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KKR raises $15bn for largest Asia fund
U.S. investment company KKR on Tuesday said it raised $15 billion for its fourth Asia fund, making it the largest private equity fund in the Asia-Pacific region. The vehicle is more than 60% larger than its immediate $9.3 billion predecessor, which was raised in 2017, and brings KKR's total assets under management in Asia to over $30 billion. The new fund will target "emerging consumption and urbanization trends" as well as carve-outs and spinoffs, KKR said. KKR entered Asia in 2005 and has been a prolific dealmaker during the COVID-19 pandemic. Its biggest investments last year include a $1.5 billion deal for India's Jio Platforms, a digital services business launched by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, and a $650 million arrangement for Vingroup's property unit Vinhomes. In Japan, it teamed up with Internet conglomerate Rakuten to invest in the supermarket chain Seiyu.
Globally, private equity funds raised $611 billion in 2020, less than the $709.3 billion raised in 2019, according to Preqin. But the new fund shows institutional investors are on the hunt for returns as interest rates remain low. KKR said the capital raised for the new fund exceeded its original target and "received strong support from a diverse group of new and existing global investors," including those in Asia.
KKR itself will be investing about $1.3 billion in the fund, the company said.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Finance/KKR-raises-15bn-for-largest-Asia-fund
PEACH77 USAF Joint STARS departing Fairchild AFB, Spokane after ground stop-inbound from Robins AFB, GA
This being moved to Indo-Pac
The E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System is a joint Air Force - Army program. The Joint STARS uses a multi-mode side looking radar to detect, track, and classify moving ground vehicles in all conditions deep behind enemy lines. The aircraft is the only airborne platform in operation that can maintain realtime surveillance over a corps-sized area of the battlefield. The E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS, is an airborne battle management, command and control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform. Its primary mission is to provide theater ground and air commanders with ground surveillance to support attack operations and targeting that contributes to the delay, disruption and destruction of enemy forces.
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/104507/e-8c-joint-stars/
>>43484 pb
Credit Suisse Starts Unloading Stocks Tied to Archegos Collapse
Credit Suisse Group AG started unloading stocks tied to the Archegos Capital blowup more than a week after some rivals dumped their shares and skirted losses.
The Swiss bank hit the market with block trades tied to ViacomCBS Inc., Vipshop Holdings Ltd. and Farfetch Ltd. that totaled more than $2 billion at current prices, a person with knowledge of the matter said. The stocks are trading substantially below where they were last month before Bill Hwang’s family office imploded. Shares in the three companies declined in postmarket trading, as did U.S.-listed shares of Credit Suisse. The Zurich-based firm has yet to provide investors with an update on the extent of the hit it faces from its relationship with Archegos, but it could run into the billions of dollars, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Credit Suisse’s investment-bank chief Brian Chin is set to leave and leaders are also discussing removing chief risk officer Lara Warner. The unwinding of Bill Hwang’s Archegos portfolio has turned into one of the biggest fund flameouts since Long-Term Capital Management’s demise in the 1990s.
Archegos had grown rapidly on the back of heavily leveraged bets. These came undone within days late last month as stocks including ViacomCBS and GSX Techedu Inc. tumbled, triggering margin calls. Credit Suisse and Nomura Holdings Inc. have told shareholders their businesses face “significant” losses. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, which were among the first banks to liquidate Archegos’s holdings, appear to have avoided hits to their businesses. Given Archegos’s size, banks may accrue total losses in the range of $5 billion to $10 billion as positions get unwound, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts led by Kian Abouhossein wrote in a note to clients last week.
The Credit Suisse offering on Monday was large -- about 34 million shares in ViacomCBS, 14 million shares of Vipshop and 11 million shares of Farfetch, but this is still a fraction of the size traded by banks last week.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/credit-suisse-starts-unloading-stocks-tied-to-archegos-collapse-1.1586414
Suga gets his second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga received his second dose of U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine in Tokyo on Tuesday, with the shot coming ahead of his first face-to-face meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington on April 16. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine requires two shots, three weeks apart, to work effectively.
Suga received his first inoculation on March 16. The prime minister got that shot in front of cameras, taking a cue from other world leaders who have used it as an opportunity to build confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, including Biden, 78, who did so in December before taking office. Public skepticism toward vaccinations could hamper Japan’s vaccine rollout, with only 63.1% of respondents in a Kyodo News poll conducted in February saying they want to be inoculated and 27.4% saying they do not.
Suga has pledged to secure enough COVID-19 vaccines for Japan’s population of 126 million within the first half of this year, though the effort has been held up by production delays and the European Union’s export controls, as well as difficulty in procuring low dead space syringes that can extract more doses per vial.
The initial focus of Japan’s vaccine rollout has been health care workers, with the rest of the population waiting for their turn.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/04/06/national/politics-diplomacy/suga-second-coronavirus-vaccine/
Japan Finance Minister backs new SDR allocation, U.S. calls for minimum corp tax
Japan would agree on a new allocation of special drawing rights (SDR) as long as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank help ensure transparency in providing the increased money for poor countries, Finance Minister Taro Aso said on Tuesday. “There would be no point to it if SDR expansion is used for paying back debts to China,” Aso told reporters after a cabinet meeting, repeating tacit criticism against China’s lending practice to low-income countries. Japan has backed a $650 billion increase in IMF monetary reserves. Speaking on the eve of a virtual gathering of financial leaders from the Group of Seven rich nations and the G20 major economies this week, Aso welcomed U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s calls for the introduction of a global minimum corporate tax rate.
https://www.reuters.com/article/g20-debt-japan/update-1-japan-finmin-backs-new-sdr-allocation-u-s-calls-for-minimum-corp-tax-idUSL1N2LZ040
Special Drawing Rights (SDR)
The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves. So far SDR 204.2 billion (equivalent to about US$293 billion) have been allocated to members, including SDR 182.6 billion allocated in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis. The value of the SDR is based on a basket of five currencies—the U.S. dollar, the euro, the Chinese renminbi, the Japanese yen, and the British pound sterling.
much moar here
https://www.imf.org/en/About/Factsheets/Sheets/2016/08/01/14/51/Special-Drawing-Right-SDR