This is a CTAM Studios production.
SPEAKER_02Hello and welcome back to Business as Usual, brought to you by OXA with me, Matt Kenyon.
SPEAKER_04And me, Martin Kimber. Coming up on the podcast, Uranium Fever, an Italian mining company prepares to power the London Stock Exchange with nuclear fuel.
SPEAKER_02We're officially halfway through the year, so we'll take a look at how that woozy London stock market has performed so far in 2026.
SPEAKER_04Plus, could Canary Wharf be bouncing back? Barclays signing a 999-year lease would certainly suggest so.
SPEAKER_02So, welcome back to the podcast, everyone. We have got some big city stories coming up. Also a couple of more eccentric ones today. So it certainly is business as usual on this podcast. I think we've cranked up the eccentric dial a bit later. And I'm not complaining. And because who better uh to dive into this markets matrix than our own mercantile minx?
SPEAKER_00Good morning. First day of July, start of silly season, as far as I'm concerned.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, we've got about eight weeks of this. Well, your tie would certainly suggest so, Simon. That's yes, he's it's got lovely. It's got lovely little flowers on it, but it's also a Paul Smith. Um, Simon, to kick us off with something a bit more serious and less eccentric, um, why is it that a group of house builders uh are in line for a 4.5 billion pound lawsuit?
SPEAKER_00So this is a uh class action that's been brought by a uh number of homeowners that's been uh led by the former legal affairs manager at Consumer Group, which, and as everyone knows, when which get involved in something, there's reasons to be to be rattled. Uh and they allege that a group of house builders, including Barrett Redrow, Persiman, uh Vistry, Taylor Wimpy, and a couple of others were effectively over-inflating uh house prices, and and they allege that there is a breach of UK competition law. Now we sit we should say it's not the case that people put the chances of this 4.5 billion lawsuit of success at particularly high. I don't think there's an expectation that that they're gonna win this case. We don't really know. But it has taken a it's clear that house builders have taken a hit in terms of their share prices, a sell-off across the board uh of these house builders. And I think that's just goes to show that these house builders have had such a difficult few months, you know, with the the UK's falling behind on its uh national house building target, with them being hit by massive rises to uh energy prices, to the cost of just simple things like bricks. Um, that even though people don't necessarily expect this lawsuit to succeed, just the negative news flow alone is enough to for these stocks to take another hit.
SPEAKER_04Simon, why is a family of Italian aristocrats hunting for uranium deposits in Lombardy, northern Italy? Uranium fever is running up me down. Uranium fever is spreading all around.
SPEAKER_00That's a very good question. Um I mean, you know, when you when you head to northern Italy, you're not really thinking about nuclear uh energy or you're not thinking about nuclear deposits. But it turns out that this is an area of Italy that is ripe for uh minerals that can be used in nuclear power. And this I mean, the wider context here is that um since the uh outbreak of war in Ukraine, uh Europe is very acutely aware of its energy dependency on Russia. And so any project that can look to reduce that dependency suddenly is has become a lot more attractive to governments, attractive to investors. And this uh particular company uh called Reveil Resources is planning to float on London's small cap acquis exchange uh in the coming days. And its plan is to reopen a uranium mine that was uh shut as far back as the uh 1980s. Uh it first, I think it first opened in the 50s, then obviously Chernobyl happened, and there was a sort of Europe-wide aversion to Chernobyl.
SPEAKER_02Chernobyl was the Chernobyl for nuclear energy as well. Well, yes. Um it was it was probably the ultimate kind of business case of the wrong lessons being learned from a disaster.
SPEAKER_00So that mine was shut pretty soon after that in the 80s, and it's been closed ever since, and they plan to reopen it, and then yeah, as I say, they'll be they'll be listed on the Aquis, and we'll be able to track their uh progress.
SPEAKER_02Simon, one more thing. From uranium cakes to celebration cakes, uh a story that we were talking about earlier, which I think disturbs me more than anything else we've talked about this week. People are getting cakes with ultrasounds printed on them. Why are they doing that? And how many people are doing that?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I mean I certainly can't answer you why. I can I can tell you more about it. No, no, no. I wanted to get stuck into why, isn't it? Um so I I've been speaking uh this week to the chief executive of a company called Cake Books, which is one of the biggest bakery chains in the UK. It's got hundreds of stores up and down the country. And on their website now they have a a listing for an ultrasound cake. So you can um order ultrasound cakes which have on the top of them a printed photo of an ultrasound scan that you get at the hospital.
SPEAKER_04Which you presumably then chop up and eat.
SPEAKER_00The the the cake, yes. Um so I I spoke to the chief detective, uh, he told me that this is a new craze that started in the last few months, uh, where people are using ultrasound cakes as gender reveals. So you you cut the cake open with the ultrasound scan on it, and it's either pink or blue or whatever else, and and that and you use that as the celebration. And I had a look on Google Trends. Basically, before last year, there were zero searches for ultrasound cake, but it's now really taken off. Um, I think this is another things where people see examples of it on TikTok and then suddenly it becomes a real phenomenon.
SPEAKER_02I do feel like gender reveal parties were one of the worst American imports that we've accepted. I completely agree. So this is all this feels very post-COVID. It feels like another excuse to create a sort of social media moment out of Rice Passions of Life because you've already got, I suppose, baby showers, you've got engagement parties, you've got weddings that actually lead up to these. So like so we're we're we're now looking at sort of five sets of parties just in the the case of union and production of one child. That's insane.
SPEAKER_00It it is a bit, it is a bit. These things come up to 50 quid. Apparently so. I'm surprised they're not going for more. But yeah, demand is very hot for them, apparently. The other thing that's seen huge demand uh in cake books is something which again I had not heard of called Dubai Cake. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, is this like dub uh viral Dubai chocolate?
SPEAKER_00Yes. So it's it's uh it turns out it's actually chocolate where it's a chocolate cake where instead of having layers of um chocolate, you have layers of pistachio in the middle of the cake. And that's again really flying off the shelves at the moment, apparently. And the chief executive of Cake Box told me that they had to uh order so much pistachio, so many pistachios, uh to meet this demand, there was a temporary UK-wide shortage of them. If anyone noticed that on the shelves.
SPEAKER_04There was yes, I noticed there was a yes.
SPEAKER_00You actually noticed that.
SPEAKER_04Well, I noticed a shortage of the pistachio creme that you can buy from them and I think it's another example of betrays my shopping habits.
SPEAKER_00Um trends can just pop up so quickly now on things like TikTok and they actually move markets and move commodities into the planet.
SPEAKER_02I think it reflects a broader like Gen Z younger Millennial culture towards hospitality as well, where it's like it's people, it's that culture of rather than going to buy as many pints at the pub, people are going to buy one incredibly eccentric cocktail and take pictures of it. Yeah, something like boom. I think that is that is a thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think the difficulty from a sort of business perspective is these trends happen so quickly, but they can also die very quickly. So, how on earth do you prepare for it? How do you decide what your supply chains will be, how much you order? Because yeah, then something might be fire for a month and then just disappear.
SPEAKER_04I think you uh cut a cake and see what it tells you to do, to be honest. Simon, thank you very much for coming in for an absolute classic of the genre of a corporate roundup at the top of the program. Uh, coming up after the break, we're halfway through the year. We'll take a look at how your money is doing on the London stock market. Don't go away.
SPEAKER_02This episode is brought to you by Okta. AI agents are everywhere now, quietly making decisions across organizations. That's great until you stop and think who's in charge.
SPEAKER_04If you don't know who an agent is, what it's connected to, or what it's allowed to do, you can't really trust it to act in your interests. That's the bit Okta focuses on. They secure the identity of AI agents, so there's one clear layer of control across the whole system.
SPEAKER_02Which means every agent has a clear identity, permissions, and a line of accountability, even as things scale.
SPEAKER_04Risk becomes something you manage, not guess at. Secure every agent, secure any agent. Opta secures AI. Welcome back. Matt Good News. Oh yeah. Christmas is only six months away. It's just around the corner. And you know what that means? We're officially into H2, halfway through the year. It's been six months of wars, tech bubbles, heat waves, and jet fuel shortages. So it's time to ask if I'd invested £100 in the UK stock market on the 1st of January 2026, how rich would I be today? To tell us how well the FTSE 100 has fared so far this year, we're joined by Michael Hunter. Michael, I've put 100 quid in six months ago. How much have I got now?
SPEAKER_01You've got £105.40.
SPEAKER_04Woof.
SPEAKER_01So that's enough for a pint of something pretty ordinary in the oyster shed or something a bit nicer in any one of London's many weather spoons.
SPEAKER_02I'm old enough to remember a uh back in January when the FTSE passed that barrier of uh 10,000 for the first time, an all-time high. How's it fared since then?
SPEAKER_01It's not done incredibly well. It's not been a stunning performance, but it hasn't been too bad. So we went through that round number that everyone's been keeping an eye on. Um, traders, journalists, love a round number. We went through 10,000 points clean in in January, never done before. And when we got higher still, the Fortune reached 10,911 points roughly in February, um, and has not been back to there since because Yeah, so 28th of February, obviously, war in Iran starts.
SPEAKER_02I think it was a Saturday night, uh, and I think I was at a party and I remember seeing it on the BBC Live blog, and thinking I'm checking the BBC Live blog. I think I studiously had push notifications set up on the BBC just so I wasn't missing anything major. I remember looking at that and thinking, I think that could be quite major. I remember thinking, ah, that'll blow over. I was on holiday and I was like, oh, this will be fine. I think there's something particularly depressing about this year for the first year. Obviously, there are bright spots, I'm sure we can go on to them as well. How it does feel like when we get these big economic shocks, often relate to energy shocks, there is just something particularly exposed about UK and its equities. Like this, there have been obviously not direct parallels, but some echoes of February of 2022. Yes. Um, when obviously that that was far, far, far more inflationary, but sort of that that sense that the the UK is is particularly exposed, especially because I know you uh you've mentioned before that actually the US stock markets and their indices have fared a little better than than our own here.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So the US has got a bigger market anyway, more liquidity and a huge tech sector. London does not have a huge tech sector, it has a small tech sector. But London has a massive global footprint with resource stocks, particularly mining companies, lots of big old school firms, and those firms tend to be particularly badly exposed to economic shocks. So copper miners, for instance, look at a demand decline, serious, steep demand decline during an economic shock or a period of uncertainty, while gold miners might make up a little bit for a rally there, you know. It can be a bit push-me-pull you as markets always are, but London can look and can underperform expose and can be underperformed during these turbulent times. There's something else going on under the tin here as well, though, because much of that gain which generates from your £100, Matt, a nice tidy pint, has come from what I would call a sort of FT100 bargain basement bid bonanza. Right. So we have we have had $150 billion in offers for FTE100 companies of all different kinds, largely because UK stocks relative to low base have been undervalued and people are snapping up bargains. Without that UK growth, with its lingering post-Brexit uncertainty of where that will come from, with the domestic political turmoil, which has obviously been less dramatic than the global geopolitics, but nonetheless just as important. The people who are buying UK stocks are trying to snap up bargains internationally. The market looks undervalued, it's struggling to keep up with its peers, but again, as markets always do, that provides an opportunity. So the second half of the year, maybe we will take out that high again. We're kind of within touching distance now, and maybe we'll get a broader growth, a rising tide which will lift more of the boats than just the ones that look as though they're cheap.
SPEAKER_04Well, we can only hope so. I remember I was at a JP Morgan uh Christmas drink several years ago, and I was speaking to a few of the analysts, and I said, you know, everyone's saying FTSE is so cheap, you know. Is this where I should be putting my money? You know, are we due for a resurgence? And the guy just said, Yeah, they say that every year. And it doesn't come true. But it kind of has this year.
SPEAKER_01And it sort of has, and it kind of will. The same thing's often said about European actors as well. The the the tech growth story needs a yang to its yin. You know, that there has to be something else out there as well. But if you just look at the list of names from the FT100 who've been uh at the subject of those bids, Sagro, Schroders, Beasley, Intertech, DCC. So uh 12 billion, nearly 13 billion, 9 billion, nearly 10 billion, eight over 8 billion, nearly 11 billion, and 6 billion respectively. So an awful lot of that 5.4% gain is wrapped up in that kind of MA. And this isn't big growth MA, this is bargain hunting MA. And I think those two things are genuinely different, and we'll see how different the London market remains for for the rest of the year.
SPEAKER_02I suppose one one of the big stories of this year has been the number of constituents that the FTSE is losing. On a more hopeful side, do you think there are any big IPOs we could be looking out for in H2 of this year?
SPEAKER_01Well, the IPO lack of situation in London has been a major theme for a long period of time. I mean, it's not for for for a humble market reporter like me to necessarily speculate, but I think I think that won't stop me. I I I think for London there's a there's a more important issue than that, even if it's one that doesn't grab as many headlines from uh the likes of us and and and our colleagues elsewhere in the industry, not not just here at City AM. But the pipeline for new entrance to the market lower down, the minnows that become the whales of the future, that is where the government needs to concentrate fire, government of any colour, that's where the pipeline needs to open up again in order to keep those huge giant firms developing and the the ones in the future to come in. If you're reliant on on on more speculative SpaceX style multi-billion blockbuster floats, those are all going to happen in the States now. There's more liquidity there. The story for London is that some firms are eyeing, putting their listings in New York on the same footing as in London and all of that kind of thing. In order to get around all of that bleak outlook for IPOs and floats, the best thing to do is for a long-term approach to helping open up that supply of capital into the square mile, what the London has always done historically so very, very well. And we need some political attention and some regulatory attention at that end of the market. And it looks like there are some changes to that effect coming and being discussed in in various political circles, and that could make all of the difference medium and long term.
SPEAKER_04Well, Michael, I'm gonna have to stop you there, or else Andy Burnham's going to snap you up as an economic advisor, and you'll be uh which which is the group fast growing. So uh thank you very much for coming in. Hopefully, see you very soon.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02And finally, reports of Canary Wharf's demise have been greatly exaggerated. Or at least that is the strong impression that Barclays has given. They have just signed a 990-year lease. Uh, that means by my count, they will still be in Canary Wharf in the year 3025. I'm not sure any of us will be alive that long.
SPEAKER_04What iPhone will we be on by then? God, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's the benchmark. Well, Sam, you can't speak yet, I haven't introduced you. Joining us now is our senior situation reporter and resident wharf watcher. Canary down the coal mine. Canary in the coal mine. Fantastic. Sam, tell us about this massive, nearly millennium lease.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, I mean, it's an interesting move. I mean, the the millennium aspect to it is it's kind of canary wharf, um, the nitty-gritty of how the deals work with that. So interestingly, you can't really get uh a freehold as you would if you just bought bought the uh the building. And that's to do with how tall the buildings are. So the land underneath is still owned by um the original property owners. But because of how tall the buildings are, I think it's to do with like the airspace. You're not actually allowed to just get a freehold on them. So hence they've got this massive leasehold. But obviously, the biggest story here is it's part of Canary Wars resurgence. We've seen over the last 12 months a lot of these financial services firms from FinTech payments banks are all just kind of flooding in, doubling down on this area, except maybe one. We could come on to that. But yeah, it's quite a widespread. Because there had been a bit of a retreat at one stage. Wait for canary post-pandemic.
SPEAKER_04A big focus on residential for quite a long time.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think I think you're you're sort of seeing that a spread now. But you're right, there had been this sort of retreat. Led leading that was obviously HSBC, and they're still plowing ahead with this move uh back more towards the city. Now there's there's obviously a lot of shenanigans with that. There's been this whole crisis that they don't have enough desks in the new office, so they're still working out of the big tower there. And obviously, if you're in you're in that tower, it's enormous. Like so much so you go up to a certain floor and you can sort of hear the feel the wind. So that was for a while the tallest building in well, it will be as uh as unless the JP Morgan Tower goes ahead, which as it stands now, we're expecting it to go tohead. It's gonna be a 10 billion pound tower built out of the top. Yeah, that's got that's gonna be enormous. It just got uh clearance actually with a month from the London City Airport because it's gonna be that big, it needs airport clearance. But there's a whole um debate will that go ahead because for wanting business rates exemption. So that could that's that that will be like, I guess, the crown jewel in Canary Wars resurgence.
SPEAKER_02Because Rachel Reeves had been the one pushing for quite a lot of this development. Yeah. And now she's kind of out. So what what's what's the what's the take there?
SPEAKER_03Well, I guess I said I think like the JP Morgan Tower would be like the real crown jewel in this sort of like resurgence. But a lot of that was coming. I mean, Jimmy Diamond said, I will not build this tower if the UK becomes hostile to banks again. Now, what does he define as hostile? Is that we're gonna tax you more, or is it we're not actually gonna give you exemptions? I don't know, but it it's it's Diamond's world and we're all just living in it.
SPEAKER_04So I was in Clarywolf the other weekend to visit that new Lido flipping cold water, but it was really nice. And I noticed I hadn't actually seen the Revolute Tower in the Great Tower. It's not that tall, but it still kind of looks like the eye of Sauron.
SPEAKER_03It's a fantastic tower as well. Like, I mean, I was in there for their HQ launch, and it's uh it's an impressive building. And like, yeah, it's it's it's kind of back in terms of like financial. I mean, you've got Zopa, another fintech. They moved there uh and they doubled their off uh office footprint when they moved to Canary Wharf last year. So people are going there.
SPEAKER_02Which is bizarre because it's such a soulless place. Well, that's the yeah. So do you do you think it will ever have enough of a vibe to really convince people that it's Are you thinking that though, because it's you've got you associate with like the old school bankers?
SPEAKER_04No, no. I associate it with quite a lot of the architecture isn't that nice to look at. I don't get any Google Maps signal there. That is annoying, you know. The blue pubs. There's there's no hospitality there that I can't go to in the city or in Soho or anywhere else. Like it has very little USPs for me aside from an airport. If if City AM moved the office there, that would be the only reason I'd ever have to go there.
SPEAKER_03Okay, but based off like your like Vibes-based perception of that, do you think like some of these fintechs who are moving there a bit more like agile, a bit more like flexible? Maybe they might create a presence with that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Maybe. And you know what? We've got a thousand years to find out whether this button. We've also run out of time. So, Sam, thank you very much. We're gonna genically freeze you now.
SPEAKER_04Nice one. Well, that's just about all we have time for. Thank you very much for listening to another business as usual brought to you by Okta.
SPEAKER_02And we've got some homework for you, and that homework is subscribe to our newsletters and don't forget to download our free app.
SPEAKER_04It's got everything those expensive news apps have, except ours is free. We'll be back in your podcast feeds tomorrow at 6 a.m. also for free, but for now, goodbye. Goodbye.