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

AkzoNobel will cut about 2,000 jobs as the owner of Dulux comes under pressure to slash costs and keep up with competitors.

The Dutch paint producer said on Tuesday that it planned to make the cuts, equivalent to more than 5 per cent of its workforce as of this summer, by the end of 2025.

AkzoNobel reported a total workforce of 35,700 in June.

The group last year revealed it had been forced to slash jobs and production in Europe, intensifying concerns about the resilience of European industry as the continent struggled with rising energy costs following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Despite inflation recently easing for peers across the continent, where manufacturers were hit particularly hard by cuts to Russian gas supplies, AkzoNobel warned that it continued to struggle with high costs.

Amsterdam-traded shares in AkzoNobel rose 1 per cent in morning trading, having declined 14 per cent over the past year.

The group, one of the world’s largest paint producers, did not comment on where its latest round of job cuts would be made. But internal communications seen by the Financial Times said the company’s issue included a disproportionately large number of managers as well as high marketing, administrative and research costs compared with similar businesses.

Chief executive Greg Poux-Guillaume said the move would help the business “become more agile in volatile markets and offset headwinds such as rising labour costs”.

AkzoNobel was aiming “to accelerate profitable growth by optimising our functional organisation to become more agile”, he added.

Despite the concerns over profitability, AkzoNobel’s earnings have risen in recent months, with the group reporting that first-half profits before tax rose 27 per cent against a year earlier to €496mn.

The company has said it expects to report adjusted earnings of at least €1.5bn for the full year, an increase over the €1.4bn reported last year.

The job cuts follow a rise in the group’s workforce from 32,800 to 35,700 over the past three years.

They are also being made despite costs falling generally across the Eurozone, where inflation slowed in August to a three-year low of 2.2 per cent. This prompted a quarter percentage point rate cut this month by the European Central Bank, which said labour costs remained high but were “moderating”.

AkzoNobel generates almost half of its revenues in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The group warned in July that operating cost inflation, particularly in wages, was continuing to weigh on its profitability.

Transact has become the first intermediary platform to adopt an electronic Cash Isa transfer service via Pay.UK (BACS) and Equisoft.

This simplifies the transfer process by enabling seamless information exchanges between Transact, banks and building societies, removing the need for paper-based transfers.

Previously, transferring a Cash Isa required sending paper instructions to banks, locating processing teams and manually completing the steps.

With this new service, clients no longer need to wait for cheques, and funds can settle in their accounts faster. The system ensures secure, reliable transfers, adhering to best practices and industry regulations.

Seventy-two leading banks and building societies are now using the service, which automates Cash Isa transfers, including Junior Isas. This is expected to significantly reduce transfer times across the industry.

For example, Transact’s cash/electronic transfers now take an average of nine days, compared to 42 days for manual or in specie transfers.

Transact’s recent survey reveals that 90% of financial advisers support electronic messaging to speed up transfer times, urging regulators to encourage wider adoption by legacy providers.

The platform has seen year-on-year improvements in transfer services, including the creation of regional transfer specialists, the introduction of an online transfer tracker and enhancements to the online transfer application process.

Tom Dunbar, chief development officer at Transact, said: “We are obsessed with trying to improve transfers and this latest development links our commitment to improve transfer times with our digitalisation programme.

“We expect thousands of cash Isa transfers onto Transact to benefit from this new, faster service each year.

“We remain committed to personal service but where automation or integrations can speed up processes, we are keen to adopt new solutions.”

The amount of money invested into Cash Isas in the last tax year increased by 50% compared to 2022-2023.

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The United Arab Emirates’ leader met US President Joe Biden in Washington on Monday to advance artificial intelligence co-operation as the Gulf nation tries to secure easier access to US-made technology.

The meeting comes during Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s first official trip to the US in seven years and underscores his determination to win White House support in his efforts to transform the UAE into an AI leader.

As well as discussing technology and trade, Biden said the UAE would now have “major defense partner” status along with India, to foster greater security ties through measures such as joint military training and exercises.

The UAE is one of the US’s most important allies in the Middle East, but relations have been strained at times in recent years. Talks for a formal security pact with Washington have stalled, and Abu Dhabi was infuriated by what it saw as a lukewarm US response to attacks on the UAE’s capital by Houthi rebels from Yemen in 2022.

Yet AI has brought new energy to the relationship. Oil-rich Abu Dhabi has made AI central to its plan to wean itself off fossil fuel exports and has taken a strategic decision to work with US companies producing cutting-edge technology.

“AI and new changes in cloud computing, etc, are going to change the way the world looks,” Anwar Gargash, Sheikh Mohamed’s diplomatic adviser, said in Dubai last week. “We cannot let this sort of wave of technological breakthroughs pass by us.

“If we believe that hydrocarbon is on the way out, slowly but surely, then we have to replace the revenue stream through something else,” he added. 

However, the US last year added the Gulf states to a list of countries restricted from freely importing cutting-edge US-made AI chips over concerns about technology leaks to China. This means companies have to apply for licences to export the chips, and the process has held up some UAE companies’ AI plans.

The presidents instructed officials to develop a memorandum of understanding on AI co-operation, the next step in formalising the partnership. But they also sketched out several broad areas for collaboration, including supporting bilateral investment and “efficient licensing”.

One person briefed on the UAE’s plans said the Gulf state had wanted to sketch out a “road map” ahead of the upcoming US election “so that progress is locked in . . . whatever president assumes office in January”. 

The person added officials were aiming to get the UAE’s export designation changed so it would be easier to get hold of chips.

Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, which invested $1.5bn in the UAE’s most important AI group G42 in April, told the Financial Times last week that clarity over the export controls was “emerging”, but it had “taken several months to work through”.

Smith added that export applications by Microsoft and other technology companies were not fully complete but were “getting very close”.

In a sign of the UAE’s drive to deepen relationships with US companies, G42 announced last week that it was working with Nvidia, the US company that makes chips critical for AI, on a weather forecasting initiative.

US companies looking to finance expensive AI projects have also welcomed Abu Dhabi’s petrodollars.

MGX, a new Abu Dhabi investment vehicle dedicated to AI, last week announced it was joining asset manager BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners and Microsoft to launch a $30bn fund to invest in data centres and the energy to power them.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and chair of G42, visited Washington in June and has spearheaded the UAE’s efforts to secure US backing for its AI ambitions.

The FT previously reported that OpenAI founder Sam Altman and Sheikh Tahnoon were in discussions to finance an ambitious chipmaking project.

Gargash said Sheikh Tahnoon had “a good understanding of tech”, suggesting this could help the UAE’s negotiations with US officials and executives. “When he sits with somebody like Altman or whatever, he’s really talking his language,” Gargash said.

Sheikh Tahnoon attended the meeting between Biden and Sheikh Mohamed.

Pensions technology provider iPipeline has reported a significant rise in demand for annuities among financial advisers.

In the first half of 2024, annuity quotes increased by 12% compared to the same period in 2023, marking the highest demand since iPipeline began tracking in 2013.

This follows a record 60% year-on-year rise in adviser annuity comparisons on its platform in 2023.

iPipeline’s annuities portal now accounts for 25% of all quotes in the UK retirement market.

The company’s November 2023 ‘Building a Better Retirement’ report, produced with Retirement Review, revealed that the average UK saver aged 40 to 66 targets a pension pot of £223,503, yet many fall short.

The average total value of personal pension pots is £167,891, with 23% of savers holding less than £50,000, and 37% having no savings target at all.

The findings highlight the growing importance of annuities in retirement planning.

Greg Neall, chartered financial planner at Wake up your Wealth, said: “This clearly shows a continued return to the annuity market by advisers, which comes as no surprise as annuity rates for those in their mid to late sixties are comparable to sustainable drawdown rates.

“If this higher interest rate environment persists, I believe the rates of annuity quotes will continue to increase particularly for those investors over 70 who have deferred taking their pension pots or have used a drawdown to transition towards a secure income later.”

Paul Yates, product strategy director at iPipeline, said: “We’ve seen advisers are searching for annuities during a time of higher interest rates. We assume, that now rates have started to fall and may continue to do so, these annuity numbers will start to slowly reduce.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the second half of the year (especially with the current market volatility levels). We are unlikely to see a return to interest rates under 1% again, so annuities should remain a key part of an adviser’s retirement toolkit, especially for older retirees who need income guarantees.

“We would also expect to see growth as the number of people with drawdown pots increases and as the age profile of holders grows.

“At the same time, we have a new government that could start to make major changes, and that may impact the way we save for, and spend in, retirement.”

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

Shares in Raspberry Pi jumped on Tuesday after the UK computer maker reported higher than expected profits in its first earnings report since its debut on the London Stock Exchange in June.

The Cambridge-based company, which makes small, low-cost computers, said sales volumes were slightly lower than expected but weighted towards higher-margin products, boosting profits.

Shares rose 8 per cent to 376p. They floated at 280p in June.

Raspberry Pi’s initial public offering, at a valuation of £542mn, was seen as a rare victory for the London market, which has been struggling to attract listings particularly from technology companies, which generally prefer New York.

The company reported a gross profit of $34.2mn in the first six months of 2024, higher than internal forecasts and a 47 per cent increase on the same period in 2023. Revenue for the period was $144mn, up from $89.3mn last year. It kept its full-year outlook unchanged.

Raspberry Pi began selling its products to the public in 2012. It was set up under the auspices of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, a UK charity founded in 2008 to promote computing to young people.

The company said the £178.9mn raised in the IPO would be used to fund engineering projects, with new product releases scheduled before the end of 2024.

Its listing was seen as a boost for the London stock market at a time when the listings market had been very quiet and with technology companies generally seeking to access deeper capital markets and higher valuations in the US.

Cambridge-based chipmaker Arm, one of Raspberry Pi’s shareholders, listed in New York for a $52bn valuation in September 2023.

Raspberry Pi’s chief executive Eben Upton told the Financial Times in June that there was too much gloom about the prospects of the UK stock market. “Many of the stories that people tell about the differences between the US and the UK — particularly this sort of magical [high valuations] — don’t seem to be real,” he said.

Fundment has launched a cash Isa and cash Lifetime Isa, backed by a fully digital cash investment system.

It has partnered with Investec Bank to offer a 12-month fixed rate deposit within its cash Isa and cash Lifetime Isa options, with plans to expand cash investment choices in the future.

This follows the July launch of the Fundment stocks and shares Lifetime Isa (Lisa) and addresses growing adviser and client demand for cash options.

Fundment founder and chief executive Ola Abdul said: “We’re expanding our Isa range in line with adviser demand.

“This move, coupled with the full digitisation of our underlying cash investment functionality, demonstrates our commitment to providing advisers with the tools they need to serve their clients effectively.”

The platform has also fully digitised its cash investment process, streamlining operations for advisers.

From digital account opening and client approval to automated payments of fees, income, and dividends, the process is intuitive and designed to save time, allowing advisers to focus on delivering value to their clients.

Investec head of funding partnerships David Hunt said: “Our collaboration with Fundment aligns perfectly with our commitment to tech-driven, digitally-enabled financial solutions.

“By leveraging our API, Fundment has created a frictionless experience for advisers and their clients.”

Beyond the 12-month FRD in cash Isas and cash Lisas, Fundment offers fixed term deposits within pension and general investment wrappers.

These Investec Bank products are available in three-, six-, 12-, and 24-month terms.