10 things to read, watch or listen to...
End of the week round-up to make you smarter
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Off to Lunch…
I want to end this week with ten bits of news, analysis, ideas and expertise that I think will leave you feeling smarter after enjoying this newsletter.
1. Firstly, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is looking into Microsoft’s ties to OpenAI. The competition watchdog has put out a statement inviting interested parties to comment on ”whether the partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI, including recent developments, has resulted in a relevant merger situation and, if so, the impact that the merger could have on competition in the UK”. This invitation to comment could be a precursor to a full investigation by the CMA and then the watchdog demanding that Microsoft and OpenAI rethink their partnership, if it concludes that action needs to be taken. In short, this could end up being hugely significant. You can read the CMA’s statement here
2. The average mortgage rate on a two-year fixed deal has fallen below 6 per cent for the first time since June, according to new data from Moneyfacts. This is another sign that the squeeze on household budgets is going to ease. More details in a BBC story here
3. Labour has put together a panel of ten senior figures from the City of London to advise it on the financial services industry and insisted that it is no longer “sneering at business”. The panel includes David Schwimmer, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group, Nigel Higgins, the chairman of Barclays, and Baroness Shriti Vadera, the chair of Prudential. More details in a Financial Times story here
4. Google released its latest AI technology this week. If you have doubts about the potential of AI to disrupt businesses or impact our lives, check out the video below…
5. McKinsey, the consultancy firm, has published new research that looks into whether an old adage about the business world is true - that successful businesses are often founded or expand during periods of economic difficulty. The answer, it says, is that businesses that invest in growing during downturns are more likely to be successful than those that don’t. You can find the research here
6. The Wall Street Journal has published a great profile of Sky Xu, the founder of Shein, the Chinese fast-fashion retailer and now one of the biggest clothing companies in the world. The piece looks at how he built the company. This is an extract:
“Under Xu’s leadership, Shein has pioneered a hyper efficient supply chain that uses algorithms to swiftly predict customer demand and cater to their preferences. It places orders in small quantities to test the market appetite and replenish orders on demand. This model ensures Shein can pump out thousands of new styles every day and sell most of what it has made: Shein says only 2% of its clothing is unsold, far below the industry average of 30%.”
You can find the piece here. It is behind the WSJ’s paywall unfortunately, so you will need to sign-up to read it in full.
7. Steve Timoney founded Smart Metering Systems in Glasgow in 1995. This week the company’s board accepted a £1.4 billion takeover bid from KKR, the US private equity group. Timoney used to be a gasman and grew up in Easterhouse, one of the most deprived areas of Glasgow. “I’ve had success beyond my wildest dreams,” he told The Times. “People who know me would hopefully say I’m still very down to earth, not because I try to be, just because I am. I’ve never really forgotten what I had to go through to get myself here.” You can read more in a Times story here
8. From Business Leader, a look at how the launch of the Enterprise Allowance Scheme in the 1980s sparked the creation of a collection of successful businesses and whether something similar could be rolled out again. You can read that piece here
9. Now for some weekend listening. Firstly, check-out this podcast with investor Howard Marks and former poker player Annie Duke. Marks and Duke discuss decision-making, luck and dealing with uncertainty. Duke is the author of Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, an excellent book on the importance of stopping doing things…
10. And lastly, our own podcast. The latest episode of our Business Leader podcast features an interview with Alistair Phillips-Davies, the chief executive of SSE, about what it takes to run one of the UK’s largest companies for a decade. The episode also looks at how the UK is really doing with its net-zero ambitions, what happened when an activist investor targeted SSE and why business leaders should be concerned about wet paint. Here is a flavour of what Phillips-Davies says:
“Generally a few sensible people will get to a better decision than one person who's a superstar. And paying for superstar is very expensive. But paying for a few people who are decent is not as expensive. And you tend to get better decisions that way.”
You listen to the episode on all the usual podcast platforms, including Substack here, Apple here and Spotify here
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Best
Graham