PRIVATE EQUITY GROUP BUYS McAFEE Cybersecurity company McAfee Corp. is being taken over by a consortium of investors led by private equity firms Advent International and Permira Advisors for $14 billion in one of this year’s largest leveraged buyouts. Other partners include the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Crosspoint Capital...
Tag: nov 16 2021
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ETHANOL PRICE UP 50 PERCENT THIS YEAR
The price of ethanol, the common corn-derived gasoline additive, has soared about 50 percent so far this year, The Wall Street Journal reported, as people return to the roads after bunkering at home for most of 2020. U.S. road traffic was 8 percent heavier in August than a year previous, according to the Federal Highway...
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RISING OIL PRICES WILL SHRINK DEMAND, OPEC SAYS
Fast-rising prices for oil likely will slow demand in some of the world’s largest economies in the next few months, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said in its 10 November monthly market report. World oil use will expand by 5.7 million barrels per day this year overall, 160,000 barrels less than OPEC predicted in...
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COST OF CAPITAL SOARS FOR OIL AND GAS PRODUCERS
A decade ago, the cost of capital—the interest paid to borrow the money to fund a capital project—for developing long-term oil and gas deposits and for launching a renewable energy project was about 8 percent to 10 percent for both, according to a Bloomberg analysis. Not now. The minimum return needed to financially justify a...
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FOREIGN INVESTORS POUR ANOTHER $120 BILLION INTO CHINESE MARKETS
Global investors have bought $120 billion in Chinese stocks and bonds so far in 2021, according to the Financial Times, as investors bet on higher returns than those available elsewhere, despite the quirky and unpredictable hand of China’s regulators and government policy. Foreign investment in China’s equity and fixed-income markets totaled about $1.1 trillion as...
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FOOD PRICES HIT DECADE HIGH
Droughts in the U.S. and South America have ruined coffee, corn, sugar, wheat, and other crops. China’s record purchases of grains have tightened global supplies and pushed up prices for livestock farmers and food processors. The cost of cooking oils has surged as the biofuel industry has claimed a larger share of world production. Globally,...
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REAL INTEREST RATES? HOW LOW CAN YOU GO?
In 2022, inflation will leave developed nations with their lowest real interest rates in perhaps a half-century, according to calculations by the Financial Times. Real interest rates, which many economists consider an economy’s most important price, subtract the rate of inflation from posted interest rates; the difference is the actual cost of borrowing. For example,...
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NEW YORK CITY BUSINESSES: BYE, BYE NYC
About a third of office businesses in New York City will reduce their needs for space in the next five years, according to a survey this month by the nonprofit Partnership for New York City. Most businesses expect workers to spend no more than three days a week in central offices, allowing companies to implement...
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MANHATTAN APARTMENT RENTS SKYROCKET
Median rent for an apartment in Manhattan rose 18 percent in October, year over year, reaching $3,382, the fastest yearly increase in a decade, according to a new monthly report from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Douglas Elliman. The new median rent is just below the $3,409 median in October 2019. Renters unable to...
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APARTMENT RENTS RISING, BIG’S BUYING THEM UP
Surprise, surprise! Actually, no surprise. We have been forecasting this for years now and the data continues to prove it. Rents for single-family homes rose 10.2 percent in the U.S. in September year over year, as Blackstone and other Bigs keep buying up homes and renting them out to the plantation workers of Slavelandia who...