Latest news with #SociétéGénérale
Hospitality Net
a day ago
- Business
- Hospitality Net
Europe Hotel Transactions Bulletin - Week Ending 30 May 2025
Genefim, the real estate investment arm of the French bank Société Générale, has acquired the four-star, 319-room Exe Rey Don Jaime hotel in Valencia, Spain, from Spanish real estate investment trust Atom Hoteles SOCIMI for €50 million (€156,700 per room). The property is situated midway between Valencia's old town and marina, by the Turia Gardens and the City of Arts and Sciences. The hotel includes a restaurant, bar, ten meeting rooms and a rooftop pool. Spanish operator Eurostars will continue to operate the hotel under its Exe Hotels brand. Yoomata Aldgate Property, a joint venture between French real estate firms Euragone Investment Management and Mata Capital, has acquired the three-star, 180-room Corner London City Hotel, UK, along with a plot of undeveloped land, from British real estate investment trust Great Portland Estates for £42 million. The hotel is located in East London's Whitechapel district, and includes a restaurant, bar and three meeting rooms. Yoomata reportedly plans to redevelop the site and eventually operate it under the Yooma Urban Lodge brand. Select Group acquires Old Thorns Hotel & Resort in Liphook, UK Dubai-based real estate investment firm Select Group has acquired the four-star, 150-room Old Thorns Hotel & Resort in Liphook, UK. The property was previously owned by Zhang Zhenxin, the founder of financial services conglomerate China UCF Group, who died in 2019 leaving UCF under a massive debt burden. UCF acquired Old Thorns in 2013 from the Shaw family who remained as operator of the resort. Situated in Hampshire, approximately 80 kms southwest of London, the resort sits within 317 acres of land and also includes 51 self-catering apartments, an 18-hole championship golf course, a restaurant, three bars and eight meeting rooms. Select Group plans to further invest in the resort. H10 Hotels acquires Juliana Hotel Paris from Éric Cleton Spanish owner-operator H10 Hotels has acquired the five-star, 40-room Juliana Hotel Paris from French hotelier Éric Cleton. Originally opened in 2015, the property is situated in Paris's 7th district, close to the Eiffel Tower. The hotel includes a restaurant, rooftop bar, and spa. It will be rebranded as The One Alma Paris, becoming the third property in the The One by H10 Hotels portfolio. Sampension, AKF & Comwell Hotels acquire Comwell H.C. Andersen Odense Danish pension fund manager Sampension, together with Danish real estate investment company AKF and Danish operator Comwell Hotels, has acquired the four-star, 157-room Comwell H.C. Andersen Odense Dolce by Wyndham in Odense, the third largest city in Denmark. The hotel is situated in the city centre, close to the central train station, and includes a restaurant, 24 meeting rooms and a casino. Comwell Hotels will continue operating the hotel.
Business Insider
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Famed market bear Albert Edwards tells BI stocks are vulnerable — and opens up about his role as Wall Street's 'uber-bear'
Even if the words coming out of Albert Edwards' mouth were gloomy, the famously bearish Société Générale strategist was in his usual good mood on Tuesday. It's something that tends to catch people off guard when they meet him, he said. "I'm quite a happy, upbeat person," Edwards told BI. "As opposed to the miserable bastard I come across in my written work." If you follow the British strategist's research, it's not hard to see why he comes across as a grouch. He is known as a perennial bear on Wall Street (he refuses the moniker of "perma-bear" and prefers "uber-bear"). His weekly client notes regularly question the prevailing market narrative and warn of downside scenarios. His latest report warned that rising Japanese bond yields could lead to a " global financial market Armageddon." His tune during a May 27 interview was no different. Edwards, who shot to fame for correctly calling the eventual dot-com bust in the late 1990s, said that stocks are still vulnerable to a pullback after their 18% rally from April lows. Despite investors starting to discount recession and inflation risks on the heels of President Donald Trump's tariff reductions, valuations remain high and risks abound, he said. One of those risks is the possibility that investors start to question hefty AI spending from the mega-cap tech firms. Another is a potential recession. But, in his opinion, the top risk the market should be aware of is rising Japanese interest rates, which could cause an exodus of capital from the US as investors unwind the yen carry trade and chase more attractive yields. The Bank of Japan, having kept interest rates low for years, pushed flows of money into US stocks and bonds. Now that the trend is reversing, those flows could grind to a halt, he said. Ultimately, however, it's not easy to know what will spark a stock-market decline. What's easier to know is simply that the market is in a precarious spot thanks to "steamy" valuations. One popular measure, the Shiller CAPE ratio, shows stock valuations at some of their highest levels in history. "These are really super high valuations," he said. "And you look at things like the relationship between bonds and equities, with bond yields where they are now and the equity risk premium being so low." "You just think, 'You're a bit vulnerable here to bad news, aren't you?'" he added. "Something comes along, you really are not in a great situation." The resident bear Edwards is something of an anomaly on Wall Street. Most of the time, top strategists issue fairly bullish forecasts. For example, in January this year, the average 2025 S&P 500 price target saw 11.5% upside. Just two strategists — Stifel's Barry Bannister and BCA Research's Peter Berezin — predicted negative returns this year. It remains to be seen whether that will be the case, but suffice to say, investors were caught off guard by the S&P 500's 20% decline from February to April. It's these rapid declines, though few and far between, that Edwards wants investors to keep in mind as possible outcomes in frothy environments. As a result of pessimistic tendencies, Edwards isn't correct all too often, but that's not necessarily the point — and his readers know that. "A lot of clients who totally disagree with me like to read my stuff. It's a reality check," he said. Earlier this year, financial professionals detailed to BI the pressure that strategists face from both their bosses and clients if they're wrongly bearish for too long. David Rosenberg, who called the housing bubble and recession in the mid-to-late 2000s while working as the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, said the firm asked him not to use the word "bubble" to describe housing market dynamics at the time because it was scaring clients. Edwards said he doesn't feel that pressure. He writes his notes as Société Générale's "alternative view," separate from their house view. "You have to have good employers," he said. "People have said to me, 'If you worked at an American bank, you'd be fired immediately because of your views.'"
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
SKY Leasing Announces Closing of $503 Million Secured Notes Offering
SAN FRANCISCO, May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- SKY Leasing ("SKY"), a leading aviation investment manager, announced the closing of an issuance of $503 million of secured notes (the "Notes") by SLAM 2025-1 Limited and SLAM 2025-1 LLC ("SLAM"). SLAM expects to use a portion of the proceeds of the Notes to acquire a portfolio of 19 Airbus and Boeing aircraft valued at approximately $689 million. The portfolio features an average age of 5.3 years and a weighted average lease term of 7.2 years, with a significant focus on narrowbody aircraft (88%) and next generation aircraft (65%). SKY will act as servicer for SLAM's aircraft portfolio. The offering consisted of one series of Notes: $503 million Series A Notes with an interest rate of 5.807%. The Series A Notes have an initial loan-to-value ("LTV") of 73.0% and were rated A2 (sf) by Moody's Investors Service ("Moody's") and A (sf) by Kroll Bond Rating Agency ("KBRA"). The Series A Notes have an initial expected maturity of 7 years and an initial expected weighted average life of 5.2 years based on the pricing case cash flow model. Affiliates of SKY acquired the E Certificates of SLAM. "This transaction reflects SKY's continued leadership in structuring innovative, investor-aligned aviation finance solutions," said Matthew Crawford, Co-Chief Investment Officer at SKY. "The bespoke nature of this deal — combining a carefully curated portfolio with a robust capital structure — demonstrates our ability to deliver differentiated value. The strong investor response, with 3.6x final subscription levels, reinforces the market's confidence in our platform and our disciplined approach to asset selection and risk management." SKY expects to refinance its existing warehouse debt financing facility with proceeds from the SLAM 2025-1 transaction. MUFG, Citi, and BNP Paribas acted as joint lead structuring agents and joint lead bookrunners. BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank Securities, Fifth Third Securities, Morgan Stanley, Natixis, PNC Capital Markets LLC, and Société Générale acted as joint bookrunners on the transaction. Société Générale is the liquidity facility provider. Vedder Price P.C. acted as legal counsel to SKY, and Milbank LLP acted as legal counsel to the initial purchasers. The Notes have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and were offered only to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act and outside the United States to non-U.S. persons in accordance with Regulation S under the Securities Act. This press release is not an offer of securities for sale in the United States. The Notes may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration under the Securities Act or pursuant to an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the Securities Act and applicable state securities laws. This press release shall not constitute an offer of the Notes to the public in any member state of the European Economic Area. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy the Notes, nor will there be any sale of the Notes in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. About SKY LeasingSKY Leasing ("SKY") is an alternative investment manager dedicated to providing asset-focused capital solutions to airlines globally. With a global presence across five offices in San Francisco, Dublin, New York, Miami, and Singapore, SKY leverages a 30-year history of global aviation relationships, technical asset management expertise, and a disciplined investment framework, to originate unique investment opportunities with an emphasis on seeking downside protection and stable cash flow. The company's fund management business was founded in 2019 with a minority investment from M&G Investments. As of March 2025, the company manages over $5 billion of aviation assets. For more information about SKY, visit Media ContactAnne Marie Scaramuzzaamscaramuzza@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE SKY Leasing Sign in to access your portfolio
Finextra
6 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
EBAday 2025: Are we ready for ISO 20022?
Is the market ready for the end of the coexistence of ISO and MT messages? What remains to be done in the next few months to realise ISO 20022's full benefits? 0 The afternoon session discussing the end of the ISO 20022 coexistence period was moderated by Kjeld Herreman, founding partner at Paylume, and featured a panel of experts including Christopher Gardner, ISO 20022 programme and change execution director at Deutsche Bank; Domenico Scaffidi, market infrastructure advisor - payments innovation, Bank of England, SAP Member, and executive director at Unifits; Justin Brearley-Smith, global product lead at J.P. Morgan; Sylvain Dauge, product manager - cash clearing services at Société Générale; and Vitus Rotzer, chief product officer - financial messaging global at Bottomline. Herreman began by outlining the specifics of the upcoming ISO 20022 deadline. Highlighting statistics from Swift that forecast 91% readiness by November 2025, as well as a poll to the audience that revealed that 43% of audience members have achieved all outgoing messages in ISO 20022 (interestingly, the next largest answer were the least prepared), he asked the panel about general ISO 20022 readiness across the industry. Brearley-Smith highlighted: 'It certainly seems that our audience here are ahead of the global adoption rates[..], but I honestly think what we'll see is an actual sort of vertical in November with a big bang. We'll probably see some gentle adoption between now and FedWire migration in July, so we'll see the adoption go up. We're at 40% now, so maybe 50, 55%. And then I think we'll plateau before we get to a big bang in November. The reason why I think we'll have this big bang is that we've got another big change coming in in November. It's not just the end of the [coexistence for] payment messages, but we've got hybrid address coming in as well. So I think for those that aren't sending MX now or mid-July/August, they won't be able to go through two rounds of testing and two big implementations in a short time span.' The panel highlighted that many organisations will likely rely have to rely on in-flow translation before achieving the ability to go fully native. 'It's a bit like a long weekend that we have in front of us,' Rotzer commented. 'Everyone takes the highway and we get a traffic jam with all the projects that are ongoing. [..] The key is engaging and aligning with system providers. Everyone is doing initiation, coming in is not really an issue, but they need to manage it properly within different systems, including subsystems. If you haven't started yet, you will be late and, at best, tick the box.' Getting away from translation as quickly as possible is important to achieve the full benefits of ISO 20022, yet Scaffidi emphasised that not all organisations have the resources to effectively go ISO-native. The Swift numbers 'are coming from 175 banks, but what about the other 2000 financal institutions that are medium and small? They do not have the resources to afford the proper migration with all the value that we are discussing today. So there is another important risk that we need to take into account, which is systemic risk.' A second audience poll revealed that 60% of organisations in attendance were opting for a fully native approach, 23% were relying on a mix between being ISO native and relying on translation, and 18% were primarily relying on translation. 'It's really positive to see the native processing,' Gardner stated. 'But I understand the need and necessity for some organisations to use translation depending on the complexity of the architecture.' He continued that as more payment market infrastructures require structural remittance information (e.g., Fedwire with the tax IDs for IRS payments), banks can only meet this demand if they have this information coming in to them as well. Importantly, this upcoming November deadline is just the start of the journey, with Brearley-Smith equating ISO 20022 as the first movie of a blockbuster franchise. He expects reporting and advising to be the next migration priority, with case and enquiry investigation being another crucial aspect. 'It's worth highlighting that the complexities with some of those sequels is not to be underestimated,' Gardner added. 'Case management, for example, isn't like payment messages, where we have just a change of message type and data. This is a holistic change to how the industry is reporting the management of investigations and exceptions. So I ask everyone: Please be working on this now, because it's not going to be long until this comes in.' The panellists additionally highlighted the importance of engaging corporates, and emphasising that a failure to 'produce the use cases for corporates is a failure of migration.' Ultimately, standardisation and richer data will have benefits for the entire industry, however, that is only achievable if the migration is tackled holistically rather than as a tick-box exercise.
Finextra
27-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
EBAday 2025: Strategising for instant payments and financial crime
The afternoon sessions in the main stream focused on strategising for instant payments and financial crime. 0 The first panel, 'Implementing Instant Payments: Strategies and Challenges', was moderated by Rita Camporeale, European Payments Council, and featured the following speakers: Anne-Fleur Felissent, Société Générale; Arantza Yague, HSBC; Craig Ramsey, ACI Worldwide; and Katja Heyder, EBA Clearing. Camporeale began by outlining the Instant Payments Regulation and the urgency it imposes on European organisations as we have already passed the first deadline. The new version of the SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) scheme will come into force on 5 October 2025, along with the Verification of Payee (VoP) scheme, meaning financial organisations have a full schedule in the upcoming five months. So how have organisations approached implementation? Felissent outlined three steps with which Société Générale approached their own implementations of various transformation projects: First, the design of the offer and addressing the customer journey, meaning the app, banking tools, and end to end processes. Second comes the technical integration, ensuring the real-time checks and fraud filtering, as well as the interfacing and connection of the APIs. Lastly, testing. Yague highlighted the difference between retail and corporate that she's observed. 'Firstly, the pricing is going to make corporates more keen to make use of instant payments. Equally, the fact that there is no €100,000 cap is going to allow them to make treasury payments of any amount, but the corporate journey is very different to that of the consumer. Crucially, it's going to be more of a file journey.' Ramsey highlighted his perspective on industry adoption and readiness as a technical service provider. 'By 2028, we're expecting 13% of all payments in Europe to be instant payments. It's not just about preparing for the IPR, it's about truly understanding what's going to change in the business as we move forward in terms of actual readiness. I'm going to go out on a limb here: I don't think most banks have implemented a solution for IPR that will still be around in three years' time. I think many have put sticking plasters over their systems in order to be compliant.' Heyder of EBA Clearing gave insight into what has happened since the first IRP deadline, including the ability to receive instant credit transfers among others, has passed in January of this year. 'You can see the increase accelerating, and you can see the first impact of the IPR. However, the SCT Inst is still growing itself, so I don't think we can really talk about a migration. Individual banks are on their way, but it's not yet an industry migration.' An open-ended poll question revealed a mind-map of the audience's most prominent challenges of implementing instant payments. Liquidity, fraud prevention, VoP, and fund recovery emerged as the biggest struggles. Felissent commented: 'I would have also chosen liquidity as one of the main challenges, especially when the cap on instant payments will be removed. Today, banks do not have 24/7 access to their liquidity in central banks, so there is the issue to source this liquidity. In addition, the account dedicated to instant payments is not remunerated,' adding an extra layer of complexity for treasurers when it comes to optimisation. The other large issue that PSPs are facing is fraud. Ramsey emphasised that the rise in fraud is not because of instant payments per se, but because of the nature of fraud in itself. 'We see fraud focus on instant payments because it's a new thing. Whenever a new scheme has been launched, suddenly there's fraudulent activity there. A lot of people say you need to educate the populace, but that's not going to help. The populace always thinks its educated right up until the point they realise they've become a victim of fraud.' And while VoP is one measure to help with fraud prevention, it will not solve the whole fraud puzzle. 'We're seeing that fraud in SCT Inst is nine times higher than in SCT,' Heyder commented. 'The [VoP] deadline is the first challenge, because October is just around the corner. But VoP in itself will not stop fraud. Looking at the data, 10% of fraudulent transfers would not pass VoP, but on the other hand, 50% of fraudulent transactions would pass VoP. The challenge banks will face is how to keep the good friction. The question of fraud prevention strategies was then picked up by the next panel. Financial crime and fraud in payments As financial crime evolves, so must payments security. Moderated by Deepa Sinha, BAFT, the panel titled 'Financial Crime and Fraud in Payments' featured Damien Dugauquier, iPiD; Evert Vandenbussche, KBC Global Services; Monika Jacob-Schnitzius, Deutsche Bank; and Olivier Jolyon, EBA Clearing. Jacob-Schnitzius began with a short summary of how financial crime has evolved over the last five years. What we have been experiencing, is 'a fundamental change in which crime, including financial crime, is committed. Financial crime is being shaped by global instability, market uncertainty, digitisation, and emerging technology. Digital platforms and technology are facilitating criminal systems. You can even say that a shadow industry has developed over the years, with professional fraudsters developing methods to steal data and sell it. The fact that a term like 'fraud as a service' exists speaks for itself.' Dugauquier elaborated: 'I live in Sinapore, which is where people have lost the most amount of money to scams over the past few years. We're talking about, on average, $4000 per citizen, per year—which is the equivalent of a monthly salary. It really is very prevalent in life. It didn't used to be like that, so what changed? For one, Covid has removed the fear of spending money online, which fraudsters are exploiting. But mainly, the business case for scammers is too good. Scammers aren't based in Singapore, they have built scam centres, which are also linked to other types of crime, such as kidnapping and human trafficking.' Vandenbussche highlighted the complexity of generative AI as deepfakes are becoming increasingly harder to identify. One of the means of effectively working against this is 'working together, making use of services like FPAD, to share data and intelligence. We have to go beyond the boundaries of the transactions that we see taking place in the scope of our functions.' Jolyon emphasised the necessity of building 'AI models that will help detect fraud and patters very early in the game. That's what we're doing with FPAD, detect patterns and feed information to banks that can then use it in their own systems to detect fraud. Technology will play a key part in orchestrating all that information, and then as a next step will be sharing the information.' Yet the panelists highlighted regulatory hurdles when it comes to effective data sharing—namely the balance between fraud prevention and data privacy. Dugauquier commented: 'We often like to blame the banks for everything, but it's not fair that banks are caught between data privacy and then also becoming more liable for fraud. If banks should protect their customers, we then also need to let them exchange more data to make this possible.' Speaking on the topic of liability, the conversation turned toward the changing liability for authorised push payment (APP) fraud. 'APP fraud payments are fundamentally based on social engineering, which is why it's so difficult to catch,' highlighted Vandenbussche. 'On a European level, I understand we want to make banks more liable, and I do think they have a role to play in that. On the other side, a lot of these scams are going through social media, so there is a lot of other industries that should also take measures to prevent this scale of scams. As a PSP you cannot handle that [alone].' Summarising what's next, the panellists agreed that the future of identifying fraud lies in technology and industry collaboration. Jacob-Schnitzius commented: 'Fighting financial crime and fraud is no longer a competitive advantage. It must be a collaborative effort amongst banks, industry, and authorities.' Dugauquier aptly finalised: 'Fraud is a little bit like a bottle of ketchup. If you squeeze somewhere, it goes somewhere else.'
