The rise of weight-loss drugs isn’t only shrinking Americans’ waistlines, it could also shrink food corporations’ bottom lines. 

Some experts predict junk food companies – already battling a rise in health conscious customers – could face a tobacco-like demise due to drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, which reduce cravings and make people feel full longer. 

Big banks, such as Morgan Stanley, predict 24 million people, or seven percent of the US population, will be taking weight-loss drugs by 2035. 

An analysis by the bank also predicts patients prescribed the drugs will consume one-quarter of the candy, confectionary and other junk food they did before – slashing billions of dollars from annual revenue.

And corporations are already spooked. A recent analysis found executives at junk food companies are increasingly talking about the medications with investors. 

Morgan Stanley’s food analyst Pamela Kaufman said in a report: ‘The food, beverage and restaurant industries could see softer demand, particularly for unhealthier foods and high-fat, sweet and salty options.’ 

The new class of medications can lead to a 20 to 30 percent reduction in daily calories, and people tend to eat less high-sugar and high-fat foods, meaning the makers of chips, cookies and baked goods could take a hit, with banks predicting a drop in consumption by as much as three percent through 2035.

While any negative impacts are likely to be gradual, investors and c-suite executives have already begun to worry. 

Reuters’ Breakingviews scoured the transcripts of corporations’ presentations, events and earnings calls, which is a conference between the management of a company, financial analysts, media and investors.

It found in 2022, there were 18 mentions of Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro. So far in 2023, at least one of these drugs was mentioned in calls 71 times.  

Morgan Stanley’s research found 73 percent of people on the weight loss drugs ate less confectionary food, which includes sugary candy, chocolate and some baked goods. 

Seventy percent of people consumed fewer sugary drinks; 69 percent ate less cookies; and 67 percent reached for fewer salty snacks. 

These drastic reductions could spell trouble for the mega-producers of these types of food, including Cadbury and Oreo producer Mondelez International, Nestle, which makes Hot Pockets and Häagen-Dazs, and Kraft Heinz, which produces products like Jell-O and Kraft Mac and Cheese. 

These companies dominate the global market for snacks, which is currently valued at half a trillion dollars, and they should brace for falling demand.

The hospitality industry is also taking a hit. The same survey found 77 percent of people on weight-loss drugs took fewer trips to fast-food establishments and 74 percent ate at pizzerias less. 

Like snack-makers, major players in the fast food industry, such as McDonald’s, Burger King and Yum Brands, which owns KFC and Taco Bell, could see falling demand, with analysts forecasting a drop in sales between one to two percent by 2035.

While two percent may not seem like a lot, it equates to nearly $7 billion.   

Alcohol will also take a hit from the rise in weight-loss prescriptions. Two-thirds of Americans on these medications report consuming less alcohol and nearly one-quarter stopped drinking alcohol altogether. 

Banking analysts projected US-focused alcohol companies face the highest risk and can expect a two percent decline in consumption by 2035. 

The implications of weight-loss drug approval and popularity extends beyond the food and beverage industries.

Financial analysts also predict companies that make products to treat conditions stemming from obesity could also take a hit.

Companies that manufacture products for sleep apnea, a condition in which sufferers intermittently stop breathing while asleep, will likely see a reduction in value because approximately 70 percent of sufferers are obese. 

Additionally, companies that sell joint replacements should also expect their valuations to decline. 

And rival weight-loss businesses, such as WW International, formerly known as Weight Watchers, has seen its shares plummet by about 70 percent since Wegovy was approved in June 2021. Jenny Craig, a similar business, shut down in May after more than 40 years because of growing competition from weight-loss drugs. 

Banks have been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons lately – shutting down accounts, penalising savers, losing customer trust. But Solihull-based Secure Trust Bank strives to be different.

Under ambitious chief executive David Creadie, the bank defines its mission as helping consumers and businesses to fulfil their ambitions.

In a world awash with flowery but meaningless corporate gobbledegook, Secure Trust’s ethos is reassuringly simple. And it is backed by hard graft and consistent service across four main areas of lending – goods and services, cars, professional property and business.

The first arm is all about helping shops to offer credit, largely interest-free, to their customers. 

Secure Trust works with more than 1,500 retailers, including Watches of Switzerland and furniture giant DFS. Creadie also supplies all the Premier League clubs with finance so they can offer season ticket deals to fans. And with some London clubs charging well over £1,000 for a single season of games, supporters need all the help they can muster.

Not so long ago, Secure Trust focused on costly loans for hard-pressed shoppers. Now, the bank tends towards interest-free credit, generally offered to more affluent consumers, who are less susceptible to economic pressures. 

Bad debts are lower, credit facilities are higher and Secure Trust is expanding at a fair clip, increasing lending by more than £1billion last year alone, while remaining prudent about the customers it takes on.

Secure Trust also supplies finance to nearly 500 car dealers and brokers so they can offer deals to motorists in search of second-hand vehicles.

Again, business is brisk. The bank offers cutting-edge technology that allows loans to be made swiftly and efficiently and new business more than doubled last year. 

On the property front, Creadie is keen to distinguish his business from other buy-to-let mortgage lenders. His bank specialises in lending to individuals and small firms that own four or five properties, each with several flats. These are experienced property hands, borrowing around £10million on average. 

But Secure Trust takes a conservative approach to lending, so bad debts are minimal. The bank supplies credit to small businesses too, generally backed by assets such as invoices. Typical customers include food processors and manufacturers which supply supermarkets and may have to wait weeks or months before invoices are settled.

The bank advances up to 90 per cent of the funds up-front, so firms have access to the working capital they need. Across the group, net lending rose 17 per cent to more than £3billion in the first quarter of 2023, with further growth expected throughout the year.

Loans are largely funded by deposits and here too Secure Trust is expanding, attracting more than £2.5billion of savings in the first quarter of 2023 and on track to deliver more of the same through the year. 

Secure Trust shares have been hit hard by macro-economic worries, more than halving in value to £5.56 since last August. The price is a poor reflection of current trading and future prospects.

Interim figures, out this week, should prove encouraging. Secure Trust is a minnow compared to other banks, valued on the stock market at just £107million. 

But it has more than 1.2million customers and Creadie is confident of delivering growth. He took the helm in 2021, has made some canny moves to date and won support among City analysts. Brokers forecast a 13 per cent increase in profits to £44million this year, rising to £53million in 2024. Dividends are pretty decent too, with 43p pencilled in for 2023, rising to more than 50p next year.

Midas verdict: Secure Trust shares were more than £12 last summer. Now they are just £5.56, even though the business has grown, costs have been streamlined and the outlook is bright. 

Banks may be unloved right now but Secure Trust is a rather different animal and David Creadie is determined to make his mark. The shares are a buy and the 7.5 per cent dividend yield is an added attraction.

Traded on: Main market Ticker: STB Contact: securetrustbank.com or 0121 693 9100

 Elizabeth Banks showcased her toned arms and legs while putting her groceries in the back of her car outside a supermarket in Los Angeles on Monday.

The actress, 49, who recently returned from an Italian vacation, tried to beat the heat wearing black and white striped mini dress that showed off her toned and tanned figure.

The star added comfy white sneakers as she appeared to be wearing minimal makeup.

The Call Jane star’s blonde hair was pulled back into a loose bun. She wore dark sunglasses atop her head as she put her purchases in the back of her car. 

This comes after the star talked directing the box-office disappointment Charlie’s Angeles. 

The actress, who is currently starring in The Beanie Bubble on Apple TV+, has expanded her resume to include producing and directing since beginning her career in the late 1990s.

With the hype about Barbie, which has earned some $780 million globally so far,  Elizabeth, who directed 2019’s Charlie’s Angels reboot, is speaking out about the difficulties of being the woman calling the shots. 

Her Charlie’s Angels movie opened to mixed reviews and made only $73 million worldwide. 

In an interview with Rolling Stone, she spoke some of the challenges she faced due to the way the film was perceived.  

‘For me, regardless of what the actual product was, so much of the story that the media wanted to tell about Charlie’s Angels was that it was some feminist manifesto,’ she explained.

‘People kept saying, “You’re the first female director of Charlie’s Angels!” And I was like, “They’ve only done a TV show and McG’s movies… what are you talking about? There’s not this long legacy.”

‘I just loved the franchise,’ the Massachusetts native said.

‘There was not this gendered agenda from me,’ she contended. 

‘That was very much laid on top of the work, and it was a little bit of a bummer. It felt like it pigeonholed me and the audience for the movie.

‘To lose control of the narrative like that was a real bummer,’ she claimed.

‘You realize how the media can frame something regardless of how you’ve framed it. 

‘I happen to be a woman who directed a Charlie’s Angels movie that happened to star three incredible women. You can’t control the media saying, “You’re a lady director, and that’s special!” — which it is, but it’s not the only thing,’ she pointed out.

‘I remember having a conversation with someone who was like, “You guys are going to have a partnership with Drybar” — which is, like, a hair-blowing thing — and I was like, “Alright… but could we have an ad during the baseball playoffs? It’s not only this one thing.”

‘It was interesting to see how the industry sees things that star women. It was a real lesson for me.’

She did not address how audience members found the film too ‘woke,’ which seemed to be the main complaint. 

The Cocaine Bear director hasn’t shied away from other projects. She is currently signed to direct The Greater Good, described as a ‘comedic version of The X-Files.’

She also produced Bottoms, starring Emma Seligman, Rachel Sennott and Kaia Gerber. 

The comedy about two unpopular lesbians who start a fight club so they can have sex with cheerleaders before their high school graduation opens August 25.

Sunrise host Natalie Barr rips into the Big Four Aussie banks: Here’s how they are giving YOU a raw deal as they make millions

• Major banks to crop grilling in parliament this week
• CEO’s of Westpac, NAB, ANZ and CBA to front the inquiry
• Banks to be grilled over interest rates for savings accounts

By Olivia Day For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 22:13 EDT, 11 July 2023 | Updated: 02:51 EDT, 12 July 2023

More US banks on the brink as crisis deepens: Panic on Wall Street as shares in 3 regional lenders tank amid fears for the future

By Mark Shapland For The Daily Mail

Published: 17:14 EDT, 4 May 2023 | Updated: 17:14 EDT, 4 May 2023

Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.

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The rise in US interest rates should be the last in the current cycle. 

As keen as Federal Reserve chairman Jay Powell is to make up for past mistakes, by being tough on inflation, he is stoking up a conflagration in banking and commercial real estate, adding to the debt ceiling mandated by Congress.

If anyone thinks the rescue of First Republic this week is the end of the current troubles in US banking, they should think again.

The fragile share prices of regional banks such as PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp are not an accident. 

It is recognition that deposit outflows, wrong judgements on interest rates and some dodgy lending standards are taking a toll.

It is bizarre, given additional risks which every rise in interest rates bestows on banking, that the Fed continues to hike borrowing costs. 

Until now, Joe Biden’s White House has been careful to avoid the Donald Trump error of seeking to dictate to an independent central bank.

But top White House economist Heather Boushey acknowledges rate increases are having a ‘negative effect on the banking sector’. If a whole layer of US banks were to be hobbled by outflows it could bring the American economy to a shuddering halt.

What I find extraordinary is how little has been learnt from the past. When Northern Rock collapsed in 2007, then-governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King was reluctant to act as lender of the last resort for fear of creating moral hazard.

He went on to support the bailout of the Rock and the recapitalisation of most of the banking system.

There was an acknowledgement, however, that bailing out the hopeless, foolish and unscrupulous is a game for mugs.

There has been little recognition of this by US authorities. Stung from the fallout from the Lehman Brothers collapse in 2008, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, regulators at the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have behaved like deer caught in the headlights.

Raising the deposit insurance ceiling from $250,000 (£200,000) and applying it to business deposits is an invite to reckless lending. The rule after 2008 was no bank should be ‘too big to fail’.

The new standard is that even medium-sized banks should not be allowed to fail. One understands why authorities seek to hold the system together. 

Uninsured deposits at US banks tripled to $7.7trillion (£6.1trillion) between 2009 and 2022.

Social media and online banking have made the edifice more vulnerable to speculative attacks. British and Continental banks have sought to push back at onerous capital and liquidity requirements which have hurt competitiveness.

It is not yet clear, particularly in the eurozone, that banks are entirely safe. Yet they may be better prepared than their American counterparts to withstand the storm.

Revving up

Britain ought to be the home of sports and supercars with its innovative technology created in the Formula One motor racing hub around Silverstone.

In spite of the marketing pizzazz derived from James Bond, and the inspiration of executive chairman Lawrence Stroll, Aston Martin struggles in the sports car stakes.

Latest figures from the UK carmaker offer minimal encouragement. 

There is strong demand for its sports utility vehicle DBX, and it has lifted its average sale price to £180,000. 

Operating in a space dominated by Porsche and Ferrari, at a time when the industry is orientating towards advanced hybrid and electric models, is expensive.

Aston’s pre-tax losses narrowed in the first quarter to £74.2million but capital spending on a new sports model and EVs meant a jump in negative cash flows to £118million.

In contrast, Porsche appears unaffected by the squeeze across the globe, with first- quarter profits of £1.6billion. China accounted for a quarter of the 80,767 vehicles sold.

Luxury cars look inured to the second Cold War.

Hot air

Hard to hide the schadenfreude at seeing veteran corporate disrupter Carl Icahn being targeted by Hindenburg Research.

The short-seller alleges that quoted Icahn Enterprises holds private assets on its books at inflated values.

It claims that Icahn uses money from new investors to pay excessive dividends to longer-standing investors. Sounds familiar.