Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is chair of Société Générale and a former member of the executive board of the European Central BankStablecoins are fast emerging as a disruptive force in global finance — and central banks are rightly paying attention. The Bank for International Settlements recently warned that a loss of confidence in stablecoin issuers could lead different coins to diverge from trading at par. This would threaten monetary stability, particularly if the issuers’ reserves lose value or are insufficiently liquid to meet redemption…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Workplace pensions myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to announce a shake-up of UK pensions in her Mansion House speech on July 15, including plans to look at the amount companies and their staff set aside for retirement. Two executives familiar with her plans said Reeves would appoint a commission to lead the long-awaited review into pensions adequacy, looking at auto-enrolment rates alongside the state pension and retirement savings of the self-employed. The review was first announced by Reeves in July last year and was supposed to…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.When design software company Figma revealed its plans for a stock market listing this week, it felt like a throwback to an earlier era in the tech financing markets.Chief executive Dylan Field listed the reasons why an initial public offering would be good for his company, which turned to the stock market after an acquisition by larger rival Adobe was blocked by regulators. It was the kind of paean to going public that is rarely heard these days from tech company founders,…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Stablecoins are pretty cool in theory. They promise near-to-instant transfers of any value across any border, at transaction costs that could be far below what’s currently charged. Smart contracts might take the counterparty risk out of escrow and look useful for stuff like subscriptions, insurance and sports betting. And since everything happens in realtime on a public blockchain, there’s full transparency.In practice, in the more than 10 years since their invention, stablecoins have carved out a few real-world niches but have not…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Guaranty Trust Holding Company, the parent of Nigeria’s biggest bank by market value, will list in London after selling $100mn in shares to investors, as lenders rush to complete the country’s largest bank recapitalisation in decades.Segun Agbaje, GTCO’s chief executive, told the Financial Times that a sale launched on Monday would meet a central bank target for all banks to raise capital by March next year, as the Nigerian economy recovers from a series of currency devaluations.Lagos-listed GTCO, which has a market…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Sir Christopher Hohn’s activist hedge fund TCI has risen 21 per cent so far this year, according to two people who have seen the numbers, as bets on jet engine manufacturer GE Aerospace, Visa and Microsoft came good. The gains for The Children’s Investment Fund, which manages just over $70bn in assets, are more than triple the returns of the US S&P 500 index, and reinforce Hohn’s status as one of the world’s most successful equity hedge fund managers. TCI has held…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.At my girls’ grammar school in the 90s, our maths teacher introduced us to trigonometry by saying that female brains often found it hard. At least half the class promptly switched off and probably never took an interest in maths again. I am reminded of this episode when studies from the wealth management industry find that women lack confidence about finance. As a result, we are told, women are less likely to invest. The gender investment gap is real. Boring Money, a consumer investment…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.China’s central bank has asked European financial institutions for advice on dealing with the effects of low interest rates, as the world’s second-largest economy risks slipping into a prolonged period of low inflation.The People’s Bank of China has sent “ad hoc” requests to at least two European banks this year for insights on the impact of low to zero interest rates on the banking systems in their home countries, according to people familiar with the requests.The move suggests the Chinese central bank…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is a former banker and author of ‘Traders, Guns & Money’, ‘Extreme Money’ and ‘Banquet of Consequences’In the lead up to the global financial crisis, the systemic risks building in markets were overlooked by many. Those risks proved calamitous. Today, there are multiple financial vulnerabilities and faultlines. First, investors have increasingly borrowed low-cost funds, often in foreign currencies, to invest in higher yielding investments in ubiquitous carry trades, that are now vulnerable to moves in asset prices and currency values.Second,…

One scoop to start: Private equity groups Advent International and Platinum Equity are vying to buy $2bn worth of assets, including the Kevlar bulletproof brand, from DuPont, as the chemicals giant undergoes a wider break-up.And another thing: An Apollo-backed insurance group is nearing a £6bn takeover of the UK-based Pension Insurance Corporation, a deal that would further push the US alternative assets giant into the UK insurance market.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…