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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. This is the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: daybreak At podcast, available every morning on Apple, Spotify or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen. It's Friday, the sixth December in London.

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Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hepka.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Stephen Caroline. Paris, where Emmanuel Macram is vowing

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Speaker 2: to stay on as French president amid ongoing political turmoil

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Speaker 2: as he remains defiant the far right leader Marrying Lapen

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Speaker 2: has told Bloomberg she's ready to negotiate if the president

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Speaker 2: gives ground.

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Speaker 1: And in other news, police widen the manhunt for the

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Speaker 1: killer of insurance chief Brian Thompson as the words delay

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Speaker 1: and depose are found on recovered bullets. Plus living beyond

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Speaker 1: your Means, the CBI says UK household incomes will be

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Speaker 1: held back by October's tax hikes. In more bad news

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Speaker 1: for Starmer, let's start with a roundup of our top stories.

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Speaker 2: Francis President Emmanuel Macron says he will serve out the

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Speaker 2: remainder of his term in office and appoint a new

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Speaker 2: Prime minister in the coming days. In a nationally televised address,

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Speaker 2: Macron appeared determined after marieing Lepenn's far right party joined

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Speaker 2: forces with a left wing alliance to topple his government.

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Speaker 3: Did you assemble mones Chonelle.

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Speaker 4: National Rally NPS chose to vote against a government with

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Speaker 4: a text that contradicted their own platform and was an

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Speaker 4: insult to their own voters. By doing so, they chose chaos,

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Speaker 4: and that's the only project they share with the radical left.

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Speaker 4: This with the support of the rest of the left

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Speaker 4: wing alliance, not to do, but to undo, to wreak havoc.

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Speaker 2: Macron's speech came just twenty four hours after Prime Minister

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Speaker 2: Michel Bagnier was evicted from office and a no confidence

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Speaker 2: vote over his plans for vast spending cuts and tax

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Speaker 2: increases to repair gaping holes in public finances. One of

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Speaker 2: the architects of that vote, National Rally leader Marie Lepenn,

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Speaker 2: has told Bloomberg that France and deliver a budget in

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Speaker 2: a matter of weeks if the next prime minister is

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Speaker 2: willing to narrow the deficit more slowly on the getting to.

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Speaker 5: Three percent in twenty twenty nine. I don't think it's credible,

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Speaker 5: but I'm not the only one. I don't think it's

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Speaker 5: credible either. To the present of the cord Comte. Once again,

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Speaker 5: these are simply promises, and they know very well they

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Speaker 5: can't keep to them. Mister Barney made this promise and

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Speaker 5: in reality his budget worsened the deficit by twelve billion.

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Speaker 5: So if we don't make significant intelligence structural savings with

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Speaker 5: regard to the state, and if we don't put in

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Speaker 5: place the conditions so that companies can work invest without

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Speaker 5: being suffocated with extra taxes, we won't get there. But

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Speaker 5: with these two solutions we can succeed as quickly as

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Speaker 5: possible to get back to a reasonable deficit. Even if

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Speaker 5: the three percent was just decided on the back of

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Speaker 5: an envelope, how fast could that be to then, Well,

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Speaker 5: it's a matter of a few weeks. We'll discuss it

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Speaker 5: with the new Prime minister. We'll work together, we'll explain

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Speaker 5: what our red lines are. Our red lines are. We

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Speaker 5: can't ask the French people to pay the bill for

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Speaker 5: the mistakes of their leaders. That's what mister Barney did.

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Speaker 5: He massively increases taxes, He hits sick people, retired people,

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Speaker 5: he hits everyone, and at the same time, once again,

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Speaker 5: the zero savings from the state that's inadmissible.

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Speaker 2: Frank bonds gained after l Pen spoke to Bloomberg and

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Speaker 2: the spread over German bunds tightened. Francis budgetdeaf as it

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Speaker 2: has expected to widen more than six percent of GDP

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Speaker 2: this year, double what's allowed under EU rules.

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Speaker 1: Now to other news, the words delay and depose were

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Speaker 1: written on shell casings and a live round recovered in

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Speaker 1: front of the New York hotel where United Healthcare boss

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Speaker 1: Brian Thompson was fatally shot. The inscriptions loosely echo a

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Speaker 1: book titled Delay, Deny, Defend, which describes tactics allegedly used

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Speaker 1: by insurers to deny health insurance claims. New York Police

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Speaker 1: Department yesterday released a series of photos of the suspect

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Speaker 1: and appealed to the public for help in identifying the

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Speaker 1: person who does remain at large. Here is the former

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Speaker 1: NYPD Chief of Detectives, Bob Boyce.

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Speaker 3: The number one primary thing right now is identify and

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Speaker 3: then apprehend them, and the motive comes a little bit

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Speaker 3: after that, So there's two.

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Speaker 1: Pursuits here, Bob Boyce speaking there. The shooting, captured on

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Speaker 1: security video showed the attacker waiting for Brian Thompson upon

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Speaker 1: his arrival at the hotel. The perpetrator approached the executive

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Speaker 1: from behind and shot him multiple times.

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Speaker 2: Household incomes in the UK will be held back by

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Speaker 2: recent government tax hikes. That's according to new forecasts from

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Speaker 2: the Confederation of British Industry. Bloomberg's Teama Atabayo has the story.

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Speaker 6: Yesterday, the Prime Minister delivered his plan for change and

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Speaker 6: a key speech outlining, amongst others, his ambition to raise

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Speaker 6: living standards in every part of the UK, but according

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Speaker 6: to the CBI, that goal will be hindered by his

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Speaker 6: own legislation. The group says living standards will improve, but

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Speaker 6: at a slower rate than previously thought, as firms passed

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Speaker 6: on tax increases through higher prices and slower wage growth.

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Speaker 6: The downgrade comes after Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised taxes by

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Speaker 6: forty billion pounds a year in her October budget. It

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Speaker 6: chimes with recent analysis from the Bank of England suggesting

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Speaker 6: households will see finances squeezed by high borrowing costs for

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Speaker 6: the foreseeable future, with Policymaker Meghan Green warning it will

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Speaker 6: take time for consumer spending to recover due to elevated

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Speaker 6: mortgage costs. In London. Teaware at a bio Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: Now to some deal's news, Aviva is said to be

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Speaker 1: nearing a deal to acquire direct Line after upping its

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Speaker 1: offer for the company. Bloomberg understands that during the latest negotiations,

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Speaker 1: Aviva further sweetened its offer, which had already been increased

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Speaker 1: to three point four billion pounds. Direct Line may announce

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Speaker 1: as soon as today that it would be inclined to

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Speaker 1: recommend Aviva's latest offer if the firm chooses to move

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Speaker 1: forwards with the transaction. Direct Line shares closed broadly flat

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Speaker 1: at two hundred and thirty sixpence in London on Thursday,

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Speaker 1: giving the company a market value of about three point

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Speaker 1: one billion pounds.

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Speaker 2: City Group is named three hundred and forty four new

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Speaker 2: managing directors, the most in at least six years for

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Speaker 2: the Wall Street Bank. The news comes in the midst

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Speaker 2: of a major turnaround effort for the lenders management team

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Speaker 2: after years of lagging returns. Bloomberg's Charlie Palette has.

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Speaker 3: More In a statement, the bank's executive management team said quote,

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Speaker 3: this represents one of the largest md cohorts in our

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Speaker 3: firm's history and once again reflects the global diversity of

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Speaker 3: City and the colleagues, communities and clients we serve. The

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Speaker 3: new group includes employees from twenty nine countries, and more

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Speaker 3: than a quarter of them are women In New York

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Speaker 3: Charlie Palett Bloomberg Radio City.

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Speaker 2: Group's announcement comes after rival Berkeley's announced that one hundred

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Speaker 2: and sixteen employees across the bank have been promoted to

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Speaker 2: managing director, with the largest share of promotions coming from

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Speaker 2: the firm's investment banking division.

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Speaker 1: And those are our top stories for you this morning

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Speaker 1: on the markets right now in stock futures are down

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Speaker 1: three tenths of one percent. This also ahead of the

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Speaker 1: US jobs data that we get. The number to watch

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Speaker 1: for November non farm payrolls is an increase of two

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty thousand. We are talking a lot about

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Speaker 1: the volatility that we've seen politically in France and in

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Speaker 1: South Korea. The oats boot spread yesterday narrowed to seventy

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Speaker 1: seven basis points, the lowest in two weeks yesterday, so

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Speaker 1: the spread between French and German ten year yields. As

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Speaker 1: for the costb it did drop as much as one

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Speaker 1: point eight percent this morning, but has now paired that

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Speaker 1: decline to some two tenths of one percent, and the

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Speaker 1: one also pairing some losses. As for bitcoin, we were

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Speaker 1: talking earlier in the week about it passing through one

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand, almost one hundred and three thousand dollars. There

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Speaker 1: was a big plunge yesterday and we're now trading at

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Speaker 1: about ninety eight thousand dollars for bitcoin. Oil prices also

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Speaker 1: after the Opaque meeting yesterday, our steady at seventy two

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Speaker 1: dollars twelve the bout. So those are the markets.

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Speaker 2: Much to talk more about what's happening here in France,

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Speaker 2: Caroline plus be getting the inside story of the Russian

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Speaker 2: hackers who broke into a one hundred and fifty year old,

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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty eight year old UK business. But first,

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Speaker 2: I don't know how much of your Christmas shopping you've done.

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Speaker 2: I've done none because I've been here doing this.

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Speaker 1: But you're in power. You're going to have the whole

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Speaker 1: afternoon once you maybe, But I love this piece that's

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Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal this morning, which is from Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: a writer Lebouett Lily Gimmer, who's talking about the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty four Gift Guide with a focus on craftsmanship, which

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Speaker 1: I really like, keeping centuries of tradition alive and also

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Speaker 1: supporting local enterprises. She's talking about how you can buy

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Speaker 1: all of those artists and products you might get on

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Speaker 1: a long trip somewhere a lovely and exotic and how

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Speaker 1: you can get it on your touch screen. She's also

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Speaker 1: named a few places where you can buy things like

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Speaker 1: Peruvian and Dean nitwear, all sorts of items that she's

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Speaker 1: got a lovely gift guide for you today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, give me some ideas of what to buy

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Speaker 2: for Christmas, Carolyn.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there we are. But of course it's the second

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Speaker 1: day that you've been in Paris, where the country does

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Speaker 1: seem to be in political limbo. And of course we

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Speaker 1: were watching Emmnue and macall last night. He sounded to

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Speaker 1: me pretty defiant. He blamed the situation on the far

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Speaker 1: left and the far right. He says that he won't resign.

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Speaker 1: So this morning, what are we thinking about what now

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Speaker 1: for the political situation in France?

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Speaker 2: Well, I suppose let's start with the things that we

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Speaker 2: did learn from Emmanue macrant speech was that he's not

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Speaker 2: going to resign, as he said, that's despite we had

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Speaker 2: two poles out yesterday afternoon showing a majority of French

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Speaker 2: people did want the president to resign fifty nine percent

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Speaker 2: and sixty one percent in two separate polls. So he's

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Speaker 2: staying on till twenty twenty seven. He says he will

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Speaker 2: name a prime minister in the coming days, and that

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Speaker 2: phrase is important because the last time around, of course,

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Speaker 2: it took months after the election for him to find someone.

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Speaker 2: So the suggestion is that it's going to happen much

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Speaker 2: faster this time around. And then we had a kind

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Speaker 2: of an idea that he wants to create what he's

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Speaker 2: calling a government of general interest, so he wants to unite,

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Speaker 2: it would appear, the center parties to try and bring

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Speaker 2: them together to form a more stable working majority or

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Speaker 2: working minority at least in the French Parliament as well.

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Speaker 2: And he has a series of meetings lined up with

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Speaker 2: political leaders this morning, with his own party, with the

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Speaker 2: centrist and center right parties that he had been working

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Speaker 2: with under Michel Bagnier, but also the Socialist Party on

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Speaker 2: the center left, and they're really the key players to

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Speaker 2: watch now because if they were to sign up or

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Speaker 2: be brought into some sort of you know, unity government,

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Speaker 2: Government of General Interest under a new prime minister, that's

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Speaker 2: what would change from the last situation. That's what could

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Speaker 2: bring a little bit more stability and a greater chance

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Speaker 2: of a budget being passed. Those political leaders will be

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Speaker 2: coming with their shopping lists when they go to the

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Speaker 2: Eliza later.

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, what happened then to the budgets and government

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Speaker 1: spending in the meantime.

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Speaker 2: So Emmanuel Macron did acknowledge in his speech that he

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Speaker 2: doesn't expect a budget to be passed until early next year.

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Speaker 2: So he's going to bring this special law to Parliament

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Speaker 2: by the middle of December, he said, which will allow

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Speaker 2: essentially the twenty twenty four budget to roll over into

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. This is the temporary situation we've been

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Speaker 2: talking about for a couple of days now. It keeps

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Speaker 2: government services running. Taxes will be collected, benefits will be paid.

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Speaker 2: You know, schools will open, ros will be gleaned, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: All those things will continue. But it doesn't solve any

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Speaker 2: of the bigger fiscal problems that France is facing, and

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Speaker 2: we know that they have been keyed in focus.

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Speaker 1: And Bloomberg also spoke to Marine Leapenn yesterday. She says

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Speaker 1: it's possible to get a budget within weeks.

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Speaker 2: Possible if you do what she wants. Is kind of

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Speaker 2: the subject to that as well. You know, Michelle Balnie

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Speaker 2: made a number of concessions to what Marie Leapenn wanted

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Speaker 2: to try and get her to abstain on the budget

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Speaker 2: vote and to pass it through.

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Speaker 3: That wasn't enough for her Now.

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Speaker 2: She said in her interview with Francie Laqua that there

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Speaker 2: weren't concessions made by Michelle Barnier. She did talk about

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Speaker 2: wanting to get the deficit under control, but said that

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Speaker 2: the goal to bring it to three percent by the

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Speaker 2: end of by twenty twenty nine wasn't realistic. That was

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Speaker 2: the way that she was thinking about it anyway. She

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Speaker 2: said that she wanted to target government waste rather than

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Speaker 2: raising taxes. Not a full plan that we got from

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Speaker 2: the leader of the National Rally, but still an interesting

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Speaker 2: insight into how she's thinking about this process, because again,

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Speaker 2: whether or not she's willing to abstain and her parties

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Speaker 2: willing to abstain on the budget vote may prove to

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Speaker 2: be key when we get past the next few steps

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Speaker 2: of finding a prime minister and getting Parliament back to work.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it is certainly a very interesting, very difficult moment

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Speaker 1: for France. Stephen, thank you so much for bringing us

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Speaker 1: up to speed. Then today also want to turn our

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Speaker 1: attention though to another story in the UK today. Ransomware

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Speaker 1: attacks on small and medium sized businesses in Europe and

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Speaker 1: North America are growing. This according to cybersecurity researchers, and

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Speaker 1: the costs are soaring as gangs target the little guys

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Speaker 1: to extort money. This has been reported by our investigative reporter,

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Speaker 1: part of Bloomberg's cyber security team, Ryan Gallagher. Good morning, Ryan,

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Speaker 1: thanks for being with us. My heart was a little

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Speaker 1: bit broken by the story that you wrote today about

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Speaker 1: this British company called Knights of Old and what happened

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Speaker 1: to them when they were targeted by hackers. Just tell

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Speaker 1: us a bit about that business in particular and what

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Speaker 1: you wrote about them either.

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Speaker 7: Good morning. Yeah, it's a really sad and actually quite

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Speaker 7: tragic story. Knights of Old was a company founded nearly

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Speaker 7: one hundred and sixty years ago in eighteen sixty five

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Speaker 7: by a man called William Knight in a small town

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Speaker 7: called Old, about eighty males north of London, and he

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Speaker 7: started is a transport company with literally a horse and cart,

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Speaker 7: and over the years it grew into a very large

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Speaker 7: logistics company delivering goods across the UK. The company became

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Speaker 7: part of a group called KNP. They had about nine

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Speaker 7: hundred employees, seven depots, four hundred trucks and they were,

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Speaker 7: you know, they were delivering for big companies such as Penguin,

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Speaker 7: Random House, sending you know, millions of books round the

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Speaker 7: country to Amazon and other retailers where they would then

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Speaker 7: be sold on to customers. And in June last year,

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Speaker 7: this company was the victim of a cyber attack and

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Speaker 7: their computers were all locked down with a kind of

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Speaker 7: malicious software called ransomware. Hacking gang demanded money from them

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Speaker 7: to unlock their computers. The company didn't want to pay

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Speaker 7: any money to these hackers, and ultimately what happened was

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Speaker 7: they ended up in liquidation. They they had to go

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Speaker 7: into administration and the company no longer exists. So one

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Speaker 7: hundred and sixty years of history gone just like that.

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Speaker 2: It's an incredible story. How much do we know about

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Speaker 2: the criminals that are responsible for this attack.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, well, it's a gang that calls themselves Akira, and

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Speaker 7: they're believed to be located in Russia. It's essentially an

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Speaker 7: organized crime group. And what these gangs do is they

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Speaker 7: target predominantly Western companies like Knights of Olds, and they

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Speaker 7: hack into their computers, they lock them down, they demand payments.

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Speaker 7: And the Kira's case, they have victimized more than I

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Speaker 7: think it's three hundred and fifty organizations just in the

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Speaker 7: last year and a half alone, and they've managed to

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Speaker 7: start an estimated forty two million dollars in payments from

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Speaker 7: these victims. And usually they're paying cryptocurrency and the victims

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Speaker 7: are and like eighty percent of the cases we looked

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Speaker 7: at smaller and medium sized companies, they seem to specifically

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Speaker 7: hunt down the smaller companies because they sadly aren't always

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Speaker 7: as well resourced as the larger companies and so can't

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Speaker 7: defend themselves. They don't have the cyber tools to fight back,

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Speaker 7: and are maybe more likely to have to be backed

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Speaker 7: into a corner and pay them pay money to get

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Speaker 7: their computers recovered.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean smaller businesses, but as you say, not

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Speaker 1: as well, you know, hundreds of employees, you know, would

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Speaker 1: be considered a sort of sizeable firm perhaps in the UK.

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Speaker 1: I mean what can those sorts of businesses, as you say,

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Speaker 1: do to defend against this.

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Speaker 7: Now, yeah, well, in the Night's case, I talked to

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Speaker 7: one of the co owners of the company and he

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Speaker 7: now actually spending his time speaking to other companies and

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Speaker 7: telling them what he wished he'd done, and he tells them,

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Speaker 7: you know, to try and get sophisticated. It's called like

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Speaker 7: intrusion detection or network monitoring tools that can essentially watch

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Speaker 7: what's happening across your company's network and see any anomalous

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Speaker 7: events and trying to you know, flag suspicious activity. And

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Speaker 7: you know, these tools are widely available available, they can

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Speaker 7: be quite costly, but the point is that if you

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Speaker 7: don't have them, it can be existential. You know, the

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Speaker 7: damage caused for your your business, you can you can

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Speaker 7: cease to exist if you don't have these tools and

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Speaker 7: sadly become a victim like Knights did.

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Speaker 3: So.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, and also having dedicated cyber experts on staff. I mean,

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Speaker 7: some companies just have you know, broad generalized IT teams

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Speaker 7: rather than actual cyber experts are very different specialism. So

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Speaker 7: you know, having dedicated teams regularly updating all your software,

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Speaker 7: which is a common thing, but it surprisingly doesn't happen

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Speaker 7: in a lot of companies. So you know, these are

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Speaker 7: the these are the ways in which a company can

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Speaker 7: strengthen itself against these types of attacks.

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Speaker 2: What about the So it's interesting to hear what these

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Speaker 2: the owners of this company are doing now, and I

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Speaker 2: wonder if that you know, there is sort of a

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Speaker 2: future for them. Is Knight of Olde going to be

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Speaker 2: able to revive themselves?

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Speaker 7: Well, the companies has been putting an administration. It is

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Speaker 7: no longer going to exist. There were three founders of

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Speaker 7: the company, or the three co owners of the company,

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Speaker 7: who they've sort of gone their separate ways and they're

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Speaker 7: they're still working in the transport business and logistics. And

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Speaker 7: Paul Abbott, the co owner that I talked to, he

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Speaker 7: is actually literally starting from scratch and he's managed to

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Speaker 7: get the money together to buy one truck, and he

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Speaker 7: says he's just trying to start again. So he's gone

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Speaker 7: from helping to run a fleet of four hundred trucks

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Speaker 7: to having one truck with a new business, and he's

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Speaker 7: trying to get himself off the ground again and just

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Speaker 7: start over. These guys say that their lives were essentially

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Speaker 7: ruined by this attack. So it's a really tragic case,

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Speaker 7: but it shows the you know, the resk posed by

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Speaker 7: these gangs. It's really serious and existential for businesses and

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Speaker 7: something that I think every business owner needs to be

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Speaker 7: looking at very carefully how they protect themselves from these

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Speaker 7: kinds of attacks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, attacks that are growing. As you say, Ryan,

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Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time this morning. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for joining us on Bloomberg Radio. Ryan Gallagher is an

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Speaker 1: investigative report at Bloomberg's cybersecurity team with his piece, it's

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Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal today. Well, Stephen, you're in Powis today.

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Speaker 1: I've got another programming note for our listeners for next week.

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Speaker 1: On Tuesday, we will be live at Bloomberg's inaugural Women,

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Speaker 1: Money and Power event in London, convening the most influential

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Speaker 1: female voice in finance from around the world to debate

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Speaker 1: and discuss consequential themes facing the future of business. Will

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Speaker 1: be speaking to Anne Walsh's managing partner at Gugenheim Partners

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Speaker 1: and Glover, co founder of Amadeus Capital, Fiona Hathorne, who's

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Women on Boards, and many others. So

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Speaker 1: do hope you'll join us and listen in Bloomberg's inaugural Women,

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Speaker 1: Money and Power event. It's live here on Bloomberg Radio

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Speaker 1: on Tuesday, the tenth of December.

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Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your morning brief on the

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Speaker 2: stories making news from London to Wall Street and beyond.

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Speaker 6: Mm hmm