FirstFT: Rishi Sunak to become British Prime Minister

Rishi Sunak will enter Downing Street today as Britain’s youngest modern-day prime minister and its first non-white leader, with a vow to tackle the “deep economic challenge” facing the country.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is urging him to press ahead with a new debt-cutting plan next week ahead of a crucial Bank of England interest rate-setting meeting on November 3.

Liz Truss, who stepped down after a calamitous 44-day spell as Prime Minister, will hold her final cabinet meeting today before handing in her resignation to King Charles.

Sunak, 42, will then travel to Buckingham Palace to meet the monarch before returning to Number 10 at around 11.30am to begin forming a cabinet; the new prime minister’s allies expect Hunt to remain chancellor.

Dave Ramsden, Deputy Governor of the BoE, noted that gilt yields were no longer much above where they were before Truss’ disastrous ‘mini’ budget on September 23, but only after a series of reversals. policies.

“Credibility is being recovered, at least on this benchmark metric, but that needs to be tracked,” he said.

Five other stories in the news

1. EY Israel rejects breakup plan The Israeli partners of the firm Big Four will not split their audit and advisory activities, avoiding a spin-off plan approved by world leaders last month. The plan promises to radically reshape the accounting landscape and is being watched across the industry. EY is rushing to get more details on the proposal ahead of country-by-country partner votes.

2. Turkey defends relations with Russia Finance Minister Nureddin Nebati in a rare interview defended Ankara’s economic ties with Russia as “good neighborly relations” as Western governments fear the country could be used as a back door for Moscow to evade sanctions. Nebati said “elements of the opposition” were “deliberately raising question marks”, while conceding there had been a rush for money in Turkey’s financial system.

3. Prepayment meters imposed on vulnerable people The number of prepayment meters is up on a quarterly basis, as UK energy providers are set to switch 10,000 households a month to the expensive plan. The rise of prepayment meters is an early sign of distress in the energy market, with the majority of households pushed to use them when they fall behind on regular bill payments.

4. RBC plans to push commercial banking in the UK The Royal Bank of Canada is looking to enter the UK commercial banking market potentially through acquisition and to expand into wealth management, chief executive Dave McKay told the Financial Times. The head of Canada’s biggest bank by market value said he wanted to expand once RBC fully integrated his private bank into Brewin Dolphin, which it bought for £1.6billion this year.

5. Rich Chinese Activate Escape Plans The country’s business elites are pull the trigger on exit plans of their homeland as pessimism grows about the future of the world’s second-largest economy under Xi Jinping. Their advisers say the president’s ironclad grip on power and his potential to rule for the rest of his life is a tipping point.

The day ahead

Future Investment Initiative The event called “Davos in the desert” starts in Riyadh. Although relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia have plunged to a new low, American bankers and investors – including Jamie Dimon, Stephen Schwarzman and David Solomon – are still flocking to the conference.

Economic data The Ifo survey on business confidence is published in Germany and the Hungarian central bank announces its decision on interest rates. Poland has the unemployment figures for September, and Sweden and Spain publish their producer price indices.

Earnings Alphabet, Carrefour, Corning, General Electric, Halliburton, JetBlue Airways, Juniper Networks, Kuehne+Nagel, Mattel, Norsk Hydro, Novartis, Orange, Randstad, Raytheon Technologies, SAP, Spotify, UBS, United Parcel Service and Xerox Report Q3 The figures. Microsoft has first-quarter earnings, Visa has fourth-quarter earnings, and HSBC Holdings releases its third-quarter business results. See a complete list here.

Ukraine German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hold a conference in Berlin on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.

What else we read

The fight for JPMorgan’s valuable customers Infighting at JPMorgan Chase over how to handle the fortune of retired baseball star Alex Rodriguez has escalated into a two-year battle which laid bare the tensions between private banking and wealth advice. The feud has involved high-profile figures such as pop star Jennifer Lopez and author Malcolm Gladwell, as well as chief executive Jamie Dimon.

“I thought he was supposed to be a statesman, Jamie Dimon. It’s like a game an 11-year-old would play.” —Malcolm Gladwell

Xi Jinping’s China and the Rise of the “Global West” If the United States is to keep its international network of allies together, it will have to persuade its partners that the darkest fears about Russia and China are justified, writes Gideon Rachman. Recent scenes from Beijing help make this case.

TSMC faces challenges as world demands ever-smaller chips Chip manufacturers are come up against the laws of physics as they strive to make semiconductors faster and more energy efficient. Will the world’s largest contract chipmaker stay ahead of the pack as the industry is forced to develop new transistor technology?

Office workers embrace hybrid working Travel to workplaces in the world’s seven largest economies is still well below pre-coronavirus levels took root in early 2020, according to a Financial Times analysis of phone tracking movements published by Google. Economists say change has become the new norm.

Bidenomics ‘Clunky’ proves to be a tough sell Under the watch of Democrats, the US economic recovery has generated 10 million jobs and lowered unemployment to 3.5% since January 2021. a difficult sale in the countryside.

Travel

In the wilds of northern Iceland, billionaire Ineos Jim Ratcliffe is on a mission to save the atlantic salmon. He buys rivers in an effort to protect the species – while enjoying some of the best fly fishing in the world.