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City veteran Emerson will

chair new challenger bank

By Lucy Burton

THE veteran banker hired by Sir Vince

Cable to run the government-led Brit-

ish Business Bank has become the

founding chairman of a start-up bank

expected to launch late next year.

Ron Emerson, a former Standard

Chartered executive, will take up the

role at “B-North” next month. Backed

by the Greater Manchester Combined

Authority, the firm has applied for a

banking licence with the aim of setting

up “pods” around the UK to lend to

small businesses. The 72-year-old, was

chosen in 2013 by Sir Vince, then busi-

ness secretary, to be founding chair-

man of the British Business Bank. It

was intended to boost lending to small

and medium-sized businesses and fix

what Sir Vince called a “big long-term

problem in our banking system”.

Mr Emerson, who left the lender in

2016, said that despite Brexit and rising

fears about a no-deal scenario there

were plenty of opportunities for a new

bank to be successful in Britain due to

the changes going on in the sector.

Interview: Page 33

JEFF J MITCHELL/PA

Trump rows back on trade war ‘regrets’

By Louis Ashworth

THE White House insisted yesterday
that Donald Trump was committed to
raising tariffs against China after the
president signalled he had regrets
about how a trade war between the
countries has escalated.
During a breakfast meeting with Bo-
ris Johnson at the G7 summit in Biar-
ritz, the US president was asked
whether he had “second thoughts” on
the clash with China, after ramping up
tariffs on Friday in an increasingly
heated trade tit-for-tat.
“Yeah, sure why not?” the president
said, adding: “Might as well. Might as
well. I have second thoughts about eve-
rything.”
He added that the escalation “has to
happen”, claiming Beijing “want to
make a deal much more than I do”.
Later in the day the White House at-

tempted to reinterpret the comments,
which were widely taken to mean that
Mr Trump felt he had gone too far.
Stephanie Grisham, the press secre-
tary said the president had “been
greatly misinterpreted” and had “re-
sponded in the affirmative because he
regrets not raising the tariffs higher”.
China said on Friday it would slap re-
taliatory tariffs of 5pc or 10pc on $75bn
(£62bn) of US goods, with the new lev-
ies set to arrive in two tranches during
September and December.
Mr Trump reacted with fury on
Twitter, calling Xi Jinping, the Chinese
president, an “enemy” of the US people
and announcing that the US would
ramp up existing or incoming tariffs on
more than $500bn of Chinese goods in
response. He said the US will increase

President’s admission of

‘second thoughts’ on China

tariffs was misinterpreted,

insists the White House

Donald Trump and his fellow G7 leaders who are meeting in Biarritz, France. The US president denied they had put pressure on him to pull back from his trade war with China with new and extended tariffs due to start soon

Payments firm Azimo plans £100m float

By James Cook

PAYMENTS start-up Azimo plans to
float in the next two years as its chief
executive makes way for a new boss.
According to outgoing chief Michael
Kent, who co-founded the cross-bor-
der payments business in 2012, taking
the firm public is “definitely the thing
that we’d like to do”.
“We’ll see how the markets do over
the next two to three years. When you
take investors’ money, they don’t hold
forever,” he said.
Mr Kent told The Daily Telegraph
that he would hand over the reins to
Azimo’s operations chief Richard Am-
brose, a former PayPal executive.

“Richard is not a high-risk, brand new

hire. He’s been the chief operating of-

ficer for a couple of years and has done

a phenomenal job,” Mr Kent said.

Azimo’s founder will move to an ex-

ecutive chairman role, working with

investors in Japan and the US and

maintaining banking partnerships.

The business has raised more than

$65m (£53m) from investors including

Rakuten, the Japanese internet giant,

and Greycroft, the New York venture

capital firm.

Azimo’s valuation is understood to

be above £100m, meaning that Mr

Kent’s stake could be worth tens of mil-

lions by the time the company lists.

The business became profitable for

the first time in the second quarter of

this year after burning through tens of

millions of pounds. Azimo lost £6.8m

on revenues of £10.8m for 2018.

“Profitability, once you get there,

gives you freedom to be in charge of

your destiny,” Mr Kent said.

“UK investors are quite focused on

Continued on Page 31

Azimo co-founder

Michael Kent said he

intends to step down

as chief executive to

become executive

chairman

tariffs to 30pc from 25pc on $250bn of

goods already being taxed from the

start of October, and said incoming tar-

iffs on some of the remaining $300bn

• set to take effect from September –
  would be raised from 10pc to 15pc.
  Stock markets slumped on Friday in
  the wake of Mr Trump’s comments,
  with the S&P 500 tumbling more than

60 points, or 2.4pc, in one of its worst

days this year. The Dow Jones Indus-

trial Average shed 2.6pc, while the

tech-focused Nasdaq dropped 3pc. In

London the FTSE 100 fell 0.5pc to just

under 7,100 points.

Mr Trump was pushed by reporters

at his breakfast with Mr Johnson on

whether other G7 leaders had called on

him to stop the trade war. “No, not at

all,” he replied.

Praise from other leaders at the sum-

mit – attended by the leaders of the US,

UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and

Canada – has been scarce, although Mr

Johnson hailed the strength of Ameri-

ca’s economy, which is in a period of

unprecedented continuous expansion.

The prime minister did gently prod Mr

Trump over trade, saying: “Just to reg-

ister the faint, sheeplike note of our

view on the trade war, we’re in favour

of trade peace on the whole, and dial-

ling it down a beat.”

He added: “We think that on the

whole the UK has profited massively in

the last 200 years from free trade.” Mr

Macron said no co-ordinated stimulus

for the global economy would arise

from the summit, but added: “We need

boosters for the global economy.”

One spot of success for Mr Trump

was in his dealings with Japan – with

the countries agreeing in principle to a

trade deal that will include Japanese

purchases of US farm products.

‘We think that on the whole

the UK has profited

massively in the last 200

years from free trade’

The Daily Telegraph Monday 26 August 2019 *** 29

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