Brief: Shares of Expedia Group Inc (EXPE.O) rose 9% on Wednesday after a report that the online travel services company was in advanced talks to sell a stake to private-equity firms Silver Lake Partners and Apollo Global Management Inc (APO.N) for about $1 billion. The talks, which were reported here by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, come as companies across sectors look to shore up their finances in a bid to weather the raging coronavirus crisis. Expedia shares have fallen about 47% this year, taking a hard knock from the pandemic as lockdowns in many countries have decimated travel demand. “The biggest overhang on Expedia’s stock over the last month has been fears regarding its liquidity position,” Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell. “The news that it may be nearing a deal with Silver Lake and Apollo raises confidence that it will be able to make it through this current crisis relatively unscathed.”
Brief: Investors pulled a net $33 billion from hedge funds in the first quarter, the most in more than a decade. The total is about 1% of of industry capital, and the largest quarterly outflow since investors yanked about $42 billion in the second quarter of 2009, according to a report Wednesday from Hedge Fund Research Inc. In all of 2019, investors pulled $43.1 billion. Some of the industry’s largest names took a hit in last month’s market tumult, including funds run by Ray Dalio, Michael Hintze and Adam Levinson. The managers suffered losses as the coronavirus crisis brought much of the global economy to a standstill. Still, a slew of firms are welcoming fresh money, hoping to buy the market dip and capitalize on those investors that may be ready to open their wallets to take advantage of the market dislocations.
Brief: The private-equity firm Sycamore Partners is looking to back out of its deal to take over Victoria’s Secret fromL Brands, according to a lawsuit filed in a Delaware court on Wednesday. The deal for Victoria’s Secret to be taken private was reached in February, just weeks before thecoronavirus pandemicstarted hammering the U.S. economy and forced the closure of thousands of retailers’ stores. Sycamore said in the filing that L Brands’ decision to close its stores and skip rent payments in April violated the transaction. Sycamore is now seeking the court’s approval to break the deal, according to the filing. Representatives from Sycamore and L Brands were not immediately available to respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Brief: Top asset manager BlackRock Inc, which has vowed to put more focus on climate issues, said that companies might give a lower priority to sustainability reports as they struggle with the COVID-19 pandemic. In a stewardship document provided by a BlackRock (BLK.N) spokesman late on Tuesday, the firm suggested it would tolerate the change. BlackRock also took a neutral stance on the question of whether companies should continue to pay dividends or buy back shares, and said it expected companies to provide shareholders the chance for “meaningful participation” when they move annual meetings to cyberspace. The details marked some early specifics from the world’s largest asset manager about its expectations for companies dealing with the sudden economic shock stemming from the deadly respiratory virus.
Brief: Hedge fundinvestorAnthony Scaramuccion Tuesday refuted reports that Citibank has cut ties with his investment firm. “When they say ‘cut ties,’ the Wall Street Journal actually got that wrong. They issued a ‘sell’ on the fund,” the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge said. The Journal on Saturday published a reportthatCitigroup’s private bank decided to discontinue its relationship with SkyBridge after the company’s flagship fund suffered a loss of more than 20% in March. It cited a person familiar with the matter, who said Citigroup thinks the fund has “too much exposure to credit and mortgage-related securities.”
Brief: JPMorgan Chase & Co, the largest U.S. lender, said on Tuesday it was working on a plan to bring thousands of employees who have been working from home for more than five weeks back onsite in stages, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. JPMorgan is the first big bank to announce steps to return to normal as debate grows over reopening the U.S. economy after the novel coronavirus shuttered businesses across the country and put a record 22 million people out of work. “Two considerations are paramount as we plan for this across the firm: We want to do it at the right time — which may differ by region, country and state — and in a manner that prioritizes your health and safety,” the bank’s Operating Committee said in the memo. Around 180,000 of JPMorgan’s more than 200,000 employees have been working from home, with around 25% of its bank branches closed, in an effort to protect employees from the virus, bank executives said last week.