TheChek News Flow

Best pop albums of 2022

Our critic’s picks from the past year include the Arctic Monkeys, Kendrick Lamar, Angel Olsen and Sudan Archives, as well as a surprise entry with Richard Dawson

The Arctic Monkeys © Zackery Michael

A far cry from the mardy bums, kebab queues and Sheffield nightspots of the Arctic Monkeys’ origins, The Car’s luxuriant songs describe a decadent world of moated buildings and French Riviera dalliances, richly imagined and performed to a tee. Rock aristocracy never sounded so good.

Danger Mouse & Black Thought © Shervin Lainez

A cheat code for making retro-rap: take a dusty old sample, loop it, add a solid boombap beat, unleash the verbals. Except if it were that easy, Cheat Codes would be one of many — not one of the year’s best hip-hop records, a vintage display of quality from The Roots’ Black Thought and producer Danger Mouse.

Richard Dawson © Maria Jefferis/Redferns

Sometimes a need is answered that you never knew you had, such as Newcastle maverick Richard Dawson’s latest — a concept album about virtual reality featuring prog-folk vocals, stompy surrealist rock and a 41-minute opening track sung from the point of view of a hermit.

Kendrick Lamar © Scott Garfitt/AP

The first album in five years from Kendrick Lamar opens with the words: “I’ve been going through something.” What follows is 75 minutes of bold beats and virtuoso rapping about fallibility and redemption. It’s a big something.

Angel Olsen © Alamy Stock Photo

Big Time is a classy fantasy of sadness and love constructed around country-soul, 1960s orchestral pop and the handsome tremor of Angel Olsen’s voice. “You’ve always known how to get straight to my head,” she sings; her sixth album knows how to do the same.

From left: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner © Alex Lake

Radiohead spin-off The Smile hit the ground running on their excellent debut album. Thom Yorke keens and moans. Jonny Greenwood dashes out jittery riffs. Tom Skinner of jazz group Sons of Kemet provides supple drumming. Radiohead fans beam.

Sudan Archives © Redferns

“I’m not average,” Brittney Parks sings on her second album as Sudan Archives. Eighteen tracks that shiftshape deftly through hip-hop, electronic music, funk and pop prove her point, a cosmopolitan set of songs that cohere around notions of identity and uniqueness.

Suede © Dean Chalkley

While Britpop readies itself for 30th-anniversary nostalgia, Suede are still making improbably strong records. Autofiction finds them tackling middle age with the same vim they once mustered for doomed youth, galloping into the maelstrom with a flamboyant yelp and all guitars blazing.

Weyes Blood © Neil Krug

Like Laurel Canyon prospectors back in the gold-rush days of the 1970s, Weyes Blood taps into a rich seam of singer-songwriterly music on her fifth album. Groove, melody and sophistication are united, a stereophonic balm for lyrical themes of aloneness.

Exercises highlight cooperation between Beijing and Moscow as the Kremlin tries to offset Western isolation by drawing allies, including Minsk, closer

MOSCOW—Russia said it would hold joint naval drills with China, highlighting the close partnership between the two nations as the Kremlin seeks to bolster support among partners to offset Western isolation for its war in Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday that a detachment of warships of the Pacific Fleet from Vladivostok has been put to sea to participate in naval exercises with their Chinese counterparts, starting Wednesday and running through Dec. 27.

The active part of the exercises would include “joint rocket and artillery firing at air targets, artillery firing at sea targets, as well as practicing joint anti-submarine actions with the practical use of weapons,” the Defense Ministry said. It noted that the main goal of the drills was to strengthen naval cooperation between the two nations, enhance their combat capability to jointly counter threats at sea, and to maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

The announcement of the drills, though part of an annual endeavor between the two nations since 2012, came the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, stirring unease that Mr. Putin is moving to draw Moscow’s closest ally into the war in Ukraine.

Mr. Lukashenko has signaled that he isn’t planning to deploy troops to aid the Kremlin, but a recent bustle of military activity, including joint troop exercises between Belarus and Russia, has created the impression that Minsk could formally enter the war in support of Moscow at a time when Kyiv is trying to cement its advances toward the east and south, analysts have said.

On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, described as “stupid and unfounded” reports that Mr. Putin was traveling to Belarus to force Minsk to participate in what Moscow calls its special military operation, Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Also on Monday, Russia’s Defense Ministry television channel, Zvezda, posted a video of Russian troops undergoing training in Belarus, with motorized riflemen and soldiers skilled in artillery and mortars conducting coordinated combat exercises. Belarus’s Defense Ministry said Monday that its armed forces had completed combat readiness checks.

Saddled with sanctions from the West and increasingly ostracized, Mr. Putin has sought to bolster the support of Moscow’s partners, particularly courting those that are also at odds with the U.S. and Europe. Following the invasion of Ukraine, the European Union expanded its sanctions against Belarus for its support of Russia’s military actions. Mr. Lukashenko allowed Moscow to use Belarus as a staging ground to deploy troops to Ukraine. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were stationed there, and Russian war planes have taken off from Belarusian bases.

“Belarus is not only our good neighbor…but also our ally in the truest sense of the word,” Mr. Putin said in televised remarks at the start of the talks with Mr. Lukashenko.

He outlined economic ties as a priority between Russia and Belarus. Trade turnover between the two nations increased by a third in 2021 to $38 billion and was expected to reach $40 billion this year, he said.

He said military technical cooperation between Russia and Belarus wasn’t only about each country supplying the other with resources, but also about joint developments and cooperation including in the sphere of high-tech industries and space.

The defense ministers of both nations also met and discussed steps to enhance the two countries’ defense capabilities, the Belarusian Defense Ministry reported.

Mr. Lukashenko said, “The strengthening of Belarusian-Russian relations has become a natural response to the changing situation in the world, in which we…are being constantly tested for our resilience.” He said, “Despite some rough edges, we are still finding effective responses to various challenges and threats.”

Following their negotiations, Mr. Putin told officials gathered at the Palace of Independence in Minsk that Russia and Belarus had agreed to continue to conduct joint military exercises and to develop new military equipment together. A unified air defense system has been created and is on combat duty, the Kremlin leader said. He said Moscow would continue to fulfill Mr. Lukashenko’s proposal to train pilots who are able to operate planes carrying what he described as “a special warhead.”

“This form of cooperation is not our invention, the United States has been conducting similar activities with its allies within the NATO bloc for decades,” Mr. Putin said, adding that he and his Belarusian counterpart had “agreed to continue to jointly take all necessary measures to reliably ensure the security of our two countries.”

Mr. Lukashenko told the gathering that “if someone is trying to drive a wedge between us, they will fail,” he said. “Our relations will grow only stronger.”

Though Beijing and Moscow aren’t formal diplomatic allies, China’s leader Xi Jinping has been Mr. Putin’s most powerful supporter and has found common cause with the Russian leader in trying to defend their nations’ respective interests and authoritarian systems from Western pressure.

Mr. Xi has publicly tried to put distance between Beijing and Moscow, as Russia has faced several battlefield setbacks, but has simultaneously refrained from outwardly criticizing Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. Officials in Beijing have expressed support for Russia’s position in favor of a “fair settlement” in the conflict, according to the readout of a recent diplomatic call between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

In recent weeks, Mr. Xi has instructed his government to forge stronger economic ties with Russia, according to policy advisers to Beijing.

Russia, in turn, has backed China amid its tensions with the U.S. over Taiwan.

China’s defense ministry confirmed the joint military drills on Tuesday, describing them as a demonstration of “the determination and capability of the two sides to jointly respond to maritime security threats, maintain international and regional peace and stability and further deepen China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the Pacific Fleet’s flagship Varyag missile cruiser, the Marshal Shaposhnikov frigate, and the warships Aldar Tsydenzhapov and Sovershenny would represent Russia in the drills. China’s naval forces would include two destroyers, two patrol ships, an integrated supply ship and a diesel submarine, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

Russian and Chinese marine aviation planes and helicopters would also participate in the training, according to Russian defense officials.

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The electric-vehicle tax incentives are meant to accelerate a transition to cleaner vehicles

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration on Monday delayed proposing detailed rules for new tax incentives for electric vehicles, following strong pushback from European and Asian allies that the subsidy program discriminated against their companies.

The Treasury Department said details on the battery-sourcing requirements that electric vehicles must meet to qualify for up to $7,500 in tax credit will be released in March, instead of by the end of this year as earlier planned.

The department said, however, it will release “information on the anticipated direction” of the battery requirements before year-end to help manufacturers prepare to identify vehicles eligible for the tax credit. It didn’t specify what information would be made available then.

The EV tax incentives, part of the Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed into law in August, are designed to accelerate a transition to cleaner vehicles. But it also includes complex requirements aimed at boosting domestic production of electric vehicles and batteries, setting off complaints from European and Asian governments as well as auto makers.

​​To qualify for the full $7,500 in tax credit, vehicles must go through their final assembly in North America, a requirement that disqualifies many electric vehicles from non-U.S. car makers since they are typically assembled overseas.

The new rules also require EVs to have at least 40% of their critical minerals for batteries sourced in the U.S. or countries that have free-trade agreements with the U.S., starting in 2023. That threshold is set to rise to 80% by 2026.

At least 50% of the components in the batteries must be manufactured or assembled in North America by 2024, with that percentage rising gradually to 100% by 2028.

A Treasury official said the department needed more time as it works through the complexities of crafting the technical rules.

Following a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in early December, President Biden said the U.S. could offer what he called tweaks to the program to make it easier for European countries to participate.

The Treasury Department said the details on battery requirements will come as part of a notice of proposed rule making in March and noted that the new requirements will take effect only after the proposed rule is issued.

The Treasury Department received more than 800 submissions during a public comment period ended last month, including requests for revising the program from the governments of the European Union, South Korea and Japan, underscoring the high stakes involved.

“It doesn’t feel like a surprise in that just the size of the task and the shortness of the time frame, but at the same time it’s really challenging for manufacturers and dealers and consumers who are scrambling to figure out who’s eligible for the credit and how to make it work,“ said Genevieve Cullen, president at the trade group Electric Drive Transportation Association.

Ms. Cullen said several elements of the regulations still needed defining, including exactly which countries have free-trade agreements with the U.S.

“There’s a lot of definitions that need clarifications,“ she said.

Overall, Ms. Cullen said the delay wouldn’t create huge complications in the next few months, though she said that she hopes Treasury clarifies how the credits will work between January and March next year.

“Folks really are anxious for some certainty and some clarity, but it’s important that we get this right,“ she said.

Wall St bankers pivot as Chinese companies turn to local advisers and Covid restrictions weigh on demand

The world’s largest investment banks will earn more dealmaking fees in India this year than in China, a first that financiers describe as a historic reorientation as they diversify away from a decoupling Chinese economy.

Foreign banks have pulled in $231mn in mergers and acquisitions fees from India so far this year, according to Dealogic, beating the $204mn earned in China over the same period.

JPMorgan is among those that will earn more from M&A in India than in China this year for the first time, according to two people with knowledge of the bank’s position. JPMorgan declined to comment.

Revenue from Chinese equity and bond markets, long one of the biggest sources of fees for US and European finance houses in Asia, has fallen in 2022 as mainland China sealed itself off during the pandemic and increasingly favoured local banks.

Although deal activity is expected to expand as China now reopens, Wall Street bankers have warned that the long period of closure had made more Chinese companies turn to domestic banks for advisory work in the future.

Foreign investment banks’ core revenue — including equity and debt capital markets as well as M&A — has dropped 70 per cent to $602mn over the year to date compared with 2021, according to data from Dealogic. That follows a drop of 15 per cent the previous year.

The trend reinforces how the decoupling in trade, investment and technology between the US and China is affecting capital markets. While India remains a fraction of the revenue China historically brings in for global investment banks, the numbers are indicative of a broader shift by western finance to find opportunities and growth in other markets.

Jan Metzger, head of banking, capital markets and advisory for Citi in Asia, said “the evolution of the banking wallet there with the growth in tech, alongside the established Indian corporate titans being more active” had made India a “leading investment banking market for Citi in 2022”.

He added: “We expect that to continue in the years ahead with the pipeline [in India], one of the largest we have.”

The Singapore-based Asian investment banking head of one US bank described it as a “fundamental and I think permanent repositioning by Wall Street. If you believe [Chinese president] Xi Jinping is intent on building his own sphere of economic influence, while the US shows no sign of stopping its crackdown on China, where else do you go in the region?”

India has been a global outlier for M&A activity this year, even as inflation and recession fears forced some of the biggest declines in dealmaking in other regions since the financial crisis. M&A activity in India surged 58 per cent year on year to an all-time high of $148bn in the first nine months of 2022, according to a report by data provider Refinitiv. A significant chunk of that came from the $40bn merger between HDFC Bank, India’s third-biggest listed company by market capitalisation, and parent Housing Development Finance Corporation, the leading mortgage provider.

Bankers also said a shift in the type of Indian companies engaging them for initial public offering and equity issuance work had been pivotal. When many of India’s largest listings were privatisations of state-owned assets, the fees were relatively low. Now that the balance has shifted to private companies, the work is significantly more profitable.

The banking industry’s shift follows a similar dynamic at play in India’s tech sector last year, when many investment dollars were diverted from China to India. For every dollar invested in Chinese tech, $1.50 went into India in 2021, according to Asian Venture Capital Journal, though slower growth and rising interest rates this year helped reduce inflated valuations and some of the market frenzy.

“India can be unpredictable and certainly foreign businesses have been burnt [there] before. But you can no longer have all your eggs in one basket like China, especially as supply chains and economies decouple,” said one asset manager growing their India office, who did not want to be named because they still had clients and business in mainland China.

Legal dispute in Sochi underscores pressure facing wealthy oligarchs since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine

A Russian court has ordered the seizure of a luxury hotel complex owned by billionaire Oleg Deripaska, one of the few oligarchs to have criticised President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, in a sign of the pressure facing the country’s tycoons since the invasion.

The legal dispute, following an initial claim brought by a science and educational hub under Putin’s patronage, predates the invasion and is not ostensibly linked to Deripaska’s guarded criticism of the war, which he has called “madness”.

But the court order to seize the $1bn Imeretinskiy hotel complex and marina in Sochi came after the Kremlin asked Deripaska to stop criticising the war, according to two people familiar with the matter.

“The Kremlin asked him to calm down,” said one person close to Deripaska.

Deripaska has been under US sanctions since 2018 over his links to the Kremlin. But the metals tycoon is the most prominent of the small number of Russian business leaders who have spoken out since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. “We need peace as soon as possible, as we have already passed the point of no return,” he wrote on Twitter in March.

The Kremlin asked him to tone down his criticisms that same month, according to another person close to the oligarch, and has repeated that request at least once since.

Many oligarchs privately oppose the war, although few have made public comments. Several have told the Financial Times that they are afraid to disagree publicly with the Kremlin, citing fears of repercussions for them and their businesses.

Yet in June Deripaska warned that “destroying Ukraine would be a colossal mistake”, even as he shied away from criticising Putin personally.

Two weeks later, the Sirius Federal Territory, a science, educational and tourism cluster established under Putin, filed three land dispute lawsuits against RogSibAl, Deripaska’s company that owns the Imeretinskiy complex.

Putin’s decision in 2020 to grant Sirius the status of federal territory — giving it its own government and budget — had meant it became in effect RogSibAl’s landlord. The science cluster and hotel complex are adjacent to each other on the Black Sea coast.

Publicly available court documents seen by the FT show that the judge ruled in favour of Sirius in September, evicting RogSibAl, with a separate judgment the same month ruling to seize all his company’s real estate.

Sirius’s parent foundation, Talent and Success, is co-owned by Sergei Roldugin, a cellist friend of Putin’s who is godfather to the president’s daughter Maria. Putin is chair of Talent and Success’s supervisory board. The US described Roldugin as a “custodian” of Putin’s “offshore wealth” when it placed him under sanctions in June.

Elena Shmeleva, Sirius’s director, was a candidate for Putin’s party in last year’s elections, although she did not become an MP. Television presenter Vladimir Pozner last year introduced Shmeleva in an interview by saying her “influence boggles the mind. Ministers and the heads of major companies fly to Sochi for meetings with her at the first invitation.”

Referring to Putin, Dmitry Peskov, the president’s spokesman, told the FT that “Sirius is indeed his baby, he’s the one who came up with the idea . . . but this has nothing to do with the court cases”.

He also said it was “absolutely incorrect” to suggest the cases were linked to Deripaska’s statements about the war. “He never spoke out against the operation” in Ukraine, Peskov said. “Like many, he’s pushing for everything to be done better and more efficiently . . . he’s stating his point of view.”

A spokesperson for Deripaska did not reply to a request for comment. Neither Sirius nor Russia’s prosecutor-general office replied to requests for comment.

Sochi became an investment hub after it was awarded the 2014 Winter Olympics, with more than $50bn poured into the city and surrounding area.

Nearly half the tab was picked up by businesspeople such as Deripaska, who spent about $1bn on an Olympic village and cargo port that he later sought to turn into luxury accommodation with a marina. What is now the Imeretinskiy complex stretches 1.5km along the coast, with numerous hotel buildings and apartment blocks with swimming pools.

Putin set up Sirius as a centre to train Russia’s brightest children on an adjacent site after the Olympics. Initially a way to prevent the Games’ infrastructure from becoming white elephants, the idea took on a life of its own. Deripaska is among the dozens of oligarchs and state companies to have donated to Sirius’s parent foundation, giving it a total of Rbs360mn ($5mn).

But that did not prevent Sirius from enlisting the local authorities’ help in June to determine whether RogSibAl had violated its rental agreements, on grounds that it had not really redeveloped the port into a marina and had built “unauthorised structures” in the former Olympic village. The judge in Krasnodar sided with Sirius, even though publicly available images show yachts moored there.

Days after that ruling in September, Russia’s deputy prosecutor-general filed a separate suit against RogSibAl in Moscow city court.

The Moscow case briefly reopened last month, allowing court documents to become public for the first time. They showed prosecutors sought to seize the Imeretinskiy complex and “transfer the property to the Russian Federation”. The documents show that “measures to secure the claim” had been taken, including “seizing all real estate” belonging to RogSibAl.

The Moscow case had proceeded quickly by Russian standards, according to a timeline on the court website. It was filed on September 9 and the judge ruled by September 15.

The rulings against Deripaska’s company illustrate the changing fortunes of Russia’s oligarchs, whose political fortunes have faded as the Kremlin has ramped up state control of the economy to fund its sputtering Ukraine war.

“Everyone is feeling under pressure,” said one executive. “You need to develop the right relationships with important people, fund the right social projects and be seen as doing the right thing.”

Former Johnson & Johnson executive ‘on the look out’ for rivals amid biotech sell-off

The former chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson is on the hunt for acquisitions after he took the reins at the struggling Belgian biotech Galapagos this year.

Paul Stoffels is on a “mission” to reinstate Galapagos as a top European biotech player. He has returned to lead the company he co-founded in 1999, attracted to its strong balance sheet of €4.4bn in cash and current financial investments, and he is seeking to spread access to innovative cancer treatments in Europe.

Stoffels said he was on the “look out” for companies with good drugs that had not yet reached human trials or were in the early stages that Galapagos could accelerate to market. After the worst biotech sell-off since the early 2000s, he said valuations were starting to appear attractive.

“It’s a very difficult time for biotech at the moment and for colleagues who need money. That leaves a lot of opportunities for us,” he said. “We won’t buy a phase 3 and compete with Pfizer, Amgen and AbbVie, that’s not what we can do.” 

Since Stoffels took over as chief executive in April, he has done two small deals as part of his plan to expand CAR-T technology inside hospitals to potentially extend the life of late stage cancer patients. Galapagos will install its manufacturing capabilities in 10 European hospitals this year, and up to 20 next year, when it will also launch in the US. 

The therapy, which turned 10-years-old this year, is still not widespread because of its complex manufacturing process, involving collecting and reprogramming the patient’s own immune system cells to target the blood cancers.

Galapagos bought Cellpoint, which has worked with Swiss manufacturer Lonza to create small incubators that allow the cells to be manufactured in hospitals, rather than shipped to another site, and AboundBio, which will help it source new candidates for next generation CAR-Ts, for a combined €239mn.

“It’s fun for people, very motivational, because you immediately, from day one, start saving lives,” he said. “In the clinical trial, patients walk back out of the hospital and that is something that is very nice to work on for such a field.” 

But in a biotech downturn, he must convince investors that the company, with a market capitalisation of €2.5bn, should be valued at more than the cash on its balance sheet. He said he would like to see the market capitalisation above the cash balance next year.

The company signed a $5.1bn deal with Gilead Sciences in 2019, giving the US biotech rights to sell drugs in development outside of Europe. Gilead can opt in at the start of any phase 3 programme to develop the drug together.

But Galapagos reported disappointing results for some of these drugs, including one targeting osteoarthritis and another for lung scarring. Stoffels has cut development of these programmes, as well as one for kidney disease, as he focuses the company on oncology and immunology.

Stoffels spent 13 years in research and development at J&J, including helping steer the development of its Covid-19 vaccine. He believes Europe needs more investment in biotech to ensure it keeps its homegrown biotechs from moving to the US to “fight” for funds.

“Europeans have exceptional good pharmaceutical talent, scientific talent, capability and history of making drugs,” he said. “A few new good examples of successful biotechs in Europe could change that.”