Is Signa’s downfall a canary in the coalmine?
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2023
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak headed off a Conservative revolt over his flagship Rwanda migration bill, US core inflation rose last month, and the FT’s Sam Jones explains the downfall of Signa, one of Europe’s most prominent property developers.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Rishi Sunak secures win in Rwanda asylum vote
Rise in US core inflation highlights stubborn price pressures
Rwanda vote exposes Tory divisions despite Rishi Sunak’s win
Signa fires René Benko ally for suspected ‘gross violations’ of duties
Insurers built €3bn exposure to struggling Signa property empire
The FT News Briefing is produced by Fiona Symon, Sonja Hutson, Kasia Broussalian and Marc Filippino. Additional help by Sam Giovinco, Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David da Silva and Gavin Kallmann. Our engineer is Monica Lopez. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. The show’s theme song is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The UK's energy partner. |
| 0:06.0 | Learn more at equinore. |
| 0:10.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, December 13th, and this is your |
| 0:16.5 | FT news briefing. Westminster has taken a step towards sending asylum seekers to |
| 0:22.4 | Rwanda and the latest inflation data out of the |
| 0:25.3 | U.S. is keeping the Federal Reserve in a bit of a holding pattern. |
| 0:29.7 | Plus the F.T.'s Sam Jones talks about the collapse of one of Europe's biggest property developers, |
| 0:34.8 | Cigna. |
| 0:35.8 | A lot of banks are worried about what this means for commercial real estate in Europe as a whole |
| 0:41.3 | and whether Cigna is a sort of canary in the coal mine. |
| 0:44.5 | I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got a much needed win on Tuesday night. |
| 1:05.6 | The eyes to the right 313, the nose to the left 269, so the eyes have it, the eyes have it unlock. |
| 1:16.0 | The House of Commons voted to back a controversial bill that would send asylum seekers to Rwanda. |
| 1:22.0 | But it wasn't always a sure bet |
| 1:24.2 | that Sunak would get the votes he needed. |
| 1:26.2 | He had to really convince quite a few of his own |
| 1:28.8 | conservative party members to get behind the legislation. |
| 1:32.3 | After the pleading by Sunak, though, not a single Tory MP voted against it at the second reading, |
| 1:38.0 | but 38 Tory MPs either abstained or were absent from the vote. The Labor Party says that it will scrap the scheme if it wins next year's general election. The US reported inflation numbers for November yesterday and prices edged down slightly last month. |
| 2:01.0 | So high interest rates are still working, but how much longer will interest rates |
| 2:06.2 | need to stay high? The Federal Reserve meets today and while it doesn't seem like the Central |
| 2:11.6 | Bank will be adding another rate rise. |
... |
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