Author: Lily Harper

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UK insurer Legal & General has struck a private credit partnership with Blackstone that the US alternative assets giant said could be worth up to $20bn by the end of the decade.Blackstone will source private credit deals for the FTSE 100 company’s annuities business, in the latest example of European insurance and pension groups tapping US private capital groups to increase their exposure to a fast-growing asset class.RecommendedUnder the agreement, L&G’s annuities business will use Blackstone to originate investment-grade private credit assets,…

This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersGood morning. Yesterday President Donald Trump threatened Brazil, which the US ran a trade surplus of $24bn with in 2023, with 50 per cent tariffs. The grounds for the threat are that Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro is being unfairly prosecuted for, um, attempting to stay in office after losing an election. Unhedged feels this is a little too on the nose and will be having…

Apollo has used its in-house insurer Athene to remake US private capital, using billions of dollars from retirees to feed its asset management machine. But now it is another Apollo-backed insurer, Athora, that is on the march in Europe, with a £5.7bn acquisition that heralds the private equity giant’s arrival into the continent’s largest retirement market.The biggest UK deal of the year so far relates to the obscure but lucrative insurance niche of pension risk transfers or bulk annuities. Over the next decade, British companies are expected to offload about £500bn of retirement obligations and the assets backing them to…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.UBS may have been handed an early win in its battle to moderate stringent new capital requirements imposed by the Swiss government. Who to thank? The pragmatic and slow-moving Swiss political system. The fierce debate between the Swiss lender and the government over how much more money it should hold in reserve domestically for its overseas branches has been raging for months. By Swiss standards, it has all become quite emotional.Many Swiss citizens remain rightfully angered by the collapse of Credit Suisse…

One scoop to start: Revolut is in talks to raise new funding from investors at a $65bn valuation in a transaction that would fuel global expansion for Europe’s most valuable start-up.And a sibling rivalry scoop: Grant Thornton’s UK and US businesses are vying to take over their German sister firm in a private equity-fuelled race to secure a greater share of the accounting group’s global network.Welcome to Due Diligence, your briefing on dealmaking, private equity and corporate finance. This article is an on-site version of the newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Tuesday…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Hedge funds myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Hunterbrook Global has been valued at $100mn after a recent fundraising, as the novel US newsroom-cum-hedge fund revealed to investors that it planned to move into litigation. The new capital, raised by the parent company that oversees the hedge fund Hunterbrook Capital and the news outlet Hunterbrook Media, has come from investors, including the Ford Foundation and venture capital firm Floating Point, according to a person familiar with the fundraise.Hunterbrook was launched in 2023 by investor Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz and writer Sam…

The writer is a historian and public speaker“We once had seven castles,” says Jean Christophe, Baron von Pfetten. “All were sold — so I’ve bought one back!”The baron, a Frenchman with a Germanic title and a deep love of England, blames the loss of his family’s patrimony on the Code Napoleon, which prescribes a more equitable family inheritance and quickly disperses an ancestral fortune. So, when he first picked his way through Apethorpe House, the castle in question, and spotted a carved coat of arms resembling his own, he and his wife Nadia, a conservation architect from Venice, decided to buy it.The…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.South Korean policymakers are struggling to stimulate economic growth in the face of an escalating global trade war, as they fear cutting interest rates could boost property prices in some of the most desirable parts of Seoul and inflame an already overheated market.The Bank of Korea on Thursday held rates at 2.5 per cent, defying pressure to boost an economy that contracted in the first quarter as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs squeezed the country’s crucial exports of cars, steel and electronics.“The…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Revolut is in talks to raise new funding from investors at a $65bn valuation, according to people familiar with the matter, in a transaction that would fuel global expansion for Europe’s most valuable start-up.The UK-based financial technology group is in discussions to raise about $1bn of funding via newly issued shares and the sale of some existing stock, two of the people said.The US investment firm Greenoaks is in talks to lead the private funding round, one person said, cautioning that details…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldFor America’s private health insurers, President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is turning out to be not so pretty.Among the many provisions in the giant tax and spending package were the ones tightening eligibility for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, a federal state programme for low-income and disabled people. The bill also affects another key insurance market — Obamacare marketplace plans. Federal tax credits that help people pay for these plans were not extended, meaning…