| In 2018, David Einhorn’s hedge fund, Greenlight Capital, was having a run of disappointing performance. Some investors wanted to take their money back, but they couldn’t: During happier times, Greenlight had imposed pretty strict limits on withdrawals. The investors complained; one of them  told the Wall Street Journal that Greenlight’s “liquidity terms are onerous and out of the norm today,” and that “investors would be more comfortable with those terms if the returns were better.” I argued that this had it exactly backwards: Well but the returns aren’t better! And the investors would no doubt be quite comfortable withdrawing their money if the liquidity terms were less onerous! The downside of strict liquidity terms, for a hedge fund manager, is that when your performance is bad your investors complain to the press about your liquidity terms. The upside is that they can’t take their money out. … If your investors are complaining to the press about how onerous your liquidity terms are, you made the right call on the liquidity terms. If they were less onerous, your investors would be gone.
That is: If you run an investing business, your main, existential job is to keep your clients’ money. One way to do this is by having consistently great returns, so your clients always want you to invest as much of their money as possible. That feels great, and if you can do it more power to you, but it doesn’t always work. The other way to do it is structural: When times are good, you set up your investment vehicle in such a way that, if times get bad, you can keep the money. When times get bad, this approach doesn’t feel good. It is not fun when your clients complain about you on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. But your existential job, as an investment manager, is not to feel good. It’s to keep the money. And you can control your lockup terms more reliably than you can control your performance. We have talked a lot over the last few years about the rise of private credit. One general point that I and others have made about private credit is that it has a more robust funding model than bank credit. Banks are in the business of maturity transformation: They borrow short-term from depositors, and lend long-term to borrowers. If the depositors get nervous, they can all  ask for their money back💡The Bloomberg opinion article "Nobody Trusts the Banks Now," published on May 4, 2023, argues that the 2023 banking crisis eroded public trust in banks due to rapid failures like Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank, fueled by social media-driven runs on uninsured deposits and unrealized losses from rising interest rates. It highlights how modern digital tools enabled depositors to withdraw funds swiftly, exposing vulnerabilities in banks with risky bond portfolios and weak business models, even those with strong traditional deposit bases. [more]The piece critiques regulatory shortcomings and suggests that ongoing skepticism could pressure bank funding costs and stability long-term.💡Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) experienced a rapid bank run in early March 2023, triggered by rising interest rates that devalued its bond holdings and led to massive deposit withdrawals. On March 8, SVB announced a $1. [more]8 billion loss on securities sales to cover $21 billion in outflows, prompting venture capital firms like Founders Fund to urge portfolio companies to pull funds, resulting in $42 billion withdrawn by March 9 and leaving a negative cash balance. Regulators seized SVB on March 10—the third-largest U. S. bank failure—amid warnings from investors, with First Citizens later acquiring its deposits and loans in March 2023. There are caveats to that. For one thing, leverage creeps in everywhere💡The Bloomberg Opinion article by Matt Levine, published July 24, 2024, critiques how private equity firms have aggressively loaded debt onto portfolio companies, extending beyond traditional buyouts to everyday businesses like plumbing services and veterinary clinics. It highlights examples such as KKR's debt-financed acquisition of a small Michigan-based company and broader trends where PE uses "subscription" facilities and vendor financing to pile on leverage, often at high costs, turning stable cash-flow businesses into debt-laden vehicles. [more]Levine argues this practice risks amplifying economic downturns, as these firms prioritize debt service over growth, with regulators and investors showing limited pushback despite rising default concerns.💡No search result directly provides the content of the specified Bloomberg opinion article from January 6, 2025, titled "MBA Class Project Got a Bit Too Real. " Available results discuss unrelated topics, such as MBA program rankings at Georgetown and Kogod , Bloomberg Finance Labs for experiential learning , and student success in the Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge . [more]Without access to the article, a factual summary cannot be provided. For another thing, private credit really wants to get a lot of retail money (from individual investors and their retirement accounts💡On August 7, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to expand 401(k) participants' access to alternative assets like cryptocurrency, private equity, private credit, venture capital, and real estate, potentially integrating them into structures such as target-date funds. Supporters view it as democratizing investment opportunities, while critics caution that without stronger fiduciary safeguards, plan sponsors face heightened legal risks under ERISA standards, which still require rigorous due diligence and documentation. [more]Recommendations include starting with small, diversified allocations via professionally managed vehicles like collective investment trusts or self-directed brokerage windows, while thoroughly vetting providers for transparency and liquidity.💡People are increasingly concerned about **liquidity issues** in private markets, particularly evident in business development companies (BDCs) where average PIK income reached 6. 3%, signaling investor stress. [more]Deal activity remains subdued post-Liberation Day uncertainty, with no new broadly syndicated loan (BSL) transactions issued in the U. S. for 15 consecutive days in Q2 2025—the longest inactivity since early 2020—allowing direct lenders to fill the gap, though the BSL market is broadly active and private credit holds $542. 7 billion in dry powder. Valuations softened as most BDCs saw portfolio values decline due to falling fair value marks, with leverage levels dropping to sub-6. 0x debt-to-EBITDA for large buyouts and sub-4. 5x for middle-market ones as of September 30, 2025.💡Private equity firms are pushing to access the $9 trillion 401(k) market by advocating regulatory changes that would allow retirement plans to allocate a portion of assets—potentially up to 5-10%—to less-liquid private equity and private credit investments, arguing these could boost long-term returns for savers who don't need daily liquidity. The article highlights industry lobbying efforts post-election, including proposals to ease Department of Labor rules under ERISA that currently restrict such illiquid assets in defined-contribution plans due to valuation opacity, high fees, and liquidity risks. [more]Critics warn this could expose average workers to volatile, hard-to-value investments unsuitable for retirement accounts, prioritizing private equity profits over saver protection. Anyway last week Blue Owl Capital Inc. did … something … with some of its retail private credit funds? Bloomberg’s Olivia Fishlow, Ellen DiMauro, and Silas Brown reported on Thursday💡Blue Owl Capital halted redemptions on one of its private credit funds after investors requested withdrawals exceeding 10% of assets under management in a single quarter, marking a rare freeze in the sector. The move, affecting the $2 billion Blue Owl Credit Income Fund, has heightened unease among private credit investors amid rising concerns over liquidity and potential stress in the market. [more]Industry experts note this as a signal of broader vulnerabilities, though Blue Owl maintains the fund remains fundamentally sound with no plans for immediate changes. The New York-based private credit giant has faced increasing withdrawal requests from investors in recent months, fueled in part by concerns about its exposure to software companies amid the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. This week, Blue Owl said it would no longer allow for redemptions from one of its retail-focused private credit funds, abandoning an earlier plan to reopen withdrawals later this quarter. Instead, the firm decided to start returning investors’ cash. Here is  the announcement. Typically, Blue Owl Capital Corporation II — Blue Owl’s retail-oriented non-traded business development company, usually called “OBDC II” — would do quarterly tender offers for up to 5% of the fund’s shares, which is fine in normal times (most investors don’t want their money back) but constricting in tough times (more do). Now, OBDC II is not doing its usual 5% tender; instead, it is returning about 30% of its capital to investors in one go. From the announcement: At approximately 30% of net asset value, the first quarter return of capital distribution is expected to be six times the size of the 5% tender offer previously planned for the quarter. Going forward, the OBDC II Board intends to prioritize delivering liquidity ratably to all shareholders through quarterly return of capital distributions, which are intended to replace future quarterly tender offers and may be funded by earnings, repayments, other asset sale opportunities or strategic transactions.
So there is a sort of semantic dispute over  whether it is actually limiting withdrawals: “We’re not halting redemptions, we’re just changing the form, and if anything, we’re accelerating redemptions,” Craig Packer, Blue Owl’s co-president said in a CNBC interview Friday morning.
What does it mean? Fishlow, DiMauro and Brown write: For years, private credit funds trumpeted a key distinction from other corners of finance: insulation from liquidity mismatches. Because investors typically commit capital for long, fixed periods, and the funds deploy that money into loans with similarly lengthy maturities, the risk of being forced to sell assets at cut-price rates to meet demands for liquidity is minimized. At least, that’s the theory. But recent strains within Blue Owl Capital Inc.’s business development companies suggest the industry may not be entirely shielded from that longstanding vulnerability. In a sense, “we got a lot of redemption requests” does suggest that private credit is not entirely insulated from liquidity mismatches; it is not entirely run-proof. In another sense, “we got a lot of redemption requests and we said no” suggests that it is pretty run-proof. A run on the bank is not just “investors want their money back”; it’s “investors want their money back and we have to give it to them.”[1]Bloomberg Intelligence analysts David Havens and Nicole Castelblanco wrote last week: “We expect higher redemption requests from private investors in 4Q25 and 1Q, though it's crucial to recognize that BDCs have considerable latitude to limit outbound flows. Most set a policy to cap net asset value tender limits at 5% per quarter, though even then, boards can impose further restrictions. The word ‘restriction’ doesn't read well in the media, though we see these policies as responsible from a credit perspective.” Again, though, Blue Owl didn’t quite say no; it is returning a lot of money to its investors. But it is doing so ratably, that is, it is giving back 30% of every investor’s money, rather than fully cashing out investors who ask for their money back. Also it is not quite “being forced to sell assets at cut-price rates to meet demands for liquidity.” It is not being forced, for one thing, but for another thing it’s selling those assets at 99.7 cents on the dollar💡Blue Owl Capital's business development companies (BDCs)—including Blue Owl Capital Corporation II (OBDC II), Blue Owl Technology Income Corp (OTIC), and Blue Owl Credit Income (OCIC)—sold $1. 4 billion in direct lending investments, primarily senior secured loans to 128 portfolio companies, to four North American pension funds and insurers at 99. [more]7% of par value as of February 12, 2026. The deal, announced on February 18, 2026, aims to provide liquidity amid investor outflows and restrictions on redemptions in OBDC II, with proceeds enabling a capital return of up to $2. 35 per share (about 30% of net assets) by March 31, 2026, while enhancing portfolio flexibility for OTIC and OBDC. This transaction highlights confidence in Blue Owl's assets despite scrutiny over software exposures and market pressures, as activist Saba Capital separately offers discounted cash exits to trapped investors in these funds. Blue Owl Capital Inc., facing a looming deadline to return cash in one of its private credit funds, found four buyers for a $1.4 billion portfolio of loans to help pay out investors: Three of North America’s biggest pension funds and its own insurance asset manager. Chicago-based Kuvare, for which Blue Owl manages assets, along with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and British Columbia Investment Management Corp. bought the debt, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Blue Owl said late Wednesday that it sold the loans at 99.7% of par value. To the extent Blue Owl is selling its loans to itself (Kuvare), you might worry about those marks, but it is also selling them to big arm’s-length outside counterparties. And you might worry that — as in a classic run — Blue Owl might be selling its best and most liquid loans first, though its announcement stresses that it is selling a representative sample. (“Each investment to be sold represents a partial amount of each Blue Owl BDC's exposure to the respective portfolio company,” and “the largest industry represented is internet software and services at 13%, generally consistent with the industry composition of Blue Owl's overall direct lending strategy and reflecting continued confidence in the quality and valuations of these software investments.”) There are two bigger worries. One is that private credit’s structural protections might not work as well as they’re supposed to. Again, Blue Owl doesn’t have to cash out OBDC II investors, but it will, sort of. It is doing that, presumably, for investor-relations and public-relations and reputational reasons: It’s a bad look to keep disgruntled investor’s money, even if you’re technically allowed to. The question is how constraining those reasons are. In 2018, David Einhorn could just grit his teeth and ignore his investors’ complaining, but in 2007, famously, Bear Stearns & Co. spent billions of dollars of its own money bailing out some hedge funds that it managed. It was not actually required to do that — the hedge fund’s liabilities were not technically Bear’s problem — but it worried that letting the hedge funds go would signal weakness to the market and lead to further problems. (Bailing them out also led to further problems, and things did not end well for Bear.) Bear’s hedge funds were not vulnerable to runs in theory, but they were in practice, and maybe private credit’s retail funds are too. “Is this private credit’s 2007 moment,” asks Bloomberg’s Markets Daily newsletter. The other worry is that private credit is in the middle of a giant push to manage trillions of dollars of retail money, and this is not exactly helpful for that effort. Logically or not, retail investors do want liquidity, and very public liquidity hiccups are bad for business. “The timing is especially awkward because Wall Street is rushing to bring private assets to the masses,” adds Markets Daily. “Trying to convince 401(k) retirement plans to add such funds gets tougher when investors are blocked from exiting.” Ideally the sequence is (1) have a run of good performance, (2) sell tons to retail, (3) wait a respectable time and (4) then have bad performance and redemption requests. If you run into trouble before you can sell out to retail, it doesn’t work. “Blue Owl's shares have now plunged almost 60% in the past 13 months, even as the firm's revenue continued to climb in that period”: A year ago, private credit was a huge growth story; now that story has been called into question. Meanwhile here’s a fun little opportunistic trade: Activist investor Boaz Weinstein is offering to buy shares in Blue Owl Capital Inc.’s business development companies after a challenging week for the lender and broader fears about bubbling risks in the $1.8 trillion private credit market. Saba Capital Management, led by Weinstein, and Cox Capital Partners launched the tender with an offer price that’s expected to be at a 20% to 35% discount to the most recent estimated net asset value and dividend reinvestment price. “The Purchasers’ tender offers would provide a liquidity solution to retail investors in the wake of a significant industry-wide increase in BDC redemption requests, multiple quarters of net outflows and a rise in redemption gate provisions,” says their press release. Private credit firms are not, in February 2026, going to go around selling their loans at 65 cents on the dollar. For one thing, “continued confidence in the quality and valuations” of the loans, etc., but for another thing, that would be a terrible mark that would lead to problems all over their businesses. But some retail investors in private credit funds might want to sell their fund shares at 65 cents on the dollar, if they are sufficiently worried or need cash now. And if Boaz Weinstein thinks the loans are worth more than that, Blue Owl can’t really stop him from buying up the fund shares. Disclosure: Through a financial adviser, I have a small amount of money in a Blue Owl fund, though I am not sure which one. AI disruption shadow trading | Sure: Shares of cybersecurity software companies tumbled Friday after Anthropic PBC introduced a new security feature into its Claude AI model. Crowdstrike Holdings was among the biggest decliners, falling 8%, while Cloudflare Inc. slumped 8.1%. Meanwhile, Zscaler dropped 5.5%, SailPoint shed 9.4%, and Okta Inc. declined 9.2%. The Global X Cybersecurity ETF fell 4.9% and closed at its lowest since November 2023. Anthropic said the new tool “scans codebases for security vulnerabilities and suggests targeted software patches for human review.” The firm said the update is available in a limited research preview for now. We talked a couple of weeks ago about the general form of this trade. The big artificial intelligence labs frequently introduce new tools like this. Each new tool arguably might make some whole industry — enterprise software, tax planning, here cybersecurity — obsolete. Markets are on edge about this stuff, so the stocks of the relevant industry predictably drop when the tool is introduced. It’s a new one every week. “AI Anxiety Has Found Its Way to Real-Estate Brokers,” the Wall Street Journal reports today, sure. I wrote about this as a potential business model for the AI labs: Short the industry you are about to disrupt, release your disruptive tool, and make a quick profit. There are arguably some problems with that model, though it does feel like the sort of thing an evil AI might come up with. A reader emailed another, closely related idea, though: “If I worked at Anthropic and I ‘suspected’ this would happen and so I bought short-dated puts before the announcement, would that be insider trading or just gambling?” I think the answer is that it would be what we sometimes call “shadow trading💡The Bloomberg opinion article "Shadow Trading Is Bad Sometimes," published May 30, 2024, argues that shadow trading—using material non-public information from one's own company to trade in a competitor's stock—is not inherently illegal under traditional insider trading laws unless explicitly prohibited by the company's insider trading policy. It discusses the SEC's recent victory in the Matthew Panuwat case, where he was convicted for shadow trading Incyte stock using Medivation information, noting this as the first such trial despite no direct harm to Medivation. [more]The piece critiques the oddity of companies effectively defining criminal liability through policies, suggesting firms might revise them to explicitly allow shadow trading in competitors to protect employees, rather than risk jail time for unaddressed actions.[2]That is: It's probably illegal for an employee to do it. It seems less illegal for *Anthropic itself* to trade on its plans (insider trading is not about fairness, it's about theft💡**Matt Levine's "Money Stuff" newsletter from February 12, 2026, titled "Insider Trading on War (Correct)," examines allegations of insider trading tied to geopolitical conflicts. ** It likely analyzes a specific case or market reaction where traders profited from advance knowledge of war-related events, with Levine correcting prior reporting or analysis on the matter. [more]The piece fits into his ongoing series on financial market quirks, published via Bloomberg Opinion newsletters. [read]), though this is still not legal advice. Elsewhere in the AI disruption trade | Here’s a similar story from a couple of weeks ago: Logistics stocks plunged on [Feb. 12] as the group became the latest victim of the artificial intelligence “scare trade.” At the center of the selloff: a former karaoke company with a stock-market value of only $6 million. The little-known company is worth just a fraction of the value it knocked off of a constellation of others — all of which were dumped by investors fearful of even the faintest threat posed by AI. The company’s trumpeting of its logistics platform sent the Russell 3000 Trucking Index sliding 6.6%. CH Robinson Worldwide Inc. tumbled 15% — and at one point was down by a record 24% — while Landstar System Inc. fell 16%. … Algorhythm reported less than $2 million in sales for the quarter that ended on Sept. 30, with a net loss totaling nearly $3 million for the period. But its shares soared 30% to $1.08 after its announcement, paring what had been a jump of as much as 82% earlier in the session. “I would probably be more inclined to be skeptical that this particular company is gonna be the one to disrupt the industry,” Citigroup Inc.’s Ariel Rosa said of Algorhythm. “But the notion that someone will eventually come in and try to disrupt the industry seems like a decently high probability.” First of all, Algorhythm is an incredible name for a karaoke-pivoting-to-AI company. Second, here is  its announcement that “its SemiCab platform in live customer deployments is enabling its customers’ internal operations to scale freight volumes by 300% to 400% without a corresponding increase in operational headcount.” Third, uh. What can you learn from this if you are a micro-cap company with an interest in pivoting to AI? What I argued a few weeks ago, and in the previous section, is that a good trade is (1) build a disruptive AI technology, (2) short the industry you plan to disrupt, (3) announce the disruptive AI technology and (4) profit. It is possible that the first step — actually building the disruptive technology — is the least important. Certainly it is the hardest. The market is jumpy! Maybe just announce the disruptive technology and see what happens. Not legal advice! The tariffs are still illegal | There is really nothing to this! We have talked💡A Fortune article reports that the Trump administration's tariff formula contained an error that roughly quadrupled the proposed rates from their intended levels. Specifically, the White House used the wrong value for one key variable in the calculation, leading critics—including a conservative think tank—to describe the method as "rigged" to produce inflated tariffs. [more]The piece highlights how this mistake skewed the policy's economic impact.💡The Bloomberg newsletter article argues that **tariffs should be reserved for true economic emergencies**, not routine trade policy, drawing parallels to the 2025 "Liberation Day" tariffs announced by President Trump on April 2. It highlights how the initial 10% baseline tariff (effective April 5) and higher country-specific rates (set for April 9) triggered a global market crash, prompting suspensions for negotiations and eventual deals with only eight partners by July, amid escalating U. [more]S. -China tensions reaching 145% and 125% reciprocal rates. Public backlash was swift, with 73% of Americans anticipating price surges and 57% opposing the measures, echoing historical protectionism like the 1930s Smoot-Hawley Act.💡The Bloomberg newsletter opinion argues that President Trump's global tariffs, imposed via a federal emergency powers law, are illegal because the Constitution grants Congress exclusive authority over taxes and foreign commerce regulation. A Supreme Court majority, including two Trump appointees, ruled the president exceeded his authority under the cited act, which lacks clear language authorizing tariffs despite provisions for regulating importation. [more]The decision is landmark, potentially invalidating $130-150 billion in tariffs paid by importers, though its scope beyond specific acts remains unclear.💡A US federal appeals court ruled that most of President Trump's global tariffs were illegal, upholding a lower court's finding that he exceeded his authority by invoking an emergency law to impose them. The appellate decision sent the case back for further review on its scope, allowing the tariffs to remain in effect during the process, despite Trump's Truth Social post insisting "ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT! [more]" A separate source references a broader Supreme Court ruling striking down the tariffs as exceeding emergency powers under the Constitution's commerce clause, potentially affecting $130-150 billion in importer payments, though details on non-emergency tariffs remain unclear. As I said repeatedly, this is quite straightforward, but I did add💡A Bloomberg newsletter opinion piece from September 2, 2025, argues that President Trump's tariffs, imposed via the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), remain illegal despite ongoing legal battles. It references a May 29, 2025, ruling by Judge Rudolph Contreras deeming them unlawful, affirmed on August 29 by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that tariff-setting is Congress's domain and Trump's actions violated the major questions doctrine. [more]The article anticipates a likely Supreme Court strike-down, noting justices like Gorsuch and Barrett questioning IEEPA's scope for tariffs, amid Trump's push for "reciprocal tariffs" to offset revenue losses from his July 2025 "Big Beautiful Bill. in a 6-3 decision, ruled that “the terms of IEEPA do not authorize tariffs”: When Congress has delegated its tariff powers, it has done so in explicit terms, and subject to strict limits. Congress has consistently used words like “duty” in statutes delegating authority to impose tariffs. … The U. S. Code is replete with statutes granting the Executive the authority to “regulate” someone or something. Yet the Government cannot identify any statute in which the power to regulate includes the power to tax. The Government concedes, for example, that the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot tax the trading of securities, even though it is expressly authorized to “regulate the trading of . . . securities.” Next up will be: - More and different tariffs: IEEPA does not authorize tariffs, but other statutes do, albeit with more process and at lower levels. President Trump has already announced 10% global tariffs, and also, later, 15% global tariffs
💡President Donald Trump announced plans to raise global tariffs from 10% to 15% under Section 122 following a Supreme Court ruling that struck down his prior "liberation day tariffs" imposed via IEEPA, with the new rate set as the maximum allowed for 150 days and expected to take effect immediately or February 24, 2026. This shift has sparked confusion: countries like India with higher interim deals (18-25%) may benefit from the lower cap, while European nations locked at 10% protest the increase, as the administration insists existing agreements stand firm and CBP halts IEEPA collections starting Tuesday. [more]Trump framed the move as legally compliant to address balance-of-payments issues, protect U. S. interests, and counter global trade distortions, despite criticism from opponents viewing it as ongoing economic overreach. -
 Refund lawsuits💡The Wall Street Journal article reports on the Supreme Court's Friday ruling striking down most of President Trump's sweeping tariffs, including his "Liberation Day" tariffs, as an overreach of executive power, prompting widespread media coverage and business reactions. Trump reacted furiously, calling the justices "disloyal to the Constitution" and "an embarrassment," while vowing to reimpose tariffs using other authorities, such as a 10% global tariff. [more]A WSJ video discussion with Editor-in-Chief Emma Tucker notes that tariffs are "here to stay" despite the setback, amid broader coverage of Trump's pushback and related issues like cartel violence. I used to be a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, and then later I was an investment banker, so I have pulled my share of all-nighters. Now I see my kids and get to bed at a decent hour, and if you told me I had to work until 2 a.m. every day for a week, I would say “no thank you.” I have chosen a more restful life, and I have a lot of sympathy for the young people who are currently investment banking analysts, who do have to work until 2 a.m. every day, and who think “this is dumb and bad and I would rather get some sleep.” But I also have a certain amount of sympathy for the more senior bankers who make them work all night. It is a client service business, there is a lot of money at stake, speed is often critical, and deal teams are often, for fairly good reasons, quite lean. There is a lot of inefficiency and face time and nonsense, but at some level working long hours probably is an important part of becoming a skilled investment banker and getting the work done. I suspect that a lot of people who have worked in financial services share this sense of ambivalence: It does seem cruel and wasteful to work people that hard, but it is not just arbitrary cruelty; there is a reason for it. But you know who does not share that sense of ambivalence? Everybody else on Earth.[3]I mean not literally everybody else. I imagine that doctors have similarly ambivalent feelings about the hours in residency. There are a lot of sleep-deprived professions.💡Centerview Partners settled a lawsuit with former junior analyst Kathryn Shiber just before a scheduled trial in Manhattan federal court, resolving her claims of disability discrimination after she was fired in 2020 for needing 8-9 hours of sleep nightly due to a mood and anxiety disorder. Shiber alleged the firm failed to properly accommodate her needs despite granting a midnight-to-9 a. [more]m. sleep window, and she sought millions in damages; Centerview denied wrongdoing, stating her claims lacked merit but was pleased to move on. The settlement terms were not disclosed, preventing a jury from deciding on essential job functions like constant availability amid Wall Street's grueling hours. Centerview Partners LLC settled a lawsuit by a former analyst who claimed the boutique investment bank wrongfully fired her for asking to be able to sleep more than eight hours a night. Jury selection had been set to begin Monday morning in the case, which highlighted the grind culture of Wall Street, especially at junior levels. Centerview had taken the position that a need for a full night’s sleep every night is incompatible with “the essential functions of the analyst role.” Kathryn Shiber sued Centerview in 2021, claiming she was fired just 10 weeks into a three-year analyst program, shortly after she informed the firm that she had mood and anxiety disorders requiring her to sleep at least eight hours a night on a consistent schedule. Shiber, who had been expected to take the stand during the weeklong trial, was seeking $5 million in damages. The Financial Times notes that “at a pre-trial hearing last week, a judge said details of Centerview’s revenues, profits and financial performance could be disclosed during the trial,” overruling the bank’s objection that “such disclosure could create a ‘David versus Goliath narrative.’” I just feel like, if you are the bank that makes your young employees work all night, you are not going to win that jury trial, and even $5 million — presumably they settled for less — is a small price to pay to make it go away. Steve Cohen's $3.4 Billion Payday Tops Hedge Fund Ranks. The Fundraising Tactic AI Startups Are Using to Juice Valuations. Private equity logjam hits record as firms struggle to sell. The Exotic Makeover of the Once-Boring ETF Market. Kirkland Star Lawyer’s Antitrust Warning Sowed Seeds of His Own Exit. Latham Poaches Two Wachtell Partners, Latest Move in Legal M&A Talent Wars. DOJ Probes Netflix’s Power Over Filmmakers in Warner Deal Review. Paramount Says Regulatory Waiting Period for Warner Bid Ends. AMD to Backstop $300 Million  Crusoe Loan📰💡**AMD is backstopping a $300 million loan to Crusoe Energy Systems, following Nvidia's playbook, to enable the cloud startup to purchase and deploy AMD AI accelerators in a new Ohio data center. ** Goldman Sachs is providing the loan, with AMD acting as guarantor by agreeing to rent the chips from Crusoe if the startup cannot find other customers, allowing AMD to book $300 million in immediate AI chip sales while mitigating risk for the lender. [more]This mirrors Nvidia's strategy of using chips as collateral in deals like the $2. 3 billion loan to CoreWeave. The arrangement supports Crusoe's expansion of energy-efficient data centers and boosts AMD's near-term AI revenue amid strong demand signals, including design wins in India and partnerships like OpenAI. used coded language📰💡Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase faces expanded federal charges alleging he rigged pitches in at least 48 games from May 2023 to June 2025 to help bettors win over $400,000-$460,000 on prop bets, far exceeding the initial nine games listed in his November indictment. Teammate Luis Ortiz allegedly joined the scheme in June 2025 for two games, with both players pleading not guilty to charges including wire fraud conspiracy, bribery to influence contests, and money laundering, facing up to 65 years in prison if convicted; they were released on bond with restrictions and placed on MLB administrative leave. [more]Clase's attorney maintains his innocence, emphasizing his dedication to baseball, while new filings reveal code words like "rooster" used in communications with Dominican gamblers.💡**Summary:** A Wall Street Journal article details how Axe body spray, once a teen staple for its bold scents and "sex appeal" marketing since the 1980s, is fading in popularity among Gen Z, who now prefer natural, subtle fragrances from brands like Sol de Janeiro and Le Labo. Axe's parent company, Unilever, has responded by reformulating products with lighter scents and eco-friendly ingredients, while sales have dropped 10% in the U. [more]S. over the past five years amid shifting tastes toward gender-neutral and premium options. The piece highlights cultural shifts, with teens associating Axe's heavy sprays with outdated "bro" stereotypes, prompting Axe to pivot marketing toward inclusivity and sophistication. If you'd like to get Money Stuff in handy email form, right in your inbox, please  subscribe at this link. Or you can subscribe to Money Stuff and other great Bloomberg newsletters  here📰💡This URL leads to a Bloomberg newsletters login page, not a specific news article. The closest accessible content from search results is a transcript of the **Bloomberg Markets** TV broadcast on February 16, 2026 (5:00am-12:00pm EST), when U. [more]S. markets were closed for Presidents' Day. Key points from the transcript: - U. S. stocks and bonds rose after benign inflation data, boosting expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts this year. - European stocks gained slightly (around 0. 2%), led by banking sector advances amid lower liquidity without U. S. and China markets open. - Other headlines included U. S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warning European leaders about Western decline and shared values; a chip shortage impacting profits and prices (expected to worsen); and Warner Bros. considering reopening sale talks with Paramount's David Zaslav. |
