Taking on a dual role may become the norm for chief financial officers—especially those who are also chief operating officers—as companies face increasing complexity.
There’s an increasing trend of CFOs taking on the COO role, and some large companies are combining the functions to create a hybrid position. For Block’s Amrita Ahuja and Hasbro’s Gina Goetter, who both hold COO and CFO titles, it isn’t just about managing numbers—it’s about shaping the future of their companies.
Hasbro, the largest publicly traded toymaker in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world, has a significant manufacturing footprint. Every decision is inherently operational or financial, Goetter said during a panel session at Fortune’s COO Summit on Tuesday with Ahuja and moderated by Next to Lead Editor Ruth Umoh.
“It’s very blended,” Goetter explained. “You can’t do one without the other, and I find combining them actually creates a lot of simplicity across the organization.”
As a CFO, you have the vantage point of the entire company strategy, Goetter explained. The finance chief is one of the few individuals who can connect all the pieces together in both strategy and execution. That strategy is deeply embedded in operations, she said.
Block, a Fortune 500 fintech company, offers customers financial options such as payment plans through Afterpay, various lending choices for Square sellers, and the ability for Cash App users to split paycheck deposits between cash, bitcoin, or stocks. Ahuja provided an example of the value of having the dual CFO-COO role.
She is leading automation efforts, using generative AI and shared platforms to streamline everything from contract management to financial forecasting. “Because our teams are together, we can share infrastructure and insights across the organization,” Ahuja said.
Goetter, who joined Hasbro in 2023, pointed to navigating tariffs and macro uncertainty. By overseeing both operations and finance, she can balance day-to-day supply chain and customer management with the company’s financial health. This helps her make practical, “no regret” decisions—avoiding over-analysis—while ensuring Hasbro doesn’t end up with excess inventory in the wrong places, as happened after COVID.
“I’m confident that we’re not going to be in the same position we were coming out of COVID, where we’re sitting with action figures all over the world,” Goetter said.
But the dual CFO-COO role can be complex. “The tension in the role is aspiration and discipline,” Ahuja noted. As CFO, you advocate for growth while ensuring responsible capital allocation, she explained. As COO, you enable the business to move quickly but responsibly. She added: “No COO role is alike.” At Block, in addition to overseeing finance, she leads the legal and people functions, oversees communications and policy, and serves as chairperson of Square Financial Services, the company’s industrial bank.
Goetter emphasized the importance of finance as an enabler, not a limiter: “We want to build the business.” Wearing both hats actually makes it easier to connect strategy and execution, she said.
Finance is often viewed as the red tape you have to get through before everyone can achieve their hopes and dreams, Goetter commented. It’s unfair to characterize finance as the “‘no people’,” she added.
Fitter and Faster Swim Camps is the proud sponsor of SwimSwam’s College Recruiting Channel and all commitment news. For many, swimming in college is a lifelong dream that is pursued with dedication and determination. Fitter and Faster is proud to honor these athletes and those who supported them on their journey.
Nicholas Kwan from Jacksonville, Florida has announced his commitment to continue his academic and athletic careers at Georgia beginning in fall 2026.
Kwan swims for Bolles School Sharks out of Florida. In December, he swam at Winter Juniors East, finishing 35th in the 200 free in a 1:39.00. That marked a lifetime best. He also was 49th in the 200 fly (1:50.66) and 70th in the 500 free (4:33.44).
In March, he swam to another personal best in the 200 free as he posted a 1:37.85 at the Florida State Championships. He also swam to a lifetime best of a 1:48.58 200 fly and 4:00.71 400 IM.
So far this summer, he swam a lifetime best 52.27 100 free at the Pro Series stop in Fort Lauderdale. He swam even faster in the event in Singapore at the 20th Singapore National Swimming Championships posting a 51.98 in prelims.
Kwan’s Best SCY Times are:
100 free: 45.49
200 free: 1:37.85
500 free: 4:30.85
100 fly: 50.30
200 fly: 1:48.58
400 IM: 4:00.71
The Georgia men finished 4th at the 2025 SEC Championships and went on to finish 7th at NCAAs. Luca Urlando led the way at NCAAs with an NCAA record 200 butterfly and scored a total of 45 individual points.
Based on his best times, Kwan will look to improve to make a final at SECs. It took a 1:44.30 200 fly, 1:34.99 200 free, and a 4:18.24 500 free to earn a second swim.
Kwan will arrive next fall as a member of the class of 2030 along with Sam Lofstrom. Lofstrom hails from Colorado and primarily swims sprint free.
If you have a commitment to report, please send an email with a photo (landscape, or horizontal, looks best) and a quote to [email protected].
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Students were sitting in their classrooms at a secondary school in Graz when a 21-year-old Austrian man shot dead nine people, before killing himself.
Twelve people were injured in Tuesday morning’s violence, with one person dying hours later in hospital from their injuries.
The incident was the deadliest mass shooting in Austria’s recent history and the country has declared three days of mourning.
Police are still investigating why the gunman – a former student who did not graduate – carried out the attack.
Here is what we know so far.
What happened?
The first shot echoed through Dreierschützengasse secondary school, in the north-west of Graz, close to the main train station, at about 10:00 local time (09:00 BST), initially sparking confusion as to what was happening.
“Was that a shot? That can’t be true. Something must have fallen at the construction site across the street,” a 17-year-old student, identified as F, said to his friends, according to the Kleine Zeitung newspaper.
One student told Die Presse that when shots rang out, his teacher immediately locked the classroom.
Another student told the paper that at first she thought the shots were firecrackers, but “then there was screaming, and we ran”.
Paul Nitsche, a religious studies teacher at the school, told the AFP news agency he was in a classroom when he heard a “bang” followed by the sound of bullet casings hitting the floor of the corridor.
“Something snapped inside me, I jumped up, and decided to run,” he said.
As he fled, he caught a glimpse of the shooter. “As I ran down the stairs, I thought to myself, ‘This isn’t real”.
He said he realised what had happened when he “saw a student lying on the floor and a teacher was there”.
Local resident Astrid, who lives in a building next to the school, told the BBC she heard 30 or 40 shots. Her husband Franz called the police.
“We saw one pupil at the window – it looked like he was getting ready to jump out… but then he went back inside,” Franz said.
The couple later saw the students had “got out of the school on the ground floor, from the other side” where they “gathered on the street”, Franz said.
The shooter took his own life in a school bathroom shortly after the gun attack, the authorities said.
The first emergency calls reached police at exactly 10:00, with the first patrol arriving on scene at 10:06, police said on Wednesday. Shortly after, a Cobra tactical unit, which handles attacks and hostage situations, and other specialist units arrived.
Police brought the situation under control in 17 minutes. More than 300 police in total were deployed to the school.
Gunshots heard and students evacuate in videos filmed at Austrian school
Who are the victims?
Nine students – six girls and three boys – between the ages of 14 and 17 were killed in the shooting, police said. A teacher died of her injuries in hospital.
All were Austrian citizens, except for one Polish citizen.
The victims have not yet been named by the authorities.
One woman, Tores, told BBC News in Graz’s main square on Wednesday that she knew one of the boys who had died. He was 17.
“I’ve know this family for a long time, including the son of the family, and knew that he attended that school. I rang immediately, to ask if everything is OK. Then they let me know at midday, that the boy was one of those slaughtered,” she said.
“What happened yesterday is completely awful, the whole of Austria is in mourning,” she said. “This is terrible for the whole of Austria.”
The other eleven injured people are currently out of danger, police said on Wednesday. They are between the ages of 15 and 26. Eight are from Austria, two from Romania and one from Iran.
Getty Images
What do we know about the shooter?
The 21-year-old, who has not yet been named, was an Austrian man from the wider Graz region who acted alone, police said.
He lived with his single mother, who is also Austrian, in the Graz-Umgebung district, police said in a press release on Wednesday.
His father, who is originally from Armenia, had not lived in the same household since their separation.
He was a former Dreierschützengasse student who did not graduate from the school, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told a news conference on Tuesday.
In a statement on Wednesday, police said they found a “farewell letter”, “farewell video”, a non-functional pipe bomb and apparently abandoned plans for a bomb attack during a search of the suspect’s home.
He legally owned the pistol and shotgun used in the attack, police added.
Police said they are still investigating a possible motive.
What are Austria’s gun laws?
Austria has one of the most heavily armed civilian populations in Europe, with an estimated 30 firearms per 100 persons, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project.
Machine guns and pump action guns are banned, while revolvers, pistols and semi-automatic weapons are allowed only with official authorisation. Rifles and shotguns are permitted with a firearms licence or a valid hunting licence, or for members of traditional shooting clubs.
School shootings are rare. There have been a few incidents over the years that have involved far fewer casualties:
In 2018, a 19-year-old was shot by another youth in Mistelbach, north of Vienna
In 2012 in St Pölten, a pupil was shot dead by his father
In 1997, in Zöbern, a 15-year-old killed a teacher and seriously injured another
In 1993, a 13-year-old boy in Hausleiten seriously injured the head teacher and then killed himself
Austria’s most violent gun attack in recent years took place in the heart of Vienna in November 2020. Four people were killed and 22 injured when a convicted jihadist ran through the centre of the city opening fire, before he was eventually shot by police.
Tuesday’s shooting took place almost a decade after three people were killed when a man drove his car into crowds in Graz on 20 June 2015.
Fanny Gasser, a journalist for the Austrian daily newspaper Kronen Zeitung, told BBC News the school was likely unprepared for the possibility of an attack.
“We are not living in America, we are living in Austria, which seems like a very safe space.”
MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles.The below article originally appeared in Tim Ingham’s latest MBW+ Review email, issued exclusively to MBW+ subscribers this week.
To understand how clever Taylor Swift’s team is, fire up Google.
For my money, Swift has only made one major career blunder over the past six years: her starring role in the 2019 Hollywood stinker Cats. A film so bad, Ricky Gervais memorably called it “the worst thing to happen to cats… since dogs”.
Yet plonk “Taylor Swift Cats” into the globe’s favorite search engine today and you’ll struggle to spot any evidence that this much-maligned movie ever existed.
Instead, you’ll find multiple SEO-dominant press articles (People, Cosmopolitan, US Weekly), plus one prominent Reddit forum, all focused on the trio of domestic felines that Taylor keeps as pets.
You’ll even find, on page one of Google, a handsomely furnished Wikipedia page for one of Swift’s moggies, Olivia Benson.
Forget ‘Taylor Swift in Cats’. Did you mean ‘Taylor Swift’s cats’?
You can’t convince me that any of this is coincidence.
To my mind, it’s perfect/purrfect evidence that Swift and her self-run organization can exert more influence on the internet, and its consumers, than most corporations could ever dream of.
She’s capable of globally exploding her proudest and most lucrative moments (see: Eras tour ticket sales). And, like a Mr Wolf of the internet, she and her media acolytes can largely wipe clean her mistakes – as if they never happened.
This all provides a sensible justification as to why Swift just spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying the master rights to her first six albums from Shamrock Holdings.
The logic: By leveraging her own peerless fan-activating channels, Swift can trigger more interest in these records than arguably any other entity on earth. Especially a publicity-shy private equity firm with no real ability to directly persuade or motivate consumers.
We don’t need to re-live the full extent of the Swift masters saga here. But according to MBW’ssources, Shamrock paid Scooter Braun a total of $405 million for the masters to Swift’s first six albums via a 2020 deal. That price included $360 million upfront plus a subsequent $45 million earn-out based on performance.
Reading between the lines of various recent media reports, it seems Shamrock may just have sold Swift her masters for a similar fee to the $405 million it paid to get them.
This would certainly explain Swift’s enthusiasm for Shamrock’s behavior during the process. (Swift wrote the other week: “This was a business deal to [Shamrock], but… I am endlessly thankful. My first tattoo might just be a huge shamrock in the middle of my forehead.”)
If Shamrock didn’t make a bundle of profit from the sale, don’t let your heart bleed. Remember that the firm has absorbed almost five solid years of royalty cash-flow from these assets, during a period when Swift has ascended to never-before-seen commercial heights.
Yet, over and above the appeal of a quiet PE firm retreating from all the Swiftian drama (Taylor’s Versions et al), you have to wonder whyShamrock and its music heads (including the well-liked Patrick Russo) decided to flip these assets of the world’s biggest megastar… now.
One theory: it’s all about Shamrock’s awareness of the future of the music rights business – and how essential the ‘portfolio effect’ will be for anyone looking to claim a sizable chunk of it in the years ahead.
According to the IFPI, Taylor Swift’s recorded music has generated more than any other artist on the planet for the past three years in a row.
But here’s the thing about being the world’s biggest megastar in 2025: your dominance of the overall market, just like that of a major record company, is continually being nibbled into by an endless stream of music you don’t own.
Firstly, there’s the continuing wave of self-uploading artists to consider – a key factor in the addition of around 99,000 tracks per day onto streaming services.
There’s also the incoming tsunami of AI-generated music from the likes of Suno and Udio. (Did you see that ‘Masters Of Prophecy’ – a hub for AI-made Musak – reportedly just overtook Mr. Beast to become YouTube‘s fastest-growing channel?)
Finally, and most importantly, there’s the rise of what might once have been termed ‘regional’ music – and its increasing impact on global charts.
From Luminate‘s 2024 annual report: “English-speaking markets are losing local share to non-English language imports…while many non-English speaking markets show local content gaining share.”
Artists from the United States lost 0.20% market share of premium streams in the US last year; globally, they lost 0.44%.
Despite Swift’s massive popularity, as a market share proposition, even she is being affected by these trends.
According to my reading of Luminate data, Swift claimed approximately 0.9% of the 1.4 trillion total on-demand audio streams in the United States last year.
In industry parlance, Swift is (in and of herself) a very significant independent label.
But it would be a shock if her share of global streams (and therefore her share of streaming’s revenue ‘pie’) didn’t continue declining in the years ahead.
This brings us to the ‘portfolio effect’.
Companies like Universal Music Group have grown used to seeing artists like Taylor Swift negotiate deals under which they keep ownership of their copyrights – and receive higher royalty margins than they once did.
UMG is therefore adjusting to a lower-margin reality when it comes to frontline music in 2025.
Yet, simultaneously, major music companies are working hard to avoid being overly exposed to the fortunes of any one artist.
Indeed, UMG’s Top 50 artists only accounted for 24% of its recorded music revenue in 2024.
In its latest annual report, the company wrote, “Our extraordinarily diverse roster of artists… means that our business’ success is not reliant on one artist or even a small number of artists.”
Like its fellow majors, UMG faces its own market share challenges from (a) the endless influx of music onto streaming services and (b) the changing listening patterns of global music fans.
This is partly why Universal is investing $775 million to buy Downtown — to bolster its market share across publishing and records, while further lessening its reliance on the superstar economy.
In contrast, for a passive investor like Shamrock, betting everything on a single megastar, however dominant, is a dangerous gamble. As musical attention becomes increasingly democratized, even the mightiest individual catalog faces structural headwinds.
In terms of her own legacy, then, Taylor Swift has just reclaimed control. But she’s done so in a marketplace where ‘control’ is an increasingly foreign concept.Music Business Worldwide
Electric vehicles have become a common sight on roads, both in urban areas and on highways. Their increasing popularity is largely driven by ongoing advancements in battery technology. Each year, manufacturers introduce models with extended ranges and faster, more efficient charging systems. However, this shift also presents challenges, particularly in managing batteries at the end of their lifecycle. Fortunately, innovative technologies are emerging to repurpose these batteries, offering them a second life.
In this article, we will explore:
Advances in electric car batteries and their lifespan
Electric car batteries are the heart of these vehicles, determining key aspects such as range, charging speed, and overall durability. Over the past decade, battery technology has advanced significantly. Today’s batteries are lighter, more efficient, and have higher energy density, enabling vehicles to achieve ranges of over 400 to 500 kilometres. These improvements have alleviated “range anxiety,” a common concern among potential EV buyers, and have contributed to wider acceptance of electric vehicles.
Main types of batteries in use today
Dada la importancia de la composición química y la arquitectura interna de las baterías, resulta fundamental conocer los principales tipos que se utilizan actualmente. A grandes rasgos, podemos clasificarlas de la siguiente forma:
Baterías de iones de litio (Li-ion). Son las más comunes en la mayoría de los vehículos eléctricos actuales. Destacan por su alta densidad energética y buen rendimiento a distintas temperaturas.
Baterías de polímero de litio (LiPo). A diferencia de las Li-ion, emplean un polímero sólido o semisólido como electrolito. Son más ligeras y flexibles, por lo que se suelen usar en drones y equipos electrónicos, aunque también tienen su espacio en la movilidad.
Baterías de estado sólido. Se consideran la gran revolución pendiente en el sector. Sustituyen el electrolito líquido por uno sólido, lo que mejora la seguridad y aumenta la densidad energética.
Baterías de níquel e hidruro metálico (NiMH). Se utilizaron en los primeros híbridos, pero han ido cayendo en desusos con la llegada de las Li-ion.
Recycling applications for electric vehicle batteries
The recycling of electric vehicle batteries has become a critical issue for the electric mobility industry and environmental regulators worldwide. Recycling seeks to reduce the environmental impact of battery waste while recovering valuable materials, such as scarce metals and minerals. These materials can then be reused, decreasing reliance on raw material extraction and supporting the circular economy. Below are some of the most common recycling applications:
Stationary energy storage for solar panels
One of the most prominent alternatives for batteries that have lost capacity after thousands of charging cycles is their reuse in stationary energy storage systems, often referred to as their “second life.” This approach has gained particular relevance with the growth of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, which require reliable storage solutions to manage production variability.
Second-life electric car batteries are commonly used to store energy generated by solar panels in residential settings or for applications like campsites. However, larger-scale projects are also being developed. One example is ACCIONA Energía’s project in Extremadura, Spain.
This initiative involves a storage system at the Extremadura I-II-III photovoltaic plant near Almendralejo, using batteries mainly sourced from electric motorcycles. Notably, the site also coexists with an important archaeological area.
The storage system, classified as a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS), consists of two containers housing retired batteries with a total capacity of 2 MW/5 MWh. This system stores a portion of the energy generated by the plant and improves its integration into the power grid. As part of this pilot project, the performance and reliability of batteries from different sources are also being evaluated.
Integration in shared mobility projects
Another application for second-life EV batteries involves their use in fleets of smaller, lower-powered vehicles, such as golf carts, scooters, and electric bicycles, as well as in shared mobility initiatives in urban areas. Since these lighter vehicles have lower energy demands, batteries can remain functional for several years despite their reduced capacity.
This approach offers significant cost savings while also reducing the carbon footprint of the micro-mobility sector. Several startups and small companies are experimenting with this technology, particularly for last-mile delivery and urban transportation services. For instance, a delivery operator in Barcelona is using second-life batteries in its cargo bicycles, providing a practical example of how these systems can work in real-world settings.
Recycling processes for metal recovery
When batteries degrade to the point where they can no longer power lower-demand vehicles or be used in stationary systems, they are recycled. Recycling involves disassembling the battery modules, separating the components, and extracting valuable metals and materials through chemical or mechanical processes
In Europe, regulations set specific recycling targets. By 2025, manufacturers must recover at least 65 percent of battery materials, including 50 percent of lithium and 10 percent of cobalt. These regulations aim to reduce reliance on raw material extraction and improve the sustainability of battery life cycles.
The Battery Passport is a digital traceability system that has emerged as a valuable tool in this context. It tracks the lifecycle of batteries, providing detailed information on their composition and condition. This facilitates efficient recycling and ensures the recovery of critical materials like lithium, cobalt, and nickel.
Innovative companies, such as the Canadian firm Li-Cycle, are developing advanced recycling processes. These methods achieve recovery rates of over 90 percent, demonstrating the potential to significantly enhance the sustainability of battery production and use.
The future of battery recycling
The recycling of electric car batteries is becoming a cornerstone of the energy transition and the circular economy. As the number of electric vehicles increases and their batteries reach the end of their useful life, developing effective and responsible waste management solutions is essential.
The environmental impact of extracting metals like lithium and cobalt, combined with the growing demand for new batteries, makes the recovery and reuse of these materials critical for the sector’s long-term sustainability.
For more information on large-scale energy storage and Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), you may find this article discussing key developments in the field insightful.
The United States and China agreed to roll back some of the punitive measures they had taken against each other’s economies and return to a trade truce reached in May, officials from both countries said on Tuesday.
After two days of marathon negotiations in London, top economic officials from the United States and China are now expected to present the new “framework agreement” to their leaders, President Trump and China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for final approval.
The agreement, the full details of which were not immediately released, is intended to return the relationship to the terms that the United States and China reached in Switzerland last month. That deal had unraveled in recent weeks, after China continued to restrict shipments of valuable rare earth minerals and magnets needed by U.S. manufacturers.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was part of the negotiating team, told reporters gathered in London after the talks that American concerns over China’s restrictions on exports of minerals and magnets had been resolved. He also said that the measures that the United States had taken in response to those Chinese restrictions would be reversed “in a balanced way.”
U.S. officials had tried to put pressure on China in recent weeks by clamping down on exports of American products and technology, including chemicals, airplane parts and software, as well as proposing barring Chinese students from enrolling in universities in the United States.
A person familiar with the negotiations who was not authorized to speak publicly said the Chinese side had agreed to begin sending the United States rare earths, while the United States would roll back export controls implemented on Chinese products since the meeting in Geneva, and that both efforts would happen simultaneously.
Mr. Lutnick, along with Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, will brief Mr. Trump on the deal on Wednesday, the person said.
“We do absolutely expect the topic of rare earth minerals and magnets with respect to the United States of America will be resolved in this framework implementation,” Mr. Lutnick said.
Mr. Greer, who took part in the discussions, said the two sides would remain in regular contact as they tried to work through their economic disagreements, a point both sides had also agreed to after the Geneva talks. But he said that another meeting had not yet been scheduled.
Officials had met at Lancaster House in London, adjacent to St James’s Palace, to try to restore their truce. The talks continued late into the night, at times growing tense and seeming as if they might fall apart, the person familiar with the negotiations said.
Last week, Mr. Trump held a 90-minute phone call with Mr. Xi — the first time the two heads of state had spoken directly since Mr. Trump returned to office in January.
A 90-day pause on some tariffs, which the countries agreed to in Geneva, is scheduled to expire in August. Mr. Greer said that both sides were “motivated,” but that it would be up to Mr. Trump to decide if the pause would be extended as additional negotiations proceeded.
Mr. Greer also said that the topic of a broader trade deal had come up, but that the current meetings were focused on implementing the agreements reached in Geneva and by the two leaders in their call.
China’s official Xinhua news agency issued a cautious statement, saying the two sides had agreed “in principle” — a term used by state media and diplomats to indicate that details have not been worked out. According to Xinhua, the discussions were “professional, rational, in-depth and candid.” Chinese state media often uses the term “candid” when there have been considerable disagreements.
The countries made the announcement shortly before the Trump administration attained an early yet important win in a fight over the legality of its tariffs.
In Washington, a federal appeals court agreed on Tuesday to allow Mr. Trump to maintain many of those import duties, which a lower court declared to be illegal in late May. The stay will preserve the centerpiece of the president’s trade agenda while federal lawyers battle with states and businesses that say they were harmed by tariffs that Mr. Trump had no authority to issue.
U.S. officials said that the court rulings on tariffs had not come up in the discussions with the Chinese.
Mr. Bessent, who had led the American delegation, left the talks late Tuesday to return to Washington for congressional hearings on Wednesday. On the Chinese side, the negotiations were led by He Lifeng, the vice premier in charge of economic policy.
American dependence on China for rare earth metals and rare earth magnets has given Beijing a formidable tool for putting pressure on the American economy. After Mr. Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese goods in April, Beijing clamped down on exports of critical minerals and magnets, threatening to shut down operations by American manufacturers, defense contractors and others.
The United States has a single rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., and has very little capacity to process rare earths into needed chemicals and then into magnets. The rare earth restrictions motivated the U.S. side to meet with Chinese officials in Geneva last month.
But after that meeting, Trump administration officials were dismayed when Chinese shipments of the rare earth minerals, and the magnets made with them, remained infrequent. They accused China of violating the Geneva agreement.
In an effort to pressure China to lift its curbs, U.S. officials clamped down on exports of some American products and technology to China, including software for making semiconductors, gases like ethane and butane, and nuclear and aerospace components. U.S. officials also proposed the ban on enrolling Chinese students.
It remains unclear whether the latest framework will hold, and analysts were skeptical that a broader pact was imminent.
“Two days of negotiations are better than none, but frankly, we’ve seen these extended negotiations in the past,” Henrietta Treyz, director of economic policy at Veda Partners, wrote in a research note. “There’s a lot of time spent translating, confirming meaning and reiterating framing that goes on in these negotiations that make them time consuming but ultimately keep a lot of the status quo, which appears to be what’s come out of London.”
Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Beijing, and Tony Romm from Washington.
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has unveiled a 3 per cent funding increase for the National Health Service in a spending review that Labour intends as a platform for the next election.
Reeves said she would make a “record cash investment” into the NHS, increasing real terms spending in every year of the review period.
The chancellor’s plans have caused disputes within the government over squeezing many areas while the Conservative opposition warns that the review will lead to tax rises.
Reeves confirmed that total departmental budgets will rise by 2.3 per cent a year in real terms over the three years of the spending review to 2028-29.
Much of the boost is set to go to defence-related expenditure, which is set to rise to 2.6 per cent of GDP from 2027, as well as health, leaving other departments facing real-terms cuts.
Reeves also announced a £39bn investment for “affordable” homes over 10 years, and an additional £10bn to help “crowd in” private sector investment in housebuilding.
The affordable homes plans are part of a borrowing-fuelled spending spree on capital projects, including £113bn of extra cash over the current parliament.
The chancellor added that the government was investing in “the biggest rollout of nuclear power for half a century”.
Reeves sought to draw a contrast with the previous Conservative policy of austerity, which she labelled as “a destructive choice”. She added that her fiscal rules were “non-negotiable and . . . the foundation of stability and investment”.
