The great care home cash grab: how private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs When did care homes come to be seen as recession-proof investments? And who pays the price?

I’m thrilled that the Guardian Saturday magazine has excerpted one of my favourite chapters from THE ASSET CLASS this weekend: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

"Finance, paranoïa et radicalisation de la valeur" - Fabian Muniesa - Multitudes - 101 - 2026 shs.cairn.info/tap-1e50d8y7...

Bluesky Map Interactive map of 3.4 million Bluesky users, visualised by their follower pattern.

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!

bluesky-map.theo.io

I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Debt and disruption: South East Water’s creaking infrastructure and finances Under-fire utility paid almost as much in interest and dividends as it invested in the network in past 15 years

'Debt & Disruption: South East Water's creaking infrastructure & finances'. With background analysis and comment from me, in this @financialtimes.com article on South East Water www.ft.com/content/534a...

Were you a Fat City regular?

Blessed are the bean counters — except when it comes to growth Accounting rules are holding back investment just as it needs to meet growth and net zero requirements

His latest argument is that some of the UK's investment/productivity problems are linked to the accounting rules. I think that's partly right. www.ft.com/content/2543...; also academic.oup.com/cje/article/...

An incredible effort from @danieldylanwray.bsky.social on this. 150+ interviews, covering nearly 70 years, this is THE book on one of THE great cities for music. Very proud to be Dan's publisher 👊 #SHEFFIELD

When Wall Street’s Insurance Playbook Goes Wrong Almost a decade after a private equity firm began reshaping a struggling life insurer, authorities are grappling with a $2.2 billion shortfall. Policyholders fear life-changing losses.

I've spoken with policyholders who are fearing life-changing losses.

www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

OBR productivity forecast may add £20bn to Budget hole The OBR is understood to have downgraded the UK's productivity level in early Budget forecasts

OBR to downgrade UK productivity.

UK at or near bottom of the OECD investment league for 30 yrs.

Problem: City has short term horizons, direct state investment neutered.

China invests 40.4% of GDP in productive assets, India 30.5%, UK 18.2%, OECD average 23%.

Must abandon neoliberal constraints.

Panorama - The Race to Build 1.5 Million Homes The government’s made a very big promise: to build 1.5 million new homes in England by 2029. Anita Rani and Justin Rowlatt travel the length of the country to find out if it can be done.

“That’s the biggest misunderstanding in this country of the housing crisis. That it’s a crisis reserved for the poorest people in insecure jobs…”

@drabioconnor.bsky.social talks to BBC Panorama’s Anita Rani as part of their investigation into the UK housing crisis.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

B&M shares plunge as finance chief quits over ‘embarrassing’ accounting error The discount retailer said the issue has been resolved but will have a financial impact

B&M finance chief quits over £7m accounting error.

Its Audit & Risk Committee oversees effectiveness of internal control, internal/external audit. External auditors KPMG collected £1m in 2024/25.

£7m is a big sum to miss.

What else is flawed in B&M governance?

Dr Abi O’Connor joins CRAFiC through the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship scheme Abi O’Connor will join Sheffield University Management School’s Centre for Research into Accounting and Finance in Context to research a project titled ‘Following urban assetisation: a comparative the...

Here's a link to Abi's project: sheffield.ac.uk/crafic/news/...

A big welcome to @drabioconnor.bsky.social who has joined CRAFiC as a @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellow. Her project is titled: ‘Following urban assetisation: a comparative theory of local state restructuring’ - I'm really looking forward to the findings... sheffield.ac.uk/management/p...

This is genuinely great. Many thanks for this. The comments under the article are inexplicable.

Starmer and Badenoch are handling the far-right march all wrong A look back to the days of Enoch Powell suggests a better model

My column in tomorrow's paper:

Thank you for your kind words Hetan!

Scrapping of audit watchdog for English councils ‘led to soaring costs and chaos’ High critical report finds that instead of promised annual saving of £100m, fees have rocketed amid financial crisis

Scrapping of audit watchdog for English councils ‘led to soaring costs and chaos’. Valuable report from @adamleaver.bsky.social & colleagues at the Audit Reform Lab
www.theguardian.com/business/202... (Full report here auditreformlab.group.shef.ac.uk/administrati...)

My column for Real Britain | The Mirror

➡️Brum bin workers are being told to take up to £8,000 worth of pay cuts or face #FireAndRehire while councillors' allowances increase and government commissioners – brought in to control the council – earn an eyewatering £1,200 a day.

Successfully co-organized a 2-day workshop on the theme of Valuation, Space & Power this week, bringing together a brilliant group of scholars in Sheffield. Thank you to all the participants and fellow organizers @callumny.bsky.social @richmgoulding.bsky.social @adamleaver.bsky.social & Dan Tischer!

This week, I was in Sheffield for the WS on @valspacepower.bsky.social. Met many ECRs interested in how economic value is constructed, where it is located, and who captures it. Thanks to Callum Ward, @adamleaver.bsky.social, @richmgoulding.bsky.social and @eyeofraf.bsky.social for the organisation!

Rafaella Lima @eyeofraf.bsky.social kicking us off by explaining how our workshop came about through a shared interest in value, calculation, critical accounting and economic geography

This was such a fun and stimulating workshop. Thank you to the whole organisational team and all the presenters - I learnt lots and enjoyed my trip to Sheffield 🙏

Thames Water on collision course with government over bonuses Utility claims new legislation to block bonuses will not capture ‘retention payments’

Thames Water on collision course with govt over exec bonuses.

TW with £21bn debt, history of abuses & criminal convictions insists that it will pay bonuses, now calls them “retention payments”.

Govt must cancel it's licence, let it go bankrupt, prosecute execs, nationalise.
archive.ph/FpLe0

Agree people don’t know what councils do etc. But I also think the public is reasonable enough to question why the local area looks dirty/declining etc while council tax bills have gone up and up and up and up and up. Politically it’s therefore currently ripe for undeliverable promises

👍🤟👌👊

An exciting new opportunity for ECRs - a call for papers is out now for our 'Valuation, Space & Power' workshop (see below)

Congratulations to @savannahcox.bsky.social on this fascinating new paper on 'infrastructural time', and how resilience measures are shaped by earlier investments....

Chart showing Total growth in Real Household Disposable Income per person, by decade: UK

Real household disposable incomes (RHDI) is forecast to rise by just £1,200 over the course of the 2020s.

That's less than it grew over the course of the 2010s,when it rose by £2,900.

New report critiques supply-side urban development The new report, written by Richard Goulding, Adam Leaver and Jonathan Silver, critically examines the supply-side, property-led urban development model, using Manchester as a case study.

Report by @adamleaver.bsky.social and colleagues.
"This failure is partly the result of national policies, where national planning guidance in 2012 strengthened the capacity of developers to avoid affordable housing requirements on the grounds of ‘viability’47.

www.sheffield.ac.uk/crafic/news/...

once more with feeling - failing to repair a roof is more expensive than repairing it, but only one of these costs appears in the accounts and is scored by the five year forecast.