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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Brookfield has outbid Segro in the race to acquire Tritax EuroBox, as the FTSE 250 warehouse owner’s board recommended the Canadian private capital group’s latest all-cash offer.

The board said Brookfield’s offer, which values Tritax EuroBox shares at £557mn, represented an “attractive premium for . . . shareholders over the terms of the Segro offer”. The company had recommended Segro’s all-share offer to shareholders in September.

The duel between Brookfield and Segro — the UK’s largest listed landlord — comes as commercial property dealmaking is heating up after a two-year lull, particularly for warehouse properties.

Strong demand from the ecommerce industry since the pandemic has placed logistics properties as one of the most attractive segments of the commercial real estate sector.

Warehouse prices have fallen less than other property types since 2022 and are also recovering faster. Asset values in the industrial sector, which includes logistics, gained almost 1 per cent in the year to June, according to a Green Street index — a stronger result than other property types. 

Elsewhere in Europe, Blackstone last month acquired another large warehouse portfolio, in a €1bn transaction, adding to the US investment group’s bet on the logistics sector. In one of the region’s largest property deals this year, it bought 80 per cent of the European logistics portfolio of Johannesburg-listed landlord Burstone.

The deals come as activity in the wider commercial real estate market picks up following a two-year slump that hit asset prices and depressed transaction levels. European commercial real estate dealmaking, which fell to a 13-year low at the start of the year, is showing signs of revival.

More investors are searching for property vehicles trading at lower prices and wider discounts. Segro raised £900mn of fresh equity earlier this year to target buying opportunities. Brookfield, meanwhile, put London’s CityPoint skyscraper up for sale in September.

A MAJOR banking outage has left thousands of customers unable to access their accounts.

TSB customers are reporting difficulties logging into both the mobile banking app and Internet banking services this morning.

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Those needing to pay their bills or check that their salary has been paid into their bank account have been unable to do so since 7am.

According to DownDetector, over 2,035 users have encountered issues with the bank’s online services, preventing them from accessing their accounts or sending payments.

More than 60% of the reported problems pertain to difficulties with mobile banking, while 29% of users are experiencing trouble accessing Internet banking.

Frustrated TSB customers have taken to social media to express their concerns.

One person posted on X (formerly Twitter): “The mobile banking app is down again.

“I cannot get access to my accounts, and now it’s telling me I have no accounts with you.”

Another customer who can’t login to his mobile app said: “Not the ideal time for it to go down as I need to transfer money over ASAP to make a payment.”

Others have complained that they haven’t been able to check if their salary has dropped into their account.

“Well done, TSB. On my payday of all days when I need to pay all my bills, I can’t,” said one customer.

The outage seems to be impacting the TSB app and internet banking services.

Another frustrated customer said: “Why is the app not showing any accounts? And the website not loading?”

Responding to customer complaints, a TSB customer service operator said: “Hi. We’re aware some customers are experiencing issues with our online services.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and we’re working to resolve this as soon as possible.”

A TSB spokesperson told The Sun: “We’re sorry that some of our customers are having issues accessing our services this morning.

“Our teams are working to fix this as quickly as possible.” 

Can I claim compensation for the outage?

Banks don’t have to pay out compensation to customers if there has been a drop in service, unlike how telecoms companies have to.

But if you have incurred costs as a result of service issues, it’s likely you could get your money back.

For example, if a bill payment didn’t go through as a result of an outage and you’ve been charged a fee for missing it, you should be able to claim that money back.

If your credit rating has been affected by a service outage, because you got a late payment fee after being unable to make a transaction, for example, you should also keep a record of this.

If you spoke to anyone to try and resolve the problem, make a note of their name and when you spoke to them, as well as roughly what you discussed and what they advised you to do.

You can find out more details about how to complain on the bank’s website.

It is worth gathering evidence of your problems so you can make a formal complaint to the bank directly.

What happens if my bank refuses to compensate me?

If you’re unhappy with how the bank dealt with your problem, you can contact the free Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

It is an independent body that will consider the evidence you present and make a fair decision about the action a bank should take.

The FOS can usually get involved 15 days after you’ve raised concerns with the bank.

In the case of an IT system outage at a bank, the FOS says any compensation depends on your circumstances and whether you lost out as a result.

If it thinks you did, it has the power to tell the bank to reimburse any fees, charges, or fines you were hit with, for example, if you were unable to make a payment on a credit card bill or to your mortgage provider.

It could also tell a bank to pay you for any money you didn’t receive, such as interest, if you weren’t able to pay money in.

If your credit score was affected, it may tell the bank to correct your credit file.

The FOS might also tell the bank to reimburse you for any extra costs you had to make, such as phone calls or trips to your local branch, as well as a payment for any inconvenience it caused.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

SKYSCANNER has revealed some of the top trending holiday destinations for 2025 – and five of them are in Europe.

The global travel site has analysed which destinations have seen a boom in searches.

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The Travel Trends report is based on searches between January and June in 2024, compared to the same time in 2024.

Coming out on top was Reggio Calabria in Italy, with 541 per cent increase in searches.

Both easyJet and Ryanair have launched flights from the UK to Lamezia Terme, the airport in Calabria.

The seaside region is a cheaper alternative to the pricey Amalfi Coast.

Coming in second was Tartu in Estonia, with a 294 per cent increase in searches.

The overlooked city has been named the European Capital of Culture for 2024.

Spain‘s Córdoba also made the list, a city Brits may not think to visit, but has seen an increase on searches by 133 per cent.

In the southern region of Andalusia, it was once one of Europe‘s largest cities, and has a lot of African influences.

It’s main attractions include the huge Mezquita mosque and the Renaissance Viana Palace.

It’s not the easiest to get to you – Brits have to fly to Seville then take a train taking just under an hour – but the city recently recorded record overnight stays from tourists.

Other European destinations to make the trending list include Tromsø in Norway, with an increase of 85 per cent.

Most head to Tromsø for the Northern Lights, and easyJet, British Airways and Norwegian have new flights.

And Germany‘s Stuttgart made the top ten, with a 70 per cent increase in searches.

Naomi Hahn, VP of Strategy at Skyscanner comments:  “Skyscanner’s Travel Trends report reveals that 2025 will be the year of collective travel experiences.

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“Now, more than ever, travellers are increasingly seeking travel experiences that foster community and collective discovery.

“The cost of living, though, remains top of mind and our money-saving tools continue to rise in popularity.

“Our ‘Everywhere’ search, showing prices from the lowest to highest from airports to global destinations, is still one of the top search destinations for travellers globally this year.”  

The top 10 includes other long-haul destinations too.

Siem Reap in Cambodia, America’s Baltimore and Portsmouth in Dominica are trending.

The list also included Panglao Bohol in the Philippines and Thiruvananthapuram in India.

Brittany in France has also been named a top trending holiday destination for 2025 by American Express.

And Brits can reach it by ferry, with routes from Plymouth and Poole.

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If you have to ask whether long hours are really necessary in investment banking, then it is probably not the career for you.

The high stress, high reward business of dealmaking and being on call for clients of top Wall Street banks is famously gruelling. It is not uncommon for entry-level bankers to rack up more than 100 hours a week.

But some employers are taking a fresh look at whether they could and should be doing more to support their junior staff, particularly by trying to cap weekly hours.

“There’s a profound difference between 80, 100 and 120 hours,” said one former junior investment banker. “No one has a problem working 80 hours a week, 90 even. [But] 100, you’re tired, 120 is something you want to have to do [no more than] once a month or two.”

Bank of America recently introduced a system for junior bankers to log their hours daily — rather than weekly — to make it harder to under-report their workload. Now, if a junior banker exceeds 80 hours in a week, they will be monitored by HR. Bankers also have a “protected day” every weekend.

JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest investment bank, has also capped junior bankers’ working week at 80 hours, although the limit does not apply when they are working on live deals. It appointed a senior executive to oversee its junior banker programme and focus on their wellbeing.

This introspection was triggered by the sudden death this year of Leo Lukenas III, a 35-year-old junior banker at BofA who had previously been a Green Beret in the US army. His death was ruled to have been caused by a blood clot but it ignited fresh concerns about the long hours and working conditions for young bankers.

Yet questions remain as to whether the caps will be sufficient to address a culture of long hours forged over decades, which some stalwarts see as a rite of passage. Some industry figures have played down the desire for change among some workers.

Peter Orszag, head of Wall Street bank Lazard, last month told Bloomberg that young bankers were happy to put in long hours if they were involved in important and interesting work and if that was balanced with flexible working arrangements.

Limits on junior bankers’ hours will compress the amount of time they have to do their work, potentially increasing the need for more hiring in an industry where job cuts ebb and flow with the amount of deal activity. 

“If you need to have more people to manage the 80-hour circuit breaker, are those the people who get cut? I’m a little bit afraid of that,” said one junior banker at a large Wall Street bank.

Ultimately those coming into the industry recognise it is fiercely competitive — and well paid: investment banking offers one of the most lucrative paths for new graduates, with starting salaries of more than $100,000 plus significant year-end bonuses.

“I’ve been trying to disabuse about a third of my students from going into it because they don’t have the drive,” said David Stowell, who worked in investment banking for about two decades and now teaches at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. 

“It’s not for everybody. But for the right kind of people, it’s a remarkable 30-year career or at least a remarkable foundation.” 

Concerns about long hours and junior workers’ wellbeing are not confined to banking. The legal industry has been dealing with similar issues as pay for young lawyers has dramatically increased and demanding annual targets of 2,000 billable hours at some firms have been criticised.

If the clients are accosting and difficult to deal with and set unreasonable deadlines, that cascades through the bankers

The issue came to the fore last year after a partner who was working 18-hour days on a deal at UK-founded law firm Pinsent Masons was killed by a train after falling on to a track amid an acute mental health crisis. Pinsent Masons says it has been trialling a tool that alerts the firm to consistently high working hours. It has also been offering “summer Fridays” — a compressed working week that allows employees to take Friday afternoons off during their country’s summer as long as their obligations are met.

Other law firms have nominated people to monitor for red flags such as late-night emails or a lack of holiday.

Similarly, this is not the first time the banking industry has considered workloads. More than a decade ago, there were calls for an overhaul of banking culture following the death of an intern at BofA in London.

During the pandemic, a cluster of first-year investment banking analysts at Goldman sent the bank’s management a presentation documenting their 95-hour workweeks. This triggered Goldman to recommit to a “Saturday rule” forbidding junior bankers from working from 9pm on Friday until Sunday morning, a move many other banks have since followed.

But complaints about arduous hours can butt up against the structural reality of investment banking, a business where millions of dollars in fees are on the line in any given pitch. Every deal comes with a client expecting top-tier service.

“Clients pay the bills,” said Stowell. “If the clients are accosting and difficult to deal with and set unreasonable deadlines, that cascades through the bankers.” 

There is also some scepticism over how much of a personal benefit the new rules provide. Several bankers said they understood the mandate of having “at least” one day off a week to mean they were expected to work the other six, for example.

Many industry veterans do say working conditions have improved. Wall Street offices have also become much more tolerant of women and minorities. 

The only thing that saves you is capable managing directors who know what they want and lay out what you want. And they are hard to come by

But some senior bankers also feel the complaints from younger peers are overstated and speak to a sensitivity of a new generation that is not as battle hardened as their own. 

The issue often comes down to the quality of work junior bankers are given. As Orszag noted, many are open to long hours if they feel they are doing intellectually stimulating work and dealing with clients, rather than, for example, drafting pitch documents.

“An example that used to drive me nuts was when you see you’re on version number 35 of a PowerPoint presentation,” said David Erickson, adjunct professor in finance at Columbia Business School, who worked at Barclays and Lehman Brothers. “You’ve had teams of juniors [staying late], cycling through all of this material and revisions. And the senior people that are actually going to be at the meeting haven’t even looked at the document.”

Another issue is that some senior bankers do not view junior employees’ time as a cost to the bank, said Alex Edmans, a finance professor at London Business School, who started his career at Morgan Stanley.

“If analysts were to count the hours they’re doing on a single project, and there’s a charge to the department, then that will . . . make people think twice about asking analysts to do work for unnecessary reasons,” he explained. 

Senior bankers talk about the need to work smarter, not harder, and say managers need to anticipate work where possible so junior bankers are not landed with impossible deadlines. 

“I really do think it’s structural to the industry,” said one senior investment banker at a Wall Street firm. “The only thing that saves you is really capable [managing directors] who know what they want and lay out what you want. And those MDs are hard to come by.”

There has been talk that new technology, particularly artificial intelligence, could solve the problem by taking on lower-level work. But sceptics warn AI might just mean fewer junior investment bankers who still have to work as hard. 

“There’s always been technological development to empower investment bankers to do things more efficiently,” said Edmans. “But they’ve just then been asked to do more things.”

AJ Bell has strengthened its senior leadership team with two appointments as it continue to grow.

Ryan Hughes joins as managing director of AJ Bell Investments, while Stephen Westgate has been hired as group corporate development director.

They will both report to AJ Bell CEO Michael Summersgill.

Hughes was made interim MD late last year and has now been permanently appointed to the role. He will join AJ Bell’s executive committee with immediate effect.

He first joined AJ Bell in 2016 and has played a leading role in the development and growth of its investment proposition.

Westgate’s previous role was at Deutsche Numis where he was managing director, head of financial institutions.

The newly created role of group corporate development director at AJ Bell will see him work closely with Summersgill and the executive committee to drive new strategic initiatives with the focus on continuing the company’s organic growth.

Prior to joining Numis in 2017, Westgate was head of group strategy and treasury at Man Group and has previously held roles at Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.

Summersgill said: “Ryan and Stephen’s appointments add further depth to our leadership team, bringing new perspectives and thinking to help develop our strategy and identify further organic growth opportunities for the business.”

Today’s agenda: HSBC’s cost-cutting plans; OpenAI’s restructuring; Russia’s “shadow” oil fleet; and Israel’s growing Lebanon offensive

Good morning. Hurricane Milton has made landfall on Florida’s highly populated western coast, bringing life-threatening flooding and extreme winds to the state for the second time in two weeks. More than 2mn homes and businesses were left without power. Here’s what we know so far.

What is the storm’s scale? The hurricane made landfall as a category three storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale with winds of 120mph, the US National Hurricane Center said, warning of “life-threatening” gusts, tornadoes and storm surges of up to 13ft. The head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency has described the hurricane as “deadly and catastrophic”.

What’s at stake: The NHC has warned that Milton could be one of the area’s most destructive hurricanes on record. Analysts estimate Milton could trigger insurance losses of up to $60bn, with losses over the hurricane season likely to “dent” the sector’s profitability. One insurer said potential damage in the area, where many houses are not built to withstand major storm events, could be severe.

The hurricane could also disrupt oil prices. Chevron said it had shut down production at the Blind Faith platform in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of the hurricane and removed its staff from the site. Apart from oil production, analysts have also said the hurricane could hurt demand for petrol.

Milton is forecast to remain at hurricane strength while it moves across central Florida today. We’ll bring you more updates as the situation develops.

And here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: The US has September inflation figures, while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors publishes its latest UK residential market survey.

• Tesla: Elon Musk’s group is set to unveil its first self-driving “robotaxis”, after the electric vehicle maker recently missed market expectations for vehicle deliveries.

• Nobel Prize: The award for literature is announced in Sweden. War in the Middle East has cast a shadow over tomorrow’s peace prize, with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees among the nominees.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: HSBC’s new chief executive plans to target the lender’s expensive layer of senior bankers in a cost-cutting move aimed at saving as much as $300mn. Georges Elhedery is drawing up plans to merge HSBC’s commercial banking unit with its global banking and markets unit. Read the full story.

2. Exclusive: Steel magnate Sanjeev Gupta is being prosecuted over his alleged failure to file accounts in the UK. The charges relate to 76 companies including his trading firm Liberty Commodities and a number of businesses comprising his Liberty Steel group of metals plants, according to court documents seen by the Financial Times.

3. Exclusive: OpenAI is planning to restructure as a public benefit corporation to defend itself from hostile takeovers and protect chief executive Sam Altman from outsider interference. While largely untested, this rare type of company model has also been adopted by rivals such as Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI. Here’s how the PBC structure works.

4. Donald Trump has said he would end “double taxation” for millions of Americans living overseas if he wins the US presidential election next month. There are up to 9mn Americans living or serving overseas, but this does not exempt them from filing US tax returns. Here’s why their votes matter in the White House race.

• Democratic infighting: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has warned of an “out and out brawl” if Kamala Harris removes Lina Khan, the antitrust progressive who chairs the Federal Trade Commission.

5. The UK chancellor has been warned not to sharply increase government borrowing in a push for more public investment in her October 30 Budget. An Institute for Fiscal Studies analysis shows Rachel Reeves could create space to raise investment spending by more than £50bn if the government targets a broader measure of the public finances, but the think-tank said she would need to be “very cautious”.

FT investigation

Russia has created a “shadow fleet” of more than 400 vessels moving about 4mn barrels of oil a day, circumventing western sanctions to create billions of dollars a year in additional revenue for its war in Ukraine. The FT’s latest investigation shows how complex arrangements involving a British accountant, a London-listed broker and Dubai-based companies helped one of Russia’s biggest oil producers buy ships while hiding its involvement.

We’re also reading . . . 

• DoJ vs Google: The tech giant is seeking to delay and deflect a historic break-up threat by accusing prosecutors of regulatory “over-reach”.

• Ratan Tata: The Indian industrialist who led his family group on an ambitious overseas expansion that included Jaguar Land Rover and UK steel plants has died aged 86.

• Portugal: The country’s novel plan to stop its brain drain would cut the income tax burden on young workers for a decade, including a tax-free first year.

• 80-hour weeks: Wall Street’s moves to cap weekly hours for entry-level bankers are butting against the reality of a competitive industry.

Graphic of the day

When Israel launched its first invasion of Lebanon for nearly two decades, it characterised the operation as “limited, localised and targeted”. But over the past week, the scale of the Israeli ground assault against Hizbollah has quickly grown, fuelling fears the offensive will not be ending any time soon.

Take a break from the news

As employers increasingly make concessions for their workers’ personal lives, a hotel in the Philippines last year unveiled an unusual new staff policy: five paid days of heartbreak leave. Could this work benefit improve productivity elsewhere?

Additional contributions from Gordon Smith and Benjamin Wilhelm