Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Economists are rarely ever unanimous. But one matter on which they almost all agree is the need for carbon pricing. Their support is paying off. The principle that polluters should pay is in increasing force around the world. In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the head of the World Trade Organization, said that globally there were 78 different carbon pricing and taxation mechanisms. They cover close to one-quarter of international emissions, up from just 5 per cent in 2010, according to the World Bank.
The expansion of carbon pricing policies is welcome. They provide an incentive for polluters to shift to cleaner energy sources and to invest in green technology and efficiency. Emissions covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System — which combines a cap on emissions with a mechanism to trade allowances — have fallen by close to 40 per cent since 2005. China is looking to expand its ETS; Turkey and Brazil plan to introduce one, too. But as more nations place a price on their carbon emissions, whether through taxes, trading schemes or indirectly via regulation, global trading tensions are also rising.
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The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism, launched last year, is a case in point. Eventually it will require exporters to the bloc, who pay lower or no carbon prices at home, to pay a levy linked to the EU’s carbon price. The idea is to level the playing field for European manufacturers that pay the ETS. But it is already triggering complaints from trading partners — in particular, that it burdens poorer nations with additional costs and administration. Countries could levy equivalent carbon taxes at home, to avoid the border charges, but they struggle to do so politically, or think it is unfair they should have to.
Okonjo-Iweala says the answer is a global carbon price. That is logical. Aligning carbon price regimes would reduce trade frictions, and alleviate concerns around arbitrage, where heavy emitters move to areas with lower prices. Reaching an agreement on prices, let alone regulatory equivalence, at an international level, however, will not be easy — or fast. And given signs that the world is warming faster than expected, carbon prices swiftly need to grow wider, and higher.
There is a way forward. First, more governments should realise that hesitancy over carbon pricing is increasingly futile. The world is shifting away from fossil fuels, and green subsidies are expensive. Politicians can build support at home by using revenues from carbon taxes to cushion their impact, reduce debt, or raise public investment. Income from carbon pricing schemes globally surpassed $100bn last year, a record.
Second, as more countries adopt their own carbon pricing, trade distortions and threats to competitiveness will ease. Indeed, the potential additional cost of trading with the EU, has jolted others into action. Given its prominence in global trade, expanding the bloc’s CBAM to more industries, will in turn help widen the scope of carbon pricing elsewhere. The US is now exploring carbon pricing on its imports, too.
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Third, however fraught, efforts to synchronise global trade and climate policy should continue. Nations will want to adopt bespoke carbon measures, but over time they can be clubbed together. Multilateral institutions can champion this bottom-up process. That means providing expertise and administrative support to developing nations seeking to develop carbon regimes, and acting as a forum to nudge the biggest economies towards alignment.
Carbon pricing is just one part of the large policy arsenal needed to tackle global climate change. But failing to build on recent momentum would be a missed opportunity.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
“There is currently great danger,” a man wrote two years ago, “that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
It may surprise you to learn that the man in question was Elon Musk, who wrote these words when he bought the social media platform formerly known as Twitter back in October 2022, stressing the need for humanity to have a “common digital town square” that was “warm and welcoming to all”, not a “free-for-all hellscape”.
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And yet . . . and yet.
Repelled by the direction that both the site now called X and its owner have taken, an exodus from the platform is under way. That exodus — oh go on then, Xodus — has been particularly apparent in Britain, having gathered steam since Musk starting posting things like “civil war is inevitable” during the riots that broke out over the summer. Many have left the platform entirely, while others merely lurk. “I have an answer to this, but discussion only on Bluesky these days am afraid [sic],” I saw someone reply on X recently.
Either way, activity has fallen discernibly. Data from Similarweb shows active daily users in the UK have dropped from 8mn a year ago to only around 5.6mn now, with more than a third of that fall coming since the summer riots. The same thing is happening elsewhere, and not just in places where the platform has been banned, such as Brazil. Over the same 16-month period, X’s active users in the US have fallen by about a fifth.
As disillusioned X users become, yes, ex-X-users, they are finding their way on to alternative sites. With Mastodon having proved off-puttingly techy for many, that tends to either be Meta’s Threads app, or Bluesky, the platform that Twitter founder Jack Dorsey helped to start. But while the former is winning in terms of absolute numbers — about 1.4mn daily active users of Threads in the UK, compared with just over 100,000 for Bluesky — it is the latter that has grown the most rapidly over the past six weeks, and that is cementing itself as the top choice for media types, policy wonks, academics and the broader chatterati.
That there is a new place for such people to congregate is all well and good, but the problem is that the chatterati — very nice and non-conspiracy-theorising and non-overtly-racist though they may be — tend to coalesce around some quite similar viewpoints, which makes for a rather echoey chamber. I’m not sure I have ever felt more like I’m at a Stoke Newington drinks party than when I’m browsing Bluesky (including when tucking into Perelló olives and truffle-flavoured Torres crisps in actual N16).
An even more fundamental problem is that nobody on Bluesky seems to actually mind that they are in an echo chamber. When I told a friend, who happens to be an enthusiastic Bluesky user, what I was writing about this week, she replied “oh yes, but it is an echo chamber, that’s what people like about it, it’s lovely”.
Many enthuse about how like “old Twitter” Bluesky is, which is telling in itself: in the old days of Twitter, progressives far outnumbered their conservative counterparts in terms of how much they posted about politics on the platform, but that share has fallen dramatically since Musk took it over. According to the British Election Study, in the run-up to both the 2015 and 2019 elections, about 30 per cent of the most progressive Britons posted about politics on the platform. This year, while the most conservative Britons remained no less likely to post than before, the share of progressives posting on X had halved to 15 per cent; presumably that has since fallen much further, given that this survey preceded the riots.
In many ways this is all fair enough. Many of us use video-first platforms like Instagram and TikTok as procrastination-cum-entertainment; why shouldn’t the text-based social media sites be a place for procrastination-cum-cosy-filter-bubbling? Why not have a place on the internet that you can go and have a nice, civilised chat with someone who shares your worldview without the risk of coming across a load of vile racist content?
It comes down, in the end, to whether or not you believe that the “digital town square” Musk talked about when he bought Twitter can really exist and, if it can, whether it is of any benefit to anyone.
I have previously argued that a “digital town square” is a contradiction in terms — the internet is never going to enable the kind of engagement and understanding that comes from coming up against a real person in all their raw and imperfect humanity.
But while it will always be much messier and more maddening than we might like, I believe such a place is preferable to a series of siloed echo chambers. The irony is that it is the man who warned of the “great danger” of a splintering-off who is most responsible for making that a reality.
Peter Jay, the former economics editor of the BBC, has died aged 87.
At various times, Jay was also economics editor of the Times newspaper, presenter of ITV’s Weekend World, British Ambassador to Washington, launch chairman of TV-am and chief of staff to Robert Maxwell.
In a statement, his family said: “Peter Jay’s family are very sad to announce he died peacefully at home today 22 September aged 87.
“He was a much loved husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin, friend, and colleague.”
Charming, brilliant and arrogant in equal measure, he was famously described at school as ‘the cleverest young man in England.”
Advertisement
“Is there someone cleverer in Wales?” came the retort.
Once tipped as a future world leader by Time magazine, Jay was later installed in splendour as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the US.
But what went up, came crashing down.
His time in Washington was overshadowed by the public disintegration of his marriage. So spectacular was the scandal, it later inspired a Hollywood film.
Advertisement
Getty Images
By the age of 30, Peter Jay had become the economics editor of The Times
Jay was born on 7 February 1937, and enjoyed a glittering start to life.
His father, Douglas, was a Labour cabinet minister and destined for the Lords.
An early proponent of “modernisation” of the party, he argued for ditching its working class image and abandoning nationalisation as early as the 1960s.
His mother, Peggy, was a leading light of the London County Council and described by a local paper as the “uncrowned queen of Hampstead”.
Advertisement
He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford before, like his father and grandfather before him, going on to Winchester.
There, he scooped a host of academic prizes and was, inevitably, made head boy.
After national service in the Royal Navy, his effortless rise continued at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics
Getty Images
Peter Jay and Margaret Callaghan married in 1961
It was at Oxford that he met Margaret, daughter of the future Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan and the couple married in 1961.
Advertisement
Jay secured a job at the Treasury, before being appointed economics editor of the Times.
For a while, he was based in Washington where he became enthralled by the work of a new breed of free-market thinkers, including the Chicago-based economist, Milton Friedman.
Jay used his columns to promote “monetarism” in England. It later became Mrs Thatcher’s guiding economic philosophy but it also influenced his father-in-law.
He even said he wrote parts of Callaghan’s 1976 party conference speech.
Advertisement
“We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession,” the prime minister told a sceptical audience. “I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists.”
Getty Images
Peter and Margaret Jay with their daughter in 1966
He suffered fools badly, and saw his articles as part of a high-minded battle of ideas.
A sub editor once dared to complain that one piece was difficult to understand.
“I only wrote this for three people”, came the lofty reply. “The editor of the Times, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England.”
Advertisement
Jay attempted to follow his father into politics, but failed to be selected as the Labour candidate for Islington South West for the 1970 General Election.
So, he moved into television.
In the 1970s, he presented a news analysis programme called Weekend World for London Weekend Television where he became close friends with the programme’s creator, John Birt.
Together, they launched a savage critique of journalistic standards in TV.
Advertisement
Pictures, they complained, took precedence over analysis – and this “bias against understanding” could only be addressed by bringing in experts and putting them in front of camera.
Later, this “mission to explain” became a central feature of Birt’s time as director general of the BBC.
Rex Features
David Owen’s (right) appointment of Jay (left) as UK ambassador to Washington caused a storm of protest
Jay might have remained a journalist but, in 1977, he was suddenly appointed as British Ambassador to Washington.
With no experience in politics or diplomacy, his appointment was met by furious accusations of nepotism.
Advertisement
James Callaghan faced angry questions in the House of Commons. But the decision had been the Foreign Secretary’s.
David Owen had felt the Jays would charm the incoming Carter administration and – by virtue of their personal friendship – Jay would be loyal in his service.
“Here comes Peter Jay,” was the headline in the Washington Post, “Britain’s brilliant and insufferable new ambassador”.
Jay and Margaret’s two years in Washington were a diplomatic success – but a personal disaster.
Advertisement
By the time an incoming Conservative government called time on Jay’s appointment, Margaret was having an affair with Watergate journalist, Carl Bernstein.
The breakdown of two marriages was immortalised as Heartburn – a thinly-disguised, autobiographical, tragi-comic novel by Bernstein’s wife, Nora Ephron.
It later became a Hollywood film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
The scandals kept coming. Jay was reported to have fathered a son with Jane Tustian, their children’s nanny at the embassy.
Advertisement
The Daily Mail got wind of it, and – angry that he’d left her – Jane told them everything. Jay remained tight-lipped, until a blood test confirmed he was the father.
Getty Images
Margaret Jay and Carl Bernstein’s affair became a scandal
On his return from the US, Jay led the consortium that set up TV-am, which successfully bid for the ITV breakfast television franchise in December 1980.
The launch of the new TV station was beset by highly publicised problems.
He was forced to rush the new broadcaster to air just weeks after the BBC had first broadcast its own early morning TV offering.
Advertisement
The decision to make the new show highbrow and news-heavy was based on a mistaken belief that the BBC would do the same.
In the event, viewers were not ready for a heavyweight agenda over their cornflakes, much preferring the BBC’s lighter magazine style of programme.
TV-am’s viewing figures plunged, and pressure from investors led to a boardroom coup.
Jay was pushed out in March 1983. A fortnight later, to great fanfare, came the first appearance of Roland Rat.
Advertisement
Getty Images
Peter Jay with the stars of TV-am: Robert Kee, Michael Parkinson, Anna Ford, David Frost and Angela Rippon
In 1986, Jay was announced as chief of staff to Maxwell, the flamboyant and later disgraced press and media tycoon.
Maxwell loved calling him “Mr Ambassador”, but subjected him to a barrage of late night phone calls and a daily round of humiliation.
Jay stayed for three-and-a-half years, working for a man he later described as “barbarous” but insisting he managed to shield himself from lasting damage.
“I was surrounded by an invisible glass wall through which (Maxwell) could never penetrate. His manner never got under my skin,” he said.
Advertisement
In the end, an old friend came to the rescue in the shape of Birt, now the BBC’s director general.
Getty Images
Peter Jay later described Robert Maxwell as “barbarous”
During his decade as the broadcaster’s economics editor, Jay reserved his appearances for special occasions.
There was sniping in the press that he was hard to tempt away from his farmhouse in Oxford, where he lived with his second wife, Emma, and their three children.
The highlight of his time at the BBC came with Road to Riches, a landmark series which examined the economic history of mankind.
Advertisement
It gave him space to explore money, a subject that had always fascinated him.
“After sex, money is our second appetite” he once said, and freely admitted he’d gone into television to pay for luxuries, like his precious, private yachts.
Rex Features
Peter Jay photographed towards the end of his time at the BBC
His time at the BBC came to an end in 2001, around the time that Greg Dyke, an incoming director general, reviewed the way the broadcaster explained the economy to its audience.
After that, Jay spent time as a director of the Bank of England, lecturing and doing consulting work before fading gently into retirement
Advertisement
He once described his career as ending in anti-climax, having once been Ambassador to Washington.
But, more often, he presented it as “a chapter of accidents” and “a diverting and enjoyable ramble through life”.
But, no objective observer could describe such a life as a “ramble”.
It was a thrilling, exhausting, white-knuckle ride.
Peter Jay, the former economics editor of the BBC, has died aged 87.
At various times, Jay was also economics editor of the Times newspaper, presenter of ITV’s Weekend World, British Ambassador to Washington, launch chairman of TV-am and chief of staff to Robert Maxwell.
In a statement, his family said: “Peter Jay’s family are very sad to announce he died peacefully at home today 22 September aged 87.
“He was a much loved husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, cousin, friend, and colleague.”
Charming, brilliant and arrogant in equal measure, he was famously described at school as ‘the cleverest young man in England.”
Advertisement
“Is there someone cleverer in Wales?” came the retort.
Once tipped as a future world leader by Time magazine, Jay was later installed in splendour as Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the US.
But what went up, came crashing down.
His time in Washington was overshadowed by the public disintegration of his marriage. So spectacular was the scandal, it later inspired a Hollywood film.
Advertisement
Getty Images
By the age of 30, Peter Jay had become the economics editor of The Times
Jay was born on 7 February 1937, and enjoyed a glittering start to life.
His father, Douglas, was a Labour cabinet minister and destined for the Lords.
An early proponent of “modernisation” of the party, he argued for ditching its working class image and abandoning nationalisation as early as the 1960s.
His mother, Peggy, was a leading light of the London County Council and described by a local paper as the “uncrowned queen of Hampstead”.
Advertisement
He was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford before, like his father and grandfather before him, going on to Winchester.
There, he scooped a host of academic prizes and was, inevitably, made head boy.
After national service in the Royal Navy, his effortless rise continued at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics
Getty Images
Peter Jay and Margaret Callaghan married in 1961
It was at Oxford that he met Margaret, daughter of the future Labour prime minister Jim Callaghan and the couple married in 1961.
Advertisement
Jay secured a job at the Treasury, before being appointed economics editor of the Times.
For a while, he was based in Washington where he became enthralled by the work of a new breed of free-market thinkers, including the Chicago-based economist, Milton Friedman.
Jay used his columns to promote “monetarism” in England. It later became Mrs Thatcher’s guiding economic philosophy but it also influenced his father-in-law.
He even said he wrote parts of Callaghan’s 1976 party conference speech.
Advertisement
“We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession,” the prime minister told a sceptical audience. “I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists.”
Getty Images
Peter and Margaret Jay with their daughter in 1966
He suffered fools badly, and saw his articles as part of a high-minded battle of ideas.
A sub editor once dared to complain that one piece was difficult to understand.
“I only wrote this for three people”, came the lofty reply. “The editor of the Times, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England.”
Advertisement
Jay attempted to follow his father into politics, but failed to be selected as the Labour candidate for Islington South West for the 1970 General Election.
So, he moved into television.
In the 1970s, he presented a news analysis programme called Weekend World for London Weekend Television where he became close friends with the programme’s creator, John Birt.
Together, they launched a savage critique of journalistic standards in TV.
Advertisement
Pictures, they complained, took precedence over analysis – and this “bias against understanding” could only be addressed by bringing in experts and putting them in front of camera.
Later, this “mission to explain” became a central feature of Birt’s time as director general of the BBC.
Rex Features
David Owen’s (right) appointment of Jay (left) as UK ambassador to Washington caused a storm of protest
Jay might have remained a journalist but, in 1977, he was suddenly appointed as British Ambassador to Washington.
With no experience in politics or diplomacy, his appointment was met by furious accusations of nepotism.
Advertisement
James Callaghan faced angry questions in the House of Commons. But the decision had been the Foreign Secretary’s.
David Owen had felt the Jays would charm the incoming Carter administration and – by virtue of their personal friendship – Jay would be loyal in his service.
“Here comes Peter Jay,” was the headline in the Washington Post, “Britain’s brilliant and insufferable new ambassador”.
Jay and Margaret’s two years in Washington were a diplomatic success – but a personal disaster.
Advertisement
By the time an incoming Conservative government called time on Jay’s appointment, Margaret was having an affair with Watergate journalist, Carl Bernstein.
The breakdown of two marriages was immortalised as Heartburn – a thinly-disguised, autobiographical, tragi-comic novel by Bernstein’s wife, Nora Ephron.
It later became a Hollywood film starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.
The scandals kept coming. Jay was reported to have fathered a son with Jane Tustian, their children’s nanny at the embassy.
Advertisement
The Daily Mail got wind of it, and – angry that he’d left her – Jane told them everything. Jay remained tight-lipped, until a blood test confirmed he was the father.
Getty Images
Margaret Jay and Carl Bernstein’s affair became a scandal
On his return from the US, Jay led the consortium that set up TV-am, which successfully bid for the ITV breakfast television franchise in December 1980.
The launch of the new TV station was beset by highly publicised problems.
He was forced to rush the new broadcaster to air just weeks after the BBC had first broadcast its own early morning TV offering.
Advertisement
The decision to make the new show highbrow and news-heavy was based on a mistaken belief that the BBC would do the same.
In the event, viewers were not ready for a heavyweight agenda over their cornflakes, much preferring the BBC’s lighter magazine style of programme.
TV-am’s viewing figures plunged, and pressure from investors led to a boardroom coup.
Jay was pushed out in March 1983. A fortnight later, to great fanfare, came the first appearance of Roland Rat.
Advertisement
Getty Images
Peter Jay with the stars of TV-am: Robert Kee, Michael Parkinson, Anna Ford, David Frost and Angela Rippon
In 1986, Jay was announced as chief of staff to Maxwell, the flamboyant and later disgraced press and media tycoon.
Maxwell loved calling him “Mr Ambassador”, but subjected him to a barrage of late night phone calls and a daily round of humiliation.
Jay stayed for three-and-a-half years, working for a man he later described as “barbarous” but insisting he managed to shield himself from lasting damage.
“I was surrounded by an invisible glass wall through which (Maxwell) could never penetrate. His manner never got under my skin,” he said.
Advertisement
In the end, an old friend came to the rescue in the shape of Birt, now the BBC’s director general.
Getty Images
Peter Jay later described Robert Maxwell as “barbarous”
During his decade as the broadcaster’s economics editor, Jay reserved his appearances for special occasions.
There was sniping in the press that he was hard to tempt away from his farmhouse in Oxford, where he lived with his second wife, Emma, and their three children.
The highlight of his time at the BBC came with Road to Riches, a landmark series which examined the economic history of mankind.
Advertisement
It gave him space to explore money, a subject that had always fascinated him.
“After sex, money is our second appetite” he once said, and freely admitted he’d gone into television to pay for luxuries, like his precious, private yachts.
Rex Features
Peter Jay photographed towards the end of his time at the BBC
His time at the BBC came to an end in 2001, around the time that Greg Dyke, an incoming director general, reviewed the way the broadcaster explained the economy to its audience.
After that, Jay spent time as a director of the Bank of England, lecturing and doing consulting work before fading gently into retirement
Advertisement
He once described his career as ending in anti-climax, having once been Ambassador to Washington.
But, more often, he presented it as “a chapter of accidents” and “a diverting and enjoyable ramble through life”.
But, no objective observer could describe such a life as a “ramble”.
It was a thrilling, exhausting, white-knuckle ride.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
HSBC’s exposure to defaulted commercial property loans in Hong Kong surged almost sixfold to more than $3bn in the first half of this year, underscoring the risks the UK bank faces from a slump in the Chinese territory’s real estate market.
The London-headquartered bank had $3.2bn in “credit impaired” commercial real estate loans to Hong Kong clients as of June 30, up from just $576mn six months earlier, according to its financial report for the first half of this year.
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Hong Kong is HSBC’s largest market for commercial real estate lending, accounting for 45 per cent of its exposure, in comparison with 18 per cent for the UK.
The bank’s total global commercial real estate lending was $79bn as of June. The $3.2bn in credit impaired loans made up 9 per cent of HSBC’s total Hong Kong commercial real estate lending.
The leap in defaults is a sign of how the commercial property downturn in Hong Kong, a financial hub that has for years been one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets, has started to hit banks. Prime office rents have fallen more than 35 per cent since 2020, according to commercial property adviser Cushman & Wakefield.
While banks have been under pressure for several years over their exposure to mainland China’s property market, the focus is now shifting to Hong Kong, said David Wong, head of North Asia bank ratings at Fitch.
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“We’re a lot more comfortable saying a line has been drawn under [banks’ exposure to] China commercial real estate, versus Hong Kong,” Wong said. “I don’t think we’ve seen the bottom yet.”
Under the bank’s definition, those borrowers have breached the terms of their loan. That can include missing payments but it can also include “non-financial” measures such as the loan-to-value ratio missing an agreed target figure.
Georges Elhedery, who became HSBC’s chief executive in September, said on a call with analysts in early August when he was chief financial officer that the loans were “all performing” even though “a large number” were classed as credit impaired.
However, the bank said “certain borrowers have sought payment deferrals to accommodate debt serviceability challenges” in its financial report for the first half of this year, published on July 31.
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HSBC told the Financial Times this week that “a lot” of the borrowers are still paying interest. A spokesperson for the bank declined to provide figures on how many borrowers were paying interest or to offer more detail on Elhedery’s comment.
Standard Chartered, which as with HSBC has more exposure to commercial property lending in Hong Kong than any other region, reported a rise in the proportion of lower-rated borrowers in its most recent earnings, though it did not mark any of the loans as credit impaired.
The lender has cut its unsecured exposure to Hong Kong commercial real estate borrowers by 19 per cent since the end of 2022, it said in filings in July. Standard Chartered declined to comment.
Higher interest rates have put Hong Kong borrowers under pressure at a time when demand for office and retail space has fallen, with China’s economic slowdown and Beijing’s national security crackdown hitting international investor confidence. Tough zero-Covid measures also prompted an exodus of foreign workers during the pandemic.
The HSBC figures show that Hong Kong groups accounted for 45 per cent of the bank’s total credit-impaired commercial real estate lending as of June, up from 13 per cent six months earlier.
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Elhedery said on the earnings call that the bank had taken a “probably prudent approach” in reclassifying the loans and was “comfortable and confident in the medium-to-long-term outlook” for Hong Kong’s commercial real estate sector, which would benefit from any rate cuts.
The bank said in its filing that its collateral coverage was strong and “broadly stable” even as valuations fell, and it was making “relatively low” provisions for credit losses on the loans because of high collateralisation.
“I think for those of us living in Hong Kong you can see vacancy rates are higher at this point,” said Ming Lau, the bank’s Asia chief financial officer, on the analyst call. But he said that the loans were structured so that the bank had recourse to “other assets and cash” of the borrowers.
Eleven of Hong Kong’s biggest property developers have written down the value of their investment property portfolios by about $23bn since 2020, according to data compiled by UBS for the Financial Times.
Mark Leung, a property analyst at UBS, said there could be more writedowns for Hong Kong’s developers in the near future. “For offices, rent probably will continue to come down due to the inflated supply issue, and vacancies could edge up,” he said.
Many of the territory’s property companies are controlled by tycoons and their families. Sun Hung Kai Properties is controlled by the Kwok family, Henderson Land Development by the Lee family, CK Asset by the Li family and New World Development by the Cheng family.
Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis, said that while the developers are expected to remain under pressure, most retained “sound financial positions” and could tap “old money” held by the tycoons and their families.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Angela Rayner has insisted she gave “nothing” to Lord Waheed Alli in return for the wealthy Labour peer’s generous donations, including a five-day stay in a Manhattan apartment and thousands of pounds of free clothing.
The UK deputy prime minister told the BBC as Labour’s annual conference kicked off on Sunday that politicians from all parties had accepted gifts “for years” and that “all MPs do it”.
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“I promised nothing and gave him nothing in return,” she said of Alli’s donations.
The media tycoon has been at the centre of a furore that has overshadowed the run-up to Labour’s first conference as a party of government in 15 years.
Alli has given thousands of pounds of gifts including free clothing to seven sitting cabinet ministers including Rayner and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
Starmer initially failed to declare clothing gifts from Alli worth £16,200 to the prime minister personally and £5,000 to his wife.
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Rayner said she understood that the general public was “angry and upset” and said that the rules had to apply to everyone in politics. “If there is a national debate about how to fund politics . . . let’s do that.”
Both Rayner and chancellor Rachel Reeves declared gifts of thousands of pounds of clothing from donors in parliament’s register of interests as generic support for their political work, the Financial Times revealed.
On Friday, Labour officials finally admitted that a £3,550 donation from Alli to Rayner in June consisted of work clothing.
They also confirmed that three other donations worth £17,650 from Alli had been spent at least in part on clothes.
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In an attempt to shut down the scandal, the party pledged on Friday that Starmer, Reeves and Rayner would not take any free clothing in future.
The Sunday Times today raised fresh questions, reporting that Rayner registered a five-day stay at Alli’s luxury Manhattan apartment for the new year but did not lodge the fact that her friend Sam Tarry stayed with her.
She said on Sunday that this did not break the rules. Her team said the presence of Tarry — who was a Labour MP at the time — did not need to be reported because Alli did not know he was there.
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Asked why she stayed in the flat for free, she told the BBC: “As friends do, a friend allowed me to stay . . . people do stay at other people’s apartments.”
On Sunday morning Rayner, who is also housing secretary, will promise a package of measures to ensure “decent homes for all” when she addresses the Labour conference in Liverpool.
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