FT : Billionaire Poonawalla family buy £42mn Mayfair property despite non-dom fe

Billionaire Poonawalla family buy £42mn Mayfair property despite non-dom fears
Purchase of block on upmarket Grosvenor Square comes ahead of tax changes for wealthy international investors

The billionaire Poonawalla family have bought a £42mn building in London’s upmarket Grosvenor Square, around the corner from their Mayfair home, despite concerns that changes to the UK’s non-dom tax rules would put off wealthy international investors. 

Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster’s property company, which owns much of Mayfair, has granted a long lease on the building to Phinity Developers Ltd, a company controlled by Natasha Poonawalla, according to UK public records. 

The deal, concluded in May, came in the same month that her husband, Adar Poonawalla, who leads the family’s vaccine business, told the Financial Times that the UK’s tax changes for wealthy non-doms would deter investors from the country. 

“The policy should be such that it encourages . . . individuals to come and invest and stay in the UK . . . Instead of doing that, you’re making rules which would make people stay away,” he said. 

Non-dom rules allow UK residents with a permanent home overseas to avoid UK tax on their international income and gains. The Labour government will abolish the regime in 2025, among a suite of tax changes hitting the UK’s wealthiest residents. 

Adar Poonawalla told the FT in May that he did not spend enough time in the UK to be affected by non-dom rules, but that Natasha could lose the tax benefits. “Some people are willing to pay that cost like I am, but most others aren’t . . . They can easily move out,” he said. 

Natasha Poonawalla is a fashion influencer and an executive director at the family’s Serum Institute of India, which manufactured hundreds of millions of doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine — and has invested millions in vaccine research and production in Oxford. 

38 Grosvenor Square is around the corner from Aberconway House, the more than 25,000 sq ft home the Poonawallas bought last year through a holding company for £138mn — making it the second most expensive home ever sold in London. 

Built in 1727, and still featuring 18th century decorated ceilings in the style of Robert Adam, the Grosvenor Square property was an aristocratic townhouse and then the Indonesian embassy until 2017. 

The property was advertised as a “blank canvas” for commercial redevelopment. The five-storey, 27,000 sq ft building has not had a full-time tenant for several years, but has been used to host events. It is described in marketing materials as one of the “last remaining buildings from the square’s original date of construction”. 

Grosvenor declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Poonawalla family declined to comment.

>>> US After Hours Summary: DLB +12.8%, KEYS +8.9% higher on earnings; POWL -11%

After Hours Summary: DLB +12.8%, KEYS +8.9% higher on earnings; POWL -11%, XP -5.1% lower on earnings; SGMO +11.2% on FDA clearance; FLEX +5.4% to join S&P MidCap 400

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: DLB +12.8%, KEYS +8.9%, QFIN +3.4% (also authorizes new $450 mln share repurchase program), VREX +3.3%, AZEK +2.6%, LZB +2.5% (also increases dividend), SNEX +1.3%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: SGMO +11.2% (announces FDA clearance of IND application for ST-503), CON +7.6% (to join S&P SmallCap 600), FLEX +5.4% (to join S&P MidCap 400), VKTX +4.6% (presents results from Phase 2b VOYAGE study), AZTA +4.6% (CEO bought 13967 shares; also moves to S&P 600 from S&P 400), ZI +3.8% (CEO bought 492500 shares), ALGM +1.8% (CTO bought 15000 shares), BALY +0.7% (shareholders approve merger), OKE +0.3% (DTM to acquire 3 nat gas pipelines from OKE for $1.2 bln), MKC +0.2% (increases dividend)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: POWL -11%, XP -5.1% (also authorizes new R$1 bln share repurchase program), ZTO -3.1%, GBDC -0.9%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: SVM -15.9% ($130 mln convertible notes offering), QDEL -6% (stock offering by selling shareholder), LUNR -3.1% (NASA intends to award Blue Origin and SpaceX additional work), DTM -1.8% (DTM to acquire 3 nat gas pipelines from OKE for $1.2 bln; also files mixed shelf securities offering), QCOM -0.2% (sets new growth targets), DNB -0.1% (announces availability of its generative A.I. asst)

FT : The doomsday that wasn’t

The doomsday that wasn’t
VIXplaining the events of August 5


One fun thing about the VIX — called the “fear gauge” because it puts a price on expectations for future stock-market volatility — is that it has pretty deep lore.

For example, the army of young daytraders who first logged on in 2020 might not know much about 2018’s Volmageddon, when an implosion in retail-focused volatility products and swings in the S&P 500 options that determine VIX levels helped exacerbate declines in the large-cap index itself. It also may not be obvious that it’s a mathematically iffy business to talk about its moves in percentages, because it’s basically a standard deviation, or a percentage itself.

The BIS adds to the canon in a recent bulletin: the past summer’s massive VIX move can be explained away by a quirk in the way the index is calculated during the trading day.

Remember August 5? If you were on leave (or vacation) then, there was a global sell-off in equities. The worst of the stock-market losses happened in Japan, and were presumed to be a result of a rapid unwinding of the yen “carry trade”. In response, the VIX spiked above 65 early in the trading day. If it had stayed there, it would’ve closed at its highest level since Covid or the global financial crisis.


But a carry-trade unwind isn’t exactly a global pandemic or a subprime mortgage meltdown. The VIX captures what traders will pay to protect against volatility in the S&P 500 over the next month, by weighting a range of options on the index. Presumably US large-cap companies hadn’t piled significant portions of cash into yen carry trades, so what gives?

The VIX spiked because its minute-to-minute moves are calculated based on quoted options prices, not transactions, according to the BIS. (Kudos to Peter Tchir, who as we noted raised this possibility in the wake of the spike.)

In other words, options market makers got spooked because they saw some extreme moves in overnight trading. And because they didn’t want to get run over once the market opened, so they made it very expensive to buy protection against volatility.

In BIS’s more demure parlance, with our emphasis:

[The] asymmetric widening of bid-ask spreads likely played a key role in exacerbating the spike, as it lifted mid-quotes of option prices used in the calculation of VIX . . . 

Market makers’ (MMs) adjustment of quotes was behind the widening, as MMs sought to avert an imbalanced book in uncertain conditions. These effects were particularly strong for less liquid put options, which have an outsize impact on the calculation of VIX and accounted for more than 85% of the spike.


That means it really did represent pure fear — and primarily from market makers — without the actual trades to back it up.

There’s not much we love more than a messy benchmark here at Alphaville. For the VIX, however, it kind of makes sense to use quotes and not transactions, partly because the index includes deep out-of-the-money options that rarely trade.

And that’s all the more reason to take any intraday VIX move with a giant pillar of salt. BIS:

Our findings highlight the possibility that the calculation of VIX makes it vulnerable to a widening of bid-ask spread quotes regardless of a fundamental rise in underlying volatility. The outsize role of less liquid put options in the calculation of VIX exacerbates these problems. Given the subdued liquidity in overnight option markets and reliance on quotes instead of trades in the VIX methodology, pre-market readings of VIX may be less informative than those during regular trading hours.

FT : Chinese vessel spotted where Baltic Sea cables were severed

Chinese vessel spotted where Baltic Sea cables were severed
Swedish investigators are looking into Yi Peng 3 bulk carrier that was travelling from Russia to Egypt

Investigators of two severed data cables in the Baltic Sea are looking at the movements of a Chinese bulk carrier, the second such probe in recent months amid rising jitters in Europe over potential acts of sabotage.

Yi Peng 3, a Chinese-registered vessel that was on its way from the Russian port of Ust-Luga to Port Said in Egypt, passed close to both the Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German cables around the time each was cut on Sunday and Monday, according to data provided by maritime tracking group Marine Traffic. The cargo ship was closely followed by the Danish Navy afterwards, said open source intelligence experts.

Sweden has opened an investigation into both incidents, and is examining what role the Yi Peng 3 might have played, said people familiar with the probe.

“The Swedes are taking a hard look at the Chinese vessel,” said one person with insight into the investigation.

Sweden’s government declined to comment about the Chinese craft. But an official said the police investigation would look at the movement of the ship in co-operation with the coastguard and the armed forces. 


The latest probe comes slightly more than a year after the anchor from another Chinese ship — the container vessel Newnew Polar Bear — damaged a Baltic gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia. Finnish and Estonian authorities have not said whether they believe that was done intentionally or by accident.

Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorius on Monday said the severing of two fibre optic cables in 24 hours was likely to have been sabotage and was an act of hybrid warfare.

He added: “No one believes that these cables were cut accidentally . . . Therefore, we have to state, without knowing specifically who it came from, that it is a ‘hybrid’ action. And we also have to assume, without knowing it yet, that it is sabotage.”

Yi Peng 3 is owned by Ningbo Yipeng Shipping, a company that owns only one other vessel and is based near the eastern Chinese port city of Ningbo. It was not immediately possible to contact the company. China’s embassies in Stockholm and Helsinki did not respond to a request for comment.

The US has accused China of offering direct support to Russia’s “war machine” by supplying its military with items that were helping it in its invasion of Ukraine. But there has been little if any public discussion about the activity of Chinese ships in the Baltic Sea.

Finnish officials on Monday urged caution and advised against rushing to conclusions. Authorities in Helsinki have said China co-operated with their investigation into the 2023 damage to the gas pipeline.

The governments of Germany, Sweden, Finland and Lithuania expressed their “deep concern” over the severing of the undersea cable and did not rule out sabotage.

Ministers from the countries said in a joint statement.: “Situations like these must be assessed with the growing threat posed by Russia in our neighbourhood as a backdrop. This includes an increased number of hybrid activities in Europe.”

Laurynas Kasčiūnas, Lithuania’s defence minister, added: “After the investigation, the EU and member states must make best use of its newest sanctions regime for such sabotage of critical infrastructure.”

FT : Brazil arrests five military and police officers over alleged plot to kill

Brazil arrests five military and police officers over alleged plot to kill Lula
Federal police say group had eyed killings of then president-elect along with his deputy and a supreme court judge

Brazilian police arrested five people, including military personnel, accused of planning a coup d'état and plot to kill President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his deputy and a top judge shortly before the leftwinger assumed power.

The alleged conspiracy targeted the then president-elect and his running mate, Geraldo Alckmin, and was to be carried out on December 15 2022, federal police in the capital Brasília said on Tuesday.

It also involved a plan to kidnap and possibly execute supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who had been placed under surveillance by the men, according to a document from the court granting arrest warrants. 

“Investigations indicate that the criminal organisation used a high level of technical military knowledge to plan, co-ordinate and execute illegal actions in the months of November and December 2022,” said police. 

The plan aimed to prevent Lula taking office at the start of last year following his October 2022 election victory over incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro, but was aborted by the plotters before being put into action, the judicial document said.

Of the five people arrested, four were military officers — including a reserve army general — and one was from the federal police, Brazil’s equivalent of the FBI. Most of those investigated had special forces training, the police added.

The arrests mark a significant development in ongoing investigations into alleged attempts to illegally reverse the election of Lula, who previously ruled for two terms between 2003 to 2011. 

Police say the suspects considered poisoning the president-elect as part of a detailed plan codenamed “Green Yellow Dagger”, an apparent reference to Brazil’s national colours. 

They approved the intrigue in a meeting at the house of Bolsonaro’s defeated running mate, retired general and former defence minister Walter Braga Netto, the supreme court document said. The group allegedly planned to institute a “crisis cabinet” following the coup, led by a retired army general and Braga Netto. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year investigators released documents alleging that military officers and political allies of Bolsonaro, a former army captain, developed a detailed scheme to prevent a handover of power. Bolsonaro is a subject of the wide-ranging investigations. He denies any wrongdoing.

In the end no coup took place in Latin America’s most populous nation. But days after Lula’s inauguration last year, thousands of radical Bolsonaro supporters ransacked government buildings in Brasília on January 8 2023 calling for military intervention to overturn the election result, which they claimed without evidence had been rigged.

More than 260 of the rioters have been convicted, with many serving custodial sentences. 

De Moraes, the supreme court justice, has become a hate figure for the country’s far-right movement, at the same time as the court itself has been accused by critics of overstepping its powers. Last week a man died after detonating two explosives outside Brazil’s supreme court building.

The five people arrested over the alleged assassination plot were Hélio Ferreira Lima, Mario Fernandes, Rafael Martins de Oliveira, Rodrigo Bezerra Azevedo, all former or serving members of the military, and Wladimir Matos Soares, a federal police agent. All remained in custody on Tuesday afternoon.

Police said the possible crimes under investigation were violent abolition of the democratic state of law, coup d’état and criminal organisation.

Agents also executed three search and seizure warrants, as well as 15 other precautionary measures.

FT : Swiss prosecutors accuse Trafigura of paying €5mn in bribes to Angolan offi

Swiss prosecutors accuse Trafigura of paying €5mn in bribes to Angolan official
Unsealed indictment alleges the company’s late founder, Claude Dauphin, masterminded the scheme

Trafigura paid nearly €5mn in bribes to an Angolan official through an intermediary who was dubbed “Mr Non-Compliant” by the commodity trader’s founder, Claude Dauphin, Swiss prosecutors have alleged.

The Swiss indictment accuses Trafigura Beheer BV, the former parent company of Trafigura Group, of failing to prevent acts of serious corruption between 2009 and 2011. It also accuses Trafigura’s former chief operating officer, Mike Wainwright, who retired earlier this year, of bribery. 

The Swiss federal prosecutor announced the charges against Wainwright and Trafigura Beheer BV last year, but details were withheld until now, as is customary in Swiss legal proceedings. 

Dauphin, who died of cancer in 2015, was for decades one of the most powerful figures in the global trade in raw materials. The indictment marks the first time he has been named by prosecutors as having masterminded the alleged scheme. 

While numerous cases of bribery, corruption and money laundering have been brought by enforcement authorities against major commodity trading firms in countries across the world in recent years, none have so far directly implicated those at the very top of such organisations.

The 150-page indictment, a copy of which was unsealed on Monday and obtained by the Financial Times, alleges that some of Trafigura’s most senior executives were intimately involved in a criminal conspiracy to win lucrative government contracts in Angola by corrupting a public official between 2009 and 2011. 

The trial is set to open on December 2 in Switzerland’s central criminal court in Bellinzona. 

The indictment said that €4.3mn was paid into bank accounts in Geneva opened in the name of the Angolan civil servant Paulo Gouveia Junior and a further $604,000 in cash was handed to him in Angola. The contents of the indictment were first reported by Bloomberg.

In a statement, Trafigura defended its measures to prevent corruption and said it intended to fight the allegations in court.

“TBBV’s [Trafigura Beheer’s] anti-bribery and anti-corruption controls and compliance programme in place at the relevant time have been externally reviewed and assessed to have met legal requirements and international good practice standards applicable at that time,” the company said.

Gouveia was at the time of the alleged crime the chief executive officer of Sonangol Distribuidora, a subsidiary of Angola’s state-owned oil company Sonangol, which is responsible for marketing and shipping the African nation’s petroleum products.

Gouveia travelled to Geneva on April 7, 2008, the case states, and bills show his overnight stay in the luxury Four Seasons Hôtel des Bergues was charged to Trafigura, the indictment said.

Instructions to the bank Crédit Agricole to designate him as the beneficiary of a Virgin Islands-domiciled corporate shell, into which Trafigura had begun to siphon money, were sent on Trafigura-headed letter paper, the indictment alleges.

Gouveia would go on to sign multiyear chartering contracts between Angolan state entities and Trafigura worth $143.7mn in profits for the trading house, according to the prosecutors.

Gouveia’s lawyer declined to comment on behalf of his client.

Swiss prosecutors said the whole scheme was managed from the very top of Trafigura and that the official was even invited to Dauphin’s Geneva home for dinner. Wainwright played a key role in organising the payments, putting his signature to documents involved, according to the indictment.

The transactions were complex, multi-staged, and run through another person, who was a former employee of Trafigura. The person, whose name has been kept anonymous according to Swiss reporting restrictions, ran a consultancy in Switzerland that had Trafigura as its only client.

The prosecutor’s indictment cites an audio file obtained from a mobile phone in which Dauphin is said to refer to the individual as “Mr Non-Compliant” because he could do things which were not internally permissible at Trafigura.

Daniel Kinzer and Yoann Lambert, lawyers for Wainwright, said their client “entirely rejects” the allegations against him.

“We will be presenting a robust defence. [Wainwright] has full confidence the court will find the allegations to be unfounded and will dismiss the case made against him by the prosecution,” they said.

CrunchBase : 5 New Unicorns Join The Board And 5 Exit In October

5 New Unicorns Join The Board And 5 Exit In October

Five companies joined The Crunchbase Unicorn Board in October 2024, across sectors spanning AI, energy, robotics, fintech and professional services. These five added over $7 billion in value to the board, which now hosts more than 1,550 companies collectively valued at $5.3 trillion.

Four of the new unicorns are from the Bay Area, while the other is headquartered in London but operates in Africa.

In addition, five companies, last valued at $12.5 billion jointly, exited the board in October. These five exited unicorns were higher in value than the total value added from the newly minted unicorns.

However, the overall value of the board grew as OpenAI raised the largest round this year, $6.6 billion, boosting its value from $80 billion in February to $157 billion in its most recent funding. And AI companies Sierra and Lightmatter raised funding within a year of prior fundings at significant markups from those earlier fundings.

So far this year, 32 companies have exited the board, with half going public and half being acquired. That is already above the totals in 2023, when 25 companies exited, including 12 acquired and 13 that listed.

Exits in transportation and healthcare
Three companies from China went public last month, including two in autonomous driving. Horizon Robotics went public on the Hong Kong stock exchange, raising $696 million, and WeRide raised $440.5 million in a Nasdaq listing. China-based short-distance courier provider BingEx, branded as FlashEX, also went public on Nasdaq, raising $66 million.

Meanwhile, two U.S.-based healthcare companies were acquired last month. Both focus on managing in-home ongoing care. Carebridge, a Nashville, Tennessee-based home health provider for medicare and medicaid patients, was acquired for $2.7 billion by Elevance Health, a public health company based in Indiana. And Boston-based Biofourmis, a biotech company that monitors patients at home, merged with CopilotIQ, a connected care company for those with chronic conditions.

October’s minted unicorns
Here are all of the newly minted October unicorns, by sector.
AI
Energy
  • Nuclear fusion company Pacific Fusion, based in Fremont, California, raised a whopping $900 million Series A led by General Catalyst. The 1-year old company did not disclose its valuation, but it’s surely well into unicorn territory.
Professional services
  • San Francisco-based EvenUp, an AI legal tech company for personal injury law firms, raised a $135 million Series D led by Bain Capital Ventures. The 5-year old company was valued at $1 billion.
Fintech
  • Business payment platform Moniepoint raised a $110 million Series C led by Africa-focused private equity fund DPI. Moniepoint is processing $17 billion monthly for its customers primarily in Nigeria, with plans to expand across Africa. The 9-year old London-headquartered company was valued at $1 billion.
Robotics
  • San Francisco-based Nimble Robotics, an AI robotics for e-commerce picking and packing, raised a $106 million Series C led by private investment firm Cedar Pine and previous investor FedEx. The 7-year old company was valued at $1 billion.

Related Crunchbase unicorn lists

WSJ : Volkswagen Chooses Rivian’s Kjell Gruner to Lead U.S. Business

Volkswagen Chooses Rivian’s Kjell Gruner to Lead U.S. Business
Gruner will take over as chief executive of Volkswagen’s America operations on Dec. 12

Volkswagen VOW3 -1.14%decrease; red down pointing triangle said Rivian Automotive executive Kjell Gruner will lead its U.S. business, a week after teaming up with the electric-vehicle startup in a $5.8 billion deal.

The German car maker said Gruner would take over as chief executive of Volkswagen’s America operations on Dec. 12 from Pablo Di Si, who requested to step down last week. Gruner most recently served as chief commercial officer at Rivian and has experience at Porsche AG, PAH3 -1.08%decrease; red down pointing triangle DaimlerChrysler and Mercedes-Benz Cars.

His appointment comes a week after Volkswagen agreed to invest up to $5.8 billion in Rivian’s stock and a joint venture in exchange for access to onboard computing and software that Rivian had developed for its own vehicles.

The deal represents a much-needed financial boost for Rivian, whose technology should help Volkswagen compete with Elon Musk’s Tesla and Chinese rivals. Volkswagen executives have been alarmed the company is falling behind Chinese rivals in terms of digital features and Rivian’s technology presents a technological leap compared with its current offering.

Automakers have been agonizing for months over a slow EV market and fierce competition from local car makers in China. Several car makers, including Volkswagen, have cut their sales and profitability forecasts for the year as challenges pile up.

Volkswagen is also considering factory closures in Germany—which would be a first in its history—as it seeks to urgently cut costs after reporting a sharp fall in third-quarter earnings.

Gruner will also serve as CEO of Volkswagen’s namesake brand in North America, the company said. Chief Human Resources Officer Gerrit Spengler will act as interim chief executive until Gruner takes charge.

North America accounted for roughly 11% of the cars Volkswagen delivered to customers in the first nine months of the year.