Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Counterterrorism police are investigating a fire at Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s north London home in the early hours of Monday morning.The fire at the four-bedroom property, which Starmer has rented out to tenants since moving to 10 Downing Street last July, caused damage to the property’s entrance, the Metropolitan Police said.“On Monday, 12 May at 01:35hrs, police were alerted by the London Fire Brigade to reports of a fire at a residential address in [Kentish Town],” the police said in a…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The rise of remote working is transforming office markets, but not in the way investors might have expected. During the coronavirus pandemic, stark images of desolate city centres prompted warnings of a hollowing out, with traditional business districts empty while employees worked from home or from smaller local satellite offices. Five years on, the opposite is happening in cities like London: demand for prime central offices is surging, while those on the outskirts — or even just the slightly off-centre — are struggling. If…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UniCredit has hailed its “best quarter in history” as it reported record net profits but signalled it would be selective in its dealmaking as the Italian banking industry stands on the cusp of a wave of consolidation. The lender said on Monday it had made a net profit of €2.8bn in the three months to March, beating analyst estimates and prompting the bank to increase its full-year guidance. Net commissions were also higher than expected at €2.3bn while net interest income was…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Investment Banking myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.US investment bank Evercore has poached one of Citigroup’s most senior dealmakers, as the advisory group accelerates efforts to expand in Europe. Luigi De Vecchi, a veteran adviser behind some of Citi’s largest continental European transactions, will join Evercore as chair of its continental European business from July. He will also lead the firm’s effort to establish a new office in Milan, according to people familiar with the matter. De Vecchi will retain an office in Paris, a sign of the bank’s…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Private equity myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Big private equity investors are taking advantage of a flood of capital from wealthy individuals to cash out their buyout fund holdings at higher prices despite the industry’s years-long downturn. Some of the largest evergreen vehicles, which allow retail investors to deposit and withdraw cash at regular intervals, have bought swaths of private equity fund stakes from institutional investors seeking liquidity after a dearth of distributions.That extra demand has helped prop up prices for stakes in private equity funds on the secondary…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.When I heard last week’s news that Warren Buffett had decided to step down from his mighty Berkshire Hathaway empire, at the age of 94, it reminded me of something that has bothered me for years.It relates to the great investor’s annual letters to Berkshire shareholders. For decades they have been one of the financial world’s most insightful, cheering and best-read documents. Endlessly quoted. Collected into books. Hugely educational.Buffett did have help. Financial journalist Carol Loomis edited the letters. Even so, how…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The chief executive of Deutsche Bank’s asset manager DWS has argued that US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies have proved a powerful, if uncomfortable, catalyst for long-overdue economic reforms in Europe. In an interview with the Financial Times, Stefan Hoops said that while rising tariffs and geopolitical tension had rattled global markets, they had also jolted Europe out of “complacent, lethargic behaviour” surrounding infrastructure and defence spending. “Europe has always been about ability versus willingness to really compete . . . We have plenty of savings,…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Insurers at Lloyd’s of London have launched a product to cover companies for losses caused by malfunctioning artificial intelligence tools, as the sector aims to profit from concerns about the risk of costly hallucinations and errors by chatbots. The policies developed by Armilla, a start-up backed by Y Combinator, will cover the cost of court claims against a company if it is sued by a customer or another third party who has suffered harm because of an AI tool underperforming.The insurance will…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.St James’s Place is the sort of company that defies the idea of efficient markets. Why are people so keen to pay a premium to invest their money when they can often achieve similar results from a few low-cost tracker funds? The answer: sometimes, wealth management is more about making customers feel wealthy than actually maximising wealth.SJP has been the FTSE 100’s best-performing stock over the past 12 months. It is the second-best in the entire FTSE 350, driven by chief executive…

The dumping of US assets in favour of Europe’s resurgent markets signals the start of a much longer-term move by pension funds and other big institutional money managers to cut back their huge exposure to dollar investments, say investors.Wall Street banks say they are seeing signs that investors managing trillions of dollars of assets are starting to trim their US positions, on concerns over erratic policymaking, President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve chair and the fallout from the trade war.Although US stocks have almost recovered their losses since Trump’s so-called “liberation day” tariff announcements rocked global markets last…