Liam Proud

Apollo-Brookfield UK pension race has two winners Weeks after the US group paid $8 bln for a British retirement manager, its Canadian peer agreed a $3 bln takeover of Just Group. Brookfield’s price is high. But Britain’s annuity market is growing and...

Apollo-Brookfield UK pension race has two winners - www.breakingviews.com/columns/brea... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Ideal new HSBC chair would be opposite of its last Outgoing board head Mark Tucker churned through CEOs and steered the $220 bln bank’s vast overhaul. Now, with the right boss and strategy in place, HSBC could use a diplomatic Asia expert happy to tak...

Ideal new HSBC chair would be opposite of its last - www.breakingviews.com/columns/brea... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Evercore’s Robey Warshaw deal sums up key-man risk The Wall Street firm is paying $196 mln for the UK boutique co-founded by Simon Robey. The danger in such transactions is that rainmakers leave. A six-year earnout helps, but for the buyer the upside ...

Evercore’s Robey Warshaw deal sums up key-man risk - www.breakingviews.com/columns/brea... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Europe’s absurd US investment pledge brings risks
www.breakingviews.com/columns/cons...

Orcel’s UniCredit M&A whirlwind turns into a fog The $110 bln bank’s boss dropped his offer for Italy’s BPM but seems set on holding 29% of Germany’s Commerzbank. That leaves two questions hanging: whether a local tie-up still happens; and whether C...

Orcel’s UniCredit M&A whirlwind turns into a fog - www.breakingviews.com/columns/brea... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Breakingviews - Big Pharma pioneers the TOFU tariff trade Markets reflect a widespread belief that the US president always chickens out on trade measures. AstraZeneca’s plan to invest $50 bln stateside implies that sector-specific levies are inevitable. The drug group and rivals like Roche are assuming Trump Occasionally Follows Up.

From Breakingviews - Breakingviews - Big Pharma pioneers the TOFU tariff trade reut.rs/4mbWb8x

French PM Bayrou has likened his task reducing his country's heavy public debt load to "climbing the Himalayas." His damp squib of a budget shows him stuck in base camp.
www.breakingviews.com/columns/cons...

Jane Street’s India spat touches regulatory nerve The US firm, with $20 bln of 2024 revenue, is one of the biggest of the post-2008 financial giants that have replaced banks as key market-makers. As shown by a bust-up with India, regulators are now f...

Jane Street’s India spat touches regulatory nerve - www.breakingviews.com/columns/big-... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Are LLMs starting to become sentient? A compassionate but skeptical letter that Douglas Hofstadter wrote to one of his readers

Author Douglas Hofstadter's entertainingly jaded response to fans emailing about having "discovered" AI sentience garymarcus.substack.com/p/are-llms-s...

UK’s City makeover inches towards risky final act London Stock Exchange CEO Julia Hoggett on Friday hosted Square Mile grandees to discuss an ongoing markets reboot. Authorities have eased listing rules and cut red tape. But the next step – getting $...

UK’s City makeover inches towards risky final act - www.breakingviews.com/columns/cons... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Thames Water, with 16 bln pounds of debt, seems like an asset nobody wants. Yet hedge funds including Elliott could still make a killing on the distressed London utility www.breakingviews.com/columns/cons...

Today I learned: JPMorgan's Chase had more UK deposits at end of 2024 than any of the much more established neobanks (according to UBS analysts)

Why the dollar’s wobble could be self-perpetuating Foreigners own US stocks and bonds worth $30 trln, much of it unhedged. Doubts over the greenback’s status threaten to leave global pension funds and insurers with an intolerable currency mismatch. If they respond with increased hedging or selling, the dollar will weaken further.

Really interesting piece by @liamproud.bsky.social on the (lack of) dollar hedging. The giant Japanese Public Investment Fund has about a third of its $1.7 trillion assets invested in the US, almost all of it unhedged. @breakingviews.reuters.com
www.reuters.com/breakingview...

Still, better than the Vision Fund 2, which is just SoftBank's money

How has all that Gulf money in the $100 bln Vision Fund 1 performed? Not very well...

First slide of SoftBank's earnings presentation... 🙃

Commerzbank’s M&A lines of defence have doubled The 28-bln-euro German lender earned an 11% return on equity in the first quarter. That number may be hard to repeat, but investors are starting to buy CEO Bettina Orlopp's plan. It makes life more co...

Commerzbank’s M&A lines of defence have doubled - www.breakingviews.com/considered-v... - @liamproud.bsky.social

Fentanyl Express: The global chemical trade behind the opioid crisis Reuters reveals how the Chinese fentanyl chemicals fueling America’s deadly opioid crisis are cheap and easy to get – and why authorities are failing to stop them.

This amazing Reuters investigation on the Fentanyl trade has just received a Pulitzer price
www.reuters.com/investigates...

UBS capital mystery raises thorny buyback dilemma In June Switzerland should signal whether the bank must hold $25 bln more equity, though a final law may take years. In the meantime, UBS has to decide whether to hoard capital and calm politicians, o...

UBS capital mystery raises thorny buyback dilemma - www.breakingviews.com/considered-v... - @liamproud.bsky.social

HSBC’s trade-war stress test flags valuation risk CEO Georges Elhedery said the bank would meet a roughly 15% return on tangible equity target even if tariffs stay high. His scenario mapping, though, excludes painful rate cuts that may happen if the ...

HSBC’s trade-war stress test flags valuation risk - www.breakingviews.com/considered-v... - @liamproud.bsky.social

📲 How much would it cost Apple to do the final assembly of iPhones in the US? About 25% more, BofA estimates (excluding tariffs). So a $1,199 handset goes up to $1,499, assuming it passes all the extra costs through to consumer. [BOM=bill of materials]

US bond market gyrations in context: the spike in the yield on 30-year Treasuries over the last three days is the second-largest such move in four decades.
www.breakingviews.com/considered-v... by @liamproud.bsky.social for @breakingviews.reuters.com

Why the US bond selloff could keep spiralling Yields on 30-year government debt spiked to almost 4.9%, from below 4.4% on Friday, as Donald Trump’s trade war roils the world’s key funding market. The squeeze reinforces longer-term fears about the...

Why the US bond selloff could keep spiralling - www.breakingviews.com/considered-v... - @liamproud.bsky.social

How journalism works (and why while I’m less fussed than I used to be about being ripped off).

If you pick up the print Daily Mail today, or look at the top of MailOnline right now, you’ll find a an exclusive special investigation into London’s Harry Potter shops and the couple who “own” them.

Breakingviews - Mark Carney gives Davos Man a shot at redemption The world’s most trusted Canadian has a much bigger role now. Mark Carney, who was bestowed with the accolade by Reader’s Digest magazine in 2011, will replace Justin Trudeau as the country’s next prime minister. As a transatlantic, elite educated economist, he plays against this era’s populist type. It also positions him as an agent of resistance.

'If the moniker “globalist” has a legible meaning, it would be to precisely describe Carney.' www.reuters.com/breakingview...

Breakingviews - Ending US aid will heat up sovereign debt fights Donald Trump’s attempt to align foreign aid with his America First policy is too blunt and will have deadly consequences. Rather than simply furthering Washington’s interests, the U.S. president’s actions may trigger the next debt crisis in the world’s poorest countries.

Try this! www.reuters.com/breakingview...

New Commerz plan may help UniCredit’s Andrea Orcel The $24 bln German bank is targeting a 15% return on tangible equity in 2028, up from 9.2% in 2024. Yet the goals are underpinned by optimistic revenue assumptions and seem light on safer cost cuts. T...

New Commerz plan may help UniCredit’s Andrea Orcel - @liamproud.bsky.social - bit.ly/4hU0D9N

US tax weaponisation launches messy European fight - @liamproud.bsky.social - reut.rs/3Q9d8Cg

Breakingviews - AI models’ slowdown spells end of gold rush era Amid the many uncertainties in the artificial intelligence field, one thing has always seemed clear: bigger and more expensive systems produce better results. Hence the relentless fundraising of model developers like $157 billion OpenAI and the mammoth capital expenditures of Big Tech groups. Now, however, that kernel of certainty seems to be disintegrating. Having run out of novel data on which to train the software, researchers are struggling to get smarter outputs simply by throwing more resources at the problem. The gold rush phase may be ending, opening the field for nimbler new competitors.

Well, this is looking good (something I wrote in Dec on scaling and the risks to the AI trades). www.reuters.com/breakingview...

Barclays-Santander UK is a matter of when, and how The Spanish bank is reviewing its British presence, Reuters reported. Barclays CEO C.S. Venkat is a logical buyer for the unit, probably worth 10 bln pounds or more. The question is whether his buybac...

Barclays-Santander UK is a matter of when, and how - www.breakingviews.com/considered-v...