Category: 3. Business

‘No Trump! No China!’: South Korea caught between superpowerspublished at 05:19 GMT

05:19 GMT

Laura Bicker
China correspondent, reporting from Gyeongju

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

“No Trump!” a rally of hundreds shouted in the centre of South Korea’s capital Seoul over the weekend.

“No China,” chanted another rally nearby.

This is an indication of the diplomatic dance South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung will have to perform this week as he hosts the leaders of both the US and China.

Seoul is – and has long been – a key US ally. It still needs Washington’s protection, but it also needs China, its biggest trading partner and a vital market for exports.

After Lee visited the White House in August, South Korea thought it had appeased its powerful friend – Trump agreed to lower tariffs from 25% to 15%.

But then more than 300 South Koreans were detained in a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in the US state of Georgia. This has shaken ties – especially because Hyundai is a major investor in the US.

Anti-Chinese sentiment in South Korea has also grown steadily in recent years. Chinese interference became a common trope in conspiracy theories about former South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol.

However Lee chooses to navigate between the world’s two biggest economies, it’s hard to imagine how he can afford to alienate either.

Read more about South Korea’s delicate dance between the US and China.

This is an audio transcript of the Behind the Money podcast episode: ‘$12bn of debt — How First Brands Group collapsed’

Michela Tindera
What does it take to inflict damage on some of the world’s biggest financial institutions? Well, as it turns out, one secret of businessman with a track record of battling creditors in court, and it all starts with a tip.

Ortenca Aliaj
I was having breakfast and I got a message from a contact who said they had heard of this interesting company that was potentially having issues.

Michela Tindera
That’s the FT’s Ortenca Aliaj. The tip centred around a huge auto parts company, which is a bit out of her field — she’s the FT’s banking editor. But lots of big financial firms had lent this company money, and now it was running into trouble. So, Ortenca mentions it to our colleague Robert Smith. He’s the FT’s corporate finance editor, and he reaches out to some of his contacts. For a while, he doesn’t hear anything back. And then in August, Rob gets a call.

Robert Smith
I was sitting there with sort of an incredibly experienced, incredible person telling me that one of the biggest companies in its sector in America was a ticking time bomb.

Michela Tindera
The company we’re talking about is called First Brands Group. Not exactly a household name but it’s a business with a collection of factories from Pennsylvania to California — ones that make spark plugs, brake components and windshield wipers. It’s an auto parts supplier basically, and it’s from the Rust Belt of the United States.

So not typically the kind of company that would cause the upper echelons of Wall Street to lose sleep over. Yet that’s exactly what happened last month when First Brands collapsed.

And as Rob, Ortenca and our colleagues worked together on the First Brands story, they unveiled something possibly even more troubling: a form of Wall Street lending that’s exposed financial markets to broader risk, risk that’s even got central bank leaders worried.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I’m Michela Tindera from the Financial Times. Today on Behind the Money, First Brands’ bankruptcy has raised questions about one of Wall Street’s favoured forms of financial innovation: the $2tn private credit market. This form of lending is often opaque, and there’s concern that after years of loosening lending standards, First Brands’ demise could be an omen.

 [MUSIC PLAYING]

There are many questions in this story, but let’s start with one of the biggest. It concerns the founder of First Brands, a mysterious businessman called Patrick James. How did this obscure entrepreneur, based in the Midwest state of Ohio, enlist some of the biggest names in finance to lend his firm, not just millions, but billions?

Who is he? Well, the story begins sometime after the 2008 financial crisis when Patrick James goes on a debt-fuelled acquisition spree. Here’s Rob.

Robert Smith
So Patrick James, he borrowed a lot of money to buy existing companies and sort of piece them together. So one of the early deals he did was in 2014, and he bought a windscreen wiper maker or a windshield wiper maker, as you say in the US, called Trico. And then sort of every year he’d announced any deals. So you know, buying a carburettor maker, buying a spark plug manufacturer. And each time he did it, he borrowed more and more money and the group became bigger and bigger. And then it was in 2020, I believe, he rebranded the company First Brands Group.

So, you know, he’s kind of saying: We’ve got all the brands. We are the First Brands Group. If you want your Trico windscreen wipers, we’re there. You know, if you want your Michelin-branded tires, we are the guys. And like a lot of schemes that go awry or like a lot of companies that blow up, he had a good pitch.

Michela Tindera
One of the first major Wall Street firms to latch on to the First Brands’ pitch is the investment bank Jefferies.

Robert Smith
Jefferies got involved with First Brands very early, so in 2014, before it was even called First Brands, and they basically were there to shepherd it into the market to help it borrow this money from these private investment firms.

And Jefferies, it’s tried to model itself from what it would describe as a pure play investment bank. So sort of like the investment banks of your . . . where kind of swaggering bankers went out and won business. And they lived and died by the strength of the service they could offer their clients.

Michela Tindera
Jefferies isn’t the only firm to give them money. In fact, Jefferies has since pointed out that they were aware of nine other banks being involved in acquisitions or loan arrangements for First Brands. And that’s because in part, as Patrick James builds up First Brands in the wake of the financial crisis, a new area of finance is on the rise: private credit. It’s a form of lending that Ortenca as the FT’s banking editor is watching closely.

Ortenca Aliaj
After the financial crisis, regulators sought to restrain banks because they’ve been doing all of these risky trades that almost led to the collapse of the global economy. And one of the repercussions of this was that they would effectively make it much more onerous for banks to lend to highly levered borrowers or companies that have a lot of debt on their balance sheet, which tend to be mid-sized businesses.

And what happened was that there were, these very, very smart people on Wall Street who thought, well, if banks can no longer enter these businesses, we could set up firms that can. And that was sort of the genesis of the private credit industry. It wasn’t that it hadn’t existed before, but there was this kind of new borrower or new market that they could easily cater to.

And so it was kind of fortunate that as Patrick James was trying to build this business of his, there was a group of lenders ready to lend to him that perhaps are more lenient in terms of scrutiny than maybe a bank would’ve been.

Michela Tindera
So First Brands grows alongside this boom in private credit. Lots of big financial institutions from Zurich to Tokyo become tied up in this business. Along the way, Patrick James amasses the trappings of a billionaire.

Robert Smith
I think what’s interesting is before the collapse of First Brands, this was sort of a big immigrant success story. Patrick James, he’s Malaysian. He’s from like a family of Indian descent and then he later moved to America for college with seemingly not a lot of wealth. But he sort of stuck around in Ohio and he very quickly became involved in a lot of different industrial businesses.

And then at the sort of peak of First Brands, he amassed this very lavish sort of lifestyle. He had oceanfront properties on both coasts. So he had a big oceanfront property in Malibu, had a big oceanfront property in the Hamptons. He had almost, like, I’d call it almost like a compound in Ohio. So it’s sort of like five houses and a tennis court. So you had a lot of trophy homes all around America.

Michela Tindera
And that brings us up to this past summer and the tips we heard about earlier, the ones Ortenca and Rob received from their contacts. Now, as they’re digging in, they learn something. In early August, First Brands had been working to refinance its debt once again with the investment bank Jefferies. But this time something went wrong.

Robert Smith
So this company raised debts constantly. It needed to keep accessing debt markets to survive. So they tried to do a $6bn debt refinancing. So that’s essentially when you raise new debt to pay off the old debt. It’s quite a large deal. And it ran aground because lenders took a look at this and they had concerns about the financial statements.

But what we discovered through our sources was that First Brands was also raising sort of a lot of less visible financing, stuff that behaved a lot like debt but perhaps wasn’t disclosed as debt on the balance sheet. And we sort of had people saying that they believed there could be billions of dollars, more of this stuff than perhaps everyone realised.

Michela Tindera
OK. So to sum it up here, this company, you’ve just received a tip about. You have people telling you that it could have billions more dollars of debt than anyone knows about. I mean, what was going through your mind as you uncovered all this?

Robert Smith
I think the thing that really shocked us was this was a company neither of us had heard of.

Ortenca Aliaj
Yes.

Robert Smith
And we write a lot about debt markets. And as soon as we did our research, we found out this thing was a debt monster, and we kind of discovered that some of the biggest names in international finance had exposures that weren’t well understood. So for us it was kind of an “Oh, my God” sort of moment. There’s this sort of debt bomb lurking out there that no one really seems to know anything about.

Michela Tindera
So Rob and Ortenca have found a debt bomb hidden away and supposedly it could go off at any moment. So they and two of our colleagues write about this in the FT, and the reaction to their reporting is fairly muted.

Robert Smith
No one really freaked out. And then about, I think it was just over a week later, we published a second story.

Michela Tindera
This time, people sit up and take note.

Robert Smith
And in that second story, we revealed that a very big Wall Street firm called Apollo Global Management had taken a short position against First Brands’ debt. Now, that meant that it would make money if the company entered financial difficulties. So, debt can trade like a stock can trade, and when people have concerns around a company, that debt trade is down and the company’s debt immediately crashed. And from there, in a matter of weeks, it went from this kind of freak out in debt markets to the company filing for bankruptcy.

Michela Tindera
September 28th this year. That’s when First Brands files for bankruptcy.

Robert Smith
When we first wrote about the company, it had told investors it had $800mn of cash on its balance sheet. When it filed for bankruptcy at the end of September, it had $12mn in the bank. So something went completely wrong with this company. There was almost like a bank run on the company’s cash and it was just a complete fire sale. So some of the biggest institutions on Wall Street were just dumping their debt. I don’t think it’s too hyperbolic to say it was complete carnage.

Michela Tindera
A couple weeks later, the US Department of Justice announces its launching an inquiry into the collapse of the firm. Days after that, First Brands CEO Patrick James steps down and all the while Rob, Ortenca and some of our colleagues are parsing through these bankruptcy documents. That’s where they learned that what their sources had told them that First Brands had billions more of this off-balance sheet debt, that it was even more true than they had imagined.

Robert Smith
So First Brands had about $6bn of loans. So those are like the normal sort of loans that in the past would’ve been made by banks. A lot of them were made by investment firms. But on top of that, it had a lot of what is called off-balance sheet debt, and what that broadly means is that in the company’s accounts, this wasn’t disclosed as debt.

Michela Tindera
Well, how does that work? How does a company accumulate debt but then the debt doesn’t appear on its balance sheet?

Robert Smith
So, you know, First Brands was borrowing money; it was borrowing money from lenders. But on top of that, it was raising this other form of financing that was tied to its invoices and tied to the little bits and bobs of metal sitting around in its warehouse. And this is all quite normal stuff in finance.

The crucial point there is that while you owe money to a bank, it’s not classed as debt on your balance sheet. It’s sort of mingled in with all the other invoices you pay suppliers. So it’s a bit of a loophole where if companies abuse it, they can rack up hidden debts quite quickly.

So it came out in the bankruptcy that there was a total of nearly $5.5bn of this off balance sheet financing in different forms. So you had people who thought: OK, there’s $6bn of debt out here. And then they wake up one morning and read the disclosure in the bankruptcy and they realise: Oh my God, there’s nearly $12bn of debt here.

Ortenca Aliaj
It’s almost double, basically. And it’s really crucial to make the point that — and maybe it’s a simple point, but should still be made — having a high debt load, not a crime, there’s a lot of highly leveraged companies. That’s fine. Having debt that your creditors don’t know about, can become quite a problem for you and your creditors.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
Big financial names like UBS’s Chicago-based hedge fund unit O’Connor, US hedge fund giant Millennium and Japan’s Mitsui & Co and Norinchukin Bank, all provided this form of financing: off balance sheet financing to First Brands. And the story of how other lenders missed all that debt, that’s a story that tells us a lot about how private credit markets work and how opaque they can be.

 [MUSIC PLAYING]

In the course of their reporting, Rob and Ortenca found a number of red flags at First Brands that Wall Street lenders either missed or chose not to be concerned about. One of their first stops was to look into the background of First Brands CEO, that mysterious businessman Patrick James.

Ortenca Aliaj
So usually when we’re dealing with a person that we are not familiar within the business world, what I will try to do is go through various government filings to see if they’ve been mentioned in anything.

And I’m looking on the Securities and Exchange Commission website, which houses corporate filings, and I find a reference to Patrick James and the company First Brands Group. It’s in relation to an acquisition that they made a couple of years back. I’m sort of like: Well, great. We’re gonna find some more details about him.

But the profile of James is basically one line, and I think all it says is that he has extensive experience in the automotive after-market industry. So we find ourselves in this position where we really know very little about him. We can find biographies from the high school that he went to, but we don’t know what this person has been doing in the corporate world for the past 30 years.

Michela Tindera
Even First Brands’ lenders were in the dark about who Patrick James is.

Robert Smith
When we talk to the lenders who are the people who should know the most about this company, they didn’t know anything or very little about Patrick James either. And this guy was the chief executive, but he was also the 100 per cent owner of the company.

Ortenca Aliaj
And again, this is a man who, despite all of that, has accrued $12bn of debt. And we can’t, you know, we can’t find any reference to him really . . . any meaningful reference to him on the internet.

Robert Smith
So it was kind of a strange moment and almost the red flag in and of itself.

Michela Tindera
One of the things Rob and Ortenca were able to find out quite quickly though was James’s colourful legal past, which included a string of failed companies behind him.

Ortenca Aliaj
And very quickly we uncovered that there had been prior accusations of fraud against James, and the accusations were eerily similar to what we were hearing on First Brands Group.

Michela Tindera
More than a decade ago, two lenders in separate cases sued Patrick James.

Robert Smith
So in one of those lawsuits, the bank that filed the claim against Patrick James, it accused him and his businesses of making “misrepresentations and omissions” relating to their invoices and inventory. So that was really interesting because it seemed to be relating to the same sort of financing that was at the heart of First Brands collapse.

And then there was another lawsuit where James was accused of creating a “web of companies” to transfer out funds “in an attempt to defraud” creditors. So he was basically accused of creating this very complicated, shifting group of companies in which the allegation was that money was siphoned out of them.

Michela Tindera
It’s worth noting that Patrick James, through a spokesman has said these allegations are, quote, categorically false. The cases were robustly defended and never tried after settlements were reached. These were civil claims where serious allegations are often made, which turn out to have little substance. Certainly nothing criminal was ever brought against Patrick James.

In fact, James’s spokesman also told the FT about our reporting on his back-story that James hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing and is confident that the board’s independent investigation will vindicate him. But beyond Patrick James’ legal history, there were other issues that Rob and Ortenca learned about related to the First Brands’ business and its debt.

Robert Smith
So a really easy one was that First Brands Group had significantly higher margins than its peers. And the auto sector generally is quite a tight margin business, right? These guys ring out every cost they can, and they found that they just couldn’t really get a good explanation of that. And that was something that made some investors like not lend to the company and other lenders decide to not lend in the future.

Michela Tindera
Plus, there was the issue of collateral for First Brands loans. As Rob mentioned, the company was using its inventory, the bits and bobs of metal in its warehouses as collateral, but many lenders didn’t bother to check whether that collateral even existed.

Robert Smith
Now the classic thing you do when you lend against inventory is you go to the warehouse. You look at the stock list, you go around, you see if the things are there, you, know, you kick a few boxes. And we discovered that First Brands, so Patrick James’ brother Ed James was sort of the point man, shall we say, for the stuff.

And we talked to some lenders who, you know, were approached about doing inventory finance. And they said: OK, great. Well we’ll come down to your warehouse and we’ll check it against the stock list. And then they were sort of cut off there. You know, supposedly Ed James said: No, no, no, no, no. We don’t let lenders into the warehouse. You can’t do that.

So you can imagine for a lot of people that was just a non-starter. They were like: We’re not gonna lend against a bunch of stock in a warehouse if we haven’t even seen it.

Michela Tindera
Now we should be clear that the business First Brands has not been charged formally with fraud. Still, it all begs the question: where was the due diligence? How did First Brands manage to keep securing more and more from lenders with no one lifting up the hood on its business?

Robert Smith
What I think this tells you about the structure of modern finance is that it doesn’t pay to do deep due diligence on the companies you’re lending to. People in managed investment funds, the way they make money is by earning fees, and the way they earn fees is by lending. So a lot of these people were relying on the disclosures that were given to them by the company and by the investment bank, which was often Jefferies, and they perhaps didn’t have the time to really dig into the accounts.

Michela Tindera
But Ortenca says there’s a big picture to consider too.

Ortenca Aliaj
We’ve had 10 or 15 years of what we like to call the easy money era, where there’s been this abundance of cash going into the private capital industry, so they’ve had to find more and more opportunities to use it, and that can lead to slightly looser lending standards. Mark Rowan, the chief executive of Apollo, who as we’ve said, made a bet against First Brands before the company went under, has called these “late-cycle accidents”.

Michela Tindera
Add to that a sense that someone else, another lender, was assumed to be doing their homework on First Brands.

Ortenca Aliaj
Usually what these companies do when something does happen like this is they’ll pass the buck. They’ll say: Oh, well the company had an auditor. It’s the auditor’s fault. And then some will say: Well, you know, we bought the debt from a bank. The bank should have done the due diligence. Then, you know, an investor in private credit say: Well, well, private credit bought the loan. So why would we do the due diligence?

So it’s sort of like everyone relies on the fact that the person before them performed good due diligence on the company and they are almost absolved of responsibility of actually having done it themselves.

Michela Tindera
So Rob, how likely is it that we see more of these situations pop up?

Robert Smith
I was lucky enough a couple of weeks ago to talk to Jim Chanos, who’s one of the most famous short sellers on Wall Street. You know, he’s known as the man who spotted the Enron fraud before it unravelled. Right? And he had a really interesting thing to say. He was basically saying what he calls the fraud cycle follows the financial cycle. So what he meant by that is when money rushes into an asset class, that is a fertile ground for fraud.

So the way he explained it is like the longer a sort of boom goes on, the more investors’ healthy scepticism starts to erode because everyone else is making massive returns and you know, they might not really be doing the work.

So you start to think: Oh, well, you know. Ah, I dunno about this, but God, if everyone else is doing it, you know, I’ve got my end investors turning around to me and saying, why aren’t you investing in these companies? Why aren’t you doing these loans?

So it just sort of wears you down. And if there’s like years and years without incident on Wall Street, you think, OK, well. Yeah, it’s probably safe. I don’t fully understand it, but I’ll just go with it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
So a few weeks ago, our listeners might remember that we covered the collapse of the Texas-based subprime auto lender called Tricolor Holdings. Looking at these two stories, there are a lot of similarities. How should we think about that?

Robert Smith
Yeah. I think what’s interesting here is when you have an incident like this, it obviously frightens people. So what you get is you get people taking a closer look at the sort of lending they’ve done.

You know, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, on an earnings call recently, he said: There’s rarely one cockroach. So you know, the analogy there is you see a cockroach in your kitchen, there’s probably a few more of the guys, right?

So I think that’s what everyone’s trying to work out at the moment. People are looking over the asset-backed lending they’ve done, they’re looking over the corporate loans they’ve done and they’re trying to see: Is there another First Brands?

Michela Tindera
Do we know anything about how regulators are thinking about the news of these recent collapses?

Robert Smith
I think it’s really caught the attention of regulators because in the financial crisis a lot of the issues were with banks, and although it was, you know, nearly catastrophic, regulators do have a lot of insight over banks.

Partly because of the rules that they introduced to stop this happening again, a lot of that lending is migrated away from banks and into investment funds, and regulators just have much less visibility in what’s going on there. There’s also a phenomenon where often the banks are lending to the private credit funds, so there can still be a knock-on into the banking system.

And this is the area where sort of central bank governors, policymakers, those sort of people are getting worried. So Andrew Bailey, who’s the governor of the Bank of England, he said earlier this month that alarm bells were sort of ringing over what’s going on in private credit. And he mentioned First Brands and Tricolor by name.

You also had the head of the IMF, the International Monetary Fund, she said there’d been a very significant shift in financing away from the banks to what they call non-bank lenders. And again, she mentioned Tricolor and First Brands as sort of worrying signs of what might be going on.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Michela Tindera
Behind the Money is hosted by me, Michela Tindera. This episode was produced by me and Saffeya Ahmed. Our executive producer is Manuel Saragosa. Fact-checking by Simon Greaves. Sound design and mixing by Sam Giovinco. Original music is by Hannis Brown Topher Forhecz is the FT’s acting co-head of audio. Thanks for listening. See you next week.

Munich. BMW and MINI will be hosting
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BMW Motorrad will also be represented at the event – in the form of
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Asian premiere for the new BMW iX3, the first new Neue Klasse model.

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The new BMW iX5 Hydrogen* from 2028.

Product diversity continues to be a key success factor for the BMW
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World premiere for the MINI Paul Smith Edition.

Back in 1998, Paul Smith lent his signature to a limited-run edition
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Japan premiere for the special-edition BMW M2 CS.

The special-edition BMW M2 CS is celebrating its Japanese premiere at
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With in-car gaming via AirConsole, users can enjoy
world-renowned classic titles.

Visitors to the BMW Group stand in Tokyo can also experience in-car
gaming via AirConsole, as introduced for the first time with BMW
Operating System 8.5. The new BMW iX3 will offer this feature, which
comes with world-renowned titles like the classic card game UNO® from
Mattel – here tailored for in-car gaming and renamed “UNO® Car
Party!”. Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAT) is a leading global toy and family
entertainment company and owner of one of the most iconic brand
portfolios in the world.

BMW customers also gain exclusive access to the Hot Wheels: Xtreme
Overdrive^TM game that AirConsole – in collaboration with
Mattel – has added to its game library. In this game, players can earn
points with the virtual BMW Vision Neue Klasse X in races on the
Panoramic Drive Track, unlock legendary Hot Wheels cars and customize
them. This makes every race a showcase for the performance and style
of the BMW Vision Neue Klasse X.

At the same time, AirConsole will also release PAC-MAN™ Championship
Edition from Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. to BMW for the first
time. This brand-specific version of the arcade classic has been
customized with exclusive BMW items, bringing a unique twist to one of
the world’s best known games. AirConsole allows customers to use their
smartphones as controllers so that all the passengers on board can
play against each other.

BMW Concept Speedtop: the sports Touring, redefined.

Adding a particularly exclusive head-turner to the vehicles on
display at the BMW Group’s Japan Mobility Show 2025 stand is the
unique BMW Concept Speedtop. This three-door concept car was unveiled
for the first time in May this year at the Concorso d´Eleganza Villa
d´Este 2025, the renowned celebration of historic vehicles on the
shores of Lake Como in Italy. The BMW Concept Speedtop reimagines the
sporty Touring model type, blending the elegance of a shooting brake
with a fresh design language. The exclusivity of the BMW Concept
Speedtop (which will be offered in a strictly limited-run small series
of 70 cars) is underscored by its exquisite engine – the most powerful
V8 engine currently offered by BMW.

The exterior of the BMW Concept Speedtop is marked out by the
pronounced V-shape of the “shark-nose” front end, the slim front
lights and the illuminated kidneys. The continuation of the central
spline from the bonnet over the roof to the rear spoiler imbues the
car with a dynamic Touring profile, its broad haunches further
enriching the athletic design. And its elegance is underscored by
two-tone, 14-spoke fan-style wheels, which have been designed
specifically for the BMW Concept Speedtop. A two-tone colour and
materials concept creates a connection between the exterior and
interior. The sparkling brown tones of the Floating Sunstone Maroon
exterior paint finish are carried over into the cabin in the form of
the brown Sundown Maroon colour world with the light Moonstone White
of the seats. In addition, skilfully crafted, traditional brogue-style
details accentuate the leather-trimmed surfaces and visualise the
manufactory-level craftsmanship on display. The boot of the BMW
Concept Speedtop is also leather-covered and adorned with brogue-style
perforations. The elaborate craftsmanship of the exterior and interior
was realised with the expertise of the Manufactory workshop at BMW
Group Plant Dingolfing.

BMW X7 meets Japanese craftsmanship.

The BMW X7 Nishiki Lounge concept car presented at the Japan Mobility
Show embodies the elegant symbiosis of luxurious driving comfort and
traditional Japanese craftsmanship. With space for up to seven people,
this attractive concept model based on the BMW X7 also offers high
practicality. A tranquil space filled with beauty, where stars
twinkle, the BMW X7 Nishiki Lounge creates a gentle, expansive
sanctuary. Here in the cabin, the refined brilliance of BMW’s
exclusive appointments is artistically combined with the vast expanse
of a starry sky, crafted using traditional Kyoto techniques.

A dedicated two-tone paint scheme instantly conveys the exclusive
aura of the BMW X7 Nishiki Lounge. Complementing the main colour BMW
Individual Velvet Blue, the roof section is painted in Space Silver to
evoke the shimmer of nebulae shining in the cosmos. The Crystal Light
Headlights emit an infinite, jewel-like brilliance, enhanced by gentle
Iconic Glow light. The interior features a Panoramic Skyroof with
15,000 LEDs projecting a pale blue starlight at night, while the
Bowers & Wilkins Diamond Surround Sound System expresses the light
shining on the earth through sound.

BMW iX3 50 xDrive: Energy consumption combined (WLTP): 17,9 – 15,1
kWh/100 km; CO₂ emissions combined: (WLTP): 0 g/km;
CO₂ class: A

BMW iX5 Hydrogen: As this is a development-phase prototype,
energy consumption information according to WLTP is not available yet.

MINI Cooper SE: Energy consumption combined (WLTP): 14.7 kWh/100
km; CO₂ emissions combined: (WLTP): 0 g/km; CO₂
class: A

BMW M2 CS: Fuel consumption combined (WLTP): 10.0 l/100 km [28.3 mpg
imp]; CO₂ emissions combined: (WLTP): 226 g/km,
CO₂ class: G

BMW M2: Fuel consumption combined (WLTP): 9.8 l/100 km [28.8 mpg
imp]; CO₂ emissions combined: (WLTP): 223 g/km,
CO₂ class: G

** Value with “rollout” subtracted. With this alternative measuring
method, time measurement only begins after leaving a light barrier.
The distance not taken into account in the measurement (the “rollout”)
is 1 foot = 30.48 cm.

In an exclusive interview hosted by Landry Signé, Anna Bjerde, the World Bank’s managing director of operations, Washington, D.C. This is the final episode of season four of Foresight Africa podcast.

[music]

SIGNÉ: Hello, I am Landry Signé, a senior fellow at the Global Economy and Development Program and at the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution. Welcome to the Foresight Africa podcast, where I engage with distinguished leaders in policy, academia, business and civil society who share their unique insights and innovative solutions to Africa’s challenges while highlighting opportunities to advance engagements between Africa and the rest of the world.

Today we are fortunate to be meeting on the sideline of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings, a yearly gathering of the world’s most prominent figures in the development finance space such as central bankers, ministers of finance, but also heads of global and regional financial institutions, corporate CEOs, entrepreneurs, and civil society leaders.

Before we begin could you please state your full name and title for the recording. Welcome to the Foresight Africa podcast.

BJERDE: I am Anna Bjerde, the managing director of operations at the World Bank.

SIGNÉ: Welcome to the Foresight Africa podcast. I am delighted to have you join me during this busy week, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to share your insight with our audience.

BJERDE: Wonderful to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

SIGNÉ: Amazing! As you take part of this year’s Annual Meetings, which priorities do you see as most essential for driving sustainable and inclusive growth and why?

[2:06]

BJERDE: So thank you so much for that question. The most pressing, challenge, but also the biggest opportunity lies in creating jobs. And that is what we here at the World Bank Group has made really the focus, or laser focus, I should say, of all of our efforts.

And that is very much because what we’re seeing is that over the next decade we will have over a billion people come into the job market looking for work. And there’s simply not enough jobs the way we’re projecting it to be able to meet this demand for jobs.

So we have been working hard to come up with a plan for this, essentially, and I’ll just briefly summarize it. It comprises three pillars in the form of an approach. The first one is to invest in what we call foundational infrastructure, and that is both the physical infrastructure like energy, roads, ports, digital, but also the soft infrastructure: human capital enabling, health, education.

The second is to make sure that we have an enabling environment that really is conducive. And that means having stable policy and regulatory environments. That means focusing on the business environment, rule of law. A big issue in many countries is how is land allocated? And of course also the overall investment climate.

And the third pillar is all about attracting and mobilizing the private sector for both capital, but also for skills and innovation. And we believe those three together is what’s going to make a huge impact in the aspiration to create jobs.

If I may, just very quickly, we want to take those three approaches or three pillars through essentially five sectors that we believe are particularly prone to job creation. One is, again, infrastructure. The second is health care. Why? Because people have to be healthy. But we also believe that the health care sector and industry lends itself to jobs. The third one is the very important sector of agriculture, which I hope to get a chance to speak again about. And then we have tourism, which is a very, very significant industry to attract young people and women. And the final one is what we call value-added manufacturing.

All of this, the three approaches, the five sectors. And then of course, initiatives like one of my favorite Mission 300, which is all about electricity in Africa, is what we think is going to set us apart.

SIGNÉ: Fantastic! I really like the comprehensive, multi-stakeholder, agile approach. What insights or lessons from these discussions or from your broader work should global leaders act to strengthen resiliency, and address today’s most pressing economic and social challenges?

[5:03]

BJERDE: Yes. So here if I may, let me maybe think about Africa because for us, our work in Africa is so important. And if I go back to this question of what are some of the most pressing issues in Africa, again, I come to jobs. And in Africa what we really need is to focus on job creation by focusing on the new growth model, because Africa is going through its most significant and largest demographic shift in its history. We anticipate that the working age population looking for jobs in Africa will increase by 600 million by 2050, and the current growth model just won’t be able to meet this or step up to it.

So what we would very much like to do is focus on changing this. Why? Because too many people in Africa enter the job market in such a way that it’s low productivity, it’s informal, and it gives very little upside for income generation, poverty reduction, or even upward mobility.

So we want to focus on two things. The number of jobs, but not only the number of jobs, the quality of jobs, because without the quality, we won’t address the issue around productivity, informality, and upward mobility. This requires, first and foremost, that the private sector can play a larger role. And not just any private sector — medium and larger firms, because we know jobs get created when firms grow.

And that’s why we are really focusing, again, on the infrastructure needed, the foundation infrastructure, the business environment, and the enabling conditions, and of course, private capital mobilization.

SIGNÉ: Fantastic! Quality job creation as a development escalator and the private sector as a development agent.

BJERDE: Perfect.

SIGNÉ: So how are international institutions adapting their mandates and instruments to an evolving geopolitical trade economic landscape? And where can they most effectively lead transformative change?

[7:17]

BJERDE: Yeah,  great question. So we have been focusing on speed, impact, and scale. Speed by cutting the time it takes us to get any kind of project approved. So we have reduced by 26% last year compared to the previous year, and we’re not done yet. We want to go even faster.

Second, we want to focus more, and we have reduced our indicators that we track from about 150 to 22, just to allow us to be more focused on what really matters.

And scale. We have been able to, through a number of different innovations, make more funding available to developing countries. So we have another hundred billion dollars in exposure over the next 10 years.

But I want to also emphasize another thing which is so important. We’re changing our business model in that we’re capitalizing more on our parts. We have the public sector, the private sector. We have a guarantee mechanism and global, what we call the Unified Guarantee platform. And we have a settlement and disputes agency. So between all of these parts, we are internally becoming much more cohesive to offer our clients something much stronger. And outside, it’s all about partnerships.

SIGNÉ: Fabulous! That is powerful and thank you so much for sharing so beautifully the instruments to address some of those challenges. What bold actionable ideas from this week do you see shaping global policy and practice, and how do you plan to translate them into tangible results?

[8:55]

BJERDE: So we are very excited because this week we will be launching a new bold idea, and it’s all about agriculture, because we cannot reduce poverty without supporting farmers. And we want to support farmers through what we call a comprehensive ecosystem. We want farmers to have access to technology, data, and finance. And by doing so, they will be able to transform their agricultural practices into businesses and be able to reduce poverty in and of itself, but also do things like secure food for the future, and to be able to trade among themselves, and be able to come up with innovations thanks to both the technology, the data, and the access to finance.

So, we’re excited about this. Recently we announced that we will go to $9 billion a year by 2030. That’s doubling our support to the sector, in addition to mobilizing another $5 billion. So watch this space for some very interesting work around agriculture, which we believe is going to be an incredible contribution to the work we’re trying to do on poverty reduction.

SIGNÉ: What a beautiful way to conclude. Thank you so much for joining me today.

[music]

BJERDE: Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.

SIGNÉ: I am Landry Signé, and this has been Foresight Africa. This is the final episode of season four of the podcast. Thank you, listeners, for joining me today and throughout the season. Stay tuned for season five to start early next year.

The Foresight Africa podcast is brought to you by the Brookings Podcast Network. Send your feedback and questions to podcasts at Brookings dot edu. My special thanks to the production team including Fred Dews, producer; Dafe Oputu and Nicole Ntungire, associate producers; Gastón Reboredo, audio engineer; and Izzy Taylor, senior communications coordinator in Brookings Global. The show’s art was designed by Shavanthi Mendis.

Additional promotional support for this podcast comes from my colleagues in Brookings Global and the Office of Communications at Brookings.

The co-founder of ice cream maker Ben & Jerry’s says that its parent company Unilever blocked it from launching an ice cream flavour that expressed “solidarity with Palestine”.

Ben Cohen announced that he will independently create the new flavour as part of a personal series highlighting causes the company has been barred from addressing publicly.

Ben & Jerry’s is known for its activism on social issues and has consistently spoken out on political, environmental and humanitarian matters – including the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The BBC has contacted Unilever for comment.

Mr Cohen’s statement deepens the long-drawn dispute between the world-famous ice cream maker and Unilever, the British packaged goods giant which has owned Ben & Jerry’s since 2000.

The co-founders said Unilever and its ice cream arm Magnum, which is being spun off from its parent company, had unlawfully blocked their company from “honouring its social mission”.

Mr Cohen said in an Instagram video on Tuesday that he is creating a new watermelon-flavoured sorbet, calling for ideas for the product’s name and what ingredients should be added.

The watermelon has become a symbol for solidarity with Palestinians due to its colours, which are similar to those of the Palestinian flag – red, green, black and white.

The American entrepreneur said Ben & Jerry’s were prevented by Unilever from creating the dessert.

“I’m doing what they couldn’t,” Mr Cohen says from his set in a kitchen. “I’m making a watermelon-flavoured ice cream that calls for permanent peace in Palestine and calls for repairing the damage that was done there.”

In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s refused to sell its products in areas occupied by Israel. Its Israeli operation was sold by Unilever to a local licensee, allowing its ice cream to continue being sold in the occupied West Bank.

The dessert series will be developed under Ben’s Best, Mr Cohen’s activist ice cream brand, he said in a statement to the press. The flavour is being produced independently of Ben & Jerry’s, the statement said.

Ben’s Best was first setup in 2016 to support former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, with the flavour “Bernie’s Back”.

Mr Cohen said he will develop other ice cream flavours that speak to the issues Ben & Jerry’s was silenced from addressing publicly by Unilever.

In September, co-founder Jerry Greenfield stepped down from Ben & Jerry’s after decades at the company, citing concerns that its independence had been compromised following Unilever’s decision to curb its social activism.

At the time, Ben Cohen said that “Jerry has a really big heart and this conflict with Unilever was breaking it.”

“My heart leads me to continue to work inside the company to advocate for its independence so that it can actualise the social mission, the values that it was founded on and has maintained for over 40 years,” he told the BBC’s PM programme.

29
Oct 2025

Nearly 25 million people visited Greece between January and August 2025, the country’s central bank said, marking a 4% jump from last year as non-European Union (EU) tourists drove record travel spending.

Tourism revenue surges as non-EU visitors lead way

Greece earned €16.7 billion in travel revenue from January to August 2025, up 12% from the same period last year, according to the Bank of Greece. 

Inbound travelers reached 24.9 million, up from 24.8 million in 2024, showing continued recovery in the country’s travel sector.

EU travelers still made up the majority of arrivals, but their numbers barely changed from 2024. Within the bloc, trips from Eurozone countries rose 3.8%, while those from non-Eurozone states increased 6.9%.

Air, land arrivals both rise

According to the same data, air arrivals rose 4.2%, while land border crossings were up 4.8%, highlighting solid demand from both long-haul tourists and regional travellers.

Tourism remains a “vital pillar of the national economy,” the Bank of Greece noted in its summary, adding that the country’s travel sector is on track for another strong year in 2025.

(Image courtesy of user32212 via Pixabay)

Greece dominates travel awards

Separately, Greece secured top rankings in seven categories of the 2025 Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards.

Greek hotels and resorts dominated the European lists — including Porto Zante Villas & Spa (Zakynthos) and Sani Resort (Halkidiki) — while Naxos was named Europe’s Best Island with a score of 95.71.

The awards also placed Athens 12th among Europe’s best cities, praising its mix of ancient sites and new cultural energy.

Outlook for the rest of 2025

Tourism receipts and visitor volumes suggest Greece is heading for another record-breaking year.

Economists have highlighted tourism as a central driver of national income and employment, with revenue growth supported by high-spending markets beyond the EU.

The Bank of Greece said the sector’s strength “suggests another strong year for the industry as the country looks ahead to the final months of 2025.”

(Image courtesy of k5hu via iStock)

Travel rules tighten as Europe adapts to tourism growth

For short-term visitors heading to Greece or elsewhere in the Schengen Area, new border systems are set to change how people enter and leave the EU. 

The European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS), due to begin in late 2026, will require travelers from visa-exempt countries to apply online before their trip. 

Meanwhile, the Entry-Exit System (EES), which was launched this October, will log when non-EU visitors cross the border, replacing manual passport stamps.

Together, these systems aim to improve border security and track overstays, but they will also make travel planning more digital and time-sensitive. 

Tourists can still move freely once inside the Schengen Zone, but they will need to factor in extra steps before arrival. 

Long-term visitors and migrants will also face closer checks, as the EU updates how it monitors movement between member states.

Tourism boom set to shape Greece’s economic future

Greece’s strong tourism performance in 2025 highlights the sector’s vital role in driving the country’s economy. 

Record visitor numbers and rising travel receipts show that international demand — especially from non-EU countries — is keeping momentum high.

With the industry now a cornerstone of national growth, Greece’s focus on sustainability and year-round travel will determine how long this success can last. 

For a nation that depends on tourism more than most, maintaining that balance could shape its economic story for years to come.

(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks advanced on optimism that artificial intelligence will continue to drive profits at megacap technology companies reporting earnings this week, and growing bets on a Federal Reserve interest-rate cut.

MSCI’s regional stock gauge rose 0.5%, with the tech sector outperforming. Japan and South Korea led the gains – yet, in both the Nikkei 225 and the Kospi, losers outnumbered winners. Similarly, almost 400 components declined in the S&P 500 index, even though the gauge gained a modest 0.2% to close at an all-time high. Asian chip-related stocks such as SK Hynix Inc. and Advantest Corp. jumped Wednesday after strong earnings.

Nvidia Corp.’s shares surged more than 8% in Asian trading on the alternative platform Blue Ocean, signaling further gains when trading starts in New York, after US President Donald Trump said he plans to speak with Chinese leader Xi Jinping about the company’s Blackwell chip. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 indexes extended their gains on Trump’s comments.

With five big tech companies — representing roughly a quarter of the US equity benchmark — set to report earnings between Wednesday and Thursday, investors will soon gauge whether the billions poured into computing infrastructure will keep flowing and ultimately deliver returns. Adding to the week’s momentum, Fed officials are poised to announce their rate decision on Wednesday, with Wall Street largely betting on a quarter-point cut.

“There is positive news everywhere,” said Vey-Sern Ling, a managing director at Union Bancaire Privee.

The technology sector remains the key focus of market participants. Over Wednesday and Thursday, Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. will all report results. The so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’ group is projected to deliver profit growth of 14% in the third quarter, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.

That’s nearly twice the 8% expected profit growth for the broader S&P 500, but it also would be the slowest pace since the first quarter of 2023.

“We expect another strong round of megacap tech earnings reports, given the relentless demand for AI technology and infrastructure,” said Clark Bellin at Bellwether Wealth. “While profitability in AI remains an unknown, investors for now are willing to overlook this as the AI arms race heats up.”

What Bloomberg strategists say…

A spending boom for AI has sent the Magnificent Seven’s share prices to record highs, but is also raising concerns about whether companies are laying out too much on the new technology.

— Sebastian Boyd, MLIV strategist. Click here for the full analysis.

In other corners of the market, the yen gained after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent weighed in on the Bank of Japan’s policy space, which fueled rate-hike bets. A gauge of the dollar edged lower for a third day. Oil held a three-day drop amid mounting signs of oversupply, while gold inched up after three days of losses.

Trading in Hong Kong was closed for a holiday.

Meanwhile, Trump said he expects to lower tariffs the US imposed on Chinese goods over the fentanyl crisis and speak with Xi about Nvidia, as leaders of the world’s biggest economies seek to ease tensions in a meeting on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday Trump was considering cutting the 20% tariff to 10% on Chinese goods over fentanyl.

Also buoying sentiment were bets the Fed will cut rates Wednesday, with traders hoping for clarity as to when officials will stop shrinking the central bank’s portfolio of securities. Bets have grown they may end quantitative tightening as soon as this month.

Expectations are set for two things from this week’s Fed meeting — officials will lower rates by a quarter percentage point and Chair Jerome Powell will offer little guidance as a growing divide among policymakers blurs the path ahead.

“The markets have a massive wall of event risk to scale this week,” wrote Kyle Rodda, a senior analyst at Capital.com in Melbourne.

Corporate News:

OpenAI is giving its long-time backer Microsoft Corp. a 27% ownership stake as part of a restructuring plan that took nearly a year to negotiate. Private equity firm Boyu Capital has emerged as the frontrunner in Starbucks Corp.’s search for a partner in its China business. Apple Inc. is preparing major changes to its MacBook Air, iPad mini and iPad Air lines, with a plan to give the popular devices higher-end displays. Visa Inc. reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings that topped estimates as consumers continued to swipe, tap and insert their credit cards to transact globally. Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. said profit rose 11.5% in the first nine months of this year, as a stock market rally lifted investment returns and policy sales expanded. Bank of China Ltd. reported a 5% increase in third-quarter profit, as the lender managed to stabilize its net interest margin despite mounting challenges from weakening credit demand. Some of the main moves in markets:

Stocks

S&P 500 futures rose 0.2% as of 11:49 a.m. Tokyo time Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) rose 1.8% Japan’s Topix was little changed Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.9% The Shanghai Composite rose 0.3% Euro Stoxx 50 futures fell 0.2% Currencies

The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1645 The Japanese yen was little changed at 152.06 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.0990 per dollar Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin fell 0.1% to $112,680.48 Ether rose 0.5% to $4,001.03 Bonds

The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 3.98% Japan’s 10-year yield advanced one basis point to 1.650% Australia’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 4.22% Commodities

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 0.2% to $60.02 a barrel Spot gold rose 0.2% to $3,958.79 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.

–With assistance from Abhishek Vishnoi.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.