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PITTSFORD, N.Y. — The Justice Department’s antitrust inquiry into men’s professional golf has included interviews with players, including the major tournament winners Phil Mickelson, Bryson DeChambeau and Sergio García, as the authorities examine whether the PGA Tour sought to manipulate the sport’s labor market. Although lawyers for the PGA Tour met with Justice Department officials in Washington this week, a timeline for the review’s completion — much less whether the government will try to force any changes in golf — is not clear. But the inquiry’s scope and persistence has deepened the turbulence in the sport, which has been grappling with the recent rise of LIV Golf, a league that used money from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund to lure top players away from the PGA Tour. Eight people with knowledge of the Justice Department’s inquiry described its breadth on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was pending. The department declined to comment.

of OpenAI, for three hours in what appeared to be a genuine effort to understand the growing importance, and the dangers, of artificial intelligence. The central question in the discussion was how Washington should regulate A.I. — and, perhaps surprisingly, Altman and lawmakers from both parties agreed on more than they disagreed. (Another unexpected nugget: Altman says he has no equity in the sensationally growing A.I. Altman proposed creating a new government body that issues licenses for developing large-scale A.I.

of OpenAI, Sam Altman has become one of the most prominent evangelists for the next generation of artificial intelligence offerings. ChatGPT, his company’s most notable product, has captured the public’s imagination like no tech product has in years, inspiring hopes and fears about its transformative powers. :Lawmakers in both parties have stressed the importance of reining in the rapidly growing technology, which can now generate realistic-sounding text and images and computer code. executives, including Mr. Altman, as the Biden administration said it supported legislative efforts to create new rules and government investment. Mr. Altman has been frank about the potential dangers of A.I.

It would be a striking show of leniency by a notoriously tough regulator. has been among the most aggressive in policing Big Tech, having fined companies like Google billions and forced changes in their business practices. And given the size and importance of the British, European and U.S. markets, simply ignoring any one of them is impossible. ; overturning the British regulator’s decision is expected to be especially tough. appeal could take months, and will review only whether the regulator’s decision followed proper procedures.)

☆ Vice, Decayed Digital Colossus, Files for Bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Benjamin Mullin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Vice Media filed for bankruptcy on Monday, punctuating a yearslong descent from a new-media darling to a cautionary tale of the problems facing the digital publishing industry. A group of Vice’s lenders, including Fortress Investment Group and Soros Fund Management, is in the leading position to acquire the company out of bankruptcy. The group has submitted a bid of $225 million, which would be covered by its existing loans to the company. It would also take over “significant liabilities” from Vice after any deal closes. The lenders have secured a $20 million loan to continue operating Vice and then, if a better bid does not emerge, the group that includes Fortress and Soros will acquire Vice.

The China Development Forum, a high-profile, government-hosted conference with a who’s who of international executives in attendance, was a moment for Beijing to renew its efforts to win over foreign businesses. Businesses from outside China “are not foreigners, but family,” said Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister. State media reported that the chief executives of Apple, Pfizer and Procter & Gamble were at the forum, held in late March. Mr. Wang pledged to remove obstacles preventing firms from investing more — 2023, he declared, was “Invest in China year.”The good will did not last long. The recent targeting of consulting and advisory firms with foreign ties through raids, detainments and arrests has reignited concerns about doing business in China.

Tucker Carlson: ‘We’re back.’Tucker Carlson says he’s back: The conservative firebrand announced on Twitter on Tuesday that he would start a new show on Elon Musk’s social media platform, two weeks after being fired from Fox News. But Mr. Musk’s less-than-enthusiastic response — and his rush to note that the social media platform hadn’t signed a deal with Mr. Carlson — suggests that even Twitter’s outspoken owner has reservations. Mr. Carlson’s new show would be a jab at his old bosses. Tuesday’s announcement was a sign that talks to end Mr. Carlson’s contract, worth $25 million a year until it ends in January 2025, may have broken down. Mr. Carlson has accused Fox executives of breaching his contract, according to Axios, while the network could seek an injunction to keep its onetime star from reviving his broadcast.

If a bank failure were to leave one of them without access to cash, widespread market instability would follow. “Why take that risk?” Summer Mersinger, a member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told DealBook. Clearinghouses exist to mitigate risk, taking collateral and settling transactions between buyers and sellers in all kinds of financial markets. This means a bank’s failure could easily lead to losses for a clearinghouse that “could potentially reverberate across the financial system,” the Chicago Fed concluded in a 2020 report. Even without a complete failure at a commercial bank, delays in access to cash could trigger liquidity issues across markets.

Don’t expect any major breakthroughs from the White House talks. Republicans want to reduce the country’s $31.4 trillion debt through spending cuts, while the White House views tax increases on companies and wealthy Americans as the best way to reduce the burden. In 2011, the S&P 500 fell when S&P Global, the ratings agency, downgraded the nation’s credit rating a few days after the Obama administration and Republicans reached a deal. This year, investors seem to be betting that lawmakers will reach a last-minute agreement, or at least temporarily lift the debt ceiling (Mr. McHenry didn’t rule this out). Despite a banking crisis and recession fears, the S&P 500 is up 8 percent in 2023.

☆ Bank Turmoil Is Paving the Way for Even Bigger ‘Shadow Banks’
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Whipsaw trading in shares of regional banks this week made it clear the fallout from three federal bank seizures was far from over. Some investors are betting against even seemingly healthy banks like PacWest, and regulators are gearing up to tack on new capital constraints for small and medium-size lenders. Large banks, though raking in cash, are facing their own constraints, saddled with loans written before interest rates started rising. That means businesses large and small may soon need to look elsewhere for loans. And a growing cohort of nonbanks, which don’t take deposits — including giant investment firms like Apollo Global Management, Ares Management and Blackstone — are chomping at the bit to step into the vacuum.

A pivotal jobs reportThe U.S. labor market appears to be slowing. That’s the big question hanging over today’s payroll numbers, which are due for release at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. Forecasters have repeatedly underestimated the strength of the post-pandemic labor market. Instead, employers have added roughly 4.5 million jobs since the central bank started increasing interest rates in March 2022. Another hot jobs number could still influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.

PacWest plunges as banking woes spreadThe regional banking sector is teetering again, with PacWest’s stock plummeting more than 35 percent in premarket trading, despite the Fed chair Jay Powell’s assessment that the worst is over. The Los Angeles-based lender confirmed that it was talking to potential investors following reports that it was exploring a sale. Investors may be feeling some déjà vu after witnessing two big bank failures, and billions in market value wiped out, since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March. It’s not just PacWest in free-fall. News of a potential PacWest sale, first reported by Bloomberg — and confirmed by DealBook — came just hours after Mr. Powell declared that the banking system was “sound and resilient.”

☆ PacWest Says It’s Exploring Options After Shares Plunge
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Deposits stood at $28 billion as of Tuesday, compared with roughly $29 billion that it said it held in late April. The bank released the updated details after its shares had plunged more than 50 percent in late trading on Wednesday. That drop came after Bloomberg News reported that the bank was working with advisers to explore options, including a sale. In premarket trading on Thursday, PacWest was down about 37 percent. Two other regional lenders, Western Alliance and Zions Bancorp, fell 19 percent and 10 percent.

Banks in focus as the Fed weighs its rates moveIf market predictions are correct, the Fed on Wednesday will raise borrowing costs by a quarter of a percentage point, even as growing turmoil in the stocks of regional banks threatens to choke off credit to businesses and consumers, pushing the economy into recession. The decision comes amid a brutal sell-off in regional banks’ shares, which has wiped billions off smaller lenders’ market valuations. Regulators had hoped that the sale of the embattled First Republic Bank to JPMorgan Chase this week would contain the panic. But short sellers, investors who profit off bets that stock prices will fall, have continued to take aim at regional lenders like PacWest, Western Alliance and Zions Bancorp. (Shares in PacWest and Western Alliance are down again in premarket trading.)

Wall Street is still on edgeAfter JPMorgan Chase secured a deal to buy the embattled First Republic, the banking giant’s chief, Jamie Dimon, asserted that the market turmoil set off by Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse was at an end. “This part of the crisis is over,” he told analysts on Monday. But Wall Street isn’t convinced yet, as investors worry that potential new regulations and constrained lending could endanger the fragile economy. They account for about 80 percent of commercial real estate mortgages and 45 percent of consumer lending, according to Goldman Sachs. That leaves them exposed to further drops in office property values and consumer spending — which could lead to a wider credit crunch.

Lawmakers and regulators have spent years erecting laws and rules meant to limit the power and size of the largest U.S. banks. But those efforts were cast aside in a frantic late-night effort by government officials to contain a banking crisis by seizing and selling First Republic Bank to the country’s biggest bank, JPMorgan Chase. The F.D.I.C.’s decision appears, for now, to have quelled nearly two months of simmering turmoil in the banking sector that followed the sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in early March. “This part of the crisis is over,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, told analysts on Monday in a conference call to discuss the acquisition. For Mr. Dimon, it was a reprise of his role in the 2008 financial crisis when JPMorgan acquired Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual at the behest of federal regulators.

☆ Vice Is Said to Be Headed for Bankruptcy
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Benjamin Mullin | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Vice, the brash digital-media disrupter that charmed giants like Disney and Fox into investing before a stunning crash-landing, is preparing to file for bankruptcy, according to two people with knowledge of its operations. The filing could come in the coming weeks, according to three people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to discuss the potential bankruptcy on the record. More than five companies have expressed interest in acquiring Vice, according to a person briefed on the discussions. The chances of that, however, are growing increasingly slim, said one of the people with knowledge of the potential bankruptcy. A bankruptcy filing would be a bleak coda to the tumultuous story of Vice, a new-media interloper that sought to supplant the media establishment before persuading it to invest hundreds of millions of dollars.

Why did other bidders, such as Bank of America, drop out of the auction? And will short-sellers who had taken aim at First Republic move on to shares of other regional lenders? Mr. Munger, 99, also said investors should expect far lower returns on their money than in the past. Francis added that he was doing “all that is humanly possible” to return children taken from Ukraine to Russia. Writers have pushed for economic concessions from studios that factor in changes wrought by the rise of streaming

Even so, the U.S. financial system has plenty of problems. The lender, founded in 1985, was the 14th-largest bank in the United States at the start of this year. Its shares lost nearly all of their value after a relentless series of steep declines that began as Silicon Valley Bank was teetering. reached out to other financial institutions, including JPMorgan Chase, PNC Financial Services and Bank of America, seeking bids for the First Republic. As part of the bidding process, banks were also asked what parts of the bank they wouldn’t accept.

☆ Regulators Prepare to Seize and Sell First Republic
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Lauren Hirsch | Maureen Farrell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Federal regulators were racing on Saturday to seize and sell the troubled First Republic Bank before financial markets open on Monday, according to four people with knowledge of the matter, in a bid to put an end to a banking crisis that began last month with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. has been talking with banks that include JPMorgan Chase and PNC Financial Services about a potential deal, two of the people said. Any buyer would most likely assume the deposits of First Republic, eliminating the need for a government guarantee of deposits in excess of $250,000 — the limit for deposit insurance. would need to decide if it would seize First Republic anyway and take ownership itself. In that case, federal officials could invoke a systemic risk exception to protect those bigger deposits, something they did after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March.

If there has been a lesson in the recent spate of bank failures, it is that deposit flight can now happen quickly. It no longer requires a teller to hand money to customers waiting in long lines around the block. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation explicitly insures the first $250,000 in any account, but nothing over that. to guarantee all deposits, but there may be a more strategic, surgical and free-market solution. Consider this: What if the banking system coalesced around a separate insurance program — we’ll call it F.D.I.C.+ — for deposits above $250,000?

First Republic barely hangs onFirst Republic is limping into the weekend, days after reporting disastrous first-quarter results. The bank is still working on a lifeline, with some involved saying it is touch and go whether the federal government will assist in some way, DealBook hears. The precariousness of First Republic is a reminder that the banking crisis that erupted last month isn’t over yet and that a disorderly collapse of the lender could unleash yet more chaos in financial markets. Shares in First Republic are up nearly 10 percent in premarket trading, after having jumped yesterday, presumably in hopes that a rescue will emerge. But the bank’s stock is still at about $6, a far cry from the $150 it traded at a year ago.

The risks of doing dealsA British regulator’s decision to reject Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover bid for Activision Blizzard stunned many who had expected the deal to go through. That’s especially because moves this month by the agency, the Competition and Markets Authority, suggested that the transaction might pass muster. Though it narrowed the scope of its Activision deal inquiry to just one issue, cloud gaming, the C.M.A. The tribunal that will weigh Microsoft’s appeal will examine mainly whether the regulator followed proper procedure. That institutional advantage positions the agency as one of the world’s most influential antitrust enforcers, alongside those in the United States and the European Union.

☆ When Megamergers Fall Apart
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Lazaro Gamio | Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Lazaro Gamio andBritish antitrust regulators on Wednesday blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion bid to buy the gaming giant Activision Blizzard, threatening to kill the deal entirely. The ruling raises a broader question: How often do deals fall apart after they’re signed? So far this year, just 33 out of 3,347 bids to buy an American company have been withdrawn. In 2022, nearly 12,000 such deals were announced, totaling $170 billion, and 142 were withdrawn. A transaction can fall apart for any number of reasons, but when regulators step in to stop a merger, it’s generally because they have concerns the deal would have a detrimental effect on consumers, or the country at large.

Microsoft’s video-game bet suffers a huge blowBritain’s mergers regulator on Wednesday blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover bid for Activision Blizzard, ruling that buying the maker of “Call of Duty” would give the tech giant too much control of the thriving market for cloud-based video games. Shares in Activision tumbled 12 percent in premarket trading, while Microsoft’s stock was up almost 8 percent after a solid earnings report. The deal risks “undermining the innovation” happening in cloud gaming, the C.M.A. said, by giving control of popular game titles to Microsoft, which owns the Xbox platform. (Cloud gaming isn’t reliant on users owning expensive consoles.)

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