BOE's Ramsden Warns Weak Labor Market Could Push Inflation Below 2%
Ramsden was among the dissenters last week, when the nine member Monetary Policy Committee voted to keep rates at 4.25% by a 6-3 majority. Ramsden said he decided to move faster than his colleagues on signs that the labor market is weakening.
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Forbes
24 minutes ago
- Forbes
Centene Reports $253 Million Loss Amid Health Insurer Cost Struggles
Centene chief executive officer Sarah London on Friday July 25, 2025 said the company is ... More "disappointed by our second quarter results, but we have a clear understanding of the trends that have impacted our performance, and are working with urgency and focus to restore our earnings trajectory." In this photo, London speaks during the Forbes Healthcare Summit in New York, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg Health insurer Centene reported a $253 million loss in its second quarter as the provider of government-subsidized benefits struggles to manage costs of its health plan members. The $253 million loss, or 51 cents a share, compares to a $1.1 billion in net income, or $2.16 a share, in the second quarter of last year, Centene disclosed Friday in its quarterly earnings report. Centene said premium and service revenues increased 18% to $42.5 billion from $36 billion in the year ago period. Centene, which has 28 million health plan subscribers, is seeing rising costs among health plan members in all three government-subsidized benefits it helps manage: Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. "We are disappointed by our second quarter results, but we have a clear understanding of the trends that have impacted our performance and are working with urgency and focus to restore our earnings trajectory," Centene Chief Executive Officer Sarah M. London said in a statement accompanying the company's earnings report. "Despite the shifting landscape, we believe that the staying power of Medicaid, Medicare and the Individual Marketplace is as strong as it has ever been. Centene has significantly fortified our platform in service of these programs over the last three years, and as we move forward, we are focused on continuing to adapt with the market to deliver meaningful value to our members, our stakeholders and our shareholders over the long term." Centene, which planned to reveal its 2025 profit forecast during a call with analysts Friday morning, pulled its financial guidance earlier this month, citing an independent firm's analysis showing patients it provides health benefits for were sicker and needed more healthcare services than anticipated. On Friday, Centene said its health benefits ratio, which is the percentage of premium revenue that goes toward medical costs, jumped to 93% for the second quarter of 2025, compared to 87.6% in the comparable period in 2024. 'The (health benefits ratio) increase was primarily driven by a reduction in the company's net 2025 Marketplace risk adjustment revenue transfer estimate, increased Marketplace medical costs, higher medical costs in Medicaid driven primarily by behavioral health, home health and high-cost drugs, and an increase to the 2025 Medicare Advantage premium deficiency reserve based on the progression of earnings during the year (with higher earnings at the beginning of the year and lower at the end of the year, given cost sharing progression),' Centene said in its second quarter earnings report. Centene's cost struggles are only the latest among a parade of health insurance companies that have struggled in the last two years to control costs of subscribers in plans subsidized by the government. Just last week, Elevance Health, which sells Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in 14 states, lower its profit forecast for the rest of 2025 due to rising costs in its Medicaid plans and individual policies it sells under the Affordable Care Act. In addition, Molina Healthcare lowered its earnings guidance for the rest of the year in the face of cost pressures in all three of the government-subsidized health insurance programs it helps manage: Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and individual coverage under the ACA, also known as Obamacare. And in May, UnitedHealth suspended its financial outlook for the rest of the year and replaced its top executive as the parent of UnitedHealthcare grapples with rising healthcare costs in its Medicare Advantage business. Medicare Advantage plans contract with the federal government to provide health benefits to seniors. Medicare Advantage plans also contributed to struggles last year for Humana and CVS Health, which elevated a new chief executive in part to help gain control of its struggling Aetna health insurance business. CVS is also exiting the individual health insurance business, leaving about 1 million Aetna members in 17 states looking for new coverage in 2026.
Wall Street Journal
4 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
NatWest Raises Guidance, Launches Buyback
NatWest NWG 0.42%increase; green up pointing triangle raised its guidance and launched a buyback after reporting second-quarter results. The British lender said Friday that it now forecasts total income excluding notable items for 2025 to exceed 16.0 billion pounds ($21.61 billion) as loan growth and structural hedges continue to mitigate the impact of interest-rate cuts by the Bank of England.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Amid increased momentum for defense, the NATO Innovation Fund refreshes its investment team
Two years after securing $1 billion in commitments from over 20 countries, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) is entering a new chapter, marked by the arrival of two new partners and the departure of its penultimate founding team partner. In a context of increased military spending across NATO members, investment in dual-use technology has skyrocketed since the initiative was first announced in 2021. Once a no-go-zone for institutional investors, defense and resilience tech last reached an all-time high of 10% of all VC funding in Europe, where nearly all NIF's backers are located. This booming interest should have given NIF a first-mover advantage, but the fund was hampered by management challenges and a series of high-profile departures. After the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague reaffirmed its importance last June, NIF is now emerging with an almost entirely new investment team. It is composed of three partners. While NIF originally had four partners and one managing partner, a person familiar with NIF said that this flat, three-partner model will be the structure in place for the foreseeable future, suggesting that no new hires are to be expected. These two appointments had previously been rumored, but the identities of the new partners had not been confirmed. Two of the partners are new hires: Ulrich Quay and Sander Verbrugge, who will be based in Amsterdam. Quay, a German national, was most recently in charge of corporate investments as a vice president at BMW, where he previously founded and led corporate venture fund BMW i Ventures. Verbrugge, a Dutch PhD in molecular biophysics, was previously a partner at deep tech VC fund Innovation Industries, which he joined after working at semiconductor design and manufacturing company NXP. The third partner is London-based VC Patrick Schneider-Sikorsky, now the last remaining member of the original investment team. Alongside the new hires, the fund announced the departure of founding team partner Kelly Chen, who confirmed to TechCrunch that it was her decision and that she will be stepping away to build a new venture. Chris O'Connor, another founding team partner, departed earlier this year with similar plans. Chen currently sits on the board of several startups backed by NIF, but will transition her board responsibilities once her employment at the NIF has wrapped up, TechCrunch learned from its chief communications and marketing officer, Amalia Kontesi. While some observers wish the fund had deployed capital faster, she said NIF 'is on track to meet [its] investing goals for the year.' Since its inception, NIF has made 19 investments: seven into funds such as OTB Ventures, and 12 into startups including Space Forge and Tekever, which makes dual-use drones. Still, adding new partners with industrial and scientific backgrounds, no matter how impressive, may not satisfy those who wish that the fund could invest in Ukraine or pure defense, as opposed to dual use, in response to Russia's war economy. But it is also in line with NIF's broader thesis to 'empower deep tech founders to address challenges in defence, security, and resilience.' However, NIF has also ramped up its efforts on the defense side. Its team was heavily involved in the development of NATO's Rapid Adoption Action Plan, aimed at accelerating the adoption and integration of new technological products for defense. NIF has also been building up its Mission Platform Group with strategic hires including John Ridge, who was hired as chief adoption officer in 2024 to help portfolio startups navigate military procurement. As for its new partners, they were once again hired through a process previously described by VC Michael Jackson as akin to 'building a boy band' — identified by NIF's board of directors and approved by LPs, rather than having teamed up based on shared history or chemistry. This may be inevitable for an organization that now counts 24 countries as limited partners, but was often pointed as one reason the previous team didn't gel. This time, all three partners got to meet throughout the recruitment process and spend time together since then to 'ensure a smooth transition and to position the team for long term success,' Kontesi said. In a statement shared exclusively with TechCrunch, NIF's vice chair, professor Fiona Murray, compared the organization to a startup. 'We are proud of what we accomplished but like any effective team we are learning, experimenting, improving: speeding up our processes, expanding our platform support for startups, doubling down on ecosystem building and more broadly recognizing the need to build the sector and the capital stack.' Murray expressed pride in having brought together a qualified team that can collaborate effectively, creatively and quickly. 'They will enable us to move even more rapidly and decisively to drive the Alliance's technological agenda and support the best founders across European ecosystems,' she previously wrote in a joint statement with NIF's chair, Klaus Hommels. Hommels' other activities as an investor have prompted questions about possible conflicts of interest, but no change appears to have been made to his role during NIF's recent LP meeting in Venice. Rather than dwelling further on its reorganization, NIF seems set on helping NATO become more resilient. 'In this next phase,' NIF's vice chair said, 'you'll see us refocus on DSR opportunities and emphasize building companies that can drive industrial scale and really support ecosystems across Europe.'
