Nils Pratley

United Kingdom

Financial Editor at The Guardian

Nils Pratley is the Guardian's financial editor.

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Articles

Wise goes to the US. Will its founder’s supercharged voting rights follow?

1 day ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

Back in 2021, the arrival on the London stock market of Wise, a rapidly-expanding money transfer company, generated a feel-good factor at a useful moment. It came a month after over-hyped Deliveroo flopped on debut. And, since Wise was a pure fintech business, as opposed to a pizza delivery outfit with an app, there was reason to think the UK might be getting its act together in the sector that politicians swoon over. Shoreditch’s finest, and its Estonian founders, would show the way in UK fintech.
Hapless Thames Water is finally drinking in the last chance saloon

3 days ago | msn.com | Nils Pratley

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Hapless Thames Water finally drinking in last chance saloon

3 days ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

This time Thames Water really is drinking in the last chance saloonCall yourself barbarians at the gate? Actually, KKR hates the decades-old description, but the US private equity firm is still meant to have a fearsome reputation for doing its homework, being a cute judge of political risks and going where others fear to tread. All of which makes its eleventh-hour abandonment of its £4bn bid for Thames Water very odd.
The cyber-attack is costly and embarrassing. But M&S should pull through

2 weeks ago | msn.com | Nils Pratley

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
The M&S cyber-attack is costly and embarrassing, but it should pull through

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

Shouldn’t a robust IT system be able to withstand the odd “human error”, such as somebody at a third-party supplier being hoodwinked by devious cybercriminals? Isn’t £300m at the expensive end for these events? And should it really take four-and-a-half weeks, and counting, for one of the UK’s biggest and well-resourced retailers to restore its website to working order?
Thames Water ‘pauses’ executive retention bonuses amid complex restructuring | Nils Pratley

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

The attempt to restructure Thames Water’s waterlogged balance sheet is a complex and time-consuming undertaking, we can all agree. Current lenders will have to agree to write off many billions of pounds worth of debt, or have the pain forced upon them. Courts have to sanction the main steps. There is a risk (still) that the whole thing falls apart.
Tariffs are clearer at Diageo – not much else is | Nils Pratley

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

Back in February, when Donald Trump was directing his opening tariff salvo at Canada and Mexico, Diageo reckoned it could be looking at a $200m hit to profits in just four months. An annualised rate of $600m was large but you can understand why: Canadian whisky and Mexican tequila are big sellers for Diageo into the US. Thus Monday’s number of $150m, after a few more spins of Trump’s tariff dial, could almost be considered cheery news.
Foreign states should not be co-owners of UK newspapers | Nils Pratley

3 weeks ago | madrastribune.com | Nils Pratley

‘We are fully upholding the need to safeguard our news media from foreign state control while recognising that news organisations must be able to raise vital funding,” said Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, alighting on 15% as the limit for foreign state ownership of a UK newspaper company. She is obviously right that it is harder for companies to raise money if a pool of potential capital – state-controlled sovereign wealth funds and their like – are off-limits.
A torrent of special pleas from Thames Water

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

Mega retention bonuses for executives, the risk of a hosepipe ban this summer, and a confession that the company came within five weeks of running out of money. Yes, it was more of the usual delights from Thames Water in front of the environment select committee on Wednesday. But the most overused phrase in the session was “turnaround regime”.
Reeves’s Mansion House accord on pension funds is long on virtue-signalling | Nils Pratley

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Nils Pratley

Terrific news, eh? UK pension funds have agreed to invest more of their assets in the UK, specifically in private markets, and specifically from their defined contribution (DC) schemes. Most of the big names are on the list of signatories to the expanded Mansion House accord: Aviva, Legal & General, Phoenix and more. And they’ve agreed to do their patriotic duty on a voluntary basis. “I welcome this bold step by some of our biggest pension funds,” said the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.