TheChek News Flow

Increasing the use of a little-known, intermediate category of worker is one way to start

For the drivers and riders of the UK gig economy, employment status really matters. Most are classed as self-employed and do not receive statutory sick pay, for example. That’s worth remembering as they dodge between cars trying to make enough money to live on and not end up injured, or worse. 

Efforts to improve the rights of this group have resulted in some changing their employment status — but often to one where they are neither self-employed nor employees. Instead they belong to a little-known, intermediate category of work, known by the opaque term “limb (b)”. 

In 2021, the UK Supreme Court moved Uber drivers into this intermediate status. Until last year, couriers for Just Eat were also included in it. Workers in this category have the right to annual leave and a minimum wage, but they still do not have full employee rights. They don’t have protection from redundancy or dismissal, for example. The trade-off is that they tend to have more autonomy.

Recently, though, this limb (b) category has become highly contentious, primarily because of how some major gig economy companies operate in the grey areas of employment law.

Prior to the general election, the Labour party suggested that all of these workers should become full employees instead — a policy known as single worker status. While this idea was not included in the King’s Speech, the imminent employment rights bill will have an impact on any future reforms to status. For example, gig economy drivers who once had no employment rights at all could have employee rights from day one.

This won’t improve things for all in the gig economy but it might help to clarify and enforce the law. Many legal experts and trade unions have been tearing their hair out at the inconsistencies and confusion in employment judgments, which have classed Uber drivers as limb (b) workers but Deliveroo riders as self-employed.

But do workers want the intermediate employment status to go? The answer is not clear cut. Our research project found that their views reflected the complexities of life at the sharp end of the labour market where the realistic alternative of many employee jobs is a harsh one. Any move to shift them into employee status — designed to improve their rights — must ensure the change does not actually make their working lives more unpleasant.

Crucially, the intermediate employment status was initially created to extend the protection of employment law to vulnerable self-employed people. But this group doesn’t easily fit into employer-employee relationships, which is what single worker status could do in practice.

One option might be to keep the intermediate worker status but reform it to include more people, at least in the short-term. This could offer a quick and practical way to wrap a new group of the most vulnerable gig economy workers into a protective layer of employment law — far sooner than the wholesale shift to single worker status suggested by the government could hope to do.

In particular, it could emphasise the amount of control that companies exercise over workers as the primary test of their status. It could pay less attention to whether employers can send a substitute or not — which is how some companies have tried to keep their workforce classed as self-employed.

This is clearly a debate we need to have, and it’s important to start now. Listening to the voices of those affected by these policies is a vital first step.

Most of us, thankfully, don’t have to constantly police our employment rights. With the right status reforms, the most vulnerable workers in our society can enjoy that security too. 

“Industry,” a tale of Gen Z bankers and a chaotic tech founder, has become an heir to “Succession” just as HBO and its corporate parent could use a breakthrough hit. Plus, what else to watch this fall.

Konrad Kay and Mickey Down were out at a party near the end of 2023 when they received word from HBO that their show, “Industry,” would move from its home on Monday evenings to the television industry’s premier time slot: 9 p.m. on Sunday, a position HBO had previously given to the likes of “Succession,” “Game of Thrones” and “The Sopranos.”

At that point, they had already finished filming the third season of the London-set show, which centers on a trio of young, attractive bankers striving to find professional success and something resembling personal contentment in the cutthroat world of finance. The career-redefining call that the pair received mid-party seemed like a scene out of “Industry.”

“They’d seen the first couple of episodes of the [season],” Down, 35, recounted earlier this month shortly after the third season’s debut. “They were really impressed with how it leveled up.”

This show of faith in the series—which had developed a cult fan base but had yet to achieve the monster ratings or awards-ceremony hauls of other HBO fare—has signaled the potential anointment of “Industry” as the water-cooler show (or, uh, the TikTok For You Page show) of the moment. “Me and Mickey grew up watching HBO, so all of our favorite shows are ‘Sopranos,’ all this stuff,” said Kay, 36. “Obviously to be in that legacy is very fun for us. But from just a practical point of view, we were very excited that more people were going to see it.” Down added, “I think someone’s always thinking, ‘What’s on HBO on Sundays at nine?’”

Nothing HBO has put on Sunday nights since “Succession” has captured the cultural zeitgeist quite like the Roy family was able to. That has created a cultural vacuum—and a corporate challenge. The network’s decision to anoint “Industry” as its surprise heir to “Succession” is a reflection of a fractured moment in the media industry and underscores how topsy-turvy the past few years have been for HBO and its corporate parent, Warner Bros. Discovery. Both could really use the type of hit “Industry” seems to be growing into, and if the show continues on its trajectory, it might go a decent way toward assuring viewers and investors alike that HBO—a Warner Bros. Discovery crown jewel—hasn’t lost its magic.

Kay and Down both noted the handful of factors that may have contributed to the decision of HBO brass, including the slowdown caused by last year’s Hollywood writers’ strike. That didn’t affect production of “Industry,” which is filmed in the U.K. with a local production company, but it slowed down work on HBO’s U.S.-based productions.

“Some part of it was a function of the fact that there were two strikes and there were a lot of things that just had to pause,” Down said. “So I think it was a mixture of the fact that there was availability and the fact that they were really happy with the season.” Another draw may have been that this season features two high-profile guest stars: “Game of Thrones” veteran Kit Harington as Henry Muck, posh CEO of a green tech company, and “Barry” alum Sarah Goldberg playing Petra Koenig, a steely portfolio manager. (Come to think of it, Harrington enters the fray as a now-familiar prestige TV archetype: the eccentric tech billionaire who arrives to cause some chaos, à la Alexander Skarsgård and Adrien Brody on “Succession” and Jon Hamm from Apple TV+’s “The Morning Show.”)

HBO’s bet has paid off so far. While the first two seasons of the show—released in 2020 and 2022, respectively—earned the show its fair share of admirers (particularly among the “very online” cohort), this third season has debuted to its strongest ratings yet in the new time slot. Per The Wrap, the third-season premiere on August 11 saw a 60% increase in viewership from the season two premiere; and the show achieved an audience record in its third episode, with 370,000 “cross-platform viewers.”

Though the show features its fair share of finance-world jargon and conference-room maneuvering, there are also ample servings of sex, drugs and (friendly-ish) name-calling. Subsequently, the show has received a marketer’s dream of a shorthand as “Euphoria” meets “Succession,” a labeling the pair responds to with something of a shrug. “It’s cute,” Down said. “It feels like an easy way of categorizing it. If it helps people find the show, then that’s fine.” Kay added, “It’s good marketing in the sense that they’re both HBO shows and both big smash hits. So it makes total sense.”

“Industry” has won fans like Matthew Ball, a Makers Fund venture partner, who has come to appreciate its similiarites to "Succession, which include its “high-stakes corporate drama, protégé versus titan tit for tats and globe-hopping retreats,” he said.

Down and Kay—who dress with the chic panache of TikTok menswear influencers—were best friends at Oxford University and both went on to land banking jobs, including a three-year spin at Morgan Stanley for Kay.

After moving on from that gig, Down wrote a handful of plays, and then went into TV and film work. Kay eventually joined him, and they started working on “Industry,” basing the fictional bank, Pierpoint, in the show on their own trading-floor experiences.

Kay and Down describe themselves as “terminally online,” which is not surprising given the extremely on-point references and cultural touch points woven into the scripts. “I have a very well-curated Twitter feed, if I say so myself—that’s where I get all my news,” Kay said, also citing The New Yorker, Graydon Carter’s “Air Mail” newsletter, The Atlantic and culture newsletter “Dirt” as his go-to media outlets.

Both Kay and Down regularly repost “Industry”-related memes and screen grabs. And while most showrunners and other creatives publicly act as if they never so much as glance at the comments, the duo is very open about the fact that they scour the online reaction to the show.

Kay explained that scanning Reddit can sometimes help him discern what aspects of the show are landing with the audience, and he often finds it “constructive and not destructive” to keep up with the conversation. “Obviously me and Mickey are obsessed with the details of the show,” Kay said. “So I like it when a joke that I think only me and Mickey are going to get, there’s some guy on Reddit who has pulled that line out and it’s got 30 upvotes. I f*cking love that.”

The third season’s central focus concerns the arc of Harrington’s Muck, who works with Pierpoint on his energy company’s IPO to somewhat mixed success (the real-life volatility of the IPO market is entertainingly reflected). The pair asked themselves what kind of individual would be leading a company like this in the U.K. and started to shape Harrington’s character, who frequents members’ clubs and attends Burning Man–style psilocybin circles (and whose uncle owns a tabloid, of course). In the end, Harrington ends up resembling a mashup of Kendall Roy, Elon Musk and, say, Jack Dorsey.

“Let’s just make this character feel like he’s the most entitled character we’ve seen but with a sense of altruism, which is genuine and isn’t totally insincere,” Down said of their initial crafting of Muck. When they cast Harrington in the role, they infused the portrayal with the actor’s sense of humor. “Let’s make this character a little bit bumbling, flying by the seat of his pants constantly, very educated, with this illustrious background, but—” and Down switched into the Muck character’s wobbly speech cadence here: “‘Obviously I’m in this position, but also I can’t quite believe I’m in this position where I’m in charge of a thousand people and two billion pounds of revenue.’”

Despite the similarity of Muck’s last name to that of a certain Tesla founder, the duo dismissed a suggestion that Elon may have inspired the character. “It was more a composite of people we know,” Down explained. “And a composite of an idea of what a tech founder in the U.K. would be.”

When Harrington’s character finds himself at a low point, he looks for meaning outside himself. “A lot of those people turn to psychedelics…to try to reach a higher plane,” Down observed. “I know that’s a reflection of how lots of people in Silicon Valley feel, but it’s also a reflection of how young people who have a lot of success in the U.K. and Europe feel.”

The duo is also directing for the first time this season and helmed the season’s final two episodes together. “That’s a privilege that HBO gave us,” Down said, describing how much they enjoyed sitting in the directors’ chairs. “I think we know its DNA well enough [now] that we can be quite precise about the way that we direct stuff.” Kay added, “We knew exactly what we needed to get out of those performances. We’re very fast. We’re focused.” (Surely that’s music to an HBO executive’s ears.)

While the show hasn’t been officially picked up for a fourth season, Kay and Down grin when asked if they’ve started devising a story for more “Industry.” “We’ve thought about it a lot,” Kay said. “We’ve pitched it to HBO. We’ll see if there’s any appetite to do it.”

And, yes, they recognize the pressure they’re under with the shift to Sunday evenings. “The good thing about Sundays at nine is if we get to do more shit,” Kay said, “it’s going to really keep us f*cking honest.”

Garment factories in Bangladesh, one of the world’s biggest clothing production hubs, are struggling to complete orders on time as flooding disrupts their cotton supplies — exacerbating a backlog caused by recent political turmoil.

Bangladesh is a leading global cotton importer due to the size of its textile and garment industry, but the devastating floods mean few trucks and trains have been able to bring supplies to factories from Chittagong port over the last week, industry officials and analysts said.

The disruption, on top of the unrest and protests that led to factory closures earlier this month, have caused garment production to fall by 50 percent, said Mohammad Hatem, president of the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

“The industry is now under immense pressure to meet deadlines, and without a swift resolution, the supply chain could deteriorate even further,” Hatem said.

Bangladesh was ranked as the third-largest exporter of clothing in the world last year, after China and the European Union, according to the World Trade Organization, exporting $38.4 billion worth of clothes in 2023.

At the clothing factory she runs in the capital, Dhaka, Rubana Huq is counting the cost of lost production.

“Even for a moderate-sized company like ours, which makes 50,000 shirts a day and if the price of one single shirt is $5, there was $250,000 of production loss,” said Huq, a former president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).

She said some garment plants were slowing resuming production, but estimated that complete recovery “would be at least six months away”, warning that Bangladeshi manufacturers could lose 10 percent-15 percent of business to other countries.

Bangladesh’s readymade garments industry, which supplies many of the world’s best-known fashion brands, accounts for more than 80 percent of the country’s total export earnings.

Buyers are adopting a cautious approach and could potentially delay new orders, said Shahidullah Azim, a director of the BGMEA industry group.

“The longer this uncertainty persists, the more challenging it becomes for us to maintain the momentum we have built,” he told Reuters.

The Bangladesh Meteorological Department said flood conditions could persist if the monsoon rains continued, as water levels were receding very slowly.

Some cotton shipments could get diverted to India, Pakistan and Vietnam, commodity analysts said.

“We are already hearing and seeing some cotton for prompt delivery wanted by Pakistan and Vietnam,” said Louis Barbera, partner and analyst at VLM Commodities based in New Jersey.

New orders shifted from Bangladesh could also be accommodated in southern India, said Atul Ganatra, president of the Cotton Association of India.

Even before the floods and political unrest, the Bangladeshi garment industry was grappling with power shortages that remain a problem, said Fazlee Shamim Ehsan, vice president at the country’s knitwear manufacturers and exporters association.

“Energy shortages continue to hamper our operations,” he said.

France’s Top Design Fair Maison&Objet Gets a Makeover

The fair's managing director Mélanie Leroy told WWD that major changes, including a more consumer-driven format, will be visible as the upcoming edition opens its doors Sept. 5.

MILAN — Maison&Objet, which just celebrated its 30th birthday, is gearing up to reshape the fair for both its September and January editions.

The fair’s managing director Mélanie Leroy told WWD that the fall edition will see a more consumer-driven format dedicated to unearthing under the radar talent and putting forth cutting-edge trends, as soon as it opens Sept. 5. The January edition is being groomed to meet the needs of the premium brands that traditionally show during the winter season.

“Our community relies on us and Paris has been a major marketplace for the design business. Thanks to Maison&Objet and since the pandemic, we have created formats such as Maison&Objet in the City engineered for brands that still want to be part of our community but would rather stay in their showroom instead of building a booth. Once again, we have adapted,” Leroy said.

The September edition, which will close Sept. 9, will see a section dedicated to the new and avant-garde with emerging talents from Scandinavia via its historic international “rising talents award” program, and an exhibition of young designers from Hong Kong as part of a yearly partnership with Hong Kong design week will also be on display.

The Maison&Objet Factory curated by Paris Design Week will also put forth fresh names like Paris-based furniture designer Senimo; design and architecture firm Corpus Studio and Raphael Pontais, as well as Netherlands-based lighting designers Rollo Studio and Hyères-based designer James Haywood. Main highlights in September include talks with Maison creative director Cordelia de Castellane and ready-to-wear designer Yves Salomon, who made his foray into the furniture arena with Chapo Creation in April. Belgian interior architect, decorator and artist Lionel Jadot, Maison&Objet Designer of the Year and his team of designers and visionaries involved in his Zaventem Ateliers collective are gearing up to create a space around the zero-waste potential of the hospitality sector.

Focus on Cuisine

The fair has revamped its Cook&Share section, reducing its presence to an annual one rather than a biannual one. Cook&Share will showcase in September and feature a dedicated restaurant in the heart of the hall to attract visitors. The section will be a recurring fall event focused on cooking, tableware, culinary accessories and gourmet food. Shops and department stores, purchasing groups, decorators, hotels and restaurants will find industry innovations each fall.

Collectible Design and Hospitality

The January edition will showcase three distinct facets: a focus on collectible design, what’s new in hospitality and a fashion component dedicated to unveiling opportunities for retail where accessories and men’s and home fashion are on show.

The fair named Belgian hospitality designer Lionel Jadot as Designer of the Year — Hospitality. This title recognizes an eminent personality whose career, vision, signature and uniqueness set the standard for the profession. A member of the Vanhamme family of furniture-makers, he is also well-known for his work with repurposed materials and reinvention of spaces. The prize will be awarded to him at Maison&Objet exhibition in September. To mark the occasion, he will have carte blanche for his pavilion, thus allowing him to showcase his interior design philosophy.

Power in Numbers

Overall, Paris Design Week, which is also coordinated by SAFI, the same team behind Maison&Objet, will feature more than 400 spots throughout the city of Paris and put forth 127 young talents, compared to 80 last year.

The Paris Design Week Factory will unfold Sept. 5 to 14, and is one of the city’s key events, taking place at four venues in the same district: it reveals the best in young and emerging talents on an international scale, after a call for entries.

Overall, Maison&Objet aims to have 25 percent of exhibitors at each edition be new brands, with 30 percent represented by first time visitors. In September, the fair will welcome 600 new brands and a total of 2,200.

The fair said that its marketplace MOM is thriving with an 11 percent rise in visitors since its launch a year ago. MOM is the only marketplace online that allows direct to consumer and B2B brands alike to make direct buy/sell transactions. Trade professionals make up 60 percent of its total audience. The other 40 percent are retailers. The site has welcomed three million visits in one year and 20,000 stoppable products.

Propelling Women in Design

In July, Maison&Objet unveiled the first creative and business network of the design industry dedicated to fostering relationships between women. Leroy said Woman&Design by Maison&Objet is a business and creative collective that aims to identify, connect and promote women who are pushing the boundaries of product design, interior decoration, craft and lifestyle.

Outside of the fair, Leroy joined Leia Capital in 2022, an angel investor group dedicated to investing in innovative projects led by women. Leroy now wants to leverage the fair’s strengths as a business partner and its community to better serve the women in the industry.

Forging Ties in the U.S.

In June, the organization revealed that it appointed Nina Magon its official U.S. ambassador. Magon is the founder of Nina Magon studio, which is active in the luxury residential, commercial and hospitality worlds. The fair said Magon is a woman whose path has transformed the industry and her task will be to create a network with the fair rather than attempting to export Maison&Objet to the U.S. in the near term.

“Exporting a show for the sake of its image will not make sense if we were not able to deliver connections, business and growth to our community. And this is what we are all about. That’s how we have grown our presence in the U.S. and how we hope to grow through ambassadors like Nina,” Leroy said.

Seven & i shareholders set deadline for status briefing on takeover bid

Artisan Partners want an update on negotiations after Couche-Tard’s unsolicited approach

A prominent shareholder in Seven & i Holdings has set a deadline for the Japanese convenience store giant to update investors on the takeover bid by Canada’s Couche-Tard, warning that management will be “held accountable” if it did not immediately open negotiations with the buyer. 

The investors also warned that government intervention in the takeover attempt would signal that Japan was not serious about a series of recent reforms aimed at stimulating mergers and acquisition activity and pushing companies to improve asset efficiency.

The deadline set by two portfolio managers at US-based Artisan Partners was sent in a letter to the board of Seven & i on Friday night, 11 days after the company that controls the 85,000-strong global network of 7-Eleven stores revealed that it had received the unsolicited approach from Couche-Tard.

Although Seven & i said at the time that it had established a special committee to examine the bid, no other details — such as the offered price range, the terms or when the bid was first tabled — have been shared. 

Seven & i has not named the members of the special committee, provided evidence that the committee is fully independent or said when it will reach its conclusion. Multiple investors have privately described the level of secrecy to the Financial Times as frustrating.

In the letter, Artisan’s David Samra and Ben Herrick asked for Seven & i to brief shareholders on the status of takeover negotiations by September 19, citing the “historic implications” of a process that has captivated the Tokyo market and could represent the biggest takeover of a Japanese company by a foreigner. 

A spokesman for Seven & i declined to comment.

Analysts have speculated that a successful bid for Seven & i could cost a buyer between $40-50bn. The company’s market capitalisation before the bid was made public stood at roughly $31bn.

Artisan is not generally considered an activist shareholder, but has become the first big investor in Seven & i to go public with criticism of the company’s behaviour and express concern that management might snub an opportunity to enhance shareholder value.

Artisan’s letter argued that negotiating with Couche-Tard represented Seven & i’s best tactic to secure “positive stakeholder outcomes in Japan” and called on the company to solicit offers for the retail conglomerate’s many subsidiaries as soon as possible. 

“Failure to engage with ACT [Couche-Tard] and other potential partners could result in a less favourable outcome with less flexibility,” warned the letter.

Artisan blamed Seven & i’s management for deferring “opportunities to enhance corporate value on several occasions”. The portfolio managers argued that the undisturbed share price o f the Japanese group — meaning before the impact of the offer from Couche-Tard — “was nearly at the same level as it was in 2016 when many of the current executive directors were in place”. 

“In US dollar terms, the currency in which the lion’s share of the company’s capital has been deployed, the results are worse. Since 26 May 2022, the day on which most of the current independent directors were elected, the company’s share price has underperformed the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX by more than 40 per cent,” they added.

Artisan meanwhile recommended Couche-Tard, which controls the Circle K convenience store chain in North America, as “uniquely positioned to enhance [Seven & i] corporate value” by taking advantage of the Japanese group’s “tremendous brand power”.

Plug and play nuclear reactors remain a shot in the dark

A new UK state body might ease investor fears but any renaissance is likely to be slow

Funding new nuclear plants has always been a hard pitch to investors. Huge cost overruns for large plants such as EDF’s Hinkley Point C in Somerset have only added to the perception that nuclear is risky and technologically challenging.

Still, there is a clear desire for more nuclear generation capacity from western governments. Belatedly, policymakers have realised they are unlikely to achieve their aims without some state involvement to entice private investment. In Britain, a new state-owned nuclear body should help reassure potential investors that taxpayers will shoulder at least some of the risk. Even then, any nuclear renaissance will be a slow burn.

Greater government intervention should work to the advantage of Rolls-Royce. The UK engineering group is the majority owner of a joint venture that is developing small modular reactor technology — plants built in factories and assembled on site to reduce cost and risk. It is looking at potentially selling down its 70 per cent stake further.

At its last fundraising in 2021, the unit secured £490mn — £210mn of which was UK government grant funding. But this is expected to run out in the first quarter next year. The JV is currently midway through a lengthy and costly regulatory design process which won’t conclude before 2026.

Any new fundraising deal could reportedly value this venture at a similar level to New York-listed SMR developer NuScale, which has a $2bn market capitalisation. That would be a big step up for a lossmaking business with little revenue to speak of: in 2021 the Qatar Investment Authority put in £85mn and took a 10 per cent equity stake.

Its success still depends on a UK government-led SMR design competition. By the end of the year, the UK’s new state-owned nuclear body Great British Nuclear is expected to select two SMR designs out of five in the running.

Each winning design would be assigned a site in Britain before GBN sets up development companies, initially 100 per cent state-owned, to work with the technology providers to progress the projects. A tender document published in 2023 suggested government match-funding would be available, should developers require it, to ensure their technology is ready for final investment decisions to be taken in 2029.

Meanwhile, SMR developers must prove their technologies can provide value for money. One easier way would be to measure build costs against the £13bn-£14bn cost per gigawatt of Hinkley Point C at today’s prices. Harder to argue will be whether SMRs can generate electricity at comparable prices to other low carbon technologies such as onshore wind.

These remain unknowns. Investing in SMR technology still relies on a — sometimes disputed — conviction that nuclear will be indispensable to low carbon energy systems.

Dubai’s ‘co-pilot’ princes step up as emirate prepares for next generation

Sheikhs Hamdan and Maktoum take on greater responsibility as their father Sheikh Mohammed gradually steps back

Dubai crown prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed al-Maktoum has won popularity at home for his thrill-seeking pursuits, from leading mass-participation runs and cycle events to scaling the city’s Burj Khalifa tower.

His younger brother Sheikh Maktoum keeps a lower profile, preferring to eschew the limelight as he cultivates the image of an astute technocrat.

Dubai’s ruling family is counting on the brothers’ different qualities to maintain the development of an emirate that has evolved over the decades from an entrepôt port to a global trade, tourism and financial centre.

Their abilities are moving more into focus as their father, Dubai ruler and United Arab Emirates prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, gradually steps back from frontline decision-making. The 75-year-old is now regularly photographed walking with a cane, as the ground is prepared for the eventual succession of Hamdan.

“Sheikh Mohammed’s still in the driver’s seat,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a Dubai-based political scientist. “But the co-pilots have taken more responsibility.”

Hamdan, 41, and Maktoum, 40, were in their 20s when they were appointed heir apparent and deputy ruler respectively, with a view to eventually taking over the day-to-day running of Dubai from their father.

“Hamdan is seen as the chief marketing officer [in charge of] new investments, tourism and promoting Dubai,” said one emirate-based chief executive. “Maktoum is the money man, he’s more serious.”

The succession planning moved up a gear in July as Hamdan joined the federal government as deputy prime minister. He also stepped into the largely ceremonial role of defence minister held by his father since 1971. Maktoum has been UAE finance minister and a deputy prime minister since 2021.

The brothers’ partnership is part of a new generation of leaders emerging in the Gulf. After Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan became UAE president last year he appointed his eldest son Sheikh Khaled as crown prince and promoted his own brothers.

Managing the power balance between Abu Dhabi, the cash-rich Emirati capital, and the more entrepreneurial Dubai is a task that will increasingly rest on the shoulders of the younger cohort.

Dubai’s latest revival started amid the coronavirus pandemic after it reopened its tourism and services-based economy faster than other cities.

The highest profile of the seven emirates that make up the UAE, the city became a magnet for wealthy tech and crypto investors, social media influencers and remote workers fleeing lockdowns elsewhere. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked a further influx of Russians relocated by multinational companies, seeking to avoid the impact of western sanctions, or avoid the draft.

Dubai’s total population grew 9 per cent between 2019 and 2023, according to government estimates, hitting 3.7mn. The expanding ranks of expatriates helped generated Dubai’s third property surge this century, following the growth of the early 2000s.

That earlier boom ended nine years later amid the global financial crisis, when Dubai used more than $20bn in bailout loans from Abu Dhabi to avoid default. During the Arab uprisings of 2011, Dubai was seen as a safe haven for regional wealth, sparking a growth spurt that lasted until oil prices collapsed in 2014.

Maktoum, the “money man”, has been quietly using the proceeds from privatisations and growing tax revenues to pay down Dubai’s estimated $100bn-plus in bonds and loans — built up during the debt-fulled boom of the 2000s — and put the emirate’s finances on a more sustainable footing.

Some of this has come from Dubai’s capital markets strategy, through which it is listing state-related entities to boost liquidity and compete more effectively with larger bourses in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.

When he took effective power in 1995, Sheikh Mohammed turned Dubai into a global metropolis by boosting trade, developing infrastructure to attract investment and opening up new sectors in real estate, media and finance.

Sheikh Mohammed’s advisers continue to wield influence, but they are gradually being eclipsed by Hamdan and Maktoum aides such as Mohammed al-Hussaini, minister of state for financial affairs, and Helal al-Marri, who heads Dubai’s economic and tourist departments.

“Hussaini reflects prudence, financial management and discipline,” said Nasser al-Shaikh, former director-general of Dubai’s department of finance. “Marri reflects the growth agenda.”

Hussaini is a board member at Dubai’s national bank Emirates NBD and the $320bn Investment Corporation of Dubai that oversees state holdings in the city’s leading companies.

At the finance ministry, he is overseeing the UAE’s introduction of a 9 per cent corporate tax rate, which along with the sales tax of 5 per cent introduced in 2018 is expected to bring the government substantial revenues. However, analysts have warned that the levies will need careful management to avoid deterring investors previously attracted by the country’s tax-free status.

Marri, who is also on the ICD board, chairs the domestic stock market and is leading Dubai’s drive to become a cryptocurrency hub and to double the economy’s size by 2033.

The UK-trained chartered accountant, who has worked at KPMG and McKinsey, is seen as a bridge into the international business community. “When you have an issue, you go to Helal,” said a senior banker.

Yet although many Emiratis acknowledge the new leadership’s effectiveness and commitment to fiscal prudence, the new era has ushered in an air of uncertainty.

“This feels like limbo,” said an Emirati businessman. “There’s a lot of confidence in them, but the new crew are also somewhat unknown.”

And despite the brothers’ growing influence, many businesspeople still believe it is their father who calls the shots. As one Dubai magnate said: “Sheikh Mohammed’s still in charge”.