Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.HSBC chief executive Georges Elhedery has announced the latest set of leadership changes as part of his plan to restructure and simplify the bank, which includes the departure of its private banking head. Annabel Spring, who leads global private banking and wealth, and is one of HSBC’s most senior female executives, is leaving at the end of the year. Her role will be split between Gabriel Castello, who has been named interim chief executive of global private banking, and Lavanya Chari, head of…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Insurance losses from natural catastrophes, such as floods and hurricanes, are on track to exceed $135bn this year, prompting calls from the world’s biggest insurers for more action to tackle climate change.Two-thirds of global losses were in the US, where two hurricanes devastated Florida in September and October, according to a new report by Swiss Re. Intense flooding in Europe, in particular Spain, resulted in the second-highest insured losses from floods in the region ever, according to Swiss Re estimates. It was…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Fund management myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Public pension schemes and sovereign wealth funds plan to pour more money in to private markets over the coming year, despite warnings from financial watchdogs about the risks presented by the rapid growth of the sector.Half of funds surveyed by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (Omfif), a UK think-tank, said they expected to increase their exposure to private credit over the next 12 months, up from about a quarter last year. Almost 60 per cent of funds said they planned to…

Large, loosely-explained payments to a third-party intermediary hired to facilitate business in Africa did not raise “red flags” at Trafigura, its chief financial officer told a Swiss court trying the commodity trader for bribery on Thursday.Pierre Lorinet, who is not a defendant in the case, appeared as a witness on behalf of Trafigura, which Swiss prosecutors accuse of having inadequate controls in place to stop serious acts of corruption.The case, the first time a natural resources trader has been put on trial in Switzerland, the industry’s main global hub, concerns Trafigura’s lucrative push into Angola between 2009 and 2011. Switzerland’s federal…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The world’s financial regulators have approved new global rules for how big insurers calculate their capital requirements, but which analysts said could increase reporting costs.The agreement, which follows more than a decade of talks, fulfils the objectives by G20 countries to harmonise insurance regulation, protect policyholders and strengthen the sector after the 2008 financial crisis.The new standard was approved on Thursday by 200 regulators, who are members of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, at its annual meeting in Cape Town, South…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A new fund aiming to punish “woke” companies will make Starbucks its first target, as politically motivated investors move to capitalise on Donald Trump’s election.The actively managed fund, which Azoria Partners expects to launch early next year, will exclude S&P 500 companies that incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion considerations into their hiring processes. The fund will unveil its Starbucks plan on Thursday at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to prepared remarks seen by the Financial Times. The event will be attended…

One scoop to start: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI has pledged to expand its Colossus supercomputer tenfold to incorporate more than 1mn graphics processing units, in an effort to leap ahead of rivals such as Google, OpenAI and Anthropic.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 to Friday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newsletters. Get in touch with us anytime: Due.Diligence@ft.comIn today’s newsletter:The Arkansas billionaire anointed…

Bank investors and advisers are preparing for a new era of consolidation among smaller US lenders that could help them fend off Wall Street’s giants. KBW’s large and regional bank indices both gained more than 10 per cent respectively the day after Donald Trump’s election victory, the biggest rise in four years and one that trounced the 3 per cent increase in the tech-heavy Nasdaq.While shares in some banks such as Goldman Sachs have risen in anticipation of higher advisory fees and looser capital rules, the potential for a more liberal attitude to tie-ups lifted shares in small and mid-sized…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Mubadala Capital, the asset management arm of Abu Dhabi’s state investment fund, is acquiring a large stake in a US-based credit manager as it seeks to build a global player in private capital based in the Middle East. The firm is buying a 42 per cent stake in Silver Rock Financial, a Los Angeles-based credit investment specialist backed by the family office of onetime “junk bond king” Michael Milken and led by executives who used to manage the billionaire’s sprawling portfolio of…

When my wife and I were deciding where to make our long-term home, we flipped a coin. Heads, we’d stay in London. We had both moved to the city to study in the early 2000s; it’s where we first met and I started my career. Tails and we’d move to the South West. The coin came up heads. But in the moment of flipping, we both realised we preferred the idea of moving away. Bath is where we ended up. At the time two things occurred to me: first, we were following a well-worn trend; one that, since the second world war,…