Luke Templeman

Galina Pozdnyakova, Luke Templeman

Analyst:

It has been a brutal two years for dealmaking. Following the M&A boom of 2021, the value and volume of deals remains well below historical averages in the US and Europe. Yet, we see 2024 as a year of recovery for M&A activity, and there are three key themes we believe will catalyse it: 1. Eager buyers and valuation dislocations, 2. The need for large firms to supplement declining organic profit growth, 3. Greater certainty in the financing backdrop. [more]

October 24, 2023

PRI Conference: Top 8 takeaways

Region:

Debbie Jones, Luke Templeman, Punyadip Cheema

Topic:

Sustainability

Analyst:

Konnichwa! We spent most of our first week of October at this year’s Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) Conference held in Tokyo, Japan (Oct 4-6th). This event is one of the leading global sustainability conferences as it attracts influential asset owners, leading asset managers, regulators and industry professionals. Our Top 8 takeaways below are based on insights from conference panels we attended and discussions with attendees. [more]

October 9, 2023

Labour "power gap" to hurt corporate margins

Region:

Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga

Analyst:

Company margins may soon feel the pinch from rising labour power. Recent events, like Biden joining UAW picket lines and Trump's address in Detroit, highlight the wide 'power gap' between companies and their employees. This gap is likely to shrink this decade. A new research report by Olga Cotaga and Luke Templeman reveals this and several other factors. [more]

September 12, 2023

Assets that haven't moved yet

Region:

Galina Pozdnyakova, Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga

Analyst:

Intriguing Market Insights from Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga and Galina Pozdnyakova. Despite being closer to a Fed pause, many rate-sensitive assets are yet to recover. Investors are cautious, perhaps due to last year's rapid drops. But if history is any indicator, any post-pause rally could be swift.
In years like 2023, the latter part of the year tends to be good for equities. Hedge funds, trailing the S&P 500, may make moves to catch up.
In Europe, interdependencies with China are worth noting. Despite recent challenges, we remain optimistic about Chinese markets, with potential catalysts like improved corporate earnings and stimulus on the horizon.
A key concern remains with the lag effects of rate rises impacting the high-yield debt market. [more]

August 2, 2023

Top thematic ideas for H2

Region:

Analyst:

Luke Templeman

In this episode Luke Templeman provides a brief summary of the teams’ top thematic ideas for the rest of the year. [more]

May 30, 2023

Can AI help high-labour firms to boost returns?

Region:

Analyst:

Adrian Cox, Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga

Artificial intelligence offers the tantalising prospect of improving the perennial underperformance of companies with many employees.

In this podcast, Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga and Adrian Cox discuss why high-staff companies tend to have a lower market capitalisation, thinner margins and lower growth rates than lower-staff ones. They analyse evidence that suggests AI could enable high-employee companies to get more value from each staff member. That may generate an outsize benefit in return on equity and potentially catalyse equity market returns in the years to come. [more]

May 24, 2023

Can AI save high-labour firms?

Region:

Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga

Analyst:

Companies with a large number of employees have a big problem. Quite simply, they fail to extract as much value from each staff member as do low-staff firms. Indeed, labour-intense firms tend to have a lower market cap, thinner margins, and lower growth rates.
AI may be the way forward. In this piece, we argue that AI will make workers more productive, particularly in high-staff firms. The reason is that the profitability of high-staff firms has the highest leverage to the performance of their labour force. AI will help upskill them and streamline repetitive and mundane tasks that are more prevalent in high-staff companies. [more]

March 21, 2023

Reshoring's impact on markets and economies

Region:

Luke Templeman, Olga Cotaga

Analyst:

What happens when geo-political tensions create a sense of insecurity in corporate CEOs? One result is that some are reshoring. This applies to both manufacturing and services – both supply chains and operations. In this podcast, Luke Templeman and Olga Cotaga discuss how to identify the reshoring theme and how it has accelerated dramatically over the last couple years. In addition, they consider some of the countries that are best placed to capitalise on the trend and how investors can think about the effects on asset allocation. [more]

February 24, 2023

16 themes driving markets and economies

Region:

Adrian Cox, Luke Templeman

Analyst:

How do we identify the key themes that are driving markets and economies, and also incorporate their impact into investment and corporate decisions? Adrian Cox asks Luke Templeman about his latest report ’16 themes driving markets and economies’. It highlights the top themes and explains how applying a common framework across different themes is necessary to assess how those themes can affect each other. “You can read something written by intelligent people on theme A and then theme B, and they might make sense individually, but they may overlap in ways that are mutually exclusive. That’s what really interests me”, says Templeman. [more]

February 23, 2023

16 themes driving markets and economies

Region:

Analyst:

Luke Templeman

Identifying the big themes driving markets and economies is one thing, but more critical is to incorporate their impact into investment and corporate decisions. Luke Templeman, Thematic Research Analyst, provides a one-page summary of the 16 global themes he believes most cross corporates, economies, and markets. [more]

December 7, 2022

Top 10 themes for 2023

Analyst:

Luke Templeman

People often ask me how we choose our themes of the year ahead. It is not a hard science, but there is a framework we use. It starts by asking the following question: “What policies and developments in the economic, business, and political world are unsustainable, and what will it take for them to become sustainable?”. [more]

November 23, 2022

Top 8 notable takeaways from COP27

Region:

Debbie Jones, Luke Templeman, Tejasvini Viraj

Topic:

Sustainability

Analyst: