SJP announces lower cost funds after fee restructure

SJP (Saint James' Place), one of the UK's largest wealth managers, managing over £198.5 billion in client assets, has expanded its investment range with new multi-index range funds priced at 20bps. Funds developed by State Street will form the building blocks of these new funds. SJP stated the new funds will "help change the perception" that its products are too expensive.

Peter Hargreaves Steps Down from Hargreaves Lansdown

Peter Hargreaves, billionaire and co-founder of the semi-eponymous firm, is stepping down from the Board.

Hargreaves Lansdown Privatised with CVC Backing

Hargreaves Lansdown has begun life as a private company this year, 2025.  

The UK's largest direct-to-consumer investment platform agreed to be sold to a private equity consortium in August last year (following an initial approach in April) comprised of CVC Advisers, Nordic Capital and Platinum Ivy, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

The offer of 1,140 pence per share was a premium of 54% of the share price prior to the April approach and valued the firm at £5.44 billion pounds.

Richard Flint (ex Head of Sky Betting and Gaming, which he led through a period of growth), fulfils the role of Interim CEO, with Darren Worth as Interim CFO. The management are investing in a technology-led transformation to improve HL's propositioning.

Hargreaves Lansdown PLC was delisted from the London Stock Exchange on the 25 March 2025 and initially owned by Harp Bidco Limited, which was renamed in September 2025 to Hargreaves Lansdown Group Limited.

Musk Hires Ex-Morgan Stanley banker as CFO of xAI

Anthony Armstrong has been hired as CFO of xAI, purveyors of Grok, signalling commitment to scaling operations and financial strategy during a critical growth period for the company.

Hybrid Battery Hydrogen Systems Proposed by Startup

A Swiss startup, Plan B Net Zero (founded 2023), has created a concept for BESS (battery energy storage systems) and stored hydrogen as a hybrid solution for grid balancing ("complementary building blocks"). 

This approach was outlined in the DACH Hydrogen symposium in Wiener Neustadt.

PBNZ said BESS could respond "within milliseconds" to imbalances, whereas hydrogen could inject energy (through fuel cells and turbines) over longer durations. 

Tjark Connor, battery systems expert at the startup, commented: "Our goal is an energy system that stabilises itself, digital, decentralized and decarbonized".

First Brands Collapse Rattles Debt Investors

The auto parts supplier First Brands, known through its brands like STP oil (whose name stands for Scientifically Treated Petroleum), Prestone antifreeze and Simoniz car waxes, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, disclosing liabilities on 29 Sept 2025 exceeding $10 billion.  

This has come in the wake of creditors concern on the use of opaque off-balance-sheet financing (by keeping certain assets and liabilities off balance sheet, healthier financial metrics can be obtained).

First Brands are likely to disclose an issue with its factoring arrangements, factoring being a financing method tied to the future revenue of the company. The companies Board and creditors are investigating the issue.

Apollo Global Management (NYSE: APO), an asset-rich American asset management firm, due to publish Q3 results on November 4th, had a 1 year CDS on the debt of First Brands, paying out in the event of failure to make payments. This is a credit play, not an equity short per se, and only pays if First Brands suffers on its debt payments. The fact APO has maintained that position has been a signal to the market.

Greek-American investment manager Jim Chanos (short-seller of Enron - made money, short seller of Tesla - lost money) has slammed the "magical machine" of private credit in response.

CRISIL acquires McKinsey's PriceMetrix

PriceMetrix, which does benchmarking for wealth managers, has been acquired by S&P majority owned CRISIL for $38m.

SWIFT backs Blockchain Ledger

SWIFT is adding a blockchain ledger to its infrastructure stack. 

It is developing this ledger with 30 financial institutions from 16 countries, including Absa, Banco Santander, Bank of America, BBVA, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Emirates NBD, Societe Generale-FORGE, Wells Fargo and Royal Bank of Canada, taking part.

SWIFT CEO Javier Pérez-Tasso (CEO since 2019) remarked: "We...are moving at a rapid pace... to create the infrastructure stack of the future".

EA Looks to Go Private for $50bn

DE Shaw Looks to Build Out Cogence Fund

DE Shaw is building out its Cogence Fund with $3bn to $5bn over the coming months, with most of the capital coming from existing investors, according to Bloomberg. This will be a discretionary rather than quantitative hedge fund. DE Shaw manages around $70bn in assets.

GRID Bill Passed to Expedite Dispatchable Generation

The American House of Representatives has passed a bill which could accelerate the progress of dispatchable power generation. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Troy Balderson, lamented "shovel-ready projects" were being delayed "while demand continues to climb". 

In the US, a bill must go through both both "chambers" (House and Senate, which together form the US Congress) and then be signed into law by the President who has the right to veto the bill as well.

The GRID Power Act gives FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) a total of 60 days to review proposals from RTOs and ISOs for projects to be pushed to the front of interconnection queues. 

The projects need to show how they would boost the reliability and resilience of the grid.

Interconnection queues are lists maintained by grid operators that track requests from power developers to connect new generation projects like wind turbines, solar farms, battery storage or dispatchable plants to the electricity grid. Projects in the interconnection queues may be withdrawn due to financing issues or delays in gaining regulatory approval.

For example, we may have a BESS project (Battery Energy Storage System) in Howard County Texas that wants to connect into the ERCOT system, with a capacity range of 200MW-300MW. Another example can be a small gas project that wants to connect into AESO (Alberta Electric System Operator) - Alberta is a province in Western Canada - supplying, say, 0-10 MW.

Monitoring the queues can give an indicator of future capacity. CAISO (California ISO, or California Independent System Operator, to give it its full title) queue reports can be found here. 

EPSA (the Electric Power Supply Association) has published an article explaining the GRID Act and how it contributes to reliability in a growing power system.

DR Congo Ends Export Ban

The Democratic Republic of Congo will end its 7-month ban on cobalt exports (intended to reduce the glut on global supply) on October 17th, replacing it with quotas.  

Market intelligence firm Project Blue said the move will push the cobalt market from "surplus to shortage" given the demand from electric vehicles.

A great deal of cobalt supply in Congo comes from unregulated artisanal mining. This creates compliance and traceability issues for global buyers. This has also been the subject of the book Cobalt Red, which asserts that industrial and artisanal mining output are inextricably intertwined.

Cobalt's specific role in the energy transition is in the cathodes for lithium-ion batteries.

Swiss Capital Requirements Weigh Heavy on UBS

The Swiss government has proposed heavier capital requirements on UBS, as revealed by UBS Group CFO and Stern-school MBA grad Todd Tuckner (Todd joined UBS in 2004 and is thus a 21 year veteran, prior to which he was an international tax partner at KPMG). 

These capital requirements would up the bar on core capital (removing currently allowed items such as software and deferred tax assets from counting as capital). Software was counted as an intangible asset with some regulatory value, especially if it supported core banking operations. However, concerns that is less loss-absorbing and more volatile in valuation than current treatment requires have prompted its exclusion from core capital (CET1- Common Equity Tier 1 capital, basically the highest form of capital, acting as a high quality shock absorber in the event of losses).

UBS will need to decide what to do - either push back, and hope for the best, or relocate its HQ to be outside of Swiss regulation, or plan both in parallel.

The proposed rules are to avoid an incident such as the collapse of Credit Suisse in 2023 from happening again. UBS has criticised the proposal as being non-proportionate.

AI Acceleration Firm Groq Gets $750m New Funding

Groq is the creator of the Groq "LPU" (Language Processing Unit) which aims to accelerate AI inference by having a purpose built hardware accelerator that is optimised for running pre-trained models. 

Despite the hardware product, or rather in conjunction with it and enabled by it, Groq's approach is "software first" designed to give developers direct control and simplify hardware utilization (compare the Mojo approach). The hardware and software are tightly linked to enable higher performance. 

This tight coupling has an impact on the software stack - whereas Groq has a proprietary stack, Nvidia's GPUs are supported across open source products like PyTorch and TensorFlow.

You could say its sweet spot is low latency AI inference.

Groq's latest funding round of $750m was led by Disruptive. Other VCs participated as well. Its early funding rounds were from Social Capital (Series A and B) and TDK Ventures (Series B), the corporate venture capital arm of TDK Corporation.

Kyndryl Plans Investment in AI Lab in India

Kyndryl, specialist in infrastructure outsourcing and modernisation, is investing $2.25 billion over three years, including building out an AI lab in Bangalore, India.

Kyndryl was divested from IBM three years ago in November 2021, with Martin Schroeter (MBA, Carnegie Mellon) as its first CEO. Around 88,500 engineers moved to Kyndryl as part of the deal.

At the time of the divestment, Martin emphasised that Kyndryl would continue to have strong links to IBM, but being independent they were not free to work with other hyperscalers and grow the business.

Gunvor Expands Precious Metals Business

Energy firm Gunvor Group, known especially for crude oil, refined products, natural gas and LNG trading, is diversifying its precious metal trading activities (derivatives) to physical trading, off the back of the rally in gold prices. 

Other active areas for the company include biofuels (specifically trading the feedstocks, such as corn or sugarcane, whose juice can be fermented to produce ethanol), power and emissions trading.

AIM-listed Filtronic PLC Secures SpaceX Contract

Filtronic PLC, a leader in advanced microelectronics (AIM:FTC), has secured a £47.3m ($62.5m) order from SpaceX for the company's proprietary gallium-nitride ("GaN") E-band product.

Higher power and efficiency are what's offered over the company's gallium arsenide product range. Gallium's semiconductor properties are key to its usage in communications applications.  GaN and GaAs allow faster data transmission than silicon and is reliable at high temperatures. 

Nat Edington, CEO, reflected on the order, stating "we are extremely proud".

Gallium is not considered a rare earth currently, it is quite abundant but concentrated deposits are rare.

Robinhood applies for Dubai DFSA License

Robinhood is applying for a Category 4 license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), to serve clients in the UAU and MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.

The Category 4 license focuses on advisory services without holding client money. Category 1 relates to commercial or retail banks.

Dubai is in the Gulf time zone which is three hours ahead of London.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems Raises $863m

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (aka CFS, founded in 2018) has raised money from investors including Nvidia's NVentures venture capital unit to complete a demo system to lead to construction of its first commercial plant (400MW) in Virginia (1MW is equivalent to 1 million Watts).

All added, Commonwealth has raised around $3bn, which is one-third of all capital raised in the fusion industry. Google has already agreed to buy half the power output from the project, estimated to complete in the early 2030s.

Bridgepoint Buys £800m Stake in MyDentist

Private equity firm Bridgepoint has bought a reported £800m stake in MyDentist, which runs more than 500 practices in the UK, and is the biggest chain supplying the UK market.  

Bridgepoint has previously owned care home operator Care UK.

Bridgepoint has $86bn AuM. In private equity, they are Europe's leading mid-market growth investor.

Focus sectors include Advanced Industrials (with a focus on asset-light businesses with robust technology), Business and Financial Services (where they look for scale and growth potential) and Healthcare, with Technology running as a horizontal. 

It has a thirty year history, formed from the management buyout from NatWest Ventures by William Jackson.

BitPanda Not Listing in London, Frankfurt or NY Maybe

BitPanda, the crypto exchange, has ruled out a London listing.

Winklevoss Twins File IPO for Gemini under ticker GEMI

Gemini has filed for an IPO on Nasdaq under GEMI. It made a $282m loss in H1 2025. However it follows a trend of crypto funds going to public markets to raise capital. Trading fees are its biggest revenue driver and there are 14.6 million verified users, according to the company, with $12bn assets under custody as of June 30.

Macquarie's Latest Acquisition Optimises Renewable Assets

Macquarie is acquiring 100% of UK-Ireland based optimisation firm Erova Energy. Team members have worked previously in companies like Centrica, SSE and ESB Energy.

Circle Announces Blockchain Plans

Circle Internet Group (NYSE:CRCL) has announced Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain designed around stablecoin finance. (Layer 1 blockchains refer to the foundation layer of a blockchain network, so-named to distinguish them from services built on top of blockchains e.g. Optimism (built on Ethereum).

Earlier moves included launch of the Circle Payments Network, enabling financial companies to use stablecoins for payment. It is billed as "a new standard for global money movement".

Circle has also been active in partnerships with the likes of Binance, OKX, FIS and Fiserv.

CRCL went public on June 5th 2025 with the IPO priced at $31 a share. JP, Citi and GS were joint lead active bookrunners for the IPO.

USD stablecoins have advantages over "pure" USD transfers as all you need is a crypto account to use it, potentially have lower fees for money transfers and can be integrated into DeFi infrastructure e.g. smart contracts.

Perplexity Bids to Buy Google Chrome for $34.5bn

The bid comes amid speculation that Google will have to divest Chrome after a court found that Google had an illegal monopoly on online search.  The offer was sent to Google's parent Alphabet on 12 August 2025. This is a Jonah-Whale scenario as the bid is higher than Perplexity's own valuation of around $18bn and would be financed by outside investors. Perplexity said in the event of bid acceptance they would keep most of Chrome's existing team. Perplexity's backers include Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and SoftBank.

USA imposes Tariffs on Gold Imports; Futures Rise

The US has slapped tariffs on gold imports targeting 1 kilogram and 100 ounce gold bars (100 ounces = 2.8 kg). A 39% rate applies to imports from Switzerland (a major refining hub). The 400 ounce gold bars (11+ kilograms) from London are less popular in the US so need to be broken down into smaller bars.

US gold futures (August 2025 expiry) on COMEX have been on a tear, trading over $3400 per troy ounce (weight tolerance 5% higher or lower). The futures also breached $3400 in late April and early May. $3400 futures price translates to a notional of 100x the price i.e. $340,000 for 100 troy ounces.

For the avoidance of doubt, the tariffs as they currently stand apply to the unit specification of the COMEX contract.

Sale of Kantar Media Completes

Kantar Media has been sold to HIG Capital in a deal estimated to be around $1bn. 

HIG was advised by Morgan Stanley, ING and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. 

Kantar Media is media data business, with activities including audience measurement, consumer profiling and advertising intelligence. Kantar Media is based in London and active in 60 markets worldwide and has been operationally independent from Kantar since 2023. 

BP makes largest oil and gas discovery in 25 years

BP has made a large oil and gas discovery in Brazil's Santos basin. This is the largest discovery since Shah Deniz in the Caspian in 1999.

Mark Carney "Disappointed" With New Trump Tariff

Donald Trump has raised trade tariffs on Canada from 25% to 35% - Mark Carney has expressed disappointment. Pakistan's tariffs have shrunk to 19% following Pakistan's nomination of Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. India faces 25% tariffs.

Ramp Raises $500m For Automated Finance

The stuff CFOs do that can be called "busywork" is automated in the vision offered by Ramp. The product has gained traction with a number of Finance teams already. This latest financing round is a Series-E2, valuing the company at $22.5bn. ICONIQ led the round with other investors including Thiel's Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, 8VC, Definition Capital, General Catalyst and others.

Merger Speculation Engulfs Northern Trust

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that BNY (in full, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, NYSE: BK, which has seen solid share price growth over the past year, Q2 2025 revenue of $5bn) had approached Northern Trust about a potential merger. 

Northern Trust's Chairman and CEO (Mike O'Grady) retorted saying it remains committed to being fully independent. Mike has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

There have been hopes of looser regulation under Trump which would give a boost to banking M&A, however Senator Elizabeth Warren warned a merger could violate federal banking laws.

A major part of Northern Trust's business is asset servicing, which consists of administrative and operational tasks performed by custodians of financial assets on behalf of clients.

Pushback from Citadel on Options Trading with Speed Bumps Proposal from IEX

Virtu (co-founded by Doug Cifu and Vincent Viola)  is declaring support for IEX launching a new US options exchange (planned for Q1 2026) which will introduce a 350ms delay on trades - a speed bump to level the playing field and prevent ultra-high-frequency players sweeping up all the profits.  Citadel, as well as the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has hit back saying it could affect price discovery and market dynamics.

Linda Yaccarino Steps Down as Chief Exec of X

Linda Yaccarino steps down as CEO of X after a two year tenure which saw the coming together of Elon Musk's xAI with the messaging platform.

Linda has an Italian-American background and has worked substantially in the media industry, starting her career at Turner Entertainment (founded by Ted Turner in 1986 and purchased by Time Warner in 1996).

EU AI Act schedule stirs concern

Pundits say the Act which aims to regulate general-purpose AI (GPAI) has too many bits missing. This could "risk stalling innovation" states the CCIA (Computer and Communications Industry Association).

Visma Eyes London IPO

IPO Plans

As the UK market grapples with firms preferring to list on Nasdaq, or being taken private, Norwegian firm Visma, which provides accounting and payroll software to SMEs is looking to go public on the London market.  

Ownership

Visma is 70% owned by Hg and co-investors, which include GIC and TPG.

A Multi Billion EUR Company with M&A as a Core Growth Driver

Visma has grown with 350 bolt-on acquisitions with 2.8 billion EUR revenues last year. 

Example acquisition and its Merits (New regions and jurisdictions)

One of their more recent acquisitions was Evoliz in February 2025, which provides cloud based financial management for SMEs in France (alternativement PMEs - or petite et moyenne entreprises) and whose CEO is François Aupetit.  At time of acquisition, Evoliz had almost 13,000 customers. It's functionality includes invoicing, quote management and VAT, basically all the workflow that will ultimately flow into your financial accounts.  It is also NF203 certified (French standard for management software) anticipating new regulations on electronic invoicing from 2026.

ICE Brent Spikes 7% Initially in Response to Operation Rising Lion, Rallies Before Dropping 2%

ICE Brent, specifically the August 2025 future (July is no longer trading) went from just below $70 a barrel ($69.36 to be precise) to 74.23 USD per barrel from June 12th to June 13th during Operation Rising Lion. Futures continued to rally over successive days, peaking at 78.85 USD per barrel on June 19th. 

Gasoil Spikes initially 6% in response to Operation Rising Lion, Rallies Strong before Dropping 5%

Gasoil spiked on June 13th 2025, coinciding with Israel's launch of a large scale military operation against Iran called Operation Rising Lion. 

This was described by Israel as a preemptive measure in response to intelligence on Iran's closing in on capability to produce nuclear weapons. 

July25 gasoil futures (for delivery of 100 metric tonnes of low sulphur gasoil) rose 6% from 645 to 684.25 from June 12th to June 13th, rising again to 798.5 on June 19th, a 24% rise in price since the start of the operation, before coming down to 758.5 on June 20th, a 5% drop in a day.

The July gasoil futures contract has been oscillating between 650 and 700 USD per 100 metric tonnes over the past year, with a similar range applicable to the August gasoil futures contract as well.

Defense Tech Gets A Boost from Daniel Ek

Daniel Ek, who lives mainly in Stockholm, has led a 600m EUR (Series D) round of investment in defense tech firm Helsing, a four year old Munich based company, through his investment firm Prima Materia.  Other investors in this round include already-invested firms like Lightspeed Ventures, Accel, Plural, General Catalyst and SAAB.  New investors were BDT and MSD Partners.

Daniel has previously spoken on the importance of defense spending to ensure Europe's "strategic autonomy" in response to geopolitical changes.

 

Helsing is currently valued at 12 billion EUR according to a Financial Times article.  Total YTD investment in Helsing stands at 1.37 billion EUR.

In the defense technology space, this funding follows a funding of US giant Anduril which raised 2.5 billion USD led by Founders Fund whose Partners include Peter Thiel of Paypal and Palantir fame, and Trae Stephens of Anduril, an early employee of Palantir with a background in computational linguistics.

Helsing started as an AI software company taking data from military sensors and radars to build real-intelligence for the battlefield. However, it is taking its taking technology expertise to branch out into new area like unmanned mini-submarines.

Circle's Blockbuster IPO on the NYSE, Bravo Ex Macromedia CTO

Circle Internet Group, specializing in digital currencies and blockchains, went public on June 5, 2025. It debuted under ticker symbol CRCL. The IPO was priced at $31 a share, with shares surging over 100% on the first day, hitting a market cap of nearly $60bn albeit brief.  Circle was launched in 2013.

This success is significant for the crypto and fintech space.

CEO Jeremy Allaire has previously argued governments and policy makers need to "create more degrees of freedom for innovation to happen".

Allaire was co-founder of Allaire Corporation in 1995 which had an IPO in January 1999, and is hence no stranger to the public markets. 

Allaire Corporation was acquired by Macromedia in 2001 after which JA became CTO of Macromedia. He left in 2003 to join General Catalyst as a technologist and executive-in-residence.

Elon Musk asserts Oil is "Small Time"

"Compared to solar, oil is small-time" Musk issued on X.  The oil industry still fuels 80% of global energy demand, and solar still suffers from scalability and storage challenges.  However, Musk is backing his vision of the future - with factory builds, batteries and grid-scale operations.

Bulgaria Likely to Get Approval to Adopt Euro in 2026

The European Commission is likely to give Bulgaria approval to adopt the Euro in 2026 which would make Bulgaria the 21st country to adopt the currency. 

347 million Europeans in 20 countries use the Euro. If Bulgaria joins that adds another 6.7/6.8 million people to the default "user base". Then the Euro will support just over 350 million people.

There are conditions for euro-candidate countries in terms of consumer inflation (relative to the three best EU performers, in April France was the lowest inflation country at 0.9%), constraints over budget deficit as % of GDP, as well as a maximum of 60% debt relative to GDP. 

Stability of the exchange rate is also a factor. 

The technical criteria is staying within a 15% either side of a central parity rate in the Exchange Rate Mechanism II (ERM II).

Revolut launches Venture Capital Business

Revolut has launched a new venture capital firm called QuantumLight utilizing AI-driven investment. He has billed it as "the first truly systematic venture capital and growth equity firm". Investments include Robin, legal AI for contracts, and Rad AI applying AI to radiology.

UK Tech M&A Dominated by AI and Cyber Firms

UK Software M&A was worth £13.2 billion last year, with deployments across 420 deals, a 27% rise from the previous year. Certainly there have been and still are economic headwinds, but according to a recent study by BearingPoint Capital, private equity appetite for such deals (Software and Software-as-a-Service) remains resilient. The UK is responsible for a third of all software buyouts in Europe. Technology due diligence, with cyber diligence as a related but often separated area, are becoming increasingly important.

Anaconda Bets Big on Open Source AI

Anaconda has launched the Anaconda AI Platform in a bid to separate itself from being simply a provider of Python infrastructure (specifically package management) to a being a provider of open source AI infrastructure.  There are lots of open source tools now available but uniting them in one managed environment is not a fully solved problem.

Klarna Reverts on AI-First

Swedish fintech Klarna is going back to humans (in part) for customer service after a two year trial with OpenAI to run customer service agents purely with AI.

Monzo Reportedly Hires Morgan Stanley to Prepare IPO

The UK digital bank, approaching its 10th anniversary, is preparing to pitch to investors in the build up to a potential IPO, believed to be targeted at the £6-£7bn mark for a listing in London or New York. Key customer metrics include: 11 million personal customers and 600,000 business customers.

Fed Holds Rates Steady as Trade War Rages On

The benchmark lending (or Policy) rate has been kept steady at a range of 4.25% to 4.5% ("Fed Funds Target Range"). This rate is influenced through monetary policy decisions and is used by banks to lend money overnight. It is set by the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee).

Once set, the Fed steers the rate into the target range, through various mechanisms. 

The Fed has flagged a risk of stagflation - involving higher unemployment and higher inflation - a toxic combination. The US struggled with this in the 1970s and early 1980s; toxic because you need to prioritize which issue to address first. Paul Volcker, in his time, chose to fight inflation. The Fed has a dual mandate to manage both, and its current target is maximum employment at 2% inflation.

UK Signs Trade Deal with India; Whisky Tariffs Down

India will reduce tariffs on whisky and gin from 150% to 75% with 40% by year 10, according to the UK government. There will be tariffs on UK car exports to India but tariffs on those cars will drop from 100% to 10%.  Many tariffs on Indian goods to the UK will be wiped out. UK companies can also bid to deliver Indian public sector services for the first time.

Hagerty extols virtues of the GENIUS (Stablecoin) Act

Senator William ("Bill") Hagerty (Republican), who had a pre-politics career at the Boston Consulting Group, is pushing for the GENIUS Act to be passed.

The GENIUS Act stands for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins and per Hagerty "creates a strong, forward-looking regulatory framework to modernize our payment systems and affirms the dominance of the US dollar". 

The UK has been proactive in creating conditions for stablecoin development in the UK but has come under criticism for overly constraining market development.

As a sidebar, stablecoins are digital assets which can be used to make payments. These so-called "coins" can be created technology companies rather than traditional banks and are backed by equivalent currency in a 1:1 ratio. They are thus less volatile than traditional cryptocurrencies.

South Korean firm unveils quantum project with Al Fardan

South Korean quantum computing firm NORMA (whose investors include Vertex Ventures) has signed an MOU with Qatari Al Fardan Ventures to build a R&D center in the UAE specializing in quantum. The UAE has shown an interest in developing quantum computing in the region. NORMA has previously worked with Saudi Arabia signing an $18m export contract in December 2024 with Saudi IT firm Light Vision IT (based in Al Jubail Industrial City) to supply quantum computers. One of NORMA's focuses is quantum resistant encryption.

LSEG Shareholders revolt

Votes have been cast against the LSEG's group remuneration report with CEO David Schwimmer taking home £7.8m for the last financial year (with annual bonus doubling to £3m - despite delisting challenges - last year 88 companies left the LSE versus 18 new listings). 

Despite votes against, the resolution was passed at the group's AGM.

A high profile example of a take private was Thoma Bravo's 5bn EUR acquisition of UK cybersecurity firm Darktrace. 

Take privates are attractive if public companies are overlooked or undervalued.

Microsoft Q3 Earnings beat Expectations

Investors are keen to see progress on cloud growth, AI and capex trends. Analysts predicted 10% rise in earnings per share from last year to $3.22 with Azure and AI related segments forecast to drive growth. Actual numbers came out at $3.46 per share exceeding analyst expectations. Cloud and AI drove the growth, as Microsoft reported $70.1bn in revenue for the quarter ending in March, a rise of 13% from last year's number. Net income came in at $25.8bn (a rise of 18%). Azure revenues rose 33% from last year.

UBS shows strong profits and franchise strength in Q1 2025 with robust CET1

UBS has reported (30 April 2025) 2.1bn USD PBT (profit before tax) for Q1 2025 and a net profit of 1.7bn USD with RoCET1 of 9.6%.

Measures of franchise momentum have also been positive: this includes USD 32bn of net new assets into Global Wealth Management and USD 7bn of net new money into Asset Management.

UBS also calculates an underlying PBT and underlying RoCET1 which excludes P&L items which management consider not representative of underlying performance.  This gives a higher PBT number and higher RoCET1.

Capital position is strong with CET1 ratio of 14.3% and CET1 leverage ratio of 4.4% (banks have a requirement to keep their CET1 ratios above 4.5% to meet Basel standards with additional plus points if over 14%). UBS has stated this provides "a solid capital buffer to requirements during integration" (referring to Credit Suisse integration) and "given increased market volatility" (driven by US tariff policy changes).

The CET1 ratio is used to gauge a bank's solvency and capital strength.  

CET1 stands for Common Equity Tier 1 and measures the bank's "core capital" including common shares and retained earnings.  The BIS describes CET1 as the "highest quality of regulatory capital, as it absorbs losses immediately when they occur".

Tier 1 capital consists of CET1 and Additional Tier 1 (AT1) capital. Contingent convertibles (which can be converted into equity) and other kinds of hybrid securities qualify as AT1 capital. Typically these convertibles will have "triggers" to convert into common equity or be written off if CET1 ratios fall below a certain level.

Tier 2 capital consists of instruments other than common equity and is less discussed.

Growth including GenAI and cloud investments have included the roll-out of 50,000 Copilot licenses to employees (UBS has over 110,000 employees so this is under half of employees, including contractors), increased cloud usage to ~75% and an exclusive JV with 360 ONE on wealth management in India and international markets.

There are a few areas not covered by the broad results announcement - how well has Trading done, and how reliant is UBS on trading now relative to wealth and asset management.

FinTech Megadeal for April 2025

FIS has announced it will purchase Global Payments' (GPN) issuer solutions business for $12bn, with GPN intending to buy WorldPay for $22.7bn 

(Note: WorldPay is 45% owned by FIS and 55% owned by Chicago private equity firm GTCR).

GPN is essentially divesting (issuer solutions) and investing (WorldPay), with a net investment of $10.7bn. 

GPN is run by Cameron Bready, who moved up from the CFO role, and was formerly of ITC Holdings Corp, electricity transmission company (publicly traded), where he focused on Finance and corporate development and prior to that was at Northeast utilities. He studied business in Atlanta. What remains in Global Payments following the divestment should be clearly understood - of course WorldPay will be a new integration.

Lots of analyst commentary has bubbled up around this deal with Mizuho commenting FIS is "winning the trade" as it acquires a "stable grower". Less commentary has surrounded GPN (GPN-WorldPay) specifically.

The United Nations Technology and Innovation Report 2025

UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD, for United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), headed by Rebeca Grynspan of Costa Rica, will soon release its 2025 Technology and Innovation report, which amongst other findings, outlines countries' readiness for "frontier technologies" (includes AI, big data, quantum technology). Its theme will be "Inclusive Artificial Intelligence for Development". The term "frontier technologies" is used by other organizations as well such as WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).

David Cameron joins Finback Investment Partners

David Cameron has joined private equity firm Finback Investment Partners, co-founded by ex Florida Governor Jeb Bush (Jeb's changes to Florida's economy led to his state gaining AAA credit ratings for the first time ever). The appointment was disclosed by the UK government's Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA).

Minderoo's Gina Reff Highlights Vacuum in Global Leadership on AI

Gina Reff of the Minderoo Center for Technology and Democracy based at the University of Cambridge, England, made these comments in the wake of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit taking place in Paris. Resurrected OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google's Sundar Pichai and US Vice President JD Vance will attend. Rumours are flying that DeepSeek creator Liang Wenfeng will attend.

Microsoft Quarterly Earnings to Fall Short of Analyst Estimates

So spake Microsoft finance chief Amy Hood (Duke University economics graduate and Harvard MBA, ex Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Associate), and the stock slid 6.2%. Goldman Sachs described the company as "well positioned" to benefit from AI adoption. Mizuho said Microsoft was one of its top picks for 2025.

HSBC Winding up Investment Banking in Europe

HSBC is winding down M&A and equities in the UK, Europe and Americas, accelerating a move to cut costs and a shift to Asia, led by CEO Georges Elhedery (appointed September 2024, and who holds a postgraduate qualification in Statistics and Economics from ENSAE). HSBC will keep debt capital markets and leveraged acquisition finance globally.

Trump Tariffs on Mexico Could Hit Electronics

Nvidia has invested in Mexico, assembling its GB200 NVL72 server racks through a Foxconn factory in Guadalajara. Foxconn is part of the Taiwanese Hon Hai Technology Group founded by Terry Gou in 1974. Mexico is the second biggest source of electronics imports to the US after China. Chinese manufacturers like Lenovo and Hisense have also opened factories in Mexico in recent years.

Greenland Holds Promise of Rare Earths

Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark, is being eyed by the United States as a source of rare earths that could reduce reliance on China. It has the world's eighth largest store of rare earths. It also has supplies of key energy transition metals like lithium and cobalt. While Greenland has oil and gas deposits, new drilling for these resources is banned. Three quarters of the land is covered by ice sheet.

Palantir Stock is Too High

This is the view of Morgan Stanley analyst Sanjit Singh and the stock price seems to be support this. Palantir has a platform called Foundry for big data analytics.