Latest news with #Barclays
Scotsman
2 hours ago
- Business
- Scotsman
Glasgow Tech Week sets template for future success
Standing room only for the 'Scaling in Sync – C-suite strategies for Unified Growth' event during Glasgow Tech Week Founders need more opportunities to learn from peers and share playbooks, writes Nick Freer Sign up to our Scotsman Money newsletter, covering all you need to know to help manage your money. Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Glasgow Tech Week took place this week in the metropolis once known as the Second City of the Empire. At the stunning Barclays campus with incredible views over the Clyde, the river that runs through the story of Glasgow's industrial revolution, today's business leaders gathered to discuss taking Scotland's tech and entrepreneurial scene to the next level. The 'Scaling in Sync – C-suite strategies for Unified Growth' event featured scaleup leaders from Deliveroo, ENOUGH, Firstbase, and Malted AI, and thanks to the Innovation Banking team at Barclays, Cooper Parry, and Burness Paull for inviting me along to chair the panel on the night. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Andy Robinson was the commercial director at software development firm Cultivate when Deliveroo made the company its first ever UK acquisition in 2019, with Robinson joining a tech juggernaut which was hiring up to 100 people every week – which sounded like scaling on steroids. Nick Freer is the founding director of corporate PR agency Freer Consultancy (Picture: Stewart Attwood) As chief financial officer at ENOUGH, Elaine Ferguson has overseen funding rounds totalling over €100 million from global investors as the food tech company innovates towards its mission around sustainable food transition. Headquartered in Glasgow, ENOUGH recently opened the world's largest non-animal protein facility, based in the Netherlands. After leaving the oil and gas industry in Aberdeen, Chris Herd built IT asset management platform Firstbase that was acquired by San Francisco-headquartered AppDirect last year. So the maxim, 'If you build it, they will come', from the Eighties movie Field of Dreams rings true – you don't have to be in Silicon Valley to scale amazing tech startups. Having said that, in spite of a catalogue of individual company success stories like Cultivate, ENOUGH, and Firstbase, as a nation we are still seeing relatively few scaleups going on to achieve truly global success. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In this column only a few weeks ago, prominent tech C-suite Richard Lennox put it like this: 'We haven't yet cracked the code of creating global-scale businesses' in an op-ed headlined, 'How Can We Fix Scotland's Big Scaleup Problem?'. Artificial intelligence is enabling some tech startups to gain traction much quicker than ever before, so for example a small AI-enabled tech team can be ten times more productive. So, it was interesting to hear from Laura Bernal Vergara, chief of staff at Edinburgh-based Malted AI, about the work they are doing around small language models (SLMs). We covered so much at Barclays the other night that it would be hard to faithfully digest that here, but I hope that each of the panelists will take the opportunity to write for this column in the weeks and months ahead. What is clear is that we need more of the kind of interaction that took place at Glasgow Tech Week, and very probably on a more regular basis, so that founders can continually learn from other peers, and share playbooks on how we can succeed together – faster and stronger. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lastly, a shout out to Alisdair Gunn, the director of the Glasgow City Innovation District and the chief architect of Glasgow Tech Week. Bravo!
Business Recorder
4 hours ago
- Business
- Business Recorder
Asian currencies: S Korean won, Taiwan dollar up
BENGALURU: Asian stock markets fell on Friday after a US federal court kept President Donald Trump's tariffs in effect, while currencies also weakened, although both assets were headed for monthly gains. The Thai baht fell 0.4% and the South Korean won dropped 0.7%. The Malaysian ringgit and the Singapore dollar dipped 0.1% and 0.2%, respectively. A federal appeals court temporarily reinstated Trump's tariffs while it considers the government's appeal, a day after a trade court blocked tariffs on the grounds that the president had exceeded his authority. The dollar index weakened earlier but was last 0.2% higher. It was poised for its fifth consecutive monthly decline. The 'bounce in the USD is seen as short-term unwinding of short positions rather than bullish reversals to chase,' said Fiona Lim, a senior FX strategist at Maybank. Trump's tariff policy reversals and concerns over US fiscal health have prompted investors to shun the dollar and favour Asian currencies this month. While tariffs risk lingers, the news flow and cautious positioning are supportive for emerging assets, said Barclays analysts. MSCI's emerging market currencies index has gained more than 2% in May, the most in any month since November 2023. The baht is set for its best month since September 2024, and the Singapore dollar is poised for a fifth consecutive monthly gain. The won has jumped about 3.4% this month as Seoul officials confirmed currency policy was on the table during recent trade talks with US counterparts. In Taiwan, closed on the day for a holiday, the dollar surged 6.5% against the US dollar in May, with most of that coming early in the month on speculation that Washington had asked for that to happen as part of the tariff talks, which Taiwan has denied. The focus across the region now is on developments in trade negotiations leading up to the Trump-imposed July 9 deadline. 'Any trade deal or signs of tensions easing could continue to spur unwinding of short USD positions and keep the USD/AXJ mostly supported on dips in the near term,' Maybank's Lim said. Lim sees a possibility for a virtuous circle for Asian currencies, especially with a bearish dollar allowing regional central banks to further lower interest rates to boost growth. MSCI's gauge of Asian emerging market equities fell 0.9% on the day on the latest twist in the tariffs saga. However, the index has jumped 5% this month, largely due to the trade deal between the US and China, a major trading partner for many Southeast Asian countries.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Rupee flips back to monthly decline, lags Asian peers
(Adds dropped word in paragraph 3) By Jaspreet Kalra MUMBAI (Reuters) -The Indian rupee declined by about 1% in May, reversing course after gaining in the previous two months, influenced by factors such as continued uncertainty over U.S. trade policies, gains in its Asian peers and a conflict between India and Pakistan. The rupee closed at 85.5775 on Friday, capping a day of choppy trading with a mild decline. The currency had rallied to a six-month high earlier in May but shed its gains through the month. Initially, a military conflict between India and Pakistan hurt the currency but it rebounded once a ceasefire was reached. Over the rest of the month, dollar demand from corporates and foreign banks weighed on the rupee, traders said. Dollar-buying intervention by Reserve Bank of India also put a lid on the sharp appreciation above the 84.60-84.80 zone, according to one of the traders. Meanwhile, the dollar was set to end the month little changed against major peers as mild relief on the softening of U.S. trade policies, typified by the pact with China, gave way to a legal back-and-forth on the legal validity of reciprocal tariffs. Asian currencies were mostly stronger on the month, led by the Korean won while the offshore Chinese yuan, a closely tracked peer of the rupee, rose nearly 1%. Barclays expects the rupee to underperform its peers going forward as the RBI focuses on replenishing FX reserves and is "unlikely to want to see a renewed richening of the INR," analysts at the firm said in a note earlier this week. India's foreign exchange reserves stood at $685.7 billion as of May 16, about $19 billion below their all-time high hit in September 2024. Traders now await the release of India's economic growth data for the January-March quarter and U.S. PCE inflation data due later in the day. Economists polled by Reuters expect India's GDP to have grown 6.7% year-on-year, up from 6.2% in the previous three months. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
9 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Robson, Toublan on Economic Data, Yields, Foreign Buyers
As US Treasuries are set for the first month of loss of 2025, BNP Paribas Head of US Credit Strategy Meghan Robson says the tariffs uncertainty will be impactful to the negative side of growth. Barclays Head of US Credit Strategy Dominique Toublan says uncertainty does not give consumers or businesses much confidence to make big plans for the future. They speak with Vonnie Quinn on "Real Yield." (Source: Bloomberg)
Bloomberg
9 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Corporate Credit Technicals Too Strong: Toublan
The US investment-grade primary bond market is having its busiest May since 2020. Barclays Head of US Credit Strategy Dominique Toublan says technicals in corporate credit are too strong. BNP Paribas Head of US Credit Strategy Meghan Robson expects wider spreads. They speak with Vonnie Quinn on "Real Yield." (Source: Bloomberg)
