One scoop to start: Private Equity-backed software group Visma has chosen London to Amsterdam for the planned initial public offering for the 19 billion euro company next year, winning a rare victory in the UK’s identified stock market.
And another thing: the mediator proposed that Paramount Paydonald Trump would propose about $20 million to settle the US president’s lawsuit against CBS News.
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In today’s newsletter:
Wall Street is ready to ruin Zoran
Bank M&A: I trust Trump
New Revelation at Builder.ai
Mayoral elections strike Wall Street
New York City, the heartbeat of financial capitalism, is entering a “hot Comey summer,” says billionaire Dan Loeb.
This is thanks to the rapid rise of 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani, one of the great political turmoils in American history.
The Bowdoin College alumni did a simple job with his founding rival Andrew Cuomo, a former governor who resigned in 2021 amid allegations of sexual harassment he has denied.
Loeb and many of New York’s financial elites say they will do anything to avoid Mamdani, a member of American democratic socialists, becoming the city’s next leader.
The hedge fund founders will spend tens of millions of dollars to fund their media business to counter Mamdani’s vote, DD’s James Fontanella-Khan, Amelia Pollard and Sujeet Indap reports.
Loeb’s former enemy, Bill Ackman, has been a recent comrade to prominently criticizing the failures of the Modern Democrats, and was hinted at an unspecified legal challenge to stop the Mamdani on X on Wednesday.
The shocking election results highlighted the growing gap in New York between urban elites in New York and younger generations who have not benefited from the urban financial boom.
Nationally, it sends a sign of change in generations within the Democrats. If a large company and its contractor choose to move to Florida or Texas due to a tax threat, it threatens to rebuild Wall Street.
However, there is one problem with investors trying to stop the mum ticks. They lack options.
Independent and incumbent mayor Eric Adams has been charged with federal corruption charges dismissed by the Trump administration. Cuomo is considering running as an independent in the November general election, but Wall Street has lost enough money for him.
Pro-Cuomo PAC has already raised $24 million, Michael Bloomberg donated $8.3 million, Ackman won a tip for $500,000, and Loeb added $350,000. It was the highest funded external group in New York City’s history.
Republicans have not run New York City for decades. Curtis Sliwa, the party’s former talk show radio host candidate, has a slight chance that Curtis Sliwa, head of the Guardian Angels Volunteer Patrol Group, will win the mayoral general election in November.
Loeb and Ackman are studying third-party candidates. “Several New York City mayors are running (and winning) outside the traditional two-party line,” Roeb said.
Without another big surprise, parts of the financial world have already broken the future of Mandani and New York as mayor, comparing it to the financial ruin and urban infidelity of the 1970s, and recently wealthy residents have emerged from democratic enclaves such as San Francisco and Chicago.
“If the tax base is eroded and Jamie Dimon starts moving people to Texas, the Citadel will continue to move to Florida – that’s the direction we’re heading,” one banker told DD.
Bank executives want their own transactions
Leaders of the American fragmented banking system show they are ready to start dating.
The top executives in the US banking industry say that the long-standing integration in the sector is ultimately on the horizon thanks to the loose sense of touch from regulators who have opposed large-scale bank acquisitions in the years since the financial crisis.
Acquisition talks between BNY and Northern Trust show the jockey already ongoing. Before Trump took office this year, it was unclear whether executives were confident they could win regulatory approval. That calculation is shifting.
BNY Chief Robin Vince is one of the executives gestures that the door may be open.
“It’s still a very expensive bar… If we see how to make our business faster and better, we’ll be thoughtful,” he says.
The discussion between the two financial services companies had not yet generated concrete actions, according to two people who were described in 1784 by the founding father of the United States and the first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton of the BNY, which began in 1784.
Given the Federal Trade Commission’s skepticism about the aggressive combination, industry leaders are still somewhat cautious about the trading outlook. M&A activities are cool for now.
Bankers are spending their time waiting for the Trump administration to ease some of the rules that are blocking integration.
Michelle Bowman, vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve oversight, has pledged to rework the “valuation of large financial institutions” system that is blocking large banking transactions.
The Fed also quickly announced changes to the supplemental leverage ratio, allowing the reserve requirements to be adjusted, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the office of the Money Secretary have revoked guidance that hindered banking transactions.
“The regulatory windows are wide open,” said Ebrahim Puonawara, bank analyst at Bank of America. “Evidence of a large banking transaction has been released and the market needs to respond positively. If that happens, the floodgates can be opened.”
New Revelation in Builder.ai
The dynamic team of DD’s Alex Heal and Robert Smith, along with their FT colleagues, have been one step ahead of the UK’s big artificial intelligence fiasco.
They detail how the London-based tech unicorn builder collapsed, but paid for Israel’s private intelligence report equipment, a prominent crisis communication specialist and one of the world’s most feared litigation law firms, AI was hired last year after FT began digging into the company.
Now they reveal that Sachin Dev Duggal, Microsoft’s “Chief Wizard” who has promised to revolutionize app development with AI, has made at least $20 million by selling shares on Builder.ai.
He also borrowed against shares in the business, which he had to file earlier this month for US bankruptcy protection.
SD Squared Ventures, based in Mauritius, Duggal’s investment company, began selling its shares just before Builder.
There is no suggestion that Duggal broke the rules by doing so.
However, the revelation is likely to involve many Duggal employees left with nearly 300 employees in May, with investors who have poured over $500 million into his company over the years. The complete story is here.
Job movements
UBS has encouraged banks to lead the newly created corporate and sponsored advisory groups in Jeff Hinton and Nestor Paz-Galindo as they combine M&A with private equity practices. Vik Hebatpuria and Stefanos Papapanagiotou have been promoted to lead a group of financial institutions. Simona Maellare, co-head of the Alternative Capital Group, will leave the bank. UBS also poached Peter Toal, the senior leveraging finance banker at Barclays, to make it the global head of leveraging and debt capital markets.
Vale Base Metals promotes the Gustavo Pimenta as a chair. He replaces Mark Katifani.
Apollo has appointed Celiayan as head of hybrids for the Asia-Pacific region. She joins from Black Rock.
Revaia has appointed Jean Pierre Mustier to the board of directors. He also serves on the boards of Aareal Bank, Deutsche Börse and Unigestion Holding.
Smart Lead
a7a5 token The new crypto token, launched by the Moldovan oligarchs and the Russian Defense Sector Bank, has moved $9.3 billion since its debut four months ago. The FT looked into how sanctions against Russia are cleaned up.
In the St. Pauls photo, ft climbs onto the roof and descends to the sanctuary inside St. Paul, meeting Stonemasons, volunteers and clergy who keep the cathedral alive. Prepare for time travel back to the Middle Ages.
The Big Four companies shared responses from internal training exams (including ethics tests) with hundreds of staff at Deloitte, PWC and EY’s Dutch Arms. Now they have to pay a total of $8.5 million for alleged fraud.
News Round Up
ASDA will sink to a loss of 600 million pounds as they struggle to get the ground back (FT)
Qia and Fiera Capital Strike trades to invest in Qatar stocks (FTs)
Elizabeth Warren requests information on lobbying for tax credits for PE companies (FT)
The EU will take charge of trading with failed lender rules (Bloomberg)
Trump is considering naming the next Federal Reserve chair early on to undermine Powell (WSJ).
Due Diligence is written by London’s Arash Masdi, Ivan Levingston, Ortenka Ariazi, Alexandra Heal, Robert Smith, James Fontanella Khan, Suzeet Indup, Eric Pratt, Antoine Gala, Amelia Maria Pollard, Maria Hater, Kay Wiggins, Oliver Burns in Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Hannah Han Francisco, Arjun Neil Alim of Hong Kong. Send feedback to due.diligence@ft.com
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