FT : Hedge fund Rokos warns that sterling is ‘vulnerable’ to further falls

Hedge fund Rokos warns that sterling is ‘vulnerable’ to further falls
Brexit, deglobalisation and pandemic deal bigger shock to terms of trade, investors told

Sterling looks “vulnerable” to further falls and the looming recession could have “serious” effects on British society, according to the hedge fund firm of billionaire trader Chris Rokos.

Rokos Capital Management, which manages around $14.5bn in assets, told its investors that the UK had suffered a bigger shock to its terms of trade than other developed countries because of the impact of Brexit, deglobalisation and the coronavirus pandemic.

Such a deterioration, which puts pressure on an already yawning current account deficit and can fuel inflation, made it harder for policymakers to control consumer price growth, the firm wrote in a letter seen by the Financial Times.

“The recession that is required to tame inflation in the UK is deeper than that needed elsewhere, with potentially serious societal implications,” it said. “Sterling looks vulnerable.”

Rokos declined to comment further.

The gloomy diagnosis comes after a number of high-profile fund managers targeted the UK market. Odey Asset Management founder Crispin Odey was among traders who profited from a plunge in sterling in September following former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini” Budget of unfunded tax cuts.

Rokos, one of the world’s biggest macro hedge funds, profited during the UK’s gilt market crisis in September, thanks to bets that UK borrowing costs would have to rise.

Sterling has fallen more than 10 per cent against the dollar this year and dropped to an all-time low of $1.035 in the wake of Kwarteng’s financial statement. Since then it has recovered strongly to around $1.21, its highest level since August.

Compounding the problem for Britain is the “disproportionately negative” hit that mortgage owners would take from higher interest rates, because fixed-rate home loans in the UK tend to expire more quickly than in other nations, such as the US. That, Rokos wrote, could mean that the Bank of England raises interest rates “too slowly to contain inflation”.

Rokos’s warning comes after highly bearish predictions from a number of other big-name managers. Paul Singer’s Elliott recently warned that the world was on the road to “hyperinflation” and could be heading towards its worst crisis since the second world war, while Saba Capital founder Boaz Weinstein has said global stocks could enter a Japan-style bear market lasting decades.

Rokos, a former co-founder of hedge fund firm Brevan Howard, has gained around 44 per cent in his fund so far this year. That puts him on track for his best year of performance since launch in 2015 and makes back large losses he suffered last year after being caught out by a sharp move in short-dated bonds.

His gains this year come during a fruitful period for macro hedge funds, many of which have been able to profit from a huge rise in government bond yields globally, as central banks raise interest rates to try to combat high inflation.

Rokos said that to be more optimistic on the UK’s outlook it would have to see “signs of a quietly engineered softer Brexit”, or higher immigration.

It also warned that, with a recession a “necessity” in order to tame inflation and cash becoming a viable alternative investment to financial assets, global stock markets look “exposed” to further falls.

Given there were “essentially fewer resources available and more investment is required, prospective returns need to be higher”, it wrote. This means that “asset prices need to be lower”.

FT : For sale: heavily worn multi-strategy hedge fund

For sale: heavily worn multi-strategy hedge fund
No returns, please

In hedge fund land there are good successions (DE Shaw), there are looong successions (Bridgewater), and there are non-successions (Millennium’s Izzy Englander seems intent on outlasting everyone). Then there’s Sculptor Capital Management, with a succession so messy it’s HBO-worthy.

Last week it took another twist when the hedge fund formerly known as Och-Ziff put itself up for sale. And because Sculptor is one of the very few listed hedge funds, a lot of the drama is being played out in the public eye — including putting a “for sale” sign on the front lawn.

Here is the company statement that went out on Friday:

NEW YORK, November 18, 2022 — Sculptor Capital Management, Inc. (NYSE: SCU) (the “Company,” or “Sculptor Capital”) announced today that its Board formed a special committee, comprised solely of independent directors (the “Special Committee”), to explore potential interest from third parties in a transaction with the Company that maximizes value for shareholders.

Sculptor’s share price shows one big reason why the board has taken this step. Its stock is down 53 per cent this year to $10.25. The IPO back in November 2007 was at $32 apiece and raised $1.15bn. Its market cap is now less than half that — which, even for a hedge fund, is a pretty stunning level of capital incineration.

Here’s Sculptor’s price performance relative to Man Group, its closest peer in the listed sphere, over the past decade.

However, the main reason for the proposed sale is the long shadow of a mid-noughties bribery debacle and the embarrassing, debilitating, long-running, very public brawl that followed between founder Daniel Och and his one time protégé Jimmy Levin.

The succession started as well as these things can — at least given the circumstances. After an ignominious African bribery scandal — the hedge fund eventually paid regulators $413mn to settle charges in 2016 — Och in 2017 handed the investing reins to Levin, a money wunderkind he had first met at a Wisconsin summer camp in the late 1990s, when Levin was teaching Och’s son to water ski.

Despite being just 33-years old back in 2017 (which caused some grumbling internally and raised eyebrows externally), Levin appeared a plausible successor.

After graduating from Harvard with a degree in computer science, he had worked at Sagamore Hill and Dune Capital (yes, Steven Mnuchin’s hedge fund). Levin then joined Och-Ziff in 2006 and emerged in the wake of the financial crisis as a rock-star credit investor. By 2017, Levin was clearly the star turn at Och-Ziff.

In the wake of the DoJ settlement the hedge fund went through several rebrands: Och-Ziff first became Oz Capital, then in 2019 OzCap became Sculptor. Levin was promoted to CIO and results started picking up, with the the master fund making 11.5 per cent in 2017. Investor outflows abated.

But pretty swiftly some kind of psychodrama broke out between Levin and Och.

It would be possible to build an exhaustively detailed timeline of the breakdown as pieced together by media stories over the five years since Och first nominated Levin as his successor in 2017, then changed his mind before the year end. Applying guesswork psychology to the labour might throw up a few theories on what happened. But really, life is too short. The tl;dr is they fell out.

Och left in 2019 and the board made Levin CEO a year later. But the drama hasn’t ended there.

In a court filing last month, Och obliquely referenced a “personal issue” in Levin’s past that made him unfit to be CEO. This forced Sculptor’s board into a statement in support of Levin, and Levin to say:

Dan Och’s court case in Delaware is the latest salvo in his years-long clash with the firm and me. My colleagues and I, throughout all of this, have kept our collective heads down and focused on the job we do for our clients. In light of Och’s legal filing last week, where he mentions a “personal issue” from my past, I now need to briefly raise my head.

Twenty years ago, when I was 19, I was falsely accused of sexual misconduct. After a thorough Harvard University administrative review into the allegation, I was exonerated. Unlike some of these situations, the allegation did not involve the question of consent — rather, the alleged conduct did not occur.

I brought this matter to the attention of the firm, its officers, and its directors in 2015. And after the firm’s review, I received unconditional support, including from Och as then Chairman and CEO. In the years that followed, Och promoted me multiple times, consistently praised me in various internal and external communications and executed a long-term employment contract with me.

My relationship with Och changed in late 2017 when he became extremely angry with me. To weather the fallout of the firm’s FCPA bribery settlement the year before, I supported the independent Board members’ efforts to restructure the firm’s governance and finances in ways that would have resulted in Och ceding his unilateral control of the firm (following SEC charges against him) and making financial concessions to ease the burden of significant debt and liabilities incurred to settle the bribery matter. This culminated in Och overruling both the decision of the independent directors to appoint me as the next CEO and their recommendation to adopt a series of financial restructurings.

Och next tried to insinuate that part of his decision to pass me over for CEO was influenced by this disproven allegation from my teenage years. But those insinuations are belied by his statements to our shareholders, employees and clients about his decision regarding CEO succession — none of which ever mentioned this subject. Indeed, he subsequently communicated how important it was to retain me and led an effort to make sure that happened.

Last week, Och took it one step further by intentionally dropping a reference to this matter in a Delaware court filing, triggering the press to write about it. Even though I am the target, this press coverage, exoneration notwithstanding, will impact those closest to me including my wife who I met in college and my school-aged children.

I want nothing more than for Och to end this feud he continues to pursue.

Unfortunately for Levin, Sculptor’s recent results have been bad, which complicates things. Not Tiger Global-bad, but certainly not great for a multi-strategy hedge fund, and unhelpfully poor given the artillery shells Och keeps lobbing their direction.

While multistat rivals like Citadel and Millennium are chalking up hefty returns, Sculptor’s near-$10bn master fund lost 13.3 per cent in the first nine months of the year. The latest earnings looked grim. Moreover, as Levin admitted on Sculptor’s third-quarter call with analysts, “general noise at the corporate level is not a particular tailwind for [allocator] conversations either”.

That has forced the board into a tentative truce with Och, and to explore what Och says is interest from potential suitors. From Friday’s statement:

The Special Committee reached out to Daniel S. Och and the four other former executive managing directors who had filed a books and records action in the Delaware Court of Chancery and the parties agreed that the resolution of that action would be beneficial to the process initiated by the Special Committee for the benefit of shareholders. The parties therefore have reached a settlement to provide an agreed set of additional Company books and records and dismiss the action with prejudice.

“The Board and the Special Committee are committed to conducting a process that is fair and in the best interests of shareholders and appreciate Mr. Och and his colleagues’ support for such a process. We are open to considering any potential transaction that maximizes shareholder value,” said Marcy Engel, Chair of the Board.

“We are pleased that the Board has formed a Special Committee that is dedicated to exploring potential interest from third parties in a transaction with the Company, and we will be supportive of a vigorous, independent, and thorough process that puts shareholders first,” said Mr. Och.

It’s possible that soliciting potential M&A interest is just a sop to Och to see if he can go away. Would anyone actually buy Sculptor outright? Perhaps the franchise might appeal to a big traditional asset manager keen to build up its alternatives business, especially in credit, where Sculptor is relatively strong. But given the messiness of asset management M&A, it’s hard to see who would bite.

With a market cap of around $600mn, Sculptor would likely cost roughly the same as Alcentra (now part of Franklin Templeton) or Arcmont Asset Management (which Nuveen agreed to buy last month for $1bn), and much less than Oak Hill (which T Rowe bought for $4.2bn in 2021). None of those names were as beset with problems as Sculptor, however, whose share price reflects a widespread and justifiable cynicism about a white knight bidder emerging.

Absent a traditional blow-up, hedge funds rarely die quickly or easily. Perhaps a slow bleed and eventual management buyout is the most likely scenario.

WSJ : U.S. Prosecutors Target Russian Assets, but Legal Hurdles Loom

U.S. Prosecutors Target Russian Assets, but Legal Hurdles Loom
Federal officials seek business records to help uncover assets of President Vladimir Putin’s allies

WASHINGTON—Federal prosecutors have issued a stream of subpoenas in recent months in an effort to uncover Russian oligarchs‘ assets hidden in the U.S., laying the groundwork to seize real estate, cash accounts and trust funds, say people familiar with the matter.

Many of the subpoenas seek business, bank and trust records they say would help prosecutors cut through layers of complex ownership structures meant to obscure oligarchs’ holdings.

The actions across several federal courts, including in New York and Houston, are part of a broad Western effort to coerce Russia into pulling out of Ukraine and find new sources of funding for Ukraine’s war effort and eventual reconstruction.

Since February, Western authorities have frozen more than $330 billion Russian assets, Western officials say. About $300 billion of that are reserves held by Russia’s central bank in foreign bank accounts. Much of the rest includes oligarchs’ companies, bank accounts, trusts, yachts, jets, real estate and jewelry.

But administration officials are running into a thicket of investigative and legal difficulties, from finding assets hidden by sophisticated lawyers, accountants and financial planners, to seizing and handing them over to Kyiv. Seizure transfers ownership of assets to the government, whereas freezing only blocks the owner’s use of them.

The administration has asked Congress to pass legislation expanding its authority to seize Russian assets and establishing a legal channel to send captured funds to Ukraine. The European Commission has proposed similar legal changes.

“We have no dedicated mechanism to transfer the proceeds of seized oligarch assets to the Ukrainian people,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who is sponsoring a bill to address the issue, said in a September Senate Banking Committee hearing.

While the U.S. effort has bipartisan support, some lawmakers have said Congress needs to take a closer look at the measures and their potential legal impacts.

The European Commission, the Ukrainian government and the World Bank said recently that the current cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine amounted to $349 billion and was likely to grow in the coming months. Western officials have said the effort to rebuild Ukraine could take generations, while Kyiv has stepped up its requests for economic and military support.

To help cover those costs, the U.S. and its allies launched what they called the Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs, or REPO, task force to track down assets they say represent ill-gotten gains that help prop up President Vladimir Putin ‘s rule.

“Governments are starting to get nervous about growing demands on their budgets,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, head of the Brussels office at the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank.

U.S. officials say among the many challenges in expropriating oligarchs’ assets for rebuilding in Ukraine is just finding the holdings in the first place.

Oligarchs transfer assets out of their direct ownership and control into trusts, to family members and associates, or into shares held in layers of companies in multiple jurisdictions, said Cari Stinebower, a former senior official at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Andrew Adams, the head of the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, which issued the subpoenas, said merely locating the assets could require years of investigation.

“The difficulties of conducting transnational investigations, of piercing often opaque jurisdictions that have an interest in concealing, or providing a harbor for those who would conceal illegal activity, is a tall order,” he said in the September hearing.

The U.S. Treasury Department has rolled out a series of new anti-money-laundering rules that could help trace those assets, including requiring companies to disclose the identity of their owners and expanding real-estate reporting requirements for cash deals in several metropolitan areas.

Some industry analysts and former officials say that may not be enough. The ownership reporting rules—which don’t go into effect until 2024—don’t include some investment vehicles or require naming the ultimate beneficiaries of trusts, only trustees.

Current U.S. law provides limited authority to seize the frozen assets, officials say.

For the U.S. to expropriate the $300 billion in Russian central-bank reserves, which are held in foreign accounts, Congress would have to pass a new law, say Western officials. Some Western authorities say they are wary of setting a precedent that would contravene longstanding international monetary principles.

In the absence of statutory authority, courts may question prosecutors’ legal basis for seizing oligarchs’ assets, said Ms. Stinebower, now at the law firm Winston & Strawn.

“It’s challenging to move from frozen assets to forfeited assets,” said Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant U.S. Treasury secretary for financial crimes in the September hearing.

And considering the scale of Ukraine’s needs, it isn’t clear that all the yachts, expensive apartments and houses, securities and other holdings would do much.

“Confiscating the assets of Putin’s elite would be a fraught process—and insufficiently lucrative to make much of a dent in Ukraine’s reconstruction bill,” said Ms. Mortera-Martinez.

WSJ : Jeffrey Epstein Accusers Sue Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase

Jeffrey Epstein Accusers Sue Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase
Lawsuits claim banks facilitated sex trafficking and ignored red flags; spokespeople for the banks didn’t immediately comment

Women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse are suing Deutsche Bank AG DB 1.62% and JPMorgan Chase JPM 1.07% & Co., saying the banks facilitated Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking operation and ignored red flags about their wealthy client.

The two lawsuits seek class-action status and unspecified financial damages. They were both brought by lawyers that have represented many of the late financier’s accusers. The suits were filed in federal court in New York on Thursday.

“The time has come for the real enablers to be held responsible, especially his wealthy friends and the financial institutions that played an integral role,” said one of the lawyers, Bradley Edwards, in a written statement. “These victims were wronged, by many, not just Epstein. He did not act alone.”

Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan spokespeople didn’t immediately comment.

The Deutsche Bank suit cites many of the findings from an investigation by New York state’s financial regulator into that bank’s relationship with Epstein. The JPMorgan suit cites the relationship between Epstein and a former top JPMorgan executive that was investigated by U.K. regulators.

The unnamed woman suing JPMorgan is a former ballet dancer in New York who was recruited by another young female and sexually abused by Epstein from 2006 through 2013, according to her suit. She alleges she was also trafficked to his friends. Large sums of money were withdrawn from JPMorgan to make cash payments to her and other women, the suit says. The suit alleges that Epstein used the cash to pay for sex acts.

A different woman suing Deutsche Bank was sexually abused by Epstein and trafficked to his friends from about 2003 until about 2018 and was also paid in cash for sex acts, according to her suit. The bank ignored red flags including payments to numerous young women and large withdrawals of cash, the suit says. New York’s regulator found Epstein, his related entities and associates had more than 40 accounts at Deutsche Bank.

The lawsuits state that both banks assisted and participated in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking by enabling him to make payments to women for sex acts and that the banks profited from Epstein’s activities. Both banks worked with Epstein for years after he pleaded guilty in a Florida state court in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. Epstein died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges.

The suits allege the banks violated human-trafficking laws by aiding Epstein with access to accounts and cash. Banks must know who their customers are and what the accounts are being used for to police money laundering and avoid enabling criminal activity.

The suit against JPMorgan says that Epstein started banking with the firm sometime around 1998 and developed a close relationship with Jes Staley, who was then head of private banking. Epstein turned to Deutsche Bank when the ties with JPMorgan ended around 2013, the lawsuits say.

The suit says JPMorgan turned a blind eye to Epstein’s activities in exchange for financial gain. Epstein introduced Mr. Staley to wealthy clients and helped the bank arrange its deal to buy a majority stake in Highbridge Capital in 2004, at the peak of Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking, according to the suit.

The suit states that JPMorgan also housed accounts for longtime Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and that she received about $31 million from Epstein between 1999 and 2007 as alleged compensation for her help with sex trafficking. After Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008, Mr. Staley visited him while he was serving his sentence in Florida, the suit says.

Mr. Staley later left JPMorgan and became CEO of Barclays PLC in December 2015. He resigned in November 2021 amid an investigation by U.K. regulators into his relationship with Epstein and the bank’s disclosures about their ties. The two men exchanged more than a thousand emails during Mr. Staley’s time at JPMorgan, the suit says.

“I deeply regret having had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” Mr. Staley told reporters in 2020. Mr. Staley previously said his relationship with Epstein was professional and ended before he took over Barclays.

A lawyer for Mr. Staley declined to comment.

The suit says Mary Erdoes, currently head of JPMorgan’s asset- and wealth-management division, also protected Epstein as a client after other executives questioned why the bank worked with him. A JPMorgan spokesman has previously disputed Ms. Erdoes protected Epstein and said she only recalled one formal meeting with him, “which was the day she fired him as a client.”

A JPMorgan spokesperson didn’t immediately comment on Ms. Erdoes’s behalf.

Paul Morris, who was among Epstein’s private wealth managers at JPMorgan and then at Deutsche Bank, emailed his bosses at Deutsche Bank in 2013 to tell them that Epstein’s accounts could generate $100 million to $300 million in money flows and $2 million to $4 million in annual fees, and the men agreed to add him as a client despite his prior conviction, according to the suit against Deutsche Bank.

Mr. Morris didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

New York state’s financial regulator fined Deutsche Bank $150 million in 2020 for failing to properly monitor its dealings with the convicted sex offender and other lapses. Deutsche Bank said at the time that it was a mistake to take Epstein as a client and acknowledged weaknesses in its processes, and that it had learned from its mistakes.

In its 2020 findings, the New York regulator said some of the payments Epstein made from his Deutsche Bank accounts were suspicious. For example, it said, Epstein sent $2.65 million in more than 120 wire transfers to beneficiaries of an entity called the Butterfly Trust. Some payments went to people who had been named as co-conspirators in his past cases involving sexual abuse or to women with Eastern European surnames for hotel expenses, tuition and rent, the regulator said.

“Knowing that they would earn millions of dollars from facilitating Epstein’s sex trafficking, and from its relationship with Epstein, Deutsche Bank chose profit over following the law,” the suit states.

Deutsche Bank ended ties with Epstein after the Miami Herald’s reporting in 2018 that detailed accusations by women who said that, as girls, they were victims of Epstein. But a Deutsche Bank official wrote reference letters to other banks, according to the suit.

Epstein left an estate worth at least $577 million that has been the subject of litigation. Last year, Ms. Maxwell was convicted by a federal jury for her role in helping recruit and groom teenage girls for him.

>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrades & Downgrades - 24th November 2022 V2(+)

>>> Up
* LEG Immobilien Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley
* PSP Swiss Raised to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley
* Virgin Money UK Raised to Buy at UBS; PT 205 pence
* Workspace Raised to Overweight at Barclays; PT 520 pence (+)

>>> Down
* Aedifica Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 80 euros
* ASML Cut to Hold at KBC Securities (+)
* DiscoverIE Cut to Hold at Numis; PT 900 pence (+)
* Great Portland Cut to Underweight at Barclays; PT 520 pence
* ICADE Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 40 euros
* LondonMetric Cut to Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley; PT 185 pence
* Manutan Cut to Neutral at Oddo BHF; PT 105 euros (+)
* Rovi Cut to Neutral at JB Capital Markets; PT 52 euros (+)
* Sparebank 68 Grader Nord Cut to Hold at Norne Securities

>>> Initiation
* Edisun Power Europe Rated New Buy at Mirabaud Securities
* Prosafe Reinstated Buy at ABG; PT 250 kroner
* Rainbow Rare Earths Rated New Buy at Berenberg; PT 33 pence
* Unidata Rated New Buy at Alantra Equities; PT 63.50 euros

>>> Call
* Dr Martens 1H Miss Shows Bootmaker Not Immune to Weak Macro: MS (+)
* MS Shuffles Real Estate Ratings With Two Upgrades, Three Cuts
* Intertek Organic Growth Soft on Products Unit Weakness, CS Says
* Jet2 Shares to Outperform After Strong 1H Results: Jefferies

FT : FTX’s bankruptcy hearing: the highlights

FTX’s bankruptcy hearing: the highlights
If you weren’t one of the 600-plus people watching on Zoom, we have you covered


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FTX’s lawyers agreed this week that its Bermuda bankruptcy will be heard in Delaware, not New York where it was originally filed. In other words, the turf war has ended in a truce.

Unfortunately, Delaware is also a notorious haven for corporate secrecy. One counterargument to the criticism of the Blue Hen State is that the US Department of Justice can reach directly within its borders, unlike, say, the Bahamas, or the Cayman Islands.

But for now, the court has sided with FTX’s representatives over the DoJ’s US Trustee and will keep the crypto exchange’s biggest creditors anonymous. Non-disclosure will last at least until a December 16 evidentiary hearing — and the list could remain redacted permanently. The arguments FTX made for anonymity deserve a separate post, but for now we will simply raise an eyebrow.

So what did we learn, besides the transfer of the NY/Bahamas case to Delaware? First, we learned that Delaware isn’t necessarily prepared for hundreds of Zoom participants, many of whom are otherwise extremely online. Officials relied on the honour system to keep callers from turning their cameras and microphones on, which meant the court’s single 10-minute recess came with a couple of guys asking for their money back and at least one unmuting to broadcast music. When asked to pipe down, a participant asked who the “boomer” was.

We also learned that the new CEO and team consider some former employees to be “compromised.” It isn’t yet clear what they mean by this, but we get a sense that we’ll find out!

The team (and its new board) also want to sell some FTX-controlled businesses ASAP. “We believe, your honor, that we will be before you quite quickly with an attempt to sell certain of the businesses that we understand, at least today, are self-sufficient and robust and have generated interest from others in the marketplace,” said James Bromley, a Sullivan & Cromwell attorney representing FTX’s new management.

We also learned that Sam Bankman-Fried has consulted not only with his father, a Stanford Law School professor, but also his father’s colleague David Mills, who “teaches classes in Criminal Law and White-Collar Crime.”

Other facts came out about FTX’s customer base, cash reserves, and employee count, with some handy charts to boot:

1) Customer “locations”

Excluding traditional tax havens, the UK is tied with China for the highest share of FTX clients. The Cayman Islands and Virgin Islands have greater proportions of customers, but given their tax-haven status, who knows where the ultimate owners of those accounts spend their time.

Congrats London, you beat out Singapore!

2) Employees

We also learned there are “roughly 260” employees left at the company, as Sullivan & Cromwell’s James Bromley told the judge.

Below you can find FTX’s employee locations as of the end of October. The “debtor companies” chart, on the left, includes the headcount of the companies that filed for Chapter 11. The pie chart on the right includes those companies, plus the subsidiaries in Australia and the Bahamas.

3) Investments

We also have a selection of companies backed by FTX. Sequoia is on the list, as our FT colleagues have reported, along with a bunch of artificial-intelligence research firms, IEX, and . . . developer of the video game Storybook Brawl? (For an investor list, please do check out our tombstoNFT.)
4) Liquidity

Last, we have a nice little summary of the cash that the new management team has been able to track down so far:

Alameda has the biggest cash reserve by far, because fiat is required to make markets for degens YOLOing into dogecoin. Note that these sums do not reflect any costs besides those that are absolutely necessary for the company to keep operating for the next five weeks. Everything else has been put on pause by the bankruptcy.

Find the full exhibits attached

>>> Stoxx 600 Pre-Market Indications

  • LEG Immobilien (LEG TH) +2.9%
    • MS Shuffles Real Estate Ratings With Two Upgrades, Three Cuts
  • Hexagon (HXG TH) +1.9%
  • Siemens Energy (ENR TH) +0.9%
  • VW (VOW3 TH) +0.8%
  • HelloFresh (HFG TH) +0.6%
  • Nibe (NJB TH) +0.6%
  • Encavis (ECV TH) +0.5%
  • Eni (ENI TH) -0.5%
    • Oil Sinks as EU Price-Cap Talks Drag and Demand Challenges Mount
  • Evotec SE (EVT TH) -0.6%
  • Qiagen (QIA TH) -0.6%
  • TUI (TUI1 TH) -0.7%
  • Kering (PPX TH) -0.8%
    • Gucci Creative Director Alessandro Michele Leaves Label (1)
  • Shell (R6C0 TH) -0.8%
    • Oil Sinks as EU Price-Cap Talks Drag and Demand Challenges Mount
  • Aroundtown (AT1 TH) -0.8%
    • MS Shuffles Real Estate Ratings With Two Upgrades, Three Cuts
  • Equinor (DNQ TH) -0.9%
    • Oil Sinks as EU Price-Cap Talks Drag and Demand Challenges Mount
  • Bakkafrost (6BF TH) -1.5%
  • Nel (D7G TH) -1.5%

>>> TradeGate Pre-Market Indications

DAX:
  • Siemens Energy (ENR TH) +1.3%
  • VW (VOW3 TH) +0.8%
  • Zalando (ZAL TH) +0.8%
  • Bayer (BAYN TH) +0.6%
  • Mercedes (MBG TH) +0.5%
    • China Poised for European EV Expansion in 2023, Jato Says
  • SAP (SAP TH) -0.4%
MDAX:
  • HelloFresh (HFG TH) +1.3%
  • Evotec SE (EVT TH) +1.2%
  • Thyssenkrupp (TKA TH) +0.7%
  • Aroundtown (AT1 TH) +0.7%
    • MS Shuffles Real Estate Ratings With Two Upgrades, Three Cuts
  • TeamViewer (TMV TH) +0.7%
  • Lufthansa (LHA TH) -0.3%
    • Italy Rail Operator FS Could Join Lufthansa in ITA Bid: Corriere
  • Telefonica Deutschland (O2D TH) -0.5%
SDAX:
  • Deutz (DEZ TH) +1.1%
  • Medios (ILM1 TH) +0.5%
  • SMA Solar (S92 TH) +0.5%
  • Hamborner REIT (HABA TH) -0.9%
  • Uniper (UN01 TH) -10%
    • Uniper Seeks €25 Billion More Capital as Losses Mount

>>> What to look at today - 24th of November 2022

A gauge of global stocks headed for the highest level in more than two months on Thursday and the dollar fell after Federal Reserve meeting minutes showed support for tapering interest-rate increases. Japanese, South Korean and Hong Kong equities benchmarks advanced while mainland Chinese gauges fluctuated. US futures climbed after the S&P 500 closed at a two-month high Wednesday before the Thanksgiving holiday.  The moves in China came as investors weighed the impact of record Covid-19 cases against signs of loosening monetary conditions. Official comments broadcast Wednesday indicated the People’s Bank of China would allow banks to reduce capital reserves to stimulate growth. China’s Covid-zero policy has had “a significant effect on consumption” while the property crisis is “affecting investment in the sector and affecting property developers,” Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director for the International Monetary Fund, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. A gauge of the greenback slid further Thursday to levels not seen since August on a closing price basis. There will be no trading in Treasuries due to the US holiday. Minutes from the Fed gathering earlier this month indicated several officials backed the need to moderate the pace of rate hikes, even as some underscored the need for a higher terminal rate. This adds weight to expectations the central bank will raise rates by 50 basis points next month, ending a run of jumbo 75 basis point increases. Data Wednesday also showed US business activity contracted and unemployment applications rose as the economy cools. Oil fell as the European Union considered a higher-than-expected price cap on Russian crude and signs of a global slowdown increased. Gold rose for a third day on the Fed minutes. The precious metal has been hurt by the US central bank’s aggressive monetary-tightening policy to curb inflation, which has pushed up bond yields and the dollar and in turn sent bullion tumbling about 16% from its March peak.  US After Hours Quiet after hours ahead of Thanksgiving holiday; RKLB +4.8% higher on NASA announcement

Nikkei +1.10% Hang Seng +0.29% CSI -0.44% Shanghai -0.25% Shenzen +0.00%

Eur$ 1.0438 CNH 7.1415 CNY 7.1377 JPY 138.76 GBP 1.2111 CHF 0.9390 RUB 60.5717 TRY 18.6140 WTI$ 77.73 -0.28% Gold 1,755 +0.31% BTC 16,675 +1.24% ETH 1,202 .+5.85%

S&P +0.14% Nasdaq +0.17% EuroStoxx -0.03% FTSE -0.10% Dax +0.02% SMI

Macro :
- *GOLDMAN SACHS TO SELL OVER EU1B ITALY LEASING PORTFOLIO: MF
- France Mulls Using Public Funds to Spur 10 Unicorn IPOs by 2025
- Russia Knocks Out the Power Keeping Millions of Ukrainians Warm
- German Bond Curve Inverts Most in 30 Years in Growth Warning
- Tiger Global Slashes Value of Private Assets by Almost a Quarter
- VIX Drops to Lowest Level Since August After Fed Meeting Minutes

Keep an eye on :
- ADE NO : Adevinta 3Q Ebitda Misses Estimates
- AIR FP : France Commits €3.25B to €17B European Space Agency Investment
- AIR FP : Uzbekistan Airways to Buy 12 А320neo, А321neo Jets
- IAG LN : Oneworld Alliance Seeking to Bring China Southern Into Its Ranks
- CAI AV : CA Immo 9M Net Income EU267.5M Vs. EU190.8M Y/y
- DTE GY : European Telecoms Report Widening 3Q Divergence in Resilience
- EDF FP : France’s $10 Billion Offer to Buy Out EDF Due to Open Nov. 24
- EKTAB SS : Elekta 2Q Operating Profit Misses Estimates
- ELIOR FP : Elior Is Said to Discuss Potential Tieup With Biggest Investor
- HAL NA : HAL 3Q Net Asset Value per Share EU141.46
- IIA AV : Immofinanz Boosts FY FFO I Forecast
- KER FP : Gucci Confirms Creative Director Michele Is Stepping Down
- LHA GY : Italy Rail Operator FS Could Join Lufthansa in ITA Bid: Corriere
- MC FP : Sephora Names Guillaume Motte as New CEO: WWD
- NESN SW : Nestle to Invest 7 Billion Riyals In Saudi Arabia Over 10 Years
- ORA FP : Orange Pacts With 27 Banks for Refinancing of €6B Facility
- RCO FP : Remy Cointreau Expects Return to Normal in Second Half
- SOI FP : SOITEC 1H Current Operating Income EU110M Vs. EU75M Y/y