Good morning. Andrew here. About 24 years ago, I flew to Minneapolis to report on what was then the biggest hostile takeover in the real estate world. David Simon, the C.E.O. of Simon Property Group, was on a mission to buy what was then known as Taubman Centers, a portfolio of the most upscale shopping malls in the country. Simon died on Sunday of cancer, at only 64 years old. His passing reminded me of the time we toured the Mall of America during the takeover fight, when he showed off both his charisma and his superhuman tenacity. He lost the battle for Taubman back in 2003 — but won nearly two decades later, buying a majority stake in 2020. He ultimately dominated his industry, turning his company into the largest owner of shopping malls in the nation. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
The rally fizzlesHopes for a quick resolution to the war in the Middle East are fading again. Yesterday’s relief rally has given way to choppy global trade this morning as investors try to make sense of the conflicting messages emerging from Washington and Tehran about peace talks. A recap: President Trump stunned markets yesterday when he posted on social media that the U.S. and Iran had begun “productive conversations” on “a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.” Stocks and bonds rallied. Oil prices plunged. The gains led several market watchers to question the timing of some large, highly profitable trades placed minutes before that post. But much of that hope has faded as Iranian officials have denied that talks were underway. The Times reports that American officials have described the discussions as in an early stage and not substantive. Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are now weighing whether to join the fight against Iran, The Wall Street Journal reports, while Israeli officials said this morning that missiles from Iran had hit Tel Aviv and other parts of the country. The latest numbers:
Expect more market volatility. Bulls see Trump’s focus on talks as a sign he has little appetite for a prolonged war. Bears, however, say this crisis is too big for Trump to resolve with a TACO-style pronouncement. “Unlike the case with tariffs or Greenland, multiple stakeholders have a say in how this war ends,” Helima Croft and Christopher Louney, commodities analysts at RBC Capital Markets, wrote to investors yesterday. Oil executives are anxious. Several have converged on Houston for the annual CERAWeek conference, the industry’s marquee event. Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas imports flow, was a hot topic. The Hormuz effects were still “working their way around the world” and that could affect oil prices for a while because it would take time for supply disruptions to be resolved, warned Mike Wirth, the C.E.O. of Chevron.
HPE’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks faces court scrutiny. Lawyers for several Democratic state attorneys general and for Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Justice Department argued over whether an antitrust settlement that cleared the deal was corrupt. (A lawyer for the states argued that the Justice Department’s agreement was “patronage,” echoing claims by a former department official.) It’s the most significant vetting of an antitrust decision in three decades. The Trump administration will pay TotalEnergies to stop building wind farms. In exchange for a $1 billion payment to abandon plans to build wind farms off the East Coast, the company, a French energy giant, committed to investing a similar amount in fossil-fuel projects in Texas and elsewhere. The move continues President Trump’s push against renewable energy, even as corporate leaders like Larry Fink of BlackRock suggested that green energy could lighten the nation’s energy crunch. Apollo Global Management caps withdrawals from a private credit fund. The asset management giant Apollo became the latest to pause redemptions, after investors tried to pull out more than twice the fund’s withdrawal threshold. The move comes as investors retreat from private credit. Separately, here’s how big banks have offered ways to bet against the troubled sector. Deal questions now hang over JefferiesA report of a potential, if seemingly tenuous, bank takeover just emerged: Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, one of Japan’s biggest banks, is studying a possible deal for Jefferies, according to The Financial Times, which cited unnamed sources. The report suggests a takeover bid isn’t imminent. But it underscores how Jefferies, known on Wall Street for its risk-taking, has come under pressure recently. The context: Jefferies has long had a reputation as one of the most aggressive banks in mainstream finance. But it has been battered over the past several months by failed investments and accusations of fraud. Chief among them is its exposure to First Brands, an auto-parts maker whose collapse helped ignite fears about the private credit industry. That has weighed heavily on the stock price of Jefferies: Its shares have fallen 33 percent over the past 12 months, taking its market value to just over $8 billion. Sumitomo is thinking opportunistically, according to the FT. The bank has built up a 20 percent stake in Jefferies over the past four years, though kept its voting stake below 5 percent to avoid additional regulatory requirements. The partnership is meant to help Sumitomo become a global banking giant, following the model set by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s alliance with Morgan Stanley: a Japanese giant’s balance sheet and a Wall Street firm’s name, know-how and connections. Sumitomo has assembled a team to help prepare it to act in case Jefferies’ shares fall far enough to make a bid. What will happen next? It’s unclear whether Jefferies shareholders — including the bank’s C.E.O., Rich Handler, and other senior executives — would be willing to sell at a low price. But, the FT reports, in the long term several Sumitomo executives believe a deal is the endgame. The high stakes of banning sports from prediction marketsPrediction markets are growing ever bigger, thanks in large part to sports betting. (As of this morning, bets on the 2026 March Madness winner on Polymarket surpassed $16 million.) But a bipartisan bill in the Senate has become the latest effort to block sports wagers on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. If it succeeds, it could have significant financial consequences for the markets, Michael de la Merced writes. The latest: Senators Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, and John Curtis, Republican of Utah, yesterday introduced the Prediction Markets Are Gambling Act. It seeks to amend federal law to bar commodities exchanges — including Kalshi and Polymarket — from allowing contracts tied to a “sporting event or athletic competition.” The bill comes after moves by more than a dozen states to achieve similar ends: Nevada last week scored a temporary restraining order preventing Kalshi from offering contracts on sports and elections in the state. Earlier in the week, Arizona filed criminal charges against Kalshi, accusing it of running an illegal gambling business. The argument: Schiff and Curtis argued that prediction markets were essentially offering sports gambling across the country, even in states that don’t otherwise allow such wagers, with the tacit blessing of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal regulator that oversees the industry. “It’s time for Congress to step in and eliminate this back door which violates state consumer protections, intrudes upon tribal sovereignty and offers no public revenue,” Schiff said in a statement. Kalshi has accused states of seeking to protect traditional casinos, which generate billions in tax revenue. It has also argued that because its market is a financial exchange instead of a sports book, there’s no “house” involved that weighs on payouts or influences the odds. “They’re more worried about protecting their monopolies than protecting consumers,” Elisabeth Diana, a Kalshi spokeswoman, said in response to the latest Senate bill. A representative for Polymarket declined to comment to DealBook. The potential consequences: Investors have poured serious money into Kalshi and Polymarket, betting that they will continue to grow astronomically. (Kalshi is reportedly raising new financing at a $22 billion valuation — double what it was valued at in a fund-raising round in December.) Kalshi had about $9.6 billion in notional volume as of March 1, according to the analysis firm Dune, while Polymarket had just over $8 billion.
What happens to OnlyFans now?The site OnlyFans has become both a global cultural phenomenon and a wildly profitable business in the eight years since Leonid Radvinsky bought the company. Under his leadership, the subscription platform transformed the business model of pornography by allowing sex workers — known as “creators” — to sell content directly to users. But Radvinsky’s death from cancer at 43, announced yesterday by OnlyFans, could incite a battle for control of the site, Niko Gallogly reports. The numbers behind the business: In 2024, OnlyFans had 377 million fan accounts and 4.6 million creators. That same year, the company reported $7.2 billion in site transactions and $1.4 billion in revenue, according to its filings. One of the site’s most popular creators, Sophie Rain, claimed to have made $100 million in the past three years. Radvinsky had been seeking a buyer. OnlyFans was in exclusive talks with the asset management firm Architect Capital this year, and had hired the investment bank Moelis & Company to support the deal, according to The New York Post. The deal could value the company at $5.5 billion, including debt, and give Architect Capital a 60 percent stake. Architect Capital did not respond to DealBook’s request for comment. Previous attempts to cash out fizzled. In 2021, OnlyFans was shunned by investors who deemed the platform’s ties to sex work too risky. “This is a messy asset,” Michael Ewens, a professor at Columbia Business School focused on private equity, told DealBook. Many firms’s agreements with limited partners prohibit so-called vice investments. Still, Ewens said, there are workarounds: A firm can structure a deal to exclude investors who do not want to be exposed to it. How Radvinsky’s death may affect the deal remains unclear. But OnlyFans’ unusual ownership structure could make for a smoother transition. Radvinsky acquired OnlyFans’ parent company, Fenix International, in 2018. At the end of 2024, he transferred shares to a trust, according to company filings. A trust makes the transition of ownership “more seamless because the successor trustee just steps into the shoes of the prior trustee and they can just act right away,” Ray Madoff, an expert on taxes and trusts at Boston College Law School, told DealBook. The financial allure is huge. In 2024, the company’s roughly four-dozen member team generated $31 million in revenue per employee. For comparison, the chip giant Nvidia generated $5.1 million per employee, according to its last annual report. “If one investment firm is interested, you can expect another to be as well,” Ewens said. “Especially if there’s money to be made.” We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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