Author: Lily Harper

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Property sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Seven of the UK’s biggest housebuilders have agreed to pay a total of £100mn after an investigation by the country’s competition regulator into information sharing between the companies. The Competition and Markets Authority said on Wednesday that the companies had offered to make the payments after it unearthed evidence last year that commercially sensitive information, including on prices, had been transmitted between companies. The seven housebuilders — Barratt Redrow, Bellway, Berkeley Group, Bloor Homes, Persimmon, Taylor Wimpey and Vistry — had “agreed…

Ted Seides is the founder of Capital Allocators and former president of Protégé Partners.On a slow summer day 18 years ago, I began communicating with Warren Buffett about a bet that pitted the performance of hedge funds against the S&P 500. The suggestion turned into a charitable 10-year wager from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2017. Carol Loomis announced it in Fortune as “Buffett’s Big Bet”. It looked good for the hedge funds in the early years around the global financial crisis, but the market rallied strongly thereafter. By the time of Berkshire Hathaway’s 2016 annual report, Buffett was…

One scoop to start: Renault will name an interim chief executive next week as it continues to search for a replacement for Luca de Meo, who is to leave the carmaker to head luxury group Kering.More fallout from BCG’s Gaza work: Boston Consulting Group’s chief executive said its involvement with a postwar plan for Gaza that envisioned relocating a quarter of the population had been “reputationally very damaging”, as the Save the Children charity halted a two-decade partnership with the firm.And another thing: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to sell about $1bn of its shares in a deal that would…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the European banks myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.UniCredit on Tuesday said it had increased its equity stake in Commerzbank to about 20 per cent, as the Italian bank doubles down on a potential takeover of Germany’s second-largest lender despite opposition from Berlin.UniCredit has built a 28 per cent interest in Commerzbank since last year through a combination of share purchases and derivative transactions.Before the Italian bank’s latest announcement, it had a 9.5 per cent equity stake in Commerzbank, with the remainder of its 28 per cent interest held through…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US equities myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Wall Street banks are turning more bullish on US stocks, despite President Donald Trump’s renewed threats of steep tariffs on major trading partners, with most big companies expected to shrug off the turmoil in the upcoming earnings season.Goldman Sachs strategists this week joined JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Citigroup and Deutsche in lifting their end-of-year target for the S&P 500, believing the index will rally 11 per cent beyond the record high it hit last week. Goldman said the administration’s shifting tariff policy had generated…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak is set to join Goldman Sachs as a senior adviser, in his first major role since he resigned as Conservative party leader last year following Labour’s landslide general election victory.The job marks a return to the Wall Street investment bank for Sunak who spent the first few years of his career there from 2001 to 2004, first as a summer intern then a junior analyst. “I am excited to welcome Rishi back to Goldman Sachs in his…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The UK financial regulator has fined Monzo £21mn for repeatedly breaching rules against opening accounts for “high-risk customers” after the digital bank took on clients with “obviously implausible information”.The Financial Conduct Authority started reviewing Monzo’s financial risk controls in 2020 and opened a formal investigation in 2021.Despite the watchdog imposing a block on Monzo opening new accounts for high-risk customers, the lender “repeatedly failed to comply with the terms of the requirement” and signed up more than 34,000 high-risk clients between August…

In France’s rural areas, one veteran Parisian dealmaker notes, politicians are grappling with shortages of doctors so acute they are termed “medical deserts”. Paris faces a different problem, he observes. “We have an overpopulation of bankers.” The French capital is among the most competitive marketplaces for dealmakers in the world, where the prestige houses of Lazard and Rothschild & Co with their centuries-old pedigrees vie against the institutional heft of Wall Street’s biggest banks and their domestic French counterparts.But in recent years, a new breed of competitor has swept into the city: American boutiques with a narrower focus on mergers…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldPrivate credit lenders have found a new batch of clients: US government contractors short-changed by Elon Musk’s cost-cutting drive and trying to stay afloat. Legalist, a private capital lender based in San Francisco, told the Financial Times that its “government receivables” business had extended more than $100mn in financing to dozens of contractors since the start of 2025, more than doubling the strategy’s previous total book of business. The group is looking to raise $250mn from investors to extend more…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Chinese business & finance myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Chinese investors are driving a sharp rally in mainland bank stocks listed in Hong Kong, as they hunt for alternatives to the near-record low yields offered by government debt.The Hong Kong shares of China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China have risen 36 per cent, 33.7 per cent and 25.4 per cent respectively over the past six months, beating the Hang Seng index as mainland Chinese investors pour record amounts of money into…