Goldman Sachs was hit by a surge in commercial real estate loan delinquencies in the first quarter, fuelled in part by Elon Musk’s refusal to pay Twitter’s rent. The value of loans to commercial real estate borrowers (CRE) behind on repayments climbed 612 per cent in the first quarter to $840mn, according to reports filed
News
Partners at Odey Asset Management said that founder Crispin Odey would leave the firm after 13 women accused him of sexual misconduct. The high-profile financier and his firm have been at the centre of a growing crisis after the Financial Times reported on Thursday that 13 women alleged Odey had sexually assaulted or harassed them
Rishi Sunak is facing three challenging by-elections in the coming weeks after former UK cabinet minister Nigel Adams announced he was quitting the House of Commons immediately. The decision by Adams — an ally of former premier Boris Johnson — raised immediate speculation about a co-ordinated attempt to undermine the Downing Street incumbent. Sunak’s Conservative
There is no cunning plan. No secret wheeze to secure Boris Johnson’s return to power. All there is is all there ever was, a hazy gut instinct that it is better to walk away now, keep his options open and see how the land lies in a few months. Johnson’s entire career has been a
Russia’s browbeaten opposition gathered in Brussels to plot a path back to democracy this week, with Vladimir Putin’s main rivals in jail or exiled and squabbling about how to move forward. Rather than uniting Russia’s liberals, the war in Ukraine has deepened existing rifts and added new controversies, such as backing a military defeat for
Barclays is fighting to stem an exodus from its investment bank after around 30 of its bankers in the US quit to join rivals this year, departures which risk damaging the British lender’s ambitions to compete with larger Wall Street firms. Barclays’ human resources department has been warning bankers who leave the company not to
For years Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has championed unorthodox economic policies, leaving investors deeply worried about the perilous state of Turkey’s balance sheet. This week, the Turkish president named a new head of the central bank. Hafize Gaye Erkan’s background? A speciality in creating complex models that analyse the risk in the balance sheets of big
The writer is a science commentator The A3 poster hangs off the bottom of the kitchen blackboard, just below the Middlesex County Cricket Club fixture list and the bin lorry timetable. Given the team’s sorry T20 performance this season, it is the only pin-up among the trio that brings any joy. It is, of course,
Russian oil exporters have almost doubled their use of ageing ships since the start of the Ukraine war, raising concerns in the shipping industry that workers and the environment are being put at risk by vessels that belong on scrap heaps. The share of seaborne exports of Urals — Russia’s main crude blend — carried
The 49-page indictment against Donald Trump unsealed on Friday is a charging document of uncommon specificity, legal experts said. Accusing him of mishandling government secrets and lying to authorities, US prosecutors showed boxes containing classified records piled high in a bathroom and alleged the former president shared details of a “plan of attack” with others.
When Boris Johnson said on Friday that he was quitting parliament “for now”, seldom can two words have been freighted with such political menace. Johnson is leaving parliament in a blaze of Trumpian anger, but he is not going away. Viewed from Downing Street, Johnson is now a dangerous maverick, intent on doing whatever he
If the deepest fears of socialised humanity have ever been expressed better than “You can’t sit with us”, the most famous line in the movie Mean Girls, then I’d like to see the evidence. Watching it with my 14-year-old daughter over the half-term break was a delicious bonding experience. The others were out, we had
Rishi Sunak has ordered a review of “drip pricing” under which companies hide the true cost of products and services by charging extra fees to consumers. The UK prime minister said during his trip to Washington this week that the government would investigate how widespread the practice was and — if necessary — draw up
Microsoft is moving some of its best artificial intelligence researchers from China to Canada in a move that threatens to gut an essential training ground for the Asian country’s tech talent. The Beijing-based Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA) has begun seeking visas to move top AI experts from China’s capital to its institute in Vancouver, said
The triggers forcing investors suddenly to hand over cash are many and varied. In perhaps the textbook example — the UK’s pensions hedging crisis last autumn — it stemmed from a fiscal shock that triggered a sharp rise in bond yields. For Silicon Valley Bank, which failed in March, it was a curious failure to
The UK tax authority has written to hundreds of people named in one of the biggest leaks of financial information, warning them of penalties if they do not verify that they have paid in full what they owe. In letters sent on Monday, HM Revenue & Customs told individuals named in the 2021 Pandora Papers,
“Money talks.” With those two words, Rory McIlroy summed up the mood of the stunned global golfing community as it absorbed the news that the US-based PGA Tour was partnering with the Saudi backers of LIV Golf. For almost two years, McMcIlroy acted as the PGA’s frontman as it battled to stem the flood of
Exactly a month ago I was married in St Andrew’s Church, Didling, in front of a vicar, family and friends. It was divine. As a Hitchens-grade atheist, however, I had to stifle the odd hypocritical pang. Thankfully, banking taught me how. Inconsistency and self-delusion were integral to the job. Bosses would lie to my face
A financier who used the proceeds of a £70mn Ponzi-style scheme to fund a “lavish lifestyle” including private jet and yacht hire and his £2.5mn wedding in Greece has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by a London court. Anthony Constantinou, who ran foreign exchange trading firm Capital World Markets (CWM) from the Heron
Donald Trump is entangled in a clutch of legal cases over his conduct, his handling of classified documents, and the events before and after the 2020 presidential election. He became the first former president to face federal criminal charges after saying on Thursday he had been indicted for taking secret government documents to his Mar-a-Lago
Rishi Sunak has finally approved Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, which includes appointments for Tory MPs and a senior official who worked in Downing Street during the partygate scandal. The former prime minister nominated several senior Conservative MPs who are his allies. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conor Burns, and Simon Clarke were knighted, while Priti Patel and