TheChek News Flow

The Great Art Fraud TV review — the rise and fall of charismatic con artist Inigo Philbrick

A new BBC2 documentary explores how the disgraced young art dealer was caught and charged with fraud

In May 2022, the disgraced young art dealer Inigo Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in a US prison for wire fraud, having deceived investors and collectors out of an estimated sum of more than $86mn. The Great Art Fraud, an extensive and riveting documentary, explains what he did and how he did it, as well as having a good stab at putting its finger on why. The story combines crime and high farce, and it makes for a rollicking ride.

Philbrick was a wunderkind who began his career as an intern at White Cube gallery in London, and soon came under the tutelage of its owner, the modern art mogul Jay Jopling. By the time Philbrick was in his early 20s, he was running a gallery, bankrolled by Jopling, and was managing substantial funds for major collectors. The sums involved are eye-watering. In 2011, he made a splash when he purchased a piece by Andreas Gursky for a client, setting the then record highest price ever paid for a photograph at $4.3mn. This piqued the interest of the US mega-dealer Larry Gagosian, who sent over an assistant to find out who had made this deal.

Philbrick tells this story, and others, with flair. The many critics, gallerists, financiers and dealers who speak here note his charm and confidence, and, over the course of a substantial interview with him, that is certainly in evidence. Even over a phone call, conducted when Philbrick is in prison, he comes across as genial. The first episode of this two-part documentary examines his rise and his unravelling; the second, his flight from the onslaught of lawsuits and the arrest warrant that resulted in an FBI manhunt.

There is frequent mention of how unregulated the art market is, of how secretive and reliant on trust its relationships can be. Philbrick won the trust of many, but the loose theory here seems to be that in trying to match the lifestyles of his clients — yachts, luxury holidays, casual $5,000 bottles of wine — he lost any sense of his own limits. The film does an outstanding job of explaining the intricacies of his corrupt deals — essentially, selling more shares in an artwork than exist, to multiple owners — to the layperson, while maintaining an intimate and insider-ish feel.

At times the commentary is amusingly cutting. Philbrick opens a gallery in Miami because the city has “not quite as much taste” as London, suggests one critic, waspishly. Philbrick’s girlfriend, now wife, Victoria Baker-Harber, who rose to fame on the reality show Made In Chelsea, is candid about their party days. By the time the whole ruse has come crashing down, with an auction at Christie’s involving a Rudolf Stingel painting of Picasso and a fraudulent document, it has become as mesmerising as any thriller.

US president warns progressive billionaire and allies that ‘we’re watching you’

Donald Trump has called for billionaire progressive donor George Soros to face racketeering and corruption charges for supposedly supporting “violent protests” across the US.

In a post on his social media platform on Wednesday, Trump claimed the 95-year-old Soros and his “radical left” son Alex, who leads the family’s philanthropic foundation, “should be charged with RICO”, referring to a statute usually used to combat organised crime.

“We’re not going to allow these lunatics to rip apart America any more, never giving it so much as a chance to ‘BREATHE,’ and be FREE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Soros, and his group of psychopaths, have caused great damage to our Country!” he added. “That includes his Crazy, West Coast friends. Be careful, we’re watching you!”

The broadside came after reports in right-leaning news outlets claimed this month that Open Society Foundations, which distributes grants on Soros’s behalf to progressive causes, was funding protests, especially against the Trump administration’s deployment of troops in Washington DC.

A spokesperson for OSF said of Trump’s comments: “These accusations are outrageous and false. The Open Society Foundations do not support or fund violent protests. Our mission is to advance human rights, justice and democratic principles at home and around the world.”

The tirade against Soros — a Jewish holocaust survivor and frequent target of the Maga right — is the latest attempt by Trump to intimidate political foes with the threat of legal action.

In the past few months, Trump has repeatedly threatened to prosecute or jail politicians, including his former presidential rival Kamala Harris and New York Democratic mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani.

He has ordered an investigation into former president Joe Biden and his aides, and suggested a criminal probe into Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey and one-time ally.

Last week, the FBI raided the home of John Bolton, a former national security adviser to Trump who has emerged as a strong critic of the president’s foreign policy.

Trump has long reserved some of his sharpest ire for the Soros family, who were among the largest donors to the Harris campaign, spending more than $85mn in the 2024 election cycle. During his criminal trial in New York last year, Trump constantly highlighted that district attorney Alvin Bragg had been backed by Soros.

Trump himself faced Rico charges by state prosecutors in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The case stalled after the original prosecutor was removed by a higher court.

Trump’s threat on Wednesday garnered support from Elon Musk, who posted that it was “high time action was taken against Soros directly”. Musk previously blamed Soros for protests outside Tesla dealerships at the height of his unpopular tenure in government.

Denmark summons US diplomat over alleged covert influence operations in Greenland

Danish foreign minister accuses ‘foreign actors’ of trying to sway future of vast Arctic island

Denmark has summoned the top US diplomat in the country over reports that American citizens with alleged links to President Donald Trump have been conducting covert influence operations in Greenland.

Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, said on Wednesday that there were “foreign actors” attempting to influence the future of Greenland and that all such efforts were “unacceptable”.

He has summoned Mark Stroh, the chargé d’affaires at the US embassy in Copenhagen and its most senior diplomat in Denmark at present, for a meeting at the foreign ministry.

A White House official said late on Wednesday: “We think the Danes need to calm down.”

Denmark has been shaken by Trump’s repeated suggestions that the US wants to take control of the vast Arctic island — a semi-autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark — from Copenhagen, and his refusal to rule out using force to do so.

The Scandinavian country had already summoned the top US diplomat in May, following a report in the Wall Street Journal that a classified message was sent to American intelligence agencies urging them to identify people in Greenland and Denmark who support Trump’s ambition to take over the island.

The latest report by DR, the Danish public broadcaster, said Danish authorities were aware of at least three US citizens with alleged links to the Trump administration gathering information in Greenland and conducting influence operations.

Rasmussen said in television interviews that he was “not surprised” by the report. But he added: “It’s important that we gain some insight into this so that our people — in both Greenland and Denmark — know what it is that we risk being up against.”

Denmark’s security and intelligence service (PET) said on Wednesday that its assessment was that “Greenland, especially in the current situation, is the target of influence campaigns of various kinds. PET expects that such campaigns have the purpose of creating a split in the relationship between Denmark and Greenland.”

Some senior Danish officials sought to downplay the significance of summoning Stroh, saying that the three US citizens appeared to act in an amateur way and there was no link established to US intelligence.

But Danish politicians reacted with dismay. “This means the whole misery over Greenland is not over,” former foreign minister Martin Lidegaard told the TV channel TV2.

He added: “This is putting a heavy strain on our relationship with the US — and Americans should know that too.”

Aaja Chemnitz, a Greenlandic member of Denmark’s parliament, said: “It is beyond a joke that they try to infiltrate Greenland’s society in this way. It is Greenland itself who must decide what we want and what future we want.”

The allegations come just days after the Trump administration caused pain to Danish business by issuing a stop-work order on an almost complete offshore wind farm co-owned by Ørsted.

That came on the same day that Rasmussen and Denmark’s ambassador to the US signed a partnership with California’s Governor Gavin Newsom, the self-styled leader of the resistance to Trump. Danish officials deny there is a connection between the two events.

A spokesperson for the US state department said it would not comment on the actions of private citizens in Greenland but said Stroh had a “productive” meeting with the Danish foreign ministry.

The US is currently without an ambassador in Copenhagen despite Trump naming Ken Howery, who is close to Elon Musk, in December.

In a separate move, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Wednesday apologised to the thousands of Greenlandic women who over decades were forcibly fitted with contraceptive coils.

She acknowledged that the case had caused “anger and sorrow” in Greenland as well as hurting perceptions of Denmark. “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility. Therefore, on behalf of Denmark, I would like to say: sorry.”

Many Greenlanders use this issue to express why they want to gain independence from Denmark, but surveys suggest the 57,000 on the Arctic island are reluctant to do so imminently for fear of losing out economically.

New Zealand wealth fund bets European stocks will beat US over coming decade

Move by world’s best performing SWF signals asset owners’ loss of confidence in long-term outlook for US equities

Investment chiefs at the world’s best performing sovereign wealth fund are betting that European stocks will outshine their transatlantic rivals over the coming decade, in a sign that some global asset owners are losing confidence in the long-term outlook for US equities. 

Brad Dunstan and Will Goodwin, co-chief investment officers at New Zealand’s NZ$76bn ($44bn) Super Fund, told the Financial Times in an interview that the European stock market was the fund’s largest “overweight” position versus its reference portfolio, as it takes tactical positions on markets it thinks will perform best.   

“Most recently, we have been short the US and long European equities . . . and that’s purely a view on equity valuations,” said Dunstan, adding that decisions to favour different markets were taken “on a 10-year view”. 

At the end of June, the fund was overweight European equities by 2 per cent and underweight US stocks by 3.5 per cent in its “strategic tilting” mandate, where it expresses equity price views. For commercial reasons, the managers do not disclose the timing of positions taken.

Their investment position centres on a view that European equities — measured by the Stoxx Europe 600 index — are currently priced below their “fair value”, while US stocks are priced above that level and at some point in the next decade will give up that premium. 

“There’s going to be more inflation risk in the US,” said Dunstan, adding that the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs was largely “noise” for long-term asset owners. However, he said, the outlook for US interest rates made him and his colleagues believe that US stocks — which currently trade on a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.5 times — were overvalued.

His comments come as European stocks — trading on a PE ratio of about 16 times — have lost ground against their US rivals in recent months, as Trump has dialled back his most radical tariff threats and earnings in corporate America have remained resilient. 

On a 10-year view, the performance of equities in the world’s largest economy has far outstripped that of their European peers, with the S&P 500 index up more than 310 per cent on a total return basis, compared with 115 per cent for the Stoxx Europe 600. 

According to data platform Global SWF, NZ Super Fund — which began investing in 2003 and employs 79 people in its investment team in Auckland — has been the best performing sovereign wealth fund over the past 10 and 20 years, with annualised returns of more than 10 per cent. 

Dunstan said this was because the fund takes “a lot of risk”, which has been rewarded over the past two decades. He said the fund’s “total portfolio” approach allowed managers to be “pretty agile in terms of how we focus the fund”, which had enabled it to outperform other funds with a similar growth strategy. 

The total portfolio approach assesses risk across the whole portfolio, in contrast with the traditional method of setting a framework for how much you will invest in certain assets, through a strategic asset allocation, which can make delivering changes outside those boundaries more time-consuming.

NZ Super Fund’s preference for Europe also extends to private equity, where Goodwin said there was a “good opportunity”. He looks for “younger, hungrier managers” where NZ Super can be a large investor in a PE fund and forge strong relationships with the managers of the companies the fund invests in. 

He added that while PE was a necessary component of the portfolio, given the trend for companies to stay unlisted for longer, some PE funds were currently under pressure as investors started to realise “the markets aren’t necessarily there” for the price levels PE funds are putting on their own assets.

NZ Super Fund has about 5 per cent of its portfolio invested in private equity. Goodwin said he did not expect the asset class to become a “large structural part of our portfolio”. 

Hedge funds’ insurance binge threatens catastrophe cover, warns Munich Re

Reinsurer says private capital’s push into tools such as ‘cat bonds’ risks increases volatility for the sector

Hedge funds and private investors muscling into reinsurance threaten to destabilise the centuries-old market for catastrophe cover, a director at Munich Re, the world’s biggest reinsurer, has warned.

The growing presence of private investors such as hedge funds and family offices in the sector has intensified competition for dominant players such as Berkshire Hathaway, Munich Re and Swiss Re.

But the sector’s shifting shape has introduced new risks and greater volatility into the reinsurance market, Stefan Golling, a board member of 145-year-old Munich Re, told the Financial Times.

After a big payout event, private investors could lose their nerve, potentially raising the price of insurance, he said.

“In the traditional market, a big hurricane will not be a surprise,” Golling said. By contrast, he added, “capital is getting involved that is not informed in the same way as an underwriting company”.

Hedge funds such as New York’s Elliott Management and specialist fund managers have pushed into property and casualty reinsurance over the past decade. Alternative capital grew to about $115bn at the end of 2024, up from $93bn in 2022, according to broker Aon.

One way is through catastrophe or “cat” bonds, in which insurers pay investors a premium in exchange for covering risks they face. Another is through so-called sidecars — in effect shell companies that take on risk and issue securities to funds run by asset managers.

These new entrants challenged Munich Re and other traditional suppliers of reinsurance capital in a business built on personal relationships cemented at the industry’s annual conference in Monaco.

Golling said it was a good thing that private entrants were helping to meet the world’s growing need for insurance, which has boomed as inflation, population growth and climate change increase the bill for natural disasters.

However, he questioned whether the newcomers fully understood the risks they had taken on.

“We haven’t seen a 50-year or 100-year event that has exhausted the cat bond market,” Golling said. “It has to be seen whether the capital that backs up those cat bonds will reconsider their strategy after such an event.”

He added that the market had already glimpsed the destabilising effects of a retreat by private reinsurance capital after Hurricane Ian hit Florida in September 2022 — just as insurers kicked off renewal negotiations.

Private investors’ uncertainty about the losses they faced threw the availability of some top layers of reinsurance into doubt, prompting some to withdraw and “stressing” the market, Golling said.  

Reinsurance prices charged by both traditional and private capital firms subsequently jumped.

Golling also criticised private capital for only signing up to cover the most statistically improbable risks, such as megastorms that are expected every few decades, rather than more common events such as hail.

Critics have long raised similar grievances about Munich Re and its peers.

Insurers and governments complain that traditional reinsurers pull back by raising prices after losses — ultimately driving up costs for consumers — and seek to avoid more frequent perils.

Golling suggested that when traditional reinsurers raise prices, it is to enforce strict underwriting standards at the first port of call for policyholders — the primary insurers — that could otherwise jeopardise the long-term profitability of the sector.

“You have to feel the pain yourself,” he said. “That’s the reason why reinsurance companies have tried to increase the retention [deductible] of the primary insurance companies.”

‘Full of bugs’: how the world’s biggest carmakers fell behind in software

The shift from a manufacturing model to a digital one is proving difficult and expensive for many of the industry’s traditional companies

A decade ago, when Toyota began hiring dozens of experts from Google and other tech giants to pivot its development efforts from hardware into artificial intelligence and software, hype and expectations were sky high.

“Times have changed, and software and data are now essential components of Toyota’s future mobility strategy,” said Gill Pratt, chief executive of the Toyota Research Institute, at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2016.

In the years that followed, the world’s largest carmaker by volume nurtured ambitions to create a centralised computer system that could control everything from the transmission, brakes, steering and door locks to assisted driving and infotainment functions. 

Toyota was among dozens of household-name carmakers racing to develop software-defined vehicles like those produced by Tesla and a new generation of Chinese manufacturers.

But Gartner’s annual “digital automaker index”, which compares carmakers on their potential to monetise their software, suggests traditional European, US and Japanese groups are still a long way behind these relatively recent arrivals.

Its top five in 2025 was dominated by Tesla and Chinese brands including Nio, Xiaomi and Xpeng. General Motors ranked ninth, Mercedes-Benz was 13th and Toyota was 21st.

“Very few legacy automakers are positioned to compete with Tesla, Rivian or the leading Chinese EV makers when it comes to building a pervasive automotive operation system,” says Tsuguo Nobe, a former executive at Intel and Nissan who is now a professor at Nagoya University.

Ultimately, analysts warn that the auto industry is likely to go in the same direction as smartphones and PCs, with a small number of operating systems like iOS and Android eventually dominating the software space.

They add that the transition will fundamentally tilt the industry’s modus operandi away from designing, building and selling cars — a business model characterised by mechanical engineering and relatively thin profit margins — and towards software and services.

Toyota and its peers are aiming to use these to create new sources of revenue as the industry shifts to autonomous electric cars. Investment across the industry is already shifting from superior engines and external design to the computer systems that will control everything from batteries to safety features and, eventually, self-driving functions.

But when employees, analysts and journalists gathered in a darkly lit arena on the outskirts of Tokyo to see the results of Toyota’s years-long efforts, the reaction was underwhelming.

Its software platform, known as Arene, will only power the infotainment system and advanced safety technologies in the RAV4 sport utility vehicle when it launches later this year. It is unclear when the fully integrated system will be completed, though Toyota has said it will feature in its next-generation battery electric vehicle.

Even its own executives seemed to acknowledge that the first iteration was far from a game-changer. “It’s not a big bang,” admitted John Absmeier, chief technology officer at Woven by Toyota, the carmaker’s mobility technology subsidiary. Weeks later, a Woven software engineer was even more critical, telling the FT that Arene was “horrendous”.

“It’s full of bugs. It’s not an operating system, it’s just a series of tools,” the engineer went on.

Toyota said it was part of the culture at Woven “to pause and reflect whenever issues arise, in order to improve the products we deliver to customers” and that its commitment to continuous improvement “underpins Arene and our software-defined vehicles efforts”.

Many others are encountering the same issues Toyota has. Some, such as Volkswagen, Renault and Mercedes-Benz, have turned to partners in the technology industry to accelerate the digitisation of their vehicles. But those collaborations have also created fresh tensions with Apple, Google and others as carmakers fight it out with tech giants for control over vehicle data, in-car entertainment and other aspects of the driving experience.

“Traditional original equipment manufacturers inevitably end up being tied down by their hardware-based history,” says Izumi Kawanishi, president of Sony-Honda Mobility, a joint venture established in 2022.

“From there, trying to pivot to software-first development is extremely difficult.” 

Toyota’s software development efforts were backed by high-profile hires such as James Kuffner, a former head of robotics at Google and a key executive in the US company’s self-driving car efforts.

In 2018, Kuffner was installed as chief executive of what is now Woven. But having led the development of Arene, he abruptly stepped down in 2023 and was replaced by an executive from a subsidiary of Toyota supplier Denso.

Others involved in the project say engineers brought in from outside, who were more used to a fast-moving Silicon Valley mindset, grew frustrated with Toyota’s conservative and consensus-driven culture.

“There are always compromises when engineering paradigm shifts happen. After all, this is a once in a 100 year transformation of the way we build cars,” acknowledges one former Toyota executive.

“Japan being very conservative is a double-edged sword,” the former executive tells the FT. “On the one hand, not taking too many risks is good when it comes to product safety. But it is bad when it comes to rapid innovation.”

A similar story played out at Volvo Cars, one of the first European carmakers to roll out an electric vehicle equipped with advanced software and Nvidia-designed chips that facilitate software updates via the cloud.

In 2022, Volvo Cars recruited former Dyson boss Jim Rowan as chief executive. Li Shufu, who chairs the Swedish carmaker and its Chinese parent Geely, reasoned at the time that a CEO from outside the automotive industry was needed to oversee the digital shift.

Even so, the development of a new centralised computing system for its flagship EX90 model was mired with delays and snowballing costs, underscoring the challenges even for companies that have turned to external hires from Tesla and other tech rivals to strengthen their software capabilities. 

At the end of March, Volvo Cars announced Rowan’s departure and the rehiring of former boss Håkan Samuelsson to navigate the uncertainty created by US car tariffs and the costly transition to electric vehicles, citing his “deep industrial experience” and knowledge of the group.

But people close to the company say Samuelsson, who will serve a fixed two-year term, returned to revive a group “buried” in massive development costs for the EX90 and its software system. He immediately announced 3,000 job cuts globally and a one-off charge of $1.2bn, caused in a large part due to the two-year delay with the EX90. 

In an interview, Samuelsson warned that the company could still face new software glitches in the future, even after efforts to reduce software complexity and strengthen testing standards.

“There will always be risks of course for bugs when you introduce software,” Samuelsson tells the FT. “But in the last two years, we have had a level that was too high and unacceptable for customers and that is what we have been working on very intensively.” 

He adds that Volvo Cars will in future be able to develop and ramp up production of new models faster. “But there is no book to read about how this should be done . . . if you are the first one, you have to write your manual as well.”

Nobe, at Nagoya University, points out that electric cars require more computing power than combustion-engined vehicles to manage batteries and other functions such as regenerative braking.

This means that electronic control units with their own embedded software have to be replaced with “zonal architecture”, which controls vehicle functions such as braking as well as driver assistance features on a zone-by-zone basis, where electronic components are clustered in discrete areas of each vehicle.

“The architecture not only enables software consolidation but also reduces wiring complexity and vehicle weight, leading to substantial cost savings,” Nobe says.

He adds that the slow transition to EVs among legacy carmakers — especially Toyota, which expects hybrid technology to endure for longer than most — have hampered their efforts to develop best-in-class software.

Building processing power into a vehicle far beyond what is currently required also sits uncomfortably with Toyota’s long-standing — and highly successful — just-in-time production system that aims to minimise waste.

Woven’s Absmeier says changing the architecture is “not that difficult” to do technology-wise. The challenge is adapting it to design and manufacturing processes geared to traditional vehicles.

“There is existing investment and legacy,” he says. “We can’t just disrupt the whole architecture of the car. We have to step-by-step build the system in.” 

Despite the high-profile difficulties encountered by Toyota and Volvo Cars, carmakers around the world continue to plough billions into software development.

In September, BMW is set to unveil its Neue Klasse platform, a zonal architecture system that will underpin its next generation of EVs with longer range, faster charging and upgraded software capabilities. 

It includes four “superbrains” that vastly improve communication inside the vehicle, infotainment displays, automated driving and other vehicle functions. Analysts say the level of integration is far deeper than the new system developed by Toyota, and the superbrains also deliver more than 20 times the computing power of current vehicles.

Neue Klasse will be installed on the new iX3 sport utility vehicle this year, and BMW plans to bring 40 new models and model updates by 2027.

“Neue Klasse is BMW’s biggest ever leap, and we believe that this represents the best opportunity for a ‘legacy’ auto player to establish not just relevance but also leadership,” said Bernstein analyst Stephen Reitman in a recent note.

Fellow German carmaker Mercedes-Benz has hired around 3,000 software developers from around the world to accelerate the rollout of new software-focused vehicles.

“It’s like going to the gym and training a new muscle,” says Magnus Östberg, Mercedes’ chief software officer. “That transition is, of course, one of the biggest challenges to make so that new skills are adopted and used throughout the organisation.” 

But Östberg adds that the company also made “a deliberate decision” not to develop all the technologies on its own. Its new architecture uses Google’s AI agent that allows drivers to give commands to their vehicles in humanlike conversations, for instance.

The question over control between carmakers and technology partners is becoming increasingly sensitive. Despite the huge popularity of Apple’s CarPlay system, which connects a vehicle’s dashboard to the music and mapping systems of the iPhone, the US tech group has faced resistance from the automotive industry over the latest iteration of the software.

We do not want to do everything ourselves but we do want to have control over the architecture

Mercedes-Benz was among a string of carmakers that said they had no plans to bring CarPlay Ultra, which connects to other vehicle information such as temperature, speed and fuel use and can enable drivers to customise dashboard layout, to their vehicles. Some car executives described Apple’s foray into driver screens as “invasive” and an attempt to take over their own systems.  

But carmakers must tread a fine line. Tech collaborations have been crucial in keeping them up-to-date with advances in software while they widen their own capabilities.

Volkswagen has struck a $5bn deal to develop new software with California EV start-up Rivian, while Europe’s largest carmaker has also partnered with Chinese EV maker Xpeng to jointly develop a new generation of EVs. Both initiatives follow a series of budget overruns and stumbles at its in-house software division.

“The problem for us is to find the good level of co-operation,” says one executive at a European carmaker, adding that it was difficult to strike the right balance between technology sharing and control over underlying vehicle architecture.

Toyota’s hard-won reputation for well-built and reliable vehicles has meant it had to think carefully about how quickly to transition to software-driven cars.

The choice of the RAV4 for its new in-car software was driven by a desire to debut Arene in a high-volume flagship model while minimising the risks that would come from launching it more broadly, according to people with knowledge of the company’s decision.

The system itself is also born of compromise since the more ambition and memory it contains, the lower the profit margins will be, the people added. That underscores the challenges carmakers face in balancing legacy businesses, safety requirements and reputations with the desire to accelerate their software efforts.

Akio Toyoda, the powerful chair of Toyota and the grandson of its founder, remains committed to transforming from a car manufacturer into a provider of software-powered mobility services, say those who know him.

“Akio still understands the importance of software-defined vehicles, but he’s still thinking about exactly what his approach is,” says one former Woven executive.

In a statement to the FT, Toyota said its Arene system represented a “broader, more foundational software platform than a typical in-house operating system”, which enabled a faster and safer software development across different vehicles. Some analysts also contend that even if Toyota is slow, its software products will be methodological and executed well.

How exactly carmakers will make money by selling software and services on a platform they design and operate also remains unclear.

In 2021, General Motors set a target to generate up to $25bn annually from software-based connected services. Two years later, it said it would stop installing CarPlay or Android Auto on some of its EV models in North America.

But Mike Abbott, a former Apple executive poached by GM to head its software unit, stepped down in 2024 due to health reasons, and there have been few updates since on its efforts to develop software-defined vehicles. 

Rival Ford has also had its share of setbacks in launching a new platform for software-defined vehicles. But its commercial fleet leasing business, Ford Pro, has been an early example of how to monetise software.

The company has leveraged vehicle data to improve productivity, maintenance and repair services for its users, who pay a subscription to access the information generated across their fleets.

Software helped to contribute 17 per cent of Ford Pro’s operating profit during the second quarter, while paid subscriptions grew 24 per cent from a year earlier to 757,000. 

“Having the data itself is not the golden nugget. It’s really how do you turn it into actionable information,” says Hans Schep, general manager of Ford Pro in Europe. “We’re in the early stages.”

The bullish signs from Japan’s bear panic

Even as it faces national dotage, the country remains a formidable industrial power

If you are looking for an alarm system that incorporates the latest in AI-enabled bear facial recognition technology, Japan’s Daiwa Tsushin has the thing for you. And, depending on risk appetite, for your portfolio. 

Trained on 50,000 photos and videos of bears native to Japan and empowered by a dedicated server, Face Bear will trigger anti-bear sirens and alert the property owner to the threat of clawed rampage via smartphone, but completely ignore gentler wildlife.

It is a product forged in unsettling and revelatory times. Japan’s bears, in their emboldened advance on cowering towns, are interrogating the nation on global warming, demographics and industrial policy.

Between April and the end of July this year, Japan had experienced a near record 55 bear attacks on humans, thousands more bear sightings than usual and intensive media coverage of the ursine scourge. There have been horrible maulings, three deaths and an unprecedented legal revision to accelerate the authorisation of lethal force as the bears encroach on everything from school sports days, golf tournaments and shopping streets to airport runways, motorways and bullet train tracks.

Unofficial polls of public opinion capture a nation divided. Earlier this summer, when a 52-year-old newspaper delivery man was fatally savaged by a bear in Hokkaido, local authorities fielded hundreds of calls from the public: many pleaded for the bears to be shown clemency, others insisted rangers “shoot the lot”.

The clearest message is straightforwardly alarming. Expert explanations for the rise in Japan’s bear-related incidents over recent years cite the role of climate change — in particular Japan’s shortening rainy seasons, increased freak floods and accumulating tally of record heatwaves — for disrupting the bears’ natural food supply. Nut and other nourishing plant yields are smaller, fruit ripens too early in the feeding cycle, and the smell of urban cuisine drives hangry bears into town.

The second explanation is also dispiriting for ageing, shrinking Japan: the bears are expanding their habitats into what was once irrefutably human territory because they are less impeded. The human population of firearm-licensed rangers has dwindled and greyed. Rural villages increasingly lie near empty as younger Japanese move to cities and the older ones die.

Estimates of Japan’s total bear population are rough, but domestic media cite figures of around 12,000 brown bears and 44,000 black bears. The former has risen steadily. The latter is thought to have tripled over the last 12 years. Japan’s human population, over that period, fell by 5mn. Depending on your taste for symbolism, it paints a demoralising picture of a country facing national dotage: the old and less vigorous incumbent versus the fecund and ravenous animal spirits on its borders.

But such a picture underplays what continues to make Japan so formidable as an industrial power, and the risks of giving that up. Earlier this year, as the first bear attack stories began to proliferate, investors began screening the 3,948 companies listed on Tokyo’s various stock exchanges to find which stocks would stand to benefit from the panic. 

Well over a dozen companies, on an initial trawl, had potentially lucrative exposure to the narrow theme of bear panic via what in many cases are obscure subsidiaries. The basket included four companies like Maeda Kosen, which specialise in sensor-equipped electric fences, and others like Sekisui Jushi, which makes equipment for protecting crops from larger animals. The exposure of Miroku, Japan’s largest manufacturer of hunting rifles was obvious; less so that of Odakyu Electric Railway, whose “Hunter Bank” subsidiary is an online matching service between trained bear hunters and forest workers with a bear problem.

Even as it has retreated demographically, Japan (and by extension its enormous pool of listed companies) remains a full-spec industrial economy. For some years now, that diversity and the perceived surfeit of obscure, non-core (often unprofitable) subsidiaries has been under ideological attack both from investors and from a government keen to make the market more attractive. The streamlining process is already under way, but the country should be wary of giving up too much of its diversity.

Japan’s “more is more” industrial instincts are what convinced Daiwa Tsushin, primarily a security camera business, to get into the AI bear face recognition game. Sadly, its stock has fallen 27 per cent since the start of the year. Mauled, repeatedly, by market bears.

The fight for Italian beaches heats up

Debate over how clubs along the country’s coastline are run intensifies as attendances fall off

Spending summers at the beach for Italians is as traditional as eating pasta. For decades, families throughout the peninsula have rented out beach umbrellas, which come with chairs and a sunbed, for the season at their local beach club. Children often visit daily with their nonni, with working parents showing up at the weekends.

There are about 7,300 beach clubs in Italy, according to Unioncamere, the chambers of commerce association. In regions with the highest concentration of beach establishments, such as Liguria, Tuscany and Emilia Romagna, less than 30 per cent of the beaches has been estimated to be freely accessible, with clubs occupying the rest. 

Due to the sweltering heat in Milan this summer, I opted to tag along with a group of friends at a Tuscan beach town in July. Weekend after weekend I was shocked at how empty our beach club and the ones nearby were compared with our previous outings years ago. This appears to have been an issue not just for these clubs, but for many across Italy.

Data released by industry groups Sib and Assobalneari showed that national beach club attendance was down by at least 25 per cent in July compared with the same month in 2024. At Ferragosto, a national holiday on August 15 that represents the peak of the summer season, the number of Italians travelling dropped by 1mn from last year.

Fabrizio Licordari, president of the Assobalneari, said the drop was due to “a very critical economic situation amid rising utilities, food, petrol and housing costs with many Italian families struggling to make ends meet”. 

Though unemployment is at historically low levels, an OECD report published last month shows real wages have dropped by 7.5 per cent since 2021, placing Italy below the EU average for salaries adjusted for purchasing power.   

According to Istat, the national statistics agency, a day at the beach is 32 per cent more expensive this year than it was in 2019. The average weekly price for a beach umbrella is now €212, and the figure can be 10 times higher at establishments catering to the super-rich. Many Italians opted for cheaper destinations such as Albania or Cyprus. Rising temperatures are also leading many to shun beaches for the mountains. 

The fall off in demand for the beach clubs is taking a toll on Italy’s important tourism industry, with knock-on effects on local economies along the peninsula’s coast. This has intensified a debate over how the clubs are run and how much they cost.

First, though the coastline is a public asset, the clubs are privately operated through multiyear concession agreements that have long pitted Rome against Brussels. Under a 19-year-old EU directive, new and existing concessions must be publicly tendered. Yet, successive Italian governments have opted to apply a local 1992 law, which essentially extends existing ones — often passed down the generations — indefinitely at a ridiculously cheap price. Tenders are currently scheduled from the end of 2027, but for the time being, the average concessions agreement can cost as little as €270 per month, a little more than the average weekly price for a single sun umbrella. Fees can by tiny even for luxury resorts.

While increasing concession fees through tenders or charging royalties isn’t going to have a cooling effect on price rises, the yearly €100mn that currently ends up in state coffers from beach concession fees has seemed slim to critics compared with the industry’s profits.

Many beach club operators now claim tenders would be unfavourable to them due to the money spent on upgrades, which they would not be able to recover. Licordari said last month that Italy should not be forced to give away its beaches to foreign players by the European Commission. Giorgia Meloni’s government has proposed a system where outgoing operators would be indemnified by their successors based on calculations that have been criticised by both Brussels and Italy’s administrative courts.

Aristide Police, dean of Rome’s Luiss University’s law school, says the proposal would be hard to put into practice because most of these upgrades haven’t been properly recorded. An actual estimate of clubs’ revenues is also complicated with many holidaymakers, including foreigners, still opting for cash payments. This suggests part of these establishments’ revenues escapes taxation. 

Police points out that Italian and EU law require the beach concessions to be tendered in order to offer a level playing field to all market participants. “Whereas what we have here is an ingrained system where beach concessions have been passed on within families for sixty years,” he says.

Le gouvernement allemand, dirigé par le chancelier conservateur, Friedrich Merz, et celui, en sursis, de François Bayrou, vont tenir un conseil des ministres commun à Brégançon et à Toulon, jeudi 28 et vendredi 29 août.

Difficile d’imaginer pire calendrier pour le conseil des ministres franco-allemand, qui doit réunir, jeudi 28 et vendredi 29 août, le gouvernement du chancelier conservateur Friedrich Merz et celui, en sursis, du premier ministre français, François Bayrou. Les deux exécutifs ont prévu de se retrouver au fort de Brégançon et à Toulon, dans le Var, pour la vingt-cinquième édition de ce rituel visant à célébrer les relations bilatérales et, parfois, acter des décisions communes. Mais cette grand-messe se tiendra dix jours avant le vote de confiance organisé par François Bayrou à l’Assemblée nationale, le 8 septembre, dont l’issue demeure très incertaine.

L’ombre de la situation politique française, quoique peu relevée côté allemand, planera inévitablement sur la rencontre. Première dans ce format pour le gouvernement « noir-rouge » de Friedrich Merz, qui lie les conservateurs de la CDU aux sociaux-démocrates du SPD, en fonction depuis le 6 mai à Berlin, celle-ci est très attendue. Une dizaine de ministres de part et d’autre y participeront autour du chancelier et d’Emmanuel Macron, désireux l’un comme l’autre de relancer un tandem franco-allemand grippé ces dernières années.

Les deux dirigeants n’ont pas ménagé leurs efforts pour montrer la confiance qu’ils se témoignent depuis les élections allemandes du 23 février, multipliant les rencontres bilatérales. Ils ont également donné instruction à leurs ministres de se déplacer pour rencontrer leurs homologues, ce que nombre d’entre eux ont fait depuis mai. « Construire une relation de travail durable au niveau des ministres, cela prend du temps, admet Jacob Ross, expert des relations franco-allemandes au conseil allemand pour les relations internationales, le principal groupe de réflexion allemand sur le sujet. Le moment n’est vraiment pas idéal. »

L’histoire a des airs de déjà-vu : la dernière rencontre franco-allemande similaire, en mai 2024, s’était tenue deux semaines avant l’annonce de la dissolution de l’Assemblée nationale française. « On risque un peu la même chose, admet un participant. Que l’élan soit brisé net. » Eric Lombard, le ministre de l’économie français, qui sera présent à Toulon, a ainsi annulé sa visite aux rencontres économiques franco-allemandes d’Evian du 4 au 6 septembre. Interrogé sur la situation politique en France, mercredi 27 août, le chancelier allemand a, quant à lui, botté en touche.

Une certaine amertume

« On peut faire du franco-allemand même dans ces circonstances », tempère un diplomate français, soulignant que les sujets à l’agenda – principalement sur les questions de compétitivité en Europe et de défense – sont des chantiers de longue haleine. Mais, de l’aveu même des deux parties, aucune annonce majeure n’est attendue. Le conseil « ne donnera pas lieu à une déclaration concrète, formelle mais plutôt à une liste de projets spécifiques ou d’actions spécifiques », admet l’Elysée. De fait, les divergences demeurent nombreuses, qu’il s’agisse des questions d’armement, d’énergie ou des enjeux commerciaux. D’où une certaine frustration, de part et d’autre.

Berlin espérait une clarification française sur l’avenir du projet d’avion de chasse franco-germano-espagnol SCAF, qui fait l’objet de désaccords entre industriels – le français Dassault réclamant un poids plus important que ne le prévoient les accords existants. « Il n’en sera pas question lors des consultations gouvernementales franco-allemandes, a lâché Friedrich Merz, mercredi, lors d’une conférence de presse, ne cachant pas une certaine amertume. J’ai convenu avec le président Macron que nous prendrions ensemble une décision sur l’avenir du SCAF au cours du dernier trimestre de l’année, c’est-à-dire à la fin 2025. » Déplorant la « volonté du côté français » de faire participer plus largement Dassault, il a dit espérer « que nous parviendrons à une solution, car nous avons besoin d’un nouvel avion de combat en Europe ».

Dans les heures qui ont suivi, Paris a néanmoins indiqué que le sujet serait « évidemment » abordé lors de la rencontre. « Les projets d’avion de chasse et de char du futur sont morts, estime, pour sa part, Shahin Vallée, économiste et directeur du programme géoéconomique du Conseil allemand des relations étrangères à Berlin. Il vaudrait mieux y renoncer et lancer de nouveaux projets. »

« Manque d’ambition »

Côté français, l’euphorie des débuts a aussi fait place à une plus grande perplexité, proportionnelle aux attentes qu’avaient suscitées la victoire de Friedrich Merz et son enthousiasme pour le projet européen, lui que l’on attendait plutôt atlantiste. « Côté français, il y a ce sentiment que le dynamisme des premières semaines de Merz en faveur d’une Union européenne souveraine s’est un peu émoussé, analyse Jacob Ross. Il ne semble plus être tout à fait sur la même ligne qu’au soir de son élection, lorsqu’il parlait de rendre l’Union européenne moins dépendante des Etats-Unis. »

Le candidat qui promettait d’imposer des lignes rouges à la Russie et de livrer des missiles de longue portée à l’Ukraine, celui qui parlait de « capacité de défense européenne autonome » et se disait prêt à faire le deuil de la protection nucléaire américaine, donne parfois le sentiment de chercher avant tout à préserver la relation avec les Etats-Unis, dont l’Allemagne est encore si dépendante. Et de se réfugier plus volontiers derrière le concept d’« ambiguïté stratégique » pour éviter les sujets difficiles. « Il est désormais prisonnier de contraintes politiques intérieures », poursuit M. Ross.

De part et d’autre, « on sent un manque d’ambition pour lancer des chantiers et de prendre des risques, résume Shahin Vallée. On aurait pu s’attendre à des jalons sur la dissuasion ou sur le nucléaire civil. Les attentes étaient élevées après le sommet de l’OTAN, fin juin. Mais je pense qu’on ne les aura pas ». Au point que certains diplomates s’interrogent : Friedrich Merz est-il simplement bridé par sa coalition ? Ou considère-t-il que l’Allemagne a les moyens d’avancer seule dans un cadre européen ?

« Il faut se souvenir du chemin parcouru depuis l’époque du précédent chancelier Olaf Scholz, note une source française. Merz envisage de demander l’autorisation du Bundestag pour envoyer des troupes au sol en Ukraine. Il a décidé d’arrêter les livraisons d’armes à Israël. A l’échelle de l’Allemagne, c’est historique. »