Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Insurance prices for ships travelling through the Strait of Hormuz have jumped more than 60 per cent since the start of the war between Israel and Iran as the conflict threatens shipping in a key chokepoint for crude oil.As of this week, the cost of hull and machinery insurance for ships passing through the strait — a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, connecting the Gulf to the Arabian Sea — as well as the wider Gulf area had risen from 0.125…

Earlier this month, the US Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs published an oblique notice on its website stating that it had received a new rule proposal from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.If that seems a little dull, consider that the proposed rule’s title was even more mind-numbing: “Modifications to Supplementary Leverage Capital Requirements for Large Banking Organizations; Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity Requirements for US Global Systemically Important Bank Holding Companies.”And yet, in some corners of the US finance industry, this has probably been greeted with the equivalent of a Mexican (soon to be rebranded American by the Trump administration, we…

Just days after Premier Li Qiang called for “greater efforts” to halt a decline in China’s housing market, fresh data on Monday laid out why the country’s top leadership still has such cause for concern.New home prices across 70 Chinese cities fell 0.2 per cent in May from the previous month, while those of second-hand homes declined 0.5 per cent, according to a Financial Times analysis — the fastest pace of decline in seven and eight months respectively.Real estate investment was also down 10.7 per cent in the first five months of 2025, the data showed.Years after Chinese home prices…

One thing to start: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI is nearing a $9.3bn debt and equity deal, as investors looked past the billionaire’s spat with President Donald Trump that had complicated the capital raising efforts.And a wave of golden visas: Nearly 70,000 people have signed up for the new golden Trump Card, a visa scheme led by commerce secretary Howard Lutnick that will grant foreigners legal residency in the US at a cost of $5mn.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…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.HSBC is considering a global mandate to force employees back to the office at least three days a week, as the bank seeks to reconcile a patchwork of policies across its sprawling operations. Chief executive officer Georges Elhedery has discussed a group-wide return to office policy with executives across the bank’s businesses, according to people involved in the deliberations, with some managers expressing frustration that many employees are still mostly working from home. Discussions are ongoing and no decision has yet been made,…

The European Commission has proposed overhauling EU debt securitisation rules that were put in place in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, in an effort to free up bank capital and encourage lending.The commission on Tuesday put forward plans for lowering capital charges for banks holding securitised assets and cutting red tape for investors and issuers. The measures form part of Brussels’ broader push to integrate the EU’s capital markets, which is seen as critical to boosting the continent’s flagging economic competitiveness.Political will for a revision of the bloc’s prudential framework, viewed by many in the market as…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Media myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Swiss authorities have raided the offices of popular financial blog Inside Paradeplatz over suspected violations of banking secrecy laws, as media reporting on financial misconduct becomes more restricted in the country. Lukas Hässig, the journalist behind the blog told the Financial Times that officials from the Zurich prosecutor’s office and police officers had also searched his private residence. The searches, which resulted in the seizure of a laptop, a cell phone and several documents, took place on June 3, said Hässig, who earlier reported…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Small- and mid-cap brokers in the UK, like boozy lunches, are an imperilled breed. No surprise then to see Peel Hunt, itself a vocal doomsayer, say this week that it had slid into the red last year.Playing comprador to companies on a shrinking stock market is a tough task. Peel Hunt advises companies on their strategy, publishes equity research and acts as a market-maker for investors. But small companies pay small retainers — Peel Hunt averages under £60,000 per client. Subsequent deal…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.German prosecutors have closed their criminal investigation into former DWS chief executive Asoka Wöhrmann over greenwashing allegations, opting not to press charges in the wake of fines for Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm in the US and Germany.Frankfurt’s public prosecutor said that Wöhrmann’s lack of previous convictions and the fact that he left DWS “immediately after the greenwashing allegations became known” were key factors in the decision.“Furthermore, the accused is no longer active in the capital markets sector,” they added. Wöhrmann now…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the EU economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Germany’s reforms aimed at persuading workers to retire later do not go far enough to ease the fiscal strain of a rapidly ageing workforce, the Bundesbank has warned.Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s plan to introduce tax incentives for pensioners who keep working are “likely to have only a limited effect” in a country where early retirement is widespread, the central bank said.It pointed out that Merz was not scrapping existing financial incentives that encourage early retirement. “Key pension policy levers to address the demographic…