0:01 foreign good morning this is Ian King live in our business and economic news from the Heart of the City the headline rate of inflation in the UK fell last month but it remained stubbornly in double digits Consumer Price inflation fell from 10.4 percent in February to 10.1 percent last month that was higher than the 9.85 figure that the market had been expecting the office for National statistics said downward pressure was exerted on the headline figure by lower petrol and diesel prices but offsetting that will hire food and drink prices those were up by 19.1 percent last month on a year-on-year basis that was up from 18.2 percent in February and was the fastest rate since
0:47 August 1977. the ons said that the price of bread and cereals increased by the fastest on record this is a small headline full but it disguises a large rise in food inflation which is causing pressure to families up and down the country as they see their cost of their weekly food shop go up and it shows that there is no such thing as an automatic fall in the headline rate of inflation that's why we have a plan and if we're going to reduce that pressure on families it's absolutely essential that we stick to that plan and we see it through so that we halve inflation this year as the Prime Minister has promised well joining me now is Yale selfish he's Chief Economist at KPMG yeah good to see
1:33 you this morning up inflation is proving much much stickier than expected in the UK yes it is brewing a little bit stickier in the UK and it would be due to your range of issues that we have here particularly um and it is unfortunate because it is making the bank of England um job a little bit trickier why do you think the UK does have this problem with persistent inflation more than other countries in Western Europe well it's partially difficult to say but it could be partially because um of the issues that we have with trade so so Imports are potentially a little bit more expensive now than the where we
2:20 also have shortages in in of Labor in certain sectors that make the cost of producing certain things in the UK in the UK more expensive so could the fact that the pound has started to tick higher in recent days come to the to the rescue at all here that should help a little bit but um I think we'll need a bit more than that no we don't talk much about retail price inflation RPI it's a bit of a discredited uh measure of inflation these days but I mean it's worth pointing out that is still pretty uh elevated at 13 and a half percent that's crucial of course because a lot of the UK's national debt about 28 of it the interest payments are linked to RPI yes indeed so I mean it is still an
3:07 important measure um for for certain reason as you as you mentioned but nevertheless the key is a key um measure that we always tend to look at is a CPA because that is what the bank of England uses to Target its monetary policy now Sterling has risen against both the US dollar and the Euro this morning I mean the market appears to be pricing in another interest rate rise next month would you go along with that yeah I think it is almost a done deal now given what we've seen both with today's daytime yesterday data was relatively strong um wage growth presumably uh the bank will be most worried about core inflation which was unchanged during the month at 6.2 percent
3:52 yeah I mean core inflation has been relatively strong and persistently strong and it is not going down as fast as we would have hoped and therefore it is understandable that the bank of England is worried um about the inflationary pressures because you really need that core inflation to start moderating we're already seeing the energy prices going down so that is impacting headline inflation but it's a core that needs to go down as well now clearly inflation is proving stickier in other uh economies as well I mean it's uh higher than expected in the US right now is this making you rethink at all about the global direction of
4:39 interest rates I mean Equity markets certainly uh have been under a cloud this week from the prospect of another rate racer in the Fed yeah I mean central banks generally are in a tricky position at the moment because we've seen some pressure um through the turmoil in in the banking sector and and some of the incidents we had earlier on that makes makes you think that such a quick increase in interest rates can have an impact that is very much undesired in terms of the stability of the banking system or all other things that can crop out so they've already increased interest rates quite aggressively from the low level where they were but in not in real terms
5:26 rates are still relatively low when you look at you comparing nominal interest rates and inflation and inflation is not going down as quickly as a home so it is a difficult position to be in yes as you say headline CPI coming down much more slowly than either the office of budget responsibility or the bank of England itself was expecting where do you see the uh trajectory of inflation over coming months well ultimately we are expecting inflation headline inflation to go down significantly this year across um the range of economies that have had that shock um particularly driven by the rising Energy prices because the energy prices are lower and because they come out of
6:14 this base effect from that big increase that we saw last year so that is likely to happen maybe more slowly but it is still likely to happen and then what we could see is that as as inflation is moderating much more that can be start to be embedded much more in inflation expectations and also in people's behavior in their demand for wages wage Rises and as well in the way companies um price their product so that could be in a way self-fulfilling as well and this is what we're hoping that there actually won't be that much of a need to increase the interest rate so much given that as inflation is going to go down
7:00 that will change behaviors and that would save central banks from being far too aggressive at a point where we could still see more impact from that big increase in rates all right yeah I've got to leave it there good to see you this morning thank you well now Central bankers and politicians love to say that their decision making is as the saying goes led by the data for there's growing evidence that Executives and managers are being overwhelmed by too much data more than a quarter of Business Leaders admit that they rely on gut feeling more these days than after being overloaded with data during the last three years well that was the finding of a global report published today by the technology
7:45 company Oracle who's senior vice president Siobhan Wilson joins the national welcome to you is this all data data overload oh completely absolutely it's um you know the the study has shown us that there's so much data now that Business Leaders you know looking at this data and just it's completely overwhelming and really finding it hard to make decisions and yet according to your findings British managers are far more likely to sort of regret decisions that they've made than their peers in France and Germany are they just not as good as interpreting this data and dealing with it I don't think it's that they're not as good I think it's really just about the amount of data and looking at that data and not being able to make decisions around the data so I think the universally it's the same problem everywhere I think maybe
8:30 culturally the UK a little bit more cautious than other people maybe but yeah generally it's a universal issue that we're seeing so why are we struggling with this data explosion I think because you know even in our personal lives if you think about it and in our business lives that there's so much data and we need to make much more decisions now you know the decisions we have to make are multiplying ten times over and the and the data that we're getting is so much it's so overwhelming it's becoming too hard to understand so I think that's why people are struggling with it and really struggling to make decisions with it will that improve with experience people will learn how to sort of sort the wheat from the chaff as it were well I think it's more around you know what when is the right data and where where do you get the right data
9:16 and I think that's what people are struggling with there's so much data now you don't need every bit of data that's available to you you just need the right data at the right time to be able to make those decisions and we've looked at you know a lot of research told us in that that over 70 percent of people wanted technology and robots to make those decisions for them and I think that's what you know that's what we're trying to look at they need the right data so the technology to give them the right data rather than getting all this data in front of them and going what do I do with that you know because it's just so much that's very interesting I mean we've been talking an awful lot on this program lately about artificial intelligence I mean this sounds like from what you're saying something where AI may come to the rescue yeah I think so but it again it's about the right AI
10:04 embedded in the right areas rather than because again AI can come from all areas but it's about using the right analytical analytics within the AI embedded in those applications to give you the right data at the right time and that will make you help you give you the right decisions so who does that is it a software vendor like or is it the businesses themselves on the other end of all this there is software it's technology so there is there is lots of analytical software out there Oracle Cloud technologies have have lots of Technology available to help organizations build their build their AI beneath it but yes it's all around the technologies that available to them and can that be made available to a client on a bespoke basis so that it can address their very individual needs yeah
10:49 absolutely it's really about the customer needs you know we're always looking at what is the customer challenges and how can we help those customers the challenges that they've got and Technology can always help it's just about finding that right technology that can help them and it's just understanding the customer what they want at that point in time it's actually quite depressing having this conversation it kind of makes me think that a lot of Executives a lot of managers they're basically going to be dummies on a machine now really doing what uh they're told no they still need to make the decisions it's just about making them making giving them the right data behind those decisions rather than having to do it from gut feeling all the time because sometimes you find you know some of our surveys said that they felt that the leaders were making gut decisions rather than what they're
11:35 they've got from the data and actually they wouldn't need to do that if they had the right data because then the the day they're not trusting the data at the moment because there's too much and I think we need to get back to Business Leaders trusting the data that they're being given why do you think they don't why why do you think that they just go with the gut it can't just be down to date or overload surely I think it is but combination of the amount of decisions that they've got to make combined with the amount of data that they've got it's just become completely overwhelming and we need to be able to get those Business Leaders trusting the data that we're giving them so that they can make quick and fast decisions you know companies are in a massive change at the moment but they always are really but at
12:23 the moment with the economical pressures competition they've got to be moving fast they've got to be agile they've got to be resilient and all of that data will help them make those decisions to be able to do those things you don't think it's because the data is telling them things that they don't want to hear potentially but no I think it's really about just making sure they've got that right data and you know trusting that data and I think that's where because of the overwhelming volume of it they're less trustful of it at the moment and we can help them make sure that they can get that trust back all right it's good to see you this morning thank you very much thank you some other business news stories for you now and Heineken has reported a bigger than expected drop in beer sales for the first three months of the year the
13:10 world's second largest Brewer said that beer volumes During the period were down three percent on the same months last year due to Temporary weaknesses in its key markets of Vietnam and Nigeria but the Dutch company which was also hit by its decision to stop selling in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine said trading have been strong in Brazil the United States the UK Spain and the Netherlands the commodity and trading and Mining giant glencore said this morning it would be prepared to raise its offer for the Canadian minor Tech resources the ftse 100 company has so far been rebuffed by Tech despite offering 22 and a half billion dollars to date while its chief executive Gary Nagel traveled to Canada last month to meet you a week to meet shareholders Tech is in the process of spinning off its metallurgical coal
13:56 business and focusing on its copper and zinc assets and line trust one of the UK's best known fund managers said this morning that profits for the year would be better than expected the company said it now expects profits for the year to be at least 86 million pounds driven primarily by stronger than expected performance for you revenues John Irons the chief executive held the acquisition of rival majidi Asset Management last year not only for generating 12 million pounds in performance fees during the year but also for broadening the group's investment capability and the sac CBI director General Tony danker has attacked the lobby groups decision to fire him saying his reputation has been totally destroyed when they fired me
14:43 they told me that some of the things I've done and they named them these were things that just a week or two earlier they said didn't Merit any disciplinary action and now they told me they merited immediate dismissal and look you know I've been around the block and I know the way the world works but it's so clear I've been made the full guy not that they just threw me under the bus they reversed the bus back over me Asda has launched what it claims is the UK's biggest trial to date of autonomous grocery home shopping delivery it's partnering with wave the uk-based autonomous Vehicle Group in a 12-month
15:29 trial to deliver grocery orders using self-driving vehicles to customers of asda's Park Royal Superstore in Northwest London which you want to be now is Alex Kendall he's chief executive of waiver Alex welcome to you I mean the groceries are going to be transported from the store to the home in a self-driving vehicle but there will still be people on board that's right this is a trial uh so we're using it to develop our technology and really understand what it takes to deploy autonomous driving at scale we're going to have a safety operator on board who's going to be monitoring the system for two reasons uh firstly because we're establishing and developing the levels of safety required to launch autonomously and secondly because legislation is not yet here which enables us to operate autonomous vehicles in the UK yeah so what do you hope to establish from this trial well
16:14 it's the first of its kind I mean to to give you some context autonomous driving trials today have really been constrained to quite small geofenced or constrained areas in cities uh like ones in in desert areas like Arizona where the sun always shines and you've got white boulevards we spent the last five years developing artificial intelligence technology that lets us operate in really Dynamic and complex environments like we're doing here in London um so it's a new possibility for the industry and the routes I gather are going to be determined by AI also the beauty is that we're not changing the routes that uh you know Asda sees today and their operations we're able to operate on the routes they expect and do so because our system is learning to drive based on what it sees so it doesn't rely on preset routes or things like this but the catchment area
17:00 is enormous with this this trial it's over 170 000 residents in North West London and that's because of the the level of intelligence we've got on board the system that lets it navigate that diverse set of customers and does this have the potential to be rolled out to other Asda stores in due course we hope that's what we aim to establish in this trial we've been developing this technology for about five years and we've tested in over 10 UK cities ourselves but this is the very first commercial deployment so it's a hugely exciting moment for ourselves and our partners yeah I like the fact that you say that London's roads are a little more different from Los Angeles should we say I mean to that end you just took I mean Microsoft we should say it's one of your backers you just took Bill Gates out for a spin in London ah that was a it was a wonderful ride we picked him up from his hotel in central London and he chose a route to a fish and chip shop in
17:46 North London and so we drove on this we've never done that route before but we were able to navigate autonomously past the cyclists and pedestrians and Central Soho and do so in a way that it was a very human-like Driving Experience where the vehicle wasn't rigid and stopped starting but it could naturally drive and coexist in the in the other traffic in that in that area and Bill Gates was was he happy at the end of it it was uh it was well he's still in one piece clearly I think he was chuffed now I mean Microsoft are one of a number of Big Blue Chip backers that you have do you have the capital that you require right now to do everything that you're trying to do in terms of development and testing well to put it in perspective and it's an extraordinary um difficult problem to solve one of the the biggest in in the world right now uh
18:31 to to get autonomy out there at scale and to get artificial intelligence in the real world we've raised 260 million dollars to date and that's given us the Firepower to go and build and deploy this this first commercial trial of course we need to raise more Capital to to bring this to Market um but the opportunity is extraordinary it's it's you know it's a trillion dollar market for a reason and it's going to completely change the way we move people on Goods around cities and tell me about the vehicles that you're using in this draw so the vehicles we're starting with our first generation vehicle which is on a Jaguar i-pace vehicle but one of the neat things that we've demonstrated with our technology is that it can adapt to new and different types of vehicles and so we're looking to expand in our second generation vehicle uh we'll be moving to like commercial Vans like the ones that you see typically operated in grocery today very good Alex good to see you
19:16 this morning now ministers are warning today that the UK is facing what they call ideologically motivated cyber attacks from Russian aligned groups but cyber attacks are now being detected more quickly than ever while product providers of cyber security services and other external sources are notifying organizations of compromises more often than internal security teams are finding them well those are just two of the findings of the M Trends 2023 report published by mandian consulting which is part of Google Cloud joining me now is the head of manly Consulting for Europe the Middle East and Africa Stuart Mackenzie uh Stuart welcome to you this all sounds pretty encouraging uh yes I think we are seeing significant improvements in organizations organizations are definitely getting
20:02 better we saw Global Mean Time detection so this the dwell time is the thing that we measure it measures the amount of time an attacker is in a network before they're detected we use a median rather than an average because with cyber attacks there's quite often you know extensive outliers maybe someone's detected and one day maybe someone's detected four years later and that skews the number so using a medium dwell time detection gives you a really good understanding of you know the average time that organizations are beginning to detect attackers in environments globally that dropped from 21 days in 2021 down to 16 days in 2022 in a mere the picture is slightly different we saw it drop from 48 days down to 20. so we're beginning to detect uh attackers in environments within 20 days that's
20:48 within three weeks within um within um notification events now on the downside Russia's attacks on Ukraine appear to be getting more sophisticated this is what Oliver Dowden is going to be speaking about in Belfast later today how can the West counter that well I think it's about having a holistic approach to cyber security I think it's important for organizations not to overly index or overly switch to worrying about purely Russia it's important to think about the whole security posture the organization holds and the threat it faces trying to think about the threat that would be faced from Russia and the targeting we see in Ukraine where we've been supporting Ukraine since the start of the conflict that's a very different type of conflict
21:35 than we'd see an organizational face from ransomware um there's not going to be many organizations that will be targeted I think Oliver's talking about critical National infrastructure and I think it's really important we see critical National infrastructure improve and critical National infrastructure is a multi-stakeholder environment it's not a single organization that's responsible for a lot of those environments so it's about pushing security down through the whole supply chain it's about looking at your security posture and your supplier security posture rather than just thinking we put in some technology and we're quite life now one of the other lines in the report that uh struck me you mentioned the risks posed by a group called apt-42 what can you tell me about them yeah it's the irgc the Islamic revolutionary guard um they are very focused on threats to
22:23 the nation um and are very focused on both external and internal threats it's interesting to see how they've how they've changed over we've been tracking them since 2015 and they've significantly changed when we change a group to be an apt it's because we understand their profiling their targeting and what they're aiming to do they've grown over time it's um it's a capability though that I think every nation now aspires to have either organizations have a strong cyber capability although one to a massive strong cyber capability I think it's a default position I think Lindy Cameron yesterday spoke about how important it is that you know we we make sure we keep pace for cyber security because if anyone takes a significant leave she called out China I think if anyone takes
23:09 a significant lead in that it will be very hard to play catch up I think it's important that we look at every single nation state and try and make sure that we have capabilities to defend against that some of that's got to come from ncsc um because they are going to set that agenda they're going to see more but lots of organizations can understand what they're doing and test their own environments it's important to test with decent red team capabilities to test your environment against a threat you're likely to see rather than just take an intelligence feed from ncsc and understand their policy you need to actively test your environment on an ongoing basis to understand if you have a capability to defend against attacks and do we have the sufficient talent in this country Stuart to be able to equip ncsc and uh gchq with the people they
23:57 need yes I think we do I think we build Workforce we have intelligent coming through but I do think some of that comes down to encouraging more girls into stem I think we have to get a more diverse population coming into cyber security rather than just a bunch of you know old fat white men like myself we need to get different ways of thinking and education so we can bring through more cyber Talent into the future I think we have the capability we just have to encourage it all right well from one old fat white man to another Stuart good to talk to you this morning thank you thank you still to come here onion King live we'll have a look at how Global markets are doing this Wednesday morning don't go away [Music]
24:54 foreign [Music] Mark Stone and I'm Sky's correspondent based here in Washington DC well the plan seems to be to head to the police station where the policeman who fired the shots was based thing you know is never I've witnessed a remarkable passion for
25:39 politics here but the anger too we have to get Trump out of the White House on Playing devil's advocate you get your political agenda no it's honest God love you and Beyond the United States I report from around the world a town that is effectively encircled by the Russians we take you to the heart of stories that shape our planet quite a few explosions uh in the distance here in Jerusalem what do you think of Isis everybody here they know the truth of Isis [Music]
26:33 thank you [Laughter] [Music] welcome back now while many of us are feeling the pinch the luxury yacht Market is booming with global sales expected to grow from 9.38 billion dollars this year to 13.6 billion dollars by the end of the decade well if you're contemplating buying a new vessel or simply want to admire them the place to be this week is London luxury of floats a boutique style show being hosted at St Catherine docks near Tower Bridge where the event is being put on by British Marine the trade Association for the UK Leisure super yacht and small commercial marine industry it's chief
27:19 executive Leslie Robinson joins me now Leslie welcome to you this is the second year you've run this event I presume last last year must have been a roaring success then last year was a great success and this is day two now of our five day show last year was four days four days but this is an extra day going through to Saturday night how much business got done last year a great deal otherwise our exhibitors wouldn't be back we've got fantastic luxury shop Yachts on show Sun Seekers princesses etc etc beautiful oysters and we're encouraging everybody to come down to this beautiful location it's London's Central Marina um and it's a fantastic showcase as you say Boutique for these wonderful luxury yachts and where is demand strongest right now
28:04 it strung across the board still um you quoted some figures our figures say that uh our revenues for the legend Marine industry grew about 25 last year through to June 22 and if you look at that that's about 6.5 ahead of the pandemic levels so as sales are strong clearly there is a cost of living impact on um margins and so forth at the moment but the industry is still pretty boy which is fantastic for UK PLC and particularly for jobs in the whole supply chain Leslie what do you put this buoyancy of demand down to is it uh people replacing uh existing vessels and put all perhaps trading up or are these new customers I think it's a combination of both we are certainly seeing some new customers uh and I think that is pandemic effect
28:51 and that's fantastic um people as you know have got savings and that's why we're encouraging visitors to come down here to St Catherine's dog we've got four more days to go tickets are still available London London luxuryafloat.com and we really would encourage people to come down and have a look for themselves I mean the UK is a major player in this market you mentioned some of the individual businesses the likes of oyster Sun seeker and Princess where does this expertise and and Market strength come from we have a long tradition of boat building in the UK everything through from design to manufacture to supply chain um it's a it's our Hidden Gem I think and what we want to do is make a real Splash about it hence showcase it it's casing it in central London as well as the the national Southampton um
29:38 International Boat Show which of course happens every September now princess which is based in Plymouth employs nearly three and a half thousand people down there it's just change hands it's been sold from one U.S private Equity Firm to another does it matter that these businesses are not necessarily British owned I don't think so when you have the right backer who understands UK PLC and British industry I think the the um importance is the longevity of the investment and the production facilities because of course that's all about jobs and further production which boosts growth now a lot of luxury Yachts that were previously owned by sanctioned Russians have been seized by governments around the world what's happening to those assets um I can't really comment on that we have very little from our statistics
30:24 there's very little in Russian hands um export wise we export roughly about 30 across the board in the leisure marine industry a tiny tiny proportion has gone to Russia I'm not aware of any issues that we've seen whatsoever I mean when I was driving up though was that potentially if these governments decide to sell these vessels onto the open market it might depress uh depress uh business somewhat it could but I think that's a very small proportion compared to um the general amount of export we've most of our manufacturers or in fact all of our manufacturers still have a long waiting list in terms of customers ready to buy boats right typically how long would a waiting list be at the moment it's been up to two years and at the moment I'm still hearing 18
31:09 months to two years in terms of some of these wonderful uh big Yachts crikey I mean a tastes changing over time in terms of the kind of size of the boat that people are going for these days yeah we are definitely seeing some Trends uh certainly a trend for for bigger boats big boats that are easier if it's self-crewed easier to to crew and so forth yes there are some changes going on at the moment all right Leslie we've got to leave it there great to see you this morning I'm glad to see there's a bit of wind down at uh St Catherine's dock as well there is indeed thank you very much indeed take care now as we were discussing earlier the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster all of a daraden is speaking to cyber security conference in Belfast about the threat to the UK of Russian cyber
31:54 attacks we're just going to listen in briefly these are the types of tools that we used to only see in a handful of State actors and which can cause serious damage so it's something we're taking very seriously and to which we are responding with our International partners meanwhile cyber crime is estimated to cost the UK billions of pounds each year according to new figures published today 32 of UK businesses and Charities suffered a cyber breach or attack in the past year that is a third of our businesses and ransomware continues to run rampant and as prime minister as President Biden rightly recognized a few weeks ago
32:41 thanks to its scale and its impact ransomware is no longer just a crime it's a national security threat and our response needs to reflect the severity of that threat these are attacks on our citizens our businesses and our democracy they are an attempt to undermine our society and we are determined to stop them with your help in the UK we grasp the need for Urgent action early and we've been doing a lot over the past few years to strengthen our cyber defenses we have published the national cyber strategy and we have a new and effective
33:29 cyber sanctions regime which we recently used for the first time against a group of Russian cyber criminals as part of a joint campaign with the United States and we're working closely with International Partners to tackle the proliferation of sophisticated commercial cyber tools at the same time the government itself continues to face a range of attacks including ransomware and Espionage and so we are constantly looking to strengthen our cyber defenses and as part of that today I can announce that we are launching gov ashore a transformational new Cyber regime for the whole of government Governor Shaw will be rolled out across Whitehall it
34:16 will be used to assess every Department's cyber Health on an annual basis against stringent new measures so that government can better identify the risks we face and make sure we are protecting systems that help us run Public Services so with each day as the threat evolves so does our response but a new adversary has emerged over the last 18 months the national cyber security Center has seen the rise of several Russian aligned groups sympathetic to Putin's invasion of Ukraine now these are Fringe State threats the Cyber equivalent of the Wagner group and
35:02 initially those groups focus their attacks on Ukraine and the surrounding region but recently they have begun to turn their attention to the United Kingdom and its allies they are now seeking opportunities to compromise our critical National infrastructure we have experienced attempted attacks in the past but these groups operate differently instead of seeking to profit or spy on us their primary motive is to disrupt or destroy our infrastructure these adversaries are ideologically motivated rather than financially motivated secondly through these perpetrators though these
35:49 perpetrators are aligned to National actors crucially they're often not controlled by those foreign States that makes them more opportunistic and less likely to show restraint together those factors make the current situation particularly concerning and so today I can confirm that the national cyber security Center is issuing an official alert to operators of our critical National infrastructure to highlight the risk they currently face that alert is now live on the ncsc's website along with a number of recommended actions that operators
36:35 should follow right now to increase their resilience and help defend our infrastructure against these attacks this threat is not something we do likely this is an unprecedented warning for business we've never publicly highlighted the threat from these kinds of groups attempting such attacks before and I should stress that we do not think that they currently have the capability to cause widespread damage to our infrastructure in the United Kingdom but we do believe it is necessary at this point of time if we want companies to understand the threat they currently face and to take action to defend themselves
37:21 and the country against such attacks this approach fits with that wider National Security strategy and last year when we saw that Russian forces were gathering at the Ukrainian border we Declassified the information to let the world see what they were doing today with cyber threats you will increasingly see us say what we are seeing we won't allow these groups to stay in the shadows we're shining a light on these threats because we need to work together to strengthen our defenses that means that businesses need to see the threats clearly too and over the last few years we've done lots of things to make it easier for
38:07 businesses to secure themselves so there we go that was Oliver Dowden who's the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster he is also of course the National Security and investment Minister saying that in the last few minutes the UK facing unprecedented threats from Russian aligned entities a clearly very significant intervention there from the minister we will have more reaction to that throughout the morning here on Sky News [Music] well the pound has risen against both the US dollar and the Euro on those higher than expected inflation numbers uh it's given back a few of those gains now Sterling was ahead by quarter one percent against dollar earlier on this morning still up a tenth of one percent right now as you can see The single
38:54 currency has clawed its way uh back uh against uh Sterling uh the Euro pound actually ahead by some quarter one percent right now against the Euro The single currency meanwhile off a third of one percent right now against the dollar on the equity markets it was a largely downbeat session overnight in the Asia Pacific region the Nikka in Tokyo suffered its first reverse in nine sessions uh Sydney more or less the only uh index in the region not to finish in negative territory well in Europe pretty similar story uh let's show you the Continental European indices only the Ibex in Madrid in positive territory right now we were expecting some Eurozone inflation data anytime now that may have had a bearing on things talking points in Europe this morning include asml we were talking about this so
39:39 yesterday with guy Ellison from investec the concentration of some big heavyweight stocks in various indices around the world and asml we are Dutch chips giant is certainly one of them very very big constituent in the Dutch stock index the shares they're currently off two and a quarter percent that's despite uh strong growth in quarterly profits investors uh homing in instead on the more cautious Outlook statement well here in London the ftse 100 is in negative territory as well currently uh off nearly two-fifths of one percent it's a broad base sell-off among leading Blue Chip fallers this morning is Anto fagasta the Chilean copper Miner it's got a production report out this morning shares off some three percent right now other than that there are not an awful lot of individual features in the ftse for investors to hang their hats on this
40:25 morning although there's a fair bit more going on outside the uh ftse all the big dollar and Euro earners I should say are weaker on the stronger pound outside the ftse the software company kanos is down by some five percent that's following a trading update but the commercial vehicle rental provider red and Northgate is ahead by nearly eight percent on news that full year profits are going to be better than expected meanwhile the aura Field Services Group hunting is up some three percent right now two and three quarter percent right now in fact on a trading update as for the oil price well that's sold off again uh this morning amid mounting expectations of another rate rise from the US Federal Reserve and that sell-off has picked up a bit of pace in the last half our Battle of Brent crude currently changing hands at 82.97 a barrel that is
41:11 off a little over two percent so joining me this morning is the head of interactive investors head of investment as an interactive investor Victoria scholar Victoria good to see you um interesting results last night from Netflix they were a bit of a mixed bag weren't they really yeah that's right we saw a big move to the downside after hours but it managed to recoup those initial losses uh they were broadly in line in terms of the earnings and the revenue number but that closely watched subscriber number fell short of expectations 1.75 million was the number and of course we know that market participants are always eyeing that number very very closely I think another interesting bit was this big cut in its content budget it's planning to spend a billion less dollars and we know that content is King and it's an extremely
41:57 competitive sector and we know that social media and streaming followers are very fickle they jump from platform to platform and any platform is only really as good as its latest piece of content so whether that works out is yet to be seen yeah quite so now this morning we've heard from Heineken mentioned them over in the program I mean beer volume Sudan but the share price is up this morning yeah again a bit of a mixed picture we saw a beat on the revenue line profit was down year on year and then bear volumes fell certain geographies suffered like um Nigeria and Vietnam but then there were some bright spots as well like China which saw big growth in terms of beer we know that beer is quite resilient to an economic downturn it tends to hold up so although we have seen this like decline I think there is still a reason to be
42:42 optimistic towards this stock and it has done pretty well so far this year now I mentioned other trading Updates this morning National Express caught your eye yeah that's right you know it's a bit of a mixed picture it's had a tough time so far this year it's down by about 10 uh the UK coach business has done well because of the rail strikes but then there's the UK bus strikes to contend with national rails saying that uh The Best Is Yet To Come in terms of its U.S bus season and also the coach season in Spain and the UK so although it's had a bit of a tough time so far it could pick up later this year all right Victoria couldn't leave it there good to see you this morning thank you thank you timeline for a look at this morning's business pages and the financial times
43:28 leads its print edition with yesterday's quarterly results from Goldman Sachs during which the Wall Street banking giant announced it had suffered an 18 drop in quarterly profits that followed a disappointing performance in fixed income currencies and commodities trading meanwhile on its Digital Editions right now the Ft currently leading with the inflation figures that's one might expect the hot story of the morning the times leads its business pages with an attack by the leading shareholder in HSBC on the bank's bosses pringham the Chinese insurer that owns an eight percent stake in HSBC wants the lender to spin off its Asian Division and accuse management of being close-minded about the idea of a breakup the times also reports that lawyers for Jess Staley have been given the chance
44:13 to question the former Barclays Chief Executives ex-boss at JP Morgan over allegations surrounding the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein who of course was a client of jestel is when he was at JP Morgan meanwhile The Daily Telegraph leads with last night's Court settlement between U.S media giant Fox and Dominion voting systems to settle claims by Fox News at the latter's products were used to rig the 2020 U.S presidential election in favor of Joe Biden the paper also reports we've been running this story this morning on the channel as well at sales of cassettes have hit a two decade High that's a number of musicians feel demand for the Retro format joining me today is the sun's business editor Ashley Armstrong Ashley good to see we'll start with the telegraph because there's a story that caught your eye there yes no yeah morning
45:00 um I think it's really interesting so the government is saying that it's going to scrap its Business Council which is meant to be you know the Great and the good of business and uh meant to Foster environments and so you know essentially number 10 can hear right from the Beating Heart of of a business but how effective that Business Council remains to be seen I mean arguably I was getting texts this morning not very at all and not representative of small business in particular and actually last at the start of the year I did a story about this business Council and the majority of these companies that were meant to be kind of you know put on the pedestal of this is how we should be doing business they hadn't actually signed up to the government's prompt payment code 12 of them only seven had and these are meant to be kind of like the standards of
45:45 paying suppliers on time which as we know is like the biggest cash Crunch and when I was writing the story it took me three government departments I was being ping-ponged as we all are aware of how that feels in government between businesses just to even find out if this Council still existed so I don't think it was the number one priority for government no it's not raising the dead some of these uh why all press departments at times isn't it I mean it's very interesting though I mean we keep hearing that I mean there's a story this morning that says Richie sunac is going to try and press the reset button on relations with business yeah I mean it feels to me like he is the first Prime Minister in a long time to actually care about business I mean Boris Johnson clearly yeah becoming uh Theresa May likewise was pretty lugum it feels like Richie soon Acts trying to be a bit more engaged
46:32 well yeah I mean and Theresa May element that was very much you know the unacceptable face of capitalism it was that era and then yeah Boris kind of really put that down on the pegging seat and it is interesting you know kind of how he's wanting to reset mainly because also he's aware labor have been doing some really good inroads um meeting movers and shakers and I think people find that impressive but what I'm sure you're hearing as well is that you know business like the stability and in fact I wrote this week you know what business really needs as we all know is confidence and certainty and I think Rishi has now been in the job for quadruples a length that Liz Tross had um so in this new world that's been seen as you know a sign of confidence and stability and maybe he'll be around for a few more months to kind of actually set something that resembles slightly a long-term plan yeah you never know I
47:19 mean elsewhere it's been quite a busy week for for corporate deals haven't there three three mid caps have received takeover approaches is Doom making back it's a frison of excitement on Monday wasn't it yeah I I mean I I love covering deals and I think last year there had been virtually none at all and so deal making is back but from kind of an incredibly low base I mean we're talking like down 1990s historic levels um and you know we all know why dealers have been uh delayed political instability suddenly interest rates making private Equity debt a lot more expensive and borrowing costs foreign costs soaring but now they kind of see where interest rates are going so I think you're going to see a lot more overseas acquirers and private Equity deals keep us during this busy won't it
48:04 yeah exactly actually good to see thank you still to come here on Ian King live the world's first company to deploy an autonomous electric vehicle on a public road launches in the UK don't go away [Music]
48:56 I'm Mark Stone and I'm Sky's correspondent based here in Washington DC well the plan seems to be to head to the police station where the policeman who fired the shots was based [Music] thing you know is man his memory I've witnessed a remarkable passion for politics here but the anger too we have to get Trump out of the White House on Playing devil's advocate you get your political agenda no it's honestly God love you and Beyond the United States I report from around the world the town that is effectively encircled by the Russians we take you to the heart of stories that
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51:39 welcome back now earlier in the program we spoke to the autonomous Vehicle Group wave and now to continue the theme we have an autonomous truck maker einright founded in Stockholm in 2016 was the world's first company to deploy an autonomous electric vehicle on a public road it's launched in a number of countries already including Germany Belgium the Netherlands and Luxembourg and today marks its launch here in the United Kingdom will joining me now is the chief executive and co-founder of einroyd Robert Falk Robert good to see you this morning informed your opening schedule and launch schedule I mean we are launching here in the UK because we think this is a natural next step for us I mean the UK has always been the Forefront of Transport I mean that's the whole wealth of the nation has been built on it I mean you've been pioneering the channels you've been
52:24 pioneering the steam engines the railroad not the new technology that has been the world for this nation I'm glad to see you and be a part of being in this next step an autonomous and electric is the next step now you've when you've launched in other countries for example Germany you did so in partnership with businesses like Electrolux and I gather you're doing that here as well correct we are glad to do that now the collaboration PepsiCo and Walkers so we can glad to say that we are actually partnering with it talk with the real Walkers not the talkers so what sort of uh how is that collaboration going to manifest itself this is going to mean that we're actually going to start to ship electric I mean 20 of the CO2 emissions from the UK is from heavy weighted transport and with these kind of solutions we can address that so we're going to start to
53:11 see now electric lorries or trucks on the road actually shipping ships in this case and when will that start let's start already in June this year right right very exciting yeah yeah and uh and where are the trucks manufactured when Enron is not a truck manufacturer we have been since the start we have a service provider so what we are doing together with the clients like PepsiCo is to provide them better service but for instance with digital electric and autonomous Transport service so we work with multiple Hardware manufacturers to bring this technology to the market art tour offering is to be the technology provider and the solution provider enabling the business case of going electric and you're agnostic about which truck makers you work with then we work with them the ones that has the
53:56 best quality and where we can integrate our technology platform into and where we can bring the latest and greatest to the market and what will success look like with with this launch for us it's about scaling we have been in the of live operations since 2019 in Sweden and for now we're scaling it up to four for fifth upscale with a lot of our clients so we see that roughly 30 to 40 percent of the heavy duty Freight transport could be electrified now with a business case with their Hardware costs coming down over the next five years it could be up to 50 to 60 that should go electric driven on the business case itself and what sort of things did you have to say to PepsiCo and Walkers to to get them on board what were they looking for from you High precision transport sustainable at
54:44 the cost of a competitive price and you can't disclose the price of course I assume well it's going to cost you extra it's okay I mean you've just completed in the last uh nine months I think of funding round and under debt raising it gives you access to about 500 million dollars worth of capital right now what will that enable you to do presumably that's not all going on the UK launch presumably there are other markets you're targeting as well yeah half of that is going to be just a large event itself no it's suppose we'll go for uh scaling together with clients we have a huge amount we are looking at 50 to 60-bit clients Global kinds that are now taking their goals with going CO2 literal very serious so they are willing to depict the risk you're going with young players like ours and try what we
55:31 can they can really do about the supply chain are you happy with the mix of debt inequity I mean we were very fortunate to have the partnership with Barclays and the depth goes directly into scaling and deploying and for instance the trucks that we will utilize for the transport service here and will come from Barclays so that's the way to finance the whole rollout so I think that Barclays is really helping us to make the future happen so we're very fortunate to have great investors and great depth providers all right Robert it's good to talk to you this morning hopefully I'll see you again in future thanks for joining me thank you
