Behind the Money
Episodes
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. ...
Martin Wolf on the economy in 2023
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s our last episode of the year, so that means we’re looking ahead to 2023 with the help of the FT’s chief economics commentator Martin Wolf. ...
Credit Suisse's last chance
07 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At one time, Credit Suisse was considered to be among the most respected banks in Europe. The FT’s European banking correspondent Owen Walker explai...
Best Of: Why VC funding is drying up
30 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we revisit one of our favourite episodes. After years of mega-deals and mega-money gushing into start-ups, venture capital fundraising hit ...
Qatar’s $200bn bet on the World Cup
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Qatar is in the spotlight as the host of this year’s World Cup — and the small, oil-rich nation has had to confront a lengthy human rights record ...
What FTX’s collapse means for crypto
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The crypto exchange FTX was supposed to be among the “credible” players operating in digital finance. But its swift descent into bankruptcy shocke...
Introducing Tech Tonic, Season 5: Climate tech to save the planet
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Tech Tonic is back with a new season about climate tech.As more people fly, aviation is on track to becoming a much bigger problem for climate change....
How Russia loots grain from Ukraine
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year triggered a global food crisis. Recently, FT correspondents Polina Ivanova, Chris Cook and Laura Pite...
JPMorgan’s internal feud over wealthy clients
02 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There’s some internal turmoil at JPMorgan Chase over who should manage the bank’s wealthiest clients. At the centre of the infighting is a top fin...
How Republicans weaponised climate investing
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
US Republicans are picking a fight with some major financial institutions over ESG, or environmental, social and governance investing. That means cons...
Did China miss its chance to fix its economy?
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The spotlight is on China as the Communist party’s 20th National Congress takes place this week. At a critical moment when President Xi Jinping prep...
An electric truck start-up founder goes to trial
12 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Trevor Milton and his electric vehicle start-up Nikola became Spac darlings in 2020 with his plan to transform the trucking industry. Then it all came...
How Wall Street became infatuated with the music industry
05 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Years of low interest rates sent investors hunting for creative ways to generate returns. One unlikely place they found was inside the song catalogues...
Who will pay for the next Covid vaccines?
28 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the rollout of bivalent boosters for Covid-19 continues, experts are concerned that the US isn’t doing enough to support the development of the n...
The next hurdle for unions in the US
21 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last year, Starbucks baristas across the US banded together to form unions at the stores where they work. And workers at other big name compa...