Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.One of Europe’s largest property groups is bracing for the impact of a complex legal dispute between its billionaire owner and two convicted money launderers who say they privately bankrolled him. Senior executives at CPIPG, the Frankfurt-listed group run by Czech billionaire Radovan Vítek, are preparing plans to segregate €537mn of assets following a freezing order from a Cypriot court.The court made the order in favour of the two litigants, Czech investors Marek Čmejla and Jiří Diviš, earlier this year. But legal wrangling…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Airbnb is introducing its long-term rental marketplace that allows tenants to sublet homes on a part-time basis to the UK, as the platform responds to criticism that it has contributed to higher prices and housing shortages.Airbnb-friendly apartments, started in 2022 in partnership with rental companies including Greystar, the biggest apartment owner in the US, links potential renters with landlords who are willing to allow tenants to act as hosts for a limited time to earn money when they are not using their…

The oil industry is tough enough without having to deal with Hitler and Stalin. But this is what the Schlumberger family, a significant provider of services to oil companies from the 1920s onwards, had to face in the middle of the 20th century.“There was a lot of family tradition of taking risks and going to places where it was complicated to make money,” says Bertrand Coste, a 65-year-old French financier who has been managing a large amount of his extended family’s assets for the past 30 years. He recalls tales from his parents and grandparents of how the family switched…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Former BP chief executive Bernard Looney is joining the board of a US-based data centre company as he seeks a comeback from a scandal last year that cost him the top job at the oil major.The Irish executive told the Financial Times he has been appointed chair of Prometheus Hyperscale, a start-up with plans to build a $10bn data centre in Evanston, Wyoming, to capitalise on the artificial intelligence boom.Looney said the role, which will be formally announced by the company on…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Blackstone, Elliott Management and Vista Equity Partners have used strong demand for debt to cut borrowing costs and fund dividend payments, as buyout shops make the most of the rally since Donald Trump won the US election.The bond and loan sales are part of a flurry of debt refinancings as companies have raced to lock in lower borrowing costs, marking a sea change from when many of these buyouts were struck.They have been particularly notable given the damage some deals — including…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Funds managed by Goldman Sachs will write off almost $900mn after Swedish battery maker Northvolt filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week. Goldman’s private equity funds have at least $896mn in exposure to Northvolt, making the US bank its second-largest shareholder. They will write that down to zero at the end of the year, according to letters to investors seen by the Financial Times.The losses mark a sharp contrast to a bullish prediction just seven months ago by one of the Goldman funds,…

John Varley is about to be dragged into yet another a British courtroom, where the former Barclays chief executive will feature as the main witness in the bank’s challenge against a £50mn fine over an emergency fundraising with Qatari investors at the height of the financial crisis.The case at the upper tribunal in London, which starts on Monday, is the latest episode in a legal saga that has swung back and forth for more than a decade, leaving the reputations of one of Britain’s biggest banks and the country’s main financial watchdogs in the balance.Varley, an archetypal City banker known…

This article is the latest part of the FT’s Financial Literacy and Inclusion CampaignIf the Financial Times visited your local primary school to take an assembly about money, what subjects do you think students might like to learn more about? It takes 10-year-old Sawyer just seconds to answer. “Tax,” he says. In the run-up to the UK Budget, he has been encountering this word — and the strong emotions it provokes — much more frequently, even hearing his parents talk about it. “It sounds like a bad thing, because it’s a bill,” he says. “Everyone my age is aware of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Thames Water is on the hook to pay at least £100mn to cover the advisory fees of its creditors, in just one part of the mounting bill for lawyers and financial advisers facing the UK’s largest water company as it seeks to avoid being renationalised.London’s water monopoly, which receives all of its income from the bills of its 16mn customers, has been paying out millions of pounds to cover the fees for the lawyers and financial advisers of its lenders, which are…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The sell-off in US equities in early August showed that highly leveraged hedge funds operating in a low-liquidity environment could magnify market shocks, the Federal Reserve said on Friday.Financial markets fell sharply in the first week of August in what was seen then as a reflection of concerns over the US economy and rising interest rates in Japan, which turned against investors who had borrowed cheaply in yen in a popular trade known as the yen carry. In a report, the Fed blamed…