For those looking for a little solace in these dark times, a bit of hope for the future in the age of quarantines and social distancing, look no further, for two extremely rich, famous and attractive Gen Z-ers with even more famous parents are getting hitched!

Chatham Hedge Fund Has the Winning Bid for McClatchy Newspapers [NYT]McClatchy, the publisher of The Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Charlotte Observer and its flagship publication, The Sacramento Bee, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February. Chatham, an investor in the company since 2009, is its largest creditor…. It will not be split up, McClatchy said, its 30 news outlets remaining intact….In a statement, a Chatham spokesman said the company was “pleased with the outcome of the auction,” adding, “Chatham is committed to preserving newsroom jobs and independent journalism that serve and inform local communities during this important time.”

Former Barclays executives Roger Jenkins and Richard Boath didn’t know much about private equity executive Amanda Staveley back in 2008. She was a “complete unknown,” Jenkins told his second British courtroom this year. Well, not a complete unknown, to Jenkins anyway, since he admits she’d “received some publicity” for her role in the Abu Dhabi royal family’s purchase of soccer team Manchester City, and also that she “had no qualifications in finance.” Oh, also “that she had once owned a restaurant by a racecourse and that was how she had made connections with Middle Eastern individuals.”

A battle of the hedge funds is brewing in the bankruptcy auction of the McClatchy Company, one of the nation’s largest and most decorated newspaper chains, pitting Chatham Asset Management and Brigade Capital Management, both debt holders in the chain, against a newcomer to the proceedings, Alden Global Capital…. Alden, a New York hedge fund that has become a force in the newspaper business, tried to disrupt the Chatham-Brigade proposal on Wednesday by filing an emergency motion in a U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Mr. Laufer, in his 70s, and his wife, speech pathologist and political activist Dr. Marsha Zlatin Laufer, have owned the four-bedroom aerie, located only a few floors beneath President Donald Trump’s triplex penthouse at the iconic Fifth Avenue building, since 2006, according to public property records. They paid $9.5 million at the time, nearly $3 million less than they’re asking for the lavish condo today.

Pressure to dramatically reduce costs is coming to a head inside the bank, prompting executives to draft plans that may ultimately eliminate tens of thousands of positions, people with knowledge of the confidential talks said… Executives haven’t yet adopted a specific target for shrinking the bank’s workforce of about 263,000, and they aren’t likely to detail a plan when posting quarterly results…. Some firms, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., have indicated they’ll maintain their pledge [to postpone layoffs] through the end of the 2020. Wells Fargo has been more conservative, implementing a shorter moratorium and then adjusting it, people with knowledge of the planning said. Its current freeze expires this month, though it could be extended.

Oxy’s Sweetener a Bitter Pill for Warren Buffett [WSJ]It offered shareholders of record as of July 6 the ability to buy an eighth of a share for each one they own at $22 for the next seven years. The warrants can be sold for cash starting next month…. Mr. Icahn’s fingerprints are on the move to issue the warrants. In a statement relating to their issuance, he said he is pleased that the new chairman, along with his “three director representatives,” have helped create “a more stockholder friendly board….”But the warrants are also a quiet snub to Mr. Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway helped fund Occidental’s gigantic acquisition with preferred shares not eligible to receive warrants. Occidental needed the $10 billion in cash to prevail over Chevron while avoiding a shareholder vote on—ironically—issuing new shares.

Today’s Supreme Court rulings that the President of the United States is not, as Donald Trump hoped against both precedent and decency, an absolute divine-right monarch during his tenure in the Oval Office, is a bit of a mixed bag. To be sure, his claims of absolute immunity from anything were junked not only by the 7-2 majority ruling in favor of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s subpoena of Trump’s accounting firm but also by Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in dissent. But they mean, at worst, that a few dozen people in the fourth most-Democratic county in America will get to see his tax returns. And given that the high court has allowed Trump to continue litigating even that in the lower courts, it will almost certainly not be before November’s election. And if Congress is to ever get the financial records it desires, it, too, will have to wait until next year at the earliest, by which time they’ll hopefully have a good deal less reason to want them.

Last year, hedge fund founder Neil Ahuja was convicted of ripping off Anthony Scaramucci (among others) and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail. Turns out some of the securities held by his Premium Point Investments may not have been worth as much as it said, and its performance numbers may have been a wee bit optimistic. Or so said former portfolio manager Amin Majidi when he pleaded guilty to his role in the alleged fraud in 2018.

What did he say? Well, that the scam went on way longer than originally believed, that he had done less wrong and Premium Point trader and fellow defendant Jeremy Shor had done more wrong, and that Majidi knew that what he was doing was wrong.

A spokeswoman for the Munich public prosecutor said it was conducting several legal cases related to possible money laundering at Wirecard, the oldest dating as far back as 2010…. While the prosecutors’ spokeswoman didn’t mention any specific cases of possible money laundering by Wirecard officials, there are at least two in the U.S. involving the company that have popped up over the years…. An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into a German national living in Florida found he appeared to be operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business for payouts of illegal profits from gambling in online casinos. Documents seen by The Wall Street Journal showed Wirecard’s banking business was involved in the transference of some of the money…. In late 2015, German prosecutors also raided Wirecard at the request of U.S. authorities who were investigating money laundering, according to the Munich prosecutor’s spokeswoman.

Companies Raised Record Amounts by Selling Stock During Covid-19 Crisis [WSJ]Companies raised nearly $190 billion from the end of March through the end of June, the most ever in a single quarter for the U.S. equity-capital markets, according to Dealogic, whose data go back to 1995.The wave started in the convertible-bond market as the Federal Reserve gobbled up more bonds to help stimulate the economy. Then it spread to large stock sales by publicly traded companies looking to bolster their coffers as the virus threatened business. Those successes emboldened other companies looking to raise money opportunistically by selling stock. Then, in late May, initial public offerings jolted back to life.

“The COVID event is not behind us yet,” Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for financial regulation, said in prepared remarks. “We know that the financial system will face more challenges.”

BlackGold Capital Management LP, a Houston credit fund that received a $150,000 to $350,000 loan, according to the SBA. BlackGold is partly owned by private-equity giant KKR & Co…. Marcato Capital Management LP, an activist fund whose founder was a protégé of Bill Ackman’s, received a loan between $150,000 and $350,000, according to the data…. Other investment firms that tapped the loan program included a Dallas-based mutual-fund manager, Highland Capital Management Fund Advisors, and Exchange Traded Managers Group LLC, a New Jersey-based issuer of exchange-traded funds. The latter manages a cannabis-themed ETF with $569 million in assets, according to FactSet.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday formally rescinded a plan to impose new limits on payday lending….. Those loans can leave borrowers trapped in cycles of debt, incurring fees every few weeks to replenish loans they cannot afford to pay off…. Trump appointees were so determined to eliminate the rule that they manipulated the agency’s research process to steer it toward their predetermined outcome, a bureau employee claimed in an internal memo reviewed by The New York Times.

A former Beverly Hills stockbroker who worked with a fugitive hedge fund manager was sentenced Monday to six years in prison for his role in a stock manipulation scheme that fleeced investors out of more than $200 million…. Defense attorneys unsuccessfully argued for a term of home detention in light of the coronavirus pandemic raging in prisons.

Carlos Ghosn wired $860,000 to alleged escape plotters, U.S. says [Japan Times]Ghosn wired the money in two installments to Promote Fox LLC, a company managed by Peter Taylor and one of his brothers, the U.S. government said in a Tuesday court filing. Taylor and his father, ex-Green Beret Michael, were arrested by U.S. authorities in May at the request of the Japanese government, which is seeking their extradition for allegedly helping Ghosn flee to Lebanon in December…. If Michael and Peter Taylor are extradited, the Japanese government would likely present the financial documents alongside immigration records and security camera footage mentioned in other court filings to illustrate the Taylors’ role in the escape.

Recidivist David Sims, his partner, Mario Procopio, and their lawyer, Ralph Craig Greaves… operated a fraudulent scheme that raised over $1.4 million from investors…. The complaint alleged that Sims and Procopio falsely told investors they had special access to trade platforms used by governments, corporations, and wealthy investors to buy vast sums of currency, usually $500 million or more, at a discounted price. Sims and Procopio allegedly told investors they could "piggyback" their money on these large trading platforms and reap huge returns with "absolutely no risk."

Federal Reserve official warns US recovery may be ‘levelling off’ [FT]Raphael Bostic, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, whose district covers some of the regions hardest hit by the current outbreaks, including Florida, said high-frequency data had shown a “levelling off” of economic activity both in terms of business openings and mobility.“There are a couple of things that we are seeing and some of them are troubling and might suggest that the trajectory of this recovery is going to be a bit bumpier than it might otherwise,” Mr Bostic said. “And so we’re watching this very closely, trying to understand exactly what’s happening.”

“We are, in principle, prepared to provide this support,” said Sebastian Krämer-Bach, a Deutsche Bank spokesman, “if such assistance should become necessary.”

The lender said the offer was being discussed with Germany’s financial regulatory agency and the insolvency administrator currently running Wirecard’s affairs…. The statement was perhaps the first bit of good news for Wirecard since the company, once a rising star of Germany’s tech scene providing digital payment services across the globe, imploded two weeks ago after its auditor could not find 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) listed in the company’s books.

As far as Bill Barr, the Federal Reserve, Wells Fargo and the Nasdaq are concerned, the rules when it comes to the burgeoning marijuana industry are clear: There shouldn’t be one, and any provision of services to anyone involved in growing ganja is in clear violation of the law and regulations stemming therefrom.

The only problem with this argument is that the law isn’t so clear, since two years ago Congress made the production of hemp legal while keeping the ban on marijuana in place. In spite of that fine distinction, the fact remains that both are products of the same plant. Still, given all of that grey area, it seemed churlish to continue considering the mere cultivation of cannabis sativa itself a suspicious activity necessitating an endless series of suspicious activity reports, and so the regulators who’d have to review those tedious reports decided back in December they were no longer existentially necessary. Lest, however, the likes of Wells Fargo decided to...

The conglomerate is spending $4 billion to buy the natural gas transmission and storage assets of Dominion Energy. Including the assumption of debt, the deal totals almost $10 billion. It’s Berkshire’s first major purchase since the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent market collapse in March…. With the purchase, Berkshire Hathaway Energy will carry 18% of all interstate natural gas transmission in the United States, up from 8% currently.

Commerzbank Leaders Toppled in Cerberus-Led Investor Revolt [Bloomberg]Chief Executive Officer Martin Zielke, in the job for just over four years, has offered to resign, though the bank’s supervisory board still has to accept his resignation and set a date, Commerzbank said late Friday. Chairman Stefan Schmittmann will leave Aug. 3…. Cerberus, which unsuccessfully pushed for two board seats, has led an investor revolt at Commerzbank, criticizing the supervisory board and management for being too timid in cutting costs. But the resignation of both the chairman and the CEO suggests that the German government -- the bank’s largest shareholder -- has also lost patience.

Multi-strategy hedge funds post double-digit gains [FT] Chicago-based Citadel, which has close to $30bn in assets under management, gained 1.7 per cent in June in its flagship Wellington fund and is up 13.3 per cent year to date…. Millennium Management, with $42bn in assets, gained 2.9 per cent in June and is...

A caravan of 200 protesters — some of them armed with plastic pitchforks — showed up outside the Long Island vacation homes of Michael Bloomberg and other wealthy investors Wednesday to decry the nation's rising income inequality, which has only gotten worse since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic…. To make their point heard, they also planned to head to the homes of Stephen Ross, a billionaire real estate developer; Stephen Schwarzman, the CEO of the Blackstone Group, a massive real estate investment firm; and Daniel Loeb, the billionaire behind the hedge fund Third Point.

“After considerable reflection and careful thought, Paulson & Co. will convert into a private investment office and return all external investor capital,” the 64-year old manager wrote in a letter seen by Reuters…. He plans to remain active in the markets, the letter said, without disclosing how much money will be returned to clients and whether his firm, headquartered in midtown Manhattan, might cut employees or cut the size of its offices.

The ‘Rocket Ship’ Economic Recovery Is Crashing [NYT]There were signs in late May and early June that the pace of recovery was beginning to slow, even before another wave of infections swept through states that had moved quickly to ease limits on public gatherings. In recent weeks, as that wave intensified, real-time economic data began to show the economy moving backward as rising infection fears spooked consumers…. States suffering infection surges, like Texas, began to see layoffs and business closings even before officials moved to reimpose some restrictions on economic activity, such as closing bars.