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Two years ago, one City practitioner memorably told me that the freshly agreed deal between London and Brussels on financial services amounted to a “nothingburger”. This sad sandwich, the text of which was agreed but never signed, ended up in the deep freeze as relations soured over the Northern Ireland protocol. Now it seems likely

Asian equities followed the US higher on Friday after dovish comments from a Federal Reserve official counteracted data showing a robust labour market in the world’s largest economy. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index added 0.6 per cent, China’s CSI 300 gained 0.2 per cent and Japan’s Topix rose 1.1 per cent. US stocks reversed two

Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who led the inquiry into the “partygate” affair that consumed Boris Johnson’s UK government, has caused Tory outrage by quitting to become chief of staff to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. Rishi Sunak, prime minister, may intervene to block Gray from taking up her key role in Starmer’s office

Boris Johnson has criticised Rishi Sunak’s deal on post-Brexit trading in Northern Ireland, but the former UK prime minister admitted that many people wanted to “move on” from rows with Brussels. Although Johnson said he would find it “very difficult” to vote for the so-called Windsor framework, Sunak has secured a critical victory by splitting

This winter, American realtors have a plethora of problems to ponder. Surging interest rates have created a frozen residential housing market and shifting working practices will push office vacancies to 55 per cent above their pre-pandemic peak by 2030, according to new research from Cushman & Wakefield. The prospect of stranded assets looms. But if

The head of Melrose Industries has thrown his weight behind the London capital market, crediting it with having been a “major factor” in the group’s growth since listing, even as it struggles with a wave of takeovers and take-private deals. Simon Peckham, chief executive of the FTSE 100 conglomerate, said it had no plans to

The US will launch a renewed crackdown on countries and individuals helping the Kremlin evade western sanctions amid growing fears Russia is fuelling the war in Ukraine by funnelling imports through countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. The push by the US Treasury, commerce and justice departments, details of which were obtained

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has met Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov for the first time since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. Blinken and Lavrov spoke for about 10 minutes on the sidelines of a meeting of G20 foreign ministers in New Delhi on Thursday, according to a state

London Stock Exchange Group’s reaction to losing CRH is surprisingly sanguine. The Irish building materials company is joining the exodus from the City with plans to switch its primary listing from London to New York. Politicians will trade barbs about the impact of Brexit. Yet LSEG chief executive David Schwimmer simply says it is “what

A reconnaissance group claiming to work for the Ukrainian military crossed into Russia and allegedly launched an attack on Thursday, prompting President Vladimir Putin to convene his security council and delay a planned trip out of Moscow. Russian authorities said on Thursday that the group had entered a village in Bryansk region near Russia’s border

The writer is founder of Sifted, an FT-backed media company covering European start-ups In the justifiable, if spicy, words of one veteran tech investor in Israel: “It’s a fricking miracle what we’ve built here.” Over the past three decades, the tiny country of 9mn people, located in a hostile neighbourhood, has shrugged off wars, uprisings

In popular and political discourse, London is often portrayed as a giant leech, sucking the life out of the rest of the UK. It gobbles up the money, the public spending, the best jobs and talent from other towns and cities, creating the need for “levelling up”. If this was ever true, it could not

The chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group has shrugged off an escalating series of moves by UK companies to shift their listings from London to the US, as the world’s largest building materials group dealt the latest blow by planning to ditch its listing. Asked about the decision by CRH on Thursday, David

Once on the brink of collapse, Britain’s automobile industry was painstakingly rebuilt through investments by carmakers from Japan, Germany and India. State-owned British Leyland had become a byword for bad industrial relations, but in the 1980s Margaret Thatcher oversaw a sector renaissance that began with Nissan agreeing to build a car plant in Sunderland. Now,

In 2002, I moved from London to what was then a blessedly cheaper Paris. London had its almighty banks; Paris was the “Capital of the 19th Century”. In fact, I felt I was emigrating from modernity. France then had lower average incomes than the UK and got less foreign direct investment (FDI), partly because of

Eurozone inflation fell less than many economists forecast in February, fuelling expectations that the European Central Bank will raise interest rates significantly higher this year. Consumer price growth for the region dipped slightly to 8.5 per cent in the year to February, from 8.6 per cent in January, the EU statistics agency said on Thursday.

European banks and brokers are exploring halving the two-day window to finalise share trades to avoid falling behind the US in a race to upgrade the plumbing of global capital markets. The Association for Financial Markets in Europe, which represents banks and brokers, will set up a new industry group to assess the practicality of

Global stocks declined and government bonds sold off on Thursday as investors braced themselves for a longer period of higher interest rates. Europe’s Stoxx 600 fell 0.6 per cent and London’s FTSE 100 lost 0.3 per cent ahead of the release of the eurozone’s February inflation figures, which are expected to show annual price growth

The world’s largest building materials company CRH is planning to move its listing from London to New York in a fresh blow to the UK’s capital market. The company, which has a market capitalisation of almost £30bn, is the latest UK-listed company to embark on a move to New York. Last year, Ferguson, the plumbing

Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, is preparing to use the upcoming rubber-stamp parliamentary session to launch a “forceful” overhaul of the government by appointing his most trusted acolytes to oversee the financial, technology and other sectors. The annual National People’s Congress, which kicks off on Sunday, will replace Premier Li Keqiang,

China is holding up Arm’s plan to offload its troubled joint venture in the country, months after the UK chip designer agreed to transfer the unit to its owner SoftBank as a prelude to a blockbuster stock market listing. Three people close to the matter say Chinese officials have declined to process the paperwork confirming