In the City

What do rising incomes and interest rates mean for residential and commercial markets across Britain? Senior reporters John Stepek and Jack Sidders, as well as Sue Munden, a senior property analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence, join with answers. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Francine Lacqua speaks to a panel of Bloomberg experts including Bloomberg Opinion columnist Marcus Ashworth, reporter Tom Rees, and Ana Andrade of Bloomberg Economics. They discuss the central bank’s strategy and what moves the monetary policy committee might make next.  “We’re at a real crunch point,” Rees says. The choice between quick or slow action is a tough one, given the tight labor market, mortgage and rent strains and higher living costs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Julian Metcalfe helped launch the sandwich and coffee-chain Pret A Manger in 1986, interest rates were in the double digits and staffing was difficult, in part because full freedom of movement within the European Union was still a few years away. These days, the UK is out of the EU, the interest rate is 5%—though the Bank of England is expected to raise it. “Everyone’s complaining about 5% and it’s the end of the world,” Metcalfe says. “Back then I remember we paid 14%.”In this week’s In the City, Metcalfe tells hosts David Merritt and Francine Lacqua that the restaurant business is “incredibly difficult,” but that when you’re determined, you can make it happen. He says his current mission is to make Itsu, a fast-food chain he founded in 1997, a destination for speedy, healthy meals at low prices. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NatWest Chief Executive Officer Alison Rose is stepping down after a fight over the way the bank closed accounts held by politician-turned-pundit Nigel Farage. Pressure for her to quit had been rising. Both UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt indicated her position was untenable after she admitted talking to a BBC journalist about the account closures. In this week’s episode of In the City, host David Merritt discusses the mistakes made by NatWest and Farage’s call for more resignations at the bank. Joining Merritt are reporters Harry Wilson and Joe Mayes as well as Bloomberg Opinion columnist Paul Davies.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jens Grede, co-founder and chief executive of Kim Kardashian’s new underwear label Skims says he finds inspiration in the creation story behind Nike’s Air Jordans. The cross-generational line of basketball shoes started in the 80s remains a part of global culture, and Grede says he aims to do the same with the celebrity influencer and her new brand.  He joins this week’s In the City with host David Merritt and reporter Katie Linsell to discuss the brand’s identity and expansion plans. Next year, Skims will open stores in New York and Los Angeles. But it also has an aggressive, global expansion plan that starts in the UK. Grede says London is “the best way to market to the rest of the world: It’s the natural entry point for an American consumer brand before it expands into Europe or the Middle East.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twelve years on, and four years after Jeffrey Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail by suicide, the details of how former Barclays Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley and the convicted sex offender formed a mutually beneficial bond are only now becoming clear. This comes as Staley faces a lawsuit by JPMorgan and a British regulatory probe. The litigation has unearthed a trove of documents that reveal the extent of the relationship. Reporters Harry Wilson, Jonathan Browning and Ava Benny-Morrison reviewed thousands of pages of documents and emails, as well as conducted interviews with people with knowledge of the events, to construct a detailed timeline of the relationship. They join this week’s In the City to discuss the reporting process and their findings. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Adam Posen isn’t ruling out the Bank of England pushing UK interest rates as high as 7%.The president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, Posen says the 6.25% rate investors have priced in for the end of 2023 is the level he’s been predicting for the past year. “The fact that the inflation is proving more persistent,” he says, just means “they’ll have to go higher.”Joining David Merritt and Francine Lacqua on this week’s In the City, Posen says that—both in terms of policy and communication—the Bank of England got it wrong repeatedly throughout 2022 and into 2023. He also gives his take on the UK mortgage market meltdown—which he says doesn’t warrant a bailout. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Britain’s National Health Service turns 75 years-old this week. But as reporter Suzi Ring and editor Andre Tartar explain in the latest episode of In the City, rather than being a cause for celebration, the NHS anniversary comes at a critical, maybe even dire moment for the service. Ring and Tartar unpack Bloomberg’s first-of-its-kind analysis of NHS data for eight indicators—including ambulance waiting times, cancer treatment times, overnight hospital bed availability and wait times for diagnostic tests. The study underscores how deep the problems run at the publicly-funded health service—and how difficult they may be to fix.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The biggest threat to Vladimir Putin’s grip on Russia in his almost quarter-century of rule has huge implications for the oil market. But dissecting the precise impact of last weekend’s mercenary mutiny is difficult, according to Bloomberg Opinion columnist Javier Blas. On this week’s In the City, Blas explains the bearish case and the bullish case. He also on his conversations with the central banking community in Sintra, Portugal at the ECB Forum. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The job of chief executive is more demanding than it’s ever been. So says Simon Freakley, CEO of international business advisory firm AlixPartners. While they still have to handle the core responsibilities—revenue growth, earnings growth and dividends to shareholders—he says there are more duties now than was the case just a few decades ago. “They need to have a voice about the values of the organization, the purpose of the organization and to comment on important issues of the day,” he says. Freakley joins this week’s In the City with David Merritt and Francine Lacqua to discuss the challenges facing top executives, including managing the ongoing, profound shifts around technology, environmental pressures and supply chains.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.