Manufacturing on the ballot in Germany
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
KKR has submitted a preliminary bid to take a majority stake in Thames Water, and HSBC set out its cost cuts in its annual earnings report yesterday. UK inflation hit a 10-month high. Plus, Germany has lost half a million manufacturing jobs since 2020.
Mentioned in this podcast:
German manufacturing job losses deepen fears over industrial decline
UK inflation rises to 10-month high of 3% in January
HSBC sets out scale of cost cuts under chief executive’s restructuring plan
KKR submits £4bn bid to take majority stake in Thames Water
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The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson, Kasia Broussalian, Ethan Plotkin, Lulu Smyth, and Marc Filippino. Additional help from Breen Turner, Sam Giovinco, Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva and Gavin Kallmann. Our engineer is Joseph Salcedo. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, February 20th. This is your FT News briefing. |
| 0:10.3 | A major private equity firm made a splash with its bid for Thameswater, and HSBC is taking an axe to its spending. |
| 0:18.5 | Plus, Germany's battered manufacturing sector takes center stage in this weekend's election. |
| 0:24.7 | The industry is in crisis, and a lot of people are starting to get worried. |
| 0:31.0 | I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you need to start your day. |
| 0:45.1 | Thank you. day. KKR submitted a preliminary bid for a majority stake in Thames Water. |
| 0:49.8 | We learned yesterday that the private equity firm is offering 4 billion pounds in equity. |
| 0:55.6 | Thames Water is the UK's largest water utility and is in a ton of debt. |
| 1:00.8 | KKR isn't planning to break up Thames Water. |
| 1:03.9 | That's really different from some of the other groups that are interested in the utility. |
| 1:08.6 | The company overseeing the bidding process is expected to select the |
| 1:11.9 | most credible offers by the end of the month. |
| 1:20.9 | HSBC released its full-year earnings report yesterday, and a lot is on the chopping block. It wants to |
| 1:27.3 | cut one and a half billion dollars. |
| 1:30.2 | CEO Georges-Hedarey announced a sweeping reorganization in October designed to lower costs. |
| 1:36.2 | El Hedery announced a bit more detail on the planned restructuring on Wednesday. |
| 1:40.6 | Here to talk about it with me is the FTs K. Wiggins. Hi, Kay. |
| 1:46.9 | Hi. So first off, tell me about the headline figure from this report yesterday. What does the $1.5 billion figure mean exactly? |
| 1:54.3 | That is the amount of money that Georges and Henry wants HSBC to cut from its annual cost base starting from next year. |
| 2:02.6 | And what he wants to do with that is he wants to reinvest it into areas where he thinks the bank has a competitive advantage. |
| 2:09.6 | So his priorities for getting a share of that money are areas like wealth management, transaction banking, |
| 2:16.6 | and also UK business banking, where he thinks |
... |
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