.png?width=200&height=78&name=CH%20Diligence%20(thicker%20line).png "CH Diligence (thicker line).png")
Our briefing for Tuesday May 11, 2021:
May 11, 2021 3:52:20 PM
- In the United States, The Wall Street Journal is reporting the White House is partnering with Uber and Lyft to improve access to coronavirus vaccines. Up until July 4th, Uber and Lyft will provide free rides to and from vaccination sites after the White House shared information on the location of about 80,000 vaccination sites across the country. The partnership was made as part of President Biden’s goal of getting at least 70% of American adults with at least one coronavirus shot by July 4th. The Biden administration is entering a new phase of their vaccination campaign as demand has dropped in recent weeks. The United States is administering about 2.1 million inoculations per day, down from about 3.4 million last month, even though there’s enough supply to give more.
- During his daily news briefing on Tuesday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tried to strike an optimistic tone that the country has enough vaccines for a “one-dose summer”. “A one-dose summer sets us up for a two-dose fall, when we’ll be able to talk about going back to school, back to work, and back to normality,” said Prime Minister Trudeau. However, to have that one-dose summer, Canada still has a lot of work to do as the prime minister noted restrictions that are in place in certain provinces need to stay in place until at least 75% of the population has had at least their first shot and community transmission is better controlled through testing, tracing and curbing spread.
- In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday his government would set up an inquiry into the COVID-19 pandemic during this parliamentary session. The prime minister would not set a date for the inquiry, although parliamentary sessions in the UK normally last around one year. “I have made that clear before, I do believe it is essential that we have a full proper inquiry into the COVID pandemic,” said Prime Minister Johnson. The government’s critics say they were too slow in locking down after other countries showed how to control the virus. The UK has seen over 150,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic and suffered one of the worst death tolls in the world.
- In Germany, several states, including the capital city of Berlin, plan on loosening coronavirus restrictions in the coming days after more than six months of lockdown. The Berlin state government agreed on Tuesday to lift a night-time curfew and ease restrictions on shopping, starting May 19th and allow outdoor dining from May 21st. The corresponding moves depend on the seven-day COVID-19 rate remaining below 100 for three consecutive days. It was 94 in Berlin on Tuesday. German federal Health Minister Jens Spahn said federal states should go ahead with reopening, especially activities for outdoors, but warned the need to tighten if infections rates rise again.
- France has joined other European Union nations such as Greece and Croatia in ramping up its tourism campaign. The country was the world’s top destination for travellers in 2019 and has launched a multi-million euro campaign aimed at people looking to travel again after receiving their coronavirus vaccinations. On Tuesday, France introduced a campaign titled, “What Really Matters” promoting the country’s food, lifestyle and culture in 10 European markets including Italy, Spain and Germany. In 2019, France’s tourism industry generated €57 billion, representing around 7.5% of the country’s GDP.
- Hong Kong has decided against moving forward with its plan to require foreign domestic workers to be vaccinated to secure work visas. Hong Kong, one of Asia’s key financial hubs, reached out to the Indonesian and Philippines consulates and decided not to pursue the requirement, according to region’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam. According to media reports, there are more than 370,000 foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong, accounting for about 5% of the population. Lam added that foreign domestic workers will need to undergo a second round of testing by May 30th.
Covid-19 – Due Diligence And Asset Management
Mental Wellbeing “Overlooked” by Asset Management Firms, finds Report
Brief : Asset management firms have been accused of overlooking the wellbeing of their employees as a recent survey from Howden reveals that most firms have no strategy in place for addressing issues including mental health and work/life balance. Howden surveyed over 160 asset management firms on their employee benefits, wellbeing, and reward programmes. The survey found that while most asset managers offered generous benefits to employees, including private medical insurance, life insurance, and income protection, many were lagging behind on mental wellbeing. Only 12 per cent of asset managers were found to have a standalone strategy in place for employee wellbeing. However, more than a third, 35 per cent, said they plan to address this and create a wellbeing strategy in the next twelve months. This is much lower than the average across industries. According research by CIPD, a professional body for HR managers, 44 per cent of employers have a standalone wellbeing strategy. “Employee wellbeing has tended to be overlooked by many asset management firms in favour of high value insurance benefits, but as we move beyond the Covid-19 it must become a priority,” says Robbie Weston, executive director of Asset Management and Workplace Savings at Howden.
Top Fed Official says Fed Far from Achieving its Goals
Brief: A top Federal Reserve official says the outlook for the U.S. economy is bright but the recent jobs report is a reminder that the path of the recovery is likely to be uneven and difficult to predict. Lael Brainard, a member of the Fed's board, said Tuesday in a virtual conference sponsored by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, that employment and inflation remain far from the Fed's goals. The Fed has said it will not start raising interest rates until it has achieved maximum employment and annual prices gains that have not only hit the Fed's 2% target, but exceeded that target for a period of time. “While more balanced than earlier this year, risks remain from vaccine hesitancy, deadlier variants and a resurgence of cases in some foreign countries,” Brainard said. The Fed has kept its key interest rate at 0 percent to 0.25% for more than a year and signaled that it will keep rates at this level at least through 2023. Brainard's comments Tuesday backed up the view that the Fed has no intention to change course in interest rates. Brainard referred to last week's job report that showed the economy created 266,000 jobs last month, sharply lower than March and far fewer than economists had been expecting. She said this was a signal that the Fed needs to proceed with caution before withdrawing its support.
Private Debt Isn’t Out of the Woods From Pandemic, Varagon says
Brief: While fundraising and deal activity in the $975 billion private debt market is ramping back up, the industry is still “not out of the woods” of the pandemic, according to Walter Owens, chief executive officer of Varagon Capital Partners. “We have to be very careful of complacency, because complacency is what gets you into trouble,” Owens said in an interview. “We’re hopeful that the economy fully recovers, but we’re certainly not depending on a full economic recovery when we’re underwriting deals today.” The asset class has largely recovered from the pandemic-fueled selloff in global financial markets last year as economies reopen and wider swaths of the U.S. population become vaccinated. Yet concerns remain with unemployment still stubbornly high, and uncertainty hanging over some industries that were hit hard during Covid-19. The firm sees opportunities in more resistant sectors like business services, healthcare and software services, according to Owens. “Most of those businesses came through 2020 in really good shape,” he said. Demand for the debt, which can offer higher returns than elsewhere in credit, is also helping to drive a pick up in deal activity. And firms are currently looking to raise a record $301.4 billion for 586 vehicles, according to London-based research firm Preqin Ltd.
Major Airline CEOs Call for Summit to Speed UK-U.S. Travel
Brief: The chief executives of major U.S. and UK passenger airlines on Tuesday called for a summit with the two governments to speed the reopening of transatlantic travel. "The airline industry needs adequate lead time to establish a plan for restarting air services, including scheduling aircraft and crews for these routes as well as for marketing and selling tickets," said the letter signed by the CEOs of American Airlines , Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, British Airways , Virgin Atlantic and JetBlue Airways in a letter to the transport chiefs of both countries. A spokesman for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the British Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment. Since March 2020, the United States has barred nearly all non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in the UK. The letter said U.S. and UK citizens "would benefit from the significant testing capability and the successful trials of digital applications to verify health credentials." The U.S. government has said it will not require digital vaccine passports and it is unclear if the U.S. government will set standards or issue guidance to help Americans prove to foreign governments they have been vaccinated.
Travel Startups are Getting Billions in VC Funding Again as Vaccine Rollout Accelerates
Brief: Funding to venture-backed travel and tourism startups fell to a five-year low in 2020, a year defined by the COVID-19 pandemic and the stay-at-home mandates that came with it. But that trend may be turning around, if early funding data and investor enthusiasm are any indication. Funding to venture-backed startups in the travel and tourism sector amounted to around $4.8 billion across 629 deals in 2020, Crunchbase data shows. Both the dollar amount and deal count hit a five-year low. And that followed a record in 2019, when funding to travel and tourism startups in the past five years hit a record $10.8 billion. So far this year, companies in the sector have raised about $3.4 billion across 173 deals, according to Crunchbase data. “It’s a really exciting time to be investing in the space,” said Kristi Choi, an investor at Plug and Play Ventures. “And we talk a lot about this because I really feel like travel is at an inflection point for a couple different reasons.” Companies that have survived the pandemic have learned how to stay resilient and have used the time to tailor their value proposition, Choi said, pointing to how travel startup Sherpa added travel restriction monitoring and guidelines on top of its visa application offerings. And with the crisis, new travel habits have emerged and evolved.
Blackstone Calls on Vaccinated Workers to Return on June 7
Brief: Blackstone Group Inc. is asking some U.S. staff to return to the office full-time on June 7 provided they are fully vaccinated. The world’s largest alternative asset manager announced the move internally on Monday. A Blackstone spokesman confirmed the decision. Financial firms have been preparing for an end to remote work since the earliest months of the Covid-19 pandemic. JPMorgan Chase & Co. became the first major U.S. bank to mandate a return to offices for its entire U.S. workforce. Last month staffers were told that they would be expected to return by early July on a rotational basis. Citigroup Inc. has said it will start inviting more workers into the office beginning in July. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. told staff they should be prepared to work from offices by mid-June. Insider earlier reported the Blackstone news on Monday.
