Author: Nick Wilsion

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…

In partnership with Global Power Generation (GPG), Deutsche Bank AG and Sinosure, Vestas has led another successful payment deferral facility, this time for the Crookwell 3 Wind Farm, valued at $72M AUD. Aimed to extend a project’s short-term payment terms over the construction period and beyond, Vestas’ Financial Solutions in Asia Pacific/China executed the Export Credit Agency (ECA) backed facility. This facility was structured and executed in a little over two months. Driving Vestas’ ambition to accelerate the deployment of renewables and continue to provide energy solutions throughout the value chain, this mechanism provides another path for financial backing and…

New products via FP Markets Metatrader 4 (MT4) & Metatrader 5 (MT5) Platform include Bonds, Commodities, Cryptocurrency CFDs and Equities. FP Markets has expanded its offering by adding new products on the FP Markets MT4 & MT5 Platforms. Recently awarded as the ‘Best FX Broker Australia’ 2021 for a second consecutive year, FP Markets continues to set the benchmark in CFDs and Forex and is pleased to announce it has added the following products to its wide-ranging product offering: Bonds: – US 10 YR T-Note Futures (US10YR) – UK Long Gilt Futures (GILT) Commodities: –  US Coffee (COFFEE) –  Silver …

Landis+Gyr Group AG (SIX: LAND), a leading provider of integrated energy management solutions, today announced that its subsidiary Landis+Gyr Pty Ltd. has entered into an agreement to sell its ownership in Intellihub Operations Pty Ltd (“Intellihub”) for over AUD 310 million in total. The buyer, global asset manager Brookfield will become a strategic investor in Intellihub Group, the smart utility infrastructure-as-a-service company, alongside Pacific Equity Partners’ (PEP) Secure Assets Fund. Brookfield will acquire Landis+Gyr’s 16.8% interest in the company, diluted from approximately 20% after the conversion of a previously issued convertible note during the course of the transaction. The transaction…

Businessman Walid Giahmi has welcomed the dismissal earlier this month of the Libyan Investment Authority’s most recent case against him. His Honour Judge Pelling QC sitting as a judge of the High Court, the said the LIA had “no real prospect of success” of showing that it had lodged its $200 million claim against Credit Suisse and four other defendants in a timely manner. [2021] EWHC 2684 (Comm). His Honour noted that the earlier $200 million case of LIA vs J.P. Morgan, in which Mr Giahmi was also a defendant, had also been dismissed on a similar basis by Mr…