Author: Lily Harper

Goldman Sachs’ former head of investment banking is staring down perhaps the biggest deal of his life.Scott Kapnick, the chief executive of HPS Investment Partners, is closing in on a transformational transaction for the private credit firm he founded less than two decades ago at a potential valuation of $10bn or more, according to people briefed on the matter.The press averse 65-year-old was last week courting top Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds in New York, as he and his lieutenants debated their future. Ahead of him were three paths: the first, the sale of a stake in HPS to one…

Initial public offerings have long stood as the tentpole attraction of investment banking, combining financial number-crunching and flamboyant showmanship. Banks send their biggest hitters to pitch for top-line roles, investors jostle for allocations, CEOs triumphantly ring the opening bell, and the media breathlessly cover first-day trading like a Hollywood red-carpet premiere.Today IPOs still command attention. Jumbo listings in Poland, India and Japan have grabbed the headlines in just the last couple of weeks. But IPOs seem to have lost some of their lustre. They’ve transformed from marquee events to marginal affairs — from grand festivals to county fairs, with the…

Citypoint was the City of London’s first skyscraper. When it was built in the 1960s, as an office for British Petroleum, it was the tallest building completed in the square mile since St Paul’s Cathedral in 1710. Today, the tower near Moorgate station is again leading the market in City real estate — but in a different way. Brookfield, the Canadian investment group, last month put Citypoint on the market, seeking offers over £500mn. If it sells, it would be the largest office building to change hands in the City in more than two years. The hiatus in dealmaking has…

Latest news on ETFsVisit our ETF Hub to find out more and to explore our in-depth data and comparison toolsCitigroup is launching a European exchange traded fund platform to help third-party managers enter the rapidly growing sector.The move by the third-largest US bank to create a “white label” platform threatens to shake-up a sector dominated by smaller specialist players, even after Goldman Sachs became the first big-name entrant to the platform sector when it launched its ETF Accelerator last year.Citi Velocity ETFs will launch in the first quarter of 2025 with the aim of helping active asset managers enter the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Bible said the poor will always be with us, but the verse neglected to mention the persistence of the rich. Perhaps it went without saying. I mention this because I have just taken on the job of editor of FT Wealth, nine years after I stopped editing a wealth-focused magazine, and the rich are as present and prominent now as then.I have kept my eye on the world of the wealthy over this near-decade, particularly when it came to the art market, but am…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The Bank of Canada has cut interest rates by half a percentage point to 3.75 per cent, in a bid to spur consumer spending and boost growth. The central bank’s move comes after Canada’s inflation fell below its 2 per cent goal, hitting 1.6 per cent in the year to September. The cut, which was widely expected, was the fourth in a row by the G7 country’s central bank. However, earlier cuts had been of a smaller, quarter-point, margin.“If the economy evolves…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The top US consumer finance watchdog has hit Goldman Sachs and Apple with more than $89mn in fines over how the two companies handled their shared credit card business. The fines announced on Wednesday point to the struggles Goldman and Apple have had in expanding into financial products for everyday consumers. For Goldman, the business represented a major departure from its traditional business of investment banking and trading. “Apple and Goldman Sachs illegally sidestepped their legal obligations for Apple Card borrowers,” said Consumer Financial…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Deutsche Bank, it would appear, is keen on domestic consolidation — just not yet. The German bank is right to dampen speculation that it might elbow its way into the fraught potential takeover of rival Commerzbank by Italy’s UniCredit. As its latest set of results show, its turnaround has barely begun. There is plenty of knitting for it to stick to. The lender has undeniably made progress under Christian Sewing, chief executive since 2018. Its revenues are on track to reach about €30bn…

Pioneers sometimes get undue credit for simply being the first of many trying to reach the promised land. Even if they had never been born, their discovery would have happened around the same time anyway. Other times they become the figurehead of what was really a collective breakthrough. But if there was a true father of passive investing then it was John “Mac” McQuown, who FT Alphaville has learned sadly passed away yesterday, aged 90.Index funds certainly had many intellectual parents — giants like Louis Bachelier, Harry Markowitz, William Sharpe and Eugene Fama. Vanguard’s Jack Bogle was a powerhouse behind…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Consumers tend not to care how banks actually work. So it is unlikely many of them noticed a new rule on Tuesday making it easier to move personal data from one financial company to another — an innovation known as “open banking”. Banks and their lobbyists, though, care deeply.The idea, which Britain introduced seven years ago, is that lenders must share data with rivals when a customer requests it. This initiative from the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is broadly helpful. Switching…