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FT : European education group eyes takeovers of UK universities Britain ‘an appe

European education group eyes takeovers of UK universities

Britain ‘an appealing market’ for long-term investment, says Galileo chief

Europe’s biggest for-profit higher education group has said it is eyeing financially distressed British universities as takeover targets, arguing that private money could help transform a struggling sector.

Kamil Senhaji, chief executive of Paris-based Galileo Global Education, said Britain was “an appealing market” for long-term investment in universities, adding that he was having “discussions” about possible acquisitions.

Britain has only a handful of for-profit universities and Senhaji said the scepticism towards the model in the sector was “a hurdle to overcome” in much of Europe. But he argued that private capital was better placed to invest than a financially stretched public sector.

Galileo, owned by the Bettencourt family and the Canadian pension fund CPPIB, has built up 130 campuses in 20 countries since it was founded 15 years ago and now teaches 300,000 students.

Senhaji said that “we are for-profit, so no taboo about that”, but the company has yet to pay a dividend and he is at pains to differentiate Galileo’s “very long-term capital” approach from the franchising model in UK higher education.

Analysis by the FT recently found that one in ten full-time undergraduate students in England was now taught by for-profit franchise companies, which hand traditional universities a cut of tuition fees in exchange for validating degrees. The biggest, Global Banking School, is now the largest teacher of full-time undergraduates in the country.

“A diploma is not for sale,” Senhaji said. He added that the franchise model was either “super-controlled” or it could be “a scheme that is dangerous in terms of quality and outcome”.

The rise of franchising has been driven by growing financial pressures on UK universities, as tuition fees have failed to keep pace with costs and governments have cracked down on lucrative overseas students.

More than 40 per cent of universities are now forecasting a deficit in England and Senhaji said: “We say let’s keep our ears wide open, let’s keep all our channels open and contact people.”

He said his “M&A team are always busy” and the company was “active” in considering targets. He declined to name universities under consideration, saying there was “nothing advanced” but stressed his interest was “not theoretical”.

However, Senhaji insisted his attitude was not “we have a distressed market, let’s hunt”, saying he wanted to replicate the turnaround at Regent’s University London, a small 2,500-student institution that Galileo took over when it was in financial difficulties in 2020.

“We did it well, I think, here at Regent’s and we’ll be happy to reproduce that. So we are open to do more on the UK market,” he said.

Despite what Senhaji described as a “tense situation” for UK universities, he said he was a “big-time” believer in the long-term strength of British higher education.

“If you want to be in one of the top three or top four student markets in the world, especially international students, you have to be the UK,” he said. “It was a strategic move to say, ‘we want to be in the UK’ . . . it is an appealing market if you have a long-term vision.”

About half of students in some Latin American countries attend private universities, often for profit, according to Unicef data. But in Europe 85 per cent are in the public sector and Senhaji said: “In some markets there is still this for-profit legit or not, et cetera, which makes it a hurdle to overcome.”

Professor Geoff Smith, vice-chancellor of Regent’s, said ownership by Galileo had enforced a “discipline” about its priorities and costs that other universities could imitate.

“I’m surprised in a way there’s not more interest [in private ownership] given the pain out there,” he said. “Commercially speaking, we can breathe and we can invest in and really focus on the educational outcomes of our students.”

Smith suggested that British universities were hiding behind the “residual glow” of their reputations, saying: “No one’s happy and yet I don’t see many universities really asking themselves the sort of existential questions that we had to go through.”

FT : The family dispute paralysing one of corporate Italy’s top power brokers Co

The family dispute paralysing one of corporate Italy’s top power brokers

Conflict between Leonardo Del Vecchio’s heirs leaves Delfin in stasis as €55bn group’s portfolio is reshaped by consolidation

Leonardo Del Vecchio spent years designing a governance structure to protect his business empire after his death.

But the safeguards he put in place are now paralysing the €55bn holding company at the heart of the family fortune, as a dispute among his heirs divides the board.

Under Del Vecchio, Delfin became one of Europe’s most influential family investment vehicles, using its multibillion-euro stakes in eyewear group EssilorLuxottica, insurer Generali and lenders Mediobanca and UniCredit to shape corporate strategy across Italy’s financial and industrial sectors.

Today the group struggles to take strategic decisions, limiting its ability to deploy capital, reshape its portfolio or play the activist role that helped set Italy’s financial agenda for years.

“This has important knock-on effects across Italian capitalism as a whole,” said Alfredo De Massis, professor of entrepreneurship and family business at IMD and at the University of Chieti-Pescara.

After Del Vecchio’s death in 2022, ownership of Delfin was divided into eight equal stakes held by his six children, his widow and her son by a previous marriage. The shareholders have since argued over everything from dividends and executive pay to the future of the group’s portfolio.

The depth of the deadlock became clear in June when Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio sought the board’s backing for a proposal to buy out two of his siblings’ 12.5 per cent stakes in an effort to take his own holding to 37.5 per cent.

The 31-year-old told the FT in March that consolidating the stakes would end years of family tensions and create a more stable ownership structure. But the effort split the two executives entrusted by Del Vecchio with overseeing the empire, opening a new front in the hostility.

Delfin chief executive Romolo Bardin opposed the holding company backing the bid, while chair Francesco Milleri, who also serves as chief executive of EssilorLuxottica, supported it.

Milleri said in April that making Leonardo Maria the dominant shareholder would “simplify” Delfin’s governance and help break years of deadlock. Another person close to Delfin, however, stressed that Leonardo Maria “is not his father” and warned against concentrating too much power in his hands.

Leonardo Maria’s failure to gain the board’s backing has all but ended his attempt to become the group’s dominant shareholder. But at Delfin’s annual meeting this summer, which he boycotted, shareholders also failed to agree on higher dividends or on allowing family members to transfer their stakes into personal holding vehicles.

The disputes have reached courtrooms in Italy and Luxembourg.

Rocco Basilico, the son of Leonardo Del Vecchio’s widow Nicoletta Zampillo from a previous marriage and Leonardo Maria’s half-brother, challenged resolutions approving the proposed sale of Luca and Paola Del Vecchio’s stakes. Leonardo Maria then contested Basilico’s entitlement to his 12.5 per cent holding.

In a letter before the annual meeting, Basilico said the family’s “stalemate” threatened Delfin’s future. He proposed offering shareholders an exit by selling some financial investments while preserving the EssilorLuxottica stake. In a response to the letter, shared with the media, Leonardo Maria said such a move would undermine his father’s legacy.

Born in 1935, Leonardo Del Vecchio rose from a Milan orphanage to build Luxottica from a component supplier in the 1960s into the world’s largest eyewear group, acquiring brands including Ray-Ban and Oakley before merging it with France’s Essilor in 2018.

But he groomed none of his children as his successor. Instead, his longstanding adviser Milleri became EssilorLuxottica chief executive and, after Del Vecchio’s death, succeeded him as Delfin chair.

Leonardo Maria and Basilico could hardly be more different. Unlike his publicity-shy father, Leonardo Maria has cultivated a high public profile through the investments made by his family office in publishing, restaurants and clubs, while a turbulent private life has made him a fixture of Italy’s tabloids.

“I was born rich and this is seen as a liability in Italy [but] there is a difference between inheriting wealth and assuming responsibility,” he said while accepting an honorary degree in July. “An inheritance is given to you, responsibility is something you go out and claim.”

Basilico, his elder by four years, projects the opposite image, described by people who know the family as intensely private and understated. Based in the US, he recently left his role at EssilorLuxottica, where, as wearables chief, he played a central role in the group’s smart glasses partnership with Meta.

Leonardo Maria has described Milleri as the “custodian” of his father’s industrial legacy and the best-placed executive to ensure continuity. He told the FT in March he “fully trusted Milleri to carry out his father’s vision”.

But Milleri is in an increasingly difficult position as he seeks to navigate the family discord while leading EssilorLuxottica, whose Franco-Italian governance has long required careful management.

Delfin’s dividend policy highlights the discord. The group distributes to the eight shareholders only the mandatory 10 per cent of its roughly €1.5bn in annual profits.

People close to Delfin say higher payouts would give Leonardo Maria cash to help service the roughly €1bn in bank debt accumulated through his investments outside Delfin. Other shareholders, including some seeking an exit, have resisted higher distributions, treating dividends as part of a broader bargaining process over control.

The argument is becoming more urgent as consolidation reshapes Italian banking.

Delfin owns 10 per cent of Generali, almost 3 per cent of UniCredit and 17.5 per cent of Monte dei Paschi di Siena, having acquired the MPS stake largely in exchange for its Mediobanca holding when the Tuscan bank took over its rival last year.

If Intesa Sanpaolo succeeds in an effort to take over MPS, Delfin would be left with a 3-4 per cent stake in Italy’s largest bank. But as MPS chief Luigi Lovaglio explores alternative deals to fend off the hostile bid, Delfin’s support could also prove decisive in determining the outcome.

Alternatively, a hurried disposal of stakes regarded by Rome as strategic national assets would be politically difficult. But analysts say a holding company without a coherent strategy beyond EssilorLuxottica may eventually have to simplify its portfolio.

“Delfin may prefer to divest, give itself a clearer identity, and also reduce its exposure to politically sensitive files, because Leonardo Del Vecchio is no longer there,” De Massis said. “He has no clones within the family.”

The MPS stake has also become a growing liability for Milleri. Milan prosecutors are investigating him, alongside Lovaglio and investor Francesco Gaetano Caltagirone, over alleged market manipulation and obstruction of regulators in relation to MPS’s 2025 takeover of Mediobanca. All three have denied wrongdoing.

“That risks turning Delfin’s stake in the Tuscan bank from a strategic lever into a source of legal and reputational exposure for the man charged with preserving Del Vecchio’s legacy,” said a Milan-based lawyer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

For the heirs, asset sales could provide much-needed liquidity and loosen the ties that bind them through Delfin. For corporate Italy, however, the more important question is whether one of its pivotal investors can recover the authority to make long-term choices.

Del Vecchio’s heirs “are very different from their late father”, said De Massis. “So the structure also needs to change . . . Otherwise, there is a disconnect.”

FT : Europe faces rocket launcher shortage by 2030, space agency chief warns Dem

Europe faces rocket launcher shortage by 2030, space agency chief warns

Demand for launches is growing faster than the region’s capabilities

Europe faces a shortage of homegrown rocket launchers by the end of the decade, the head of the European Space Agency has warned, as growing demand to launch new satellites into space outpaces the region’s independent capabilities.

ESA’s expectation “today [is] that Europe has a shortage of launchers around the 2030 timeframe,” said director-general Josef Aschbacher, in a frank acknowledgment of the scale of Europe’s challenge in catching up with their main competitors, the US and China.

The agency was in the process of assessing the scale of Europe’s requirements over the coming years, Aschbacher told the FT in an interview.

“If we add up all the satellites that need to be launched from current and planned constellations and missions . . . we see that there’s a peak of launch requirements around 2029, 2030, 2031,” he said.

The US and China have launched hundreds of satellites in the past five years and invested billions of dollars into developing defence and space capabilities. Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched 170 rockets last year, while Europe launched just eight. Musk has transformed the market with reusable rockets that have cut costs.

Aschbacher said he planned to raise the issue with ESA’s member states to “ensure that we can launch our satellites with European launchers”.

Europe plans to launch a range of satellites and other missions over the coming years for its satellite networks, including ones for the Iris² multi-orbit constellation, the Galileo navigation system and Copernicus, the world’s largest Earth observation network.

At the same time, several countries, including Germany, have proposed their own national constellations of satellites. ESA is also building satellites for some of the national defence ministries, including for Greece, Spain and Poland.

Yet Europe’s ability to deliver on these ambitious plans faces an uphill battle, with sceptics warning that structural reform, including to its procurement model, is urgently needed.

The region’s flagship heavy-lift rocket manufacturer, Ariane, has been plotting a comeback after production delays meant its latest model, the Ariane 6, was not ready to take on new cargo after the final flight of its predecessor in 2023. That led to a year-long gap during which Europe was forced to rely on SpaceX instead.

Europe finally regained sovereign access to space in July 2024 with the launch of Ariane 6 and, in December of that year, the return of the smaller, Italian, Vega-C rocket to flight.

Aschbacher said he strongly believed Europe would be able to bridge the expected shortages.

ESA, he said, had asked European launchers to come back in the coming months with estimates of what it could cost to expand their programmes, in Ariane 6’s case, from the current nine to 10 a year it is building up to, to about 15.

ESA was having similar discussions about Vega C, he said. This would feed into decisions over where ESA might put extra money to try to bridge the shortages and invest for the next decade.

“The time horizon is 2035 — the decisions we are making now [will be] triggered by those reflections,” he said.

FT : UK missile and drone interceptor start-up raises $300mn at $3.4bn valuation

UK missile and drone interceptor start-up raises $300mn at $3.4bn valuation

Cambridge Aerospace has secured MoD contracts and is in talks with the US government about providing systems

British defence group Cambridge Aerospace has raised $300mn to develop its missile and drone interceptor systems in a deal that values it at $3.4bn, cementing its status as one of the UK’s most valuable start-ups.

The funding round, the first time Cambridge has announced a capital raise, was led by San Francisco-based DFJ Growth, a prominent backer of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The deal takes the total funding Cambridge has raised since its founding in 2024 to more than $630mn, according to chief executive Steven Barrett. Other prominent backers include Spark Capital, Lux, Accel, Elad Gil and Lakestar.

Britain boasts just a handful of UK-headquartered defence tech companies valued at more than $1bn, including maritime specialist Kraken Technology Group.

Cambridge plans to use the proceeds to invest in scaling up production of its two main systems, a rocket-powered interceptor missile called Starhammer built for high-speed targets such as ballistic missiles, alongside a low-cost anti-drone and cruise missile interceptor Skyhammer.

“We’re growing rapidly. We’ve got 250 people now working mostly in the UK so far, but we also have a growing presence across other countries,” said Barrett.

Barrett said the company had no current plans to appoint a new chair after Grant Shapps, the former Tory defence secretary, stepped down in June. Shapps was found to have breached the rules on ex-ministers’ business appointments. Shapps had insisted he was not fulfilling the role of chair in its ordinary sense of chairing the board and being a company director.

“The role was only ever titular in nature and as such we have no plans to appoint anyone new into that role,” said Barrett.

Unlike some of its defence tech peers, Cambridge has already received several contracts from the UK Ministry of Defence, including a multimillion-pound contract to supply its Skyhammer interceptors to the British Armed Forces and Gulf partners.

The Skyhammer is “an example of the low-cost interceptor missiles our Armed Forces [need] to deter adversaries and keep our country safe,” said defence secretary Wes Streeting.

Outside of the UK, the company has a presence in Germany, Poland, Norway, Ukraine and Australia.

Barrett said Cambridge was also in talks with the US government about providing its systems. Cambridge’s Skyhammer was tested by the US Army in a series of exercises by a brigade focused on air and missile defence across Europe and Africa, according to a May announcement.

Cambridge has previously raised unannounced rounds of funding including one earlier this year at a more than $1bn valuation after taking on new investment last year, the FT previously reported.

The war in the Middle East has underlined the cost asymmetry of firing expensive missiles from air-defence systems such as the US-made Patriots to neutralise Iran’s cheap Shahed drones, the same weapons Russia has used in its war against Ukraine.

“Inexpensive unmanned aerial drones have emerged as a very disruptive and effective offensive weapon,” said Randy Glein, managing partner at DFJ Growth.

Barrett said the company was able to produce its interceptors at lower cost and in greater volume due to using modern manufacturing methods such as 3D printing and AI. Cambridge has also brought in-house the production of key components and has developed its own solid rocket motors, called Nightstar.

Solid rocket motors have been in short supply globally given soaring demand for missiles and interceptors. Cambridge is building Europe’s largest factory for the rocket motors in Norfolk.

“We decided that we had to produce solid rocket motors not just for ourselves but for our sovereign UK and European supply chain and also the chemicals as well,” said Barrett.

Barrett also said Cambridge may explore acquisitions of other start-ups alongside its other growth plans as it aims to emerge as a leading next-generation defence contractor across different markets.

>>> Iran's Supreme National Security Council issues six demands to the US (updat

Iran's Supreme National Security Council issues six demands to the US (update) Iran's demands include:

1) Total Force Withdrawal: A permanent end to US operations.

2) End to Proxy Warfare: An immediate halt to US and allied actions targeting Iran and its regional network across Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq.

3) Financial Reparations: Full compensation payments for damages suffered.

4) Sanctions & Asset Relief: Lifting of global trade sanctions and unconditional release of frozen Iranian financial assets.

5) Lifting the Blockade: Terminating the US naval blockade on Iranian ports.

6) Cessation of Rhetoric: An end to US. threats and perceived insults toward national and religious values.

-The White House has firmly rejected Iran’s maximalist demands, However at this stage the possibility of US ramped up attacks appears muted, as Pres Trump Trump stated that the US is deliberately "low-keying" and "only semi-negotiating" with Tehran.

WWD : Strength of Tailored Clothing Lifts Spirits of Stores at Chicago Collectiv

Strength of Tailored Clothing Lifts Spirits of Stores at Chicago Collective

Independent merchants searched for sportswear to complement their suit and sport coat assortments at the menswear show.

August 10, 2026, 12:01am

A look from the spring Jacob Cohen collection.

CHICAGO — Tailored clothing continues to be the cash cow for independent menswear retailers as men embrace a dressier wardrobe in the post-pandemic world.

The category also helps bolster the bottom line of specialty merchants, who can count on higher-priced suit and sport-coat sales to increase their overall volume.

But it’s not just suits and sport coats that are generating interest: stores are also experiencing a surge in formalwear sales as weddings and other special occasions continue to drive business.

Although most stores had already completed their tailored clothing buys, they roamed the aisles looking for new and noteworthy sportswear to complement their assortments for next spring.

Thanks to strong spring sales this year, they were in fine spirits and expected the momentum to carry through to the all-important fall and holiday seasons.

“Our business is up 15 percent year-to-date,” said Lindsay Morton-Gaiser of Andrisen Morton in Denver. “Our margins are healthy and heading into fall, we’re very optimistic that things won’t slow down at all.”

Morton-Gaiser said the store has seen strength in suits. “Our tailored clothing business is coming back and we’re seeing a shift to more-fancy suits, rather than just black and navy.” In addition, sport coats and dress shirts are performing well.

“And all our big collections were strong for spring,” she continued, pointing to Isaia, Zegna and Marco Pescarolo. “Our mix is almost 100 percent Italian and when we take a stand and buy big brands in a big way, it really helps us.”

At the show, she was shopping LEN belts in exotic skins, Tagliatore tailored clothing, Orlebar Brown and a “fun, updated” sneaker line called No Map Society.

Ken Giddon of Rothmans in New York also reported strong sales so far this year, particularly in tailored clothing.

“A lot of men are changing sizes,” he said. “We’re running out of small sizes. And there’s a lot of wardrobe updating. If you’re wearing clothing from five or 10 years ago, you’re looking awfully old. Men are being forced and coerced into updating their wardrobes.”

In addition, Giddon said, “the wedding business is such a driver” to the company’s tailored options.

He said specialty stores are “set up to really succeed” in the dressier categories. “It’s hard for mass, online and even department stores to service the customer. If we can make them look better than they did when they walked in, there’s an opportunity.”

At the show, Giddon and his team checked out outerwear from Manto, Parajumpers and Corneliani, shoes from Magnanni and sportswear from Faherty and Mason Cruz.

Looking ahead to fall, Giddon said he expects business to continue to be strong, bolstered by the company’s centennial celebration and the “good mood” of most customers.

“Our spring business was great — up 10 percent,” said Hill Stockton of Norman Stockton in Winston-Salem, N.C. “Since my son Richard joined four years ago, we’ve been up 10 to 15 percent every year. At some point we have to be prepared for that to slow down, but we think the momentum will continue into fall.”

He said sport coats have been among the bestsellers and the neckwear business has improved as well. “It’s not through the roof,” Richard Stockton said of the tie category, “but it’s good.”

Also good is the casual pant business — chinos and performance product in particular — as guys look for alternatives to their closet full of five-pocket pants.

At the show, they were shopping “everything but clothing,” Hill Stockton said, to augment their pant and shirt assortment.

Dan Farrington, general merchandise manager of men’s for Mitchells Stores, said he was “grateful” that business at the company’s nine stores continues to be strong. “And we don’t see anything in the present to make us worry it’ll be over soon,” he said.

“We’re doing well with tailored clothing, which is bigger than ever for us. It took longer to recover after COVID, but it’s back and then some.” In that category, Mitchells is having success with luxury-priced brands, made-to-measure and formalwear.

At the show, Farrington was searching for “creative” new brands in the contemporary and classification categories. “It’s a great place to plant seeds for the future,” he said of the show. “There’s a lot of value and creativity in the middle of the market and that’s where we’re trying to find new brands — just below luxury.”

Dan Orwig, president of Peerless Clothing, the country’s leading tailored clothing manufacturer, also reported business was good, despite some macroeconomic challenges such as tariffs, container costs and the rising price of synthetic fabrics as a result of the war in the Middle East and its impact on oil prices.

“It’s not easy, but Peerless continues to deliver fashion product with a strong price-value equation,” he said, adding that this edition of the Collective was “the busiest in the history of Peerless.”

“Guys are dressing up again and retailers are doing a good job leaning into the category, putting more emphasis on the presentation in their stores and the customer experience. It’s a bigger-ticket item for them and when they improve service for the product we can deliver, consumers will pay for it.”

Nelson Suriel, vice president of U.S. sales for Jack Victor, was similarly upbeat.

“Since COVID, the tailored business has exploded,” he said. “A lot of formal events are driving sales of suits and sport coats.” Among the company’s most popular options were its knit and jersey “Comfortwear” collection in soft pinks, corals, maize and other spring shades.

Formalwear has also been popular, he said, so much so that the company now offers a wide range of options — navy, stretch velvets and more — in double-breasteds, notch or peak lapels in super 150s and other fabrics.

Once again, the Italian Trade Agency brought a large contingent of brands to the show. Alessio Nanni, head of the group’s fashion and beauty division, said the ITA was able to bring seven new companies to this edition, including the cashmere brand Avant Toi, the Ingram shirt brand and others.

“Things are evolving and companies are writing orders,” he said.

He pointed out that 2026 marks the 100th anniversary of the ITA and the government organization has expanded its reach in the U.S. and is now visible at a number of events around the country, including Miami Swim Week and New York’s Italy on Madison in addition to the Chicago Collective.

Buyer attendance was up 16 percent this edition over last August, and there were 757 brands showcased in 437 booths, 49 of which were new, according to Monique Kielar, vice president of marketing, apparel, for the Chicago Collective.

Here, a few of the highlights from the show.

Eleventy

It’s been 20 years since Marco Baldassari created Eleventy, his Milan-based luxury brand. To commemorate that milestone, he created two capsules for spring: Indigo Blue, an updated denim collection with each piece sporting a commemorative XX label, and Active Moments, a lightweight, technical offering. The remaining collection drew its inspiration from Venice with soft tailoring and more oversize volumes in Mediterranean-tinged blues, terracottas and other sun-washed shades. Suede and leather jackets are intended to be worn year-round, jackets were offered with Mao collars or kimono shapes, knitwear was created from linen, cotton and silk, and shirts were offered in crinkled Japanese fabrics. This marked Eleventy’s return to the Chicago Collective after a long absence and it also served to introduce the opening of the company’s new store on Oak Street in the heart of the city. The space was designed to not only offer the full Eleventy collection, but to serve as a community gathering spot to share the company’s Italian hospitality.

Eleventy

Courtesy

Jacob Cohen

The brand was created by the Bardelle family in 1985 to elevate jeans to luxury status. Nicola Bardelle brought that vision to life about 15 years later, creating a collection from noble and precious fabrics with a tailored fit and details such as hand embroidery, jeweled buttons and pony hair patches. But in 2012, he was killed in an accident on Saint-Tropez, leaving behind his wife Jennifer and two small children. Jennifer Bardelle carried on her husband’s legacy and today, the Milan-based company offers a full lifestyle assortment of men’s and women’s wear. But it’s still best known for its couture jeans in a variety of washes and finishes including a denim-effect textile developed with Loro Piana and a linen-cashmere blend with Zegna. Each jean is unique, with its own distinct buttons, rivets and back patches that include hand-painted illustrations of mopeds, golf carts and other images. The name of each model is printed on the inside and comes with its own patterned handkerchief as well as a fragrance the artisans sprayed the jeans with before they left the factory. Although well established in Europe, Jacob Cohen is just making its move into the U.S. and will open its first store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan this fall.

Jacob Cohen

Courtesy

Oncept

Nick Lucio and Megan Key Campos hit the jackpot with Oncept, their sustainable contemporary brand of retro-inspired sneakers that have become ubiquitous among fashionistas. When the brand launched in 2021, it did so with a tight edit of key styles, only growing the offering as the business dictated. That’s the same approach Oncept is taking with its first foray into apparel. The company turned to Key Campos’ husband, designer Carlos Campos, to create the collection, which sports the same throwback styling as the footwear but with a modern twist. The collection debuted for fall with a range of knitwear and has been expanded for spring. Key items include a cotton twill utility jacket with a drop shoulder that pairs well with cotton pin-striped pants. The brand also offers dress shirts, but as Lucio said, they’re not traditional, featuring relaxed silhouettes that are meant to be worn untucked. Models include one with a contrast, button-down collar. Sweaters are designed with a deep V-neck with interesting back details; there are Henleys and both long- and short-sleeve polos. Prices range from $250 for the Henleys and $300 for the knitwear to $400 for pants.

A look from Oncept’s spring apparel collection.

Courtesy

Brooklyn Brigade

A division of AW Chang Corp., Brooklyn Brigade is inspired by the culture and creativity of the New York City borough. The idea behind the design of the collection is to take classic silhouettes and push them forward through the use of technically inspired manufacturing techniques and sustainable fabrics. For example, there are chore jackets with utility pockets; a cotton sateen safari jacket; digitally printed performance seersucker shirts; single-pleat cargo pocket pants; engineer printed short-sleeve button-downs; pointelle-stitch polos, and a trucker jacket with embroidered print detailing. The brand also offers a small collection of unconstructed tailored clothing as well as ties and pocket squares. Prices range from $118 for a short-sleeve shirt to $598 for a sport coat. At the show, the brand showed off its new collaboration with Philadelphia-based influencer Sabir Peele from MensStylePro that features 13 pieces including novelty knit Henleys, Western shirts as well as an exclusively designed cotton stretch camo print field jacket with embroidery and patches and a wool and suede-look varsity jacket.

Brooklyn Brigade

Courtesy

Kired

Originally founded under the Wonderland label, the brand was purchased by Kiton, the luxury Italian brand, and rebranded under the Kired name. The tight line is made in Parma, Italy, and offers a range of classically designed and technically functional outerwear and knitwear. Key pieces include reversible trench and bomber jackets that can be made to customer specifications in a range of colors and fabrics. There are also unlined leather overshirts with snap buttons and a cashmere bomber with ribbed collar and cuffs available in 32 colors. The collection retails for around $2,500 for outerwear and $3,500 to $4,500 for leather. But there’s a less-expensive option, Kired’s cruise capsule for summer that features packable jersey shirts, pants and vests — the pants have an elasticized waist and a drawstring — and a jacket with two chest pockets. That capsule retails for $325 to $1,000.

Kired’s reversible bomber jacket.

No Map Society

The footwear brand — whose mission is: No Map. No Rules. Just Movement — is known for its colorful, lightweight sneakers manufactured in the Apulia region of Italy, a center of footwear production. Founded in 2024, the collection water washes suede and cotton canvas, using natural enzymes and eco-conscious softeners that work directly on the fibers while preserving the original structure. The result is a soft, natural hand. The various versions of its Veloce sneaker, which is available in canvas and suede or an “animal free” option, are offered in a wide range of colors and feature a neoprene tongue and terry sock liner for comfort, all with the brand’s trademark rubber soles. They come with two different lace colors and each pair is intentionally imperfect. Retail prices are $395 for canvas and nylon models and $425 for the suede. The brand has made the unorthodox decision not to sell directly to customers through its website, but rather through its wholesale partners. As it writes on its site: “Retailers are not intermediaries. They are partners in how the product is presented, understood and experienced.”

No Map Society

WSJ : The Republican Party Is Losing Its Edge With Voters on the Economy Cost-of

The Republican Party Is Losing Its Edge With Voters on the Economy

Cost-of-living worries are eroding GOP’s image as economic managers, giving Democrats an advantage

Persistent cost-of-living worries are eroding the GOP’s image as the party better suited to handle the economy ahead of the midterm elections.
For the first time since 2010, Fox News polls find voters citing Democrats as better on the economy than Republicans.
In several surveys, only about one-quarter of respondents rate the economy as excellent or good, while about three-quarters say it is in fair or poor shape.

Mitchell Brown, a Republican pollster, has noticed something new in the focus groups he runs with voters in battleground states: “They know exactly, to the dollar, the amount of their power bill,” he said. The same, he says, happens with health costs, or the price of beef.

To Brown, it is a sign that views of the economy pose a clear danger for his party in this year’s midterms, a concern echoed by other Republican strategists. With voters’ negative impressions now hardening, some Republican and independent analysts say President Trump and his GOP allies have little time to regain a key asset: their image as the party better suited to handle the economy.

For the GOP, the fear is that voters who backed the party in 2024 believing Trump would ease the cost of living will stay home or defect this November.

“The set of events that would need to happen to produce a real change in the Republican Party’s fortune is pretty big,” said John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University.

The downbeat mood on the economy stands in contrast to a stock market that has soared as enthusiasm over artificial intelligence has taken hold. Consumer spending has remained solid, even in the face of high gasoline prices, buoyed in part by this year’s tax cuts.

The best characterization of the economy in Trump’s second term, based on the main measures, might be “so-so.” Gross domestic product expanded at a 1.9% annual rate over the six quarters ended in June, which compares with 2.4% during former President Joe Biden’s final year in office. The unemployment rate has barely budged, edging up from 4% in January 2025 to a still-low 4.1% as of July, although job growth has slowed markedly.

Inflation is the sorest point: Consumer prices were 3.5% higher in June than a year earlier, according to the Labor Department, versus a January 2025 inflation rate of 3%. That ate away at wage gains—average hourly earnings were up 3.5% on the year in June.

Americans’ feelings about the economy are decidedly worse than those numbers suggest. In several surveys, only about one-quarter of respondents rate the economy as excellent or good, while about three-quarters say it is in fair or poor shape.

One result of the sour mood: a significant reversal in views of the GOP’s ability to manage the economy. In many polls, more voters see the Democratic Party as a better economic steward than the Republican Party—a rare finding in recent years.

For the first time since 2010, Fox News polls find voters citing Democrats as better on the economy than Republicans. Democrats led by 4 points on the question in April and by 9 points in July, whereas the GOP was viewed as the better economic manager by as much as 15 points in 2022 and 2023.

In a cautionary note to Republicans in Congress, GOP strategist David Winston in June cited similar reversals in the GOP’s standing—on its handling of inflation, jobs and the overall economy. “If Democrats could sustain leads on the economy and win double digit margins among independents as some polls show, a Blue Wave is possible,” he wrote.

In its polling and door-knocking to engage swing-state voters, Americans for Prosperity Action, a limited-government super PAC, has found that about one in five Republican-leaning voters is at risk of staying home or defecting, due in large part to economic worries, the group has said. Drawing a contrast with Democratic policy, however, brings 60% of those voters back to the GOP, the group says.

But while the economy remains a strong challenge for Republicans, Democrats haven’t yet fully taken advantage. They have other problems: Democratic socialists are battling centrists over the party’s economic agenda, and polling shows voters hold dim views of the party. In the Fox News poll, for example, 69% of voters disapproved of the job Democrats are doing in Congress.

The Trump administration says that the war with Iran and its impact on gas prices are driving negative views of the economy, but that the effect will be transitory.

“Oil prices—along with overall inflation—will plummet again when President Trump forces a successful resolution with Iran,” said Kush Desai, a White House spokesman. “The Trump economic agenda has a proven track record of raising real wages, creating jobs, and securing key investments.”

Economists and analysts have puzzled for several years over why an economy that looks relatively solid by traditional metrics, if not stellar, has produced such a sour public mood.

Inflation measures how much prices have risen over a year, but what irks many people is how much higher prices are than they were before the pandemic. Voters appear to rate the economy relative to the recent past, rather than its outright performance, according to University of Texas at Austin political scientist Christopher Wlezien.

High mortgage rates and home prices have put buying a home out of reach for many Americans. Nor has the boom in stock prices assuaged discontent. That might be because a growing number of Americans feel that gains in wealth are mostly accruing to those at the top, according to John Dick, chief executive of consumer analytics company CivicScience.

Winston, who advises congressional GOP leaders, said he believes that voter impressions can still change. “People are in constant contact with prices,” he said. “So, if in October people start walking into grocery stores and gas stations and say, ‘I can now handle the cost of living,’ that is the decisive moment.”

Moreover, polling shows only limited signs that the economic discontent is turning into votes for Democratic candidates. As a group, polls show that voters say they will back a Democrat for Congress over a Republican by about 6 points—the same lead Democrats had at this point in 2018, when views of Trump’s management of the economy were far more positive.

“People are maybe a little bit too optimistic about how easy it is going to be to take the House,” said Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat who represents a largely rural Washington state district that Trump won three times. “Yes, Trump is very, very unpopular. That doesn’t mean that Democrats are necessarily popular.”

At the same time, voters can map many of their cost-of-living concerns to actions taken by the White House. Gasoline prices are high as a result of the war with Iran. Tariffs have also added to price pressures.

“The specific economic circumstances we’re dealing with are not really necessarily an inheritance from a previous administration. They are due to very specific decisions that this administration has made,” said Sides.

WSJ : In China, ‘Moles’ Are Leaking Official Secrets for Profit Xi’s enforcers a

In China, ‘Moles’ Are Leaking Official Secrets for Profit

Xi’s enforcers are hunting down party insiders accused of tipping off unannounced purges

Chinese authorities are cracking down on Communist Party insiders who leak secrets about upcoming corruption purges on social media.
The leaks help suspects destroy evidence and evade arrest while enabling outsiders to make well-timed stock trades.
The Communist Party penalized more than 7,800 discipline inspectors for misconduct in 2023 as Beijing seeks to root out insider leaks.

Secrets from Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s disciplinary purges keep surfacing online, defying a crackdown that has ensnared millions of people—and highlighting how deeply embedded graft and disloyalty remain within the Communist Party.

With the party detaining tens of thousands of officials each year, an underground market for corruption gossip has emerged on Chinese social media, where shadowy users drop hints on who’s getting purged next—in return for fees and clicks, state media said.

Such tipoffs can help suspects beat charges or evade arrest while enabling outsiders to make well-timed trades—a Chinese twist on concerns in the U.S. about political insiders cashing in on prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket.

Party authorities have voiced alarm about the phenomenon while trying to hunt down leakers. The corruption-probe tipoffs also raise questions about the effectiveness of Xi’s crackdown, which has disciplined more than seven million people for misconduct such as taking bribes, defying policies and divulging secrets since late 2012.

“A small number of officials leak information in violation of regulations,” Banyuetan, a magazine published by the official Xinhua News Agency, said in a recent report. “This data is then resold through online groups—passing through multiple hands—thus forming a covert and illicit supply chain.”

Using such leaks, some social-media accounts “have been ‘predicting’ the downfall of government officials in advance using methods such as posting résumés or using homophones and coded language” that hint at a suspect’s identity, said the report. These cryptic posts are meant to skirt secrecy rules, since officials’ names and résumés generally aren’t considered sensitive.

Some profiteers monetize these leaks by selling access to social-media chat rooms where tips are shared, with fees ranging from a few dozen yuan to several hundred yuan, according to Banyuetan—that is, from a few dollars to about $120.

Others try to boost views to earn payouts. “Some even exaggerate corruption details and fabricate scandals to attract traffic,” the magazine said.

In one case, investigators found a party bureaucrat in the southern city of Guiyang who colluded with six relatives to operate nine WeChat social-media accounts that published hints about forthcoming promotions and purges, the magazine said.

The opacity of China’s political system makes tipoffs on ongoing probes highly valuable. With early notice, suspects and their associates can destroy evidence, spirit away illicit assets and flee. Authorities may be forced to detain suspects prematurely, weakening their legal case. Party insiders could gain a head start in lobbying for imminent job vacancies. Investors can short stocks that would likely be affected by a coming purge.

Chinese researchers say corruption probes can trigger a market selloff on companies seen as linked to a suspect or affected by an industry crackdown. China Merchants Bank, one of the country’s largest commercial lenders, saw its share price plunge in 2022 after the party announced an investigation against the bank’s former president, Tian Huiyu.

“Corruption investigations significantly increase the stock price crash risk for listed firms in provinces where investigated senior officials work or have worked during the period when these officials were investigated,” a group of Chinese academics wrote in a 2021 study.

“Anticorruption investigations are conducted with a high degree of secrecy, and given the central role of anticorruption in China’s elite politics, there is persistent demand for insider information from individuals motivated by political curiosity, commercial interests, or risk management,” said Ling Li, a Chinese politics and law lecturer at the University of Vienna.

“The selective and premature disclosure of investigative information might have been used to signal to potential bribers” that some party insiders are willing to trade privileged information for private gain, Li said. To minimize risks, the leakers “confined themselves to publishing highly suggestive posts that, in themselves, did not cross any obvious legal line.”

The party has long grappled with venal insiders—including antigraft inspectors—who leak secrets about corruption probes in return for bribes. In 2019, the party restructured its top disciplinary watchdog to ensure that separate groups of inspectors handle routine supervision, investigations and internal trials, aiming to prevent anyone from wielding excessive authority that can be exploited for personal gain.

Yet Beijing has continued to bemoan the presence of “moles” and bad apples among its enforcers. The party imposed formal penalties on more than 7,800 discipline inspectors in 2023, the highest annual total reported under Xi.

Regardless, Xi has refused to allow greater transparency and adopt more checks and balances in the bureaucracy, which some experts say are needed for cleaner governance—but would undermine authoritarian control.

Beijing’s tightening scrutiny on graft-probe leaks mirrors similar inquiries in the U.S., where regulators are examining suspected profiteering on information from within the Trump administration amid a betting boom on prediction markets.

Following the Banyuetan report, other state media rushed to denounce insider leaks and demand a crackdown—such as by strengthening censorship algorithms and issuing stern punishments.

“Anticorruption efforts mustn’t be exploited, and the chaotic practice of ‘hyping up corruption’ must be curbed,” the official party newspaper of Sichuan province said in a commentary.

Xi’s purges have entrenched his authority as China’s most dominant leader in decades. Launched to curb corruption when Xi took power in 2012, it has since become a permanent campaign that keeps officials loyal and on their toes. Party authorities disciplined 983,000 people last year, the highest annual total on record.

On social media, leaks of impending purges often appear in subtle forms. Some posts use names or phrases with a similar pronunciation to the targeted official’s name, or simply post the official’s résumé.

In July 2025, a WeChat account, whose name can translate as “Yanglan Lake Insider,” referring to a place in Hubei province, published a brief post featuring a photograph and résumé of Zhou Xianwang, a former vice governor of Hubei and onetime mayor of its capital, Wuhan. A similar post appeared two days later on the video-sharing platform Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of TikTok, from a user named “Brother Zihao from Guangdong,” the southeastern province.

The day after the Douyin post appeared, the party’s top internal watchdog announced that Zhou was under investigation for alleged severe misconduct. The party expelled Zhou in January for alleged corruption, and prosecutors have since opened criminal proceedings against him.

“Brother Zihao” followed up with more tips, some coming days or even weeks ahead of the formal announcement. In late November, the account posted an image of Ye Hongzhuan, a retired veteran official in Hunan province, along with a teacup emoji—seemingly suggesting that Ye had been “invited to tea,” a euphemism for an interrogation. Authorities announced a probe against Ye roughly a week later.

Then in March, “Brother Zihao” published cryptic posts featuring the names and images of three bureaucrats—two senior municipal officials in Guangdong’s Zhanjiang city, and a former chairwoman of a state-backed women’s federation in the southern province of Guizhou. Party authorities announced probes against each official over subsequent weeks.

Users praised “Brother Zihao” for the accurate tips, the most recent including one in July about a Guangdong official nearly two weeks before a probe was announced against him. Authorities, however, see such leaks as proof that “moles” were peddling secrets for profit.

The party’s attempts to plug such leaks have become a game of cat and mouse. One investigator told Banyuetan that authorities lack legal grounds to probe or penalize people who merely publish officials’ résumés on social media. When regulators shut down some offending WeChat accounts, the operators simply migrated to other platforms such as Douyin, Banyuetan said.

WSJ : Private Credit Is Under Growing Strain, Despite Industry’s Upbeat Tone Def

Private Credit Is Under Growing Strain, Despite Industry’s Upbeat Tone

Default rates are hitting recent highs, and internal reviews of loan health point to tougher times ahead, a WSJ analysis shows

A Wall Street Journal analysis found private-credit loan defaults at Ares, Blackstone, Blue Owl and Golub reached their highest since at least 2021.
Funds managed by Ares, Golub and KKR reported increases this year in the number of borrowers on watch for deteriorating performance.
Returns for private-credit funds are suffering, with even stronger funds struggling to deliver 7% in annual return compared with 10% or more in years past.

Private credit is showing increasing signs of stress, despite comments to the contrary from some of the largest fund managers that are trying to put a year of turmoil behind them.

Recent quarterly reports from funds overseen by the industry’s big players showed that loan health and investor returns are worsening, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal.

Among funds overseen by Ares Management, Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital and Golub Capital, loan defaults touched their highest level since at least 2021. The funds’ stocks trade on public exchanges, requiring them to regularly update shareholders on their investments.

Blue Owl, Blackstone and other investment firms have said fears gripping the relatively new market are overdone, and that their loan portfolios are doing well.

“Some in the press have been saying ‘Oh no, the sky is falling,’ and some of my peers at other firms have been saying ‘That’s nonsense, there’s no problem,’” said David Golub, co-chief executive of Golub Capital. “Neither of those is accurate. We are clearly in a credit cycle. It’s not a particularly bad one, but there will be winners and losers.”

Private-credit funds invest money from clients in high-interest loans to heavily indebted companies, a strategy called “direct lending.” Until recently, the hefty returns the funds delivered made them one of the hottest flavors on Wall Street.

Then, investors grew alarmed by several high-profile defaults caused by alleged frauds, and by loans made to software companies at risk of disruption by artificial intelligence. Many individuals who had been sold the funds asked for their money back.

Fund managers such as Blue Owl, Blackstone and KKR dismissed the panic as media hype, saying fund performance tells a different story.

“Across our direct lending strategy, credit health remains strong,” Blue Owl’s co-CEO Marc Lipschultz said on his firm’s quarterly call with Wall Street analysts.

The percentage of defaulted loans in Blue Owl’s fund hit 2.8% in the second quarter, its highest level in at least five years. Nonperforming loans at the three other funds also hit five-year highs, exceeding levels reached in 2023 when the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates, squeezing the finances of corporate borrowers and triggering a wide stock and bond market selloff.

So far, the bad loans are cropping up primarily in healthcare companies, like dental-service provider Affordable Care, or businesses affected by higher oil prices, including plastic-film maker Loparex. The worry for analysts and fund managers is that defaults might spread to software companies, which make up 20% or more of the loans in many funds.

While default rates are rising, they remain below previous periods of heavy stress, such as the height of the Covid pandemic or the oil-price crash in 2015. Losses could abate if interest rates decline and economic activity remains robust without pushing inflation higher.

Watching the watchlists

Software companies are among Blue Owl’s most-profitable borrowers, Lipschultz said on the recent analyst call. “We have seen no meaningful change in our watchlist compared with a year ago.”

That makes his firm an outlier.

Funds keep watchlists of borrowers they lend to showing signs of trouble. The fund managers use internal analysis and outside consultants to assign ratings signaling whether those borrowers are meeting expectations and seem likely to keep paying their debts. When a company’s performance fades, they are added to those watchlists.

Private-credit funds managed by Ares, Golub and KKR all reported increases this year in the number of borrowers on watch for deteriorating performance. For those funds, the lists are at their highest levels since 2022-23, when interest rates were rising, the Journal’s analysis shows.

Longer watchlists suggest more loan defaults could be brewing. The stress among private-credit borrowers is occurring while the U.S. economy is performing well, a possible warning sign that losses could jump sharply if growth abates.

Where’s the beef?

Private-credit investment firms can ill afford more write-downs because the performance of their funds is already suffering and their stock prices have only just started to recover from sharp selloffs that started last year. A modest rebound in the shares suggests the market is buying into the optimistic view delivered by top fund managers.

Private-credit funds routinely delivered annual returns of 10% or more in years past, a key factor in their ability to raise money from wealthy individuals. Now, even the stronger funds are struggling to deliver 7%. An ailing fund managed by KKR lost 6.55% over the past 12 months through June, a slight improvement from its 9.17% loss in the prior period.

Profits are declining for a variety of reasons. Dealmaking by private-equity firms that private-credit funds lend to has slowed down, curtailing the number of lucrative new loans to be made. Weaker performance by the companies they lend to and a selloff in public debt markets forced funds to write down investments that are still paying interest even as defaults climbed. Benchmark interest rates have also fallen from peak levels, trimming the income funds make on their investments.

Fund managers say the performance fluctuations are standard in private credit, which focuses on lending to companies with low credit ratings. But many individual investors have yet to experience such a downturn and if returns stay stuck or even drop, they may walk away.

Fewer investors mean it would be harder for fund managers to raise money, shrinking the supply of capital to refinance existing corporate loans when they come due.

FT : Hong Kong builds its next chapter — and closer ties with China

Hong Kong builds its next chapter — and closer ties with China

Evictions have begun in remote rural villages to make way for an ambitious plan to reinvent the city’s economy

From Hong Kong’s rural northern reaches, the towers of tech hub Shenzhen loom on the horizon, marking the border with mainland China.

Soon, an ambitious project will bring the two sides much closer together.

A huge infrastructure initiative aims to transform a swath of Hong Kong’s New Territories — a ramble of fish farms, towns and brownfield sites — into an industrial and technology belt that will revive the Asian financial hub.

Authorities hope the project, termed the Northern Metropolis, will breathe new life into Hong Kong’s economy, which was dented by anti-government protests in 2019 and Covid restrictions that led to an outflow of people and foreign investment.

They also envision it as a way to bind the territory closer to China, shifting the centre of commercial gravity northwards towards the border and deepening integration with mainland cities.

For longtime residents such as Kwok, 66, however, the plan means something more immediate: eviction. His village is among the first set to be cleared in the coming weeks.

“It will be hard to part with it. The rent is just several thousand dollars a month,” he said outside the makeshift shelter of corrugated iron and wooden boards where he has lived since 1998, a year after the British territory was handed back to China. “But now there’s nothing for it — they want to build.”

The scheme, first unveiled in 2021, will transform underutilised parts of the New Territories into four economic hubs focused on commerce, professional services, technology and eco-tourism spanning 30,000 hectares, one-third of Hong Kong’s landmass.

With a slew of new residential developments, the projects will also eventually house 2.5mn people, the government says, a third of the city’s population, helping to ease a decades-long housing crisis.

That includes the 1.1mn currently residing in the project area as well as luring new arrivals from Hong Kong’s dense urban districts, China and overseas with job opportunities and access to mainland markets.

For authorities, the Northern Metropolis forms a critical part of what Beijing calls the Greater Bay Area, a network of 11 cities of the Pearl River Delta envisioned as a mega-metropolis to rival Silicon Valley or Tokyo.

“The Hong Kong government is attaching great importance to the development of the Northern Metropolis,” said Sonny Lo, a professor at the University of Hong Kong.

“The idea is to integrate the northern part of Hong Kong economically, logistically and socially with the Greater Bay Area, especially Shenzhen, at a much faster pace.”

Analysts said the development reflected more emboldened policymaking in Hong Kong in recent years. Since the 2019 protests, authorities have dismantled civil society, stifled dissent and overhauled the legislative system to disqualify the political opposition.

“In the past . . . a strong civil society opposing the government [and] legal action by stakeholders could delay the process,” said Lo. “But now we can see that . . . the roadblocks . . . have already been cleared.”

It also emulates China’s model of spurring growth with infrastructure mega-projects focused on priority sectors such as technology.

In October, Hong Kong’s leader John Lee highlighted the Northern Metropolis as a pillar of the city’s five-year plan, its first ever, mirroring China’s trademark economic development road maps.

Xia Baolong, Beijing’s top official for Hong Kong, has also urged the city to accelerate the project, telling officials on a two-day tour of the territory in June to make the most of a “precious window of opportunity” to speed up development, according to a local official.

For proponents, Beijing’s backing is a blessing. The Northern Metropolis could help diversify Hong Kong’s economy beyond its traditional pillars of finance and trade and tap into the tech boom that has powered neighbouring Guangdong province.

“Before, some people just didn’t want to touch the mainland,” said Jeffrey Lam, a former legislator and newly appointed chair of the company responsible for developing Hung Shiu Kui, one of the project’s first industrial parks.

“We are part of the People’s Republic of China,” he added. “They have been showing helping hands when Hong Kong is in need.”

Lam said he hoped the park could eventually have a borderless arrangement with Qianhai, a special economic zone across Shenzhen Bay.

Analysts at S&P Global Ratings have estimated the project will cost more than HK$360bn (US$46bn) over the next five to six years — higher than the government’s estimate of HK$224bn. About HK$140bn of that cost is set to be borne by government-related entities, S&P said.

It also marks a new precedent for Hong Kong towards mainland-style development, where the government uses a combination of debt and equity funding and private partnerships to fund developments. In the past, Hong Kong paid for large-scale infrastructure projects via its large fiscal surpluses, the rating agency said.

The first land tender for Northern Metropolis, related to the Hung Shui Kiu park, last month drew just two bids, one from Hong Kong developer Henderson Land and another from a consortium of Chinese developers and ecommerce group JD.com.

Hong Kong’s government did not respond to a request for comment.

Gary Ng, senior economist at French investment bank Natixis, said that Hong Kong could leverage its strengths in research and development in fields such as biotechnology but could struggle to compete with lower-cost hubs in Shenzhen and Guangdong.

“The Hong Kong government has been trying to boost innovation over the past 30 years,” he said. “Not all projects have really lived up to expectations.”

One previous mega-project was Lantau Tomorrow Vision, a HK$580bn land reclamation plan that would host a new business district and housing for as many as 1.1mn people on a series of artificial islands. It was shelved indefinitely in 2024.

Such ambitions seem similarly far-fetched in the New Territories village of Yick Yuen Tsuen, where overgrown banyan tree roots twist around the shape of an already demolished home. But large red-ink banners demanding greater compensation from the government point to changes to come.

“We villagers actually don’t want to leave,” said Wong Chiu, a construction worker who has lived in the village since 2010. “But if the government insists on doing this, we have no choice.”