—— Nike Rehired 30-Year Retired Veteran Executive; Pershing Square Began IPO Roadshow; AI Video Editor Startup Raises $60mn; Canada Trader Sentenced to 4 Year in Prison; Powell Sounds Optimistic in Recent Testimony to Congress; Mercedes Cut to Underperform on Aging Fleet
1. Nike Rehired 30-Year Retired Veteran Executive
Nike Inc. has rehired retired senior executive Tom Peddie to oversee retail partnerships after strained relationships with sneaker sellers led to declining sales.
Tom Peddie, who worked at Nike for 30 years before retiring in 2020, is returning as vice president of marketplace partners, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg.
Under Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, Nike shifted its focus to its own stores, e-commerce, and apps, pulling products from many third-party retailers such as Foot Locker Inc. This strategy has contributed to a 33% decline in Nike’s stock this year as sales continued to fall.
“As we continue to focus and improve capabilities in our wholesale business, I am confident that Tom will bring both vision and bold leadership to accelerate the Marketplace strategy,” said Craig Williams, Nike’s president of geographies and marketplace, in the memo.
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2. Pershing Square Began IPO Roadshow
Pershing Square has begun a roadshow for the initial public offering of its US closed-end vehicle, which could become the largest fund of its kind in the US.
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square USA Ltd. has disclosed the full list of banks involved in the IPO, expanding beyond the global coordinators Citigroup, UBS, Bank of America, and Jefferies, who are leading the offering.
According to a filing on Tuesday, Wells Fargo, RBC, BTG Pactual, Barclays, and Deutsche Bank are acting as bookrunners on the deal. Approximately twenty additional banks are participating in more junior roles.
Bloomberg News has reported that Pershing Square USA aims to raise about $25 billion from the offering. The funds are expected to come primarily from institutional investors, with some interest from retail investors, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The IPO price is set at $50 per share, and the company will apply to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PSUS, as confirmed by the Tuesday filing.
“With lower required costs than his typical hedge fund fees and social media popularity, the US-listed Pershing Square USA Ltd. could become the largest closed-end fund in the country and trade at a premium to its net asset value,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst David Cohne wrote last month.
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3. AI Video Editor Startup Raises $60mn
Captions, a startup leveraging artificial intelligence to facilitate video creation and editing, has secured a new funding round from a high-profile group of investors, elevating its valuation to $500 million.
The startup raised $60 million in a deal led by Index Ventures, which the company plans to announce on Tuesday. This brings its total funding raised to $100 million. Other investors in the round include previous backers Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital, along with new investors such as actor Jared Leto, who also invested in another AI video company, Pika, in June.
Captions is part of a growing cohort of companies focused on making video creation more affordable and accessible through generative AI. Founded in 2021 by Gaurav Misra and Dwight Churchill, the company’s software enables users to create, edit, and distribute videos without requiring filmmaking expertise, according to Misra, Captions’ chief executive officer.
As AI-generated video quality has rapidly improved, concerns about deepfakes have increased, especially during a significant year for global elections. There are worries about the accessibility and affordability of increasingly capable video tools. However, there is also substantial demand for these tools: Captions’ app sees nearly 3.5 million videos published per month, and it has been downloaded by more than 10 million people so far.
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4. Canada Trader Sentenced to 4 Year in Prison
A trader in Canada has been sentenced to four years in jail after accepting millions of dollars from investors and subsequently providing them with false information about their returns.
The Ontario court sentenced Nathanael Anthony Aikman, who pleaded guilty in November to fraud and trading securities without registration. Additionally, he has been ordered to pay restitution of over C$3.9 million ($2.9 million).
Aikman was one of the founders of Yonge Street Capital LLC, which claimed to be a hedge fund investing in various securities and cryptocurrencies, according to a statement released Tuesday by the Ontario Securities Commission. Over nearly three years, Yonge Street Capital — named after the street that divides Toronto’s east and west sides — collected more than C$6.2 million from 71 investors, the regulator stated.
Aikman devised a structure for the fund that he claimed would guarantee a 25% return on investment, according to documents filed by the regulator in a related case. However, much of the money “was used by Mr. Aikman for purposes unrelated to YSC’s business, and to the detriment of investors,” the Ontario commission said.
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5. Powell Sounds Optimistic in Recent Testimony to Congress
US Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell stated that the central bank had made “considerable progress” in its efforts to curb inflation but emphasized the need for “more good data” before considering interest rate cuts from their 23-year high.
In written testimony to the US Congress released on Tuesday, Powell expressed optimism about the US economy returning to a better balance as the Fed aims to bring inflation back to its 2% target.
Powell highlighted recent encouraging inflation reports, including the Fed’s preferred gauge dropping to 2.6% in May, indicating “modest further progress.” However, he noted that “more good data would strengthen our confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%.”
“Over the past two years, the economy has made considerable progress” towards the Fed’s inflation target, Powell said, adding that labor market conditions “have cooled while remaining strong.”
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6. SP 500 Breaks 36th Record This Year
Stocks closed at all-time highs, with Jerome Powell’s remarks to Congress doing little to change expectations that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year.
Financial shares led the gains on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 rising for the sixth consecutive session — its longest winning streak since January. Shorter-term Treasuries outperformed based on bets that they would benefit more from policy easing. Although Powell was cautious not to provide a specific timeline for rate cuts, he highlighted increasing signs of a cooling job market following government data showing a third straight month of rising unemployment.
“The rhetoric today continued to move toward preparing the market for a cut in rates later this year,” said Michael Feroli at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “Powell largely stuck to the script when it came to the economy, and many questions weren’t about the economy, but instead about Basel endgame.” Powell mentioned that regulators are close to finalizing changes to their plan, which would require big banks to hold significantly more capital—a major win for Wall Street lenders.
This overhaul is tied to Basel III, an international accord developed after the 2008 financial crisis to prevent bank failures and another financial crunch.
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7. Mercedes Cut to Underperform on Aging Fleet
Brookfield-backed French data center group Data4 is exploring a $2 billion debt deal, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The private equity firm is in discussions with about half a dozen banks regarding the financing, said the person, who requested anonymity due to not being authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Data4’s efforts to raise funding come after Britain’s Vantage Data Centers completed Europe’s first-ever asset-backed securitization deal for data centers last month, raising £600 million ($769 million). Data center providers globally are investing billions to expand capacity as artificial intelligence drives demand for processing infrastructure.
Brookfield acquired Data4 from Axa Investment Managers in 2023, expanding its footprint to a current total of 135 data centers with approximately 850 megawatts of operational computing capacity.
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本文内容来自《Financial Times》、《Bloomberg》，以及《The Real Deal》等多家财经新闻媒体。