Speaker 1: Good morning.
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, the twenty eighth of September here in London.
Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg Day ba Q podcast. I'm Caroline Hepki.
Speaker 3: And I'm Stephen Carroll. Coming up today, exclusive reporting on
Speaker 3: the ousted hedge fund manager chrispin Odi, who's been joking
Speaker 3: about his accusers in taped conversations.
Speaker 2: The US Department of Justice steps up it's probe into
Speaker 2: ubs over suspected sanctions, breaches by credit sweets.
Speaker 3: And taking a walk on the wild side. We look
Speaker 3: at one investor's bid to make rewilding a multi billion
Speaker 3: dollar trade.
Speaker 1: Let's start with a round up of our top stories.
Speaker 3: The ousted Headphones manager chrispin Ody had told a private
Speaker 3: investigator he was being targeted by the quote woke brigade
Speaker 3: when thirteen women first accused him of sexual misconduct. Bloomberg's
Speaker 3: Will Shaw obtained a recording of that conversation.
Speaker 4: In late June, a couple of weeks after the allegations began,
Speaker 4: he contacted a private investigator called Steph Friedman, who previously
Speaker 4: done work for Harvey U. Weinstein. Crispin Odi speaks very
Speaker 4: frankly about the case against him. He says Harvey had
Speaker 4: access to a lot of so much more attractive girls.
Speaker 4: I have to tell you. During that call, he says,
Speaker 4: if you lose an arm, you only get ten grand.
Speaker 4: You know, if someone touches you on the bottom, you
Speaker 4: might be able to get one hundred grand. He also
Speaker 4: complains about his treatment by the media and says he's
Speaker 4: been targeted by the woke brigade.
Speaker 3: Speaking to Will Shaw about the recording, Crispin Odi said, quote,
Speaker 3: it was very early in that journey, but I still
Speaker 3: think reducing seventeen minutes to three soundbites is mean. He
Speaker 3: declined to discuss the situation further with Bloomberg. Two of
Speaker 3: the hedge fund managers alleged victims have filed a lawsuit
Speaker 3: against him and his former firm. Odi refutes those claims
Speaker 3: and the other allegations that have been leveled against him.
Speaker 2: The US Department of Justice has stepped up its probe
Speaker 2: into credit suiteson ubs over suspected compliance failures that allowed
Speaker 2: Russian clients to evade sanctions. Bloomberg's Hugo Miller broke the story.
Speaker 5: When you're onboard to use the bank jargon a client,
Speaker 5: or when you off board a client, you have to
Speaker 5: make sure that you're doing the necessary compliance and in
Speaker 5: this case, as we've seen in a number of other
Speaker 5: cases with credit suites, in this case, what the DOJ
Speaker 5: suspects is that there were just some fundamental failures of
Speaker 5: due diligence that allowed the bank, primarily Credit Squeze, to
Speaker 5: continue to provide banking services for sanctioned Russians.
Speaker 2: Hugo Miller says that the probe is still at an
Speaker 2: early stage and may not result in charges or a settlement. However,
Speaker 2: that wasn't enough to prevent volatile moves in UBS's share price,
Speaker 2: which dropped by close to eight percent before recovering some
Speaker 2: of those losses.
Speaker 3: The world's most indebted property developer, the China Evergrand Group,
Speaker 3: has suspended trading in Hong Kong with more here's Bloomberg's
Speaker 3: Brian Curtis.
Speaker 6: No reason given for the halt. It comes a day
Speaker 6: after sources told us Evergrant's chairman Hui Kai Jan was
Speaker 6: taken away by police, where he is said to be
Speaker 6: under residential surveillance. It comes at a delicate time for
Speaker 6: the big developer. Evergrand has scrapped key creditor meetings and
Speaker 6: revealed that it cannot issue new bonds. That's a setback
Speaker 6: to a planned restructuring and would seem to suggest an
Speaker 6: existential crisis in Hong Kong. Brian Curtis, Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: The SEC is reportedly finalizing settlements with about two dozen
Speaker 2: Wall Street firms to resolve investigations into lapses in record keeping.
Speaker 2: Reuter's site sources saying that these settlements are with the
Speaker 2: investment advisors and broker dealers. Fines have already topped two
Speaker 2: point five billion dollars over the regulators two year crackdown
Speaker 2: on traders uses of WhatsApp and other unofficial messaging apps.
Speaker 3: A shutdown of the US government looks increasingly likely, with
Speaker 3: Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy calling for major changes
Speaker 3: to border policy to appease his rebels. Even his Senate ally,
Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell drew a line.
Speaker 7: But we're focusing on on here in the Senate is
Speaker 7: to try to keep the government open, to try to
Speaker 7: continue to pay the people who are essential to our security,
Speaker 7: like air traffic controllers at a border patrol. Capital belize.
Speaker 3: McConnell's and McCarthy's lack of unity makes any deal with
Speaker 3: the President unlikely the government will start to run out
Speaker 3: of funding on Sunday. Unlike the deathlimit crisis earlier this year,
Speaker 3: the economic damage is initially mild and builds over time.
Speaker 2: Now a report suggests that UK home buyers are grabbing
Speaker 2: the biggest discounts in five years as the market reels
Speaker 2: from high interest rates.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's U and Potts has more The.
Speaker 8: Average discount to asking price for newly agreed home sales
Speaker 8: is now nearly five percent in London and Southeast England
Speaker 8: as buyas flexen negotiating power. According to property website Zuopler.
Speaker 8: That's the highest in the country and compares with the
Speaker 8: discount of two point eight percent for sales elsewhere. Separate
Speaker 8: survey data from KPMG suggests more than twenty percent of
Speaker 8: UK mortgage helders are now considering selling up off the
Speaker 8: rapid rise in borrowing costs in London. I'm une pots
Speaker 8: Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Apple iPhone fifteen pro users are complaining that the device
Speaker 3: can get too hot to handle, setting a potential setback
Speaker 3: for the company's flagship product. Consumers say that the high
Speaker 3: temperatures and the newest iPhone fifteen models happened during use
Speaker 3: or while charging. Apple says the issue could stem from
Speaker 3: the iPhone's intensive setup process. Now, we haven't had pandas
Speaker 3: in the news for a while, which I think is
Speaker 3: a terrible shame, frankly, But our colleagues have a fascinating
Speaker 3: story about how all of the pandas in American zoos
Speaker 3: are going back to China because they're all there on loan,
Speaker 3: part of panda diplomacy, as it was known. But their
Speaker 3: time essentially is up, and by December, the likes of
Speaker 3: the three pandas that are in the Washington National Zoo
Speaker 3: are going to be going back to China.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you are a panda lover, of course
Speaker 2: you'll know that the Edinburgh Zoo has the same is
Speaker 2: it's going to send back two pandas at the end
Speaker 2: of this year. Also, I mean basically it's there is
Speaker 2: a question mark about I mean, we know that panda
Speaker 2: diplomacy is used by China to sort of reward friends
Speaker 2: and perhaps punish foes. So how much is this about
Speaker 2: US China relations and how much is it simply you know,
Speaker 2: part of the contractual agreement. I did not actually understand
Speaker 2: that all pandas in the world actually belonged to China
Speaker 2: and all of their offspring, and they're effectively sort of
Speaker 2: given to zoos around the world because they're a huge
Speaker 2: attraction for visitors, you know, that cuddly and lovable as
Speaker 2: they are, but actually and yes, huge merchandising opportunities, but
Speaker 2: they're effectively rented. The zoos have to pay China, you know,
Speaker 2: for the pleasure of hosting them.
Speaker 1: And so yeah.
Speaker 2: Although of course, when the producer this morning asked me
Speaker 2: about pandas or we discussed, I just thought he was
Speaker 2: talking about panda bombs.
Speaker 9: I didn't.
Speaker 2: I clearly am too deep into finance.
Speaker 3: This is to come back to Caroline. You've gone over
Speaker 3: the cliff. Come back right. Let's start to the story
Speaker 3: that we're following for you this morning, and this is
Speaker 3: the news around Ubs, their shares declining by as much
Speaker 3: as seven point nine percent after Bloomberg reported that the
Speaker 3: US Department of Justice had stepped up its probe into
Speaker 3: Credit Suite and Ubs over suspected compliance failures that allowed
Speaker 3: Russian clients to evade sanctions. Joining US now to explain
Speaker 3: the story is Boomberg Swiss banking reporter Marion have Tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Marion Great to have you with us on this story.
Speaker 3: Explain to us how did the Department of Justice probe
Speaker 3: begin morning.
Speaker 9: Yes, So, basically, back in the spring of this year,
Speaker 9: the Department of Justice had been already looking into the
Speaker 9: Swiss banks and their roles with Russian assets and whether
Speaker 9: there was potential breaches of excasions at the time, and
Speaker 9: so essentially at the time they sent a series of
Speaker 9: subpoenas just to get more information. And what we understand
Speaker 9: is that that now has developed into a big, your
Speaker 9: wider scale investigation and more specifically into Credits Suite.
Speaker 1: So what do we know about it so far? What
Speaker 1: are the risks attached?
Speaker 9: So at the moment, it looks like it's just information gathering.
Speaker 9: UBS has been briefed by the DOJ in the US
Speaker 9: because of course UBS now owns Credit Suite, and so
Speaker 9: it's just an ongoing inquiry.
Speaker 6: We're not sure.
Speaker 9: Exactly what parts of the businesses are looking at and
Speaker 9: what exactly they've found so far, but we do know
Speaker 9: that they're looking into possible compliance failures at both banks
Speaker 9: and that would obviously come with.
Speaker 5: With very serious consequences if they had been find that.
Speaker 3: Marrying this news under lines read the legal headaches that
Speaker 3: UBS has after its hasty merger with Credit Suit.
Speaker 6: It does in some instances.
Speaker 9: So UBS has had a good look at the dockets
Speaker 9: so to speak, of Credit Suite legal cases and potential
Speaker 9: legal cases, and so part of when they bought Credit
Speaker 9: Suite they did do some provisioning for some of these
Speaker 9: legal cases. From from what I expect, UBS is somewhat
Speaker 9: aware of the high risk here. That being said, since
Speaker 9: this is an ongoing inquiry, they don't necessarily have an
Speaker 9: idea of the size and scale of what this means
Speaker 9: for credits wesed legally and what it means for themselves legally.
Speaker 9: So it does underscore one of the challenges of this
Speaker 9: very complicated merger.
Speaker 2: What about government relations. You report some frustration actually on
Speaker 2: a government level, more around the Swiss authorities.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so historically the US and Swiss geopolitically have not
Speaker 9: always seen eye to eye when it comes to the banks.
Speaker 9: You'll you'll remember, you know, there was a series of
Speaker 9: tax of Asian settlements with the Swiss banks over US
Speaker 9: citizens hiding money in Switzerland to US taxes. So there
Speaker 9: have been frustrations in the past on Swiss Swiss banks
Speaker 9: sort of cooperating with authorities in the US over issues
Speaker 9: like this, and so it looks like there's targeting bilateral
Speaker 9: conversations with the banks directly for the moment rather than
Speaker 9: going through government government routes. And you know, the Swiss
Speaker 9: haven't necessarily done everything that the US could expect them
Speaker 9: of them to, you know, make sure these sanctions against
Speaker 9: Russia have been enforced.
Speaker 3: What has the Bank said about all of this?
Speaker 4: So the bank.
Speaker 9: Doesn't generally comment on these these types of investigations, but generally,
Speaker 9: from what we understand, UBS has been cooperating with any
Speaker 9: request that GJ has had. And you know they'll be
Speaker 9: quite keen to make sure that they that they come
Speaker 9: to a good resolution on this, because that would be
Speaker 9: problematic otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Marian, thank you so much for being with us
Speaker 2: this morning. Bloomberg Swiss Banking reporter Marian Health Tamaire the
Speaker 2: on the latest when it comes to the UBS credit
Speaker 2: Swies merger.
Speaker 3: Now you've probably heard of Rewilding. The successful entrepreneur behind
Speaker 3: solar centry, Jeremy Leggett, is now betting on the nascent
Speaker 3: nature recovery or rewild doing industry. On a three thousand
Speaker 3: five hundred acre estate in Scotland now joining us stage
Speaker 3: to discuss as Bloomberg's ESG reporter and Natasha White. Natasha,
Speaker 3: great to have you with us. This project is attracted
Speaker 3: quite a bit of attention. Can you explain exactly what
Speaker 3: it is?
Speaker 10: We kind of delve into legates one man's venture to
Speaker 10: make money out of nature restoration or kind of rewilding,
Speaker 10: and this is something that's historically been in the domain
Speaker 10: of governments and NGOs. But like you said, Leggot, who's
Speaker 10: the founder of one of the UK's most successful solo firm,
Speaker 10: Solo Century, has kind of set his sights on this
Speaker 10: what he calls nascent nature recovery industry, and so he's
Speaker 10: been buying up a states across Scotland, most recently Taviaalk
Speaker 10: earlier this year, with a view to kind of return
Speaker 10: them to their to their form former glory. And he
Speaker 10: sort of sees this nature recovery, this rewilding industry as
Speaker 10: a kin to kind of well he calls it groundhog Day.
Speaker 10: So he witnessed the boom and renewables in the nineteen
Speaker 10: nineties and he's looking at this sector and saying, you know,
Speaker 10: kind of betting that's this is the next big thing,
Speaker 10: but we kind of delve into the tensions that he's
Speaker 10: experiencing and doing.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, I suppose what if you're on Earth, about
Speaker 2: why he's pursuing this, what his bet is about.
Speaker 10: Yes, I think what's different here is he's this is
Speaker 10: all about biodiversity. So we all know about the climate crisis,
Speaker 10: but I think less is known or less airtime is
Speaker 10: given to the crisis in nature of the biodiversity crisis.
Speaker 10: You know, we all know there's less bugs on our
Speaker 10: windscreen and there's less bees on our flowers. But there
Speaker 10: was a report that just came out today on the
Speaker 10: state of nature in the UK and in Scotland which
Speaker 10: had some really kind of abysmal statistics, and so governments
Speaker 10: globally are are, you know, increasingly looking at this problem.
Speaker 10: There was a big pact, the Nature Packed in December
Speaker 10: last year in Montreal that's kind of been dubbed Uck
Speaker 10: into the Paris Agreement, whereby representatives from almost two hundred
Speaker 10: countries committed to halting and reversing biodiversity loss by twenty
Speaker 10: thirty and are starting to put in in the groundwork
Speaker 10: for doing so. In one aspect, there of course, is
Speaker 10: the money. So there's not enough money coming from governments
Speaker 10: to address this problem, and so the private CEA has
Speaker 10: been called called upon to play its parts. But it's
Speaker 10: also you know, it's historically been quite a tricky problem
Speaker 10: about how how do you make money out of nature
Speaker 10: protection and restoration. And what Legate's eyeing with his venture
Speaker 10: is this nascent biodiversity credits market.
Speaker 3: Okay, and how I mean how lacent is that market?
Speaker 3: Where is the opportunities that lie within it At the moment.
Speaker 10: It's it's very small. There are regulated what's called biodiversity
Speaker 10: offset markets in a number of countries. England is due
Speaker 10: to has one that's due to enter inter force. Well
Speaker 10: it was due to enter into force in November. It's
Speaker 10: just recently been delayed until I think early in the
Speaker 10: new year. So these are BUI diversity offset markets where
Speaker 10: for example, if you're looking to build build houses or
Speaker 10: dig a mine, you have to you're regulated to compensate
Speaker 10: at least one hundred percent, if not more, for your
Speaker 10: impact on nature. So those exist at national levels and
Speaker 10: you know, Legate is besting that Scotland will soon introduce
Speaker 10: a similar law there and is in kind of conversations
Speaker 10: with policymakers about that, but he's also looking at this
Speaker 10: international market for bio diversity credits, where you know, if
Speaker 10: a company wants to build a mining kenure, it can
Speaker 10: go and buy credits from legate in Scotland to compensate
Speaker 10: for those impacts. And that's that's nascent, but there's you know,
Speaker 10: there's statistics out that suggest it could reach thirty five
Speaker 10: billion by twenty fifty, which is, you know, fifteen times
Speaker 10: the size of the carbon market right now. So some
Speaker 10: people are eyeing this market and are quite bullish about
Speaker 10: its potential.
Speaker 2: Briefly, though domestically within Scotland legs up against some opposition though.
Speaker 10: There's like broad different or brushes of issues here. First
Speaker 10: is that you know, people are pushing back about on
Speaker 10: whether nature conservation and restoration is really the domain in
Speaker 10: the private sector, is whether it's something that's best at
Speaker 10: delve with by governments.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, your morning brief on the
Speaker 3: stories making news from London to Wall Street and beyond.
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Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hepka and.
Speaker 3: I'm Stephen Carroll. Join us again tomorrow morning for all
Speaker 3: the news you need to start your day right here
Speaker 3: on Bloomberg day Break Europe