About 22 million fewer people have jobs in the world’s advanced economies than before the Covid War began, according to the annual employment outlook report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose 38 member nations include most of the world’s richest countries. Jobs will remain below pre-crisis numbers until late 2022, the...
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U.S. PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM JOINS BRITISH BUYOUT FRENZY
KKR, the U.S. private equity firm and takeover specialist with $367 billion in assets, has established a five-person team in the U.K. to stalk takeover targets amid a record-breaking number of deals involving private equity companies in British businesses. The five Brits will work “proactively” to build relationships with potential targets “as a main job,”...
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TRUCKING GIANT EXPANDS INTO SMALLER MARKET
Phoenix-based Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings (KS), the largest U.S. full-load trucking company, has bought regional carrier AAA Cooper Transportation (AAA) for $1.3 billion in cash and $10 million in Knight-Swift shares, the Wall Street Journal reported. Knight-Swift also has assumed $40 million of AAA Cooper debt. AAA Cooper, which travels the U.S. Southeast and Midwest, will...
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JPMORGAN CHASE GROWS WITH 33 ACQUISITIONS THIS YEAR
JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. bank measured by assets, has bought 33 smaller companies this year as of 7 July, the Financial Times reported. The purchases include OpenInvest, a U.K. online asset manager that enables investors to customize portfolios based on social and environmental values, and a minority share of C6, a digital bank in...
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M&A DEALS TOP $500 BILLION IN 2021’S FIRST HALF
Since the beginning of this year, private equity firms have taken part in 6,298 deals worth $513 billion, not including the record $34 billion that Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, and Hellman & Friedman paid for a majority stake in medical products giant Medline Industries, the Financial Times reported. The number and value of the deals...
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TOP U.S. HOTELS ARE IN DEPRESSION OR RECESSION
Despite a recent boom in airline traffic and leisure travel, 21 of the U.S.’s 25 premiere hotels are doing recession- or depression-level business, according to a new report by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA). Most flagship hotels are located in pricey urban centers and have depended on business travelers, conventions, meetings, and special...
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CORPORATIONS CONTINUE TO SHED OFFICE SPACE
Major corporations continue downsizing their office space, many finding it worthwhile to take a one-time charge to sublease space or void leases altogether instead of holding onto useless square footage. “COVID changed everything and we became a remote-first company,” Michael Linford, CFO of loan company Affirm Holdings, told the Wall Street Journal. Ninety of the...
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NEW YORK OFFICE VACANCIES SET RECORD
Empty office space across Manhattan reached a record 18.7 percent as of 1 July, according to Newmark, a real estate services company, with downtown’s office towers standing 21 percent vacant. The vacancy rate is 15 percent higher than at the end of the 2020 and more than double that of February 2020, just before the...
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FED OFFICIAL WARNS OF “BOOM AND BUST CYCLE” IN HOUSING
“I’m not predicting we’ll necessarily have a bust” in the housing market, Eric Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, emphasized in an interview with the Financial Times published 29 June. “But it’s worth paying close attention to what’s happening in the housing market,” he added. Housing prices rose 23.6 percent in May,...
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COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION SANK AGAIN IN MAY
Spending on commercial construction slipped 1.1 percent during May, while spending on residential construction gained 0.2 percent, the Associated General Contractors of America (AGCA) reported. Construction for the power industry, which is the largest category in private nonresidential construction, retreated 1.6 percent for the month, the AGCA said; retail, warehouse, and farm building was off...