FTI Consulting News Bytes – 21 June 2024

FTI Consulting News Bytes

We start this week’s edition with the London Stock Exchange regaining its crown as Europe’s largest stock market, overtaking Paris. We then turn to Nvidia becoming the most valuable public company in the U.S. overtaking Microsoft, as demand for the company’s AI chips continues to soar. Next, we highlight reporting which found that the number of AIM-listed companies with all male boards rose by 73%. Before spotlighting a report from Reuters’ Institute for the Study of Journalism which says that consumers are suspicious about the use of AI to create news content. Finally, we cover the Times’ CEO Summit which was attended by a range of business leaders. 

This week’s news

London snatches the crown from Paris as Europe’s largest stock market

The UK’s main stock market has retaken its crown as Europe’s most valuable for the first time in nearly two years, according to Bloomberg data. The total value of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) hit $3.18 trillion on Monday, overtaking the $3.13tn total value of companies listed in Paris. Both valuations have shifted since and remain close but analysts describe it as a milestone, according to BBC News, adding that the French market has slumped because of the uncertainty around its election while the UK market is recovering after several years of underperformance. The LSE had been Europe’s largest stock market for many years before November 2022 when it was overtaken.

Nvidia passes Microsoft in market cap to become most valuable public company

Nvidia’s shares rose to make it the U.S.’s most valuable listed company, underlining the high demand for the company’s artificial intelligence chips, according to the Wall Street Journal. The shares, on Tuesday, finished the day up 3.5% at a record-high $135.58, with the company reaching a valuation of $3.34 trillion, ahead of Microsoft and Apple—and marking the first time a company other than those latter two sat atop the list since early 2019. Nvidia’s chips have been the workhorses of the AI boom, essential tools in the creation of sophisticated AI systems that have captured the public’s imagination with their ability to produce cogent text, images and audio with minimal prompting.

AIM-listed companies with all-male boards rises by 73%

The number of companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) with no women on the board has jumped this year by 73% from 108 to 187, reports The Times. All-male boards are running 35% of all companies on the junior market, up from 18% in 2023, according to the analysis from WB Directors. While all-male boards have completely disappeared among FTSE 100 companies and are very rare in other large listed companies, the picture is different among smaller companies, WB said. The latest shift was partly due to female directors being replaced by men and partly due to a new generation of previously private companies with all-male boards recently listing on AIM. 

Global audiences suspicious of AI-powered newsrooms

As global concerns about the use of AI in news production and misinformation grow Reuters has published findings from a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism titled Digital News Report. The report finds that consumers are suspicious about the use of AI to create news content particularly for sensitive subjects such as politics, according to the survey 52% of U.S. respondents and 63% of UK respondents said they would be uncomfortable with news produced mostly with AI. The report surveyed 2,000 people in each country, noting that respondents were more comfortable with behind-the-scenes uses of AI to make journalists’ work more efficiently. Nic Newman, senior research associate at the Reuters Institute and lead author of the report said: “It was surprising to see the level of suspicion,” adding that “(p)eople broadly had fears about what might happen to content reliability and trust.”

CEO’s combine at The Times’ Summit to praise AI

At the Times’ CEO Summit, Omar Abbosh, of Pearson, and Margherita Della Valle, of Vodafone, explained how AI intelligence is revolutionizing the way they do business. Della Valle for example, revealed that the frequency of phone calls to Vodafone’s customer service centers dropped by a fifth immediately after it started using generative artificial intelligence. She estimated that customer satisfaction had improved by half compared with its earlier non-generative artificial intelligence tools, adding that its net promoter score — a key metric used to measure customer loyalty — had also seen a considerable improvement. Meanwhile, Abbosh spoke of the technology’s ability to personalise teaching as a key factor in improving outcomes, with new generative AI-based tools enabling changes to the provision of education that weren’t previously possible. He summarised AI’s effect on teaching will be “extremely positive.”

Top Tweets of the Week

• Richard Fletcher, Business Editor of the Times tweets “We have campaigned as a pro business party – and we will govern as a pro business party. Unambiguously, unapologetically, a party of wealth creation.” – @RachelReevesMP tells #TimesCEOSummit
• Adam Tooze, a professor at Columbia University tweets “In next 12 months there are 2 vital moments for global climate. One is US election on Nov 5. The other, MORE important, is China’s decision on next round of Paris commitments. China’s green energy sector has the momentum, will Beijing get behind it?”
• Yann Le Cun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta asks “Why has productivity (GDP per hour worked) grown faster in the US than in Europe over the last 15 years.”

Number of the Week

$150bn – The amount Softbank missed out on by selling its NVIDIA shares in 2019, according to the Wall Street Journal. The fish that got away.