Remote Working Schedules Cost NYC $12B Per Year (FoxBiz)
Retail Sales Stage a Sharp Rebound in January 2023
According to the U.S. Commerce Department, retail sales grew by 5.3% in January, beating economists' expectations as shoppers continued to spend despite surging prices. Driving factors for the uptick included consumers purchasing more vehicles, furniture, clothing and dining out more. The gains follow an announcement by the Labor Department that employers added more than 500,000 jobs in January and manufacturing output increased by 1%. The Federal Reserve has aggressively raised interest rates since March 2021 to cool the economy and slow inflation. However, heightened growth numbers could derail any short term plans for a reversal in sentiment. Experts anticipate another and perhaps the last rate hike following the Fed's meeting in March.
"Consumers are in pretty decent shape...When people are comfortable in their job situation, that translates into consumer spending."
Joel Naroff, Naroff Economics LLC
Private Funding Pulse Check
Mousse Partners Family Office has invested in a recent €3.7B deal to take Rothschild & Co. private, one of the world's largest independent financial advisory groups with a team of 3,800 financial specialists in more than 40 countries
Point Field Partners played a lead role in the $37.5M Series C funding round of Apkudo, a global leader in supply chain optimization and automation
Cox Enterprises participated in a $55M Series C funding round for Checkerspot, a high performance material company that designs molecular-specific products
Kinled Holding took part in a $120M Series A deal with Nanoflex Robotics, a company developing endoluminal soft robotic systems that can be remotely manipulated within the body
U.K. Telecom Explores Options for its African Business Unit
Vodafone Group is exploring options for its African business as investors increase pressure on the company to boost performance. The company is working with advisers to study ways to extract more value from its 65% holding in Vodacom Group. Early-stage considerations ranged from merging the business with other operators or divesting some assets in certain markets to selling a stake in the company. Billionaire John Malone's firm, Liberty Global Plc, disclosed a 4.9% stake in Vodafone earlier this week, joining other investors including Xavier Niel and Emirates Telecommunications Group, also known as "e&". While Vodafone has always seen the African unit as a core part of the group, the process shows that it is willing to study a wide range of alternatives as it searches for a way to put a stop to the decline in its shares.
"[Vodacom] is a strong business that is an important part of Vodafone...there are no ongoing discussions about a potential sale."
Vodacom Representative
Waterfront Florida Real Estate Becomes the Ultra-Rich's New Home
The pandemic-driven shift of the ultra-rich from the traditional wealth centers of New York and San Francisco to less-dense regions of Florida and Texas has lead to an increase in the number of towns with million-dollar median home prices. Hedge fund manager Ken Griffin's move to Miami’s Star Island has embodied this trend. Griffin's five properties on the island helped push its typical home value to $40M, up from $23.5M in December 2019, making it the priciest neighborhood in the United States. A Bloomberg analysis of home values in the country’s most-expensive areas showed that while a broad real estate boom lifted prices nationwide, the Miami, FL region saw its number of million-dollar ZIP codes more than double from the end of 2019 through 2022. Florida is now home to 38 of the 50 million-dollar U.S. neighborhoods with the largest price gains by percentage over the past three years. Rising interest rates pose to damper housing price increases, however many buyers are seemingly willing to pay top-dollar over concerns of rising crime in other areas.
"I don’t see the underlying fundamentals of why we’ve seen buyers come here going away, even though Covid restrictions have eased...Once that switch got flipped, I don’t know how you put it back in the box."
Tim Savage, Gulf Coast International Properties
Danny Lee Launches New Fund, Targeting Wealthy Families
Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai's former private equity investment head, Danny Lee, is raising $200M for his own fund. Lee's strategy involves targeting wealthy families seeking to diversify their assets. Lee left Blue Pool Capital in 2021 and is now a senior adviser at VCA Capital, a Grand Cayman-domiciled family office. The firm founded just last year, works with investors in industries spanning technology, real estate, media and finance to invest in capital overseas. Despite crackdowns on the technology and education sectors in China, Lee still sees potential in the world’s second-largest economy, but growth is slowing.
"We’re targeting to raise about $200 million in the next 12 to 24 months...I’m looking to build a team as we raise more capital."
Hightower Advisors announced a strategic investment in Bickling Financial Services, a Lexington, MA-based RIA with $625M in AUM (Cision)
Cetera Financial Group has made a minority investment in Kansas City-based RIA Prosperity Advisors, continuing the firm's partnership and driving asset growth (Cision)
Simplicity Group Holdings finalized a definitive agreement to acquire The Leaders Group, a national independent broker-dealer located in Littleton, CO (Cision)
Written by:
Andrew Popp | Sr. Research Associate
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