https://www.facebook.com/105643509178170/

Investment market news, Postjeskade 33III, Amsterdam (2026)

20/04/2023

Harris Associates investment director David Guerrault has sold his entire stake in Credit Suisse Group AG, severing his relationship with the bank after nearly two decades of holding its shares and increasing pressure on the management of the troubled Swiss lender.

Harris Associates had been Credit Suisse's largest shareholder for years, but by the end of 2022 it had reduced its stake from 10% to 5%. The stock fell to a record low last week after last month's financial results showed larger-than-expected losses amid record outflows.

Credit Suisse shares have lost about 95 percent of their value since the summer of 2007 after several years of scandals and losses.

"Rising interest rates mean a lot of European financial companies are moving in a different direction," Guerrault told the Financial Times. "Why do something that burns capital when the rest of the sector is now generating it?"

Harris Associates has owned Credit Suisse stock since the turn of the century and doubled down after the 2008 financial crisis. While Guerro defended the bank when it got into trouble, he became more critical of the board as the lender struggled to fix its investment bank and overcome losses and scandals.

19/04/2023

Investors including Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, Bain Capital Crypto, Moore Capital Management, Variant Fund, Newman Capital, IOSG Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners participated in the Scroll startup round.

While Scroll representatives declined to comment on the valuation and structure of the round, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told The Block that Scroll's valuation increased to $1.8 billion as a result of the round.

Scroll had previously raised $33 million in two funding rounds and also did not disclose its valuation at that time. The new round brings Scroll's total funding to date to $83 million.

Scroll was founded in 2021 with the goal of scaling Ethereum to one billion users. Scroll's second-tier network processes transactions outside of Ethereum on its own network and then transfers transaction data back to Ethereum, helping to increase transaction speed and reduce costs.

Scroll uses zk-rollup technology for its network to help achieve scalability. Scroll's zkEVM, or zero-disclosure Ethereum virtual machine, groups transactions and then creates proof that all those transactions are legitimate. This proof is then translated into Ethereum, and the transactions are approved.

Scroll is one of several Ethereum scaling networks using zk-rollups.

With the new capital, Scroll plans to continue building its product, launch its core network, and expand its ecosystem.

18/04/2023

As reported by The Information, just weeks after raising hundreds of millions of dollars from Google, San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup and ChatGPT competitor Anthropic is raising another round of $300 million at a valuation of $4.1 billion, with venture capital firm Spark Capital as the investor.

Just last month, it was reported that Google had invested between $300 million and $400 million in the startup

The Financial Times reported that the deal gave Google a 10% stake in the company, and this came just two weeks after news broke of Microsoft's huge $10 billion investment in OpenAI.

Claude's artificial intelligence chatbot, Anthropic, is in closed beta testing mode, but a document detailing its goals states that it will combat malicious cues by explaining why they are dangerous or wrong.

According to Crunchbase, before this year's massive fundraiser, Anthropic, which reportedly had limited revenue, raised $704 million in Series A and Series B funding rounds in 2022. Series B was led by disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

18/04/2023

Humane Inc. founded by Imran Chaudhry and Bethany Bongiorno plans to release a product this spring that incorporates artificial intelligence into a consumer device.

The company has not disclosed what it plans to sell. Published patents suggest that Humane intends to create a wearable device capable of projecting a display that users can interact with.

"Air and touch gestures can also be performed on the projected ephemeral display, such as reacting to user interface elements," the patent states.

The startup's co-founding spouses were longtime Apple executives who resigned in 2016. Chaudhry was the former director of design on Apple's team that handles the user interface of Apple devices. Bongiorno was director of Apple's operating system.

The round was led by Kindred Ventures. Microsoft also participated. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who was one of Humane's first investors, also joined the new round.

As part of Wednesday's fundraising announcement, the company said it would work with Microsoft to build Humane's cloud services. Humane will also work with OpenAI to integrate its artificial intelligence technology into the Humane device.

18/04/2023

German high-voltage power grid 50Hertz, owned by Belgian company Elia, plans to more than double its investment in upgrading its network to €8.7 billion over the next five years, the company said Monday.

The investment to be made between 2023 and 2027 is more than double the amount invested between 2018 and 2022 and more than half the €5.6 billion allocated for the 2022-2026 period.

More than half of the amount will be financed through debt, 50Hertz Chief Financial Officer Marco Nix said, adding that this includes a €600 million green loan from seven banks under the program of state lender KfW, which owns 20 percent of 50Hertz.

Germany's electricity grid will need investments of tens of billions of euros over the next few years to make sure it can handle the growing influx of solar and wind power as the country tries to move away from fossil fuels.

18/04/2023

Sebastian Guth, president of Bayer's pharmaceutical business in the Americas, said Bayer AG plans to spend $1 billion this year on drug research and development in the United States. He added that the company has increased the number of U.S. employees involved in marketing Bayer's pharmaceutical business by about 50 percent in the past three years and plans to expand further.

"It's time for us to double down on the U.S.," Guth said, noting that Bayer plans to sell the drugs it develops domestically rather than partnering with U.S. companies as it has in the past.

Bayer wants to ramp up its portfolio of new drugs as it hopes to improve its stock price, which has suffered because of concerns about the Roundup herbicide litigation and distrust of the company's management.

Guth said he expects peak sales of €12 billion from cancer drug Nubeqa, kidney drug Kerendia and the company's two major assets, experimental stroke drug asundexian and experimental women's health drug elinzanetant. He said he expects more than half of those sales to come from the U.S.

18/04/2023

The Financial Times reports that Alfa Group shareholders Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven have decided to give up their 45% stake in Alfa Bank in order to have the sanctions lifted.

It is reported that Andrei Kosogov, who is not subject to sanctions, has agreed to buy the stakes of his longtime business partners Fridman and Aven for $2.3 billion.

According to one of the publication's sources. Mikhail Fridman and Pyotr Aven are trying everything they can to get rid of their Russian assets for the sake of lifting sanctions.

But getting rid of their main Russian asset won't guarantee that the businessmen will lift the sanctions, which the EU has to extend on March 15.

Another source thinks that such a deal looks good: "Fridman and Aven are avoiding sanctions, Kosogov gets the bank, and the bank is left with the only Russian shareholder.

The closing of the deal is scheduled for this spring. But it still needs regulatory approval.

18/04/2023

Italy's largest utility, Enel Spa, said Thursday it will sell its Romanian operations to Greece's Public Power Corp (PPC) for €1.26 billion as part of its plan to reduce debt and focus on cleaner energy.

Including debt, the deal is valued at €1.9 billion, Enel said in a statement. The deal is expected to have a positive impact on Enel's consolidated net debt of about €1.7 billion.

Last November, Enel gave a strategic update saying it plans to sell €21 billion worth of assets and intends to reduce its debt to €51-52 billion by the end of this year.

"With the sale of all our operations in Romania, we continue to implement the liquidation plan announced during the presentation of Enel's Strategic Plan 2023-2025," said Enel CEO Francesco Starace.

18/04/2023

Blackstone Inc., Thomson Reuters Corp. and other investors sold nearly £2 billion worth of shares in London Stock Exchange Group Plc after the lock-up period expired.

The offering sold 28 million shares at a price of £71.50 through York Holdings II Ltd. This is a discount of about 4 percent to the closing price of LSEG on Tuesday.

The offering was up from 23 million shares, and sellers gathered sufficient investor demand for the offering within minutes of the announcement. The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC, both members of the Blackstone consortium, also sold shares.

The sale of about 5 percent of the shares came days after the stock exchange said it planned to buy back £750 million worth of shares in the consortium.

Under the lock-up agreement, Thomson Reuters and Blackstone were able to sell up to 66.1 million shares in total through Jan. 29, 2024. Once that deal is completed, the remaining 38.1 million shares will be locked up for 90 days.

An LSEG spokesman declined to comment.

18/04/2023

Informa Plc has agreed to buy Tarsus in a $940 million deal, including debt, betting on rebuilding the events industry.

The acquisition will be funded with cash and about 26 million new shares of Informa stock worth $210 million.

The deal is expected to close by July of this year.

Informa said 2023 will be a "key year of growth" for the events, corporate meetings and trade shows industry, which were widely canceled during the Covid-19 lockout. Live streaming is starting to return to normal this year as venues reopen, and the company said it has seen growth in its existing business, including Informa Markets and Informa Connect.

According to Informa, Tarsus is estimated to have more than £175 million in revenue in 2023.

"We have long admired the Tarsus business, which, like Informa, has been built around big brands in attractive specialty B2B markets in the emerging regions of Asia, China, the Middle East and the Americas," said Informa CEO Stephen Carter.

18/04/2023

Silicon Valley Bank, SVB, became the largest U.S. lender to collapse in more than a decade after a tumultuous week of unsuccessful capital raises and cash outflows from tech startups that previously helped fuel the lender's rise.

SVB's problems came after Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and other prominent venture capital firms advised their portfolio companies to withdraw money from the bank. Then SVB's parent company, SVB Financial Group, announced that it would try to raise more than $2 billion after significant losses in its portfolio.

The FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) said SVB's insured depositors would have access to their funds no later than Monday morning. In announcing the takeover, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation cited the bank's lack of liquidity and insolvency.

The bank's deposits will probably be transferred to another, healthy bank, or the FDIC will pay depositors up to the insured limit.

As we know, not only tech businessmen but also cryptocurrency holders have kept their money in SVB. In particular, Circle, a company that manages one of the largest stackablecoins USDC, also held some of its reserves for that token there.

SVB was founded in 1983, and the idea for the bank was born during a poker game between Bill Biggerstaff and Robert Medearis. Since its inception, the bank has specialized in providing financial services to technology startups.

SVB has offices throughout the U.S. as well as in the U.K., Ireland, Israel, China and other countries. It served half of all U.S. venture-backed startups and 44% of U.S. startups and healthcare companies that went public last year.

The bank had about $209 billion in total assets and about $175.4 billion in total deposits at the end of last year, according to the FDIC.

18/04/2023

No sooner had the U.S. market come to its senses after the largest fall of Silicon Valley Bank in the last decade, than a few days later regulators announced the closure of New York-based Signature Bank. As a result, as many as two major bankruptcies occurred in just three days in the U.S. banking market. The fall of Signature was the third largest in American history.

Signature never managed to find a buyer or make another decision that would have helped it strengthen its finances.

According to Signature board member Barney Frank, the bank suffered billions of dollars in leakage of customer funds. He noted that customer concerns about Signature's cryptocurrency investments have grown since the SVB collapse.

Investment market news

20/04/2023

19/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

18/04/2023

Adres

Website

Meldingen

Contact

Snelkoppelingen

Delen

Type