This Month
The 10 most memorable Lunches with the AFR of 2024
From Young Rich Listers to BlackRock’s chief strategist and Donald Trump’s former daily intelligence briefer. These were the 10 most read Lunches with the AFR in 2024.
- Staff writers
The new world order looks like mercantilism
The chaotic politics of the past 16 years masked the steady development of a new economic order, but trade and the economy aren’t zero-sum games.
- John Authers
November
- Opinion
- Investing
Buffett’s $499b cash hoard is an early warning signal
The Berkshire Hathaway chief executive does not claim to be an expert at market predictions, but he knows when stocks are overpriced.
- Nir Kaissar
October
BlackRock buys blood bank and pharmaceutical lab for new platform
BlackRock and local fund manager Wentworth Capital have acquired two properties in Sydney as seed assets for a $1.5b life sciences fund.
- Larry Schlesinger
- Analysis
- Mergers & acquisitions
Can BlackRock land HPS, the whale of private credit?
Scott Kapnick is closing in on a transformational transaction for the private credit firm he founded less than two decades ago.
- Eric Platt
Money pulled from big tech ahead of wild market swings
After nearly two years of oversized returns from “the only trade in town”, Australian investors are preparing for a choppier outlook on Wall Street.
- Joshua Peach
September
- Exclusive
- Commercial real estate
BlackRock seeds $1.5b laboratory real estate fund
BlackRock is partnering with local private equity firm Wentworth Capital on a “pure play” laboratory fund that has already secured a number of seed assets
- Larry Schlesinger
- Opinion
- Investing
Why ‘lender-on-lender violence’ is on the rise
As the 2021 vintage of private equity loans fall due, things are getting a little nasty among lenders, and sometimes among their borrowers, too.
- Jonathan Shapiro
Out of a job, not ready for golf: the rise of the portfolio career
Today’s public company chief executives and top leaders simply do not last as long in their jobs as they once did, so there are more unemployed high-flyers keen for work.
- Brooke Masters
August
Paradice’s Sam Theodore sees riches in these uranium stocks
The former Blackrock hedge fund manager’s recent trip to Paladin’s flagship Namibia mine has made him more bullish on the controversial energy source.
- Joanne Tran
Slim pickings for BlackRock’s equity partner hunt at Akaysha Energy
Deal was scuppered by the fact batteries are a fledgling sub-sector for even the most seasoned renewables dealmakers.
- Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
July
Top BlackRock executive benefits from unusual ‘points-style’ bonus pay
President Bob Kapito is the only executive named in BlackRock’s annual filings who benefits from a retirement plan linked to individual fund performance.
- Brooke Masters
Expert department ‘not party’ to PsiQuantum deal
Persistent criticism of the nearly $1 billion investment in PsiQuantum was again levelled at ministers and bureaucrats this week.
- James Hall
Akaysha signs $650m debt deal for giant NSW battery
The system to be built near Wellington will be one of the largest in the world. The BlackRock-owned group has also struck a supply deal with EnergyAustralia.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
June
City Tattersalls Club to sell Pitt St property after BlackRock walks
Should the deal complete as expected, City Tatts will lose ownership of the sprawling property, its crown jewel built via multiple acquisitions, after a century.
- Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Nuclear to wreak ‘catastrophic damage’ on renewable energy
Clean investor groups say the Coalition’s scheme will take too long, cost too much, and is incompatible with timely and cost-efficient energy transition.
- Elouise Fowler
Why Permira got cold feet over Golden Goose IPO
After more than 10 months of preparation, the Italian footwear brand was seeking to raise about $966 million in a Milan listing as early as Friday. Then something went wrong.
- Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, Ivan Levingston and Kaye Wiggins
Musk says shareholders approving his $75b pay package
It’s D-Day for the Tesla CEO as shareholders vote on his controversial pay package – with major implications for the billionaire and his company.
- Updated
- Trisha Thadani
Global investors pull $60b from ESG funds
Sustainably focused equity funds suffered major cash outflows globally in 2024 because of poor performance and scandals, the first sustained exodus.
- Patrick Temple-West and Will Schmitt
- Opinion
- The AFR View
ESG idealism runs into hard realities of execution
The end of cheap money to invest, the cost of living crisis, and energy price shock have dramatically changed the order of priority for customers, governments and investors.
- The AFR View