House prices across the country are rising in England and Wales overall for the first time in two years, according to a survey.

Property professionals reported prices increasing in September, the first positive reading since October 2022. Demand, sales and new listings all grew in September, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said.

The survey reported demand from buyers rose in September and sales increased, with many expecting further rises in the next three months and 45 per cent predicting an increase over the next 12 months. Just over a fifth (22 per cent) of professionals reported a rise in new listings.

The positive outlook for homebuyers was contrasted by a bleak outlook for renters with demand continuing to grow and outstrip supply. September saw 22 per cent of respondents showing growing demand, but a further drop in properties listed for rent, with a 29 per cent retreat. 

RICS says this trend is further influenced by some landlords listing their properties for sale before potential Capital Gains Tax rises. Unfortunately for renters, the continuing squeeze on supply will likely mean further rent rises and difficulties finding property.

Tarrant Parsons, of RICS, said: “The latest survey results convey a brighter picture for housing market activity, with the recent easing in mortgage interest rates continuing to support a recovery in buyer demand.

“Critical for the outlook, a further unwinding in monetary policy is anticipated, which should create a more favourable backdrop for the market.”

Growing demand for rental properties and limited supply of homes to rent is likely to put still more pressure on tenants.

Tina Paillet, President of RICS, said: “The survey results continue to highlight the pressures on renters, with demand consistently outstripping supply.

“While the Renters’ Rights Bill aims to improve standards and offer better protections for tenants, we must ensure that these reforms do not discourage responsible landlords from remaining in the market.

“Most importantly, the planned changes in the private rental sector fall short of tackling the core issue: increasing supply and making housing more affordable for tenants.”

Private rents rose 8.4 per cent in the year to August, with tenants typically paying £1,286 a
month, according to the Office for National Statistics. Rents in London rose by 9.6 per cent.

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Chinese stocks rose on Thursday in volatile trading ahead of a weekend press briefing from the country’s finance minister, as the central bank launched a facility to make it easier to buy shares.

The benchmark CSI 300 index rose almost 3 per cent on Thursday after closing down 7 per cent on Wednesday in its first loss in 11 consecutive sessions. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 4.2 per cent after posting its worst daily loss since 2008 on Tuesday and falling further on Wednesday.

The CSI 300 has surged by more than 30 per cent since late September after the Chinese government unveiled a stimulus package to revive economic confidence. The rally started to fade this week as investors began to question the government’s plan to boost the economy and its capital markets.

“Buy everything China-related was what we observed over the past two weeks,” said Richard Tang, China strategist and head of research Hong Kong at Julius Baer.

After a few days of heavy profit-taking, Tsang said the offshore market was moving on to a second phase of the rally, “which features slower gains, higher volatility but with the basics — earnings and valuations — back in focus.”

Thursday’s rebound came a day after Beijing announced a Saturday press briefing with finance minister Lan Fo’an, fuelling expectations that the government would announce more stimulus measures.

“The market is certainly looking for hints of more policy support coming”, said Jason Lui, head of Asia-Pacific equities and derivatives strategy at BNP Paribas.

China’s central bank moved forward on Thursday with a scheme to enable domestic financial companies to buy more stocks, a tool designed to stabilise the market and shore up liquidity.

The facility allows non-bank financial companies to borrow from the People’s Bank of China to buy equities, with bonds, stocks or exchange traded funds serving as collateral.

The bank said it was accepting applications from eligible securities groups, funds and insurance companies to pledge ETFs, bonds or constituent shares of the CSI 300 index for more liquid assets such as sovereign bonds and central bank notes.

The funds had to be invested in th stock market, the PBoC has said.

The size of the Rmb500bn ($70bn) tool “can by expanded depending on market conditions”, said the bank. The mechanism is designed to “enhance the inherent stability” and “promote healthy development” of the capital markets, it said.

Experts said the tool was similar to the US Federal Reserve’s Term Securities Lending Facility, which allowed dealers to borrow liquid assets such as Treasuries for financing by pledging illiquid collateral such as corporate bonds.

It was created during the 2008 financial crisis and revived in 2020 during the pandemic.

One major potential private credit deal to start: HPS Investment Partners is talking to potential buyers, including BlackRock, as the top leadership of the private credit firm looks towards a deal that could value the business at more than $10bn, according to people familiar with the process.

And an obituary: Ratan Tata, who was one of India’s best known businesspeople and led his family conglomerate on a bold international expansion, has died aged 86.

In today’s newsletter:

• US weighs splitting up a tech giant

• Rio Tinto revs up its battery business

• OpenAI’s new model to fend off hostile takeovers

Has the end of US monopolies arrived?

It’s no secret that antitrust regulators in the US have ramped up their scrutiny in the past few years. They’ve gone after (with varying success) Microsoft’s bid for Activision Blizzard, Coach owner Tapestry’s proposed tie-up with Capri and just last month, Visa.

But one company has borne the brunt of regulators’ ire: Alphabet’s Google. Now the Department of Justice is ratcheting up the stakes.

This week, the agency said it was considering asking a judge to break up the tech giant to end its monopoly in online search. If it does pursue a split, the enforcement action would be the boldest effort in more than two decades to rein in a tech giant, since it (unsuccessfully) tried to split up Microsoft in 2000.

This isn’t the DoJ’s first time attempting to break up a conglomerate in recent months. In May, the agency said Ticketmaster’s parent, Live Nation Entertainment, “suffocates its competition”.

It was blunt: “It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster”, US attorney-general Merrick Garland said at the time.

Now the DoJ is pivoting its sights to Google, the FT’s Stefania Palma and Stephen Morris report. The agency laid out its case on Tuesday in a court document that detailed the sanctions it might seek from Amit Mehta, the judge presiding over the case in Washington, DC.

A smaller Google would have tremendous implications for not just the business of online search, but also the broader corporate world. Alphabet accounts for more than 4 per cent of the S&P 500 stock market index.

The DoJ weighing a split-up shows how far the government is willing to go to shift the balance of corporate power, the FT’s Elaine Moore writes. If these big antitrust fights start to yield results, the US tech industry will start to look very different. Big Tech could become Medium Tech.

Google was quick to respond with its own press release on Wednesday. It wasn’t pleased.

“Government over-reach in a fast-moving industry may have negative unintended consequences for American innovation and America’s consumers,” the company wrote. “We look forward to making our arguments in court.”

However, even if the DoJ gets Mehta’s backing to break up the company, change is not imminent. Google has vowed to appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court, a process that could take years.

Mining giant Rio Tinto repositions for EVs

Mining companies all over the world have come to realise future growth lies in producing the materials needed for electric vehicles.

Rio Tinto is making inroads into that market with a $6.7bn cash deal for Arcadium Lithium, in what is the biggest-ever lithium acquisition. It will catapult Rio Tinto to becoming the third-largest producer, the FT’s Leslie Hook writes.

Even though lithium prices have plummeted recently, the group is paying $5.85 per share — a 90 per cent premium to Arcadium’s closing price on October 4 — for the company.

“What we are doing today is saying: we are committed to lithium,” Rio’s chief executive Jakob Stausholm said in an interview. The deal was “not transformative in terms of size, but it is more transformative in terms of how it shapes our portfolio”, he added.

The deal isn’t a bargain, Lex writes. Timing M&A with volatile metals markets can be tricky. Memories of Rio Tinto’s disastrous $38bn takeover of Canadian aluminium group Alcan in 2007 still loom large, and Arcadium is its biggest acquisition since.

Lithium’s price has dropped 55 per cent in China in the past year, largely because of a glut in the market and lower than expected demand from EVs. The acquisition will add to Rio Tinto’s array of major production lines, which include copper, aluminium and iron ore.

Some are sceptical of the sticker price. Richard Hatch, analyst at Berenberg, said the deal was “sensible” but that the price would “raise eyebrows”.

Now, the question is whether the deal can get past Arcadium’s shareholders. At least one, Blackwattle, has come out against the proposed tie-up, saying the company should consider walking.

OpenAI: public benefit meets poison pill

“Dear ChatGPT: Is there a way to fend off unwanted investors and look cool doing it?”

For Sam Altman’s OpenAI, the answer might be yes.

OpenAI is considering transitioning to a public benefit corporation, a new and largely untested corporate structure, which legally requires a company to consider the shareholders’ interests as much as other stakeholders, such as employees or society.

As the FT’s Cristina Criddle and Patrick Temple-West report, a PBC’s multipronged requirement gives OpenAI power to say “go away” to an aggressive investor that might want to squeeze more profits out of the company.

Notably, AI rivals Anthropic and Elon Musk’s xAI are already PBCs.

In 2020, Delaware revised its PBC rules to encourage more businesses to adopt the structure. During the 2021 stock market mania, several companies went public as PBCs, including Allbirds, Coursera and Warby Parker. Most of the public PBC companies are young, consumer discretionary businesses eager to look hip with their customers.

So the PBC model also gives businesses a bit of a marketing boost. That could be handy if AI executives are hauled before Congress to testify. A legally required social benefit might spare AI executives some heat as they are already under fire from Senator Elizabeth Warren and others over safety concerns.

It’s been decades since Martin Lipton, co-founder of New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, invented the poison pill shareholder defence to fend off activists.

Now, with the AI companies, cutting-edge technology is combining with cutting-edge corporate governance to churn out whole new corporate playbooks.

Job moves

• I Squared Capital has hired Guillaume Pepy as a senior policy adviser. He was previously the chief executive of French national rail group SNCF.

• Match Group has appointed Steven Bailey to replace Gary Swidler as the company’s chief financial officer starting in March. Bailey has been the company’s senior vice-president for financial planning and business operations since 2022.

Smart reads

Mittelstand shrugs While Berlin has expressed stiff opposition to a potential bid by UniCredit to buy Commerzbank, Germany’s family-owned businesses aren’t sure it would be such a bad thing, the FT reports.

Thwarting a takeover Alimentation Couche-Tard has come back to 7-Eleven with a higher offer worth about $47bn, the FT reports. Can the beloved convenience store chain mount a tougher defence?

Changing of the guard As Credit Suisse collapsed, Apollo Global Management seized on the opportunity to snatch Atlas SP Partners, one of the firm’s most lucrative businesses, Bloomberg reveals. The tie-up hasn’t been so seamless.

News round-up

Seven & i shares jump after Couche-Tard says it is ready to pay $47bn (FT)

Europastry’s ‘frozen croissant’ IPO delayed a second time (FT)

Boeing withdraws pay offer to striking factory workers (FT)

KPMG US chief calls for urgent reform to halt slide in accounting ranks (FT)

China’s AI start-ups race to crack US market (FT)

Hays Travel hunts for deals to expand presence on UK high street (FT)

Hurricane Milton could cost $60bn in insurance losses (FT)

Donald Trump’s latest boast about his crowd size fell apart in a hurry as he was fact-checked in real-time while he was still speaking.

“We do a lot of these beautiful rallies, and it’s so great,” the former president said in Reading, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday. “We never have an empty seat, never have, look at it.”

Just one problem: While the sections closest to the stage were packed with MAGA faithful, there were plenty of empty seats toward the back of the venue ― and observers began sharing images of them on social media almost immediately.

An Associated Press photo also shows some of the empty seats:

NewsNation’s Libbey Dean shared footage of empty seats:

Columnist Dana Milbank also tweeted footage and images from the event showing the empty seats that Trump insisted he never has:

NBC’s Jake Traylor wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the empty seats were “notable and unusual” for a Trump rally.

However, it’s also becoming increasingly common as observers at Trump’s rallies have noted both empty seats and people departing early, often while he’s carrying on about sharks, windmills and Hannibal Lecter.

His Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, also brought it up at their debate last month.

“He talks about fictional characters, like Hannibal Lecter. He will talk about how windmills cause cancer,” she said. “What you will also notice is that people start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom.”

The comment triggered Trump, who erupted over it during the debate and has been bringing it up ever since.

During his event in Reading, Trump bragged that he had 100,000 people in attendance in Butler, Pennsylvania, over the weekend, a number that is more than quadruple the estimate of about 24,000 from CBS station KDKA.

The capacity of Santander Arena in Reading, where Trump spoke Wednesday, is between 7,200 and 8,800, depending on the configuration.

Trump’s critics on social media fired back at Trump’s boast of “never” having an empty seat: