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There has been much soul-searching and agonising during recent years over the valuation of the UK stock market – intertwined with a debate over London’s ability to attract world-class businesses to list here.

Even though the FTSE-100 has hit several record highs so far in 2024, the UK’s premier stock index is still trading at a significant discount to its global peers.

The FTSE-100 is currently trading on a price/earnings ratio – a valuation measure widely used by equity investors – of 14.78 times, according to Refinitiv data, compared with one of 15.71 for the pan-European Stoxx 600 and one of 24.7 for the S&P 500, the main US stock index.

But the UK is not the only European economy where concerns are being expressed about the relatively lowly valuation applied to its stock market.

German business has been set ablaze after a speech made nearly two months ago by Theodor Weimer, the outgoing chief executive of Deutsche Boerse, surfaced at the weekend.

Addressing the Bavarian Economic Advisory Council on 17 April at Munich’s luxury Bayerischer Hof hotel, Mr Weimer said he had just had his 18th meeting with Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice chancellor and economics minister.

He told his audience: “And I can tell you, it’s a sheer disaster.”

German Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck
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German economy and climate minister Robert Habeck

Mr Weimer said that, when Mr Habeck had come to office, he had been encouraged by the minister’s preparedness to listen to him – but said that enthusiasm had now dissipated.

In a no-holds-barred attack on Germany’s coalition government, Mr Weimer criticised not only its economic policy but its attitudes towards immigration and innovation.

He added: “We are on the way to becoming a developing country.”

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Mr Weimer, a former investment banker who has been CEO of Deutsche Boerse since 2018, said this was not only his opinion but those of major international investors he speaks with.

He added: “Our reputation in the world has never been as bad as it is now. Never before.”

Mr Weimer said that he had been asked by investors in Singapore what kind of government Germany was putting up with while, elsewhere, he said people “just shake their heads and wonder where the German virtues have gone”.

He said the only investment in German stocks was being made “opportunistically” because its market was so cheap.

He went on: “We have become a junk store.”

Not the first outburst

It is not the first time Mr Weimer, who is renowned for his plain speaking, has bemoaned the lowly rating on Germany’s stock market.

He has drawn attention several times in the past to the risk of European stocks moving their main listing to the US – something that has also alarmed City figures following the decision of companies like Ferguson, CRH and Flutter Entertainment to move their primary stock market listing from London to New York.

But this speech saw Mr Weimer widen his comments to a broader critique of the government – and one which is shared by many in Germany’s business community.

It includes “destroying” the country’s car industry, long a source of industrial prestige, by insisting on the phasing out of new petrol and diesel vehicles and refusing to subsidise the energy transition in the way the Biden administration has in the US.

Other criticisms include what he described as an “orientation towards do-gooderism” in migration policy and encouraging working from home and promoting work-life balance over the traditional German virtue of diligent work.

Mr Weimer also complained that the government’s “economic policy lacks a compass” and said excessive government bureaucracy and interference in the economy was patronising to ordinary Germans.

He added: “Damn it, I don’t want to be protected by this government.”

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Reaction to the speech has been mixed.

Verena Hubertz, an MP in the SPD – the biggest party in the coalition government – told the Financial Times: “The bizarre speech is more beer tent than Dax-listed company executive.”

But Sarna Roeser, one of Germany’s most celebrated young entrepreneurs, told the newspaper Die Zeit that, as someone who travels abroad widely, she had also heard similar comments from international investors.

She added: “With ideological left-green politics, moral finger-pointing and feminist foreign policy, Germany will no longer be taken seriously at home or abroad and will continue to slide.”

Mr Weimer, whose €10.6m pay package in 2023 made him Germany’s second best-paid CEO after Ola Kaellenius of Mercedes-Benz, may have felt emboldened to speak because he is about to step down.

There is little doubt, though, that in attacking chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government, he has said publicly what many German business people are saying privately.

And to judge by the spanking Mr Scholz’s coalition received in the European parliament elections at the weekend – Mr Habeck’s Green Party did particularly badly – many ordinary German voters seem similarly disgruntled.

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Bank of England job fears as Andrew Bailey warns of tough choices

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Bank of England job fears as Andrew Bailey warns of tough choices

Staff at the Bank of England are on alert for potential job cuts in Threadneedle Street after the governor, Andrew Bailey, warned of tough decisions about the institution’s future cost base.

Sky News has learnt that Mr Bailey informed Bank of England employees in a memo last week that it was taking a detailed look at costs, although it did not specifically refer to the prospect of redundancies.

One source said the memo had been sent while Mr Bailey was attending the International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington.

Its precise wording was unclear on Monday, but one source said it had warned of “tough choices” that would need to be made as the bank accelerated its investment in new technology.

They added that managers had been briefed to expect to have to make savings of between 6% and 8% of their operating budgets.

The Bank of England employed 5,810 people at the end of February, of whom just over 5,000 were full-time, according to its annual report.

Those numbers were marginally higher than in the previous year.

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The central bank’s budget, funded through a levy, is expected to be £596m in the current financial year.

The workforce figures include the Prudential Regulation Authority, Britain’s main banking regulator, which is set to get a new boss next year when Sam Woods steps down after two terms in the role.

A Bank of England spokesperson declined to comment on the contents of Mr Bailey’s memo.

They also declined to provide details of the timing of any previous rounds of redundancies at the bank.

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Pizza Hut to shut 68 restaurants in UK after company behind venues falls into administration

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Pizza Hut to shut 68 restaurants in UK after company behind venues falls into administration

Pizza Hut is to close 68 restaurants and 11 delivery sites with the loss of more than 1,200 jobs after the company behind its UK venues fell into administration.

The company has said 1,210 workers are being made redundant as part of the closures.

DC London Pie, the firm running Pizza Hut’s restaurants in the UK, appointed administrators from corporate finance firm FTI on Monday.

It comes less than a year after the business bought the chain’s restaurants from insolvency.

On Monday, American hospitality giant Yum! Brands, which owns the global Pizza Hut business, said it had bought the UK restaurant operation in a pre-pack administration deal – a rescue deal that will save 64 sites and secure the future of 1,276 workers.

A spokesperson for Pizza Hut UK confirmed the Yum! deal and said as a result it was “pleased to secure the continuation of 64 sites to safeguard our guest experience and protect the associated jobs.

“Approximately 2,259 team members will transfer to the new Yum! equity business under UK TUPE legislation, including above-restaurant leaders and support teams.”

Nicolas Burquier, Managing Director of Pizza Hut Europe and Canada, called Monday’s agreement a “targeted acquisition” which, he said, “aims to safeguard our guest experience and protect jobs where possible.

“Our immediate priority is operational continuity at the acquired locations and supporting colleagues through the transition.”

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The administration comes around six weeks after a subsidiary of Yum! filed a winding up petition against DC London Pie.

DC London Pie was the company formed after Directional Capital, which operated franchises in Sweden and Denmark, snapped up 139 UK restaurants from the previous UK franchisee Heart with Smart Limited in January of this year.

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Oil and gas workers offered cash to retrain, in major plan for future clean energy workforce

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Oil and gas workers offered cash to retrain, in major plan for future clean energy workforce

Ministers have unveiled their flagship plan to train and recruit workers for the booming clean energy sector, which it is hoping to supercharge in the next five years.

Up to £18m of new money has been pledged by the UK and Scottish governments specifically to move those working in the oil and gas sector into new roles.

Their jobs are about to fall off a cliff as the industry declines, with at least 40,000 of the current 115,000 jobs forecast to disappear by the early 2030s.

Almost all of those roles are thought to be fairly easily transferable into green industries – requiring little more than a few months of extra training.

But in the absence of government help, workers have been moving abroad, industry says, taking with them the expertise Britain badly needs to for its new greener energy system.

And it has left them feeling forgotten about after years of working to keep the lights on, and increasingly swayed by Reform UK, both GMB and Unite unions have warned Labour.

Pledge to double green jobs by 2030

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Energy Secretary Ed Miliband told Sky News that creating jobs in sectors like carbon capture and storage and hydrogen would help “create a future for those in the North Sea communities”.

The new £18m will pay for careers advice, training, and “skills passports” to enable oil and gas workers to make the switch without having to repeat qualifications.

The cash was announced on Sunday in the new Clean Energy Jobs Plan, which details how the government hopes to make good on its promise to double green jobs by 2030.

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Renewables overtake coal for first time

Mr Miliband said in an interview: “This plan shows 400,000 extra jobs in the clean energy economy by 2030.

“This isn’t a target. This is actually what we believe is necessary to meet all the plans we have across the economy.”

The first strategy of its kind hopes to plug the UK’s massive skills gap that threatens to derail the government’s target to green the electricity system by 2030.

It identifies 31 priority occupations that are particularly in demand, such as plumbers, electricians and welders, and lists a target to convert five colleges into new “Technical Excellence Colleges” to train workers.

‘You can’t train people for jobs that aren’t there’

Unions welcomed the plan, but pointed out that skills and training do not equate to new jobs.

They say it will mean nothing without extra money and a revitalised domestic supply chain to build all the green technology needed, from fibreglass wind turbines to aluminium sub-sea cables.

Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary who has threatened to cut ties with Labour over its policy to end North Sea oil and gas drilling and watering down of a ban on zero-hours contracts, welcomed the “initial steps” but called for “an equally ambitious programme of public investment”.

Professor Paul de Leeuw from the Energy Transition Institute in Aberdeen said the plan was “genuinely new and different”, and had for the first time joined up relevant information and strategies in one place.

But “you can’t train people for jobs that aren’t there”, he added, also calling for an investment plan.f

Reform heartlands could benefit from Labour’s jobs plan

The boom in clean energy jobs stands to benefit Reform heartlands along the east coast of Britain.

That fact is more by luck than design, given the east coast’s proximity to offshore wind farms and carbon capture and storage fields in the North Sea.

Reform promises a radically different vision for the country’s future, based on reopening coal mines and maxing out nuclear power and what’s left of North Sea oil and gas to boost jobs and the economy.

Its deputy leader, Richard Tice, objects to land being used for solar panels and pylons.

Government modelling forecasts an additional 35,000 direct jobs in Scotland, 55,000 in the East of England and 50,000 in the North West.

To keep the unions sweet, the government will also have to follow through on its pledge to boost the rights of those working offshore in green energy.

A current loophole gives protections like the minimum wage to oil and gas workers in UK territorial seas, but not to workers in the clean energy sector.

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