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Helen Thomas

Business columnist

Helen Thomas writes about British business and finance for the FT. She has previously written for the Lex column, for FT Alphaville as well as covering M&A and the mining sector. From 2013, she worked at the Wall Street Journal and at BBC Newsnight before rejoining the FT in 2021.
Email Helen Thomas @helentbiz  on Twitter (link opens in a new browser window)

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  • Wednesday, 20 December, 2023
    Professional services
    How will professional services handle the Great Stagnation?

    Cutting from the lower-paid bottom ranks is not the answer to a slowdown in deals

  • Wednesday, 13 December, 2023
    UK infrastructure
    Confusion and delay: the dismal state of the English railways

    Strategic paralysis of the network is having serious knock-on effects in the sector

    Train at a platorm in Bradford, England
  • Monday, 11 December, 2023
    Utilities
    Thames Water’s convoluted financial plumbing is part of the problem

    Persuading investors about its funding and convincing politicians are two different things

  • Wednesday, 6 December, 2023
    Cyber Security
    Is radical transparency the best weapon in companies’ cyber war?

    Governments have been too slow to insist on information sharing and to offer non-judgmental support

    The exterior of the Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters in Washington
  • Wednesday, 29 November, 2023
    UK energy
    Don’t bet on the UK ending the power of gas to set energy bills

    The electricity price is set by the most expensive generating asset, but uncoupling the two would be very complicated

    Three people in fading light with a viewpoint of terraced houses and in the distance, the growing development at Nine Elms at Battersea, seen from Ruskin Park in Lambeth
  • Monday, 27 November, 2023
    Investor activism
    London’s next reform? Doing away with shareholder rebellions

    Lobbyists want to scrap the 20% threshold signifying meaningful investor dissent at AGMs

    The London skyline
  • Wednesday, 22 November, 2023
    Autumn Statement
    The crucial thing missing from the vaunted business investment bonanza

    Government should be specific about what it wants to target and create regulation to support its goal

    A researcher works in a laboratory in London, using genome sequencing equipment
  • Monday, 20 November, 2023
    Isas
    A Brit Isa won’t reconnect the market to the masses

    Idea has some merits but seems unlikely to noticeably swell the ranks of plucky British retail investors

    Jeremy Hunt
  • Wednesday, 15 November, 2023
    UK banks
    What is the point of green mortgages?

    The impact of these loans is underwhelming

    Hydrogen canisters supply homes powered by hydrogen boilers at a hydrogen test facility near Carlisle,
  • Thursday, 9 November, 2023
    Waste management & recycling
    The UK is doing the right thing in steel — just badly

    Cutting carbon emissions is the correct path but the sector also needs a strategy to recycle scrap metal

    Steel plant with smoking chimneys silhouetted against a sunset
  • Monday, 30 October, 2023
    Oil & Gas industry
    Big Oil’s transatlantic strategy gulf has never been wider — and that is OK

    Mega-deals in the US make sense, but it’s not obvious why European groups should scale up too

    Aerial view of a Hess gas platform
  • Wednesday, 25 October, 2023
    UK house prices
    Another mortgage gimmick won’t help the housing market

    The UK political juggling act of keeping prices high and promising affordability is increasingly unsustainable

    Terraced houses on a housing estate in New Addington, Croydon
  • Monday, 23 October, 2023
    Financial services
    Your happy customers are no match for the UK’s consumer duty

    When first proposed, the new regulation was seen as slightly fluffy. Not any more

  • Wednesday, 18 October, 2023
    Property sector
    Britain needs to take its sheds more seriously

    Industrial and logistics is the poor relation in a planning system that doesn’t do much very well

    An aerial view of the Amazon fulfilment centre in Coventry,
  • Monday, 16 October, 2023
    UK companies
    Six years after Carillion, UK audit reform is still circling the drain

    Accounting regulator is no longer toothless but it still needs more powers

    The sun sets behind a construction crane showing the branding of British construction company Carillion
  • Wednesday, 11 October, 2023
    Insurance
    The insurance world is flirting with its climate doom loop

    Persistent extreme weather patterns demand appropriate pricing of risks and more emphasis on prevention

    A home in Houma, Louisiana, ruined by Hurricane Ida in 2021
  • Wednesday, 4 October, 2023
    Commercial property
    The London office market is becoming harder work

    Landlords are managing to extract a price for increased flexibility and services

    The offices of Canary Wharf in the background, covered by the Meta logo, and in the foreground the Meta office at Triton Square
  • Monday, 2 October, 2023
    London fights for its future
    Dear London, my negativity is not the problem

    Don’t blame the messenger: bad press is a symptom not a cause of the UK market’s woes

  • Wednesday, 20 September, 2023
    UK infrastructure
    Dithering and indecision: the British infrastructure curse

    Failure to make and stick to plans means big projects cost far more than they should while hampering their benefits

  • Monday, 18 September, 2023
    UK energy
    We’re back to a Big Six energy market. So now what?

    A decade of reform has left the UK with a power system in danger of failing on competition, innovation and fairness

  • Wednesday, 13 September, 2023
    Electric vehicles
    The EV car crash is a warning for Europe’s industrial transition

    China is so far ahead in the electric vehicles market that its competitors are trailing in the dust

  • Monday, 11 September, 2023
    Retail & Consumer industry
    The supermarkets’ next big product is your data

    Personalised online and in-store advertising could prove very profitable for retail chains

  • Wednesday, 6 September, 2023
    UK local government finance
    Local government audit is a serious mess

    Birmingham city council’s bankruptcy highlights the worrying state of local government finances

  • Monday, 4 September, 2023
    Equities
    Why is the London Stock Exchange muscling in on the private equity world?

    The market wants to give founders, investors and employees in private companies a way to sell their shares

    The logo of London Stock Exchange Group Plc in the office atrium in the City of London
  • Monday, 31 July, 2023
    UK economy
    These superfund zombies won’t take over the pensions market

    For-profit superfunds raise concerns about regulatory arbitrage but the need for them is much reduced after market changes

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