asset

SEOUL, Oct. 29 (UPI) — South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments said Wednesday it would take legal action against North America’s Brookfield Asset Management unless Brookfield returns $140 million related to a collapsed property sale in Seoul.

Mirae Asset noted that it made the decision after Brookfield failed to comply with a Singapore International Arbitration Center ruling, which required the company to return that amount and associated costs to Mirae Asset by Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the arbitration center ruled in favor of Mirae Asset in a three-year dispute over the failed sale of the International Finance Center in western Seoul, a mixed-use complex composed of three office towers, a shopping mall and hotel.

“Until the arbitration award is fully enforced, Brookfield will bear full responsibility for the accumulation of daily interest and additional damages,” Mirae Asset said in a statement.

“Mirae Asset has completed preparations to initiate follow-up legal proceedings under international law and applicable regulations. The company intends to take all possible legal actions,” it added.

To ensure compliance with the arbitration ruling, Mirae Asset said it may seek provisional seizure of Brookfield assets in South Korea and overseas.

When contacted, Brookfield’s Korean unit declined to comment.

Brookfield, a multinational alternative asset manager, is based in New York after relocating from Toronto last year. It has more than $1 trillion in assets under management across infrastructure, renewable energy, real estate and credit businesses.

The firm entered the South Korean market in 2014 and operates assets worth about $12 billion in the country.

In 2022, Mirae Asset signed a memorandum of understanding with Brookfield to acquire the International Finance Center for $2.9 billion, depositing $140 million as part of the deal. But the transaction later unraveled after Mirae Asset could not receive approval for a related investment vehicle.

Mirae Asset subsequently demanded a full refund of its down payment, but Brookfield refused, arguing that Mirae Asset had not made best efforts to gain regulatory approval, thereby breaching the agreement.

This prompted Mirae Asset to file for arbitration in September 2022.

What happened

Chesapeake Asset Management LLC disclosed a new position in Ryder System (R -0.12%), according to a quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on October 15, 2025 (SEC filing). The fund purchased 19,350 shares during the period, bringing the position’s value to approximately $3.08 million as of June 30, 2025. This trade represents an estimated 2.78% of the fund’s $110.74 million in U.S. equity holdings.

What else to know

This is a new position for the fund, representing 2.78% of 13F reportable assets under management following the trade.

Chesapeake’s top five fund holdings after the filing are:

• NASDAQ:MSFT: $11.41 million (10.0% of AUM) as of 2025-06-30
• NYSE:LLY: $6.94 million (6.2% of AUM) as of 2025-06-30
• NYSE:SPOT: $6.27 million (5.6% of AUM) as of 2025-06-30
• NASDAQ:AAPL: $5.99 million (5.4% of AUM) as of 2025-06-30
• NYSE:JPM: $5.52 million (5.0% of AUM) as of 2025-06-30

As of October 14, 2025, Ryder System shares were priced at $182.01, up 20.07% over the past year, outperforming the S&P 500 by 6.68 percentage points over the same period

Company Overview

Company Snapshot

Ryder System, Inc. is a leading provider of logistics and transportation solutions, operating globally with a diversified service portfolio. The company leverages its scale and expertise to deliver integrated fleet management and supply chain services to enterprise customers.

The company generates revenue through leasing and maintenance contracts, rental fees, logistics services, and the sale of used vehicles, offering integrated solutions to optimize clients’ transportation and supply chain operations.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Ryder System provides fleet management, supply chain solutions, and dedicated transportation services, including full-service leasing, commercial vehicle rental, and logistics management.

It serves businesses across industries with large-scale transportation and logistics needs, targeting corporate clients seeking efficiency, reliability, and scalability in fleet and supply chain management.

Foolish take

Chesapeake Asset Management starting a new position in transportation giant Ryder System is noteworthy. The investment isn’t small; Ryder stock sits just outside the financial management company’s top five holdings at the number six position.

Ryder had a rough 2023 with sales down 2% year over year, but it undertook changes to its business, bouncing back strong in 2024 with 7% year-over-year revenue growth to $12.6 billion. However, sales results in 2025 have been mixed. Through the first half of this year, revenue of $6.3 billion was flat compared to 2024.

But that’s not the whole story. Ryder expects its free cash flow (FCF) for the year to reach between $900 million and $1 billion. This sum far outpaces the $133 million in FCF produced last year, and will allow it to continue paying its robust dividend.

Moreover, the company adopted cost-saving initiatives that helped it increase diluted earnings per share (EPS) by 11% year over year to $3.15 in the second quarter. That’s the third consecutive quarter of double-digit EPS growth.

Ryder’s transformation from its difficult 2023 is delivering benefits to shareholders through higher EPS and FCF even though topline sales have not been impressive in 2025. These factors probably contributed to Chesapeake’s decision to begin investing in Ryder, which looks like a solid stock to buy for income investors.

Glossary

13F reportable assets: Assets that investment managers must disclose quarterly to the SEC if they exceed $100 million in U.S. equity holdings.
Assets under management (AUM): The total market value of investments managed on behalf of clients by a fund or firm.
Position: The amount of a particular security or investment held by an investor or fund.
Stake: The ownership interest or share an investor holds in a company or asset.
Top five holdings: The five largest investments in a fund’s portfolio, usually by market value.
Outperforming: Achieving a higher return than a specific benchmark or index over a given period.
Dividend yield: A financial ratio showing how much a company pays in dividends each year relative to its share price.
Fleet management: Services that oversee and coordinate commercial vehicles for businesses, including maintenance, leasing, and logistics.
Supply chain solutions: Services that help businesses manage the flow of goods, information, and resources from suppliers to customers.
Full-service leasing: A leasing arrangement where the provider handles maintenance, repairs, and other services for the leased asset.
Logistics management: The planning and coordination of moving goods and resources efficiently through a supply chain.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and left in place the $1.4-billion judgment against him over his description of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a hoax staged by crisis actors.

The Infowars host had argued that a judge was wrong to find him liable for defamation and infliction of emotional distress without holding a trial on the merits of allegations lodged by relatives of victims of the shooting, which killed 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn.

The justices did not comment on their order, which they issued without asking the families of the Sandy Hook victims to respond to Jones’ appeal. An FBI agent who responded to the shooting also sued.

A lawyer who represents Sandy Hook families said the Supreme Court had properly rejected Jones’ “latest desperate attempt to avoid accountability for the harm he has caused.”

“We look forward to enforcing the jury’s historic verdict and making Jones and Infowars pay for what they have done,” lawyer Christopher Mattei said in a statement.

A lawyer representing Jones in the case didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. During his daily show on Tuesday, Jones said his lawyers believed his case was “cut and dry,” while he had predicted the high court wouldn’t take up his appeal.

“I said no, they will not do it because of politics,” Jones said.

Jones mocked the idea that he has enough money to pay the judgment, saying his studio equipment, including five-year-old cameras, was only worth about $304,000.

“It’s all about torturing me. It’s all about harassing me. It’s about harassing my family. It’s about getting me off the air,” said Jones, who urged his listeners to buy merchandise to keep the show running.

Jones filed for bankruptcy in late 2022, and his lawyers told the justices that the “plaintiffs have no possible hope of collecting” the entire judgment.

He is separately appealing a $49-million judgment in a similar defamation lawsuit in Texas after he failed to turn over documents sought by the parents of another Sandy Hook victim.

In the Connecticut case, the judge issued a rare default ruling against Jones and his company in late 2021 because of what she called Jones’ repeated failure to abide by court rulings and to turn over certain evidence to the Sandy Hook families. The judge convened a jury to determine how much Jones would owe.

The following year, the jury agreed on a $964-million verdict and the judge later tacked on another $473 million in punitive damages against Jones and Free Speech Systems, Infowars’ parent company, which is based in Austin, Texas.

In November, the satirical news outlet The Onion was named the winning bidder in an auction to liquidate Infowars’ assets to help pay the defamation judgments. But the bankruptcy judge threw out the auction results, citing problems with the process and The Onion’s bid.

The attempt to sell off Infowars’ assets has moved to a Texas state court in Austin. Jones is now appealing a recent order from the court that appointed a receiver to liquidate the assets. Some of Jones’ personal property is also being sold off as part of the bankruptcy case.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

On Aug. 30, Jan van Eck, the chief executive officer of VanEck, a major investment management company, said that if Bitcoin (BTC 0.68%) gets to be priced at just half the total value of gold, it would reach $400,000. At the same time, he made it clear that he considers the coin a scarce asset that’s essentially digital gold, and that he thinks there’s going to be a consistent demand for it, making that outcome highly plausible.

In other words, if supply keeps tightening while larger and steadier buyers keep showing up, the path of least resistance is up. Here’s what else you need to know about van Eck’s perspective and why you should take his opinion on this topic (very) seriously.

Image source: Getty Images.

Why this call matters

When a mainstream asset manager with more than $100 billion in assets under management (AUM) floats a price like $400,000 for Bitcoin, you should ask two questions: Is the speaker credible? and Is the idea anchored in data? It’s easy to answer yes to both.

On credibility, VanEck manages about $135.8 billion in assets as of July 31, and it has been quick to get exposure to crypto compared with its peers. VanEck filed for a Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) as far back as August 2017, years before today’s spot products.

Another important fact is that VanEck pledged to donate 5% of its spot Bitcoin ETF profits to fund the Bitcoin Core team of developers, putting tangible support behind the network’s resilience. That combination of AUM heft, crypto first-mover history, ETF product footprint, and direct developer funding gives van Eck’s call a lot more weight than a random internet forecast, particularly because his assets are sizable enough and deployed such that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now let’s examine the quality of the data used in van Eck’s argument.

After the April 2024 halving, mining activity produces just 450 bitcoins per day. Corporate buyers alone are absorbing about 1,755 coins per day on average, roughly four times the daily issuance, with funds and ETFs adding significant inflows on top. Against a mechanically tightening float — coins available for public trading — that absorption rate is exactly the kind of imbalance long-term investors look for.

So the idea that Bitcoin is digital gold is supported by the numbers right now, at least in terms of its scarcity versus incoming supply to the market.

If you want a near-term napkin math check on van Eck’s price target specifically, consider first that Bitcoin recently traded at about $111,000. The gap between today and $400,000 is large, but the mechanism to get there, scarcity, is the exact same one that took the coin from $1 to more than $100,000.

How investors should use this view

Let’s step back for a moment and introduce some skepticism.

Price targets can excite or mislead, even when they’re issued by business leaders or investors at the very apex of their craft. The real utility of a $400,000 call is that it sets a benchmark for the coin’s long-term investment thesis. The thesis is that Bitcoin’s engineered supply constriction and the consolidation of ownership into price-insensitive hands will raise the clearing price for the marginal coin. If that continues, the destination becomes a function of patience and liquidity cycles.

There is another practical takeaway about who is making the call. VanEck does not need Bitcoin to reinvent itself to capture value. It needs the rules to remain clear enough for institutions to keep allocating. The company’s own history shows it can help shape that clarity and sustain the ecosystem, from being an early filer to supporting developers, and over time, its influence could push prices higher than they would have been otherwise.

Investors should also weigh the risks with clear eyes. Macro liquidity tightening, policy surprises, or adverse regulation could interrupt flows into ETFs and corporate treasuries for a time, pressuring prices. It might also be the case that the migration of coins into deep cold storage reduces on-chain activity in ways that occasionally spook investors.

Still, now is a favorable time to dollar-cost average (DCA) into Bitcoin, and van Eck’s price target signifies that capital is increasingly considering the coin a worthy asset to hold forever. Don’t get too fixated on arbitrary forecasts, just keep accumulating.

The S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.52%) is up around 13% over the past year. The shares of Brookfield Asset Management (BAM 3.37%) have risen over 40%. Investors clearly see opportunity in the Canadian asset manager’s future. But have they priced in all the good news? Probably not, given the company’s huge growth goals. Here’s why Brookfield Asset Management could still be worth buying while it hovers around $60 a share.

What does Brookfield Asset Management do?

Brookfield Asset Management is an asset manager, taking money from others and investing it on their behalf. The company also manages its own money. The big story to watch is what Brookfield Asset Management calls fee-bearing capital, which is the money it handles for others. It charges management fees for doing this, and, thus, the amount of fee-bearing capital it has will have the biggest effect on the business’ revenues and earnings.

Image source: Getty Images.

Although Brookfield Asset Management’s history is rooted in infrastructure, with a global focus, today it handles money across five different investment categories. Renewable power, infrastructure, and real estate all stick closely to the company’s historical focus. But it has also reached out into private equity and credit, expanding its reach and growth opportunities. These businesses are all being positioned to take advantage of what management believes are key global themes: Digitization, decarbonization, and deglobalization.

Brookfield Asset Management operates in over 30 countries around the world. Thus, it has a wide reach as it looks for investment opportunities for itself and for its customers. Overall, Brookfield Asset Management has roughly $1 trillion in assets under management. Of that sum, roughly $550 billion is fee-bearing capital.

Where to from here for Brookfield Asset Management?

Brookfield Asset Management has been talking up its growth opportunity for a little while now. Given the price gain over the past year, it looks like investors are starting to listen. A big example of the growth opportunity came when the company raised its dividend per share 15% at the start of 2025. That is a very big dividend increase, but it’s just the foundation of the story.

Management has laid out its growth goal through the end of the decade. The plan is to increase the fee-bearing capital it handles in every one of its segments, with the total expected to double to around $1.1 trillion. That, in turn, will increase the company’s revenues and earnings. The expectation is that fee-bearing earnings will rise 17% a year, on average, between 2024 and 2029. That, in turn, will allow the company to continue increasing the dividend by 15% each year.

Basically, the dividend will roughly double in about five years’ time. If that’s the case, to just maintain the current 3% dividend yield would require the share price to double, too. This still looks like an interesting growth and income stock even after the rapid price increase this year. Consider that peer Blackstone (BX 4.17%) has a 2.6% yield, and BlackRock (BLK 2.03%) has a 1.9% yield. The yield comparison here suggests that Brookfield Asset Management’s valuation isn’t extreme and, in fact, it might still be discounted relative to its competitors.

Execution will be key, but it looks like there’s still room to run

Clearly, the future for Brookfield Asset Management depends a great deal on how well it executes its growth strategy. But that’s true of all companies. There’s no particular reason to doubt that management can pull it off, given the company’s over 100-year-long history in the asset management business. Buying the stock while it’s below $60 a share, despite the recent price advance, could be a good opportunity for investors with a dividend focus and for those with a growth focus.

Brookfield Asset Management (BAM -0.61%) manages over $1 trillion in assets, making it one of the largest alternative investment managers in the world. The company is growing briskly as more investors look to diversify into alternative assets.

The company’s robust growth potential makes it one of the best financial stocks you can buy today. Here’s a look at its impressive growth profile.

Image source: Getty Images.

Rapidly rising fee-based income

Of Brookfield’s $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM), about $563 billion currently generates fees. Over the past year, this fee-bearing capital produced $2.7 billion in fee-related earnings. Brookfield returns most of this income to shareholders through a dividend that currently yields close to 3%.

Brookfield sees strong growth ahead for its fee-bearing assets, earnings, and dividend payments through 2029. The company expects to more than double its fee-bearing capital to $1.1 trillion by the end of the decade by putting more of the capital it has already raised from investors to work and attracting new capital. Key growth drivers include rising investor demand for alternatives, new fund launches, and expanding into new capital sources, such as insurance companies and high-net-worth investors.

As Brookfield’s fee-bearing capital grows, the company expects it to drive 17% compound annual fee-related earnings-per-share growth through the decade. Distributable earnings per share are on track to rise even faster at 18% annually, helped by the realization of carried interest (its share of the profits from funds it manages above certain return thresholds). By 2029, Brookfield estimates it will generate $2 billion in carried interest alone.

With earnings rapidly rising, Brookfield expects to grow its dividend by more than 15% per year. This combination of rising earnings and dividends positions the company to deliver strong total returns over the next five years.

Columnist Jessica Boulton brings you her brutally-honest and wry rundown of Showbiz’s latest shenanigans: from Ibiza Final Boss to MasterChef muppets, she’s not holding back

Jessica Boulton works on the Mirror’s features desk, specialising in celebrity features and interviews. She also writes a weekly observational comedy column Jess Saying, which runs each Saturday. In addition, she oversees the entertainment pages, helps co-ordinate the Pride of Britain coverage and newsletter and guest edits The Diary. Jessica joined The Mirror’s sister paper The People in 2006, and has since worked on the Sunday Mirror and Now magazine. Most likely to be found raving about The Oscars, BAFTAs, Netflix, Friends or Star Wars.

It’s a strange, strange world when I’m feeling sorry for a bunch of Love Island contestants. But in this social media age, it is sadly what it’s come to. For the poor lovelorn bedhoppers at the Mallorca villa have been putting in weeks of seriously hard graft – flashing their abs and parading around in thong bikinis – to get the one precious thing, (I suspect) their hearts truly desired. No, not love. Fame. Glorious, generous, glittering FAME.

But in the days after Monday’s final, the Islanders soon found themselves getting a cold hard lesson in the pitfalls of success: There’s always someone waiting in the wings – ready to cut short your 15 minutes….

For it wasn’t the winning Islanders “Breaking The Internet” this week. It wasn’t the winning Islanders batting off the biggest brand deals or most enticing DMs from Blue Tick TikTok. And it wasn’t the winning Islanders getting excitable TV companies all in a lather, begging for interviews. It was….a HAIRCUT.

Yes, the biggest celebrity getting buzz online this week wasn’t even a celeb when the week began. He was Jack Kay, a literal normal down-to-earth 26-year-old Jack-the-lad, from Newcastle on holiday in Ibiza.

One SEVEN-second viral video clip later, however…. And he’s now “Ibiza Final Boss” – the internet’s newest celebrity (aka Ibiza Bob), with 70,000 followers on Instagram, 30,000 on TikTok and hundreds of memes in his honour.

READ MORE: Ibiza Final Boss takes private jet to party island with mates who ‘all have same haircut’

He’s been offered free holidays, brand endorsement deals, flights on a £5million private jet, and a whole list of big-money nightclub appearances. He’s signed with Joey Essex’s agent and has landed his own tour and – according to media experts – he could be well-placed to launch his own merchandise range and even bag a possible spot on a reality show. All in all, it’s predicted he could rake in a whopping SIX figures by the end of the year.

It’s not bad for seven seconds of dodgy dancing, dodgier fashion sense and The Dodgiest Bowl Haircut (Not On A Lego Figure)TM.

For nowadays you don’t need to work summer seasons in Blackpool or win a talent show to become a star. You can become ‘famous’ just by making the right people laugh, at the right moment in time, as they absent-mindedly scroll through their phone while listening to podcasts. Yep, Fame has reached Peak Fickledom.

So, when the stars and algorithms do align to make you a viral hit, you need to make the most of it. And while Jack’s ‘success’ is all thanks to what is ON his head, it’s what’s inside it which will prove his biggest asset. For in 2025, turning your viral moment in the sun into a longer-term earner is all about savvy strategy, clear thinking and mindset:

(*Okay, okay, PhotoShop may have lent a hand). As for the rest of the week? Well, Celebland was throwing us all sorts of surprises…..

Monday mayhem

Be afraid, be very afraid! For the stars of an upcoming new theatre tour have been doing the press rounds this week. And from the sounds of it, there will be no one safe this Halloween and autumn. Indeed, it’s expected to have many a celeb not just quaking but SHAKING, QUAKING, ­QUIVERING, TREMBLING AND OUTRIGHT ­SHUDDERING in their boots.

No, it’s not a new take on Phantom of the Opera (albeit some may be haunted by what’s said). Nor is it Saw: The Musical (although that is a multi-million pound idea). It’s the terrifying new two-hander: An Evening With… Katie Price and Kerry Katona. The pair’s tell-all 33-date UK tour was feared to have been cancelled earlier in the summer due to… well, whatever Katie’s snoresome crisis-du-jour was at the time.

But the pair are back and have now been hitting the interview circuit to give fans a little taste of what to expect. Target one? “Snobby” Strictly – which they publicly dissed this week for having never asked them to take part. (One suspects they’ve now said “Foxtrot Oscar” to any future possibilities too).

Of course, we all know the real dirt will be saved for the show itself. Yet however juicy the eww -some twosome’s tete-a-tete promises to be, I can’t help but wonder if the panto frenemies could have come up with a slightly more, er… spicy format… A WWE-style grudge match with lookalikes of their many nemeses, perhaps? Imagine the commentator yelling to the roaring crowd: “Get Ready to say mi-OWWW! It’s our very own….. Nuclear Cheetah aka Kerry Katona! – from Atomic Kitten to a one-woman weapon of mass destruction…”

Or maybe… they could make it a dramatic retelling of Four Weddings And A Funeral, where Katie’s the bride each time and the funeral’s for her tragic lack of taste? Or finally, what about a musical? After all, KP’s been Defying Gravity for years (with the help of her plastic surgeon).

What a royal twit Tuesday

It’s not been a good week for Royal affairs – of any kind. But a new bombshell biography has cemented one unassailable truth: Young kids fed on fairy tales and Disney movies are far more likely to find themselves a talking warthog or a flying elephant than a real-life Prince Charming.

Yes, a new book by historian Andrew Lownie has claimed Prince Andrew allegedly strayed “more than a dozen” times before his first – yes, first – anniversary with Fergie. Clearly their wedding certificate was not worth the paper it was printed on.

Fergie did have a little something in common with Cinderella however. She was sporting some rather fetching slippers this week. They weren’t glass ones though – they were fluffy numbers emblazoned with the unofficial Royal motto “Never Complain, Never Explain”. It warms the heart, it really does.

Wok you gonna do? Wednesday

The BBC took a leap with its MasterChef dilemma by airing the first episode of the pre-recorded series on Wednesday. Surprisingly they went for primetime BBC1 instead of hiding it on iPlayer only. Presumably they figured they were in for a roasting whatever they did – so they might as well fill a hole in the schedule.

The real stars of the series are the editors who faced the unenviable task of trying to cut out as much of the under-fire Gregg Wallace and John Torode as possible – which from the looks of the results is a bit like trying to remove excess garlic from a pasta dish. You can’t. Everything’s already tainted.

What I don’t understand is why the Beeb didn’t go with my previous suggestion: just do some deep fake trickery. So what could they replace them with? Let’s see: Option 1: A literal toxic trigger warning; Option 2: Bradley Walsh and Rylan Clark (they’re on everything else anyway); Option 3 (and perhaps most apt): Statler and Waldorf. A couple of muppets… who are completely stuffed.

No relief for kangaroo testicles Thursday

Talking of show formats (see Monday), there was one news story this week that left me feeling a little… well, antsy . What was it? This: “ITV bosses are planning the next five years of I’m A Celebrity…” (really? another FIVE?); “With talks under way to film in the jungle until 2030….” (Wait, 2030 is only five years away??); “When it’ll reach its ­landmark 30th season”. (30 years? 30? 3-0?)

You mean to say we’ve been watching the same show with the same hosts, same sort of trials, same prize, same location, same set and same set of scandals just with different faces… for nearly 30 YEARS? They say doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is the very ­definition of insanity. So either, we can all relate to Peter Andre’s infamous jungle-penned hit Insania – written while a campmate in 2004 – or we really don’t mind the deja vu.

So what can we expect over the next few years? Well, I have two predictions:

1. Princess and/or Junior Andre will follow in their parents’ footsteps, going back to the scene of the crime special place where the Katie and Peter’s “love” story first began.

2. Following the “success” of political hires Matt Hancock and Nigel Farage, bosses will make a “bigly” play for President Trump at the end of his term. (If he doesn’t rewrite the US Constitution, that is.) After all, there’s been quite a few (thousand) of his type involved in the show before. Fatima Whitbread even got one stuck up her nose… Much to the chagrin of her and the cockroach, I suspect.

Foolish Friday

It was a mixed day for Richard Osman. On the plus side, Netflix released the first trailer for the movie adaptation of his bestselling crime novel The Thursday Murder Club (starring Pierce Brosnan and Helen Mirren).

On the downside… Osman – who has produced a number of game shows including Pointless, Total Wipeout, Prize Island, and my absolute FAVOURITE Only Connect – inexplicably decided to tell podcast listeners that quiz shows often use “an algorithm” to stop contestants winning too much money.

It’s obvious to be fair, and while not quite a Gerald Ratner-level own goal, it wasn’t terribly clever. I wouldn’t want to overtly criticise him in a family newspaper, so here’s my verdict – in the style of Only Connect’s Missing Vowels Round. Enjoy! WH TTT LPLNK R*

Picture of the Week

Being a 30-something in today’s world must be tough. There you are, juggling career, love life, social life and saving for an inexplicably-expensive “micro-loft” – and somehow you also have to make time for what’s really important: taking impossibly perfect pics for the ‘Gram.

But it looks like a certain 35-year-old Oscar-winner has got this careful balancing act all figured out. For, Avengers star Brie Larson posted THIS video on Instagram this week.

And while she might be steady as a rock, I – as Gen Z would say – “am shook” . In fact I’m more impressed by this feat than by any of her big screen Captain Marvel antics.

Brie, who is promoting her new tome, Party People, accompanied this video with a quip: “My social media manager said this will sell 1,000 books. So here I am.” The book in question is a “cookbook for creative celebrations” with “endless ideas for weird and wacky parties” – which goes some way to explaining this impressive-yet-leftfield marketing campaign.

Personally, I’m most amazed by her superhuman pain threshold. For, anyone who has experienced the inherent cruelty of the modern-day torture device known as a stiletto heel, will appreciate that this is not just a demonstration of core strength, stability and precision… but of sheer, sheer, sheer ENDURANCE.

So how did she do it? The way I see it, there’s only one explanation: she’s in the wrong franchise… the girl’s a Wonder Woman for sure.

What do you think? Have you seen some funny celeb moments this week? Let me know in comment or on X/Instagram via @JessicaBoulton

*Answer To Missing Vowels Round: “What a plonker”

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The Trump brand has been used to hawk cryptocurrencies, Bibles, steaks and guitars. Now the US president’s media company is laying the groundwork to sell investment funds.

Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which is majority owned by Donald Trump, plans to sell offerings tied to his agenda.

The parent of the Truth Social platform, where the president is also a prominent poster, has announced plans for and trademarked the names of a group of financial products under the Truth.Fi banner—investments that will potentially benefit from the president’s policies with bets on energy, crypto and domestic manufacturing. The proposed products include exchange-traded funds, or portfolios that trade like stocks that can be purchased through most brokers.

Details on the products’ structures and strategies are still scarce. ETFs are subject to approval by regulators, and no public filings are available yet. Yet the brand-building has already begun. So have the arguments. Critics see a sitting US president having a financial stake in the success of funds that are associated with his brand and his politics, built on strategies that he can influence from the White House.

“These transactions fly in the face of government ethics standards,” says Michael Posner, professor of ethics and finance at NYU Stern School of Business. “When you’re president, the assumption is that 100% of your energy is devoted to serving the country—not monetizing your public platform.”

The administration says the president is walled off. “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.” Trump Media did not respond to a request for comment.

US presidents aren’t required under federal law to divest assets, but past leaders have done so or used blind trusts to avoid perceived conflicts. Trump, however, has maintained financial exposure through family-controlled structures. Right before taking office again, he transferred about $4 billion worth of Trump Media shares to a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr. But the arrangement is not a blind trust with independent oversight.

The concern among ethics experts isn’t only the ownership. It’s the overlap between policy and potential monetary benefit. The Truth.Fi funds could rise and fall in line with decisions the president makes in office. Protectionist policies aimed at various sectors and countries could help the proposed Truth.Fi Made in America ETF, which is set to bet on reshoring. Deregulatory moves in favor of crypto may boost a Bitcoin-themed ETF. And so on.

The crypto angle is a familiar one. Trump and his family have already profited from the digital-asset boom, hyping up a cryptocurrency bearing his name. Such so-called memecoins have no underlying value as investments, but creators of Trump’s coin recently held a promotion offering top holders a private dinner with the president. A company affiliated with the Trump Organization owns a large chunk of the Trump memecoins. Another Trump family-linked company, World Liberty Financial, has also issued its own cryptocurrencies, including a dollar-linked digital token called a stablecoin. World Liberty recently announced the coin would be used to complete a $2 billion transaction between a state-backed Abu Dhabi company and the overseas crypto exchange Binance. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Jeff Merkley of Oregon have said the stablecoin offers “opportunities for unprecedented corruption” because the Trump family can benefit financially from the use of its product.

In its ETF announcement, Trump Media said the proposed products, which include portfolios known as separately managed accounts in addition to ETFs, offer a conservative alternative to “woke” investing. It’s a niche currently occupied by funds including the Point Bridge America First ETF and the God Bless America ETF, among others. Both have gathered only modest assets, as have left-leaning ETFs, thanks in part to a saturated ETF market that’s making life harder for newbie issuers.

There are already about 60 ETFs based on Bitcoin, a tally that’s grown by at least 22 this year. In addition, there are more than 60 funds tied to energy, including coal, and at least three from issuers including Tema and BlackRock Inc.’s iShares based on reshoring and manufacturing, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Trump Media “will be depending on its brand recognition to set its ETFs apart among a crowd of competing products,” says Roxanna Islam, head of sector and industry research at ETF shop TMX VettaFi. “A strong political following may help gather initial support, but in the long run, flows will ultimately depend on ETF basics like fees and performance.”

The company has announced plans to seed the funds with as much as $250 million. It’s working with trading platform Crypto.com and investment firm Yorkville Advisors to help run the funds. Still, its biggest unrivaled asset is Trump himself. Even if he’s not an explicit spokesperson, almost everything he does makes him a potential ad for the company. “What a competing fund doesn’t have is a person who’s in the news literally every day who can then talk about these things,” says Philip Nichols, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Hal Lambert, who runs the MAGA ETF and has raised money for Trump’s presidential runs, dismisses concerns about conflicts. For one, the president’s views on issues such as domestic manufacturing have been publicly known for decades. There are more direct ways to have a seat at the table than buying an ETF, he says; people can give money to campaigns or political action committees, for instance. “I just don’t know that that stuff would work on him,” Lambert says. “Trump does what he wants to do.”

Hajric writes for Bloomberg