The Notebook: Ian Whittaker on the City’s listing problem WHY FIRMS ARE LISTING ABROAD An ex-CFO of a FTSE 100 company once said to me “I love seeing US investors because they recognise the role of the capital markets is to provide capital to grow.” “For UK investors, it is all about capital preservation and the dividends,” they continued. Capital growth and capital preservation: two phrases, one word difference. [...]
A little birdwatching: Are tech firms like Musk’s Twitter ready for regulation? Ian Whittaker ELON MUSK’s dramatic takeover of Twitter – complete with firing the entire management team and half the staff – has been the talk of, ahem, Twitter for the past week, as well as much of the rest of the world. It has also divided opinion amongst the most strongly politically engaged. Many on the right [...]
The analyst: Why now’s the time to invest in advertising, not run from it GUEST OPINION Ian Whittaker is a City analyst, and the current City A.M. Analyst of the Year. Shaky seems to be the best word for the start of results season on Wall Street – at least, compared to the generally positive message we received at the last quarterly go-around. Companies such as Carnival and FedEx – seen [...]
Media and tech players in different states as we head into recession September 21, 2022 Summer is over and the nights are becoming longer. In addition, the increasing gloom on the weather front is matched by a similar gloom when it comes to the consumer. The rise of double-digit inflation, with skyrocketing energy bills, has dominated headlines and driven UK consumer confidence, according to GfK, down to historic low levels. [...]
Going old school: why new media’s rise is far from inevitable August 18, 2022 Ian Whittaker is twice winner of the City A.M. Analyst of the Year, a long-standing Square Mile media analyst and founder of advisory firm Liberty Sky Advisors The last 12 months has been a brutal one for many of the most high-profile names in the Media space. According to a recent FT piece, nearly $400bn [...]
Long read: TikTok’s march to the top by no means inevitable July 14, 2022 Ian Whittaker is twice winner of the City A.M. Analyst of the Year as well as a judge on this year’s awards, and founder of advisory firm Liberty Sky Advisors Given investors’ embrace of capitalism, it is ironic that their view of Tech – especially when it comes to the leading players – can be [...]
Long-read: Has the twit hit the fan? April 20, 2022 THE HOT topic in tech over the past week or so has been Elon Musk’s hostile $43bn bid for Twitter, which set off a firestorm of, well, tweets.Some claimed Elon Musk was riding to the rescue of free speech, others that his success would mark another step towards the breakdown of democracy. In all this [...]
The Analyst: A Silicon Valley report card February 18, 2022 Ian Whittaker has been a City analyst for more than two decades, and what he doesn’t know about media, advertising and the creative services industry isn’t worth knowing. Here’s his monthly column for City A.M. THE YEAR is going quickly. From an analyst perspective, a lot of that has to do with the fact that [...]
Could tech stocks lose their shine in 2022? January 7, 2022 If you wanted to put money in the stock market over the past five years, then a sure-fire bet has been to invest in US tech stocks, which have significantly outperformed the wider markets. That divergence in performance has been particularly noticeable since the start of the pandemic, as the crisis spurred new ways of [...]
The Analyst: Disney becomes the mouse that squeaked November 17, 2021 Ian Whittaker has been a City analyst for more than two decades, and what he doesn’t know about media, advertising and the creative services industry isn’t worth knowing. Here’s his latest monthly column for City A.M. Disney’s shares fell over 7 per cent the day after it published poorly received full year results (Disney’s financial [...]
