When private equity is the friendly choice

One scoop to start: BlackRock is preparing to launch a more than $30bn artificial intelligence investment fund with technology giant Microsoft to build data centres and energy projects to meet growing demands stemming from AI.

And a warning for the EU: The EU risks opening a “Pandora’s box” by loosening its merger rules, Brussels’ outgoing competition chief has warned, after her successor was appointed with a brief to be “more supportive of companies scaling up”.

In today’s newsletter:

• Philip Morris sells its inhaler business

• The fate of Murdoch’s media empire lies in Nevada

• Corporate lawyer turned Paralympics champion

Tobacco giant gives up its inhaler business

Just three years after tobacco giant Philip Morris International fought private equity firm Carlyle in an auction over an asthma inhaler specialist, it is selling the business for a third of what it wound up paying.

The tobacco giant, best known as the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, is selling Vectura to Molex for up to £298mn. PMI paid nearly £1bn — including net debt — for the business in 2021 as it tried to move away from tobacco. (Today, PMI’s motto is: “Delivering a smoke-free future”.)

But over the past few years, the healthcare community had a tough time accepting the inhaler maker’s new owner.

“Despite the investment and commitment to developing products and therapies vital to patients, unwarranted opposition to PMI’s transformation has impacted Vectura’s scientific engagement,” PMI said.

At the time of the deal, Lex described it as comparable to BP not only pursuing wind and solar power, but getting into the business of flood prevention and forest fire management. For doctors, that was a tough pill to swallow.

The bulk of Vectura’s £200mn in revenues at the time of the sale came from smoking-related diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

DD readers might remember there was a fierce bidding war between Carlyle and PMI for the business. Both leapfrogged each others’ offers, driving up the price. Ultimately, PMI won out.

Signs of a backlash had been brewing at the time of the deal.

The British Thoracic Society called for the takeover to be prevented, because of the “unresolvable ethical conflict”. The European Respiratory Society said it was “very alarmed”.

Some of the defection came from within the company’s own ranks. Michael Austwick, who joined Vectura as chief executive from Novartis in 2022, stepped down the following year, with other senior executives following suit.

None of those same health experts raised issues with Carlyle’s proposed offer — an exceptional instance in which a private equity firm in fact appeared to be the public’s preferred buyer for a business.

The future of Murdoch’s media empire

Rupert Murdoch has spent decades building one of the most powerful media empires in the world. Now, at 93 years old, he wants to make sure he can control its fate after he’s gone.

The future of the media group will be duked out this week in an unlikely venue: a nondescript probate court in Reno, Nevada.

There, Murdoch and his eldest son Lachlan are set to face off against three of his other children: James, Elisabeth and Prudence.

Murdoch’s media group is sprawling: they include Fox News, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal in the US; The Sun and The Times in the UK; and Sky News Australia in his home country.

The family’s heading to court as Murdoch hopes to change the trust he set up in 1999 which grants each of the four children equal voting power over the family businesses after he dies.

Instead, he wants Lachlan — who has consolidated control of Fox and News Corp — to have full control of voting power. It helps that Lachlan’s political views are close to those of his father, who has built rain-making news outlets that lean right.

But to the other kids, the power grab came as a total surprise.

The court hearings, which kicked off in Nevada on Monday, have been largely shrouded in secrecy. Competing arguments have been made in voluminous redacted filings, and the hearings themselves will take place behind closed doors.

As the court fight plays out, activist investors are circling. Last week, Starboard submitted a proposal to end the company’s dual-class structure, arguing disagreement among the children “could be paralysing”.

And although Murdoch is known for having a hard time letting go, there’s always the possibility of a break-up of the media conglomerate.

Mathias Döpfner’s Axel Springer, for instance, would be interested in titles such as the WSJ should it come up for sale, according to people close to the situation.

In response to a request for comment from the FT, a spokesperson for the Journal provided a rare statement directly from Murdoch:

“Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal are absolutely not for sale. There is simply no truth whatsoever to this unfounded rumour.”

How a French lawyer became a Paralympics champion

When you’re a lawyer at a top law firm, sneaking in even low-intensity hobbies can be a challenge.

But Gaël Rivière, a senior associate at French law firm Bredin Prat, has defied those odds, reaching the highest level of his pastime. As a member of France’s national blind football team, he won gold at the Paralympics in Paris earlier this month.

While Rivière was born blind, that didn’t stop him from playing football growing up on the island Réunion. To play with friends, he had to be innovative, wrapping a plastic bag around the ball so he could hear it move around the field.

When he moved to Paris in high school, he discovered there was a whole sport devoted to the makeshift set-up he had created back home: cécifoot, or blind football.

After university, pursuing the highest levels of law and football simultaneously became untenable. “It wasn’t possible,” he said. “We work 16 hours a day sometimes. So there’s no time for playing.”

He dropped football for a period in order to devote his full attention to Bredin Prat, where he has advised major European clients such as Rothschild & Co, Crédit Mutuel and Eurazeo.

But when he learned the next Paralympics would be in Paris, he couldn’t stay away. Starting in May last year, Rivière pared back his hours at Bredin Prat, training before and after work for more than a year to qualify for the team.

“They were enthusiastic and really supported me on this project,” he said of the law firm.

The training paid off. At the Paralympics earlier this month, blind football’s gold medal match drew more than 11,000 spectators. Bredin Prat initially purchased 80 tickets to watch Rivière play, but soon had to buy more after the first batch was quickly claimed.

“That is something very special for us because generally we play with a crowd of 100 or 200 people,” he said. Having thousands of spectators “made a difference as you can imagine”.

Job moves

• Hannam & Partners, the natural resources-focused boutique investment bank led by Neil Passmore, will merge with the debt advisory firm HCF. 

• Weil, Gotshal & Manges has hired Jasmine Rosner as a partner in the antitrust group. She was most recently senior corporate counsel for Amazon, and before that held roles at the US Federal Trade Commission.

• Ascot has appointed Kewsong Lee as chair of the speciality insurance company’s board. Lee most recently founded BellTower, and was previously chief executive of Carlyle.

• Jefferies has hired Simon Francis for the new role of head of debt financing for Emea, based in London. He previously worked for Citigroup.

• JPMorgan Chase has hired Ray Raimondi as head of North America’s strategic investor group M&A in New York. He previously worked for Citi.

Smart reads

Gaining an edge By warning about Europe’s “existential challenge”, Mario Draghi is trying to save Europe from itself, writes the FT’s Martin Wolf.

Wind sale The oil major BP has underperformed its rivals as oil prices have started to slide, Lex writes. Can selling its US onshore wind energy business help turn things around?

Upstart traders At first, Tiger Global was the main firm famous for bringing up a new generation of hedge fund stars, Bloomberg reports. Now, there’s a whole pack of them.

News round-up

Steve Cohen to step back from trading at hedge fund Point72 (FT)

JPMorgan in talks to take over Apple credit card from Goldman Sachs (FT)

Amanda Staveley company liquidated after shipping tycoon dispute (FT)

Vanguard experiment in shareholder democracy finds investors prefer to defer (FT)

Sweden’s SKF plans automotive spin-off after pressure from activist investor Cevian (FT)

Profit outlook dents THG as it considers separating Ingenuity arm (FT)

SEC says FTX auditor did not understand the crypto market (FT)

23andMe’s independent directors resign amid stalled CEO buyout offer (FT)