Brookfield's Atlantis Resort Secures $1.9 Billion Refinancing
In the past five years, the property owner has invested more than $260 million in the resort, including a renovation of guest rooms, the Atlantis Casino and new food and beverage concepts, according to an emailed statement. That helped drive record visits to the property in 2024 and this year.
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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Hotel Review: Aurora Anguilla Resort & Golf Club
I am generally not a fan of resorts—they're too-big, impersonal and generic-feeling for this seasoned traveler. Except, that is, in Anguilla. Because in fabulous Anguilla—the flat shrub of a Caribbean island that epitomizes barefoot chic and is the poster-child for low-volume, high-cost tourism; the island that boasts Michelin-starred chefs but also one of the most rootsy reggae festivals in the region (my take on Moonsplash here)—even a sizable resort can still feel like a divine boutique property. Case in point: Aurora Anguilla Resort & Golf Club. The expansive hotel boasts many grand 'onlys': it's home to the island's only golf course, water park, hydroponic farm, amphitheater, pickleball courts, double-decker bus, steakhouse and Teppanyaki dining experience. With 178 suites and villas, it spans 300 beachfront acres. Yet during my stay, the hotel still managed to make me feel as if I was the only one there. Here's how Aurora Anguilla—busy prepping plenty of new offerings for the upcoming busy season—serves up the conveniences of an all-inclusive resort without losing an ounce of chic, boutique style. SLEEP Aurora has a split personality—it's really not one resort but two, with Rendezvous Bay and Merrywing Bay each acting as the Ying to the other's Yang. On the Merrywing side is The Tower: a high-rise, currently being renovated, that offers modish rooms and suites featuring sweeping vistas of neighboring St. Martin. Rendezvous Beach at Aurora Anguilla, meanwhile, is more horizontal than vertical; its gorgeous, newly remodeled sea-front suites and multi-bedroom villas make for quite the scene: Mediterranean-style white angles against a backdrop of dazzling blue skies, impossibly florescent sea and bright white sand—so vividly pristine it almost hurts your eyes. Both sides of the property feature stellar beaches, pools and eateries (more on these later) but they have distinct identities, which makes sense: for the 'chill' experience, stay on serene Rendezvous Beach; if you're more of a doer, Merrywing—where the waterpark, the golf course and most of the sporting activities are—is your place. EAT Back to those Michelin stars I mentioned: They set Anguilla's bar very, very high, making it a true culinary capital of the Caribbean. Aurora's manifold eateries rise to the occasion thanks especially to a secret weapon: profound freshness, courtesy of one of the hotels 'onlys': its gorgeous hydroponic farm, capable of growing ridiculously fresh produce on an arid island where agriculture is all but impossible. This means that breakfast at Chef's Table includes touches like homemade hot sauce and garlic and ginger spread, perfect for pairing with your eggs and grilled veggies; dinner there complements just-caught fish and seafood—the seafood curry was my favorite—with hydroponic salads and garnishes. At C Level—featuring beachside bites like West Indian Creole conch, house-smoked baby-back ribs and homemade gelato—the lobster salad with tarragon vinaigrette won my heart. And at the steakhouse D Richard's, perched majestically above it all at the Aurora International Golf Club, the feted steaks looked delectable but I couldn't resist the colossal Anguillan lobster, served with fennel, kaffir-lime black garlic sauce and chives; there was also hydroponic salad; snapper crudo with horseradish cream and dill oil, scallop with squid ink orzo pasta and tiger shrimp. The restaurants on the Merrywing side—Tokyo Bay, serving sushi and sashimi, Teppanyaki and Japanese steak; Breezes, boasting New England favorites like clambakes, lobster rolls and fish taco; and Oliva, with Italian fare—are all getting remodeled in time to welcome peak-season guests from November on. DO My stay had just one big 'do': luxuriate in that perfect Anguilla beach, cocktail in hand. But for those wanting action—and especially those with kids to entertain—Aurora's options are staggering. On land, the sporting fun to be had includes 11 pickleball courts (the Caribbean's largest), a climbing wall, a world-class tennis center, beach volleyball, clay bocce, cycling, basketball, a 9-hole mini-golf course and the resort's crown jewel: Greg Norman's signature 18-hole golf course, with breathtaking views. In water, adults enjoy Aurora's partnership with SCUBA SHACK, Anguilla's only PADI 5-Star Dive Resort, while kids find their heaven at the massive waterpark, complete with slides and a lazy river. There's an island tour on a double-decker bus every Wednesday, movie nights at the impressive amphitheater every Friday and options for hikes, cave exploration and flora-and-fauna tours. BE WELL Sorana Spa is a temple to wellness, with a gleaming fitness center, steam room and sauna, beauty salon and an array of treatments. Traditional Balinese and Thai massages are on the menu, along with some quite creative options: the VDM Marma Facial Massage uses Ayurvedic techniques; a golf ball massage is in homage to the course; 'Sand Bed Therapy' immerses you in alpha quartz during a 'touch dynamic flow' massage—it's inspired by the ancient practice of 'Psammotherapapy,' or sand bathing. LOCAL TIP I planned my trip to coincide with August Monday, part of Anguilla's summer Carnival celebrations, known as the Anguilla Summer Festival. This Carnival connoisseur patted herself on the back many times for that sage decision. The massive boat race, party and concert on the beach, totally free of cost, is one of the least commercialized and most authentically community-driven Carnivals I've ever been to. Performances by big-name Caribbean artists like Mical Teja, Kes the Band and Kassav were phenomenal, and ogling the gorgeous Anguilla-made boats was pure joy. LOCAL TIP The easiest way to get to Anguilla is by boat from St. Maarten/St. Martin, and it's an island definitely not worth just passing through. Check into Le Petit Hotel on the French side, which—along with its sister property down the road, L'Esplanade—remain my favorites on the island, decades after my first flawless stay there. It's all about the size: Le Petit Hotel has only 10 rooms, all with kitchens and balconies beckoning with magical views, all within steps of the beach, all decorated with French Creole flair; breakfast of fruit, yogurt, cafe and croissants is served on a grand tray in your room by your gracious hosts. The hotel is in Grand Case, a small fishing village that has everything you need in a holiday in just a few square miles: incredible French restaurants like Rainbow Cafe and Ocean 82, boutique shops selling chic bikinis and jewelry, nighttime Caribbean vibes at Tropic's Beach Bar, the famous lolos (barbeque stands), and the overall local feel of, well, a world before AI took the gorgeous grit out of life. You'll need to get around to explore the rest of the island—there's lots to see and do—and Marcus of Justice Car Rental is your man, with both taxi service and rentals that do justice to 'good service.'
Bloomberg
2 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Citi Pitches First-of-Its-Kind Debt for Ukraine Reconstruction
Citigroup Inc. has been working on a long-shot bid to put together a deal that it says would help Ukraine fund its reconstruction — part of a push by the Wall Street giant to secure its place in one of the biggest financing opportunities of the coming years. The bank has been sounding out investors on a potential transaction since late last year, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal would allow the state-owned grid operator NPC Ukrenergo to refinance a chunk of its debt on more attractive terms, some of the people said. The savings could be used to help rebuild Ukraine's power grid, which has been a target of Russia's attacks.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Pimco's Warning on a Fannie-Freddie IPO: ‘Don't Fix What Is Not Broken'
(Bloomberg) -- Pacific Investment Management Co. is warning that the Trump administration's plan to sell shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could drive up the mortgage rates that Americans pay. 'Don't fix what is not broken,' Libby Cantrill, Pimco's head of public policy, wrote in a note to clients earlier this week. She said that unless the sale can be orchestrated in a way that preserves the government's commitment to financially support the institutions, investor demand may cool for the mortgage-backed securities that they sell. And this, Cantrill said, would in turn make home loans more expensive for millions of people. Her warning follows a recent estimate by Citigroup Inc. strategists that mortgage rates are likely to rise 0.1 to 0.2 percentage point following privatization. At the upper end, that would equate to roughly $600 a year in extra interest payments for the average borrower, yet another burden on families already getting priced out of the housing market at a record pace. The US is planning to re-list Fannie and Freddie in a process that could start later this year and raise about $30 billion, almost two decades after seizing control of them to stave off catastrophic losses during the financial crisis. The pair have for generations played a key role in fostering US home ownership by buying mortgages from banks, packaging them into bonds and providing investors guarantees against missed payments. Yet efforts to potentially release them from US oversight, known as conservatorship, face numerous obstacles, and any missteps could dent market confidence in the government's support, industry observers warn. Trump officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, have in recent months said that preventing any increase in mortgage rates is a top priority. 'It's a hard puzzle to solve, especially in a short amount of time,' said David Brickman, a former chief executive officer of Freddie Mac. 'Releasing them from conservatorship without raising mortgage rates is difficult, if you're not providing a more explicit guarantee' or 'expanding the ways they can make money.' Representatives for the Treasury and FHFA didn't respond to requests seeking comment. Investors in the more than $6 trillion agency MBS market appear to be taking at face value efforts by the administration to ease concerns over potential disruptions — including a promise by President Donald Trump himself to maintain the government's so-called implicit guarantee of the companies. Risk premiums on MBS have barely budged in recent months, suggesting traders remain confident Fannie and Freddie would be backstopped by the government should the pair run into trouble again, even after privatization. For more MBS coverage, subscribe to the Structured Finance Weekly That's not to say, however, that MBS buyers shouldn't take Pimco's warnings seriously. The asset management giant, which oversees more than $2 trillion, wrote that the market 'may become nervous if an explicit guarantee is not more locked-in.' Investor confidence that the US stands behind the companies is one reason they demand relatively little compensation to own mortgage bonds, which in turn keeps home-loan rates from rising. Cantrill also drew attention to bond market plumbing rules that let Fannie and Freddie pool mortgages without requiring investors to discriminate between the two companies. That system, which is known as the uniform mortgage-backed securities market and has been in place since 2019, works because the government backs bundles of home loans regardless of whether they come from Fannie or Freddie. In her note Cantrill referred to a May report in which she wrote that this fungibility would be in doubt without explicit government backing following Fannie and Freddie's release, creating 'friction that would almost certainly lead to higher mortgage rates.' Citigroup says another risk to mortgage rates comes from the fact the two companies will face strong incentives to increase profitability to make an IPO appealing to potential investors. One of their main sources of revenue is the fee they charge bond buyers, known as the guarantee fee, in exchange for their promise to compensate them for any missed principal and interest on the MBS they bundle. That fee could increase by around 0.1 to 0.2 percentage point following privatization in a base case scenario, and then be passed through via mortgage rates, Citigroup estimated. 'The thinking here is if you're privatizing then how do you make them more attractive to investors? You'd need to increase returns. There are ways to do that other than raising guarantee fees, but that is the simplest option,' said Ankur Mehta, a strategist at the New York-based bank, adding that raising fees may come at the expense of market share. In the event the government provided neither an implicit nor explicit guarantee of Fannie and Freddie, mortgage rates could rise as much as 0.8 percentage point, according to Citigroup's estimates, although Mehta said he views such a scenario as unlikely. Key Obstacles Of course, many details of how the administration might go about privatizing Fannie and Freddie aren't yet known. It's possible it could ultimately have a negligible impact on mortgage rates, or even cause rates to fall slightly, especially if the government were to offer an explicit guarantee, Citigroup and others have said. However, any such assurance would likely require an act of Congress, a remote prospect given partisan gridlock in Washington, according to many industry observers. What's more, market watchers have been quick to point out that there are still a number of significant issues that need to be addressed before an IPO can proceed. For example, even after accruing profits for years Fannie and Freddie are still about $200 billion short of capital they'd need to pull off a public listing, 'calling into question potential investor demand' for such an offering, Pimco's Cantrill wrote. Capital rules could be overhauled but that would require regulatory changes, she said. The administration may also need to forge guidelines for Fannie and Freddie that define their scope after a public offering, if it's also giving shareholders a greater say over the business model, according to Donald Layton, who preceded Brickman as chief executive officer of Freddie Mac. The absence of such safeguards before 2008 is one reason the pair ended up pouring money into subprime mortgages, a move that ultimately necessitated a government rescue, Layton wrote in an April post for New York University's Furman Center. Cantrill also mentioned the potential need to obtain clarity from regulators about how they'd treat the trillions of dollars in agency MBS currently held on bank balance sheets, should questions persist about the credibility of the government's implicit backing of the two companies. 'All of these would take a lot of time,' she wrote, suggesting Fannie and Freddie are likely still years, rather than months, away from privatization. 'It is an open question whether the juice really will be worth the squeeze, if it leads to only marginal proceeds and higher mortgage rates.' --With assistance from Natalie Harrison and Faith Isbell. Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan Dubai's Housing Boom Is Stoking Fears of Another Crash Twitter's Ex-CEO Is Moving Past His Elon Musk Drama and Starting an AI Company ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
