13/07/2026

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0:40You end up with fragmented, disconnected systems that cost a fortune and don't talk to each other. Odoo completely changes that. Odoo comes fully complete, with all your business apps perfectly integrated and working together seamlessly. It's everything your business needs in one place, saving you time, headaches, and serious money. Stop paying for missing pieces. Go to odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com to learn more. Wake Up To Money from BBC Five Live. Hello, welcome to Wake Up To Money. It was a slog, then it was a nail biter, then it was time to hope once again. England saw off Norway, now it's Argentina standing in their way to reach the World Cup final.

1:26So as the three lions march on, we'll find out if hospitality is doing a roaring trade. And speaking of things that are semi-final, the on-again, off-again acquisition by Paramount of Warner Brothers Discovery. Now several US states are expected to file a lawsuit challenging the deal. We'll look at what that might mean. Plus, we've seen the US and Iran trade strikes over the weekend. And now Middle East disruption is starting to hit global supply chains. Wake up to money with Felicity Hanna. Very good morning to you. Welcome to Wake Up To Money. Welcome to Monday, the new week, the 13th of July.

2:01Just coming up to five minutes past five. I think I'm a bit croaky today from groaning and cheering on Saturday night. And I expect quite a few of you had a late one. So very, very good to have your company this morning. England moves on. The next game is on Wednesday night. Don't worry. I feel like Five Live is going to make sure you don't forget that. It might come up over the next few days. But later on in the show, we'll be hearing from pub bosses in England and Miami to hear what the games so far have meant for them. So this morning, get in touch and let me know. We'll get in touch about everything that we're chatting about.

2:39But tell me if the football has got you spending. Have you been buying, I don't know, a bit more beer, a bit more bunting, a few more burgers as you follow the games? Will you be in the pub on a school night for the semi-final? Get in touch. Let me know about your soccer spending. You can text me on 85058. You can send me a WhatsApp message on 08085 909693. And on social media, you can use the hashtag WakeUpToMoney. I will keep an eye on that. I will also be keeping an eye in glorious 3D, because he's in the studio with me, on Lee Nolan, UK and Ireland MD at Hitachi Vantara. Lee, good morning.

3:17Good morning. First time on Wake Up To Money, so welcome. I think that what our listeners will need to know straight away is what Hitachi Vantara actually does. Yes, so Hitachi Vantara is part of the wider Hitachi Group, which is about a$70 billion organisation. We provide, Hitachi Vantara provide hardware and software solutions for organisations across the world. I love the word solutions in that context, solutions. Solutions. Yeah, across the world. So some of the largest financial organisations, we provide solutions that they manage their data, which is the lifeblood of any organisation. Well, I'll ask you more about that, Lee.

3:53We will hear more. But let's just say good morning to Ella Good, Head of Fixed Income and Co-Head of Real Return at Newton Investments. Ella, good morning. Good morning. Are we building to some excitement now for Wednesday? I feel that by Wednesday, Five Live is just going to be vibrating with excitement. But Ella, did you watch the match? absolutely and it was very very exciting and fantastic results so yeah lots of screaming and shouting here at times it was exciting at times i i had my head in my hands but at least at least the result was what we wanted lee did you uh did you sit up and yes i did it was hugely exciting i watched my parents actually so it was fantastic to watch um before the game started my And Dan actually said he had butterflies.

4:37So it's great to see us win. It was. I mean, it was the outcome we wanted, but it took some time getting there. We were talking about sort of football spending this morning. Is this the kind of event, you know, when we talk about sort of GDP and we talk about things that might have boosted spending and the weather has done this to spending and the rain did that to spending. Is the football something that can typically have a kind of measurable impact on how much we get out and spend? Yes, and possibly, I mean, for example, in the US, we're already seeing that in terms of the World Cup effect, right?

5:15But of course, as a hosting country, you would expect that. So we're seeing that in much better economic data, including employment. But here, it's, of course, being combined with very good weather. So things like sales, like expenditure in pubs and restaurants, that is also ticking up. So we're seeing a marginal improvement on the consumption side. What's interesting, isn't it? Because we had a few messages on this already. Catherine on social media says that she bought extra snacks, but that was because it was on so late. And somebody else who doesn't give their name says that they bought a 10 pack of beer to save them going to the pubs and that they wonder if the hours the games have played has affected people going out.

5:56I mean, it's the kind of thing where it's perhaps not been. We'll hear from hospitality later on and we'll ask them, but these middle of the night games haven't necessarily been very helpful. Ella? Yes, sorry. Yes, I mean, I was going to say that there is a limited budget, obviously, for all of us, right, up to a certain extent. And so, of course, you're going to shift that budget from elsewhere. Let's say you had an expenditure budget for this month. if you're spending that on snacks and say some extra beer, it's going to come out of somewhere. So it's understandable that the net effect is perhaps not greater, but it's perhaps more of a shift to other areas and ways of spending it.

6:41Well, 85058, let me know about your soccer spending this morning. But Lee, let's dig in then to your business. You provide solutions. I love that. But explain more about the kinds of things that you're doing for the companies that you work with and how business is going. Yeah. So, look, it's probably the simplest way. Data is every organization with digital, whichever business you're in now. It's been described as the new oil, right? You cut it off and no organization can function. So we specialize in supporting enabling AI solutions as well as cyber recovery solutions. And, you know, we've seen the much publicised JLR co-op incidents that cost them, you know, the likes of Marks and Spencer.

7:27I think it cost their profits for the year, so many hundreds of millions. And actually had an impact on the GDP we were just talking about, so significant that it was seen in the UK's sort of measurable economic outcomes. Yeah. And it's not about if you're going to be here, it's when. So it's your ability to recover from that that's so important. So business is good. The big thing affecting our business and IT across the world is supply and pricing. So component pricing has gone up exponentially, six to eight times is anticipated in the next sort of 18 months or so. So huge increases in price, supply issues as well.

8:08So projects are being delayed for organizations. But with that, results are good. You know, component providers, the likes of Micron, Samsung. I mean, if you look at Micron, their share price has gone up by 700 % in the last 12 months. Samsung's up by 500%. So there's huge momentum in the market, but AI is the big focus right now. There is huge momentum in the market, Ella, isn't there? And it's one of the interesting things. We're seeing certain AI sort of based businesses or businesses that are supplying AI with the actual tech that they need, the hardware that they need to keep growing. We're seeing just enormous growth in this area.

8:52Absolutely. And the market's been very, very active on that space with a lot of capital raising. And basically, this is where, as we say, we've had most of the growth. And it's been gyrating, if you like, between the different sectors. So the picks and shovels that make the stuff you need for AI have done phenomenally well, as was just highlighted now. and it's an area that's very closely watched in the market because it also breeds a lot of nervousness when things move with so much magnitude. It can also create a lot of volatility in markets. And Lee, as you're saying, it can create shortages as well when everyone's after the same kind of stuff.

9:32The microchips in particular, that can cause real issues. Yeah, and I mean Gartner has predicted spend, which I'm flabbergasted by when I saw this number, but$2.52 trillion for 2026 is the investment from an AI perspective. So it's vast, and that's only looking to increase. The Strait of Hormuz, where some say it's shut, some say it's open, they produce about 30 % of the global supply for helium, which also supports the production of semiconductors. So that's having a compounding effect on the supply shortages as well. So, yeah, it's a challenging market. We're seeing organisations bring forward their investment to get ahead of supply issues, get ahead of price changes.

10:18And that in itself is really accelerating results in the market. Do you have concerns then that as we're seeing this just phenomenal growth that you as a business, you gear up, you work with these businesses, you grow enormously. Does it ever concern you that if we did see a squeeze in the future, if we did see a loss in confidence, you know, people keep talking about, you know, the sort of the Internet bubble that we've seen in the past and whether we could be heading for something similar? I mean, is that something that you have to sort of plan for as a business? Yeah, look, I think every organization has to plan for a whole section of pathways that we can go down.

10:59I think the monetization of the investment is the challenge here. and I think you're seeing a whole stack of reports about the investment, is the market actually going to get the return on that investment and that's the biggest issue. For us, we are investing and we are growing as an organisation, which is great. I think I'll leave it to some of the financial analysts to predict where the market's going to be in 18 months' time but there are many, many, I think a whole stack of analysts have looked at whether or not AI is going to generate the financial return based on the investments being put forward.

11:38And Ella, I suppose that's that financial analysts don't like being asked to predict because even though that's sort of the job, it's extremely hard to do. We are working with a huge number of unknowns when it comes to AI. And one of the big unknowns is what kind of impact it might have on the productivity of a country like the UK, whether AI could be something that really transforms our much wider economic outlook? I mean, you can certainly believe that it will have a major impact in our lives. I mean, it can facilitate, for example, a lot of tasks that would have required, perhaps, you know, if you're doing a startup, for example, you would require a lot of hiring, and so on and so forth.

12:20While obviously that has other negative repercussions, on the productivity side, you can see quite a bit of improvement. Now, you have have to separate productivity and the revolutionary impact versus, you know, how much of that is already priced in financial markets and what can happen, as was just said, with regards to revenue and profits. So you have to sort of compartmentalize those things. We might have potentially overshot a little bit on the financial market side here. And so we will need to see that revenue. But with regards to productivity, I certainly would be on the camp that believes it will be transforming our lives.

12:55It's already begun to do that. And of course, as all the technology gets smarter and gets more impressive, and I've heard it said that AI doubles in inability sort of every six months or so, Lee, I suppose that adds to the cybersecurity pressures on companies. Yeah, and we've seen that in the market. We've seen Anthropic hold back some of the releases and then because it would have exposed potentially security flaws in some of the major providers worldwide. Yeah, there is a race, right? They call it an arms race with regards to leveraging AI and exposing where we are from cyber, which is why when I spoke about earlier, the emphasis here is how the speed of recovery.

13:39You are going to be impacted in some way. So many organizations that we speak to have had some form of impact. Your ability to recover from that cleanly and carry on operations, your ability to produce your minimum viable business and move forward. I, you know, I call it an extinction level event. I don't think we're probably that far away from a point where an organisation, a well-known brand, is impacted so heavily by a cyber attack it disappears. It just folds for business. That's a genuine risk that we have. And we spend a lot of time working with our customers, ensuring that they have the ability to recover from those things.

14:16And do you think that across the UK, there's kind of enough understanding of the risks of cyber attacks? It's your work is never done. You know, it continues constantly, constant improvement. I think in answer specifically to your question, it differs wildly depending on the type of organisation. SMEs it's a real challenge for because, you know, the level of investment required and expertise required to keep up is a real challenge for those sides of organisations. It's just ensuring that you're carrying out tests to ensure you understand how quickly you can recover. And so therefore, at a board level, it gives you the assurances that should you be in that position, you can actually carry on operations.

15:02And what's the biggest risk when it comes to cybersecurity for companies across the UK? Is the biggest risk that they're being hacked into something that sort of happens where no one can see it, their systems just get broken into? Or is it that an employee gets manipulated in some way into allowing bad actors in? Yeah, well, it's widely publicized in the sector. the biggest entry point, most prevalent entry point for any cyber attack is people, you know, clicking on links, etc. That's why there's a whole host of cyber training you'll be on in corporate organisations. But the whole point is that there's any entry point.

15:46You know, there was a report many years ago where a cyber attack took place, they got into the network via the fish tank, because the fish tank was the literal fish tank, the fish tank was connected to the network, So the thermostat was connected into the network. They hacked through the fish tank to get into the environment. The whole point of these attacks is you don't know they've happened because they look to get into your backup environment. So where you're storing all your data, making sure that you're looking after everything, they want to go quietly and silently, find that area, encrypt, block, and then they'll make themselves known and then you get the ransomware attacks, etc.

16:26So they are pretty sophisticated. Some are brute force. Often they're pretty sophisticated and quite targeted. And so you just need to make sure you've got those back-end assurances and technology and solutions in place to be able to recover quickly. Wow, a fish tank because nothing in your business exists in a bubble. OK, no, I'm sorry. That was shocking, shocking. Lots of you getting in touch with your soccer spending this morning. Jane in Oxford says both Weatherspoons in Oxford were packed for the football. I watched at home with five live commentary. Well done, Jane. with chocolate pretzels and orange soda from my local shop.

16:59Thank you for that. And Glenn in Scotland says, if the hospitality sector is doing well in England because of the England team's success in the World Cup, is that the same in other parts of the UK? I live in Scotland. And while there is interest in the tournament, from what I've seen, it's more at the level there would have been in England where the England team no longer involved. So there you go. Get in touch with me from across the UK. Are you still heading to the pub to watch the matches? Keep your thoughts coming this morning on that, on everything that we're talking about. And one of the things that we are going to talk about are oil prices.

17:31Because once again, we're waking you up on a Monday morning to say that the US and Iran have continued to trade strikes over the weekend. And each side has been saying something a bit different about the Strait of Hormuz, this narrow waterway you almost certainly remember by now. Now, we've been talking about it for months, through which so much of the world's oil and gas and, as Lee was saying, even other important elements pass through. Yesterday, the US was insisting that the strait was open to commercial traffic. Iran said that it was closed to foreign vessels. So it's very, very hard to know what's going on and what the impact might be.

18:15Let's talk to William Lee, Chief Economist at Global Economic Advisers and former Chief US Economist at Citibank. William, good morning. Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me on. Thank you very, very much for joining us. So more instability in the strait. What's your understanding of what's going on? And what's it doing to oil prices? Because I feel like it's not perhaps been as much movement as we've previously seen. That's really the key to everything. The fact that the global markets are not reacting as much as people thought to the kind of conflict that presumably has resumed says a lot. It says that the energy markets are not as tight as people think.

18:58Where there really is tight, it's not so much in the price of crude. It's going to be closer to the distillates, the diesel fuel and the gasoline and jet fuel, because the refining capacity in the global economy is really at its limits. And right now, China itself is one of the wild cards in this picture. Whether or not the Chinese domestic economy comes into high gear again, which is quite doubtful, is going to determine whether or not their energy demand will start to drive prices up. And right now, I think the evidence is that the fact that global prices are in their 70s and not barely cracking 80s sometimes tells you a lot about the global demand and also the demand from China.

19:43And the fact that China remains weak contributes to the low prices that we're seeing in the energy markets. Are we seeing China, though, more insulated than we maybe previously would have expected because it's made so much investment in alternative energies and renewable energies and trying to sort of move away from that oil dependency? That's the story that China is selling. Are you buying? If you buy it, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you. Because, quite frankly, China's economy is not doing well, as I said, domestically. The only thing that's keeping China going is the fact that they're exporting a lot of their surplus.

20:24The energy market in China is interesting because they have petroleum reserves that are twice the recommended level of 90 days as recommended by the International Energy Commission and such like people. Most experts feel that the 180-day supply of energy is way in excess of what any country needs, and China is right there. So China has insulated itself quite nicely from these oil shocks. Now, if you look at China's trading partners, Japan, Korea, all of ASEAN, those countries are really suffering because they don't have the luxury of all that surplus oil hidden away in their reserves. Now, if China were smart, and China is smart, what shocks me is that they don't start to sell off some of their domestic surplus that's in their strategic reserves to try to alleviate the problems that the ASEAN trading partners are having.

21:23Because, as I said, China's economy right now depends upon healthy Asia, because Asia represents an alternative market for China's exports, alternative to the European and US markets. And this is the kind of thing that could start to be felt here in the UK, isn't it? Because factory gate prices jumped last month in China because of those energy and commodity costs rising. And there are those concerns that those higher production costs could eventually be passed on to consumers around the world. China is such an absolutely key part of so many supply chains. What are we seeing there and what could we see here?

22:01A brief period of higher factory prices doesn't bode for a continued period of price increases. I think unless China demand, the China consumer comes back online and confidently starts to buy some of the stuff that's produced in China, you're not going to see these prices go up in a very sustained fashion. And right now, China's domestic economy is still suffering from the collapse in wealth and property markets, the uncertainty related to youth unemployment, and the uncertainty related to people not having a sound safety net with which to depend upon health care and also their retirement. So China's got structural problems that it has to deal with.

22:50And these are well-known. The IMF has pointed out these problems for ages. even when I was back there working at the IMF in the prehistoric days. So I think for the UK, I think the thing that you can continue to count on are cheap imports from China. Now, the question is, do you want to make yourself so dependent upon cheap imports from China? Your European neighbors, Germany, for example, is learning the misery of losing their auto industry to cheap electric vehicles. the UK has benefited from lower price goods coming from China, especially electronics. But do you want to behold, be beholden to Huawei for your electronic communications infrastructure?

23:34These are strategic questions, I think, that that are yet to be answered. Right now, the answer is no, we don't want to be beholden to China to that extent, because it could represent a national threat to national security. But then when the price is low enough, you start to compromise. And I think the discussion in the UK and all of Europe is how much am I willing to trade off national security for low prices? Stay with us, William. I want to bring in Lee on this. I mean, Lee, are you seeing price rises coming through from factory gates in China? Or are you seeing, I suppose, what William's kind of touching on there, a bit of a bit of a sugar rush of China sort of trying to move its goods into markets that will take them?

24:16Yeah, look, I've already spoken about component prices from organizations that I reference as well. And those predominantly are as the supply engine. Huawei, much publicized, you know, it's referenced there. There's not an investment in the UK market in Huawei. That's not something that I see organizations or indeed our own public sector leaning on investment wise. So I don't think that's a challenge. With regards to just general wholesale prices, yeah, it is a concern. I think we are looking for growth in the UK. And the downturn or softening of the Chinese market means that they are looking elsewhere for their growth.

24:53You know, the likes of BYD, etc., that are trying to look into European markets because their own results and their own domestic markets softening up quite a lot. Ella, is there a risk then, do you think, that all these global movements, all these geopolitical impacts end up squeezing SMEs here in the UK? I mean, energy is the key component. It's not the only component, but it's a key component that goes into really what moves stuff in everything that we consume and build. And so that's perhaps, I would say, the crucial element here. So if we can maintain sort of stable prices around here, which is not too far off in terms of Brent oil compared to, say, up to the end of February.

25:41And then we might actually be okay with regards to SME cost inputs, all else equal. But of course, you know, sustained rise from here going forward, let's say, if tensions in the Middle East persist and deteriorate, then of course, you have to question that input cost perspective might actually shift from a market stance. So far, markets haven't been concerned really about the inflationary impact, certainly over the last six to eight weeks or so. Yeah. William, what kind of impact is it having on the U.S. consumer? You know, there's so much kind of talked about the American economy, what that means globally, what the economy means for the political situation in the States.

26:23You know, how's the U.S. shopper feeling right now? Well, actually, the U.S. has insulated itself quite nicely from this oil shock. It's become much more energy efficient and the U.S. is a net exporter of oil. So it really has not really been a big topic of conversation here. Where it was a topic of conversation was the price of these distillates, the gasoline prices, jet fuel prices, diesel prices. And that is a function of refining capacity. The U.S. has really done a nice job in shooting itself in the foot by all these environmental regulations that have prevented the building of new refineries over the last several decades.

27:01And in fact, here in California, there are refiners that are being closed because they're no longer economical to run with all the new environmental regulations. So I think as far as the United States is concerned, it's really the regulatory environment and the inability of alternatives to establish themselves that have really fed into the unaffordability of a lot of the energy products, not so much the geopolitical tensions. So I think the structural change that we need here in the United States is one where we need to get rid of regulations or at least temper them and allow the building of alternatives and refineries.