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Scientists probe woolly mammoth and Neanderthal genetic codes for new compounds as today’s drugs lose potency; ‘molecules that evolved in a different time and a different setting’

Buried in the DNA of the long extinct woolly mammoth is a compound that scientists hope will one day yield a lifesaving antibiotic.

In experiments, mammuthusin, as the compound is called, has eradicated superbugs—bacteria that are resistant to today’s antibiotics and cause infections that are hard to treat—says César de la Fuente, the bioengineer who helped discover the molecule.

De la Fuente, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is among a group of scientists probing ancient and unlikely places—from genetic remnants of Neanderthals and extinct animals to unassuming backyard dirt—to find new antibiotics. He says the search is desperate: “Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest challenges we face as a society.”

Infections caused by superbugs contribute to the deaths of more than five million people globally each year, and that toll is growing. Antibiotics are increasingly losing potency against even common infections. Without new drugs, antibiotic resistance could kill some 39 million people by 2050, a study last year predicted.

Now, fresh approaches to research are coming to an industry that has been slow to make new drugs and has been stymied by bacteria’s ability to rapidly evolve defenses against those that exist. Most of the antibiotics we use today, and that have saved hundreds of millions of lives, were found in nature—many of them decades ago and several by accident. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928 after returning from vacation and finding that mold on a petri dish had prevented harmful bacteria from growing.

To help combat superbugs, doctors say we need new antibiotics with novel chemical structures or mechanisms of action. But only a handful of such drugs has entered the market over the past several decades.

De la Fuente is banking on artificial intelligence to help end this dry spell. He and his collaborators have built deep-learning algorithms to comb through enormous genetic databases to find peptides, or protein fragments, that have antibacterial properties. They have used this method to analyze animal venoms, the human microbiome and archaea, an underexplored group of microorganisms. They have also mined the genetic codes from fossils of long-extinct animals and humans, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. “This deep-learning model has opened a window into the past,” de la Fuente says.

Most antibiotics used today are small-molecule drugs, mostly derived from bacteria and fungi. Small molecules can usually penetrate cell membranes with ease and are commonly administered as pills. Peptides, made up of short chains of amino acids, are larger and more complex. They tend to be more unstable in the body and can’t easily be made into pills.

But advances have been made in recent years to improve the ability of peptide drugs—which include some IV antibiotics, GLP-1s and insulin—to be absorbed and used by the body. Antibacterial peptides are also plentiful in nature, as they are a part of the immune system in most organisms.

“Peptides are the next big thing in medicine,” says de la Fuente, who launched a startup in January to further explore the antibiotic potential of mammuthusin and other peptides.

When the algorithms identify a new peptide with antibiotic potential, de la Fuente and his team use robots to manufacture the compound in their lab and then test it in mice infected with bacteria. So far, a few hundred peptides made in de la Fuente’s lab have safely and effectively cured sick mice.

One of them was mammuthusin, identified in the genetic code of Mammuthus primigenius, a species of mammoth that last roamed the Earth about 4,000 years ago. The researchers discovered the peptide after mining a National Center for Biotechnology Information database of DNA sequencing data obtained from the fossils of extinct animals. In experiments, mammuthusin was as potent as polymyxin B, an antibiotic often used as a last resort for serious infections, according to a paper published in the journal Nature in June. The mammoth peptide effectively eradicated a type of bacterium that the World Health Organization has designated a critical pathogen because of its resistance to many common antibiotics.

The work with extinct species is “expanding the chemical space that we could explore,” says James Collins, a bioengineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “These are molecules that evolved in a different time and a different setting.”

Collins’s lab has built its own algorithms to trawl chemical databases, such as those of existing pharmaceutical drugs, for potential antibacterial compounds. His lab is also experimenting with using generative AI to design completely new molecules that could kill bacteria. Collins and colleagues said in a 2024 paper that they had identified structurally unique antibiotics after analyzing more than 12 million chemical compounds.

Modern scientific techniques could uncover new opportunities in old hunting grounds, says Gerry Wright, a biochemist at McMaster University in Canada. “The way people found antibiotics in the past was they would go out and get something in the dirt,” he says, referring to the fungi and bacteria that most antibiotics are derived from. Microbes have been waging war against one another for eons and have developed excellent defenses against one another. “There haven’t been any compounds better than those made in nature,” Wright says.

By the 1990s, however, scientists who were probing natural environments for antibiotics hit a wall: They kept finding the same antibiotic compounds again and again. “People got frustrated,” Wright says. “It led to the misunderstanding that there was nothing more to find in these organisms.”

But by using genetic sequencing and chromatography, a technique to separate mixtures, researchers in Wright’s lab have been able to analyze known microbes and find less-obvious antibacterial molecules that were previously missed.

Patience has also proved fruitful. A researcher in Wright’s lab took soil from a backyard in Ontario and extracted liquid from it that she kept in a petri dish under her bench for an entire year. Instead of adding nutrients to the dish and checking for organisms that grew quickly—long typical for antibiotic-hunting—she starved them and waited for rarer organisms to appear.

One of these slow-growing species was found to pump out a common antibiotic—but more detailed analysis showed that it also produced a previously unknown antibacterial peptide. That peptide, which would be considered a structurally novel antibiotic, eradicated drug-resistant bacteria in mice, according to a March paper published in Nature.

“We are going back with different eyes and different techniques and discovering that there’s still a lot of wealth to be found,” Wright says.

Why Some People Are Microdosing Popular Weight-Loss Drugs

Some consumers take tiny doses of Ozempic and other GLP-1 drugs or stretch out doses to cut costs and side effects

Key Points

Microdosing isn’t just popular for psychedelics.

Some consumers are taking smaller than standard doses of GLP-1s—the popular class of weight-loss and diabetes drugs that include Ozempic, Wegovy, and Zepbound—or spacing out doses longer than indicated.

The reason: to save on money or lessen side effects. Some people say they can lose or maintain weight on such tiny doses and others believe the microdoses can help with other health-related factors.

The truth: This may be more of a social-media phenomenon than a reality. Doctors say yes, some people are super responders to the drugs and can lose or maintain weight loss at low doses—but it’s unusual to lose all your weight with these.

The majority of people microdosing will need to escalate their dose, which can be done more slowly for those with bad side effects, notably gastrointestinal issues.

Still, people are trying microdosing. Here’s what to know about it.

The first challenge with microdosing is the method of delivery. The prescription drugs entail taking weekly self-injections with pens.

Currently, most people taking alternative doses of GLP-1 drugs are using cheaper compounded versions of the medications, says Dr. Katherine H. Saunders, a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and co-founder of FlyteHealth, a medical obesity-treatment company. (Saunders, like many doctors, doesn’t recommend compounded copies of the drugs because of potential safety issues; the federal government has cracked down on the compounded market).

The only weekly GLP-1 drug that makes it easy to take alternative doses is Ozempic. It comes in a self-injectable pen where doses are administered with clicks. The other drugs have mostly been sold as single-dose injectable pens. But some patients will stretch out doses taking them every 10 days to two weeks. And once used the pens have a shelf life of 56 days.

Zepbound single-dose vials became available in the U.S. last year for self-pay customers only. This makes it theoretically possible to microdose by drawing out smaller amounts of liquid with a syringe.

But the single-use vials are free of preservatives. So using them after the rubber stopper is punctured increases risk of infection, says Anne Kome, a clinical pharmacist at University of North Carolina Health in Chapel Hill.

Saunders says many people taking fractional doses likely don’t meet the criteria for the drugs and are trying to lose a little weight or are hoping for potential longevity benefits.

They are people like Rachel Ratliff, a 56-year-old retired corporate lawyer in San Francisco. She was effortlessly skinny until she hit menopause and gained 10 pounds. Ratliff says she was always ravenous and nothing she did to take the weight off worked.

Ratliff decided to try a compounded version of tirzepatide—the active ingredient in Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Mounjaro. “I started taking [tirzepatide] out of vanity but it’s completely changed my relationship to food and given me the ability to make healthier food choices,” she says.

Initially she took the usual starting dose of 2.5 milligrams, which wiped her out. Then she tried a quarter dose. “It was amazing, it took the edge off my hunger,” she says.

Ratliff says she lost 10 pounds in the first six weeks and continues to take a maintenance dose. This costs about $50 a month.

Saunders says some people are so-called “super responders” who are very sensitive to medications and may need lower than a standard dose. “We’re personalizing the dose, not microdosing them on purpose,” she says.

Most people learn about microdosing from TikTok, according to a recent survey of 640 GLP-1 users conducted by Tebra, a health-software company.

Thirty-six percent of respondents said they microdose. Among them, 48% take smaller injections than prescribed and 43% split doses over a longer period. Sixty-six percent microdosed to reduce side effects; 40% wanted to ease into the medication; and 38% did it to save money.

Spokespeople for Novo Nordisk (Ozempic and Wegovy) and Eli Lilly (Mounjaro and Zepbound) said they don’t condone or encourage misuse of their products. They said microdosing poses potential safety risks.

Doctors agree that patients shouldn’t be choosing to microdose on their own.

“What about a patient microdosing on their cancer therapeutic or how about microdosing on their blood pressure medication based on how they feel? Or how about their insulin?” says Dr. Caroline Apovian, co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “We have a disease here—not cosmetics.”

Patients who try to conserve medicine by spreading out their doses may experience worse side effects, such as nausea and gastrointestinal issues, says Dr. Gitanjali Srivastava, a professor and co-director at the Vanderbilt Weight Loss Center.

“The body is not exposed to that medication for longer periods of time so they are less tolerable,” she says. Taking doses that aren’t standard can also lead to more dosing errors.

One promising area of microdosing may be health benefits independent of weight loss, researchers say.

Data published at the European Congress on Obesity conference last year found that people who took semaglutide—sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy—and didn’t lose much weight had the same 20% reduction in heart attacks and strokes as those who took it and did lose weight, says Dr. Daniel Drucker, an endocrinologist and professor at University of Toronto who studies GLP-1 drugs.

“And so then the question is, if it doesn’t matter whether or not you lose weight, does it matter how much semaglutide you actually took to get that benefit?” he says.

We don’t know the answer, he says, because trials use standard doses of the drugs.

“I think what we’re starting to see is that there are clearly weight loss and glucose independent benefits of these medicines,” says Drucker. “But what we don’t have is data saying ‘and you can achieve those benefits with microdosing.’”

The trade war has turned a spotlight on the artisanal clusters behind glamorous goods, inviting fresh scrutiny of one of the industry’s key selling points

Key Points

What's This?

Ubrique, Spain, is a hub for luxury leather goods, producing for brands like Chanel and Louis Vuitton.

President Trump’s tariffs and the questioning of ‘Made in Europe’ value put pressure on Ubrique’s business model.

Luxury brands are finding it difficult to shift production to the U.S. due to challenges in recruiting and training artisans.

UBRIQUE, Spain—Europe’s luxury brands have long sold pricey handbags based on the mystique of where they are made. Now the trade war is probing the value of producing in places like this sun-kissed town.

Ubrique’s workshops have pumped out leather goods for Chanel, Louis Vuitton and other brands for years, employing about a quarter of the town’s population of 16,000. A giant statue of the patacabra, a wooden tool used to shape and smooth the leather, rises by the road leading into town.

“We’re all basically living off leather here,” said José Antonio Bautista, the town’s deputy mayor.

President Trump’s tariffs are now shaking the foundations of Ubrique’s business model—and that of the broader luxury industry. On Friday, Trump threatened a 50% tariff on goods imported from the European Union.

European brands have long cultivated the image that Old World heritage uniquely positions the continent to create goods for the world’s most discerning customers—justifying their eye-watering price tags.

While high margins offer brands some protection from tariffs, Trump’s push to shift production to the U.S. has sparked fresh scrutiny of the “Made in Europe” value proposition. The worry for some brands: Luxury goods produced in America won’t carry the same cachet with consumers.

“It wouldn’t make sense to me to have Italian Gucci bags made in Texas,” François-Henri Pinault, chief executive of the group that owns Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga, told French lawmakers earlier this month. “It doesn’t make sense to my clients. I can’t explain that.”

The allure of European provenance is already being questioned in the industry’s second-biggest market: China. After Trump announced his tariffs, a wave of videos flooded TikTok, purporting to reveal the true cost of luxury by showing how a range of high-end handbags—including the Hermès Birkin, which sell for more than $10,000—can be cheaply counterfeited in a Chinese factory.

The scrutiny has shone a spotlight on places like Ubrique, where first-year trainees start on the equivalent of around $30 a day, and the most experienced workers earn a daily wage of roughly $57, according to a local labor agreement.

Shifting production to the U.S., however, is easier said than done. Louis Vuitton opened a leather-goods workshop in Alvarado, Texas, in 2019 as part of a push to diversify manufacturing and meet growing demand in its largest market. But scaling up has proven difficult.

The site has faced growing pains as Louis Vuitton struggled to recruit and train local artisans. LVMH MC -1.26%decrease; red down pointing triangle CEO Bernard Arnault said he planned to hire a thousand staff at the plant when it initially opened, but years later the facility only employs around 300 people—a slower-than-expected expansion that the company partly attributes to the pandemic.

Still, Arnault recently said the group would “inevitably be forced to increase its American production” if the EU fails to reach a deal to avert Trump’s tariffs.

A town built on leather

Spain quietly plays a central role in the global luxury supply chain—especially in leather goods.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Ubrique, where leather craftsmanship took off in the 19th century—helped by the town’s abundant water supply, crucial for softening hides and dyeing leather.

The area’s isolation and poverty played a role too. Families raised livestock while women began sewing and finishing leather goods at home. By the 1970s, Ubrique had become a byword for craftsmanship, drawing brands like Dior and Loewe.

Today, handbag makers rely on Ubrique’s extensive network of suppliers, specialized machinery makers, tanneries and logistics hubs that have developed together over decades.

Their close proximity enables speed and flexibility, which are crucial in an industry that is constantly working on new designs. Workshops often work hand-in-hand with brands to develop prototypes and refine products. Longstanding relationships have fostered trust and discretion, helping protect sourcing strategies and unreleased designs.

Chanel purses are made in a discreet workshop with no signage, while Louis Vuitton relies on a longstanding supplier with several sites across town to produce pieces including a $3,000 hobo-style bag.

Ubrique’s rich industrial ecosystem would be difficult, and take years, to replicate elsewhere. Similar tightknit luxury clusters can be found in Tuscany for leather goods, La Chaux-de-Fonds for Swiss watches and the French town of Grasse for perfume.

Economic forces have threatened Ubrique before. During the 2008 financial crisis, many luxury brands moved production to lower-cost countries like China. The result: factory closures, job losses and economic pain.

“You’d see people who had nothing to eat coming here asking for help,” said Bautista, the deputy mayor.

But just a few years later the brands were back. Factories in China proved susceptible to counterfeiters. When design specifications or materials were leaked, copycat producers could flood the market with knockoffs.

Inside the workshops

Throughout Ubrique, the tap tap of the patacabra rings out from behind workshop walls.

At many of the town’s factories, workers arrive before dawn, stow their phones in lockers and wait for a 6.55 a.m. alarm. When it sounds, they head to their benches and work—mostly on their feet—until 3 p.m., broken only by a 20-minute break.

Luxury brands often promote the image of a single in-house artisan meticulously crafting a handbag from start to finish. In reality, production is more industrial, broken down into a series of repetitive, specialized tasks that require less training—in theory making it easier to shift manufacturing elsewhere.

Yet making luxury leather goods still involves a sequence of precise, hands-on steps that require a high level of skill. Leather must be inspected and cut, then thinned, reinforced, stitched and assembled—often using techniques that machines can’t easily replicate. Edges are finished by hand and hardware is carefully fitted.

More experienced workers are assigned to the most technically demanding tasks. At one factory, employees said men’s backpacks were the hardest to make—not just because of the number of components, but also the precision needed to fit the panels, handles and zips.

“Finding qualified people is tough,” said Manuel Fernández, owner of the Don Puro workshop, which supplies several luxury brands. “Out of every three new hires, you might only keep one. The others just don’t work out.”

While businesspeople in Ubrique say they have yet to feel the impact of Trump’s tariffs, the uncertainty is leading to heightened concerns in the town.

A broad luxury slowdown has already hit Ubrique’s producers. While much of the slack has been taken up by Polène, a fast-growing French brand that makes all of its handbags in the town, some workshops are feeling the pain as clients cut back on orders.

Marcos Obando, who works for a local employers’ association, is hopeful big luxury brands will keep investing in Ubrique, even if tariffs do add to costs. He argues the town should double down on quality, since it can’t compete on price—not even with lower-cost neighbors like Portugal or countries in Eastern Europe.

“There is a reason why all the brands have been working here for decades—why this town has been focused on this for many, many years,” he said.

More passengers on busy Beijing-Shanghai route are choosing high-speed rail, which offers flexibility, comfort and stable internet access

More passengers shuttling between China’s two biggest cities are choosing to hop on a bullet train rather than a flight, as airlines struggle to match the convenience offered by the country’s ultra-modern high-speed rail network.

The shift to rail has become so pronounced on the busy Beijing-Shanghai route that China’s air travel industry has warned its market is being “eroded”, with airlines scrambling to lure back customers with cheaper tickets and free limousine services.

Passengers made more than 52 million trips by train between Beijing and Shanghai last year, while only about 8.6 million people took a flight between the two cities, according to civil aviation platform Hangban Guanjia.

Business travellers especially are increasingly viewing high-speed rail as a superior option, experts said, with China Railway’s fastest service now able to travel the 1,300-kilometer route in just over four hours.

Passengers also prize the flexibility and convenience offered by rail travel, as China Railway’s modern cabins offer stable internet access, charging points and large seats, they added.

Robust demand has turned the Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway into a cash cow for the state-owned rail operator, despite the line suffering a string of teething problems during its first years of operation.

The service generated 42 billion yuan (US$5.8 billion) in 2024, up 3.62 per cent year on year, with net profits surging more than 10 per cent to 12.8 billion yuan.

More than 100 high-speed trains now run between Beijing and Shanghai in both directions at speeds of up to 350km/h (217 mph), most of them comprising 16 to 17 carriages including first- and business-class cabins.

The profitability and high usage rate on the Beijing-Shanghai line offers a stark contrast to some other Chinese railways. Many lines in the country’s sparsely populated central and western provinces run at heavy losses.

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Airlines offer about 55 flights between China’s two largest cities each way per day, most of them operated by widebody aircraft.

Business travellers make up a particularly large proportion of rail passengers, Tong Lijun, deputy chief of Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station, told domestic media outlet Jiefang Daily.

“They favour many conveniences rail transport can offer but air travel cannot, such as good punctuality, city centre-to-city centre connectivity, reliable services even during unstable weather, and the flexibility to change departure times,” Tong said.

“Many tend to avoid air travel since having to go offline on a flight can be a deal-breaker, as they need to make full use of the journey to stay connected and do some work,” he added.

China Railway has deployed state-of-the-art trains along the Beijing-Shanghai trunk route, with business cabins featuring fully-reclining seats and adjustable laptop tables equipped with multiple charging points.

Chinese airlines, meanwhile, are often hamstrung by poor service reliability, as bad weather and unpredictable air traffic control lead to frequent delays.

The China Air Transport Association warned in an April report that the passenger base for air travel was being “eroded” by competition from the rail sector, as high-end customers ditch flying.

“With its continuous increase in speed, high-speed rail has a strong appeal in terms of total door-to-door commuting time and regularity,” it said.

Airlines have been stepping up efforts to win back customers in recent months with improved services and special deals.

China Eastern Airlines and Air China debuted bespoke services for frequent fliers in May, allowing them to switch between flights from either carrier and enjoy city-to-airport limousine pickup services.

A price war is also under way in the air travel sector: fares on some routes are now sometimes cheaper than rail tickets.

Travel between Beijing and Shanghai – which had a combined economic output of more than 10 trillion yuan last year – is set to continue growing over the coming years, making the battle for passengers even more crucial.

China Railway has faced calls to ratchet up the service frequency between the two megacities even further, matching the level of Japan’s famous Shinkansen bullet trains.

The Tokaido Shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka operates nearly 150 departures daily in each direction, with trains running every few minutes during rush hours.

Luxury developments such as One Central Park fetch high prices from rich buyers who are undeterred by economic uncertainty

Shanghai’s high-end property market continues to buck the national downturn, with deep-pocketed buyers pouring capital into top-tier homes that are seen as value-preserving assets despite economic uncertainty, analysts said.

Buyers snapped up all 64 units offered at One Central Park, a luxury development in the city’s core Huangpu district, on Wednesday, spending 4 billion yuan (US$556 million).

Developed by Sunac China Holdings, Citic Group and Xinhu Group, the project is located in the city’s Xintiandi shopping and entertainment area. The flats in the sale were priced at an average of 185,000 yuan per square metre (10.8 sq ft). The largest duplex sold for more than 246,000 yuan per square metre, making it one of the most expensive residences sold in the city this year in per-metre terms.

The two earlier rounds at One Central Park also sold out within hours, and the project’s year-to-date sales have exceeded 10.8 billion yuan, making it the first residential project in China to surpass 10 billion yuan in 2025.

The sale on Wednesday, which included flats between 300 and 1,000 square metres, was nearly triple-subscribed during the registration period, triggering a points-based allocation system designed to curb speculative buying – the first such case in central Shanghai this year. The developer said it planned to launch the fourth phase of the project, focused on high-floor units, in June at the earliest.

Luxury home sales have shown sustained strength across the city. New home prices in Shanghai rose in April and May, outpacing national averages, according to Centaline Property.

Last week, new-home sales in Shanghai rose 72 per cent from the previous week, while average prices surged 49 per cent to a record 107,746 yuan per square metre, Centaline data showed. Buoying the figures, premium projects including Swire Properties’ Lujiazui Taikoo Yuan Residences and Greentown China’s Symphony Shanghai all sold out quickly on their launch days, Centaline said.

Units at Poly Real Estate’s Bund 98 and ITG Holding’s Origin Pile, in the suburbs, saw overwhelming demand this month as well, also triggering points-based sales restrictions.

“Inventory in central locations remains scarce, while demand from high-net-worth buyers, especially younger professionals and returnees [from overseas], is proving to be resilient,” said Zhang Yu, a research director at Centaline’s Shanghai bureau. “Luxury homes are increasingly seen as value-preserving assets amid economic uncertainty.”

Renewed economic confidence, improved liquidity and better-than-expected supply of premium projects in key cities were helping to lift sentiment in the upper end of the market nationwide, analysts said.

Overall, Shanghai’s home prices rose 0.5 per cent month on month in April, outperforming other tier-one cities, according to property information platform 58Anjuke.

“The data doesn’t point to a broad-based price increase, but rather reflects the weight of luxury supply pushing the average up,” said Zhang Bo, an analyst with 58Anjuke. “In essence, price trends in Shanghai today are entirely supply-driven. Premium locations and products perform strongly, while less desirable regions remain stagnant.”

The luxury segment was leading the current recovery cycle, said Yan Yuejin, vice-president of E-House China Real Estate Research Institute in Shanghai.

“It shows how deep-pocketed buyers are still willing to deploy capital into prime assets, even as the mass market remains subdued,” Yan said.

In Shanghai, sales of new homes priced at 30 million yuan or more hit 809 units as of May 19, on track to surpass 2,000 for the second straight year and to match or exceed the full-year tallies between 2021 and 2023, according to E-house.

“Capital is flowing into high-end assets seen as stable and resilient, especially as savings yields drop and broader investments remain volatile,” E-house’s Yan said. “Favourable homebuying policies have also helped maintain momentum beyond just one-off spikes.”

He added that strong demand for upgrades, especially in prime locations, along with recovering sentiment and a lack of resale listings, was giving the market further support.

As Chinese businesses have just started to tap global markets, it leaves them with enough room for future expansion, HSBC says

For eSignGlobal, a digital signature services provider from Hangzhou, the US-China trade tensions present an opportunity to expand globally, as it uses the conflict to its advantage.

“Chinese state-owned enterprises and private enterprises are growing cautious about using US services, opening up opportunities for our company,” said Eric Jin, founder and CEO.

He said the company’s growth would be fuelled by two main factors. First, rising data security concerns amid geopolitical tensions had forced Chinese firms to stop relying on US e-signature solutions and turn to domestic alternatives. Second, a growing number of Chinese firms expanding overseas had widened eSignGlobal’s client base.

Chinese companies were in the early stages of their global expansion journey, with considerable growth potential ahead, according to an HSBC report published on May 19.

Revenue at ESignGlobal, which has more than 3,000 partners including Alibaba Cloud and serves 6.1 million businesses and 120 million individual users, had more than tripled year to date from a year earlier, according to Jin. Alibaba Cloud is the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group Holding, which also owns the Post.

After setting up offices in Hong Kong in 2023 and Singapore in 2024 to serve markets in Southeast Asia, the company planned to form a sales team in Japan by the end of this year, Jin said. “We are also considering expanding to South America, Europe and the Middle East,” he added.

Going global pays off, according to the report. Mainland-listed companies in HSBC’s proprietary going global index, such as carmaker Great Wall Motor and textile firm Huali Group, delivered stronger earnings growth than major Chinese benchmarks such as the CSI 300 and CSI 500 indexes, both in the first quarter of 2025 and in 2024, the report said.

Last year, overseas revenue accounted for 11.7 per cent of total sales for companies in the CSI 300 Index, up 1.4 percentage points from a year earlier, according to the report.

The information technology sector had the highest proportion of international revenue at 31.4 per cent last year, while the overseas revenue contribution of consumer discretionary firms showed the most significant improvement among all sectors, rising 2.2 percentage points to 27.1 per cent.

Hangzhou-based electric-vehicle maker Leapmotor exemplifies the go-global trend.

Michael Wu, co-president of Leapmotor, expects at least 10 per cent of its EV deliveries to come from outside China in 2025, up from 4 per cent last year.

Leapmotor, which has tied up with Dutch car giant Stellantis for its overseas sales and production, expects global sales to reach between 500,000 and 600,000 units this year, up from 293,724 in 2024. The Hong Kong-listed company reported revenue of 32.16 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion) last year, with overseas revenue contributing 3 per cent.

While the US and China earlier this month reached a 90-day temporary truce in the tariff war, the punitive measures did some damage to Chinese exports. According to official data, exports to the US plunged more than 21 per cent last month from a year earlier.

In April, the higher US tariffs on US$18 billion of Chinese imports, including EVs, batteries, and semiconductors, triggered a decline in the market shares of Chinese export-reliant firms.

The negotiations resulted in Washington lowering duties on Chinese imports to 30 per cent from 145 per cent, and Beijing cutting tariffs on US goods to 10 per cent from 125 per cent.

“We would need a more permanent resolution to conclusively say that US-China trade issues are behind us,” said Kelvin Leung, Greater China divisional deputy president of CPA Australia.

Firms in the early stages of global expansion “may lack the scale and resources of larger multinationals but tend to be more agile, allowing them to react faster to policy shifts and market changes”, he added.

Champions League shake-up pays off as battle for viewers intensifies

Uefa’s rejig of its flagship tournament has boosted fan engagement and revenues ahead of competition from Fifa’s expanded Club World Cup

Uefa is under pressure. As football’s governing bodies jostle for global dominance, Europe’s premier club competition — the Champions League — faces a growing threat to its pre-eminence from Fifa’s ambitious new Club World Cup. 

With 75 years of history since it was formed as the European Cup, the Champions League remains football’s most lucrative and prestigious club tournament, set to generate the lion’s share of the €4.4bn in revenue forecast by Uefa across their three club competitions this season. But Fifa is encroaching, launching an expanded 32-team Club World Cup, with a $1bn prize pot, to be held in the US this summer. The move underscores a broader power struggle that could reshape the club football calendar. 

Yet despite the external pressure — and the internal gamble of a major format overhaul — there is a strong feeling in Uefa’s headquarters in the picturesque town of Nyon on the banks of Lake Geneva that the 2024/25 competition has delivered. At the end of the first season of a new format, which involved some teams playing an additional four matches, Uefa officials are hoping for a dream final in both a footballing and financial sense with Paris Saint-Germain meeting Inter Milan at Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena, on May 31. 

PSG are seeking to win the competition for the first time after spending more than €2bn on new players in the 14 years of ownership by Qatar Sports Investment. They are up against three-times winners Inter, whose extraordinary 7-6 aggregate semi-final win over Barcelona will be remembered as one of the greatest ties in the history of European football. 

Earlier rounds of this year’s tournament provided ample drama of their own. Real Madrid, the holders, suffered a 5-1 quarter-final aggregate defeat to Arsenal, while earlier in the new group table phase, Manchester City and PSG were both forced into the knockout play-offs after failing to finish in the top eight.  

Uefa had taken a significant gamble, introducing the most radical changes to the competition since the European Cup became the Champions League in 1992. Four teams were added this season and the traditional group stage was scrapped in favour of the so-called Swiss model — a format first used at a chess tournament in Zurich in 1895. All 36 clubs were placed in a single league, each playing eight matches against different opponents. The top eight progressed directly to the round of 16; teams finishing ninth to 24th entered play-offs; and the bottom eight were eliminated.

As well as more matches to drive revenue growth, the overriding reason for the new format was an attempt to introduce greater jeopardy to the group phase. Analysis conducted by the European Clubs Association (ECA), which represents 700 clubs and is responsible for selling the Champions League’s commercial rights in a joint venture with Uefa, after this season’s league phase indicates that this primary aim was achieved.

Whereas 13 of the last 16 qualifiers had been decided ahead of the final round of group matches last season, only two teams had definitely qualified before the final round this season. In addition, the number of teams progressing to the knockout rounds from outside Europe’s top five leagues increased from three to six this season, suggesting greater competitive balance. In a less democratic development, the tournament’s final 24 did not contain any teams from east of Munich.  

Before Match day 8 — the final round of league games in January — just three points separated third-placed Arsenal from Brest in 13th: the 14 qualification places up for grabs led to a TV bonanza with the UK rights holder TNT Sports claiming it had attracted the best viewing figures of the 2024/2025 season so far.  

“We had high hopes, and the new format has definitely delivered,” says Charlie Marshall, chief executive of the ECA. “Match day 8 in particular was a real success — the competition caught fire.”

He adds: “Unlike under the old format, every game and goal counted . . . From a financial perspective, the market has over-delivered . . . The potential for future growth is huge.”

Uefa has not yet completed its full financial review, but early indicators are strong. A senior official at the organisation, speaking anonymously, says viewing figures have grown by double digits across all major markets. Television rights values had already increased ahead of this season, the source says. The global value of Champions League broadcast rights rose 20 per cent across the 2024-2027 cycle, compared to the previous three years, while commercial rights jumped by 25 per cent.

TNT Sports (formerly BT Sports), which has held rights for a decade, says its audience reach rose by 28 per cent this season, compared to the previous season, with minutes watched up 7 per cent. Amazon Prime, the other UK rights holder, is in the first year of a four-year deal.

“We were initially concerned that the league phase may not be understood, but it’s been a big success,” says Andrew Georgiou, president of Warner Bros Discovery Sports Europe, the company which operates TNT Sports. “There’s been more jeopardy, and more matches between the biggest clubs. 

He expects a further boost next year after two English clubs made it to the final of Uefa’s second tier competition with the winners qualifying for next season’s Champions League. “The Premier League is now guaranteed six teams in the Champions League next season after Manchester United and Tottenham reached the Europa League final, so audiences in the UK are likely to increase further.”

Still, the physical toll of the longer format has sparked concerns. Fifpro, the international players’ union, says the extended competition has contributed to a noticeable rise in injuries at elite clubs. The union would strongly oppose any further expansion — something the current format could theoretically accommodate.

Marshall insists there are no plans to do so as “we need to be relentlessly focused on delivering a premium, quality product”.  

Despite such worries about future plans and despite the potential threat posed by Fifa’s new competition, Uefa’s bet on a complex new format, for this season at least, appears to be paying off.

Spat stems from retracted study on grading of insurers’ portfolio holdings

Two US credit rating agencies have become embroiled in a rare public dispute over the reliability of scores for insurance companies’ growing stash of private credit investments.

The dispute involves a study, since withdrawn by its publisher, purporting to find that small credit rating agencies assign more generous scores to private credit investments than the larger and more established ones. Kroll Bond Rating Agency has accused Fitch Ratings of misleading market participants by relying on the study to raise doubts about the quality of its ratings.

Fitch on Monday published a report critical of Kroll and other groups, based on the 2024 study, issued by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

A Fitch spokesperson stood by its report, arguing the insurance commissioner’s group reached similar conclusions in prior studies. “If the (association) provides new information, we will update our analysis.”

The unusually overt quarrel highlights the intense competition in the fast-growing and lucrative $1.6tn private credit industry to carve out turf — not just among lenders, but among the groups paid to referee creditworthiness of the market’s opaque investment offerings.

“There’s a build-up of risk in the insurance industry and also potentially in the collateralised loan sector that is not being properly monitored,” said Ann Rutledge, a former senior Moody’s analyst and now chief executive of rating agency CreditSpectrum. “The opacity and the risk are both attributable to the fact that there are cracks in the foundation of the current SEC-regulated credit rating industry.”

Insurers and other investors use the types of ratings in question, known as private letter ratings, when no public ratings are available. Larger ratings firms historically have eschewed issuing these types of scores for private credit products, leaving the market dominated by smaller agencies.

Private letter investments were “inherently more risky given the lack of transparency and potential ratings inflation”, analysts at JPMorgan said in a recent note, adding “there is an inherent challenge in assessing credit quality from the outside as no part of the process, analysis, or information is transparent from the outside”.

Kroll, which was among the first to challenge the establishment credit agencies with its launch after the global financial crisis, said it was troubled by its larger rival’s boosting of “statistically unsound” research. It said Fitch’s criticism appeared geared towards supporting its own grab for dominance.

“In seeking relevance to increase its market share in private credit, Fitch appears to have undercut two foundational principles for any rating agency — integrity and analytical rigour,” Kroll said in a statement.

The study by the NAIC focused on the rise of private letter ratings for insurers’ private credit investments, which totalled about $350bn at the end of 2023.

It found confidentially-issued grades from smaller rating shops were more likely to deviate from scores by the association’s own securities valuation office and were notably higher on average. According to the original report, smaller groups such as Kroll tended to offer ratings three notches higher than the association’s internal score, while larger agencies such as Fitch offered ratings about two notches higher.

The study also showed that the number of privately rated securities held by US insurers grew from 2,850 in 2019 to 8,152 in 2023, and that the share of securities rated by small credit rating providers such as Egan-Jones, Kroll and Morningstar had grown to 86 per cent in 2023.

The report also noted that Fitch is the leading provider of private letter ratings among the big three US rating agencies, ahead of S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Ratings.

But earlier this month, the insurance association announced it was removing the report from its website “to undergo further editorial work to clarify the analysis presented”.

Without naming names, the insurance association said it would “evaluate how the information we provide to the public could be misconstrued or otherwise utilised in inappropriate ways”.

The NAIC declined a request for comment.

Donald Trump makes risky bet by rekindling his trade war with the EU

US president has shifted the focus of his offensive from Beijing to Brussels

Donald Trump loves to make deals. And he may be calculating that his sudden escalation of tariffs on the EU will squeeze Brussels into making big concessions as he opens a new front in his global trade war.

But it is a risky bet. Although trade talks between the US and the EU had been moving slowly, Trump’s threat to put 50 per cent tariffs on all imports from the bloc from June 1 has raised the economic and diplomatic stakes dramatically.

The move threatens to jeopardise a recent recovery in global equity prices triggered by Trump’s tilt towards dealmaking and de-escalation with other trading partners, including the UK and China. It could also further damage strained transatlantic relations.

The gamble reflects the frustration of the president and his top officials with what they view as the EU’s obstruction in the negotiations — and a belief that Brussels will concede first or suffer more than the US if there is no deal.

“It’s a classic Trump bullying tactic, it’s what he does. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he pushes back and makes more threats, and then he waits to see what happens,” said Bill Reinsch, a trade policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“It’s intended to get the Europeans to back down — my reading of them is that they won’t,” he added.

In the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump insisted he wasn’t looking for a quick agreement with Brussels, and vowed that the 50 per cent tariffs would take effect on June 1 as planned. “That’s the way it is,” he said.

US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that the purpose of the planned tariffs was to “light a fire under the EU” — suggesting that there was some leeway for negotiations before or after the June 1 deadline.

But the brinkmanship creates uncertainty, warn economists. “The proposed tariffs on the EU highlight a key forecast risk, whereby tariffs remain an ongoing tool to be wielded by the Trump administration whenever negotiations hit a snag. Repeated tariff threats and rollbacks will keep policy uncertainty elevated,” consultancy Oxford Economics wrote in a note on Friday.

Washington’s precise demands on Brussels are unclear. In his social media post on Friday, Trump rattled off his dissatisfaction with many aspects of EU tax, regulatory and trade policy that would be hard to address quickly.

Trade experts in Washington say the administration is frustrated that the EU’s offers are no different from those it has made to the US in the past.

“Normal methods of diplomacy and traditional approaches to trade negotiations have not resulted in a US-EU trade agreement by any administration. So I’m not surprised to see the president take a very different tack with the EU,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a former White House official during Trump’s first term, and a partner in international trade policy at law firm Akin Gump.

“These threats of much higher tariffs do create an action forcing event, where the two sides are either going to come to an agreement or they aren’t,” she added.

“The American point of view is that the Europeans don’t understand that this time is different, and it’s not a conventional negotiation,” said Reinsch at CSIS.

On Friday, EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič spoke with US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and trade representative Jamieson Greer, but there did not appear to be a breakthrough.

“EU-US trade is unmatched & must be guided by mutual respect, not threats. We stand ready to defend our interests,” Šefčovič wrote on X after the discussions.

EU officials chafe at Trump’s demands, questioning why the world’s biggest trading bloc should offer unilateral concessions.

They argue that there is only about a 1 percentage point difference between EU and US tariffs and say that value added tax is roughly equivalent to US sales tax.

Brussels is also reluctant to give the US market access denied to other countries, which would breach World Trade Organization rules.

Officials also point out that while trade policy is handled by the European Commission, many of the barriers the US has issues with are national. 

“EU negotiators should hold their nerve. It certainly signals Washington’s edginess and impatience to get a deal,” said Georg Riekeles, associate director at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

Riekeles urged the EU to copy Canada and China by retaliating strongly. “If the EU is ready to fight back, US bullying and escalation is ultimately so self-harming that you can enter deal territory.”

However, countries such as Ireland and Italy, which rely on US exports, have lobbied hard against strong countermeasures — and Trump will be counting on schisms within the bloc to force the EU’s hands.

But Michael Smart, a former Democratic congressional trade counsel now at Rock Creek Global Advisors, a consulting group in Washington, warned that “if Trump’s plan is to divide the bloc, it likely will have the opposite effect”.

Most member states have so far backed the commission’s approach of engaging but eating up time, believing that eventually Trump will back down because of the damage his tariffs will inflict on the US economy. They have indicated that Brussels is minded to stand firm.

“One of the reasons markets have calmed down is that they have already factored in more concessions from Trump,” said one EU diplomat.

“We don’t make policy decisions on the basis of tweets, at least not on this side of the Atlantic,” said another.

First Group dispute threatens to overshadow Labour’s rail nationalisation plans

Nationalisation of South Western Railway, one of UK’s busiest train operators, is first by the current government

A row over a £1bn train fleet has broken out between the government and private transport operator First Group, threatening to overshadow the first nationalisation of a train operator under the Labour government.

South Western Railway, one of the UK’s busiest rail operators, was taken into state control on Sunday. But only around five of its flagship new trains will be available to run, following years of delay in their rollout.

First Group held the contract to operate the SWR franchise from 2017 until this weekend alongside Hong Kong’s MTR Group, which had a minority stake. SWR carries more than 150mn passengers a year.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said this week that Labour’s plan to nationalise all train operators by the end of this parliament will “wave goodbye to 30 years of inefficiency, waste and passenger frustration” following the industry’s privatisation in the 1990s.

In a sign of the tensions between the government and some owning groups, Alexander said she had inherited “an abject mess from the private operator”, speaking at a depot in Bournemouth.

Only five of a fleet of 90 new “Arterio” trains are available, following delays in building the trains and a row with unions over their safe introduction, including whether drivers or guards should operate the doors.

The trains, built by Alstom in Derby, were meant to enter service by 2019. Department for Transport officials have written to First Group to accuse it of not informing them about January negotiations with unions regarding the trains.

The operator subsequently agreed a compromise deal with unions which will see the drivers open the doors, and guards close them.

First Group executives believe this will allow the trains to enter service more quickly, but there are frustrations within government over how the company has struggled with its industrial relations.

The executives maintain the DfT was kept informed throughout, including signing off on all its major decisions. They do not believe there have been any contractual breaches. First Group declined to comment.

One rail boss said the continued delays over the introduction of the fleet meant SWR faced a “potentially messy” first year, and there are concerns this could undermine the start of the wider nationalisation project, which is popular with the public.

Four train operators were nationalised by the previous government because of performance or financial problems, and London commuter lines C2C and Greater Anglia will follow later this year.

Staff, rolling stock leases and other assets must be transferred overnight, while the railway continues running.

The train companies will be combined with the operations of Network Rail, the state-owned operator of the UK’s railway infrastructure, on a regional basis to create “alliances”.

These will be overseen by a new public body, Great British Railways, which will unite track and train for the first time since British Rail disappeared, but not launch until 2027.

Standing by a train branded with the new GBR logo, Alexander said nationalisation is not a silver bullet given the problems facing the industry.

Passenger numbers collapsed to as low as 5 per cent of normal levels in 2020 when Covid struck, but recovered to exceed pre-pandemic levels for the first time at the end of last year, according to Financial Times analysis of industry data.

But revenue is still around 20 per cent below pre-pandemic levels, as a result of fewer commuters.

Train cancellations have meanwhile ballooned to their highest level on record, in large part because of driver shortages.

Alexander said the new structure would improve performance, and that the state-owned railway would prioritise recruiting more drivers and reduce the reliance on voluntary overtime.

Government officials also believe that nationalisation can significantly cut costs, including the £150mn a year paid to private companies to run trains.

Further savings can be made by reducing duplication in an industry which has fragmented since privatisation, such as combining back-office functions of the various train companies as they come into public ownership.

But there is concern within the industry that the government will not give GBR autonomy to run the railway without political interference.

“There needs to be less micromanagement from within the DFT, but it's not clear they are willing to let go,” one person said.

Richard Bowker, former head of the Strategic Rail Authority who presents the Green Signals podcast, said bringing together track and train is a “pragmatic and sensible thing to do”.

“But the key is not who owns it,” he said. “It is: are the people who are running it day to day going to be genuinely empowered to make the right decisions to run the railway?”

Asked whether she would commit to not interfering in the running of GBR, Alexander said: “I do not want to be the Fat Controller,” a reference to the fictional character in the Thomas & Friends television series. “I want experts to be running the railway.”