FidelityConnects: UK & Europe Market Trends: What They Mean for Global Investors

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Welcome to Fidelity Connects. I'm Pamela Ritchie.

 

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As the world adjusts to what is deemed a new world order surfing through

 

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relevant facts and stats is tougher than usual.

 

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Over the weekend Japan's Prime Minister won a renewed mandate to move

 

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forward with her reforms which are helping shift the global approach

 

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to JGBs.

 

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As well, the bust-up of relations at the top of the UK government are also

 

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leading to questions even of a snap British election.

 

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The steady shifting of global investors' interest beyond US

 

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shores has all the makings of a brand new world of investment opportunities

 

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in regions not considered perhaps in decades, if ever.

 

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Joining us here today to provide the underpinning stories of some of these

 

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shifts and how to put investor money to work is investment director,

 

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Tom Stevenson, joining us live from London.

 

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Warm welcome to you, Tom, how are you?

 

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Hi, Pamela. All good, thank you.

 

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Delighted to have this time to speak with you.

 

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We'll invite people to send questions in over the next little bit.

 

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We'll begin in the UK.

 

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Certainly, we have seen discussions about whether

 

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the government will withstand the scandal that it's going through right now.

 

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I guess we just turn to you to say what's next or what's at stake?

 

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Things are moving very quickly here in the UK, as you can imagine.

 

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The scandal relates to the former business secretary,

 

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former UK ambassador to the US,

 

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Peter Mandelson, and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein

 

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and how that is sort of feeding through into assessments

 

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of the judgement of the Prime Minister.

 

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I say it's moving very quickly, just in the last 48 hours we have had

 

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two senior resignations, resignation of the

 

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head of strategy who essentially fell on his sword,

 

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took responsibility for the appointment of Mandelson

 

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as the ambassador to Washington.

 

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That was yesterday. Today the head of communications for

 

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the prime minister, Sir Keir

 

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Starmer, also left his job.

 

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Actually, there's one more development today which was that the head of the

 

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Labour Party in Scotland came out

 

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and publicly called for the Prime Minister to stand down.

 

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In less than 48 hours that's a pretty rapidly

 

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changing situation.

 

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I think there are real question marks about how long this

 

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government can survive. This

 

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is not how British politics is meant to be.

 

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If we have a change of prime minister we will have had five prime ministers

 

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in as many years.

 

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That's sort of Italian standard government from when I

 

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was younger. This is not what we expect in the UK.

 

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I think that there will be knock-on effects in

 

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the financial markets. We haven't really seen them thus far.

 

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Things are fairly stable. In fact, the UK stock market is

 

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riding high at close to a peak.

 

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There hasn't really been a big response in the bond market or the currency

 

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market yet but this is changing so quickly that I

 

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think we just don't know where it's going next.

 

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It's wonderful just to have your perspective on that and which

 

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directions it's going in currently.

 

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Over the weekend and yesterday we saw the prime minister in Japan win

 

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a brand new mandate. She has absolutely crushed it,

 

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really, in results and will take forward, we think,

 

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just a continued higher interest rate environment which makes JGBs

 

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more attractive basically to global investors.

 

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I think what we saw in Japan was Sanae Takaichi,

 

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the leader of the Liberal Democrats since last October, clearly

 

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she didn't have a mandate from the people,

 

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if you like, because she inherited that job so she called

 

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the snap election to get that mandate for a pretty radical

 

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policy program of fiscal expansion,

 

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lower taxation, investment in corporate

 

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Japan, quite a far reaching program. Not

 

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only did she get the mandate but she got an absolute landslide.

 

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It's the biggest

 

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majority for the LDP in the lower house in Japan since

 

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1955 when the LDP was was founded.

 

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She has absolutely got the mandate to do what

 

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she wants to do with the Japanese economy.

 

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That's going to be very interesting and I think it will have repercussions in

 

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financial markets all around the world.

 

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China, we think, would not be so happy about that, President Xi.

 

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Japan has very strong alliances with

 

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so-called Western countries and is willing to

 

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be very vocal about things like Taiwan and so on.

 

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We did see some moves by the Chinese government to ask banks to

 

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have less exposure to US Treasuries and so on.

 

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I don't know if anything's related to the Japanese election

 

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but how would China be taking this election victory, do you think?

 

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Obviously, I'm not an expert in regional politics but what

 

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it seems to me is that Japan and China

 

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have kind of been competing in quite sort of different

 

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areas of the economy for much of the last 25 years.

 

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I think as China is moving up the value chain,

 

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if you like, in terms of its investments, its innovation, this

 

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is a positive thing for investors in China but

 

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I think it brings it closer to Japan in terms of the area in

 

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which they're competing

 

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on the  geostrategic level as well.

 

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The Japanese prime minister has been very clear that she wants to

 

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revisit the constitution, the 1947 Japanese

 

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constitution, which effectively was a

 

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pacifist constitution. It limited the the size

 

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and scope of Japan's military.

 

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She wants to revisit that for obvious reasons.

 

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I think in the economic sphere, in the geostrategic

 

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sphere, Japan and China become much more

 

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competitive, a competition of equals, if you like, and I think

 

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maybe that's the answer to your question. I think it's something which China is

 

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going to be watching really closely.

 

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For so-called rest of world investors, including those in the United States and

 

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Canada, all over the world, the opportunity of looking at

 

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Japanese bonds at this moment is very interesting.

 

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I mean, the local investors went abroad to find yield and Japan was essentially

 

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a carry trade for a long, long time.

 

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It now offers what, do you think?

 

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Well, it feels to me like that carry trade, you know, borrowing

 

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in yen to invest in high yielding currencies,

 

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countries, it feels like that carry trade is finished now

 

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with long maturity Japanese bonds yielding

 

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4% or more now.

 

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That has knock-on implications in other markets such as in

 

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US Treasuries. I think what it will lead to is a

 

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repatriation of much of that money which moved out of Japan in

 

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search of higher returns for many years.

 

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That, I think, has important implications for

 

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US Treasury bond yields because the Japanese were big

 

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buyers of US Treasuries.

 

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That, in turn, has potential implications for stock markets as well because

 

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if US Treasury bonds are

 

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high yielding, that affects the discount rate which is used to value

 

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especially high growth technology shares in the US,

 

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the shares which have driven the US market for many years.

 

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I think there are lots of implications not just for Japanese bonds but also for

 

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US bonds and US stocks as well.

 

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Bonds just become competitive to equity returns, essentially.

 

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It's another player on the field in terms of competition.

 

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You did an amazing report, I think you said to us earlier

 

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about a year ago, about taking a look at 10 funds for 10 years

 

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and kind of outlining how investment trends and exposure

 

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in different parts of the world and asset classes would change over the course

 

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of 10 years. Tell us a bit how you crafted that.

 

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I guess we're, what, a year in?

 

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Just tell us a little bit about that.

 

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Absolutely. About a year ago I kind of

 

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asked myself what was quite a difficult question, which was if I could only buy

 

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10 funds, make 10 investments

 

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... it's like that Warren Buffett thing saying you've got a card, a punch

 

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card, which you're only allowed to use 20 times in your investing

 

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life, it concentrates the mind how you would use it.

 

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I kind have played with that idea and said, look, if I could only buy 10 funds

 

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for the next 10 years what would they be?

 

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I came up with a list of 10 funds. The

 

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funds themselves don't really matter for the purposes of this conversation

 

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but it's the thinking, really.

 

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I had sort of a number of different

 

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themes that I wanted to play.

 

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One of them was that I wanted

 

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to continue growth because, obviously, if you're investing for 10 years

 

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you would hope that there is continuing growth.

 

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I had a couple of sort of growth funds.

 

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I felt that there was a shift away from pure growth

 

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towards more of a value approach so I had a couple value funds

 

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in there.

 

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I wanted to

 

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play the changing world, I called it.

 

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I felt that investing over a 10-year period,

 

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the ongoing growth of emerging markets, I felt, was a continuing

 

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theme. It felt to me like if there was one theme which

 

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was almost certain to continue it was the continuing growth

 

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and importance of technology in the world.

 

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I also wanted to play what I felt was the beginning of a shift

 

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in markets, and we've kind of talked about it a little bit, this rotation

 

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away from US dominated markets towards

 

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a more diversified, a better spread set

 

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of investments around the world.

 

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That's where I invested in some of the cheaper markets around the word like the

 

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UK. A few different themes like that and that's how I came up

 

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with the 10 funds.

 

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It's fascinating and I want to just ask you about inflation and where inflation

 

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directed you in this story because if you think sort of a year ago that

 

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was, or a year and change, that was the beginning of the Fed rate cutting

 

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cycle. Other governments had gone ahead and started cutting earlier,

 

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so-called developed markets had gotten on that train faster and earlier because

 

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they had to in a lot of cases.

 

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What role did inflation play in your sort of 10-year view a

 

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year go?

 

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That was one of the key arguments for my focus on

 

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emerging markets.

 

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It's not the only reason why I would invest in emerging

 

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markets. I think it's quite a complex case that

 

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can be made for emerging markets. Inflation was one of them because

 

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many emerging markets were quite early into

 

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dealing with inflation and they had

 

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raised interest rates quite high, and indeed real

 

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interest rates in many emerging markets were really very high.

 

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Interest rates were much higher than the effective rate of inflation.

 

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That made them important.

 

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The role of both inflation and interest

 

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rates was really very important when you take a 10-rear view because I think

 

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it's part of that rotation out of the US cycle

 

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which was a major driver of my thinking.

 

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It's just fascinating how that ultimately works.

 

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Is there anything that you were underexposed to that did

 

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better or something that you're exposed to that did demonstrably worse?

 

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One of the problems with only coming up with 10

 

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funds, or 10 themes, is that it's quite difficult to

 

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cover everything. I

 

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had gold in there, for example, and that also plays to the

 

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inflation theme that you mentioned, it felt that was something, but

 

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there wasn't room as a consequence of that for everything.

 

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I actually didn't have a Japanese

 

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fund in there, which I slightly regret

 

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not just because the last year has been so good for

 

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Japanese investments but I just feel that actually over

 

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a 10-year cycle, especially given what's happened with

 

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the change of government in Japan and

 

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the strategy which the new PM has set out, it

 

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feels like I would want to have some Japanese exposure.

 

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I actually did a review of my 10 for 10 just

 

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in the last week and I said, if there were two areas which I would actually

 

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have more of this year it would be more Japan and

 

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it would be more Europe.

 

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Those were the areas which I felt I was underplaying.

 

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The discussion of where Europe goes from here, and really since

 

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the invasion of Ukraine continues we've heard of defence budgets

 

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and projections for them ballooning over the course of the last couple of

 

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years, different types of energy being deployed,

 

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long contracts being written and so on, it seems much

 

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more cohesive.

 

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I just want to ask, is there more of a case for a Eurobond, especially

 

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in light of the fact that it might be interesting as investors are shifting

 

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long term money across the globe for different reasons anyway, does

 

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that sort of cohesion, a financial union of that sort,

 

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get any closer, do you think, or is that just still a background conversation?

 

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I think there is certainly a case for more cohesion,

 

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there is a case for a Eurobond.

 

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Whether it's actually going to happen I think is another matter altogether.

 

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Europe remains

 

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frustratingly fragmented in terms of its politics and its

 

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economics.

 

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Your Prime Minister has been talking very eloquently recently

 

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about the need for the middle-sized economies

 

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in the world, middle-sized countries, to work together in a more

 

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cohesive way.

 

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I think over here in Europe we would be absolutely on board with

 

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that. We totally understand what he was talking about when he said

 

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that, and we definitely need it.

 

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We are beginning to see early signs, the

 

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German government, for example, has been very clear about the need to spend

 

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more heavily, to up its government budgets

 

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for things like defence, industrial renewal

 

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in the region. We are beginning to see the start of

 

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that but it's early days yet.

 

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I think that if you're making a case for investing in Europe

 

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that renewed spending and that need for us to pull together and to

 

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act as a unit within Europe is definitely a part of that

 

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investment case.

 

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Hello, investors. We'll be back to the show in just a moment.

 

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else you get your podcasts. Now back to today's show.

 

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Oh, here's a great question coming in, actually, to this.

 

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Could you speak a little bit about the possibility of changes in Japanese

 

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policy on carry trade and global liquidity?

 

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You did touch on the carry trade but it's obviously a very interesting topic

 

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right now, and the global liquidity story.

 

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There's actually a lot of money sloshing around about there, it just sort of

 

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depends where it's sloshing around.

 

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I think, absolutely, and I think that for years

 

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the direction of travel of global liquidity has been towards the US.

 

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Obviously, the Treasury market has been the

 

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place where it's been easiest to park that

 

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liquidity. It is the most liquid asset

 

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class in the world.

 

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I think that we're seeing a reversal of that trend now and I think the

 

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rise in Japanese bond yields is just

 

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simply going to accelerate that trend, and not

 

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just Japan. You mentioned China as well, China and Japan

 

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and the EU, we've all been big investors in

 

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... we've all been a part of that one-way traffic into the US and clearly

 

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that is shifting. That money has got to go somewhere and I think that creates

 

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lots of interesting investment opportunities all around the world.

 

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I think Japan is just one of those.

 

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It's fascinating to see how

 

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much the Japanese market has grown, and the Chinese

 

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market as well in terms of growth, in terms of performance in the last year.

 

19:19.091 --> 19:23.028

That is an early sign of this shift happening.

 

19:23.028 --> 19:27.299

There's a lot of catching up still to do because in terms of valuations

 

19:27.299 --> 19:31.270

the gap had got so big that there is plenty

 

19:31.270 --> 19:33.572

of room for more money to shift the other way.

 

19:33.572 --> 19:37.509

I don't think we should feel that, oh, the last year,

 

19:37.509 --> 19:40.946

or even two years, there's been a big shift upwards in those markets.

 

19:40.946 --> 19:42.681

Yes, but I think there's more to go.

 

19:42.681 --> 19:46.652

More to go and, of course, the theme that touches literally

 

19:46.652 --> 19:50.756

every person on earth is that we are at the jumping off

 

19:50.756 --> 19:55.160

point, if we're not already sort of in mid-air, of the AI transformation

 

19:55.160 --> 19:59.231

globally. That money is going to shift along with a

 

19:59.231 --> 20:03.335

very interesting theme for investors to invest in all over the

 

20:03.335 --> 20:05.337

world because it will affect everyone.

 

20:05.337 --> 20:09.441

I wonder if you can just sort of speak to putting capital to work in

 

20:09.441 --> 20:13.478

new places but to what extent does that come into some version of an AI

 

20:13.478 --> 20:15.547

play as well?

 

20:15.547 --> 20:19.618

I think AI is crucial to everything that you've just

 

20:19.618 --> 20:22.487

said.

 

20:22.487 --> 20:26.758

Look at the Chinese stock market as

 

20:26.758 --> 20:31.630

the investment opportunity.

 

20:31.630 --> 20:35.567

A year ago we had the DeepSeek moment when we realized that

 

20:35.567 --> 20:39.738

actually China has, and continues, to

 

20:39.738 --> 20:47.346

make enormous leaps in terms of technological innovation.

 

20:47.346 --> 20:51.817

I don't think that investors had really grasped that until

 

20:51.817 --> 20:55.954

a year ago. I think that was a major driver of what happened with

 

20:55.954 --> 20:58.357

stock prices last year.

 

20:58.357 --> 21:02.427

When I talk to our investors in the

 

21:02.427 --> 21:06.365

region, in Hong Kong and

 

21:06.365 --> 21:10.902

China, they talk a lot about the

 

21:10.902 --> 21:15.140

remarkable power of Chinese

 

21:15.140 --> 21:18.043

innovation.

 

21:18.043 --> 21:20.312

I think this is a massive opportunity.

 

21:20.312 --> 21:24.283

The whole AI focus has been really on the Magnificent

 

21:24.283 --> 21:27.886

7 and US technology stocks.

 

21:27.886 --> 21:31.690

Over the last six months they have gone sideways, they've done absolutely

 

21:31.690 --> 21:32.257

nothing and so....

 

21:32.257 --> 21:36.061

But they've not interrupted the equity market by doing so which is great for

 

21:36.061 --> 21:37.663

people.

 

21:37.663 --> 21:41.433

This is really interesting because that was the fear.

 

21:41.433 --> 21:46.705

Six months ago, a year ago, everyone thought

 

21:46.705 --> 21:50.742

if the pin pricks that bubble, that AI bubble,

 

21:50.742 --> 21:53.879

in the US it's going to drag the indices down with it.

 

21:53.879 --> 21:57.849

What we've seen is a sort of slow deflation of that Magnificent

 

21:57.849 --> 22:01.887

7 technology story without affecting the rest of the

 

22:01.887 --> 22:06.558

market.

 

22:06.558 --> 22:08.527

Magnificent 7 have done nothing.

 

22:08.527 --> 22:12.297

S&P 500 as a whole has gone up marginally.

 

22:12.297 --> 22:16.068

Markets in the rest of the world have gone up really strongly.

 

22:16.068 --> 22:19.438

I don't think anyone a year ago would have really predicted that.

 

22:19.438 --> 22:23.508

I think that's been a very benign outcome for three investors.

 

22:23.508 --> 22:25.677

How on earth did that get managed?

 

22:25.677 --> 22:29.648

You feel like that's the sort of thing that you need a

 

22:29.648 --> 22:33.785

Fed or you need someone to manage that but it just did because I

 

22:33.785 --> 22:36.188

guess...

It's just happened naturally, yeah.

 

22:36.188 --> 22:41.059

It's incredible. Get the humans out of there, just let it happen.

 

22:41.059 --> 22:45.063

Let's keep our fingers crossed that it continues because it has been, as I

 

22:45.063 --> 22:47.999

say, a much more benign outcome than I think we could have hoped for.

 

22:47.999 --> 22:49.935

Let's talk a little bit more about ...

 

22:49.935 --> 22:53.372

EM, you've mentioned there but the other side of it is sort of, I think you

 

22:53.372 --> 22:57.409

mentioned in one of your articles in the Telegraph, the sheer size of

 

22:57.409 --> 23:02.280

the outstanding debt of developed markets, the Canada's, various

 

23:02.280 --> 23:06.118

countries that seem to have room to do fiscal spending, which is exactly what

 

23:06.118 --> 23:10.188

they are planning to do and then some, but that doesn't mean

 

23:10.188 --> 23:12.224

it won't all catch up with everyone.

 

23:12.224 --> 23:13.992

We also have a declining population.

 

23:13.992 --> 23:17.929

I'll just quote Canada, got a number in I think last week, so you

 

23:17.929 --> 23:21.199

have many countries around the world that are developed, have lots of debt and

 

23:21.199 --> 23:24.970

declining populations. It's the demographic story.

 

23:24.970 --> 23:29.207

Again, sort of how that balances out to look probably further afield

 

23:29.207 --> 23:32.677

for investments.

 

23:32.677 --> 23:37.482

Actually, I think it plays into the emerging markets story

 

23:37.482 --> 23:41.620

because you're looking at countries in the world which have

 

23:41.620 --> 23:45.624

more attractive demographics than many of the developed world

 

23:45.624 --> 23:50.061

countries do and actually have more robust and

 

23:50.061 --> 23:54.266

less stretched public finances than many countries

 

23:54.266 --> 23:58.770

in the West do.

 

23:58.770 --> 24:02.808

I looked at an interesting chart recently which is just a very simple

 

24:02.808 --> 24:06.812

chart, really, just tracking the relationship, the performance

 

24:06.812 --> 24:10.916

of US markets against other markets in the

 

24:10.916 --> 24:15.520

developed world but also developing markets as well.

 

24:15.520 --> 24:19.458

You see these cycles, they don't happen over a year or

 

24:19.458 --> 24:22.260

18 months, these are multi-year cycles.

 

24:22.260 --> 24:26.531

I think it feels to me like we're at a watershed moment

 

24:26.531 --> 24:31.336

in which that sort of US exceptionalism is

 

24:31.336 --> 24:36.374

over and we are moving into a

 

24:36.374 --> 24:41.713

phase, which could go on for several years, in which emerging markets,

 

24:41.713 --> 24:45.417

other developed markets around the world actually outperform the US.

 

24:45.417 --> 24:49.688

I think it requires a complete rethink of asset allocation

 

24:49.688 --> 24:52.624

norms which we've taken for granted for many years.

 

24:52.624 --> 24:56.628

Makes it a very interesting time to be investing at the

 

24:56.628 --> 24:56.895

moment.

 

24:56.895 --> 24:59.598

It's just fascinating watching all of this.

 

24:59.598 --> 25:04.169

You have some terrific articles in the Telegraph every week, read through

 

25:04.169 --> 25:08.840

some of them. The discussion of inflation, certainly, and

 

25:08.840 --> 25:12.811

this terrific article, a little bit about your family,

 

25:12.811 --> 25:16.848

sort of daughter, where you are and where your parents are, ageing beautifully

 

25:16.848 --> 25:21.186

in place and so on but just the discussion of how inflation ultimately

 

25:21.186 --> 25:25.156

will affect each generation. It sort of goes to what we're talking about here.

 

25:25.156 --> 25:29.427

I wonder if you could just sort of expand on the worries of

 

25:29.427 --> 25:33.632

perhaps the next generation to come and what they need to be thinking about

 

25:33.632 --> 25:36.401

as they invest.

 

25:36.401 --> 25:38.937

Absolutely.

 

25:38.937 --> 25:43.141

We've kind of shifted gears from a sort of macroeconomic

 

25:43.141 --> 25:47.245

analysis of what's going on in the markets

 

25:47.245 --> 25:52.284

to just a sort of personal financial planning thing.

 

25:52.284 --> 25:56.221

One of the things I've been writing about, I mean, you

 

25:56.221 --> 26:02.527

rightly point out that

 

26:02.527 --> 26:04.663

my parents are still alive, in their 90s, my children are in their 20s and 30s

 

26:04.663 --> 26:08.466

so I sort of sit in between those. I'm in this fortunate position of being able

 

26:08.466 --> 26:13.104

to see, well, for one thing, I'm

 

26:13.104 --> 26:17.208

lucky enough to have, I hope, reasonable genes, fingers crossed.

 

26:17.208 --> 26:21.246

If my parents are in their 90s I might be living and investing

 

26:21.246 --> 26:24.616

and managing my money for another 30 years.

 

26:24.616 --> 26:29.354

My daughter, who's 30, might be doing it for another 60 years.

 

26:29.354 --> 26:33.692

The analysis that I've done of markets and investments shows

 

26:33.692 --> 26:37.662

to me the absolute crucial importance of inflation

 

26:37.662 --> 26:40.599

over that period.

 

26:40.599 --> 26:45.036

The difference between inflation meeting central

 

26:45.036 --> 26:49.307

bank targets of, say, 2% and only

 

26:49.307 --> 26:53.979

just missing them, maybe being the high 2% or 3%

 

26:53.979 --> 26:59.584

or something like that, is enormous over a 30-year time period.

 

26:59.584 --> 27:03.521

I just think that we worry a lot

 

27:03.521 --> 27:07.592

about which markets to invest in, other sort of

 

27:07.592 --> 27:11.663

macro features, the one thing we really need to be worried about,

 

27:11.663 --> 27:15.967

I think, over the next 20, 30 years is inflation.

 

27:15.967 --> 27:20.105

We need to manage our personal finances, our financial planning, to

 

27:20.105 --> 27:21.640

cope with that.

 

27:21.640 --> 27:25.877

It's brilliant. Everyone should be taking a look at the Telegraph, if not

 

27:25.877 --> 27:28.146

subscribing all the time. Well, why not subscribe?

 

27:28.146 --> 27:31.149

In any case, take a look at Tom's articles.

 

27:31.149 --> 27:34.986

On the subject of newspapers, I'm only going to bring this up because I thought

 

27:34.986 --> 27:39.424

it was interesting, Fleet Street, one of their stars was

 

27:39.424 --> 27:43.628

Will Lewis, is Will Lewis, and he was the head of the Washington Post

 

27:43.628 --> 27:47.666

until just days ago when they did a pretty massive cut and they had reasons

 

27:47.666 --> 27:50.435

to do that.

 

27:50.435 --> 27:54.272

Interesting character from what I've read in various media reports.

 

27:54.272 --> 27:57.609

Is there anything you can enlighten us on?

 

27:57.609 --> 28:01.613

I know Will Lewis very well because he actually hired

 

28:01.613 --> 28:05.717

me 20 years ago onto the Telegraph.

 

28:05.717 --> 28:08.219

He was at the Telegraph.

 

28:08.219 --> 28:12.223

He was the editor of the Telegraph, and an

 

28:12.223 --> 28:16.227

interesting character, a very far-sighted

 

28:16.227 --> 28:19.998

visionary leader of a media organization.

 

28:19.998 --> 28:23.935

Actually, he saw 20 years ago the way that things were going with the

 

28:23.935 --> 28:26.471

print media, the move online.

 

28:26.471 --> 28:31.242

The Telegraph was essentially a dying publication

 

28:31.242 --> 28:35.346

because it had an ageing readership which was

 

28:35.346 --> 28:37.949

largely paper-based.

 

28:37.949 --> 28:42.187

He recognized that the world was changing and he created

 

28:42.187 --> 28:46.191

a digital- first Telegraph group and was very

 

28:46.191 --> 28:49.494

successful in doing that.

 

28:49.494 --> 28:53.631

That brought him to the attention of Rupert Murdoch and latterly Jeff Bezos

 

28:53.631 --> 28:55.633

at the Washington Post.

 

28:55.633 --> 28:59.571

Now, it clearly hasn't worked out at the Washington Post, 300 job losses

 

28:59.571 --> 29:04.109

was taken pretty badly by the workforce, and

 

29:04.109 --> 29:08.146

I don't think there are many tears being shed in

 

29:08.146 --> 29:12.317

Washington about his departure.

 

29:12.317 --> 29:16.588

Pretty remarkable and sort of inspirational

 

29:16.588 --> 29:19.557

leader in some ways, well, certainly 20 years ago.

 

29:19.557 --> 29:23.161

He  chose well with you. It'll be interesting to see where he lands, I mean,

 

29:23.161 --> 29:27.365

just to see on the other side of that where that kind of mind goes.

 

29:27.365 --> 29:31.402

Anyway, thank you for taking us around the world and through some

 

29:31.402 --> 29:35.607

of the massive shifts that are transforming in the headlines

 

29:35.607 --> 29:39.644

we read each day but also just sort of quietly taking hold across

 

29:39.644 --> 29:43.548

the globe. We look forward to our next catch-up with you, Tom Stevenson.

 

29:43.548 --> 29:44.616

It's been my pleasure. Thanks.

 

29:44.616 --> 29:45.517

All the best.

 

29:45.517 --> 29:49.454

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