Thursday, February 26, 2026

Fresh cockroaches

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While some may disagree about the threat private credit poses to markets, a new crisis reared its head on Thursday. It seems that Barclays and Atlas Partners—the structured-credit arm of Apollo Global Management—are among firms that helped arrange more than $2.7 billion of loans to a UK mortgage-finance company that's unraveled amid allegations of financial irregularities.

Market Financial Solutions collapsed into a UK form of insolvency yesterday, with the judge overseeing the case citing accusations of fraud and double-pledging of assets. Barclays and Atlas each lent it hundreds of millions of dollars. Jefferies Financial Group and Wells Fargo are also among those with exposure.

If this fact pattern sounds familiar, it's because it is (think cockroaches). The unraveling of MFS is reanimating fears over loose underwriting in credit markets. Last year, the bankruptcies of US auto parts supplier First Brands Group and sub-prime auto lender Tricolor Holdings shook Wall Street. JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon warned this week that some of his rivals are doing "dumb things" to boost returns, reminding him of the years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. David E. Rovella

What You Need to Know Today

Deals
Netflix Drops Warner Bros. Offer, Leaving Paramount and Ellisons the Winners
It clears the way for rival bidder Paramount Skydance, run by David Ellison, to clinch its $111 billion deal for the historic Hollywood studio.

Bloomberg Opinion
Homeland Security Goes on a Warehouse Spending Spree
Trump's Department of Homeland Security has become a big player in the market for warehouses, and it's using AI to find people to hold inside of them.

A bidding war for Janus Henderson Group broke out Thursday as Victory Capital Holdings offered to buy the money manager for $57.04 a share, in a move that topped a previous offer from Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management. The offer comes about two months after Peltz's Trian and General Catalyst agreed to buy London-based Janus Henderson in a deal that valued the asset manager at about $7.4 billion and offered stockholders $49 a share in cash. 

The bidding war comes amid a broader wave of consolidation across the asset management industry, where firms have spent years grappling with clients dumping their mutual funds for cheaper, passive products. Janus Henderson, created through a 2017 merger to combat such challenges, suffered years of outflows until recently.


The Epstein Files
World Economic Forum Chief Steps Down Amid Epstein Links
US files showed Børge Brende arranging to meet the financier at the latter's home for dinner in New York in 2018 and 2019. The second of those meetings was planned just weeks before Epstein's arrest on sex trafficking charges.

The number of US nationals applying for British citizenship hit an all-time high in the first year of Trump's second term. A total of 8,790 Americans sought citizenship through either registration or naturalization in 2025, 42% more than the year before.

Nick Rollason, head of immigration at law firm Kingsley Napley, said the tide of applicants was likely due in part to changes introduced in 2022 allowing Americans with a British grandmother to apply for citizenship. But, alluding to an increasingly polarized society under Trump, the "political climate in the US appears to be a significant motivator for those seeking a more stable and predictable environment abroad."

Artificial Intelligence
Anthropic Spurns Latest Pentagon Bid to Defuse Feud Over AI Work
The company has insisted on prohibitions on mass surveillance of Americans and on use of its technology in fully autonomous weapons. The Trump administration has rejected such protections.

A huge change looms in the biggest race of all. For years, India has ranked as the world's fifth-largest economy, behind the US, China, Germany and Japan. Now it's closing in on Japan, helped by its world-topping population of 1.4 billion people (many of whom are relatively young) and Japan's shrinking economy in dollar terms.

Indeed, the first sign of a change in the global economic order could come this week, with India set to release new gross domestic product figures using an updated framework, revisions that could increase the measured size of the economy.


Weekly Documentary
What Trump's Tariff Defeat Means for His Trade War—and Consumers
We take stock of what the president promised, what actually happened and what the future looks like now that the Supreme Court has brought its gavel down. 

What You'll Need to Know Tomorrow

Markets Wrap
Oil Gets Volatile Amid US-Iran Standoff
Mass Dismissals
Jack Dorsey's Block Terminates 4,000 of Its Employees, Citing AI
Insurance
State Farm to Pay Record $5 Billion Dividend to Auto Policyholders
Consumer
Sweetgreen's Fall From Grace Worsens as Lunch Crowd Moves On
Consumer
Duolingo Slides After It Says Profits to Slow for User Growth
Sports
Ryan Reynolds' Wrexham Faces Financial Hit From Collapsed Broker
Bagels
The Latest Destination Isn't New York. It's Singapore

For Your Commute

Bloomberg CityLab
The Rise of the Manhattan Mega-Mansion
In the West Village and other historic neighborhoods, buyers are consolidating apartments and combining townhomes, a sign of New York City's allure to the ultra-rich.

Bloomberg Invest Dubai: Join us March 27 as we unite family offices as well as private and public investors to navigate global market uncertainty. As geopolitical risk and tech volatility rise, we'll explore where capital is moving next, how private markets are reshaping wealth and the role the Middle East is playing in the global investment market. Learn more.

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