£29.5 billion
The business news that matters
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Off to Lunch…
A collection of business leaders from around the world have gathered at Hampton Court Palace today for an event promoting the UK as an attractive place to invest.
Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, said that businesses represented at the event have committed to investing another £29.5 billion into the UK. Those attending include Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan, David Solomon of Goldman Sachs, Amanda Blanc of Aviva and Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman.
Sunak has addressed the executives gathered at the event, as you can see above, and they will be at Buckingham Palace this evening for an event hosted by King Charles.
The prime minister used his speech to promote the UK as a place to invest, saying the country has “three big competitive advantages” - a low-tax approach, a culture of innovation and people.
Sunak outlined the world-leading innovation that is taking place in the UK - such as advancements in quantum computing - and celebrated inventions from the past. He said:
“The story of the United Kingdom has always been about discovery and invention.
“Ours is the country of Newton, Faraday, Hodgkin and Lovelace.
“Of Stephenson’s steam engine, Darwin’s theory of evolution and the World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee who I’m delighted is attending here today.
“And that tradition is still very much alive.”
Sunak also highlighted the tax cut on business investment that was announced in the Budget last week, adding:
“I believe that [by] allowing you to keep more of the return on your capital, our country becomes more competitive as a place to invest, grow and create jobs.”
The companies that have committed to investing in the UK include IFM Investors of Australia. IFM is due to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Department for Business & Trade about contributing £10 billion over the next four years to renewable energy and infrastructure projects.
You can find more details about the event via the government’s announcement here and watch the whole event below. Sunak’s speech below is about 35 minutes in…
The big names who have attended the summit, the investment that has been secured and the innovation highlighted by Sunak are a reminder of the strengths of the UK economy…
Other stories that matter…
1. A “perceived lack of intellectual diversity” at the Bank of England is one of the reasons that the organisation did not act fast enough on tackling inflation, according to a new House of Lords report. Guardian story here and full report here
2. What does a business do when a new product it launched is so successful it takes all of the market it initially targeted? Well, Novo Nordisk is looking at innovative and flexible pricing deals as a way to give more people access to Wegovy, its weight-loss drug. Financial Times story here
3. An increasing number of businesses are looking at “flex space”, or flexible offices, as a new format for their workspace. This involves paying to use shared office space that you can temporarily expand when necessary at an extra cost. You can read more in a piece by the FT here
4. There is obviously a lot of noise on social media, but there are also fascinating insights from successful business leaders if you can find them. For example, from this weekend, check-out a clip of Jeff Bezos talking about the importance of writing ideas down and then getting everyone to read those memos at the start of a meeting. You can see that clip here. Secondly, here is Jony Ive, the designer of the original iPhone for Apple, on the importance of focus and why Steve Jobs was obsessed was it: “What focus means is saying no to something that with every bone in your body you think is a phenomenal idea, you wake up thinking about it, but you say no to it because you are focusing on something else.” This was posted on LinkedIn by David Senra, host of the excellent Founders podcast, here
5. Terry Venables, the former England manager, died at the weekend aged 80. I highly recommend reading a piece by Martin Samuel in The Times about Venables’ approach to management. “Anything you don’t stop, you encourage,” is just one nugget in there. You can read the full piece here. Gary Neville also described him as the “most tactically gifted British coach that I have ever seen”. Speaking on Sky Sports, Neville gave a great anecdote about being phoned by Venables out of the blue after he was criticised in the media. You can watch that clip here
Podcast…
You can listen to the latest episode of our Business Leader podcast via Substack here, Spotify here and Apple Podcasts here. It is also available on all other podcast platforms. The episode tells the story behind the Crown Estate and its chief executive Dan Labbad.
Our next episode will be launched tomorrow morning and will be sent directly to all Off to Lunch newsletter subscribers…
And finally…
Forget the John Lewis Christmas advert, an advert for a pub in Northern Ireland that cost £700 to make has gone viral on social media and attracted millions of views. The advert is for Charlie's Bar in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh and you can watch it below. The BBC has also covered the extraordinary reaction to the advert here
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Best
Graham