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Venezuelan bonds rose Tuesday as investors bet that the government could reduce the chances of a near-term default by raising additional capital through private deals like the recent one with a unit ofGoldman Sachs Group Inc. GS -1.96%

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Goldman Sachs’s asset-management division last week paid about $865 million for $2.8 billion of bonds issued by state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA and owned by the central bank.

The Venezuelan government hasn’t made an international public bond offering in several years since capital markets are essentially closed to it as its economy has shrunk 27% in four years, its oil production has declined rapidly and investors have become increasingly worried about the growing likelihood of default.

But some analysts suggest the government may be able to raise new money through private transactions, like the one with Goldman, that rely on selling existing bonds through the secondary market.

Local state-run and private banks hold about $15.5 billion in debt, according to investment bank Torino Capital. The government has the power to order the banks to turn over their securities to the central bank in exchange for bolivar-denominated notes, a currency considered all but worthless.

Venezuelan officials could then raise about $5 billion to $6 billion by selling these bonds at a deep discount. This fundraising would be enough to service the country’s debt payments for an additional eight months, according to Torino.

“A lot of people have had their eyes on Venezuelan assets, including these bonds,” said Francisco Rodriguez, chief economist at Torino Capital. “You find a government that has a need for money, and you find ways to make a deal.”

Goldman wasn’t the only firm to do a private deal recently that helped the government raise funds. The Venezuelan central bank in April also struck a deal with Fintech Advisory Inc. The government received a loan of around $300 million from the New York-based hedge fund and pledged Venezuelan bonds as collateral, said a person familiar with the deal.

Fintech didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In Tuesday’s trading, bonds issued by Petróleos de Venezuela, commonly known by its acronym PdVSA, and due in 2022 rose 0.8% to 61.35 cents on the dollar, moving higher despite a drop in crude-oil prices. Other Venezuelan bonds also rallied, traders said.

Firms transacting with Venezuela recently have been able to command very favorable terms. Goldman paid about 31 cents on the dollar for PdVSA bonds issued in 2014 that mature in 2022, according to people familiar with the matter. That represents a 31% discount to other Venezuelan securities that mature in 2022, these people said, and implies an annual yield of more than 40%.

But Goldman’s move was met with criticism inside and outside Venezuela. Detractors said Goldman is providing cash to and helping prop up a failed government that has been starving its people. Venezuela’s international reserves rose by $749 million last Wednesday and Thursday following the transaction, according to official government figures.

The Venezuela government information ministry didn’t respond to a phone call seeking comment.

A small group of protesters gathered outside Goldman’s Manhattan headquarters on Tuesday holding signs referring to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that said “Goldman Sachs Supports Maduro’s Dictatorship.”

Goldman, in a statement Monday, said it bought the securities, which are held in funds and accounts it manages on behalf of clients, from a broker and didn’t interact with the Venezuelan government. “We recognize that the situation is complex and evolving and that Venezuela is in crisis,” the bank said. “We agree that life there has to get better, and we made the investment in part because we believe it will.”

The bonds, held by Venezuela’s central bank, weren’t released to the public after lack of investor interest in bonds of this struggling country.

“Goldman is giving new money to a dictatorial regime that’s killing its own people,” said Russ Dallen, a managing partner at investment bank Caracas Capital Markets in Venezuela.

The U.S. State Department is trying to persuade countries across the Americas to pressure President Nicolás Maduro into reinstating democratic norms after he tried to dissolve Congress.

U.S. officials also said Venezuela’s government may not be able to depend much longer on deals like the one with Goldman Sachs.

“It may get them through the day,” a senior U.S. official said Tuesday, “but the longer-term consequences seem to be quite damaging for the institutions as well as for the society.”

Other investors are also distancing themselves from investing in the country because of the association it would carry with the Venezuelan government. “We don’t want to make a quick buck and take on reputational risk,” said Michel Del Buono, managing director at Makena Capital Management, which makes investments on behalf of endowments and has forgone Venezuelan debt.

Steven Cohen’s Hedge-Fund Comeback Shoots for a Record Target: $20 Billion

Billionaire trader is restricted from managing others’ money until 2018

Steven A. Cohen was once at risk of being banned for life from the hedge-fund industry. Now he is planning a comeback with ambitions to raise more money than he ever has before.

Mr. Cohen’s goal is to amass $20 billion once he gets back in the business as early as next year, he and his representatives have said in conversations with bankers, colleagues and potential investors. That would likely include his family fortune of $11 billion.

The new target would blow past the $16 billion managed at peak by Mr. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors LP, one of the most profitable hedge-fund firms in the U.S. before it pleaded guilty to criminal insider trading charges in 2013.

The comeback plan is a defiant and even improbable show of resilience for a Wall Street veteran long under a legal cloud. Some potential investors told The Wall Street Journal they would contribute to the new operation.

“This is extraordinary evidence of a new weakness in standards,” said John Coffee, a securities-law expert and professor at Columbia Law School. “I’m afraid he’ll find a lot of clients. He was very successful.”

Government investigators convicted eight of SAC’s onetime employees on criminal charges related to insider trading, though two of the convictions were later overturned. Mr. Cohen was investigated extensively, but a criminal probe closed without any charges.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sought to have him barred for life from the securities industry for failing to supervise employees involved in insider trading. A civil settlement he reached with regulators instead restricted him from serving as the supervisor of a registered fund until 2018. He didn’t admit or deny wrongdoing as part of the civil settlement.

Mr. Cohen, 60 years old, has been overseeing his family money at Point72 Asset Management LP, a 1,000-employee operation in SAC’s former Stamford, Conn., offices where Mr. Cohen’s desk sits at the center of the trading floor. While Point72 has made money since becoming a family office, last year its overall investment performance was roughly flat, Mr. Cohen’s second-worst ever annual showing, people familiar with the matter said.

The largest U.S. hedge-fund launch in history was $11 billion, according to industry publisher Absolute Return.

To reach the target of $20 billion in a new fund, according to these people, Mr. Cohen is prepared to do what was once unimaginable: lower his once legendary high fees. SAC at one time commanded some of the highest fees in the hedge-fund world—as steep as a 3% annual management fee and 50% cut of all trading profits.

But his new firm is likely to launch with a so-called pass-through arrangement, people familiar with the plans said. Under the relatively uncommon structure, recurring expenses are paid directly by investors instead of the fund firm.

The performance fee, or cut of trading profits, is likely to fluctuate. The highest charges would be levied only when the firm has a banner stretch of investment gains, some of the people said. SAC, along with most of its peers, charged the same percentage fees on any positive investment performance.

Discussions around the new operation are ongoing and may change.

Mr. Cohen, who grew up in Great Neck, N.Y., the son of a dress manufacturer and piano teacher, started SAC Capital with $25 million in 1992. He earned a reputation for taking advantage of short-term stock moves, success that made the firm long a target of law-enforcement authorities.

Mr. Cohen is forging ahead during a time of distinct challenges for the hedge-fund industry, which in 2016 suffered its highest amount of withdrawals since the last financial crisis. Investors pulled $70.1 billion, according to industry research firm HFR, the most since 2009.

Over the last year, Mr. Cohen and his representatives have taken steps to prepare for his possible return to the hedge-fund world.

In 2016 Mr. Cohen formed a nearby separate company, Stamford Harbor Capital, run by one of his longtime deputies. Because Mr. Cohen has no direct management role in Stamford Harbor, according to filings, the firm is permitted to make preparations to start a hedge fund that could later be rolled into Point72. The terms of Mr. Cohen’s SEC settlement don’t allow him to supervise any funds that manage outside money until next year.

Stamford Harbor in recent months has been recruiting investor relations staff to liaise with outside investors, as Mr. Cohen’s advisers weigh whether to use the firm to start a fund, people close to him say.

In January, Mr. Cohen appeared at a New York gala to benefit Lincoln Center before a crowd of other industry executives and hedge-fund investors. On the dais Ilana Weinstein, a headhunter and friend of Mr. Cohen, teased him about a lack of interests outside of investing.

“What artistic talents exist?” she asked. He responded, “I’m pretty sure nothing.”

Then earlier this month Mr. Cohen, a pair of Point72 internal recruiters and his chief of staff flew on his private jet to Las Vegas for a series of appearances at the hedge-fund conference SALT, according to people familiar with the matter.

He hosted a private dinner for staff and industry executives and attended closed-door events with speakers and sponsors including onetime rivals like hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb, people familiar with the matter said. He also attracted a small crowd of onlookers on the Bellagio casino floor while gambling at a craps table, these people said.

The last time he attended the confab was 2011, two years before

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Brokers and shopping center executives looked for a silver lining at the conference.

The only certainly in the turmoil is that the strong are likely to get stronger, while the weak will wither and disappear.

“I think you have a bifurcation in the market between dominant malls and weaker assets,” Robert Perlmutter, senior vice president and chief operating officer of Macerich, told WWD at the recent International Council of Shopping Centers’ ReCon conference in Las Vegas. “The negative headwinds and store closures will ultimately be healthy for department and specialty stores because they don’t need so much space, to sell their products” given the shopping patterns of consumers these days.

What will happen to the space department stores leave behind? “Some of it will be converted to non-department store uses such as fitness or grocery,” Perlmutter said. “Some will be divided into three or four stores, and some will be torn down for residential.”

Fashion Outlets of Philadelphia, a partnership between Macerich and PREIT — the largest cohesive retail development project in the downtown area, spanning three city blocks — is taking an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach with high-end off-price brands, luxury labels and full price, two dozen restaurants and a food hall. “There’s a resurgence of investment in commercial, residential and hotel, and big food scene,” Perlmutter said.

Robert Taubman, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Taubman Centers Inc., said what many were thinking but wouldn’t admit: That an omnichannel platform’s benefits have been elusive. “There’s been a race with regard to technology spending [by retailers and shopping centers]. A lot of stores wish they had spent less money on technology, and we wish we had, too.”

Yet Taubman wasn’t ready to concede anything to online retailers. “Brick-and-mortar is so much more profitable than e-commerce,” he said. “Amazon doesn’t make any money on free delivery.”

Apparel returns are extremely expensive, Taubman said, noting that the rate for brick-and-mortar is 8 percent, while online it’s 27 percent. “[Online] is not the most efficient way to do new customer acquisition, which is very important in retail.”

Nor would Taubman give anything up to other shopping center owners. “There were over 2,000 malls in 1992 when we went public,” he continued. “Today there’s a little over 1,000, and there will be less over the next decade. There was a lot of oversupply built. Now, three studies suggest that 200 to 300 assets represent 75 to 80 percent of the entire sector. I could easily see the top 300 malls 10 years from now representing 90 percent.”

Smaller independent centers took REITs’ challenges as an opportunity to stab the wounded malls. “These guys are like captains on the Titanic arranging deck chairs. Whatever they try to do won’t work,” said Rick Caruso, founder and ceo of Caruso Affiliated, which owns The Grove and Americana at Brand in California. “REITS are much more driven by financial instruments. Where we’ll say no to 20 tenants, they’re filling slots to appease Wall Street.

Pointing to public mall owners and developers, he said, “We’re very much into guest experience and understand who the customer is and how she wants products delivered. We’ll have more opportunities to build more properties. There is no collaboration in the shopping center industry and mostly a lot of hatred.”

Caruso ticked off some of the projects in the company’s pipeline, including Palisades Village in Pacific Palisades, bowing next summer with more than 50 retailers and restaurants; Miramar Beach Resort in Santa Barbara; buying street retail in Brentwood, Calif., and capturing the property surrounding the Americana and The Grove for future expansion.

“We set aside $1 billion in development funds,” said Caruso, who accused the public companies of exploiting tenants with high rents. “We set a rent where a retailer can be profitable. We have to drive guests. If the retailers do well, we participate. So, we do have high rents of $5,000 per square foot at the Grove. We’d take 9 percent.”

Stephen Lebovitz, president and ceo of CBL Holdings, said he had set a low bar for expectations given the industry’s state. “There’s consolidation of apparel,” he said, noting that L Brands’ La Senza, a Canadian retailer, is opening more stores in the U.S., and Francesca’s is expanding, while Altar’d State, which calls itself “a modern Christian retail store,” born in Knoxville, is also growing.

“Restaurants and theater are melding, we’re doing more entertainment, including live music,” he said. “The development of Hampton Place in Chattanooga reduced a 150,000-square-foot Sears unit to 15,000 square feet. We’re talking to a climbing facility, family entertainment for older adults with bowling, a sports bar, hotel, restaurant and office space.”

“This year, we met with 83 tenants versus 70 last year,” said Joseph Coradino, chairman and ceo of PREIT. “Only about 15 were apparel. There will really be a shrink in apparel. We’re adding health and fitness and will be 25 to north of 30 percent in those categories. Our industry is in the early stages of understanding and absorbing this. This sounds like a blood sport, but you’ll have survival of the fittest. The stores that remain will sell things that people actually want to buy.”

Rent Reality-Check

Street retail is having its own day of reckoning. A Real Estate Board of New York report titled “Manhattan Retail Combats Down Current of National Market Slowdown in Spring 2017,” reported ground-floor asking rents in 14 of the 17 top Manhattan corridors declined, including Madison Avenue between 57th and 72nd Streets, where a glut of available space “was difficult to absorb and drove rents down 12 percent year-over-year to $1,446 per square foot.”

The study was the topic of debate at ReCon, with some brokers saying it was justified and others dismissing it as flawed.

According to the study, “it’s been coming and now that it’s come, there will be a more stable environment,” said Joanne Podell, vice chairman of Cushman & Wakefield, who was involved in writing the report. “There’s a challenge today in that there aren’t as many retailers who are actively opening stores. It’s a new paradigm,” she said, adding that digital brands such as Bonobos, Trunk Club and Warby Parker indicated interest in expanding since rents came down.

But e-commerce brands haven’t been expanding at nearly the pace of Eighties brands such as The Limited and Express, whose fleets exceeded 800 stores nationally. Meanwhile, L Brands’ cash cow, Victoria’s Secret, is struggling against greater competition, including from online, and women’s changing tastes in lingerie.

“Rents are off 10 to 30 percent in critical New York submarkets and anyone who thinks that’s not a reality is kidding themselves,” said Acadia Realty Trust executive vice president Christopher Conlon, adding that the REIT has hired Michael Oliverio, the most senior real estate executive at Ralph Lauren Corp. “Ralph Lauren sells high street, e-commerce and is global. They’re pruning some things. Closing the Fifth Avenue [Polo flagship] was a shock. If Ralph Lauren is closing, what does that mean for everyone else? The store never did business. It was a big writedown.

“I’m happy we didn’t buy that much,” he said, referring to overheated acquisition prices. “SoHo and Madison Avenue aren’t going away. We expect to be investing and taking advantage of the distress. It’s time for tough choices. Retailers are rationalizing their fleets. Store closings will continue this year and next.”

“Midrange retail in Beverly Hills has slowed down by 20 percent,” said Mahboubi. “Luxury is still strong. There are vacancies and a few leases being signed. Luxury brands haven’t been expanding as they normally did, but they will. In Manhattan, it’s down by about 25 percent.”

Retailers that wanted to make deals with landlords in the city nine months ago at a lower rent were sent packing. Now landlords are welcoming them with open arms and discounts in the form of hard cash or other inducements such as build-out allowances, exit clauses, etc. Nor do tenants have to sign 15- to 20-year leases any longer. Landlords are lucky if they can get them to commit to five-year terms.

“Lululemon said it wanted a 30 percent reduction in rent on all lease renewals,” one broker said. “Sheer sales are diminishing. It’s a symbiotic relationship — landlords and tenants.”

“I came to ReCon asking myself if this show is even relevant to the new world order,” said Michael Phillips, principal and president of Jamestown. “Is it part of the disruption of the system or is it people digging in their heels? Retail hasn’t worked well for the last 15 years.”

“Retail has to be nurtured and expanded gradually,” said Houman Mahboubi, senior vice president of retail at JLL in Los Angeles. “The biggest problem is private equity firms, which want to quadruple their profits. How is it that Lululemon expanding? It depends on who’s running the company or trying to make a quick buck like Wall Street and hedge funds usually do.”

New Concepts or Twists On Old Ones

“We’re all in search of these unique concepts,” said Taubman.

Conlon of Acadia Realty Trust cited as promising retailers including Untuck It, an online maker of shirts that the wearer doesn’t tuck in, and new formats for TJ Maxx, including a two-level 45,000-square-foot concept that opened in Chicago and said the brand is looking for space in San Francisco.

Forever 21’s new Riley Rose, an experiential space focused on accessories, beauty and home, is targeting Millennial consumers.

Everafter, apparel for eight- to 14-year-olds from Hani Kaledjian, a co-founder of Intermix, opened a location in Greenwich, Conn., and has two more in the works, at 1121 Madison Avenue in Manhattan and Wheatley Plaza in Greenvale, N.Y. The high-end multibrand boutique features styles for little princesses to prepubescent boys, including personalized jean jackets.

Reviv, which provides IV nutrient therapies and booster shots with names such as the Royal Flush and Vitaglow, operates locations in Beverly Hills, Miami, Las Vegas, Manhattan and other places where people want to party harder and look younger. “I’ve had this obsession with them,” said Karen Bellantoni, a broker at RKF, also citing the Wellery, the new wellness concept at Saks Fifth Avenue’s flagship that will be open through October.

Phillips was keen on brands that offered Jamestown something new. “Allen Edmonds changed the whole store design and branding for us,” he said. “It’s a legacy brand and they went back to their roots. They de-commoditized the product with personalization and customization. We just signed Oliver Peoples, which created a really cool design specially for our site.”

JLL’s Mahboubi, said Nicolas Pakzad, son of the famed men’s retailer, Bijan, plans to open a store in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street and expand to three additional cities. The uber-luxe by-appointment business specializes in diamond-encrusted watches and jewelry, fragrance and apparel.

Millennials Confound Retailers and Malls

Shopping centers haven’t captured the imagination of the Millennial generation, which is said to value experience over products.

“Baby Boomers are underserved,” said Deborah Weinswig, managing director of Fung Global Retail and Technnology. “Plus-size consumers are underserved. You’re missing out on this consumer. The Millennial wear-to-work segment is underserved. We’ve seen a lot of ath-leisure in that space.”

“Millennials have different values. They’re still spending money, but they want to go places, not buy commodity products,” said Phillips. “Malls haven’t changed. Some department stores haven’t yet figured out how to refresh the experience.”

Taubman said his company is aiming to appeal to Millennials by opening “twice the number of restaurants at Beverly Center, which is being reset and reimagined, and opening up streets and buildings” in other cases.

Triple Threat: Beauty, Food and Fitness

“Blue Mercury is on fire,” Conlon said. “Ulta Beauty is one of the belles of the ball.”

“Beauty is the category that keeps giving,” agreed Todd Caruso, senior managing director leading CBRE’s retail owner and agency practice in the Americas. “That’s affected department stores.”

“We’ll continue to expand luxury and food,” Macerich’s Perlmutter said. “Food is definitely growing, not only in numbers, but quality. But we don’t look at our business and say, ‘Food is going to save our business.’ The names are changing. Ten years ago, Lululemon wasn’t a mainstay in malls and the concept of DryBar didn’t exist, nor did selling cars in shopping centers.”

“Apparel retailers were noticeable in their absence. And one has to ask whether the proliferation of myriad food concepts is a long-term solution or a placebo,” said Stephen Stephanou, principal of Crown Retail Services. “For the regional shopping center, one continues to observe the Darwinian principal in action with expansions or significant remodels of strong, powerful centers, which then cannibalize their weaker brethren.”

The meaning of “authenticity” was debated at the conference, with developers insisting their projects will fit in with the scale and aesthetics of existing neighborhoods. The creators of First Street Napa, a 320,000-square-foot mixed-use project in Napa Valley, Calif., were firm in their belief that the project’s 40 stores and restaurants, 183-room boutique hotel and office space will ooze charm along the roadway, which was recently converted to two-lane traffic and touted the eclectic blend of the three blocks of new, renovated and historic facades, along the stretch of roadway that’s home to the Oxbow Public Market and the Culinary Institute of America’s new downtown Napa Valley campus.

First Street Napa’s size makes it more nimble than some REITs, which are encumbered by their size. Caesars Palace, where many of the REITs hold meetings during ReCon and which is usually a scrum of activity, was more subdued this time. “At UTC in San Diego, we added a residential tower and we’re looking at doing that at other properties,” said a Westfield spokesman. “Westfield World Trade Center does really well. Obviously the space has constant challenges. It’s still under construction. We’ll activate 75,000 square feet of retail space at tower three. There’s another smaller footprint, an old Path train area near the entrance, where we’ll build retail.”

Westfield Valley Fair in San Jose, Calif., has begun a $1.1 billion renovation that will include a 150,000-square foot, three-level Bloomingdale’s and ShowPlace Icon cinema. According to Westfield, Valley Fair, which will grow to 2.2 million square feet in 2019, is one of the most productive malls in the U.S., with inline specialty store sales of $1,200 a square foot.

Westfield is venturing deeper into entertainment territory with a deal with Scott Sanders Productions that will turn the shopping center developer into a content provider. The mall giant has already shown an interest in Virtual Reality, testing it at the World Trade Center, and the spokesman asked anyone who entered its ballroom to don a headset. Meanwhile, Westfield has been giving space at its centers over to sponsors such as Ford Motor Co., PepsiCo and Chase Bank.

Triple Five announced prior to ReCon that its long-delayed American Dream project in northern New Jersey received $1.67 billion in private construction financing that could trigger the $1 billion bond issuance needed to complete phase one of the 2.9 million-square-foot center. The entertainment-packed megamall would be dwarfed by a 6 million-square-foot monster Triple Five is proposing for the Miami area.

At an ICSC luncheon at the Westgate, which connects to the Las Vegas Convention Center via a long hallway, the organization’s president Tom McGee said, “Amazon is an incredibly disruptive company” and insisted that the e-commerce giant is predominantly taking market share from other online retailers. “We’re in a p.r. challenge. Every day, there seems to be an avalanche of stories that are not consistent with your business. It’s not the facts as we’d like them to be.”

More than 8,000 stores will be shuttered this year, more than during the Great Recession, with brands including BCBG Max Azria, Yogasmoga, Macy’s Inc., J.C. Penney Co. Inc., Payless, Bebe and Sears Holdings stores closing or downsizing. Austerity was apparent at the event. Several firms skipped long-standing annual events, leaving the bacchanals of the Eighties and Nineties at venues such as Pure Bar at Caesars Palace, the grand ballroom at the Four Seasons, Tao at the Venetian and the Wynn Las Vegas pool and cabanas, a memory. Other events seemed low-key to some. “There were no retailers,” said one broker.