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Investment
UBS Names Karofsky Head of Investment Bank as Novelli Leaves – BNN
(Bloomberg) — UBS Group AG named Robert Karofsky the sole head of its investment-banking unit, elevating its top trader after co-president Piero Novelli accepted a job as chairman of the Euronext NV stock exchange.
Novelli plans to step down from the bank at the end of next month to join the European bourse, according to statements Monday. The two were put in charge as co-presidents following the departure of Andrea Orcel, with Karofsky overseeing trading and Novelli heading the business of advising on deals.
Since taking over in 2018, the duo shook up the unit, split it into two segments — global banking and global markets — and focused it on specific sectors such as consumer, industrial, and financial institutions. After a long period of downsizing as UBS pivoted toward wealth management, the investment bank last year recorded its best performance since 2012, helped by a trading surge in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Shares of UBS rose 1.3% at 11:23 a.m. in Zurich trading, bringing gains this year to about 10%.
The move is the latest in a series of reshuffles and reviews under Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers, who took over in November with a mandate to lead UBS through a period of increasing competition and cost pressures. He named a key executive, Sabine Keller-Busse, to run the bank’s Swiss unit, appointed a chief transformation officer and is looking for a chief operating officer.
In appointing a single head of the investment bank, he’s streamlining a management structure put in place under his predecessor Sergio Ermotti that emphasized competition between executives. At the investment bank, the 2018 restructuring of the advisory business led to a series of co-heads being appointed, bloating management ranks.
UBS also still has a co-head structure in its wealth business, with Iqbal Khan overseeing the business in Europe and Asia while Tom Naratil runs the unit in the Americas. Khan, a star banker at rival Credit Suisse Group AG who switched to UBS in 2019, was given the additional responsibility of president of the EMEA region in Hamers’s recent shakeup, while Naratil already holds the equivalent title for the Americas.
Karofsky, who joined UBS in 2014, has driven a digital transformation of the markets unit, an area Hamers has said he would like to continue focusing on. Revenue from trading surged 33% last year, mostly driven by fixed income. Global banking — which includes the advisory business — saw revenue rise 23%.
A former Merrill Lynch employee, Novelli joined UBS in 2004, overseeing global mergers and acquisitions, and returned in 2013 after a stint at Nomura Holdings Inc.
“I want to personally thank Piero for his contributions to reshaping our investment bank and successfully co-leading the business, employees and our clients through the pandemic,” Hamers said in the statement. “I am confident Rob is the right leader to help us achieve our strategic ambitions.”
(Updates with investment bank performance in eighth paragraph.)
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
Investment
Taxes should not wag the tail of the investment dog, but that’s what Trudeau wants
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Kim Moody: Ottawa is encouraging people to crystallize their gains and pay tax. That’s a hell of a fiscal plan
The Canadian federal budget has been out for a week, which is plenty of time to absorb just how terrible it is.
The problems start with weak fiscal policy, excessive spending and growing public-debt charges estimated to be $54.1 billion for the upcoming year. That is more than $1 billion per week that Canadians are paying for things that have no societal benefit.
Why? Well, for the CEI, virtually every entrepreneurial industry (except technology) is not eligible. If you happen to be in an industry that qualifies, the $2-million exemption comes with a long, stringent list of criteria (which will be very difficult for most entrepreneurs to qualify for) and it is phased in over a 10-year period of $200,000 per year.
For transfers to EOTs, an entrepreneur must give up complete legal and factual control to be eligible for the $10-million exemption, even though the EOT will likely pay the entrepreneur out of future profits. The commercial risk associated with such a transfer is likely too great for most entrepreneurs to accept.
Capital gains tax hike
But the budget’s highlight proposal was the capital gains inclusion rate increase to 66.7 per cent from 50 per cent for dispositions effective after June 24, 2024. The proposal includes a 50 per cent inclusion rate on the first $250,000 of annual capital gains for individuals, but not for corporations and trusts. Oh, those evil corporations and trusts.
Some economists have come out in strong favour of the proposal, mainly because of equity arguments (a buck is a buck), but such arguments ignore the real world of investing where investors look at overall risk, liquidity and the time value of money.
If capital gains are taxed at a rate approaching wage taxation rates, why would entrepreneurs and investors want to risk their capital when such investments might be illiquid for a long period of time and be highly risky?
They will seek greener pastures for their investment dollars and they already are. I’ve been fielding a tremendous number of questions from investors over the past week and I’d invite those academics and economists who support the increased inclusion rate to come live in my shoes for a day to see how the theoretical world of equity and behaviour collide. It’s not good and it certainly does nothing to help Canada’s obvious productivity challenges.
The government messaging around this tax proposal has many people upset, including me. Specifically, it is the following paragraph in the budget documents that many supporters are parroting that is upsetting:
“Next year, 28.5 million Canadians are not expected to have any capital gains income, and 3 million are expected to earn capital gains below the $250,000 annual threshold. Only 0.13 per cent of Canadians with an average income of $1.4 million are expected to pay more personal income tax on their capital gains in any given year. As a result of this, for 99.87 per cent of Canadians, personal income taxes on capital gains will not increase.” (This is supposedly about 40,000 taxpayers.)
Bluntly, this is garbage. It outright ignores several facts.
Furthermore, public corporations that have capital gains will pay tax at a higher inclusion rate and this results in higher corporate tax, which means decreased amounts are available to be paid out as dividends to individual shareholders (including those held by individuals’ pensions).
The budget documents simply measured the number of corporations that reported capital gains in recent years and said it is 12.6 per cent of all corporations. That measurement is shallow and not the whole story, as described above.
Tax hit for cottages
There are also millions of Canadians who hold a second real estate property, either a cottage-type and/or rental property. Those properties will eventually be sold, with the probability that the gain will exceed the $250,000 threshold.
And people who become non-residents of Canada — and that is increasing rapidly — have deemed dispositions of their assets (with some exceptions). They will face the distinct possibility that such gains will be more than $250,000.
The politics around the capital gains inclusion rate increase are pretty obvious. The government is planning for Canadian taxpayers to crystallize their inherent gains prior to the implementation date, especially corporations that will not have a $250,000 annual lower inclusion rate. For the current year, the government is projecting a $4.9-billion tax take. But next year, it dramatically drops to an estimated $1.3 billion.
This is a ridiculous way to shield the government’s tremendous spending and try to make them look like they are holding the line on their out-of-control deficits. The government is encouraging people to crystallize their gains and pay tax. That’s a hell of a fiscal plan.
I hope the government has some second sober thoughts about the capital gains proposal, but I’m not holding my breath.
Investment
Everton search for investment to complete 777 deal – BBC.com
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2 hours ago
Everton are searching for third-party investment in order to push through a protracted takeover by 777 Partners.
The Miami-based firm agreed a deal to buy the Toffees from majority owner Farhad Moshiri in September, but are yet to gain approval from the Premier League.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported the club’s main financial adviser Deloitte has been seeking fresh funding from sports-focused investors and lenders to get 777’s deal over the line.
BBC Sport has been told this is “standard practice contingency planning” and the process may identify other potential lenders to 777.
Sources close to British-Iranian businessman Moshiri have told BBC Sport they remain “working on completing the deal with 777”.
It is understood there are no other parties waiting in the wings to takeover should the takeover fall through and the focus is fully on 777.
The Americans have so far loaned £180m to Everton for day-to-day operational costs, which will be turned into equity once the deal is completed, but repaying money owed to MSP Sports Capital, whose deal collapsed in August, remains a stumbling block.
777 says it can stump up the £158m that is owed to MSP Sports Capital and once that is settled, it is felt the deal should be completed soon after.
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Investment
Warren Buffett Predicts 'Bad Ending' for Bitcoin — Is It a Doomed Investment? – Yahoo Finance
Currently sitting in sixth on Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List, Berkshire Hathaway co-founder, chairman and CEO Warren Buffett is a first-rate example of an investor who stuck to his core financial beliefs early in life to become not only a success but a once-in-a-lifetime inspiration to those who followed in his footsteps.
One of the most trusted investors for decades, the 93-year-old Buffett isn’t shy to pontificate on his investment philosophy, which is centered around value investing, buying stocks at less than their intrinsic value and holding them for the long term.
Read Next: Warren Buffett: 6 Best Pieces of Money Advice for the Middle Class
Find Out: 5 Genius Things All Wealthy People Do With Their Money
He’s also quite vocal on investments he deems worthless. And one of those is Bitcoin.
Buffett’s Take on Bitcoin
Over the past decade, it’s been clear that the crypto craze isn’t something Buffett wants any part of. He described Bitcoin as “probably rat poison squared” back in 2018.
“In terms of cryptocurrencies, generally, I can say with almost certainty that they will come to a bad ending,” Buffett said in 2018. And his stance hasn’t wavered since. According to Benzinga, Buffett believes that cryptocurrencies aren’t a viable or valuable investment.
“Now if you told me you own all of the Bitcoin in the world and you offered it to me for $25, I wouldn’t take it because what would I do with it? I’d have to sell it back to you one way or another. It isn’t going to do anything,” Buffett said at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting in 2022.
Although the Oracle of Omaha has his misgivings about the unpredictable investment, does that mean crypto is doomed as an investment? Not necessarily.
For You: 10 Valuable Stocks That Could Be the Next Apple or Amazon
Is Buffett Wrong About Bitcoin?
Bitcoin bulls argue that while it’s not government-issued, cryptocurrency is as fungible, divisible, secure and portable as fiat currency and gold. Because they occupy a digital space, cryptocurrencies are decentralized, scarce and durable. They can last as long as they can be stored.
Crypto boosters continue to predict massive growth in the coin’s value. Earlier this year, SkyBridge Capital founder and former White House director of communications Anthony Scaramucci told reporters that Bitcoin could exceed $170,000 by mid-2025, and Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood predicts Bitcoin will hit $1.48 million by 2030, according to Fortune.
“They really don’t understand the concept and the whole history of money,” Scaramucci said of crypto critics like Buffett on a recent episode of Jason Raznick’s “The Raz Report.” Because we place a value on “traditional” currency, it is essentially worthless compared with the transparent and trustworthy digital Bitcoin, Scaramucci said.
Currently trading around the $66,000 mark, Bitcoin is up nearly 50% in 2024. This means it’s massively outperforming most indexes this year, including the S&P 500, which is up about 6% in 2024.
Although Berkshire Hathaway has invested heavily in Bitcoin-related Brazilian fintech company Nu Holdings, which has its own cryptocurrency called Nucoin, it’s possible Buffett will never come around fully to crypto, despite its recent surge in value. It’s contrary to the reliable investment strategy that has served him very well for decades.
“The urge to participate in something where it looks like easy money is a human instinct which has been unleashed,” Buffett said. “People love the idea of getting rich quick, and I don’t blame them … It’s so human, and once unleashed you can’t put it back in the bottle.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Warren Buffett Predicts ‘Bad Ending’ for Bitcoin — Is It a Doomed Investment?
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