TheChek News Flow

DAX:

MDAX:

SDAX:

New restrictions on Waymo movement are put in place in San Francisco as well

Key Points

A visible emblem of ire has emerged from the protests in Los Angeles: graffitied, burning Waymos.

Electric, driverless vehicles were set on fire this weekend. Vandalism and torched cars are a hallmark of many riots, but EV fires burn hotter than traditional car fires and are potentially more hazardous.

The autonomous robot taxis owned by Google parent company Alphabet were tagged with protest slogans and profanity—and set on fire—as a way to disrupt traffic over the weekend and demonstrate against the widespread roundup of migrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. Waymo said Monday that it has restricted travel for the autonomous vehicles so they won’t be able to travel to downtown Los Angeles, but the fleet continues to serve other parts of the city.

The company on Monday began suspending service to parts of San Francisco where protesters are expected to gather. A spokesperson said the company is communicating with local law enforcement.

A check of the Waymo app showed restrictions on pickup and drop-off in downtown San Francisco as well as parts of the South of Market area and Mission districts. It showed much longer wait times and higher prices than usual for rides in other parts of town.

In Los Angeles, there were restrictions outside the area of the protests. No rides were available Monday morning from West Los Angeles to the Crypto.com Arena or the University of Southern California, two areas located several miles from the scene.

The Waymo spokesperson said that the company has no reason to believe the vehicles destroyed in Los Angeles were called by people at the scene and that it is investigating the situation.

Even before the protests escalated over the weekend, Waymo vehicles had been targeted by vandals. In Santa Monica, Calif., orange traffic cones were placed outside a depot where the vehicles are cleaned and recharged, preventing them from entering the area, according to local media reports. Waymos have angered some residents who live near charging stations because the cars can make a noise while backing up, much like delivery vans do, and in some cases, Waymos parked in lots have started to honk at each other.

Waymo EVs can be called up on a mobile-phone app to areas a human driver might not be willing to go. The cars can be spray-painted, set on fire or pummeled until glass breaks without the possibility of hurting a human driver. But EVs that are set on fire burn hotter and longer than traditional cars because they run on lithium-ion batteries.

EV batteries contain flammable chemicals and can release their own oxygen as they burn, allowing EV fires to reignite hours or even days after they appear to be extinguished. That makes them a bigger threat to their surrounding area than traditional car fires, and EV battery fires can also release toxic fumes that are hazardous to humans.

Firefighters who are called to put out flaming electric vehicles find that the surest approach is to stand back and “let it burn,” Fire Marshal Andy King of Franklin, Tenn., told The Wall Street Journal in 2023.

The Waymo vehicles on the road in Los Angeles are Jaguar I-PACE EVs, with a starting price tag of around $73,000. They are equipped with an array of cameras, radar and lidar—a detection system akin to radar that uses a laser—as well as a sophisticated computer system. The total price tag was estimated in 2024 to be between $150,000 and $200,000.

Waymo wouldn’t comment on how much its vehicles cost or quantify how much damage has been done to its fleet of 300 EVs in Los Angeles.

E-scooters operated by Lime were also vandalized and thrown during protests over the weekend.

“For the safety of all involved, we implore everyone to refrain from using our vehicles for anything other than their intended purpose,” a company spokesperson said.

The Southeast Asian ride-hailing and delivery company will use the funds to boost the “strategic flexibility” of its business, which may include potential acquisitions

Key Points

Grab plans to raise $1.25 billion via convertible bonds to fund buybacks and acquisitions, it said after issuing a fresh denial about a potential merger with Indonesian rival GoTo Gojek Tokopedia.

The Southeast Asian ride-hailing and delivery company said it will use proceeds from the offering of convertible notes, due in 2030, to boost the “strategic flexibility” of it business, which may include potential acquisitions. It emphasized that it will continue to maintain a high bar for any deals.

Singapore-based Grab, which also provides financial services on its super app, will also use the funds to buy back shares under its previously announced $500 million buyback program. It has repurchased $226 million worth of shares to date.

The plans come shortly after the Nasdaq-listed company said in a stock exchange filing that it is not engaged in merger talks with Gojek. Grab has repeatedly denied media reports saying that it is in discussions with the Indonesian ride-hailing and delivery firm to combine their businesses in a multibillion merger.

The filing suggests that the companies either failed to reach an agreement or have decided not to pursue or continue discussions for now, Citi Research analysts said.

Grab has reiterated that organic growth remains a priority, Citi said in a note, suggesting that it will be prudent in capital allocation and will only consider inorganic opportunities like M&A when it makes sense to shareholders and aligns with business prospects.

The company’s business momentum remains strong and Citi expects it to deliver solid organic business growth and better margins ahead.

In a separate release, Grab said its business in Indonesia has continued to benefit from solid demand and ride volumes in April and May, which it attributed to its focus on affordability and expansion in the country.

Domestic buyers take advantage of tumbling prices as new non-dom tax regime cools interest from abroad

UK families are “seizing the moment” to snap up bargain luxury homes in exclusive London postcodes as a dwindling pool of international buyers, deterred by new non-dom tax rules, leads to double-digit price drops.

Estate agents say families living in prime areas of outer London, such as Barnes or Chiswick, who may not have previously been able to afford to step up into prime inner areas of the capital, are securing a foothold in the most exclusive neighbourhoods, such as Belgravia and Kensington.

“We have seen a lot more domestic market buying in prime central London because some sellers have adjusted prices to the point where they are affordable,” said Matt Thompson, head of sales at Chestertons.

“There’s definitely people eyeing family houses in Belgravia that they can now buy at less than £2,000 per square feet, which was not possible a few years ago,” added Stuart Bailey, head of prime central London sales at Knight Frank. 

“Where a property has been listed for six to 12 months, double-digit reductions mean they are selling. Switched-on domestic buyers are seizing the moment while there’s less competition.”

Driving the change is a sharp cooling of interest in London by wealthy international buyers put off from setting up home in the capital by Labour’s new non-dom tax regime and stamp duty changes.

Mark Redfern, senior sales director at UK Sotheby’s International Realty, said prime central London was “definitely a challenging market” with price falls driven by recent tax changes affecting non-doms.

The withdrawal of these buyers, traditionally dominant in the prime market for £5mn-plus homes, has reduced competition in areas such as Kensington, Belgravia and Knightsbridge.

House prices in Kensington and Chelsea have fallen to their lowest level since 2013, according to Financial Times analysis of data from the Office for National Statistics published last month.

Data from Knight Frank, published on Monday, showed that the number of sales of prime residential London property in the six months to May fell 7 per cent versus the previous year. 

The number of new prospective buyers registering for prime homes fell by 13 per cent over the same period, Knight Frank data also showed.

“Serious sellers, looking to sell in the next year, are cutting their asking prices to attract buyers,” Bailey said.

Chestertons’ Thompson reported price reductions of 5 per cent on some prime homes since January, translating to hundreds of thousands of pounds on a £5mn-plus property.

“People are thinking they couldn’t buy in that area, and they are definitely thinking again,” he added.

Data compiled for the FT by TwentyCi, a property analytics company, illustrated the sharp cooling of the prime market.

In the year to the end of May, 706 price reductions were reported on prime central London homes, against 1,333 new instructions, according to its data. This compared with 610 price cuts on 1,484 new instructions, the same time a year ago.

Prime homes were taking 50 per cent longer to sell, with the time to reach a deal in the second quarter averaging 216 days, compared with 144 days over the same period in 2024.

Under the old rules, non-doms could live in the UK without paying tax on overseas income and gains. Since April, this has been limited to four years and means their worldwide assets are subject to UK inheritance tax.

With elite international buyers considering other locations, such as Milan or Paris, opportunities have opened for UK families to buy into more exclusive London postcodes.

“For domestic buyers, if they want to buy in the most aspirational locations, they have less competition and more properties available,” said Lucian Cook, director of residential research with Savills, the estate agent.

“The balance of demand is changing and this is probably the biggest change in the prime market.”

China’s $1.1tn asset manager becomes star player on ‘national team’

State-owned Central Huijin in spotlight after big intervention in domestic stock markets to boost economy

From recapitalising rural banks to propping up the stock market, Central Huijin, an arm of China’s sovereign wealth fund, has supported the country’s financial system since its launch two decades ago. But over the past year, the scale of its interventions has thrust it into the spotlight. 

Central Huijin’s holdings of exchange traded funds soared past Rmb1tn ($140bn) in 2024, a seven-fold increase year on year, as the government ordered stimulus measures aimed at boosting the economy.

Beijing has made clear its desire to build bigger financial institutions to help its already state-dominated financial sector navigate economic and market turmoil. Central Huijin, with both its direct buying and vast portfolio of firms, is a key component of this initiative.

During the escalation of the trade war with the US in April, Central Huijin openly pledged to support markets and, for the first time, described itself in a statement as a member of the “national team” of prominent state-backed investors in the country’s markets.

“Central Huijin is obviously being asked to play a big role,” said George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford university’s China Centre.

“It will be called upon more and more to intervene in the financial sector and the stock market as China adapts to the reality of higher non-performing loans, tighter credit conditions, and weaker asset prices,” he added.

Central Huijin is also a crucial tool as the government reshapes a sprawling financial sector that remains largely closed off from the outside world.

“Huijin is becoming a strategic co-ordinator,” said one Beijing-based policy adviser. “It’s a convenient tool for the state to lever when it needs to tighten its grip on vital financial resources.”

Since its launch in 2003, the fund has historically acted as the government’s lender of last resort in opaque rescues of regional banks. It also holds controlling or strategic stakes in major lenders, such as ICBC and China Everbright, as well as the troubled insurance units spun off from Anbang, a Chinese financial conglomerate that entered bankruptcy proceedings in 2024 after years of struggling with insolvency.

The fund became a fully-owned subsidiary of China’s sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corporation, in 2007.

Following a sweeping leadership reshuffle and last September’s stimulus move, the fund has significantly broadened its portfolio, going deeper into ETFs and expanding across the financial system.

It is now led by Zhang Qingsong, 59, a former central banker with three decades of experience in China’s financial system. He also held senior management posts at lenders such as Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China, which gave him deep familiarity with Huijin’s expansive portfolio.

In February, the Ministry of Finance transferred its controlling stakes in China’s three largest bad-debt managers — Cinda, Orient and Great Wall — to Huijin, at no cost. 

Its total assets under management amount to $1.1tn as of June 2024, according to company filings, but it also has stakes in a portfolio of state financial institutions with total assets of at least $29tn, according to Financial Times calculations — a huge proportion of the country’s entire financial assets.

Huijin did not respond to a request for comment.

Although April was the first time Huijin had publicly declared itself as playing in the position of state intervention fund in the “national team” — or in the language of China’s market regulator, as a “quasi-stabilisation fund” — it has acted similarly in the past to help set a floor for China’s stock market during times of distress. 

It previously played the same role propping up shares during the market rout of 2015, investing an estimated Rmb1.2tn in more than 900 companies to prevent a meltdown. It has exited many of those holdings since 2021, though it still held stakes in 165 listed companies as of the first quarter of 2025, according to the Wind financial data service.

But from early 2024, its focus shifted to increasing its holdings of exchange traded funds tracking major indices, which avoided issues arising from single-stock purchases.

The buying intensified in April following Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, when Huijin pledged to step up ETF purchases “when necessary.” An estimate from a Shanghai-based analyst not allowed to publicly speak on the matter suggests ETF purchases by Huijin in April alone may have reached Rmb200bn. 

Huijin’s expanded role this year has been helped by broader co-ordinated moves from other regulators, with significant support from the People’s Bank of China. As China seeks to consolidate its financial sector, Huijin can help facilitate mergers and expedite approval times.

Its activity has also coincided with an official push for higher dividends in China, while a decline in mutual fund fees is expected to reduce its costs.

A senior executive at a Beijing fund house said that it was hard for managers to keep fees at previous, higher levels, given the “giant” inflows from Huijin.

Many analysts anticipate that an intervention fund such as Central Huijin’s would ultimately exit the market after holding positions for several years, but this could take longer than usual, given the size of purchases this time.

And, with the mainland’s A-share markets now carrying more strategic weight than they did a decade ago, and valuations still at low levels, the Shanghai-based analyst suggested Huijin and the authorities may be willing to hold positions for “20, 30, even 40 years”.

“I don’t see any near-term risk of the national team exiting the market or policy turning negative,” he said. “It is not the story at the moment.”

One in five people do not expect to have as many children as they want

UN study suggests economic strains, including job insecurity, among the biggest barriers to parenthood

Nearly one in five people in 14 countries do not expect to have the number of children they desire, largely because of economic and social barriers, according to a UN study.

“Fertility rates are falling, in large part because many feel unable to create the families they want, and that is the real crisis,” said Natalia Kanem, executive director at the United Nations Population Fund, which is behind the report published on Tuesday.

Prohibitive costs of raising children, job insecurity, housing, the lack of a suitable partner and sexism were all obstacles to parenthood, Kanem said, adding: “Women in particular are being unfairly blamed.”

The study is based on a survey of 14,000 people across developed and developing countries, including the US, Germany, Nigeria and Thailand, that together represent more than a third of the global population.

Fertility rates — the number of births per woman over a lifetime — have fallen below 2.1 births per woman in over half of all countries, the threshold needed for population stability without immigration.

Among the survey respondents of reproductive age, 18 per cent did not expect to have the size of family they want. Just 38 per cent of people aged 50 or over said they had reached their ideal number of children, while 31 per cent had fewer than desired.

Most people wanted children, according to the study, with 38 per cent of women and 35 per cent of men across the 14 countries saying they ideally wanted two children and another 15 per cent of people desiring three children.

Economic constraints were among the most frequently cited barriers to parenthood, with 39 per cent of respondents mentioning financial limitations, 21 per cent citing job insecurity and 19 per cent pointing to housing. Health and fertility issues also play a role. A lack of suitable partners, was another obstacle, according to the survey conducted in November and December.

“The answer lies in responding to what people say they need: paid family leave, affordable fertility care, and supportive partners,” Kanem said.

The OECD has warned that the global decline in fertility poses a threat to future prosperity, as it increases fiscal pressures because of ageing populations. However, others, such as economist Oded Galor, have argued that declining fertility combined with higher education levels could enhance long-term prosperity.

The UN research supports similar national surveys. In the US, Gallup polling has consistently found since the 1970s that most people consider two or more children to be the ideal family size, even as the national fertility rate has fallen below replacement level, with similar findings from Japan.

In the UK, research has shown that only a quarter of millennials who want children are actively trying to conceive.

“Whilst some individuals [in the UK] desire to remain child-free, the empirical evidence suggests that there are a significant number who want children, but are currently unable to have them,” said Ann Berrington, professor of demography at the University of Southampton, adding that economic and health factors, or being unable to find the right partner, were among the reasons.

The UN report also notes that in some contexts, particularly in South Africa and Nigeria, a minority of under-50s expect to have more children than they would ideally like, citing a lack of support and low quality sexual and reproductive healthcare.