A private loan ball to get you started: Guardian Life Insurance has increased its stake in credit investment giant HPS Investment Partners and plans to transfer about $30 billion to the firm to manage, people familiar with the matter said. The deal will increase Guardian’s stake in HPS from less than 10 percent to about 14 percent.

And one more piece of information to start with: Carlyle Group is exploring a 3 billion euro sale of Dutch salt and chemical producer Nobian, according to people familiar with the matter. The U.S. buyout group has held talks with investment banks to prepare a potential sale process, which is expected to begin next year.

In today’s newsletter:

• Altice goes into emergency sale mode

• Marc Rowan and his lobster shack in the Hamptons

• The biggest test yet for the Italian bank Monte dei Paschi

Media giant switches to emergency sale mode

Patrick DrahiFrench media group Altice is on the defensive with $60 billion in debt and is trying to fend off angry creditors.

On Monday, Altice announced its latest cash offer: the company intends to sell its 24.5 percent stake in the British telecommunications company. BT Group to the Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal.

Over the past decade, Altice has grown from relative obscurity into a global media giant that has thrived on cheap credit at a time of extremely low interest rates.

But now the company is being hit by persistently high interest rates and an investigation into one of its founders. As a result, Drahi is under pressure to sell assets to pay off the enormous debt he amassed during the era of cheap money.

The BT stake is the latest in a series of attempts to raise money. In March, Altice sold a news channel and a radio station to the shipping magnate Rodolphe SaadeAnd last week, Drahi entered into a partnership with the Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund ADQ to give the auction house a capital injection of $1 billion Sotheby’s.

Despite the recent rise in BT shares (including an 8.4 percent increase on Monday), the investment in the former British telecommunications monopoly has resulted in losses for Altice, a person familiar with the matter said.

Altice first invested in BT in 2021, acquiring a 12 percent stake, which it later increased to 24.5 percent. Altice borrowed heavily from banks to build up the stake, which has lost about £1 billion in value since its announcement, according to FT calculations.

Sotheby’s has also proven to be a sore spot. The parent company had $3.5 billion in long-term debt at the end of last year, made up of loans from Drahi’s 2019 takeover and mortgages he took out on his prestige properties.

Beginning of summer S&P Global Ratings The auction house’s credit rating was downgraded from B to B minus, with the reason given being “pressured profitability and continued EBITDA decline”.

But spectators are still waiting for the opening shot between Drahi’s empire and its biggest creditors. Bondholders of the group’s French telecoms business banded together earlier this year after management warned they would face debt write-downs.

DD is still waiting for the fight to break out into the open.

Apollo tycoon causes unrest in the Hamptons

During the pandemic David Solomon famously became angry when a junior analyst approached him in a hotspot in the Hamptons when the Goldman Sachs The CEO was of the opinion that the subordinate belonged in the office.

According to the news report, the bar where the encounter took place was Duryea’sa Montauk institution whose once rough edges have been smoothed out to accommodate the likes of DJ D-Sol and other Masters of the Universe (a $96 lobster cobb salad isn’t for everyone).

The man behind the blossoming of Duryea is Marc RowanBest known to DD readers as Apollo Tycoon. A decade ago, when he was Elliott, Oak tree And Appaloosa in the Caesar During bankruptcy proceedings, Rowan bought Duryea’s from the founding family for $6 million.

As DD’s Mark Vandevelde and Sujeet Indap reported in an FT Magazine piece this weekend, it’s been a saga ever since for Rowan and East Hampton Town, which manages Montauk.

Rowan has a great passion for hospitality, and his grand plans for the bayfront property ran into conflict with the city’s Byzantine zoning code and longtime residents who are, at least, very fussy in their interpretation of the law.

Rowan had defeated the city in court over building conditions for another property in Montauk, and he believes he never got the fair hearing he deserved in the Duryea case.

For their part, many residents dismiss Rowan as just another Wall Street plutocrat ruining their lifestyle (and the irony of an Apollo guy playing so hard is not lost on anyone).

The complicated political and legal stalemate continues to this day.

On your Hampton Jitney Head to East End this week or while waiting to get in Surf LodgeBe sure to read the story about the different characters of the old and new Hamptons, where everyone appreciates the magnificent natural beauty but still cannot find peace.

Death, bad business and the next chapter of the oldest bank

Monte dei Paschi has been an anchor point for the Italian city of Siena since it was founded in the 15th century. And for many years it felt like the true purpose of banking was being studied here.

The bank functioned as a welfare institution for Siena’s poor, a benefactor to municipal institutions, a patron of the arts, a financier of Tuscan agricultural development, a pot of money for local nobility, and an aggressive industry consolidator run in the interests of global investors. The list goes on.

But the bank’s future is more uncertain than at any time since its founding due to its scandalous past. After bailing out the bank in 2017, the Italian government hopes to sell off its remaining stake by the end of this year.

And in all likelihood the city will be taken over by a larger competitor with no connection to Siena – a disaster for the city that has built and nurtured it over centuries, writes Owen Walker for the FT Magazine.

The bank first encountered serious problems at the beginning of the financial crisis. In 2007, it decided to Banca Antonveneta out of Santander for 9 billion euros, with Wall Street’s JPMorgan and was even involved in financing the takeover.

But the deal would soon go down in history as one of the worst missteps in banking history. The Monte dei Paschi Foundation was eventually called in to bail it out, which caused the non-profit division’s coffers to shrink from €8 billion to €200 million.

But to truly understand Monte dei Paschi and the current crisis it faces, you have to go back hundreds of years – back to medieval Tuscany. Walker does just that, and the entire massive saga is worth reading.

Highlights include a suspicious suicide, the powerful Medici Family, a looming takeover, and a heartbroken family still seeking justice.

Job change

• JDE PeetInterim Managing Director and Chairman Luc Vandevelde resigns less than five months after taking office as part of a restructuring orchestrated by the majority shareholder JAB HoldingsChief Financial Officer Scott Gray will serve as interim CEO until the position is permanently filled.

• Evercore has stopped David Kamo as Senior Managing Director, Bloomberg reports. Previously, he was a partner and global co-head of financial sponsor M&A at Goldman Sachs.

Intelligent reading

Automate Excel New automation tools for financial analysis could reduce the need for 20-somethings at private equity firms to tinker with Excel, writes DD’s Sujeet Indap.

Revised When a Bank of America employee died in May after weeks of intensive work to close a deal, it sparked an outcry over all-nighters and 100-hour weeks, the Wall Street Journal revealed.

Courting the rich The tax burden is rising and the super-rich want to avoid it. Low-tax countries like Singapore and Dubai are welcoming them with open arms, reports the FT.

News overview

Janus Henderson expands private credit business with stake in $6 billion boutique (FT)

Chairman of Indian regulator invested in Adani-linked funds, claims Hindenburg Research (FT)

Guardian Life Insurance increases stake in private credit group HPS (FT)

Revolut backer Balderton Capital raises $1.3 billion for European tech start-ups (FT)

40% of Biden’s key IRA production projects hit by delays (FT)

B. Riley faces broader investigation over risk disclosures and ties to Kahn (Bloomberg)

Dozens of British start-ups that were supported with taxpayer-funded loans during the pandemic face closure (FT)

Salaries of FTSE 100 CEOs rise to 2017 levels (FT)