Funding Secured? A Private SoftBank Seems Unlikely [WSJ]SMBC Nikko Securities, for example, said delisting SoftBank via a management buyout is a possibility in a research note last week….A private SoftBank would let Mr. Son carry out his sometimes baffling investment ideas more freely, but making it happen would require an enormous sum…. Excluding Mr. Son’s nearly 30% stake, the buyer would still need to put up around $100 billion, assuming a 25% takeover premium.

She made a formal complaint to top Bridgewater brass, including founder Ray Dalio and Chief Executive David McCormick, one of those people said. She asserted that men with similar or lesser responsibilities have been paid more…. What was particularly alarming to Ms. Karniol-Tambour, said people briefed on her situation, is that she made less than several men in largely operational roles at Bridgewater. At most hedge funds, investment professionals can earn considerably more than those who perform back-office tasks or liaise with clients.

There’s a lot to see in the Forbes 400. Four hundred things, as it happens. Most of these things are names and numbers and little up or down arrows indicating whether that number got bigger or smaller over the past 12 months. One of them, however, is an exclamation point. A joyous exhalation of victory. A further data point, as if one were needed, that one of the signature events of our time is not only real, but spectacular.

You won’t find it at the top of the list, among the Bezoses and former Bezoses and Buffetts. It’s not that the Medallion fund continues to provide Jim Simons with a very comfortable retirement, indeed, or that the coronavirus pandemic has been a $2 billion pain for Ray Dalio. Nor is it that Ken Griffin is $2.3 billion richer, and richer than Steve Cohen at that, or that Carl Icahn, his COVID jollies notwithstanding, is $3.6 billion poorer.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. executives told senior employees of the bank’s giant sales and trading operation that they and their teams must return to the office by Sept. 21…. Trading chief Troy Rohrbaugh and Marc Badrichani, the bank’s global head of sales and research, delivered the message in conference calls Wednesday morning, the people said. The two executives said employees with child-care issues and medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to coronavirus complications can continue working from home….

Messrs. Rohrbaugh and Badrichani told employees that camaraderie would suffer and junior staffers wouldn’t get the training they need if trading staff remained at home full time, according to people familiar with the matter./To prepare employees for the transition, JPMorgan recently pushed out a mandatory training program explaining the new office rules, the people said. Animated figures wearing masks outline hand-washing procedures and hallway etiquette.

An Economic Bellwether Shows Recovery Losing Steam [WSJ]“As long as the major economies do not need to get into generalized lockdown, the economy should continue to mend, but cannot sustain the spectacular rebound seen upon reopening businesses a few months ago,” said Gilles Moëc, chief economist at the Axa insurance company. “The hard part starts now….” There were signs of fragility as fresh outbreaks of the virus prompted new restrictions and additional caution among consumers, with declines in activity recorded in Japan, India, Australia, Kazakhstan, Spain and Italy.

Citigroup said on Thursday that its chief executive, Michael Corbat, plans to retire in February, paving the way for his top lieutenant, Jane Fraser, to become the first woman to lead a big Wall Street bank….

“We believe Jane is the right person to build on Mike’s record and take Citi to the next level,” John C. Dugan, Citi’s chairman, said in a statement. “She has deep experience across our lines of business and regions, and we are highly confident in her.”

JPMorgan fires several employees who took Covid relief funds [FT]The individuals who allegedly fraudulently obtained EIDL loans had not been acting in their capacity as JPMorgan employees, but that breaking the law was a violation of the bank’s code of conduct and some people were fired as a result of their improper EIDL applications…. JPMorgan, which employs more than 160,000 people in the US, found that some of its own staff had deposited suspicious EIDL funds in their Chase checking accounts. Those cases accounted for a “very small” percentage of the total suspicious activity uncovered by JPMorgan, the person said.

[JPMorgan Chase] said it has seen “instances of customers misusing Paycheck Protection Program Loans, unemployment benefits and other government programs” and that some “employees have fallen short, too,” according to a memo to staff from the bank’s senior leaders Tuesday. The firm said the conduct doesn’t meet its principles “and may even be illegal.”

“We are doing all we can to identify those instances and cooperating with law enforcement where appropriate,” according to the memo. The bank asked workers to report any conduct that violates its policies.

In the notices, filed Sept. 3 and made public on the court’s website Tuesday, the Dubins will have 30 days, once they’ve been served with the subpoenas, to hand over any documents they may have from 1998 until the present that detail their financial transactions with Epstein and their travel to Epstein’s properties in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Glenn Dubin’s name is spelled “Glen” in the documents…. The subpoenas are also asking for all documents and communications between the Dubins and “any female associated with Jeffrey Epstein.”

Even in the best of times, Central Islip, N.Y., is not the world’s most exciting place, especially since the psychiatric hospital closed 25 years ago. And these are not the best of times: There’s no Long Island Ducks baseball to take the mind off of the pandemic thanks to, you know, the pandemic, and the New York Institute of Technology campus will be even less lively than usual due to the same.

There is one thing Central Islip could look forward to: justice. For the first time in six months, the Carleton Avenue courtroom district was set to offer some real juice, with a nasty divorce over at state Supreme Court and a fun bench trial of a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer accused of giving his new private-equity employers a head’s up about what the Feds had on file at the Al D’Amato federal courthouse.

“Of course retail investor activity is downright terrifying,” Gundlach said during an investor webcast on Tuesday, pointing to the surge in daily average trade and trade per account on online brokers. “We just see how much trading is going on in retail,” he said…. Gundlach likened the newbie investors to a kid who is offered candy from a stranger.

“It looks like people are kind of re-gifting the candy the con has given them ... they are throwing that candy into this retail investment fervor,” added the so-called “Bond King.”

“This is a terrible sign for the condition of the market for anybody who’s experienced a significant number of cycles, which I’ve definitely experienced,” Gundlach said.

Tiffany Sues LVMH for Backing Out of $16 Billion Deal [Bloomberg]Tiffany said that LVMH was trying to leverage the protests against police brutality and the Covid-19 pandemic to seek a lower price…. LVMH said the French government had asked the company in the letter to delay the deal beyond Jan. 6, 2021, citing a U.S. move to impose tariffs on goods from France…. The government’s request to LVMH for a delay in the closing date has no basis in French law, Tiffany said.“LVMH has made clear its real goal is to attempt to renegotiate the merger price to which the parties agreed last November and, barring renegotiation, run out the clock,” Tiffany says in its suit, filed in Delaware.

Divorces, especially those involving fabulously wealthy hedge fund managers, tend to be somewhat contentious affairs under even the very best of circumstances. Well, Alex Kuczynski’s circumstances are not the best at the moment. She got COVID and her father—the former president of Peru—is himself sick and under house arrest back home facing corruption charges. Oh, and her husband, Charles Stevenson, had her served with divorce papers at an airport six days before Christmas, shortly before shacking up with a family friend.

“Though our fiduciary duty to our clients has put us into conflict with Citibank relating to their role as agent on the Revlon Term Loan, Brigade has not sought to limit any other business or trading activity with Citibank as a consequence of this specific disagreement,” a spokeswoman for Brigade said.

As Brexit Deadlines Loom, the Posturing and Bickering Flare Again [NYT]Prime Minister Boris Johnson threatened to break off the talks if there was no deal in place by Oct. 15, two and a half months before the official deadline of Dec. 31. And his government prepared legislation that could undermine parts of the political agreement, relating to Northern Ireland, that it struck last October to withdraw from the bloc after 47 years…. The chief European negotiator, Michel Barnier… last week told an Irish research institute that Britain had “not engaged constructively” and accused it of a “lack of engagement” on core questions.

Hedge-Fund Founder Arrested Over Neiman Marcus Bankruptcy [WSJ]Dan Kamensky, the founder of Marble Ridge Capital LP, was arrested Thursday and charged by federal prosecutors in New York with securities fraud, wire fraud, extortion and obstruction of justice in connection with his efforts to acquire shares in Neiman’s MyTheresa e-commerce business…. If convicted of all charges, Mr. Kamensky faces up to 50 years in prison. The Securities and Exchange Commission also sued Mr. Kamensky and Marble Ridge on Thursday….

That certainly sounded good enough to anyone who was interested, as it doesn’t seem to have hurt the brokerage’s growth. The only problem was, those two streams accounted for less than half Robinhood’s revenue. Excluded from the list were the rebates it got from executing brokers, but also the kind of thing that might make a skeptical Millennial think twice about signing up for an account: selling their trades to those shadowy and scary-sounding high-speed traders.

Both would face conflicts of interest if they decided, for instance, to sue EY for any role it played in auditing Wirecard, while also being audited by it…. “This decision was made in an abundance of caution and under due consideration to avoid any possible future conflicts arising potentially from the role of EY as statutory auditor of Wirecard,” DWS said in a document laying out the agenda for its November annual general meeting, where shareholders must approve changes.

“The gap between the rich and the poor has reached an inflection point. The feeling that state schools are victimised by the marking procedure for the academic results, the feeling that coloured people are victimised, and I could go on closer to home,” he said using a term that both the Merriam Webster Dictionary and Oxford Dictionary describe as dated and offensive.

Airbnb Rebuffs Approach From Bill Ackman’s SPAC [Bloomberg]Airbnb hasn’t completely ruled out a merger with Ackman’s Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd., although no discussions are currently underway, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. Early stage discussions broke off when Airbnb filed confidentially for an IPO last month…. “Uncertainty is the enemy of the IPO and the friend of a $5 billion SPAC with the largest amount of committed capital,” [Ackman] said.

If you, dear reader, happen to have noticed some strange goings-on at a company you cover for a bank or money manager or whatever, we have wonderful, lucrative news for you.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is aware that various media outlets intend to publish a series of articles based on unlawfully disclosed Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs), as well as other sensitive government documents, from several years ago. As FinCEN has stated previously, the unauthorized disclosure of SARs is a crime that can impact the national security of the United States, compromise law enforcement investigations, and threaten the safety and security of the institutions and individuals who file such reports. FinCEN has referred this matter to the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Inspector General.

ByteDance Chief Reconsiders TikTok Options After New China Rules [Bloomberg]The company’s regulatory team and deal negotiators are huddling to discuss whether it’s still possible to craft a sale that can win approval from both governments, an acquirer, venture investors and ByteDance itself, said one of the people…. “I’m not sure price matters as much as pride,” said Rebecca Fannin, author of Tech Titans of China, and founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures. “From the start, Zhang wanted to build a global company. Without the U.S. market, he can’t fulfill those ambitions. He’s a maverick, fiercely independent-minded entrepreneur. He may just decide not to do the deal at all.”

Whatever’s happened to Kodak shares over the past month-plus, one’s things very clear: None of them had anything to do with fundamentals. First it was rumor. Then it was Peter Navarro. All along, it was powered by day traders who know the name “Kodak,” saw it was going up and gave into their crippling FOMO. Indeed, Kodak’s fundamentals remain exactly the same or worse today than they were before some self-serving and eventually untrue whispers about something that would “change the course of history for Rochester and the American people” began to emanate from Kodak’s press office.

“Although it is difficult to know how much longer the elevated demand environment will persist, we believe the pandemic has provided Lowe’s with a unique opportunity to showcase its improved merchandising, greater in-stock levels, and excellent customer service to a growing base of customers. This should drive greater customer frequency and loyalty, leading to correspondingly higher same-store-sales and profit margins over the long term,” Ackman wrote in an investor update on Friday.

According to a recent securities filing, Pershing Square last held more than 12.7 million shares of Lowe’s, a stake valued at nearly $2.1 billion based on Friday’s closing stock price. According to Friday’s investor update, Pershing Square Holdings, the publicly traded vehicle, is up 44.1 percent this year, with Lowe’s contributing 11.7 percent of those gains year-to-date through Aug. 25.