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Peter Thal Larsen

@petertl.bsky.social
7.7K followers 616 following 2.4K posts

Global Editor, Reuters Breakingviews. Usual disclaimers apply. My free weekly newsletter: www.reuters.com/newsletters/the-wee…

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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Michael Derby @michaelsderby.bsky.social · 3h
Microsoft bends knee to Trump language requirements.
Super intel
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
It’s a shame Firmus Technologies had to cancel its IPO when so much human creativity was expended on trying to justify its valuation. I mean, look at this work of art. ChatGPT would never give you that. www.breakingviews.com/columns/brea...
That's where the new valuation tool was supposed to come in handy. It's called "EV+1/EBIT+2" and tries to capture the peculiarities of data centre economics. First, it calculates the enterprise value by adding the current market capitalisation to the net debt a company will have in 12 months instead of what it currently carries, hence the +1. The +2 refers to the earnings before interest and taxes the developer or operator is expected to rake in two years from now.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
"’I cannot overstate how much of a nothing burger this is,’ Rory Johnston, an oil market researcher and founder of CommodityContext.com, said on X.” - www.reuters.com/business/ene...
reuters.com
Trump says Russia to supply diesel to US and global markets
His administration temporarily lifted US sanctions on Russian fuel that were designed to deprive Moscow of revenues for its ‌war on Ukraine.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Annual Recurring Revenue Goes Haywire (ARRGH) www.ft.com/content/b66a...
ft.com
OpenAI annualised revenues $20bn less than previously signalled
AI group recently told investors the critical figure was nearing $50bn in September, far less than the $70bn widely reported
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Always an interesting moment when once-loyal underlings decide to dish the dirt on their boss. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
He has become increasingly emboldened, making unilateral decisions that have confounded even some of his longtime allies and friends.

And his temper has flared. He has shouted at staff for not moving fast enough to implement his ideas and for failing to combat unfavorable media coverage, some of the officials said. Last year, Bessent got so angry about the way his daily briefing book was organized that he picked up the binder full of papers and threw it at a wall, people familiar with the matter said.

Bessent denied the account to The Wall Street Journal.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
that's a good one
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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Andrew Hill @andrewtghill.ft.com · 06/10/2026
📚 The FT and Standard Chartered Business Book of the Year shortlist is here! 1873 — Liaquat Ahamed Off the Scales — Aimee Donnellan The Infinity Machine — Sebastian Mallaby Project Maven — Katrina Manson Blood Will Flow — Alex Perry Prophecy — Carissa Véliz www.ft.com/content/d0b2... #BBYA26
ft.com
FT and Standard Chartered Book of the Year Award 2026 — the shortlist
Contenders include titles on weight-loss drugs, AI weaponry and forecasting
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
🔊New on The Big View 🎧: Alex Edmans, London Business School professor and author of "The Madness of Markets". We talked about weird quirks in stock and bond trading, whether they are getting worse, and what investors can do. Up now on YouTube, Spotify and podcast platforms. youtu.be/sOGIpFdIfMs?...
Alex Edmans and Peter Thal Larsen on The Big View
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
A reminder that Jensen Huang owns just 3.6% of Nvidia. www.theinformation.com/articles/jen...
“I do imagine Huang is kind of preparing [Madison] and Nico for that next step,” said one Nvidia employee who works with Caprez. Another employee said Nvidia now runs much more like a family business than people realize, which is a rare sight in the tech industry. (Huang’s other child, Spencer, who is 36, joined the company in 2022 and is a director of product management for robotics, for which Nvidia develops both chip systems and software.)
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Good point
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Basically this whole thing is less a question of whether the rules exist but whether anyone has the guts to enforce them.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The whole thing is here: www.breakingviews.com/columns/cons...
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
In this weekend’s newsletter: while others debate whether Man City should be stripped of their trophies or relegated to League Two, I argue that what happens to the club’s directors and auditors is just as important - perhaps even more so.
Imagine a widget maker is sold to a new owner. Eager to expand, the ambitious proprietor splashes out on state-of-the-art machinery. The company’s improved widgets attract widespread praise and win many awards. However, sales do not keep up with the investment and the business suffers heavy losses.

Embarrassed by the red ink, the owner asks friendly business partners for help. Perhaps they could boost his sales by buying some products? The partners want to be supportive but cannot justify paying such high prices. So the owner gives them the necessary cash. The widget maker enjoys a boost to sales and reduced losses. Over almost a decade, these sham contracts bring in £831 million in additional revenue.

This, in a nutshell, is the case against Manchester City Football Club, as outlined in the eye-popping conclusions of an independent commission appointed by England’s Premier League and released this week. In this case, the widgets are Manchester City’s performances on the soccer pitch, while the sham payments were disguised as sponsorship and other commercial contracts.The question now is what punishment the club should face. Unsurprisingly, the debate has focused on possible sporting penalties for flouting English and European rules governing financial fair play. These include fines, the deduction of points, relegation to the lower divisions of English soccer, the cancellation of past trophies, and even a forced sale by Manchester City’s ultimate owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

But the same behaviour merits business sanctions, too. The directors of a humdrum widget maker that engaged in such deception could expect civil or even criminal charges, while the auditors who waved it through would also face censure. Manchester City, one of the most high-profile businesses in Britain, should be held to at least the same standard.

The club says it is innocent and has a “comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence” to support its case, which is ongoing. Apologists might argue that, as the £831 million started and ended with the same owner, the deception was cosmetic. Manchester City’s sporting rivals, who for years were outgunned in the competition for star players, disagree. The private equity firm Silver Lake, which invested $500 million in the club at a $4.8 billion valuation in 2019, may also take a different view. Besides, the unnamed commercial partners presumably engaged in some financial sleight-of-hand to facilitate the money-go-round.

Self-declared realists will maintain that capital-starved Britain cannot afford to alienate deep-pocketed investors like the United Arab Emirates. It’s also true that the Premier League has long tolerated the dubious motives of wealthy owners from the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and elsewhere in its quest for a bigger worldwide audience.

Yet the scale, audacity and duration of the scheme revealed this week demands a tougher response. At stake is not just the sporting fairness of the Premier League. As Liam Proud writes, the scandal is also a test of Britain’s legal, financial …
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
If you liked the legal arguments about Credit Suisse AT1 triggers you’re gonna love these
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The Leader of the Opposition www.ft.com/content/267c...
She seems, I venture, to be somebody not consumed by any fears that she is not doing a good job or that she should take some responsibility for her party's poor poll ratings. Has she made any mistakes? "Everybody makes mistakes," she says. Like what? "You're putting me on the spot. Nothing comes to mind."
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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Chris Whittall @chriswhittall.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Paramount credit default swaps going parabolic in the wake of its $50bn-plus debt sale More in our story here: www.ifre.com/bonds/249336...
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble," wrote William Shakespeare, who was one history's greatest authors but obviously ill-versed in gastronomy.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Tell me you've never read Hamlet without telling me, etc. www.ft.com/content/c05f...
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” wrote William Shakespeare, who was one of history’s greatest authors but obviously ill-versed in economics. Without lending or borrowing, our modern economic society wouldn’t grow very much, AI or not.
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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Emily @emilydawn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
@hockeyviz.com I found some beautiful data viz for you
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Robert Armstrong @robarmstrong.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
S&P 500 unchanged over three months -- with earnings expectations up and price/earnings multiples down. This is *exactly* what you would expect to happen when interestst rates are being driven higher by a mix of growth and inflation. Sometimes markets make sense.
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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Reuters Breakingviews @breakingviews.reuters.com · 30/09/2026
How and why UBS could leave Switzerland www.breakingviews.com/columns/big-... @liamproud.bsky.social
breakingviews.com
How and why UBS could leave Switzerland
Finance Minister ​Karin Keller-Sutter says the $153 ⁠bln bank is ​unlikely to quit ​its home country despite stricter capital rules. ​Moving to the ​US would involve costs ‌and ⁠risks. Yet there are w...
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I wonder how the five other directors of Manchester City Football Club Limited feel about this.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
@liamproud.bsky.social nails it
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
All the talk is about Man City circumventing football's financial fair play rules but this description suggests another word beginning with F. www.premierleague.com/en/news/4727...
The purpose of these schemes was found to have been to artificially inflate the club’s revenues, and reduce its costs, by more than £900 million during the affected period, to appear to comply with financial rules. The consequence of this, as the Commission found, was that the club filed misstated accounts and concealed the true state of its finances from its auditors and football regulators. The Commission concluded that ‘by its conduct the club clearly intended to circumvent the PL Rules‘.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
🔊New on The Big View🎧: How can we best prepare future workers for the age of AI? Trying to predict the jobs of the future is folly, the academic and author Daniel Susskind says. He argues basic skills - and critical thinking - are key. On YouTube youtu.be/XfkZx3si6uY?... and all podcast platforms.
Daniel Susskind on The Big View
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"While public companies routinely outline product risks to investors, few, if ​any, have issued warnings suggesting their technology could cause potential human extinction." www.reuters.com/business/fin...
reuters.com
EXCLUSIVE: Anthropic warns AI may pose 'existential risks to humanity' in IPO filing
It's an extraordinary warning by a company seeking to profit from the same technology.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Bookmarking this one under "ill-advised hostages to fortune" www.reuters.com/business/fin...
reuters.com
Swiss finance minister says unlikely UBS would leave its home base
Switzerland's finance minister said it was ​unlikely that UBS would leave its Swiss ‌base after this week's upper house parliamentary vote in favour of tougher capital rules.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
WhO fUndS yOu?
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Not a great omen for the data centre maximalists. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
Oracle Cites ‘Force Majeure’ to Shield Itself on Controversial Data Center
Oracle Corp. is moving to shield itself from racking up expenses on a massive data center being built in New Mexico, adding a fresh wrinkle to a project beset by opposition and regulatory setbacks.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Not sure. He's ex Facebook but not an active player as far as I know. Didn't read to me like a veiled call for state support.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Very odd piece about applying banking-style supervision to AI. Completely misses the point that banks are covered by state-backed deposit insurance and have direct access to support from the central bank. That's the main reason for all the regulation. www.ft.com/content/58be...
ft.com
Amodei is right — AI companies need banking-style supervision
Both industries change rapidly and reach throughout the economy, requiring officials to weigh the benefits of innovation against risks
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
a damascene conversion, even
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Quite the pivot from "we're going to fill the gap left by Silicon Valley Bank" www.theinformation.com/articles/luc...
Exclusive

Luckey’s Erebor Bank Plots Syria Expansion
By Michael Roddan

Erebor Bank, fresh from becoming a vital new financial bridge between the U.S. and Venezuela, is eyeing a new foreign foray: expanding into Syria.

The bank, founded by Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey, has told staff and some investors it could help the war-torn Middle Eastern country reconnect to the global financial system, potentially attracting billions in deposits from businesses and consumers, according to people familiar with the strategy. Doing so would make Erebor a remarkably early mover in Syria, given that Washington only recently reopened the country to U.S. firms and investment.
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Reuters Breakingviews @breakingviews.reuters.com · 22/09/2026
🎧 With US debt at $40 trillion and yields near two-decade highs, government bonds are causing economic jitters. @robinwigglesworth.ft.com joined @petertl.bsky.social on The Big View to discuss how state borrowing built the modern world — with many bumps along the way. Full 👉 tinyurl.com/jx2zmu7b
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
🔊New on The Big View🎧: @robinwigglesworth.ft.com dropped by the @breakingviews.reuters.com studio to talk about his love of the bond market and his new book. We also talked about what's going on with US Treasuries, the dangers in the AI boom, and much else besides. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLc...
Robin Wigglesworth on The Big View
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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Reuters Breakingviews @breakingviews.reuters.com · 22/09/2026
Top priority for Trump-Xi summit is no big deals - tinyurl.com/5n94ejeb - @hudsonlockett.bsky.social
tinyurl.com
Breakingviews - COMMENTARY: Top priority for Trump-Xi summit is no big deals
China’s leader is set to arrive ​in Washington as his ​US counterpart confronts a protracted ⁠war with Iran and ​a potential midterm election ​beating. Shared hopes to extend their tariff truce favour...
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Does this mean we've finally used up all the cables that were laid in the TMT bubble?
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
“.. Large plume of black smoke rises from the fuel storage area at King Khalid International Airport, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, September 19, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone.” REUTERS/Stringer
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It’s a bumper day for grumpy old rich guys being granted prominent media platforms to complain about Britain. They don’t have any fresh insights, let alone any solutions. Pub bores in private jets.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Behind every great fortune there is a great crime
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Narrative violation alert! www.ft.com/content/560f...
ft.com
UK productivity grew twice as fast as thought after 2008 financial crisis
New official figures put Britain more in line with peer countries in terms of output per hour worked
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Reposted by Peter Thal Larsen
Reuters @reuters.com · 17/09/2026
EXCLUSIVE: LVMH signed a secret 2002 pact to buy Hermès heir’s shares. Now he says his fortune is missing reut.rs/3Vzfb8I
reut.rs
EXCLUSIVE: LVMH signed a secret 2002 pact to buy Hermès heir’s shares. Now he says his fortune is missing
In a June court filing, luxury-goods giant LVMH LVMH.PA forcefully denied it had ever tried to acquire shares in rival Hermès HRMS.PA from that company’s founding-family heir Nicolas Puech, who alleges he was fleeced of his 6% stake – now worth billions – through schemes involving his late wealth manager.
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Reuters @reuters.com · 17/09/2026
US, China security experts propose nuclear-style safeguards for AI risks reut.rs/3T4tVf9
reut.rs
US, China security experts propose nuclear-style safeguards for AI risks
An AI system that interferes with a nuclear command network or launches a military cyber operation could leave Washington or Beijing with minutes to decide whether the ​other government attacked, according to U.S. and Chinese security experts.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The perfect industry for a prolonged experiment in self-regulation.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire
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Reuters @reuters.com · 15/09/2026
From Breakingviews - Breakingviews - COMMENTARY: Mark Carney’s EU pitch has strikingly strong logic reut.rs/4gRMuMG
reut.rs
Breakingviews - COMMENTARY: Mark Carney’s EU pitch has strikingly strong logic
Distance limits the ‌Canadian prime minister’s push for ‘associate membership’ of the European bloc. Yet interests are aligned for closer links. Ottawa wants to diversify beyond the US, which takes 72% ⁠of its exports. Brussels needs energy, critical minerals and security partners.
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
New on The Big View🔊: The irrepressible Tina Fordham on the new rules of power for corporate boardrooms. We talked about how most business leaders came up in a period of relative stability. Geopolitical uncertainty is here to stay - and requires a different approach. youtu.be/Ech8jwS3LdY?...
Tina Fordham on The Big View
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Josh Kaplan @josh-kaplan.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
NEW: Don Trump Jr’s luxurious wedding was secretly bankrolled by a Russian oligarch close to Putin. A saga involving private islands, the Olympics, and a Russian government-backed biker gang: www.propublica.org/article/dona...
propublica.org
Donald Trump Jr.’s Wedding Bankrolled by Putin-Linked Russian Oligarch
The oligarch, Umar Kremlev, spent hundreds of thousands on expenses like renting out a private island. He appears to have met Trump Jr. only recently, but he attended the intimate wedding with a large...
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
People have interpreted this as Anthropic trying to organise some kind of cartel, but I don't see how that succeeds without a much more comprehensive plan to control the main inputs of the AI boom: chips, data centres, energy and researchers. darioamodei.com/post/we-must...
darioamodei.com
Dario Amodei — We Must Pace the Frontier
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Peter Thal Larsen @petertl.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Nor it seems do the referees. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
bbc.co.uk
Referees body admits error of judgement over Erling Haaland derby winner
The Premier League refereeing body Pro Ref admits an error of judgement in awarding Erling Haaland's winner in the Manchester derby.
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