Author: Nick Wilsion

Big tech companies like Meta and Google were among the first to announce during the pandemic that they would allow some employees to work from home permanently, but they have also been spending billions of dollars expanding their office spaces.Doubling down on offices may seem counterintuitive to the many tech workers who continue to work remotely. In January, 48 percent of people in computer and math fields and 35 percent of those in architecture or engineering said they had worked from home at some point because of the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.But companies, real-estate analysts and…

The countries’ friendship has “no limits,” they declared.Given that the leaders met just weeks before the invasion, it would be understandable to conclude that China should have had better knowledge of the Kremlin’s plans. But growing evidence suggests that the echo chamber of China’s foreign policy establishment might have misled not only the country’s internet users, but its own officials.My colleague Edward Wong reported that over a period of three months, senior U.S. officials held meetings with their Chinese counterparts and shared intelligence that detailed Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine. The Americans asked the Chinese officials to intervene with the…

Through intense fighting in the streets of Kyiv and other cities on Sunday, Ukraine’s defense forces and civilian volunteers resisted Russia’s invasion for a fourth day, battling for control of the capital as international pressure mounted on Moscow and support for Kyiv’s besieged government grew. Here are the latest developments:Russian forces bombarded Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, again on Saturday night, after a day of pitched fights around the city. Most of the more than 150,000 Russian troops who had massed around Ukraine are now fighting in the country, U.S. officials said. The Biden administration and key European allies announced on Saturday…

In 2020, nearly 29 percent of Brazilians older than 20 were obese, up from roughly 15 percent in 2000, one of the largest increases of any country over that period, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. Among the 10 most populous nations, only Mexico, the United States and Russia had higher obesity rates, ranging between 31 percent and 37 percent, according to the data.Dr. Claudia Cozer Kalil, an endocrinologist at one of Brazil’s top hospitals in São Paulo, attributed the soaring obesity in part to rising wages that led to poor diets…

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration and key allies announced on Saturday that they would remove some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, essentially barring them from international transactions. They also said they would impose new restrictions on Russia’s central bank to prevent it from using its large international reserves to undermine sanctions. The actions, agreed to by the European Commission, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States, represented a significant escalation in the effort to impose severe economic costs on Russia over President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. “Russia’s war represents an assault on…

International bondholder and DMSA file an allegation of criminal conduct against defaulted Evergrande Group For months, China Evergrande Group has been teetering on the brink of insolvency. On several occasions, China’s second-largest real estate developer, which has accumulated more than $300 billion in debt, has defaulted on interest payments on U.S. dollar bonds. Now an international creditor, in cooperation with DMSA Deutsche MarktScreening Agentur GmbH, has filed an allegation of criminal conduct  against the Evergrande holding company for committing insolvency fraud. Things are getting tighter for Evergande: A bondholder, Liechtenstein-based Financial Market Partners Capital (FMPC) Consulting AG, filed an allegation…

GoldenTree Asset Management (“GoldenTree”), a global asset management firm with nearly $47 billion in assets under management, announced today that Grady Frank will join as a Partner of GoldenTree and the Firm’s Head of Private Credit Origination. Mr. Frank brings to GoldenTree over 20 years of experience in leveraged finance and working with private equity sponsors. Most recently, he was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and a senior member of the Financial and Strategic Investors Group. GoldenTree has been investing in private credit opportunities for more than a decade, and in recent years has made over $3 billion in…

Liberty Strategic Capital, a private equity firm founded and led by former Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin, today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with BlueVoyant, LLC, an industry-leading cyber defense platform, to invest a total of $125 million in the company and lead BlueVoyant’s Series D financing round of $250 million. This is Liberty Strategic Capital’s fourth investment since its founding and its third investment in the cybersecurity industry, one of Liberty’s primary focus areas. BlueVoyant is a cybersecurity defense firm that operates four lines of business: managed security services, providing 24×7 cyber threat…

Teaching Kiwi kids that money doesn’t grow on trees SquareOne is a ground-breaking new FREE app that replicates an everyday account and allows Kiwi kids to spend and save money – with parental supervision. This purpose-built mobile app, with accompanying card, is a first in New Zealand and local founders Jovan Pavlicevic and Jamie Jermain have signed a seven-year partnership with Mastercard to bring it to life. The idea for SquareOne came about when Pavlicevic and Jermain (two Kiwi mates with finance backgrounds) wanted an easy and effective way to teach money confidence to their own kids. “Traditional banking focusses…

AC Bridge International Group (“AC Bridge” ）announced the release of “China and Australia Research Report on the Cultural Difference: Its Impact on the Operation of Chinese Enterprises and Countermeasures,” which sheds light on some of the key cultural differences between China and Australia. The Report analyses factors giving rise to contrasting values and practices of individuals and organisations in the two countries. In publishing the Report, AC Bridge aims to offer guidance to multinational companies eyeing business opportunities in China and Australia to help bridge misunderstandings arising from cultural and social differences and foster greater cross-cultural communications to facilitate international…