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

Israeli troops and Hizbollah fighters clashed near the Lebanese border in the early hours of Wednesday, a day after Israel carried out one of its largest waves of air strikes on southern Lebanon since the conflict erupted a year ago.

Israeli air strikes pounded targets across Lebanon on Tuesday and overnight, including in southern Beirut, as its invading ground forces attempted to push into the south of the country and fought battles with Hizbollah fighters embedded in the rugged terrain.

Videos shared on social media showed soldiers raising the Israeli flag in the border village of Maroun al-Ras where fighting had taken place in recent days. It is not clear if the Israeli troops remain there. Hizbollah said it had fired rockets at soldiers south of the village on Wednesday.

The Iran-backed militant group said overnight that its fighters had confronted Israeli troops trying to “infiltrate” the border village of Blida after targeting them with an explosive device. Hizbollah also said its militants fired rockets and artillery shells, forcing the retreat of Israel Defense Forces trying to advance near Labbouneh in the south-west.

Israel said at least three soldiers were wounded in the fighting this week, as its ground offensive swelled to four combat divisions — as many as 20,000 troops at maximum strength. The Israeli army is breaching the border in at least four locations after launching its invasion last week, with each division probably supporting each point of entry, an Israeli official said, declining to provide more details.

While much of the direct fighting between Israeli troops and Hizbollah fighters continues to be limited to an area close to the border, the Israeli air force has carried out a large series of co-ordinated air strikes concentrating on southern Lebanon but extending into the Bekaa Valley, the IDF said.

Hizbollah has responded by firing projectiles into northern Israel and as far south as Haifa, a commercial and cultural hub. A handful of rockets were also launched towards Tel Aviv this week.

The IDF said it had tracked 180 “projectiles” crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory through late Tuesday night, including a major barrage at Haifa during a defiant video address by Hizbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem, who said the group’s military capabilities remained intact despite Israel’s escalating offensive in recent weeks.

Israeli bombardment has decimated the command structure of the group, including killing Hassan Nasrallah, its top leader.

The air strikes on Tuesday were the second-largest wave of attacks since Israel dramatically intensified its air campaign against Hizbollah in Lebanon late last month, two Israeli officials said, as it focuses on a large bank of targets identified by military intelligence.

That wave of bombings, which began around September 20, eventually included nearly 5,000 air strikes over several days, according to a Financial Times tally.

Israeli strikes have killed more than 2,100 people over the past year and forced about 1.2mn from their homes, mostly in the past two weeks, according to Lebanese authorities.

Tuesday’s bombings were aimed at more than 125 “significant targets”, the IDF said. Dozens of underground structures for at least three Hizbollah military units were destroyed — killing at least 50 Hizbollah operatives — as were 30 different locations involving Hizbollah rockets, the IDF said.

Israel has said its Lebanon offensive is aimed at securing its northern border area to allow about 60,000 Israelis to return to their homes, after a year of exchanging cross-border fire with Hizbollah. The Lebanese group had started firing rockets towards Israel in support of Gaza a day after the October 7 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.

IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said late on Tuesday after the air strikes had mostly concluded that the Hizbollah fighters killed had been trained to infiltrate the border to “murder and abduct Israeli civilians”.

MARTIN Lewis has issued a warning to millions of households who could slash their energy bills.

Last week, the energy price cap jumped from £1,568 to £1,717 a year.

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This means that bills have risen by 10%, and the average household bill is up by more than £12 a month, or £149 a year.

However, Martin Lewis said: “Last week, the energy pants price cap, which dictates the rate eight in 10 homes in Eng, Scotland and Wales pay, rose by 10%

“Yet, for now, the deals you can compare and switch to are far cheaper.

“That’s why last week I called the current cap a pants cap, as, stay on it, and you’ll miss out on savings.”

Around 28million households are on standard variable tariffs, which are affected by the price cap, according to Ofgem.

However, there are several fixed energy deals that beat these tariffs.

The founder of MoneySavingExpert.com said: “A fix gives you peace of mind that the rate won’t change for a set time.

“Currently, a host of one-year fixes hugely undercut the price cap.

“Yet world turmoil has hit oil prices, and there’s potential knock-on to energy prices, so we’ve already seen three of last week’s cheapest fixes pulled and replaced with more expensive ones.”

EDF Energy also pulled the cheapest fixed deal on the market on Monday.

Those who signed up for the Essentials Fixed 1Yr Oct25v3 tariff were promised savings of £163 a year.

As a result, Martin added: “So for the short term, the mood music seems to say fixing ASAP is the safest route.”

The cheapest fixed deal available right now can still save the average household £162 a year.

How do fixed deals work?

Fixed deals work to protect customers from bill hikes if Ofgem were to increase the price cap in the future.

Customers on their supplier’s standard variable tariff see their energy prices change every three months, as these are tied to Ofgem’s price cap.

However, those who lock into a fixed energy deal are charged the same gas and electricity rates throughout the contract’s term.

Of course, doing so carries a slight risk of you paying more than those on the standard variable tariff if Ofgem’s energy price cap were to fall within your deal’s term.

The price cap is reviewed every three months in Oct, Jan, April and July, and can go up or down depending on what’s happening in the wholesale energy market.

Since October 1, those on the standard variable tariff (SVT) have had their rates capped by Ofgem at the following levels:

• 5.48p per kilowatt hour (p/kWh) for gas
• 22.36p per kWh for electricity
• A standing charge of 31.66p per day for gas
• A standing charge of 60.99p per day for electricity
• For a typical household that uses an average of 11,500kWh of gas and 2,700kWh of electricity every year, these rates will cap bills at roughly £1,717 .

As this is only an estimate for a typical household, if you use more energy, you’ll pay more.

But if you’re offered a fix that’s cheaper than October’s price cap, it’s always worth considering.

Which suppliers are offering the best-fixed deals?

Outfox the Market is currently offering the cheapest deal on the open market right now.

Its Fix’d Dual Oct24 v5.0 tariff costs a typical household £1,555 a year.

This means it is £162 cheaper than Ofgem’s October price cap.

It comes with a £25 exit fee per fuel or £50 if you lock in with a dual fuel tariff.

British Gas‘ The Fixed Tariff v5 tariff matches the Outfox the Market deal, but it comes with a £50 exit dee per fuel.

Octopus Energy’s 12M Fixed October 2024 v1 costs £1,566 a year – £151 less than Ofgem’s October price cap.

This deal also comes with no exit fees, so customers can ditch and switch suppliers at any time.

Remember to always compare prices before switching, as energy tariffs vary widely, and costs differ depending on where you live.

Outfox the Market, Ovo Energy and British Gas fixes are available to those with or without a smart meter.

What are the alternatives?

Customers unwilling to commit to long-term fixed energy deals may want to consider flexible tariffs.

Kara Gammell, personal finance expert at comparison site Money Supermarket Group, says: “These will almost always be at or below the price cap.”

For example, E.ON Next‘s Pledge variable tariff offers a fixed discount of around three per cent on the price cap rates for 12 months.

It will save the average household around £50 a year but comes with a £50 exit fee if you switch before the year ends.

The deal is available to both new and existing customers.

EDF Energy’s Ensure Tracker works in a similar way and offers a £50 discount off the price cap’s standing charges for 12 months.

For a bigger reward but at a higher risk, Octopus Energy offers two variable tariffs which track wholesale gas and electricity costs.

Customers on the Octopus Tracker see their prices change daily, but unit rates have remained consistently lower than the price cap in recent months.

The Agile Octopus tariff works similarly to the Octopus Tracker, but the main difference is that the former’s prices change every half hour.

Remember that those wishing to switch to any of these tracker tariffs must have a smart meter.

You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player

So, Susannah, what problem are we mulling over today?

Can we solve our overfishing problem and sustainably satisfy the world’s hunger for fish? According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation, or the FAO, in 2020 the International Trade of Fisheries and Aquaculture Products was worth around $150bn. But the FAO now classifies a third of the world’s fishery stocks as overfished, which means they’re being fished beyond sustainable levels.

So what can be done to combat overfishing? Firstly, fishing subsidies which incentivise overfishing are a huge problem. Now, these are subsidies from governments for things such as fuel, fishing gear, and new vessels. An academic study from 2019 estimated that these government payouts to the fishing industry totalled around $22.2bn.

There has been some progress in limiting subsidies, especially those that end up supporting unregulated fishing. In June 2022, the World Trade Organisation agreement on fishery subsidies was signed. The goal in mind is to prohibit subsidy support for illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing, and limiting fishing of overfished stocks. But it’s only due to come into force when two-thirds of WTO members ratify it. That means that 110 countries have to ratify it. But as of the 1st of July of this year, only 78 countries have done so.

So what other measures could we be looking at? Firstly, we could be doing more to protect essential predator species. For example, it’s estimated by the WWF that one third of shark species face extinction. Predator species like sharks play a crucial role in the ocean ecosystem and food chain.

Next, to avoid bycatch, the FAO has suggested placing the top end of fishing nets two metres lower in the water. Now, this has been shown to effectively reduce the mortality of marine mammal bycatch by 98 per cent in places like the Indian Ocean. Finally, the growth of aquaculture, which is fish farmed in pens or ponds, could ease some of the pressure on wild stocks.

Today, more than 50 per cent of the fish that we eat is farmed. Of course, these measures that I’ve been speaking about come with their own challenges. If we take aquaculture, for example, critics say aquaculture’s practises for sourcing feed harm food security in poorer countries. That’s because it hoovers up small species of fish, which the local communities rely on for food in order to make fishmeal for the aquaculture farms.

Another huge challenge facing authorities is simply the sheer number of fishing boats in the world, many of which are unregulated. Now, according to the FAO, illegal or unregulated fishing accounts for some 20 per cent of what’s caught, or around 26mn tonnes of fish every year. Regulating fisheries has always been a highly political issue. But no matter how difficult the problem of overfishing is to solve, it cannot be ignored.

If there’s one thing that consistently worries the financial advice sector, it’s the looming capacity crunch.

The statistics are well known: a recent Investec survey found 49% of financial advisers and planners intended to retire within the next five years, while 35% aimed to retire by age 50. And this is only the latest in a long line of such findings.

So, why aren’t these numbers being replaced? Again, it’s a familiar story: in some cases, young people see financial advice as not relevant to them, as something “stuffy and old-fashioned”, in the words of the LIBF’s John Somerville.

These initiatives are a great starting point, but they should act as a spur for a much bigger push

Others may feel, incorrectly, that they lack the necessary skills. Or they are put off by the routes to qualification, seeing them as arduous and expensive. Or the advice firms themselves are reluctant to invest in new talent.

But the overwhelming problem is a lack of awareness. According to the CII’s Claire Bishop, “Often, it’s just not something that’s on the radar of people at school, university or college.” The same is true for careers advisers.

This is despite the opportunities financial advice offers in terms of role diversity, opportunity, location, salary and self-employment. It is a sector that suits a wide range of talent and abilities; as Bishop puts it: “There’s an assumption that it’s all about maths. And it’s not. It’s about helping people and understanding people.”

All of the schemes agree that collaboration is vital

And, while no one would describe it as an easy profession, research last year by Dynamic Planner revealed that nine in 10 advisers under 30 would recommend financial advice as a career. There aren’t many other professions that could make that claim.

So, it’s time the sector pulled together and did more to promote itself. If financial advice is so rewarding, why don’t more people know about it? And, if everyone in the profession is agreed that we have a problem, why not collaborate more on the solutions?

Fortunately, there are plenty of initiatives out there that are doing just that. This month’s cover feature highlights four of them: CII’s virtual work-experience programme with Springpod; the New Talent Alliance; The Verve Foundation’s ‘We Are Change’ initiative; and Future Financial Adviser.

In some cases, young people see financial advice as not relevant to them, as something stuffy and old-fashioned

All of these are promoting opportunities to young people and assisting them on their journey. All of them are helping to push financial advice into the spotlight. And all of them agree that collaboration is vital.

However, we need to do more. These initiatives are a great starting point, but they should act as a spur for a much bigger push.

So, if you know of a project that is addressing the adviser gap, or you have any thoughts that aren’t addressed in our feature, we’d love to hear from you!

Tom Browne is editor of Money Marketing. Contact him at: tom.browne@moneymarketing.co.uk

This article featured in the October 2024 edition of Money Marketing. 

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

It’s no secret that Gulf autocrats control serious cheddar. A (paywalled) report out this month attempts to estimate quite how much.

Totting up the available numbers, Global SWF reckon the Gulf Cooperation Council’s ruling families control around $6.8 trillion of assets. That’s two whole Apples! Click through the chart below to see how this breaks down by state, category and fund:

What do these funds even do with $6.8 trillion? It turns out, at least four things.

First, they diversify their economies beyond the expected life of the reservoir of hydrocarbons upon which the region floats.

Second, they project soft power internationally. Think football, golf, media, universities, maybe even the capture of international professional elites through butlering gigs.

Third, buy garish bling and stroke rulers’ giant egos.

Lastly, they own pretty much everything in touching distance. According to the report, Gulf SWFs own every one of their national champions across every major industry. State capitalism at its most obvious (high-res here):

But it’s not just champions. They also own most of all stocks listed in GCC.

The report’s authors combed through the share registers of each of the 877 companies listed in the region and found that 68 per cent of the Abu Dhabi market cap is owned by local SWFs and royal family offices. In Saudi, a full 77 per cent of the market is owned by PIF and the state. For the GCC overall, 70 per cent of market capitalisation is ultimately state-owned.

Admittedly, much of this is owing to the outsized prominence of the Saudi market in the region, and the outsized prominence of the almost wholly state-owned Aramco. But still:

Hang on, is this a chance for another marimekko moment?!

Despite owning so much of their listed markets, GCC authorities have still made some efforts to get outsiders interested in their stocks. These efforts have had mixed results.

Norway’s $1.7 trillion mega-SWF NBIM divested all its Saudi stocks in 2021. And Norway’s largest domestic pension fund KLP dumped GCC stocks on human rights concerns in 2023. Sweden’s giant pension fund AP7 blacklisted Saudi Aramco — which makes up around a quarter of the region’s market cap — at the start of the year, although this didn’t stop Saudi from selling $11.2bn of stock over the summer, albeit at the bottom end of the range and at a 6 per cent discount to the market. And despite its phenomenal share price growth, IHC (which constitutes around a third of Abu Dhabi’s ADX exchange market cap) mostly just perplexes international investors.

But passive investors? They’re much more enthused. Or, at least, they’ve found their money poured into the region following choices made by the index providers to whom they’ve outsourced investment decision-making. MSCI’s decision to include UAE and Qatar (in 2014), Saudi (in 2019), and Kuwait (in 2020) to its indices has meant anyone committing cash to a MSCI EM or MSCI ACWI tracker fund is buying stocks in the region.

The BIS noted that MSCI and FTSE’s admission of Saudi stocks to their indices in 2019 coincided with foreign equity flows into the country that exceeded those heading to India and China. And MSCI themselves calculate that foreign investment in Saudi stocks has more than quadrupled from $23.5bn to $97.5bn since their index inclusion decision was made.

Somewhat unusually, the study includes Royal Private Offices — a category of state-controlled assets we haven’t seen analysed before. These account for a cool $0.5tn, or about half a Berkshire Hathaway, which sounds maybe less impressive. Almost $350bnof these assets are run for the UAE’s ruling Al Nahyan family alone. But as the authors note:

This group of entities, led by Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group and all its subsidiaries, is even more opaque than SWFs … links to the royal families can make the boundaries between SWFs and RPOs blurry at times.

Given that GCC states are overwhelmingly absolute monarchies, it’s probably not worth getting too hung up over the distinction.