Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Money is clever, weird stuff. While entirely abstract, it also reifies our social power structure. It’s a form of memory, a way to organise strangers, and a utilitarian means by which the value to society of incommensurable things is plutocratically triangulated. More than that, it’s the stuff we use to pay the window cleaner.Being a social substance, money is constantly evolving — from giant stone discs, to digital payments. Are stablecoins the next phase? According to the BIS, no. Or rather, NO! 🤬🤬🤬…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The German financial watchdog that was criticised for badly mishandling one of Europe’s biggest accounting frauds said it has become much more active and “willing to step on toes” in the five years since Wirecard collapsed. “We didn’t meet all the expectations placed on a supervisor,” said Mark Branson, the head of BaFin who joined from Swiss regulator Finma in 2021, a year after the payments group collapsed in June 2020. But, he added in an interview with the Financial Times, the…

If you are over the age of 40, there is a good chance you remember where you were on September 15 2008, the day Lehman Brothers went bust. It was one of the first of many shocking moments during the last global financial crisis, a searing time of bank runs, crashes and bankruptcies when big economies tumbled into some of their deepest recessions since the Great Depression. Stunned Lehman staff, who left the 158-year-old investment bank’s offices carrying their belongings in cardboard boxes, came to symbolise the millions who lost their jobs, homes and life savings in a disaster that destroyed…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Bill Winters took charge of Standard Chartered a decade ago this month. Back then, the London-listed lender was battling concerns about high costs, weak capital levels, regulatory problems, anaemic growth in core markets and a stubbornly low share price. In some respects, not much has changed. StanChart’s underlying cost-to- income ratio in 2024 was the same as in 2014. Its share price has risen just 20 per cent since Winters became CEO and was below his starting point as recently as April. The…

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 global head of equity capital markets at Bank of America and is now a managing director at Seda ExpertsSometimes a capital markets deal exposes the machinery of political power. The Italian government’s sale of Monte dei Paschi di Siena shares in November — which raised some €1.1bn — shows that while European governments want to trim their holdings in major banks, they are far less eager to give up control.The Financial Times has reported that the European…

One scoop to start: Private equity-backed software group Visma has chosen London over Amsterdam for the planned initial public offering next year of the €19bn company, scoring a rare win for the UK’s beleaguered stock market.And another thing: A mediator has suggested Paramount pay Donald Trump about $20mn to settle the US president’s lawsuit against CBS News as the two sides inch closer to a deal.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…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Hong Kong’s de facto central bank has intervened in foreign exchange markets to defend the city’s currency peg.The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said it used HK$9.4bn ($1.2bn) of its reserves to buy Hong Kong dollars on the open market. It acted after the local currency dropped past HK$7.85 per US dollar, the weak end of the band within which it is allowed to trade.The move will drain liquidity out of the banking system and is set to push up interbank lending rates,…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the US financial regulation myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The Federal Reserve has kicked off one of the biggest reductions of US bank capital requirements since the 2008 financial crisis by proposing to allow higher leverage at the biggest American banks.The central bank said on Wednesday it planned to slash the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio for the biggest banks. The rule requires big banks to have a preset amount of high-quality capital against their total leverage, which includes assets such as loans and off-balance sheet exposures such as derivatives. It was…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldPanicked Wall Street financiers are racing to rally behind an “anyone-but-Mamdani” candidate for New York City mayor after 33-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani unexpectedly clinched the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.  Within hours of the primary result, hedge fund investors, private equity titans, corporate lawyers and investment bankers called and texted each other to find the best way to back a centrist challenger ahead of the November vote, according to people involved in the discussions.The financiers are gaming whether Andrew Cuomo, the…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Exchange traded funds myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The first fund tracking a popular type of structured product launched in the US on Wednesday, in the latest sign that increasingly complex financial instruments are being packaged into stock market vehicles that can be bought and sold by retail investors.So-called autocallables offer buyers a stream of payments, unless stock markets drop below a certain level, at which point investors suffer losses. They typically require a minimum investment of $250,000, and boomed in popularity in the wake of the global financial…