Collision course fears over HS2 review chiefs
By Alan Tovey
A REVIEW into the future of HS2 faces
tensions at the top after the chairman
leading it said he did not want the pro-
ject to be scrapped, while his deputy
called for all options to be considered.
Lord Berkeley, a prominent critic of the
controversial £56bn rail link between
London, Birmingham, Manchester and
Leeds, will serve as deputy chairman of
the review.
He told The Daily Telegraph that he
expected the review to “examine all
possibilities”, adding: “The outcome
might be to cancel, truncate or reduce
the specification of HS2.”
However, Douglas Oakervee, a for-
mer chairman of HS2 who will lead the
review, said he did not want to see the
project abandoned, adding that he“would have thought it would be a sad
day if we scrapped it”.
Last week, Grant Shapps, the Trans-
port Secretary, announced the “inde-
pendent and rigorous” review, which is
due to report by the autumn. He said it
would provide “clear evidence on the
future of the project”, stressing that
infrastructure projects such as HS2
“must be subject to continuous assess-
ment of their costs and benefits”.
Lord Berkeley said that when asked
to join he was told “he would have a
major role ... which I intend to play”. Headded: “I do not detect any precon-
ceived view one way or another from
government about the outcome.”
The peer, an engineer who worked
on the construction of the ChannelTunnel, said he expected contractors
and others involved in HS2 to give
“honest and open” answers to tough
questions about the project’s viability.
“We have to have a completely open
mind about the outcome that is based
on the evidence,” Lord Berkeley added.
The first section of the line, from
London to Birmingham, is scheduled
to open in 2026, with the second phase
connecting Leeds and Manchester due
for completion after a further six years.
However, one option being consid-
ered by the review is focusing on thenorthern part first, as it is likely to be
cheaper than the southern portion.
One member of the team working on
the project questioned how Mr Oak-
ervee and Lord Berkeley would get on,
adding: “The fact one of them worked
for HS2 while the other is its arch-
enemy does make them interesting
bedfellows.”
The review is understood to have
gained a cautious welcome from HS2,
which sees a chance to make a fresh
case for the project. Mr Oakervee could
not be contacted for comment.Red letter day for AI handwriting start-up
as it reaches £400,000 in fundraising
By James Cook
A 23-YEAR-OLD start-up founder has
raised £400,000 for his business that
uses artificial intelligence to create
convincing fake handwriting.
Robert Van Den Bergh said his com-
pany, Scribeless, was already being
used by banks, political parties and re-
ligious groups. Barclays and Panasonic
are already using the business to gener-
ate automatic handwritten letters.
Its technology uses software to learn
the nuances of handwriting to intro-
duce variation and inconsistencies in
its fake handwriting. Mr Van Den
Bergh claimed the artificial handwrit-
ing is “indiscernible” from authentic
script.
Scribeless raised the investment
from venture capital fund RLC Ven-
tures. Ascension Ventures and Super-
Seed also backed the firm.
The company said it used artificial
handwritten letters sent out to inves-
tors to raise more than 90pc of the
backing.
Mr Van Den Bergh has previously
started a number of business projects,
including an eco-friendly body wash, a
smartphone case that made small text
easier to read and a data visualisation
project.
Scribeless was started after Mr Van
Den Bergh had to spend several weeks
handwriting letters during an intern-
ship. He co-founded the firm with fel-
low Bristol University graduate AlexRobinson who previously worked as a
software developer at JP Morgan.
The two men previously worked to-
gether on an app called Resist which
forced people to spend time away from
their smartphones by automatically
donating a predetermined amount to
charity if they picked up their phone
during a specific time period.
Scribeless claims that its letters canhelp businesses to convince potential
customers to buy products, or donors
to hand over money.
It plans to use the funding to target a
wider range of businesses including
property firms and wedding planning
companies.
Scribeless also hopes to recruit more
developers to improve its algorithm,
which analyses handwriting to “learn”
how people write.
The business claims that handwrit-
ten letters can see open rates above
95pc, dramatically higher than tradi-
tional follow-up emails.
Scribeless also plans to allow e-com-
merce sellers using websites such as
Shopify to automate the sending of let-
ters to convince customers to buy their
products.
Its software makes it far more ad-
vanced than traditional “autopen”
products, Mr Van Den Bergh said.
“Even if they’ve written by a pen, fonts
look like fonts,” he said of rival ser-
vices.
The firm has been selling its prod-
ucts to customers in the US and Eu-
rope, and charges up to £3 per letter.Payments sector still
ripe for disruption,
says Azimo chief
Continued from Page 29
profitability as a metric ... US investors
are much less focused on that.”
Mr Kent is a respected figure in Lon-
don’s financial technology sector. He
co-founded Tandem Bank, a digital
banking app, in 2013 with Ricky Knox,
and the pair have backed a series of
British fintech start-ups.
He said fintech firms still had scope
to shake up the payments industry,
where technology was at “chapter one
of a three book novel – it’s the Lord of
the Rings and we’re only just in the
foothills”.
Azimo had no immediate plans to ex-
pand to America and was resisting fur-
ther costly overseas expansion, such as
opening a Silicon Valley office.
“The west coast of America is a really
silly place to have a cross-border pay-
ments business,” he said. “The local
banking infrastructure is rubbish.”
Azimo has secured a licence in the
Netherlands and opened an office in
Amsterdam.
Gaining a Dutch licence “took a very
long time”, said Mr Kent, who began
Brexit contingency planning a week af-
ter the result of the referendum.Tim Cook eyes
$114m windfall
despite slump
in iPhone sales
By Matthew FieldTIM COOK is in line for a bumper share
payout worth about $114m (£93m) after
Apple’s share price neared record highs
despite a slump in iPhone sales.
The Apple chief executive will be
able to cash in a giant share award of
more than half a million shares in the
coming days.
About 280,000 Apple shares
awarded for remaining with the com-
pany are set to vest, along with another
280,000 linked to its performance.
Mr Cook, 58, received a massive
share bonus award in 2011 when hetook over from founder Steve Jobs.
Two years later he asked the board to
link the payouts to the tech giant’s
share price performance.
Apple stock must outperform two
thirds of S&P 500 companies over the
three years to August 2019 for Mr Cook
to get his full award for the year.
Shares closed on Friday in New York
at $203, up about 40pc since the start
of the year, despite a shock profit warn-
ing in January following a decline in
iPhone sales.
The iPad maker’s value, which hit
$1 trillion last year, stood at $915bn on
Friday.
Mr Cook faces a significant tax bill on
the windfall.
The Apple boss has said he plans to
donate most of his substantial fortune
to charity.
Apple declined to comment.Chairman sees a future for
£56bn project, while his
deputy says line could be
reduced or even cancelled
Lord Berkeley, a critic
of HS2, says he will
play a ‘major role’ in
the review as its
deputy chairmanBusiness
Premier takings Jada Pinkett Smith (L) and Piper Perabo
at the Los Angeles premiere of Angel Has Fallen, it led the
US box office with a better-than-expected $21.3m (£17m).NINA PROMMER/EPA-EFE/REXSafety in numbers as
investors buy up
bonds at record pace
By Tom Rees
INVESTORS are piling into bonds at a
record pace as economists warn that
the risk of a damaging US recession has
hit its highest level in a decade.
More money was invested into fixed
income funds than ever during the
week of Aug 12 – an increase of 25pc, or
almost $2bn, on the previous record,
according to Bank of America Merrill
Lynch. It was the second consecutive
week of record inflows into the funds.
Investors have rushed into safer as-
sets, such as bonds, as the global slow-
down intensifies and the US-China
trade war escalates. The risk of a US
recession within the next 12 months is
at a 10-year high of 35pc, according to
the consensus of economists.
Growth worries have rocked global
markets in recent weeks as a cocktail of
risks weighs on confidence.
“With mounting macro risks and
stuttering growth prospects, investors
are mobilising into safe assets at a re-
cord pace,” said Ioannis Angelakis, a
Bank of America Merrill Lynch strate-
gist who pointed to risk including the
trade war, Brexit, political turmoil in
Italy and the prospect of Argentina de-
faulting on its debt.
“Government bond funds registered
their largest inflow ever, after a record
print the week before, highlighting
market conviction of a forthcoming
quantitative easing programme from
the ECB,” Mr Angelakis said.
The US economy has been a key con-
cern in recent weeks after a recession
indicator on bond markets flashed red.
The US Treasury yield curve in-
verted for the first time since the finan-
cial crisis, a signal that has predicted
every US recession of the past 50 years.
The surge in trade tensions between
the Trump administration and Beijing
has also darkened the outlook, prompt-
ing investors to move into safer bonds.
Financial markets were rattled again
on Friday after China announced new
tariffs on $75bn of US goods and Don-
ald Trump retaliated by upping import
taxes on products already targeted.
“The direct impact on the US econ-
omy of this latest round of tariff in-
creases is, in isolation, likely to be
modest,” said Paul Ashworth, a chief
economist at Capital Economics. “The
bigger problem is that this illustratesthe speed at which the trade war is now
escalating.”
The “real damage” would be done by
the trade war weighing on financial
markets and confidence, he added.
Economists have also warned of ris-
ing danger in the UK, with a consensus
predicting that the economy will
bounce back from the second quarter
drop in GDP, but still putting the risk of
recession at about 30pc, the highest
level since after the Brexit vote.
Mark Carney warned on Friday that
the sluggish world economy and Brexit
were “two large, volatile forces” threat-
ening UK growth.
Brexit uncertainty has weighed
heavily on the economy, which shrank
by 0.2pc in the second quarter. GDP
fell as factories reversed the record
stockpiling of the first quarter ahead of
the first Brexit deadline.Scribeless claims
that its artificial
handwritten letters
can boost returns
and sales
considerably280,000
The number of shares that are set to vest
for the Apple chief along with another
280,000 linked to its performance35pc
The risk of a damaging US recession within
the next 12 months – a 10-year high –
according to a consensus of economistsSequin style A model presents a creation by Indian designers Gauri and Nainika during
the grand finale of Lakme fashion week winter/festive 2019 in Mumbai yesterday.DIVYAKANT SOLANKI/EPA-EFE/REXThe Daily Telegraph Monday 26 August 2019 *** 31
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