Latest news with #financialturmoil
The Independent
08-08-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Yorkshire chief says Hundred cash can give county a ‘once in a lifetime' chance
Yorkshire's chief executive Sanjay Patel believes the club's cash windfall from the Hundred represents a 'once in a lifetime opportunity' to end years of financial turmoil at Headingley. The White Rose have sold their entire 51 per cent share in Northern Superchargers to the Sun Group, owners of Indian Premier League franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, becoming the only one of the eight host counties not to retain a stake. With around £40million coming in as part of that deal, as well as another payment in region of £18m from the England and Wales Cricket Board's central sales pot, Yorkshire are finally in a position to eradicate the onerous £25m debt that has hamstrung the club for a generation. The Hundred may not be universally popular in Yorkshire, a hotbed of cricket tradition, but Patel is clear that the influx of money has helped avert the prospect of oblivion. 'Without this money coming in we were going into administration,' he told the PA news agency. 'Financially, it wasn't sustainable and there's no way of trading your way out of that. We were borrowing money to stay alive and there's only so long you can do that. 'Thankfully this cheque has come along, allowed us to clear our debts, and make sure this club never gets itself into this financial position again. It's amazing news, a once in a lifetime opportunity. 'We can look forward now to doing things that haven't been achievable in the past because of the finances: it's a platform to think about the stadium, the facilities and how we grow cricket in Yorkshire for the next five to 10 years.' Patel is relaxed about being an outlier in selling lock, stock and barrel to outside investors, insisting it remains more of a relationship than a takeover. 'I'd like to think it will still be a partnership, they have a massive affinity to Headingley and are very respectful to the heritage and traditions,' he said. 'India is fanatical about cricket and the closest you get to that in England is right here in Yorkshire. It's in the DNA. If you can have a partnership on a cricket level and be able to say, 'the club should be safe forever if we look after this money', why wouldn't you do it? It seems like a no-brainer.' One change is already in the works, with the Sun Group preparing to bring the team into line with the 'Sunrisers' teams they already have in India and South Africa. After five seasons attempting to foster new allegiances to the Superchargers name, they will need to start afresh in 2026. 'One of the implications of selling if you're going to have different brands. If you're not comfortable with that, don't sell,' concludes Patel. 'Our brand will change and that decision will be made over the next couple of months. What we've got to do is make sure the audience we have for the Superchargers translates to whatever the new brand is.'
Daily Mail
08-08-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
One of Australia's greatest sporting heroes is just a week away from disaster thanks to a bombshell decision
Western United have been stripped of their A-Leagues licence, leaving the embattled club on the brink of folding just three years after their first championship. Should the club go under, it would be a disaster for coach John Aloisi, who was appointed in July 2021. The man who provided Australia with an iconic sporting moment when he scored a penalty to put the Socceroos into the 2006 World Cup guided United to the 2022 A-League title with a 2-0 win over Melbourne City. United have been in financial turmoil for months, with players and staff paid late in April, May and June while superannuation payments were also delayed. United have also been unable to register players due to a FIFA ban related to an ongoing dispute with former striker Aleksandar Prijovic. United, led by chairman Jason Sourasis, had hoped their issues would be solved by a planned takeover by American group KAM Sports, which was announced in May - but that is yet to be completed. It meant the club's current ownership were unable to satisfy the financial criteria required to maintain their licence, and now have seven days to appeal the decision. 'Football Australia is able to confirm that the First Instance Board (FIB) – an independent body established under the National Club Licensing Regulations – has convened and determined that Western United FC has failed to meet the criteria required to be granted an A-League license,' an FA spokesperson said in a statement. 'As such Western United FC's license has been withdrawn, effective immediately. 'Western United FC can appeal this decision to the Appeals Body established under the regulations on certain grounds outlined in the regulations. 'This outcome, while regrettable, reflects Football Australia's ongoing commitment to upholding the integrity, stability, and fairness of competitions for all clubs, players, and stakeholders.' United were granted an expansion licence in 2018 and entered the league ahead of the 2019-20 season. 'We've been advised by Football Australia on the determination by FIB to withdraw Western United's conditional licence,' Australian Professional Leagues executive chairman Stephen Conroy said in a statement.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The twists and turns of CURV: 60-storey luxury tower planned for downtown Vancouver now facing receivership
On the corner of Burrard and West Pender streets, inside a splashy, ground-floor sales centre in the heart of downtown Vancouver, sits a large model of what was poised to be the tallest residential condo tower in the city, complete with twinkling lights up the side of its 60 storeys. The display room features elegant sofas and a massive screen runs a video with the project's architects speaking from London and New York. The sales centre's windows are emblazoned with marketing text that loftily touts the project as being 'designed for personal and planetary well-being.' But court documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court paint a picture of a project grounded in financial turmoil. On July 11, Royal Bank of Canada, on behalf of a group of lenders that also includes the Bank of Montreal and Meridian Credit Union, initiated receivership proceedings against the developers of the CURV luxury tower in the West End. A court petition, first reported by real estate news website describes a mortgage agreement where the developers of CURV owe a principal amount of $90 million that came due at the end of April and that is growing as interest accrues. As of July 10, the amount owed is over $91 million and B.C. Supreme Court will hear the application for receivership on July 25. In a city with many dramatic real estate tales, this one rolled together many twists, turns and gripping headlines before reaching this point. The project by Montreal-based Brivia Group originally proposed 328 strata units, 50 market rental units and 102 social housing units. In March 2025, Vancouver city council approved that Brivia could pay $55 million in a cash-in-lieu exchange for dropping the 102 social housing units. The project struggled to sell enough of its expensive presale strata units in a building with over 300 of them as the market for these turned. New buyers were even being offered a Porsche as an incentive to buy. Jacky Chan, a Vancouver real estate agent who was marketing CURV units, told the Globe and Mail in June 2024 that many of the presale buyers who had signed up were 'super wealthy, seasoned investors and holders of large property portfolios.' Lenders usually require that projects pre-sell between 50 to 70 per cent of units in order to qualify for construction financing needed to begin building without adding other sources of capital. Chan told the Globe the project still needed another $100 million. At that point, the developers had secured an extension of an extra year on the usual marketing period of 12 months, giving them until May 2025, which was first reported by The CURV site on Nelson Street now remains wrapped in signage for the project. The old apartment buildings never got demolished and sit vacant. The property first caught attention back in 2016 when Ian Young of the South China Morning Post reported that two old, walk-up apartment buildings, sitting side by side at what was 1059 and 1075 Nelson Street, had been flipped three times in three years, with one of the sales being a very big step-up in value. Vancouver developer Wall Financial Corp. first bought the properties for $16.8 million in 2013. It sold them to Sun Commercial Real Estate, a group of investors that specialized in pooling funds from Vancouver's immigrant Chinese community, for $60 million in 2016, who then flipped it to a single buyer for $68 million in a share sale. In April 2021, Montreal-based Brivia Group bought the project. The sale price was not disclosed, but Brivia aimed to build the world's tallest passive house or ultralow energy building. One-bedroom units started selling for more than $1 million and the top floor, 7,300-square foot penthouse was listed at $60 million. 'The project was completely ill-conceived from day one and those in the development industry knew as much, but there was a very ambitious project manager who no doubt made a lot of money, along with the real estate agents and other consultants and previous owners of the property,' said Michael Geller, a retired architect, real estate developer and consultant, who remembers going to the CURV launch party at the downtown sales centre. 'I suspect someone will try and buy this property at a discounted price and likely hold on to it for a while since right now, it really doesn't make sense to build either condominiums or a purpose-built rental on this site.' jlee-young@ Related Starchitects still coming with big designs to change Vancouver skyline Vancouver's opulent CURV tower gets away with switching out of below-market housing
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
As US stocks hit records, experts see the dollar falling further
While the US stock market has fully recovered from a spring rout, the relentless drop in the dollar is prompting currency experts to warn of greater financial market turmoil ahead. The American currency is down more than 10 percent so far in 2025, a historic retreat that has overlapped with occasional spikes in long-term US Treasury yields. The anomalous dynamic suggests investors are rethinking US holdings, once considered safe havens, as they take stock of President Donald Trump's unpredictable policy shifts. While the dollar's status as the global reserve currency appears unshakeable in the near future, many currency experts expect the greenback to continue to weaken in the coming years, given expectations for slower growth after a long run of US out-performance. "It's US exceptionalism basically falling by the wayside and the rest of the world playing catch-up," said Erik Nelson, a macro strategist at Wells Fargo, who predicts the dollar will continue to depreciate. In April, global markets were shaken by "Sell America" gyrations in the stock, foreign exchange and US treasury markets, and analysts expect similar sentiment in the future. "I think the world is becoming a little bit less stable politically, which is generally kind of problematic for economic and financial market volatility," Nelson said. "We are witnessing the end of a 14-year bull run of the US dollar," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US, a consultancy, who expects a "multi-year unwinding of the dollar." Harvard Economist Kenneth Rogoff, author of the 2025 book "Our Dollar Your Problem," said central banks in China and elsewhere were diversifying away from dollars even before 2025, but that Trump accelerated the trend. "I think we'll see a period of a lot of financial volatility, largely centered around the chaos in the United States," Rogoff told AFP, pointing to factors that include uncertainty about US central bank independence and the rise of populism. "We'll probably have a more volatile period in financial markets over the next 10 years than we have in the preceding." - Onshoring benefit - Both Nelson and Rogoff pointed out that the dollar at the start of 2025 was unusually lofty after surging in the weeks following Trump's November 2024 victory. Economists have since rethought assumptions that the US would continue to outperform rival economies. According to the ICE US Dollar Index, a basket of seven currencies, the dollar fell 10.7 percent through the end of June, the biggest drop in the first six months of a year since 1973. On Thursday, the dollar index rose modestly after solid US jobs data dimmed odds for imminent Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. With a gain of more than 13 percent against the dollar, the euro has been among the biggest winners following Germany's big fiscal investments in defense, even as the European Central Bank continued to cut interest rates. Besides a weaker US economic outlook, the shift in the dollar reflects expectations for looser US monetary policy. Trump has taken relentless aim at Jerome Powell, referring to the Federal Reserve Chair as "a stupid person" while calling for interset rates "at least two to three points lower" -- a huge shift in monetary policy. While Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and other top officials have rejected suggestions they prefer a cheap dollar, a less expensive currency is beneficial to US exporters and consistent with the administration's stated goal of beefing up manufacturing. "Lower interest rates and a weaker dollar would enable the US to strengthen its economic self-sufficiency and increase onshoring," said Jason Schenker of Prestige Economics, who argues that the moves align with a muscular national security posture towards China. Market watchers have come to expect Trump to modulate his actions in response to big negative market swings. On April 9, Trump backtracked on many of the most onerous tariffs from his "Liberation Day" announcement a week earlier after a spike in Treasury bond yields hammered stocks. Later that month, he said he has "no intention" of firing Powell after earlier comments set markets ablaze. But equity markets so far appear unfazed by dollar weakness, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq ending Thursday's session at records. "At some point it's going to get investors' attention," Cresset Capital Management's Jack Ablin said of the weak dollar. "It signals foreign investors are less inclined to own US assets." jmb/jgc 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
BBC News
06-06-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
🎧 How does this saga end for Sheffield Wednesday?
"The biggest thing to point out right now is just the total lack of any clarity as to how this saga ends."Those are the words of BBC Radio Sheffield's Rob Staton, who, alongside co-host Andy Giddings, has been speaking with fans about the ongoing turmoil at Hillsborough under the ownership of Dejphon Wednesday's players and staff have yet to be paid their salaries for May, and the club was placed under a registration embargo by the EFL on Thursday for failing to do so - having also not paid wages on time in March."The players who are currently at the club will be wondering what on earth is going on," Staton said. "They will be in disbelief. Would anybody really blame any of the Sheffield Wednesday players who are under contract from thinking they want to get out and go and play for somebody else?"They may well be speaking to their agents and saying, 'Get me out of here, get me to a different club where I know I'm going to get paid on time, where there is a direction, there is a future.'"You would not blame them for feeling that way."Giddings agreed that players will have major concerns about the financial uncertainty and immediate future of the club. He added: "They often discuss difficulties about recruitment and attractiveness to potential players, or indeed existing players who may have been offered contracts and are thinking, 'Well, I could sign that but is that contract going to be served fully?'"Given the last two or three months, the answer to that is maybe not."
