>>> What to look at today - 5th of April 2023

A gauge of Asian shares fell as concerns persist over the path of global monetary policy and the health of US banks. New Zealand’s dollar rallied and the nation’s stocks retreated after the central bank raised interest rates by more than expected.  MSCI Inc.’s regional benchmark was set to end a six-day rally as it slipped about 0.5%, with almost all sectors traded in the red Wednesday. Contracts for US equities were little changed after the S&P 500 dropped on Tuesday, dragged down by shares of financial heavyweights. Chinese markets are closed for a holiday. A measure of greenback strength was little changed as most major currencies traded in narrow ranges. weakened against most. The New Zealand dollar jumped to the highest level since mid-February following the unexpected 50-basis-point rate hike. The nation’s two-year government bond yields surged about 12 basis points. the two-year Treasury yield ticked higher after declining 14 basis points in the US session as data showed a drop in job openings. That bolstered bets the Federal Reserve will soon wrap up its tightening campaign. Treasuries underwent one of the most turbulent quarters in years in the period through March as traders debated the outlook for inflation amid fears of contagion from the banking sector’s turmoil. Swap contracts downgraded the odds of a quarter-point rate hike at the Fed’s May meeting easing to around 50% from closer to 60%. Banks came under renewed pressure Tuesday, with a gauge of financial heavyweights in the US falling the most in almost two weeks. In a wide-ranging annual letter to shareholders, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief Jamie Dimon warned the US banking crisis that sent markets careening last month will be felt for years. Vacancies at US employers sank in February to the lowest since May 2021, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed Tuesday. The reading was below all estimates in a Bloomberg survey.  oil extended its rally with West Texas Intermediate rising past $81 a barrel. Gold was steady and Bitcoin trended above the high end of its recent range of around $28,000.  US After Hours DRS +6.4% up on a sizeable U.S. Navy contract; JNJ +3% up after agreeing to pay $8.9 bln in talc litigation claims; SGH -3.6% down on earnings; WMT -0.5% edges lower on reaffirmed FY24 guidance.

Nikkei -1.74% Hang Seng -0.66% CSI +0.31% Shanghai +0.49% Shenzen -0.45%

Eur$ 1.0954 CNH 6.8712 CNY 6.8793 JPY 131.64 GBP 1.2484 CHF 0.9058 RUB 79.5500 TRY 19.2408 WTI$81.09 +0.47% Gold 2023.50 +0.16% BTC 28,570+1.10% ETH 1,914 +1.90%

S&P -0.04% NAsdaq +0.01% EuroStoxx -0.26% FTSE +0.03% Dax -0.12% SMI -0.17%

Macro :
- Fed’s Mester Says Rates Should Rise Above 5%, Stay for Some Time
- China’s Banking Crackdown Picks Up Pace With Fresh Probe
- Oil Extends Rally as Focus Shifts From OPEC+ Cut to Inventories

Keep an eye on :
- AZA SS : Avanza Says CEO Rikard Josefson Intends to Step Down
- BARN SW : Barry Callebaut 1H Recurring EBIT Beats Estimates, CEO Leaves After 19 Months
- CTXS US : Elliott, Carlyle Help Fuel Goldman Push to Offload Citrix Debt
- DNR IM : De Nora Holders Offer About 10m Shares: Terms
- EQT SS : Brookfield Sale of TDF Stake to EQT Stalls, Les Echos Says
- ENX FP : Euronext Says EU Trading Plan Risks Hurting Small Investors: FT
- GLJ GY : Grenke 1Q Leasing New Business Volume EU610.2M Vs. EU499.2M Y/y
- HOLN SW : Holcim Buys UK Construction Waste Recycler Sivyer; No Terms
- IBE SM : Barclays Said to Advise Mexico in Iberdrola ‘Nationalization’
- IBE SM : AMLO Widens State Utility’s Reach With $6 Billion Iberdrola Deal
- MC FP : Bernard Arnault’s Fortune Soars Past $200 Billion for First Time
- MAERSKB DC : Maersk CEO Says Tech Spending to Fuel Gains in 2024: Berlingkse
- NEX FP : Chile’s Invexans Plans to Sell 4.2m Shares in France’s Nexans, Prices at EU80/Share.
- NDX1 GY : Nordex Launches ~€350 million Green Convertible Bond Offering
- PIRC IM : Italy Reviews Options to Limit China’s Influence Over Pirelli
- SDRL NO : Seadrill 4Q Adjusted Ebitda $41M Vs. $71M Q/Q
- SAE GY : Shop Apotheke Prelim 1Q Revenue Beats Estimates
- SIVE SS : Sivers Semiconductors Offering Prices at SEK7.25/Share
- SKAB SS : Skanska Gets Order in the US Worth About SEK1.8b
- SW FP : Sodexo Plans To Spin Off Benefits & Rewards Services
- TIT IM : KKR Seeks €10.5b Credit for Telecom Italia Grid Bid: Messaggero
- TTE FP : Iraq Lowers Its Share in Total’s Gas Southern Project to 30%
- VOW GY : VW’s Czech Unit Skoda Auto to Raise Wages by 10%, Unions Say

>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrades & Downgrades - 5th of April 2023

>>> Up
* Acciona Raised to Overweight at Barclays; PT 233 euros
* Alfa Laval Raised to Buy at SEB Equities; PT 430 kronor
* Atlas Copco Raised to Buy at Handelsbanken
* Attendo Raised to Buy at SEB Equities; PT 40 kronor
* Axfood Raised to Buy at ABG; PT 285 kronor
* CAF Raised to Outperform at Oddo BHF; PT 33 euros
* DWS Raised to Buy at Citi; PT 33.50 euros
* Know IT Raised to Buy at Handelsbanken
* Metso Outotec Raised to Buy at Citi
* Neoen Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 32 euros
* S Immo Raised to Buy at SRC Research; PT 18 euros
* Siemens Raised to Buy at SocGen; PT 185 euros
* SIG Group Raised to Buy at Stifel; PT 26.70 Swiss francs

>>> Down
* Addnode Group AB Cut to Hold at SEB Equities; PT 125 kronor
* H&R Cut to Sell at DZ Bank; PT 5 euros
* J. Martins Cut to Market Perform at Bernstein; PT 22 euros
* K+S Cut to Hold at Stifel; PT 22 euros
* Mycronic Cut to Hold at Handelsbanken

>>> Initiation
* Acciona Energia Rated New Equal-Weight at Barclays; PT 40 euros
* Aker Solutions Reinstated Outperform at RBC; PT 48 kroner
* Seacrest Petroleo Bermuda Rated New Outperform at Itau BBA
* Stroeer Rated New Buy at SocGen; PT 65 euros
* Subsea 7 Reinstated Outperform at RBC; PT 161 kroner
* Technip Energies Reinstated Sector Perform at RBC; PT 24 euros

>>> Call
* Citi Still Underweight Traditional AMs, Raises DWS on De-Rating
* Direct Line Double-Upgraded at Citi as Motor Insurance Inflects
* Energy Services Sector Benefiting From Greater Demand, RBC Says
* H&M Gets Another Upgrade as MS Turns More Positive on Retail
* Neoen Raised as Morgan Stanley Says Capital Increase Curbs Risks
* Wartsila Upgraded at Morgan Staney on Margin Improvement Levers

FT : EU stock trading plans risk hurting small investors, warns Euronext CEO

EU stock trading plans risk hurting small investors, warns Euronext CEO
Stéphane Boujnah says plans for live database of prices across EU may mean some investors are ‘victim of arbitrage’

The head of Europe’s largest exchange operator has criticised the EU’s proposed creation of a central stock trading database, warning that retail investors risk falling victim to more sophisticated traders.

Stéphane Boujnah, chief executive of Euronext, told the Financial Times that plans for a consolidated live database of stock and bond prices trading across Europe could create a wealth of trading opportunities for bigger firms with greater reach, while harming smaller investors by leaving them unable to access the best prices.

“Real time means being [ . . .] a victim of arbitrage,” he said. “We are sceptical of the benefit of a pre-trade consolidated tape,” he added, referring to an element of the proposed prices database.

EU officials are conducting a review to try and make Europe’s capital markets more efficient and thus attractive to investors. Exchange operators, brokers and asset managers are among those who have been lobbying legislators aggressively on the plans for months.

Among the most contentious proposals is the potential introduction of a consolidated tape — a live database designed to overcome the region’s issue of patchwork trading venues and data feeds. The European Commission is seeking to follow in the footsteps of the US where the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and other trading venues jointly publish real time equity data including prices and share volumes.

A pre-trade consolidated tape would show real time price information, while a post-trade tape would record completed transactions.

Those opposing a pre-trade tape argue that retail investors in particular would lose out by not being able to access all the trading venues open to institutional players such as hedge funds and lightning-fast computer-driven traders, which will find it easier to exploit price anomalies.

Boujnah is in favour of a post-trade tape but said a pre-trade database risked creating “arbitrage opportunities against those [investors] with low rated platforms” that cannot easily access all trading venues, and that “a non-level playing field is really creating fragmentation of price formation and diluting transparency, creating opacity”.

Paris-based think-tank Eurofi wrote last year that “retail investors who are not able to engage in price arbitrage between a variety of markets, unlike high-frequency traders, will probably not benefit that much from a real-time consolidated tape”.

Data providers have largely backed the proposals. Euronext is one of 14 exchanges that have agreed to collaborate on providing an equities tape across the EU. However, Boujnah said he would prefer a “real-time post trade [tape] supplemented with a snapshot of pre trades” rather than constant real time pre-trade price information.

A consolidated tape will require exchanges that supply data to share revenues. The Federation of European Securities Exchanges last year pointed to a “potential threat of a real-time [consolidated tape] to the viability of smaller exchanges”.

Asset managers are largely in favour of the move to a consolidated tape. The European Fund and Asset Management Association, which represents more than 4,500 asset managers in the EU, has advocated for its creation, saying it would provide investors with greater transparency.

The European parliament’s Economic Committee is set to begin negotiations on the Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (Mifir) review proposal with the European Council of member states and the Commission with the aim of reaching an agreement later this year.

Boujnah also called for “systematic internalisers”, which are investment firms such as banks that can execute trades off exchange, to be treated like stock exchanges. “The only place where a price should be formed is a proper order book, not in a sort of shadow price record,” he said. He added that such firms act “like a type of Uber that are allowed not to abide by the driving code” and if they grow too large then “that can create potentially . . . all sorts of systemic risk and stress”.

Boujnah also called for a ban on payment for order flow, the controversial trading practice that was thrust into the limelight during 2021’s meme stock frenzy, whereby retail brokers make money by selling their customers’ orders to large trading firms.

“We hope the [EU Mifir negotiations] will focus on what is good to reduce fragmentation and increase transparency,” he added.

FT : Ari Emanuel: the tenacious super agent disrupting Hollywood

Ari Emanuel: the tenacious super agent disrupting Hollywood
Endeavor’s $21bn acquisition of wrestling’s WWE is just the latest in a string of ambitious deals

Back in 1997, when Ari Emanuel was just two years into building a talent business that would disrupt the US entertainment industry, he persuaded Vince McMahon, the professional wrestling impresario, to make time for a breakfast meeting.

At the time, the WWE founder “didn’t have to do that; everybody was chasing him”, Emanuel recalls. But McMahon was sold on the tenacious young Emanuel, and hired him to be his agent.

This week, Emanuel sealed a $21bn deal to acquire the WWE from McMahon and combine it with the mixed martial arts business UFC to create a combat-entertainment juggernaut. It is the latest bold transaction for Emanuel, who has worked his way up from the mailroom at the CAA talent agency to become one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

“Years later, I get to be [McMahon’s] partner. For a kid from Chicago, my father was an immigrant, it’s pretty unbelievable actually,” Emanuel, 62, told the Financial Times in an interview about the deal on Monday.

When Emanuel co-founded the talent agency Endeavor in 1995, he worked out of a small office above a hamburger restaurant in South Beverly Hills. But he had big aspirations to take on the establishment that dominated the entertainment industry.

An aggressive dealmaker, he merged Endeavor with rival William Morris, acquired sports media group IMG and Ultimate Fighting Championship, along with about 20 more transactions.

The deals expanded Endeavor into an entertainment giant with 11,000 employees across the world, and a client roster that included heavyweights Oprah Winfrey and Martin Scorsese. They also propelled Emanuel into the ranks of Hollywood’s ruling executives along with Disney’s Bob Iger and Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav.

As a child Emanuel was diagnosed with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and displayed a hyperactivity that translated into a talent for dealmaking. He was constantly scheming, selling slices of his mother’s homemade cheesecake from his lunchbox to the highest bidder at school. Emanuel also started a lawn-mowing business, paying his friends $3 to do the physical labour, charging customers $5 and pocketing the difference.

“Ari really could not help but be annoying”, wrote his older brother Ezekiel, who is an oncologist and was an adviser to the Obama and Biden administrations, in a 2013 memoir. “He was always awake by five am. Jittery and anxious, he could not stay in bed, and he would prowl around the house looking for something to occupy his mind.”

Nowadays, the Endeavor chief is known for relentless ambition and a foul-mouthed temper that inspired the frenetic Ari Gold character in the HBO series Entourage. People who have worked with him describe him as indefatigable, endlessly knocking on doors and calling people.

“He’s now referred to as a Hollywood mogul. Not an agent, a Hollywood mogul. He almost willed that into reality,” said a media executive.

Emanuel’s WWE deal is a colossal bet that live events and sports will continue to capture the wallets of viewers and broadcasters. “It’s very rare, when a global iconic brand becomes available,” he said. “And when it does, you have to say yes.”

The company’s share price fell about 6 per cent after the deal was announced on Monday. But Emanuel has a history of outlasting his doubters.

In 2019 he attempted to take Endeavor public, but pulled the plug after failing to reach the valuation he sought. The rare failure fuelled chatter that the audacious Hollywood agent was not cut out to run a public company.

Less than two years later, Endeavor bolstered its initial public offering by buying out UFC’s minority owners and got the float done. Emanuel was awarded shares that translated into a $308mn pay package for 2021.

Emanuel is also known for a health obsession that includes a strict vegan diet, rising before sunrise, and daily ice baths for “mental fortitude”. A photograph last summer of the svelte Emanuel with Elon Musk, while both were on a yacht wearing swimsuits, was a “helpful motivation to lose weight”, the Tesla chief executive has said.

A third Emanuel brother has racked up an equally impressive resume, but in politics rather than entertainment. Rahm served as ex-president Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff and mayor of Chicago and is now US ambassador to Japan.

Ari occasionally wades into hot topics, writing an FT editorial that called out rapper Kanye West for antisemitic comments. In 2018, Endeavor returned $400mn to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. “You have to have some morals,” Emanuel told the New Yorker magazine.

The latest deal brings Emanuel back into the Saudi orbit. WWE has a 10-year deal with Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority to bring events to the country.

And McMahon is a controversial figure. The gruff-voiced executive retired last year after allegations of sexual misconduct. A board investigation found McMahon had agreed to millions of dollars in settlements that should have been recorded as expenses. The 77-year-old then returned in January as executive chair.

When asked by the FT if he had any concerns about partnering with McMahon, Emanuel said: “Not one.”

“Take all the craziness away . . . I believe in due process. There was an investigation. There was no wrongdoing found,” he said. “So we move on.”

>>> US After Hours Summary: DRS +6.4% up on a sizeable U.S. Navy contract; JNJ +

After Hours Summary: DRS +6.4% up on a sizeable U.S. Navy contract; JNJ +3% up after agreeing to pay $8.9 bln in talc litigation claims; SGH -3.6% down on earnings; WMT -0.5% edges lower on reaffirmed FY24 guidance

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: KRUS +4.5%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: DRS +6.4% (awarded $1.0 bln contract), PBI +3.1% (Hestia Capital Management calls for company to replace CEO, according to WSJ), JNJ +3% (paying $8.9 bln in talc litigation claims), HCAT +1% (partnership with Contexture), SAFE +0.2% (files mixed shelf), RMBS +0.2% (extends patent license agreement with SK hynix), GVA +0.1% (awarded $126 mln contract)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: SGH -3.6%, RGP -0.7%, WMT -0.5% (guidance)

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: HQY -2.9% (strategic collaboration with Microsoft), RBBN -1.5% (files $250 mln mixed shelf), NIU -0.8% (releases Q1 sales volumes), WBX -0.6% (stock offering), COST -0.4% (trading in sympathy with WMT), BBDC -0.1% (CFO steps down; appoints new CFO)

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La chute d’Adrien Labi, le « fantôme du “triangle d’or” », cerné par la justice

ENQUÊTECet homme d’affaires mystérieux, propriétaire de nombreux immeubles de prestige à Paris, a été mis en examen pour « fraude fiscale » et « blanchiment ». La justice a saisi près d’un demi-milliard d’euros pour s’assurer qu’il acquitte sa dette fiscale.

Lundi 6 mars devait être une belle journée pour Adrien Labi. L’homme d’affaires britannique se trouve à Paris pour finaliser une importante vente immobilière avec Kering. Le géant du luxe français, dirigé par François-Henri Pinault, a accepté de débourser la somme astronomique de 1 milliard d’euros pour s’offrir deux immeubles situés avenue Montaigne, dans le 8e arrondissement parisien, où les prix de l’immobilier sont parmi les plus élevés de la capitale. Une transaction en or pour M. Labi, qui a plus que doublé sa mise depuis l’achat de ces immeubles, il y a huit ans.

Mais à peine la vente signée, l’euphorie laisse place à la stupeur. A la sortie de l’étude du notaire, des policiers de la brigade nationale de répression de la délinquance fiscale l’arrêtent et le placent en garde à vue. Un épisode rocambolesque qui vient ponctuer vingt ans d’aventures immobilières, au cours desquels le nom d’Adrien Labi a résonné aussi bien dans les beaux quartiers parisiens que dans les tribunaux.

Les projecteurs se braquent pour la première fois en 2015 sur celui qu’on surnomme le « fantôme du “triangle d’or” ». Une enquête de « M Le Magazine du Monde » révèle que cet homme d’affaires inconnu du grand public détient un immense patrimoine immobilier de prestige dans cette zone huppée de l’hypercentre de Paris, dont la valeur se chiffre en centaines de millions d’euros. Adrien Labi est déjà bien connu de l’administration fiscale française, qui s’intéresse à ses montages depuis le milieu des années 2000. Soumises à de nombreux contrôles fiscaux, ses sociétés doivent acquitter des millions d’euros de redressements. Mais le fantôme se refuse à payer, exploitant tous les recours juridiques possibles.

FT : The madness of the £25 Martini

The madness of the £25 Martini
How much should you pay for a cocktail?

There’s one word being used a lot right now to describe the New York bar scene: expensive. “Prices are out of control,” says an industry friend. “My Martini cost more than my burger,” tweeted the New York drinks writer Kara Newman recently. “This is where we are now?”

At Overstory, one of the city’s hottest bars, cocktails are $24 before gratuity; at the famous jazz lounge Bemelmans Bar, half the Martinis are now over $34, plus up to a $35 per person cover charge at peak times. “You can drop $500 on a couple of cocktails and dinner in New York these days without batting an eye,” says drinks writer Tyler Zielinski.

Connaught Bar’s £26 Martini is mixed tableside © Christian Banfield
London bars have also passed the £20-a-drink mark. The house Martini at The Dorchester’s new Vesper Bar is £25. Many signature cocktails at The Savoy’s American Bar are closer to £30. The notoriously strong Martini at Ian Fleming’s old haunt, Dukes Bar in St James’s, is a bracing £22.50.
You can make a very decent Martini for a couple of quid. So what are you paying for? “Ingredients only account for around 20 per cent of the list price,” says Liam Davy, head of bars at Hawksmoor group ($19 for a Martini in Manhattan, and £13-£14 in London). “You’ve also got to factor in labour, rents, rates, glassware, printing of the menu and so on. Costs for all these things have gone up hugely.”

Rising prices also reflect a change in what people expect from a bar visit, he adds. “People used to treat a trip to a cocktail bar more like a trip to the pub – they’d spend the whole evening in there. Now they’ll have one or two cocktails, max, but they’re expecting much more of an ‘experience’.”

Connaught Bar offers a choice of bespoke bitters for its Martini © Leonardo Filippini
That “experience” might entail free cocktail tasters on arrival, hand-carved ice, Michelin-grade ingredients, live music, staff in designer uniforms and luxury snacks. At the Connaught Bar, £26 Martinis are mixed tableside, with a choice of bespoke bitters and poured from a great height into a crystal glass engraved to match the scalloped ceiling. What you’re really paying for here, argues director of mixology Ago Perrone, is the personalised service: “That human factor is where the magic lies.”

If you’re prepared to forgo some of the bells and whistles, it is still possible to have a memorable Martini in London for half that price. At Soho’s award-winning Soma bar you can have a £13 Martini twist made with coriander vermouth, citrus pepper, purple carrot and Himalayan gin. Swift’s bars in Soho, Shoreditch and Borough also do a fine line in more affordable stiffeners.

But the fact is, for all the sticker-shock, five-star bars are busier than ever. “We can no longer tell the difference between a Monday and a Saturday,” says Perrone. The cocktail, it seems, remains a high priority.