A round of relief

0:00Wake Up To Money from BBC 5 Live. Hello, morning. Welcome to Wake Up To Money. A U-turn on business rate rises for some. We'll be hearing why not everybody is celebrating. Also on the programme today, we'll look back at the big economic stories of the week with our Friday panel. And tomorrow is apparently Sunshine Saturday, traditionally the most popular day to book your summer holiday. So is this you this weekend? Not enjoying the nasty weather, so I need some nice sun, hopefully. It's just really cold, isn't it? And I want to feel the sun in my skin. Yeah, we'll have a travel agent join us a little bit later on to tell us where the hot destinations are for 2026.

0:37Wake Up To Money with Will Bade. Morning, welcome to Wake Up To Money on Friday the 9th of January. Just gone five o 'clock in the morning. Will with you this morning. Great as always to have your company. Yes, lots to pick through from the week that's just gone, isn't there? What's going on with the price of oil? Some big news potentially today on tariffs from the United States and lots of results from those companies that we use all the time this week. the big supermarkets, the high street retailers for over that key Christmas period. So lots to pick through there. We'll also, as I say, be chatting about business rates relief because it looks like there may be a U-turn for pubs in England in terms of how much their business rates might rise, but others in hospitality and, in fact, across the high street asking what about them and why they're being left out as well.

1:21And, yes, are you like those listeners we heard from there out and about in a very wet and cold Salford yesterday dreaming of a holiday and an escape from the rain it was just starting to come down as I got in the taxi this morning again do let us know and let us know where you're going are you one of those people booking your holiday if you want to join the conversation on that or anything else in fact you hear throughout the programme this morning you can do so in all the usual ways the text number is 85058 the WhatsApp number is 08085 909693 we would love to know your thoughts as we move through the morning as always we've got a panel of guests in as well too for the next hour as well and with us this morning is Obi Edukemi, Global Equities Fund Manager at the investment firm Carmignac.

2:03Obi, great to have you back on. Wake up to money. Morning. Good morning, Will. How are you? Yeah, well, thanks. Tariffs then today, is that going to be quite a lot of eyes on that Supreme Court ruling from kind of investments perspective? Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, from our side of the fence, it was a challenging year for investments in any stocks that were tariff related, partly because there was that nervousness about not only the level of tariffs, but how long the tariffs would last for. So I think any sort of relief on that will help investors kind of find a low in some of the valuations of some of what I think are very, very, very good businesses, but it's just been dragged down by negative sentiment around trade.

2:46Yeah, interesting. Alongside Obi for the first half hour of the programme, our economist this morning is Francis Coppola, independent economist and banking analyst with us again on the programme. as well francis morning happy new year to you as well um tariffs then is that the story that just won't go away in terms of the global economy well it is rather weighing on um international trade for everybody so no it's not going away and and i think also um it's kind of like the unpredictability of it all really um it makes it very very hard for businesses yeah we're going to talk a lot of kind of domestic uh business and everything like business rates as we've mentioned um a little bit later on in the program, but of course that backdrop of what's going on with tariffs likely to kind of dictate again, as the guys have just said, all of that too.

3:30Rounding out our panel for this morning is Marissa Poster. Marissa's here in the studio this morning. She's the co-founder of Perfect Ted, matcha drinks brand, suitably decked out in a very good green jacket this morning and on the green microphone, Marissa as well. Morning. Thanks for coming on Wake Up to Money. Good morning, Will. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Do a bit more on Perfect Head then than I've just done? Absolutely. So Perfect Head was really born out of personal necessity. I used to battle what some might call an energy drinking coffee addiction. But as someone with ADHD and anxiety, that type of caffeine didn't really work for me.

4:06And I found that matcha was the only caffeine source to give me that jitter free crash free experience when I would have it. And when I moved to the UK in 2020 and couldn't find matcha anywhere, I launched the business to fill that gap alongside my co-founders, Teddy, my brother-in-law and my husband, Levi. And in just four years, we've grown from kitchen table startup to the UK's fastest growing retail brand and the eighth largest tea company in the UK. Yeah, a lot of people have seen you're in all the kind of major supermarkets and things like that, aren't you as well? Just before we get into a bit more about the practicalities of the business, what's that like working with your husband and your brother-in-law?

4:46It is a lot of fun. We definitely... I did a lot. I wasn't sure what was coming after that. There's no such thing as work-life balance, let's just say that. Tell us a bit about then that journey and that growth, because you went on Dragon's Den as well, didn't you? And Stephen Bartlett invested in the company too. Did that, apart from being good marketing, did that change any of the fundamentals of the business as well? Absolutely. First of all, you have overnight millions of people now exposed to your brand. And I think at a time when awareness around matcha and what it was, a type of green tea that is rich in caffeine, was quite low, it gave us an opportunity to educate consumers.

5:26And I think we really hit at the right time because of consumer trends changing and interest in different types of ways to feel energized. Yeah, it's become massive now, matcha. Yeah, exactly. You know, people will have seen it. Obviously, come Japan, really, kind of home home to it. I know you were saying just before we came on air that you travel there a lot as well. What is it that you think has kind of caught people's attention here? Is it that kind of, I don't know, the less of the kind of big buzz that perhaps you'd get off coffee? I think it is that, yes. I also think social media has a lot to do with it.

6:01This year alone, TikTok saw matcha in the top 10 search terms. There are over 36 billion hashtags with matcha in it. So social media has definitely helped the proliferation of the product. But I do feel that consumer trends are changing and people are more aware now than ever of the impact of what they put in their bodies and how it makes them feel. And what about the landscape out there now for a business like yours that's trying to grow and growing pretty quickly? What's it like, the kind of sort of economic backdrop, if you like? We are optimistic. We have, you know, been very lucky to have the UK as our backdrop in support of manufacturing and hiring.

6:46Obviously, it's challenging for a lot of businesses out there. But we continue to invest in what we think is the most important part of our business, which is our team. Of course, we've seen a lot of changes there in terms of costs related to employment. But we're happy to continue investing there. Well, we're going to talk about all of that as we move through with the kind of big topics of the week as well and consumer confidence on that, because there's been a bit of a trend this week as well. But hopefully that gives people a bit of a backdrop where Marissa is coming from on the programme today.

7:15Yeah, at the end of another extraordinary week of both events here in the UK, but also around the world kicked off, didn't we, Monday morning following the toppling of Venezuela's leader, Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. effectively taking control of the country and very specifically its oil industry. President Trump saying Venezuela will be turning over, in his words, up to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States. We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.

7:55Well, we spoke to an industry expert on Monday morning, Bill Farron Price, who didn't think it was going to be all that straightforward. I think we need a big dose of realism here. There's a big difference between having reserves in the ground and being able to produce and market them. It's really going to take an awful lot more clarity before you see companies ready to even consider committing the sort of tens of billions that would be required. Right. Obi, what did the companies tell us or what did their investors tell us in terms of the performance in particular? Why don't we start with those big US oil companies?

8:31Because initially when trading opened Monday, big bounce for the likes of Chevron, right? Yeah, there was a sizable bounce in all the oil majors. But I think the market's taken this in two ways. First of all, the actual oil price itself was actually quite weak. And that's sort of good news for us as consumers and us in the UK that go to fill up our cars at the pumps, because obviously that will mean that prices will be slightly lower. But I think that that's the one positive side. The oil majors are the big move on Monday. Actually, some of that move started to abate as we've come into the week, Because people start to assess whether the investments that will come through as a result of this will actually happen or not.

9:15Yeah, Francis, the price pretty subdued because of economics, right? I'm guessing that more supply doesn't necessarily mean great prices. And we were trying to scratch our heads a little bit with this on Monday to try and work out the rationale. Because presumably the first people who come under pressure are those sort of medium-sized American oil companies, aren't they? Well, yeah, I mean, sorry, Francis, go first and then Obi. Yeah, yeah, it kind of doesn't add up. On the one hand, Trump's saying he wants oil prices down at$50 a barrel. But the kind of break-even level at which companies are going to be willing to invest is going to be more like 80.

9:53So it's actually really hard to square this and see where this investment is going to come from. Obi? Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. But I think that the reason the oil majors were sort of excited in the shorter term was just the opportunity set. And I think, you know, when oil prices are low, things look relatively subdued within the oil industry at the moment. I think it just gave the market a bit of excitement, especially at a time when investors don't have a particularly large exposure to those stocks. Marissa, that's a very extreme example, obviously, in Venezuela, a country that has had the kind of backdrop it's had and the economic backdrop it's had.

10:32But when you're expanding and investing and you talked about the UK as a place to set up, how much is, you know, the politics of what's going on in a place? You know, and we've seen it lots of places in Europe, haven't we? Elections in Germany that have been contentious, difficulties in Japan with elections where you work. France, for example, and what's going on with the political backdrop. How important actually is the political backdrop for an entrepreneur, for someone starting a company like you? Absolutely. From a business perspective, of course, we have been watching the global political shifts.

11:10But really, we are experiencing on a day-to-day level, operationally, far less complexity on the ground, whilst navigating different frameworks like tariffs, of course, as well as maybe jurisdictions that are less favourable to exports coming in. We're taking it day by day. But on a base level, we're far less impacted, it seems. Well, Marissa's taken us there, so why don't we turn to tariffs? Because President Trump started the week, obviously, with that declaration about oil in Venezuela. Of course, his words at the beginning of last year were the thing that rocked the global economy. I'm a big believer in tariffs.

11:54I think tariffs are the most beautiful word. I think they're beautiful. It's going to make us rich. We're subsidizing Canada to the tune of over$100 billion a year. We're subsidizing Mexico for almost$300 billion. We shouldn't be subsidizing. Why are we subsidizing these countries? If we're going to subsidize them, let them become a state. We're subsidizing Mexico and we're subsidizing Canada and we're subsidizing many countries all over the world. Well, later today, though, the US's top court, the Supreme Court, will decide whether the president actually had the power to impose all of those last year.

12:29Francis, you talked about it, you know, sort of upending the global economy. Just as we got to the end of the year, as you kind of have all those sort of look back, look forward kind of programmes, don't we, around the Christmas period. Did tariffs have the, have we seen all of the impact from tariffs, do you think? And did they have the impact, the sort of negative impact, quite as people expected in the first year? Well, no, partly because they haven't been fully implemented. And also we saw a great deal, really, of protective activity by businesses as they were announced. So an awful lot of front running, you know, loading up on stocks and things like that, huge spikes in imports in order to build up stocks of raw materials, parts, whatever.

13:22And they've been running down those. And so the cost impact on the American economy, on American consumers, has been mitigated because of that. But that's not likely to continue for very much longer. So we would be expecting to see the impact coming through in terms of, you know, American consumers feeling it in their pockets in 2026, really. Obi, is that a sense that you get as well, that actually the true impact of these things isn't necessarily told in the short term? Yeah, I have a degree of sympathy for that, as in there's some uncertainty around whether we've seen it in the real economy.

14:05But I would say that on the investment side in the companies that we look at, which are directly exposed to tariffs. So that's typically companies that are shipping products and goods from all over the world, whether it's China and India. Those companies specifically in the U.S. had a very, very poor year. And we saw valuations of some of those companies come down quite significantly. So from a stock market perspective, we've seen a lot of that discounted into share prices, which is why yesterday on just the potential for these tariffs coming away, a lot of those stocks rallied quite aggressively.

14:40That's really interesting. What kind of companies should people be looking at? Well, I think if focused really on the consumer area, I mean, it's the consumer goods, the retail, the electronics sectors that really are very dependent on global supply chains. They are the ones that could be the biggest winners and see margins improve if there's some sort of resolution. Marissa, what about the kind of wider outside the U.S. landscape for the disruption it caused? Because you guys, importers, exporters as well? Absolutely, both. So we've seen tariffs have two disparate effects on the matcha market in particular.

15:16So first, some lower quality matcha that can't access the U.S. market has obviously been redirected into Europe, which we have had to mitigate by upholding quality standards. But at the same time, it's also freed up some incredible producers in a number of countries who are looking to redirect their goods and work with partners like us, which has actually allowed for opportunity. And especially when you consider the global demand increasing for matcha and understanding the pressure it's putting on on the Japanese economy, including fourth, fifth, sixth generation farmers. We, alongside the Japanese government's trade bodies, are looking to globalize the supply chain of matcha.

16:01And that's why we're we're now proudly looking into working with countries like South Korea, China and even places in Africa. Interesting. So but places that you wouldn't have been working necessarily before. Correct. Yeah, Francis, that's an interesting area, isn't it? When we take those in to the redirection of goods, first of all, that Marissa was talking about, how much of a, you know, beyond match and a good kind of case study there, isn't it? But how much have we seen of that yet? And is that also a pattern that we likely see more of in 2026, do you think? yes inevitably because you know tariffs have different force in different places and so inevitably companies will be looking to redirect their supply chains we're already seeing that looking for different different sources areas that are tariff free or have lower tariffs no way tariff free but you know but maybe down at the baseline 10 or whatever and also a fair amount of nearshoring, bringing supplies closer to home.

17:05So we're going to see more of that in 2026, I think. I think also the other panellists have both raised an important point, which is, I guess, what I might call the scare factor, that a lot, I think, of the response to terrorists has been about the uncertainty and the unpredictability of the US administration and not knowing what the tariffs are going to be or where they're going to fall or who they're going to affect. But I think one thing that's worth remembering all the time is that the primary people that tariffs will fall on across the board are American consumers, ultimately. That it is importers to America who pay these tariffs and eventually they will pass them on to American consumers.

17:53So although there's a great deal of worry among businesses outside the US, the issue really is about imports to the US. And to the extent that we can all import and export and trade with each other, companies avoiding the US might be an interesting way to go. It does potentially stock up a new problem, though, doesn't it, Francis, too, particularly when you guys were talking about companies moving their supply chains, nearshoring or whatever the term often is. We've seen that that has often meant big Chinese companies moving lots of their work into Europe as well and question marks about whether that is actually what we want across Europe, what we need across Europe as well.

18:41Does it potentially sort of open up a new set of problems? well yes i mean one of the things that chinese companies tend to do i mean if they you could say that all they do is just kind of set up shop here and employ lots of lots of our own people um then you know we might quite like that although there are there might be sort of implications for sort of homegrown industries and so forth but um what they tend to do as we've seen in africa is tend to set up shop and import their own workers which perhaps is not ideal from from from our point of view um and there are issues about um sort of um the strength of china and weakening of industries elsewhere and so forth so it's it's not ideal to see sort of china taking control in in different areas in a way because they're being shut out of the us because ob they're so dominant the chinese in in so many sectors and sectors where the government here for example has talked about wanting to kind of create new green jobs as they as they call it solar panels and things like that China so dominant in those kind of areas it could squash any kind of nascent industry couldn't it if if the as a result of the lack of reliability that you guys have all talked about as the US as a trading partner does push Britain and Europe towards more towards China yeah I mean I think um yes you're trying to send your story there but I think we have to be a little bit careful in that um you know the US is the consumer engine of the world, most of the consumption, whether it's goods or products and services, come out of the States.

20:17And so, you know, for any business to turn their backs on the US would be, I would say, somewhat unwise in the longer term, especially given the uncertainties about trade and whether this may end up being short-term noise. I mean, a lot of the companies that are exposed to these themes, I mean, these are companies that have been around for hundreds of years and have been through COVID and environments which I would argue were even more testing than the tariff environment that we are in today. And obviously the current administration in the US is in power for a certain number of years. So I think from a business perspective to sort of switch away from that and to not focus on the long term is something that we look at in companies.

20:59We're much more long term focused in terms of the businesses that we invest in. Marisa, you guys have been sort of exploring a bit of work with the US as well. Does that chopping and changing, not even chopping and changing policy, just new policy direction kind of coming a little bit out of nowhere, does that give you reason to kind of pause in terms of your work there? Absolutely. So we work with about 50 different countries and the US is one of our smallest partners, actually, at the minute. And this is one of the considerations that we have as a business in terms of deploying resources into the country and feeling it is such a precarious situation there that can change at the flip of a dime.

21:39And you say that, you know, as people listening will be able to hear, somewhere that you know very well anyway, though, as well. Absolutely. As an American, I am very proud to be building in Britain because I find that the markets are open to the UK and everyone is quite favourable in trading with us. The US remains TBD for now. Yeah, interesting. Well, we talked lots of kind of big international picture, haven't we, as well? Let's bring it right back to home and really kind of the type of companies that we use every single day. Because it's been a week, Obi, hasn't it, where we've had lots of financial results from supermarkets, big high street retailers that tell us a lot about how all of us, our listeners, are feeling a little bit about the money in their pocket right now.

22:24yeah i mean um we've had uh various different retailers from tesco m &s um regs all reporting reporting numbers um and i think you know the results have been fairly mixed if there's if there's a positive uh news story it's that um you know given that the uncertainties that we had at the last quarter of last year certainly around the budget um that the shoppers were quite keen to go out and and spend a bit of money over christmas and i think that's um certainly a

22:56Just as Obie's lime starts to give away, Marissa, you were nodding there. Come in. Yeah, I think we're seeing really the lipstick effect play out here. Just explain people that again. Yeah, absolutely. So I think people are cutting back on more discretionary spending and really looking to invest more in their daily affordable luxuries. So in our case, a 10-pound pouch of matcha at Tesco, which can fuel a customer for about a month, is great value because it gives them the experience of that premium high street matcha latte, which we also supply, but just for pennies or pence on the cup. So that distinct value, I believe, is why customers aren't slowing down demand in the supermarkets, at least from our perspective.

23:44Yeah. Francis, do you think we were seeing that there were stronger numbers, the financial results, certainly to my eyes, and we'll get Obi's much more professional ones over than when we get his line back up again in a moment. But to my eyes, look much stronger than perhaps the warnings we'd had in all the kind of sort of broader survey data about footfall and spending and all that kind of stuff that we had in the run up to Christmas. Yeah, I mean, it's not brilliant, let's put it that way. It's not perhaps as disastrous as had been predicted, but consumer spending does still look pretty weak.

24:22you know it doesn't look a very confident picture so it seems that people are feeling the pinch and for example the the Black Friday figures I mean Black Friday isn't the huge thing here that is in the States possibly because we don't have Thanksgiving but even so people weren't exactly rushing to go and spend money on Black Friday and take advantage of the deals the figures were quite poor um which suggests that people are being more careful with money at the moment possibly because you know the cost of living crisis is still with us we've still got inflation and um people are just worried about what's going to happen um to their incomes sort of in the next few months obi you were going to make a point to that and i think around mns sorry before before the gremlins got to your line there yes i was trying to be somewhat optimistic and someone someone tried to someone tried to prevent me um look i think that the results for for the retailers were quite good But I think in line with what Francis was saying, it was mostly around food sales.

25:25And so it's hard to get very optimistic when the good news is basically that people are spending money on essentially utility items. What we haven't seen yet is that transfer into discretionary spending. And that's things like clothes, eating out restaurants and so on. And so I would say good news on core items, food and so on. But actually, on the more discretionary spend, actually, it's not quite as rosy yet. Marissa, what are you guys seeing into the new year? We feel very optimistic about this coming year. We're targeting 100 million in revenue. And I think to the point of the other panellists, that is definitely the case that we are seeing consumer spending shift.

26:07But I guess. But looking for those products like yours, that at-home luxury. Exactly. And fortunately, it seems that the daily matcha is not a discretionary purchase for our demographic. I think matcha, coffee, energy drinks, whatever you choose, all of our listeners at this time of the morning who are up as well will know that they've got one of those. There is no option to go dry, I don't think, without it, is there? Thanks, everybody, for your time this morning. Francis is going to leave us now. Francis, always great to have you on the programme. Thanks for being back on. A pleasure. Francis Coppola, independent economist and banking analyst there.

26:43Marissa and Obi with us in the second half of Wake Up To Money here, where we will be talking about that potential U-turn on business rates for pubs in England. But what does it mean for the rest of the hospitality sector and, in fact, the wider high street? And also, is it raining where you are this morning? Has it got you dreaming of a sunny beach somewhere? Well, apparently tomorrow is the busiest day of the year in terms of booking travel. So we will be speaking to a travel agent about where we are booking. Wake Up To Money with Will Bane. Morning, welcome back to Wake Up To Money on Friday the 9th of January where our panel this morning are Marissa Poster, co-founder of Perfect Ted and Obi Chikemi from Carminyak, the investment firm, whose name and ident has been deleted from my script there, Obi, sorry, which I stumbled over a little bit as well there.

27:33We joked about this in the first half of the programme, Marissa, but a couple of years ago you were on Dragon's Den. Fair to say, you and your husband and business partner, Teddy, who you mentioned earlier, weren't lacking in confidence when you made your pitch. I'm Marissa. I'm Teddy, and we're the fans of Perfect Head, the brand on a mission to spread positive energy. What's your long-term vision for this brand? World domination. How's that going? World domination is underway. No way. I'd also be killed if I didn't correct you that Levi is my husband and Teddy is my brother-in-law. Sorry, Teddy, your brother.

28:08That's okay. I don't think Teddy and I would survive in a relationship. But no, it's underway. In the last two years alone since that show aired, almost three actually, we've now become the UK's eighth largest tea brand and now the largest matcha brand globally. And you had your pick of the Dragons that day and you went with Stephen Bartlett. Why? So Stephen brings brand expertise that we really needed at the time. And he has been such an incredible advocate for the company, such a pillar in the UK entrepreneurial scene now actually globally. And he's just a phenomenal person to work with. And we're based out of his headquarters.