>>> Up
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>>> Down
>>> Down
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>>> Initiation
>>> Initiation
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>>> Call
* Legrand Assumed Sell at UBS; PT 82 euros
>>> Call
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Coupang to Rescue Farfetch, Injecting $500 Million Into Troubled Firm
Richemont's pending agreement to sell a majority stake in Yoox Net-a-porter to Farfetch and Alabbar has been terminated as a result of the sale.
LONDON — Farfetch has found its rescuer in Coupang, which has agreed to pump $500 million in emergency funding into the company as part of a “pre-pack” administration process.
According to Farfetch, the fresh capital will allow it “to continue providing exclusive brands and boutiques with bespoke, cutting-edge technology and giving leading designers access to consumers around the globe.”
Coupang, which invested alongside the San Francisco-based firm Greenoaks Capital, is a Fortune 200 company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It has operations and support services in markets including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China and India.
In its home market of South Korea, Coupang has become part of everyday life, offering home delivery for everything from groceries and take-away orders to consumer goods.
It compares, albeit on a smaller scale, to Alibaba in China and, according to industry sources, has been looking to move upmarket into fashion and luxury goods services.
A statement from Farfetch said that Coupang’s “operational excellence and innovative logistics combined with Farfetch’s leading role in the luxury ecosystem will drive exceptional experiences for customers, boutiques and brands” worldwide.
“Farfetch is a landmark of the luxury landscape and has been a transformative force in demonstrating that online luxury is the future of luxury retail,” said Bom Kim, founder and chief executive officer of Coupang.
He added: “Farfetch will rededicate itself to providing the most elevated experience for the world’s most exclusive brands, while pursuing steady and thoughtful growth as a private company. We also see tremendous opportunities to redefine the customer experience for luxury clients everywhere.”
José Neves, founder, CEO and chairman of Farfetch, said, “Coupang’s proven track record and deep experience in revolutionizing commerce will enable us to deliver exceptional service for our brand and boutique partners, as well as for our millions of customers around the world.”
As part of the deal, Farfetch will be pulled off the New York Stock Exchange and taken private, while shareholders, including Neves, will see their investments wiped out.
Neves will remain with the company, which will be fully controlled by Coupang.
A source close to Farfetch said that, going forward, it will be business as usual for suppliers, customers and partners.
Richemont’s pending deal to sell a majority stake in Yoox Net-a-porter to Farfetch and Alabbar has been terminated as a result of the takeover.
Under pre-pack administration in the U.K., a rescuer for a troubled business is found and a sale is negotiated before the administrators step in. In a normal administration, a company is declared insolvent, and it’s up to the administrators to seek buyers for the business.
The fate of Farfetch’s many assets — in particular Browns, New Guards Group, Stadium Goods, Farfetch’s $200 million stake in Neiman Marcus — remains unclear. It is understood there are ongoing conversations with potential buyers regarding Browns and New Guards Group.
Over the past weeks, as Farfetch struggled to secure a white knight, two of its biggest commercial partners, Compagnie Financière Richemont and Alibaba, both kept their distance and made clear they were not interested in rescuing the company.
Richemont said it would not invest in the ailing Farfetch, while Alibaba had been willing to put money in, but did not want to buy Farfetch outright.
Richemont said last month it was “reviewing its options in respect of its arrangements with Farfetch,” and stressed that its maisons and YNAP had not yet adopted Farfetch Platform Solutions, part of a wider deal forged with the fashion platform in 2022.
Farfetch has a separate partnership with Richemont and Alibaba, for distribution in China. Last week, the Chinese e-comm giant’s president Mike Evans resigned from Farfetch’s board.
Many believe tech expertise remains Farfetch’s superpower, and will continue to be the core of the business going forward.
Neves has always been proud of the platform he founded, which offered technology allowing large and small specialty stores to sell to the world. In addition, Neves and his team also worked with brands and retailers helping them unpick data, gauge consumer demand, and build stores that could meld physical and digital retail.
Farfetch’s original model of marketing retailers’ fashion and processing orders, but not holding stock, was considered clever and cutting edge, and Neves originally attracted investment from across the fashion community, from Chanel to Condé Nast to Artémis, the investment arm of France’s Pinault family, which invested multimillions in Farfetch’s Class A shares at the time of the IPO.
The CEO seemed particularly adept at securing partnerships and cutting deals.
A year ago, Farfetch seem poised to take a major step forward with its agreement to take the wheel at YNAP as part of a wider plan that would have also seen Farfetch apply its Platform Solutions tech to some of the Richemont brand sites.
But the business continued to vex Wall Street.
Last December, Neves returned to New York for the company’s first capital markets day since going public in 2018.
“Farfetch is at the tipping point,” the CEO said. “We’re at the point where we’re going to start to leverage the investments of the past 14 years to continue on the path of growth, profitable growth and cash flow generation. And today is all about providing clarity to you on the building blocks of that roadmap.”
Many didn’t like what they saw. Shares of Farfetch fell by more than 35 percent that day, and while at least some analysts remained bullish on the thesis behind the company, the road ahead seemed longer than generally expected.
The money-losing operation bounced back some after that, but never really regained its traction on Wall Street.
Experts attributed a big part of that to a series of what many saw were as non-core acquisitions that complicated the business.
Over the years, Farfetch’s buying spree included London retailer Browns, New Guards Group and Stadium Goods. Farfetch became a retailer that held stock and managed inventory.
The luxury fashion platform also made a splashy its move into beauty, acquiring Violet Grey and tapping founder Cassandra Grey as an adviser. The deal was followed by a broader rollout of beauty in April 2022, when more than 100 prestige brands launched on the marketplace.
In August, Farfetch abruptly said it was exiting the beauty category.
At the time, Neves told WWD: “This company was built from zero, from nothing, and actually launched in 2008, amid a global financial crisis.
“We got our first venture capital money in 2010, so the first three years were just my money, which was no money. And so we really have that DNA of resiliency and frugality and we’ve grown this business from those humble, very humble origins to be a global platform present in all large luxury goods markets in the world.…The North Star of this company remains absolutely intact, which is to be the global platform for luxury,” he said.
But investors have not kept the faith. Farfetch’s market capitalization dipped below $250 million this past week as the company was said to be speaking with administrators — a long way from the $25 billion it nearly hit in 2021.
Ultimately, the company’s cash burn seems to have just too much for equity investors and the firm’s debt came to the fore.
Earlier this week, Moody’s Investors Service lowered its credit rating of Farfetch deep into junk territory, moving the company to “Caa2” from “B3,” and put Farfetch on review for a further downgrade. Standard & Poor’s had already cut its rating on the luxury platform earlier in the month.
Richemont Confirms Long-awaited Deal to Sell YNAP to Farfetch and Alabbar Is Off the Table
Compagnie Financière Richemont said it will consider “alternative options” to create a neutral luxury platform, and will continue to re-platform the brands in its portfolio without help from Farfetch.
LONDON — Compagnie Financière Richemont is considering its options after calling off a long-awaited deal to sell Yoox Net-a-porter to Farfetch and Alabbar; adopt Farfetch Platform Solutions tech, and open e-concessions for its luxury maisons on the Farfetch marketplace.
The agreement to sell a majority stake in YNAP to Farfetch would have realized Richemont chairman Johann Rupert’s vision of creating a shared e-commerce platform for luxury goods companies worldwide, and would have allowed Richemont to focus on brand-building rather than on tech.
The deal also would have allowed Richemont’s maisons to update their e-commerce operations using proprietary technology from Farfetch, and to sell via e-concessions on the retailer’s marketplace.
The deal had been set to complete by the end of December, and had already been approved by the U.K. and European Union regulatory bodies.
But it was not to be. Farfetch entered pre-pack administration this week and was purchased by the South Korean service provider Coupang, which gave it a cash injection of $500 million.
RELATED: Coupang to Rescue Farfetch, Injecting $500 Million Into Troubled Firm
On Monday, shortly after the Coupang announcement, Richemont said it will consider “alternative options” to pursue its realization of a neutral platform for luxury brands, and added it was “confident that its maisons will benefit from cutting-edge platform technology” going forward.
Although it did not mention Farfetch, it’s clear that Richemont plans to move ahead without any help from the troubled e-commerce platform.
YNAP, it said, continues to operate on its own technology. Richemont said it will be holding on to YNAP and plans to “reevaluate options for it to best harness its strengths and potential under new stewardship.”
Richemont had been eager to get moving on the Farfetch deal. It had already written down the cost of the disposal on its balance sheet, and Rupert was keen to tap into the know-how of founder and chairman José Neves and the Farfetch team for maisons ranging from Cartier to Chloé.
On Monday, shortly after Coupang and Farfetch announced their partnership, Richemont and Symphony Global, one of the investment vehicles of Mohamed Alabbar, terminated their agreements with Farfetch and said the deal “cannot complete.”
Richemont also said it was “reasonable to expect” that the $300 million in convertible senior notes issued by Farfetch Ltd. to Richemont in November 2020 “will not be repaid.”
The carrying value of the notes in Richemont’s accounts amounted to 218 million euros as of Nov. 30.
Richemont reiterated an earlier statement saying it had no financial obligations toward Farfetch, and does not envisage “lending or investing” into it.
It said the Richemont maisons continue to operate on their own platforms “and have neither adopted Farfetch Platform Solutions, nor launched e-concessions on the Farfetch marketplace.”
The deal was announced in August 2022 with much fanfare, and both companies saw their share prices climb following the announcement.
Upon completion, Richemont was set to hold a 49.3 percent stake in YNAP with Farfetch and Alabbar owning the rest. Over the next five years, Farfetch was expected to acquire the entirety of YNAP, subject to certain conditions.
At the time, Richemont and Farfetch said they planned to work together to accelerate the quality and global penetration of the Richemont brands online.
Rupert said many times the new alliance would realize his “long-standing goal of making YNAP a neutral, industry-wide platform, with no controlling shareholder.”
He believed the planned sale of YNAP to Farfetch would have allowed Richemont “to deliver on its global digital strategy” and, at the same time, “to focus on what it does best.”
The deal with Farfetch, he declared, was going to be “transformative for all of luxury, and not for a select few. It will transform big and small companies throughout Europe” by allowing them to set up shop online with help from tech-savvy Farfetch.
Neves, who expected the deal to double the gross merchandise value of Farfetch, argued that Farfetch’s tech was going to be “a game-changer for Richemont’s brands, and allow them to operate in a hybrid marketplace that is open to the entire industry.”
A Secluded Runway, a Turkish Spymaster and No Guns: the New World of Hostage Exchanges
Washington turns to Middle East power brokers to bring prisoners home; a former U.S. Marine for a Russian drug smuggler
ANKARA ESENBOGA AIRPORT, Turkey—Two jets—one American, the other Russian—were approaching the same runway, each carrying a single prisoner, both monitored by a Turkish intelligence officer in the control tower.
In the cockpits of each jet, pilots were navigating through thick clouds toward a cordoned-off area of Turkey’s capital city airport, when the officer’s voice issued directives over a secure line.
Neither jet, he warned, would have permission to land until their crews ticked off a checklist that included taking and texting him photos of every passenger on board. There were to be no news cameras, no last-minute delays or changes to the flight manifests—and no guns.
Two months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Turkey was thrusting itself into the secret world of hostage brokering, orchestrating a carefully choreographed exchange between two hostile powers.
Within minutes, the Turkish officer’s phone lighted up with photos of Russian and American passengers whose faces matched those named on a list prearranged over days of preparation. Air-traffic control signaled clearance to land and the two jets taxied to the agreed distance of 300 meters, their engines still roaring as their doors, precisely facing one another, opened.
From the first plane, wearing a brown T-shirt and khaki pants and carrying a single yellow folder, stepped Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot convicted on cocaine-smuggling charges in the U.S.
From the other—shoulders hunched and gaunt after three six-day hunger strikes at Russia’s remote IK-12 penal colony—former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed shuffled onto the tarmac. Bundled by balaclava-masked agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, onto the back of the jet, he had been seated behind a curtain wondering for the duration of the flight where he was headed.
The April 27, 2022, handover, described in exclusive detail by Turkish and American officials and another person present, was the first of several hostage exchanges that Turkey has hosted—among them a prisoner-of-war swap between Ukraine and Russia in September of last year which was the most important and sensitive since Moscow’s invasion. Turkey has more recently helped Qatar mediate between Israel and Hamas to try to extract the estimated 200 Israeli and foreign hostages, including around a dozen Americans, abducted during the militants’ incursion from Gaza.
Not since the height of the Cold War have so many Americans been held as bargaining chips by hostile states. Those held in Russia include Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who are both kept on espionage charges that they and the U.S. government strongly deny. “We have contacts with our American partners in this regard,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week. “I hope that we will find a solution.”
The burgeoning practice of hostage-takings by rival nations has become so widespread that the Biden administration has declared it a national emergency. And yet the governments America is now tapping to help navigate this pirate world of kidnappings and ransom-payments are all too familiar with the game. In 2018, the U.S. sanctioned Turkey’s interior and justice ministers for the “unjust detention” of Andrew Brunson, an evangelical pastor from North Carolina, delisting them after his release.
Last year, when Russian and U.S. intelligence officials discussed which country could host a prisoner trade given many countries’ travel restrictions on Russian officials, both sides agreed they could trust Turkey.
“It is all about trust,” said one senior Turkish official. “It is intelligence diplomacy.”
If it was once Zurich, Vienna and the so-called Bridge of Spies connecting East and West Berlin that provided the trading floor for spy swaps and hostage deals, that mantle has shifted decidedly east.
Russia added Switzerland and Austria, two historically neutral states, to its “Unfriendly Countries List” after they joined European sanctions. Swiss diplomats, who once held a front-row seat mediating the superpower conflicts of the 20th century, now grumble in WhatsApp groups over being relegated to the bleachers.
Instead, Turkey—a NATO member which still supplies military-linked goods to Russia and sells Ukraine combat drones developed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law—is at the center of a group of Middle East power brokers that are amassing diplomatic clout by hosting prisoner swaps, peace talks and backchannel negotiations.
Qatar, a U.S. ally which also hosts the political office of Hamas, helped mediate September’s swap of five jailed Americans for several Iranian prisoners and access to $6 billion in frozen oil revenue. The United Arab Emirates, one of America’s closest military partners in the Middle East—and now a hub for Russian oil trading—hosted last year’s exchange of American basketball gold medalist Brittney Griner and convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
Saudi Arabia—which has worked with Turkey to help free U.S. and U.K. citizens taken as prisoners of war while fighting Russian forces in eastern Ukraine—has also jailed American citizens for long sentences for criticizing the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Washington nonetheless has thanked Saudi Arabia for its role facilitating prisoner exchanges with Russia.
The diplomatic shift also throws into stark relief the limits of a central foreign-policy plank of the Biden administration, which broadly views the U.S. in a contest between democracies against authoritarian governments. In reality, America’s dependence on Turkey, Saudi Arabia, or the U.A.E. to help resolve hostage crises and other disputes have put those countries’ human-rights records or their booming trade with Russia on the back burner. Before the war, Biden pointedly excluded Turkey from its 2021 Summit for Democracy, and had warned that its relationship with the U.S. would depend on its freedoms it extended at home.
The next year—after Turkey started mediating between the U.S., Ukraine, and Moscow—Biden praised Erdogan at a summit of leaders from all NATO members.
“I mean, you’re doing a great job,” he said.
A Biden administration official said that after negotiating exchanges directly with hostile nations, it does sometimes seek logistical assistance from others: “We always are grateful when a country helps us, and it sometimes takes a country that is talking to the bad actors.”
A hidden hand of Turkey’s hostage diplomacy is Hakan Fidan, the veteran spy chief with a salt-and-pepper beard whom Erdogan calls his “secret keeper.”
Little known outside the Middle East, Fidan rose to prominence as head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, or MIT, where he shaped Turkey’s regional strategy of backing Syrian rebels fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He then helped Erdogan quash a 2016 coup attempt. In June, Erdogan promoted him to foreign minister and replaced him with Ibrahim Kalin, his chief adviser.
A former army officer who studied politics and administrative science at the University of Maryland, Fidan became Turkey’s youngest-ever intelligence chief in 2010 at 42. Low-key and softly spoken, he has rarely given interviews. In June, Erdogan made him his foreign minister. Former CIA officers who worked with Fidan said he built a network that traversed geopolitical fault lines, fostering close contacts in Washington and Moscow.
Two months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. and Russia both sent requests to Fidan’s office. Would he help facilitate a prisoner swap in Istanbul?
As an offer came into shape to release Reed for Yaroshenko, the Russian pilot, Moscow offered to host the exchange—a proposal the U.S. swiftly rejected for fear the Russians could engineer last-minute changes or renege on a deal, leaving them empty-handed on hostile territory. U.S. and Russian intelligence officials settled on Istanbul to take the job.
Fidan responded that Turkey would help—but said a secluded part of the airport in the capital, Ankara, would be better.
Turkey had never arranged such a prisoner swap between great powers, and the country lacked an established protocol. Fidan delivered the request to Erdogan.
The president, in power for nearly two decades, said yes.
U.S. and Russia’s spy chiefs in Ankara shuttled to the MIT’s remote, 5,000-acre hilltop headquarters, known as “the fortress,” to haggle over parameters for the exchange. Within days, MIT had sent them both a message outlining the details: precise times and locations the flights would land, how many people will be on board and the rules of engagement.
An important stipulation: To preserve secrecy, neither side would film or photograph the exchange.
In the small and cramped cubicle hive of the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for hostage affairs’s office, staff set in motion logistics to receive what they called “a wrongful”—an American they determined had been arbitrarily detained as an act of hostage taking.
Reed, 32, from Granbury, Texas, had once been once posted to Camp David, where his duties included protecting then-Vice President Biden. During a trip to see his Russian girlfriend, he was jailed and eventually sentenced to nine years for allegedly assaulting Moscow police after a drunken night out with friends. Reed denied the assault and repeatedly said Russian law enforcement provided no credible evidence it had taken place. The State Department declared him “wrongfully detained.” U.S. officials said his case was overseen by a secretive FSB unit targeting American Marines known as the Department of Counter Intelligence, or DKRO.
By April 2022, Reed was in his third year of imprisonment, held at IK-12, a facility hundreds of miles east of Moscow that had repeatedly thrown him into solitary confinement for acts of insubordination. It was his latest prison in a stint of a half dozen that included Moscow’s infamous Lefortovo, also once home to Whelan and now the Journal’s Gershkovich. Reed had written to his parents Joey and Paula to say his body had been damaged by bouts of Covid-19 and symptoms of tuberculosis and asked for them to send toilet paper, water and meat.
Reed’s parents launched a campaign, standing in the rain outside the White House with placards, eventually landing a presidential meeting after a CNN journalist asked Biden about their plight. Biden invited them inside, and after an emotional discussion, authorized a deal to trade Reed for Yaroshenko, the Russian pilot imprisoned in the U.S.
Days later, prison guards thrust a piece of paper in Reed’s arms—a direct request to Vladimir Putin for a pardon—which he refused to sign. America’s ambassador to Russia had to call to tell the defiant prisoner “if you sign that paper you won’t regret it.” He obliged.
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Given the black shirt and slacks he had worn in court and allowed to shower for the first time in weeks, Reed was taken to a holding cell, where he carved his service branch into the thick, nearly soundproof walls: “U.S. Marine Corps.” Hours later, masked men in fatigues from Alpha Group, the FSB’s special forces, ushered him onto a plane, as a Russian state news crew filmed the departure.
On board, Reed was told to sit with security officers at the back, while the senior FSB operatives leading the operation were in front, concealed by a curtain. Reed listened as his guards chatted reverentially in Russian about the officer running the operation, Col. Sergei Latkov, whom they had seen on other jobs. As the plane arched toward the Black Sea, Latkov walked through the curtain to address Reed.
“Hello,” he said in English. “How are you?”
Unbeknown to Reed, Latkov was a longtime intelligence officer who once served as the head of the 10th section of the FSB’s DKRO unit—the subdivision that tracks foreign journalists—according to a 2006 memo alerting Putin to a CBS news crew’s activities in the country, later published by Agentura, a Russian-focused investigative outlet. The DKRO led the arrest of Gershkovich, and helped detain Reed and Whelan, according to U.S. and other Western diplomats, intelligence officers and former Russian operatives. Latkov is now with the Presidential administration, Putin’s executive office, according to flight records.
“Good. How are you?” Reed shot back in Russian, which he had greatly improved in prison. Latkov smiled and returned to his seat.
Hundreds of miles away at Ankara airport, a Turkish MIT officer stepped into the control tower. “This is an operation,” he said to the traffic controllers as he explained that two planes would shortly land on a cordoned-off runway on the southern side of the airport usually used by VIPs. The swap was to take place in secrecy, with no news cameras.
For some previous prisoner exchanges, U.S. officials had booked commercial flights to save money, but Reed’s medical problems meant they needed to charter a State Department OpMed, or Operational Medicine, plane.
The jet began to descend toward Ankara shortly after the MIT officer called to run through the checklist. It arrived minutes after the Russian jet. The American delegation had prepared in minute detail for the flight protocols, but as the plane touched down and taxied toward the Russian jet, it was unclear which delegation should move first to begin the exchange.
As the two jets sat on the runway, Reed saw another man emerge through the curtain.
“I’m Roger Carstens, I’m here to identify you.”
“It’s me!” Reed replied, eagerly. Ambassador Carstens, the U.S. special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, turned and walked out of the jet without another word. For a moment, Reed worried he had somehow jeopardized his release. Within minutes he was being ushered onto the tarmac by Latkov and another officer.
In Cold War exchanges, American and Soviet delegations would halt a short distance away from each other, leaving prisoners to walk the final steps to freedom. But Carstens and Latkov greeted one another, shaking hands on the tarmac as they welcomed Reed and Yaroshenko.
Shortly after, footage of the handover appeared on Kremlin-controlled media, the faces of the Russians officials blurred, and the scene presented as a victory for Putin in his score-settling grudge with the West. Erdogan’s government was surprised; the Americans complained.
Sometime later, Turkish officials quizzed their Russian counterparts about the breach of rules—why had they filmed the exchange?
In reply, the Russians offered a curt denial: “We didn’t.”
Five months later, a Turkish intelligence officer ascended again into the air-traffic control tower, to guide another jet from Russia into the section of Ankara airport, the stage for the most complex hostage swap since the Ukraine conflict began.
A plane was bringing Ankara some of Russia’s most prized prisoners of war: five Ukrainian commanders taken during Russia’s siege of a steel plant in the eastern city of Mariupol. Among them was Col. Denys Prokopenko, commander of the Azov Regiment, a National Guard unit long tarred by Russia for its origins in a nationalist militia. In Poland, a plane was waiting to take off for Ankara with Viktor Medvedchuk, a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician and close personal friend of Putin’s, who had been captured by Ukraine’s security service after escaping house arrest at the start of the war.
Ten mostly British and American foreign fighters taken prisoner from Ukrainian battlefields by Russia were settling into the gold-trimmed leather seats of a third jet, bound for the Saudi capital, Riyadh, the crew passing out fresh salmon to the emaciated prisoners, who smoked celebratory cigarettes midflight. On the plane, Shaun Pinner, a British prisoner, noticed a celebrity look-alike, talking to an aide.
“I said to him, you really look like Roman Abramovich…and he said, ‘I am Roman Abramovich.’”
The Russian tycoon and longtime owner of London soccer team Chelsea, had been working as a mediator, attending peace talks in Turkey, which let him safely dock his superyacht there, away from European sanctions. He had traveled to Ankara and Riyadh, meeting Turkish and Saudi leaders ahead of the swap and was in Rostov-on-Don to personally ensure no last-minute derailments. The oligarch posed for pictures on the plane while Pinner joked that he wished he’d bought his team, West Ham United. “Chelsea was closer to my house,” Abramovich replied.
Once that jet touched down in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, another 200 prisoners of war would be driven in convoy to the border with Ukraine, to cross into home territory. Ukraine would send some 50 Russian soldiers across its borders.
Collectively, they were some of Russia and Ukraine’s most valuable prisoners. Nobody wanted to move first.
“We don’t trust the Russians,” said Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, who coordinated the exchange in Kyiv.
The plane carrying the Mariupol commanders landed in Ankara, where Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, was waiting to receive them. After a fierce debate, the Russians relented to let him board the plane to confirm their identities.
He sent photos to Yermak in Kyiv. The five men looked exhausted and emaciated after four months in Russian captivity, but it was them. Medvedchuk’s plane left the Ankara runway for Moscow, and hundreds of miles away, the Ukrainians shuffled across the border, one of them sinking to his knees to kiss the Ukrainian soil.
This time, it would be Russia complaining that Turkey had broken the rules. The Russians said they had agreed to release the Ukrainians to Turkey on the grounds that they stayed there, far from the fight, until the war’s conclusion.
Instead, a few months later, the Ankara airport had another visitor: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who flew in on a Czech jet, loaded it up with the Ukrainian commanders, then returned home.
Publicly, Russia objected that it hadn’t been informed in advance. Privately, Russia assured Turkey it wanted to continue working together.
By then, freed pilot, Yaroshenko, had been personally appointed by Putin to Russia’s civic chamber, a government body that facilitates contacts between society and the state.
Reed, now free, was on a very different life journey: Months later, deployed as a volunteer to fight the invasion of Ukraine, he was near the strategic town of Bakhmut, when shrapnel tore through his legs. He was evacuated to Germany by a nongovernmental organization and is now back in the U.S.
Turkish officials say they are standing by should Washington need their services in cutting a deal for any future American hostages.
Activist Cevian places €1.2bn bet on UBS
Swiss lender could double valuation if it can close gap with US rival Morgan Stanley, investor says
Activist investor Cevian Capital has taken a €1.2bn stake in UBS, betting that the Swiss bank can double its valuation over the next three to five years.
Cevian, Europe’s largest dedicated activist, has invested just under a tenth of its total portfolio in UBS shares since it rescued Credit Suisse in March, according to people with knowledge of the approach. Cevian is now a top-10 investor in the Swiss bank.
“This is the biggest opportunity in global financials,” Lars Förberg, Cevian’s co-founder, told the Financial Times. “UBS is valued like an average European bank, not as a leading global wealth manager. If the valuation gap to Morgan Stanley . . . is closed, the UBS share is worth SFr50 [$57.56].”
Unlike more aggressive US rivals, Cevian prefers to work behind the scenes with its portfolio companies. People familiar with the activist’s strategy said Cevian was not seeking a board seat at UBS and supported current chair Colm Kelleher and chief executive Sergio Ermotti.
Shares in UBS are up almost 50 per cent since it agreed to take over Credit Suisse, closing at just above SFr25 on Monday.
While UBS is one of Europe’s most valuable banks, it still heavily trails Wall Street peers. The Swiss lender trades at about 1.2 times tangible book value, compared with about two times for Morgan Stanley; both banks have large wealth management operations.
Previous activist campaigns at European banks have had mixed success.
At Barclays, Edward Bramson’s Sherborne Investors failed to convince other shareholders of his plan to shrink its investment bank during a three-year effort that ended in 2021.
When activist Knight Vinke called for UBS to split its wealth business from its investment bank a decade ago, it also struggled to win over other investors.
Last year Chinese insurer Ping An turned activist at HSBC, demanding a break-up of the bank. Although it was unable to attract enough support for that move, it did chalk up some smaller successes.
Cevian does have form in the sector, with previous investments in Danske Bank and Swedbank and an ongoing position in Nordea, the largest retail and corporate bank in the Nordics, where it has a board seat.
People with knowledge of Cevian’s view of UBS said the investor had tracked the bank for about 15 years. It had come close to taking an activist position in Credit Suisse before it collapsed, they added, but considered the investment too risky.
The activist believes UBS can be more profitable by increasing its focus on wealth management, especially in the US, where it lags Morgan Stanley, according to people familiar with Cevian’s approach.
Morgan Stanley has shrunk its investment bank since the financial crisis and concentrated on building its wealth management business, which generates steadier profits and a higher rating from investors.
“From an earnings and valuation point of view, UBS should really be seen as a wealth manager with a banking license, not a bank with a wealth management business,” said Förberg. “The notion that large companies can’t be changed is not right. There are many levers you can pull . . . we believe that UBS can become significantly more profitable over time.”
Other long-term investment groups have also increased their holdings in UBS significantly this year. US asset managers Fidelity and Capital Group between them raised their stakes by more than SFr1.5bn and are now top-10 independent shareholders, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
UBS declined to comment.
The yen reversed gains after the Bank of Japan kept its policy rate unchanged and persisted with the world’s last negative-rate regime. The Japan’s currency fell 0.4% to the weakest level in almost a week, while the Nikkei 225 Index rallied as much as 1.3% to the highest level in two weeks. Shares fell in Hong Kong and mainland China as weakness among developers continues to weigh on investor sentiment. BOJ officials maintained the policy rate at -0.1%, but offered no guidance whether they would keep scrap the policy next week. Speculation had been mounting that the central bank might hike rates, with April seen as the most likely option for the move, according to a Bloomberg survey. Traders will parse Governor Kazuo Ueda’s words closely when he addresses the press later Tuesday for hints on the future policy path. The rally in dollar-yen and Japanese stocks may be short-lived as speculation over policy change will soon arise again approaching the BOJ’s January meeting, according to Naka Matsuzawa, chief strategist at Nomura Securities Co. In China, weakness among developers continues to weigh on the country’s struggling economic recovery. Country Garden Services Holdings Co. hit a record low after it said it set aside some funds as impairment. China South City Holdings Ltd. — partially owned by the southern city of Shenzhen — previously also warned it can’t pay interest due Wednesday, raising the risk of default.
US contracts were little changed after Wall Street extended its relentless rally Monday, buoyed by a burst of deals as traders largely ignored tempered messaging from Federal Reserve officials. The Nasdaq 100 extended gains to close at a record for the second consecutive session. Treasuries fell marginally in Asian trading, while a gauge for the dollar steadied. The rally in Treasuries took a breather Monday amid efforts by Fed officials to rein in expectations for earlier and deeper-than-expected rates cuts. The S&P 500 has enjoyed a seven-week bull run. Whether or not that will extend into an eighth week may be determined by near-term data readouts including durable goods orders, personal consumption expenditures — the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation — and the final third quarter gross domestic product estimate. Still, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester were the latest to join a growing chorus of central bank officials seeking to moderate market optimism on cuts after their New York counterpart John Williams last week said bets on a March reduction were premature. Oil traded near its highest close in two weeks as more companies shun the Red Sea after a spike in vessel attacks along the key shipping conduit. Gold ticked lower. US After Hours Relatively quiet session; HEI +2.3% up on earnings; CRM -0.2% inches lower on M&A news.
Nikkei +1.41% Hang Seng -1.05% CSI -0.45% Shanghai -0.55% Shenzen -0.57%
Eur$ 1.025 CNH 7.1486 CNY 7.1468 JPY 143.42 GBP 1.2659 CHF 0.8660 RUB 90.22 TRY 29.0685 WTI$ 72.37 Gold 2,025 BTC 42,920 +0.71% ETH 2,240 +1.13%
S&P -0.01% Nasdaq -0.10% EuroStoxx +0.15% FTSE +0.01% Dax +0.14% SMI +0.01%
Macro :
- European 2023 Car Sales May Climb 14%; 2024 BEV Growth to Slow
- Citi’s Montagu Sees Profit-Taking Risks for US, Europe Stocks
- Bond fund giant Pimco warns of ‘hard landing’ for UK economy
- Bond fund giant Pimco warns of ‘hard landing’ for UK economy
- Hindenburg’s Adani, Icahn Calls Mark Year of Prominent Bets
Keep an eye on :
Keep an eye on :
- ABI BB : AB InBev Sells Its Stake in Russian JV to Turkish Partner Efes
- ADBE US : Adobe Looks to AI, Buybacks With $6 Billion After Figma Breakup
- AAPL US : Apple Plans Rescue for $17 Billion Watch Business in Face of Ban
- ATT SS : Attendo Confirms Talks on Possible Acquisition With Team Olivia
- CADLR NO : Danish Offshore Wind Farm Installer Targets Push Into Asia
- 1COV GY : Adnoc Is Said Preparing to Increase Takeover Offer for Covestro
- DEC LN : Diversified Energy Co Falls as US House Democrats Open Probe
- DEQ GY : Deutsche Euroshop to Raise Special Dividend, Buy Back ~1% Shares
- DNO NO : DNO’s Tawke Gross Output Averaging 90,000 Barrels a Day in Dec.
- EDP PL : EDP Agrees to Sell €898m of 2024 Tariff Deficit to Tagus
- FACC AV : Kordsa Signs Deal to Produce Goods for Aerospace Company FACC
- RMS FP : Hermes Billionaire’s Charity Fights His Plan to Cut Inheritance
- ICAD FP : Icade to Announce New Strategic Plan on Feb. 19, 2024
- ILMN US : Icahn Is Said Ready to Launch Fight to Control Illumina’s Board
- IPH FP : Sanofi to License Innate Pharma’s Natural Killer Cell Engager
- LEON SW : Leonteq Buys 10% Stake in the Swiss Stock Exchange BX Swiss
- MAERSKB DC : Maersk to Implement ERS for Israel-Related Cargo
- CFR SW : Richemont's Woes Double as YNAP Sale Fails, Notes at Risk: React
- SAN FP : Sanofi to License Innate Pharma’s Natural Killer Cell Engager
- SCHA NO : Schibsted M&A Makeover Suggests Big-Buyback, EPS Scope: BI Focus
- ENR GY : Siemens Transfers 8% Stake in Siemens Energy to Pension Fund
- S92 GY : SMA Solar Says Short Seller’s Assertions ‘Completely Lack Merit’
- S92 GY : SMA Solar Says Short Seller’s Assertions ‘Completely Lack Merit’
- SW FP : Sodexo Plans to List Pluxee on Feb. 1, 2024
- SPWR US : *SUNPOWER SINKS 31% IN BIGGEST 0NE-DAY DROP SINCE NOVEMBER 2008
- UBSG SW : Cevian Capital takes 1.3% stake in UBS for €1.2 billion
- VOD LN : Vodafone Has Decent Exit Potential With Opportunistic Iliad M&A
- X US : Nippon Steel/US Steel Deal Includes Termination Fee of $565m
>>> Up
* Duerr Raised to Neutral at BNPP Exane; PT 23 euros
* Flutter Raised to Buy at Peel Hunt
* Stora Enso Raised to Buy at DNB Markets; PT 14 euros
>>> Down
* Stora Enso Raised to Buy at DNB Markets; PT 14 euros
>>> Down
* Equinor Cut to Sector Perform at RBC; PT 350 kroner
* Lanxess Cut to Reduce at Baader Helvea; PT 26 euros
* PepsiCo Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan; PT $176
* Richemont Cut to Hold at SBG Securities; PT 133 Swiss francs
* Sartorius Stedim Biotech Cut to Add at AlphaValue/Baader
* Vaisala Cut to Reduce at Inderes; PT 40 euros
* Vaisala Cut to Reduce at Inderes; PT 40 euros
* Wacker Chemie Cut to Reduce at Baader Helvea; PT 109 euros
>>> Initiation
>>> Initiation
* 4aim Sicaf Rated New Outperform at EnVent S.p.A.; PT 410 euros
* ABB Assumed Neutral at UBS; PT 40 Swiss francs
* Ferguson Assumed Neutral at Citi; PT 15,100 pence
* Legrand Assumed Sell at UBS; PT 82 euros
>>> Call
* Legrand Assumed Sell at UBS; PT 82 euros
>>> Call
* Citi’s Montagu Sees Profit-Taking Risks for US, Europe Stocks
* Equinor Cut at RBC on Likely ‘More Modest’ 2024 Distributions
* Flutter Upgraded to Buy at Peel Hunt on Clearer US Momentum
* Flutter Upgraded to Buy at Peel Hunt on Clearer US Momentum
* Lanxess Cut at Baader Helvea, Too Early to Be Optimistic
* Wacker Chemie Downgraded at Baader Helvea, Sees Slow Recovery