Crypto News: A protein shake for the City

For all the focus on new threats to the ultra-rich and fears about hiked taxes, we've not yet heard much from the government about the great shake-up the City is due. There has been lots on how to cut up the pie, but not so much about cooking a bigger pie. That's an issue, particularly given figures out today suggesting the UK economy did not grow by as much as expected in the second quarter, adding to fears the recovery might be weakening.

So it's fortuitous for Labour today that it looks like a protein shake is on the way. Liverpool-based maker of sports supplements Applied Nutrition intends to float in the UK — a much-needed muscle-builder for a market that was hit towards the end of the last government by the high-profile US-listing of the Cambridge-based computing company Arm.

Applied Nutrition's story is a classic. Founded in Liverpool by scaffolder Tom Ryder, he started selling protein powders and supplements as a side hustle in 2014, before turning it into his full-time job at the age of 24 — cashing in on the mushrooming wellness zeitgeist, that saw millions prepared to splurge on creatine and whey. The company now employs more than 200 people and sells in 80-plus countries.

Photographer: magnez2/iStockphoto

But it will also be an interesting one to watch for the UK's attempt to get more firms floating in London. Under Rishi Sunak's government, we got the so-called Edinburgh Reforms, a plan announced by then-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to encourage more investment in the UK. There was a one minute to midnight boon for that agenda when, in the month before election day, low-cost computer maker Raspberry Pi chose to float in London rather than follow Arm across the pond. That decision was rewarded by a "stellar debut" for Raspberry Pi, whose shares soared after listing.

Applied Nutrition's decision to float in London is much needed. Our reporter gives us some grim numbers: "Just eight companies have raised $774 million in UK IPOs this year, about 25% below the total in the same period of 2023."

Labour's agenda for the City in the run up to the election was always conspicuous for mirroring the last government's, but regardless who came up with the ideas, fingers crossed it helps grow the UK's muscle mass.

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And that's that – 142 years after the world's first coal-fired power station opened in London, the UK has stopped burning the fuel for electricity. While the black stuff powered our rise to global economic dominance in the industrial revolution, now Britain is making history in a different way, becoming the first G-7 nation to phase it out with the closure of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant today.

The plant shuts down in an environment of cautious optimism for the energy transition. When the phase out of coal began a decade and a half ago, renewables were generating marginal amounts of power, but now they regularly provide half or more of the UK's power generation.

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

When Russia invaded Ukraine, causing fears over energy supply, there were ominous briefings that harried Number 10 officials who wanted to reverse the coal phase out. In the end, they stuck to the 2025 phase out – indeed they hit the deadline one year early – and now coal is no more.

The question now is what the new baseload will be when the sun doesn't shine and the wind isn't blowing. Can the National Grid be overhauled quickly enough to bring energy in from the new big renewable sites being built around the coast of the UK, and can we develop large scale batteries to store that energy in times of plenty?

In the US, nuclear is having a moment with Microsoft pushing to revive the reactor at Three Mile Island to help meet the energy demands of AI, but in the UK we aren't hearing much about the government's nuclear plans. It may be that Labour think nuclear will eat too heavily into the rest of its green energy budget. What is the right balance is to strike? These are all questions that must be sitting heavily on Ed Miliband's mind — and desk.

4/6

Betting odds given for Robert Jenrick winning the Conservative leadership race, making him the current favorite.

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Photographer: Scott Eisen/Getty Images North America

Over the past 20 years, the 8.8% annualized return for Harvard's endowment ranked seventh of the eight Ivy League universities and, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, lagged 60% of university funds with more than $5 billion under management. Harvard's 10-year return trailed 80%.

Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers complained to the Harvard Crimson student newspaper that if the endowment had merely grown as much as its average peer over the past two decades, the university would have about $20 billion more. That sum is almost the size of the University of Pennsylvania's entire endowment.

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Allegra Stratton worked for former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak when he was chancellor and runs an environmental consultancy, Zeroism.

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