A Long Time In Finance

The economist Michael Jensen, who died this month, did as much as any single thinker to shape modern financial capitalism. To his detractors, he was the High Priest of Greed who justified stratospheric CEO pay and predatory private equity. His admirers believe he revived Anglo Saxon capitalism. We discuss his ideas and legacy with the independent researcher and private equity expert Peter Morris. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Peter Morris. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podcast. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A natural monopoly delivering an essential service, Thames Water was privatised in 1989 with no debt. Now it's on its knees, crushed by more than £15bn of borrowings. Neil and Jonathan talk to Feargal Sharkey about what this says about Mrs Thatcher's most controversial privatisation, whether incentive regulation works, and whether we should just scrap the whole private structure and start again. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Feargal Sharkey. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

GEC was a British manufacturing titan; a cash-rich producer of everything from washing machines to railway trains. Then in a few years, it rebranded and restructured, shedding most of the old industrial bits to focus on telecoms. The result? By 2005, shiny new Marconi was no more. In the second of our Fallen Angel series, we talk to industrial historian Nick Comfort about one of the most abrupt collapses in UK corporate history and its heavy industrial cost Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Nicholas Comfort. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades ICI was Britain's largest manufacturing company - a giant fixed point around which the rest of industry orbited. Then, in little more than a decade, it split itself up, sold many of its traditional businesses, and ran up big debts buying fancy but not very profitable fragrance companies. In 2006, the end came when it sold itself to a Dutch company and disappeared. We talk to writer and industrial commentator Nick Comfort about the fall of ICI and what it says about the way the UK economy has been run. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Nicholas Comfort. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remember Pets.com? Or Ask Jeeves? The dot com bubble of 25 years ago might have been a seismic event in markets. But was it just a collective moment of madness, or a deeper transformational moment? Or both? As AI stocks shoot towards the stratosphere, we talk to internet historian Brian McCullough, host of the Techmeme Ride Home podcast, about what we can learn from the last great tech bubble. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Brian McCullough. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of Britain's better-known economic forecasters, Roger Bootle, set up his consultancy Capital Economics 25 years ago. He made his name predicting the "death of inflation" on which he wrote an influential book in the 1990s. We discuss the importance of economic history, favourite writers, monetarism, bright spots in the world economy, and Britain's many problems with growth. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Philip Augar. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second of our series on Privatisation and Popular Capitalism, we look at the biggest and riskiest privatisation of all - the 1987 sale of the UK's 31% stake in BP. How the Chancellor Nigel Lawson gambled that the markets were good for a quick £7bn. Prepare for the world's shortest pricing meeting, diplomatic rows with Kuwaitis and lots of long faced underwriters. And our guest Philip Augar delivers the verdict: was it a disaster narrowly averted or a triumph for the new City of London? Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Philip Augar. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Along with the sale of council houses, privatisation was a signature theme of Mrs Thatcher's government. Its aim was not just more efficient businesses, but a "share owning democracy" that would purge Britain of the "corrosive effect of socialism". With its "Tell Sid" campaign, British Gas was the high water mark of privatisation. Neil and Jonathan talk to author Philip Augar about "stagging", Cedric the Pig and how privatisation changed the City. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Philip Augar. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with BRIEFCASE.NEWS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to green energy is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable. This is the conundrum at the heart of economist Brett Christophers' provocative new book. Neil and Jonathan joined him to discuss why lower wind and solar costs may not equal a green bonanza. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Brett Christophers. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to green energy is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable. This is the conundrum at the heart of economist Brett Christophers' provocative new book. Neil and Jonathan joined him to discuss why lower wind and solar costs may not equal a green bonanza. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Brett Christophers. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unipart, once an unloved division of British Leyland, has grown steadily since its buyout 37 years ago, eschewing the stock market and building a "Mittelstand" like relationship with employees, customers and suppliers. Neil and Jonathan talk to John Neill, its long standing boss, about car parts, purpose versus City short-termism and why more companies don't embrace the "Unipart Way". Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With John Neill. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To some it might seem like the plot of a Jeffrey Archer novel: identical twins born to hardship who graft their way up together and ultimately get to own the Ritz Hotel, the Daily Telegraph and a socking great castle in the Channel Islands. But the story of Frederick and David Barclay is much stranger than that. With the Barclays back in the news as they attempt to recover control of the Telegraph, Neil and Jonathan talk to journalist Jane Martinson about the invisible rise of the twins, their complex finances and their ultimate falling out. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Jane Martinson. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To some it might seem like the plot of a Jeffrey Archer novel: identical twins born to hardship who graft their way up together and ultimately get to own the Ritz Hotel, the Daily Telegraph and a socking great castle in the Channel Islands. But the story of Frederick and David Barclay is much stranger than that. With the Barclays back in the news as they attempt to recover control of the Telegraph, Neil and Jonathan talk to journalist Jane Martinson about the invisible rise of the twins, their complex finances and their ultimate falling out. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Jane Martinson. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bill Gross was the "Master of the Universe" who got the world's attention when he declared in 2010 that UK government debt was sitting "on a bed of nitroglycerine". The man who built the modern bond markets, Gross seemed to have it all. But then he blew up his career just a few short years later with some very strange behaviour. We talk to Mary Childs, journalist and author of a book on Gross, about the strange life and times of a bond market Icarus and his dead cat Bob. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins With Mary Childs. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What links the iconic Sydney Opera House, Monsters Inc and the mess that is HS2? Well, they involve all giant projects and most conform to the "iron law" that schemes costing $1bn or more always end up over time and budget. According to the data, a piddling 0.5% get delivered on time, for the right price, and produce the forecast benefits. So with the world facing a mountain of infrastructure projects to deal with everything from the climate crisis to clapped out transport systems, we talk to infrastructure expert Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University about some of the disasters and also the rare successes such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao to find out what separates the winners from the duds. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins With Bent Flyvbjerg. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What links the iconic Sydney Opera House, Monsters Inc and the mess that is HS2? Well, they involve all giant projects and most conform to the "iron law" that schemes costing $1bn or more always end up over time and budget. According to the data, a piddling 0.5% get delivered on time, for the right price, and produce the forecast benefits. So with the world facing a mountain of infrastructure projects to deal with everything from the climate crisis to clapped out transport systems, we talk to infrastructure expert Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University about some of the disasters and also the rare successes such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao to find out what separates the winners from the duds. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins With Bent Flyvbjerg. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What links the iconic Sydney Opera House, Monsters Inc and the mess that is HS2? Well, they involve all giant projects and most conform to the "iron law" that schemes costing $1bn or more always end up over time and budget. According to the data, a piddling 0.5% get delivered on time, for the right price, and produce the forecast benefits. So with the world facing a mountain of infrastructure projects to deal with everything from the climate crisis to clapped out transport systems, we talk to infrastructure expert Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University about some of the disasters and also the rare successes such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao to find out what separates the winners from the duds. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins With Bent Flyvbjerg. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the recent COP conference, the UK, along with 21 other countries, promised to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. But what does that mean, and how can these plants be built without the delays and cost overruns that marked nuclear projects in the 1970s and 1980s - the last time Britain had a nuclear programme? Neil and Jonathan talk to Tim Stone, head of the UK's Nuclear Industry Association and a former adviser to five energy secretaries, about how to get nuclear done. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Tim Stone. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crypto's demise seems to have been exaggerated, a bit like Mark Twain's. After the collapse of FTX, multiple coin failures and the arrest of various coinigarchs at airports, Neil and Jonathan talk to bitcoin expert Matthew Pines about the digital, bankless currencies strange ability to shrug off these disasters and what the future may hodl. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Matthew Pines. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's got a long history going back to Robert Maxwell and Sir James Goldsmith's long-running battle to bankrupt Private Eye, but in recent years so-called "lawfare" has become a veritable industry. We talk to David Hooper, solicitor and author of Buying Silence about the ways in which companies have used libel and privacy laws to squash their critics, the numerous abuses, and how these might be curbed. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With David Hooper. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. In association with Briefcase.News Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.