Givaudan, the global leader in Fragrance & Beauty, today announced that it has successfully acquired Belle Aire Creations, a prominent US-based fragrance house known for its creative expertise and strong regional customer relationships. This milestone is aligned with Givaudan’s 2030 strategy to strengthen its presence with local and regional customers and expanding creative capabilities across North America.
Since its founding in 1982, Belle Aire Creations has been fuelled by creativity, passion, and an unwavering drive for excellence. From its entrepreneurial beginnings to its current industry leadership, the company has remained a beacon of innovation and growth – always guided by the belief that true success is measured by customer satisfaction.
Gilles Andrier, CEO of Givaudan, said: “We are thrilled to officially welcome the employees of Belle Aire Creations to the Givaudan family. The company’s strong reach with local and regional customers, combined with our global creative expertise and innovation capabilities, will enable us to serve the dynamic North American market even more closely and effectively.”
Maurizio Volpi, President Fragrance & Beauty at Givaudan, added: “This acquisition reinforces our commitment to offering tailored fragrance solutions that reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the US market. Together, we will create even greater value for our customers through agility, creativity, and shared passion for scent. I am also very happy to remind that, as part of this integration, Stacey David will keep the leadership of Belle Aire Creations, building on her outstanding track record and drive for growth that will be strongly beneficial to Givaudan.”
Stacey David, CEO of Belle Aire Creations, commented: “We are delighted to join Givaudan and collaborate in shaping the future of fragrance creation. This partnership will build on our entrepreneurial spirit and customer intimacy, giving us access to global resources while maintaining the unique relationships that define Belle Aire Creations.”
While the terms of the deal will not be disclosed, Belle Aire Creations’ business would have represented approximately CHF 65 million of incremental sales to Givaudan’s results in 2024 on a proforma basis. Givaudan plans to fund the transaction from existing resources.
About Givaudan Givaudan is a global leader in Fragrance & Beauty and Taste & Wellbeing. We celebrate the beauty of human experience by creating for happier, healthier lives with love for nature. Together with our customers we deliver food experiences, craft inspired fragrances and develop beauty and wellbeing solutions that make people look and feel good. In 2024, Givaudan employed over 16,900 people worldwide and achieved CHF 7.4 billion in sales with a free cash flow of 15.6%. With a heritage that stretches back over 250 years, we are committed to driving long-term, purpose-led growth by improving people’s health and happiness and increasing our positive impact on nature. This is Givaudan. Human by nature. Discover more at www.givaudan.com.
About Givaudan Fragrance & Beauty Givaudan Fragrance & Beauty crafts inspired fragrances to perfume lives and memories, and develops innovative beauty and wellbeing solutions that make people look and feel good all over the world. Nature is both our responsibility and our most precious muse. We are just as committed to sustainability as we are to creating innovative products that satisfy consumer needs and anticipate their desires. With a collaborative approach that favours co-creation, we have built a diverse portfolio across personal care, fabric care, hygiene, home care, fine fragrances, and beauty, reflecting our multidisciplinary expertise. This is Givaudan. Human by nature. Learn more at www.givaudan.com/fragrance-beauty.
About Belle Aire Creations Founded in 1982, Belle Aire Creations® is a premier full-service fragrance manufacturer at the forefront of the industry. Renowned for developing innovative and captivating fragrances, the company skilfully blends scientific precision with perfumery artistry and the compelling art of storytelling. Dedicated to delivering the latest innovations in perfumery and malodour technology, Belle Aire Creations® provides exceptional service and reliability, offering clear solutions to complex fragrance and ingredient challenges. https://belleairecreations.com.
For further information please contact Claudia Pedretti, Head of Investor and Media Relations T +41 523 540 132 E claudia.pedretti@givaudan.com
Pauline Martin, Fragrance & Beauty Communications E pauline.martin.pm1@givaudan.com
The latest data release from Chevron on its Gorgon carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, the world’s largest, showed the lowest amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) captured and stored for a year since it started in August 2019.
This matters as CCS has been promoted as a climate solution by the fossil fuel sector, which last year pumped a collective 37.8 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. This puts the world on a trajectory to reach a global average temperature rise of 2.6°C above pre-industrial levels, according to Climate Action Tracker.
According to the oil and gas sector, one way to avoid this is to adopt CCS, and government should be putting taxpayer funds into this “solution”. However, CCS has a chequered history and is beset by technical issues that its proponents, often engineers, say can be overcome. Yet Gorgon CCS shows no signs of improving; its performance has declined significantly since the first year of operation, as the chart below shows.
Source: Chevron. Gorgon Gas Development and Jansz Feed Gas Pipeline Five-year Environmental Performance Report 2020-2025. Page 112.
To put Gorgon CCS’s underperformance into context, the 1.33 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 it captured in FY2024-25 represents 25% of the CO2 removed (5.22MtCO2) in that period from the Gorgon and associated gas fields that feed the Gorgon LNG plant on Barrow Island off Western Australia. This is a fraction of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the gas produced at Gorgon.
Chevron is not obliged to disclose the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere from its largest source of emissions: when the gas is combusted by its customers (or Scope 3 emissions). This makes up about 90% of the total emissions released by Gorgon CCS and its associated gas and LNG projects. However, in one of its Gorgon CCS planning documents, Chevron estimated that if all the gas from the project were consumed at gas-powered generation stations in the Asia-Pacific, emissions would amount to 50MtCO2 a year. Based on the assumptions in that scenario, Gorgon CCS captured just 2.66% of the total emissions from extracting, processing and burning gas from the Gorgon fields.
So even if Gorgon were working at its design rate of capturing and storing 4MtCO2 a year, it would still just amount to 8% of the total emissions from the associated projects. This is the case for any gas field promoting a CCS project, such as Woodside’s Browse gas project and Inpex’s Bonaparte CCS project. The latter is slated to host some of the CO2 from Inpex’s Ichthys gas project in the Browse Basin in the Timor Sea.
Nonetheless, Gorgon CCS remains a bellwether for the CCS sector. Despite the relatively small amounts of CO2 it captures, it still represents a significant proportion of the world’s dedicated CCS projects. The Global CCS Institute’s (GCCSI) annual report on the status of CCS around the world does not provide data on how much CO2 is captured each year, only projects’ nameplate capacity. As is evident at Gorgon CCS, it stored only about one-third of its annual target capacity in FY2024-25. Trawling through the dedicated CCS projects in the GCCSI annual report, the total CO2 stored by the world’s CCS projects is little more than 10MtCO2 a year or 0.00026% of global fossil fuel emissions. (Note: CCS is distinct from CCUS projects; the U stands for the utilisation of captured CO2 to squeeze more oil out of the ground, also known as enhanced oil recovery.)
However, you’re unlikely to find any mention of these facts in the oil and gas sector narrative, which promotes CCS as a solution to reduce the industry’s emissions and justify opening new gas reserves.
Yet there are more economical ways to reduce global emissions. The costs of solar PV and storing electricity through grid-scale batteries have come down sharply in the nine years since Chevron started building Gorgon CCS. This year, renewables overtook coal for the first time in generating electricity whereas the costs of CCS and its technical challenges remain.
This commentary was originally published in RenewEconomy.
Salman Shahid travels frequently between Srinagar, the biggest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, and New Delhi. He runs Rise, a private coaching centre for students aspiring to join the Indian Institutes of Technology – the country’s premier engineering schools – in Srinagar, but his family is based in New Delhi.
Flying helps him save time. But increasingly, he just cannot afford it.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Shahid says, a one-way flight from Srinagar to New Delhi would cost him about 3,300 rupees ($37.20) on average. “Now, the same ticket is over 5,000 rupees ($56), and that, too, with very limited time options,” he points out.
This 50 percent surge in airfare has significantly affected his travel routine. “I don’t travel that frequently now,” he says. “Earlier, I would make at least four round-trips a month. Now, it’s come down to just two.”
He recalls once booking a ticket for just 1,700 rupees ($19) on Vistara, a domestic airliner, during a sale in 2019. “That kind of pricing now feels like a dream,” he says, adding that he struggles to understand how airfare has escalated so sharply in such a short period.
He is not alone.
According to a study published last November by Airports Council International (ACI), a global trade association representing more than 2,000 airports in more than 180 countries, India saw a 43 percent rise in domestic airfares in the first half of 2024, compared with 2019, the second-highest in the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions after Vietnam.
International fares also rose by 16 percent. India was third in this category. A study representing 617 airports in the Asia Pacific and West Asia regions, conducted by ACI in partnership with Flare Aviation Consulting, a management consulting boutique specialised in the aviation and airports sector, attributes this surge to high demand, limited competition on some routes, and a 38 percent spike in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) costs since 2019.
Prices rose from 68,050 rupees ($759) per kilolitre in cities like Delhi in January 2019 to 93,766 rupees ($1,046) per kilolitre in October 2025. Airlines are also recovering pandemic-era losses, further pushing fares up.
And even though there is no comprehensive study capturing fare trends in 2025, yet, experts say prices have continued to rise throughout the year.
“Despite the huge surge already, airfares aren’t coming down and are only going up,” said Vandana Singh, the chairperson of the Aviation Cargo Federation of Aviation Industry in India (FAII), a government-recognised body that promotes India’s aviation sector.
“The relentless increase in airfare does not reflect well on the accessibility of aviation in India,” Singh added, cautioning that the middle and economically weaker sections of society may soon find themselves excluded from the air travel landscape altogether.
Sajad Ismail Sofi, a travel agent, at his office in Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir [Aatif Ammad/Al Jazeera]
‘Hollow catchphrase’
In October 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched what his government has called the UDAN scheme – “Udan” means “flight” in Hindi, but the acronym stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (Let the Common Citizen Fly). The stated aim of the scheme was to dramatically expand India’s aviation infrastructure, and open up dozens of new routes to make air travel accessible to lower-income Indians and people in smaller towns and cities.
While flagging off the first flight under the scheme in April 2017, Modi said, “I want to see people who wear hawai chappals [flip-flops] flying in a hawai jahaaz [aeroplane].”
His comments effectively became a slogan for the campaign, touted as the government’s bid to make flying affordable and accessible for millions of people from small-town India, many of whom cannot even afford shoes.
But that slogan now carries a tinge of irony, Singh said.
“With fares escalating consistently over the past few years, this inspiring slogan now risks becoming a hollow catchphrase rather than a lived reality.”
Under the Modi government, India has indeed witnessed a rapid expansion in the number of cities and towns connected by air, with airports more than doubling from 74 in 2014, when Modi came to power, to 157 in 2024.
But the numbers mask a deeper crisis that afflicts Indian aviation, experts say. Because the number of flights and routes has gone up, the total volume of travellers in India has remained high, even if soaring prices mean that many individual passengers are reducing air travel.
The country is the world’s third-largest domestic aviation market, and witnessed a 15 percent increase in air passengers, year-on-year, in the 2024 financial year, according to government figures.
Still, signs of turbulence are visible, even in the data. Domestic air traffic dipped to 12.6 million passengers in July 2025, compared with 13.1 million in June 2025. The numbers recovered in August to 13.2 million, but then dipped again in September (12.6 million), before rising in October to 14.3 million passengers.
Rohit Kumar, an aviation economist and a faculty member at Rajiv Gandhi National Aviation University, said that while passenger numbers have not fallen, “the rise in fares has quietly pushed the lower and lower-middle classes out of the skies”. New airports, more routes, and upper-middle-class travellers, who value time over cost, are continuing to keep total passenger numbers up.
Kumar added that the remote working culture that many technology and service-driven industries in India have continued to embrace since the pandemic has allowed employees to travel more frequently than before. This has boosted occasional air travel among higher-income professionals, he said.
However, despite year-on-year growth, the sector remains deeply unequal. India’s aviation sector, Kumar cautioned, is being carried by a small, affluent section, while the vast majority – emerging flyers that the UDAN scheme was meant to serve – are increasingly being left behind.
Singh of the FAII was even more blunt.
“The very people the [Modi] slogan referred to, those who wear chappals, are now being priced out of the skies,” she said.
An aircraft of India’s SpiceJet airlines takes off in Mumbai, India, Sunday, August 7, 2022 [Rafiq Maqbool/AP]
‘Monopolistic trends’
More routes are not the only factor allowing airlines to keep raising fares, even if they are pricing out many passengers. They are also helped by shrinking competition.
In recent years, several major airlines have shut down, while others have merged after acquisitions.
Go First, which once held more than 10 percent of India’s domestic and international market, with 52 aircraft, ceased operations in May 2023 after filing for bankruptcy. Jet Airways, with a 21 percent market share and 124 aircraft at its 2016 peak, halted operations in 2019.
SpiceJet teetered on the edge of insolvency, especially between 2022 and 2024, due to mounting debt, legal issues, and grounded aircraft. In July 2022, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India’s aviation regulator, cut SpiceJet operations by 50 percent. The DGCA cited “poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions”. SpiceJet also faced significant delays, with a reported on-time performance (OTP) of 54.8 percent in January 2025, making it the least punctual airline among major carriers at the time.
Defaults on lease payments also led to aircraft repossessions, shrinking SpiceJet’s fleet from 118 in 2019 to just 28 operational planes by January 2025.
“The back-to-back shutdown of airlines in India severely impacted air travel, paving the way for monopolistic trends,” said Singh. With fewer players in the skies, dominant airlines can dictate prices and raise them at their discretion, she added.
In another major shake-up, Air India, India’s only public sector airline, was officially privatised in January 2022, when the Tata Group took over full ownership.
Following this, Vistara, an airline already jointly owned by Tata and Singapore Airlines, was merged with Air India in November 2024. The merger raised concerns and faced strong opposition from critics, including trade unions and opposition parties, who feared that the consolidation of Air India, Vistara, and AirAsia India – another Tata Group subsidiary also merged with the other two – would lead to an aviation oligopoly, reducing competition and consumer choice in the Indian market.
Zuhaib Rashid, an economics and research associate at the Isaac Centre for Public Policy, New Delhi, said the merger handed over control of India’s skies to just two private players, posing a serious threat to competition.
The only other major aviation player in India today is Indigo, which has 61 percent market share. Together, IndiGo and Air India now control 91 percent of India’s airline market.
Rashid argued that, had the government retained a stake in Air India, it could have ensured fare regulation. “Fully privatising airlines has reduced government control over pricing, and has allowed private players to dominate in a country where air travel remains a luxury,” he added.
Their dominance of the market also allows Air India and Indigo to jack up prices dramatically during peak travel seasons or emergencies, tour operators and experts say, citing two recent examples.
Sajad Ismail Sofi, a Srinagar-based air travel agent, pointed to the aftermath of the deadly April attack on tourists in Pahalgam, a popular resort town in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 civilians were killed. As tourists in other parts of Kashmir scrambled to leave the region, one-way ticket prices from Srinagar to other parts of India skyrocketed from 5,000 rupees ($56) to nearly 12,000 rupees ($135).
After airlines faced major criticism and accusations of profiteering from a national crisis, prices came down.
Earlier in the year, Singh from the FAII recalled, one-way airfares from India’s financial capital, Mumbai, to the temple town of Prayagraj soared to 50,000 rupees ($564) – more expensive than flights to Paris – during the Mahakumbh Mela, one of Hinduism’s most sacred events in which devotees take dips in the Ganga river. The government eventually stepped in to pressure airlines to curb prices. However, Singh said that most pilgrims had already bought their tickets by then.
Al Jazeera has sought responses from Indigo and Air India to the criticism and allegations of using their market dominance to charge exorbitant rates. Neither airline has responded.
An Air India aircraft stands at the Indira Gandhi airport in New Delhi, India on May 11, 2012 [Mustafa Quraishi/ AP Photo]
Higher taxes adding to the burden
Experts point out that airlines alone are not responsible for the rising fares. India’s high aviation taxes are a key factor too.
The country imposes the highest taxes on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) in Asia, which account for 45 percent of air ticket prices. By mid-2024, jet fuel prices in cities like Delhi and Mumbai were nearly 60 percent higher than in global hubs like Dubai, Singapore, and Kuala Lumpur, largely due to value-added taxes (VAT), central excise duties and additional cesses.
Passengers are also charged, as part of their tickets, a user development fee, ranging from 150 rupees ($1.7) to 400 rupees ($4.5) depending on the airport; a passenger service fee of about 150 rupees ($1.7); an aviation security fee of 200 rupees ($2.3) per passenger; a terminal fee of 100 rupees ($1.2); and a regional connectivity charge between 50 rupees ($0.6) and 100 rupees ($1.2) per passenger. Each of these amounts is small, but together, they add up. And they do not go to the airline, but to the airport or the government.
In June, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which represents more than 350 airlines globally, called for greater clarity in India’s taxation system, arguing that it was too complex.
Amjad Ali, a travel operator from New Delhi, said he had been in the air ticketing business since 2005, and had never witnessed a sharp rise in airfares until 2020. “Fares used to increase gradually, but since 2020, they have shot up rapidly,” he said.
Ali usually books tickets on routes like Delhi–Mumbai, Delhi–Patna, and Delhi–Purnea. Patna and Purnea are cities in the eastern Indian state of Bihar.
He said that new airports, such as Purnea, have brought in more passengers due to the introduction of new routes. Before the pandemic, a Mumbai–Delhi ticket, booked well in advance, used to cost about 3,800 rupees ($43), but now, it is hard to find one below 6,000 rupees ($68) for the same journey.
Meanwhile, airlines have also started cutting discounts they used to offer to some sections of flyers. Previously, Air India offered a 50 percent concession on the base fare for domestic student travel, but after privatisation, this was reduced to only 10 percent.
The result, Ali said, is a noticeable decline in student travellers. “We rarely see students flying these days,” he said.
Ultimately, Singh from the FAII said, the industry was shooting itself in the foot by making flying unaffordable for millions of Indians.
“If we want air travel to become truly accessible to a larger section of the population, particularly those with limited financial means, the government and aviation stakeholders must work towards reducing these taxes and surcharges,” she said.
Until then, a plane ride will remain a flight of fancy for most of India’s 1.4 billion people.
(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks rebounded following Monday’s selloff that saw cryptocurrencies lead declines in global risk assets. Japanese government bonds edged higher after a keenly watched auction of 10-year debt drew firm demand.
MSCI Inc.’s gauge of regional equities climbed as much as 0.5% before paring some gains. Tech-heavy markets of South Korea and Taiwan outperformed. US stock futures were steady after the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.4% on Monday. Bitcoin advanced after fluctuating early in the session. It slumped more than 5% on Monday.
Demand at this year’s final auction of 10-year Japanese bonds was stronger than the 12-month average. The sale had assumed greater importance for traders after increased speculation over an interest-rate hike sparked a yield surge. The yen weakened slightly against the dollar after rising the most in a week on Monday, when Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda sent the clearest hint yet that his board might raise rates soon.
Japanese government bonds should be watched as yields “have been on a tear” this year on expectations of larger budget deficits and another rate hike by the BOJ, Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group, wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier. “This is important because rising JGB yields can help push up the yields of other longer-dated sovereign bonds, adding to borrowing costs when some governments can least afford it.”
Global markets were off to a shaky start in December on Monday as the renewed selloff in cryptocurrencies and hawkish comments from BOJ’s Ueda spurred risk aversion. Focus in the coming days will remain on central bank actions as Federal Reserve policymakers meet Dec. 9-10 and the BOJ decides on rates on Dec. 19.
While the Fed is widely expected to cut rates, swaps now imply about an 80% probability of a BOJ hike at this month’s meeting, with the odds rising to more than 90% for the January gathering. That’s versus just 36% for December as recently as a week ago.
The bid-to-cover ratio for the 10-year sale was 3.59 compared with 2.97 at the previous sale in November, and a 12-month average of 3.20. Japan will auction 30-year bonds on Thursday.
“We are getting to levels in terms of Japanese yields where for Japanese investors it’s becoming interesting to bring money back,” Guy Stear, head of developed markets strategy at Amundi Investment Institute, said on Bloomberg Television. “So I think that this rise in yields will not continue ad-infinitum. I think we are closer to the end of the rise in Japanese yields than we are certainly to the beginning.”
Treasuries steadied on Tuesday after falling across the curve in the previous session, when the 10-year yield jumped seven basis points to around 4.1%. A gauge of the dollar was little changed. Australia’s 10-year yield climbed five basis points.
Elsewhere, silver retreated from a record high, with a key technical indicator showing that a six-day rally through Monday had taken the white metal into overbought territory. Gold also declined while oil edged higher.
“There’s been some stabilization, but this still looks like a positioning-led bounce rather than a shift in broader conviction,” said Tareck Horchani, head of prime brokerage dealing at Maybank Securities in Singapore. “Monday’s move flushed out some weak hands, but the market remains cautious.”
In the US, data Monday showed factory activity shrank in November by the most in four months as orders weakened.
Fed officials will get a dated reading on their preferred inflation gauge before next week’s rate decision. The report due Friday is expected to show that inflationary pressures are stable, but sticky. Yet the debate will likely largely center on the job market when policymakers meet for the rate decision.
In addition to Friday’s inflation data, other relevant economic data this week include ADP private employment figures for November and a preliminary reading of consumer confidence in December.
“With the Fed set to carry out another possible rate cut and key governments adopting fiscal stances that are more growth supportive than expected, we think the global macroeconomic environment will remain favorable to investors’ risk-taking,” said Homin Lee, a senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier Singapore.
Corporate News
Fanuc Corp.’s shares climbed as much as 9.4% to the highest since July 2021 after the Japanese factory automation equipment company announced that it will collaborate with Nvidia Corp. to implement physical AI in industrial robots. China Vanke Co., the distressed builder that surprised markets last week when it proposed an unspecified delay in paying a local bond, has now asked holders to wait a year to be made whole, as it faces mounting liquidity pressure amid waning state support. Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. was fielding a second round of bids on Monday, including a mostly cash offer from Netflix Inc., in an auction that could wrap up in the coming days or weeks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Jane Street Group and Citadel Securities reported gains in third-quarter trading revenue, cutting further into Wall Street’s dominance of that business and leaving the two market-making firms on track for record years. After 13 years of running South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Song Chi-hyung and Kim Hyoung-nyon have cemented their spots among the world’s wealthiest. China’s DeepSeek unveiled two new versions of an experimental artificial-intelligence model it released weeks ago, adding fresh capabilities the startup said would help with combining reasoning and executing certain actions autonomously. Chinese vaccine makers are caught in a steep downturn, as intensifying competition pushes prices lower and erodes profits, underscoring the far-reaching deflationary pressure across the world’s second-largest economy. Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
S&P 500 futures were little changed as of 2:02 p.m. Tokyo time Japan’s Topix was little changed Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.1% Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.1% The Shanghai Composite fell 0.6% Euro Stoxx 50 futures were little changed Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was unchanged at $1.1610 The Japanese yen fell 0.1% to 155.64 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.0713 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin rose 0.7% to $87,028.01 Ether rose 0.5% to $2,806.41 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.09% Australia’s 10-year yield advanced five basis points to 4.60% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.1% to $59.40 a barrel Spot gold fell 0.3% to $4,218.70 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Richard Henderson, Abhishek Vishnoi, Ruth Carson, Masaki Kondo and Haslinda Amin.
This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Swiss prosecutors file charges against Credit Suisse and UBS’
Sonja Hutson Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, December 2nd, and this is your FT News Briefing.
UK pension funds are worried about an AI bubble, and the US and the UK are getting close to a truce in the battle over pharmaceuticals. Plus Credit Suisse and UBS are facing criminal charges from the tuna bond scandal.
I’m Sonja Hutson, and here’s the news you need to start your day.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
UK pension funds are cutting back their exposure to US equities. They’re concerned about an AI bubble, plus the fact that the market has become more concentrated in a small number of tech stocks. Funds that manage more than £200bn in assets told the FT they’ve been shifting to other geographical regions or adding protection against a potential market dip.
The UK’s defined contribution pension sector, where employees build individual retirement savings, is especially sensitive to potential stock market swings. Savers that are 30 years from retirement typically have up to 80 per cent of their assets in global equities, most of them dominated by US Big Tech stocks.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Swiss prosecutors filed criminal charges against Credit Suisse and its owner UBS yesterday. They’re connected to the Mozambique tuna bond scandal. Prosecutors alleged that the bank failed to prevent a suspicious $7mn payment because of, quote, organisational shortcomings. UBS took over Credit Suisse several years after the scandal and the charges raised questions about whether criminal liability gets transferred during a takeover.
Here to talk more about this is the FT’s Mercedes Ruehl. Hi, Mercedes.
Mercedes Ruehl Hi.
Sonja Hutson All right, lots to unpack here. Can you first explain what the tuna bond scandal is?
Mercedes Ruehl So the tuna bond scandal dates back to 2013 when Mozambique, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, borrowed around $2bn to fund maritime security projects and a state tuna fishing fleet.
The problem was that much of this money was actually misused. Bankers, intermediaries and government officials were accused of taking bribes and kickbacks, and the country was ultimately left with like pretty crippling debts and a collapsed development project.
Sonja Hutson Mercedes, what role do Swiss prosecutors say that Credit Suisse as a company played in this scandal?
Mercedes Ruehl So Swiss prosecutors have filed charges against Credit Suisse — by extension UBS, which took Credit Suisse over in 2023 — for what they describe as organisational deficiencies. The $7mn payment in this case is one of the payments that flowed through the $2bn borrowing deal Mozambique took out in 2013.
So prosecutors say Credit Suisse failed to implement adequate internal safeguards, basically. In particular, when this suspicious $7mn payment arrived in 2016, the bank through a compliance officer did not file suspicious activity report as required. In the eyes of prosecutors, this qualifies as a failure to prevent money laundering, not just an isolated but systemic shortcomings, and thus Credit Suisse, and now it’s successor UBS, are being charged as corporate entities for the failure to stop illicit flows.
UBS said in its statement that it rejects all of these conclusions by the attorney-general’s office, and they’re going to vigorously defend their position.
Sonja Hutson So I mentioned earlier that this could set a legal precedent. Tell me more about that.
Mercedes Ruehl This could be an interesting test case for criminal liability after a merger. A lawyer I spoke to said it might help settle whether a company’s criminal liability survives a merger in Switzerland. So UBS bought Credit Suisse in 2023 and prosecutors are effectively arguing UBS inherits the old bank’s exposure and Swiss courts haven’t actually definitively answered that question before. So this is why it could set an important precedent.
Sonja Hutson What do you think this case will ultimately mean for UBS and its business?
Mercedes Ruehl So for UBS, this is kind of another uncomfortable legacy issue from rescuing Credit Suisse. The bank has already been working through quite a long list of old legal cases, from mortgage security settlements in the US to misconduct investigations linked to Credit Suisse’s private banking business.
And this case shows that there are still a lot of unresolved issues from the past, and even though UBS agreed a settlement with Mozambique over Credit Suisse’s involvement in the scandal, that apparently hasn’t drawn a line under this dispute. All of this is happening at a time when UBS is also facing broader regulatory pressure in Switzerland.
So these include ongoing discussions around capital requirements. So while UBS is very profitable, its share price is doing OK, it was only slightly down on the day. These legacy cases aren’t helpful.
Sonja Hutson Mercedes Ruehl covers Switzerland for the FT. Thanks, Mercedes.
Mercedes Ruehl You’re welcome.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Sonja Hutson Richard Hughes, the chair of the UK Office for Budget Responsibility, resigned yesterday. This comes after the UK fiscal watchdog accidentally leaked its analysis of chancellor Rachel Reeves’ Budget before she delivered it last week. That caused sharp movements in bond markets.
Now, this isn’t an isolated incident. An OBR report out yesterday said that the error that led to the leak was also to blame for early access to the Spring Statement in March. It found that the watchdog routinely uploaded its documents before publication time, and the OBR had wrongly assumed that it had configured its website to prevent early access.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The UK has been in a months-long battle with the pharmaceutical industry and the Trump administration over the amount the NHS is allowed to spend on medicine. The dispute has led to threats by pharmaceutical companies to pull investments in the UK. The Trump administration has said it would impose steep tariffs on drug imports.
Now, it seems like they’ve reached a deal, and I’m joined by the FT’s Chris Smyth to discuss this. Hi, Chris.
Chris Smyth Hi.
Sonja Hutson So what has the UK agreed to as part of this deal?
Chris Smyth Well, effectively the UK has agreed to pay more for medicines. They have agreed a change to a very complicated NHS value for money rules, which effectively means they’re willing to pay 25 per cent more for a new branded medicine.
So this is a big deal. It follows years of complaints from industry about the low prices paid by Britain compared to other countries, which Britain had largely been able to ignore previously because other companies ultimately wanted to sell to Britain and felt they had no choice but to accept the price on offer. But that has changed, of course, with the election of Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his dislike of freeloading Europeans, as he called them, and has threatened all kinds of things if companies continue to sell at lower prices and that has concentrated minds and led to this agreement.
Sonja Hutson And what does the UK get in return here?
Chris Smyth Well, it gets two things. The most obvious and immediate thing is it gets an exemption from the 100 per cent tariffs on pharmaceutical imports, which Donald Trump had threatened to impose. So Britain will now be exempt from that. And I guess more broadly what it gets is a sigh of relief from the pharmaceutical industry, which had been pausing, cancelling, reviewing all kinds of investments in Britain and will now have a little bit more confidence about in investing here. And the government will tout that as a big win for the economy and try ultimately to say it will benefit, you know, British patients as well because they will get access to these new medicines.
Sonja Hutson Chris, how much is this gonna cost the UK?
Chris Smyth Well that is a subject of hot debate in government. But sources tell me that ultimately this will cost about £3bn a year. Now that’s not all an immediate cost. It will build up to that over time. Exactly how long I think it’s gonna be a matter for debate, but somewhere between three and 10 years.
But ultimately there will be a difficulty here because there isn’t really clarity over who is ultimately going to fund this. There is no increase immediately for the NHS budget to pay for this. But you would imagine when it comes to future negotiations, particularly when we see Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, last week likes using the NHS as a prop. After budgets, there will be a lot of pressure for her to give the NHS even more money to and effectively fund these higher medicines costs.
Sonja Hutson What impact do you think this deal will ultimately have on the UK drug industry?
Chris Smyth Well, I think it is fair to say that without this deal, there were some pretty dire warnings coming out from the industry about investment in the UK. Their willingness to work here and support a government strategy, which puts a lot of weight on the life sciences sector as one of the key drivers of its industrial strategy. So I think the fact that the government has been willing to move on this is seen as a big win in the industry and it will give some companies confidence to invest.
But I think there’s a lot more to do to convince them that Britain really is a place that wants to support that industry. But of course if they do that, that comes at a price and that is something that many patients and Labour MPs particularly will not be terribly comfortable with the NHS paying.
Sonja Hutson Chris Smyth is the FT’s public policy editor. Thanks, Chris.
Chris Smyth Thank you for having me.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Sonja Hutson You can read more on all these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Check back tomorrow for the latest business news.
Competition between retailers seeking to entice customers with early Black Friday deals led to a slowdown in shop price rises during November, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).
The trade association for retailers said prices in shops rose by 0.6% last month compared with November 2024. This was down from a 1% rise in October and below the three-month average of 1%.
Black Friday has become one of the most important trading periods for many retailers, starting off the Christmas shopping season and giving shops an early insight into customers’ appetite for spending.
Originally a US phenomenon based around Thanksgiving at the end of November, it now encompasses a much wider period globally, with many retailers offering discounts from the start of the month.
Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC, said: “Black Friday deals began earlier than normal [this year] as competition between retailers hit fever pitch.”
The BRC said discounting was most prevalent in the electricals, fashion, and health and beauty sectors, as retailers attempted to woo cash-strapped shoppers who continue to cut back on discretionary spending.
Recent surveys measuring consumer confidence showed a drop in November, as households have grown increasingly pessimistic about their spending, the labour market and the outlook for the UK economy.
Official figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) also revealed that UK retail sales fell 1.1% in October, a sharper drop than expected and the first decline since May.
However, Dickinson said retailers will be hoping consumer confidence rebounds during the vital winter trading period now that uncertainty around the budget is out of the way.
“They will continue doing everything they can to keep prices down and help customers’ money go further this Christmas,” she said.
The BRC also said food prices fell 0.3% month on month in November, after dropping at their sharpest rate in five years in October, at 0.4% month on month. However, on an annual basis, households are still feeling the pinch in their food bills, with prices rising 3% year on year.
skip past newsletter promotion
after newsletter promotion
The BRC said inflation “remained stubbornly high” for oils and fats, as well as for meat and fish, as climbing production costs are passed on to customers.
“Retailers will need to keep any price increases as low as possible in the run up to Christmas, in order to entice shoppers to spend,” said Mike Watkins, head of retailer and business insight at market researcher NIQ.
The BRC figures cover the first week of November, making them more up to date than the latest official inflation figures, and will provide some optimism for those hoping for an interest-rate cut before the end of the year.
The rate of consumer price inflation fell for the first time in five months in October to 3.6%, according to the Office for National Statistics, increasing market bets that the Bank of England will cut interest rates from 4% to 3.75% at its next rate-setting meeting on 16 December.
Gold eased in early trading Tuesday, after it touched a six-week high in the previous session, as rising U.S. Treasury yields and profit-taking weighed on sentiment ahead of U.S. economic data likely to guide the Federal Reserve’s policy path.
Spot gold fell 0.4% to $4,215.48 per ounce, as of 0228 GMT, after hitting its highest level since October 21 on Monday.
U.S. gold futures for December delivery were down 0.6% at $4,247.10 per ounce.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields hovered close to a two-week high touched in the previous session, reducing the appeal of non-yielding bullion.
Markets are acting cautiously because Fed Chair Jerome Powell is not expected to sound as dovish as some of his Fed colleagues, and core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index – the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation – on Friday is expected to remain fairly benign, Waterer said.
“Gold is having a soft performance today, but the fundamental picture has not changed – a picture which includes anticipated U.S. rate cuts, which should be supportive of gold from a yield point of view,” said KCM Trade Chief Market Analyst Tim Waterer.
Powell, in remarks prepared for an address at Stanford University late Monday, did not comment on the economy or monetary policy.
Investors are watching key U.S. data this week, including Wednesday’s November ADP employment report and Friday’s delayed September Personal Consumption Expenditures Index.
Traders are pricing in an 88% chance of a Fed rate cut in December, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.
White House adviser Kevin Hassett said he is willing to serve as Fed chair, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent flagged a possible pre-Christmas nomination. Hassett, like President Donald Trump, wants lower rates.
Lower interest rates typically benefit non-yielding gold.
SPDR Gold Trust, the world’s largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, said its holdings rose 0.44% to 1,050.01 metric tons on Monday from 1,045.43 tons on Friday.
Silver fell 1.9% to $56.88 per ounce, platinum rose 0.1% to $1,659.23, while palladium gained 0.2% to $1,427.62.
Biocon Biologics Secures Market Entry Date for Denosumab Biosimilars in Europe and Rest of the World Biocon
Sandoz launches denosumab biosimilars in Europe, providing affordable treatment option for cancer-related bone disease and osteoporosis for millions of patients Sandoz
Samsung Bioepis Launches Denosumab Biosimilars, OBODENCE and XBRYK, in Europe Businesskorea
Four Firms Fire Starting Pistol On European Denosumab Competition Citeline News & Insights
(Bloomberg) — Asian stocks staged a rebound on Tuesday following a selloff that saw cryptocurrencies lead declines in global risk assets. A keenly watched auction of 10-year Japanese government bonds drew solid demand.
A gauge of regional equities rose as much as 0.5% before paring some gains. Tech-heavy markets of South Korea and Taiwan outperformed. Futures contracts for US stock indexes edged lower after the S&P 500 fell 0.5% and the Nasdaq 100 dropped 0.4% on Monday. Bitcoin fluctuated after losing more than 5% in the previous session.
Demand at this year’s final auction of 10-year Japanese bonds was stronger than the 12-month average. The sale had assumed greater importance for traders after increased speculation over an interest-rate hike sparked a yield surge. The yen weakened slightly against the dollar after rising the most in a week on Monday, when Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda sent the clearest hint yet that his board might raise rates soon.
Japanese government bonds should be watched as yields “have been on a tear” this year on expectations of larger budget deficits and another rate hike by the BOJ, Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group, wrote in a LinkedIn post earlier. “This is important because rising JGB yields can help push up the yields of other longer-dated sovereign bonds, adding to borrowing costs when some governments can least afford it.”
Global markets were off to a shaky start in December on Monday as the renewed selloff in cryptocurrencies and hawkish comments from BOJ’s Ueda spurred risk aversion. The focus in the coming days will remain on central bank actions as Federal Reserve policymakers meet Dec. 9-10 and the BOJ decides on rates on Dec. 19.
The bid-to-cover ratio was 3.59 compared with 2.97 at the previous sale in November, and a 12-month average of 3.20. In another sign of strong investor demand, the tail, or gap between average and lowest-accepted prices, was 0.04, compared with 0.13 last month.
Swaps now imply about an 80% probability of a BOJ hike this month, with the odds rising to more than 90% for January. That compares with just 36% for December as recently as a week ago.
Treasuries steadied on Tuesday after falling across the curve in the previous session, when the 10-year yield jumped seven basis points to around 4.1%. A gauge of the dollar was little changed. Australia’s 10-year yield climbed six basis points.
Elsewhere, silver retreated from a record high, with a key technical indicator showing that a six-day rally through Monday had taken the white metal into overbought territory. Gold also declined while oil edged higher.
“There’s been some stabilization, but this still looks like a positioning-led bounce rather than a shift in broader conviction,” said Tareck Horchani, head of prime brokerage dealing at Maybank Securities in Singapore. “Monday’s move flushed out some weak hands, but the market remains cautious.”
US Economy
In the US, data Monday showed factory activity shrank in November by the most in four months as orders weakened.
Fed officials will get a dated reading on their preferred inflation gauge before next week’s rate decision. The report due Friday is expected to show that inflationary pressures are stable, but sticky. Yet the debate will likely largely center on the job market when policymakers meet for the rate decision.
Still, key data like the jobs report won’t arrive until after the December rate decision, which “drastically dilutes this week’s ability to spring any material surprises in as far as rate cut expectations are concerned,” noted Fawad Razaqzada at Forex.com.
In addition to Friday’s inflation data, other relevant economic data this week include ADP private employment figures for November and a preliminary reading of consumer confidence in December.
“With the Fed set to carry out another possible rate cut and key governments adopting fiscal stances that are more growth supportive than expected, we think the global macroeconomic environment will remain favorable to investors’ risk-taking,” said Homin Lee, a senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier Singapore.
Corporate News
Fanuc Corp.’s shares climbed as much as 9.4% to the highest since July 2021 after the Japanese factory automation equipment company announced that it will collaborate with Nvidia Corp. to implement physical AI in industrial robots. China Vanke Co., the distressed builder that surprised markets last week when it proposed an unspecified delay in paying a local bond, has now asked holders to wait a year to be made whole, as it faces mounting liquidity pressure amid waning state support. Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. was fielding a second round of bids on Monday, including a mostly cash offer from Netflix Inc., in an auction that could wrap up in the coming days or weeks, according to people familiar with the discussions. Jane Street Group and Citadel Securities reported gains in third-quarter trading revenue, cutting further into Wall Street’s dominance of that business and leaving the two market-making firms on track for record years. After 13 years of running South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Song Chi-hyung and Kim Hyoung-nyon have cemented their spots among the world’s wealthiest. China’s DeepSeek unveiled two new versions of an experimental artificial-intelligence model it released weeks ago, adding fresh capabilities the startup said would help with combining reasoning and executing certain actions autonomously. Chinese vaccine makers are caught in a steep downturn, as intensifying competition pushes prices lower and erodes profits, underscoring the far-reaching deflationary pressure across the world’s second-largest economy. Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
S&P 500 futures fell 0.1% as of 12:42 p.m. Tokyo time Japan’s Topix rose 0.2% Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.1% Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was little changed The Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% Euro Stoxx 50 futures were little changed Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed The euro was little changed at $1.1612 The Japanese yen was little changed at 155.61 per dollar The offshore yuan was little changed at 7.0736 per dollar Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin rose 0.2% to $86,612.2 Ether rose 0.3% to $2,801.11 Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries was little changed at 4.09% Australia’s 10-year yield advanced six basis points to 4.61% Commodities
West Texas Intermediate crude was little changed Spot gold fell 0.2% to $4,223.51 an ounce This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation.
–With assistance from Richard Henderson, Abhishek Vishnoi, Ruth Carson and Masaki Kondo.
