Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UBS may have been handed an early win in its battle to moderate stringent new capital requirements imposed by the Swiss government. Who to thank? The pragmatic and slow-moving Swiss political system. The fierce debate between the Swiss lender and the government over how much more money it should hold in reserve domestically for its overseas branches has been raging for months. By Swiss standards, it has all become quite emotional.Many Swiss citizens remain rightfully angered by the collapse of Credit Suisse…

One scoop to start: Revolut is in talks to raise new funding from investors at a $65bn valuation in a transaction that would fuel global expansion for Europe’s most valuable start-up.And a sibling rivalry scoop: Grant Thornton’s UK and US businesses are vying to take over their German sister firm in a private equity-fuelled race to secure a greater share of the accounting group’s global network.Welcome to Due Diligence, your briefing on dealmaking, private equity and corporate finance. This article is an on-site version of the newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Tuesday…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Hedge funds myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Hunterbrook Global has been valued at $100mn after a recent fundraising, as the novel US newsroom-cum-hedge fund revealed to investors that it planned to move into litigation. The new capital, raised by the parent company that oversees the hedge fund Hunterbrook Capital and the news outlet Hunterbrook Media, has come from investors, including the Ford Foundation and venture capital firm Floating Point, according to a person familiar with the fundraise.Hunterbrook was launched in 2023 by investor Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz and writer Sam…

The writer is a historian and public speaker“We once had seven castles,” says Jean Christophe, Baron von Pfetten. “All were sold — so I’ve bought one back!”The baron, a Frenchman with a Germanic title and a deep love of England, blames the loss of his family’s patrimony on the Code Napoleon, which prescribes a more equitable family inheritance and quickly disperses an ancestral fortune. So, when he first picked his way through Apethorpe House, the castle in question, and spotted a carved coat of arms resembling his own, he and his wife Nadia, a conservation architect from Venice, decided to buy it.The…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.South Korean policymakers are struggling to stimulate economic growth in the face of an escalating global trade war, as they fear cutting interest rates could boost property prices in some of the most desirable parts of Seoul and inflame an already overheated market.The Bank of Korea on Thursday held rates at 2.5 per cent, defying pressure to boost an economy that contracted in the first quarter as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs squeezed the country’s crucial exports of cars, steel and electronics.“The…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Revolut is in talks to raise new funding from investors at a $65bn valuation, according to people familiar with the matter, in a transaction that would fuel global expansion for Europe’s most valuable start-up.The UK-based financial technology group is in discussions to raise about $1bn of funding via newly issued shares and the sale of some existing stock, two of the people said.The US investment firm Greenoaks is in talks to lead the private funding round, one person said, cautioning that details…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldFor America’s private health insurers, President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is turning out to be not so pretty.Among the many provisions in the giant tax and spending package were the ones tightening eligibility for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, a federal state programme for low-income and disabled people. The bill also affects another key insurance market — Obamacare marketplace plans. Federal tax credits that help people pay for these plans were not extended, meaning…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Bank of England has imposed an £11.9mn fine on Vocalink, an offshoot of Mastercard that operates a key part of UK payments infrastructure, over its “ineffective risk management framework” and weaknesses in internal controls and governance.The BoE said on Wednesday that the fine reflected Vocalink’s failure to comply with the central bank’s requirement for it to fix a number of weaknesses in its systems and controls identified by supervisors by February 2022.The penalty is a stinging rebuke for Vocalink, which operates…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Financial & markets regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Hedge funds and other non-bank groups could face limits on the amount of leverage they can use and may have to provide more disclosure to regulators about their borrowing, under plans put forward by the world’s financial stability watchdog.The Financial Stability Board (FSB) said on Wednesday that its recommended measures — which follow a consultation announced late last year — were designed to tackle the build-up of leverage in non-banks, which “can be an important amplifier of stress. If not…

India has been a money machine for Jane Street, netting the trading giant more than $4bn in profits in just over two years. But it is now the source of a scandal that is imperilling the Wall Street firm’s golden run.The Securities and Exchange Board of India last week accused Jane Street of a “sinister scheme” to manipulate Indian stocks and derivatives, temporarily banned its activities in the country and impounded more than $550mn of “illegal gains” — the most draconian penalty it has ever levied. It is now expanding its probe into the firm’s trades in other parts of India’s…