Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

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

Google has ordered six to seven small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) from Kairos Power, becoming the first tech company to commission new nuclear power plants to provide low-carbon electricity for its energy-hungry data centres. 

Google and Kairos said on Monday that the tech company had placed an order for SMRs with a total capacity of 500MW, helping Kairos, a seven-year-old start-up, to bring its first commercial reactor online by 2030 and additional reactors by 2035. 

The agreement was “a landmark for us at Google in our 15-year clean energy journey”, said Michael Terrell, the company’s senior director of energy and climate.

“We feel nuclear can play an important role in helping us to meet our demand, and helping us to meet our demand cleanly and round the clock,” he said.

Asked if the reactors would feed into the grid or be directly connected to data centres, Terrell said Google was considering all options. 

The two companies declined to comment on the agreement’s value, or on whether Google would fund the construction of the SMRs upfront or simply pay for power once they were built. 

Last month, Microsoft announced that it would commit to buying 20 years’ supply of electricity from the mothballed US nuclear power plant Three Mile Island if Constellation Energy restarted the site. Tech companies are increasingly interested in nuclear as a medium-term solution to providing low-carbon electricity to meet their data centres’ energy demands. 

Google’s deal with Kairos is the first in which a tech company is helping to commission the building of a nuclear power plant. The US has brought only three reactors online in the past 20 years. 

Terrell said SMRs offered “a simplified, inherently safe design, faster construction, and flexibility on deployment location” compared with large- scale nuclear plants. “Obviously, this is a bit of a longer-term bet, but it is an incredibly promising bet. If we can get it to scale globally, this will deliver enormous benefits to power grids around the world.”

While Google was leaning “heavily” on renewable energy to power its data centres, Terrell added, its modelling had made clear “that to really get grids to be carbon-free it will take more than just wind, solar and lithium ion storage; you are going to need this next set of advanced technologies”. 

Kairos, based in Alameda, California, has developed a reactor cooled by molten fluoride salt, rather than water. In December, it received a construction permit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a 50MW demonstration reactor in Tennessee called Hermes. 

This was the first approval for a new type of reactor in the US for half a century. The US Department of Energy is investing about $300mn in Kairos’s Hermes project through its Advanced Reactor Demonstration programme. 

The US has thrown its weight behind companies seeking to build smaller nuclear reactors that can be built in factories and assembled on site, in order to cut costs and speed up the construction of plants. 

Kairos’s molten salt reactor uses ceramic-coated TRISO fuel and operates at close to atmospheric pressure, transferring heat from the salt to generate steam and run a turbine. 

The company began construction on its Hermes project in July and is aiming for it to be operational by 2027. In September, it said it would build a salt-production facility and two fuel labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Mike Laufer, Kairos’s chief executive, said the commercial-scale SMRs that the company planned to build for Google would have a capacity of 75MW and that the company was focusing on the US market.

A GORDON Ramsay trained chef has closed his top Michelin Star restaurant in Birmingham.

The Cornwall Street restaurant closed its doors for the final time on Saturday, October 12.

4

4

Advertisement

After serving guests for 17 years, Purnell’s will no longer be open for business.

Chef Glynn Purnell described the flagship restaurant as his “proudest moment”.

Having opened the site in 2007, Chef Glynn had previously trained with Gordon Ramsay, Claude Bosi and Gary Rhodes.

The chef suggested that the closure comes as “things have moved on’” and the pressures faced by the hospitality industry have contributed to the decision.

He added that he was “heartbroken” to be closing the business.

Glynn said: “Purnell’s has been my proudest moment, and I am heartbroken to say that after 17 years we have served our final guest. It fills my heart with pride to say that Purnell’s was a roaring success from day one.

“It won every accolade going, from a Michelin star just a year after opening, to the Craft Guild of Chefs New Restaurant of the Year Award, and the AA Restaurant of the Year Award.

“Purnell’s has been a place where I have had the privilege of working with some of the greatest talent I’ve ever known, and where I have trained people who are now working in some of the best restaurants in the world, from New York to Australia.

“However, the world doesn’t stand still. Things have moved on, and times have changed. In this current climate, no-one is bulletproof.

“I would like to thank everybody who has worked for me over the years. I have always had a team who are like family to me, who have worked with creativity, passion and enthusiasm to make Purnell’s the success it has been for 17 years.

“I’d also like to thank everybody who has ever eaten here and celebrated life here. I’ve raised a glass with guests who have come through our doors to mark birthdays, graduations, first dates, weddings, anniversaries, and many more life events, and I’m thrilled that they chose Purnell’s for all those occasions.

“Plates by Purnell’s on Edmund Street in Birmingham and The Mount by Glynn Purnell in Henley-in-Arden remain open for business as usual, and I will be devoting my time between these two establishments. I’m excited for the future and the next steps in my journey; this isn’t the last you’ve heard of the Yummy Brummie.

“I’m truly honoured to have played my part in the culinary history of this great city.”

After the closure of Carter’s of Moseley last year, Birmingham now has three Michelin Star restaurants – Opheem, which holds two stars, Adam’s and Simpsons, which both hold one.

It comes after a spate of Michelin chefs have been forced to close restaurants due to the high rental costs, staffing issues amongst the long list of other causes.

Earlier this month, celebrity chef, Michael Caines, shocked fans after announcing the sale of Mickeys Beach Bar and Restaurant in Exmouth.

In September, a well-known TV chef, Simon Rimmer, closed his only remaining branch after 33 years in business.

4

4

Rain lashed down on London’s historic Guildhall on Monday morning as UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer tried to paint a sunny picture of Britain as an investment destination to the world’s business elite.

Starmer told 200 executives that his Labour government would return the UK to its former status as “an open, outward-looking” nation and “rip up” bureaucracy that blocked investment and economic growth.

His rhetoric was well-received after years of political instability under the Conservatives but some business leaders were still reserving their judgment given Labour’s first Budget is two weeks away.

Starmer had delivered “a compelling rationale for investors in the UK”, said Sir Nicholas Lyons, chair of FTSE 100 pensions group Phoenix. “Obviously the proof of the pudding, ultimately, is in the eating,” he added.

The investment summit was Labour’s chance to set out its stall to international investors. The prime minister has put boosting economic growth at the core of his plan to improve Britain’s ailing public services against a tight fiscal backdrop that limits his spending firepower.

The tension between the government’s pro-business stance and its budgetary constraints was visible in ministers’ rhetoric during the day.

Starmer pledged to unleash a “shock and awe” wave of investment while his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, gave her clearest signal yet that business taxes will rise at the October 30 Budget.

One official said investors at the event had been sizing up Labour, a centre-left party last in government in 2010: “They were mainly trying to get the measure of us, to see if we really mean what we are saying about being pro-business and pro-growth.”

Some attendees were less charitable. “I think a lot of people are here because they feel obliged, rather than feel enthusiastic,” said one businessperson. 

Executives have become used to jetting into the UK and France for regular summits aimed at attracting corporate leaders. Late last year then-Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak held his own investment conference.

“We only gathered 10 months ago for the same event, and the agenda is almost identical,” the businessperson said. 

Markus Krebber, chief executive of German energy group RWE, said there was a “relevant question” as to whether the UK needed an annual summit. But he added: “You definitely need it when you have a new government . . . You want to hear their long-term vision.”

Krebber said RWE would invest more quickly in the UK if Starmer succeeded in unbunging bureaucracy and reducing planning delays.

The prime minister, who has a huge majority in Westminster and five years before he has to face the electorate again, sought to persuade investors that years of political upheaval in the UK are at an end.

John Caudwell, the billionaire founder of former mobile phone retailer Phones 4U, is among the businesspeople who have been won over by Starmer’s pitch.

Caudwell once donated to ex-Tory prime minister Boris Johnson but publicly backed Labour before the July election. He said the summit showed the government was “definitely on the right trajectory”. 

During the event, ministers hailed £63bn of UK investment pledges by the private sector, much of which had been previously announced.

But another executive cautioned that the government’s progress in the next 100 days would be crucial, after a series of mis-steps in Starmer’s initial three months in office.

“If you want to be successful by the end of your first term, you need to get things going,” they said.

One private equity executive said the investment summit “went fine”, but they wanted to see whether Reeves increased capital gains tax in her October 30 Budget, as well as details of a proposed tax raid on wealthy foreigners living in the UK, who claim tax perks by asserting their domicile is overseas.

“These are the important things and that will be declared by the chancellor in the autumn Budget,” the executive added.

“It is positive, but it is like saying California is open for business. What will the actual policies be?”

One Abu Dhabi fund said it was in a “waiting pattern” regarding new investments into the UK given a “general slowness” from the new government in reviving dealmaking.

The immediate run-up to the summit had highlighted another tension in Starmer’s government: between his outreach to business and Labour’s pro-worker and pro-union roots.

Ahead of the summit, transport secretary Louise Haigh had triggered a row with DP World, the Dubai-based owner of P&O Ferries, the company she suggested boycotting over its controversial firing of 800 staff in 2022. The comments came as Labour rolled out a new package of worker rights.

Starmer publicly distanced himself from the remarks, and DP World pressed ahead with a £1bn investment in an Essex port that was announced as part of the summit.

Starmer business adviser Varun Chandra had called DP World to calm the row, said one government insider.

The event was a mix of past and future. Starmer spoke about artificial intelligence with former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt on a stage built below the 15th century hall’s intricate stained-glass windows. 

The summit ended with an evening reception in St Paul’s Cathedral attended by King Charles.

Sir Elton John came out of retirement for the night to play in the cathedral, while dinner was prepared by three-star Michelin chef Clare Smith. “Sounds like a religious experience,” said one chief executive. 

Additional reporting by Ian Smith, Rachel Millard and Simeon Kerr

GLOBAL investors welcomed the Government’s rallying cry that the UK was “open for business” by pumping £63billion into new infrastructure projects yesterday.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves welcomed the “shovel-ready investments” as around 200 leaders from various sectors descended on Labour’s first International Investment Summit.

3

3

Advertisement

The Government’s pitch at Guildhall in the City of London was that it could promise a stable economy with a more certain regulatory environment.

PM Sir Keir Starmer pledged an end to “chop-change policies and politics”, which several business leaders applauded.

Bruce Flatt, boss of investment giant Brookfield Asset Management and owner of Canary Wharf, said global funds “don’t need capital, what they need is the right environment”.

Larry Fink, chief executive of Blackrock, one of the world’s biggest funds, said: “When money smells opportunity it runs toward it, and it’s the same when it sniffs a problem, it runs away.”

Andrea Rossi, chief executive of M&G, which has £100billion in UK, said: “The key for investment is confidence.”

Sir Keir argued he would rip-up red tape that acted as a barrier to investment.

It came as former Google boss Eric Schmidt told him such bureaucracy was destroying investment, adding: “The cost of capital and the delay is killing you, and furthermore you’re not going to achieve your 2030 energy goal, which is laudable, without fixing this.”

Greg Jackson, boss of Octopus Energy, said his firm had “been forced to invest in other countries because you can’t build stuff here — there needs to be reform of planning to help us build and invest”.

Investments from pharmaceutical group Eli Lilly, Sensodyne-maker HALEON, Manchester Airport, Southern Water investor Macquarie and wind farm giant Iberdrola were all announced.

The Government trumpeted the total was almost double the Conservatives’ previous investment summits.

After a kerfuffle following Louise Haigh’s “cowboy” jibe at P&O, Dubai owner DP World did commit £1billion to the London Gateway port project.

It had originally threatened to pull its investment and not attend the summit.

However, feverish phonecalls between the Government and bosses secured both.

Ms Haig refused media questions yesterday.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the UK “respects business, wants to partner with business and is open for business”.

HOLD ME CLOSER, TINY DAVOS…

THE Government showcased Britain as a shining beacon for investment — as grey, thunderous clouds and downpours greeted international guests on their arrival to the City’s Guildhall yesterday.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves quipped: “You don’t come here for the weather!”

3

After blunders including leaked email addresses, complaints of shoddy organisation and a diplomatic row with DP World, the summit itself needed to be a success.

The looming black clouds, metaphorically speaking, were concerns over changes to National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax and inheritance tax — all of which “is not very pro-business”, one leader said.

Many privately expressed frustration that it was being held two weeks before the Budget.

However, others saw it as an opportunity for some last-minute lobbying.

One tech boss said they had warned the Chancellor against pressing ahead with tax raids on entrepreneurs.

But one chief exec said the so-called “mini-Davos” summit showed that the UK still had the “pull factor”.

To finish off, guests were whisked off to St Paul’s Cathedral on coaches, like a school trip, to be treated to an audience with the King and a surprise private performance by Sir Elton John, who did it for free.

Perhaps Taylor Swift’s diary was full.

REEVES IN BOOKIE TIP

THE Chancellor yesterday said she is “proud” of UK betting firms — after nearly £2billion was wiped off gambling stocks amid fears of a Budget tax raid of £900million to £3billion.

Shares in Ladbrokes owner Entain slid 8 per cent, with drops by William Hill owner Evoke, Mecca Bingo owner Rank and Paddy Power’s Flutter. 

But Rachel Reeves said she backs gambling firms such as Skybet in her Leeds constituency.

PAGE HAS TO TURN TO CUTS

RECRUITER Pagegroup has become the latest firm to sound the alarm about a weakening jobs market.

It posted a 16.7 per cent profits slump to £201.4million in the third quarter and cut its own workforce again by around 100 jobs.

Page said the usual pick-up in business in September didn’t materialise.

It pointed to weaker business confidence delaying hiring decisions.

Last week, rival recruiter Hays also cut jobs as it warned the jobs market remained tough.

PageGroup has cut about 1,000 jobs in the past year.

It said of the recent slowdown that “conversion of interviews to accepted offers remains the most significant challenge, due to reduced levels of client and candidate confidence”.

GET YOUR HAND OFF

THE biggest shareholder in Mulberry has said it has “no interest” in selling up to Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group.

Fraser launched a sweetened £111million takeover approach on Friday for the luxury handbag-maker.

But Mulberry’s biggest investor, the Singaporean family behind Challice LTD, said it was “an inopportune time for Mulberry to be sold”.

Mulberry’s board said it would consider the new bid, but it is unlikely to succeed without Challice’s approval.

THE UK’s fast food scene is set to welcome another American culinary sensation.

We already know that Chick-fil-A and Dave’s Hot Chicken are opening restaurants in 2025, but a new contender is preparing to make its mark on British shores.

1

Tex-Mex brand Velvet Taco will make its UK debut next spring.

As part of a new franchise agreement with Velvet UK, the brand will be opening its first restaurant in Piccadilly Circus, London.

The diner has also confirmed opening more UK sites in the coming years.

The taco brand was first launched in Dallas, Texas, in 2011 and now operates out of nearly 50 restaurants across the US.

The brand’s signature dishes include its spicy tikka chicken taco with tenders, house-made tikka sauce, buttered coriander basmati rice, raita crema, and Thai basil.

Another favourite is the London-inspired fish and chips taco, which includes beer-battered cod, curry aioli, fried vinegar, and Napa slaw.

It also offers a WTF (weekly taco feature), where a new special is featured on the menu each week, along with sides like red curry coconut queso dip and elite guac.

The taco chain is also famed for its double-layered red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting drizzled with house-made cajeta sauce – a slow-cooked Mexican caramel.

The London venue will also serve up the chain’s popular frozen margaritas.

Clay Dover, president and chief executive of Velvet Taco, said: “This is an exciting time for Velvet Taco.

“When I joined the brand, we had just four locations.

“To be a part of not only Velvet Taco’s growth to 50 locations in the U.S. but also our incredible international expansion into London is nothing short of remarkable.

“We’re thrilled to select Piccadilly Circus as our first location, knowing that Velvet Taco will feel right at home in the vibrant, bustling area filled with global influences.

“This growth reflects our commitment to reimagining the humble taco and our dedication to delivering global culinary experiences – now literally on an international scale!”

The opening of the chain’s first UK store is expected to create 40 jobs.

This expansion is part of a broader trend, which has seen several other major US restaurant chains making their way to British shores in recent months.

US FAST FOOD EXPANSION INTO THE UK

American fast food giant Chick-fil-A is crossing the pond and bringing its beloved chicken sandwiches to our high streets next year.

The Sun exclusively revealed the exact locations of their first five permanent UK restaurants.

In July, Dave’s Hot Chicken announced plans to open 60 restaurants across the UK and Ireland.

Popeyes entered the UK market in 2021 and has proved to be a hit with ravenous customers ever since.

In just 30 months, the brand opened over 38 restaurants across the UK.

It has plans to reach the 60-restaurant milestone by the end of 2024.

US burger chain Wendy’s, which already has 31 sites in the UK, will also cut the ribbon on eight new locations this year.

The chain returned to the UK high street in 2021 after a 20-year hiatus.

Wendy’s is most famous for its square-shaped hamburgers, which are designed to maximise the amount of meat in every bite.

Shake Shack, which started out as a hotdog cart, recently opened its first restaurant inside a UK train station.

Brits commuting in St. Pancras International Station can now grab their favourite burgers before jumping onto their train.

The new spot marks the fast food giant’s 16th location in the UK since it was launched in Covent Garden in 2013.

While most of Shake Shack’s UK sites are based in London, bosses have expanded into other locations in recent years, including Essex, Oxford, and Cardiff.

Shake Shack’s humble beginnings trace back to a New York hot dog cart helmed by Randy Garutti.

Wingstop currently operates 39 sites across the UK and will open 15 more in 2024.

Lemon Pepper Holdings, which runs the fast food chain’s UK portfolio, said the move would create up to 750 jobs.

The US hospitality brand said it is its biggest year of expansion since launching Wingstop in the UK six years ago.

Dunkin’ Donuts, which currently has 30 stores in the UK, hopes to open 30 new branches over the next couple of years as part of a major expansion plan.

Dunkin’ Donuts landed in the UK in St John’s in Liverpool in May 2016.

The chain is huge in the US, with almost 9,500 stores spread across the country.

It sells a range of doughnuts, other sweet treats, and hot and cold drinks.