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☆ Lucasfilm shutters its Singapore studio after nearly 2 decades in the country amid Disney's plan to save $5.5 billion this year
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( Kai Xiang Teo | Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Lucasfilm is shutting down its Singapore operations after nearly 20 years in the country. The shuttering comes amid Disney's push to save $5.5 billion in costs this year. Lucasfilm Singapore was the company's first international studio, located in its Star Wars-inspired "Sandcrawler" office. Lucasfilm is shutting down its Singapore operations after nearly two decades, the city-state's government said Tuesday. "Over the next several months, ILM will be consolidating its global footprint and winding down its Singapore studio due to economic factors affecting the industry," Disney said in a statement to the AFP.

Persons: Disney, Bob Iger, George Lucas Organizations: Lucasfilm, Lucasfilm Singapore, Morning, ILM, Force, AFP, Infocomm Media Development Authority, Disney, Channel News Asia, Cartoon Network, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Blackstone Group Locations: Singapore

☆ Illegal child labor on the rise with nationwide violations found, Labor Department says
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-30 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

JBS has said that they do not tolerate child labor and that they would stop using PSSI at every location where the child labor violations were alleged to have occurred. In addition, the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department is currently pursuing more than 700 open child labor cases. Officials at the Labor Department emphasized in a press call this week that the increase in child labor violation findings is partially due to “significantly enhanced child labor enforcement efforts” in recent months. The fight to weaken child labor lawsThe Department of Labor on Thursday said its interagency task force on child labor has begun cross-training with other governmental agencies like Health and Human Services and the Office of Refugee Resettlement to identify and report possible incidences of child labor exploitation. But at the same time that violations of child labor protections are rising, states across the country are introducing legislation to weaken child labor laws.

Persons: it’s, ”, Labor Julie Su, Jordan Barab, Obama, Barab, JBS, Cargill, ” PSSI, PSSI, “, That’s, DOL, Karen Garnett, Tiffanie Boyd, there’s, David Weil, Weil, Jaehoon, Jay, Chang, ” McDonald’s, they’re, Biden, Sen, Rich Draheim, “ That’s Organizations: New, New York CNN, Labor Department, Packers Sanitation Services Inc, Cargill, JBS, Department of Labor, Labor, Occupational Safety, Health Administration, PSSI, Blackstone Group, CNN, McDonald’s, of, “ Employers, Heller School for Social Policy, Management, Brandeis University, Hyundai, Kia, Health, Human Services, Refugee Resettlement, US Department of Agriculture, Economic, Institute, Minnesota, Republican Locations: New York, Nebraska, JBS USA, Minnesota, Louisiana, Texas, Louisville , Kentucky, McDonald’s, United States, DOL, Alabama, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Missouri , Ohio, South Dakota, Arkansas, Iowa, America

☆ Exclusive: Blackstone's Horizon head Scott Bommer to leave company
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-17 | by ( Svea Herbst-Bayliss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Bommer, a former hedge fund manager, joined Blackstone in 2021 as a senior managing director when the company was overhauling its $81 billion Blackstone Alternative Asset Management hedge fund unit known as BAAM. The Blackstone Horizon platform will now be run by an investment committee led by BAAM Global Head Joe Dowling, the sources said. Before coming to Blackstone, Bommer ran hedge fund SAB Capital for 17 years investing in stocks, debt and mortgages. Bommer was the first big hire brought in by Dowling, after he joined Blackstone in early 2021 to help overhaul the hedge fund unit. Last year Tiger Global Management lost 56% while Whale Rock Capital Management ended with a 43% loss, Reuters reported previously.

Persons: Blackstone, Scott Bommer, Joe Dowling, Bommer, Dowling, Svea Herbst, Bayliss, Diane Craft, David Gregorio Our Organizations: YORK, Blackstone, Management, BAAM Global, SAB Capital, Tiger Global Management, Whale Rock Capital Management, Reuters, Svea, Thomson

☆ The Moral Crisis of America’s Doctors
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Eyal Press | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

Dean’s essay caught my eye, too, because I spent much of the previous few years reporting on moral injury, interviewing workers in menial occupations whose jobs were ethically compromising. There are, of course, plenty of doctors who like what they do and feel no need to speak out. But more and more doctors are coming to believe that the pandemic merely worsened the strain on a health care system that was already failing because it prioritizes profits over patient care. They are noticing how the emphasis on the bottom line routinely puts them in moral binds, and young doctors in particular are contemplating how to resist. They’re the instruments of betrayal.”Not long ago, I spoke to an emergency physician, whom I’ll call A., about her experience.

Persons: roustabouts, I’d, “, Will, Ming Lin, Lin, Robert McNamara, ” Dean, Jonathan Shay, ”, couldn’t, she’d Organizations: St, Joseph Medical Center, Blackstone Group, Temple University Locations: Bellingham, Wash, Philadelphia, United States

☆ Here's how much it pays to control the fortunes of America's wealthiest people — and why it's escalating
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Michelle Abrego | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Demand for access to private equity opportunities has contributed to big pay packages. While family offices have propped up across the globe, they are an American invention. J.P. Morgan is credited for launching the House of Morgan in the 1830s to manage family offices, and J.D. That means US family offices are often more mature and institutionalized than in other regions. Family offices need to be creative and competitive with the bonuses and other compensation perks of the private equity industry.

Persons: didn't, Morgan, Rockefeller, Jeff Bazos, Elon Musk, Jared Brichall Organizations: KPMG, Agreus, Waltons, Elon Locations: CIOs, Asia, Singapore, Europe, Middle East, Australia

☆ Stephen Schwarzman says Blackstone has dumped office investments. Another corner of the firm kept lending billions.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-30 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Blackstone Mortgage Trust's $8.2 billion portfolio of office loans leaves it exposed to the sector. The Blackstone-managed firm issued about $3.3 billion of US office loans since the pandemic began. Even as clouds began to gather, Blackstone Mortgage Trust continued to lend to the office sector. In addition to managing the mortgage trust, Blackstone is among its largest shareholders. A Washington office complex shows how far values have fallenThere are ongoing issues, however, in Blackstone Mortgage Trust's portfolio.

☆ A 26-year-old developer whose firm owns 40 acres of land in Richmond explains why he's betting on the capital of Virginia — and why he would personally invest in real estate there
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( Kathleen Elkins | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Meanwhile, "the DC market was considerably faster-moving, especially the condominium market." So I developed single-family homes on those myself and it turned out pretty successful." Thakker bought land in Richmond in 2020 and developed three, single-family homes, including the one pictured, on the lot. Across their three major projects in Richmond, Dorado has acquired 40 acres of land, which is equivalent to over 40 football fields. The interior of one of the single-family homes Thakker built and sold in Richmond.

☆ Sam Zell, 81, Tycoon Whose Big Newspaper Venture Went Bust, Dies
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Robert D. Mcfadden | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Nevertheless, in 2007, the Blackstone Group bought Mr. Zell’s firm — then known as Equity Office Properties Trust — for $39 billion. A Deal Comes With DebtLike many newspapers, the Tribune properties were hemorrhaging advertising revenues and readers to the internet. The company had been on the auction block for months when Mr. Zell — insisting that his interests were purely economic, not editorial — offered $34 a share in a complex transaction to take the company private under an employee stock-ownership plan. In that highly leveraged buyout, the debt was to be paid off almost entirely by cash generated by the company’s continuing operations. The new corporation was exempt from federal income taxes, and the debt was reduced by the sale of Newsday, the Cubs and Wrigley Field.

☆ This Tool Pushes the Limits of Outdoor Cooking
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Steven Raichlen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In the early 2000s, Roger Dahle attended an outdoor pancake breakfast cooked on a commercial flattop at his local Rotary Club, a civic organization, in Utah. “I love cooking breakfast outdoors, but you couldn’t buy an outdoor griddle for home use,” Mr. Dahle said. He experimented with a variety of cooking surfaces, settling on the same material used in woks: carbon steel. He mounted it on a cart like a gas grill, with propane to fire the burners, and named it Blackstone, after a favorite local restaurant. “People originally bought the Blackstone to cook breakfast,” Mr. Dahle said.

☆ LSEG affirms 2023 targets, seeks shareholder nod for buyback
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

April 27 (Reuters) - London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG.L) on Thursday reaffirmed financial targets for the year before it seeks shareholder approval for a previously announced buyback of shares from the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) consortium. LSEG bought data and analytics company Refinitiv for $27 billion from the consortium in January 2021. LSEG said that first-quarter income from data and analytics rose 14.6% year on year to 1.3 billion pounds. Total income excluding recoveries rose 14.6% to 2 billion pounds, 1% ahead of consensus according to Jefferies research. "In data & analytics, we saw a further acceleration in annual subscription value (ASV) growth, reflecting the investments we have made in our services and stronger customer engagement," Schwimmer said.

☆ Only the big will crack the $1 trln LBO code
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Jonathan Guilford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

Lenders will only tiptoe back, meaning deals need the big checks and extra elbow grease in credit markets that favor the largest private equity firms. Private equity firms depend on borrowed money to reduce how much of their own they use in any single deal and to magnify returns as a percentage of their initial investment. Imagine a private equity firm acquires a company for $1 billion, then flips it five years later for $1.5 billion. Though the private equity industry is awash in so-called dry powder, fundraising is increasingly tilting to the largest fund managers. Buyout firms are apt to keep their plans more conservative to garner higher ratings – meaning, again, less leverage and more upfront cash.

☆ The UFC-WWE deal could be the boost the M&A market needs to get back into gear
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-04 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Citigroup, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America were among the banks advising on the deal. Earlier this year, some pegged the merger market getting back into the swing of things by mid-year. When you think about it, the WWE-UFC deal might be the best way to get the market going again. Fight for media rights: Both UFC and WWE have streaming deals with ESPN and NBCUniversal's Peacock, respectively. The crypto community is now pitching itself as playing a key role in AI development thanks to its decentralized nature.

☆ Big real estate landlords are finally starting to decarbonize, creating an $18 trillion market that this Blackstone portfolio company plans to profit from at every turn
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The Blackstone portfolio company Legence wants to be a one-stop shop for landlords. A Real Estate Board of New York study found that the total penalties could top $213 million. Its ICS became the strategic planner, its CMTA, which designed the first net-zero school in the United States, designed the upgrades, and its Gilbert Mechanical installed the new heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting hardware. How to do itIt may still be a challenge to coordinate decarbonization processes, which don't come naturally to large-scale real-estate operators, Boland said. Legence plans to grow the business's geographic scope and increase its depth in current markets, including Colorado and California, Sprau said.

Organizations: & $

☆ How universities became giant piggy banks for hedge-fund billionaires
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Catherine Liu | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

The move also marked the beginning of a new way to manage endowment funds. The arrangement has been a boon for the hedge-fund managers who received university endowment cash, but the benefits for the schools are trickier to parse. As Eaton put it in his book, universities directed funds to "wherever those allocations would generate the largest further investment returns." Eaton estimated in 2017 that tax breaks for university endowments cost federal coffers up to $19 billion a year. As the influence of billionaires and hedge-fund managers has grown, universities have moved further away from their ultimate goal: educating people.

☆ LSE Group targets Blackstone/Thomson Reuters stake buyback as raises outlook
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Huw Jones | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"In addition to our existing share buyback, we are today announcing plans to seek shareholder approval for a buyback directed towards the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters consortium's stake, which will benefit all shareholders," LSEG Chief Executive David Schwimmer said in a statement. The directed buyback is expected to be up to 750 million pounds by April 2024, LSEG said. LSEG said 300 million pounds of a separate, broader 750 million pound share buyback was carried out in 2022, with the remainder to be completed by July 2023. TARGETSLSEG's total income, including recoveries, of 7.743 billion pounds ($9.28 billion) in preliminary results for 2022, was just above analysts' consensus of 7.733 billion pounds, and up from 6.535 billion in 2021. LSEG also raised its guidance on revenue synergies from 225 million pounds by 2025 to 350-400 million pounds.

☆ LSE Group targets Blackstone/Thomson Reuters stake buyback as it raises outlook
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

"In addition to our existing share buyback, we are today announcing plans to seek shareholder approval for a buyback directed towards the Blackstone/Thomson Reuters consortium's stake, which will benefit all shareholders," LSEG Chief Executive David Schwimmer said in a statement. The directed buyback is expected to be up to 750 million pounds by April 2024, LSEG said. Schwimmer said the consortium owned just over 30% of LSEG shares when the Refinitiv deal was completed. Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters News, owned about $5.6 billion worth of LSEG shares as of Jan 31. LSEG said 300 million pounds of a separate, broader 750 million pound share buyback was carried out in 2022, with the remainder to be completed by July 2023.

☆ London Stock Exchange Group posts steady 2022 earnings, eyes buyback on Blackstone/TR stake
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LSEG reported total income, including recoveries, of 7.743 billion pounds ($9.28 billion) in preliminary results for 2022, just above analysts' consensus of 7.733 billion pounds. It reported a basic earnings per share of 141.8 pence and a dividend per share of 107 pence, both above analysts' forecasts. It said 300 million pounds of a separate 750 million pound share buyback was executed in 2022, with the remainder to be completed by July 2023. Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters News, owned about $5.6 billion worth of LSEG shares as of Jan 31. Schwimmer said the integration of Refinitiv and a strategic $2 billion partnership announced with Microsoft in December meant the group is "shifting from integration to transformation".

☆ Exclusive: Blackstone set to raise as much as $10 billion for tactical opportunities
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Chibuike Oguh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Blackstone Inc (BX.N), the world's largest private equity firm, is set to raise as much as $10 billion for its tactical opportunities strategy, which gives it versatility to invest in a range of assets, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Blackstone has amassed about $5 billion for the Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund IV, which was initially aiming to raise only $4 billion, Reuters previously reported. Blackstone has raised three previous tactical opportunities funds that cumulatively collected about $16.4 billion from investors since the first of them was first launched in 2012. The $6.7 billion Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund II and the Tactical Opportunities Fund III, which raised $4.09 billion, had generated a net internal rate of return of 14.1% and 11.7%, respectively, as of June last year, according to the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Blackstone's tactical opportunities division has about $34 billion in assets under management.

☆ Blackstone is stepping up evictions of hundreds of tenants across the US as a top exec vows 'cash-flow growth'
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Robert Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

It's back to business as usual: An exec said he had confidence in the firm's "cash-flow growth." About one-fifth of those holdings are tied up in an investment vehicle known as the Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust, or BREIT. Blackstone's real-estate portfolio is outperforming competitorsThe news of Blackstone's increasing eviction efforts came days after the company announced its fourth-quarter earnings. For example, what Blackstone calls its "opportunistic" real-estate portfolio appreciated by more than 7% during 2022 in one of the most challenging markets in recent memory. The firm's core real-estate portfolio gained more than 10% in value during 2022.

☆ Meet the Blackstone execs taking on new roles across real estate, private equity, and credit as the firm shakes up leadership
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Blackstone is making changes to its real estate, private equity, and credit leadership. Murphy will replace the longtime Blackstone executive Robert Ramsauer, who is leaving the firm after 19 years. It is also shuffling the leadership of its credit business and its real estate business that includes Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, known as BREIT, a high-profile fund for the firm that has recently faced redemption requests. The firm's leadership changes extend to its credit business. von Zuben's shift marks the second leadership change in the credit business, a particularly competitive area for private investment firms, that Blackstone has announced this year.

☆ Exclusive: Blackstone in talks with Bain to sell $480 million stake in top Indian REIT
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( M. Sriram | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

For Blackstone, it would mean a further selldown of its Embassy stake as it adjusts its portfolio. A spokesperson for Blackstone declined to comment while Bain Capital and Embassy did not respond to requests for comment. It owns and operates more than 43.2 million square feet of office parks and office buildings in cities such as Bengaluru and Mumbai and is also the largest office REIT in Asia by area. Blackstone currently owns 24% of the Embassy REIT, which has a market capitalisation of nearly $4 billion. That will be worth $400 million-$480 million based on Monday's closing price of the Embassy REIT on the stock exchange in Mumbai.

☆ Blackstone's real-estate strategy, laid out in a leaked transcript, sets the stage for tenant battles over evictions and rising rents
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The major real-estate investor Blackstone is playing defense as tenants scrutinize its policies. This week, tenants addressed Blackstone and an investor, UC Investments, to raise concerns. A transcript of an executive's remarks, obtained by Insider, sheds light on Blackstone's strategy. It is Blackstone, the New York-based investment giant that has become the world's largest real-estate investor. Vik Sawhney, Blackstone's chief administrative officer and global head of institutional client solutions, introduced Meghji, according to the transcript.

☆ Blackstone is predicting steady growth for its real-estate business, which could be bad news for its tenants
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Now imagine if your landlord wasn't just some mom-and-pop family that owned your building, but the world's largest private-equity firm. And while it's received a fair share of scrutiny over it, the performance of one of its real-estate funds has reignited criticism. But the Blackstone executives' comments indicated the firm could also be planning to raise rent and evict tenants, which includes those in affordable housing and student housing. Click here to read more about how Blackstone's real-estate strategy is setting the stage for an ugly battle with tenants. Top executives at Davos share their thoughts on how bad things might get in 2023.

☆ BlackRock edges closer to its Blackstone roots
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - BlackRock (BLK.N) is taking a page from the Blackstone (BX.N) family album. So-called illiquid alternatives were the only one of 13 BlackRock buckets to get fuller. Despite accounting for only about 1% of assets, fees from the unit represented 7.1% of revenue, up from 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2021. Rising income from beyond traditional stock and bond offerings, and particularly the harder-to-sell variety, may yet turn out to be more of a game-changer for BlackRock. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ 2023 is 'a generational buying opportunity' for real estate investing, says the CEO of a private equity firm. He shares which sectors offer the best returns and the REITs to buy.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( Laila Maidan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

For real estate, he recommends investing in REITs that are managed by major financial firms. The real estate market last year took a massive hit as interest rates increased at an unprecedented velocity due to the Federal Reserve's aggressive tightening. Ari Rastegar, the founder and CEO of Rastegar Property Company, says just looking at macroeconomic trends won't give investors the full picture. Real estate investment trusts, which are entities that own and operate income-producing properties, are on clearance, he said. He recommends looking at the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT) and the Starwood Real Estate Income Trust (SREIT).

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