Latest news with #BloombergNews'
Bloomberg
6 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Private Credit Giant Ares Is Seeing More Defense Opportunities in Europe
Ares Management, the $550 billion alternative investor, expects private lenders to get more involved in funding Europe's rearmament. 'We are starting to see more defense opportunities come across the desk,' Mike Dennis, the company's co-head of European credit, tells Bloomberg News' James Crombie and Bloomberg Intelligence's Jeroen Julius in this episode of the Credit Edge podcast. 'We would tend to be cautious — we need to listen to what our LPs' appetite for those types of businesses are,' says Dennis, referring to Ares' limited partners and their environmental, social and governance concerns. Dennis and Julius also discuss middle-market loan pricing, private-credit returns and where Ares might look to open up new offices in Europe.
Bloomberg
11-07-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
JPMorgan's Aronov Sees More Junk Firms Struggling to Repay Debts
JPMorgan Asset Management is buying hedges against credit market losses as risks rise and spreads tighten. 'There's value in shorts and credit protection,' Oksana Aronov, the company's head of market strategy for alternative fixed income, tells Bloomberg News' James Crombie and Bloomberg Intelligence's Jody Lurie in this episode of the Credit Edge podcast. 'It is very undervalued today because of the complacency in the market,' says Aronov, referring to the high-grade credit default swap index. Aronov and Lurie also discuss the increasing amount of bond and loan interest being repaid with additional debt, dwindling recovery rates, private debt convergence and high-grade opportunities.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Touting ‘Trump Cards,' president makes dubious claims, unveils weird new website
On Wednesday night, Donald Trump posted a curious item to his social media platform, referring users to a new website, A day later, the president elaborated on what the endeavor was all about in a follow-up missive: FOR FIVE MILLION $DOLLARS, THE TRUMP CARD IS COMING! More than fifteen thousand have signed up and joined the Waiting List since we opened the site last night! That's $75 Billion Dollars to help balance our Budget, and strengthen America. The opportunity to live in the Greatest Country, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, with the largest Economy in the World, is here. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. THE WAITING LIST IS NOW OPEN. To sign up, go to — If this sounded at all familiar, it's because this wasn't the first time the Republican had broached the subject. Nearly four months ago, the president unveiled plans for a visa program — at the time, it was billed as Trump's 'Gold Cards' — which he said would be similar to green cards, 'but at a higher level of sophistication.' He added that the point was to allow 'very high-level people' to enjoy a new route to American citizenship by giving the government $5 million. There are similar programs elsewhere — the International Monetary Fund refers to these as 'golden passport programs' — though all of this would be quite new to the United States. Bloomberg News' report on this noted that international law enforcement agencies have warned that programs like these 'facilitate criminal activity and are riddled with corruption,' adding: 'The European Commission, the EU's executive branch, has warned for years that golden visa programs expose the bloc to money laundering and security risks.' Trump nevertheless seemed quite excited about the possibility, telling reporters that, according to his math, the program could generate '$50 trillion.' Now, evidently, the White House is moving forward with this plan, unveiling a weird website featuring an image of a gold card emblazoned with Trump's face, the Statue of Liberty (the irony was no doubt lost on the officials who designed this) and the number 5,000,000. The site also made clear that what was described as Trump's 'Gold Cards' in February has been rebranded as 'Trump Cards.' The Washington Post reported, 'Scant details remain on the requirements and criteria necessary to be eligible for the cards, but Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said applicants will be 'deeply vetted.'' How reassuring. As for the 15,000 people who the president claimed have already 'signed up and joined the Waiting List,' resulting in '$75 Billion Dollars to help balance our Budget,' there's no shortage of questions about the relevant details. As USA Today reported, 'The fact that 15,000 people have signed up at does not automatically translate to $75 billion. The website only asks for basic information — it does not seek proof of financial wherewithal and involve any other form of vetting.' Indeed, it's possible that some of those who've signed up don't actually have $5 million, just as it's also possible that some of them come from countries included in the president's latest travel ban. As for whether any of this is legal, USA Today's report added: 'Trump has said that he is not seeking approval from Congress because he is not providing gold card buyers with citizenship — only a path to citizenship. The path to citizenship requirements for card buyers are unclear and White House officials have said more details will be provided soon.' Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage. This article was originally published on
Bloomberg
06-06-2025
- Climate
- Bloomberg
Heat Is Bad for Workers' Health. RFK Jr. Doesn't Care.
We're on the verge of what will probably be one of the hottest Northern Hemisphere summers in human history. In early May, the water in the English Channel was already so hot that octopuses invaded it, inspiring Bloomberg News' Joe Wertz to dub this ' hot octopus summer,' and not in a fun, Megan Thee Stallion way. Soaring temperatures, which are deadlier than any other natural disaster, will endanger the health and productivity of millions of Americans this summer. Workers at construction sites, farms and factories, along with delivery workers and many others in heat-exposed jobs, are especially at risk. So naturally, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is somehow in charge of managing our nation's health, has reportedly fired all of the people who have been helping the federal government write heat protections for workers. This will likely make extreme heat even riskier and the economic impact even heavier.
Mint
22-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Dave Lee: Apple must make peace with developers for AI success
If you read Bloomberg Businessweek's deep dive into Apple's blundering work with artificial intelligence, a consistent theme is its lack of clarity over what AI on an Apple device should actually do. On Tuesday, with the company looking no closer to an answer internally, we learnt it would soon open things up so others could have a go at figuring it out. 'The iPhone maker is working on a software development kit and related frameworks that will let outsiders build AI features based on the large language models that the company uses for Apple Intelligence," Bloomberg News' Mark Gurman reported, citing people with knowledge of the company's planned announcements at its coming and critically important Worldwide Developers Conference on 9 June. Also Read: Apple intelligence: It's time to step up and speak out I say 'critically important' because it's Apple's best chance to reset the negative energy around its AI work to date. At last year's event, executives announced a great sweep of features that, 12 months on, still aren't available on devices—despite glitzy (and carefully worded) advertising campaigns suggesting they would be. What has been launched, such as error-prone news summaries, has been disappointing. Apple's personal assistant Siri continues to embarrass the brand. Apple's decision to team up with OpenAI to help it deal with more complex AI tasks was an acknowledgment of its position as a laggard. This week's news might be seen as another. Then again, as I've said before, Apple has the luxury of time to get things right with AI. The iPhone is still the world's dominant smartphone, and its user lock-in has not yet shown any signs of being weakened by the appeal of AI features on competing devices. Also Read: The iPhone needs a new strategy to salvage Apple Intelligence But that time isn't limitless and opening up its foundational AI models for outsiders to build with is an indication of how desperately Apple wants to solve its problems sooner rather than later. Gurman writes: 'The new approach would let developers integrate the underlying technology into specific features or across their full apps. To start, Apple will open up its smaller models that run on its devices, rather than the more powerful cloud-based AI models that require servers." It gives developers the chance to come up with better applications for Apple's AI than the company has been able to manage itself. Using Apple's on-device AI models gives developers a chance to layer AI into their apps without needing to send information to the cloud or expect users to put up with lag times as the AI 'thinks.' In many ways, it is a repeat of the strategy that made the iPhone a breakthrough device in the first place. Apple introduced a software developers kit in time for the device's second generation, despite Steve Jobs not initially being sold on the idea. The iPhone's place in history would have surely been vastly different had he not been brought around. According to Businessweek, there had been a similar reluctance to mount a full-throated effort to build AI, with senior Apple figures unconvinced as to its true utility—which, in fairness to them, is still an open question. Regardless, opening up the challenge to third-party developers increases the likelihood that the iPhone will get a killer AI application before its competitors. Now, the question is how close Apple will let developers get to the real nuts and bolts of its AI and the user data that it harnesses. Also Read: Big Tech in the dock: The EU could force Meta and Apple to change their coercive ways Historically, the company has been notoriously protective—some argue anticompetitive—of how much access third parties get to its core functionality, as it prefers to keep some exclusively for its own products and services. It's why Apple has allowed only tap-to-pay cards in a user's Apple Wallet rather than a third-party bank app. It's also why the Apple Watch works better with an iPhone than smartwatches from other brands. Apple says this is all aimed at user privacy and a superior user experience. Its stubbornness in the matter has been extraordinarily lucrative, allowing it to levy a 30% tax on sales made through apps downloaded on iOS devices. Over the years, this fee has been seen as unjustifiable and exploitative. Developers have grown weary of Apple's values, a problem for the company as it looks to the same developer community in the hope it can do for Apple Intelligence what it did for iPhone apps. Persuading developers to build features with its AI and setting up what could be a new generation of lock-ins will require a carefully and sincerely extended olive branch. As I pleaded in a column not so long ago, perhaps Apple's best chance of succeeding at AI would be to adopt the spirit of a one-time rival's famous chant. So, do I expect CEO Tim Cook to cross the WWDC stage shouting 'Developers, developers, developers!"? No, I do not. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't. ©Bloomberg The author is Bloomberg Opinion's US technology columnist.
