Australia's PM Leads in Polls as Election Race Starts
A Newspoll survey shows Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government pulling ahead of the Liberal-National opposition at the start of Australia's election campaign. Kate Harrison Brennan, who served as an adviser to former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, says the results reflect some sense of approval for Albanese's leadership during the onslaught of cyclone Alfred. Harrison discussed the key election issues amid a changing global order on "Bloomberg: The Asia Trade." (Source: Bloomberg)
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New York Post
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- New York Post
GOP lawmakers push bill touting dads for Father's Day — and calling out crisis of 1 and 4 kids growing up without one
Two Republican reps unveiled a resolution in time for Father's Day aimed at drawing attention to the millions of kids growing up without fathers — roughly one in four US children — and underscoring the important roles that dads play in American society. Reps. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and Burgess Owens (R-Utah) introduced the resolution in the House earlier this month and urged policymakers to back solutions that encourage fatherhood. 'I'm blessed with six children and 17 grandchildren — they are the heartbeat of everything I do,' Owens, 73, explained about the resolution. 'We know that when fathers are engaged, children thrive, succeed in school, stay out of trouble and build brighter futures. 'This Father's Day, I'm proud to reintroduce this resolution to recognize the power and purpose of fatherhood, and to send a clear message: America is stronger when families are strong, fathers are present, and parents are empowered.' The resolution, HR 487, which hasn't received a vote yet, declares that 'fatherhood is essential to the development of all children.' 3 The GOP reps are hoping the House will adopt the resolution that highlights the importance of fatherhood. Getty Images 3 Rep. Burgess Owens has six children and seventeen grandchildren. Getty Images About 18.4 million children — roughly a quarter of American kids — live without any father in the home — including a biological, step or adoptive dad, according to US Census Bureau data. Roughly 80% of single-parent households are run by single moms, one study from 2022 found. 'A father's impact is truly incalculable,' Donalds, who is running for Florida governor, said in a statement. 'It is fundamental for growth and development throughout a child's life. Fathers are providers, protectors, teachers, mentors, role models, and so much more.' 'Too many children across our country have been robbed of this lasting influence and we must do everything we can to end the tragic cycle of fatherlessness in America. I'm proud to partner with Congressman Owens to express the importance of this timeless institution.' The resolution is also being championed by former Minnesota Vikings and University of Minnesota football player Jack Brewer, whose eponymous foundation has worked to combat the fatherhood crisis in the US. Last week, the Jack Brewer Foundation celebrated the grand opening of its National Fatherhood Center in Washington, DC. 'We should be embarrassed as the most fatherless nation in the world and declare war on this crisis in America,' Brewer said. 3 Jack Brewer's eponymous foundation opened its National Fatherhood Center in Washington, D.C. last week. Bloomberg via Getty Images 'Too many vulnerable children and families have been devastated, and we must address all policies that contribute to dismantling homes, ensuring that both a mother and a father are present to support their children.' The resolution also draws attention to the impact of fatherlessness in minority communities and pushes for solutions such as workforce reentry initiatives for incarcerated parents, mentorship programs, and tax incentives for parents. The measure also hails the First Step Act, opportunity zones and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUS) for helping to address fatherlessness in minority communities. 'Fatherlessness and the lack of important role models in the lives of children today are a root cause of the violence and unrest we are witnessing in our Nation,' the resolution warned.
Bloomberg
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- Bloomberg
Peru's Growth Misses Expectations as Fishing, Farming Contracts
Peru's economic growth was weaker than expected in April, dragged down by slow growth in fishing and agriculture. Economic activity expanded 1.4% in April compared with a year ago, according to national statistics institute INEI. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for 2.1% growth.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
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As Harvard's and Yale's private equity holdings go on sale, buyers can use this technique for 1,000% windfalls. ‘It makes your brain melt'
The secondary market for private equity stakes is booming as buyers are eager to snap up assets being shed by investors. There's reason to believe Harvard, Yale, and other elite institutions might be getting a good deal, even as they sell their holdings at a discount to current valuations. Some of the country's most elite institutions are offloading parts of their private equity portfolios. As funds take longer to return money to investors, Harvard and Yale are selling at a discount with endowments looking for more liquidity and flexibility amid economic turbulence. But both sides of such deals can make surprising gains. This portfolio maintenance doesn't appear linked to President Donald Trump's attack on university finances, including a possible tax hike on endowments. Industry skeptics think these sales, however, highlight growing concerns that returns in the opaque world of private equity aren't always all they're cracked up to be. 'With elite universities' private equity investments on the auction block, the big reveal is coming,' Nir Kaissar, founder of asset management firm Unison Advisors, wrote in a Bloomberg opinion column on Thursday. University endowments typically make for ideal investors in alternative assets—with virtually infinite investment horizons, they can ride out wild gyrations in the public markets by locking up billions of dollars over several years. On its face, that move has been a no-brainer. As Kaissar noted, Bloomberg's weighted index of U.S. PE funds returned 9.4% year over year from 2007 to 2024. The index's annualized standard deviation, a common measure of volatility, was just 7.2%. The S&P 500 gained 10.5% in that span with a standard deviation of 16.8%, a much worse return on a risk-adjusted basis. These numbers, however, may not reflect the underlying picture. Unlike stocks trading on public exchanges, the prices of private assets don't change based on the whims of investors day-to-day. Instead, valuations of most private companies, real estate properties, and other assets PE firms hold are typically based on subjective assumptions that don't fluctuate like public equity markets do, Tim McGlinn, an investment veteran and former adjunct finance professor at Seton Hall, told Fortune. 'There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that,' said McGlinn, who blogs about the alternatives industry at But when investors or prospective investors believe the holdings can actually be sold at those prices, 'that's when things become problematic.' Ultimately, private equity firms make money for investors by exiting their investments, when they attempt to turn notional valuations on paper into cash. Therefore, there must be some correlation between the performance of public and private assets, said Jason Reed, a finance professor at the University of Notre Dame. 'If the market's doing really well broadly, well then you're going to have lots of opportunities for businesses to buy your company, other private equity companies to buy your company, to take them public and IPO them,' he told Fortune. 'But if the economy is not doing great, businesses are struggling, then you're not going to have as many opportunities overall to sell.' Billionaire hedge fund owner Bill Ackman, a Harvard alumnus, has claimed his alma mater's $53 billion endowment, almost 40% of which is allocated to private equity, is significantly overstated. 'I believe that a substantial part of the reason why many private assets remain private despite the stock market near all-time highs is that the public market will value private assets at lower values than they are being carried at privately,' Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Capital, wrote in a social media post last month. The Harvard Management Company, which oversees the university's endowment, declined to comment. It recently agreed to sell roughly $1 billion of its PE stakes, following a similar move in the summer of 2021. That came at a time of 'significant ebullience,' the university noted in its 2022 financial report, allowing the school to avoid discounts the funds would have faced just over a year later. Yale, meanwhile, is negotiating a nearly $3 billion sale of private equity holdings at a discount of less than 10%, a spokesperson for the Yale Investments Office told the school's newspaper. The university pioneered the institutional push into alternative assets, with 95% of its $41 billion endowment allocated to growth-oriented assets like PE, venture capital, real assets, and global equities. 'Following a months-long review, the University is in process to sell select private equity fund interests,' Yale said in a statement to Fortune. 'Private equity remains a core element of our investment strategy, and we continue to commit significant capital to our existing world-class partners, while pursuing new private equity opportunities to support the long-term growth of the Endowment.' This doesn't appear to be a distressed sale, McGlinn said, but the deal is otherwise hard to evaluate. More mature funds trade very differently than newer ones, and various positions are typically packaged together in these types of transactions. 'Yale being Yale, you can assume they're getting the best price they can,' McGlinn said. Still, investors in PE funds, known as 'limited partners,' sold their stakes at an average discount of 11% compared to the net asset value, or NAV, of these holdings on their balance sheets, according to Jeffries. It may seem odd that universities are looking to sell when valuations are likely down across the board this year as borrowing costs remain elevated. But demand in the secondary market is booming. Secondary sales increased 45% to $162 billion last year, per Jeffries. As a result, Yale, Harvard, and other universities could take much less of a haircut than they might have feared while also booking gains on their initial stakes. That's because there is reason to believe many buyers are willing to overpay, McGlinn said. Regardless of what secondary funds dish out to acquire these stakes, he explained, they are allowed to then mark these investments up to the old net asset value. McGlinn calls this process 'NAV squeezing.' As The Wall Street Journal reported last year, it can result in one-day windfalls of 1,000% or more, gains that McGlinn said secondary funds report as real returns. 'It makes your brain melt,' he said. Comparing NAV squeezing to a Ponzi scheme might go too far, said Jeffrey Hooke, a senior lecturer in finance at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and a longtime critic of PE. But he agrees it looks quite shaky, even if the technique is permissible according to generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. 'It's almost like a full wash and rinse cycle,' said Hooke, formerly the principal investment officer of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation. Universities, of course, get to be on the other side of these deals. Even though they are selling their PE stakes at a discount to NAV, they could be getting more than the capital they had committed to those investments up until this point. In other words, endowments might still be escaping with a profit. 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