Banco Santander is to appoint Christiana Riley as regional head of North America.
Ms. Riley will join the bank on 1 October, subject to regulatory approval, and will be responsible for all the bank’s businesses in the US and Mexico, with the respective country heads, Tim Wennes and Felipe García Ascencio, reporting to her.
She will be a member of the group management team and report to the group’s CEO, Héctor Grisi, who was the regional head for North America until he was appointed to his current role on 1 January 2023.
Ms Riley joins Santander from Deutsche Bank, where she was a member of the management board having held several leadership roles over the past 17 years in both Europe and the Americas.
She was most recently regional CEO for Deutsche’s business across the Americas, based in New York, and before that she was chief financial officer and co-CEO of Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB). Prior to joining Deutsche, Ms. Riley worked at McKinsey & Company in Frankfurt and Greenhill & Co in New York and Frankfurt.
She is a graduate of Princeton University and the London Business School.
Santander executive chair, Ana Botín, said, “I am delighted that Christiana will be joining Santander to lead our team in North America. She has an outstanding background and a strong track record and I’m confident she will play an important role as we continue to support our customers and leverage the collective strength of the group across the region, building on the outstanding progress Tim and Felipe have already made.”
Santander serves 25 million customers across the US and Mexico, with c.45,000 employees and 1,900 branches. In 2022 the North America region generated 25% of group underlying profit with an adjusted return on tangible equity of 20.5%.
Bolton Global Capital announced the hiring of Enrique Ortega as financial advisor.
Mr. Ortega has more than 15 years of experience in portfolio management and investment analysis serving international clients.
Prior to joining Bolton Global, Mr. Ortega worked as a Senior Wealth Advisor at Citi Global Wealth Management, where he maintained a book of over $200 million in assets under management for clients from across Latin America.
Before joining Citi in 2013, he worked for Bank Leumi, EFG Capital International Corp and Banco Pichincha.
“Having known Enrique for many years, I’ve always admired his professionalism and commitment to his clients. Bolton Global Capital is thrilled to have Enrique join our team. His proven success and experience will be a valuable asset for the future growth of our organization” said Michael Averett, Bolton’s Head of Business Development.
In addition to a Master of Business Administration from the University of Miami, Mr. Ortega holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from Florida International University.
Mr. Ortega will be based out of Bolton’s Miami office at the Four Seasons Tower in Brickell Avenue.
The Federal Reserve Board announced its approval for UBS Group AG, of Zürich, Switzerland, to acquire the U.S. subsidiaries of Credit Suisse Group AG, of Zürich, Switzerland.
The application was submitted in connection with UBS GroupAG’s acquisition of Credit Suisse Group AG.
In connection with the proposal, UBS has committed to provide the Board with an implementation plan for combining the U.S. business and operations of UBS and Credit Suisse, which will be updated quarterly.
The implementation plan will address UBS’s obligations to comply with more stringent enhanced prudential standards, including liquidity standards.
Pressure from the Swiss government, which went so far as to contemplate the nationalization of Credit Suisse, brought about an agreement as swift as it was historic in Swiss international banking: UBS agreed to buy Credit Suisse for $3.23 billion on Sunday, March 19.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged crypto asset trading platform Bittrex, Inc. and its co-founder and former CEO William Shihara for operating an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.
The SEC also charged Bittrex, Inc.’s foreign affiliate, Bittrex Global GmbH, for failing to register as a national securities exchange in connection with its operation of a single shared order book along with Bittrex.
Since at least 2014, Bittrex has held itself out as a platform that facilitated buying and selling of crypto assets that the SEC’s complaint alleges were offered and sold as securities. From 2017 through 2022, Bittrex earned at least $1.3 billion in revenues from, among other things, transaction fees from investors, including U.S. investors, while servicing them as a broker, exchange, and clearing agency without registering any of these activities with the Commission.
The complaint further alleges that Bittrex and Shihara, who was the company’s CEO from 2014 to 2019, coordinated with issuers who sought to have their crypto asset made available for trading on Bittrex’s platform to first delete from public channels certain “problematic statements” that Shihara believed would lead a regulator, such as the SEC, to investigate the crypto asset as the offering of a security.
For example, in an effort to avoid regulatory scrutiny, before Bittrex would make an asset available on its platform, Bittrex and Shihara instructed issuer-applicants to delete statements related to “price prediction[s],” “expectation of profit,” and other “investment related terms.”
“Today’s action, yet again, makes plain that the crypto markets suffer from a lack of regulatory compliance, not a lack of regulatory clarity,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. “As alleged in our complaint, Bittrex and issuers that it worked with knew the rules that applied to them but went to great lengths to evade them by directing issuer-applicants to ‘scrub‘ offering materials of information indicating that certain crypto assets were securities. Further, Bittrex, as alleged, failed to register and comply with U.S. securities laws as an exchange, broker-dealer, and clearing agency. Cosmetic alterations did nothing to change the underlying economic realities of the offerings and Bittrex’s conduct. Today we’re holding Bittrex accountable for its non-compliance.”
The SEC’s complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, alleges that Bittrex and Bittrex Global should have registered as an exchange because they brought together, using a shared order book, the orders for securities of multiple buyers and sellers using established, non-discretionary methods under which such orders interacted, and the buyers and sellers entering such orders agreed to the terms of a trade.
The complaint further alleges that Bittrex should have registered as a clearing agency because it acted as an intermediary in making payments and deliveries upon matching sell and buy orders and maintained custody of customer assets. Finally, the complaint alleges that Bittrex should have registered as a broker because it regularly engaged in the business of effecting transactions for the accounts of others in crypto assets that were offered and sold as securities.
Vince León, Senior Vice President, Regional Director for the US offshore Market at Voya IM
Voya Investment Management (Voya IM) announced that it has hired Vincent Leon as a senior vice president, Regional Director for the US offshore Market. Leon is based in Miami and is responsible of South Florida international offices of broker-dealers, wire-houses and RIAs.
Leon reports to Alberto D’Avenia, managing director, head of U.S. Offshore Sales. Leon joins Samantha Muratori (NYC/Texas) and Joe Arrieta (California and PR) on the team.
“We are excited that Vincent, a renowned professional of the US offshore community, is joining us; the US non-resident business market in general, and Miami in particular, is experiencing significant growth and features a high degree of complexity and specialization. As such, asset managers need to provide advisors and gatekeepers with top-notch investment solutions and professionals able to promote them with a holistic, consultative approach,” said D’Avenia.
Prior to joining Voya, Leon was director, Offshore Advisory Channel at Thornburg Investment Management where heled UCITS sales & distribution in the Americas working along with fund administration, operations, legal, & marketing teams. Also distributed SMAs and closed-end funds to International Financial Advisors.
Farmer sentiment weakened again in March as the Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer fell 8 points to a reading of 117. Both of the barometer’s sub-indices declined 8 points in March, leaving the Current Conditions Index at 126 and the Future Expectations Index at 113.
The Ag Economy Barometer is calculated each month from 400 U.S. agricultural producers’ responses to a telephone survey. This month’s survey was conducted between March 13-17, which coincided with the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
“Rising interest rates and weaker prices for key commodities including wheat, corn, and soybeans from mid-February through mid-March were key factors behind this month’s lower sentiment reading,” said James Mintert, the barometer’s principal investigator and director of Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture. “Although the March survey did not include any questions directly related to the bank closures, during an open-ended comment question posed at the end of each survey, multiple respondents voiced concerns about the banking sector’s problems and its potential to hurt the economy. These problems also likely weighed on producer sentiment.”
The Farm Financial Performance Index remained unchanged from February at a reading of 86. Producers point to higher input costs (34% of respondents) and rising interest rates (25% of respondents) as their number one concern for the year ahead. Notably concern about higher input cost has been falling since last summer’s peak when 53% of respondents cited it as their number one concern for the year ahead. At the same time, the percentage of producers pointing to interest rates as a top concern has been increasing, up 11 points from last summer.
While there was little change in the Farm Capital Investment Index, down one point to a reading of 42 in March, there was a change in how respondents perceived whether now was a good or bad time for large investments. Since last July, respondents who felt now is a bad time to make large investments have consistently chosen “increased prices for farm machinery and new construction” as the key reason. That changed in March as more felt that rising interest rates (34% of respondents, up from 27% in February) over high prices (32% of respondents, down from 45% in February) was the key reason that now is a bad time for such investments.
Producers’ outlook for farmland values in the short-term and long-term were mixed in March. The Short-Term Farmland Value Index declined 6 points to 113 while the Long-Term Farmland Value Index rose 5 points to 142. This month’s short-term index value provided the weakest reading since September 2020 and left the index 32 points lower than a year earlier. One out of five producers in this month’s survey said they expect farmland values to weaken in the next 12 months. Long-term, 17% of respondents said they expect weaker values in the next 5 years, up from 13% a year ago and 7% two years ago.
This month’s survey included several renewable energy questions focused on the ethanol and renewable diesel sectors. When asked to look ahead 5 years, nearly half (46%) of respondents said they expected the renewable diesel industry to be larger than it is today, while just a quarter (25%) expect the ethanol industry to grow over the same time period. In a follow-up question, respondents were asked what impact they expect the renewable diesel industry to have on soybean prices over the upcoming 5 years with 39% expecting a price increase of up to $0.50 per bushel, 28% expecting a boost in price between $0.50 up to $1.00 per bushel, and 21% expecting soybean prices to rise by $1.00 or more per bushel.
Read the full Ag Economy Barometer report at the following link.
Global insurance companies have accelerated their penetration and expansion in China following recent liberalization moves. The removal of foreign ownership on IAMCs in September 2022 should pave the way for more of them to offer their expertise and strengthen their partnerships with other financial sector players.
The insurance sector was the earliest in China’s financial industry to open to foreign capital. This accelerated in 2018 when the upper limit on foreign ownership of life insurance companies was relaxed to 51%. Over the past decade, a number of global names have expanded their footprints in China. In regional centers such as Beijing and Shanghai, the marketshare of foreign insurance companies has reached 20% by premiums.
In China, blue-ocean sectors such as private wealth management, pensions, and health provide fertile grounds for foreign insurers to offer their expertise, given the aging society. Insurance companies generally manage funds from pension products through fund management company (FMC) subsidiaries. However, IAMCs’ advantages in product portfolio creation and long-term duration can help overcome market fluctuations to some extent and help reap investment returns. Cerulli believes that IAMCs’ long-term fund management and diversified investments can help strengthen the private pension system.
Amid the increasing volume of insurance assets outsourced to managers with non-insurance backgrounds, IAMCs have a significant role to play in China’s asset management industry. This is because IAMCs, in particular foreign players, offer more diversified and innovative product lines, and can therefore evaluate emerging investment opportunities to meet clients’ needs. Besides having expertise in absolute-return strategy products, they can rely on professional investment research teams to achieve absolute portfolio return growth by controlling target volatility and improving the stability and sustainability of product returns.
IAMCs can also utilize their capabilities to strengthen their cooperation with other financial institutions. For example, IAMCs’ comprehensive risk management systems can strengthen traditional and non-standard investments. In addition, IAMCs’ strengths in alternative non-standard investments—such as debt and equity—and background in investment banking can provide a basis for partnerships in joint product development with FMCs, securities firms, and private fund managers.
“There is plenty of room for foreign insurance companies to develop in China, despite the challenges they face in localization and in establishing nationwide sales channels. Acquiring shares in joint ventures and establishing wholly foreign-owned enterprises are just some of ways in which they can increase their local footprints,” comments Joanne Peng, research analyst. “IAMCs, including those with foreign ownership, should develop the third-party asset management business by improving their investment research and product innovation, and strengthen their cooperation with the asset management industry,” she concludes.
KKR announced an agreement to make a growth investment in leading strategic advisory and communications firm, FGS Global (the “Company”). Under the terms of the agreement, WPP will remain the Company’s majority owner and FGS employees will remain substantial shareholders.
FGS also plans to expand its employee ownership to include nearly half of its staff worldwide. Golden Gate Capital, an FGS shareholder since 2016, will exit its investment through the sale of its interest to KKR.
FGS is a leader in all aspects of strategic advisory and communications, including corporate reputation, crisis management, government affairs and is a leading advisor on business-critical financial communications worldwide. FGS’s always-on global platform delivers trusted advice, data-driven insights and hands-on execution for clients navigating their defining moments. The Company’s 1,300 experts across 27 global offices oversee an integrated suite of reputation-shaping capabilities, with deep local relationships and extensive knowledge across industries and geographies.
FGS empowers its over 1,600 clients to effectively engage with their key stakeholders and supports them in navigating important issues ranging from sustainability to litigation, regulatory developments and cybersecurity.
Philipp Freise, Partner and Co-Head of European Private Equity at KKR, stated: “Our investment in FGS is the latest example of our focus on proprietary, strategic partnership investments where we are providing long-term capital and a global network of resources to an entrepreneurial management team and alongside a world-class business. We firmly believe that Alex Geiser, Carter Eskew, Roland Rudd, George Sard and their talented global team are pioneering the next generation of value-add strategic communications services. Stakeholder engagement is a boardroom issue and we are confident that FGS, with whom we have enjoyed a long-term relationship, is well positioned to capitalize on significant growth opportunities ahead as a global category leader in the growing management consulting service industry.”
Alexander Geiser, Global CEO of FGS, added, “We are thrilled to have found a partner in KKR, who shares our vision of creating a global integrated communications consultancy and will help us to accelerate the evolution of our industry. Companies are operating in increasingly complex stakeholder ecosystems and FGS was created to build a new kind of consultancy to help leaders face this challenge. KKR’s exceptional investment track record, extensive experience and global resources will be invaluable as we seek to grow our integrated solutions globally. We are committed to creating value for all of our shareholders. This includes many of our colleagues who will be able to participate in our long-term success through a new expanded ownership program that we will create, which we believe is without precedent in our industry.”
Mark Read, CEO of WPP, said: “FGS has established itself as a global leader in strategic advisory and communications, providing board-level counsel to the world’s leading companies and organizations. We are delighted to welcome KKR as a new strategic partner in FGS, in a transaction that recognizes the tremendous value of the business and its potential for continued strong growth.”
FGS was recently ranked the #1 Global PR firm for Deal Count and Value in 2022 by Mergermarket. It is also consistently ranked a Band 1 PR firm for Crisis & Risk Management and for Litigation Support by Chambers and Partners. FGS was created through a combination of leading strategic communications and public affairs firms: Finsbury, The Glover Park Group, Hering Schuppener, and Sard Verbinnen & Co.
KKR is making the investment in FGS primarily through its European Fund VI, an $8 billion fund that invests in the growth of leading businesses by providing access to KKR’s extensive network and business building resources. One of the core strategies of KKR’s European Private Equity team is investing alongside founders, entrepreneurs and corporates to provide flexible capital for strategic partnership transactions. The FGS investment follows a similar thematic pursued when KKR invested in ERM, the world’s largest global pure play sustainability consultancy, in 2021.
The transaction is expected to close before the end of the third quarter of 2023, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Photo courtesyJeffrey Brandt, SVP Corporate Banking Team Leader at BankUnited
BankUnited, N.A. is expanding its Florida corporate banking division with the addition of three bankers who will help serve the bank’s growing portfolio of middle-market and large corporate companies doing business throughout the region.
“We are excited to welcome these three talented bankers to the BankUnited family,” said Thomas M. Cornish, chief operating officer. “Jeff, Eric and Ilian are great additions to our seasoned team of relationship-based bankers and having them onboard further demonstrates our commitment to the market and our growth goals.”
Jeffrey Brandt of Davie brings more than two decades of industry experience to his new position, having served most recently as market manager and senior vice president, middle corporate banking for HSBC Bank USA in Fort Lauderdale, where he honed his expertise in the areas of C&I, international business, international trade finance and foreign exchange management. At BankUnited, he will oversee a team with responsibility for business development and originating loans and deposit solutions for corporate clients. With master’s and bachelor’s degrees from State University of New York at Buffalo, Brandt is active in South Florida’s business and philanthropic community, including having served on the board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Broward County.
Eric Boritz of Delray Beach is an experienced banker with nearly 13 years of industry experience, particularly in the areas of corporate lending and global relationship management. He joins BankUnited from HSBC Bank USA in Fort Lauderdale, where he was responsible for providing domestic and global banking advisory and financing solutions to middle-market business clients across the Southeast US. With an MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Evanston, Illinois, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida, Gainesville, Boritz has been an active supporter of Junior Achievement of South Florida for over a decade, including as committee chair for an event that raises money for student scholarships.
Ilian Obregon of Surfside joins BankUnited from HSBC Bank USA in Miami. With 12 years of industry experience, Obregon most recently served as vice president and senior corporate banking manager, with responsibility for business development and portfolio and relationship management, and an industry focus on healthcare and technology companies. He earned his MBA from Nova Southeastern University in Davie, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida. Obregon actively serves on the board of Lighthouse of Broward and is president of the Association for Corporate Growth South Florida Chapter.
Florida Innovation Capital (FIC), a venture fund committed to supporting economic growth in the Sunshine State, is leading seed funding for tech startup Third Summit.
FIC has committed $2.75M of the $4.5M funding for Third Summit to continue expanding its flagship SaaS platform, Alteon.io, whose recent partnerships and market reception exemplify the type of company FIC wants to support in Florida.
FIC believes this boldly original startup, focused on the burgeoning $100-billion creator economy, is a future unicorn for Florida, the company said. Alteon is an unprecedented, award-winning cloud-based platform that addresses pain points for content creators throughout the entire creative workflow, letting creators more easily upload, share, review, archive and collaborate on media in a single, universal place.
Leveraging high-profile partnerships and integrations with leading creative tech companies, including Apple, Opera, IBM and others, Alteon reduces creators’ reliance on single-purpose apps. Its vast scope includes proprietary cloud-based media transcoding, maximized data upload, AI organization and Web3 integration.
In Q1 2023, Alteon saw an incredible 104% increase in total users, in part thanks to a highly receptive creator community, a successful partnership with the Student Television Network and high-profile integrations with companies such as Apple, whose Final Cut Pro Ecosystem welcomed Alteon last fall, shortly before the company debuted their iOS app, the press release added.
Alteon also partnered with leading web browser Opera to unveil Alteon LaunchPad, a unique tool that simplifies the NFT minting process, underscoring Third Summit’s commitment to bridging the technological gap between creators of all backgrounds on an international scale. That groundbreaking tool was announced during Art Basel Miami onstage with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who vocally supported the company’s mission.
“This milestone is only possible because of the hard work of everyone on our team along with our dedicated investors,” said Third Summit co-founder and CEO Matt Cimaglia. “We are united in our vision to build a product on a strong foundation, with core principles that will keep ahead with the rapidly expanding scale of today’s creator economy. We’re proud to be building infrastructure to help steer the future of creativity.”
This success is largely due to Cimaglia’s founding vision and experience building and running an award-winning creative agency for more than 20 years. Long before NFTs, Web3 and the rise of remote work, he knew that the future of content creation would rely on virtual collaboration, cloud-based technologies and new digital platforms. His prediction was proven starkly correct in less than a year, when the pandemic accelerated all these trends.
“Under Matt’s leadership, Third Summit has built unprecedented partnerships with leading technology companies and developed a truly unique platform that is helping thousands of content creators work more efficiently using the power of cloud computing,” said Michael Munz, president of FIC. “Alteon is a future-proof product with a stable roadmap and strategy. We are excited to be the lead investors for Third Summit’s seed round and help power a new creative ecosystem.”
According to a report by Morning Consult, the creator economy is estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, with more than 50 million creators globally. With content consumption trends skyrocketing and streaming giants investing heavily to compete for audiences, the media-technology space has proven largely protected from recent startup troubles, banking collapses and recession fears. Third Summit and Alteon have withstood these market fluctuations by securing reliable capital to build out a comprehensive and successful product that’s currently being used by thousands of content creators worldwide.
