How this sample was chosenWe screened nine accessible references to Lex columns published from March through October 2016 and selected six distinct claims with a durable mechanism and checkable outcome. We excluded a contemporaneous Tesla emissions comparison, an Ericsson results diagnosis without a sufficiently distinct forecast and uncertainty about the immediate purpose of a Poundland bid. Where the original FT page was not accessible, the linked contemporaneous summary is the archive record and is labelled accordingly.
01
Bank structure
Bank of America
Break-up pressure“Bank of America would come under pressure to break up parts of its conglomerate”
Lex expected the valuation case for simpler banks to travel from Citigroup to Bank of America. It did not travel far enough to trouble the corporate stationery. Bank of America’s 2025 filing still presented Consumer Banking, Global Wealth, Global Banking and Global Markets under one roof. Complexity retained both its discount and its parking space.
Forbes summary of FT Lex · Mar. 23, 2016 ↗Observed realityMissThe bank remained a four-segment, $3.4 trillion institution in 2025 without a public break-up campaign succeedingMiss
02
Market structure
Index businesses
Passive-investing engine“The shift toward index tracking would make benchmark and data franchises a major growth engine for exchanges”
Lex looked past the proposed LSE–Deutsche Börse combination’s trading floors to its less photogenic prize: indices. The merger failed, but the thesis did not require a seating plan. ETF assets multiplied, benchmark licensing became central to exchange economics, and passive management progressed from trend to plumbing.
ShareCast summary of FT Lex · Jun. 3, 2016 ↗Observed realityHitUS ETF assets reached $13.4 trillion by the end of 2025Hit
03
Work & property
Regus
Flexible-office model“Flexible workspace and app-based booking had a durable market, provided expansion followed demand rather than cheap money”
The column liked the flexibility and distrusted the temptation to manufacture growth with easy financing. That combination aged better than the louder WeWork version. Regus became IWG, endured the office shock and expanded through capital-light partnerships. Flexibility, it turns out, works better when applied to the liabilities too.
ShareCast summary of FT Lex · Aug. 10, 2016 ↗Observed realityHitIWG generated $3.76 billion of 2025 revenue and opened 769 capital-light centresHit
04
Mobility platforms
GM and Lyft
Also-ran thesis“GM was right not to buy Lyft because Uber’s distant second-place rival was likely to remain an also-ran”
Not buying a cash-hungry platform was defensible advice for an automaker with other uses for its balance sheet. Calling Lyft merely an also-ran underestimated what second place could become: a public company with 51 million annual riders and a newly international footprint. Smaller is not the same as ornamental.
WintonsWorld summary of FT Lex · Aug. 16, 2016 ↗Observed realityPartialLyft remained smaller than Uber but reached 945.5 million rides and $6.3 billion of revenue in 2025Partial
05
Telecom finance
Telefónica
Debt diagnosis“Telefónica’s acquisition binge had bloated its balance sheet, but improving cash flow and asset sales meant it would remain investment grade and survive”
Lex’s diagnosis managed skepticism without declaring a funeral. Telefónica did spend the following decade simplifying, selling assets and nursing leverage, but it remained financeable and very much alive. The patient did not perish from overconsumption; it was placed on a long and rather joyless diet.
Europa Press summary of FT Lex · Sep. 6, 2016 ↗Observed realityHitThe group remained investment grade and cut net financial debt to €26.8 billion by the end of 2025Hit
06
Media regulation
AT&T and Time Warner
Vertical limit“The absence of horizontal overlap would not spare AT&T’s Time Warner purchase from serious competition scrutiny”
AT&T insisted that vertical meant uncomplicated. Lex identified the regulatory limit; the Justice Department supplied a lawsuit. The government lost and the transaction closed, so this is not scored as a prediction that regulators would block it. AT&T spun WarnerMedia out in 2022 anyway, allowing strategy to achieve what antitrust had not.
ARCEP press review citing FT Lex · Oct. 25, 2016 ↗Observed realityHitThe Justice Department brought the first litigated US vertical-merger challenge in four decadesHit
A desk dossier is useful, but staff turnover makes it less comparable with an individual columnist. The score belongs to the editing system and house style, not a stable forecaster.
Agreed. That is why the page treats Lex as an institution and does not infer individual authorship. The accountable object is the collective byline readers were asked to trust.
The AT&T item should earn credit for predicting scrutiny, not for predicting failure. The government sued and lost; the later spin-off is evidence about strategy, not the antitrust forecast.