Goldman Still Haunted By 1MDB; Eldorado Buys Caesars

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THE HEADLINES

 

RESCUE ME

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“Who the f*ck do they think they’re dealing with, Deutsche Bank?” – David Solomon, probably

DJ D-Sol ain’t got time for settling international corruption probes … there are absolute bangers to drop. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called out the boys at 200 West at the Bloomberg Asean Business Summit in Bangkok on Friday.

The PM claims that GS offered a measly $241M to make the 1MDB scandal go away. He went on to call it “little compensation” and “not enough.”

And maybe he has a point

For its underwriting services, Goldman collected nearly $593M … all of which the Malaysian leader is seeking.

The accusations also raise questions about the bank’s intentions. The issue? The bank hauled in 7.7% of the face value of the bonds when the industry average for similar deals is 1.32%. Malaysia’s government which has already taken legal action against Goldman is deciding whether it will pursue further action related to the exorbitant fees … that it agreed to.

Of course, Goldman maintains that rogue employees and at least one dude named Jho Low acted on their own.

 

ALL IN

Caesars Entertainment finally hit triple sevens.

Eldorado will buy the casino company for $8.7B, a 30% premium to Friday’s close. For the record, it’s not the real Caesar’s palace. The lesser-known gambling empire was able to put together a cash and stock offer that Caesars couldn’t refuse.

Activist investor and Caesar’s shareholder Carl Icahn has been pushing for a deal to sell the owner of Caesar’s Palace since March as part of a plan to squeeze every ounce of value out of the shares. Eldorado beat out the likes of Golden Nugget who Caesar’s rejected last year.

Eldorado began with one casino back in 1973 but has grown in recent years thanks to CEO Tom Reeg. The little casino company that could now owns 26 casinos in 12 states.

 


IN OTHER NEWS

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  • Several Chinese companies have been added to a trade blackout list that prevents them from purchasing US components without government approval. Sugon, the Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology, Higon, Chengdu Haiguang Integrated Circuit, and Chengdu Haiguang Microelectronics Technology were added due to concerns over the military application of the supercomputers they’re working to develop.

 

  • “Bitcoin is back, baby!” – cypherpunks everywhere. Bitcoin’s value peaked at $11k over the weekend. Reaching over $10k for the first time in roughly 15 months, the cryptocurrency climbed another $1k less than 24 hours later. While there’s not a clear reason for the runup, it’s possible that investors (aka anyone with a Robinhood account) are kicking the tires following Facebook’s announcement earlier in the week lends more legitimacy to the space.

 

  • UnitedHealth Group will purchase Equian for $3.2B. UHC will likely merge the healthcare payments firm into its Optum health-services company. It’s subsidiary UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the US.

 

  • Numerous explosions rocked a Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery on Friday, which is the largest on the East Coast. The JV between The Carlyle Group and Sunoco had filed for bankruptcy last August … but definitely wasn’t burned down in hopes of collecting insurance money. It’s worth noting that only five minor injuries reported. Gasoline futures rose 4% on the news and the East Coast could see gas prices rise 3-5 cents at the pump.

 

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