Archive for Uncategorized
Berkshire Said to Draw Fed Scrutiny Over Wells Fargo Investment
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Agencies weigh whether insider-credit limits exceeded at bank
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Buffett’s 10 percent stake in Wells Fargo triggers more rules
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is well known as a tapestry of modern capitalism for its ownership of dozens of companies and investments in dozens more.
Now that interconnected web is prompting U.S. regulators to examine whether Berkshire’s stake in one of its biggest holdings, Wells Fargo & Co., violates rules for how much credit banks can extend to corporate insiders, according to two people familiar with the review.
WeWork Expands Chicago Footprint
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20 West Kinzie, Chicago
Chicago—Newmark Grubb Knight Frank has recently signed an expansion lease with WeWork at 20 W. Kinzie St., in Chicago, bringing the firm’s total occupancy in the building to 129,000 square feet. NGKF Senior Managing Director Matthew Ward and Senior Associate Melissa Porcelli worked on behalf of the landlord, The Alter Group, in the lease deal.
Realogy Tumbles Most Ever as U.S. Luxury-Home Slump Hits Profit
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Weakness in California, Florida, NYC area hurts NRT unit
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Shares have their biggest drop since company’s IPO in 2012
Realogy Holdings Corp., owner of brokerage brands Coldwell Banker and Century 21, dropped to a record low as sluggish luxury home sales hurt the firm’s earnings.
Shares of Realogy fell 13 percent to $26.62 at 12:47 p.m. in New York, after earlier slumping 15 percent, the biggest decline since the company’s October 2012 initial public offering at $27 a share. Realogy had second-quarter net income of $92 million, or 63 cents a share, down from $97 million, or 66 cents, a year earlier, according to a statement Thursday…
LendingClub Said in Talks With Western Asset on Loan Buying
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New fund may buy up to $1.5 billion in loans, people say
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Deal could bolster demand for LendingClub’s consumer loans
LendingClub Corp., looking to bolster demand for the consumer debts it arranges online, is in talks with Western Asset Management Co. to set up a fund that would purchase as much as $1.5 billion of loans over time, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Software Giant Mozilla Changes London Base
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Metal Box Factory, Southwark, London
London—Software powerhouse Mozilla, the creator of the Firefox browser, recently moved its London headquarters south of the Thames, The Telegraphrecently reported.
Relocating from the Covent Garden area to Metal Box Factory in the borough of Southwark, the company joins 150 other businesses at the recently redeveloped, Workspace-owned property. Mozilla’s new address is Suite 441, 4th floor.
Ultimate Fighting Woos Wall Street With Blood, Guts, Yield
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Ronda Rousey, right, fights Bethe Correia, left, in their UFC bantamweight title fight in Rio de Janeiro, on Aug. 1, 2015.
It was, by almost any measure, a knockout deal — the Wall Street equivalent of a haymaker.
A cool $500 million of high-risk loans went up for sale and, in a blink, more than $2 billion of buy orders came pouring in.
The hot property? None other than Ultimate Fighting Championship, that global bastion of bloody, bone-breaking cage-fighting…
Ultimate Fighting Woos Wall Street With Blood, Guts, Yield
Fortis Grabs Dallas Office Gem
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Dallas Chase Tower (left)
Dallas—It isn’t as big as Blackstone’s, but it’s still pretty big. Roughly one month after news emerged that Blackstone would acquire a nearly $1.2 billion, seven-property office portfolio from Hines REIT as part of its liquidation and dissolution, Fortis Property Group has snatched up a piece of the remains in the form of the landmark JPMorgan Chase Tower in Dallas. An agreement with Hines REIT at the end of May called for Fortis to acquire the 1.3 million-square-foot downtown office destination for $273 million.
Golfsmith Is Considering Filing for Bankruptcy
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Jefferies, Alvarez are said to be advising the golf retailer
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A sale could come as part of Chapter 11 filing, people said
Golfsmith International, the retailer of golf clothing and equipment, is considering filing for bankruptcy as it looks for a new owner, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Golfsmith hired the investment bank Jefferies LLC to solicit buyers for the roughly 150-store chain, without success so far, said the people, who didn’t want to be identified because the process isn’t public. The company also hired Alvarez & Marsal to help it restructure, according to the people, who said that a sale could come as part of a Chapter 11 filing…
Manhattan Luxury-Condo Glut Ends Developer Rush for Land Deals
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Buyers and sellers at stalemate for sales of building parcels
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Land is indicative of where builders see the market headed
New York’s condo slowdown is upending the market for one of the most coveted assets in tightly packed Manhattan: land.
Sales of parcels for development are plummeting as builders, seeing signs that a once-hot property market is cooling, offer prices that sellers won’t agree to. Just 48 land deals were completed in the first half of 2016, compared with 79 in the year-earlier period and 73 in 2014, according to brokerage Ariel Property Advisors. That may be a sign of a broader real estate slowdown to come, since land is often a leading indicator for the rest of the market…
Mizuho Renews Lease at Jersey City’s Harborside
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Harborside Plaza 10, Jersey City, N.J.
New York—Tokyo-based banking holding companyMizuho has renewed its lease at Harborside Plaza 10 in Jersey City, N.J. The company is currently the largest tenant in the building and has renewed its lease of roughly 105,000 square feet of office space on the top three floors for an additional 15-year term.
CBRE brokers Douglas Lehman, Robert Flippin, Nicholas Hilton and Brett Shanon represented Mizuho in the lease transaction with Newmark Grubb Knight Frank. Executive Managing Director Timothy Greiner, Managing Director Hope Brodsky, Managing Principal Hal Stein and Associate Colleen Maguire of NGKF serve as exclusive leasing agents for Harborside Plaza 10…
Federal Reserve Fines Goldman Sachs $36 Million in Document Leak
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Goldman Sachs’s building in Lower Manhattan. The fine stems from a 2014 incident in which a Goldman banker received data from a New York Fed employee. CreditSpencer Platt/Getty Images
The Federal Reserve took action on Wednesday against Goldman Sachs and one of its former executives, escalating a long-running investigation into a leak of confidential government information.
The action, which forced Goldman to pay a $36.3 million penalty, stemmed from an incident in 2014, when a junior Goldman banker took confidential information from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The junior banker, whom Goldman promptly fired, received the information from aNew York Fed employee.
Copper Futures Slip as U.S. Housing Data Signal Cooling Demand
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Construction spending fell in June, according to Census Bureau
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Most other industrial metals also drop as dollar strengthens
Copper fell as other industrial metals slipped amid mounting signs that global demand is slowing.
In the U.S., the MBA mortgage applications index fell 3.5 percent last week, a third straight decline, while purchases also dropped, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association show. U.S. construction spending in June unexpectedly fell 0.6 percent, according to the Census Bureau. Construction accounts for about 30 percent of global copper demand, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
The Bond Sale That May Solve a $566 Billion Problem
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Wells Fargo to issue first CMBS that meets Dodd-Frank rules
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Banks depend on debt issuance to fund real-estate lending
An upcoming bond sale could determine whether Wall Street banks stay in the $566 billion business of packaging commercial mortgages into securities.
The nearly $871 million issue, from Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America Corp., and Morgan Stanley, would be the first to comply with new rules designed to make commercial mortgage-backed securities safer for investors. The deal is slated to be sold as soon as this week…
The Bond Sale That May Solve a $566 Billion Problem
Ackman’s Hedge Fund Sells Off Big Stake in Canadian Pacific
Posted by: | CommentsWilliam A. Ackman, the billionaire investor, is once again shaking up his underperforming hedge fund’s portfolio by selling off a big equity stake in the railway company Canadian Pacific.
Ackman’s Hedge Fund Sells Off Big Stake in Canadian Pacific
U.K. Stocks Little Changed as HSBC Climbs, Homebuilders Decline
Posted by: | CommentsU.K. stocks were little changed as banks gained, while homebuilders declined before tomorrow’s Bank of England rate decision.
HSBC Holdings Plc advanced 4.5 percent after announcing a $2.5 billion share buyback, softening the blow of lower earnings and a step-back from plans to boost its dividends. Standard Chartered Plc climbed 4.2 percent after its first-half loan impairment charges fell by a third.
Persimmon Plc and Taylor Wimpey Plc paced a drop among housing shares, with economists forecasting the BOE will cut its key rate tomorrow. Investors are speculating on how the BOE will act to limit the fallout from last month’s U.K. vote to leave the European Union, with the central bank also set to release new forecasts and hold a press conference following the policy decision…
Mack-Cali Sheds NJ Office Asset
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600 Parsippany Road, Parsippany, N.J.
New York—HFF recently closed the sale of an approximately 100,000-square-foot office asset in Parsippany, N.J. An HFF investment sales team led by Senior Managing Director Jose Cruz, Managing Director Kevin O’Hearn, Directors Michael Olive and Stephen Simonelli and Associate Director Marc Duval represented seller Mack-Cali Realty Corp. in the transaction. A joint venture between Bukiet Building Management and Mountain Development Corp.acquired the building free and clear of existing debt.
Knightsbridge and Chelsea Lead London Home-Price Decline
Posted by: | CommentsHome prices in London’s Knightsbridge district dropped 7.3 percent in the 12 months through July, the biggest annual decline in almost seven years, as Britain’s vote to leave the European Union accelerated price drops caused by rising taxes.
Values fell 1.5 percent across central London’s best districts, with prices in Chelsea down 7.2 percent, broker Knight Frank said in a Wednesday report. Rents in the area known as prime central London fell 3.6 percent in the period and the number of new properties offered for lease rose 49 percent in the second quarter, according to data compiled by the broker…
This $11 Million Island Home Is Within Commuting Distance of NYC
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s hard to believe you can have this kind of remote living so close to a major city—but, of course, it comes at a price.
Island dwellers the world over have noted rising sea levels with increasing alarm, but for Barrie Zesiger and her husband, Al, the lone inhabitants of Connecticut’s Tavern Island, climate change has resulted in an unexpected if temporary benefit: “Going across the sound at 2 a.m. in the winter isn’t a big deal,” Zesiger said. “It’s easy, because things don’t freeze over anymore.”
JBC Lands $233M Loan for Chicago’s CNA Center
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CNA Center Chicago
Chicago—The John Buck Co. can cross construction financing off its to-do list for CNA Center, the 810,000-square-foot Chicago office property that will house the new global headquarters of insurance organization CNA. With the assistance of commercial real estate and capital markets services provider HFF, JBC reeled in a $233.3 million loan from Bank of the Ozarks.
Morgan Stanley Discloses $3.21 Billion Italian Swaps Claim
Posted by: | CommentsMorgan Stanley said an Italian prosecutor may seek as much as 2.88 billion euros ($3.21 billion) over allegations that derivatives the investment bank sold more than a decade ago were improper and unfairly unwound.
Italy’s Court of Accounts, the country’s state auditor, sent Morgan Stanley the proposed claim over derivatives created from 1999 through 2005 and terminated by 2012, the New York-based bank said Wednesday in a quarterly regulatory filing. Italy hadpaid Morgan Stanley $3.4 billion to unwind interest-rate swaps and options that had backfired, as it was cheaper than renewing the contracts, Bloomberg reported in 2012.
Gross: ‘I Don’t Like Bonds, Most Stocks,’ Favors Real Assets
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Latest warnings echo DoubleLine’s Gundlach and Oaktree’s Marks
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Janus manager: Lack of global growth driving ‘Ponzi finance’
Money manager Bill Gross says investors should favor gold and real estate while avoiding most stocks and bonds trading at inflated prices.
“I don’t like bonds; I don’t like most stocks; I don’t like private equity,” Gross, who runs the $1.5 billion Janus Global Unconstrained Bond Fund, wrote in his monthly investment outlook Wednesday. “Real assets such as land, gold and tangible plant and equipment at a discount are favored asset categories.”…
Gross: ‘I Don’t Like Bonds, Most Stocks,’ Favors Real Assets
Coach Monetizes Space at 10 Hudson Yards
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10 Hudson Yards
New York—Coach Inc., the first company to buy space in 10 Hudson Yards three years ago, has sold its stake in the new skyscraper in a sale-leaseback that was part of a larger deal that saw Allianz take a 44 percent interest in the building and the investor group refinance with a $1.2 billion mortgage.
JPMorgan Tells Treasuries Traders Not to Forget Bank of England
Posted by: | CommentsFor Treasuries traders focused on Friday’s U.S. jobs data, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has a word of caution: Don’t forget the Bank of England.
Treasuries could rally with gilts Thursday, when the U.K. monetary authority is forecast to expand stimulus to stem the fallout from the country’s decision to leave the European Union, according to the Wall Street firm. U.S. bonds are on track for only their second weekly loss since late May as Japan leads a global debt selloff on speculation policy makers there are running out of easing options…
JPMorgan Tells Treasuries Traders Not to Forget Bank of England
AIG Curtails Event-Driven, Long-Short Bets at Hedge Funds
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Hedge fund gains decline by 36 percent to $174 million
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Insurer cites changing conditions, market opportunities
American International Group Inc. reduced bets on event-driven and long-short strategies as the insurer scaled back hedge fund investments.
Event-driven holdings were cut 41 percent to $700 million, while investments in long-short declined 25 percent to $2.24 billion in the first half of the year, among the hedge fund assets measured at fair value as of June 30, the New York-based company said late Tuesday in a quarterly filing…
AIG Curtails Event-Driven, Long-Short Bets at Hedge Funds
Big Banks Make a Pitch for Hearts and Minds
Posted by: | CommentsAt both the Democratic and Republican conventions, the nation’s biggest banks were again cast as the bad guys, criticized as being too big and too risky.
This week, as the Olympic Games begin in Brazil, one of the big banks,Citigroup, is offering a rebuttal with a series of prime-time television and digital ads featuring images of sweaty athletes, the Space Shuttle and an early A.T.M.
“Our business is helping Americans make progress,” the ad’s narrator says, as a runner with a prosthetic leg sprints down a track…
Big Banks Make a Pitch for Hearts and Minds
The Canadian Housing Boom Fueled by China’s Billionaires
Posted by: | CommentsFive scenes from Vancouver as it transforms into a playground for the rich.
The walls of Clarence Debelle’s Vancouver office on Canada’s west coast are lined with gifts from his real estate clients: jade and turtle dragon figurines; bottles of baijiu, a traditional Chinese alcohol; and enough special-edition Veuve Clicquot to fuel several high-end cocktail parties.
They are the product of Vancouver’s decade-long real estate frenzy. The city, with its stunning views of the mountains and yacht-dotted harbor, has long been one of the world’s most expensive places to live but price gains have reached a whole new level of intensity this year. Low interest rates, rising immigration, and a surge of foreign money—particularly from China—have all driven the increases…
Miami’s Richest Home Owners All Want These Over-the-Top Amenities
Posted by: | CommentsAs told by Kobi Karp, their mega-mansion architect of choice.
In 2012 Miami-based architect Kobi Karp transitioned from designing luxury resorts to designing private, stand-alone mansions. “When you walk into a beautiful hotel and say, ‘I wish I had this bathroom in my house,’ my job is to make sure that bathroom is actually in your house,” Karp said.
Not many people would describe the Miami residential market as modest, but in Karp’s telling, when he began to design residences the area was flooded with smaller, bungalow-style houses built in the 1930s and 1940s…
Morning Agenda: Herbalife vs. Activist: Just Maybe He’s Right
Posted by: | CommentsHERBALIFE VS. ACTIVIST: JUST MAYBE HE’S RIGHT Bill Ackman, the activist investor, has been painted as a loser in his quest to shut down Herbalife, the nutritional supplement company, but a Federal Trade Commission’s complaint has vindicated his claims, Andrew Ross Sorkin writes.
Herbalife was responsible for “deceiving hundreds of thousands of hopeful people,” said Edith Ramirez, who oversees the F.T.C. “The small minority of Herbalife distributors who did make a lot of money were paid by Herbalife not for selling the company’s products, but for buying the products themselves and then successfully recruiting large networks of others to do the same.”
Partners Group, Spear Street Go on Office Shopping Spree
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The Campus at Legacy, Plano, Texas
San Francisco—Funds managed by Partners Group AG or its affiliates joined forces with affiliates of Spear Street Capital LLC to acquire the Whetstone Portfolio, which comprises roughly 2.2 million square feet of office space across five states. The joint venture partners will acquire a number of premier office assets located in suburban markets in Dallas, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Austin and Boston. Financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed…
JPMorgan Pays Inmates for Fees on Get-Out-of-Jail Debit Card
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Lawsuit claimed the bank swamped ex-inmates with steep charges
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Settlement is to be split by thousands of former prisoners
JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s contract to provide debit cards to inmates released from federal prison may have backfired after a former convict raised a ruckus.
The bank agreed to pay a total of $446,822 to thousands of ex-prisoners to settle a class-action suit claiming JPMorgan ripped them off with $10 fees to withdraw money from a teller window and $2 charges for using non-network ATMs, according to a filing on Monday in federal court in Philadelphia.
Starwood Energy Seals $760M Deal with NextEra
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Armando Pimentel
Philadelphia—NextEra Energy Resources LLC will soon sell its only two natural gas-fired power plants in Pennsylvania, but the company will have three quarters of a billion dollars to fill the hole left in its portfolio. A NextEra subsidiary has signed on to sell the Marcus Hook Energy Center facilities, located 20 miles outside Philadelphia in Marcus Hook, Pa., to an investment affiliate of Starwood Energy Group Global LLC, for $760 million.
Electronics Startup Gets New Funding for Technology Eyed by Musk
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Skeleton’s supercapacitors boost performance of electric cars
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Tesla’s founder sees technology overtaking battery storage
A startup in Estonia making new energy-storage technologies that Elon Musk called key to the future of electric cars secured a new round of funding to expand in Asia.
Skeleton Technologies GmbH makes supercapacitors: light-weight electronic components that efficiently store and distribute high volumes of power. At present, they provide bursts of energy to help propel trains and buses. In the future, Skeleton and other manufacturers like Maxwell Technologies Inc. and Ioxus Inc., want to broaden their utility in a wider range of vehicles…
Rising Sea Levels Could Cost U.S. Homeowners Close to $1 Trillion
Posted by: | CommentsBeing underwater will soon mean exactly what it says. Especially in Florida.
When talking about housing, “underwater” usually means you owe more on a mortgage than the home is actually worth. If climate change continues apace, that term could take on a much more literal meaning.
Rising sea levels could soak homeowners for $882 billion, according to a new report from real estate website Zillow. The research takes its initial cue from the journal Nature, which in March found sea levels could rise more than 6 feet by the end of the century. In that scenario, Florida could lose close to 1 million homes, or 13 percent of the state’s current stock. That comes out to $400 billion in value—a figure that doesn’t include losses to commercial buildings or public infrastructure or account for future appreciation in home value…
Cushman & Wakefield Tapped to Lease NJ’s Kearny Point
Posted by: | CommentsThe 130-acre business campus will act as a catalyst for the revitalization of the South Kearny industrial district.
Kearny Point industrial complex in N.J.
New York—Cushman & Wakefield has been selected as the exclusive leasing agent for Kearny Point Industrial Park, a 2 million-plus-square-foot business campus in Hudson County, N.J., owned by Hugo Neu. The Cushman & Wakefield team leading the assignment will include Mitchell Arkin, Paul Hindes, Paul Giannone and Dan Johnsen.
Europe’s Tumbling Lenders Lose Almost Half Their Value in a Year
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Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank retreat to fresh record lows
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Analysts estimate bank earnings will shrink 18% in 2016
Europe’s banking shares are back in the limelight for all the wrong reasons.
On Tuesday, the second day of trading since stress tests showed almost all euro-area lenders would have sufficient capital to cope with a crisis, Germany’s Commerzbank AG and Deutsche Bank AG tumbled to fresh record lows, dragging a Stoxx Europe 600 Index gauge of their peers towards its biggest two-day loss in almost four weeks.
This Manhattan Developer Is Bucking the Luxury Condo Downturn
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Buyers found in less than two months at Greenwich Village site
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Duplexes sell for $14.75 million, $16.5 million, Macklowe says
As Manhattan developers grapple with how to sell their luxury condos in a slowing market, Billy Macklowe’s Greenwich Village project is an anomaly: He’s found buyers for both penthouses in less than two months.
Macklowe, who with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning a 52-unit condo tower at the site of the former Bowlmor Lanes, said the two priciest apartments — duplexes at $14.75 million and $16.5 million — are under contract. Since sales began on June 9, deals have been signed on 36 percent of the apartments at the still-unbuilt project, known as 21 East 12th…
MiTek Debuts Indianapolis Distribution Facility
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MiTek’s new distribution center in Plainfield, Ind.
Indianapolis—MiTek, a global supplier of services to the residential and commercial construction sectors, has recently announced the opening of its new distribution center in Plainfield, Ind.
The center, located at 2363 E. Perry Road, is now fully operational and will provide same-day or next-day delivery within a 500-mile radius. MiTek’s new facility totals approximately 53,000 square feet of space and nearly 6,500 square feet of office space for employees to provide customer training and support…
Logan’s Roadhouse Said to Plan Bankruptcy Amid Restaurant Slump
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Casual restaurant chain said to file as soon as this month
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Trip to Chapter 11 would follow skipped interest payment
Logan’s Roadhouse Inc., a Nashville, Tennessee-based steakhouse chain with hundreds of locations, is preparing to file for bankruptcy, according to people familiar with the situation.
The filing for Chapter 11 protection may come as soon as this month, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The plan hasn’t yet been finalized and could still change. The company, which uses the slogan “Where Steak Rules the Road,” has about 250 restaurants in 26 states….
San Francisco Progressives Declare War on Affordable Housing
Posted by: | CommentsThe U.S. is running out of places for people to live. Rent is a bigger and bigger part of our cost of living. Here is an index of rental prices divided by median household income:
Nick Denton Files for Bankruptcy, Just Weeks After Gawker Did
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Nick Denton, chief executive and founder of Gawker, in court during the company’s trial against Hulk Hogan in March. CreditJohn Pendygraft/Getty Images
Nick Denton, the founder and chief executive of Gawker Media, filed for personal bankruptcy on Monday to protect himself from a legal judgment awarded in March to the former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan in an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit.
Gawker, which faces a $140 million judgment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June and put itself up for sale. The company will be sold at an auction that is expected to occur later this month…
Under Pressure, Big Banks Vie for Instant Payment Market
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Venmo advertisements on a subway in Manhattan. More Americans are turning to services like Venmo, PayPal’s instant mobile payment service, because they consider banks too slow. CreditJosh Haner/The New York Times
In this digital age when almost anything can be had in an instant, the movement of money can seem glaringly slow.
Floor & Decor Leases Relocation Space at La Plaza Del Norte
Posted by: | CommentsRetail Properties of America Inc. has signed the company to occupy the space once occupied by now-bankrupt retailer Sports Authority in the San Antonio shopping center.
San Antonio—Retail Properties of America Inc. (RPAI) announced that Floor & Decor has signed a new 65,000-square-foot lease at La Plaza Del Norte shopping center in San Antonio.
Floor & Decor, headquartered in Atlanta, is relocating from within the market and will be taking over the former location of Sports Authority, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. The retail store is expected to open early next year.
The Activist and Herbalife: Just Maybe Ackman’s Right
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Bill Ackman, near right, at a Senate hearing in April. He has accused Herbalife, a nutritional supplement company, of defrauding its customers. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times
Bill Ackman, the activist investor, has been painted as a loser in his yearslong quest to shut down Herbalife, the nutritional supplement company that he bet against, contending it defrauded customers and was a pyramid scheme.
Two weeks ago, Herbalife paid $200 million to settle a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission. Herbalife’s stock rose after the settlement, which showed that investors took the development as little more than a slap on the wrist…
Goldman Downgrades Equities for the Next Three Months
Posted by: | CommentsThe S&P 500 to fall 10 percent over the next three months, according to the bank.
Bring in the bears.
The recent rally that’s pushed equities to all-time highs is about to hit a speed bump, according to a new note from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In fact, the team, led by Christian Mueller-Glissmann, expects the S&P 500 and the STOXX Europe 600 to fall roughly 10 percent over the next three months.
“Given equities remain expensive and earnings growth is poor, in our view equities are now just at the upper end of their ‘fat and flat’ range,” they write. The analysts are downgrading stocks to ‘underweight’ for the next three months, while keeping their ‘neutral’ position over the next 12 months and staying ‘overweight’ in cash…
Central Bankers Float New Currency System, Safety Net at Confab
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Bali gathering underscores era of unorthodox policies
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Dudley offers defense of poverty-reducing globalization
Central bank officials from around the world converged on the Indonesian island of Bali on Monday to swap ideas on tools to address global economic and financial risks. The takeaway: it’s time to start thinking outside the box.
Meeting in a location better known for its surfing and temples than debates on financial safety nets, policy makers from Switzerland to the Philippines agreed that conventional monetary policy alone is no longer enough to manage growth. They also debated inadequacies in the current global financial safety-net system…
Whole Foods Breaks Ground on Chicago Distribution Center
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Whole Foods Market headquarters, Austin, Texas
Chicago—Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined Whole Foods Market officials as the company broke ground on its new 150,000-square-foot Midwest distribution center in South Side Chicago last week. Whole Foods is relocating its current distribution center in Munster, Ind., to Chicago’s historic Pullman neighborhood. The facility is scheduled for completion in early 2018, and is set to initially employ 150 people and serve as many as 70 Whole Foods Market locations across the Midwest and Ontario, Canada.
New Zealand Sees No Case to Change RBNZ’s Inflation Targeting
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Treasury signals no desire to ditch framework RBNZ pioneered
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Policy Targets Agreement is reviewed ahead of 2017 renewal
New Zealand is likely to maintain an inflation-targeting framework for monetary policy when the government renews its Policy Targets Agreement with the central bank next year, the Treasury Department said.
“Our view is that no case has yet been made to change our current framework and there would be a high hurdle before going down that path,” Treasury spokesman Bryan McDaniel said in an e-mail Tuesday. Canada, Sweden and the U.K. have recently undertaken monetary framework policy reviews and none of those led to a move away from inflation targeting, McDaniel said. The comments were first reported by Radio New Zealand and interest.co.nz…
A $400 Billion Influx Squeezes U.S. Bond Market’s Safest Asset
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Money-market funds must abandon $1-a-share NAV in October
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Treasury may introduce two-month bills to cope with demand
The U.S. government’s attempt to alleviate the short supply of T-bills is about to get a little harder.
After years in the making, a post-crisis rule to prevent a run on the money-market industry will finally take effect this October. It will force funds that oversee about $600 billion to abandon a fixed $1-a-share price and float their net asset value. But because businesses and state governments treat the funds like bank accounts, the prospect of prices falling below a buck is causing a big shift into money-market funds that buy only government debt…
Stream Realty Partners Secures 25,800 SF Distribution Center Lease
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Crosswinds Distribution Center, San Antonio
San Antonio—Stream Realty Partners announced it has recently secured a 25,841-square-foot lease in San Antonio at Crosswinds Distribution Center – Building C for Copenhagen Imports of Phoenix.
DRA Advisors, the landlord, was represented in the transaction by Kevin Cosgrove and Payton Rion of Stream Realty Partners – Central Texas LP.
Microsoft Sells $19.75 Billion of Bonds in Its Biggest Ever Sale
Posted by: | CommentsMicrosoft Corp. raised $19.75 billion in the third-largest U.S. corporate bond sale of the year to help finance its planned purchase of LinkedIn Corp.
Investors put in more than $50 billion of orders for the deal in the software maker’s biggest ever sale. The strong demand helped Microsoft to borrow at lower rates than it paid for the $13 billion of bonds it raised in October. It also saved about $40 million in annual interest payments compared with what it was offering to pay initially, according to people familiar with the matter.
Lowe’s Brings $100M Fulfillment Center to Nashville
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Lowe’s Home Improvement store
Nashville—Lowe’s will be bringing a 1.1 million-square-foot, state-of-the-art direct fulfillment center to Coopertown, Tenn., which is expected to create approximately 600 jobs upon completion.
“We’re continually working to make doing business with Lowe’s easier for customers. Investing to build a new direct fulfillment center—the first of its kind for Lowe’s—allows us to offer customers more products online, consolidate multiple parcel shipments and ship purchases directly to customers faster and more efficiently,” Brent Kirby, Lowe’s chief supply chain officer, said in a prepared release. “The Nashville area was chosen due to its existing large shipping hubs, access to interstate roadways and well-skilled workforce.”…
China’s Xinyuan Buys Landmark NYC Theater for Queens Condo Tower
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RKO Keith’s, where Marx Brothers, Mae West played, is sold
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Xinyuan sees growth in Flushing market as Manhattan softens
RKO Keith’s Theater, a landmark movie palace that once was the focal point of the Flushing neighborhood in Queens, New York, was sold to a Beijing-based developer that plans to tear most of it down and build a 269-unit condominium tower.
Monte Paschi’s 544-Year Journey From Farm Lending to Scandals
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World’s oldest bank running out of time and money amid crisis
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Bank unable to overcome derivatives deals that masked losses
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, the world’s oldest bank, is also Europe’s riskiest. In the region’s stress tests published last week, Monte Paschi’s capital was wiped out under the exam’s toughest scenario, the worst performance among the 51 banks examined.
To bolster its buffers, Monte Paschi said late Friday that it will tap investors for the third time in two years by selling up to 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion) of stock and dispose of most of its bad loans.
Next Step in TXU Bankruptcy Is Up to the Courts and Regulators
Posted by: | CommentsThe long, sad saga of TXU may finally be heading toward a conclusion. The power producer NextEra Energy is buying the bankrupt company’s 80 percent stake in the power transmission group Oncor Electric Delivery, valued at $18.4 billion.
U.K. Mortgage Approvals Fall to 13-Month Low on Brexit Jitters
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Lenders sign off on 64,766 loans in month of EU referendum
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Buyers said to be pulling out, renegotiating since Brexit vote
U.K. mortgage approvals fell to their lowest level in more than a year in June as nervousness gripped the housing market before the referendum on European Union membership.
Banks and mutually owned lenders signed off on 64,766 loans for house purchase, the fewest since May 2015, the Bank of England said on Friday. The figure was down 3 percent from May and below the 65,500 predicted in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Paschi Approves Capital-Raising Plan, Forms Bank Consortium
Posted by: | CommentsBanca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA approved a plan to tap investors for the third time in two years by selling stock to replenish capital, a board member said after Friday’s meeting ended.
The lender has formed a consortium of banks to manage the sale, Antonino Turicchi said in Siena.
Monte Paschi’s plan follows a share selloff that wiped 74 percent off the bank’s market value this year as concerns mounted about its capital strength. While Monte Paschi is seeking to raise funds through private means, Italy had held talks with the European Commission to back the bank’s recapitalization with state funds…
Theranos Damage Control, Tesla Earnings and the Jobs Report
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s a look at what’s coming up this week:
Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and chief of Theranos.CreditBrendan McDermid/Reuters
TECHNOLOGY
Hong Kong Housing Rebound May Be Short-Lived, Analysts Say
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Short-term sentiment buoyed by equity markets, dovish Fed
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Nomura’s Gao expects prices to fall up to 35% from peak levels
Hong Kong’s secondary property prices rose in the second quarter, marking a pause in a correction that analysts said may resume amid higher supply and weaker demand.
Secondary property prices advanced 1.6 percent in the three months ended June 30, compared with a drop of 4.8 percent in the prior three months, according to figures released Friday by the Rating and Valuation Department. Analysts from Nomura Holdings Inc., CIMB Securities Ltd. and CLSA Ltd. are among those predicting that the rebound would be short-lived…
Plunging Oil Prices Create Bad-Loan Headache for Singapore Banks
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DBS exposed to liquidation of oil-services firm Swiber
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Moody’s says energy lending is 5.3 percent of Singapore loans
The plunge in oil prices is catching up with Singapore’s three largest banks.
On Thursday, Swiber Holdings Ltd., a small Singapore company that provides construction services for international oil and gas projects, said it filed a petition toliquidate its operations, after facing payment demands from creditors at a time when its business was under pressure. DBS Group Holdings Ltd., one of the largest lenders to Swiber, said it only expects to recover about half of the S$700 million ($518 million) it loaned to the firm and its units.
Tech Company Occupies Hefty Office, Data Center Space in Chicago
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Chicago—In simultaneous transactions, Ensono, a hybrid IT services company formerly known as Acxiom IT, has leased 199,611 square feet of office and data center space, in west suburban Downers Grove, Ill. JLL provided tenant representation services for Ensono, and will also direct the buildout of the reconfigured space.
Ensono leased 84,259 square feet of space at 3333 Finley Road and 115,352 square feet of data center space–the entire building–at 1501 Opus Place. JLL’s Managing Directors Ben Erskine and Chris Rohrer arranged the leasing contracts on behalf of Ensono.