co (157) 3815.89 0.92 3376.61 3781.00 3779.48 4704.62 3.67 2.50 10.89 0.00 8462.23 FTSE SmallCap Index 1.01 Electricity -3.05
mark. Copyright ©2023 Wilshire. All rights reserved. Beazley PLC 668.00 -11.50 Persimmon PLC 1272.5 55.50
FTSE AIM All-Share (735) 838.63 0.88 742.09 831.33 836.45 1216.91 1.69 1.68 35.17 0.00 986.21
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) PLC 3884 111.00 Phoenix Group Holdings PLC 616.20 7.60
FTSE All-Share Technology (20) 1906.14 0.73 1573.27 1892.40 1907.79 2404.93 2.01 0.89 56.15 0.00 2761.47
BP PLC 483.35 8.45 Prudential PLC 1177 49.50
FTSE All-Share Telecommunications (6) 1418.44 1.91 1170.74 1391.91 1411.89 1863.11 7.47 1.04 12.91 0.00 2179.20 FTSE GLOBAL EQUITY INDEX SERIES British American Tobacco PLC 3342.5 61.00 Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC 5806 52.00
FTSE All-Share Health Care (14) 14946.87 1.97 12336.72 14657.99 14783.43 13192.49 2.51 1.05 38.07 0.00 13843.70
Jan 3 No of US $ Day Mth YTD Total
YTD Gr Div Jan 3 No of US $ Day Mth YTD Total YTD Gr Div British Land Company PLC 408.20 13.10 Relx PLC 2307 19.00
FTSE All-Share Financials (255) 4647.76 1.87 3836.12 4562.29 4590.34 4918.67 3.65 0.90 30.56 0.00 5174.57
Regions & countries stocks indices % % % retn
% Yield Sectors stocks indices % % % retn % Yield Bt Group PLC 114.80 2.75 Rentokil Initial PLC 521.20 13.20
FTSE All-Share Real Estate (55) 835.69 2.35 721.57 816.49 823.83 1245.62 4.26 3.62 6.48 0.00 882.49
FTSE Global All Cap 9437 681.26 0.1 -4.2 -19.6 1093.77
-17.7 2.4 Oil Equipment & Services 24 278.24 0.1 -3.7 18.9 517.91 24.2 4.2 Bunzl PLC 2798 39.00 Rightmove PLC 522.80 11.40
FTSE All-Share Consumer Discretionary (83) 4585.84 1.94 3785.02 4498.36 4541.01 5516.90 2.40 1.27 32.97 0.00 4865.50
FTSE Global All Cap 9437 681.26 0.1 -4.2 -19.6 1093.77
-17.7 2.4 Basic Materials 390 599.93 0.4 -3.3 -10.8 1108.09 -6.7 4.5 Burberry Group PLC 2067 37.00 Rio Tinto PLC 5839 41.00
FTSE All-Share Consumer Staples (24)19525.78 0.60 16116.02 19408.76 19495.31 19749.62 3.92 1.13 22.58 0.00 17971.24
FTSE Global Large Cap 1897 609.07 0.2 -4.2 -19.8 1007.84
-17.9 2.4 Chemicals 194 783.16 0.5 -4.8 -19.1 1390.29 -16.6 3.2 Centrica PLC 91.94 -4.58 Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC 98.91 5.71
FTSE All-Share Industrials (84) 6289.77 1.65 5191.39 6187.68 6253.40 7421.60 2.28 1.36 32.36 0.00 7285.49
FTSE Global Mid Cap 2254 884.34 0.1 -4.0 -17.6 1336.35
-15.7 2.3 Forestry & Paper 20 255.40 1.4 -1.8 -16.3 518.05 -13.2 4.0 Coca-Cola Hbc AG 1938.5 -34.50 Rs Group PLC 903.50 8.00
FTSE All-Share Basic Materials (22) 9321.29 0.02 7693.52 9319.25 9388.29 8234.03 5.84 2.01 8.53 0.00 12707.69
FTSE Global Small Cap 5286 902.54 0.1 -4.9 -21.1 1303.67
-19.5 2.2 Industrial Metals & Mining 98 496.85 0.5 -3.1 -10.2 954.75 -5.1 5.1 Compass Group PLC 1950 32.50 Sage Group PLC 743.60 -2.00
FTSE All-Share Energy (13) 8539.45 1.66 7048.22 8399.77 8490.68 5931.15 3.53 2.82 10.04 0.00 10391.37
FTSE All-World 4151 400.55 0.2 -4.2 -19.4 -17.5681.032.4 Mining 78 978.12 0.1 -1.5 5.1 1910.38 11.7 5.9 Convatec Group PLC 232.80 0.20 Sainsbury (J) PLC 224.90 7.20
FTSE All-Share Utilities (9) 8452.24 -0.82 6976.24 8522.04 8593.27 8709.05 4.55 0.57 38.38 0.00 12904.12
FTSE World 2660 725.10 0.2 -4.4 -19.3 1654.53
-17.4 2.4 Industrials 802 488.72 0.2 -3.9 -18.6 781.09 -16.9 2.1 Crh PLC 3406.5 107.50 Schroders PLC 443.60 7.60
FTSE All-Share Software and Computer Services (18) 2054.77 0.75 1695.95 2039.46 2056.78 2583.99 2.00 0.89 56.09 0.00 3149.31
FTSE Global All Cap ex UNITED KINGDOM In 9148 718.78 0.2 -4.3 -19.8 1131.86
-18.1 2.3 Construction & Materials 156 558.80 0.3 -3.9 -24.4 942.34 -22.7 2.3 Croda International PLC 6630 26.00 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust PLC 716.60 -6.20
FTSE All-Share Technology Hardware and Equipment (2) 5104.08 -0.92 4212.76 5151.42 5070.95 6866.36 2.36 0.69 61.02 0.00 6615.62
FTSE Global All Cap ex USA 7630 490.80 0.4 -1.8 -18.2 -15.5874.533.3 Aerospace & Defense 35 908.54 0.4 0.2 13.1 1419.78 14.9 1.5 Dcc PLC 4139 59.00 Segro PLC 785.00 21.40
FTSE All-Share Telecommunications Equipment (1) 593.27 2.00 489.67 581.65 592.38 647.77 2.07 2.31 20.90 0.00 848.03
FTSE Global All Cap ex JAPAN 8034 709.97 0.2 -4.5 -19.7 1149.96
-17.9 2.3 General Industrials 76 238.70 0.0 -2.4 -14.0 422.55 -11.7 2.6 Diageo PLC 3612.5 -37.50 Severn Trent PLC 2674 23.00
FTSE All-Share Telecommunications Service Providers (5) 2172.17 1.90 1792.85 2131.64 2161.82 2873.80 7.73 1.02 12.67 0.00 3042.34
FTSE Global All Cap ex Eurozone 8779 719.15 0.0 -4.5 -19.6 1129.56
-17.9 2.3 Electronic & Electrical Equipment 157 601.18 0.3 -6.4 -25.2 864.88 -24.0 1.6 Endeavour Mining PLC 1779 27.00 Shell PLC 2367 41.00
FTSE All-Share Health Care Providers (3)10989.55 -0.21 9070.46 11012.35 11001.35 8542.75 0.53 4.88 38.61 0.00 10200.08
FTSE Developed 2171 665.58 0.2 -4.5 -19.3 1075.72
-17.6 2.2 Industrial Engineering 158 985.62 0.3 -3.0 -14.8 1570.36 -13.0 2.0 Entain PLC 1350.5 29.00 Smith & Nephew PLC 1122.5 13.00
FTSE All-Share Medical Equipment and Services (2) 5631.27 0.87 4647.89 5582.87 5581.87 5987.79 2.54 0.97 40.86 0.00 5439.60
FTSE Developed All Cap 5813 693.35 0.2 -4.5 -19.5 1104.09
-17.8 2.2 Industrial Transportation 131 904.45 0.3 -4.3 -18.6 1476.34 -15.7 3.6 Experian PLC 2824 11.00 Smith (Ds) PLC 327.40 5.90
FTSE All-Share Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology (9)21397.55 2.05 17660.92 20966.91 21158.37 18706.13 2.53 1.04 37.93 0.00 17845.34
FTSE Developed Large Cap 832 623.09 0.2 -4.5 -19.6 1024.86
-17.9 2.2 Support Services 89 505.56 0.0 -6.1 -28.8 753.30 -27.8 1.6 F&C Investment Trust PLC 911.00 7.00 Smiths Group PLC 1598.5 -
FTSE All-Share Banks (12) 3341.76 2.95 2758.19 3245.92 3273.73 3009.78 3.91 2.63 9.74 0.00 2958.68
FTSE Developed Europe Large Cap 218 382.13 0.9 -1.4 -15.0 -12.2757.903.2 Consumer Goods 566 539.11 0.3 -5.2 -21.8 908.93 -20.0 2.5 Flutter Entertainment PLC 11450 160.00 Smurfit Kappa Group PLC 3137 66.00
FTSE All-Share Finance and Credit Services (8)10006.42 0.65 8259.01 9941.33 10052.61 9987.18 2.12 2.28 20.74 0.00 13446.91
FTSE Developed Europe Mid Cap 352 571.93 1.0 -1.4 -25.8 -23.7984.763.1 Automobiles & Parts 132 439.02 0.7 -15.9 -43.2 710.62 -42.3 2.4 Frasers Group PLC 720.00 10.00 Spirax-Sarco Engineering PLC 10715 100.00
FTSE All-Share Investment Banking and Brokerage Services (31) 8469.79 0.89 6990.72 8395.25 8451.09 10721.13 5.24 1.55 12.36 0.00 11969.00
FTSE Dev Europe Small Cap 743 808.77 1.1 -1.2 -26.8 1337.90
-24.6 3.2 Beverages 72 775.34 0.1 -2.3 -3.8 1321.61 -1.6 2.2 Fresnillo PLC 901.60 -0.20 Sse PLC 1663.5 -48.50
FTSE All-Share Closed End Investments (191)11694.95 0.89 9652.68 11591.86 11613.18 14258.52 2.73 -3.44 -10.63 0.00 7335.91
FTSE North America Large Cap 235 821.56 0.0 -5.9 -21.2 1236.33
-19.9 1.8 Food Producers 134 720.80 0.0 -2.1 -8.2 1244.68 -6.0 2.5 Glaxosmithkline PLC 1451 13.40 St. James's Place PLC 1110.5 15.50
FTSE All-Share Life Insurance (6) 7368.22 2.73 6081.51 7172.57 7227.48 7779.55 4.16 1.08 22.25 0.00 9016.84
FTSE North America Mid Cap 422 1092.41 0.0 -5.5 -16.5 1521.45
-14.9 1.9 Household Goods & Home Construction 64 537.59 0.1 -0.7 -17.8 907.03 -15.6 2.7 Glencore PLC 544.40 -8.00 Standard Chartered PLC 640.20 17.80
FTSE All-Share Nonlife Insurance (7) 3789.16 0.49 3127.46 3770.55 3771.81 3726.77 3.78 1.24 21.35 0.00 8069.54
FTSE North America Small Cap 1330 1061.76 0.0 -6.4 -19.5 1417.06
-18.3 1.7 Leisure Goods 53 229.51 -0.1 -4.2 -27.9 325.01 -26.9 1.5 Haleon PLC 323.00 -4.35 Taylor Wimpey PLC 104.65 3.00
FTSE All-Share Real Estate Investment and Services (10) 2076.14 2.13 1713.58 2032.85 2065.19 3150.93 2.49 3.59 11.18 0.00 6216.06
FTSE North America 657 539.77 0.0 -5.8 -20.3 -19.0830.581.8 Personal Goods 97 928.56 0.5 -0.3 -19.6 1432.87 -18.0 1.9 Halma PLC 2030 56.00 Tesco PLC 229.00 4.80
FTSE All-Share Real Estate Investment Trusts (45) 2083.40 2.39 1719.58 2034.72 2050.53 3086.82 4.57 3.62 6.03 0.00 3171.11
FTSE Developed ex North America 1514 261.55 0.5 -1.5 -17.1 -14.4501.823.2 Tobacco 14 997.33 0.0 -3.7 3.7 2869.91 10.3 6.2 Hargreaves Lansdown PLC 864.00 7.80 Unilever PLC 4193.5 11.50
FTSE All-Share Automobiles and Parts (2) 1522.61 1.76 1256.72 1496.21 1551.88 3646.50 0.74 -34.22 -3.92 0.00 1584.04
FTSE Japan Large Cap 169 370.98 0.0 -1.4 -18.6 -16.5546.242.7 Health Care 339 728.85 0.1 -1.8 -7.7 1163.18 -6.0 1.7 Homeserve PLC 1198 1.00 Unite Group PLC 924.50 14.50
FTSE All-Share Consumer Services (2) 3212.09 1.70 2651.17 3158.47 3184.15 2737.19 1.20 2.76 30.31 0.00 4074.53
FTSE Japan Mid Cap 338 529.22 0.0 0.7 -13.8 -11.4740.412.7 Health Care Equipment & Services 132 1378.86 0.0 -2.0 -17.1 1693.69 -16.3 1.0 HSBC Holdings PLC 529.90 14.20 United Utilities Group PLC 1005.5 14.10
FTSE All-Share Household Goods and Home Construction (11) 8577.25 3.42 7079.42 8293.29 8477.41 14961.00 8.66 1.60 7.20 0.00 7718.22
FTSE Global wi JAPAN Small Cap 896 594.52 0.0 1.7 -14.5 -12.0863.652.8 Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 207 495.49 0.1 -1.6 -0.3 850.25 2.0 2.2 Imperial Brands PLC 2090 19.00 Vodafone Group PLC 85.91 1.67
FTSE All-Share Leisure Goods (2) 23817.75 3.26 19658.48 23066.00 23231.17 25390.98 2.84 1.59 22.12 0.00 26618.23
FTSE Japan 507 153.13 0.0 -0.9 -17.7 -15.5252.482.7 Consumer Services 428 513.77 0.1 -5.5 -27.1 734.32 -26.2 1.3 Informa PLC 626.40 6.80 Weir Group PLC 1659 -10.00
FTSE All-Share Personal Goods (4) 27035.66 2.08 22314.45 26485.63 26825.15 31025.47 2.08 2.80 17.16 0.00 21264.77
FTSE Asia Pacific Large Cap ex Japan 1080 672.10 0.1 -1.3 -19.4 1228.42
-16.8 3.2 Food & Drug Retailers 69 314.62 0.1 -4.5 -8.6 500.86 -6.5 2.4 Intercontinental Hotels Group PLC 4832 88.00 Whitbread PLC 2676 106.00
FTSE All-Share Media (11) 9428.03 1.10 7781.63 9325.87 9410.72 10055.71 2.35 1.47 29.00 0.00 6633.58
FTSE Asia Pacific Mid Cap ex Japan 859 961.19 -0.1 -1.5 -15.2 1697.36
-12.2 3.5 General Retailers 141 891.07 0.1 -5.7 -30.3 1218.88 -29.7 1.0 International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. 128.86 5.02 Wpp PLC 834.60 14.40
FTSE All-Share Retailers (22) 1911.88 2.63 1578.01 1862.96 1864.23 2820.52 2.88 3.08 11.28 0.00 2496.49
FTSE All-Share Travel and Leisure (29) 6213.76 2.13 5128.66 6084.40 6144.85 7553.04 0.65 -7.30 -21.01 0.00 6427.04 FTSE Asia Pacific Small Cap ex Japan 2053 533.63 -0.1 -3.2 -26.7 -24.4913.863.2 Media 75 289.95 0.1 -7.3 -38.2 417.04 -37.5 1.4
FTSE All-Share Beverages (5) 27670.39 -1.01 22838.34 27953.97 28065.38 31213.88 2.17 2.00 23.04 0.00 22189.10 FTSE Asia Pacific Ex Japan 1939 535.58 0.0 -1.3 -19.0 1040.59
-16.4 3.2 Travel & Leisure 143 443.04 0.1 -4.2 -13.6 647.66 -12.6 1.2
FTSE All-Share Food Producers (10) 5969.54 1.66 4927.09 5872.35 5930.61 6913.51 2.59 2.27 17.03 0.00 5814.86 FTSE Emerging All Cap 3624 704.33 0.0 -1.5 -20.0 1230.76
-17.2 3.6 Telecommunication 89 129.15 0.3 -2.0 -12.9 305.21 -9.3 4.4 UK STOCK MARKET TRADING DATA
FTSE All-Share Tobacco (2) 36238.04 1.66 29909.83 35646.03 35861.41 29289.24 6.56 0.87 17.59 0.00 34478.93 FTSE Emerging Large Cap 1065 650.11 0.0 -1.3 -21.0 1142.70
-18.2 3.6 Fixed Line Telecommuniations 31 100.97 0.3 -1.9 -10.4 274.77 -5.7 5.2 Jan 03 Dec 30 Dec 29 Dec 28 Dec 23 Yr Ago
FTSE All-Share Construction and Materials (15) 7504.38 3.06 6193.90 7281.85 7307.15 8991.03 3.08 0.66 49.46 0.00 9156.85 FTSE Emerging Mid Cap 915 1023.12 0.1 -1.2 -11.0 1797.69
-7.7 3.8 Mobile Telecommunications 58 152.57 0.3 -2.1 -14.2 310.25 -11.1 3.9 Order Book Turnover (m) 672.16 36.23 36.23 36.23 36.76 132.92
FTSE All-Share Aerospace and Defense (7) 5475.11 1.78 4519.00 5379.45 5408.39 4417.34 2.14 0.10 468.34 0.00 6677.95 FTSE Emerging Small Cap 1644 753.51 0.0 -2.8 -22.2 1258.88
-19.6 3.5 Utilities 198 322.57 0.1 0.0 -6.0 756.42 -3.0 3.3 Order Book Bargains 713178.00 192897.00 192897.00 192897.00 353775.00 453169.00
FTSE All-Share Electronic and Electrical Equipment (11)10385.18 1.84 8571.63 10197.09 10368.60 14307.79 1.70 2.07 28.30 0.00 10285.87 FTSE Emerging Europe 116 130.62 1.6 9.2 -68.5 -67.1273.912.7 Electricity 141 365.96 0.1 0.2 -5.1 844.75 -2.2 3.2 Order Book Shares Traded (m) 1460.00 464.00 464.00 464.00 705.00 773.00
FTSE All-Share General Industrials (8) 4935.19 1.21 4073.37 4876.27 4914.89 5698.92 2.94 1.22 27.87 0.00 6530.61 FTSE Latin America All Cap 260 686.74 -1.6 -5.5 -3.1 1371.45
6.1 10.5 Gas Water & Multiutilities 57 316.51 0.2 -0.5 -8.2 768.99 -4.9 3.6 Total Equity Turnover (£m) 8385.36 2538.91 2538.91 2538.91 2295.83 2956.90
FTSE All-Share Industrial Engineering (5)15339.61 0.45 12660.87 15270.72 15436.62 20142.50 1.70 2.01 29.21 0.00 20605.24 FTSE Middle East and Africa All Cap 331 725.95 0.2 -2.8 -8.9 1331.46
-6.1 3.3 Financials 851 259.86 0.1 -2.2 -13.4 500.81 -10.6 3.2 Total Mkt Bargains 906327.00 299047.00 299047.00 299047.00 482893.00 589639.00
FTSE All-Share Industrial Support Services (30) 9700.93 1.44 8006.87 9563.12 9696.86 12456.60 1.98 1.67 30.15 0.00 11172.81 FTSE Global wi UNITED KINGDOM All Cap In 289 314.20 0.0 -2.9 -12.7 -9.5643.753.6 Banks 269 198.58 0.2 -1.3 -12.3 426.68 -8.6 4.2 Total Shares Traded (m) 5891.00 3713.00 3713.00 3713.00 3833.00 3847.00
FTSE All-Share Industrial Transportation (8) 5315.57 1.47 4387.32 5238.45 5326.39 6896.28 2.09 3.34 14.30 0.00 5574.13 FTSE Global wi USA All Cap 1807 926.56 0.0 -5.9 -20.5 1344.20
-19.2 1.7 Nonlife Insurance 71 366.42 0.1 0.0 4.6 612.64 7.7 2.9 † Excluding intra-market and overseas turnover. *UK only total at 6pm. ‡ UK plus intra-market turnover. (u) Unavaliable.
FTSE All-Share Industrial Materials (1)16553.09 -2.65 519.04 17003.17 16753.13 20103.75 1.99 1.81 27.82 0.00 20909.02 FTSE Europe All Cap 1464 433.10 1.0 -1.3 -19.1 -16.6824.703.2 Life Insurance 52 227.90 0.1 1.6 -5.7 440.13 -1.9 3.8 (c) Market closed.
FTSE All-Share Industrial Metals and Mining (9) 8424.42 -0.05 6953.28 8429.03 8494.63 6853.45 6.22 2.02 7.96 0.00 12932.00 FTSE Eurozone All Cap 658 421.07 1.6 -0.6 -18.8 -16.2795.653.2 Financial Services 209 424.41 0.0 -4.3 -15.0 645.70 -13.4 1.7
FTSE All-Share Precious Metals and Mining (5)10699.41 1.43 8830.99 10548.50 10560.71 18840.48 3.37 1.83 16.24 0.00 7543.46 FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient All-World 4151 463.87 0.1 -3.2 -15.0 -12.8732.482.7 Technology 359 442.78 0.1 -7.7 -34.7 578.51 -34.1 1.2
FTSE All-Share Chemicals (7) 13001.57 0.33 10731.12 12958.75 13036.33 18433.58 2.69 1.82 20.39 0.00 13062.45 FTSE EDHEC-Risk Efficient Developed Europe 570 316.65 1.0 -1.1 -23.3 -21.0557.613.3 Software & Computer Services 184 678.35 0.1 -5.9 -36.6 820.97 -36.2 0.7 All data provided by Morningstar unless otherwise noted. All elements listed are indicative and believed
FTSE All-Share Oil. Gas and Coal (12) 8289.88 1.66 6842.23 8154.31 8242.58 5756.12 3.53 2.82 10.04 0.00 10461.80 Oil & Gas 129 409.22 0.2 -2.7 24.8 31.3842.614.8 Technology Hardware & Equipment 175 386.43 0.2 -9.5 -32.6 543.69 -31.6 1.7 accurate at the time of publication. No offer is made by Morningstar or the FT. The FT does not warrant nor
Oil & Gas Producers 86 407.95 0.2 -2.2 28.4 35.5863.025.1 Alternative Energy 19 182.51 -0.2 -7.5 -12.4 261.93 -12.1 0.4 guarantee that the information is reliable or complete. The FT does not accept responsibility and will not be
FTSE Sector Indices Real Estate Investment & Services 142 251.92 0.3 -1.4 -23.4 491.41 -21.2 3.2
Non Financials (330) 5035.84 1.24 4456.12 4974.21 5016.13 5071.75 3.51 1.63 17.50 0.00 9125.63 liable for any loss arising from the reliance on or use of the listed information.
Real Estate Investment Trusts 108 435.81 0.1 -3.7 -26.9 1026.18 -24.3 4.0
For all queries e-mail ft.reader.enquiries@morningstar.com
FTSE Global Large Cap 1897 609.07 0.2 -4.2 -19.8 1007.84 -17.9 2.4
Hourly movements 8.00 9.00 10.00 11.00 12.00 13.00 14.00 15.00 16.00 High/day Low/day 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/
FTSE 100 7518.44 7597.81 7622.06 7608.94 7558.77 7547.08 7562.17 7553.27 7583.44 7625.91 7513.84 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 250 18953.17 19158.66 19259.90 19213.54 19126.02 19153.74 19202.65 19166.53 19187.61 19266.03 18953.17 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.
FTSE SmallCap 6249.82 6275.51 6287.10 6288.53 6289.32 6293.26 6297.70 6299.06 6303.46 6306.83 6247.34 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
FTSE All-Share 4108.75 4151.62 4165.95 4158.58 4133.06 4128.64 4137.08 4131.94 4146.42 4167.55 4107.25 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,
Time of FTSE 100 Day's high:09:56:45 Day's Low08:05:00 FTSE 100 2010/11 High: 7554.09(03/01/2023) Low: 7554.09(03/01/2023) 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.
Time of FTSE All-Share Day's high:09:57:00 Day's Low08:05:00 FTSE 100 2010/11 High: 4131.41(03/01/2023) Low: 4131.41(03/01/2023)
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 Barkby Group Pre 10.298 2.824 5.627L 2.521L 6.680L 3.090L 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 date price(p) Sector code Stock price(p) +/- High Low Cap (£m)
price up date High Low Stock Price p +or- Catalyst Media Group Pre 0.025 0.025 24.433 1.575L 116.280 7.510L 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 12/15 29.84 AIM S247 Smarttech247 Group PLC 30.00 0.00 31.46 29.94 3722.4
There are currently no rights offers by any companies listed on the LSE. Electric Guitar Int 0.000 0.000 0.372L 0.052L 1.790L 0.000 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000 12/05 0.30 HELD Hellenic Dynamics PLC 0.14 0.00 0.32 0.13 1722.9
Galileo Resources Int 0.000 0.000 1.209 0.552L 0.110 0.060L 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000
Hellenic Dynamics Int 0.000 - 0.280L - 0.000 - 0.00000 - - 0.000 -
Iconic Labs Pre 0.509 0.107 7.694L 2.840L 0.000 0.000 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000
Mobile Streams Pre 1.022 0.395 2.764L 1.032L 0.102L 0.070L 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000
Pantheon Resources Pre 0.000 0.000 15.974L 8.241L 0.000 0.000 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000
Provexis Int 0.179 0.211 0.174L 0.145L 0.010L 0.010L 0.00000 0.00000 - 0.000 0.000

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.
12 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

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$) Finland (€) Denso 6536 -36.00 8917 6486 2.18 18.03 39031.48 Richemont 127.30 7.40 139.80 90.28 1.40 31.60 70823.98 Booking Holdings 2008.46 -6.82 2715.66 1616.85 - 80.43 77906.93 Linde 315.75 -10.44 347.60 262.47 1.19 48.66 155523.59
ANZ Bank 23.01 -0.65 28.33 20.78 - - 46602.61 Nokia 4.43 -0.01 5.35 4.12 - 15.98 26615.27 EastJpRwy 7520 3.00 8280 6373 1.35 -7.59 21539.67 Roche 293.80 3.30 404.20 289.40 2.73 20.49 219997.79 Bristol-Myers 72.06 0.11 81.44 61.33 2.47 26.05 153211.11 Lockheed 478.78 -7.71 498.95 366.31 2.06 23.19 125475.77
BHP Group 45.33 -0.30 53.72 35.83 8.67 11.13 154746.46 SampoA 48.99 -0.18 49.97 35.85 3.34 10.91 27565.44 Fanuc 19835 -135.00 24930 18740 2.32 23.75 30352.59 Swiss Re 89.58 3.10 102.20 68.18 6.03 22.53 30313.25 Broadcom 552.71 -6.43 645.31 415.07 2.41 35.21 230967.76 Lowes 197.60 -1.64 240.71 170.12 1.36 18.34 122650.43
CmwBkAu 101.05 -1.55 109.20 86.98 3.31 19.87 115053.67 France (€) FastRetail 80530 1530 88230 54310 0.66 38.05 64739.94 Swisscom 515.60 9.00 587.40 443.40 3.90 15.97 28466.91 Cadence Design 158.18 -2.46 194.97 132.32 - 71.37 43391.3 Lyondell 82.84 -0.19 117.22 71.46 4.75 5.57 26974.73
CSL 281.75 -6.01 304.70 240.10 1.03 42.19 91620.13 Airbus Grpe 114.54 0.68 120.36 86.52 - 21.98 95296.45 Fuji Hvy Ind 2027.5 12.50 2684 1664.5 2.81 23.45 11819.35 UBS 17.81 0.60 19.90 13.10 1.78 9.55 66886.38 CapOne 93.07 0.11 160.54 86.98 1.90 3.90 35524.69 Marathon Ptl 112.53 -3.86 127.62 67.49 1.83 62.84 52738.4
NatAusBk 29.42 -0.64 33.75 25.43 2.92 16.39 62524 AirLiquide 134.66 -0.34 153.40 114.48 1.95 26.01 74399.69 Hitachi 6691 -51.00 7463 4750 1.75 9.87 47570.68 Zurich Fin 449.30 7.00 461.70 376.20 4.07 15.59 72050.9 CardinalHlth 75.81 -1.06 81.57 49.10 2.29 44.31 19872.38 Marsh&M 165.28 -0.20 183.14 142.80 1.44 28.68 81980.45
Telstra 3.95 -0.04 4.17 3.62 2.42 33.60 30777.3 AXA 26.66 0.18 29.09 20.34 5.12 9.40 66180.49 HondaMtr 3032 -2.00 3755 3001 4.33 6.46 41625.3 Taiwan (NT$) Carnival 8.01 -0.05 23.86 6.11 - -1.08 8912.78 MasterCard 347.01 -0.72 399.92 276.87 0.57 44.69 330979.19
Wesfarmers 45.46 -0.45 55.19 40.03 3.74 24.44 34763.6 BNP Parib 56.01 1.08 68.07 40.67 4.57 8.44 72975.62 JapanTob 2661 -15.00 2871.5 2000 5.23 13.64 40334.98 Chunghwa Telecom 113.00 - 132.50 105.50 3.72 25.04 28559.04 Caterpillar 237.98 -1.59 245.05 160.60 1.59 22.69 123844.42 McDonald's 260.23 -3.30 281.67 217.68 1.79 29.24 190598.67
Westpac Bank 22.73 -0.62 24.67 18.80 3.73 17.29 53787.03 ChristianDior 699.50 12.50 734.50 513.00 0.96 26.73 133279.51 KDDI 3982 -14.00 4636 3486 3.07 13.43 69494.11 Formosa PetChem 80.10 -0.20 103.50 75.20 0.72 15.71 24859.23 Centene Corp 80.08 -1.93 98.53 73.20 - 39.62 45346.08 McKesson 368.76 -6.36 401.78 237.72 0.43 47.11 52287.76
Woolworths 33.09 -0.47 39.63 31.67 3.12 39.47 27144.74 Cred Agr 10.11 0.13 14.27 8.09 7.56 5.78 32475.56 Keyence 51420 -170.00 63120 44880 0.40 43.25 94779.94 HonHaiPrc 99.10 -0.80 116.00 98.00 3.97 10.17 44758.61 CharlesSch 82.40 -0.86 96.24 59.35 0.77 32.84 149625.68 Medtronic 77.71 -0.02 114.31 75.77 2.84 23.92 103361.64
Belgium (€) Danone 49.96 0.38 58.24 46.48 3.71 17.79 35637.06 MitsbCp 4283 2.00 4845 3740 3.28 9.62 47851.48 MediaTek 644.00 19.00 1170 533.00 5.65 9.33 33558.23 Charter Comms 338.94 -0.16 621.00 297.66 - 15.62 52763.56 Merck 110.02 -0.93 112.89 72.88 2.13 25.54 278944.27
AnBshInBv 56.84 -0.06 58.72 45.56 0.90 29.68 104227.43 EDF 12.00 - 12.04 6.64 3.88 9.66 49244.37 MitsubEst 982.82 2.48 1013.24 876.51 - - - TaiwanSem 453.00 4.50 650.00 370.00 2.32 18.35 382695.59 Chevron Corp 175.36 -4.13 189.68 122.84 2.68 24.30 339082.86 Meta 124.02 3.68 328.00 88.09 - 10.16 279704.85
KBC Grp 62.18 1.80 81.70 45.53 5.28 10.59 27361.88 Engie SA 13.51 -0.05 14.68 9.79 3.75 9.96 34723.32 MitsubishiEle 1313.5 -11.00 1504.5 1225.5 3.10 11.82 21375.2 Chipotle Mexic. 1365.93 -21.56 1754.56 1196.28 - 67.29 37865.1 Metlife 72.12 -0.25 77.36 57.41 2.34 11.13 56585.8
Thailand (THB)
EssilorLuxottica 170.10 -0.85 184.70 132.70 0.61 54.30 80374.94 MitsuiFud 868.58 7.22 1007.12 684.38 - - - Chubb 218.43 -2.17 223.05 173.78 1.29 12.79 90661.42 Microsoft 238.20 -1.62 315.95 213.43 0.86 28.621776138.89
Brazil (R$) PTT Explor 32.75 -0.50 41.25 30.75 5.63 9.46 27187.12
Hermes Intl 1490 17.00 1585.5 957.60 0.29 66.96 166036.95 MitUFJFin 889.00 7.50 911.80 632.60 2.98 9.07 86666.98 Cigna 319.74 -11.61 340.11 213.16 1.11 22.93 97755.46 Mnstr Bvrg 100.63 -0.90 104.65 71.78 - 44.17 52503.06
Ambev 14.35 0.16 16.88 12.81 4.07 20.91 41892.43 United Arab Emirates (Dhs)
LOreal 338.40 1.30 385.25 300.45 1.13 43.16 191168.32 Mizuho Fin 1856 5.50 1894 1436.5 4.28 8.93 35718.28 Cintas Corp 447.84 -3.78 470.23 343.86 0.72 44.29 45476.06 MondelezInt 65.74 -0.91 69.47 54.72 1.79 24.39 89775.76
Bradesco 12.81 -0.38 17.72 12.03 6.71 5.72 11564.46 Emirtestele 24.30 0.70 38.98 11.60 2.75 27.17 57535.64
LVMH 702.80 8.70 739.40 535.00 0.95 30.80 373338.04 Murata Mfg 6588 -16.00 8944 6533 1.85 13.31 33742.17 Cisco 47.42 -0.22 58.34 38.61 2.79 18.99 194827.42 Monsanto 10.07 0.02 11.13 9.56 - 51.84 251.75
Cielo 5.00 -0.10 6.22 2.01 3.01 16.33 2517.84
Orange 9.53 0.13 11.94 9.08 6.013310.77 26753.04 Nippon TT 3762 -16.00 4128 3199 2.84 11.92 103270.39 United Kingdom (p) Citigroup 46.10 0.87 69.11 40.01 3.92 5.13 89288.92 MorganStly 85.32 0.30 109.73 72.05 2.18 11.99 144198.95
ItauHldFin 21.19 -0.26 26.04 18.86 3.78 8.09 19474.18
PernodRic 184.45 -0.45 203.50 166.60 1.62 29.15 50221.55 Nissan Mt 418.10 3.00 643.00 408.60 - 13.36 13374.35 Anglo American 3267 30.50 4292.5 2487.5 5.46 6.47 52468.83 CME Grp 167.54 -0.63 256.94 166.58 1.90 25.92 60266.52 Netflix 292.40 -2.48 451.98 162.71 - 29.35 130123.99
Petrobras 26.00 -0.17 42.08 23.61 19.11 3.58 35866.23
Renault 33.19 -0.22 38.07 20.47 - -25.94 10358.72 Nomura 488.60 -0.20 562.20 460.30 4.79 -33.07 11974.08 AscBrFd 1627 51.00 2063 1223 0.38 26.89 15378.76 Coca-Cola 62.37 -1.25 67.20 54.02 2.39 31.27 269698.27 NextEraE 82.80 -0.80 91.35 67.22 1.74 122.70 164537.15
Vale 89.71 0.31 107.11 61.90 14.99 3.86 79462.89
Safran 118.00 -0.54 120.32 87.85 0.351235.54 53215.57 Nppn Stl 2292 -2.50 2336 1787 3.55 3.56 16507.91 AstraZen 11534 316.00 11552 8214 1.801952.93 214591.56 Cognizant 57.23 0.04 93.47 51.33 1.49 15.94 29411.57 Nike 118.95 1.94 149.68 82.22 0.87 35.07 150311.48
Canada (C$) Panasonic 1110.5 -9.50 1325 1006.5 2.29 11.05 20654.3 Aviva 448.90 6.10 606.58 341.92 4.76 59.07 15134.49 ColgtPlm 78.01 -0.78 84.75 67.84 2.03 34.51 65155.06 NorfolkS 245.47 -0.95 291.55 203.65 1.50 22.87 56829.79
Sanofi 92.33 0.65 106.08 76.45 3.31 19.54 123528.57
Bausch Hlth 8.53 0.03 33.39 5.10 - -2.67 2263.5 Seven & I 5660 - 6083 5041 1.85 21.20 38025.4 Barclays 163.60 5.08 209.45 132.06 1.83 3.97 31169.75 Comcast 34.97 -0.01 51.20 28.39 2.54 12.97 150837.76 Northrop 541.96 -3.66 556.27 364.62 1.01 14.04 83413.46
Sant Gbn 48.19 1.23 64.82 35.20 2.70 12.07 26235.12
BCE 59.47 -0.02 74.09 55.66 5.63 20.78 39769.7 ShnEtsuCh 16225 -35.00 20000 14185 1.82 15.29 50533.12 BP 483.35 8.45 503.30 341.60 3.26 17.54 105376.65 ConocPhil 114.52 -3.48 138.49 78.30 1.51 21.28 142700.06 NXP 154.90 -3.13 211.83 132.08 1.29 25.73 40139.99
Schneider 133.90 1.16 159.94 110.02 1.85 24.73 80717.5
BkMontrl 124.12 1.46 154.47 113.73 3.49 9.96 64001.98 Softbank 5644 26.00 7180 4210 0.79 4.77 73700.03 BrAmTob♦ 3342.5 61.00 3645 2915 6.45 11.31 89732.62 Constellation 228.10 -3.65 261.53 207.59 1.19-1158.58 36775.31 Occid Pet 60.98 -2.01 77.13 31.37 0.06 33.39 55425.58
SocGen 24.57 0.39 37.68 18.34 2.15 4.35 22041.7
BkNvaS 65.27 -1.07 95.00 63.19 5.44 8.52 57025.39 Sony 10035 -80.00 13425 9213 0.61 12.61 95910.84 BT 114.80 2.75 201.40 110.55 - 11.15 13688.69 Corning 32.00 0.06 43.47 28.98 2.66 28.20 27065.96 Oracle 82.87 1.13 85.58 60.78 1.38 35.35 223438.49
Total 58.98 -1.04 60.93 43.60 4.37 11.86 163058.1
Brookfield 58.88 11.29 63.88 41.28 1.09 19.91 69948.82 SumitomoF 5296 34.00 5422 3672 3.84 10.14 55177.27 Compass 1950 32.50 1970.5 1494 0.72 47.45 41064.19 Corteva 58.47 -0.31 68.43 43.74 0.81 27.82 41776.35 Pepsico 177.56 -3.10 186.84 153.37 2.12 36.48 244626.05
UnibailR 50.88 0.15 73.09 39.68 - -7.59 7452.31
CanadPcR 101.78 0.83 111.43 86.12 0.71 25.44 69438.64 Takeda Ph 4111 -19.00 4203 3250 4.46 14.52 49299.31 Diageo 3612.5 -37.50 4067 3282.5 2.01 27.79 98449.08 Corteva 58.47 -0.31 68.43 43.74 0.81 27.82 41776.35 Perrigo 34.74 0.65 43.90 30.78 2.45 -39.99 4677.38
Vinci 94.84 -0.11 103.74 80.74 2.71 22.02 59002.81
CanImp 55.32 0.55 137.34 53.58 10.39 4.00 36765.85 TokioMarine 2827.5 -1.50 2970.5 2037 7.92 4.52 43715.94 GlaxoSmh 1451 13.40 2753.96 1280.92 5.51 16.76 71329.54 Costco 449.16 -7.34 612.27 406.51 0.63 40.45 199305.33 Pfizer 50.85 -0.39 56.32 41.45 2.72 14.60 285437.04
Vivendi 9.32 0.25 12.16 7.59 6.15 -17.43 10910.44
CanNatRs 73.01 -2.18 88.18 58.75 2.62 11.81 59201.33 Toyota 1812.5 -4.50 2375.5 1791 2.86 8.05 224115.39 Glencore 544.40 -8.00 571.90 382.10 1.63 19.93 83785.25 CrownCstl 136.89 1.25 199.97 121.71 3.54 57.83 59278.69 Phillips66 102.42 -1.66 113.53 73.85 3.13 38.90 48406.99
CanNatRy 162.03 1.19 175.39 137.26 1.45 24.57 80162.28 Germany (€)
Mexico (Mex$) HSBC 529.90 14.20 567.20 434.70 3.05 11.58 127048.33 CSX 30.75 -0.23 38.63 25.80 1.12 19.16 64649.07 PhilMorris 100.68 -0.53 112.48 82.85 4.31 19.48 156074.37
Enbridge 53.22 0.30 59.69 48.88 6.01 19.38 79021.27 Allianz 205.20 2.15 232.50 156.22 4.47 13.57 87357.67
AmerMvl 17.67 -0.23 21.45 15.67 1.86 14.18 38465.5 Imperial Brands 2090 19.00 2185 1434.23 6.61 6.99 23523.78 CVS 92.27 -0.92 111.25 86.28 1.92 17.49 121239.73 PNCFin 160.48 2.54 214.50 143.52 2.65 14.25 64724.64
GtWesLif 31.51 0.21 41.50 27.99 5.86 9.24 21531.34 BASF 48.89 0.91 69.15 37.90 6.45 8.48 46128.3
FEMSA UBD 150.45 -1.89 169.96 120.63 1.36 122.04 16737.41 Jardine Mathes. 62.50 - 60.50 46.89 2.44 11.73 18114.01 Danaher 260.81 -4.62 303.82 233.71 0.31 33.57 189856.31 PPG Inds 125.53 -0.22 159.50 107.06 1.68 31.07 29501.81
ImpOil 64.22 -1.73 79.83 48.63 1.53 19.28 27509.19 Bayer 49.23 -0.27 67.99 47.01 3.88 50.53 51046.4
WalMrtMex 69.03 -0.12 82.93 64.81 0.74 34.13 62047.17 LlydsBkg 47.13 1.72 56.00 38.10 5.45 6.55 38072.18 Deere 422.27 -6.49 448.40 283.81 0.83 26.16 125936.65 ProctGmbl 149.64 -1.92 165.35 122.18 2.12 28.69 356966.14
Manulife 24.32 0.17 28.09 20.81 4.60 7.18 33435.71 BMW 85.83 0.03 97.60 67.58 2.11 4.79 54539.67
LSE Group 7146 10.00 8612 6230 1.07 73.07 43624.6 Delta 32.66 -0.21 46.27 27.20 - 44.21 20938.01 Prudntl 99.33 -0.13 124.22 85.46 4.11 5.74 36950.76
Nutrien 97.90 -0.95 147.93 85.62 2.27 14.67 36943.56 Continental 59.66 0.56 93.29 44.44 - 9.63 12595.24 Netherlands (€)
Natl Grid 999.00 1.60 1271.45 844.29 4.92 23.29 43905.17 Devon Energy 58.68 -2.83 79.40 42.87 2.98 15.80 38359.12 PublStor 272.09 -8.11 421.76 270.67 2.61 31.10 47788.57
RylBkC 127.78 0.48 149.60 116.75 3.33 11.85 129839.47 Deut Bank 11.11 0.17 14.64 7.46 - 11.45 24241.82 ASML Hld 520.30 3.40 642.00 376.10 0.62 42.06 221404.52
Natwest Group 271.10 5.90 284.42 196.92 3.87 10.67 31483.27 Digital Realty 102.12 1.85 157.25 85.76 4.03 19.39 29361.77 Qualcomm 107.45 -2.49 192.10 101.93 2.22 13.88 120451.45
SHOP 47.74 0.73 125.50 33.00 - 1.72 35021.94 Deut Tlkm 19.04 0.11 19.86 14.47 3.01 22.91 100216.55 Heineken 89.34 1.34 100.95 77.50 1.05 16.21 54318.88
Prudential 1177 49.50 1311 782.40 1.00 19.11 38858.88 DiscFinServ 97.88 0.05 129.12 87.64 1.70 6.19 26743.34 Raytheon 100.50 -0.42 106.02 80.27 1.77 43.94 147741.11
Suncor En 42.09 -0.86 53.62 32.08 2.39 15.88 41582.18 DeutsPost 36.27 0.26 55.21 29.68 3.64 9.61 47430.77 ING 11.95 0.28 14.00 7.90 4.79 10.17 47013.91
ReckittB 5806 52.00 6824 5400 3.01 -25.12 49895.14 Disney 88.29 1.41 157.50 84.07 - 57.90 161002.2 Regen Pharm 724.55 3.06 779.00 538.01 - 11.36 77587.56
ThmReut 156.02 1.56 159.82 119.23 1.26 11.22 54631.06 E.ON 9.66 0.19 12.54 7.28 4.65 5.62 26921.46 Unilever 47.62 0.39 49.09 39.36 3.01 24.45 144775.43
RELX 2307 19.00 2474 2056 2.07 30.44 53045.56 Dollar General 247.02 0.77 262.21 183.25 0.61 27.14 55227.45 S&P Global 334.83 -0.11 425.21 279.32 0.82 30.19 109087.61
TntoDom 87.88 0.21 109.08 77.27 3.56 11.49 117393.52 Fresenius Med 30.25 -0.15 63.66 26.19 4.23 9.57 9355.78 Norway (Kr) RioTinto 5839 41.00 6343 4436.95 8.60 6.11 87611.55 DominRes 62.37 1.05 88.78 57.18 3.58 22.06 51971.37 Salesforce 133.66 1.07 234.49 126.34 - 100.91 133660
TrnCan 53.37 -0.61 74.44 53.18 6.24 29.98 39839.06 Fresenius SE 27.08 0.64 38.11 19.76 3.18 8.96 15964.45 DNB 197.80 1.85 220.50 168.05 8.88 12.52 30713.74 RollsRoyce 98.91 5.71 123.52 64.44 - 67.29 9937.44 DukeEner 102.79 -0.20 116.33 83.76 3.36 23.52 79154.75 Schlmbrg 51.71 -1.76 56.04 30.65 0.86 44.19 73317.37
HenkelKgaA 61.05 0.75 74.75 56.55 2.86 17.00 16741.65 Equinor 333.80 -19.75 410.95 239.55 1.49 14.26 105549.67
China (HK$) Shell PLC 2367 41.00 2527 1749.4 2.56 12.47 199009.16 DuPont 68.53 -0.10 84.08 49.52 1.55 23.93 34044.95 Sempra Energy 151.05 -3.50 176.47 129.69 2.58 42.49 47478.48
Linde 299.65 -0.45 334.70 244.00 1.19 48.74 155795.34 Telenor 94.84 2.24 148.80 87.60 9.58 15.87 13216.43
AgricBkCh 2.68 - 3.15 2.22 7.83 3.56 10544.34 StandCh 640.20 17.80 642.60 431.30 1.38 14.36 22251.54 Eaton 156.85 -0.10 167.51 122.50 1.72 33.13 62379.25 Shrwin-Will 237.64 0.31 301.85 195.24 0.82 38.40 61581.55
Mercedes-Benz 64.05 0.27 77.90 50.19 2.01 6.71 72329.81
Bk China 2.86 0.02 3.20 2.51 7.66 3.59 30611.61 Qatar (QR) Tesco 229.00 4.80 304.10 194.35 4.00 11.66 20217.18 eBay 41.88 0.41 61.34 35.92 1.52 124.32 22726.56 SimonProp 117.33 -0.15 151.87 86.02 5.40 19.35 38360.55
MuenchRkv 307.70 3.90 310.20 205.15 3.04 15.39 45503.28
BkofComm 4.58 0.09 5.74 3.84 7.52 3.83 20524.65 QatarNtBk 18.21 -0.08 27.00 17.50 2.75 14.79 46185.28 Unilever 4193.5 11.50 4249.5 3267.5 3.45 21.53 127491.76 Ecolab 146.22 0.66 203.49 131.04 1.18 42.18 41646.13 SouthCpr 61.29 0.90 79.32 42.42 4.63 15.75 47383.21
SAP 98.51 1.09 122.06 81.35 1.79 23.13 127743.06
BOE Tech 0.65 0.01 0.86 0.57 - 10.61 16.55 Saudi Arabia (SR) Vodafone 85.91 1.67 141.60 83.24 9.00-192.19 28173.92 Edwards Lifesc. 74.13 -0.48 131.10 67.13 - 35.14 45831.65 Starbucks 100.48 1.28 105.54 68.39 1.62 30.63 115330.94
Siemens 130.94 1.12 149.26 93.67 2.55 20.62 117482.08
Ch Coms Cons 3.85 0.10 5.17 3.09 5.20 3.23 2177.38 AlRajhiBnk 76.20 0.70 117.40 71.80 2.80 14.53 81106.96 WPP 834.60 14.40 1231.5 713.00 3.18 15.90 10731.87 Eli Lilly 361.82 -4.03 375.25 231.87 0.83 66.69 343788.62 StateSt 78.73 1.16 103.76 58.62 2.45 12.35 28889.2
Volkswgn 155.35 1.25 266.40 144.35 2.95 5.50 48388.91
Ch Evrbrght 2.42 0.04 3.11 2.04 9.74 3.31 3927.24 Natnlcombnk 50.40 -0.30 82.00 45.75 2.56 19.03 60056.2 United States of America ($) Emerson 95.63 -0.43 100.00 72.41 1.88 23.55 56555.58 Stryker 244.77 0.28 279.28 188.84 0.94 53.00 92628.29
Ch Rail Cons 4.89 0.22 5.95 3.75 5.28 2.63 1299.55 Hong Kong (HK$) EOG Res 125.23 -4.29 150.88 92.16 1.14 17.68 73558.79 Sychrony Fin 32.48 -0.38 47.05 27.22 2.47 4.83 14633.59
SaudiBasic 90.00 - 141.40 79.20 3.21 13.17 71846.73 21stC Fox A 30.28 -0.10 44.95 28.02 1.38 13.83 9157.42
Ch Rail Gp 4.22 0.10 5.88 3.48 4.80 3.44 2272.62 AIA 88.30 1.50 92.50 57.25 1.34 22.81 133145.31 Equinix 657.78 2.75 776.35 494.89 1.55 134.18 60869.72 T-MobileUS 137.22 -2.78 154.38 101.51 - 64.23 170722.83
SaudiTelec 37.50 0.30 48.88 35.05 9.48 7.45 49893.55 3M 120.93 1.01 176.02 107.07 4.34 13.48 66843.2
ChConstBk 4.93 0.04 6.23 4.12 7.42 3.63 151708.14 BOC Hold 26.80 0.20 32.75 23.55 4.12 13.89 36267.91 EquityResTP 58.55 -0.45 94.32 58.15 3.65 19.28 22127.15 Target 151.34 2.30 254.87 137.16 1.87 11.99 69656.15
Singapore (S$) AbbottLb 109.29 -0.51 130.94 93.25 1.46 31.29 190546.46
China Vanke 15.52 -0.28 21.70 9.96 9.03 7.08 3787.31 Ch OSLnd&Inv 21.00 0.40 27.35 14.58 5.08 5.27 29419.08 Exelon 42.59 -0.65 50.71 29.10 3.18 27.61 42318.5 TE Connect 114.11 -0.69 154.52 104.76 1.54 17.49 36198.99
DBS 33.88 -0.04 37.49 29.45 3.21 14.84 64890.69 Abbvie 162.01 0.40 175.91 128.60 2.85 28.33 286511.53
ChinaCitic 3.50 0.04 4.08 2.92 7.89 3.29 6667.06 ChngKng 48.10 0.05 57.00 42.90 3.27 11.11 22195.86 ExxonMb 107.08 -3.23 114.66 69.81 2.89 22.41 440966.27 Tesla Mtrs 106.67 -16.51 384.29 105.60 - 24.56 336837.45
JardnMt US$ 50.06 -0.84 62.10 42.60 3.05 9.40 14508.6 Accenture 268.36 1.52 360.10 242.95 1.22 30.74 176685.14
ChinaLife 13.66 0.26 15.04 8.53 4.92 6.05 13010.45 Citic Ltd 8.23 -0.01 9.26 7.01 5.81 3.84 30643.97 Fedex 175.92 2.72 256.49 141.92 1.44 10.67 44401.7 TexasInstr 163.12 -2.10 191.34 144.46 2.29 22.28 148045
OCBC 12.24 0.06 13.54 11.20 3.03 13.04 40934.38 Activision Bli. 76.66 0.11 82.00 70.94 0.54 25.14 59996.06
ChinaMBank 44.50 0.85 70.80 25.40 3.16 8.31 26149.08 Citic Secs 15.78 - 21.32 11.82 2.69 8.20 5292.01 Fidelity NIS 68.19 0.34 122.06 56.53 2.03 114.81 40462.55 TheTrvelers 185.86 -1.63 191.22 149.65 1.73 12.92 43555.83
SingTel 2.55 -0.02 2.88 2.38 2.59 46.00 31326.55 Adobe 332.89 -3.64 540.46 274.73 - 36.94 154760.56
ChinaMob 52.50 0.75 58.65 46.85 6.04 8.20 137488.12 CK Hutchison 47.30 0.45 60.45 38.80 4.28 6.05 23188.05 Fiserv 100.79 -0.28 110.94 87.03 - 57.13 64004.48 ThrmoFshr 551.60 0.91 618.36 475.77 0.17 31.97 216335.07
UOB 30.70 - 33.33 25.91 2.85 14.60 38260.4 Advanced Micro 64.10 -0.68 132.96 54.57 - 28.13 103343.97
ChinaPcIns 17.62 0.24 25.90 12.10 7.34 5.81 6259.13 CNOOC 10.10 0.12 12.54 8.54 3.98 8.90 57627.5 FordMtr 11.72 0.09 25.87 10.61 0.76 2.97 46270.06 TJX Cos 79.23 -0.37 81.17 53.69 1.17 32.79 91550.59
AEP 93.91 -1.04 105.60 80.30 2.83 21.36 48256.94
ChMinsheng 2.74 0.04 3.29 2.19 8.84 3.59 2918.01 HangSeng 129.90 0.10 169.50 110.00 4.17 21.10 31787.77 South Africa (R) Franklin 27.11 0.73 33.03 20.24 3.70 8.09 13559.49 Truist Financial Corp 43.74 0.71 66.10 40.01 3.77 11.04 58032.76
Aflac 71.46 -0.48 72.70 52.07 1.64 12.62 44433.01
ChMrchSecs 13.25 -0.05 17.24 12.06 3.27 11.92 14243.72 HK Exc&Clr 343.00 5.80 483.60 208.20 2.37 39.04 55661.7 Firstrand 62.46 0.34 79.34 59.16 3.97 11.82 20643.31 GenDyn 247.23 -0.88 256.86 200.79 1.67 24.15 67876.74 Twitter 53.70 0.35 60.16 31.30 - -224.30 41093.72
AirProd 305.26 -3.00 328.56 216.24 1.74 36.17 67727.09
Chna Utd Coms 4.93 0.45 5.25 3.30 2.25 24.92 22109.02 MTR 41.80 0.45 43.70 33.45 2.61 30.55 33182.64 MTN Grp 130.70 3.40 211.49 115.46 - 18.63 14510.18 GenElectric 84.02 0.23 101.91 59.93 0.34 -29.16 91805.98 UnionPac 206.00 -1.07 278.94 183.70 1.99 21.47 126648.96
Allstate 135.86 0.26 144.46 111.85 2.11 9.03 36031.37
ChShenEgy 23.05 0.50 27.65 18.20 8.75 7.08 9964.65 SandsCh 26.90 1.00 28.20 12.50 - -29.99 27865.74 Naspers N 2990 165.66 3008.89 1392.5 0.19 16.81 76722.82 GenMills 83.11 -0.74 88.34 61.67 2.20 24.77 49002.55 UPS 174.51 0.67 233.72 154.87 2.07 13.41 127361.05
Alphabet 88.75 0.52 151.55 83.34 - 0.89 530128.84
ChShpbldng 3.52 0.03 4.17 3.36 - -263.74 11258.99 SHK Props 109.20 2.40 110.00 83.10 4.03 12.59 40502.97 South Korea (KRW) GenMotors 33.73 0.09 67.21 30.33 - 5.68 47919.96 USBancorp 44.64 1.03 60.50 38.39 3.50 9.87 66319.73
Altria 45.46 -0.26 57.05 40.35 6.86 38.27 81463.21
ChStConEng 5.49 0.06 6.40 4.67 3.88 4.29 32471.06 Tencent 345.20 11.20 488.00 198.60 0.41 13.71 423124.49 HyundMobis 202000 -500.00 241000 189500 1.88 8.31 14983.55 GileadSci 85.39 -0.46 89.74 57.17 2.95 19.54 107099.88 UtdHlthcre 515.77 -14.41 558.10 445.74 0.96 32.18 481909.22
Amazon 84.44 0.44 170.83 81.69 - 1.47 861427.68
ChUncHK 5.18 0.35 5.25 3.27 2.99 11.55 20287.17 India (Rs) KoreaElePwr 19500 150.00 25100 16500 5.96 -12.01 9848.4 AmerAir 12.70 -0.02 21.42 11.65 - -3.83 8253.81 GoldmSchs 344.78 1.40 389.58 277.84 1.67 6.54 116752.74 ValeroEngy 122.69 -4.18 146.81 75.04 2.83 60.97 47297.92
CNNC Intl 6.09 0.09 8.40 5.78 2.03 16.04 16627.37 Bhartiartl 817.60 4.10 860.55 628.75 - 176.82 58756.79 SK Hynix 75600 -100.00 134000 73100 1.93 5.70 43298.7 AmerExpr 147.06 -0.69 199.55 130.65 1.12 16.11 109888.04 Halliburton 37.87 -1.49 43.99 23.30 0.61 24.00 34383.19 Verizon 39.60 0.20 55.51 34.55 5.68 8.40 166301.85
CSR 3.17 0.02 3.73 2.37 6.43 8.82 1773.56 HDFC Bk 1639.35 10.65 1722.1 1271.6 - 28.15 110297.12 SmsungEl 55400 -100.00 75800 51800 2.47 10.12 260188.79 AmerIntGrp 63.19 -0.06 65.73 47.05 1.80 6.59 46945.19 HCA Hold 239.79 -0.17 279.02 164.47 0.71 12.78 67792.64 VertexPharm 285.55 -3.23 324.75 221.69 - 35.75 73298.24
Daqin 6.62 -0.06 7.25 5.95 7.20 10.10 14255.02 Hind Unilevr 2542.05 -16.35 2741.6 1927 1.24 68.98 72058.86 Spain (€) AmerTower 212.62 0.76 282.47 178.17 2.17 42.38 98997.06 Hew-Pack 26.78 -0.09 41.47 24.08 2.78 5.45 26301.86 VF Cp 27.78 0.17 69.48 25.05 6.29 10.27 10794.37
GuosenSec 8.85 -0.03 11.70 8.43 2.58 10.25 11314.87 HsngDevFin 2664.7 12.30 2933.8 2026 0.85 22.98 58701.31 BBVA 5.87 0.09 6.12 3.97 6.04 8.36 37356.87 Amgen 260.19 -2.45 296.67 214.39 2.40 28.55 138831.97 Hilton Worldwi. 126.11 -0.25 167.99 108.41 - 97.44 34107.21 Visa Inc 207.25 -0.51 235.85 174.60 0.57 38.71 337372.61
HaitongSecs 4.80 - 7.34 3.77 5.90 5.28 2094.77 ICICI Bk 901.35 -1.10 958.20 642.15 0.22 28.97 75863.9 BcoSantdr 2.86 0.01 3.48 2.32 2.56 5.99 50647.21 Amphenol Corp 75.68 -0.46 82.86 61.67 0.91 34.01 45036.75 HiltonWwde 126.11 -0.25 167.99 108.41 - 97.44 34107.21 Walgreen 37.14 -0.22 53.46 30.39 4.58 6.07 32027.09
Hngzh HikVDT 34.29 -0.39 49.88 28.10 2.32 18.99 45571.34 Infosys 1522.55 -1.45 1923.3 1360 1.97 30.47 77297.69 CaixaBnk 3.84 0.13 3.84 2.45 0.67 26.42 32655.45 Analog Devices 161.60 -2.43 180.01 133.48 1.53 61.21 82302.22 HomeDep 314.14 -1.72 374.67 264.51 1.88 22.60 321593.42 WalMartSto 142.75 0.96 160.77 117.27 1.38 32.75 384968.21
Hunng Pwr 4.06 0.37 4.80 2.62 4.79 -4.61 2442.65 ITC 331.10 -1.75 361.45 207.00 3.21 27.87 49581.84 Iberdrola 10.98 -0.04 11.49 8.47 3.67 19.71 73702.95 Anthem 482.58 12.71 - - - - - Honywell 212.66 -1.64 220.96 166.63 1.57 30.33 142976.05 Walt Disney 88.29 1.41 157.50 84.07 - 57.90 161002.2
IM Baotou Stl 1.93 0.01 2.75 1.75 - 33.12 8855.05 L&T 2088.95 -0.50 2211.6 1456.35 0.85 35.10 35415.82 Inditex 25.38 -0.22 28.44 18.55 0.83 28.03 83494.98 Aon Cp 297.59 -2.55 341.98 246.21 0.59 60.49 61557.37 HumanaInc 493.15 -19.04 571.30 363.73 0.50 24.54 62432.93 Waste Manage. 156.14 -0.74 175.98 138.58 1.31 41.06 64091.89
In&CmBkCh 4.06 0.04 4.94 3.37 7.37 3.77 45104.26 OilNatGas 149.55 -0.90 189.80 119.85 6.01 4.29 22697.97 Repsol 14.85 -0.34 16.23 10.33 3.86 9.48 21590.64 Apple 124.74 -5.19 182.94 124.49 0.61 23.341984378.64 IBM 140.64 -0.25 153.21 115.55 4.13 30.45 127156.33 WellsFargo 41.84 0.55 60.30 36.54 1.63 9.54 159430.94
IndstrlBk 17.77 0.18 23.22 15.01 4.33 4.91 53468.75 RelianceIn 2557.05 -18.85 2856.15 2222 0.27 29.64 208728.55 Telefonica 3.45 0.01 5.06 3.22 9.57 2.64 21055.82 Applied Materi. 96.72 -0.66 167.06 71.12 0.87 15.05 81645.19 IDEXX Laborato. 401.02 -6.94 574.33 317.06 - 52.60 33211.26 Williams Cos 32.22 -0.69 37.97 27.32 4.51 29.31 39248.82
Kweichow 1730.01 3.01 2077 1359 1.11 39.27 314770 SBI NewA 612.40 0.20 629.55 430.70 0.65 17.30 65937.98 Sweden (SKr) Aptiv 93.14 0.01 147.05 77.96 - 54.16 25236.24 IllinoisTool 218.47 -1.83 247.00 173.52 1.92 28.96 67111.01 Workday 167.46 0.13 257.00 128.72 - 1559.36 33826.92
Midea 0.42 0.02 0.58 0.32 - -4.56 15.99 SunPhrmInds 1009.1 12.10 1070.95 784.80 0.73 38.09 29210.3 AtlasCpcoB 112.72 1.04 124.00 22.08 6.69 7.35 16679.33 ArcherDan 89.73 -3.12 98.88 65.64 1.46 21.13 49291.76 Illumina 199.58 -2.62 383.98 173.45 - 44.67 31393.93 Yum!Brnds 126.13 -1.95 132.87 103.97 1.41 27.31 35529.29
New Ch Life Ins 19.74 0.64 24.70 12.04 7.64 3.79 2612.84 Tata Cons 3311.35 49.90 3920 2950.1 1.08 32.04 146178.85 Ericsson 62.69 0.19 117.32 58.81 3.70 9.02 18259.34 AT&T 18.44 0.03 21.53 14.46 10.00 7.54 131421.88 Intcntl Exch 103.18 0.59 137.40 88.60 1.13 16.21 57631.36 Zoetis 145.73 -0.82 205.31 124.15 0.61 38.50 67919.83
PetroChina 3.60 0.03 4.49 3.01 6.53 7.35 9722.16 Israel (ILS) H&M 116.58 0.40 191.86 98.25 5.58 15.69 16143.07 Autodesk 183.74 -3.13 252.34 163.20 - 91.66 39645.12 Intel 26.61 0.18 53.13 24.59 4.63 6.18 109798.84 Zoom 66.54 -1.20 156.91 63.55 - 16.52 16699.89
PingAnIns 52.85 1.20 69.40 31.30 4.67 8.50 50380.1 TevaPha 31.79 -0.21 37.23 23.83 - 26.70 10005.51 Investor 192.42 1.92 212.90 158.22 1.88 8.08 33234.79 AutomData 236.32 -2.54 274.92 192.26 1.44 41.27 98032.1 Intuit 386.06 -3.17 579.96 339.36 0.59 54.54 108452.64 Venezuela (VEF)
PngAnBnk 13.77 0.61 17.56 10.39 1.26 8.29 38703.2 Nordea Bk 114.04 0.48 115.22 85.25 13.23 12.99 39876.06 AutoZone 2424.48 -41.71 2610.05 1703.32 - 24.71 45496.9 John&John 177.45 0.80 186.69 155.72 2.09 25.63 463940.12 Bco de Vnzla 2.48 0.28 2.48 0.32 136.85 - 524.13
Italy (€)
Pwr Cons Corp 7.10 0.02 9.81 6.65 1.24 14.87 11303.12 SEB 121.40 0.45 125.75 91.64 8.59 9.91 24796.4 Avago Tech 552.71 -6.43 645.31 415.07 2.41 35.21 230967.76 JohnsonCn 64.35 0.35 75.20 45.52 1.58 33.15 44189.4 Bco Provncl 7.00 - 7.00 1.70 - 0.00 149.68
Enel 5.30 0.13 6.99 3.96 6.60 25.81 56876.88
SaicMtr 14.41 - 20.07 13.77 4.09 7.27 24385.02 SvnskaHn 106.55 -0.40 107.80 80.88 4.84 10.21 19644.12 BakerHu 29.25 -0.28 39.78 20.42 2.24 76.37 29292.93 JPMrgnCh 135.11 1.01 159.03 101.28 2.49 9.92 396305.31
ENI 13.79 0.08 14.85 10.43 4.67 6.08 52468.11
ShenwanHong 0.10 - 0.18 0.05 - 2.90 109.41 Swedbank 180.40 0.40 185.70 124.50 8.33 9.41 19359.52 Bank of NY 46.50 0.98 64.63 36.22 2.48 12.67 37580.98 Kimb-Clark 135.56 -0.19 144.53 108.74 3.08 28.70 45749.75 Closing prices and highs & lows are in traded currency (with variations for that
Generali 16.85 0.08 21.55 13.67 8.33 9.91 28121.02
ShgPdgBk 7.23 -0.05 8.80 6.64 6.32 4.66 30737.3 Telia Co 27.40 0.17 41.70 26.04 7.54 9.44 10622.94 BankAm 33.69 0.57 50.11 29.31 2.05 10.64 270235.63 KinderM 18.03 -0.05 20.20 15.78 5.46 43.93 40524.32 country indicated by stock), market capitalisation is in USD. Highs & lows are
IntSPaolo 2.17 0.05 2.92 1.58 1.61 70.50 44557.74
Sinopec Corp 3.82 0.05 4.28 3.06 3.60 4.66 12116.64 Volvo 193.24 1.36 218.65 148.24 3.47 12.29 29099.38 Baxter 50.20 -0.77 89.70 49.00 1.92 22.38 25306.86 KLA Corp 373.19 -3.85 419.57 250.20 0.93 21.67 52887.15 based on intraday trading over a rolling 52 week period.
Unicred 13.91 0.46 15.93 7.75 0.82 21.62 32849.16
Sinopec Oil 2.00 0.02 2.37 1.70 - 670.17 3930.78 BectonDick 254.59 0.29 277.29 215.90 1.17 49.69 72371.78 Kraft Heinz 40.57 -0.15 44.87 32.73 3.50 55.80 49689.29 ♦ ex-dividend
Japan (¥) Switzerland (SFr) Kroger 44.36 -0.22 62.78 41.82 1.57 22.84 31753.86
Denmark (kr) BerkshHat 467223.36-1487.60544389.26393012.25 - 8.86 278851.05 ■ ex-capital redistribution
AstellasPh 2006.5 -18.50 2205 1782 2.33 30.41 27917.96 ABB 28.74 0.68 32.54 23.84 2.64 14.35 60183.07 LasVegasSd 49.60 1.53 49.78 28.88 - -37.05 37903.1
DanskeBk 143.00 3.05 143.00 91.28 1.34 10.26 17499.08 Biogen 274.53 -2.39 311.88 187.16 - 29.78 39532.71 # price at time of suspension
Bridgestne 4691 -15.00 5509 4042 3.60 10.74 25373.89 CredSuisse 2.90 0.14 8.77 2.65 3.15 -4.74 8193.09 LibertyGbl 19.60 0.67 29.08 15.22 - 0.94 3368.42
MollerMrsk 15895 -410.00 24070 13185 2.04 2.71 18888.88 BlackRock 708.85 0.22 831.32 503.12 2.07 20.92 106466.13
Canon 2855.5 -6.50 3516 2538.5 3.48 13.91 28864.76 Nestle 108.92 1.78 127.00 103.42 2.30 19.69 319243.27 Lilly (E) 361.82 -4.03 375.25 231.87 0.83 66.69 343788.62
NovoB 968.30 26.30 973.10 604.40 0.92 48.89 239484.61 Boeing 193.74 3.25 223.23 113.02 - -30.57 115044.98
CntJpRwy 16205 20.00 17920 14660 0.82 -30.58 25300.16 Novartis 85.83 2.24 88.42 73.32 3.21 9.71 219889.58

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
Hunng Pwr 4.06 3.69 0.37 10.03 0.96 31.0 17.34 KoreaElePwr 19500.00 19350.00 150.00 0.78 -2200.00 -10.1 -2.01 Jan 03 date Coupon S* M* F* price yield yield yield US Jan 03 date Coupon S* M* F* price yield yield yield US
ChinaLife 13.66 13.40 0.26 1.94 1.10 8.8 15.57 Equinor 333.80 353.55 -19.75 -5.59 -31.70 -8.7 -8.87 High Yield US$ US$
New Ch Life Ins 19.74 19.10 0.64 3.35 1.54 8.5 8.82 Petrobras 26.04 26.17 -0.13 -0.50 -2.43 -8.5 -12.05 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 -
Naspers N 2990.00 2824.34 165.66 5.87 230.20 8.3 12.54 Devon Energy 58.68 61.51 -2.83 -4.60 -4.56 -7.2 -14.26 High Yield Euro The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/28 5.00 BBB+ A3 A 117.21 2.47 0.00 0.32 -
RollsRoyce 98.91 93.20 5.71 6.13 7.23 7.9 9.07 ArcherDan 89.73 92.85 -3.12 -3.36 -6.18 -6.4 -2.13 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 -
Tencent 345.20 334.00 11.20 3.35 25.00 7.8 16.62 JapanTob 2661.00 2676.00 -15.00 -0.56 -164.00 -5.8 -5.52 GTE LLC 04/28 6.94 BBB+ Baa2 A- 128.27 2.80 0.00 -0.11 -
SandsCh 26.90 25.90 1.00 3.86 1.90 7.6 26.00 Occid Pet 60.98 62.99 -2.01 -3.19 -3.35 -5.2 -10.57 Emerging US$ United Utilities PLC 08/28 6.88 BBB Baa1 A- 130.43 2.62 -0.07 -0.22 -
SHOP 49.17 47.01 2.16 4.59 3.34 7.3 -15.11 EOG Res 125.23 129.52 -4.29 -3.31 -6.85 -5.2 -9.88 Peru 03/19 7.13 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 104.40 2.60 - - 0.34 Barclays Bank plc 01/29 4.50 A A1 A+ 96.46 5.02 0.00 0.02 -
ChinaMBank 44.50 43.65 0.85 1.95 2.85 6.8 15.58 Sempra Energy 151.05 154.54 -3.50 -2.26 -7.80 -4.9 -8.90 Colombia 01/26 4.50 - Baa2 BBB- 109.50 2.33 0.16 0.52 1.28
Brazil 04/26 6.00 - Ba2 BB- 115.15 2.78 -0.01 0.65 1.73 Euro
Renault 33.50 33.40 0.10 0.28 2.13 6.8 -3.16 ANZ Bank 23.01 23.66 -0.65 -2.75 -1.06 -4.4 -6.99 Electricite de France (EDF) 04/30 4.63 A- A3 A- 137.45 0.82 -0.01 0.10 -
Midea 0.42 0.40 0.02 3.75 0.03 6.4 22.06 SmsungEl 55400.00 55500.00 -100.00 -0.18 -2500.00 -4.3 -8.28 Poland 04/26 3.25 - A2 A- 111.22 0.98 0.03 0.16 -0.07
Mexico 05/26 11.50 - Baa1 BBB- 149.00 1.61 0.00 -0.12 0.56 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/31 3.00 BBB+ A3 A 124.42 0.68 0.00 -0.11 -
Meta 124.02 120.34 3.68 3.06 7.14 6.1 0.45 Cigna 319.74 331.34 -11.61 -3.50 -14.37 -4.3 -2.24 The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. 02/31 3.00 BBB+ A3 A 121.70 0.93 0.00 0.02 -
PngAnBnk 13.77 13.16 0.61 4.64 0.79 6.1 5.68 CardinalHlth 75.81 76.87 -1.06 -1.38 -3.34 -4.2 -6.25 Turkey 03/27 6.00 - Ba2 BB+ 101.26 5.82 0.00 0.17 3.07
Turkey 03/27 6.00 - B2 BB- 102.88 5.43 0.14 0.83 4.38 Finland 04/31 0.75 AA+ Aa1 AA+ 111.08 -0.27 0.00 -0.05 -0.87
OilNatGas 149.55 150.45 -0.90 -0.60 8.25 5.8 6.14 HumanaInc 493.15 512.19 -19.04 -3.72 -21.23 -4.1 -9.95
Peru 08/27 4.13 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 103.50 3.66 0.01 -0.02 0.80 Yen
Continental 59.38 59.10 0.28 0.47 3.22 5.7 4.84 Apple 124.74 129.93 -5.19 -3.99 -5.29 -4.1 -15.61
Russia 06/28 12.75 - Baa3 BBB 168.12 2.48 0.07 0.05 - Mexico 06/26 1.09 - Baa1 BBB- 98.73 1.34 -0.02 -0.14 0.27
Illumina 199.58 202.20 -2.62 -1.30 10.81 5.7 -8.71 Linde 315.75 326.18 -10.44 -3.20 -13.21 -4.0 -6.39
ChConstBk 4.93 4.89 0.04 0.82 0.26 5.6 5.79 PublStor 272.09 280.19 -8.11 -2.89 -10.96 -3.9 -7.99 Brazil 02/47 5.63 - Ba2 BB- 101.48 5.52 0.08 0.80 - £ Sterling
E.ON 9.62 9.47 0.15 1.61 0.50 5.5 4.97 Marathon Ptl 112.53 116.39 -3.86 -3.32 -4.29 -3.7 -4.84 Emerging Euro innogy Fin B.V. 06/30 6.25 BBB Baa2 A- 137.45 2.19 -0.03 0.02 -
BASF 48.78 47.99 0.79 1.65 2.54 5.5 4.46 CmwBkAu 101.05 102.60 -1.55 -1.51 -3.77 -3.6 -6.31 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
Richemont 127.30 119.90 7.40 6.17 6.60 5.5 3.71 HyundMobis 202000.00 202500.00 -500.00 -0.25 -7500.00 -3.6 -5.39 Mexico 04/23 2.75 BBB+ A3 BBB+ 107.76 0.76 0.00 -0.07 -1.56 Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company. US $ denominated bonds NY close; all other London
Mexico 04/23 2.75 - Baa1 BBB- 106.48 -0.26 - - -0.36 close. *S - Standard & Poor’s, M - Moody’s, F - Fitch.
Based on the FT Global 500 companies in local currency Based on the FT Global 500 companies in local currency
Bulgaria 03/28 3.00 BBB- Baa2 BBB 117.04 1.00 0.02 -0.15 -1.42
Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company. US $ denominated bonds NY close; all
other London close. *S - Standard & Poor’s, M - Moody’s, F - Fitch.

INTEREST RATES: OFFICIAL BOND INDICES VOLATILITY INDICES GILTS: UK CASH MARKET
Jan 03 Rate Current Since Last Day's Month's Year Return Return Jan 03 Day Chng Prev 52 wk high 52 wk low Red Change in Yield 52 Week Amnt
US Fed Funds 4.25-4.50 15-12-2022 3.00-3.25 Index change change change 1 month 1 year VIX 23.55 1.88 21.67 38.93 18.45 Jan 03 Price £ Yield Day Week Month Year High Low £m
US Prime 6.25 22-09-2022 5.50 Markit IBoxx VXD 20.85 1.46 19.39 45.37 3.27 - - - - - - - - -
US Discount 3.25 22-09-2022 2.50 ABF Pan-Asia unhedged 203.66 -0.03 -0.03 -0.03 1.21 -7.34 VXN 29.83 2.23 27.60 44.05 9.94 Tr 0.75pc '23 98.69 3.18 -0.31 -2.45 2.25 536.00 100.25 97.34 34.36
Euro Repo 0.53 01-11-2022 0.374 Corporates( £) - - - - - - VDAX 20.29 -0.72 21.00 93.30 - Tr 0.125pc '24 96.36 3.62 0.56 -1.36 9.37 448.48 98.73 94.34 35.55
UK Repo 3.50 15-12-2022 3.00 Corporates(€) - - - - - - † CBOE. VIX: S&P 500 index Options Volatility, VXD: DJIA Index Options Volatility, VXN: NASDAQ Index Options Volatility. Tr 2pc '25 96.10 3.54 -0.28 -1.39 11.32 398.59 104.33 93.15 39.93
Japan O'night Call 0.00-0.10 01-02-2016 0.00 Eurozone Sov(€) - - - - - - ‡ Deutsche Borse. VDAX: DAX Index Options Volatility. Tr 0.125pc '26 90.26 3.50 0.29 -0.85 14.38 379.45 97.43 86.33 35.32
Switzerland Libor Target -1.25-0.25 15-01-2015 -0.75--0.25 Gilts( £) - - - - - - Tr 1.25pc '27 90.23 3.60 -0.28 -0.83 12.50 380.00 102.29 85.65 40.99
Overall( £) - - - - - - BONDS: BENCHMARK GOVERNMENT Tr 0.875pc '29 83.88 3.57 -0.56 0.00 13.69 320.00 99.39 78.21 43.62
INTEREST RATES: MARKET Overall(€) - - - - - - Red Bid Bid Day chg Wk chg Month Year Tr 4.25pc '32 104.84 3.64 -0.55 0.83 17.04 267.68 131.02 98.13 40.33
Over Change One Three Six One FTSE Date Coupon Price Yield yield yield chg yld chg yld Tr 4.25pc '36 103.52 3.91 0.00 1.56 15.34 258.72 139.81 94.91 31.68
Jan 03 (Libor: Dec 30) night Day Week Month month month month year Sterling Corporate (£) - - - - - - Australia - - - - - - - Tr 4.5pc '42 106.41 4.03 -0.25 1.00 14.81 247.41 159.55 93.79 28.35
US$ Libor 4.31800 0.006 0.001 0.023 4.39157 4.76729 5.13886 5.48214 Euro Corporate (€) 104.47 -0.05 - - 0.54 -1.73 05/32 1.25 78.36 4.05 0.01 0.22 0.66 - Tr 3.75pc '52 96.48 3.95 0.00 1.28 15.16 249.56 164.84 82.51 25.11
Euro Libor -0.64957 -0.064 0.000 0.001 -0.61943 -0.58057 -0.55600 -0.48571 Euro Emerging Mkts (€) 787.38 0.07 - - 14.00 -1.02 02/50 1.00 91.23 1.88 0.00 0.22 0.64 1.82 Tr 4pc '60 104.69 3.76 0.00 0.80 16.77 272.28 190.64 87.32 25.13
£ Libor 0.18063 -0.005 0.000 0.004 3.46830 3.87400 4.37150 0.81363 Eurozone Govt Bond 110.04 -0.19 - - -0.34 -0.64 Austria 02/29 0.50 86.49 2.94 -0.06 0.06 0.68 3.04 Gilts benchmarks & non-rump undated stocks. Closing mid-price in pounds per £100 nominal of stock.
Swiss Fr Libor -0.002 -0.77540 -0.75300 -0.70280 -0.55320 02/47 1.50 74.25 3.02 -0.05 0.11 0.62 2.46
CREDIT INDICES Day's Week's Month's Series Series
Yen Libor
Euro Euribor
0.000
-0.001
-0.06005
1.88300
-0.02617
2.16200
0.07165
2.73200
0.04867
3.31600
Index change change change high low
Belgium 06/27 0.80 91.80 2.78 -0.02 0.06 0.66 3.09 GILTS: UK FTSE ACTUARIES INDICES
06/47 1.60 71.74 3.30 -0.03 0.13 0.67 2.43
Sterling CDs 0.000 0.50000 0.63000 0.78500 Markit iTraxx Price Indices Day's Total Return Return
Canada 03/25 1.25 94.52 3.93 - - - -
US$ CDs 0.020 4.33000 4.70000 5.05000 Crossover 5Y 460.79 -13.36 -16.61 16.19 688.92 426.04 Fixed Coupon Jan 03 chg % Return 1 month 1 year Yield
06/30 1.25 86.68 3.29 - - - -
Euro CDs -0.010 1.85000 2.23000 2.65000 Europe 5Y 88.46 -1.99 -4.60 0.70 142.08 81.55 1 Up to 5 Years 81.41 0.02 2341.89 -0.49 -4.29 3.59
12/48 2.75 90.32 3.31 - - - -
Japan 5Y 87.19 0.00 -0.66 10.55 119.29 75.61 2 5 - 10 Years 146.61 0.14 3120.16 -2.92 -14.34 3.62
Short 7 Days One Three Six One Denmark 11/29 0.50 86.64 2.66 -0.05 0.05 0.57 2.70
Senior Financials 5Y 96.99 -2.26 -5.90 -0.81 155.06 89.99 3 10 - 15 Years 156.32 0.24 3591.65 -5.29 -22.17 3.88
Jan 03 term notice month month month year 11/52 0.25 54.28 2.42 -0.04 0.13 0.64 2.09
Markit CDX Finland 09/24 0.00 95.53 2.74 -0.01 0.08 0.58 3.30 4 5 - 15 Years 147.96 0.17 3231.95 -3.63 -16.79 3.72
Euro 1.64 1.94 1.71 2.01 1.70 2.00 2.08 2.38 2.50 2.80 2.92 3.22 5 Over 15 Years 214.53 -0.01 3693.75 -8.61 -38.93 3.90
Emerging Markets 5Y 238.71 0.00 -2.32 -1.68 335.29 222.68 09/29 0.50 85.41 2.93 -0.03 0.07 0.60 3.04
Sterling 0.45 0.55 0.58 0.68 0.71 0.86 0.90 1.05 7 All stocks 135.20 0.05 3019.70 -4.32 -22.95 3.83
Nth Amer High Yld 5Y 484.88 0.00 7.72 6.40 625.47 450.15 France 05/28 0.75 89.89 2.80 -0.03 0.07 0.68 2.98
US Dollar 4.00 4.20 4.15 4.35 4.23 4.43 4.60 4.80 4.95 5.15 5.16 5.36
Nth Amer Inv Grade 5Y 81.88 0.00 0.95 1.70 110.98 75.62 05/48 2.00 78.65 3.25 -0.04 0.12 0.69 2.45
Japanese Yen -0.15 0.05 -0.20 0.00 -0.20 0.00 -0.15 0.05 -0.10 0.20 -0.05 0.25 Day's Month Year's Total Return Return
Websites: markit.com, ftse.com. All indices shown are unhedged. Currencies are shown in brackets after the index names. Germany 08/29 0.00 85.43 2.41 -0.05 0.05 0.60 2.74
Libor rates come from ICE (see www.theice.com) and are fixed at 11am UK time. Other data sources: US $, Euro & CDs: Index Linked Jan 03 chg % chg % chg % Return 1 month 1 year
Tullett Prebon; SDR, US Discount: IMF; EONIA: ECB; Swiss Libor: SNB; EURONIA, RONIA & SONIA: WMBA. 08/50 0.00 52.89 2.33 -0.04 0.12 0.70 2.18
1 Up to 5 Years 324.45 0.07 -0.69 3.01 2743.46 -0.69 4.20
Greece 01/23 3.50 100.14 1.46 -0.06 -0.21 0.07 1.71 2 Over 5 years 541.79 -0.18 -6.03 -38.33 4129.68 -6.03 -38.05
01/28 3.75 99.88 3.77 -0.08 0.02 0.68 3.08 3 5-15 years 447.70 0.32 -3.89 -15.90 3620.86 -3.89 -15.26
Ireland - - - - - - - 4 Over 15 years 613.53 -0.52 -7.44 -47.35 4540.08 -7.44 -47.19
05/26 1.00 94.96 2.59 -0.06 0.04 0.57 2.92 5 All stocks 513.74 -0.14 -5.18 -34.01 3994.81 -5.18 -33.66
02/45 2.00 80.57 3.24 -0.04 0.10 0.68 2.54
Italy 02/25 0.35 94.14 3.29 -0.06 0.06 0.68 3.18 Yield Indices Jan 03 Dec 30 Yr ago Jan 03 Dec 30 Yr ago
COMMODITIES www.ft.com/commodities BONDS: INDEX-LINKED 05/30 0.40 88.10 2.16 -0.09 -0.03 0.92 2.76 5 Yrs 3.51 3.53 0.82 20 Yrs 4.02 4.02 1.29
03/48 3.45 82.60 4.63 -0.03 0.12 0.83 2.71 10 Yrs 3.76 3.78 1.09 45 Yrs 3.67 3.67 0.99
Energy Price* Change Agricultural & Cattle Futures Price* Change Price Yield Month Value No of
Japan 04/25 0.05 99.81 0.13 -0.01 0.00 0.06 0.04 15 Yrs 3.96 3.98 1.25
Crude Oil† Jan 79.30 -0.96 Corn♦ Mar 678.50 -1.00 Dec 29 Dec 29 Prev return stock Market stocks
12/29 0.10 97.75 0.43 0.00 0.04 0.22 0.46
Brent Crude Oil‡ 82.70 -3.21 Wheat♦ Mar 791.00 17.00 Can 4.25%' 26 110.40 1.505 1.499 0.30 5.25 73257.12 8
12/49 0.40 76.01 1.48 0.00 0.09 0.09 0.81 inflation 0% inflation 5%
RBOB Gasoline† Jan 2.42 -0.06 Soybeans♦ Jan 1519.25 10.50 Fr 0.25%' 24 100.83 -0.276 -0.326 -0.72 17.92 248578.50 17
Netherlands 07/27 0.75 92.19 2.60 -0.05 0.05 0.61 2.97 Real yield Jan 03 Dur yrs Previous Yr ago Jan 03 Dur yrs Previous Yr ago
Natural Gas† Jan 4.05 -0.43 Soybeans Meal♦ Jan 478.50 14.40 Swe 1.00%' 25 125.85 -0.223 -0.210 0.22 35.38 218597.31 6
01/47 2.75 101.70 2.65 -0.04 0.11 0.70 2.47 Up to 5 yrs 0.09 2.71 0.11 -3.30 -0.27 2.73 -0.25 -3.71
Base Metals (♠ LME 3 Months) Cocoa (ICE Liffe)X Mar 2044.00 -18.00 UK 0.125%' 24 101.84 -1.361 -1.381 0.14 15.24 563941.54 31
Aluminium 2343.50 -45.00 Cocoa (ICE US)♥ Mar 2548.00 -52.00 New Zealand 05/31 1.50 79.58 4.45 0.00 0.12 0.44 2.14 Over 5 yrs 0.45 19.74 0.44 -2.33 0.42 19.79 0.41 -2.35
UK 2.50%' 24 376.44 -0.459 -0.443 -0.13 6.82 563941.54 31
Aluminium Alloy 2225.00 50.00 Coffee(Robusta)X Jan 1924.00 55.00 09/40 2.50 119.43 2.41 0.00 0.19 0.26 1.76 5-15 yrs 0.32 9.61 0.36 -2.76 0.24 9.62 0.27 -2.85
UK 2.00%' 35 239.89 0.420 0.405 -5.30 9.08 563941.54 31
Copper 8432.00 58.00 Coffee (Arabica)♥ Mar 166.10 -1.20 Norway 08/30 1.38 88.42 3.10 -0.09 -0.06 -0.03 1.40 Over 15 yrs 0.48 26.48 0.46 -2.28 0.47 26.50 0.45 -2.29
US 0.625%' 24 97.92 2.657 2.662 0.32 40.98 1619363.34 47
Lead 2270.00 -22.00 White SugarX 547.60 -6.80 Poland 01/23 2.50 99.76 6.74 -0.78 -1.08 -0.67 3.39 All stocks 0.44 16.92 0.43 -2.34 0.41 17.01 0.40 -2.37
US 3.625%' 28 109.34 1.767 1.801 -0.64 16.78 1619363.34 47
Nickel 31360.00 1440.00 Sugar 11♥ 19.89 -0.15 07/27 2.50 83.63 6.79 -0.11 -0.05 0.15 2.81 See FTSE website for more details www.ftse.com/products/indices/gilts
Representative stocks from each major market Source: Merill Lynch Global Bond Indices † Local currencies. ‡ Total market
Tin 25685.00 785.00 Cotton♥ Mar 84.79 1.42 04/47 4.00 66.00 6.93 0.00 0.16 -0.27 3.64 ©2018 Tradeweb Markets LLC. All rights reserved. The Tradeweb FTSE
value. In line with market convention, for UK Gilts inflation factor is applied to price, for other markets it is applied to par
Zinc 3004.50 37.00 Orange Juice♥ Mar 201.35 -2.85 Portugal 04/27 4.13 104.86 2.90 -0.02 0.08 0.67 3.04 Gilt Closing Prices information contained herein is proprietary to
amount.
Precious Metals (PM London Fix) Live Cattle♣ Feb 157.93 -0.93 Spain - - - - - - - Tradeweb; may not be copied or re-distributed; is not warranted to be
Gold 1813.75 10.40 Feeder Cattle♣ May 134.88 - BONDS: TEN YEAR GOVT SPREADS 10/29 0.60 84.35 3.19 -0.05 0.05 0.63 2.92 accurate, complete or timely; and does not constitute investment advice.
Silver (US cents) 2394.50 9.00 Lean Hogs♣ Feb 87.98 -0.70 10/46 2.90 86.38 3.78 -0.03 0.15 0.66 2.53 Tradeweb is not responsible for any loss or damage that might result from the use of this information.
Platinum 1031.00 14.00 Spread Spread Spread Spread Sweden 06/30 0.13 112.83 0.30 0.00 0.30 0.56 2.36
Palladium 1775.00 -20.00 % Chg % Chg Bid vs vs Bid vs vs 03/39 3.50 116.51 2.27 0.01 0.14 0.59 1.77 All data provided by Morningstar unless otherwise noted. All elements listed are indicative and believed accurate
Bulk Commodities Dec 30 Month Year Yield Bund T-Bonds Yield Bund T-Bonds Switzerland 04/28 4.00 112.70 1.47 0.01 0.04 0.52 1.77 at the time of publication. No offer is made by Morningstar, its suppliers, or the FT. Neither the FT, nor
Iron Ore 117.15 2.04 S&P GSCI Spt 593.27 -3.00 -2.36 06/29 0.00 90.71 1.52 0.02 0.07 0.57 1.76 Morningstar’s suppliers, warrant or guarantee that the information is reliable or complete. Neither the FT nor
Australia 4.05 1.63 0.19 Netherlands 2.60 0.19 -1.26
Baltic Dry Index 1250.00 -265.00 DJ UBS Spot 110.74 -3.28 5.09 Austria 2.94 0.53 -0.92 New Zealand 4.45 2.04 0.59 United Kingdom 07/23 0.75 98.62 3.29 0.01 -0.01 0.08 2.78 Morningstar’s suppliers accept responsibility and will not be liable for any loss arising from the reliance on the
Richards Bay ICE Futures 186.10 -19.45 TR/CC CRB TR 301.33 -0.36 21.16 Canada 3.29 0.88 -0.57 Norway 3.10 0.69 -0.76 07/27 1.25 90.13 3.62 -0.01 -0.02 0.33 2.86 use of the listed information. For all queries e-mail ft.reader.enquiries@morningstar.com
LEBA EUA Carbon 58.91 -1.98 129.94 Denmark 2.66 0.24 -1.20 Portugal 2.90 0.48 -0.96 07/47 1.50 60.99 4.01 0.00 0.06 0.42 2.84
LEBA UK Power 1048.00 -37.43 -39.60 Finland 2.93 0.52 -0.93 Spain 3.19 0.78 -0.67 United States - - - - - - - Data provided by Morningstar | www.morningstar.co.uk
Sources: † NYMEX, ‡ ECX/ICE, ♦ CBOT, X ICE Liffe, ♥ ICE Futures, ♣ CME, ♠ LME/London Metal Exchange.* Latest prices, $ Germany 2.41 0.00 -1.45 Sweden 0.30 -2.11 -3.56 03/25 0.50 91.91 4.33 - - - -
unless otherwise stated. Italy 2.16 -0.25 -1.70 Switzerland 1.52 -0.89 -2.34 02/30 1.50 85.45 3.86 - - - -
Japan 0.43 -1.98 -3.43 United States 3.86 1.45 0.00 02/50 0.25 67.42 1.77 - - - -
Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company. Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data LLC, an ICE Data Services company.
Wednesday 4 January 2023 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES 13

MANAGED FUNDS SERVICE

Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Fund Bid Offer D+/- Yield Data Provided by

abrdn Capital (CI) Limited (JER) EdenTree Investment Management Ltd (UK) Janus Henderson Investors (UK) Omnia Fund Ltd Ruffer LLP (1000)F (UK) Toscafund Asset Management LLP
www.morningstar.co.uk
PO Box 189, St Helier, Jersey, JE4 9RU 01534 709130 PO Box 3733, Swindon, SN4 4BG, 0800 358 3010 PO Box 9023, Chelmsford, CM99 2WB Enquiries: 0800 832 832 Other International Funds 65 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7NQ www.toscafund.com Data as shown is for information purposes only. No offer
FCA Recognised Authorised Inv Funds www.janushenderson.com Estimated NAV $ 936.92 - -9.18 0.00 Order Desk and Enquiries: 0345 601 9610 Tosca A USD $ 429.51 - 23.50 0.00 is made by Morningstar or this publication.
abrdn Capital Offshore Strategy Fund Limited EdenTree Short Dated Bond Cls B 92.72 - -0.24 0.95 Authorised Inv Funds Authorised Inv Funds Tosca Mid Cap GBP £ 174.84 - 4.39 0.00
Bridge Fund £ 2.1541 - -0.0031 1.93 Janus Henderson Instl UK Idx Opps A Acc £ 1.13 - 0.02 2.94 Authorised Corporate Director - Link Fund Solutions Tosca Opportunity B USD $ 267.84 - 6.72 0.00
Global Equity Fund £ 3.2041 - 0.0035 1.22 LF Ruffer Diversified Rtrn C Acc 107.30 - 0.51 0.84 Pegasus Fund Ltd A-1 GBP £ 41.68 - 1.06 0.00
Global Fixed Interest Fund £ 0.7356 - -0.0094 5.90 LF Ruffer Diversified Rtrn C Inc 106.41 - 0.51 0.93

Guide to Data
Income Fund £ 0.6263 - 0.0011 3.21 LF Ruffer European C Acc 770.19 - 7.55 0.81
Sterling Fixed Interest Fund £ 0.6738 - -0.0018 3.89 LF Ruffer European C Inc 138.16 - 1.35 0.85
UK Equity Fund £ 1.9470 - -0.0061 3.87 LF Ruffer Equity & General C Acc 564.53 - -0.55 0.77
LF Ruffer Equity & General C Inc 510.03 - -0.50 0.78 The fund prices quoted on these pages are
Blue Whale Investment Funds ICAV (IRE) Orbis Investments (U.K.) Limited (GBR) LF Ruffer Gold C Acc 233.46 - -2.61 0.00 supplied by the operator of the relevant fund.
www.bluewhale.co.uk, info@bluewhale.co.uk Euronova Asset Management UK LLP (CYM) 28 Dorset Square, London, NW1 6QG LF Ruffer Gold C Inc 141.30 - -1.58 0.00 Details of funds published on these pages,
Regulated M & G Securities (1200)F (UK) www.orbis.com 0800 358 2030 LF Ruffer Japanese C Inc 156.10 - 1.98 0.25
FCA Recognised - Ireland UCITS
PO Box 9038, Chelmsford, CM99 2XF
including prices, are for the purpose of
Smaller Cos Cls One Shares € 51.74 - -0.47 0.00 Regulated Troy Asset Mgt (1200) (UK)
Blue Whale Growth USD T $ 8.46 - -0.02 0.00
www.mandg.co.uk/charities Enq./Dealing: 0800 917 4472
LF Ruffer Japanese C Acc 336.31 - 4.27 0.25 information only and should only be used as a
Smaller Cos Cls Two Shares € 33.02 - -0.30 0.00 Orbis OEIC Global Cautious Standard £ 11.74 - -0.01 0.00 65 Gresham Street, London, EC2V 7NQ
Authorised Inv Funds
LF Ruffer Total Return C Acc 574.69 - 1.01 2.40 guide. The Financial Times Limited makes no
Smaller Cos Cls Three Shares € 16.48 - -0.15 0.00 Orbis OEIC Global Balanced Standard £ 19.08 - -0.02 0.00 Order Desk and Enquiries: 0345 608 0950
M&G Charibond Charities Fixed Interest Fund (Charibond) Inc £ 1.09 - 0.01 2.03
LF Ruffer Total Return C Inc 358.40 - 0.63 2.44 representation as to their accuracy or
Smaller Cos Cls Four Shares € 21.72 - -0.20 0.00 Orbis OEIC Global Equity Standard £ 21.52 - -0.06 0.00 Authorised Inv Funds
M&G Charibond Charities Fixed Interest Fund (Charibond) Acc £ 38.79 - 0.23 1.64 completeness and they should not be relied
Orbis OEIC UK Equity Standard £ 11.58 - -0.06 0.00 Authorised Corporate Director - Link Fund Solutions
M&G Charity Multi Asset Fund Inc £ 0.89 - 0.01 3.96
upon when making an investment decision.
Trojan Investment Funds
M&G Charity Multi Asset Fund Acc £ 106.51 - 0.98 3.69
Trojan Ethical O Acc 125.48 - 0.55 0.00 The sale of interests in the funds listed on these
Trojan Ethical Global Inc O Acc 101.85 - 0.52 2.55 pages may, in certain jurisdictions, be restricted
Trojan Ethical Global Inc O Inc 99.33 - 0.51 2.57 by law and the funds will not necessarily be
Brooks Macdonald International Fund Managers Limited (JER) Trojan Ethical O Inc 125.23 - 0.55 0.00 available to persons in all jurisdictions in which
5 Anley Street, St Helier, Jersey, JE2 3QE the publication circulates. Persons in any doubt
+44 (0) 1534 700 104 (Int.) +44 (0) 800 735 8000 (UK) Rubrics Global UCITS Funds Plc (IRL) should take appropriate professional advice.
Brooks Macdonald International Investment Funds Limited Fidelity Investments International www.rubricsam.com Data collated by Morningstar. For other
Euro High Income € 1.2073 - -0.0037 2.50 Other International Funds Regulated queries contact reader.enquiries@ft.com
High Income £ 0.6522 - 0.0033 3.77 Emerging Mkts NAV £ 7.21 - -0.16 2.01 Rubrics Emerging Markets Fixed Income UCITS Fund $ 133.86 - 0.08 0.00 +44 (0)207 873 4211.
MMIP Investment Management Limited (GSY)
Rubrics Global Credit UCITS Fund $ 16.55 - 0.00 0.00
Algebris Investments (IRL) Sterling Bond £ 1.2410 - 0.0004 2.06 Regulated
Regulated Brooks Macdonald International Multi Strategy Fund Limited Rubrics Global Fixed Income UCITS Fund $ 169.76 - -0.02 0.00 The fund prices published in this edition along
Multi-Manager Investment Programmes PCC Limited
Algebris Financial Credit I EUR € 173.05 - 0.39 0.00 Balanced Strategy A £ 0.9066 - 0.0024 0.58 with additional information are also available
UK Equity Fd Cl A Series 01 £ 3113.16 3148.28 302.48 0.00
Algebris Financial Credit R EUR € 148.81 - 0.34 0.00 Balanced Strategy £ 0.9054 - 0.0024 0.09 Zadig Gestion (Memnon Fund) (LUX) on the Financial Times website, www.ft.com/
Diversified Absolute Rtn Fd USD Cl AF2 $ 1624.79 - 35.81 -
Algebris Financial Credit Rd EUR € 91.06 - 0.22 5.57 Cautious Balanced Strategy A £ 0.8828 - 0.0032 - FCA Recognised funds. The funds published on these pages are
Diversified Absolute Return Stlg Cell AF2 £ 1504.36 - 29.61 -
Algebris Financial Income I EUR € 177.77 - -0.26 0.00 Growth Strategy A £ 0.9081 - 0.0022 0.51 Memnon European Fund - Class U2 GBP £ 239.87 - 2.99 0.00 grouped together by fund management
Global Equity Fund A Lead Series £ 1792.76 1798.90 71.10 -
Algebris Financial Income R EUR € 161.65 - -0.24 0.00 company.
High Growth Strategy A £ 0.9030 - 0.0030 0.12
Algebris Financial Income Rd EUR € 99.08 - -0.15 4.19

Slater
Cautious Balanced Strategy £ 1.2342 - 0.0045 0.00
Algebris Financial Equity B EUR € 159.73 - -0.37 0.00
FIL Investment Services (UK) Limited (1200)F (UK) Prices are in pence unless otherwise indicated.
Growth Strategy £ 1.8995 - 0.0045 0.00
Algebris Financial Equity R EUR € 134.24 - -0.31 0.00
Beech Gate, Millfield Lane, Lower Kingswood, Tadworth, KT20 6RP
Platinum Capital Management Ltd The change, if shown, is the change on the

Investments
High Growth Strategy £ 2.6472 - 0.0088 0.00 Callfree: Private Clients 0800 414161
Algebris IG Financial Credit I EUR € 95.32 - -0.13 0.00 Other International Funds previously quoted figure (not all funds update
US$ Growth Strategy $ 1.5961 - 0.0011 0.00 Broker Dealings: 0800 414 181
Platinum All Star Fund - A $ 143.65 - - - prices daily). Those designated $ with no prefix
Algebris IG Financial Credit R EUR € 93.82 - -0.12 0.00 Dealing Daily. Initial Charge Nil for A classes and up to 2% for other classes OEIC Funds
Platinum Global Growth UCITS Fund $ 7.91 - -0.01 0.00 refer to US dollars. Yield percentage figures (in
Algebris Global Credit Opportunities I EUR € 124.27 - -0.10 0.00
Index Sterling Corporate Bond Fund P-ACC-GBP £ 0.81 - 0.00 2.00
Platinum Essential Resources UCITS Fund SICAV USD Class E $ 11.37 - 0.05 0.00
Tuesday to Saturday papers) allow for buying
Algebris Global Credit Opportunities R EUR € 121.25 - -0.11 0.00
Sustainable Multi Asset Balanced Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 0.91 - 0.00 1.61
Platinum Global Dividend UCITS Fund $ 46.03 - -1.08 0.00
expenses. Prices of certain older insurance
Algebris Global Credit Opportunities Rd EUR € 106.59 - -0.09 0.93 Marwyn Asset Management Limited (CYM)
American Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 50.48 - 0.95 0.00 linked plans might be subject to capital gains
Algebris Core Italy I EUR € 139.59 - -0.89 0.00 Regulated
Cash Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 1.03 - 0.00 0.00 tax on sales.
Algebris Core Italy R EUR € 132.44 - -0.85 0.00 Marwyn Value Investors £ 329.72 - -6.14 0.00
Emerg Europe, Middle East and Africa Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 1.63 - 0.01 -
Sustainable Global Equity Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 32.01 - 0.46 0.00 Guide to pricing of Authorised Investment
Global High Yield Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 13.69 - 0.00 5.58 Funds: (compiled with the assistance of the
Japan Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 5.52 - 0.04 1.25 IMA. The Investment Association, Camomile
CG Asset Management Limited (IRL) Court 23 Camomile Street, London EC3A 7LL.
Japan Smaller Companies Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 3.43 - 0.06 0.62 Slater Investments Ltd (UK)
25 Moorgate, London, EC2R 6AY
Select 50 Balanced Fund PI-ACC-GBP £ 1.12 - 0.00 1.41 www.slaterinvestments.com; Tel: 0207 220 9460 Tel: +44 (0)20 7831 0898.)
Dealing: Tel. +353 1434 5098 Fax. +353 1542 2859
Special Situations Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 42.49 - 0.00 1.97 FCA Recognised
FCA Recognised Polar Capital Funds Plc (IRL)
Short Dated Corporate Bond Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 10.41 - 0.00 4.07 Slater Growth A Acc 652.94 652.94 7.95 0.00 OEIC: Open-Ended Investment Company.
CG Portfolio Fund Plc Regulated
Sustainable Water & Waste W-ACC-GBP £ 1.10 - 0.01 0.15 Slater Income A Inc 143.31 143.31 1.42 5.22 Similar to a unit trust but using a company
Absolute Return Cls M Inc £ 135.16 135.77 -0.04 1.66 Automation & Artificial Intelligence CL I USD Acc $ 13.84 13.84 -0.07 0.00
The Antares European Fund Limited rather than a trust structure.
Capital Gearing Portfolio GBP P £ 37249.67 37455.06 -21.70 1.67 Sustainable Water & Waste W-INC-GBP £ 1.09 - 0.01 0.15 Asian Starts I USD Acc $ $ 13.80 - 0.02 0.00 Slater Recovery A Acc 341.91 341.91 3.98 0.00
Other International
Capital Gearing Portfolio GBP V £ 181.16 182.16 -0.10 1.67 UK Select Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 3.58 - 0.00 2.05 Biotechnology I USD $ 38.17 38.17 -0.02 0.00 Slater Artorius 298.18 298.18 8.24 0.50
AEF Ltd Usd $ 567.20 - 4.58 0.00
Global Enhanced Income W-ACC-GBP £ 2.31 - 0.01 4.12
Different share classes are issued to reflect a
Dollar Fund Cls D Inc £ 165.85 166.35 0.06 1.23 China Stars I USD Acc $ $ 11.25 11.25 0.02 0.00
AEF Ltd Eur € 521.85 - 3.94 0.00 different currency, charging structure or type of
Dollar Hedged GBP Inc £ 92.38 92.66 -0.15 1.23 Index UK Gilt Fund P-ACC-GBP £ 0.74 - 0.01 0.61 Emerging Market Stars I USD Acc $ 10.82 - -0.01 0.00
holder.
Real Return Cls A Inc £ 200.07 200.68 0.07 1.71 Sustainable Multi Asset Conservative Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 0.88 - 0.00 1.71 European Ex UK Inc EUR Acc € 14.05 14.05 0.09 0.00
Sustainable Multi Asset Growth Fund W-ACC-GBP £ 0.93 - 0.00 1.47 Financial Opps I USD $ 13.79 - -0.02 2.60
Selling price: Also called bid price. The price
Global Convertible I USD $ 13.48 13.48 0.01 0.00 at which units in a unit trust are sold by
Global Insurance I GBP £ 10.27 - -0.04 0.00 investors.
Global Technology I USD $ 58.51 - -0.17 0.00
Healthcare Blue Chip Fund I USD Acc $ 18.48 18.48 -0.09 0.00 Buying price: Also called offer price. The price
Milltrust International Managed Investments ICAV (IRL) Healthcare Dis I Acc USD $ $ 11.79 - 0.00 0.00 at which units in a unit trust are bought by
Artemis Fund Managers Ltd (1200)F (UK) mimi@milltrust.com, +44(0)20 8123 8316 www.milltrust.com Healthcare Opps I USD $ 64.48 - -0.13 0.00 investors. Includes manager’s initial charge.
57 St. James's Street, London SW1A 1LD 0800 092 2051 Regulated Income Opportunities B2 I GBP Acc £ 2.98 2.98 0.01 -
Authorised Inv Funds Chartered Asset Management Pte Ltd British Innovation Fund £ 121.92 - 2.89 0.00 Japan Value I JPY ¥ 142.22 142.22 -0.17 0.00 Single price: Based on a mid-market valuation
Artemis Corporate Bond I Acc 96.55 - 0.15 3.24 Other International Funds Findlay Park Funds Plc (IRL)
MAI - Buy & Lease (Australia) A$ 103.45 - 0.50 0.00 North American I USD $ 31.76 31.76 -0.11 0.00 of the underlying investments. The buying and
30 Herbert Street, Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: 020 7968 4900
Artemis Positive Future Fund 65.77 - 1.42 0.00 CAM-GTF VCC $ 284820.86 284820.86 7885.91 - MAI - Buy & Lease (New Zealand)NZ$ 91.20 - -6.06 0.00 Smart Energy I USD Acc $ $ 8.48 8.48 -0.01 0.00 selling price for shares of an OEIC and units of a
FCA Recognised
Artemis Target Return Bond I Acc 104.89 - 0.08 3.24 CAM GTi VCC $ 780.49 - -32.39 - Milltrust Global Emerging Markets Fund - Class A $ 92.79 - 0.07 0.00 Smart Mobility I USD Acc $ $ 7.93 7.93 -0.03 0.00 single priced unit trust are the same.
American EUR Unhedged Class € 147.20 - -0.69 0.00
RAIC VCC $ 1.64 1.64 0.03 2.06 UK Val Opp I GBP Acc £ 11.99 11.99 0.01 0.00
American Fund USD Class $ 157.10 - -0.64 0.00
Treatment of manager’s periodic capital
American Fund GBP Hedged £ 77.03 - -0.31 0.00
charge: The letter C denotes that the trust
American Fund GBP Unhedged £ 130.58 - -0.27 0.00
deducts all or part of the manager’s/operator’s
Stonehage Fleming Investment Management Ltd (IRL) periodic charge from capital, contact the
www.stonehagefleming.com/gbi manager/operator for full details of the effect of
enquiries@stonehagefleming.com
this course of action.
Regulated
SF Global Best Ideas Eq B USD ACC $ 214.95 - -1.70 0.00
Milltrust International Managed Investments SPC Exit Charges: The letter E denotes that an exit
SF Global Best Ideas Eq D GBP INC £ 271.10 - -1.59 0.00
Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds (IRL) em@milltrust.com, +44(0)20 8123 8316, www.milltrust.com Private Fund Mgrs (Guernsey) Ltd (GSY) charge may be made when you sell units,
48-49 Pall Mall, London SW1Y 5JG. Regulated Regulated contact the manager/operator for full details.
www.dodgeandcox.worldwide.com 020 3713 7664 Milltrust Alaska Brazil SP A $ 76.75 - -0.84 0.00 Monument Growth 28/12/2022 £ 539.75 544.92 9.35 0.00
FCA Recognised Foord Asset Management Milltrust Laurium Africa SP A $ 103.18 - -1.17 0.00 Time: Some funds give information about the
Website: www.foord.com - Email: info@foord.com
Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds plc - Global Bond Fund Milltrust Marcellus India Fund $ 124.87 - -0.19 0.00 timing of price quotes. The time shown
FCA Recognised - Luxembourg UCITS alongside the fund manager’s/operator’s name
EUR Accumulating Class € 15.55 - -0.03 0.00 Milltrust Singular ASEAN SP Founders $ 129.01 - -0.11 0.00
Foord International Fund | R $ 49.67 - 0.05 0.00 is the valuation point for their unit trusts/OEICs,
EUR Accumulating Class (H) € 10.33 - 0.01 0.00 Milltrust SPARX Korea Equity SP A $ 100.74 - -0.95 0.00
EUR Distributing Class € 11.24 - -0.03 1.00
Foord Global Equity Fund (Lux) | R $ 15.89 - 0.05 0.00
Milltrust Xingtai China SP A $ 101.96 - 1.37 0.00 unless another time is indicated by the symbol
EUR Distributing Class (H) € 7.41 - 0.00 1.03 Regulated
The Climate Impact Asia Fund SP (Class A) $ 73.60 - -0.09 0.00 alongside the individual unit trust/OEIC name.
GBP Distributing Class £ 12.22 - -0.01 0.87 Foord Global Equity Fund (Sing) | B $ 18.92 - -0.04 0.00 The Climate Impact Asia Fund (Class B) $ 72.98 - -0.10 0.00
Ashmore Group GBP Distributing Class (H) £ 7.94 - 0.00 1.12 Foord International Trust (Gsy) $ 48.36 - -0.08 0.00
The symbols are as follows: ✠ 0001 to 1100
Prusik Investment Management LLP
hours; ♦ 1101 to 1400 hours; ▲ 1401 to 1700
61 Aldwych, London WC2B 4AE. Dealing team: +352 27 62 22 233 USD Accumulating Class $ 12.00 - 0.01 0.00 (IRL)
Authorised Inv Funds Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds plc-Global Stock Fund Enquiries - 0207 493 1331
Emerging Markets Equity Fund $ 115.96 - -1.31 0.00 Regulated hours; # 1701 to midnight. Daily dealing prices
USD Accumulating Share Class $ 28.11 - -0.12 0.00
Emerging Markets Equity ESG Fund $ 130.74 - -1.27 0.00 Prusik Asian Equity Income B Dist $ 173.78 - -5.45 4.48 are set on the basis of the valuation point, a
GBP Accumulating Share Class £ 38.25 - -0.23 0.00
Emerging Markets Frontier Equity Fund $ 173.05 - 0.05 0.41 Prusik Asia Emerging Opportunities Fund A Acc $ 179.61 - 1.70 0.00 short period of time may elapse before prices
GBP Distributing Share class £ 25.74 - -0.16 0.55
Prusik Asia Fund U Dist. £ 214.31 - 3.50 0.00 become available. Historic pricing: The letter H
Emerging Markets Blended Debt Fund $ 52.76 - 0.00 6.04 EUR Accumulating Share Class € 39.44 - -0.30 0.00
Prusik Asia Sustainable Growth Fund A Acc $ 86.68 - -0.03 - denotes that the managers/operators will
Emerging Markets Blended Debt ESG Fund $ 84.50 - -0.09 0.00 GBP Distributing Class (H) £ 13.00 - -0.05 0.55 normally deal on the price set at the most recent
Emerging Markets Active Equity Fund $ 116.31 - -1.21 0.00 Mirabaud Asset Management (LUX)
Dodge & Cox Worldwide Funds plc-U.S. Stock Fund
GAM valuation. The prices shown are the latest
Emerging Markets Corporate Debt Fund $ 60.22 - 0.01 9.06 www.mirabaud.com, marketing@mirabaud-am.com
USD Accumulating Share Class $ 37.24 - 0.01 0.00 funds@gam.com, www.funds.gam.com Conviction based investment vehicles details available here www.mirabaud-am.com Superfund Asset Management GmbH available before publication and may not be the
Emerging Markets Debt Fund $ 57.42 - -0.04 7.24
GBP Accumulating Share Class £ 47.92 - -0.07 0.00 Regulated Regulated www.superfund.com, +43 (1) 247 00 current dealing levels because of an intervening
Emerging Markets Local Currency Bond Fund $ 60.76 - -0.04 4.31
GBP Distributing Share Class £ 28.71 - -0.04 0.17 LAPIS GBL TOP 50 DIV.YLD-Na-D £ 125.23 - -0.26 2.64 Mir. - Glb Strat. Bd I USD $ 114.11 - -0.08 0.00 Other International Funds portfolio revaluation or a switch to a forward
EUR Accumulating Share Class € 45.12 - -0.13 0.00 LAPIS GBL F OWD 50 DIV.YLD-Na-D £ 99.47 - 0.08 1.11 Mir. - DiscEur D Cap GBP £ 162.11 - 1.00 0.00 Other International Funds pricing basis. The managers/operators must
GBP Distributing Class (H) £ 14.74 - 0.01 0.20 Mir. - UKEq HA Cap I GBP £ 133.96 - -1.27 0.00 Superfund Green Gold $ 1198.20 - 4.66 0.00 deal at a forward price on request, and may
Superfund Green Silver $ 1109.82 - -5.33 0.00 move to forward pricing at any time. Forward
Regulated pricing: The letter F denotes that that
Purisima Investment Fds (CI) Ltd (JER)
Regulated Superfund Green US$ $ 934.55 - 3.54 0.00
managers/operators deal at the price to be set
PCG B 265.36 - 2.63 0.00
at the next valuation.
PCG C 258.12 - 2.56 0.00
Investors can be given no definite price in
Atlantas Sicav (LUX) advance of the purchase or sale being carried
Regulated out. The prices appearing in the newspaper are
American Dynamic $ 6363.01 - 36.02 0.00 the most recent provided by the managers/
American One $ 6459.88 - 9.08 0.00 operators. Scheme particulars, prospectus, key
Bond Global € 1529.23 1529.23 -8.11 0.00 features and reports: The most recent
Eurocroissance € 1245.32 - 6.02 0.00 particulars and documents may be obtained
Far East $ 1003.48 - 15.94 0.00 free of charge from fund managers/operators. *
Indicates funds which do not price on Fridays.

Charges for this advertising service are based

on the number of lines published and the
classification of the fund. Please contact
data@ft.com or call +44 (0)20 7873 3132 for
Guinness Global Investors further information.
Dragon Capital Guinness Global Equity Income Y GBP Dist £ 18.62 - -0.07 2.30 Oasis Crescent Global Investment Funds (UK) ICVC (UK)
www.dragoncapital.com Guinness Global Innovators Y GBP Acc £ 24.18 - -0.07 0.00 Regulated
Fund information:info@dragoncapital.com Guinness Sustainable Global Equity Y GBP Acc £ 10.76 - -0.05 0.00 Oasis Crescent Global Equity Fund USD A (Dist) $ 34.15 - -0.06 0.24
Other International Funds
Oasis Crescent Global Income Fund USD A (Dist) $ 10.03 - -0.01 2.84 Toscafund Asset Management LLP (UK)
Vietnam Equity (UCITS) Fund A USD $ 25.71 - 0.81 0.00 Oasis Crescent Global Low Equity Fund USD D (Dist) $ 12.12 - -0.03 0.60 www.toscafund.com
Oasis Crescent Global Medium Equity Fund USD A (Dist) $ 13.43 - -0.03 0.14 Ram Active Investments SA Authorised Funds
Oasis Crescent Global Property Equity Fund USD A (Dist) $ 7.47 - -0.03 0.97 www.ram-ai.com Aptus Global Financials B Acc £ 4.97 - 0.01 3.88
Oasis Crescent Global Short Term Income Fund USD A (Dist) $ 0.94 - 0.00 1.96 Other International Funds Aptus Global Financials B Inc £ 3.17 - -0.04 4.01
Oasis Crescent Variable Fund GBP A (Dist) £ 9.64 - -0.04 0.18 RAM Systematic Emerg Markets Eq $ 209.75 209.75 -0.69 -
RAM Systematic European Eq € 505.51 505.51 4.63 -
RAM Systematic Funds Global Sustainable Income Eq $ 145.64 145.64 0.34 0.00
HPB Assurance Ltd RAM Systematic Global Eq Sustainable Alpha $ 111.57 111.57 0.33 -
Anglo Intl House, Bank Hill, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 4LN 01638 563490 RAM Systematic Long/Short European Eq € 154.01 154.01 -0.28 -
International Insurances RAM Systematic US Sustainable Eq $ 333.80 333.80 -0.04 -
Holiday Property Bond Ser 1 £ 0.48 - 0.00 0.00 RAM Tactical Global Bond Total Return € 137.54 137.54 0.12 -
Holiday Property Bond Ser 2 £ 0.63 - 0.00 0.00 RAM Tactical II Asia Bond Total Return $ 142.84 142.84 0.00 -
14 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

ARTS

Soprano at the peak

of her powers
OPERA
Fedora
Metropolitan Opera, New York
aaaae
George Loomis
New York’s Metropolitan Opera
recently announced a reorienta-
tion of repertory priorities in
favour of new operas, such as
Kevin Puts’s The Hours, which have
recently outperformed standard
works in generating badly needed
revenues. Umberto Giordano’s
1898 opera Fedora might seem the
kind of work the company would
now shun. A product of the giovane
scuola of young composers that
succeeded Verdi, it has hovered on
the fringe of the repertoire while
cagily interrogates Loris at a
Parisian party while a pianist
entertains guests with a nocturne
à la Chopin. Director David
McVicar ensures that onstage
applause for the pianist coincides
with Fedora’s manifest satisfaction
with her questioning. Despite the
temptation to update — Russia
is presented as a forbidding
police state (plus ça change) —
McVicar keeps the action stead-
fastly in the late 19th century,
and Charles Edwards’s sets are
traditionally opulent.
Each act includes a portrait of
Vladimir — even, oddly, the third,
by which he is thoroughly discred-
ited in Fedora’s eyes, while Loris
has advanced from an object of
revenge to the recipient of her
love. Similarly, McVicar has
Vladimir (otherwise seen only as a

Charming memoir of a pop shrine

Amid a starry cast of The oddly formal conversations
between Paul and his photographer
contributors, The Beatles loom daughter are dispensed with quickly at
large in a new documentary the beginning of this charming, but not
hugely revealing, memoir of a pop
about Abbey Road Studios, shrine. That story is after all well-estab-
writes Peter Aspden lished: Abbey Road made The Beatles,
and vice versa, with more than a little
Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page recalls play-
ing acoustic guitar on Shirley Bassey’s
recording of “Goldfinger”, and watching
her collapse after overextending her
final note to liaise perfectly with the
projection of the film.
There is a touching account of a 1971
session by cellist Jacqueline du Pré, who
tending to be associated with
ageing prima donnas. Mirella
Freni chose it for her last Met
appearances, in 1996.
The new production on New
Year’s Eve won hearty cheers, and
it can’t have hurt that (apart from
Freni’s performances) the Met
hadn’t staged the opera for nearly
a century: here is proof, as if it
were needed, that neglected
operas can provide audiences with
engaging experiences as surely as
works recently written.
Based on an 1882 play by Victor-
ien Sardou, Arturo Colautti’s
dying body) make fleeting ghostly
appearances; this works in act two,
when Fedora’s feelings about him
are in flux, but disastrously ener-
vates the final scene, when she
dies in Loris’s arms.
Giordano’s well-crafted score
excels in its manifold depiction of
local colour but also has juicy love
themes that keep the central cou-
ple alluringly engaged, even as
arias remain brief. In Sonya
Yoncheva, the Met has a Fedora at
the peak of her career, who sings
glowingly, balances imperiousness
with vulnerability, and looks regal

A
venerable collection of
musical grandees are sum-
moned by Mary McCartney
in If These Walls Could Sing,
her new documentary on
Abbey Road Studios. Most of them call
on a variety of supernatural descrip-
tions to capture the place’s special quali-
ties: “magical”, “spiritual”, “like a
church”. McCartney’s famous father is
more down-to-earth in his praise. “All
the microphones work,” he says with
pragmatic fervour. “It sounds silly but
you can go to studios where they don’t.”
Top: George Martin at Abbey Road
Studios, 1965. Above: Paul
McCartney in the live ‘Our World’
TV broadcast in 1967
David Magnus/Shutterstock
help from producer George Martin.
As motorists navigating north-west
London will attest, the zebra crossing
outside the studio remains an irritating
touristic talisman to this day. It could
have been so different: the cover of the
group’s final studio album might have
been shot on a volcano, or among the
pyramids of Cairo, reveals a lugubrious
Ringo Starr. Instead, “We thought, ‘sod
it, let’s just cross the road’,” — the apoth-
eosis of late-1960s ennui.
But there are some lesser-known nug-
gets here too, put together with visual
flair, in a shamelessly nostalgic tone.
was struggling with what she thought libretto merits close reading as an in Brigitte Reiffenstuel’s lavish
was nervous exhaustion, but turned out international mystery-thriller gowns, complete with tiara. Piotr
to be the beginnings of multiple sclero- played out in St Petersburg, Paris Beczała, singing with sterling tone,
sis. She played a few bars of a Beethoven and the Swiss Alps, each adroitly is a superlative Loris. Rosa Feola
sonata, remembers producer Suvi Raj characterised. More entertaining delights as Countess Olga, not least
Grubb, before stopping and announc- than profound, the short opera in her song comparing Parisian
ing: “That ends the entertainment for arrestingly and often amusingly men to the pleasures and pitfalls of
the day.” She never recorded at Abbey depicts a cultural cross-section of champagne (Veuve Clicquot, to be
Road again. Europe as it portrays the brief but precise), and Lucas Meachem
There is much talk of the studio’s tumultuous love affair between shines in De Siriex’s song about
sound, but little attempt to define it. Princess Fedora Romazov and Russian women. Marco Armiliato
The most eloquent comes from film Count Loris Ipanov — the killer of is the excellent conductor.
composer John Williams, who recorded her betrothed, Count Vladimir.
his score for Return of the Jedi with the In a choice moment, Fedora To January 28, metopera.org
London Symphony Orchestra at the stu-
dio. “It was dry enough, not too rever- Sonya Yoncheva
berant,” he explains, “but not so dry and Piotr
that it didn’t have a nice bloom about it. Beczała in
It’s a gift to music.” ‘Fedora’
By the time the powerhouses of Brit- Ken Howard 2021

pop discovered Abbey Road in the

1990s, the studio’s distinguished alumni
had already cast their own spell on its
lauded rooms. Oasis’s Noel Gallagher
remembers the group being “asked to
leave” during their Be Here Now sessions
in 1997, not because of any orgiastic
partying, as was rumoured, but because
they had been playing all The Beatles’
albums back-to-back in darkness at
“excruciating” volume, and had blown a
piece of equipment.
There was no further trouble. Not for
the first time, the sacred space had
tamed a bunch of rowdy iconoclasts into
glorious submission.

On Disney Plus from January 6

Laughter in the face of deep-frozen death

concrete container. When Alcor applied
PODCASTS for a permit to cremate what remained
of Kent’s body, the coroner’s office
Fiona suspected foul play and launched an
Sturges investigation into her death, demanding
that Darwin and his colleagues hand
over the head for testing. When they
refused, the police were called and they
be advised to skip the part where
Urquhart and Kelley reveal, in
fastidious detail, what happened to
Dora Kent’s body in the hours following
her death — suffice to say, there are
saws involved.
There are surface similarities here to
another hit podcast, My Favorite Murder,

W
hen Mike Darwin was
eight years old, he was
passing the home of his
elderly cousin in
Indianapolis when he
noticed cartons of milk and newspapers
piled up on her doorstep. Concerned
about her welfare, he broke into the
house through an unlocked window and
found her dead on the bathroom floor.
From the condition and smell of his
cousin’s body, it was clear she had been
there for some time. “I had a real clear
view of what death was and I didn’t like
it — and I still don’t,” he recalls.
In the new Wondery podcast Frozen
Head, we hear how Darwin’s quest to
cheat death led him to become one of
the leading lights of the cryonics
movement in the US. In the 1980s he
was president of the Alcor Life
Extension Foundation, which freezes
human heads in readiness for a future in
which science will have found a way to
were arrested, though charges were which maintains a jolly, jokey tone while
never brought. Eventually, a judge grappling with pitch-black topics. But
decreed that Kent’s head should stay while My Favorite Murder mining violent
sealed and, three years later, the case crimes for laughs can feel, at best,
was closed. morally dubious, in Frozen Head, where
The series is hosted by Alaina the subject is cryonics, the tone works
Urquhart and Ash Kelley, the well, underlining as it does the madcap
wisecracking duo behind Morbid, the hit optimism, egotism and absurdity of
anthology podcast devoted to telling individuals wanting to have their brains
grisly true-crime stories. Much like frozen in a quest for eternal life. For a
Morbid, Frozen Head knows how to tell podcast about death, Frozen Head is,
a story and delights in the gorier improbably, a lot of fun.
aspects of its subject matter. Certainly,
those of a squeamish disposition would wondery.com
Mike Darwin,
former
president of
Alcor Life
Extension
Foundation,
photographed
with a cryonic
chamber in 1988
Sipa/Shutterstock

defrost them and attach them to a

younger, fitter body.
In 1987, the company found itself in
hot water following the death of Dora
Kent, an 83-year-old former
dressmaker who, in the last hours of her
life, had been moved by her son, Saul
Kent, from a nursing home to Alcor’s
laboratory. After she died, she was
pumped full of preservatives and her
head was removed, frozen in liquid
nitrogen and stored in a steel and
Wednesday 4 January 2023
Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy sharpened China’s already high levels of social inequality. Lockdowns have
often been stricter in rural areas, upending the education of millions and blocking social mobility.
I
n late September, Tashi, a student
in a rural village of fewer than 100
people in south-eastern Tibet,
returned to school after a six-week
lockdown.
The 15-year-old’s grades had deterio-
rated markedly after weeks of trying
to take classes on a smartphone with
patchy internet in a crowded house
while being cared for by ageing grand-
parents. His parents were 750km away
in Lhasa, the capital, working.
“It was very difficult to concentrate
during the lockdown. My three younger
siblings were also taking classes in a
noisy house,” he says, sitting next to bas-
kets of dried fungi and herbal medi-
cines, which are his village’s main trade.
“Now we’re back at school, I’m still
lagging behind after months of trying.
It’s very demoralising.”
Tashi, whose name has been changed
to protect his identity, is one of the
hundreds of millions who make up
China’s “Covid generation” — the chil-
dren whose lives have been upended
through cycles of lockdowns under Xi
Jinping’s hallmark zero-Covid policy.
In December, Xi’s administration
embarked on a stunning U-turn. The
pandemic controls of relentless lock-
downs, mass testing and quarantine and
fastidious electronic contact tracing are
being rapidly unravelled.
The change of course has many causes
— from the spontaneous protests that
broke out in apartment buildings across
the country to the toll the policy was
taking on the economy. But one of
the least discussed factors has been the
way that the zero-Covid policy has
sharpened China’s already high levels
of social inequality, especially between
urban and rural residents — one of
the most important political faultlines
in society.
Many young people from rural
areas or the urban lower classes have
been forced to study online and have
been separated from their parents for
long periods over the past three years.
The result is that their education — hith-
erto their only path to upward social
mobility — hangs in the balance.
The sudden abandonment of the
zero-Covid playbook has led to an
alarming rise in Covid-19 infections
and, according to some forecasts, could
lead to millions of deaths over the
winter. Before the reopening, Chinese
doctors and nurses warned that the
country was unprepared for an exit
wave given thinly resourced hospitals
and medical clinics, and nearly 90mn
Chinese aged 60 and over who had
not received three vaccine doses. Now,
the healthcare system is being over-
whelmed with a deluge of sick patients
and funeral providers cannot keep up
with demand for their services.
Beyond the immediate health crisis,
which could persist for months, the
true extent of the damage wrought upon
Chinese society by Xi’s hallmark policy
is only just emerging.
For large swaths of the country’s 1.4bn
people, the pandemic shattered the
fragile balance that once supported
the back-and-forth movement of people
such as Tashi’s parents from rural areas
to large cities. Zero-Covid’s vast web of
intersecting restrictions hammered
low-income families and in many cases
left people cut off from their loved ones.
China-focused economists, market
analysts and media have mostly paid
attention to the hit to consumer spend-
ing and disruptions to factories and
supply chains. China’s more developed
eastern and southern megacities, such
as Shanghai, Chongqing, Shenzhen and
Guangzhou have dominated headlines.
But many of the areas that have been
locked down for the longest have been
largely out of sight.
By the time Beijing unveiled its policy
pivot, heightened restrictions were
still being enforced across more than
a dozen regions, including Inner Mongo-
lia, Shaanxi, Heilongjiang and Liaoning
in China’s northern rustbelt, as well as
Xinjiang in the west and central Hubei.
But as the restrictions have been
unwound, it is becoming clear that the
pandemic’s scars are deepest among
children in many of these areas, experts
say. Rising inequality, which is heavily
influenced by access to education, will
in the coming years carry long-term
repercussions for Xi and the ruling
Chinese Communist party. Adding to
the bleak outlook, China’s youth unem-
ployment rate has been near-record
levels and the brunt of the impact is
shouldered by those born into poorer
households.
The Financial Times spoke to more
than 20 children, teachers, academics
and mental health experts. Most asked
not to be named, citing the risks of
repercussions.
“The zero-Covid policy has impacted
the poor more than the rich. It exacer-
bates the Dickensian divide between
the haves and have-nots in China,”
says Diana Fu, an expert on China’s
domestic politics with the Brookings
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
FT BIG READ. CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
By Edward White and Eleanor Olcott
China’s Covid generation
‘The zero- Institution think-tank. “When young
people can’t find jobs, small business
Covid policy owners go bankrupt, migrant workers
has are evicted and infected children are
separated from their families, it makes
impacted people question whether the gov-
the poor ernment is holding up its end of the
bargain.”
more than
the rich. It Scars of lost learning
exacerbates The coronavirus pandemic has exacer-
bated educational inequalities globally.
the At the height of the nationwide lock-
Dickensian downs in 2020, the UN estimated that
nearly 1.5bn school children were
divide affected by school closures, a third of
between the which did not have access to remote
learning facilities.
haves and However, the problems facing China’s
have-nots 291mn students stand out because of
just how long Beijing persisted in using
in China’ lockdowns to try to contain the virus.
Before the pandemic struck, China was
making progress towards narrowing the
educational gap between the country’s
urban rich and rural poor. This involved
huge state investments in schools in
rural areas and fiscal reforms to pay
teachers’ wages from the central gov-
ernment coffers rather than strained
local accounts.
“It moved from being very, very,
very unequal to very, very unequal,”
says Scott Rozelle, an expert on educa-
tional inequality in China at Stanford
University.
In early 2020, as the first outbreak of
coronavirus exploded from the central
Chinese city of Wuhan, Beijing’s educa-
tion officials rushed to expand network
connectivity to rural areas to ensure
schools across the country could shift
online.
Yet despite these efforts, Nancy, a
maths teacher at a middle school in
Qujing, a small town in Yunnan, near
the southern border with Myanmar
and Vietnam, says there has been a
noticeable decline in the quality of her
students’ English and maths skills, two
subjects that require “high levels of
teacher intervention”.
“We are teaching easier maths now
than prior to the pandemic,” she adds,
noting: “Students from better-off fami-
lies have done better, especially when
parents are around to help them study.”
“The internet supply was there
mostly in rural areas, but the quality of
the connection wasn’t great, and many
of the children in rural areas did not
have exclusive access to a mobile or lap-
top like their urban counterparts,” says
Terry Sircular, an economist and expert
on social inequality at the University of
Western Ontario.
Shelly Lin, an English teacher at a
high school in Dongxing, Guangxi, says
the deterioration in learning during
the lockdown is obvious. Her students
took an exam as they returned to school
after the summer lockdown ended.
“The results were poor,” she says.
“But we didn’t have time to reteach
the material all over again.”
After the arrival of the Omicron
variant in late 2021, Xinjiang — the
western region where Beijing has
been accused of widespread human
rights abuses against Uyghurs and other
ethnic minority groups — was among
the places to return to lengthy periods
under lockdown.
Lily, a high-school student from
Hotan, in Xinjiang’s south-west, says
a stark divide also emerged between
students attending China’s equivalent of
a grammar school attended by children
— both from the majority Han ethnicity
and Uyghur Muslims — with good
grades and Mandarin skills, and
those at the local schools in small cities
populated predominantly by Uyghur
students.
“The quality of the classes for us who
stayed at home for online classes was
really poor. Our school buildings were
even turned into quarantine facilities,”
she says.
Children left behind
China’s household registration system,
the “hukou”, has long been derided as a
source of entrenched inequality, pre-
venting migrant families from equal
access to basic services when they move
Covid school test:
the divide between
students able to
attend classes and
those forced to
study online is stark
from rural to urban areas. While there
have been some reforms to lower the
threshold for hukou registration in some
areas, the system still means the vast
majority of migrant workers are forced
to leave their children in the country-
side, typically in the care of grand-
parents — the so-called left-behind
children.
Experts say that this has compounded
the hurdles facing poorer children
during the pandemic, threatening
students’ chances of obtaining a prized
place at one of China’s top universities —
a setback with potentially life-long
consequences.
“They are already at a disadvantage.
Add to those months of not being able
to access online education. In a highly
competitive schooling system, that will
have an impact on their ability to get
into a good high school and then go to
college,” says Rozelle.
In August, a region-wide lockdown
was quickly introduced in Tibet follow-
ing the emergence of dozens of positive
coronavirus cases. The school term was
delayed and students began to take
online classes at home.
In Tashi’s case, the home had three
electronic devices: one laptop and two
mobile phones. With four children
attempting to complete their online
classes, one had to watch the playback
at night, while Tashi also had to tutor
the younger children.
“Of course I hoped to find a decent job
by studying.” Tashi, suddenly switching
from his native Tibetan to Mandarin
to emphasise the point, adds: “But after
the lockdown, I felt there was no
hope for my education . . . when I finish
middle school, I’ll quit school and get
a job.”
Such despondence among the youth is
setting off alarm bells among people
involved in mental health services.
Dr George Hu, chair of the mental
health department at Shanghai United
Family Pudong Hospital, has been on
the frontline of psychiatric care in China
during the pandemic and says research-
ers are only “just beginning to scratch
the surface” of the period’s long-term
impact on mental health.
Hu notes that provision of psychiatric
services in Chinese hospitals and coun-
selling in the country’s education sys-
tem had been “tacking in the right direc-
tion” with greater accessibility and
oversight. But for most people, access-
ing mental health services requires the
ability to both pay upfront and to take
the necessary time off work.
Suicide data is patchy in China — data
collection is based on certain municipal-
ities as a sampling station and national
statistics are not published — making
it impossible to know the pandemic’s
full toll.
Hu says that in China — and other
parts of east Asia — suicide is often
linked to a feeling of “perceived burden-
someness” where people feel their
presence is a strain for their family and
wider community.
“I’m trying to be sensitive here, but
the pandemic has increased stress,
stress is not good for coping or ‘per-
ceived burdensomeness’. There is a
correlation between that and suicide.
The exact numbers, I wouldn’t know.
But attention has to be paid to this.”
Party legitimacy on the line
China’s success in tackling poverty in
the decades after Mao Zedong’s death —
lifting 800mn people over 40 years —
has long served to bolster the legitimacy
of the Chinese Communist party and
its leaders.
Now the collateral damage to the
Covid generation is sowing seeds of
doubt in the wisdom of the party — and
its leader.
Despite the dangers inherent in public
displays of dissent, frustration among
younger Chinese and opposition to Xi’s
policies have become increasingly evi-
dent over recent months.
Simmering angst boiled over in
November when a fire in a locked-down
apartment complex in Ürümqi, the
capital of Xinjiang, was blamed for
the deaths of 10 people. Since then,
monitoring by Nathan Ruser and col-
leagues at the Australian Strategic
Policy Institute think-tank tracked
more than 100 protests and acts of
public resistance across 39 cities. While
not challenging Xi’s grip on power,
15
Long lockdowns, tough learning
conditions and family separations
have made inequality worse for
China’s children and teenagers
FT montage: VCG/Getty Images/AFP
the number and location of the protests,
including the initial spark in remote
western Ürümqi, highlighted just how
widespread frustrations had become.
No clear explanation has been given
by Xi or his top lieutenants for the stun-
ning about-turn. But it came days after
the protests and followed months of
slowing growth in the world’s second-
biggest economy as well as acute finan-
cial pressure from local governments
who were on the hook for paying for the
policy’s draconian enforcement.
“Prior to the protests, Chinese citizens
had largely complied with the zero-
Covid policy as citizens under any
authoritarian system would. However,
the protests showed that not all Chinese
people are greengrocers; some are dar-
ing to dissent for the first time.”
Recent online discussion in China
has centred increasingly on the folly of
the government’s lack of preparation
for the zero-Covid U-turn. But for
weeks, discussions with sharper politi-
cal undertones have also raged. On the
microblogging site Weibo, a topic enti-
tled, “What would university life be
like without the Covid?” received more
than 550mn views. In another, a discus-
sion based on a popular claim by college
students that the pandemic has “stolen
their youth” was read more than 4.3mn
times on the question-and-answer web-
site Zhihu.
“[Students] were like birds in chains,
walking down the road, coming and
going with masks, unable to recognise
whether each other was crying or
laughing,” said a Zhihu user Julya,
who offered one of the most popular
answers.
As teachers and students are caught
up in the overwhelming Covid wave,
schools across the country are being
forced back to online classes and life-
defining exams have been postponed
or cancelled.
Yu Jie, a China expert with Chatham
House think-tank, observes that there is
also a sense of exhaustion among much
of China’s middle class, dashing hopes
of an economic recovery based on
pent-up consumer demand.
“We’re going to enter a very long
phase of stagnation of the Chinese
economy . . . For me, that’s the biggest
‘After the uncertainty,” Yu says, adding that the
resulting inequality appears to be “very
lockdown, I Dickensian”.
felt there Fu says that ultimately Xi’s zero-
Covid policy has put on the line a fund-
was no hope amental pillar of the party’s legitimacy:
for my the promise of a basic living standard for
Chinese citizens.
education “The party’s social contract with
. . . when I 1.4bn people is that it would provide
finish for needs such as jobs, housing, food
and security in exchange for popular
middle support of its rule and acceptance of
school, I’ll limitations on political rights,” she says.
“To the extent that these basic social
quit school rights have been taken away during
and get a job’ the pandemic, this poses a legitimacy
dilemma for Beijing.”
16 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

The FT View
A breakout year for artificial intelligence
Generative AI has big
implications that we
do not fully comprehend
Farewell crypto, hello generative AI.
With the selective amnesia that is one of
the defining characteristics of their
trade, venture capital investors have
already moved on from their unfortu-
nate dalliance with the imploding FTX
crypto exchange and fallen in love with
the next big thing. This year, they say,
will be the breakout year for artificial
intelligence. Although that statement
might have been made in any of the past
few years, this time they really mean it.
There are some good reasons to
believe this assertion may be true. The
launch in November of OpenAI’s Chat-
GPT language-generation model, with
its astonishing ability to generate
paragraphs of convincing text at
remarkable speed, has opened users’
ft.com/opinion eyes to the power of generative AI. Large
language models, such as ChatGPT,
have been trained on vast amounts of
data ingested from the internet and
are almost instantaneously able to
recognise and replicate patterns of text,
images, computer code, audio and
video. No one is quite sure yet what
exactly their killer application will be.
But more than 160 start-ups have
already been launched to explore
the answer.
The promise of generative AI is that it
can boost the productivity of workers in
creative industries, if not replace them
altogether. Just as machines augmented
muscle in the industrial revolution, so
AI can augment brainpower in the cog-
nitive revolution. This may be particu-
larly good news for jaded copywriters,
computer coders, TV scriptwriters and
desperate school children late with their
homework. But it may also have a big
impact on areas as diverse as the auto-
mation of customer services, marketing
material, scientific research and digital
assistants. One intriguing open question
is whether it will reinforce the domi-
nance of existing search engines, such as
Google’s, or usurp them.
Generative AI is a good example of a
broader trend that is taking powerful
technologies out of the hands of experts
and putting them in those of everyday
users. This democratisation of access
may have huge implications, and create
extraordinary opportunities, for many
businesses. The increasing popularity of
“low code/no code” software platforms,
for example, will enable increasing
numbers of non-expert users to create
their own powerful mobile and web
apps. No longer will product managers
be so beholden to their tech teams set-
ting their own agenda.
This obviously carries risks, as well as
opportunities. One of the biggest is that
the output of generative AI is often
wrong, or hallucinatory. Such models
can sometimes give different answers to
the same question depending on their
human inputs and training data.
Deterministic technologies, such as a
Just as machines pocket calculator, will always give you
augmented the same answer when you tap in 19 x 37.
Probabilistic technologies, such as
muscle in the
generative AI, will only give you a
industrial statistically probable approximation
revolution, so of an answer. They are “stochastic
this technology parrots” as the former Google
can augment researcher Timnit Gebru described
brainpower in them. For that reason, Stack Overflow, a
Q&A website for computer program-
the cognitive mers, has already banned ChatGPT-
revolution generated responses because they can-
not be trusted.
The clear imperfections of generative
AI put a particular responsibility on
those who are developing these models
to consider how they may be abused,
before releasing them into the wild. But
that is becoming increasingly difficult
given the speed at which these models
are developing. Users may well enjoy
and profit from their use but they
should always treat them with caution.
While generative AI can help inspire the
first thought, it should never be relied
upon for the last word.

Opinion Science
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Email: letters.editor@ft.com
Include daytime telephone number and full address
Corrections: corrections@ft.com

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least predictable year yet Why Amazon’s advertising revenue is not what it seems
Andy Carter Regarding Patrick McGee’s article
“Meta and Alphabet lose dominance
of US digital ads as tech rivals make
gains” (Report, December 24) I would
like to offer a comment about the
data used.
The primary trend depicted on the
chart accompanying the report is the
growth in Amazon’s advertising
revenue, but paradoxically, this growth
is an illusion. In reality, the vast
majority of Amazon’s advertising
revenue comes from advertising by
sellers on its marketplace, with the
redistribution of traffic between them.
Merchants pay to be higher in the
search rankings. This is an internal
mechanic of the service. It is legally
documented as advertising, but in fact,
it is simply good old-fashioned
commission for using the platform.
To illustrate, imagine that as of
tomorrow, Amazon cancels all
advertising but instead puts the store
that offers the maximum discount to
the customer at its own expense at
the top of the search results. This is a
regular feature, and some
marketplaces do this. So yesterday, the
item cost $10, the commission was
10 per cent, the advertising click cost
$1, Amazon received $2 from each sale
and the seller received $8. Today, the
item costs $20, the discount is $10, the
commission is 10 per cent of $20, or $2,
the buyer pays $10 again and the seller
is left with $8 again. Nothing has
changed in the world; an important
player in the advertising market has
disappeared on paper.
It was not advertising. Or, on the
contrary, we should include all the
revenue of all marketplaces in
advertising in general. There is no
fundamental difference between the
two ways a marketplace makes money
from its merchants.
And if you look without Amazon, the
old leaders are doing well. Without it,
the combined share of Google and Meta
is larger, not smaller, than it was in the
record year of 2017. But this type of
chart benefits everyone in PR.
Regulators get the signal — look,
competition is growing. Amazon is
telling its investors about capturing
new market share.
Alexander Gornyi
Co-founder, Mo Meditation
Ramat Gan, Israel

situation feels surreally different from
Anjana last year, which saw serious discussion
over whether WHO should declare an
Ahuja end to the Covid emergency.
Leaving aside the domestic tragedy,
one question for the rest of the world
in 2023 is whether unrestrained trans-
China’s decoupling could Some facts omitted in tale Your rail analysis suffers
be to the west’s benefit of Dostoyevskian intrigue from leaves on the tracks
Gideon Rachman misses the crucial In the attempt to craft a tale of I enjoyed Camilla Cavendish’s article
fact that the Chinese leadership is itself
compromising China’s growth and
Dostoyevskian intrigue in “Fall of the
House of Sergei Leontiev” (FT
on Britain’s dysfunctional railways
(Opinion, December 10) but her
needs no help from the west in this Magazine, December 17) you omit analysis seemed to come to an early
self-destructive enterprise (Opinion, critical facts. Over several months, halt. Maybe there were leaves on

T
he Covid outbreak is offi-
cially three years old on
January 30, which marks
the moment in 2020
when the World Health
Organisation declared the respiratory
disease a public health emergency of
international concern. But this
month’s anniversary offers little to
celebrate in the wake of China’s cha-
otic and abrupt lurch from zero-Covid
to full-Covid.
Beijing has dramatically reduced
testing, junked contact tracing and is
scrapping most quarantine require-
ments; some regions now permit
infected people with mild or no symp-
toms to go to work. The pandemic
virus is thus free to circulate unob-
served in a sixth of the world’s popula-
tion — just as the rest of the globe is
clamouring for normality. As the third
year of the outbreak closes amid
One question is whether
unrestrained transmission
in China will give rise to a
mission in China will give rise to a new
variant that is able to sneak past the
immunity conferred by existing vac-
cines. Some variants can drive new
waves of infection, as happened in
late 2021 when Delta was usurped
by Omicron. That created Omicron
surges around the world in 2022 and
accelerated vaccine reformulation.
Data indicate that the two common-
est strains currently circulating in
China are Omicron subvariants
descended from BA5, the strain that
plagued the US and Europe last year.
Scientists, particularly those on
WHO’s technical advisory group on
Sars-Cov-2 evolution scheduled to
meet yesterday, are now on the look-
out for ‘pi’, Omicron’s potential suc-
cessor.
What matters is whether any new
viral incarnations are able to spread
more easily or make people sicker
(or both), meriting designation as a
“variant of concern”. Professor Eddie
Holmes, the Sydney University evolu-
tionary biologist who helped col-
leagues in China to share the genome
of the original Wuhan strain in early
2020, speculated that the low Covid
transmission to date in China offered
January 3).
Xi Jinping’s authoritarian turn
coincides with a shift towards state
enterprises occupying centre stage in
the economy, while entrepreneurs are
bashed and put at risk of extinction.
Xi’s decoupling with the west is being
matched by a retreat by foreign
investors — such as Apple’s shifting of
some production facilities to Vietnam.
Foreign businesses are increasingly
concluding that it is in their interest to
disengage. Xi’s aggressiveness in
foreign relations is merely the other
side of this internal drift towards a
more Stalinist polity.
China’s economy is on a self-inflicted
path of implosion, following the
trajectory of the Soviet Union. Its
gradual disengagement from the world
economy will impose some initial
hardship, especially on developing
countries dependent on Chinese trade
and investment, but adjustments will
be made, and the world will be better
off in the long run.
Emeritus Professor Albion M Urdank
University of California, Los Angeles
CA, US
Of late, Beijing has been
Enabling grid connections
for electric vehicles is key
As you report in “Europe must invest
more in electricity grid, warns Eon
chief” (December 12), investment in
the grid is crucial for Europe to meet its
net zero goals.
More broadly, distribution system
operators (DSOs) must be empowered
to play their full part in supporting
Europe’s green transition by enabling
the efficient management of
distributed energy resources and the
integration of transport (along other
sectors) into the grid. It can take up to
Leontiev and his colleagues provided
the FT with reams of verified evidence
on the record. This included court
decisions from respected judiciaries of
rule-of-law countries across three
continents, all of which vindicated
Leontiev’s account of events. In those
proceedings where the Russian
government appeared as a litigant, US
and European courts identified the
criminal allegations against Leontiev as
politically motivated and described the
scant evidence produced by Russia as
“hearsay declarations”, “unconvincing”
and “inconsistent”.
The narrative offered by “Peter”, the
purported whistleblower, is likewise as
flimsy as the linguine he dined on with
FT reporters. “Peter” alleges that the
“incriminating” documents he
delivered to his central bank handler
could not be filed in a Russian court, as
they were illegally obtained. But the
Russian authorities seized all of
Probusinessbank’s files and records
when they stormed bank in August
2015; those documents have been
under the legal possession of the
Russian government for years and
could have been filed in court without
restriction. The article also fails to
the tracks.
While she is absolutely right to point
out that nationalisation is preferable to
the current system — where risks are
borne by government and profits are
reaped by the operators even when
service standards are poor — her
criticism of the RMT union misses the
fact that Mick Lynch and his strike
threats are merely a symptom of this
broken system. Should a union be
demanding pay rises in line with
inflation, when they see the operators
making millions of pounds in profits?
Of course they should. Accusing Lynch
of being “bent on fomenting chaos”
looks ironic when chaos is a feature,
not a bug of Britain’s railway system, as
she herself has pointed out so
eloquently.
Britain could have well-funded
railways run for the benefit of
passengers and staff. It’s a political
decision not to. Focusing her criticism
on those who have been making the
case for nationalisation for decades
(the unions) looks like an old reflex,
not the product of thorough analysis.
Hendrik Kerkhoff
London SE18, UK

vaccine-resistant variant less pressure for the virus to evolve,

reports of overflowing hospitals in
China and fresh restrictions on air
travellers, and with the Chinese new
year holiday fast approaching, the
pandemic seems somehow both
more familiar and less predictable
than ever.
China is right to abandon its inhu-
mane and unworkable zero-Covid
policy but has done so from a position
of relative weakness. A headline 90
per cent vaccination rate masks the
reality that its homegrown vaccines
are less effective than the mRNA ones
used widely elsewhere, and that
around 30 per cent of the country’s
260mn over-60s (and more than half
of its over-80s) have not received
a third dose. Those factors have led
to hair-raising projections, ranging
from 1mn deaths this year to 1.7mn
deaths by the end of April — and has
prompted the EU to offer free vaccines
to China.
Tellingly, China recently altered the
way it counts its Covid dead, including
in its tally only those who expire
directly from respiratory failure
and pneumonia. The official nation-
wide Covid death toll in December
appeared to total an unfeasible 14.
While Chinese officials privately esti-
mated nearly 37mn new infections on
December 20, no new cases have been
reported since December 23. The
limiting the chances of a dangerous
variant emerging in the region.
“My take is that Sars-Cov-2 in China
has an open goal in front of it: a popu-
lation with very low levels of standing
immunity,” he told me in an email,
suggesting that the dominant variants
in the country would most likely be
those that gained a foothold at the
start of the outbreak. “It’s not obvious
to me that there will be strong
immune selection for antigenically
distinct variants because so little of
the population [in China] has prior
immunity.” Populations with larger
but waning immunity, Holmes wrote,
were more likely to be sources of new
variants, adding “it is notable that
XBB 1.5 was first detected in the US”.
XBB 1.5, a subvariant of Omicron,
is fast becoming the dominant strain
in the US, now accounting for around
four in 10 cases according to the
US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. The good news, at least for
now, is that XBB 1.5 is not causing an
uptick in hospitalisations and deaths,
despite being nicknamed the Kraken.
In other words, the vaccines are still
working. That is worth toasting, even
if, with a precarious situation in China
and a new variant in the mix, we can-
not be sure that the pandemic’s third
anniversary will be its last.
The writer is a science commentator
good at halting growth
Gideon Rachman says halting China’s
growth cannot be a goal for the west
(Opinion, January 3). Indeed it needn’t
be. It has usually been the job of the
Chinese government, especially of late.
Zhao Xiaoou
Shanghai, China
Here’s a Nasa idea from
1980s for power in space
Rana Foroohar’s comments on a
commercial space race (Opinion,
December 28) misses an opportunity
to discuss the possibility of generating
power in space, a subject ignored for
decades.
Back in 1989, I served on Nasa’s
Lunar Energy Enterprise Case Study
Task Force. We were supposed to
evaluate the commercial prospects for
fusion reactors on the moon, but we
were intrigued by another proposal, to
put up solar power satellites that would
beam energy down to the earth, a
proposal not novel even then.
There are still entrepreneurs who
would like to revive the idea. I wish
they had the star power of Elon Musk,
Jeff Bezos or Richard Branson.
We could use some clean energy
unaffected by the fickleness of wind
and clouds.
Leonard Hyman
Sleepy Hollow, NY, US
three years for an electric vehicle (EV)
charging station to be connected to the
electricity grid in Europe. We do not
have that kind of time.
If we want to meet our net zero goals,
decarbonise the transport sector and
drive EV uptake, there needs to be a
laser-sharp focus on the number one
bottleneck: the amount of time it takes
to establish a grid connection point, the
complexity of the process to get one
and access to sufficient grid capacity.
These delays weigh on
organisational, financial and hardware
resources that could be deployed
elsewhere to support the growth of EV
charging infrastructure. Meanwhile,
charging stations sit idly on a piece of
land, servicing the needs of precisely
zero EV drivers.
All the targets in the world, all the
funding in the world, will be useless if
the grid connection and permitting
processes are not fixed.
Charge point operators have a clear
vision of what efficient grid connection
and permitting processes look like:
standardisation, transparency,
predictability, harmonisation and
speed are critical to improve the
picture. It is a heavy lift. But without
that aligned effort, targets will just
remain numbers on a sheet of paper,
and net zero a dream more than a plan.
Lucie Mattera
Secretary General, ChargeUp Europe
Brussels, Belgium
acknowledge that Russia’s pursuit of
Leontiev has been led by Russian
officials and agents sanctioned for their
roles in the Magnitsky affair — another
episode of Russian expropriation
where the perpetrators sought to
incriminate their victims.
Viktor Grin, sanctioned for leading
the posthumous prosecution of Sergei
Magnitsky, was lead prosecutor in
criminal proceedings against Leontiev
and his colleagues. Andrei Pavlov, a
lawyer sanctioned for his role in the
Magnitsky affair, led Russia’s Deposit
Insurance Agency’s legal efforts against
Leontiev for years.
Given the benefit of this context,
readers may reasonably question
whether the fantastic tale of “Peter” is
just one more of Russia’s deceptions
and whether the FT is its latest prey.
Jonathan D Reich
New York, NY, US
How a king’s mistress
made a bubbly impression
Regarding Janan Ganesh’s article
“What to look for in a restaurant” (Life
& Arts, December 31), one story has it
that the original moulds for the
champagne coupe were the breasts of
Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II
of France, over a century before the
times of Marie Antoinette. Prosit.
Filippo Lombardo
Milan, Italy
The divergence in UK life
expectancy is disturbing
In your article discussing technologies
to combat the ageing process (The Big
Read, January 3) you write that “life
expectancy at birth almost doubled
between 1841 and 2011” in the UK.
I assume the selection of 2011 as the
endpoint was deliberate, since it was at
almost exactly this time that a
worrying divergence between life
expectancy for the rich and the poor
started to become apparent. While
better-off Britons continued to benefit
from increased life expectancy, the
poorest have experienced declines.
The pandemic has brought these pre-
existing trends into even sharper relief.
These developments evoke a
dystopian vision of a society divided
between a long-lived elite benefiting
from the newest medical technologies
while a stranded underclass sinks into
Dickensian impoverishment. It’s a
disturbing sign of the times.
Luke Powell
Charing, Kent, UK
Correction
cJoni Mitchell will be performing in the
town of George in Washington state, US,
this year, not in Malmö, Sweden, as
incorrectly stated in an article on
January 3.
Wednesday 4 January 2023
Overstretched US foreign policy raises risks for Washington and its allies
Stephen
Wertheim
L
ast year was a time of redemp-
tion for America’s national
security establishment.
Washington had closed out
2021 reeling from its chaotic
retreat from Afghanistan. Today US
global power feels vital again. Hand-
wringing over “endless wars” has given
way to a familiar sense of purpose:
beating back the aggression of autocrats
in Moscow and Beijing.
Some satisfaction is warranted. In
Europe, President Joe Biden has
achieved what few thought possible.
After anticipating Russia’s invasion and
uniting the west, he has enabled
Ukraine to preserve its sovereignty
and regain some of its territory, all
without getting Nato into a direct war
with Russia.
But take a longer view, and the con-
ventional wisdom starts to look suspect.
A new world
energy order is
taking shape
COMMODITIES
Rana
Foroohar
O
n Valentine’s Day in 1945,
US president Franklin
Delano Roosevelt met
Saudi King Abdul Aziz Ibn
Saud on the American
cruiser USS Quincy. It was the beginning
of one of the most important geopol-
itical alliances of the past 70 years, in
which US security in the Middle East
was bartered for oil pegged in dollars.
But times change, and 2023 may be
remembered as the year that this grand
bargain began to shift, as a new world
energy order between China and the
Middle East took shape.
While China has for some time been
buying increasing amounts of oil and
liquefied natural gas from Iran, Vene-
zuela, Russia and parts of Africa in its
own currency, President Xi Jinping’s
meeting with Saudi and Gulf Co-opera-
tion Council leaders in December
marked “the birth of the petroyuan”, as
Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar put
it in a note to clients.
According to Pozsar, “China wants to
rewrite the rules of the global energy
market”, as part of a larger effort to
de-dollarise the so-called Bric countries
of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and
many other parts of the world after
MARKETS
Megan
Greene
T
he Bank of Japan shocked
markets in December by
widening the band in which
10-year government bonds
could trade from 25 to 50
basis points. Investors responded by
pushing two- to 10-year yields to their
highest since 2015, betting that the
widening was the first step in ending
yield curve control, the bank’s pledge
to buy as many bonds as necessary to
cap borrowing costs.
Yet BoJ governor Haruhiko Kuroda
was at pains to say it was simply an
effort to aid market functioning rather
than a signal of a policy change ahead.
Why?
Yield curve control was introduced in
2016 to boost economic activity and
spur inflation. Japan now has inflation
Leaving Afghanistan freed America to
focus on higher priorities. By contrast,
2022 made every strategic challenge
worse. America’s allies should wonder
if an overstretched superpower will
be able to come to their rescue in a
moment of need.
The chief source of trouble is the
freefall in US-Chinese relations. Some in
Washington entered 2022 hoping to
ease tensions and make progress on
shared challenges. Instead, Xi Jinping
proclaimed a “no limits” partnership
with Vladimir Putin. The US went
on the offensive, too. Presidential
“gaffes” vowing to defend Taiwan antag-
onised Beijing, and House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei sparked a
cross-Strait crisis.
Now a war between the world’s
top two powers, though a low probabil-
ity, is no less likely than a return to
Obama-era “engagement”. After Biden’s
decision to cut off Chinese access to
advanced semiconductors, US-China
competition will remain cut-throat even
if not catastrophic.
The need to invest more resources in
Asia was one reason Biden pursued a
the weaponisation of dollar foreign
exchange reserves following Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine.
What does that mean in practice? For
starters, a lot more oil trade will be done
in renminbi. Xi announced that, over
the next three to five years, China would
not only dramatically increase imports
from GCC countries, but work towards
“all-dimensional energy co-operation”.
This could potentially involve joint
exploration and production in places
such as the South China Sea, as well as
investments in refineries, chemicals
and plastics. Beijing’s hope is that all of it
will be paid for in renminbi, on the
Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas
Exchange, as early as 2025.
That would mark a massive shift in
the global energy trade. As Pozsar
points out, Russia, Iran and Venezuela
account for 40 per cent of Opec+ proven
oil reserves, and all of them are selling
oil to China at a steep discount. The GCC
countries account for another 40 per
cent of proven reserves. The remaining
20 per cent are in regions within the
Russian and Chinese orbit.
Those who doubt the rise of the
petroyuan, and the diminution of
the dollar-based financial system in
general, often point out that China
doesn’t enjoy the same level of global
trust, rule of law or reserve currency
liquidity that the US does, making other
countries unlikely to want to do
business in renminbi.
Perhaps, although the oil marketplace
is dominated by countries that have
more in common with China (at least in
Bank of Japan needs the courage to change course
consistently above its 2 per cent target.
The core inflation rate (excluding fresh
food but including energy) rose to 3.7
per cent in November — the highest in
40 years. It’s time for the BoJ to summon
up the courage to change course.
Based on the experience of other
central banks that will be painful, with
investor losses and market ruptures.
The longer the wait, the worse those
may be. Because liquidity in some Japa-
nese government bonds is already thin,
at a time when global liquidity is falling,
market dislocations may be bigger and
swifter than usual. The BoJ should push
ahead anyhow.
Markets, so far, seem to agree. JGB
futures show investors expect the 10-
year trading band to widen by another
50 points this year. Index swaps, a mar-
ket the BoJ doesn’t influence directly,
show they have also priced in 24 basis
points of rate rises. The BoJ now owns
more than half of the outstanding JGB
issuance. That’s already thinned trading
in the 10-year. If investors continue to
challenge the BoJ, it will eventually have
to buy all the bonds or give up.
Meanwhile, implied volatility for
★ FINANCIAL TIMES
Opinion
“stable and predictable” relationship
with Moscow upon taking office. So
much for that. The invasion of Ukraine
turned Russia into America’s outright
adversary. Instead of encouraging
Russian-Chinese divisions, the US
finds itself setting out to contain both
powers at once.
This prospect disturbs US leaders
less than it should. With the Russian
Burdens and dangers
will continue to mount
unless hard strategic
adjustments are made
military degraded in Ukraine, the US
could insist that Europe deliver a real
Zeitenwende: develop the capability to
defend itself by, say, the end of a second
Biden term. Biden has done the oppo-
site. His administration surged roughly
40,000 US troops into Europe in 2022
and championed the expansion of Nato.
Meanwhile, North Korea remains
nuclear and menacing. Pyongyang fired
terms of their political economies) than
with the US. What’s more, the Chinese
have offered up something of a financial
safety net by making the renminbi
convertible to gold on the Shanghai and
Hong Kong gold exchanges.
While this doesn’t make the renminbi
a substitute for the dollar as a reserve
currency, the petroyuan trade nonethe-
less comes with important economic
and financial implications for policy-
makers and investors.
For one thing, the prospect of cheap
energy is already luring western indus-
trial businesses to China. Consider the
recent move of Germany’s BASF to
downsize its main plant in Ludwig-
shafen and shift chemical operations to
Zhanjiang. This could be the beginning
of what Pozsar calls a “farm to table”
The oil marketplace is
dominated by countries
that have more in common
with China than America
10-year JGBs over the next 12 months
is roughly three times what it was a
year ago. The yield curve is kinked, with
the 10-year yield falling below 9- and
11-year yields. That affects commercial
bank profits, creating a disincentive to
lend, potentially sapping growth.
The government of Prime Minister
Fumio Kishida has suggested it will call
for a BoJ policy review when Kuroda
retires in April. That’s another reason
It should tighten monetary
policy before many
developed economies are
pitched into recession
for the central bank to act now. Markets
will digest a policy change more
smoothly under a seasoned governor
with than an inexperienced successor.
Just ask members of the then-brand
new Mexican government that widened
the band in which the peso could trade
in 1994, kicking off the tequila crisis.
One counter argument is that Japan’s
a record number of missiles in 2022,
lofting some over Japan and into South
Korean territorial waters. After a four-
year pause, it resumed testing intercon-
tinental ballistic missiles capable of
striking North America. China and Rus-
sia for the first time vetoed a UN resolu-
tion to tighten sanctions on North Korea
over its missile tests. Washington’s
toolkit is shrinking, and Pyongyang’s
nukes are here to stay.
On top of everything, efforts to
restore the nuclear accord with Iran fell
apart in 2022 — perhaps definitively. US
officials say that President Ebrahim
Raisi’s government simply does not
want to rejoin the agreement. Biden
may soon face a daunting choice: allow
an Iranian nuclear bomb or bomb Iran.
The post-cold war world wasn’t sup-
posed to turn out like this. In 1991, Pen-
tagon planners argued that US global
primacy would produce peace. By
maintaining overwhelming military
supremacy, America would dissuade
potential rivals from “even aspiring to a
larger regional or global role”. A benevo-
lent sole superpower — what Madeleine
Albright dubbed the “indispensable
trend in which China tries to capture
more value-added production locally,
using cheap energy as a lure. (A number
of European manufacturers have also
increased jobs in the US because of
lower energy costs there.)
Petropolitics comes with financial
risks as well as upsides. It’s worth
remembering that the recycling of
petrodollars by oil-rich nations into
emerging markets such as Mexico, Bra-
zil, Argentina, Zaire, Turkey and others
by US commercial banks from the late
1970s onwards led to several emerging
market debt crises. Petrodollars also
accelerated the creation of a more spec-
ulative, debt-fuelled economy in the US,
as banks flush with cash created all sorts
of new financial “innovations”, and an
influx of foreign capital allowed the US
to maintain a larger deficit.
That trend may now start to go into
reverse. Already, there are fewer foreign
buyers for US Treasuries. If the petro-
yuan takes off, it would feed the fire of
de-dollarisation. China’s control of
more energy reserves and the products
that spring from them could be an
inflation is unsustainable. As elsewhere,
the current rise was driven by global
energy and food prices and a weak
currency — so-called cost-push infla-
tion. BoJ officials contend deflation
won’t be vanquished until wages rise
faster, but this year’s spring shunto trade
union pay negotiations are expected to
bring larger wage increases to compen-
sate for higher inflation. This would
generate the kind of demand-pull infla-
tion that the BoJ wants to see.
The BoJ should also tighten policy
before many developed economies are
pitched into recession later this year.
Risk-off markets tend to spark a flight to
quality into yen. Shifting the policy
stance as the global economy weakens
would reinforce yen appreciation, drag-
ging on Japan’s export competitiveness
and contributing to disinflation.
History suggests ending yield curve
control won’t go smoothly. The Federal
Reserve capped yields to finance the US
war effort from 1942 to 1951. That YCC
lulled businesses into assumptions
about interest rates and their volatility
that broke down when the caps ended,
causing losses for investors holding
nation” — would suppress security
competition, benefiting the world while
keeping costs low for itself.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
dealt a blow to this theory by showing
that the US could use power unwisely
and cause instability. America’s adver-
saries have multiplied in numbers and
gained in strength. The burdens
and dangers will continue to mount
unless the US makes difficult strategic
adjustments.
That hardly means withdrawal from
the world. It means the US should
combine pulling back (from the Middle
East) with shifting the burden (to Euro-
pean allies) and seeking competitive
coexistence (with China). The US and
its allies should aim for balances of
power, not overmatching power.
Washington may think its global
leadership is back, but if it keeps trying
to defend everything, America will end
up defending nothing.
The author is a senior fellow in the Ameri-
can Statecraft Program at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace and a
visiting lecturer at Yale Law School
Matt Kenyon
important new contributor to inflation
in the west. It’s a slow-burn problem,
but perhaps not as slow as some market
participants think.
What should policymakers and busi-
ness leaders do? If I were chief executive
of a multinational company, I’d be look-
ing to regionalise and localise as much
production as possible to hedge against
a multipolar energy market. I’d also do
more vertical integration to offset
increased inflation in supply chains.
If I were a US policymaker, I’d think
about ways to increase North American
shale production over the short to
medium term (and offer Europeans a
discount for it), while also speeding
up the green transition. That’s yet
another reason why Europeans
shouldn’t be complaining about the
Inflation Reduction Act, which subsi-
dises clean energy production in the US.
The rise of the petroyuan should be an
incentive for both the US and Europe to
move away from fossil fuels as quickly
as they can.
rana.foroohar@ft.com
longer-term bonds and sharp disloca-
tions in mortgage markets. The Reserve
Bank of Australia practised YCC from
March 2020 to November 2021. In a
postmortem of its policy, the RBA
admitted keeping it in place after mar-
ket participants stopped believing in it
meant “the exit in late 2021 was disor-
derly and caused some reputational
damage to the Bank”.
To minimise disorder, the BoJ should
be clear about its reaction function and
move slowly but deliberately by first
further widening the YCC band or tar-
geting a shorter duration. Ultimately, it
must announce that it is abandoning
YCC entirely and will instead aim to
minimise rapid changes in debt prices,
such as those seen in the UK govern-
ment bond market in September.
It is inevitable that there will be mar-
ket spillovers. But the BoJ must stay the
course, barring any kind of systemic
meltdown. It’s time for it to join every
other major central bank in moving to
end extraordinary monetary policy.
The writer is an FT contributing editor and
global chief economist at Kroll
17
We must
dismantle the
barriers GDPR
creates for science
Robert
Eiss
T
he lifesaving work of the
biomedical science comm-
unity is caught in an unset-
tling — and unintended —
crossfire over global data
sharing. Last year, Joe Biden and Ursula
von der Leyen committed to a transat-
lantic framework to restore commercial
data flows, which were abruptly halted
in 2020 by the European Court of Jus-
tice. But the US and EU must now take
a further pivotal step to dismantle the
data-sharing silos in medicine and pub-
lic health that arose from Europe’s Gen-
eral Data Protection Regulation.
The GDPR represents the most pro-
gressive measure in decades when it
comes to giving individuals greater con-
trol over their personal data. Its territ-
orial reach arguably demonstrates what
has been coined the Brussels effect —
the capacity of the EU to forge sectoral
standards as a condition of market
access, that are then adopted by inter-
national firms.
But unintended — and problematic —
consequences come when general prin-
ciples that apply to marketing indus-
tries and other forms of data processing
are also applied to publicly funded bio-
medical research. Applications and
interpretations of GDPR fail to consider
adequately how research uses of per-
sonal data differ from other types, par-
ticularly as the data are pseudonymised.
The present state of play is uneasy.
Scientists are struggling to find a legal
basis for sharing data under the regula-
tion. US federal agencies such as the
National Institutes of Health, the largest
global funder of biomedical research,
This state of play is uneasy.
Scientists are struggling to
find a legal basis for sharing
data under the regulation
and its sister public agencies have no
pathway available to receive pseudo-
nymised data collected by research
partners in the EU. Without an ade-
quacy decision, US agencies and many
publicly supported research universi-
ties are legally barred from agreeing to
GDPR data-transfer requirements.
Longstanding research collaborations
that included appropriate consent are
stalled. Forty-seven clinical research
sites in the EU could not enrol in NIH-
sponsored Covid therapeutic trials.
Thirty-five projects in the EU assessing
genetic and environmental influences
on cancer risk cannot progress. More-
over, GDPR is having direct effects
on patient care in a research setting.
Colleagues at NIH’s Clinical Center were
unable to secure matched donor sam-
ples from Europe to offer stem-cell
transplantation treatment to some
cancer patients despite donor consent.
The implications for European clini-
cal research are consequential. When
data collected from patients cannot be
exported, EU-based trial sponsors can-
not submit evidence to third-country
regulatory agencies, including the US
Food and Drug Administration. As a
result, they may be compelled to relo-
cate clinical sites outside the EU to
access more markets. One estimate
indicates that this may lead to €8.9bn
less a year spent by companies within
the EU on trials.
Building on the emerging US-EU
framework to restore legal certainty for
commercial data flows is a chance to
forge a compact that both keeps GDPR’s
robust privacy safeguards, and allows
science to deliver vital medicines and
preventive care. Remedies could take
the form of an international agreement,
amendments to the GDPR to recognise
scientific data sharing as a public inter-
est or expanded guidelines on GDPR
transfer mechanisms.
There is an urgency to this. Genomics
and other potent tools create extraordi-
nary opportunities to advance curative
treatments based on precise molecular
knowledge and to intervene to pre-
empt disease. Resolving these frustrat-
ing barriers to data sharing will enable
scientists to power clinical trials, iden-
tify promising drug targets and realise
the potential of precision or person-
alised medicine as well as fulfilling a
solemn social contract with those who
volunteer for clinical trials expecting
their data to help propel the develop-
ment of innovative medicines.
The writer is a senior adviser at the US
National Institutes of Health
18 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Wednesday 4 January 2023

Southwest Airlines: winter of discontent

Shares in the discount airline have dipped following the Christmas cold snap and storms, after weathering
the pandemic better than peers. Southwest has been instrumental in pushing down ticket prices and is one
of three carriers at the top of the US airline industry.

Twitter: @FTLex
China banks: Covid
eclipses property woe
Foreign news bulletins have recently
featured grim footage of Chinese
hospitals filled with Covid-19 patients.
Nearly half the passengers on China to
Milan flights have tested positive.
China’s economy is correspondingly
sickly itself. Banks will bear a heavy
financial burden as a result. Data show
that Beijing’s reversal of its restrictive
zero-Covid policies is causing damage
worse than widespread lockdowns.
China’s factory activity shrank at its
sharpest pace in nearly three years in
December. The non-manufacturing
index, measuring construction and
services sector activity, declined to 41.6
from 46.7 the previous month. That
was well below the 50-point mark
separating contraction and growth.
Chinese health authorities estimate
that 250mn people, or about 18 per
cent of the population, caught the virus
in the first few weeks of December. The
real percentage must be closer to those
reported by Italian health officials
monitoring flights from Beijing.
That points to dire labour shortages
and supply chain pain. Manufacturing
will continue slowing and corporate
financial distress will rise.
The real estate sector is already in
deep trouble. Property prices and sales
volumes have been slumping amid a
consumer demand slowdown. The
retail and leisure sectors are exposed,
too. They could usually expect to make
$110bn in sales over the lunar new year
holidays. This year, infections are the
only surge that matters.
Outside real estate, most big
businesses have the resilience to
weather the storm. Smaller companies
are more vulnerable. Chinese
authorities will expect big banks to
support struggling enterprises with soft
loans and outright rescues.
The non-performing loans of Chinese
banks already stood at a record
Rmb3tn ($436bn) by the middle of
2022. Beijing asked big lenders to step
in to support the housing market with
another Rmb1.9tn last year. Other
sectors are increasingly leveraged.
China’s debt as a percentage of GDP hit
a historic record in the first half.
Shares of the largest banks, including
Bank of China and China Construction
Bank, have dropped in the past six
months. Industrial and Commercial
Bank of China, the biggest, is down a
tenth and trades at 0.4 times tangible
book — less than half the price of
foreign peers such as HSBC. China’s
recovery will come at the expense of
local lenders and their shareholders.
Cineworld:
roll the credits
It is easier to reprise your glory days in
a movie than in business. Tom Cruise
did so last year in Top Gun: Maverick,
portraying a dashing airman.
But global box office takings for 2022
are likely to be well below those of
$42bn in 2019. UK-listed Cineworld, in
US bankruptcy proceedings since
September, does not expect its own
ticket sales to revive fully until 2024.
Cineworld shareholders are hanging
on to their equity by a thread. The UK-
listed group has a market capitalisation
of £50mn, compared with more than
£4bn in 2019. It hopes to sell its assets,
although rumoured talks with rival
AMC never took place, it says.
Its movie theatres are useful only to
a buyer who wants to run a cinema
chain. The prospects for that industry
have been diminished by streaming
businesses, which are still paying
steeply for content. Even at book value,
Cineworld’s assets would barely cover
outstanding borrowings. A sale of the
whole business seems unlikely. A
restructuring is a more realistic option.
Creditors would then take the place of
current shareholders.
Net of depreciation Cineworld had
$1.5bn worth of property and
equipment at the end of June last year.
An offer for the Plc, which no one
expects, would mean taking on $5bn of
borrowings and almost $4bn of lease
obligations. On top of that, the
company has $1.9bn of debtor in
possession (DIP) financing to see it
through its Chapter 11 proceedings.
Despite a cash burn rate down to
$145mn in the first half of 2022, the
company now has plenty of liquidity.
But even on Cineworld’s optimistic
assumptions of a recovery, net debt
would still be too high this year, at
about seven times ebitda.
Leverage needs to fall to half that
amount to become sustainable. This
would mean shedding $2.5bn of
borrowings, on top of repaying the DIP
financing. New investors willing to
Flying into a storm
Share prices and index (rebased)
Southwest Delta American
United JetBlue
50
S&P 500
25
0 17.0
-25
-50
-75
2020 21 22
FT graphic Sources: S&P Capital IQ; US Bureau of Transportation Statistics
For commercial pilots, no journey is
over until they have safely landed the
aircraft and taxied to a halt. Tell that
to executives of Southwest Airlines,
the US discount carrier.
At an investor presentation in
December, bosses boasted about
operating performance during the US
Thanksgiving holiday in November,
when Southwest cancelled only
70 out of more than 26,000 flights —
an industry-leading performance.
The 2022 Christmas holiday
provided a humbling comeuppance.
Following a cold snap and storms,
Southwest cancelled thousands of
flights. Passengers and their luggage
were left scattered across America.
This failure has been blamed on
the airline’s “point-to-point” flight
cover that bill will be as scarce in the
real world as septuagenarian combat
pilots.
Airbus: beware geeks
bringing gifts
The Ukraine war has revived the threat
of conventional conflicts for developed
nations. That has boosted the defence
sector, in which Airbus participates.
But the interest that the Toulouse-
based group is reportedly taking in the
cyber security and big data arm of Atos
is incongruous.
The French software group is the
kind of vendor that acquirers like:
distressed. But there is a further
incongruity in talk of Airbus buying a
Ticket prices fall in real terms
Annual US domestic average
itinerary fare ($)
600
Inflation-adjusted
(2022 constant dollars)
400
Nominal prices
200
0 6.0
23 1995 2000 05 10 15 20
routing. Antiquated technology may
have prevented flight crews from
knowing where to redeploy.
Southwest is a victim of its own
success. Since 1995, the average airline
fare dropped from $553 to $367 when
expressed in 2022 dollars, according to
the US Department of Transportation.
Disrupters such as Southwest and
JetBlue and ultra low-cost carriers like
Spirit and Frontier are responsible.
They have brought down prices and
boosted passenger growth. Southwest’s
share price jumped nearly seven times.
The airline had argued that 2023
would be the year that it would escape
the effects of the pandemic. Proving
that will be harder now. The stock
price exceeded its pre-pandemic level
in early 2021. Since then, the shares
minority stake in the Evidian division
of Atos. It would hardly be material to
the aerospace and defence group.
Defence and space activity makes up
just over a quarter of Airbus’s top line,
though its separate helicopters unit has
defence exposure, too. Within defence
and space, the software units make up
an even smaller part. Diversifications
into cyber security are tricky for
defence investors to value. Competence
and cash flows are harder to assess
than in military hardware.
In the nine months to September
2022, jet-building accounted for over
90 per cent of group operating profits.
Airbus has dabbled in software via its
Skywise project, with US partner
Palantir. Not much has come of this so
far, says Jefferies. Perhaps Airbus boss
Guillaume Faury believes
A three-horse race
Airline domestic market share
(Oct 2021-Sep 2022), %
Delta
17.1
American
17.8
Southwest
Frontier
3.2
United
15.1
Spirit
4.8 SkyWest
3.0
Alaska JetBlue Other
5.4 8.7
Hawaiian: 1.9
have nearly halved. Wall Street fears
a long-term debt load that has
jumped from $1.4bn to more than
$8bn in three years. Southwest’s
market cap is now $20bn, after its
stock price fell 7 per cent last week.
Last month, the airline reinstated
its pre-pandemic dividend and
committed to paying down its debt
load. But Southwest now has
additional financial priorities. First, it
may have to pay compensation to
passengers whose holidays were
disrupted. Second, the business
plainly needs to upgrade systems to
forestall further crises.
These expenses will weigh on
earnings this year. But in IT as in
aviation, there is only so long you can
fly by the seat of your pants.
stakebuilding could pave the way to a
purchase of Envidian.
Atos chief executive Guillaume
Belmer may have resigned last year
because the board resisted a trade sale
and favoured a demerger.
Atos has already entertained at least
one offer for Envidian. A bid led by
consultants Onepoint valued Envidian
at €4.2bn, which Atos rejected. That
looks low compared with an estimate
from Citi of €4.6bn including net debt
and pension liabilities.
In its current form, the software
group is burning cash flow at an
average of €385mn annually through to
2025, S&P Global estimates. There is a
danger that Airbus would help fund a
rescue if it becomes embroiled with
Atos. That would please the French
government but harm shareholders.
SpaceX/Musk:
to boldly grow
Rocket science is famously exacting
and social media is infamously facile.
Could it be that the former is easier for
Elon Musk than the latter? His $44bn
Twitter takeover has been a disaster.
It has even infected confidence in
Tesla, contributing to a drop of nearly
three-quarters in the shares of the
electric-car group in the past year.
But SpaceX, another venture of the
billionaire provocateur, seems to be in
better shape. The space exploration
company is reportedly in talks to raise
$750mn in a new round of funding that
would value it at $137bn. That would
represent a 10 per cent rise from the
$125bn that it was valued at last June.
Valuations derived from private fund
raisings tend to be misleading — doubly
so when no financing has closed. But
completing an up round in a down
market would reflect surging space-
related spending as much as Musk’s
compromised charisma. Morgan
Stanley reckons expenditure could
reach $1.1tn by 2040. Nasa’s budget for
its Artemis moon programme alone is
expected to reach $94bn.
SpaceX is well placed to benefit. It
already has contracts to handle rocket
launches for the US government and
makes money from Starlink, its
broadband-satellite fleet. The business
has partnered with T-Mobile to provide
wireless phone coverage in remote
areas of the US and is pitching for deals
to improve the satellite capabilities of
national security agencies.
SpaceX’s diversified revenue streams
are one reason why its valuation has
defied gravity, even as those of rivals
have cratered. Shares in Virgin Orbit
and Rocket Lab lost 75 and 68 per cent
of their value last year. Private
ownership has shielded SpaceX from
the kind of valuation volatility seen at
Tesla. Even so, Musk’s unpredictability
and the distraction Twitter creates are
a risk for SpaceX. Musk is the space
company’s chief executive, chief
technology officer and chief designer.
Any new investors in SpaceX should
use the Tesla stock price as a gauge of
confidence in him — or the lack of it.
Lex on the web
For notes on today’s stories
go to www.ft.com/lex

CROSSWORD
No 17,296 Set by AARDVARK
        ACROSS

1 Fellow conservative enthralled by Aussie

resident’s artistic style (6)
4 A Welshwoman travelled by plane,
  broadcasting ailment (5,3)
9 Eagerly take in Grand Canyon maybe (5)
10 Oral rendering by daughter had bowled
over liberal author (5,4)
  11 Bull pub’s in centre, on river (7)
12 Ancient region vets drug trial, repeatedly
ignoring extremes (7)
13 Busy person taking Victor out of Channel
port (4)
   14 Proud to go around north-east entering
vegetable, without introduction (8)
 17 Parasite wanted mirror owned by couple
emptying room (8)
   19 Ready for opening of Ulysses? Carry on
reading (2,2)
22 Varying article by Hugo as freelance,
 
essentially (7)
24 International sponsorship Pat avoided for
   a period (4,3)
25 Lady at pub with skimpy attire two
characters joined (9)
26 Freshwater fish cook in simmering liquid,
  right for papa (5)
27 Heading off guard, female pair of
Europeans charge at gate? (5,3)
28 Maestro Australian parked in marketplace
(6)
 
DOWN

1 Newspaper rated new clothing business

(3,5)
2 Roly-poly, I’m amazed, climbed up fast (9)
JOTTER PAD 3 Scarred regularly by effect of sun on
Mediterranean island (6)
5 Movement on deck, with fish entering
boat (13)
Solution 17,295 6 Country artist supporting The
Conjunctions? (7)
* 5 ( $ 7 ( 6 7 ' ( ' 8 & ( 7 Talent show: beginning in lounge
( 5 6 ( ( 2 / between one and two (5)
) $ , 5 & , 1 ( 0 $ * 2 ( 5 8 At college, youngster digests band put on
& 2 + & , 0 2 Facebook? (6)
10 Nick and Walter organised staff for PM
6 + 2 : 0 ( 2 , / / $ 0 3 6
once (6,7)
6 : 0 / $ 15 Star entertainer to be advised about work
6 0 $ / / 6 8 0 ( ; 3 $ 7 6 by Charlie (3,6)
, , $ / 5 16 Rather strange meows by hot cat,
& / 2 7 + 2 1 2 1 ) $ 7 $ / scratching head (8)
/ 1 ' 2 ,
18 Turkey etc of poor quality, according to
report (7)
/ , 1 2 / ( 8 0 9 ( 1 , & ( 20 Quietly crowd together in Hackney, as a
3 3 $ ( , 6 2 consequence of rain? (6)
3 ( 5 ( * 5 , 1 ( 6 0 2 9 ( You can now solve our crosswords 21 Newsman Jack loves to nip home for the
' 1 7 7 $ $ ( Ashes? (6)
in the new FT crossword app at 23 Retired postman perhaps who settles
0 ( 1 6 & + 6 , ' ( 1 2 7 ( ft.com/crosswordapp abroad (5)