UK information champions beneath siege because the AI revolution gathers tempo: ALEX BRUMMER

Legal and medical data provider Relx has been on an extraordinary ride over the last several years, with the share price more than doubling since 2022 to a peak of over 4000p last year.

Fuelled by its ability to use generative AI tools, it was the company no one had ever heard of that rocketed to near the top of the FTSE 100.

The shine is off the apple. The shares have plummeted 45 per cent from their peak and were down 14.4 per cent in latest trading to 2214p. 

The company’s previously soaring share price and reputation as a pioneer user of AI, with expertise in cybersecurity, allowed its Swedish chief executive Erik Engstrom to become the invisible man.

Since taking the helm at the former Reed Elsevier in 2009, he eschewed media and allowed outperformance to do the talking.

One cannot imagine that big battalion investors – led by BlackRock UK with a 7.85pc stake or activists Artisan Partners – will be full of the joys of spring over the stock setback.

Bot luck: Legal and medical data provider Relx lost a third of it’s value following the release by San Francisco based Anthropic of an AI fix designed to automate legal work

Engstrom privately has been seeking to soothe the nerves of investors.

The main cause of Relx’s current travail is the release by San Francisco-based Anthropic – creator of AI model Claude – of an AI tool designed to automate legal work.

There will be questions as to how reliable such a tool can be when Relx, through LexisNexis, has a database of more than 160m legal documents used by many of the world’s leading law firms.

The £6billion-plus loss of value in Tuesday trading would imply that all Relx’s legal income, its fastest-growing segment, would be wiped out.

The reality is that the Anthropic plug-in is much more about the larger, separate legal services and software market than data.

The embrace of AI is meant to empower Britain’s biggest data analytics groups such as Relx, its legal competitor Thomson Reuters, the London Stock Exchange Group and credit checking specialists Experian. All have suffered because of the Anthropic antics.

We have sort of been here before. In January 2025, China’s DeepSeek sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley after a claim that it could replicate what OpenAI does at a fraction of the cost. 

The initial shock passed, and America’s AI boom picked up with even more momentum.

Engstrom at Relx is expected to go public on the perceived threat at the group’s results briefing on February 12.

It will have to be convincing otherwise doubts about his group’s model could do lasting damage.

Herald’s last stand

Anyone hoping that hedge fund manager Boaz Weinstein would retreat at the first smell of cordite at the Herald Investment Trust will be disappointed.

The American invader used his 30 per cent stake to block the loyal followers of investment whizz Katie Potts at Herald from exiting the trust at close to asset value.

The reality is that Weinstein’s Saba Capital Management was never going to leave. The real goal has been to seize control of the management of the trust. 

Herald, chaired by Andrew Joy, has cancelled a second public meeting scheduled for this week to try and forge a deal with Saba.

Ideally, a suitable buyout price for Saba’s stake would be agreed, to be paid for out of cash reserves and asset sales.

This would allow shareholders to either hang in, at a downsized trust, or leave at a price close to asset value.

The alternative is a second vote which would lead to the wind-up of the whole enterprise and deprive shareholders, many of them private investors, of exposure to the tech revolution.

New world

One of Hollywood’s greatest production houses, Disney, also faces a tech threat.

Its income has been sheltered by the outperformance of theme parks and cruise enterprises run by 28-year company veteran Josh D’Amaro.

He succeeds the great Bob Iger as chief executive. D’Amaro’s job will be to navigate change in Hollywood and the surge in armchair and mobile viewing habits.

Rupert Murdoch discovered decades ago the value of sports viewing. Disney’s ESPN sports expertise could prove to be its most effective weapon in the streaming wars.