Behind the Money

What the City of London wants from Labour

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Labour Party has come back into power in the UK after 14 years. For the City of London, this brings hope for some stability amid the rise of compe...

F1’s American test drive

10 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The owner of motor racing giant Formula One is racing to capture the American sports audience. Thanks, in part, to efforts like the Netflix series Dri...

Best Of: BlackRock goes all in on infrastructure

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re revisiting an episode from earlier this year. BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink has been on the hunt for the money manager’s n...

Will Exxon make or break Guyana?

26 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Exxon Mobil struck black gold in 2015 when it discovered a massive oil reserve off the coast of Guyana in South America. It’s poised to make Guyana ...

Bankers vs the Fed: ‘Endgame’

19 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Banks in the US are locked in a bitter fight with regulators. It’s all about a proposed set of rules with an unusual name, Basel III Endgame. Regula...

The wrinkle in Shein’s IPO plans

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In November, online fast-fashion giant Shein filed paperwork to go public in the US. Since then the process has not moved forward at all — and it lo...

Can anyone afford an NBA team?

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 2024 NBA Playoffs are in full swing, but eyes are still on a team that was knocked out last week. The Minnesota Timberwolves are caught up in an o...

Best Of: Inside a hedge fund disaster

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re revisiting an episode from last November, about a Wall Street saga that lost shareholders more than $10bn. In 2007, when Dan Och to...

Why auditors are missing red flags

22 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Audit firms are supposed to put a company’s books under the microscope. But these days, regulators are finding an increasing number of flaws in the ...

Introducing Untold: Power for Sale

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Introducing Power for Sale, a new season of Untold from the Financial Times. In Untold: Power for Sale, host Valentina Pop and a team of FT corre...

Dispatch from Omaha: Berkshire after Warren Buffett

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Late last year, Warren Buffett’s close business confidant Charlie Munger died at 99. Munger’s death and Buffett’s upcoming 94th birthday have re...

Coming soon: China, the new tech superpower

10 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a new season of Tech Tonic, longtime FT China reporter Jame Kynge travels around the world to see how China is pushing towards tech supremacy. Will...

Was the Archegos implosion illegal?

08 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Three years ago, chaos struck Wall Street. Companies saw their share prices tumble, seemingly out of nowhere. Major banks lost billions of dollars in ...

How shale rewrote the global oil order

01 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, countries in the Middle East have dominated the oil market, pumping large quantities of the world’s supply. Along with that has come a ...

When M&A goes wrong

24 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When a company is sold there tends to be a standard playbook: There’s some tough negotiations. Then, the buyer gets a business and the seller gets a...

Inside the battle for America’s West

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A few years ago, four men went on a hunting trip to Wyoming. That trip would end up changing their lives — and possibly, the future of the public’...

Coming soon: The Five Minute Investor from Money Clinic

12 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Introducing Money Clinic’s Five Minute Investor, a miniseries hosted by Claer Barrett, the FT’s consumer editor. In each episode, Claer challenges...

Can WeightWatchers survive the Wegovy era?

10 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

WeightWatchers is struggling. Launched in the early 1960s, the brand grew by helping members shed pounds through behavioural change programmes. Then, ...

A surprising winner in the US-China chip wars

03 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The US and China’s battle for dominance in the semiconductor industry is having some surprising knock-on effects: Companies are looking to insulate ...

A radical change for the US Treasury market

27 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The past several years in the US Treasury market have not been what you’d call smooth sailing. Three crises in a decade recently pushed regulators t...

Listener mailbag with the Unhedged podcast

19 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

More questions — more answers! We’ve partnered with the FT’s Unhedged podcast for a special two-part episode, fielding questions you have submit...

Are penny stocks getting the memestock treatment?

13 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Penny stocks are having a moment. In recent months, little-known companies with names such as Bit Brother and Phunware have been among the most traded...

How JPMorgan thrived amid a banking crisis

06 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been a year since Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse left everyone worried that the US’s banking sector sat on shaky ground. Despite that ...

Is OpenAI’s business model sustainable?

28 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

OpenAI is one of the fastest-growing companies ever, thanks to its artificial intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT. But costs to train and run the models tha...

Hedge fund pioneers face signs of a reckoning

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Billionaire financiers such as Ken Griffin pioneered what’s known as the multi-manager model for hedge funds, where big spending begets big returns....

Why Elon Musk is breaking up with Delaware

14 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

A Delaware court recently struck down Elon Musk’s $56 billion Tesla pay package. Soon after, Musk took to his social network X and offered some advi...

Baidu’s ‘do-or-die’ bet on AI

07 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Baidu made it big as China’s go-to search engine. But in the past decade the tech giant has struggled, while competitors such as Alibaba and Tencent...

Is this nuclear power’s moment?

31 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The nuclear power industry is receiving a lot of attention recently thanks in part to new technological advancements. That’s excited venture capital...

Introducing: Swamp Notes from The FT News Briefing

30 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you have questions about this year's US presidential election, we have answers.Swamp Notes is a new podcast from the FT News Briefing. Listen every...

BlackRock goes all in on infrastructure

24 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink has been on the hunt for the money manager’s next “transformational” deal. Earlier this month, Fink reveale...

An IPO drought pushes investors to a murky marketplace

17 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Silicon Valley, the promise of a massive payday for a start-up’s early employees and investors has hinged on those companies eventually going pub...

Introducing Untold: The Retreat

11 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Introducing Untold, a new podcast from the special investigations team at the Financial Times. In its first series, The Retreat, host Madison Marriage...

Ozempic’s unconventional origins

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The runaway success of diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy have turned their maker, Novo Nordisk, into a juggernaut. Last year the Danis...

Listener mailbag with Martin Wolf & more

03 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

You asked us questions, we’ve got your answers. FT columnists and editors such as Martin Wolf and Robert Armstrong respond to listener questions abo...

TED Talks Daily: The next global superpower isn’t who you think

27 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who runs the world? Political scientist Ian Bremmer argues it’s not as simple as it used to be. With some eye-opening questions about the nature of ...

Author Amy Edmondson on ‘intelligent failure’

20 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Every year, the Financial Times selects the most outstanding business book of the year. For 2023, the top pick is a book about failure. The FT’s sen...

The ‘Ponzi scheme’ behind Lebanon’s economic collapse

13 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For years, Riad Salameh was praised for his revolutionary financial policies as head of Lebanon’s central bank. But suddenly, the country plunged in...

Could COP28 catapult the carbon credit market?

06 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The UN climate conference COP28 is in full swing, and officials from around the world are discussing ways to combat climate change. The agenda include...

Inside a hedge fund disaster

29 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2007, when Dan Och took his hedge fund public, he was making a bet that his company would stand the test of time. More than 15 years, a bribery sca...

Best Of: Why companies don't want to list in the UK anymore

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week we’re revisiting an episode from earlier this year about the London Stock Exchange’s decline. The exchange once held the top spot in glo...

Introducing: Life and Art, from FT Weekend

20 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Introducing Life and Art, from FT Weekend. It's a new twice-weekly culture podcast from the Financial Times. On Monday, we talk about life, and how to...

Citigroup reboots

15 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In its early days Citigroup styled itself as a “financial supermarket”, a one-stop shop for all kinds of banking services around the world. But th...

Coming soon: Superintelligent AI

10 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

 In a new series of Tech Tonic, FT journalists Madhumita Murgia and John Thornhill look at the concerns around the rise of artificial intelligenc...

Will the union ‘renaissance’ last?

08 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the US, nearly half a million people have gone on strike this year demanding better pay, working conditions and job security. With the FT’s US la...

Big Oil’s big bet

01 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In October two US oil and gas giants announced massive deals: Chevron bought Hess, and ExxonMobil acquired Pioneer Natural Resources. These deals expa...

How Microsoft bagged Activision Blizzard

25 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1990s, Microsoft was seen as a tech industry bully. Once viewed as combative and ruthless in the eyes of regulators, the company underwent an i...

‘Dumb Money’ writers on the GameStop saga

18 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It has been more than two years since GameStop’s stock caught fire on social media, at one point rising 135% in one day. The new film Dumb Money chr...

Bonus: Michael Lewis on FTX & Sam Bankman-Fried

16 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we have a bonus episode for you, live from the FT Due Diligence Forum in London. FT chief features writer Henry Mance sits down with author...

FTC versus Amazon

11 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In its latest fight to curb the power of Big Tech, the US Federal Trade Commission has sued Amazon. The regulator says the e-commerce giant has become...

Argentina’s $16bn saga with a US court

04 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When Argentina’s president announced plans to nationalise an oil company in 2012, it was presented as a way to grow the country’s wealth. Eleven y...

Best Of: Why Apple can’t leave China

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re revisiting an episode from earlier this year. Apple has spent two decades and billions of dollars building a massive supply chain f...

The push to dominate the battery supply chain

20 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels and the electric vehicle market grows, competition to control a piece of a new source of energy is bre...

Coming soon: Can AI help us speak to animals?

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Subscribe now to the FT's Tech Tonic podcast: Some scientists believe that rapid advances in artificial intelligence may also hold the key to decoding...

The Russian Banker, Part 3: Asylum

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Critics argue Russia has a playbook for people who become its targets. On the final episode of the Russian Banker, we explore how Sergei Leontiev saw ...

Bonus: Arm’s race to IPO

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we have a bonus episode for you, live from the FT Weekend Festival in London. Michela sat down with two experts on Arm, the British chip de...

The Russian Banker, Part 2: The Whistleblower

06 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sergei Leontiev says he was a political victim of the Putin regime. But when we tracked down other people who used to work at the bank they had a diff...

The Russian Banker, Part 1: The Raid

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2015, Sergei Leontiev's life's work — a Russian banking business — was taken away from him overnight. Why were he and the bank being targe...

Introducing: The Russian Banker

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Who is Sergei Leontiev? To the US asylum system, he’s an exiled Russian banker who was persecuted by the state and forced to flee. To Russia, he’s...

Did Binance miss its chance to rule crypto?

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The collapse of FTX sent shockwaves through the crypto ecosystem last year. But it gave rival crypto exchange Binance, the biggest in the world, a cha...

The controversy around share buybacks

16 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Share buybacks are a strategy companies use to return excess cash to their shareholders. But recently, they’ve exploded in popularity, and that’s ...

How Dubai is reshaping the global oil trade

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, the global centre for oil trading has been Geneva, Switzerland. But Russia’s war in Ukraine changed that. Sanctions have made it harder...

Institutional investors take to the pitch

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

There’s a new club coming to women’s professional football in the United States. Next season will see the debut of Bay FC, out of northern Califor...

A different way to understand the US economy

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Under “normal” circumstances, economists and analysts study a variety of specific indicators to understand what’s happening with the US economy....

Macquarie’s grip on global infrastructure

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

About 30 years ago, an Australian investment company called Macquarie figured out how to turn public utilities into lucrative assets. This strategy he...

Frances Haugen’s lessons as a Facebook whistleblower

12 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Frances Haugen was just another Silicon Valley tech worker until she decided to speak up about what was happening inside Facebook. Now she’s written...

Best Of: Tracking the mysterious rise of a UAE company

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we are revisiting an episode from earlier this year about an obscure firm from the United Arab Emirates: International Holding Company’s ...

How a big biotech’s start-up gamble went wrong

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Illumina, the world’s biggest gene sequencing company, announced plans to buy cancer detection start-up Grail for $8bn while the biotech boom was in...

The downfall of a UK hedge fund titan

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

For decades, Crispin Odey sat atop the UK’s hedge fund scene. Lauded by many in financial circles as a charismatic maverick and known for taking hig...

Is crypto a security, bro?

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Crypto is at a crossroads. As exchanges and currencies blow up, the US Securities and Exchange Commission is ready to step in. But is crypto a securit...

Is Africa’s debt cycle unbreakable?

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Ghana was once considered a success story and a model for African development. But after suffering several economic shocks, the west African country i...

Introducing Unhedged

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

We want to tell you about a new podcast coming soon! On Unhedged, Ethan Wu, Katie Martin and other markets nerds at the Financial Times explain the bi...

Libor's long goodbye

07 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At one time not that long ago, you could find Libor in everything: mortgages, corporate loans, credits cards and more. Now, its days are numbered. The...

Best Of: Inside Johnson & Johnson’s bankruptcy two-step

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re revisiting an episode from last year. Johnson & Johnson, one of the world’s largest healthcare companies, is facing thous...

Does anyone want a digital euro?

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As cryptocurrencies have grown in popularity and people use cash less and less, central banks have been put on the defensive. Their solution to stay r...

Why companies don't want to list in the UK anymore

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The London Stock Exchange once held the top spot in global financial markets. In recent years, that’s changed drastically. The FT’s Harriet Agnew ...

Night School, Class 5: How to read the markets

15 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On the final episode of BTM Night School, we're talking markets: from stocks to bonds to commodities. We're joined by the FT's Markets editor Katie Ma...

Can Intel bounce back?

10 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Silicon Valley legend Intel was the semiconductor chip industry’s global leader for decades. Lately it’s fallen behind, just as the US is recognis...

Night School, Class 4: ESG reshapes the boardroom

08 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

ESG has become a buzzword within public companies and among asset managers. Central banks and big asset managers such as BlackRock have been championi...

How EY’s Project Everest collapsed

03 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

When news broke last year that EY was planning to split its businesses, it was seen as a move that could reshape the accounting industry. The bold pla...

Night School, Class 3: Big Tech vs the insurgents

01 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

From the rise of ChatGPT to job cuts at companies such as Meta and Amazon, tech has dominated the headlines in 2023. On this episode of Night School, ...

FT Weekend: The secret gamblers using AI to hack horse racing

26 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re bringing you something from our fellow podcast, FT Weekend. The show travels to Miami, Florida, to drink some beers, place some bet...

Night School, Class 2: Why high inflation persists

25 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Inflation remains stubbornly high in the US. In this week’s episode of BTM: Night School, US managing editor Peter Spiegel talks to US economics edi...

Why Apple can’t leave China

19 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Apple has spent two decades and billions of dollars building a massive supply chain for its products. At the centre of that operation is China. But as...

Night School, Class 1: Green energy’s big year

17 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s time to hit the books with Behind the Money: Night School. This series will serve as a primer to the biggest economic stories of 2023. On ...

Introducing Behind the Money: Night School

14 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

There’s been a lot of big finance and economics news in 2023. Whether it's stories about rising interest rates, tech industry layoffs or bank runs, ...

Best Of: How Russia loots grain from Ukraine

12 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, we’re revisiting an important episode from last year. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 triggered a global food crisis. M...

Climate crisis: Who should pay to rebuild Pakistan?

05 Apr 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Climate disasters are becoming more and more common, and the countries most vulnerable to them are often the ones emitting the least pollution. That i...

Inside UBS’s takeover of Credit Suisse

29 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, markets were anxious, and the prestigious, yet scandal-ridden Credit Suisse looked as if it could be next t...

Martin Wolf on why banks fail and what to do about it

22 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Credit Suisse… Silicon Valley Bank… Signature Bank… First Republic… After weeks of breaking headlines about banks in crisis, we are taking a b...

Why SVB’s collapse is not a 2008 repeat

15 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last week raised questions about the strength of the United States’ banking system, and whether we’re headed f...

Tracking the mysterious rise of a UAE company

08 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Over just a few years, the share price of an obscure company from the United Arab Emirates has jumped 40,000%. But little is known about International...

What’s causing the US airline chaos?

01 Mar 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Recently, flying in the US seems to be more chaotic than calm. And while it may seem like this all started recently, the FT’s Chicago Correspondent ...

The costs of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

22 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been one year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We’re spending this episode talking to FT reporters and Ukrainian ent...

Europe’s Big Tech trust buster

15 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The EU’s executive branch is known for leading the way when it comes to regulating crucial industries, like Big Tech. But for now, one country appea...

The US dollar loses its crown

08 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The dollar dominated last year as the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates quicker than other countries to tame inflation. But the so-called “ki...

What’s behind the job cuts in Big Tech?

01 Feb 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Several Big Tech companies have recently announced job cuts - and they pinned their decisions on a pandemic-induced hiring spree. But is that actually...

China's reset

25 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, we talked about China needing to find a mechanism to fix its economy. It looks like it may have found it - by abruptly ending its zero-Covi...

A turning point for Tesla?

18 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Electric vehicle giant Tesla took the automotive industry by storm with its innovative technology, but the company’s stock price has slid significan...

Indonesia’s secret to economic success

11 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The global economy has been hit hard in the past few years by the Covid-19 pandemic, high inflation and Russia’s war in Ukraine. However, there’s ...

What we can learn from 300-year-old bubbles

04 Jan 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome back to a new year with Behind the Money! We’re starting off by paying a visit to the New York Public Library to take a peek into the past. ...