The state of Illinois is preparing to issue $600 million in new Build Illinois junior sales tax revenue bonds — 2024 Series A, B and C — in a competitive auction next week. “Illinois enters the market as cash needs for projects arise,” said Olivia Kuncio, senior deputy press secretary to Gov. JB Pritzker. Rebuild
A sharp drop in mortgage interest rates in December may have kickstarted this year’s spring housing market early. Rates are about a full percentage point lower than they were in October, and consumers expect they will fall even more. Optimism about mortgage rates increased sharply in December, according to a monthly consumer survey by Fannie
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Oil myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Oil prices dropped sharply on Monday as Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut its official selling price for oil exports in February overshadowed heightened tensions in the Middle East. Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, fell 3.9
The top municipal underwriters saw big shifts in rankings in 2023. The changes reflect a year of layoffs at several Wall Street firms, including the October decision by UBS to exit the negotiated underwriting business and Citigroup, which also exited the muni underwriting business, in November. The industry has weathered its second year of declining volume that increased competition for
California headlined the top 10 issuers in 2023. Half of the top 10 issuers were new entrants — the California Community Choice Finance Authority, Main Street Natural Gas, Washington, the Texas Natural Gas Securitization Finance Corp. and Illinois — as Massachusetts, the Regents of the University of California, the Louisiana Local Government Environmental Facilities and
Of the $312.508 billion of par issued, municipal financial advisors saw $312.178 billion of business in 5,531 transactions in 2023. This compares to the $305.035 billion in 5,934 deals in 2022, out of a total of $305.149 billion. Caine Mitter & Associates and RBC Capital Markets moved into the top 10, while Piper Sandler &
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. This article is an on-site version of our Swamp Notes newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every Monday and Friday Let’s be honest. Chris Christie has been a
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Private equity myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Blackstone Group has raised $1.3bn for a private equity fund tailored to wealthy individual clients, signalling a revival of momentum in its efforts to reach investors beyond its base of institutions such as pension funds.
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Rishi Sunak has backed calls for a review into whether Paula Vennells, former Post Office chief executive, should be stripped of her CBE as outrage grows over the Horizon IT scandal. The UK prime minister’s
Massachusetts plans to come to market on Thursday with $1.4 billion of general obligation bonds that will kick off the first full trading week of the year. The deal is one of the largest offerings of the week, which will see $9.1 billion of supply flood into the market after the weeks-long holiday drought. Jefferson
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago Luis, 28, and his wife, Maria, 26, squat among the patchwork of air mattresses, sleeping bags and blankets that they call home, in a disused part
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Bet365 chief Denise Coates earned close to £300mn last year in pay and dividends from the UK-based gambling group, confirming her position as one of the world’s best-paid executives. Coates was paid about £221mn in
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US politics & policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. “I believe in America.” That phrase has rattled around my head, throughout the rise, fall and rise again of Donald Trump. Only belatedly did I recall that this comforting sentiment is the opening
Shares in Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems both tumbled on Monday as investors weighed the financial fallout from Friday’s mid-flight accident on an Alaska Airlines aircraft. US investigators announced on Sunday that they had located the door that blew out of the Boeing 737 Max during the flight. The incident prompted an emergency landing and
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. This article is an on-site version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday Good morning. The Conservative party has found a song to
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Deloitte is rolling out a generative artificial intelligence chatbot to 75,000 employees across Europe and the Middle East to create power point presentations and write emails and code in an attempt to boost productivity. The
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. This may be the year that content creators finally fight back against surveillance capitalism. Over the past few weeks, there have been multiple lawsuits filed by news providers large and small, as well as comedians,
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Forget the S&P 500, and the frenzied excitement of recent weeks as the US index flirted with record levels. The FTSE MIB index of Italy’s 40 biggest stocks is where the real boom story is
In the worst of her mania, Isobel Hallett planned to put her magical powers to use by jumping off the local viaduct and flying over the town of Knaresborough in Yorkshire. “People telling me ‘you can’t fly’ just made me cross,” Hallett says of her first fully manic episode in May 2022. She was subsequently
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The writer is head of research at Barclays Regulators and investors are worried about the fragility of government bond and funding markets. This is understandable. These markets are vital for financing governments, for monetary policy
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US banks myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. A pile-up of bad debt threatens to sour investors’ growing optimism about the prospects for the US’s largest banks when they report fourth-quarter earnings this week. Non-performing loans — debt tied to borrowers who have