Meet McKinsey’s secretive investment fund

Good Tuesday morning, and welcome to today's DealBook Briefing. Breaking: Karl Lagerfeld, the influential fashion designer and longtime creative director of Chanel, has died at 85. And Bernie Sanders has announced his 2020 presidential run. (Want this by email? Sign up here.)

Did McKinsey sell advice with a stake in the outcome?

As McKinsey & Company advised some of the biggest companies in the world, the NYT reports, it may have had a vested interest in the outcome, through a little-known in-house hedge fund that holds stakes in some of the firm’s clients.

Little about the fund, the McKinsey Investment Office, is public. A large part of its approximately $12.3 billion in holdings is “concealed behind a tangle of shell companies in an island tax haven in the English Channel,” the NYT reports. As a result, “any intersections between McKinsey’s consulting work and the fund’s investments are largely hidden.”

The office took a stake in Valeant, the drug maker that was advised by McKinsey and is accused of improperly raising pharmaceutical prices. It also invested in Puerto Rican bonds while the firm advised the island on how to deal with its debt.

McKinsey says there’s no conflict of interest. It insists the office is run separately from its consulting operations, and that 90 percent of its funds are run by outside managers.

But it faces increasing skepticism about that from Congress and in various lawsuits. “A federal judge in Virginia last month reopened a coal-company bankruptcy case after learning that McKinsey had not disclosed, as required by law, that it was also among the company’s secured creditors, through MIO,” the NYT reports.

Trump’s plan to fund his wall heads to court

A coalition of 16 states, including California and New York, sued the Trump administration yesterday over his plan to use emergency powers to spend billions of dollars on a border wall, Charlie Savage and Robert Pear of the NYT report:

• “The clash raises questions over congressional control of spending, the scope of emergency powers granted to the president, and how far the courts are willing to go to settle such a dispute.”
• “Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, said in an interview that the president himself had undercut his argument that there was an emergency on the border.”
• “The lawsuit, California et al. v. Trump et al., says that the plaintiff states are going to court to protect their residents, natural resources and economic interests.”
• “Plaintiffs will need to establish standing by showing that they are suffering some particular injury from what Mr. Trump is doing. Several of the lawsuits involve people who own land or represent communities along the Mexican border in Texas, where Mr. Trump has put the focus of his emphasis on the need for more barriers.”

Will more U.S.-China trade talks deliver a deal?

After a series of discussions between America and China in Beijing last week that President Trump called “very productive,” negotiators reopen their conversations in Washington this week.

What’s happening: Negotiations kick off today. Then on Thursday and Friday, Vice Premier Liu He of China will meet with the U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to Bloomberg.

What to expect: The Trump administration “is racing to strike a deal that will result in long-term reforms,” according to the WSJ, which notes that such a pact would “prove that tariffs are an effective battering ram to open markets around the world.”

But it’s not done yet. Despite Mr. Trump tweeting that “big progress being made on soooo many different fronts!” in these trade negotiations so far, the WSJ reports that “people briefed on the negotiations said big outstanding differences remain.”

More trade news: Why Mr. Trump may want to keep car tariffs in his back pocket. HSBC says the U.S.-China trade war is why it missed its profit targets.

Theresa May scrambles as parties splinter

With just over a week to go before a crucial vote, the British prime minister is facing shifting groupings in Parliament and a difficult diplomatic mission to the E.U.

Britain’s parties are splitting. Seven lawmakers have left Labour, the main opposition party, and formed a new Independent Group that might push for another referendum on Brexit. While initial reactions were largely unimpressed, the Telegraph reports that their ranks could swell, and that some members of Mrs. May’s Conservative party may also join.

And Mrs. May is running out of time. There are nine days left until a parliamentary vote that could seize control of the Brexit process from her. So this week, Bloomberg reports, she is mounting a last-ditch diplomatic push:

• “The British prime minister is planning to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker this week.”
• “Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt will travel to Berlin, Brussels and Copenhagen, while Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay is continuing his dialogue with the E.U.’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier.”
• “Attorney General Geoffrey Cox — a key voice in the Brexit debate inside Cabinet — will set out in a speech expected on Tuesday how the most contentious part of the Brexit deal, the so-called backstop plan for the Irish border, could be changed.”

But the E.U. isn’t budging yet. “We are happy to revisit anything that would clarify the situation without reopening the withdrawal agreement,” a spokesman for the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, said.

More Brexit news: The Japanese automaker Honda plans to close its plant in Swindon, England, which employs 3,500 people, though it didn’t blame Brexit. Wall Street banks are moving out of London — but not to any single European financial capital.

Is Facebook a ‘digital gangster’?

A British parliamentary committee issued a scathing report yesterday that accuses Facebook of breaking data privacy and competition lawsand calls for tighter regulations, Adam Satariano of the NYT reports:

• “The parliamentary report recommends the creation of a British watchdog to oversee the technology industry, similar to the country’s approach to regulating media companies.”
• “Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like ‘digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law,” the report argues.
• Mr. Satariano also notes that the report “suggested legally requiring Facebook and other large internet platforms to remove what the government determines to be harmful content, or risk fines or other punishments.”

Facebook may not be worried. The committee can’t change regulations on its own, Mr. Satariano notes, while Alex Webb of Bloomberg Opinion points out that “Britain’s divorce from the European Union could seriously impair its capacity to rein in the giants of U.S. tech.”

More Facebook news: Why it’s getting serious about building its own A.I. chips. And why researchers are worried about how Facebook promotes Groups.

What’s really in your index fund?

Index funds, with low fees and broad exposure to the markets, are supposed to be one of the best ways to play the stock market. But Robert Jackson Jr., an S.E.C. commissioner, and Steven Davidoff Solomon of the University of California, Berkeley, point out problems with those funds in an NYT Op-Ed:

• “The firms that devise these indexes face little regulatory scrutiny and can face significant conflicts of interest, which have the potential to harm American investors.”
• “There certainly exists potential for manipulation. Index providers generally have wide leeway when choosing the individual companies that make up their indexes and how they are weighted.”
• “That’s why we’re calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to study this issue and make recommendations, if necessary, to Congress. Lawmakers must take a more active role in overseeing how index providers shape how trillions of Americans’ investment dollars are allocated.”

The corporate V.C. gold rush

Independent venture capital funds like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz may grab headlines, but corporate investment funds have quietly been investing faster than ever, according to a report by CB Insights. Here are some highlights:

Corporate V.C.s broke records in 2018, putting $53 billion into 2,740 deals worldwide, a high on both measures.

They tended to spend more than noncorporate V.C.s. The average corporate venture deal size was $26.3 million, compared to $21.8 million for a standard V.C. transaction.

Companies are rushing to set up funds. The number of corporate V.C. funds investing for the first time reached 264 last year, up 35 percent from 2017 and over 300 percent from 2013.

China is playing a big role. Two of the top five most active corporate V.C. funds last year were Baidu.ventures and Legend Capital, despite trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. (The most active was GV, Alphabet’s early-stage venture arm.)

Exclusive: Kasowitz hires a top antitrust lawyer

The law firm Kasowitz, Benson Torres will announce today that it has hired Kevin Arquit, a leading antitrust lawyer in the U.S., from Weil, Gotshal & Manges to lead its antitrust and competition team.

Mr. Arquit’s background: He worked at the Federal Trade Commission from 1986 to 1992, where he eventually become the director of its bureau of competition. Then he went into private practice, working on matters like DirecTV’s sale to AT&T and the defense of the poultry producer Pilgrim’s Pride in a price-fixing lawsuit.

What’s ahead in antitrust: Mr. Arquit told DealBook that he thinks things are going to become more aggressive.

• He sees more companies going to court against regulators like the Justice Department and the F.T.C., which he says have become more demanding.
• “In some of those cases, it’s become so extreme,” he said, pointing to the Justice Department’s handling of the AT&T-Time Warner deal. He added, “The only way to deal with that is to push back.”

Revolving door

Ken Hitchner, the chairman and C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs’s Asia Pacific operations, is reportedly retiring.

Rod Rosenstein is expected to leave the Justice Department next month.

Apple hired Sam Jadallah, the C.E.O. of a failed smart lock start-up, reportedly to lead a smart-home initiative.

The speed read

Deals

• Two of the biggest investors in SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, are reportedly unhappy with how it’s being run. And credit ratings agencies are worried about SoftBank’s debt levels. (WSJ, Business Insider)
• Navient, the student loan company, rejected a $3.2 billion takeover bid by Canyon Capital and Platinum Equity. (CNBC)
• Tiger Global has reportedly sold its stake in Barclays, leaving the British bank without a key ally as it fends off the activist investor Edward Bramson. (FT)
• How Mithril Capital, part of Peter Thiel’s Silicon Valley empire, turned into a mess. (Recode)
• Might James Dolan finally sell the New York Knicks? (Daily News)

Politics and policy

• Barack Obama is quietly advising potential Democratic presidential contenders — but is unlikely to endorse one. (NYT)
• How Senator Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax would work. (Upshot)
• Big-money Democratic donors reportedly favor Joe Biden for president in 2020. (Fox Business)
• Senator Kamala Harris defended her support of the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, but said she wasn’t a democratic socialist. (NYT)

Tech

• A shake-up at Apple suggests services, not smartphones, are its future focus. (WSJ)
• How Amazon might expand without a New York campus. And how it’s rebooting its movie division. (WSJ, NYT)
• Huawei’s founder called U.S. charges against the company and his daughter “politically motivated.” Ericsson’s C.E.O. said that fears about Huawei’s hardware could slow down Europe’s 5G rollout, but British intelligence officials say the company’s equipment poses only a “manageable risk” of Chinese spying. (NYT, FT)
• Australia blamed a “sophisticated state actor” for hacking its Parliament’s computer system. Meanwhile Chinese and Iranian hackers have renewed attacks on U.S. companies. (NYT)

Best of the rest

• U.S. companies now have to disclose operating leases on their balance sheets, potentially adding $3 trillion to corporate America’s liabilities. (CNBC)
• Why Senator Marco Rubio’s plan to tax stock buybacks might be seriously flawed — and why they will be a huge topic for the 2020 elections. (National Review, Axios)
• Americans are defaulting on car loans in record numbers. (Axios)
• Contradictory data is confusing economists. (WSJ)
• Most Americans, in every state except Vermont, would fail the U.S. citizenship exam. (Axios)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

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