Podcasts from Share Radio Breakfast

On this day in 2001, the American energy giant Enron filed for bankruptcy. Enron took accounting fraud to a whole new level, and its demise even led to the disintegration of its accountants Arthur Andersen. Its collapse was the worst business failure in US corporate history to date. Matt Cox has been investigating the causes and consequences of the fall, and the lessons we’ve learnt over a decade and a half later.

On Sunday, Italy holds a referendum. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wants the power to streamline the country's creaking political system, reducing the power of upper house senators from blocking what he sees as essential economic reforms. But many are predicting he will lose. The worry for the markets is that a large protest vote could give the populist Five Star movement enough momentum to put Italy on a slippery slope to leave the Euro currency zone, plunging Europe into a fresh political and financial crisis. Dijedon 'Doni' Imeri is a country risk analyst for IHS Markit and he joined Share Radio Breakfast.

Oil prices are sitting at their highest level in a year. For now, financial markets seem convinced the Opec cartel's new deal to limit global crude production will stick. Motoring organisations have already warned petrol prices may rise by 9p a litre, adding about £5 to the average cost of filling up a car. But what of Oil's cousin, natural gas. How has the market for that been affected? Matt Cox has been hearing from Edgar van der Meer, Senior Analyst at industry specialists NRG Expert.

Luke Johnstone, Founder of PACK'D, a frozen smoothie kit making business, was awarded last night Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the Amazon Growing Business Awards. We started by asking him how he started his own business and the idea behind it.

Josh Lowe, Reporter at Newsweek, joined Share Radio for his Thursdays comment of the latest political news. We started by asking him about the news that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's has privately told at least four EU ambassadors that he supports freedom of movement of EU workers despite the Government's stance.

The Mint, the only institution licensed to provide coins in the UK, has announced it will look at launching a digital gold offering, allowing users to trade the assets using a blockchain based system. So how will this new digital gold blockchain work? Share Radio's Matt Cox spoke to monetary innovation researcher Garrick Hileman to find out more.

Impax Asset Management group has just announced results for the year ended 30 September 2016, describing it as one of the most successful years in their nineteen year history. Profit before tax are flat compared to last year, increasing to 5.2 million pounds from 5.1 million pounds, but these were up against more difficult background for investment. Ian Simm, Founder and Chief Executive, joined Share Radio to discuss the results.

As the National Grid launched its report into the future of energy networks yesterday, it's also rather concerned with a power connection perhaps more important to the present. The National Grid is investigating damage to the The Interconnexion France-Angleterre, which gives the UK access to French power and vice versa. Power capacity has been cut in half and, as winter approaches, so grows the UK's energy demands. To find out more about the causes and consequences, Share Radio's Matt Cox spoke to Diarmaid Williams, International Digital Editor of publications Power Engineering International & Decentralised Energy.

OPEC has reached a deal to cut oil supplies for the first time since the global financial crisis in 2008, prices are expected to rise above $50 a barrel as countries with large oil reserves like Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies accepted big reductions in production. OPEC decided to cut 1.2m barrels a day to about 32.5m b/d for six months from early 2017 after six hours of talks in Vienna. Our energy expert in Vienna Peter Bild joined the show to discuss.

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly already held at least two phone calls with Vladimir Putin - more than with any other world leader and the same amount of briefings he's had with American intelligence experts. Mr Trump praised the Russian president during the election campaign and has promised closer co-operation between the two countries. Share Radio's Robert Van Egghen spoke to Sergey Aleksashenko, former deputy governor of the Russian central bank.