In the City: London May Be Coming for Wall Street
London is closing the gap with New York for the title of world's top financial center, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index. Is it a signal that the the UK's efforts to rejuvenate its banking and investment sectors post-Brexit are starting to pay off? On this week's In The City, host David Merritt sits down with Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman of the City of London Corp., who makes the argument it is.
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New York Post
5 hours ago
- New York Post
Life Time athletic club opening at 452 Fifth Ave.
The owners of 425 Fifth Avenue, aka 10 Bryant Park between East 39th and 40th streets, landed another big catch at their tower where Amazon recently signed for 330,000 square feet — and it all started with a game of pickleball. In one of Manhattan's largest retail-space deals this year, burgeoning 'athletic urban country club' Life Time signed for 52,000 square feet on four levels, including in the soon to be vacated, 17,000 square-foot Staples store. It will open in early 2027 behind a prominent Fifth Avenue entrance. The Life Time deal all but completes the leasing picture at the 865,000 address, which consists of three formerly separate structures that include the 10-story Knox Building. Advertisement 4 425 Fifth Avenue, aka 10 Bryant Park between East 39th and 40th streets, center. Google Maps Life Time has 180 clubs in the US and Canada. Chief property development officer Parham Javaheri said 10 Bryant Park checked all the boxes for what he wanted in Midtown. 'We want to serve both our residential and commercial cores,' he said. 'Although the location is obviously more commercial, there's a lot of residential growth nearby as well.' Advertisement Life Time, founded by chairman and CEO Bahram Akradi, has seven other Manhattan locations, two in Brooklyn, and another coming at the supertall Brooklyn Tower condo project. Javaheri said, 'We want to grow methodically. Meaning, we want destinations that let us stay true to what Life Time is, and they require a lot of space.' In fact, several others in the city are even larger than at 10 Bryant Park with 80,000 square feet each. The 10 Bryant Park edition will boast a luxurious, co-ed 'wet' suite with steam rooms, saunas, hot tubs and cold plunges; a workout floor with best-in-class cardio and resistance-training equipment; a recovery space with massage chairs and body-compression technology; and a half-dozen boutique-style studios for group fitness formats. 4 A rendering of the Life Time athletic club location at 10 Bryant Park, which is expected to open in early 2027. LIFE TIME Advertisement Eli Elefant, CEO of 10 Bryant Park landlord Property & Building Corp., said, 'We had the privilege or repositioning the building in a post-Covid world. It gave us the ability to reimagine what a commercial building can look like in a challenging environment.' Elefant said, 'When we lost our big bank tenant, HSBC, we got all their antiquated space back. Our thought was to lean heavily into the tech sphere and market the former bank space to big users and we were ultimately successful.' With the Amazon deal, the 30-story tower's office floors are 100% leased. What he called a 'blank slate' after HSBC decided to move to The Spiral in Hudson Yards also suggested the need to deliver what Amazon and many other 21st Century tenants want: a spectacular 'wellness' amenity. 'We didn't just want to build a gym,' Elefant chuckled. 4 Eli Elefant, center, the CEO of 10 Bryant Park owner Property & Building Corp., and Life Time chief property development officer Parham Javaheri, right, bonded over their vision during a pickleball game. LIFE TIME Advertisement Introduced by brokers, he and Javaheri first met on Oct. 17, 2023. 'We talked about a lifestyle-physical concept,' Elefant said. 'I said, 'Why don't we meet for a workout?'' Javaheri recalled, 'We played pickleball at 1 Penn and at Sky on West 42nd Street. Eli told us what his vision was for a strong amenity. We formed a good friendship.' 4 A rendering of the interior of the announced Life Time athletic club at 10 Bryant Park. LIFE TIME The competition 'was a great way for him to humiliate me,' Elefant laughed. 'But I'm a firm believed in personal synergies' in a changed real estate market that needs to be 'less sharp-elbows than collaborative, although I'm not sure everyone got the message.' Atlantic Retail's Joe Mastromonaco represented Life Time and JLL's Patrick Smith acted for the ownership. Property & Building's parent company owns 14 million square feet of buildings in Israel, but 10 Bryant Park is the only one in New York it wholly owns although it has discreet investments at others.
Business of Fashion
10 hours ago
- Business of Fashion
This Week: Nike's Earnings and Jonathan Anderson's Dior Debut
We're all economics nerds in a post-Liberation Day world, so in a sense, this week's big reveal will be the Conference Board's monthly gauge of US consumer confidence, due out Tuesday. That survey will only tell us something about whether people are shopping, however. To find out what they'll be buying, we have Nike and Dior. Nike's Multifaceted Turnaround What's Happening: Nike reports fourth-quarter and full-year results on June 26. Analysts have an average forecast for sales to drop 15 percent for the quarter and 11 percent for the year, along with a sharp contraction in profits. Eye on the Horizon: Most have written off Nike's fiscal 2025, and will be instead watching for whether the sportswear giant releases guidance for the coming year, along with CEO Elliott Hill's outlook on the earnings call Thursday afternoon. FOMO: Nike watchers assume it's only a matter of time before the brand enters a new golden age, or at least halts its decline. Exactly when that will happen is the billion-dollar question; in a research note, UBS said Nike's stock may even be priced artificially high because investors worry they'll mistime the rebound (remarkable, given shares are trading close to an eight-year low). That dynamic provides Nike leadership a bit of breathing room to implement their plans, though it also increases the consequences if they push out their turnaround timeline. ADVERTISEMENT About Those Plans…: Nike learned the hard way why you don't put all your eggs in one basket, after its retro sneaker boom went bust. Along with marking down holdover Dunks, Nike is seeding numerous potential comeback efforts, including its (yes, retro) Vomero running shoe, the soccer cleat-inspired Cryoshots and reviving women's basketball sneakers with a signature shoe from the WNBA's A'ja Wilson. And of course there's NikeSkims, the new lifestyle sub-brand with Kim Kardashian. Even Nike-owned Converse is pitching in with a much talked about (though still unreleased) sneaker with basketball star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Patience Please: Any or all of these efforts could be the next great Nike franchise, but it will take years of meticulous execution to pull off. We'll find out Thursday if the company is confident enough in its plans to put a date on its return to form. A Big Debut at Dior Jonathan Anderson speaking at BoF Voices in 2023. (Getty Images) What's Happening: Jonathan Anderson makes his much-anticipated Dior debut with a men's show in Paris on June 27, the first and perhaps the biggest in a series of major designer debuts slated for the coming months. A Long Time Coming: Anderson was named creative director of Dior Men's in April, though his long-rumoured appointment to replace Maria Grazia Chiuri wasn't made official until earlier this month. Debuting with a men's show, rather than couture or women's, could be seen as a 'soft launch,' though given the many months of anticipation and the stakes, his collection won't lack for attention. Needing a Spark: The luxury sector is mired in its worst downturn in years. LVMH's brands, which initially defied the trend, are now struggling to keep customers engaged just like everyone else (though declines, while significant, are nowhere near the carnage at Gucci or Burberry). Creative directors can only do so much, but having the right vision and products makes the changes to supply chains and pricing architecture needed to revive the industry's prospects go down easier. The Week Ahead wants to hear from you! Send tips, suggestions, complaints and compliments to
Business Insider
17 hours ago
- Business Insider
'We're not trying to be Silicon Valley': Inside Station F, where Paris is incubating the next tech and AI juggernauts
In Paris's balmy thirteenth district, an airy rail depot that's been converted into a startup incubator is now the epicenter of France's tech boom. Walking through Station F, it's hard not to see how the 366,000-square-foot space has been influenced by Silicon Valley, with its amenities like a huge cafeteria and an under-construction yoga studio that are reminiscent of Big Tech campuses. But Station F's director, Roxanne Varza, told Business Insider that it is not trying to become an American incubator. "We've been inspired by a lot of players, and we look up to Y Combinator. But we're not trying to be Silicon Valley," she said. Now, politics is helping drive international founders here, including Americans, Varza told BI during a recent visit. Trump 2.0 is driving talent migration The election of Donald Trump and Brexit were among the biggest catalysts driving international founders to Station F, Varza told BI. After France, the US and UK are the most represented nationalities on campus, which houses entrepreneurs from 70 nationalities, Varza said. At times of political volatility, the campus has been a magnet for founders seeking a global outlook and a supply of talent. Trump 2.0 — and its aftermath, including the announcement of Stargate and DeepSeek — galvanized European founders to step up, Varza said. The US tech ecosystem secured $209 billion in VC funding in 2024, about 17 times more than France. But Paris is catching up to its global counterparts. In 2025, technology research platform Dealroom billed the city as Europe's new tech champion, overtaking London's mantle. From 2017 to 2024, the combined enterprise value of startups based in Paris increased 5.3 times, more than any other European tech hub. Climate tech founders in particular have been coming from the US to Station F amid the Trump administration cutting incentives for green industries in the US, Varza said. Materials discovery startup Entalpic, which launched in 2024, has had a flurry of US applicants vying for jobs at the company since the start of the year, its cofounder, Alexandre Duval, told BI. Duval had planned to move his startup out of Station F once it reached 20 employees, but decided to stay. "We have so many resources here: meeting rooms, onboarding, events, opportunities to meet people. It's good," he said. Competitive equity Station F, the handiwork of French billionaire Xavier Neil, launched in 2017 to drive entrepreneurship in France's tech ecosystem. The Station F team accepts around 40 startups every month. In addition to access to the incubator's coworking space, startups get resources and mentorship, including from government officials and Big Tech companies, such as Meta and Microsoft, that have offices at Station F. Station F's flagship Founders Program offers founders workshops and masterclasses. In return, the incubator takes 1% equity — a more favourable figure than the 6% taken by Y Combinator. The incubator also aims to write checks of $50,000 to $100,000 to around 20 upstarts each year. The result is a hubbub of innovators collaborating and ideating all days of the week — a far cry from how some corners of LinkedIn see Europe's tech ecosystem as the butt of the joke for its supposed lax work culture compared to Silicon Valley. Station F has welcomed everyone from the prime minister of Ethiopia to the CEO of Cisco — and the morning I arrive, the CEO of GitHub is scheduled to speak for a Q&A as part of VivaTech, France's flagship tech event that attracted speakers such as Nvidia's Jensen Huang. "The No. 1 reason people come here is for the access to people," Varza added. A hotbed for AI startups Like many of its international counterparts, Station F has doubled down on the AI boom. Government initiatives under France's president Emmanuel Macron, as well as generous financing from the country's national bank, Bpifrance, have galvanized the region's AI startups. In 2023, French AI startups raised $1.9 billion, per PitchBook data. In 2024, this figure rose by more than 50% to $2.98 billion. Notable rounds included Mistral's $600 million raise in June 2024 and H's mammoth $220 million seed round in May 2024. So far this year, French AI companies have raised $1.7 billion in VC funding, and Macron announced in February an additional $112 billion in private sector funding earmarked for the country's AI ecosystem. High-profile investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and Lightspeed Ventures have flocked to back prolific AI startups founded in France, such as Mistral, Dust, and Poolside. Open-source AI company Hugging Face, now valued at $4.5 billion, was once incubated in Station F. Now, Varza said, around 40% of France's AI startups are spinning out of the program. In 2024, 34 out of 40 of the top startups touted by Station F — its " Future 40" — were AI companies. "Station F is one of the biggest AI communities in Europe," Varza says. "It's also an entry point for so many tier one investors coming to Europe — and we're seeing more Series A and B rounds too." Beyond helping AI startups raise financing, Station F also participates in regulatory debates about France's tech ecosystem, Varza added. "Right now, the government is talking about how we can fiscally incentivise AI companies and push creation. We're in those discussions very actively." A collegial culture I was keen to speak to AI and climate founders, and within two minutes, Varza had grabbed two people for me to speak to. It was a reflection of how Station F operates: touting collaboration over competition. Despite the vast space, I saw founders from different startups huddled together in various pockets of the station, congregating for in-house events such as Q&As, as well as the bustling restaurant space. "We saw incredible things happen when people were working in close spaces," Varza said. "You see everything from VR and AI companies collaborating — and even companies winding down and neighbouring teams acquiring them." She recalled how one startup in the incubator wanted to pivot and copied a neighbouring company's idea. "It's our only copycat story, but they both ended up being pretty successful," she added. Station F is working on initiatives with Japan and the Gulf region, Varza said — but what excites her most is the opportunity to take what they've built in Paris and "build those bridges" internationally across Europe.
