David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - General

    Blackstone Raises More Than $30 Billion for Property Fund

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

    Blackstone Inc. has closed on its largest global property drawdown fund, targeting opportunistic deals across sectors such as rental housing, hospitality and data centers. 

    The company secured $30.4 billion of total capital commitments for the fund, called Blackstone Real Estate Partners X, according to a statement Tuesday. Blackstone’s latest fund is the largest of that type, according to PitchBook data going back to 2002.

    The real estate market has come under pressure over the past year due to a pullback across commercial-property lending, as borrowing costs skyrocketed. At the same time, the stocks of public real estate investment trusts have also suffered amid the uncertainty in the market and increasing concerns about certain property types such as offices. 

    “Pullback with all forms of capital will create opportunities,” said Kathleen McCarthy, global co-head of Blackstone Real Estate. “We can use our capital and expertise to capitalize on the moment for our investors.”

    Blackstone’s latest fundraising helps cement the private equity firm’s status as a powerhouse in the real estate market. Blackstone’s real estate business, which started in 1991, now has $326 billion of investor capital under management.

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    Please note Comment of the Day will return on April 11th in observance of the Easter holiday.

    Why a BRICS currency is a flawed idea

    This article by Paul McNamara for the FT may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    China’s dominance is underlined further by the fact that it is a key trade partner for the commodity exporters, which have industrial cycles that clearly track the ebb and flow of the Chinese credit cycle. And after the attack on Ukraine, China’s financial influence over isolated Russia has risen further.

    It is obvious but Chinese strategic interests are not especially aligned with those of the other countries. One of China’s priorities is finding somewhere to park its external surpluses beyond the reach of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control and finding stores of value other than US Treasuries. While none of the other four Brics members can provide liquid assets, they can provide investment opportunities especially in raw materials. As with the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese authorities prefer to have control in such matters.

    Russia and the gulf energy exporters prefer to accumulate “rainy day” sovereign wealth funds away from the US. However, the alternative to the US is not a diversified group of growing countries, but essentially one country — China — with a vast thirst for energy and other raw materials.

    So not only are there practical challenges in a common Brics currency. In seeking one to challenge US hegemony in foreign exchange, the non-Chinese members of countries of the group may just increase their dependence on Beijing.

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    Kuroda Departs Leaving $11.7 Trillion Experiment to Successor

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    “Kuroda will be recognized as having been an outstanding central bank governor who has been quite innovative,” former International Monetary Fund chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said. “The BOJ under Kuroda has forcefully adopted more or less every idea there is for raising inflation expectations, but until recently, to no avail.”

    At Kuroda’s last Group of 20 meeting in Bengaluru, India, in late February, central bankers and finance ministers from across the globe rose to their feet to applaud the ever-smiling governor. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde was one of the first to clap, according to people familiar with the matter.

    “Haruhiko Kuroda is a master of his trade. He steered the monetary policy of Japan through challenging times. These are big shoes to fill for any successor – and times are certainly not getting any easier,” said Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan. “It was always a pleasure to have in-depth discussions with him over dinner, ranging from culture to economics to politics.”

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    India May Not Allow More Sugar Exports This Year: Food Secretary

    This note from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here it is in full 

    India may not approve additional sugar exports in the year ending September, Food Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said at a briefing Thursday.

    Country’s sugar production is likely to be 200,000 to 400,000 tons lower than target this year

    NOTE: India has already permitted 6m tons of exports this year, with potential for another 1m tons if production meets govt estimate

    That looks unlikely now; an industry group said Wednesday that India’s October-March sugar output fell 3.3% y/y

    Chopra said impact of unseasonable rains on wheat harvest will be marginal

    Govt will likely meet its target of procuring 34.15m tons of wheat from the new crop

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    US Service Gauge Falls More Than Expected as Demand Moderates

    This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    The group’s index of new orders at service providers dropped more than 10 points to a three-month low of 52.2. While still consistent with expansion, the scale of the drop suggests a significant slowing in the pace of bookings growth. The business activity measure, which mirrors the ISM’s factory production index, slipped to 55.4.

    “There has been a pullback in the rate of growth for the services sector, attributed mainly to a cooling off in the new orders growth rate, an employment environment that varies by industry and continued improvements in capacity and logistics,” Anthony Nieves, chair of the ISM Services Business Survey Committee, said in a statement.

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    Just How Dangerous Are India's Generic Drugs? Very

    This article for Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section: 

    It shouldn’t have taken more deaths for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration to act. The red flags have been there for years. What’s lacking is political will, and transparency. The FDA publishes different reviews of new drug applications on its website, along with detailed notes. The European Medical Agency gives similarly expansive information. There is no such openness in India.

    As Thakur explained to me, the pharmaceutical industry is India’s manufacturing success story, providing a major source of foreign exchange and soft power. Any criticism is seen through the lens of nationalism, he said, and framed as defaming the industry. So why does contamination with such deadly substances occur so regularly? “The simple answer is that Indian pharmaceutical companies quite often fail to test either the raw materials or the final formulation before shipping it to market,” Thakur said.

    India relies on the weak oversight of developing countries that make up the bulk of its exports — that’s how it can continue to push substandard and often deadly medicines there. As a paper on the Gambia poisonings published in March by the CDC noted, “inadequate regulatory structures make the sale of medications from international markets an especially high-risk activity in low-resource settings.” But what about countries with supposedly strong regulatory systems, like the US? This latest scare should prompt further reform of the FDA’s overseas inspections regime.

    In the absence of a global framework for pharmaceutical safety, what can be done to make the generic drugs that consumers around the world have come to rely on safer and effective? For a start, the WHO’s prequalification program, which facilitates the purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of medicines through international agencies such as Unicef, must be overhauled. Then there’s the question of holding these companies to account for the harm they cause inside and outside India via legal avenues and victim’s compensation.

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    China Says Willing to Help Airbus Deepen Presence in Nation

    This note may be of interest. 

    China is willing to maintain close communication with Airbus and help it deepen its China presence, Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, told Airbus Chief Executive Guillaume Faury during a meeting in Beijing, according to an NDRC statement.

    China will provide broad opportunities for Airbus and other multinational companies to develop in the country: Zheng.

    Separately, Civil Aviation Administration of China chief Song Zhiyong also met with Faury in Beijing, according to a statement.

    They exchanged in-depth views on Airbus’ business development in China and strengthening cooperation in aviation safety, airworthiness certification, green development, digital transformation.

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