Private Equity Moris Beracha Wuani

By Moris Beracha . - In the world, millions of people are participating in sports betting, either as a hobby or as a way to get easy money. Given the rise of cryptocurrencies and electronic money, some bookmakers have decided to take the technology path and open transactions that allow holders to use tokens from their personal wallets to try their luck. Within sports betting, many businesses appear and disappear almost instantly; also, some providers do not care much about delivering a good experience to their customers and many sportsbooks make deposits easy for customers but no withdrawals. In this regard, it should be noted that there are a large number of platforms for sports betting and it is not an easy task to decide which one to participate in. Being able to invest a Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency requires to take into account different factors, such as the opinions of existing users, the levels of quotas and promotions, withdrawal limits ...

By Moris Beracha .-  The bitcoins and the main cryptocurrencies in the market were designed with some important security patterns, which make them quite difficult to steal. The fundamental aspects of cryptocurrencies include protecting user privacy, avoiding asset theft and avoiding harmful practices such as double spending. However, there are some failures that are sought out by hackers, which allow them to take over and empty some accounts, leaving losses, in some cases, of thousands or millions of dollars. According to the Bit2me cryptocurrency and blockchain academy, about a billion US dollars in Bitcoin have been stolen to date. They recall the thefts in Mt Gt I and II, for a total of 769,408 bitcoins; the 173,655 bitcoins seized by the FBI when closing Silk Road; the robbery known as “Pony” Botnet, which stands out due to the number of machines involved, and which amounted to a total of US $ 220,000 in various types of cryptocurrencies th...

By Andrew McAuley After a period of good returns from equities and bonds and with the official cash rate at 1.0 per cent, many investors are looking for ways to reduce risk and diversify their portfolios. Adding alternative investments such as private equity is one way to do this. Alternative investments are any asset other than stocks, bonds, and cash, and which can act as building blocks to diversify portfolios. Hedge funds, commodities and real estate are all considered part of the alternative investments universe, as is private equity. Investors should aim to build a self-financing private equity portfolio that has sufficient distributions to cover future capital calls. Private equity funds take equity stakes in companies or assets that are not publicly traded and work closely with the management teams to increase their value to be able to sell again at a higher price. Thus, by their nature they are less correlated with equity and bond markets as...

Ian Allison Online payments giant PayPal has made its first-ever investment in a blockchain technology company.  Announced today, PayPal has  joined the extension of a Series A funding round in Cambridge Blockchain, a startup that helps financial institutions and other companies manage sensitive data using shared ledgers. Neither PayPal nor Cambridge Blockchain disclosed the investment amount, but recent filings with the SEC indicate that Cambridge Blockchain has raised a total of $3.5 million in new equity from several investors over the past nine months. That follows the $7 million close of its Series A in May of 2018, and brings the total capital raised to $10.5 million. That first $7 million consisted of $4 million of new capital plus $3 million of converted notes , and came from several investors, including HCM Capital, the VC arm of Foxconn, which manufactures the iPhone for Apple, as well as Digital Currency Group. The subsequent $3....

Bruce Flatt put Wall Street’s biggest private equity players on notice that the Canadian juggernaut was coming for them three years ago. The head of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. told Bloomberg Television then that his firm -- pushing into private equity -- should be mentioned in the same breath as Blackstone Group LP , Carlyle Group LP and KKR & Co. It was an unusually brash statement from the understated Winnipeg native. He’s more than backed it up. On Wednesday, Brookfield Asset Management agreed to buy a majority stake in Oaktree Capital, a move that will create a $475 billion alternative-investing behemoth. That’s more assets under management than any of the other blue-chip buyout firms reported at year-end. The transaction caps a flurry of deal-making across Flatt’s investing empire of four publicly traded companies focused on real estate, infrastructure, renewable energy and private equity. “I don’t think Brookfield has grown quickly,...

Staff of the nation’s largest pension is trying to sell a new investment model to its sometimes skeptical board By Chris Cumming The board of the nation’s largest pension still has plenty of questions about a proposed shake-up in its private-equity strategy, roughly two years after the pension’s staff began developing the plan. Ben Meng, chief investment officer of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, on Tuesday detailed the proposed new strategy for private-equity investing, arguing that without it the underfunded pension system could have trouble hitting return targets and making its required payouts to retirees. Mr. Meng, who joined the $337 billion fund last month, argued that the new strategy was necessary to get more exposure to the best-performing private-equity managers. “We need private equity, we need more of it, and we need it now,” he said. Calpers’ private-equity reform has attracted some controversy si...

By Moris Beracha .- The high levels of volatility of the most popular cryptocurrencies in the world have led investors to look towards price stable “Stablecoins” or crypto assets. These are digital assets designed to maintain a stable price, linked to a stable fiduciary currency, or that are related to products or other cryptocurrencies. The advantages of backed cryptocurrencies are that currencies are stabilized by assets that fluctuate outside the technological realm, that is, the underlying asset is not correlated, reducing financial risk. The main Stablecoins are: Tether (USDT) is the best-known example of stablecoins. Originally launched as Realcoin, the project was founded in November 2014 and has two tokens: USDT and EURT, pegged to the dollar and the euro. Both cryptocurrencies are connected to the Bitfinex exchange house. TrueUSD (TUSD) is another token pegged to the dollar that is part of the TrustToken platform. Digix Gold (DGX) ...

By Helen Partz   Global investment bank Credit Suisse and Portuguese Banco Best have completed end-to-end fund transactions on blockchain , according to a press release published Feb. 7. The financial institutions have reportedly processed every part of the fund trade process by implementing a blockchain-based decentralized platform, FundsDLT. Designed to improve the efficiency of fund transaction processing with the use of blockchain and smart contracts , FundsDLT would purportedly reduce the time between request and the settlement from delivery of the order to trade processing. Within the initiative, Lisbon-based Banco Best — specializing in banking , asset management and trading — was responsible for the Application Programming Interface (API) integration, and also developed a dedicated application to collect client experiences. An end-to-end or mutual fund transaction represents a pool of money from a group of investors that is put into...

New cryptocurrency exchange has reportedly raised $27.5 million from investors which include NASDAQ Ventures and Fidelity Investments. The platform will offer cryptocurrency trading on spot and future markets starting next year.  Nevermind the Bear Market Seemingly unphased by the current bleeding conditions of the cryptocurrency market, Fidelity Investments and NASDAQ Ventures have reportedly taken part in a funding round of new cryptocurrency exchange ErisX. The total amount raised is $27.5 million,  Reuters  reports . According to the report, Nasdaq has already confirmed its participation while Fidelity is yet to respond to the requests for comment. The new cryptocurrency exchange will purportedly enable investors to trade Bitcoin (BTC) $3786.42 +0.14% , Litecoin (LTC) 0 0 , and Ether (ETH) 0 0 on both spot and futures markets. It is expected to launch in 2019 following regulatory approval. Speaking on the matter was Thomas Chippas, CEO ...

By Molly Jane Zuckerman U.S. investment firm Fidelity, which administers over $7.2 trillion in client assets, has announced the launch of a new company, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, according to an Oct. 15 press release. The new company will offer custody and trade execution services for digital assets, targeting institutional investors like “hedge funds, family offices and market intermediaries,” and will not for now be open to retail investors. According to the press release, Fidelity Digital Assets will focus on providing a “secure, compliant, and institutional-grade omnibus storage solution for bitcoin, ether and other digital assets.” Tom Jessop, head of the newly-created business, is quoted in as saying that Fidelity began exploring blockchain and crypto “several years ago,” telling CNBC in an interview today that the idea of commercializing a “standalone” crypto firm began in mid-2017. Fidelity cites research from Greenwich Associates that found t...

By Justin Villamil Mexico’s upstart stock exchange needs private equity to go public. The Bolsa Institucional de Valores, the bourse known as Biva that began operations in July, is trying to gain market share from the dominant Bolsa Mexicana de Valores by focusing on private equity managers ready to exit their investments and sell shares. The industry has grown 15 percent annually over the past decade, according to a report by El Financiero. “The story of private equity is very recent in Mexico,” Biva Chief Executive Officer Maria Ariza said in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in Mexico City. “Companies are starting to mature, they’re starting to leave, and they’re starting to look for an opportunity to exit their investments. Ideally, one of the ways to do that is through the capital markets.” Companies controlled by private-equity firms tend to alre...

 By William Suberg Liechtenstein bank Union Bank AG announced it was issuing its own security tokens and in-house cryptocurrency backed by fiat in a press release Friday, August 17. Union Bank, which has concentrated increasingly on blockchain this year, said issuing its so-called “Union Bank Payment Coin (UBPC)” was a further step towards becoming a “full-service blockchain investment bank.” UBPC will act as a stable coin, the institution explained, and will have fiat currencies “such as the Swiss franc” as its backing. “Our goal is to become the world's first blockchain investment bank and to provide tangible solutions which help drive efficiencies, reduce cost base and open up new revenue opportunities for our customers and intermediaries alike,” chairman of the board of directors Mohammad Hans Dastmaltchi commented in the release. “...As such, our fiat-backed Union Bank Payment Coin has the potential to disrupt the approach to international trad...