By: Ali Lyon

Chief reporter Ali Lyon is the chief reporter at CityAM, responsible for covering the full gamut of business, finance and wealth news. He has been at CityAM full-time since July 2024. Get in touch with tips via email: [email protected]. Follow Ali on X: @alilyon_94

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Exclusive: Fintech unicorns lukewarm on Reeves’ stamp duty holiday

February 18, 2026

Two of Britain’s most exciting IPO candidates have told peers that the Treasury’s recent overhaul of stamp duty on shares will not be enough to convince them to list in London, CityAM can reveal. Payments giant Zilch and banking software provider Thought Machine both used a recent meeting of industry heavyweights to raise concerns [...]
FCA chief: We can’t solve every problem with new rules

February 18, 2026

The Financial Conduct Authority will avoid introducing fresh rules as its stock response to new forms of market failure, its boss has said, as the regulator looks to avoid time-consuming consultation processes and speed up its action. Nikhil Rathi told the Fairer Finance podcast that “not every problem can be solved quickly” by the watchdog [...]
Jefferies: Starmer unlikely to be in office by July

February 17, 2026

Sir Keir Starmer is likely to be ousted from office before the end of July, according to a top investment bank which warned that irrespective of whether there’s a change in leadership the Labour party is likely to lurch leftwards on economic policy. Analysts at Jefferies said the Prime Minister had been left vulnerable by [...]
Hamilton Lane’s Erik Hirsch: We’re seeing a private credit witch hunt

February 17, 2026

Depending on which central banking chief you talk to, the burgeoning private credit industry is either a cause of insomnia, a “dark corner” of finance or an arcane lending practice whose participants are behaving like bankers in the run-up to the global financial crisis. To Hamilton Lane boss Erik Hirsch, though, it is simply an [...]
Defence stocks rally after Starmer vows to ‘go faster’ on spending pledge

February 17, 2026

Investors piled into defence stocks on Monday after Keir Starmer said the UK needed to “go faster” on defence spending to combat the growing threat from Russia. The Prime Minister warned that the UK needed to “step up” its defence commitments amid reports that he wants to ramp up the defence budget by tens of [...]
US alternatives giant leads £150m refinancing at debt-laden Very

February 16, 2026

The credit giant that took control of Very from the Barclay family has arranged a £150m funding package for the online retailer ahead of a potential £2bn sale. Carlyle helped arrange an extension and renewal of debt-laden Very’s key credit lines, in a move it said helps secure the group’s long-term funding until 2029. The [...]
Google’s 100-year bond ‘plays into’ AI bubble fears

February 12, 2026

A rare 100-year bond issued by the owner of Google will compound fears that tech firms’ historic debt-fuelled capital expenditure is evidence of an AI bubble. But, this is a shot in the arm for the UK’s stuttering credit market, analyst have said. Alphabet raised £1bn of an astronomical $32bn (£23.4bn) borrowing spree via a [...]
Landlords ‘underestimated’ scale of business rates overhaul

February 11, 2026

The architect of Labour’s business rates overhaul has blamed the political backlash to the controversial policy on landlords and industry chiefs not fully understanding that a pandemic-related subsidy was coming to an end. Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson told MPs that business owners were taken off-guard by the scale of their tax rise because they weren’t [...]
Global Counsel loses more clients as Epstein scandal deepens

February 11, 2026

The crisis engulfing the lobbying firm founded by Peter Mandelson, Global Counsel, deepened on Tuesday, after three more of its blue-chip clients parted ways with the advisory over its links to co-founder Mandelson and the convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. CityAM understands that pensions giant Phoenix, Tesco and Bank of America have all severed [...]
American hedge fund relaunches campaign against Scottish investment trust

February 10, 2026

The American hedge fund tycoon behind a years-long assault on Britain’s investment trust industry has revived his campaign against a Baillie Gifford-run fund less than a month after being resoundingly defeated by shareholders at a crunch meeting. Saba Capital founder Boaz Weinstein shared an open letter to investors in the Edinburgh Worldwide Investment Trust (Ewit), [...]

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By: Ali Lyon

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