>>20495892

Canada #54 >>20495745

Dutch Are Lone Supporters Of Macron's 'EU Boots On The Ground In Ukraine' Plan

by Tyler Durden Thursday, Feb 29, 2024

French President Emmanuel Macron's words at the start of the week which opened the door to European 'boots on the ground in Ukraine' elicited shock, dismay and caution even from within the Western allies. NATO itself scrambled to assure the world that it has no plans to deploy troops inside Ukraine, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg rejecting the idea in remarks, given it would certainly mean automatic WW3.

According to CNN, "Macron had told reporters at a news conference that while he and the other 21 European leaders present did not agree on deploying military personnel, the prospect was discussed openly." Even typically hawkish countries Poland and the UK distanced themselves from such a possibility.

However one tiny NATO country did step up to back Macron's words. The Netherlands has said it won't rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine. Dutch Chief of Defense, General Onno Eichelsheim, told an Amsterdam-based news outlet that while it's a possibility it is "not yet opportune" to do so."I think you should keep all options open to see how you can best support Ukraine," Eichelsheim said.

According to more from the Dutch interview:

Ukraine has not asked the Netherlands to send troops and there is no point in discussing it at the moment, Eichelsheim added. If Western militaries were to go to Ukraine, it would have to be in a coalition, the Dutch military chef said. "This could either happen via NATO or via an alliance of 10-15 countries." "It would be very odd if one or two countries did it," he added.

Indeed, President Putin's ominous response to Macron's words seized precisely on the question of NATO Article 5…

"If Ukraine joins NATO, you won’t even have time to blink your eye when you execute Article 5," Putin said, which suggests that possibly a nuclear response could be on the table.

Moscow has since warned of major direct conflict with the West. According to more from the Kremlin response: "The very fact of discussing the possibility of sending certain contingents to Ukraine from Nato countries is a very important new element…in that case, we would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability (of a direct conflict)."

Already there's clear evidence of a significant amount of Western mercenaries and foreign fighters among Ukraine's ranks:

Some countries, including France, the US, and UK have also in the past made statements which seem to confirm that they already have military 'advisers' on the ground in Ukraine. Certainly Western intelligence services have been there for years, even for the past decade at least.

Below is a note analyzing the scramble that Macron's provocative words set off this week, courtesy of Rabobank…

President Macron’s remarkable public speech saying Europe will “do everything needed” to stop Russia winning in Ukraine, and “not ruling out” sending troops, of course, saw President Putin immediately reply that the latter would mean war with Russia; and, of course, Germany then stated they oppose this course of action. Macron may have then tweeted a video saying Europe needs to be prepared to act militarily without the US vis-à-vis Ukraine, but its inability to do so was laid bare.

More:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tiny-netherlands-only-country-back-macrons-call-boots-ground-ukraine-option

Canada #54 >>20495424

"Who Could Be Next": Top Canadian Pension Fund Sells Manhattan Office Tower For $1, Sparking Firesale Panic

by Tyler Durden Wednesday, Feb 28, 2024

New York during the inflationary surge of the late 70s and early 80s was a mythical place where one could purchase a Park avenue penthouse for $1 (while assuming the copious debt, of course). Now, thanks to the brutal bear hug of the highest interest rates in 40 years and the ongoing CRE crisis, those legendary days have made a comeback to the Big Apple, if only in the realm of commercial real estate for now.

According to Bloomberg, Canadian pension funds - which until recently had been among the world’s most prolific buyers of real estate, starting a revolution that inspired retirement plans around the globe to emulate them because, in the immortal words of Ben Bernanke, Canadian real estate prices never go down are finally realizing that gravity does exist . And so, the largest one among them is taking steps to limit its exposure to the most-beleaguered commercial property type — office buildings.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has recently done three deals at deeply discounted prices, selling its interests in a pair of Vancouver towers, and a business park in Southern California, but it was its Manhattan office tower redevelopment project that shocked the industry: the Canadian asset manager sold its stake for just $1. The worry now is that such firesales will set an example for other major investors seeking a way out of the turmoil too, forcing a wholesale crash in the Manhattan real estate market which until now had managed to avoid real price discovery.

Indeed, as Goldman wrote earlier this week, while office vacancy rates are expected to keep rising well into the next decade the average price of many nonviable offices has fallen only 11% to $307/sqft since 2019 (left side of Exhibit 6). The bank goes on to note that in the hardest-hit cities, as many as 14-16% of offices may no longer be viable, and their average transaction prices have already declined by 15-35%. However, because of lack of liquidity in this market, these recent transaction prices have not yet started to reflect the current values of many existing offices. Goldman ominously concludes that "alternative valuation methods, like those that are based on repeat-sales and appraisal values, suggest that actual office values may be far lower than the average transaction price." Well, a $1 dollar price would certainly confirm that actual office values are far, far lower. And going back to the historic firesale, at the end of last year the Canadian fund sold its 29% stake in Manhattan’s 360 Park Avenue South for $1 to one of its partners, Boston Properties, which also agreed to assume CPPIB’s share of the project’s debt. The investors, along with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte., bought the 20-story building in 2021 with plans to redevelop it into a modern workspace.

“It’s the opposite of a vote of confidence for office,” said John Kim, an analyst tracking real estate companies for BMO Capital Markets. “My question is, who could be next?”

As office building anxiety has swept the financial world, as the persistence of both remote work and higher borrowing costs undercuts the economic fundamentals that made the properties good investments in the first place, a wave of banks from New York to Tokyo recently conceded that loans they made against offices may never be fully repaid, sending their share prices plunging and prompting fears of a broader credit crunch.

But the real test will be what price office buildings actually trade for - especially once the hundreds of billions of loan backing the properties mature and until now there have been precious few examples since interest rates started rising. That’s why industry-watchers see such shocking liquidations like CPPIB’s as a very ominous sign for the market.

More:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/who-could-be-next-largest-canadian-pension-fund-sells-manhattan-office-tower-1

Yawn…

Same old shitheads?

U.S. Navy Secretary Looks to Asia to Revive Shipbuilding at Home

By Nick Wadhams (Bloomberg) — February 26, 2024

The US needs to revive domestic shipbuilding with increased funding from Congress and investment from overseas, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said, framing the issue as a matter of economic security in the competition with China.

Del Toro said on Thursday that he planned to travel to Japan and South Korea soon to encourage investment in shipbuilding, especially at smaller yards. He called for getting congressional appropriators on board “so that we can get started moving in the right direction.”

“China has been able to build a tremendous commercial shipbuilding industry over the course of the last 40 years,” Del Toro said at an event hosted by the Aspen Strategy Group and Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg News. “We’ve lost that capability from about the 1980s when we left it open to market forces.”

Navy Secretary Del Toro Calls for New ‘Maritime Statecraft’ Strategy

Del Toro’s remarks follow on sentiment expressed in the Pentagon’s National Defense Industrial Strategy that was released last month. It said China had become a shipbuilding powerhouse and called for an injection of fresh ideas — and venture capital — to revive the US industrial base.

For Del Toro, the path toward expanded shipbuilding capacity travels through South Korea and Japan, which he said were “great allies and partners” in the effort. According to the US Naval Institute, China now has almost 50% of the global shipbuilding market, with South Korea and Japan in second and third place at almost 30% ad 17%. US capacity accounts for 0.13% of the global market.

Diminished capacity has led to delays and cost overruns for several crucial weapons programs, including to build aircraft carriers and submarines. While refusing to name any companies, Del Toro criticized contractors that deliver on orders late or over-budget.

“It’s the company’s responsibility to deliver things on time and not simply make excuses,” he said. “I fully understand that the supply chain has been challenged because of Covid and many other issues around the globe. But don’t just talk to me and use that as an excuse, talk to me about what is it that you’re going to do to try to make that better.”

https://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-secretary-looks-to-asia-to-revive-shipbuilding-at-home/