The drama surrounding Sam Altman’s firing and re-hiring has dominated this week’s news – and for good reason. It’s an incredible story on so many levels, and the fact it’s spread beyond the confines of the tech press is proof of the wider world’s ongoing fascination
This week our family got stranded in Oslo. Our flight home on Monday was canceled due to the air traffic control malfunction in the UK. We made the best of it with an impromptu city break, and I can certainly think of worse places than The Tiger City to be
Greetings from Oslo. This week, I have been traveling in the Nordics, returning to one of my favourite parts of the world to meet clients and friends in Sweden and Norway. Whilst the UK and the rest of Europe enjoy the last of the summer sun on their holiday travels,
Another month, another Bank of England rate hike. Since the BoE’s meaty 50bp rate rise in June – following a period of complacency earlier this year – inflation data has relented somewhat. The Monetary Policy Committee opted for a less aggressive 25bp rise at its August meeting, taking rates to 5.
The speech delivered this week by British Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to City executives at Mansion House in London got a lot of people thinking about pension reform. In his speech, Hunt set out a list of changes that he intends to make to reinvigorate the UK’s financial services sector,
This week we attended the Global Capital Bond Awards dinner, where for the third year in a row, we won two awards: * “Best Technology Platform for the SSA Primary Bond Market” * “Best Technology Platform for the FIG Primary Bond Market” The Global Capital Bond awards are probably the premier industry
London’s Tech Week is always a opportunity to assess the strengths of the capital’s tech push. Prime Minister Sunak has made all the right noises in recent months about the UK’s need to focus on future technologies. His speech to kick off Tech Week specifically focused on
This week on the blog, Rainer Wagner – who flies the flag for Origin from Frankfurt – gives his take on the state of the EU’s Capital Markets Union project. Schengen has become a politically charged word. But for me, it has personal significance. I grew up near the border to
This week, Volvo Treasury AB successfully completed a dual tranche, €1 billion syndicated benchmark bond issuance via the Origin platform. This transaction is the first truly syndicated bond issuance on Origin, bringing together multiple banks and law firms to collaborate. Our platform was used as part of the documentation process,
This week I thought it would be interesting to give a quick comment on the debate that continues around central bank digital currencies (CBDC). I thought the FT made a neat point by headlining a piece on the subject with, The digital euro: a solution seeking a problem? The same
The rebound in sterling has surprised a lot of people. This week the pound rose to its highest level since April 2022. Stronger than expected gross domestic product, manufacturing and jobs data, a fall in the price of natural gas, and broad weakness in the dollar have all contributed to
This week, we just released our annual financial results. While we’re not (yet 🙂) large enough to be putting together laminated and glossily printed 200-page annual reports, I thought it might be an opportune moment to highlight a few of our recent successes. The financial scorecard Firstly, I’m proud