Saudi Foodtech Startup Raises $64 Million on Path to 2027 IPO
Calo, specializing in subscription-based meal services, drew capital from investors including Nuwa Capital, Saudi Technology Ventures and AlJazira Capital.
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StanChart CEO on Earnings, Volatility, Digital Assets
00:00 You got better than expected results here. It looks like you've benefited from the volatility around Trumponomics. A lot of banks have. Do you think that you can continue this performance in the second half of the year then? Yeah, I'm really happy with the results in the first half of this year, in the second quarter, including since since April 2nd, it's really been building on five, six, seven years of continuous investment in a few things. We're a cross-border bank. Every part of our cross-border business is booming. We are a bank to the affluent across Asia, Middle East and Africa. That business is booming. So all the leading indicators, new clients, new money clients, putting that money to work is exactly what we had hoped for and have seen for some years. So now it's sort of all coming together. Add to that the market tumult, as you said then since April has been up and down quite a bit, including copper today. Is there a point where too much volatility becomes too bad for your business? Of course. And I think we wonder all the time what's when is the fatigue going to set in? It hasn't happened yet because things have been, I would say, a steadily improving trend, both in terms of economic outlook. Obviously, there's debates with debates within the Fed, as we saw yesterday. But the the uncertainty certainly leads to a little bit of delay in terms of decision making. So we look at some of our clients, whether they're Western or developed economy companies or companies operating throughout the emerging markets. They're just holding off on their investments to see where's it going to come out. But, you know, the fact is, the turf, that noise, at least for the time being, is settling out. A lot of detail yet to be worked through. But but nevertheless, I think confidence is building, investments are coming is reflected through to our business. Well, if we break down that uncertainty, what worries you more? US tariffs or falling rates? I mean, if falling rates, all else equal, is a challenging thing for a bank in the short term. But we also know that that stimulates investments. And, you know, fundamentally our bank is about investing and trade, that that's whether it's at the individual level or the corporate level. So falling interest rates would certainly support the investment decisions that our clients are making and it would impact our NII. Net interest income on the margin. So I won't say we're indifferent because in the short term, certainly that period of zero interest rates is very difficult for us as it was for for every bank. But that's not what we're going a little bit of talking and telling. I think we're actually in the sweet spot right now. And when you look at the share price, I'm not going to use the C word that you want to use to describe it, but you're up more than 30% this year is past the level when you took the job. And then are you happy with this now? Yeah, I'm happy with the progress. I'm happy with the progress for sure. I also look at our bank and say, this is a bank that is growing its operating earnings in reasonably substantial double digits. We've been growing at 20 or 25% for some time now in terms of our underlying earnings. And I think that can go for some time based on the investments that we've been making for years that should come through to our stock price over time. So I don't get too obsessively focused on the stock price day to day, but of course, I'm happier at at 1370 or wherever we are rather than six when I used a bad word to describe the share price. But how much higher do you think it can go? I think by most relative measures were relatively cheap compared to other Asian banks, for example, or other even European banks in some cases. So I think we can go we we want to be fair, but I never again I'm never going to predict the stock price. Look, what I focus on is growing our income, our customer satisfaction, managing expenses, keeping risk under control, and returning excess capital to shareholders. That's what we focus on. The stock market is going to take care of the rest. I want to talk about how Standard Chartered differs to some of your big competitors. Right. We had HSBC earnings yesterday. You're starting to plot a kind of different course to some of them. I think, about the return to office, for example, HSBC ordering MDs back. Are you saying your option to hybrid workers? You know, a really valuable way to attract talent over your competitors? It absolutely is. But but here's the secret. I Ramdas want to come to the office. They come to the office because they they collaborate, they manage their people. They lead teams. But if they need the flexibility, they can get it from us. Now you've got to have an agreement with your manager or you don't. You don't get to set your own schedule. So there's a discussion. But then I think we find we work with adults and the adults can have an adult conversation with other adults and decide how they're going to best manage their team, how they're going to collaborate. It's working for us, how other companies make that work. You know, everybody's got their own recipe. Are you working hybrid, Bill? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here I am. You know, I'm it's it's 630 in the morning. I'm sitting in your studio. I'm not. I'm not in the office slaving away behind my laptop. You know, I work from home from time to time. If I come in from a from an overnight flight someplace or if I have a meeting in the West End. I live in West London. Yeah, yeah, sure. You know, you've got to live on the top. I also, you know, my agreement with my boss is that I come to the office four days a week. I think I probably average a little bit higher than that. But we all have a master. Look, you're also different from your competitors in terms of the fact that you're super bullish when it comes to crypto. $200,000 is your target. Do you think that that's an area where. As an advantage in particular for Standard Chartered. So I and we are super bullish as a bank on digital assets and we're super bullish on blockchain settlements, whether it's in payments or securities or anything else in crypto, the $200, 200,000 Bitcoin forecast, that's our research now. He's been pretty, pretty, pretty close to right now consistently so I definitely don't don't country Jeff but from our perspective we see a structural movement towards blockchain based settlements of which it starts most substantially today with with cryptocurrencies. But when, when that cryptocurrency technology puts into traditional finance, which is what's happening now with Stablecoins and the like, we are there with the infrastructure that's ready to receive and we're going to take market share from people who haven't been making those investments in our fees for seven years. Well, yeah. Is the plan basically to become the biggest mainstream trader in crypto assets, digital assets, Digital assets, Right. So, so cryptocurrencies has one part today. It's big and it's growing, but stablecoins tokenized bank deposits, eventually central bank digital currencies as they as they arrive, if they arrive, all of those things will be mediums of exchange for what today is traditional finance, which tomorrow will be a new mechanism for payments and settlement. And we are building that infrastructure. We have it through various ventures that we've set up. We're the most substantial institutional grade dealer in digital assets, and our institutional customers really value that at some point are our retail customers will really value that as well. There's a similarity to HSBC as well. You're both in cost cutting drives. You also is of course called Fit for Growth. This efficiency planet is set to peak this year. How important is that to you right now and how difficult is it proving so? Growth for us really is a transformation program. And yes, it's out of the back end of transformation. We'll save .5 billion of operating expenses, which is material for us. And we're investing significantly to simplify everything that we do, mostly through technology, digitized, etc.. So that's that transformation is very important. The cost cutting element is kind of what we've been doing for my entire ten years in the bank, you know, three or four or $500 million dollars per year of efficiency, which we then invest back into the business. So our overall expenses, I'd see it continue to grow up. The key for us is that they grow up, they go up a lot slower than our income. And that's that's what we've been doing. And finally, Bill, you've just marked a decade as CEO of Standard Chartered, yet a lovely interview with our colleague Francine Lacqua about this. I know that you're a thoughtful man. You told her that you'd have to be thrown out of Standard Chartered. Is there a particular milestone that you want to reach before you go? No, not particularly. I'm pretty sure that whatever I leave behind, the next guy or woman is going to be able to grow really nicely from there. But I would like to to do everything I could. I can between now and then, whenever that then is to set the place up for continuous growth. Then we've got we've got a clear set of financial plans that go through the end of next year, very keen to deliver that. We're very much on track. We've got a new chairman, Maria Ramos, who's who's been fabulous is her call on how we manage this succession thing.
