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Brief: Investment bankers would be willing to plunge into self isolation for two weeks under new UK quarantine rules for travel, if it meant securing a lucrative role on a big deal. With M&A bankers itching to get back on the road as deal volumes remain in the deep freeze during the coronavirus pandemic, some senior dealmakers admit privately that a two-week quarantine period would be a price worth paying to be in the mix for a large transaction, according to conversations with three senior bankers. “If there was even a 5% greater chance that we would get the deal, we’d get on a plane and take the two weeks in a hotel or at home,” said one senior M&A banker in London. “Maybe we could just travel every two weeks,” joked another senior dealmaker. The UK government imposed a 14-day self-isolating period on 8 June for any travellers or returning Britons entering the country on planes, trains or ferries — even as the country begins to unwind lockdown restrictions that have kept the majority of the population at home since March.“We would just travel and then figure out the painful logistics of working from home or a hotel room, or whatever they ask us to do,” said another senior banker.
Brief: Goldman Sachs (GS.N) is closing its easy access savings business to new customers in Britain from Wednesday after deposits surged near to regulatory limits during the coronavirus lockdown.The British arm of digital brand Marcus, which pays market-leading rates to savers starved of meaningful cash returns, has attracted about 21 billion pounds ($27 billion) from more than 500,000 savers since its launch in 2018. However, British banking rules demanding ring-fencing of retail deposits totalling more than 25 billion pounds have prompted its executives to take steps to manage its growth. “We’ve really seen our growth accelerate under lockdown as people hold off on discretionary spending and take time to reorganise their finances and get the best deal for their money,” Des McDaid, head of Marcus UK, told Reuters. Ring-fencing would require Marcus in Britain to become a separate legal entity with its own board and limit how much capital it could share with the rest of Goldman’s businesses.
Brief: Germany’s bank lobby is set to urge the government to drop some of the conditions attached to a trillion euro rescue scheme, arguing that companies are so reluctant to take the help that it threatens any recovery from the coronavirus outbreak. Martin Zielke, the head of the lobby and Commerzbank, will appeal this week to limit conditions - like pay caps and board seats - for government cash injections into companies, three people with knowledge of the matter said. Zielke argues that companies are taking on further debt, the chief means of government support, as prospects for revenue dim, and Berlin should offer capital injections with fewer strings, according to a paper outlining his position seen by Reuters. Companies will not otherwise accept help, the three people said, citing Zielke, whose Commerzbank caters to the Mittlestand companies that form the backbone of the German economy and was bailed out during the last financial crisis. The state still holds a 15% stake in Commerzbank and occupies two board seats.
Brief: Diversified property giant GPT Group has become one of the first real estate investment trusts to reveal the impact of the coronavirus with a near $500 million write-down in the value of its shopping centre portfolio. Retail landlords have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic as shoppers were forced to stay home under the lockdown laws, causing foot traffic and revenue to plummet. GPT, which owns 12 malls across the country, has written down the value of seven centres in which it has part or full ownership by $476.7 million after undertaking an independent assessment of its retail assets covering the months between December 31, 2019 to May 31. It is an 8.8 per cent decline since December. The group has also withdrawn its full-year 2020 guidance and is amending its dividend payout ratio policy. Chief executive Bob Johnston said the revaluations reflect the effects COVID-19 and the subsequent social restrictions have had on the retail assets. "This has generally been reflected in lower market rental growth rates, increased vacancy and abatement allowances and some softening in investment metrics," Mr. Johnston said.
Brief: Advent International Corp. countersued Forescout Technologies Inc. in Delaware Monday, six weeks before a YouTube trial over the breakdown of their $1.9 billion take-private buyout, saying the deal’s collapse can’t be blamed on the coronavirus alone.“Because Forescout’s precarious finances would leave it insolvent upon closing of the proposed transactions, buyers cannot in good faith certify the solvency of the post-closing entity—which is a condition to close the $400 million term loan financing,” the Chancery Court filing says.Forescout’slawsuit against Advent, filed about two weeks ago, is part of awave of suitsasking courts to keep mergers on track as acquirers balking at the coronavirusscramble deals worldwide. Most of those disputes are being heard in the Chancery Court…According to Forescout’s complaint, an Advent representative told its CEO as they sought to renegotiate the transaction that “the Covid-19 outbreak caused a change of heart.”
Brief: Nearly all private equity managers expect to see a surge in distressed fund deals over the coming year, according to a new survey.The poll, commissioned by fund service firm Intertrust Group, found that 92 percent of private equity professionals across North America, Europe, and Asia believe distressed fund activity will increase in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which devastated businesses in the U.S. and elsewhere. Likewise, private equity managers viewed distressed funds as the biggest fundraising opportunity in the near future, with 83 percent indicating there would be more investor demand for strategies targeting distressed assets.This sentiment is already being borne out at major private equity firms. Last month, Apollo Global and KKR & Co. said they raised $1.75 billion and$4 billion, respectively, for credit funds focused on “dislocation” resulting from the Covid-19 crisis. Both funds were raised in just 8 weeks. Some respondents to the Intertrust survey also saw existing private equity funds shifting assets to target distressed opportunities. According to the report, 41 percent believed managers would reallocate unfunded commitments to “new distressed or non-traditional strategies.”
Brief: When making his case for the government to rescue the oil industry, Wil VanLoh wanted Texas regulators to know that at heart he was a free-markets kind of guy. “I am a free-market person through and through,” the founder of private-equity firm Quantum Energy Partners told the Railroad Commission of Texas — the regulatory body that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry — at a mid-April meeting. Yet VanLoh was pleading with the commissioners to temporarily limit oil production, warning their inaction would lead to widespread failure of small and midsize oil companies. The reduced supply, he hoped, would raise the value of the oil taken from the ground if done in coordination with other U.S. states. “We don’t live in a world of free markets,” he lamented, pointing to the massive government intervention during the 2008 financial crisis. “The system of capitalism the world now works under is one where the markets are generally left alone, except during extraordinary times of volatility,” VanLoh said during the April 14 meeting, held online due to the coronavirus pandemic. “And that, commissioners, is exactly what we’re experiencing right now in the oil and gas industry — and why you must intervene.”
Brief: Lobby group TheCityUK has warned that up to £36bn in government-backed loans could turn toxic by next year, as companies impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic struggle to pay back the debt.The Recapitalisation Group, a taskforce led by TheCityUK and accountancy firm EY, found that companies would be left with approximately £100bn of unsustainable loans by the end of March 2021 in aninterim updatepublished on 8 June. Of this, nearly a third has been provided by the government's coronavirus business interruption schemes.The report suggested that the government could encourage buyout firms, insurers and pension funds to provide longer-term capital to struggling businesses in order to help them pay off the debt they took on to survive past the coronavirus crisis.The private equity industry in the UK, which has more than £150bn of dry powder, “could support equity financing to address the UK SME recapitalisation challenge”, the taskforce said.
Brief: Longtime hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller told CNBC on Monday the market’s strong performance over the last three weeks has “humbled” him and that he underestimated the power of the Federal Reserve.“I had long-term concerns for the last few years that because of easy money, too much debt was being built up in the corporate sector,” Druckenmiller said on “Squawk Box.” “When Covid hit, I was pretty much of the view that there was a good chance that the credit bubble had finally burst and the unwinding of that leverage would take years.”That concern prevented the investor from capitalizing on the market’s robust rebound since the March 23 low: Druckenmiller said he has returned just 3% during the market’s 40% rally since the S&P 500′s springtime bottom.“Well I’ve been humbled many times in my career, and I’m sure I’ll be many times in the future. And the last three weeks certainly fits that category,” he said.
Brief: The coronavirus pandemic has altered society in immeasurable ways, including, of course, investing. Stocks that benefited from people staying home, such as Netflix and Zoom Video, outperformed expectations in the past few months, while retailers and airline companies, among others, saw their stocks fall off a cliff. And now some of those worst-performing stocks of March and April are staging a comeback, as economies begin to reopen. But there could be a more long-lasting effect on Wall Street: Covid-19 may well prove to be a major turning point for ESG investing as the pandemic alters society’s values. This investing approach, which evaluates a company’s environmental, social and governance ratings alongside traditional financial metrics, was already coming off a banner year, and its reach continues to expand. So far this year, U.S.-listed sustainable funds are seeing record inflows, despite the market turmoil.
Brief: Hedge funds are continuing to recover from sharp losses suffered earlier this year, notching up positive returns for the second successive month in May as economies slowly reopen following the coronavirus lockdown, new data from Hedge Fund Research shows. All long/short equity hedge fund strategies clawed back profits last month, including sector-specialist managers such as technology and materials, while activist and special situations funds are making hay amid widespread global market dislocations. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index – which tracks the performance of more than 1,400 single manager funds of various strategies globally – gained 2.5 per cent in May, with equity hedge funds and event driven strategies leading the pack. The rise follows a 4.79 per cent advance in April – the index’s first positive return of 2020 and its biggest monthly rise since the 5.15 per cent gain in May 2009.
Brief: Things move quickly in our digital world. An email sent from Vancouver is received in Mumbai in seconds. Rumours spread on Twitter in a heartbeat. And stocks and bonds react instantly to new information. In March, price declines were head-spinning as investors reacted to a deteriorating outlook. There’s a category of investments, however, that was slower to react. Prices for private investments such as commercial real estate and mortgages, private equity, infrastructure and private debt take time to adjust. The post-COVID reality will filter into their valuations over the course of the year. This sorting-out process will be fascinating to watch. Some private assets will skate through without a wobble while others will surprise us with bad news and writedowns. Here’s a sneak preview. Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) trade on the stock exchange. So far this year, buyers and sellers have taken the sector down over 20 per cent. Private real estate funds work differently. They rely on independent valuations to set a price, a process done over the course of the year outside the emotion and volatility of the stock market.
Brief: John Rogers wants to be clear: corporate America is missing its moment to act on racial inequity. It’s not just rhetoric and donations that will make the difference, said the co-chief executive officer of $10 billion fund manager Ariel Investments, which focuses on value stocks. Businesses need to hire more African-Americans into senior roles -- including board seats and executive suites -- and work with other companies that have diverse leadership, he said. Rogers, 62, is one of the fund industry’s leading African-American figures after founding Ariel Investments nearly four decades ago. Its Ariel Fund has returned an average of about 10% a year since its inception in 1986, outpacing the Russell 2500 Value Index… On lasting change to prepare for post-Covid-19: “People are going to be downsizing and reconfiguring their offices. I think it’s pretty clear people are not going back to work in a normal way. There will be changes in the whole travel area, hotel companies too. A reduction in travel will go right to the bottom line. If there’s even 10% fewer people on the plane or your hotel, you’ll be hit drastically.”
Brief: Exuberance in American stocks is spurring speculators to unleash bullish bets in the options market at a rate unseen in almost a decade. Trading in contracts that wager on single names to increase in value has surged to the highest since 2011, with a whopping 2.3 million calls changing hands on Thursday, according to Cboe data. The bullish action is reminiscent of the explosion of retail interest on online forums on the eve of the coronavirus crisis in sleepy companies like Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. and Plug Power Inc. This time around, the beneficiaries are concentrated in tech and cloud computing, as well as in single names rocked by the pandemic such as United Airlines Holdings Inc., according to Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna. “We are seeing a lot of bullish options speculators, and I think the ‘message board flow’ is playing a part,” he said, referring to retail speculation typified on the Reddit forum r/wallstreetbets. Even after the S&P 500’s 40% surge in little more than two months, demand for single-stock hedges is muted, with the number of put options traded for every call slumping to the lowest in six years.
Brief: Russell Investments’ lease on its New York office is up in September, and the firm has no new office space ready to go. But, according to the firm, it wants to find a new spot in the city. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the investment manager’s New York staff occupied the 14th floor of 3 Bryant Park in Manhattan, the same building that houses tech giant Salesforce. Now, Russell’s employees are working from home, and the September 30 deadline is looming. Russell, in some ways, is in an enviable position as far as finance firms in New York go: a lease expiration could cut costs significantly. And it’s not unprecedented for finance firms to move amid crises. “I’ve seen a lot of different downturns and problems with New York real estate,” said Michael Colacino, president of SquareFoot, a New York-based commercial real estate company. After 9/11 and the dot com bubble burst, Colacino said, New York subleases rates doubled, increasing from about 20 percent to 40 to 45 percent. He added that something similar happened during the financial crisis of 2008.
Brief: One of Canada’s largest private lenders is looking to sell as much as 11 per cent of its loans to help ride out the coronavirus crisis. Bridging Finance Inc. has already sold $30 million in loans (US$22 million) and plans to offload a further $170 million to other direct lenders and institutional investors, Chief Executive Officer David Sharpe said by phone. The firm, which has $1.8 billion in assets under management, froze redemptions on its funds in April. “We are selling some loans at par value to improve liquidity,” Sharpe said. “We are doing it in a prudent fashion, as we need to keep cash on hand for the revolvers and for foreign-exchange effects, and once we are comfortable with our liquidity, we will lift the gating of the funds.” The company lends to small and mid-sized companies involved in everything from milling flour to delivering groceries. Most of its funds are invested in collateral-based bridging loans, inventory and accounts-receivables financing. The pandemic, which forced the shutdown of many smaller businesses the sector typically lends to, is a major test for the asset class. The market has swelled to about US$820 billion globally from US$200 billion before the 2008 financial crisis.
Brief: As Texas goes back to work, Houston-based EnCap Investments provides an early glimpse of what office re-integration may look like for many private equity firms. The firm, ranked 21 in the PEI 300, began its office re-integration on May 18 after Texas became one of the first states to begin reopening its economy. Craig Friou, deputy CFO and CCO at EnCap, told Private Funds CFO the firm began ‘phase one’ of its office re-integration by dividing staff up into ‘red’, ‘white’ and ‘blue’ teams. The red and blue teams alternate days in the office, with the white team, which includes some administrative staff, not returning at all for the time-being. Splitting the firm’s workforce into different teams not only designates which days staff are allowed to be in the office, but also groups individual teams together (ie, finance team is red, deal team is blue, etc.), causing employees to only work in close proximity with their immediate teams. The color-coded teams apply to all staff except for those at the partner level, who are free to come into the office on whichever days they like.
Brief: Wealthy clients of Citigroup Inc.’s private bank hold way too much cash, according to chief investment officer David Bailin, and he and his colleagues have big plans to help put an end to that. The private bank’s mid-year outlook, “From Fear to Prosperity: Investing in a New Economic Cycle,” released Thursday, recommends major changes to portfolios to reflect what Bailin called “the complexities and new realities of our time.” “There are plenty of things to buy,” Bailin said in a phone interview. “The more study that we did for the report, the more excited we got. The data is compelling.” The report’s big-picture outlook is for a “brief, extremely deep, rolling global recession” followed by a sharp snapback in global economic activity and “a partial, uneven recovery.” Underpinning recommendations for major changes to client portfolios is a projected five-year period of low interest rates. With fixed income no longer a natural hedge for equities, achieving diversification now includes greater long-term exposure to small- and medium-sized companies, as well as emerging market debt and equity, according to the report.
Brief: Many hedge fund firms initially underestimated the threat of the coronavirus. Cinctive Capital was not one of them. Cinctive, founded by Diamondback Capital Management veterans Larry Sapanski and Richard Schimel, launched in September with backing from PAAMCO Launchpad, the joint venture between the Employees Retirement System of Texas and investment firm PAAMCO Prisma to seed and support emerging hedge fund managers. Cinctive, headquartered in New York City’s Hudson Yards, is a long-short equity fund using a multi-manager approach, with numerous investment teams covering roughly half a dozen sectors. One of those teams — a technology team focused on semiconductors and software — started looking into supply chain disruptions in China early this year. The team talked to factory workers and company managements based in China and shared their findings with Cinctive’s other sector teams.
Brief: The combined wealth of America’s billionaires, including Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) founder Jeff Bezos and Facebook Inc (FB.O) CEO Mark Zuckerberg, jumped over 19% or by half a trillion since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, according to a report published by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). During the 11 weeks from March 18, when U.S. lockdowns started, the wealth of America’s richest people surged by over $565 billion, while 42.6 million workers filed for unemployment, the report said. “These statistics remind us that we are more economically and racially divided than at any time in decades,” said Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report.During the 11 week period, Bezos saw his wealth soar by about $36.2 billion while Zuckerberg’s fortune surged by about $30.1 billion. Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk’s net worth also rose $14.1 billion.The past week also saw the wealth of U.S. billionaires jump by $79 billion, according to the report.
Brief: Bankers have a message for America’s debt-laden companies: raise money now, because things could get a lot worse. The gradual reopening of businesses after months-long shutdowns and a pick up in manufacturing activity have given investors reason for optimism in recent weeks. But underwriters who cater to heavily indebted corporations are offering their clients a bleak preview of what may lie ahead. The long list of worries includes a new wave of coronavirus contagion in the fall, an extended period of double-digit unemployment, a spike in defaults and a slower-than-expected economic recovery as businesses around the globe adapt to the realities of prolonged social distancing. Of course, pitching bond sales to companies is part of the job description, and corporate treasurers expect nothing less from bankers whose bonuses are tied to how many deals they do. Still, the grim warnings to stockpile cash reflect how the rally that credit markets have enjoyed since the Federal Reserve took action may be obfuscating an economic picture still fraught with risks.
Brief: Expectations that the global economy has dodged the worst-case scenarios for the coronavirus pandemic have led to a dramatic selloff in U.S. government bonds from their record highs, pushing the yield curve to its steepest level since March. Investors will get a chance next week to see whether the U.S. Federal Reserve agrees with their optimism. The U.S. central bank is expected to hold a two-day meeting that will conclude Wednesday, the first since a meeting in April in which Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that the U.S. economy could feel the weight of the economic shutdown for more than a year. While the Fed could introduce additional bond-buying programs known as quantitative easing or yield-curve control measures to target short-term rates, some fund managers say they expect that yields would need to rise significantly from here to justify any intervention in the bulk of the curve. Instead, they are watching for hints that the central bank believes the worst part of the coronavirus crisis has passed.
Brief: Standard Life Aberdeen Plc told most of its U.K. staff to work from home for the rest of the year as other asset managers mull how the pandemic has reshaped the future use of their offices. The firm told its 4,900 U.K. employees that the majority shouldn’t expect to come into the office in 2020, according to a June 2 internal memo seen by Bloomberg. Janus Henderson Group Plc workers and BNP Paribas Asset Management’s London staff will also continue to work from home for the foreseeable future, while Baillie Gifford is planning a phased return of employees in coming months, according to representatives of the firms. “One of the consistent messages across the U.K. is that, where possible, people should work from home if they can and this very much applies to financial services,” Mike Tumilty, chief operating officer at Standard Life, said in the note. “It has become evident that while we may see some easing of working restrictions, we do not expect this principle to change materially for the foreseeable future.” While there are some signs of business slowly returning to normal as lockdown measures are eased, many financial firms are still keeping employees away from their offices.
Brief: GMO has shifted its stance on equities since mid-March, when the firm was willing to wade into plunging markets to buy stocks globally amid the coronavirus tumult. U.S. and developed-market stocks have rallied too far from their 2020 low, according to Ben Inker, the head of GMO’s asset allocation team. The firm has reduced its equity exposure by shorting equity futures against the stocks it holds in those regions, while continuing to like its long bets in emerging markets, Inker said by phone. “Stocks in the U.S. and most of the developed markets look to us to be a pretty bad risk-reward tradeoff,” he said. “They’re already priced for the best outcome you could reasonably expect.” That’s a change from late March, when stocks globally, apart from U.S. large cap, appeared cheap or priced at fair value, according to Inker. The equities market went on to produce in two months the types of returns GMO would expect to see over five to seven years, he said, all while the prospects of the economy remain uncertain. “We are in the midst of the worst economic crisis the world has seen really since the Great Depression,” said Inker. “We’d love to see stocks priced for more potential pain.”
Brief: Private-equity firms notched a major win in Washington with the Trump administration paving the way for the industry to tap a massive pot of money that has long been off limits: the trillions of dollars held in Americans’ retirement accounts. The Labor Department issued guidance Wednesday effectively allowing 401(k) plans to invest in buyout firms. The agency said the move will bolster investment options for consumers and let them access an asset class that can provide better returns than stocks and bonds. In a statement, Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia said the action “will help Americans saving for retirement gain access to alternative investments that often provide strong returns.” The announcement is a significant de-regulatory decision that private-equity lobbyists have sought for years. It is sure to face harsh criticism from consumer groups and progressive Democratic lawmakers, who argue that high-fee private equity firms are inappropriate for unsophisticated investors because the industry locks-up clients’ money for years and invests in businesses seen as far more risky than a plain-vanilla bond fund.
Brief: The outsiders that Michael Hintze brought in to his secretive hedge fund firm didn't last long. Nor did their growth plans. The billionaire's firm, known as CQS, a bastion of money-making whose flagship fund has returned more than three times the average of hedge fund peers since it opened in 2005, is now headed in reverse. The Hintze-managed fund plunged as much as 45% in March and April — its worst-ever loss — missing the rebound that followed the initial shock from the coronavirus pandemic even as peers recovered to post gains in April. More than $3 billion of assets were erased, leaving the firm with $16 billion. And that doesn't include potential withdrawals from the fund's clients, who are required to give six months' notice. "It's going to be very difficult for them to attract new assets," said Don Steinbrugge, head of Agecroft Partners, a Richmond, Va.-based consultant that helps hedge funds gather assets. "If I was an existing investor, I would be concerned about significant redemptions from the fund over time, which could potentially cause the quality of the fund to erode."
Brief: A Hong Kong hedge fund is offering to cover 100% of any losses in a bid to attract investors that have been avoiding the sector amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Infini Capital Management Ltd. is gauging investor interest for full loss insurance on a new class of shares in a fund it launched last year. In exchange, the firm would charge a performance fee as high as 50%, more than double the industry standard. Although Infini says the offer isn’t linked to growing tension in Hong Kong sparked by China’s new security law, it shows the extent to which hedge funds are willing to boost enticements to attract fresh money. Investors yanked $31 billion in the first four months from the global hedge fund industry as the spread of the Covid-19 virus triggered market selloffs in March and led to the worst monthly performance since the 2008 global financial crisis, according to eVestment. Capital raising has been especially challenging for younger funds. “This offering is to hopefully get some investors over the edge who might still have some concerns about being an early investor in Infini,” Chief Operating Officer Michael Friedlander said in an interview.
Brief: Once considered damaging for fund manager reputations, liquidity management tools - such as redemptions on restrictions - have gained further acceptance amid the Covid-19 crisis. And what’s more, these tools have slowed the spread of market contagion, says Xavier Parain, CEO of FundRock Management Company. The Covid-19 crisis has changed so much about daily and commercial life - and the fund management industry is no exception. Business continuity plans and procedures - tested more frequently than ever implemented in the past - have been deployed universally. Portfolio managers, risk officers, due diligence professionals and others immediately and seamlessly transitioned to working from home, crucially, without any major impact for investors. This crisis has caused a rethink on redemption restrictions and other liquidity management tools. As the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008 reminded us, a “run” on a financial institution takes different forms and frequently occurs hidden from public sight.
Brief: Quebec’s largest independent asset manager is ready to bet one or more COVID-19 treatments will be found in the next 12 months, pushing global stock markets higher. Fiera Capital chief executive officer Jean-Guy Desjardins says there’s an almost two-thirds probability that a vaccine will be found by June 2021. In the meantime, odds are that an existing drug can lessen COVID-19’s effects and reduce mortality rates, said Desjardins, a veteran money manager who founded Montreal-based Fiera in 2003 and counts four decades of experience in the investment industry. After plunging in March amid the pandemic’s global spread, stock markets in North America and elsewhere have rebounded on optimism over a second-half economic recovery. Canada’s benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index has gained more than 30 per cent since hitting a multiyear low in late March, though it’s still down about 10 per cent for the year.
Brief: Around the world, businesses are beginning to reopen from the coronavirus pandemic. But asset owners and investment managers won’t be returning to normal anytime soon, according to the latest II Fear Index. Institutional investors participating in the weekly poll broadly indicated they would continue to stay home for at least the next month, with just 15 percent planning to return to the office in June. However, a majority believed they would be back at their workplace by fall: Thirty percent said day-to-day office work would resume in July or August, while another 30 percent predicted it would happen in September or October. There was less consensus on the subject of in-person meetings. While the highest proportion — 31 percent — indicated they would begin meeting with clients or asset managers in September or October, another 28 percent anticipated that they would not have any face-to-face meetings until 2021. Respondents were least optimistic on the prospects of business travel, with the plurality — 38 percent — predicting they would not resume traveling for work until next year.
Brief: As the coronavirus pandemic upended the U.S. health-care system, EmCare IAH Emergency Physicians, a Houston staffing company owned by private equity firm KKR, made a little-noticed request of the government: It applied for a $317,379 interest-free loan. KKR had for years paid lobbyists to fend off efforts to ban a practice known as surprise billing used by EmCare and other providers that has driven up the cost of health care. But that didn’t stop the U.S. Health and Human Services Department from approving the loan and almost 300 others totaling more than $60 million to subsidiaries of KKR-owned companies. Shut out from many coronavirus relief programs, private equity companies have found a back door at HHS, where they have borrowed at least $1.5 billion, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of more than 40,000 loans disclosed by the department… Health-care facilities owned by Apollo Global Management, which started the year with about $46 billion, received at least $500 million in HHS loans. And Cerberus Capital Management’s Steward Health Care System LLC, which threatened to close a hard-hit Pennsylvania hospital, received at least $400 million in loans. Last month Cerberus was working to quadruple the size of a fund to invest in distressed loans to $750 million.
Brief: Wall Street investment funds won’t let a pandemic and riots stop them from wooing clients. With boozy steakhouse meetings no longer an option, evenings on the town are being replaced with wine tastings via conference call and online concerts. There are also care packages tailored to the times -- packed with masks -- and donations to food banks and charities. Disruptions set off by the coronavirus pandemic, now complicated by protests and curfews, are prompting asset managers overseeing products such as mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to figure out new ways to remotely grab the attention of wealthy customers, institutional investors and financial advisers. That often means trying to hobnob in the virtual world. It’s accelerating a shift that was already underway, as big firms rely less on social outings to generate and work leads, said Amanda Walters, principal at Casey Quirk, a division of Deloitte Consulting. “Asset managers are asking, ‘Do we need to be face-to-face as much as we were before?’ And the answer is probably no,” she said.
Brief: U.S. bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N) has signed a lease for a new Paris headquarters building, committing to a city centre office development at a time when many banks are weighing scaling back their presence in cities amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Goldman has signed a 12-year deal for 6,500 square metres of space at 83 Marceau, an office building being redeveloped a block away from the Arc de Triomphe, developer SFL said on Tuesday. The commitment represents 81% of the building’s floor space. The project is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2021.
Brief: What started as a bear market bounce in U.S. equities has transformed into one of the most dramatic rallies in memory, leaving investors looking to past rebounds, options markets and technical analysis for clues on how far it could run. The S&P 500 is up 37% since its late March close as of Monday and the Nasdaq Composite is near a fresh record after a surge that has seemingly ignored widespread economic upheaval and uncertainty over the coronavirus pandemic. The rally’s speed has left investors in a quandary. While few are willing to bet against a rebound that has steam-rolled most forecasts, some are concerned the market has become detached from economic reality by expectations of unlimited support from the Federal Reserve and U.S. lawmakers. The S&P 500, for instance, now trades at 21.2 times earnings, its highest level since 2002, even as unemployment is at levels last seen in the Great Depression. A Reuters poll showed investors expect Friday’s U.S. employment data to show a loss of 7.45 million jobs cut in May, after a record 20.5 million in the previous month.
Brief: During the worst of the market chaos in March, some credit hedge funds suspended redemptions because they didn’t know what their holdings were worth and the prices of fixed income exchange-traded funds were out of whack with the net asset value of their underlying bonds. The prices for stocks, which trade on an exchange, are available in real-time. But bonds still trade over-the-counter, meaning a dealer and an investor negotiate a price, whether on a screen of over the phone. As a result, there is no central place to go for bond prices. Bond mutual funds, for example, use what are called evaluated prices from third parties such as ICE Data Services. ICE has analysts and algorithms gathering and assessing multiple sources of information scattered throughout the market to provide evaluated bond prices to investors, asset managers, dealers, and others. In March and April, as markets cratered and transactions ground to a halt, that information evaporated.
Brief: A once-in-century disruption to securities trading is intensifying a revolution in how some investment firms conduct business. With at-home traders navigating the wildest market swings in history, more money managers are tapping outsourcing companies to buy and sell financial assets on their behalf. With their employees at risk of falling sick or losing regular access to market venues, the buy side in lockdown is turning to a booming industry that’s drawing big-gun entrants including State Street Corp., AllianceBernstein Holding LP and Wells Fargo & Co. In so doing, the largest providers are reporting a surge in revenues as transaction volumes jump and new clients sign up. Outsourced traders essentially act as a middleman between the buy side and sell side in handling trading flows. Some outsourced trading divisions are run inside bigger financial services firms, like Jefferies Financial Group Inc., while others operate as small, standalone shops. Their pitch to asset managers: Ensuring best execution with an extensive network of brokerages and high-speed technology, which can be expensive for smaller funds to maintain on their own.
Brief: Wall Street CEOs expressed horror, anger and empathy in staff emails and messages posted to social media as protests continued to roil U.S. cities in the week after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The May 25 death of Floyd, who had been handcuffed when a police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes, sparked introspection and calls to fight racism by the biggest American financial firms. Floyd’s death followed the recent deaths of other black citizens including Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Here’s what they said…
Brief: U.S. financial regulators, banks and their investors will get their first glimpse into the health of the nation’s banking system as it confronts soaring corporate and consumer defaults in the economic crisis sparked by the novel coronavirus. And no-one, including the U.S. Federal Reserve which sets the annual bank “stress test” exams, has a clue what to expect. “That is the $100,000 question. Actually, it’s much bigger than that and I am sure the Fed is working hard to get it right. We’re curious, and we don’t have clarity,” said Kevin Fromer, CEO of the Financial Services Forum, which represents the biggest banks in the U.S. That could mean banks may be on the hook for billions more in capital than they had anticipated, which could ultimately force them to slash dividends, slim down their balance sheets or reduce lending.
Brief: Daniel Pinto checked into a hotel in midtown Manhattan around 2 a.m. on a Friday in early March, hoping to get a little rest after an epically hard day. Things were about to get much worse. His slog that day had begun in London with a routine call with his boss, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon. But just a few hours later Dimon was rushed into emergency heart surgery, and the board named Pinto — who oversees the firm’s Wall Street operations — to temporarily run the bank alongside Gordon Smith, the head of its consumer business. Pinto flew to New York for what he thought would be a brief stay. Then markets began panicking over the coronavirus pandemic. He didn’t check out until a month later. “I’ve seen crises my whole life,” Pinto said in an interview. Yet “we haven’t seen a crisis of this magnitude. It’s probably short-lived but very deep, and it’s everywhere around the world.”
Brief: When will the Covid-19 pandemic end? What’s going to happen to the economy? Investors have a lot of questions about the future — but no one, according to Howard Marks, has the answers. In his most recent client memo, the Oaktree Capital chairman addressed the current state of uncertainty and what he described as the “futility of forecasting,” arguing that not even expertise in a given field necessarily equips a person to predict what will happen. It’s an argument the credit investor has made before, including in his last missive to clients in early May. In this newest letter, released publicly on Thursday, Marks explained that forecasting is impossible because the future is path-dependent — in other words, whatever happens between now and then can affect the ultimate outcome. “Not only how will the virus behave, morph, travel, react to warm weather and infect, but also how fast will we reopen the economy, how will people behave when we reopen it, and what will the virus do at that time?” he wrote.
Brief: Increased information flow, more transparency and informal settings have mitigated a lack of in-person meetings as investors and fund managers find ways to overcome roadblocks resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Face-to-face meetings, a traditional linchpin in the process of checking out fund managers before investors make commitments, have been prevented by government restrictions aimed at reining in the pandemic. Investors, placement agents and fund managers say virtual meetings using video conferencing and presentations using other technologies have kept fundraising largely on track. In addition, the adaptations often lead general partners to offer greater stores of information on investments, returns, deals in the pipeline and strategy to prospective limited partners, helping to compensate for the lack of in-person visits and to increase investor confidence. “I had never had the opportunity to see these general partners in a time of stress, how on top they are of what private equity can do with and for their portfolio companies,” said a limited partner who is considering a follow-up capital commitment with a fund manager.
Brief: Nordea has liquidated one of its Alt Ucits strategies following the decision of its sub-adviser Madrague Capital Partners to close the firm.In a statement to shareholders, Nordea said Madrague Capital Partners’ decision to withdraw its asset management licence led to the termination of the Nordea 1 – European Long Short EquityFund.The fund was first launched in December 2018 and was the first fund since Nordea tool 40% stake in the investment boutique. Madrague Capital Partners’ investment team consisted of five members, including CIO Lars Franstedt and portfolio manager and CEO Martin Persson.‘The board of directors of Nordea 1 Sicav considers that this event is detrimental to the fund’s performance and therefore to the interest of the fund’s shareholders and has consequently decided to put the Fund into liquidation with immediate effect,’ the firm stated. Madrague Capital Partners was approached for a comment but didn’t respond at the time of the publication.
Brief: Personnel to its New York headquarters in mid to late June, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The firm expects that, at least at first, only a small number of traders and workers in other departments will make use of the option, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s internal goals. Morgan Stanley’s plans make it one of the first Wall Street firms to bring more employees back to the trading floor after months of working from home. Rival Goldman Sachs has also said it would bring some trading personnel back to offices in the next several weeks, and together the firms will provide an early test of whether the financial capital of the world can safely reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. Morgan Stanley managers have been plotting for weeks on how to bring employees back to its Times Square headquarters, helped in part by what they’ve learned by reopening their Asia offices, according to the people.
Brief: Billionaire Alan Howard has doubled his investors’ money in the coronavirus crisis. The macro trader has returned about 100% this year in the hedge fund that he personally runs, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Most of the gain was in March when the pandemic sent the global markets into a tailspin, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. A spokesman for Jersey-based Brevan Howard Asset Management declined to comment. Howard’s return marks one of the most profitable money-making phases of his investing career and is the highest achieved by a major macro hedge fund this year. The no-nonsense, fast-talking trader is leading his firm’s dramatic turnaround after years of mediocre returns and an exodus of investors. Howard’s AH Master Fund was started in 2017 to make riskier bets in order to achieve high returns. It has a handful of external investors, money from the firm’s flagship hedge fund and Howard’s own money. Every detail of the fund is kept top secret by the firm, according to people familiar with the company.
Brief: Citigroup Inc. plans to bring its workers back to the office when the Covid-19 pandemic ends, breaking with a raft of competitors planning to make remote operations permanent for many staff. “Our goal is to get our employees back,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Corbat said Friday at a virtual investor conference. Working remotely has definite advantages, Corbat said, including giving him the ability to meet with clients and employees from around the world all in the same week. But he said the firm doesn’t plan to leave employees at home permanently. The pandemic has forced companies to send thousands of employees to their home offices as a way to slow the spread of the deadly virus. For some workers, including those at Citigroup competitors Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Synchrony Financial, the changes may be permanent, officials there have said. Citigroup, with roughly 200,000 employees around the world, has already begun bringing staff back to some of its offices in Asia, with the Hong Kong office at 50% capacity and Taiwan at 75%, Corbat said.
Brief: Two big health-care buyouts are shaping up to be among the worst-performing private-equity investments in recent years. The coronavirus pandemic is only the latest reason why. Physician-staffing firms Envision Healthcare Corp. and TeamHealth Holdings Inc., whose emergency-room workers are ubiquitous throughout the country, were purchased by KKR & Co. and Blackstone Group Inc. in 2018 and 2017 for roughly $6bn and $3bn, respectively. The private-equity firms bought the companies, which contract with hospitals to provide them with an array of medical professionals, with plans to boost revenue and accelerate growth through acquisitions. As is typical in leveraged buyouts, they funded the deals with ample debt, which would accelerate their returns if plans worked out. But things didn’t go according to plans. Instead, the companies have faced a litany of problems, including bruising contract battles with insurance company UnitedHealth Group Inc. and a costly lobbying fight in Washington over legislation to curb what are known as surprise medical bills, which arise when patients are treated at hospitals in their insurance networks by out-of-network doctors.
Brief: The unprecedented coronavirus crisis may have become a headache for private equity sponsors that have pushed for loose lending terms to finance leveraged buyouts as they saddled their portfolio companies with debt. At the heart of the matter is a provision in credit agreements that allows additional time to deliver audited financial reports. The language may allow businesses to delay reporting a potential covenant breach if one arose. Now, during the global health crisis, the added flexibility is forcing auditors to take a harder look at companies’ financial well-being. Most credit agreements require the delivery of ‘clean’ audited year-end financial statements certified by an independent accountant without doubts regarding a company’s ability to continue operations. According to Moody’s Investors Service, the failure to deliver financial statements that meet this requirement may constitute an event of default.
Brief: Asset managers that run traditional stock and bond funds suffered far less than many investors in the first quarter. The median revenue at traditional publicly traded asset managers declined 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2020, according to an analysis by Casey Quirk, the asset management strategy consultant that is part of Deloitte. The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index fell almost 20 percent in the first quarter as economies around the world shut down in response to the coronavirus. Amid the shutdown, asset managers shelled out less to keep their businesses going. Operating expenses fell 3.9 percent, according to Casey Quirk, which analyzed 19 firms with approximately $16 trillion assets under management. Investors also stayed put. Net flows declined less than 1 percent, with retail investors representing most of the outflows, according to the consultant. Operating margins declined 1.9 percent for the median firm. With markets rising during 2019 and into early 2020, asset managers had a positive quarter when compared with the year-earlier period.
Brief: Leaders of the biggest financial companies are getting more optimistic about an economic rebound as the pandemic lockdown eases, but say recent stock gains might have overshot reality. “The market is assuming that we’re not going to see a severe second wave or third wave” of Covid-19, and that treatments will become available to cushion the impact of new outbreaks, BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said Wednesday at a virtual industry conference. “I do believe jobs are going to be slower coming back than other people believe.” Stock-market optimism was particularly pronounced this week, with some of the best performers, including Carnival Corp. and United Airlines Holdings Inc., among those hurt most by the pandemic. The S&P 500 has increased 36% since reaching its lowest in almost 3 1/2 years on March 23. Signs that economies are starting to come to life and prospects for a vaccine helped fuel the gains, as did upbeat comments from policy makers and business leaders. JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said some borrowers who requested forbearance are still making payments, and banks could be done adding to loan-loss reserves after this quarter.
Brief: First came the money. Now it’s the manpower. Hedge funds and investment firms are scouting for distressed debt specialists as they raise large war chests to snap up bargains amid the downturn triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Elliott Management Corp., Signal Capital Partners and Taconic Capital Advisors have all embarked on a hiring spree in recent weeks, while headhunters Paragon Search Partners are juggling requests for distressed debt hires. “There’s so much money being raised, it requires more people on the ground,” said Louisa Watt, a lawyer who advises distressed debt funds as a partner at Brown Rudnick LLP. This is the busiest her clients have been in years, she added. One of the hedge funds she works with has done more trades in the last six weeks than they did in the last two years combined. Firms including Oaktree Capital Group LLC, Highbridge Capital Management and Chenavari Investment Managers are seeking to raise a record $68 billion to target companies that have been punished by the global economic shutdown, according to data compiled by Preqin.
Brief: Investors relying on commercial property funds could lose up to 35% of their income as rents dry up during the pandemic, and experts warn them to "brace themselves" for a looming crash in values even if the market bounces back. Asset managers running some of the UK’s largest commercial property funds are beginning to warn their clients to expect lower payouts as the virus hammers the industry. According to a Legal & General investor note, sent on 22 May and seen by Financial News, the firm’s £2.8bn UK property fund has collected 76% of the rent required by the end of March. L&G said that it collected 88% of required rent from offices, 81% from industrials, 76% from alternatives, 61% from retail, and 15% from leisure. L&G's rental collection from offices is holding up so far, but there might be fewer firms looking to rent space due to the success of swathes of employees working from home. Analysis from occupier consultancy DeVono Cresa found that demand for commercial property had dipped by 30% in the first quarter of 2020.
Brief: Potential breaches of market rules have spiked since traders began working from home in March, drawing scrutiny from regulators and piling pressure on banks to plug “black holes” in surveillance systems, industry officials say. With banks unable to check in person on the behaviour of traders working remotely, they have to rely on machines that flag any apparent bad behaviour or suspicious transactions made under the unusual coronavirus crisis working conditions. “In your kitchen or spare bedroom there is no colleague to monitor what you are up to and what we are seeing across a number of clients is a spike in escalations,” said Erkin Adylov, CEO of Behavox, whose software is used by banks, hedge funds and asset managers in New York, London and Asia to monitor staff. Behavox has seen an 18% rise in conduct being “escalated” or singled out for scrutiny among clients since March, ranging from swearing to more serious incidents like disclosing client names.
Brief: Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce set aside record amounts for soured loans in the fiscal second quarter, bringing total provisions for Canada’s six-biggest banks to C$10.9 billion ($7.9 billion) as they brace for the coronavirus pandemic’s economic aftermath. Toronto-Dominion reported the biggest set-asides among the country’s large lenders, earmarking C$3.22 billion, while CIBC’s figure was C$1.41 billion. The higher provisions for credit losses eroded net income in the three months through April, with both companies missing analysts’ earnings estimates. The Canadian banks, like their U.S. counterparts, are building up reserves in anticipation of expected stresses to consumers and companies from the outbreak, which brought the North American economy to a virtual standstill and boosted unemployment on both sides of the border. Loan-loss provisions topped analysts’ expectations of C$8.9 billion for Canada’s six biggest banks.
Brief: While the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global stock markets is clear to see, it's harder to discern its effect on private equity markets. Investors in unlisted companies don't have the option to buys and sell shares at a moment's notice as they do with businesses listed on the stock market, but that doesn't mean these firms can't see their valuations plunge during a crisis. Private equity is typically viewed as a risky area of investment. Lack of liquidity is a prime concern as it can take a long time to offload an investment, and fledgling businesses are often prone to failure. Concerns around the risk of the sector were raised last year during the high-profilecollapse of the Woodford Patient Capital Trust, which was taken over and renamed by Schrodersafter embattled investor Neil Woodford closed his eponymous fund firm. Investment trusts have been caught up in the market turmoil of recent months and private equity trusts have not come out unscathed; Morningstar Direct data shows the average Private Equity investment trust is down 20.1% year to date. That compares with the FTSE 100, which is still down 20% year to date, and the S&P 500, down 13%. Just one of the 14 trusts in the sector, BMO Private Equity Trust (BPET), is in positive territory, with its share price up 2.42% year to date. Its peers, meanwhile, have seen their share prices tumble by as much as 49%.
Brief: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he certified to Congress Wednesday that Hong Kongno longer enjoys a high degree of autonomy from China -- a decision that could result in the loss of Hong Kong's special trading status with the US and threaten the autonomous region's standing as an international financial hub… His decision comes after Beijing introduced controversialnational security legislationfor Hong Kong -- legislation that Pompeo again denounced in Wednesday's statement as a "disastrous decision." Last week, the top US diplomat warned that the passage of the legislation would be a "death knell" for Hong Kong's autonomy. The proposed law hasprompted protestsin Hong Kong and has been denounced internationally, with observers warning it could curtail many of the fundamental political freedoms and civil liberties guaranteed in the agreement handing the city over from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
Brief:One of Australia’s largest investment firms expects to see more demand for assets in its home market in the coming year as the coronavirus pandemic slows the recent wave of money flowing out of the country. IFM Investors Pty., a A$156 billion fund ($104 billion) owned by 27 of Australia’s largest not-for-profit retirement firms, is seeing appetite among its clients for local infrastructure projects, Chief Executive Officer David Neal said. The firm is considering raising new capital to lend to struggling companies and will consider being a cornerstone investor in future capital raisings by Australian-listed companies… Favoring local assets would mark a shift in strategy for the nation’s A$2.7 trillion pension pool -- the world’s fourth largest -- that’s been sending more money offshore in recent years as it outgrew the local market and investment opportunities dried up. It’s an opportune time as the government weighs new spending, with the economy on the brink of its first recession in almost 30 years.
Brief: BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said it’s still worth betting on equities in the long run even though the coronavirus convulsed global stock markets this year and troubles may still lie ahead. “Even today, a strong ownership in the new economies over long horizons is going to be a great asset class,” Fink said on a Deutsche Bank AG webcast on Wednesday. “The only asset class over a long horizon that you can rest assured, over long horizons, that you’re going to be safe, will be global equities.” That doesn’t mean the near-term picture looks rosy. Fink’s remarks come weeks after he delivered a grim message on a private call with clients of a wealth advisory firm. Bankers he’s spoken to expect the coronavirus pandemic will hit American companies hard, with cascades of bankruptcies to follow, Bloomberg News reported at the time. Fink, whose firm is the world’s biggest asset manager, acknowledged Wednesday that near-term pain probably lies ahead.
Brief: Wall Street is heading back to work. Goldman Sachs is planning on having some of its traders and other markets personnel return to offices in the U.S. and London in the next few weeks, executive John Waldron said Wednesday in an investor conference. “We are beginning the process of returning to our offices around the world,” said Waldron, who is Goldman’s president and chief operating officer. “We are planning for a core group of people in our markets-facing businesses to return in the US and London over the next several weeks.” Goldman, a top player in global trading and capital markets businesses, sent New York-area employees home in March as lockdowns began in the U.S. The bank’s Wall Street-centric businesses performed well in the first quarter, exceeding analysts’ expectations amid record volatility. Now, some of the 98% of bank employees working from home will begin to return to the bank’s offices in Manhattan, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Brief: British property funds are set to remain frozen for months as the market is impossible to value due to the coronavirus crisis, and some may need to change structure to survive, industry sources say. Ten big open-ended property funds tracked by Morningstar, with a total of 6.5 billion pounds ($8 billion) under management, stopped investors from getting their money out in mid March, saying valuers could not accurately assess real estate assets in a plunging economy.With question marks over the future of office working, the retail industry in crisis and the housing market only just reopening, the price of property is set for a major readjustment, but a dearth of transactions means the scale of change is still unclear.“This is a crisis unlike any other,” said Ben Sanderson, a director at Hermes Real Estate Investment Management. “In the short term, it’s going to be hugely challenging.”
Brief: Nearly three-quarters of investment professionals believe the U.S. Federal Reserve’s corporate credit buying programs have stabilized markets since their lows in March. But this week’s II Fear Index reveals investors are also worried about new risk introduced by the initiatives — including a dangerous assumption of credit risk by the public. For six weeks, Institutional Investor has been polling investment professionals about everything from government initiatives to the rationality of equity investors for the weekly II Fear Index. This week’s survey had 168 respondents, the highest yet for the poll. About 74 percent of the surveyed investment professionals said the move by the Fed to purchase corporate bond ETFs, a first for the central bank, provides necessary liquidity to credit markets. But 70 percent said the Fed’s ETF buying also “raises concern about careless risk taking.” Sixty-seven percent of respondents said the initiative “unreasonably encouraged shifting credit risks from the private sector to the public sector.”
