A Long Time In Finance

When Rolls-Royce went bust in February 1971, it was a national disaster. One commentator likened it to discovering "Westminster Abbey had been turned into a brothel". At the root of the failure was an expensive and risky project to build a large jet engine, the RB211, to power one of the revolutionary new widebody jets that were about to take to the skies. In the second of our two part series, we...

When Rolls-Royce went bust in February 1971, it was a national disaster. One commentator likened it to discovering "Westminster Abbey had been turned into a brothel". At the root of the failure was an expensive and risky project to build a large jet engine, the RB211, to power one of the revolutionary new widebody jets that were about to take to the skies. In this two part series we look at the qu...

How did Bernard Arnault go from running a construction company in Lille to being Europe's richest man? Neil and Jonathan look at the moment that changed everything for Arnault, the man they call "the Wolf in Cashmere": the audacious takeover of LVMH. The show is made in partnership with The Library of Mistakes who are offering a 25% discount on their Advanced Valuation in Financial Markets co...

When a debt crisis unfolds behind closed doors, who really has the upper hand? Taking in a range of characters – from Donald Trump to Philip Green, the Barclay brothers and the private equity firms – this is a potted history of how some of finance's biggest names have turned reneging into an art form. In this live recording of  A Long Time in Finance , hosts Jonathan Ford and Neil C...

Kodak, the photography company George Eastman created in the late 19th century, was built on restless R&D and bold innovation. So why did it flunk the shift from chemical to digital photography - having invented the first digital camera. We talk to the inventor, Steve Sasson about how his brainwave almost killed a company.   The show is made in partnership with The Library of Mistake...

Welcome to a new series  where we look at big businesses and what led to their big break or failure.. ASML is the biggest European company you’ve never heard of and the Continent’s only true tech giant. But how did this seemingly anonymous Dutch business come to be the world’s biggest producer of key machinery used in printing semiconductors? It involves Americans, all conquering Japanese exp...

It was supposed to bring in the cash to revive Britain's creaking railway network. But then it all went wrong for the listed network owner. A series of tragic accidents undermined public confidence, beginning the slow unravelling of rail privatisation as a whole. Neil and Jonathan talk to Gerald Corbett, one time boss of Railtrack, about the privatisation project, the accidents, and what...

It's often seen as the point where the City dumped its old gentlemanly mores ("My word is my bond") for a new "win at all costs" culture - one that the UK's new regulatory regime singularly failed to quell. But what was the Guinness Scandal of the 1980s all about, why was it important, and what were its consequences? Forty years on, we talk to author Nick Kochan about "Deadly Ernest" Saunders, bos...

Everyone knows that Britain once built almost all the world's ships, and now builds almost none. But what were the steps by which this mighty activity disintegrated? And no less importantly, how did it climb so high in the first place, when the US was the world's biggest ship building nation in the early 19th century? What are the economics of shipbuilding and do we need to build them? W...

In the 19th century, Britain transformed itself into the workshop of the world by harnessing the power of coal and steam. Now a new energy revolution - that of renewable power - looks set to turn the UK into something closer to a workhouse inhabited by the destitute. But how did it all happen and why did politicians buy into it? We look at how Britain fashioned a disastrous energy trap for itself,...

From a few tiny funds in the 1970s, private equity has transformed the financial world and is now a $7 trillion industry, accounting for 30% of the US private sector economy. But how did it all happen, why have pension funds poured so much into these funds, and how do the practitioners get away with paying themselves such eye watering fees? We talk to buyout expert Peter Morris about this str...

The publishing mogul Robert Maxwell lived a life shrouded in mystery that was ultimately capped by great disgrace. But was he an out and out villain, like Anthony Trollope's fictional swindler in The Way We Live Now, or a more nuanced and tragic figure? We discuss the life, legacy and deals of the great pension purloiner with his biographer, John Preston.  Hosted by Jonathan Ford and Nei...

With Britain's economy mired in 1970s misery, we thought we'd brighten things up a bit. So this week we present the most 1970s story ever: the history of GREEN SHIELD STAMPS! Oldies will know, but for younger listeners, you collected them in books, kids, and exchanged them for glass tumblers and soda syphons. Groovy huh? Neil and Jonathan talk to Prof Leigh Sparks about how they worked a...

Fred Goodwin led Royal Bank of Scotland to ruin and Britain to the brink of financial disaster. But who was the man they called Fred the Shred and how did he build RBS into (briefly) the world's largest bank? And how was he allowed to make such a complete horlicks of it? In our first live show at the Library of Mistakes in Edinburgh, Neil and Jonathan discuss these issues with Ian Fraser, author o...

QE or QT? The impact of these hangover expressions from another era is only now becoming apparent. Christopher Mahon of Columbia Threadneedle talks to Jonathan and Neil about how the Bank of England bought government stocks and sold them back at a loss. One example:paying £101 (QE) and later selling it for £28 (QT). The cost of this insane behaviour to the taxpayer? Probably over £115 billion (tha...

The government wants to build new towns on disused railway land to tackle the UK's housing crisis. A cracking idea, but will it be able to? Not just the planners but Natural England lie in wait. Neil and Jonathan are joined by Michael Dnes to investigate the murky tale of a new town on disused railway land in Kent that was eaten by a colony of jumping spiders. Presented by Jonathan Ford and N...

Neil and Jonathan talk to Duncan Weldon about his new book Blood and Treasure about the interplay between war, society and economics from the violent larceny of the Vikings to the GDP-chomping total wars of the 20th century. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Duncan Weldon. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Britain's steel industry has all but vanished, and the government has intervened to save the last blast furnaces. But how did the country that invented the steel industry reach this pass and does it even matter? We talk to historian Ewan Gibbs about steel, the state, and the importance of ownership and production in an uncertain world. Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With Ewan Gibbs....

Generals and politicians calling for rearmament often talk about the UK facing a "1937 moment" of rising threats and a deteriorating international situation. But what actually happened in the late 1930s, and how was an indebted and cash-strapped Britain able to mobilise its industry and spend so much more on armaments? Are there similarities to today and what can we learn? We talk t...

In the wake of Donald Trump's demand for a juicy minerals deal in Ukraine, Neil and Jonathan join author James Barr to look at the history of possibly the greatest minerals carve-up of all time - in the post First World War Middle East - and ask the key question: "How did that all work out?" Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins. With James Barr. Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for P...

In 1976, the Labour government went "cap in hand" to the IMF for a loan to tide it through deteriorating economic conditions. The price was large cuts in public spending. Neil and Jonathan talk to economist and author Duncan Weldon about the "bailout", what caused it, the changes it brought, and whether there are any parallels to the predicament faced by Rachel Reeves. Presented by Jonathan Ford a...

Until recently, Germany seemed to be going through a second  wirtschaftswunder , as the country's mighty industry pumped out capital exports to China, powered by cheap Russian gas. Then everything blew up in the 2020s. Neil and Jonathan talk to Wolfgang Munchau about the wishful thinking, political misjudgments, and structural failings that led Europe's largest economy int...

In the summer of 1944, as Allied armies fought through Normandy, 44 nations gathered at a run-down hotel in New Hampshire to discuss the economic future of the world. What followed was the only ever formal attempt to reorder the international monetary system; one that seemed for a time successful until it collapsed unmourned in 1971. Together with the author Ed Conway, we look...

On 21 November 1974, an obscure backbench MP, John Stonehouse, went for a swim off Miami Beach and disappeared. So began an extraordinary tale of banking fraud, money laundering, spying and identity theft, which unravelled over the following month, ending in Stonehouse's exposure and arrest and making him one of the most famous MPs in the world. Together with the author Philip Augar, we look...

Employees of a High Street bank rip off its customers for years. The bank refuses to admit that anything illegal happened. Yet when the fraud is finally exposed, it not only gets to decide what compensation to pay; it gets to investigate its own wrongdoing. Sound strange? We talk to the Ian Fraser about Lloyds Bank and the HBOS Reading Affair, its parallels with the Post Office scandal and th...