Blackstone has made a big bet acquiring meetings and events technology provider Cvent for $4.6 billion. A fully-owned unit of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority will become a significant minority investor along with Blackstone in the transaction.
Tiger Global
Tiger Global marked down the value of its investments in private companies by about 33% across its venture-capital funds in 2022. The markdowns erased $23 billion in value from Tiger’s giant holdings of startups around the globe.
Signature Bank
Word that landlords were withdrawing cash spread rapidly in the close-knit community of New York’s real-estate families, prompting others to follow suit. Regulators closed Signature Bank on Sunday in one of the biggest bank failures in U.S. history. Signature built its business in part through lending to New York developers and owners of multifamily buildings, office towers, retail property and other commercial real estate.
Retail Real Estate
Retail was the only real-estate sector where sales grew last year compared with 2021. Sales activity, which totaled $85.7 billion in 2022, was mostly front-loaded in the first half of the year, with transactions declining as interest rates rose.
Leveraged Buyout
Apollo Global Management Inc. has agreed to acquire chemical company Univar Solutions Inc. for $8.1 billion including debt, in one of the biggest recent leveraged buyouts.
Renter Trend
The number of renter households making $150,000 or more a year rose by 87% between 2016 and 2021 to more than 3 million.
Rate Hike
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday officials were keeping their options open over how much to raise interest rates this month after investors interpreted his comments Tuesday to suggest a half-percentage-point increase was likely.
Customer Problems
Some 74% of the 1,000 consumers surveyed said they had experienced a product or service problem in the past year, up from 66% in 2020 and only 32% in 1976. The percentage of consumers who have taken action to settle a score against a company through measures such as pestering or public shaming in person or online, has tripled to 9% from 3% in 2020.
Short Term Muni
A-rated cities and school districts are paying 3.16% for a one-year loan issued March 3, compared with 0.21% at the beginning of 2022
Branded Residences
The U.S. had 38,900 branded residences across more than 200 developments at the end of last year, a 40% increase from 2010. Buyers pay an average 30% premium to purchase hotel-branded residences with about 80% of branded residences affiliated, and usually co-located with, a hotel.