Wagner group’s Prigozhin presumed dead

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Wagner group’s Prigozhin presumed dead’

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Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, August 24th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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Various reports say that Wagner mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has died in a plane crash. Nvidia’s highly anticipated earnings report did not disappoint. And the Securities and Exchange Commission imposed sweeping new rules on private funds. But not everyone is thrilled.

Hester Peirce
As long as investors understand the terms on which they’re investing, why should the government care what those terms are?

Marc Filippino
I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Russian officials are saying that Yevgeny Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed yesterday north-west of Moscow. All 10 people on the plane died in the crash. Social media page linked to the Wagner group also reported Prigozhin’s death and claimed that the plane had been shot down. Prigozhin had quickly become one of the most important figures in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. That is, until Prigozhin and the Wagner group attempted a failed coup on Moscow in June.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission is changing the rules for private funds.

Gary Gensler
I really do believe we’ll promote efficiency, competition, integrity, transparency. That’s good for investors. That’s good for issuers. It’s good for markets alike.

Marc Filippino
That’s SEC chair Gary Gensler. He and other members of the agency voted to strengthen requirements on how private equity, real estate and hedge funds deal with investors. It’s a big moment for traditionally murky areas of finance. The FT’s US finance editor Brooke Masters is covering this. Hi, Brooke.

Brooke Masters
Hey.

Marc Filippino
So what exactly are the new rules here?

Brooke Masters
Well, there’s five different, very geeky rules. But the essential basics of it are that private funds normally negotiate everything individually with each investor, and the SEC is sending ground rules around that. And so they’re saying private funds will have to all make quarterly disclosures to their investors about their returns in a more standardised fashion. So it’s easier to compare. They will be limited somewhat in the kinds of fees they can pass on to their investors. And they will also have more limits on what are called side letters, which is individual agreements where they give each investor different terms.

Marc Filippino
Does this make the private funds industry no longer private?

Brooke Masters
It’s still pretty private. There’s nowhere near as regulated as, you know, mutual funds, ETFs, the ones that are made available to retail. They still have a lot more leeway, but it does make them more like public funds.

Marc Filippino
So there were some members of the SEC who are not on board with these rule changes. Here’s SEC commissioner Hester Peirce during yesterday’s meeting.

Hester Peirce
Unfortunately, the rulemaking is ahistorical, unjustified, unlawful, impractical, confusing and harmful. Accordingly, I can’t support it.

Marc Filippino
So, Brooke, we should point out that the five-member group barely got this through, passed three-to-two. What does that tell you?

Brooke Masters
It tells you that this is one of those rules that is pushing the boundaries. Under the current chair, Gary Gensler, the SEC has been making big steps that people consider a real change in regulation. They’ve expanded regulations to new areas and asked for new things and set new requirements. And Peirce and the other Republican commissioner have really hated this, and they vote against almost all of it.

Marc Filippino
And I can’t imagine that members of the industry are particularly happy about this either.

Brooke Masters
They’re definitely not happy. With the draft version of the rules, they were absolutely making noises that they were gonna sue and see if they could get the courts to throw them out. In the final process, the SEC did modify some of the proposals to address some of their most angry objections. But several of the industry groups, including the Alternative Investment Management Association, have said they are still considering their options and may in fact sue in the hopes that a conservative judiciary, particularly with a conservative Supreme Court, might be willing to toss the rules out.

Marc Filippino
Stepping back a little bit outside the US, what does this mean internationally?

Brooke Masters
One of the things to remember is that some of these rules hit any fund, whether it’s a US fund or an international fund, if it’s getting US money. And so therefore, this could affect lots of funds. They won’t have to do the quarterly statements, but some of the limits on what they can do will be affected. And it’s worth remembering that roughly 70 per cent of all private fund assets come from the US. So this is very, very far-reaching.

Marc Filippino
Brooke Masters is the FT’s US finance editor. Thank you, Brooke.

Brooke Masters
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

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Marc Filippino
Nvidia saw its revenue more than double last quarter. The US chipmaker hit a record quarterly revenue of $13.5bn when it reported earnings yesterday. That’s up more than 100 per cent from a year ago. There has been huge demand for semiconductors to meet the artificial intelligence boom that’s happening, and Nvidia has seen its share price skyrocket in response. Because of that demand, Nvidia also projected a bigger leap in the current quarter than they originally expected. The news drove Nvidia share price up as much as 7 per cent in after-hours trading.

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Thailand finally has a new government. But it’s not the party that won the election three months ago. The leader of the Move Forward party, Pita Limjaroenrat, was prevented from taking over as prime minister in May. The opposition party that came in second in those elections, Pheu Thai, took over the government this week after a partnership with the military. Here’s the FT’s Asia world news editor Eli Meixler.

Eli Meixler
Thailand’s new prime minister’s name is Srettha Thavisin. He only joins the Pheu Thai party ahead of this past election in May. He’s a former property magnate and the director of the Sansiri group, which is one of the largest real estate companies in Thailand.

Marc Filippino
Move Forward is pretty unhappy with the turn of events.

Eli Meixler
They voted en masse against Srettha Thavisin’s prime ministerial bid. They said that they will sit in opposition and not support Pheu Thai despite previously trying to be in a coalition with them. Their leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, is currently suspended while he awaits a ruling to see if he’ll be able to sit as an MP at all. The party also faces another case at the Constitutional Court that could result in its complete dissolution and its MP is being barred from parliament. So it’s in a very tenuous position that I think it very much did not expect itself to be in three months ago after it cruised to victory in the election.

Marc Filippino
Move Forward party says that it will still try to reform things like the military and the monarchy. But analysts say that protesters could take to the streets if they see that the party they voted for is completely blocked from power.

Eli Meixler
Thailand’s economy, which is heavily dependent on trade and tourism, has struggled to recover a bit from the coronavirus pandemic and has also not been helped by the economic slowdown in China, which has cut demand for its imports and a major source of its foreign arrivals. So I think the threat of people returning en masse to the streets and calling for an overhaul of the government would not help the economic situation at all.

Marc Filippino
Eli Meixler is the FT’s Asia news editor.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com for free when you click the links in our show notes. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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