What do you think the weirdest London IPO of the year could be? Take a moment to think about it.
And now, let me tell you why you’re wrong. I have the answer.
It’s a firm called Hybrid Air Vehicles, a company that makes airships.
Yes, airships. If you thought – as I did – this technology died in the 1930s, you thought wrong. It could be making a big comeback.
Hybrid Air Vehicles says it plans to scale its operations to make up to two dozen airships a year by 2030. In accounts filed a few weeks ago, the Bedford-based business boasted a pipeline of as much as $2bn in reserved orders.
Of course, this could all be hot air. But the company is serious about growth. It plans to close a £130m equity funding round soon, and says the next step will be another, bigger funding round or an IPO.
In October, the firm announced it had won a military contract, in signs the technology still has genuinely useful applications.
Among the most significant is that it can stay in the air for five days without refuelling – far longer than any other air-based transport. That gives it an advantage for things like travelling to remote areas or for research and reconnaissance missions.
Hybrid Air Vehicles has already launched a US subsidiary, on the expectation it will get significant demand across the pond, too.
Who knows if the stock will pop or the aircraft will, but if it goes ahead this could be among the more interesting floats to watch in the year ahead.
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Has Donald Trump got a point?
I say this with some trepidation but…has Trump got a point? This week the US president announced a temporary 10 per cent cap on interest rates on credit cards.
Naturally, shares in the big US credit card providers – including Barclays – tumbled on the news, even though there’s a good chance it will never happen.
That’s because they would lose out from all the cash they’re raking in from folk who can’t afford to pay down their debts.
The response from the providers has been that this will be bad, because they’ll have to tighten lending criteria and poorer people will lose access to credit.
But that argument has lost its plausibility, thanks to modern fintechs like Klarna and Zilch, who offer short-term borrowing for free (even Barclaycard offers interest-free deals to new customers). Plus, with gold prices at record highs, you can even get a decent bit of bunce just from loaning out your jewellery now, as the boss of one pawnbroker was keen to remind me.
The only reason to charge 20, or even 30 or 40 per cent on interest is to make a killing from those who are financially stranded.
No right-minded person would take out a loan at this rate. And a mortgage provider who offered these rates would be laughed out of the high street.
Not long ago, the UK outlawed the practices of certain payday lenders, because the interest they charged was extortionate. It is no surprise, therefore, that credit card firms are next on the chopping blocks.