CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 
Indian agency searches fintech Paytm, Razorpay and Cashfree offices in Chinese loan apps probe

Manish Singh
Sat, September 3, 2022 



India's financial crime fighting agency searched the offices of fintech unicorns Paytm and Razorpay as well as Cashfree on Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into fraudulent Chinese loan apps, it said Saturday, the latest in a series of probes in recent months.

The Enforcement Directorate said its searches at high-profile Indian firms and businesses controlled by Chinese personnel were prompted by 18 complaints made to the Cyber Crime Police in Bengaluru. The complaints alleged the businesses' involvement in "extortion and harassment of the public who had availed small amount of loans through the mobile apps."

"During enquiries, it has emerged that these entities are controlled/operated by Chinese persons. The modus operandi of these entities is by using forged documents of Indians and making them as dummy directors of those entities, they are generating proceeds of crime," the agency said in a statement (PDF).

"It has come to notice that the said entities were doing their suspected/illegal business through various merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks," the agency added.

The entities operated by Chinese personnel were generating "proceeds of crime through merchant IDs/accounts held with payment gateways/banks," the agency said. There were discrepancies in the addresses where they were operating and what they had disclosed to the local authority, the agency said.

The agency said it seized an amount of $2.13 million from Chinese personnel-controlled entities and its searches are ongoing.

The government agency has performed over half a dozen probes into tech firms this year, including at Chinese smartphone vendors Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi and seized more than $1 billion of capital that it said firms had evaded in fraudulent tax computations.

Last week, it also searched the premises of CoinSwitch, a top local crypto exchange backed by Andreessen Horowitz and alleged the Indian firm acquired shares of over $200 million in violation of local forex laws, TechCrunch reported earlier.

The Enforcement Directorate also froze assets worth over $8 million from WazirX last month, citing suspected violation of foreign exchange rule, and $46 million from the local entity of Vauld for facilitating “crime-derived” proceeds from predatory lending firms.

Indian authorities are cracking down on lending apps that are charging exorbitant fees and using unethical means to collect the payments back. India's central bank is moving ahead with new guidelines for digital lending that will mandate firms to provide more disclosure and transparency to benefit consumers as well as restrict several business practices.

Google said last month that it has blocked over 2,000 unethical lending apps in India this year.

"We extended our diligent co-operation to the ED operations, providing them the required and necessary information on the same day of enquiry. Our operations and on-boarding processes adhere to the PMLA and KYC directions, and we will continue to do so in the time to follow," a Cashfree spokesperson said in a statement.

Predatory loan apps in India rake in huge fees, and are driving some users to suicide

Explainer-Will Germany introduce a windfall tax on energy firms?

By Riham Alkousaa
Sat, September 3, 2022

BERLIN (Reuters) - As rising energy prices and a new gas levy in Germany are expected to triple fuel bills for consumers from autumn, pressure is mounting on the government to introduce a windfall tax on energy firms to fund further relief measures.

Italy and the United Kingdom have implemented similar taxes, while Spain has introduced a temporary one.

But taxing "excessive" profits of energy companies has been a thorny issue for Germany's ruling coalition, with political resistance from a junior party and constitutional barriers.

Why a windfall tax in Germany?

Germany's coffers have already been drained this year with two relief packages to mitigate the impact of rising energy prices on citizens, plus funds to upgrade the military and battle climate change.

As such, Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader, has said that further significant aid for the population - in the double digits of billions of euros - should have to wait until next year.

But advocates of the windfall tax say more money for hard-pressed citizens could come from a levy on companies making profits deemed "excessive" during the energy crisis.

"Where else is the money supposed to come from? From tax increases for the general public or from additional debt? Hardly likely," Andreas Bovenschulte, mayor of Bremen, one of Germany's poorest states, told Reuters.

Can a windfall tax pass parliament?

There is a dispute within the ruling coalition. The Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens are generally in favour. But the FDP is against it.

A tax on excess profits is not, in principle, foreseen in the German government's coalition agreement signed last year, a government spokesperson said in June.

Lindner said there were legal, economic and budgetary barriers against taking such a step.

"You have to be very careful with this instrument ... It is not a panacea," Lindner said, adding that the measure would interfere with market forces and undermine confidence in the justice of Germany's tax system.

A motion by the states of Bremen, Berlin, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Thuringia to introduce such a tax failed to get a majority at the upper house of parliament earlier in July.

What do Germans think of a windfall tax?

Some 76% of Germans support it, a survey by pollster Infratest dimap showed in August. The biggest support comes from SPD and Greens supporters with 88% and 84% respectively. But even among FDP voters, 58% were in favour.

A Civey poll for Germany's Stern magazine in June showed 72% of Germans were in favour.

Which companies would it affect?

The tax would hit energy groups that have benefited from surging oil and gas prices.

But not all German energy firms have made windfall profits this year as firms that were particularly dependent on Russian gas imports, such as Uniper, have been pushed to procure the fuel at significantly higher market prices without being able to pass the increase to clients.

"RWE, Wintershall, BP, Shell, E.ON: These are the big ones and the classics that immediately come to mind and it's about them," Maurice Hoefgen, an economist and Bundestag financial policy researcher, told Reuters.

Folker Trepte, energy leader at PwC Germany, said a windfall profit could impact conventional electricity firms that generate power with coal or other conventional power sources where the prices were not locked in through long-term contracts.

In July, both RWE and Wintershall raised their 2022 outlook, after reporting strong results. RWE half-year adjusted net income rose 80% year-on-year while Wintershall reported a 262% jump in second quarter adjusted net income.

Would a windfall tax ease financial bottlenecks?

The windfall tax in Italy is expected to bring in between 10 and 11 billion euros ($9.95 - $10.95 billion) in revenue while former British finance minister Rishi Sunak said a similar tax would raise 5 billion pounds ($5.76 billion) in the next 12 month.

A study by Berlin-based Tax Justice Network published in August said the tax could bring between 11 to 40 billion euros in revenues over a year for Germany.

Andreas Peichl, head of the Ifo Center for Macroeconomics and Surveys, said although such a tax would bring money to the government in the short term, it did not make sense strategically as it would hit future investments.

"It is a populist option that appears politically opportune in the short term," Peichl told Reuters, adding that corporate taxes in Germany were already very high in international comparison and that he did not expect the tax to be implemented.

What are the legal challenges?

The German constitution only permits new taxes within very narrow limits and an excess profit would have to be integrated into income and corporation tax, said Till Meickmann, a tax law expert at the University of Passau.

"Unjustified unequal treatment (of companies) would be a violation of the general principle of equality and therefore unconstitutional," Meickmann told Reuters.

However, two reports by the scientific service of the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, argue that a windfall tax is legally possible in Germany, the Tax Justice Network study said.

($1 = 0.8675 pounds)

($1 = 1.0049 euros)

(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Samsung says personal data of some U.S. customers exposed in breach

Published: Sept. 4, 2022 
By Mike Murphy


Samsung Electronics Co. is warning some U.S. customers that their personal data was exposed in a recent breach.

Samsung announced the breach in a brief statement late Friday, as Americans were about to start the long Labor Day holiday weekend.

The company stressed the breach did not involve Social Security numbers or credit- or debit-card numbers, but said data such as name, contact and demographic information, date of birth, and product registration information may have been affected. It was unclear exactly what “demographic information” may include.

In a separate statement, Samsung said the hacker acquired the data in late July, and the breach was discovered Aug. 4. The company said it has since secured its system, engaged with a leading cybersecurity company and is coordinating with law enforcement.

Samsung 005930, -0.87% said it emailed customers who were affected by the hack. It did not say how many customers were affected, nor why it waited nearly a month before informing them.

The South Korean tech giant said users’ devices are not at risk, and that affected users do not need to take any immediate actions, though it did warn to remain cautious of unsolicited emails asking for personal information and to avoid clicking on links in suspicious emails.

A deglobalising world will be an inflationary one

Rana Foroohar - The Financial Times

For the last few decades, globalisation and disinflation have gone hand in hand. As multinational companies grew far beyond the confines of individual nation states, they were able to use technology, outsourcing and economies of scale to drive down prices. Cheap labour, cheap capital and cheap commodities kept them down.


Three humans figures standing on the globe, each with a balloon of

 a different shape, but all shaped like donuts

Now war in Ukraine has put an end to cheap Russian gas. The global push towards carbon neutrality will ultimately add a permanent tax on fossil fuel usage. Decoupling between the US and China means an end to “efficient” (aka cheap) but fragile supply chains. The end of quantitative easing and the Federal Reserve’s rate rises are putting a cap on easy money.

Aspects of this new reality are welcome. Counting on autocratic governments for crucial supplies was never a great idea. Expecting countries with wildly different political economies to abide by a single trade regime was naive.

Polluting the planet to produce and transport low-margin goods around the world doesn’t make as much sense when you tally in the true cost of labour and energy, not to mention changing geopolitics. More than three decades of falling real interest rates have resulted in unproductive and dangerous asset bubbles; we desperately need some price discovery in markets.

All this said, there is no getting around the fact that a deglobalising world will also be a more inflationary one, at least in the short term. This will present a major challenge for both the US economy and the wider world.

As Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar told clients in a recent note, “war means industry”, be it hot war or economic war, and growing industry means inflation. This is the exact opposite of the paradigm we’ve experienced for the last half century, during which “China got very rich making cheap stuff . . . Russia got very rich selling cheap gas to Europe, and Germany got very rich selling expensive stuff produced with cheap gas.” The US, meanwhile, “got very rich by doing QE. But the licence for QE came from the ‘lowflation’ regime enabled by cheap exports coming from Russia and China.”


All this is now changing. And that means even hawkish central bankers may not be able to control the inflationary environment. That’s a topic that was front and centre at the central bankers’ Jackson Hole conference recently, when economists Francesco Bianchi of Johns Hopkins University and Leonardo Melosi from the Chicago Fed released an important paper questioning how much monetary policy can do to bring down inflation if the fiscal position of the country is deteriorating.

The core idea is that if rate hikes lead to recession, tax receipts go down and in lieu of spending cuts to the big stuff — such as entitlements and defence — or a default on Treasury bills, you get rising debt. When the debt picture deteriorates significantly, it gets harder and harder for monetary policy alone to curb inflation, so you get a snowball effect. The upshot? Unless monetary policy is accompanied by a more stable fiscal situation, rising inflation, economic stagnation and increasing debt will be the result.

Central bankers have been begging politicians of both stripes to supplement their monetary efforts with appropriate fiscal policy for years. Now, the rubber is hitting the road. When interest rates rise, you ideally want less debt. That requires increased taxes or reduced spending. The first option relies on Democrats controlling Congress; it’s unclear how long they will, as November midterms loom. The second option is unlikely, given the fiscal investments inherent in a deglobalising, decarbonising world.

Consider, for example, the cost of more secure supply chains. The US has just passed an act giving chipmakers $52bn in subsidies. Germany is spending $100bn on modernising its armed forces. The west is likely to spend $750bn rebuilding Ukraine, and the G7 recently announced plans to pump $600bn into infrastructure to counter China’s own massive Belt and Road Initiative. All that is, in the short term at least, inflationary.

Then there are the challenges of ensuring production. “Inventory for supply chains is what liquidity is for banks,” says Pozsar, and “in the context of supply chains, leverage means excessive operating leverage.” He notes, for example, that some $2tn of German value-added production relies on $20bn worth of gas from Russia. What happens if that stops flowing entirely this winter? We may be about to see.

There are important caveats to this story. Productive spending on things like infrastructure, high value goods and services and the transition to clean energy may be inflationary in the short term but ultimately bolsters a country’s fiscal position by fuelling longer-term growth. Indeed, these types of “productive bubbles” — in which the public sector provides incentives for investment into crucial technologies and new markets — enable periods of widely shared, sustainable growth.

The question is how much of today’s spending will be productive, and whether governments will have the ability to cut what is not. Either way, in the near term, the end of the neoliberal globalisation era will be a tailwind to higher trend inflation. Just like deglobalisation itself, that represents a massive economic shift, which will herald all sorts of unexpected consequences.

The US should cancel a lot more than $10,000 in student debt

Nate DiCamillo

QUARTZ
Sat, September 3, 2022 



On paper, US President Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation plan looks pretty good.

The government will forgive $10,000 worth of student debt for those making under $125,000. That’s nearly a third of the average amount owed by student debt holders.

According to White House estimates, the policy wipes out the remaining balances for 20 million Americans—nearly half of all borrowers. This is great given that a third of them have student debt but no college degree, according to the Department of Education.

But these overall numbers obscure one key downside of the plan: It will do little to help borrowers who need it the most, those who hold large amounts of debt and have low incomes.

Though they only make up a small share of student loan holders, their plight is a result of everything that’s wrong with higher education. To address this, many loan reduction advocates were pushing the government to take into account racial disparities and offer more generous relief, said Fenaba Addo, an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

But could the economy handle any more debt forgiveness without increasing consumer demand and pouring fuel on the inflation fire, like some opponents of debt forgiveness opponents argue? Isn’t Biden’s plan like giving a $10,000 check to millions of Americans?
There are millions of Americans who need way more than Biden’s $10k forgiveness

Most of the 43 million student debt holders account for a small amount of the $1.6 trillion pie, with a small share of borrowers who owe more than $100,000—7%— accounting for nearly 40% of overall student debt, according to College Board data. The result: Biden’s policy gives a big number of people with small burdens a big reprieve, while it barely helps a smaller group of students with large balances.

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More than 8 million borrowers who are on income-driven repayment (IDR) plans, which are determined by the borrower’s discretionary income rather than the amount of student debt they hold, will experience little financial impact from the cancellation.

If a borrower has a middle-class income of $60,000 and $40,000 in student debt, subtracting $10,000 from the balance won’t change their situation. They are still not on track to pay off their debt because their income is so low, making payments under an IDR plan means that the principal of the loan will continue to grow.

While another plan from Biden will put 7.5 million student debt borrowers that are in default back in good standing, nearly a third of all student loan holders have experienced default in the past two decades.Within this group many borrowers have defaulted several times. This is a large portion of the $1.6 trillion overall outstanding amount that the government wouldn’t see even if it wasn’t forgiven.

Student loan borrowers aren’t ready to spend

Claims that canceling student loans will only help rich people or increase inflation ignore what caused the student loan crisis in the first place.

“People are defaulting and being delinquent on their debts because they didn’t have the money to pay for it,” Addo said. “If you don’t have income or wealth, discharging $10,000 doesn’t mean you have income to spend.”

No one has been paying interest on their debt since the federal government paused payments at the start of the pandemic, and the current inflationary environment hasn’t been driven by student loan borrowers buying more stuff than the rest of the population.

Meanwhile, student loan debt has a crushing effect on a person’s financial future—creating a ripple effect across the economy. Economists at the New York Federal Reserve Bank found that student loan holders are less likely to move into higher paying jobs, more likely to default on other types of debt, and more likely to have lower credit scores.

When covid-19 hit the US, these borrowers were in the sectors that were hardest hit by the disease. They are well aware of their precarious financial position. According to the survey of consumer expectations, Americans with student debt are much more likely to fret about defaulting on debt than other Americans.

Many economists believe that cancellation encourages long-term economic decisions (i.e. moving) versus short-term decisions (i.e. buying a new TV). Debt forgiveness improves a borrower’s debt-to-income ratio, so they can borrow more for long-term expenditures like a car, a house, or a small business—in turn stimulating the broader economy.

“Anything that would help people answer some job openings, I think, would be good for the economy,” said Mike Konczal, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Roosevelt Institute.

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EV Battery Maker ProLogium Considers UK for $8 Billion Factory

Siddharth Philip and Danny Lee
Sun, September 4, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Taiwanese battery maker ProLogium Technology Co. is considering the UK among the potential sites for an $8 billion factory that would build a promising but unproven new generation of cells for electric vehicles.

The solid-state battery startup is evaluating 90 sites across countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK, it said in a statement. Locations will be evaluated based on availability of skilled labor, transport links and incentives being offered -- even proximity to customers.

A final decision is planned early next year, a Taiwan-based ProLogium spokesman said by phone. Other locations in the US, China and Southeast Asia are also being contemplated. The company has hired consulting firm Accuracy to help with the search.

The UK is pushing hard to attract battery makers as the auto industry phases out the internal combustion engine. The country’s car production has steadily declined over decades, and uncertainty about the future of Britain’s trading relationship with the European Union has added to the industry’s woes.

Solid-state batteries promise reduced charging times, longer driving ranges and -- unlike conventional lithium-ion batteries -- no fire risk. While the technology offers vast potential improvements to accelerate EV adoption, it hasn’t yet been produced at scale. In January, ProLogium signed a cooperation agreement to develop sold-state battery cells with Mercedes-Benz Group AG, which also invested in the startup.

ProLogium has earmarked $8 billion for an overseas factory it will build in three phases over the course of a decade, with an ultimate capacity of 120 gigawatt hours.

Ozone layer crossed a significant milestone towards recovery in 2022

Scott Sutherland - ACCUWEATHER

As of this year, the levels of ozone-depleting chemicals in the stratosphere reached a major milestone on the path to recovery, dropping by more than half of what's needed for the ozone layer to fully recover.

Back in the 1980s, it was discovered that chemical gases used in air conditioning, refrigeration, and aerosol cans — collectively known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or ozone-depleting substances (OSDs) — were damaging the stratospheric ozone layer. This protective layer, located high up in the atmosphere, essentially acts as a natural shield against harmful ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. The depletion of ozone by CFCs was resulting in a large ozone hole over Antarctica, which was detected by satellites each year. It was also causing a thinning of the ozone layer over the mid-latitudes.

Ozone layer crossed a significant milestone towards recovery in 2022 

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The Antarctic ozone hole is shown here, as it was measured on October 7, 2021. Also visible on the map are thin regions of the ozone layer farther north, in the mid-latitudes. (NOAA Climate.gov)

When the Montreal Protocol came into effect in 1989, it banned the production and use of ozone-depleting substances. The goal was to reduce the concentration of these chemicals back to the levels they were at in 1980. Since then, there have been noticeable improvements. For example, concentrations of these gases have been falling fairly steadily since the early 1990s. Also, the size and duration of the Antarctic ozone hole have mostly stabilized, and there are signs that it is slowly recovering.

According to NOAA, as of early 2022, we have now reached a significant milestone towards the goal of the Montreal Protocol.

The concentration of ozone-depleting chemicals in the mid-latitude stratosphere has now dropped by more than half of what is necessary to reach 1980 levels.

"It's great to see this progress," Stephen Montzka, the senior scientist for NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, said in a press release. "At the same time, it's a bit humbling to realize that science is still a long way from being able to claim that the issue of ozone depletion is behind us."



Ozone layer crossed a significant milestone towards recovery in 2022© Provided by The Weather NetworkThis graph of the Ozone Depleting Gas Index (ODGI) ranks CFC concentrations in the mid-latitudes (blue line) and over Antarctica (green line) as a percentage of the difference between their peak values (in the 1990s and 2000s) and their 1980 concentrations. In 2022, mid-latitude CFCs have fallen to an ODGI of around 47, while Antarctic CFCs are still around an ODGI of 74. (NOAA)

The same research found that the concentration of ozone-depleting chemicals over Antarctica has only fallen by 26 per cent over the same period.

NOAA says that there are multiple reasons for this, but mainly it is because the rate at which these chemicals break down depends on the "age" of the stratospheric air; Or, to put it another way, how much exchange of air there is between the troposphere and the stratosphere over time.

According to the latest report of The NOAA Ozone Depleting Gas Index: Guiding Recovery of the Ozone Layer, the average age of stratospheric air over the mid-latitudes is roughly three years, while over the Antarctic, it tends to be around 5.5 years. Thus, mid-latitude concentrations of OSDs are falling faster than over the Antarctic.



Ozone layer crossed a significant milestone towards recovery in 2022© Provided by The Weather NetworkTracking the concentration of ozone-depleting substances over time has allowed scientists to predict when they will reach levels that will allow the ozone layer to recover. (NOAA)

Based on the latest findings, NOAA scientists estimate that mid-latitude concentrations of OSDs will reach 1980 levels sometime around 2049. In the Antarctic stratosphere, levels should drop to that point by 2076.

Archeologists discovered a 17th-century Polish 'vampire' with a sickle across her neck meant to prevent a return from the dead

ktangalakislippert@insider.com (Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert) - Yesterday 


Female "vampire" with a sickle across her throat found in Pień, Poland. 

The skeleton of female "vampire" was discovered in a 17th-century Polish graveyard, the Daily Mail reported.

Professor Dariusz Poliński said the skeleton was found restrained to prevent her returning from the grave.

The remains had a sickle laying across the throat and a padlock on her big toe.

The skeletal remains of a female "vampire" were found in a 17th-century Polish graveyard — with a sickle across her neck to prevent her rising from the dead.

Professor Dariusz Poliński from Nicholas Copernicus University headed the archaeological dig that led to the discovery of the remains, which were found wearing a silk cap and with a protruding front tooth, the Daily Mail reported Friday.


Female "vampire" with protruding tooth and a sickle across her neck.  

"The sickle was not laid flat but placed on the neck in such a way that if the deceased had tried to get up… the head would have been cut off or injured," Poliński told the Daily Mail.

In the 11th century, citizens of Eastern Europe reported fears of vampires and began treating their dead with anti-vampire rituals, according to Smithsonian magazine, believing that "some people who died would claw their way out of the grave as blood-sucking monsters that terrorized the living."

By the 17th century, Science Alert reported such burial practices "became common across Poland in response to a reported outbreak of vampires."


Padlock wrapped around toe of female "vampire" skeleton.

"Other ways to protect against the return of the dead include cutting off the head or legs, placing the deceased face down to bite into the ground, burning them, and smashing them with a stone," Poliński told the New York Post.

Though other common anti-vampire burial methods included a metal rod hammered through the skeleton, the remains in Poland were found with the sickle across the neck and a padlocked toe to restrain her.

The padlocked big toe attached to the skeleton's left foot, Poliński told the Daily Mail, likely symbolized "the closing of a stage and the impossibility of returning."

Poliński did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Photos  Mirosław Blicharski

POLISH VAMPIRES HAVE A LONG TRADITION IN FOLKLORE

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Triple H Named WWE’s Chief Content Officer, Gets Salary Bump Along With Three Other Top Execs in Wake of Vince McMahon Exit
DUE TO PAYOUTS FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Todd Spangler
Fri, September 2, 2022 


WWE exec and pro wrestler Paul “Triple H” Levesque has officially taken the title of chief content officer, and he’s also received a hike in compensation along with three other top company executives.

In addition, the company said it promoted chief financial officer Frank Riddick to the position of president, continuing in his role as CFO, effective Sept. 2. WWE disclosed the info in an SEC filing Friday.

The changes come after Vince McMahon, formerly WWE’s chairman and CEO, resigned from the company on July 22, amid an investigation by the board of directors into misconduct allegations.

With Vince McMahon’s departure, the company named as co-CEOs Stephanie McMahon (Mr. McMahon’s daughter, who was formerly chief brand officer) and Nick Khan (previously president and chief revenue officer). The company had already announced that Levesque, formerly EVP of talent relations, would take over leadership of the creative team. (Ms. McMahon and Levesque are married.) Mr. McMahon had previously headed the creative team that develops storylines and characters for WWE’s programming.

Because of the changes in the responsibilities of Levesque, Ms. McMahon, Khan and Riddick, the compensation and human capital committee of WWE’s board “determined on August 31, 2022, that it is appropriate to provide certain enhancements to [their] compensation,” per the filing.

Ms. McMahon’s annual base salary increased from $730,000 to $1.35 million, and she will continue to receive payments including the $750,000 guaranteed minimum under her booking agreement. Levesque’s annual base salary increased from $730,000 to $900,000, and he also will continue to receive payments including $1.0 million guaranteed minimum under his booking agreement. Khan’s salary increased from $1.2 million to $1.35 million per year and Riddick’s increased from $850,000 to $950,000.

WWE disclosed new performance-based annual bonus targets for the execs, as a percentage of base salary: for Ms. McMahon and Khan, that’s 160%; for Riddick, it’s 125%; and for Levesque, it’s 100%. They will also receive annual stock grants beginning in 2023 with the following target values: Ms. McMahon and Khan, $3.575 million; Riddick, $2.4 million; and Levesque, $1.6 million.

In addition, Ms. McMahon will receive a one-time special stock grant of $10 million and Levesque will receive $8 million in a one-time stock grant around Oct. 3, 2022, with a three-year vesting period contingent on certain performance metrics. WWE also added new severance-payment terms to the four executives’ contracts in the event of a change in control of the company, according to Friday’s filing.

Mr. McMahon remains a stockholder with a controlling interest in WWE. On Aug. 16, WWE said the board’s investigation into his alleged misconduct was “substantially complete” and the company restated earnings going back to 2019 to account for personal payments Mr. McMahon made during his tenure. That included $14.6 million in payments that Mr. McMahon allegedly made to women to keep quiet about affairs and other misconduct.

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Last month, WWE disclosed that it had subsequently identified $5 million in additional payments Mr. McMahon made in 2007 and 2009 — unrelated to the misconduct allegations — that the company said should have been reported on its financial statements. The $5 million in payments made in 2007 and 2009 were charitable donations to the now-defunct Donald J. Trump Foundation, the Wall Street Journal reported. In 2007 and 2009, Trump had appeared in WWE TV events.

WWE leadership change won’t ‘hold the company back at all,’ analyst explains

Luke Carberry Mogan

Sat, September 3, 2022 

Longtime WWE frontman Vince McMahon has stepped down as CEO and chairman, leaving behind a void in the most electrifying circus on television.

But one analyst argued the leadership change appears to be coming off smoothly.

"I don't think it'll hold the company back at all," Brandon Ross, media and technology analyst at LightShed Partners, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). "I think that the company has had a succession plan in place for a very long time. They have a management team in place that they are very confident in, and frankly, we are too."

Apr 3, 2022; Arlington, TX, USA; Pat McAfee (center) is attacked by Austin Theory (right) during his match with WWE owner Vince McMahon (left) during WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

The modern World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) is the culmination of almost 70 years of constant expansion and absorption of smaller, regional wrestling franchises helmed by McMahon and his father, Jess McMahon.

However, the WWE image was slammed after reports surfaced that the SEC and federal prosecutors were investigating the entertainment company over hush money payoffs and sexual misconduct allegations levied against Vince McMahon that led to a hastened retirement.

WWE stock rose more than 5% in the month after McMahon announced his resignation on July 22.

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New leadership for WWE

McMahon's daughter Stephanie McMahon now serves as the acting co-CEO alongside former chief revenue officer Nick Khan.

"I think in terms of their relationships with their licensing partners and sponsorship partners, as soon as Vince was removed from the equation, the pressure there actually eased," Ross said, later adding that "the co-CEO thing is a little bit unusual. It's something that WWE has done in the past with co-presidents."

The structure will allow each executive to play to their strong suits, like a tag-team duo, Ross added.

“What you'll see is Stephanie is going to be in charge of everything that has to do with the branding and image of the company and a lot of stuff on the operations side,” he said. “Whereas Nick's main role is going to be revenue. And integral to revenue is cutting deals with third parties, whether it's the licensing deals for RAW or SmackDown or their pay-per-view events which are, in the United States, largely NBC.”

Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H attend the UFC 276 event at T-Mobile Arena on July 02, 2022 in Las Vegas. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC, Getty Images)

Stephanie McMahon is the company's second female CEO, following in the footsteps of her mother Linda McMahon, who was appointed president in 1993 and served as CEO from 1997 until 2009.

The CEO's husband and former WWE star Paul "Triple H" Levesque has also been given creative responsibilities as executive vice president by his father-in-law.

"I don't think we're going all the way back to the Attitude Era, but clearly the new head of creative... 'Triple H' is from an era where that resonated," Ross said on fan excitement.

WWE's production crewmen reported that they have felt a "massively night and day" shift in the company's workplace atmosphere since Vince McMahon's departure. McMahon was accused of quashing unionization efforts by wrestlers during his tenure at WWE.

'No shortage of potential buyers'

The new management brings into question just how much the company's public-facing leaders matter to its future.

The family-owned enterprise has evolved with each passing decade, expanding from simple broadcasting to live events, video games, and film production. With McMahon's retirement, many investors questioned whether the business would be sold.

WWE Superstars Edge dives off the ropes to take down Alberto Del Rio in front of a sold-out, record crowd of 71,617 during WrestleMania XXVII at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday, April 3, 2011. (Paul Abell/AP Images for WWE)

"There's clearly no shortage of potential buyers for this asset as media companies and platforms look for owned content, especially live content," Ross stated. "Do we believe that it's true that this business is going to get sold? Probably not in the near term. We think that Stephanie and Paul and Nick really want to run this business."

"It's important, especially to Stephanie, to continue the legacy of her father and maybe put her own imprint on the business," Ross continued. "So we don't think it's actually going to get sold, but what we do think is that there's operational improvements that might come out of this."

Ross noted that the WWE may look to elevate its mid-card talent which has garnered fan excitement.

"Fans have been clamoring to get back towards more technical wrestling — a little bit more of the blood," Ross said. "So I think you'll move a little more in that direction. There will be other changes.”

"Generally if fans are excited, in the media industry — it's all about eyeballs — that means investors should be excited, too," he added.

Luke is a producer for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter @theLukeCM.

El Salvador Had a Bitcoin Revolution. Hardly Anybody Showed Up

Michael McDonald
Sat, September 3, 2022 at 8:14 AM·6 min read




(Bloomberg) -- El Salvador President Nayib Bukele took the stage last year to fireworks and AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All night Long,” announcing to a cheering crowd of crypto enthusiasts at a beachside confab that Bitcoin would revolutionize his country. It was November, the digital token had just notched new all-time highs and El Salvador was at the very beginning of its experiment as the world’s first nation to use the cryptocurrency as legal tender.

Now, a year into the journey, there are far fewer fireworks. Adoption has moved slowly, and steep declines in Bitcoin’s price from those lofty levels last fall have dampened the early euphoria that swept across the nation. Bitcoin hasn’t replaced El Salvador’s hard currency, the U.S. dollar — it’s not even close — but it also hasn’t brought the financial ruin that some warned of either. Or not yet anyway.

“No one really talks about Bitcoin here anymore. It’s kind of been forgotten,” said former El Salvador central bank chief Carlos Acevedo. “I don’t know if you’d call that a failure, but it certainly hasn’t been a success.”

Bukele captivated the world last year when he made Bitcoin an official currency alongside the dollar, stirring a craze in the cryptocurrency community while also drawing criticism from skeptics, including bond traders and the International Monetary Fund. Bitcoin’s Sept. 7 debut was beset with technical glitches, making for an inauspicious beginning. Undaunted, Bukele — sporting “laser eyes” on his Twitter profile picture — barked back at detractors while welcoming Bitcoin backers and crypto executives to his presidential office, where he continues to host them to this day.

As part of the rollout, Salvadorans were offered government-issued digital wallets preloaded with $30 worth of Bitcoin to help kick things off. Under the law, taxes can be paid in Bitcoin and businesses should accept it as a form of payment, unless they are technologically unable to do so. But the coin’s volatility has spooked users, and cryptocurrency has seen broader acceptance in countries with poor payment networks or strict currency controls, such as Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba, Acevedo said. “In El Salvador we have a good payments network, so why transfer money with cryptocurrency?” he said.

Most Salvadorans haven’t poured large amounts of money into Bitcoin, saving many from the recent bear market, Acevedo said. The same can’t be said of the government itself, which started purchasing the token last year in the run-up to its launch as legal tender and has continued to add to its stockpile, conspicuously “buying the dip” during periods when Bitcoin declined. The result? It’s sitting on losses.

A series of recent surveys found that only a relatively small minority of respondents continue to use digital wallets and few businesses have registered transactions in Bitcoin. And the central bank says only 2% of remittances have been sent via cryptocurrency wallets.

The government is still claiming victory, however. Bitcoin has attracted foreign investment and tourism and increased financial access to a largely unbanked population, according to Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya. The government says its digital wallet, Chivo, has more than 4 million users. Tourism is on pace to surpass pre-pandemic levels this year and the central bank says 59 cryptocurrency and blockchain companies have registered offices in El Salvador.

Zelaya says the administration still plans to issue a Bitcoin-backed bond, dubbed the “volcano token,” using blockchain technology, though admits recent price declines have hurt sentiment. Advocates say El Salvador is in a position to woo companies in a promising industry and become a hub for financial services in the future, creating high-tech jobs.

“Assuming cars were a failure because after the very first year Ford started production in 1896 no more than 2% of the population had a car would’ve been quite myopic,” said Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at Bitfinex. “The government has a long-term vision. The crypto industry is highly technological and that is the type of industry that everyone should want in its country.”

Bitfinex will serve as a trading platform for the volcano bond and will apply for a license to operate in El Salvador once the government passes a digital securities law to underpin the issuance. Canada-based crypto lending and savings company Ledn saw a 678% increase in users in El Salvador over the past year, according to co-founder Mauricio Di Bartolomeo. New-York based AlphaPoint was hired to fix bugs in the Chivo wallet and a series of other companies have also worked on the country’s rollout.

“I don’t see adoption as low. I see a country where everybody has a Bitcoin wallet and everybody knows what Bitcoin is,” Simon Dixon, founder of crypto financial startup Bank to the Future, said during an August visit to El Salvador in which he met Bukele. Bank to the Future is currently hiring people in El Salvador and planning to open an office there, he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever met a government that has a president who has assembled a team that really operates with the urgency and impact of a fast growing company.”

But Bukele’s desire to win over Bitcoiners has come with a downside. The IMF has held off on approving a $1.3 billion program for the country citing risks from Bitcoin. The government’s 2,381 Bitcoin bought with public funds are worth $47.2 million at current prices, less than half what the administration paid for them. Moody’s estimates the government has spent $375 million in total on the rollout, including a $150 million fund to back Bitcoin-dollar conversions and the money for the $30 sign-up bonus given to Chivo users.

“The Bitcoin experiment promoted by the Bukele administration has significantly raised the market’s risk perception of the country,” said Fabiano Borsato, Chief Operating Officer of Torino Capital LLC. “It’s being implemented in a context of fragile public finances, high and persistent fiscal deficits and doubts about the rule of law in the country. This, in our opinion, will prevent El Salvador from accessing financing in the international markets under favorable conditions in the short and medium term.”

Overall, Bukele remains enormously popular among Salvadorans, largely because of his crackdown on gangs, investments in infrastructure and efforts to boost tourism, even as many remain wary of Bitcoin.

A May poll by El Salvador’s Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simieon Canas found that 71.1% respondents said the Bitcoin law did nothing to improve their family finances. Those polled ranked Bitcoin as Bukele’s second-biggest policy failure over the past year behind accelerating inflation.

“If you go to any market in El Salvador, you’re more likely to receive an insult than be able to purchase something in Bitcoin,” said Laura Andrade, director of the university’s public opinion institute, which conducted the poll. “It’s not a part of people’s daily routine.”