Calpers, the biggest public pension plan in the US, admitted a decision to put its private equity programme on hold for 10 years had cost it up to $18bn of returns as it announced an overhaul of its governance. In a frank assessment of past failings at the $440bn retirement system, chief investment officer Nicole
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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Too many things get called Orwellian these days. Poor George Orwell — a man who advised writers to “never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in
Wang Chuanfu is not afraid of throwing investors curveballs. In fact, the Chinese billionaire appears to relish it. Twenty years ago, Wang unveiled plans for his BYD group to buy a failing state car manufacturer that had attempted to develop a sideline in making missiles. His logic: rip out the petrol-guzzling internal combustion engines from
After a decade of scandal shaped by billions of euros in losses, a flurry of misconduct and compliance cases and boardroom battles it looked — just for a few hours at the end of April — as if the outgoing Deutsche Bank chair Paul Achleitner was going to leave on a high. Germany’s largest lender
You can enable subtitles (captions) in the video player I’m here at the Kennedy Centre, where I’ve just spoken to Dr Henry Kissinger about the war in Ukraine, the prospects of it going nuclear, how that compares with the Cold War, which, of course, is his era. How China is viewing the situation between Nato
Two decades ago, HSBC made a bold gamble to recapitalise an ailing Chinese insurance firm, paying $600mn for 10 per cent of Ping An. The risk paid off handsomely netting the bank $2.6bn in profit when the stake was sold in 2012. But a decade on, Ping An has become HSBC’s largest shareholder and is
5 Belgrave Square, a stucco-fronted mansion complete with pillared portico, is one of London’s most exclusive addresses, overlooking leafy gardens and nestled between grand embassies and other private residences. Once home to Sir Henry “Chips” Channon, a US-born Conservative MP whose diaries published during the 1960s were a source of scandal about British high society,
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. On a bus for a “pilgrimage” to the grave of renowned Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, Hoda overheard others discussing what they would pray for when they reached “the holy site”. Their words made clear to
The era of unlimited central bank largesse is drawing to a close, injecting intense volatility in to government bonds and inflicting heavy damage on a clutch of high-profile hedge funds. Superstars of the industry have been left nursing billions of dollars in losses after an abrupt rethink on how and when central banks will reverse
Telegram has raised more than $1bn through bond sales to investors including Abu Dhabi state funds, as the encrypted messaging app tries to capitalise on a surge in users. In his Telegram channel, chief executive Pavel Durov said the company had raised the funds from “some of the largest and most knowledgeable investors from all
For the 55 calendar years from 1965 through 2019, Berkshire Hathaway’s stock rose at an 18.6% annualized pace, versus 11.8% for the S&P 500 SPX, -0.82% . (Both returns reflect reinvested dividends.) Warren Buffett can take credit for this, and he appears to be very much in charge of Berkshire. But, given that he just
Clean-energy stocks and exchange-traded funds are on a tear this year, sharply outperforming the broader market and traditional fossil-fuel investments. The clean-tech ETFs with the most powerful year-to-date rallies include Invesco Solar ETF TAN, -2.75%, up 81% through Thursday; First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Green Energy Index Fund QCLN, -1.84%, up 58%; and iShares Global
Two proposed rulemakings from the Labor Department in the past eight weeks would largely gut sustainable investing options and strategies in retirement plans. These proposals would reverse the Labor Department’s 2015 and 2016 guidance while ignoring the growing consensus among academics, retirement plan fiduciaries and professional money managers that responsible companies are likely to outperform
January 30 2019: it was mid-afternoon on a grey Wednesday in London when a dozen or so anonymous Twitter bots burst into life. “McCrums a criminal . . . Dannyboy McCRIM is GOING TO JAIL!!” they sang. As this stream of online abuse gathered pace, another more formal voice joined the chorus, that of Heike Pauls, a respected and
This story is outside the FT’s paywall (you do not need a subscription to access it) so it can be shared freely. Deborah Fuller had just heard the sentences that were the closest she would get to justice. In March 2016, her daughter Sarah died from an overdose of drugs that included Subsys: a tiny
© James Ferguson As we leave Alexei Navalny’s office for our lunch, I realise we are to be joined by an uninvited guest. A young man in a baggy white T-shirt yells “Alexei, where do you buy cocaine?”, follows us across the street and begins filming us on his phone. For Vladimir Putin’s biggest opponent,
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Ten years ago this summer, I was on a family holiday in Mallorca. Four weeks after I became chancellor of the exchequer, the economic waters seemed as calm as the Mediterranean. Dispatched to buy the
In Richard Desmond’s hands, simple objects become terrifying. There’s the receptionist’s bell that he uses to interrupt executives in board meetings, or the cups of tea that occasionally fly over underlings. For me, the terror begins when he picks up the wine list. This is Coq d’Argent, a rooftop restaurant overlooking the Bank of England.
James Gorman arrives promptly at noon at a sparsely populated Greek restaurant in midtown Manhattan. We are a couple of blocks from Morgan Stanley’s headquarters, which are incongruously located near Times Square. While Gorman and his colleagues fought to save the investment bank from collapsing in recent years, tourists would throng obliviously outside, having pictures
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Among the companies whose shares are expected to see active trade in Friday’s session are DuPont, Nike Inc., and KB Home. DuPont DD, -1.30% : The chemical company late Thursday cut its second-quarter and full year profit outlook due to worse-than-expected performance of its agriculture unit. Shares fell 1.9% in extended
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Among the companies whose shares are expected to see active trade in Thursday’s session are Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., GoPro Inc., and Nike Inc. After Wednesday’s closing bell, Bed Bath & Beyond BBBY, +0.93% reported quarterly earnings that fell short of analysts’ estimate. Shares fell 5.7% in after hours.