‘We’ll get richer if he wins’: Wall Street goes Maga

One inside the deal to start: Two weeks after launching a bid for Anglo American, BHP chief executive Mike Henry broke with his reputation for meticulous planning and jetted to Cape Town before scrambling on to a flight to Johannesburg. That’s the beginning — read the full saga of how a £39bn takeover bid collapsed.

In today’s newsletter:

• Wall Street backs Trump amid felony charges

• WeWork’s new discreet owner

• Brookfield pushes into French renewables 

‘We’ll get richer if he wins’: Wall Street goes Maga

First up: we have to start with the news that Donald Trump was found guilty late on Thursday of 34 felony counts by a jury in New York in a hush money case that captivated the US.

The irony is that the guilty verdict — on every count — is coming at the same time that the floodgates of Wall Street billionaires supporting the former president appear to have breached.

Bill Ackman is the latest likely supporter. The founder of Pershing Square is leaning towards backing Trump, DD’s Antoine Gara, James Fontanella-Khan and the FT’s Alex Rogers are first to report.

Ackman previously supported Trump’s rivals such as Nikki Haley in the Republican primary this year, and is likely to make his endorsement on Elon Musk-controlled X (Ackman is a minority investor of the platform).

Shortly after the verdict, Ackman took to X to defend the former president, underscoring that the tides of Wall Street are continuing to turn in Trump’s favour.

Last week, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman came out to support the former president, after previously abandoning him following the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Others could soon join him. “Wall Street is definitely swinging in Donald Trump’s direction,” said Key Square Group founder Scott Bessent, who has raised funds for the former president. Schwarzman’s backing was an “all-clear signal for others sitting on the fence”.

Antisemitism and antitrust enforcement are both factors for the ultra-wealthy cohort. But there’s obviously another key consideration: money.

“We’ll get richer if he wins,” as one private equity executive put it.

Others are waiting on the sidelines, with some Wall Street investors saying it remained awkward to endorse the former president.

And Thursday’s ruling — which convicts Trump of covering up his tracks to silence a sex scandal with a porn actor during the 2016 election (can’t make this up) — is very likely to have a further chilling effect on public endorsements from Wall Street leaders.

(Trump called it a “rigged, disgraceful trial”. The sentencing is scheduled for July 11.)

Citadel founder Ken Griffin hasn’t endorsed a candidate yet. Neither has tech venture capitalist Keith Rabois.

Even with the felony charges making the political battle all the murkier, billionaires may be forced to voice their endorsements if they want Trump to win.

WeWork leaves Adam Neumann behind post-bankruptcy

When WeWork emerges from bankruptcy next month, it’ll have a new owner. And it’s very much not the company’s flashy co-founder Adam Neumann.

Instead, it’s someone you’ve likely never heard of: Anant Yardi, a private Santa Barbara businessman who’s spent four decades quietly building a multibillion-dollar fortune.

His real-estate software company, Yardi Systems, is the back-end system that thousands of commercial landlords use across the US. But Yardi himself prefers to stay out of the public eye, DD’s Amelia Pollard and Sujeet Indap report.

After famously falling from a $47bn valuation into bankruptcy, WeWork will likely welcome a far more measured path going forward.

To put it plainly: Yardi’s low-key. He’s lived in the same house in California with his wife, Eileen, since the 1970s. Until a few years ago he regularly flew coach (recently back problems sent him up to business).

(That’s pretty different from the celebrity-schmoozing, private jet-flying ways of — ahem — someone else we know.)

But flying under the radar will probably have to change when Yardi takes over WeWork, one of the most tumultuous and closely watched companies in recent memory.

“WeWork is such a popular and well-known brand, it didn’t seem right to let it go down,” Yardi said in an exclusive interview with the FT. “I realise financial decisions are not made on right and wrong. But there’s also a tremendous opportunity in terms of turning around WeWork.”

The company’s saga continued while under US court protection, with Neumann making multiple overtures to try to get a foothold in WeWork. First he offered $200mn in financing, then an outright unsolicited bid of more than $550mn.

But others such as SoftBank and King Street — both secured lenders alongside Yardi — wouldn’t have any of it.

Instead, they turned to their own group in a final push to raise $450mn in new money in the last several weeks, with the biggest contributor, Yardi, getting a majority stake in exchange.

But can Yardi change the tides of fortune for the co-working giant and finally turn a profit?

Write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts, gossip and tips.

Brookfield pushes further into renewables

Canadian infrastructure giant Brookfield Asset Management has scoured the world over for promising investments.

And it just landed on its latest target: France.

The company is in exclusive talks alongside partner Temasek, the Singapore investment fund, to take over Neoen, the solar and wind power developer, in a deal valuing the company at €6.1bn.

The deal would lead to a big windfall for French businessman Jacques Veyrat, who owns a 42 per cent stake in the firm through his investment group Impala.

The bidders are in talks with some of the renewable energy developer’s biggest shareholders. The idea is to buy about a 53 per cent stake in the French company at €39.85 a share — that’s a nearly 27 per cent premium to the company’s closing price on Wednesday.

But the takeover plot doesn’t stop there. Brookfield and Temasek plan to then subsequently buy out the remaining shareholders, and eventually take the company private. (The two have the board’s blessing.)

Veyrat, the 61-year-old French entrepreneur, is one of the biggest winners from the scheme and is set to get a €2.6bn windfall. His business empire stretches from energy to hotels and cosmetics, with brands such as Liérac and Roger & Gallet.

It’s a promising sign that investors are still on the hunt for renewable energy assets, after the capital-intensive sector was hit by rising interest rates and inflation.

And there’s more evidence of just that: KKR’s €2.8bn takeover bid for Germany’s Encavis in March, and Brookfield’s deal with Microsoft in May for the Seattle-based tech company to back renewable electricity projects developed by the infrastructure giant.

Job moves

• UBS has shaken up its executive board by splitting responsibility for its wealth management business between Iqbal Khan and Rob Karofsky, who will be head of Asia-Pacific and the Americas, respectively.

• Citadel Securities has hired Jim Esposito as president of the firm, after his surprising departure from Goldman Sachs in January, where he was a senior banker.

• Clifford Chance has hired Michael Grenfell as a partner in the firm’s global antitrust group in London. He previously worked for the UK Competition and Markets Authority, where he served as executive director of enforcement.

• Cooley has hired Daniel Shamah as a partner in its restructuring and global litigation practices in New York. He previously worked at O’Melveny.

Smart reads

Skyscraper drama A dispute between a luxury high-rise’s developer and its condo board has led to some serious drama at Manhattan’s 432 Park, The Wall Street Journal reports.

KKR regrets The UK’s richest plumber, Charlie Mullins, made £140mn when he sold his family business to KKR a few years ago. And now, he’s full of regrets, Bloomberg writes.

News round-up

Saudi Arabia to sell $12bn worth of Aramco shares (FT)

BHP investors support decision to walk away from Anglo American deal (FT)

Italian luxury group Golden Goose announces plan to float (FT)

Merck signs $3bn deal for Kate Bingham-backed eye disease biotech (FT)

Subway sandwich chain raises largest bond of its kind (FT)

Skydance sweetens merger offer for Paramount (WSJ)