Íslandsbanki hf. has today issued ISK 1,200m at a yield of 3,50% under its Domestic Bond Programme.
The issue is a tap of the Bank´s previously issued green bond, ISLA CB 25 1126. Following the tap, the total nominal amount issued will be ISK 3,900m.
Settlement date is 29 April 2021.
For further information: Investor Relations - ir@islandsbanki.is.
(Reuters) -American Express Co said travel and entertainment-related spending on its cards halved in the first quarter as customers stayed at home due to the COVID-19 crisis, overshadowing a better-than-expected profit and sending its shares down 4%. Cross-border travel restrictions and a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in several parts of the world have forced people and businesses to put travel on hold, hitting credit-card issuers. Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Campbell said in an interview with Reuters on Friday that the continued travel restrictions would slow a rebound in business travel for large corporations.
(Bloomberg) -- It keeps getting worse for holders of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which is now trading at a record discount to the value of the digital assets it holds.The $35 billion fund (ticker GBTC) has lost roughly a fifth of its value since last Friday while Bitcoin tumbled from record highs. That’s helped to widen the difference between the share price and the underlying value of the Bitcoin holdings to roughly negative 19% as of Thursday’s closing prices, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Investors are being squeezed in part because of the structure of the trust, which doesn’t allow redemptions like most traditional exchange-traded funds. Owners of the trust must find buyers in the secondary market if they want to sell, which can exacerbate the discount with the price of Bitcoin falling. GBTC has also faced increased competition from Canada, which has approved Bitcoin ETFs while U.S. regulators continue to consider applications.“There is definitely still a rotation out of these products because they are much less efficient -- combined with others just taking off BTC exposure through GBTC, it definitely makes sense we’d be at a record discount,” said Stephane Ouellette, chief executive and co-founder of FRNT Financial. “GBTC has never been in a situation where one, there have been readily available alternatives that dominate and two, this is the most significant sell-off in absolute terms since the massive adoption boost we’ve seen since the fall.”Grayscale Investments has sought to blunt the widening discount by buying back shares, and said earlier this month it’s “100% committed” to converting GBTC into an ETF once the Securities and Exchange Commission approves the structure.Michael Sonnenshein, chief executive of Grayscale Investments, reiterated the comments Friday in a statement, saying “Grayscale is committed to converting GBTC to an ETF, and we have heard from investors with long-term horizons who are purchasing GBTC right now because they view it as a buying opportunity.”Still, that’s likely of little comfort to many of the other GBTC investors who bought the trust at a premium during the height of the Bitcoin mania.Read more: Why a U.S. Bitcoin ETF Could Be a Real Thing in 2021: QuickTakeIt is “most likely to trade at a discount until it converts to an ETF,” said Mohit Bajaj, director of ETFs for WallachBeth Capital.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
The stock markets pull back ever so slightly to kick off the trading session on Thursday, but then turned around to show signs of strength again.
(Bloomberg) -- The implosion of Archegos is giving thousands of secretive family offices the greatest challenge to their privacy in a decade. They won’t give it up without a fight.Some lawmakers, regulators and consumer advocates are pushing to expose the inner workings of family offices, which are closely held and lightly regulated yet manage an estimated $6 trillion for the ultra-rich globally.The changes the reform advocates seek would require U.S. family offices to register as investment advisers and publicly report holdings on a quarterly basis, as most other types of investment firms must.Such data could alert regulators, investors and other Wall Street players to hidden risks, yet it could also reveal proprietary information to rivals.Those advocating greater regulation are optimistic that new Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler, who has a tough-on-Wall-Street reputation, will see things their way. “The rationale for the exemption of family offices is clearly indefensible now, and we think the SEC will change this quickly,” said Dennis Kelleher, CEO of advocacy group Better Markets.The SEC already is in the midst of a separate review to potentially increase what all investment firms, including family offices, must disclose about their holdings, Bloomberg has reported. The new disclosures could include firms’ derivatives positions and which stocks they are shorting.Family office representatives are pushing back. They say they’re preparing for their biggest lobbying effort since they successfully avoided inclusion in tough new regulations following the 2008 financial crisis. Their strategy: Insist that Archegos’s family-office setup was irrelevant to its implosion.“What Archegos did and the fact they got themselves in trouble had nothing to do with the family-office structure,” said Brian Reardon, a lobbyist for the Private Investor Coalition, which advocates for family offices in Washington.The late March meltdown of Archegos Capital Management LP, helmed by former hedge-fund manager Bill Hwang, touched off the lobbying skirmish. After being barred from the hedge fund industry for insider trading, Hwang started a family office in 2013 and eventually parlayed $200 million into about $20 billion in assets, using a highly leveraged portfolio concentrated in a handful of stocks.Earlier: God and Man Collide in Bill Hwang’s Dueling Lives on Wall StreetThe subsequent blowup revealed that neither regulators nor brokers had any idea how large Archegos’s positions had become.“The losses are bad,” said Andrew Park, senior policy analyst for Americans for Financial Reform. “But the biggest stunner is these losses all came from a firm that nobody was aware of until a few weeks ago.” His group has called on the SEC to examine whether the family office registration exemption is creating “regulatory blindspots.”The large-bank brokerages that had to unwind the Archegos positions, including Morgan Stanley, Nomura Holdings Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG, lost billions of dollars, leading some bank executives to also call for increased scrutiny.“Frankly, the transparency and lack of disclosure relating to those institutions is just different from the hedge fund institutions. And that’s something I’m sure the SEC is going to be looking at,” said Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer James Gorman in an April 16 earnings call. “Better information is always good in rooting out where potential problems can be.”Reardon of the Private Investor Coalition said his group plans to speak with the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and lawmakers to argue why some of the disclosures advocates have called for aren’t needed.Angelo Robles, founder of the Family Office Association, is also preparing for action. He said he plans to contact law firms and U.S. senators if regulators take an aggressive stance on family offices. “The fallout will likely be more regulation on swaps,” said Robles, whose Greenwich, Connecticut-based group has more than 200 members worldwide, referring to the type of derivative Archegos often used.The banks have said they can absorb the losses, but the shock that a little-known family office could have such an effect is serving as a rallying cry for Wall Street reform advocates.Kelleher of Better Markets said he’s already pressed his case with SEC staff, in part arguing that more public disclosure of family office sizes and positions could help prevent them from becoming a risk to the financial system.Lawmakers have also shown interest. Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, who leads the Senate Banking Committee, has asked Archegos’s brokers to disclose information about their family office dealings.Family offices serving a single family and with no outside clients generally don’t need to register with the SEC as investment advisers. The rationale for the exemption is that they only serve one wealthy client who doesn’t need the protections afforded to investors in other funds.In addition, offices with less than $100 million in assets or that manage funds only for one person can avoid regularly disclosing their holdings to the SEC.Offices that serve more family members must file their holdings with the SEC, but can ask for, and often receive, an exemption allowing them to keep the filing confidential.Even those reports, like those of hedge funds and mutual funds, usually only include direct ownership of stocks and not derivatives positions, like the total return swaps that led to Archegos’s downfall.Large banks brokered the stock swaps for Archegos for a fee. Such swaps allowed the firm to spend relatively small amounts -- it essentially used borrowed money to build a huge portfolio -- while keeping its ownership of individual stocks hidden.If the SEC moves to require all investment firms, including family offices, to disclose derivatives and short positions, that wouldn’t necessarily dent the privacy of family offices if they’re still able to file holdings confidentially with the SEC.The lack of disclosure has allowed some family offices to adopt similarly complex strategies without drawing scrutiny. Complying with fewer regulations, meantime, has helped lead a number of hedge fund managers to convert their firms into family offices.BlueCrest Capital Management, for example, returned money to investors in 2016 to focus on managing the wealth of its billionaire co-founder Michael Platt, his partners and employees. John Paulson said last year he’s converting his Paulson & Co. hedge fund into a family office, following a similar move by Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors.Family offices have proliferated this century, partly due to the boom in tech billionaires. More than 10,000 family offices globally manage the wealth of a single family, with at least half having started this century, according to EY.A 2019 estimate by researcher Campden Wealth valued family office assets at almost $6 trillion globally, larger than the entire hedge fund industry. Because most families tightly guard the extent of their wealth and very few public records are available to track their assets, the exact figure could be higher or lower.It’s rare for family offices to take on as much risk as Archegos. But hedge funds that convert to family offices are more likely to keep their trading strategies, which often employ leveraged bets that can have a broader market effect.Some family offices lately have also launched so-called blank-check firms -- shell companies whose purpose is to raise money from investors and eventually to acquire other companies.Part of the Private Investor Coalition’s plan is to tell regulators that they already have the tools they need to pinpoint threats to the financial system, Reardon said. The SEC is in the process of implementing a long-delayed rule that would require all funds, including family offices, to privately disclose some of their derivatives positions to the agency. In theory, that would have made it possible for the SEC to see what Archegos was doing.But requiring Archegos to register as an investment adviser wouldn’t have prevented the blow-up, said Reardon, whose coalition formed in 2009 to ensure the offices would be exempt from such registration.If regulators do crack down on family offices in the U.S., some might simply decide to leave the country.“In reality, the typical single family office is a small team of highly mobile individuals,” said Keith Johnston, chief executive officer of SFO Alliance, a London-based investment club for single-family offices. “There is the danger that if they consider themselves over-regulated they will simply move staff or headquarters to those jurisdictions where they are not.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- Informed Portfolio Management, a Swedish hedge fund that had relied on statistical models to devise its strategies, is set to shut its doors and return investor capital after losing roughly $4 billion during the pandemic.IPM, whose main owner is Stockholm-based investment firm Catella AB, had assets under management of close to $5 billion in late 2019, before the pandemic hit. A year later, that amount had more than halved to $2 billion, with the investor exodus since then depleting assets to about $750 million.“The recent investment market for systematic macro-funds has unfortunately been very challenging and IPM has had weak returns and large capital outflows,” Catella said in a statement on Thursday. “IPM will ensure that all investors are treated fairly. This includes that all investors will be able to redeem their capital in the coming months according to each fund’s specific liquidity rules.”IPM had used quantitative strategies, which rely on mathematical models instead of on-the-ground analysis of portfolio assets. But the historical statistical models the fund built proved unequal to the task of predicting how markets would move during the volatility brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.“We believe that there is definitely a future for quantitative hedge funds,” IPM’s chairman of the board, Lars Ericsson, said in an interview. “But for our part, we could not, from a business perspective, pursue it further on the asset base we had.”Read: A Hedge Fund Boss Explains the Trouble With Ethical InvestingIPM joins a growing list of hedge funds shutting down in recent years as investors rethink their allocations to the industry. More hedge funds have closed than started in the last six years, with 770 of them shuttering in 2020, according to data compiled by Hedge Fund Research Inc.Last year was particularly tough for computer-driven quant funds. Algorithms largely failed to decipher the impact of a rapidly moving virus and the response from central banks to contain economic damage. The market selloff in March last year and subsequent recovery humbled some of the most sophisticated of quants -- most notably behemoths such as Renaissance Technologies, Winton and Two Sigma.IPM was founded over two decades ago. Catella had hoped to find a buyer for the troubled fund, and it recently even announced several new hires amid a plan to branch out into new strategies.“Despite many promising dialogues during the spring, we have not been able to find a suitable buyer for IPM,” Catella said.(Adds comment from chairman of IPM’s board)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Bloomberg) -- As one of Sweden’s oldest hedge funds shuts its doors, its chief acknowledges the firm’s quantitative strategies failed to cope with pandemic-induced market ructions.Lars Ericsson, the chairman of soon-to-be defunct Informed Portfolio Management, said the fund’s medium-term models failed to handle the shock that hit markets in early 2020.“When the pandemic came, it was a total surprise for the models,” he said on Thursday. But he rejected the idea that quants have had their day. “There is definitely a future for quantitative hedge funds.”IPM, a systematic macro fund based in Stockholm, started bleeding client money more than a year ago, with about $4 billion in assets under management flowing out since late 2019, leaving it with only $750 million. Its main owner, Swedish investment firm Catella AB, tried to find buyers until the last minute, but threw in the towel.The fund then managed to come back from the brink, but bad trades that predated the pandemic came back to haunt the fund. Its relative equity models had been weighing on performance for years, due in part to a strategy relying on value stocks. This year, IPM’s models misjudged the relative gains in interest rates.Ericsson says he still thinks everything would have worked out had IPM had a little longer. As recently as half a year ago, it even hired some people from Goldman Sachs to help build out its business. But client withdrawals were too intense, and the fund had to give up.“We were about to add some short-term factors, which would have been good diversifiers,” he said. “But unfortunately, we won’t get that chance now.”Industry in Decline?IPM joins a growing list of hedge funds shutting down in recent years as investors rethink their allocations to the industry. More hedge funds have closed than started in the last six years, with 770 of them shuttering in 2020, according to data compiled by Hedge Fund Research Inc.Last year was particularly tough for computer-driven quant funds, including behemoths such as Renaissance Technologies, Winton and Two Sigma.IPM’s systematic macro strategy applied fundamental macroeconomic principles to rank asset classes and economies. It then allocated money across asset classes including sovereign debt, equity indexes, commodities and currencies across the world. The model was based on historical statistical data, and relied heavily on computers. Year-to-date, its systematic macro fund generated a negative return of 7.7%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. For all of 2020, the return was minus 3.8%.Jonas Thulin, who oversees $6 billion as head of asset management at Erik Penser Bank AB in Sweden, says Ericsson is right to defend quant strategies, despite IPM’s demise. However, Thulin, who’s been able to increase assets under management roughly fourfold since 2018 using macro strategies, says quant models become dangerous when applied too narrowly.The Killers“The usual killers of quant strategies are so-called paradigm shifts and shocks,” he said.Thulin says the way around this is a methodology he calls “dynamic macro.” The idea is that asset managers “constantly run parallel universes of historical relationships and explanatory variables and structures.” Part of the idea is also that the model isn’t used to predict the future, “but rather, the market’s perception of the future,” which requires a human sanity check.That approach helped Thulin deliver a 26% return over the past year on his firm’s multi-asset portfolio, compared with the 5-7% annual return it targets. The global stocks portfolio he oversees is up 39% over the period.Ericsson notes that the long-term trend suggests that the share of total assets being managed under quantitative strategies is increasing, “even though there may be a temporary setback now.”But for IPM, “assets under management decreased faster than we had expected and with that asset base it is difficult to maintain the quality we want.”(Adds reference to final assets under management, as well as discussions of a sale in third paragraph, returns history in 11th)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Gold slipped 1% on Thursday, retreating from a two-month high, as an uptick in the dollar and U.S. Treasury yields hurt the metal's appeal, while palladium lingered near an all-time high. Spot gold was 0.7% lower at $1,780.36 per ounce by 12:54 p.m. EDT (1654 GMT), after hitting its highest since Feb. 25 at $1,797.67. "$1,800 was a bit of a psychological resistance, so we've come back with tests... The dollar and the 10-year (yields) are both a little bit higher and that's pressuring gold as well," said ED&F Man Capital Markets analyst Edward Meir.
The Indian rupee's near-term fortunes may directly be influenced by the Reserve Bank of India's intent on preventing any further depreciation in the currency as the surge in COVID-19 cases hits jobs and growth, economists and traders said. "INR is likely to trade with a depreciating bias on the back of a stronger dollar, relatively weaker EM currencies, muted EM inflows and rising COVID-19 cases in India," said Sameer Narang, chief economist at state-run Bank of Baroda. India reported 332,730 new daily cases on Friday, the highest single-day tally anywhere globally.
Parts of the bank had not fully implemented systems to keep pace with Archegos' fast growth when Archegos bets on a collection of stocks swelled leading up to its March collapse, the report said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. Chief Executive Thomas Gottstein and Lara Warner, the bank's recently departed chief risk officer, became aware of the Archegos exposure in the days leading up to the forced liquidation of the fund, the report said. Credit Suisse declined to comment on the WSJ report.
UBS (UBS) lowered its price target for Nike (NKE) from $183 to $175. This follows a Chinese-led boycott of the brand for past statements criticizing China for alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs in the northern province of Xinjiang.
The IRS is sending out "plus-up" payments — see if you can expect one.
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's key semiconductor industry has years of growth ahead of it with no worries about oversupply despite a massive capital investment programme and only a few competitors in the next decade or so, a senior government minister said on Friday. Kung Ming-hsin, the head of Taiwan's economic planning agency, the National Development Council, told Reuters the business opportunities presented by the global transformation to a digital economy were "very, very enormous". Kung also sits on the board of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) as a representative of the largest shareholder, the government's National Development Fund, which holds around 6% of the stock of the world's most valuable semiconductor company.
(Bloomberg) -- The Philippines returned to the euro bond market for the first time in more than a year on Wednesday, raising 2.1 billion euros ($2.5 billion).The nation tapped low interest rates in the euro bond market with a three-part note offering. Proceeds from the issuance will be used in part for the nation’s budget, as the Philippines tackles the economic fallout from the pandemic.The Philippines has the highest number of active coronavirus cases in Southeast Asia, and a recent surge in infections is overwhelming hospitals and dimming economic outlook. Philippines Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said earlier this month the government plans to sell dollar bonds too before interest rates rise. The latest borrowing came less than a month after the nation raised 55 billion yen ($509 million) in the Samurai bond market.The government sold 650 million euros of four-year notes at 75 basis points over mid swaps. See here for additional details.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Analysts are already calling for two S&P 500 companies, Microsoft and Amazon, to be the next to reach a market value of $2 trillion or more.
(Bloomberg) -- Mobile phone giant Xiaomi Corp. is among investors considering joining a funding round of at least 1.5 billion yuan ($231 million) for Black Sesame Technologies Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.The fundraising would value the Shanghai-headquartered artificial intelligence and autonomous driving chipmaker at as much as $1.5 billion, the people said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. Black Sesame’s backers in its previous funding round included Tencent Holdings Ltd., one of the people said.Black Sesame is considering an initial public offering on China’s technology-focused Shanghai Star board as soon as next year, according to the people. At least one more round of investment is planned before any potential IPO, they said.Xiaomi has invested billions in scores of startups to build out its smartphone and online ecosystem, but a deal with Black Sesame would mark the company’s latest bet on the automotive arena since announcing a $10 billion plan to build electric vehicles. The startup, which designs AI chips and systems for cars, counts major auto industry firms including Robert Bosch GmbH, SAIC Motor Corp. and BYD Co. among its clients, according to its website.Details of the fundraising such as size and valuation could change, the people said, while discussions of the IPO are at an early stage and the company could decide not to pursue a listing. Representatives for Black Sesame, Tencent and Xiaomi declined to comment.The investment talks come as Xiaomi plans to invest $10 billion over the next decade into manufacturing EVs, its billionaire co-founder Lei Jun announced last month. The Chinese smartphone maker joins tech giants from Apple Inc. to Huawei Technologies Co. in targeting the vehicle industry, betting future cars will grow increasingly autonomous and connected. Xiaomi will outsource car assembly to contract manufacturers, a model it uses for its smartphones, a person familiar with the matter has said.Founded in 2016, Black Sesame is an artificial intelligence company focused on image processing, perception algorithms and system-on-a-chip design, according to the website. It has about 300 employees, 80% of whom work in research and development, the site shows.The startup is one of a growing number of Chinese chipmakers and tech giants seeking capital to develop semiconductors used to train AI algorithms. Artificial intelligence chip companies in China such as Horizon Robotics Inc. and Enflame raised $1.2 billion in the first quarter alone, BNEF estimates.China has pledged to grow its domestic semiconductor industry and reduce its reliance on American technology. Demand for semiconductors capable of handling AI tasks such as machine learning has sharply increased in recent years, fueled by a boom in data-intensive applications including high-resolution video games and cryptocurrency mining. The global AI chip market is currently led by Nvidia Corp., while the likes of Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have also invested in their own bespoke server silicon.(Updates with Tencent response in fifth paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
(Reuters) -Mattel Inc will consider turning its collector brands into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the toymaker said after posting a record 47% surge in quarterly sales as Americans snapped up Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars in the usually slow post-holiday months. California-based Mattel on Thursday forecast annual sales to rise 6% to 8% versus prior outlook for a mid-single-digit percentage increase. "We are seeing a strong start to the second quarter including the Easter week and we're planning for another great holiday season," Kreiz said.
(Bloomberg) -- Huobi Technology Holdings Ltd. has launched four cryptocurrency-related funds targeting $100 million in total assets by September, the latest attempt to ride a stunning rally in digital assets.Huobi Tech is rolling out four funds including ones that will virtually track Bitcoin and Ether prices, allowing investors to bet on the coins without actually holding any currency. It’s the latest so-called crypto tracker after similar funds have launched around the world. The firm already has secured $50 million in commitments across the four funds.The offerings also include an active fund investing in a basket of virtual assets, and a private equity fund dedicated to investment in the crypto mining sector. In March, Huobi Tech obtained a license from the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong to manage and distribute funds invested solely in crypto -- the first such approval after Arrano Capital.“Virtual assets have become established as a strong category in alternative investment, and more players will compete in this arena,” Huobi Tech finance chief Zhang Li said during a Zoom interview from Beijing. “For professional investors who still have concerns about things like security and tax filing, they will opt to buy our funds rather than holding coins themselves.”The new Hong Kong license and funds highlight 38-year-old Huobi founder Leon Li’s endeavor to ensure his crypto empire, whose main exchange unit has drawn scrutiny over the years from Beijing, complies with regulations as it expands into adjacent arenas.The move also come as mainstream financial companies embrace crypto after Bitcoin’s value took off in October. However, some still warn of a bubble, and volatility and regulatory risk around the globe remain concerns for the asset class.Longer term, Zhang said she expects the firm to provide a full suite of crypto-related services including custody, without specifying details.Read more: The Crypto Mogul Who’s Got the Ear of China’s Central BankFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
GDANSK (Reuters) -Polish video games maker CD Projekt on Thursday said it had sold 13.7 million copies of its flagship Cyberpunk 2077 game last year despite a bug-ridden launch, and will pay a dividend of 5 zlotys per share after record high 2020 sales and profits. With a budget of 1.2 billion zlotys ($316.19 million), Cyberpunk 2077 was CD Projekt's most-anticipated game since 2015's "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" but it has been delisted from Sony's PlayStation Store since shortly after December's problematic launch. Once an investor darling, CD Projekt has lost about 50% of its market value since December amid the Cyberpunk problems and is now valued at around 17.4 billion zlotys.
The European Union on Wednesday deflected concerns over its drive to formulate rules requiring companies to show investors how climate change will affect their activities, saying that waiting for a global approach could take years. The EU unveiled groundbreaking proposals on Wednesday for sustainability disclosures by companies in the 27 country bloc, and a classification system to define what can be labelled a "green" asset or activity in a disclosure. It leaps ahead of global efforts to create an international sustainability standards board to write disclosure rules, details of which will be published in time for the UN COP26 global climate change conference in November.
Wealthy Americans know the capital gains tax is their biggest loophole — and they won't give it up easily.
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