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Investment bank beats analyst expectations for second quarter
- Bank had net outflows for the first time in about 18 months
UBS Group AG’s newly combined wealth-management business and investment bank are helping Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti boost growth after investors questioned the lender’s commitment to higher returns.
The private banking unit — which counts many of the world’s billionaires among its clients — took in more fees and interest income in the second quarter while bringing down costs, even as UBS unexpectedly saw money leave the firm. At the investment bank, surging equities and foreign-exchange trading helped the unit led by Andrea Orcel beat estimates…
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Few want to talk about it, but more insurers selling coverage
- AIG, Allianz among those taking crypto-insurance plunge
In the staid and buttoned-up world of insurance underwriting, few want to talk about it. You won’t find many ads promoting it or details on company websites offering it.
But according to industry insiders, there’s a hot new business that more and more firms are looking to get into: crypto insurance…
Stolen Crypto Millions Paid Back for Cents on Dollar, Guaranteed
Republicans Pan Trump’s $12 Billion Farm Aid Plan
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GOP lawmakers’ responses range from ambivalent to outraged
- Crop prices rise in anticipation of agricultural aid program
The Trump administration’s decision to deliver $12 billion in aid to farmers hit by a burgeoning trade war was panned Tuesday by Republicans in Congress as not fixing the underlying problem — the White House’s own trade policies.
The planned mix of direct payments to farmers, commodity purchases for food-aid programs, and stepped up promotion of new export markets buoyed markets looking for new sources of demand for U.S. products. The announcement raised futures of soybeans, a crop heavily dependent on trade with China, to their highest price in two weeks, but it didn’t win over skeptics on Capitol Hill, including Republicans from politically important agricultural states…
Global Central Bank Chatter Rattles Bond Market
By · CommentsGovernment bond prices tumbled Monday after reports that central banks could be close to policy changes
Government bond prices world-wide tumbled Monday, roiled by reports that central banks could be on the verge of taking another step back from the easy-money policies that have characterized the postcrisis period.
News reports that the Bank of Japan might consider changing its interest-rate targets helped push the yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond as high as 0.09% in Monday trading in Tokyo from 0.03% late Friday…
Investors accuse Future Income Payments of taking them for more than $100 million
Scott Kohn, a 64-year-old felon, ran a company from a Nevada strip-mall mailbox that investors claim took them for more than $100 million in losses.
Mr. Kohn’s company, Future Income Payments, appears shut, according to court filings. His investors are likely to be wiped out, according to lawyers representing them, who plan to sue scores of firms that sold Future Income products as soon as this week. At least 25 states have taken enforcement actions or are investigating the company, it said in April…
The three largest U.S. private equity firms by market value are starting to break out after years of languishing stock price returns.
Apollo Global Management LLC’s stock sits about a dollar shy of its all-time high closing price of $36.78. KKR & Co. blasted past its prior high on July 3 following news that it had completed a conversion to a C-Corp. KKR currently trades at $27.45 a share as of 2:38 pm in New York.
One Man’s $50 Billion Vendetta Against Opioids
By · CommentsFrom America’s overdose capital, lawyer Paul Farrell is rallying communities to sue.
The place might sound familiar, even if you’ve never been there: the Appalachian foothills, down by the Ohio River, where the sirens scream addiction and death.
Twenty-six overdoses in one afternoon. The highest death rate in the state. One in 10 babies born dependent. Huntington, West Virginia, is the capital of America’s opioid epidemic.
Paul Farrell knows all about it. He grew up here, went off to college, and returned home. He watched the calamity unfold. First it was prescription pills like OxyContin. Then it was heroin, $20 a hit…
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Stock granted without saying if there are performance hurdles
- Chinese tech startups are listing in Hong Kong, New York
It’s a good time for founders in China to take their startups public, at least by one measure.
Chief executive officers are beginning to get ten-figure bonuses with their initial public offerings. In the latest example, the CEO of Shanghai-based Pinduoduo Inc., received at least $1 billion of stock without any performance hurdles as his e-commerce company prepares for a U.S. IPO. Lei Jun, the head of Beijing-based smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. saw a $1.5 billion payday, with no strings attached, when his company went public in July. When JD.com Inc. went public in 2014, it incurred $591 million of costs from a stock grant to its chief…
Rocket Internet Turns to U.S. With Major New Fund
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Fund will be over $1 billion and may close by December
- Berlin-based Rocket Internet is expanding outside of Europe
Rocket Internet SE, the European public company that creates and invests in tech startups, is working to raise a new billion-dollar fund, a significant amount of which will eventually be invested in the U.S., according to a person familiar with the situation.
The Berlin-based firm will be the lead investor in the fund, but is looking for other licensed partners to join. The fund will be between $1 billion and $2 billion and Rocket could close it as soon as December, the person said, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private…
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Investors demand better protection when M&A bonds get called
- Bondholder group wants to set limits on how notes get redeemed
The headache U.S. bond investors get from financing failed takeovers is getting worse, and they are calling for change.
Since 2015, at least eight proposed M&A transactions that were funded in the bond market had to be called off, according to the Credit Roundtable, a New York-based organization advocating on behalf of bondholders. All eight allowed the borrower to repay the notes at 101 cents, even if the securities were trading at levels far higher than that…
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Hiring, Greystone deal aimed at growth target of up to 10%
- Purchase adds real estate funds attractive to wealthy clients
Toronto-Dominion Bank, building on its deal for money manager Greystone Capital Management Inc. earlier this month, plans to hire 200 advisers in Canada this year to boost profit at its wealth-management division as much as 10 percent.
The additions are part of Toronto-Dominion’s push to expand in a division that includes online investing, advice and asset management to take advantage of what wealth-management head Leo Salom says are attractive demographics in North America…
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First BOE view on rate that doesn’t fan or limit growth due
- Measure should indicate how much tightening lies ahead
The Bank of England is about to try to put a number on normality.
After months of research, the central bank will provide an estimate of the Goldilocks interest rate for the first time when it announces its policy decision on Aug. 2. Known as r* (r-star), it’s the rate that keeps the economy neither too hot nor too cool over the long term…
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Bank will focus on syndicating borrowings of up to $1 billion
- Alternative lenders have taken market share from biggest banks
Count Houlihan Lokey Inc. into one of the hottest corners of the debt markets.
The U.S. investment bank said Monday that it’s forming a unit to arrange and sell leveraged loan deals of as much as $1 billion as the market for the risky debt has surged. It’s following firms such as Credit Suisse Group AG and Royal Bank of Canada in the business as looser regulations make it easier for banks to make these loans, and investors have been piling into the debt…
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Cites example of Chinese client enriched by company listing
- China head of global wealth management speaks in interview
UBS Group AG has no plans to follow other banks and raise the $2 million threshold for access to its private banking services, the Swiss bank’s China head of global wealth management said.
“This is not under discussion,” said Marina Lui in an interview in Hong Kong, asked about moves by other banks to raise the minimums required from private clients. “We don’t want to limit ourselves, a $2 million dollar client can become a $2 billion dollar client overnight.”…
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Alphabet gained after results; Trump takes aim at Amazon
- China’s offshore yuan trades near lowest in more than a year
Asian stocks climbed Tuesday, after their U.S. counterparts closed higher and as rising yields boosted financials. Ten-year Treasury yields held around the highest level in more than a month.
Equity benchmarks in Tokyo, Seoul and Sydney opened higher, while futures on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng showed a modest gain. Treasuries held losses from the past two days, with the declines coinciding with speculation that the Bank of Japan may consider fine-tuning its stimulus programs — a reminder that the direction of major central banks is toward taking back quantitative easing. Higher longer-dated bond yields in turn has boosted bank and insurance shares. Elsewhere, crude oil held below $68 a barrel in New York.
Bill De Leon’s resignation follows an internal review into his alleged behavior at a May 2017 charity even
A senior Pacific Investment Management Co. executive resigned on Friday after facing allegations he acted inappropriately toward a colleague, people familiar with the matter said.
Bill De Leon, head of portfolio risk management and a managing director at the Newport Beach, Calif., bond manager, stepped down following a weeklong internal investigation into his alleged behavior at a May 2017 charity event in New York, the people said. While the gathering wasn’t a Pimco event, it was attended by several employees of the firm….
Prolonged Slump in Bond Liquidity Rattles Markets
By · CommentsInvestors are finding it harder to buy and sell bonds
Many bonds around the globe are becoming harder to trade, prompting some investors to shift to other markets and raising concerns about a broad decline in liquidity.
The median gap between the price at which traders offer to buy and sell, a proxy for the ability to move in and out of markets quickly, has widened this year across European corporate debt and emerging-market government and corporate bonds, according to data from trading platform MarketAxess. Trading in some derivatives has picked up as traders pull back from…
The Cheapest Place to Buy a House in the Hamptons
By · CommentsIn a market dictated by the whimsy of the grossly rich, parsing real value is tough—but not impossible. Here’s a look at relative pricing of homes in six Hamptons neighborhoods.
Figuring out how much a home is worth in a vacation destination is often an uphill battle.
Whereas normal property markets have prices that are tied closely to square footage, size of a lot, quality of a building, and its proximity to basic services, many of those calculations go out the window when it comes to a market comprised of second homes. “Nobody needs anything out here,” says Chris Foglia, a broker at the Hamptons-based Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty. “They all want.”…
Peter Lambertus is used to keeping a low-profile.
A former officer in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine force, he founded investment data and analytics software provider Charles River Systems Inc. in 1984. Even as his company’s platform has grown to the point where its users manage more than $25 trillion, he’s largely kept off the radar…
Ex-Submariner Surfaces as Billionaire on Charles River Takeover
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Firm tying fees more closely to performance to attract clients
- Most active funds fail to beat their benchmarks after fees
With all that money going into passive funds, how do you prop up your active managers? At Allianz Global Investors, they’re trying sneakers.
Senior executives at the asset management unit of German insurer Allianz SE are touring the firm’s 14 offices globally, handing out white running shoes. The campaign is part of a marketing and branding effort by the 513 billion-euro ($595 billion) firm to emphasize its role as active asset manager, at a time when few investors believe they’re worth the extra fees over low-cost index funds…
Cerberus Capital Walks Away From Offer for Abraaj Funds
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Buyout firm’s $25 million bid was rejected by Abraaj investors
- York Capital offered to buy fund unit and LP stakes in funds
Cerberus Capital Management LP has pulled out of the bidding process for Abraaj Group’s asset-management platform after its offer was rejected by investors of the embattled Dubai-based private equity firm, according to people familiar with the matter.
Cerberus, whose offer of about $25 million for the rights to manage the platform was the lowest among several bidders, walked away from the process on Friday, the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private…
Hong Kong Property Bears Rear Their Heads (Yet Again)
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Citigroup forecasts prices will slide in second half of year
- Bocom sees declines in property stocks pointing to correction
Hong Kong’s property market has a habit of humbling the bears, shattering predictions that the laws of gravity must eventually prevail.
But now, a crosscurrent of headwinds — from a slowing Chinese economy to upcoming interest-rate hikes and a reinvigorated regulatory push to tame home prices — have emboldened some longstanding skeptics to renew calls that a correction could be imminent. Citigroup Inc. last week called time on the party, predicting a 7 percent second-half slide, and Bocom International Holdings Co.’s Hao Hong sees the possibility of a decline of more than twice that…
It’s not just luxury-home listings that are piling up in New York City. Even units for less than $1 million — within reach of far more people than a Billionaires’ Row penthouse — are hurting for buyers.
In Manhattan, the inventory of sub-$1 million apartments surged 27 percent in June from a year earlier to 3,087, the most for the month since 2013, according to StreetEasy. Such listings jumped 17 percent to 2,738 in Brooklyn, and climbed 6 percent to 2,314 in Queens, a borough usually sought out for its relative affordability…
In New York City, Even the Cheapest Homes Are Waiting for Buyers
The wealth management unit of Nordea Bank AB will struggle to reach a target of generating as much as 5 percent in net new money this year after a tough first half, according to its head, Snorre Storset.
“We have a long-term target of net flows with 4-5 percent growth from the start of the year,” Storset said in an interview in Oslo on Thursday. “It’s obvious this year that it will be difficult to reach that goal due to a good deal of outflows in the first half. But underlying, we have the same potential. So long-term, 4-5 percent is still realistic.”…
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Young, unemployed seen as easy recruits for shadowy insurgency
- Becoming major gas exporter may depend on regional harmony
A giant refrigerator will replace the village Jonas Alide Saide has called home for 70 years and he’s not happy about it.
As Mozambique’s plans to export natural gas gather pace, Saide’s northeastern settlement of Quitupo will make way for a plant planned by companies including Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Located on a site larger than Manhattan, the facility will extract and liquefy the offshore gas and generate most of the $49 billion the government expects from sales of the fuel over the next three decades…
New York’s commercial real estate market is crawling out of a slump.
In the first half of 2018, $22.5 billion of properties such as office towers and apartment complexes changed hands, up 34 percent from a year earlier, data from brokerage Cushman & Wakefield show. The pace is running far behind the $38 billion of deals completed during the first six months of 2015…
Manhattan’s Commercial-Property Sales Are Stirring From a 2-Year Slump
Two U.S. Hyperloop Startups Line Up Financing From China
By · CommentsArrivo arranges a $1 billion credit line, and HyperloopTT lays plans to work on a $300 million project on the mainland.
A pair of startups in Los Angeles developing hyperloop transportation projects said Thursday that each had lined up financing commitments from Chinese state-backed companies.
Arrivo, founded by a former senior engineer at Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., said it secured a $1 billion credit line with Genertec America Inc., a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned entity based in Beijing that has helped finance and build high-speed rail and other infrastructure projects in Iran, Turkey and elsewhere. The credit line will go to backers of a future project using Arrivo technology, not to the startup itself…
She re-imagined the CFO job and played a key role in persuading employees, customers and investors to believe in the company again.
Clad in jeans and a gray sweatshirt, Amy Hood stands before a room of 140 Microsoft recruits. The feeling in the air is a bit like the first day of school, and new hires are taking selfies outside in front of a big Microsoft logo.
Anyone following clean energy knew this could be a tough year for solar. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. just put a grim number on how bad.
The pace of global installations will contract by 24 percent in 2018, Goldman analysts led by Brian Lee said in a research note late Wednesday. That’s far more dire than the 3 percent decline forecast by Bloomberg NEF in the bleakest of three scenarios outlined in a report earlier this month. Credit Suisse Group AG is forecasting a 17 percent contraction…
Goldman Sachs Puts a Grim Number on Solar Slump for This Year
Putin’s Pensions Gamble
By · CommentsTrust in the Russian leader fell after the government proposed raising the pension age as the World Cup started
Vladimir Putin hasn’t inspired so little confidence among Russians since the country was on the cusp of rallies over alleged ballot-rigging in 2011, which snowballed into the biggest protests of his rule. The president is paying the price for the government’s rollout of a proposal to increase the pension age just as the World Cup started. Trust among Russians in Putin fell below 38 percent in the first two weeks of July, the lowest level since December 2011, according to state-run polling company VTsIOM…
Investors pulled about $3 billion from hedge funds in the second quarter, the first quarterly outflow since early 2017.
Macro hedge funds led net outflows in the period, with $2.8 billion leaving the strategy, according to a report Thursday from Hedge Fund Research Inc.The outflows were offset by equity hedge funds, which saw inflows of $2.4 billion…
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Leissner, ex-Southeast Asia chief, discussing U.S. cooperation
- U.S. questioning whether bank should have flagged bond deals
U.S. prosecutors negotiating a possible deal with a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executive are pressing for information about whether the bank turned a blind eye to the plunder of a Malaysian investment fund, according to a person familiar with the matter.
If they reach a plea agreement with Tim Leissner, the Goldman banker who arranged the fund’s bond offerings, he would become a key witness against his superiors at the bank, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public…
A new measure will affect both foreign firms seeking deals in the U.S. and American companies doing business abroad
Congress is poised to strengthen the procedures for vetting both foreign investments in the U.S. and overseas transactions involving cutting-edge American technology.
Negotiators from the Senate and the House reached a deal on the final text of the provision to bolster both the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and the U.S. export-control system, in an effort to block Chinese and other foreign transactions that could harm national security…
Congress to Toughen Foreign Investment Reviews Amid Trade Fight With China
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PPC Partners’ fund will target packaging, health-care firms
- Tony Pritzker says ‘We’re very different from private equity’
Just because you raise a buyout fund doesn’t mean you’re a private equity manager.
That’s the idea Tony Pritzker and Paul Carbone pitched to wealthy families when setting out to gather $1.5 billion for the first private equity fund their PPC Partners investment firm marketed to outside clients…
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Wintime Energy’s debt quadrupled in less than five years
- Company’s flop likely to be echoed as deleveraging rolls on
China this month recorded one of its biggest corporate-debt defaults yet, with the downfall of a coal miner that had ridden the country’s wave of credit until policy makers changed the game with their deleveraging campaign.
EPA Report Faults Response to Flint Water Crisis
By · CommentsWeak oversight at local, state and federal levels delayed action to protect the Michigan city’s residents from lead contamination
Weak oversight at the local, state and federal levels contributed to and slowed the response to the Flint, Mich., water crisis, according to a report Thursday from the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general.
Flint residents were exposed to high levels of lead after the city, under control of a series of emergency managers, switched its water source in 2014 without properly treating it, allowing lead to leach from aging service lines. Tests showed many children in the city had elevated levels of lead as a result…
Wall Street Is Suddenly Bullish on Fintech Stocks
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Square, PayPal performance suggest e-payments expanding market
- Analysts see potential for growth, greater future returns
The financial technology sector has seen a slew of positive notes from Wall Street analysts this week as earnings season kicks off.
Once known for poor performance from high-profile initial public offerings at LendingClub Corp. and On Deck Capital Inc., payments companies like Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. are attracting support for the industry…
It’s been tough being a homebuyer on the West Coast. Prices have been surging for years as house hunters fight for the few available listings. Now the tide could be shifting.
As sellers come off the sidelines to lock in gains, they’re starting to boost inventory. New data by brokerage Redfin Corp. shows that supply in several U.S. markets is rising in the places that need it the most, like Seattle; Portland, Oregon; and San Jose, California…
Relief in Sight for Homebuyers in High-Priced West Coast Cities
The European Union on Wednesday continued its attempts to rein in Silicon Valley’s tech giants — but history suggests that investors have little to fret.
The European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, hit Google with a record $5.1 billion fine on Wednesday. Antitrust officials argued that the technology company had broken the law by striking deals with smartphone manufacturers that favored Google services, like its Chrome browser, over those offered by rivals. The commission claimed that the arrangement had shut out competition and helped Google remain dominant in the industry…
A Brief History of the Impact of E.U. Antitrust Fines on Tech Stocks
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NDB to balance loans equally among emerging BRICS economies
- South Africa’s leadership changes have spurred confidence
The New Development Bank plans to lend as much as $600 million more in South Africa this year in an effort to level the playing field among its five member states.
The lender, backed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, started operations in 2015 to support infrastructure projects and sustainable development initiatives in emerging economies. Leaders of the informal BRICS club of nations will be gathering in Johannesburg next week for its 10th summit…
BRICS Bank to Boost S. African Loans by as Much as $600 Million
It looks like the decade-long bull market in U.S. stocks has more room to run, albeit with less vigor.
That’s the latest view from JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset management team, which forecasts U.S. equities could continue to gain for 2 1/2 more years as about half of the indicators the bank analyzes suggest that markets are mid-cycle rather than late cycle. The caveat is that “returns, while positive and indicative of a bull market, will likely not be as high or impressive as in the past,” global market strategist Samantha Azzarello said in an email Thursday…
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City’s peak-to-trough price decline now forecast at 10%
- Demand weakness, credit curbs prompt downward revisions
Sydney’s property market slump will last at least another two years as tougher lending standards and buyer nerves weigh on prices.
That’s the consensus from a Bloomberg survey of 15 economists, over a third of which have turned more pessimistic within the last three months…
An Expat’s Guide to Real Estate in Dubai
By · CommentsNot everyone can buy, but if you have the money, there’s an overabundance of rentals.
Dubai, a relative newborn on the world stage, was a city built around cars. And even though its economy is more diversified than those of its Gulf neighbors, this desert metropolis still feels ripple effects of the oil industry’s booms and busts.
From 2011 to 2014, when oil prices were more than $100 a barrel, Dubai’s property market soared. Apartments in the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, were more than $1,000 per square foot, according to consultants Cluttons LLC. Now, as oil hovers at $70, values in the Burj Khalifa have dropped to about $650 per square foot. But the Russian currency crisis and Brexit, coupled with increased taxes and fees for everyday purchases, have made Dubai a less affordable place to live…
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State media show leader berating officials for poor work
- Regime plays down weapons program in push for development
While touring a backpack factory in North Korea’s remote northeast, Kim Jong Un dressed down ruling party officials for lacking “revolutionary spirit” — and ordered workers to sew twice as much sponge in the shoulder straps to spare schoolchildren any discomfort.
Kim’s visit to the Chongjin Bag Factory was among a flurry of industrial inspections reported by North Korean state media in recent days, in which he complained of his “great anxiety” caused by delays and poor workmanship. The reports appeared to illustrate Kim’s impatience for upgrading his impoverished economy as he looks to ease tensions with China, South Korea and the U.S. after declaring complete his quest to build a nuclear arsenal…
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Victor to inherit deteriorating economy requiring IMF support
- Khan seen as unknown quantity; Nawaz deemed business-friendly
Whoever wins Pakistan’s election next week, gains in the rupee, stocks and bonds are likely to be short-lived as the new government grapples with a mounting set of economic challenges.
Investors including Standard Life Investment Ltd. and Frontier Investment Management Partners Ltd. say a victory for former cricket star Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or Movement for Justice, would create uncertainty but could lead to progress on tackling corruption over the longer term. A win for the business-friendly Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz would probably be better for the market, according to Terra Nova Capital Advisors Ltd…
Department of Energy is spending over a million dollars a day on facility designed to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium
The U.S. Energy Department says it is spending $1.2 million a day on a partially built South Carolina nuclear facility that it wants to abandon due to soaring costs.
Congress has continued funding construction of the plant, which would be used to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium, despite a series of reviews casting doubt on the financial logic involved…
South Carolina Fights U.S. Plan to Abandon Nuclear Project Costing $1.2 Million a Day
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Recruits four people, including two from Deutsche Bank
- Japan stocks ‘remain important’ for global hedge funds: Furumi
Citigroup Inc. is expanding its Japan prime brokerage business serving global hedge funds by hiring four people from rivals including Deutsche Bank AG.
Two of the recruits will take up newly created positions, division head Toshikatsu Furumi said in an interview. They are Thomas Morrison, who will join from Deutsche Bank in September as head of financial resource management, and Fortress Investment Group LLC’s Kentaro Takao, who will lead capital introductions when he starts later this month…
Warren Buffett just can’t stop making money, even in a week where he gave $3.4 billion to charity.
The Berkshire Hathaway Inc. chairman added $4 billion to his fortune Wednesday after the conglomerate removed a cap on stock buybacks. The shares rose 5.1 percent, the most in almost seven years, lifting his fortune to $83.1 billion. His wealth dropped below $80 billion on Tuesday, after announcing the latest gift…
Buffett Gets Richer Even After Donating $3.4 Billion to Charity
Deficit Projected to Top $1 Trillion Starting Next Year
By · CommentsMost recent administration estimates show challenge of reducing red ink
WASHINGTON—The Trump administration expects annual budget deficits to rise nearly $100 billion more than previously forecast in each of the next three years, pushing the federal deficit above $1 trillion starting next year.
The revisions, which went largely unnoticed when the White House submitted its annual update to Congress last week, reflect the cost of federal spending increases agreed to earlier this year and higher interest payments…
Hedge Fund York Capital Joins Race for Abraaj Assets
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York Capital submits offer for rights to manage Abraaj funds
- New York-based Cerberus, Abu Dhabi investor also contenders
Another American bidder is joining the race for the rights to manage a network of emerging-market funds up for grabs in the liquidation of Dubai-based private equity firm Abraaj Group.
New York-based hedge fund York Capital Management, run by Jamie Dinan, is said to have placed a $45 million offer for Abraaj’s asset-management platform, which will give the winner easy access to more than a dozen developing countries across the world where the collapsing company has offices…
Trump’s Trade War May Spark a Chinese Debt Crisis
By · CommentsA tighter dollar will make the bursting of the credit bubble an inevitability.
There’s no chance China will cut its trade surplus with the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump’s tariff threats. For starters, Washington has made no specific demand to which Beijing can respond. But its efforts may have an unexpected side effect: a debt crisis in China.
The 25 percent additional tariffs on exports of machinery and electronics looked, at first blush, like a stealth tax on offshoring. The focus on categories like semiconductors and nuclear components, in which U.S.-owned manufacturers in China are strong, recalled Trump’s 2016 promise to tax “any business that leaves our country.”…
E.U. Fines Google $5.1 Billion in Android Antitrust Case
By · CommentsBRUSSELS — European authorities fined Google a record $5.1 billion on Wednesday for abusing its power in the mobile phone market and ordered the company to alter its practices, in one of the most aggressive regulatory actions against American technology giants and one that may force lasting changes to smartphones.
The European Union’s antitrust fine of 4.34 billion euros was almost double the bloc’s fine against Google last year over the company’s unfair favoring of its own services in internet search results. The penalty’s size highlighted Europe’s increasingly bold stance against the power of American tech firms, even as officials in the United States have taken a largely hands-off approach to the companies…
Billionaire Eyebrow Magnate Seeks $650 Million Loan
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Anastasia Beverly Hills debt to help finance buyout by TPG
- Firm founded by Anastasia Soare counts Kardashians among fans
Billionaire Anastasia Soare is used to raising eyebrows in the world of beauty. Now she’s getting ready to test demand for her rapidly growing cosmetics company in the trillion dollar leveraged-loan market.
Anastasia Beverly Hills is seeking a $650 million loan to help fund a partial buyout by TPG Capital, according to a person with knowledge of the plan. The private equity firm agreed to buy a minority stake in Soare’s company last month in a deal that valued it at about $2.5 billion…
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Wintime Energy’s debt quadrupled in less than five years
- Company’s flop likely to be echoed as deleveraging rolls on
China this month recorded one of its biggest corporate-debt defaults yet, with the downfall of a coal miner that had ridden the country’s wave of credit until policy makers changed the game with their deleveraging campaign.
Steve Cohen’s Hedge Fund Gains About 7% in First Half
By · Comments-
Point72 Asset Management’s performance is about flat for June
- Hedge fund has raised more than $4 billion in assets this year
Point72 Asset Management, the hedge fund run by Steve Cohen, returned about 7 percent in the first half of the year, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Stamford, Connecticut-based firm was about flat in June, the people said. A spokesman for Point72 declined to comment…
Migrants expelled from the U.S. often have little choice but to head north again.
Ramón Salas left Guatemala in June, accompanied by his 13-year-old grandson. He returned alone.
This month he followed a line of deportees filing from an airfield tarmac into a room at a Guatemalan air force base, where government functionaries recorded his name and the date he headed to the U.S. and handed him a brown bag with two sandwiches, juice, corn chips, and cookies. Walking outside, he was greeted by a tumultuous scene. Smugglers offered to take him back to the border, currency traders waved sheaves of quetzales, and loan sharks circled, looking for customers. The crowd also contained relatives hoping to be reunited with loved ones. But the face Salas wanted to see most wasn’t there. “I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t do anything,” says Salas, 59. “I just want to know where my grandson is, and no one is telling me anything.”…
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Cold-storage company is said to weigh a REIT conversion
- Prior investors include W.P. Carey, Jeff Ubben and John Mack
Lineage Logistics LLC, which calls itself the fastest-growing provider of temperature-controlled services such as transportation and storage, sold a minority stake worth $700 million, according to its chief executive officer and co-founder.
Lineage and some of its early investors sold the interest to funds managed by infrastructure-focused Stonepeak Partners LP; D1 Capital Partners, run by Daniel Sundheim, the former chief investment officer of Viking Global Investors; and some existing backers, Lineage CEO Greg Lehmkuhl and co-founder Kevin Marchetti said in an interview…
The Treasury curve is on a one-way trip to inversion.
That’s the assessment of fund managers surveyed this month by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which reported that investors’ expectations for curve steepening sank to the lowest level in more than seven years…
Treasury Yield Curve Is Heading for Inversion, Fund Managers Say
Retirement Bills in Congress Could Alter 401(k) Plans
By · CommentsHouse GOP may grab parts of bipartisan Senate bill, add access to emergency savings
Lawmakers are working on the biggest changes to U.S. retirement savings in more than a decade, exploring several proposals that could make it easier for small companies to offer 401(k) plans and for workers to guarantee themselves an annual income after they retire.
The efforts start with a bipartisan Senate bill and House Republicans’ plan to make retirement and savings a crucial part of their push for tax legislation this summer and fall. It isn’t clear which, if any, measures are likely to survive the legislative process,…
Lloyd Blankfein could get as much as $84.7 million in compensation when he departs Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in October after 36 years at the investment bank.
Blankfein, 63, who’s been chief executive officer since 2006, will receive the bulk of that pay in performance-based shares and cash awards that were to be earned through 2024. It’s unclear if these awards will be accelerated, prorated or forfeited when he leaves because Goldman Sachs doesn’t have employment agreements that guarantee severance payments, according to its 2016 proxy…
Lloyd Blankfein Poised for $85 Million Payout When He Leaves Goldman