TheChek News Flow

Japanese trading companies, global pension funds and buyout firms are also in the fray to buy Singapore-based Equis, the sources said, at a time when many Asian governments are expanding the use of renewable power and renewable energy costs are decreasing.

First-round bids for Equis are due this week, said the sources.

Equis owns a portfolio of 97 projects comprising solar, wind and hydro generation assets spread across countries including Japan, India, Philippines and Australia.

It is part of Equis Funds Group, which has raised $2.7 billion in equity from global investors for infrastructure investments, mostly in renewables, over the past five years. Equis Funds was set up by a group of senior executives, many of whom worked at Australian investment bank Macquarie Group.

Bidders are forming groups so that they can divide the portfolio as some buyers are keen to only buy certain assets, the sources said.

Other potential suitors include Japanese financial conglomerate Orix Corp, which is teaming up with Dutch pension fund APG, and a joint bid from I Squared Capital – an infrastructure investor - and a Japanese trading company, the sources said.

Shell, SoftBank, Orix and Equis declined to comment, while I Squared and APG did not immediately respond to Reuters queries. The sources declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Acquisition of software to spot rogue trading is the first deal by chief Adena Friedman

Nasdaq has agreed to buy a London-based software company that uses artificial intelligence to sniff out rogue traders, as the US group seeks to acquire cutting edge technology under its new chief executive.

The cash purchase of Sybenetix for an undisclosed sum is the first since Adena Friedman took over as Nasdaq chief in January, providing a glimpse at her likely focus.

“Getting into more advanced technologies . . . is a key part of a our strategy,” Ms Friedman told the Financial Times. “The regtech [regulation technology] part of our market technology business will continue to expand.”

Nasdaq has diversified beyond its traditional exchanges business as the profitability of equity trading has shrunk over the past decade with regulatory change and heightened competition.

Sybenetix was founded eight years ago by Taras Chaban, former fund manager at the hedge fund group GLG, and Wendy Jephson, a behavioural scientist, and is backed by venture capital firms Summer Capital, Collinio Capital and Yarrow Capital.

Its software learns the behaviour patterns of individual traders at an asset manager or hedge fund and can raise the alarm for their employer when they do something out of character — something designed to make it more precise in flagging up suspicious trading and avoid a lot of costly false alarms.

For example, a trader who has avoided securities for a long time after suffering a loss on them suddenly dives back into a losing position. This triggers an alarm in the monitoring system and sends an alert to the fund’s compliance team.

The takeover of Sybenetix comes amid a wave of interest in using technology, such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence and biometrics, to help the financial services industry meet a tsunami of regulation unleashed since the 2008 banking crisis.

In Europe, the incoming Mifid II rules for investment services are set to force banks and fund managers to collect much more data on trading for regulators than is currently required, creating an opportunity for companies such as Sybenetix.

Mr Chaban and Ms Jephson said in a statement: “Being part of Nasdaq will provide enormous growth opportunities for Sybenetix’s surveillance technologies and will also accelerate new product development for the buyside industry.”

The group will sit in Nasdaq’s market technology business which contributed 12 per cent of the group’s net revenue in the first quarter and grew by 18 per cent, the highest growth rate of the company’s business lines.

Its other divisions are: market services, which includes the trading business and accounted for 37 per cent of revenue in the quarter; corporate services including listings which was 27 per cent; and information services such as selling data which was 24 per cent.

“We do see market technology as being a high grower for us over time,” Ms Friedman said. “Assuming I am right, it would become a bigger contributor.”

Nasdaq, along with its partner Digital Reasoning, has developed its own “Smarts” product which it sells to regulators and exchanges to help them monitor for misconduct such as insider trading or market manipulation. It plans to integrate Sybenetix’s algorithms into that business, to accelerate its expansion into the asset management industry.

Lauren will stage his September runway show and private dinner in Bedford, New York.

Ralph Lauren is capable of doing big things. In the lead-up to a New York Fashion Week season that has been fraught with controversial defections of major talent, Lauren, a true blue American designer if there ever was one, is staying put (relatively) and stepping it up. He will stage his September runway show Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. at Ralph’s Garage in Bedford, N.Y., with a private formal dinner to follow the show.

The venue is Lauren’s private garage housing his collection of rare automobiles, which will be the backdrop for the show. It’s one of the most valuable car collections in the world, featuring models such as a 1938 Bugatti Atlantic, a 1929 Bentley Blower, an orange 1996 McLaren F1 LM and multiple vintage red Ferraris. In 2011, 17 cars from Lauren’s collection were shown in an exhibition at the Musée Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

To accent the masculine/feminine nature of automobile design, for the first time Lauren will also show the Ralph Lauren Purple Label men’s wear alongside the women’s collection. The show will continue the see-now-buy-now strategy that the company started a year prior — all looks from the show will be available immediately to consumers globally.

A preview of the evening’s invitation states that the dress code is formal black-and-white attire. Transportation will be provided but details are to be determined, and will require seamless logistics to transport the attendees — a mix of editors, press and clients — to the venue, which is around 40 miles outside of Manhattan.

The garage is not part of the property on which Lauren’s private home is located in Bedford. This is the first time the garage is being opened for an event, let alone a fashion show. It’s also the first major event staged on the watch of new chief executive officer, Patrice Louvet. The show is not related to the brand’s upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations, which aren’t set to commence until next year.

E-commerce Sites for Pre-owned Luxury Products Heat Up the Internet

As demand for second-hand luxury goods rises, so does the number of outlets selling them.

ThredUp, which claims to be the world’s biggest thrift shop, today is expanding into luxury with the launch of a beta site called Luxe. In entering the sector, ThredUp is taking on The Real Real, as well as other existing players such as Tradesy and the Vestiaire Collective as well as new entrants such as StockX.

While brick-and-mortar stores are closing at an unprecedented rate, online e-commerce sites are growing 20 times faster than the broader retail market and five times faster than off-pricers as they disrupt the landscape. The apparel resale sector is expected to grow 13 percent to $33 billion in 2021, from $18 billion in 2016, according to a ThredUp/Fung Global Technology study.

To jump-start its luxury inventory, ThredUp cofounder and chief executive officer James Reinhart is offering 100 percent commission to consignors for items sold through Labor Day, when the rate is scheduled to drop to 80 percent. “I’m thinking about how do we extend that even longer,” Reinhart told WWD in an exclusive interview.

ThredUp resells more than 30,000 items a day from a list of more than 35,000 brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Gap, J. Crew, Lululemon, Disney and Lands End at discounts of up to 90 percent off retail prices. Reinhart said the site is on track to sell 10 million items this year.

“All the research we’ve done indicates that luxury items make up only 15 percent of the typical woman’s closet,” Reinhart said. “People who sell on platforms like The Real Real, still have a closet full of stuff that they didn’t consign. They also have Vince, Theory and J. Crew. In the world today, you have to send some stuff to this place and some to that place. We’ll pay 80 percent for items from 650 brands in luxury, more than anybody else is paying.”

Consignors can request a Luxe Clean Out kit from ThredUp. “We have an awesome bulletproof nylon bag,” Reinhart said. “You fill it with both high and low items. We’ll do the sorting, and put Luxe brands through special processing.”

Reinhart made it clear that he’s gunning after The Real Real, which is considered to be the leader in the online luxury resale space. “ThredUp launch to take on The Real Real,” said a missive from the company last week. By Monday, its confidence had grown to encompass the entire sector with, “ThredUp launch to take on luxury resale.”

Compared to ThredUp’s 100 percent commission, The RealReal, which reported $400 million in gross merchandise value last year, double its 2015 GMV, has a tiered commission scale: 55 percent on sales of $1,500 or less; 60 percent on sales of $1,501 to $9,999; 70 percent, $10,000 or more, and 80 percent for fine watches with an original resale price of $2,500 or more, and all Hermès Birkin handbags.

“We’re not worried,” said Julie Wainwright, founder and ceo of The Real Real, which recently signed a lease for its first brick-and-mortar store in SoHo in Manhattan. “They have a different model and a different infrastructure than The Real Real,” Wainwright said. “There’s room for both. It’s very hard for a business focused at the low end of the market to position themselves at the high end with all the support to deliver on that proposition.”

Reselling luxury items online isn’t so easy, said The Real Real’s Wainwright, who opened luxury consignment and valuation offices staffed by experts in six cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Washington, D.C.

Wainwright bristles at the idea of using technology to authenticate products. “The technology works off pictures,” she said. “There are things you can authenticate with pictures, like color, so it’s fine for some products, but not others. We’ve looked at doing technology as a first pass. It’s image recognition and has limited usefulness.”

E-commerce sites in a rush to get into the luxury resale business can buy products from re-sellers, which is risky. “You can buy products from vendors and they could be fakes,” said Wainwright, noting that about 5 percent of The Real Real’s offer consists of products from vendors. “There’s a lot of vendor product out there, but you get fakes, and you get some good products and don’t have a lot of pricing flexibility.”

Still, plenty of companies are entering the sector. EBay is reportedly planning to begin supporting luxury resale and is said to be working with Entropy, which developed technology to authenticate products. Even Saks Off 5th has begun selling used Hermès handbags on its web site.

Meanwhile, The Vestiaire Collective, a France-based online reselling platform for luxury goods, in January secured $62 million in funding, which it plans to dedicate to international expansion, particularly in the U.S. and Asia. Vestiaire has six million customers in 48 countries and consignors in 17 nations. The company lists 600,000 items for sale, and 4,000 new products are added daily to the site. France is Vestiaire Collective’s main market, representing 35 percent of total sales. Sébastien Fabre, founder and ceo of Vestiaire Collective, said the company’s annual sales growth has averaged 70 percent.

StockX, “the world’s first stock market for things,” featuring a live bid/ask marketplace, recently stepped out of its limited-edition sneaker comfort zone and into the luxury resale space with Hermès Birkin and Kelly handbags and watches such as Rolex and Patek Philippe.

Joshua Luber, cofounder of StockX, said “bags depreciate some amount, about 20 percent to 50 percent for Chanel and Louis Vuitton. We sell Yeezy’s for a 500 percent premium, a pair that was originally $200, sold for $1,000. In the bag world, we are trying to solve a problem. The Real Real’s products are guaranteed authentic, but you can’t tell the world, ‘I’m looking for this bag,'” Luber said, adding that StockX gives buyers a forum for addressing sellers with their needs. “If I give a bag to The Real Real, they take 30 percent. With others, like eBay and Tradesy, I don’t really want to run a store.

“There are 20 to 30 other categories we might do next, including street wear. In six weeks, StockX already has 6,000 sku’s of designer handbags,” Luber said, noting that StockX has benefited from the deep pockets of cofounder Don Gilbert, who is chairman and founder of Quicken Loans and the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and celebrity investors such as Mark Wahlberg.

With the new players comes increased competition for talent with online luxury consignment experience. The watch team at ThredUp is being led by Reginald Black, former senior Vice President and international head of retail watches at Christie’s, while Cynthia Houlton, former director or business development at The RealReal, is overseeing handbags.

Asked about the available stock of pre-owned luxury products, Reinhart said, “We’re hoping people send Birkin, Louis Vuitton and Chanel handbags. For apparel, we know they may not be thinking about us in that way. But that’s [luxury] been the vision all along.”

PARIS (Reuters) - Vivendi's pay TV unit Canal+ has proposed to Telecom Italia the creation of a joint venture to acquire audiovisual rights and to produce films and TV series, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Monday.

France's Vivendi, led by billionaire Vincent Bollore and the biggest shareholder in Telecom Italia, aims to create an international media group with a strong focus on southern Europe.

"This joint venture should allow Telecom Italia to quickly develop unique content for Italy," the source said.

Nikkei -0.04% Hang Seng -0.03% CSI -0.39% Shanghai -0.12% Shenzen -0.36%

Eur$ 1.1664 CNH 6.7449 CNY 6.7482 JPY 110.89 GBP 1.3039 CHF 0.9460 RUB 59.8641 WTI$ 46.62%

S&P -0.05% EuroStoxx +0.29% FTSE +0.49% Dax +0.27% SMI +0.13%

Macro :

- EU Raises Pressure on FB, Google, Twitter Over User Terms: Rtrs

- Argentina’s Biggest ETF Sees Largest Outflow Since Fund Began

Keep an eye on :

- ADP FP : ADP’s Pascal Says Sale of Hub Safe Could Be Completed in Sept.

- AIR FP : Future of Airbus A380 Superjumbo Said to Hinge on Emirates Order

- ANTO LN : Antofagasta Reaches Accord With Zaldivar Mine Workers in Chile

- AIXA GY : Aixtron Second Quarter Ebit Loss Wider Than Estimates, Aixtron Is Not for Sale, Interim CEO Tells Handelsblatt

- AKZA NA : Akzo Nobel Second Quarter Ebit EU461 Mln Akzo Nobel Plans Shareholders’ Meeting on Sept. 8 in Amsterdam

- ALCLS FP : Cellectis Gets Patent for Crispr Use in T-Cells

- 1COV GY : Covestro Confirms Outlook as Second-Quarter Profit Rises

- DSY FP : Dassault Systemes Cuts FY Non-IFRS EPS Target, Citing Currency

- EDEN FP : Edenred “Confident” for 2H; Sees 2017 Ebit EU420M-EU445M

- ERICB SS : Ericsson Cut to Junk by S&P; Outlook Stable

- EI FP : Essilor, Luxottica Jointly Asked for Antitrust Merger Clearance

- GSK LN : Glaxo May Unveil ‘Overdue’ Steps to Strengthen Pharma R&D: Citi

- GOOGL US : France’s Darmanin Says Open to A Deal With Google: Les Echos

- KNO GY : Knorr-Bremse Reiterates Commitment to Haldex Transaction

- LIST SW : Lindt & Spruengli FY Rev. Growth to Slow Slightly on N.America

- LOGN SW : Logitech Has Good 1Q, Guidance Still Conservative: Baader-Helvea

- LUX IM : Luxottica Confirms 2017 Guidance; 1H Net Sales EU4.92b

- NHY NO : Norsk Hydro 2Q Underlying Ebitda Rises Less Than Estimates

- RAND NA : Randstad Second Quarter Underlying Ebita EU262 Mln, CFO Says Urgency to Reform French Labor Mkt Is Massive

- RIO LN : SFO Opens Rio Tinto Probe Over Conduct of Business in Guinea

- RKH LN : Rockhopper Exploration New Sector Perform at RBC

- SPM IM : Saipem Second Quarter Adjusted Net Misses Lowest Estimate

- SGO FP : Saint-Gobain Buys TekBond in Brazil; No Amount Given

- TEF SM : Telefonica Aims to Boost TV Clients in Latin America: Expansion

- TKO FP : Tikehau Raises $817 Million in Rights Issue to Fund Growth

- TIT IM : Telecom Italia CEO Cattaneo to Leave With EU25M Payment

- UBER IPO : SoftBank Is Said to Seek Multi-Billion Dollar Stake in Uber: WSJ

- UL NA : Unibail-Rodamco CFO Sees Paris Office-Rent Discounts Tightening

- VIV FP : Vivendi to Create Premium Channel in Italy, Les Echos Says

- WHA NA : Wereldhave Sees Full Year EPS EU3.40 To EU3.45

- XPO US : XPO CEO Sees $8 Billion Potential Deal in Return to M&A Hunt