By Fred Crawford, Managing Director, Senior Vice Chair, New York | AlixPartners I was sitting as an invited guest recently at a board meeting of a multibillion-dollar company, as AlixPartners had been retained to assist them on an important issue. As I was listening and looking around at the board members, I could see the company had done a very good job of building a diverse membership.  With regards to ethnicity, gender, and age, the board was quite balanced. Yet, as I...

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March 2019 FX OutlookThe dollar rose against most of the major and volatile emerging markets currencies, like the South African rand, Turkish lira, and the Brazilian real in February.  The gains were mostly by default as concerns about the strength of the US economy continued to linger.  The weakness abroad, especially in Europe, seemed more profound.  Trade tensions ebbed as investors correctly anticipated an extension of the US-Chinese trade freeze, while the beginning of the EU-Japan trade agreement coupled...

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By Tim Casey | Trepp When property investor 10 Federal launched a $10 million fund in 2017 to invest in self-storage properties, the Raleigh, North Carolina firm hoped to raise $1 million of equity through crowdfunding platform CrowdStreet. The remainder would have to come from its existing network of high net-worth investors. But it didn't need to tap them, as it ended up raising the entire $10 million through crowdfunding. It used that capital to fund the purchase of 10...

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By Maria Luisa Mendoza, Scott E. Diamond, David M. Schwartz | Thompson Hine On November 30, 2018, the United States, Mexico and Canada officially signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a proposed free trade agreement that, if approved by Congress and ratified by the governments of Canada and Mexico, would revise and modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Known as “NAFTA 2.0” during the trilateral negotiations, the USMCA is expected to be debated by the 116th Congress in the coming months as it...

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France is Europe’s largest country and its location at the centre of the continent makes it a desirable destination for business. A skilled workforce and strong industrial base add to its attraction. Paris ranks second after Tokyo for hosting the greatest number of multinational company headquarters, with around 500 businesses making it their home city. Paris features alongside London, Hong Kong and New York as one of HSBC’s trading hubs. With over 10,000 employees, HSBC France offers banking services to...

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High-Impact Vulnerabilities should not require High-Cost protections When companies experience significant change such as M&A, Reorganization or Litigation, they become attractive targets for cyberattacks from domestic and nation-state adversaries. Moreover, management often finds itself under new scrutiny from their Boards, Shareholders, Regulators and Strategic Partners. When international elements are in play, multiple jurisdictions’ privacy and security concerns may exacerbate oversight. At such times, management should take special care to observe prudent Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) protocols to assure stakeholders that financial...

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By Philip Nolan | Mason Hayes & Curran On 28 February 2019, Ireland’s data protection supervisory authority, the Data Protection Commission (DPC), published its first annual report under GDPR (Report). The Report follows on from the DPC’s final pre-GDPR annual report and covers the period 25 May to 31 December 2018. We take a look at some of the highlights and key issues in the Report. The Report in numbers The report contains some interesting statistics and year-on-year comparisons, in particular: 2,864 - the number of complaints were made...

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The White House is extending the March 1 deadline to increase tariffs on Chinese imports, citing “substantial progress” in trade talks with China. While the news is positive, The Toy Association will continue to be actively engaged in the fight against tariffs through advocacy efforts with the Administration and Congress, and its involvement with the Tariffs Hurt the Heartland coalition. On Sunday, President Trump said in a series of tweets: “I am pleased to report that the U.S. has made substantial...

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