Raspberry Pi offers London a morsel of hope

Today’s top stories

• Macron’s centrist alliance is at risk of a complete wipeout, as support for the far right mounts and the far left forms a unity pact.

• Vladimir Putin has laid out the conditions for a ceasefire in Ukraine, which include control of four frontline Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

• UK retailer Superdry manages to avoid insolvency after shareholders backed a £10mn lifeline.

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Good evening.

Shares in Raspberry Pi have jumped 14 per cent today on their first day of retail trading, in a small victory for the City of London as it reckons with a tough listings landscape in which companies increasingly desert it for greener, and more lucrative, pastures in New York. 

But picking London was “not a patriotic decision”, Raspberry Pi chief Eben Upton insists. For a company of their scale, the UK market was more appealing for the computer maker — which started out selling single-board units for hobbyists and enthusiasts only a decade ago. 

It is part of a spate of successful Cambridge-based tech companies clustered in the so-called “Silicon Fen” — a region around the city that is home to some of Britain’s highest-productivity tech firms. Chip designer Arm, the jewel in the crown of the area, became a source of controversy when its owner SoftBank chose New York over London for its IPO after an unsuccessful charm offensive from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Companies are attracted to New York for myriad reasons. Deep-pocketed US investors can help boost equity valuations, creating fertile ground for companies to scale up faster. And the discrepancy is widening. Numerous US tech stocks have a larger market cap than the combined valuation of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies. 

Other forces have tempted companies to seek a London IPO recently. Chinese fashion group Shein had its bid to list in New York rebuffed after relations between Washington and Beijing turned sour. Chinese hawks in the US senate have urged caution to UK officials about the retailer, and allegations from human rights groups on their “unethical” business practices abound. “London would happily accept being plan B,” argued the FT’s Due Diligence team last month.

But the Square Mile is fighting back to restore its primacy. FT deputy editor Patrick Jenkins interviewed Peter Rees, the former planning officer for the City of London, for this weekend’s FT magazine cover story. Rees reckons the Square Mile will need 15 per cent more office space by 2040 to meet demand. 

London has weathered the storm of Brexit, like it did the market crash a decade prior, as well as bombings and pestilence in previous centuries — and the listed equity market is only a part of what constitutes the modern City, Rees notes.

“This is a City that survived the Romans, the Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz, Big Bang and the banking crash,” said Rees. It seems like it can handle a temporary shortfall of IPOs too.

Need to know: UK and Europe economy

UK inflation expectations have fallen to the lowest level in three years, providing welcome news to the Bank of England ahead of next week’s rate-setting meeting.

Europe must use more tariffs and subsidies to defend its economic interests in the wake of declining competitiveness, which is “threatening our prosperity”, former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi has said.

Investors are anticipating the worst week for French stocks since 2022, after Paris’s Cac 40 index plunged more than 5 per cent following President Emmanuel Macron’s snap election announcement on Sunday.

Europe Express, the FT’s premium European policy newsletter, will be free to read for all subscribers over the next five weekends, and will cover developments in France over the election period and their wider implications for Europe. Read the newsletter here.

Need to know: Global economy

The Bank of Japan has said it would “significantly” scale back its bond-buying programme, marking a change of course in its faltering ultra-loose monetary policy strategy.

Donald Trump has pitched slashed taxes, deregulation and higher tariffs, as he attempts to court big business chiefs and win their support for his populist agenda.

India’s billionaires face new scrutiny as disquiet about wealth inequality rises, leading Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reassess his relationship with the super-rich as he gears up for his third term in power.

The world’s richest families are increasingly mobilising their wealth to combat climate change, rapidly channelling their money into sustainable assets and investments.

Need to know: Business

OpenAI has expanded its international team of lobbyists to influence debate at a time when legislators’ concerns about artificial intelligence mount.

Advanced talks are under way between UBS and Beijing State-Owned Assets Management as the Swiss Bank seeks to sell Credit Suisse’s China securities unit.

Wells Fargo has discharged several employees for simulating keyboard activity when working from home to “create the impression of active work” — the latest in a series of examples of companies clamping down on non-compliance in a remote working era.

Tesla shareholders have approved chief executive Elon Musk’s $56bn pay package. A Delaware court had voided the 2018 package of stock options in January due to worries about the board’s independence.

Science round up

A plan to loosen regulations on gene-edited crops in Europe has stalled due to an intellectual property dispute.

The European Commission has secured more than 40mn doses of a bird flu vaccine to defend against the respiratory virus for the next four years as the continent grapples with outbreaks.

Women are more exposed to superbugs than men, “thanks to a complex mix of biological, social, cultural and economic factors”, the FT’s science commentator Anjana Ahuja writes.

Some good news

Extensive felling has ravaged Ecuador’s rainforests over the last century. But one unlikely survivor, long presumed extinct, has this week been rediscovered — and stands but 5cm tall.

Source: Economy - ft.com