Brief: BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink had a stark message for a private audience: As bad as things have been for corporate America in recent weeks, they’re likely to get worse. Mass bankruptcies, empty planes, cautious consumers and an increase in the corporate tax rate to as high as 29% were part of a vision Fink sketched out on a call this week. The message from the leader of the world’s biggest asset manager contrasts with the ebullient tones of a stock market that has snapped back from recent lows. Even among Wall Street luminaries, Fink speaks with particular clout. He has been advising President Donald Trump on how to navigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. And BlackRock is playing a key role in the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stabilize markets, helping the central bank buy billions of dollars in assets.
Brief: City grandee Lord Blackwell has called for leniency from the UK's regulators as financial services workers navigate the "great pressure" of the Covid-19 crisis. Lord Blackwell, the chairman of Lloyds Banking Group, said staff at the UK lender "are having to make many decisions under great pressure every day": "My... ask of regulators is to recognise that, under this pressure, some of our colleagues, while trying their hardest, may not get every detail of the compliance requirements right and to be tolerant of some errors so long as bank staff are genuinely trying to do the right thing," he said, during a session of the City Week Covid-19 Webinar series on May 6. His comments come as UK banks facecalls to speed up lending to businessesunder the UK government's various coronavirus business interruption schemes, introduced to help companies weather the coronavirus crisis.
Brief: The wild swings in market volatility has been a blessing for many hedge funds this year. But for others, it's been a curse. The Cboe Volatility index, the fear tracker known as the Vix, has more than halved in the six weeks since it hit an all-time high on 16 March. Long-volatility funds have reaped big rewards — the Cboe Eurekahedge Long Volatility Hedge Fund Index returned about 40% in the first three months of 2020. Yet systematic volatility-focused hedge funds, which theoretically should be profiting at times like these, have instead endured performance meltdowns. In March, 9 out of the 38 volatility and options funds ranked in Société Générale’s Nelson Report, published last week, posted declines. Losers include Chicago-based hedge fund Wolverine Asset Management. Named after the fictional co-leader of the X-Men superhero team in Marvel Comics, Wolverine has lately more resembled Dr. Doom. The firm's volatility-focused Wolverine Intrinsic Fund was down 13.7% in March and 12% in the first quarter, according to the Nelson Report.
Brief: Natixis SA joined its French peers in taking a hit from equities trading as market turmoil and dividend cancellations following the outbreak of the coronavirus forced it to mark down assets. Equities trading revenue was more than erased by a 130 million-euro ($140 million) writedown when companies started to pull their dividends, contributing to a 204 million-euro net loss for the first quarter. Income from debt trading rose 46%, the bank said late Wednesday, beating peers BNP Paribas SA and Société Générale SA as well as the Wall Street average. The quarter ends a brief respite for Chief Executive Officer Francois Riahi, who had been trying to draw a line under a series of missteps since taking over in June 2018, including trading losses on Korean securities, a liquidity scare at its H2O Asset Management subsidiary and oversight problems. The bank put aside 193 million euros for credit losses, mainly to account for loans to oil and gas companies.
Brief: One of Canada’s biggest money managers is freezing redemptions in a large debt fund and warning that some borrowers may miss interest payments. Fiera Capital Corp. has called investors to inform them it has gated its Diversified Lending Fund, which has about C$1.5 billion ($1.1 billion) under management, according to people familiar with the situation. The fund is managed by chief investment officer Francois Bourdon and two others. The fund invests in the residential and commercial construction sector through limited partnerships (LPs) with various partners that specialize in lending solutions. The fund also puts money into partnerships that offer private loans to companies and other types of loans.
Brief: Ken Griffin’s Citadel will allow investors to pull a total of $1 billion from its main hedge funds without incurring fees or penalties, a sign that clients are grappling with the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The move, an exception from the firm’s usual practice, is aimed at providing relief to those invested in Citadel’s flagship Wellington and Kensington funds, according to an investor letter seen by Bloomberg. Such clients are primarily institutions like pension funds. Citadel manages about $30 billion. “In the wake of the unprecedented conditions created by the Covid-19 pandemic, we recognize that our investors may have different capital needs, both in size and timing, than originally anticipated at the beginning of the year,” according to the Citadel letter dated Monday. “In response to these potential demands, we are offering $1 billion of additional liquidity to investors in our multi-strategy funds on June 30, 2020 without being subject to any redemption fees or other restrictions.”