Eight people have died and 18 more were injured after a three-storey building collapsed in the Flatbush neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
Witnesses described hearing a loud boom and seeing dust in the air as the building came down and fell into a construction pit where people were working on Wednesday.
The building – which contained apartments and a store – was adjacent to an active construction site.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, described a harrowing scene, saying workers “who had only barely survived themselves turned back and dug victims out of the rubble”.
The city’s fire commissioner, Lillian Bonsignore, said firefighters were on the scene within minutes and called their actions “incredibly heroic”.
Speaking on Thursday, she said fire crews “are still in a recovery phase”.
Despite the hard rain and falling temperatures at the site, she said, their efforts would continue until every victim was located.
Harare, Zimbabwe – At around 5am on Friday, August 14, Methro Masunga, 28, was jolted awake by the sound of bulldozers and shouting municipal police officers. Outside, earth-moving vehicles were preparing to demolish homes in St Martins Extension, a suburb of Harare.
At first, Masunga thought the machinery had arrived for roadworks. Then she realised her home was among those marked for destruction.
“I thought they were here for some other business, probably land development or road grading; alas, they had been sent to destroy our homes. We tried to understand, but no one would hear us,” Masunga told Al Jazeera.
A single mother of three, Masunga had spent years saving to own a home. She worked part-time cleaning other people’s houses, putting aside what she could to buy a residential stand.
“I worked part-time jobs doing laundry and washing dishes in people’s houses for five years, saving where possible. So, when I came here, I paid the deposit and started monthly contributions,” she said, standing among the remains of her house.
Masunga began paying for her stand in 2015 and received an allocation in 2019. She says the arrangement was formalised through the city council in 2020, when residents began receiving official documents.
Her experience reflects a wider dispute over land allocations in Harare. Residents say they bought stands through council-linked processes and invested their savings in building homes. The municipality says it is enforcing planning regulations against structures built without the necessary approvals or on land not designated for housing.
The full number of people displaced by demolitions across Harare in 2026 has not been independently established. However, city council records seen by Al Jazeera list more than 5,000 houses facing demolition under 37 outstanding High Court orders. These figures concern properties targeted under the wider programme, not homes already demolished. A council task force has separately inspected 22,255 sites to identify structures on prohibited or unauthorised land.
Authorities say the demolitions are intended to address illegal construction, disputed land sales and development on sites reserved for public infrastructure. Residents argue that enforcement has also affected people who say they obtained allocation letters and agreements of sale through municipal processes.
Memory Chengeta, whose house in St Martins was also demolished, said residents were bewildered by the operation because of an earlier court order.
“There was a court order for them to stop demolitions. The municipal authorities came with no court order that overturned the previous judgement, but went ahead to destroy the properties,” she said.
A former street food vendor, Chengeta had saved to build a more stable life. She is now homeless. Some affected residents have returned to renting, while others, including Chengeta and Masunga, have remained in St Martins, putting up makeshift shelters rather than leaving the area.
Joachim Nhete also lost his home after using his retirement package to buy land and build a house. He estimates his investment at more than $10,000.
The dispute has raised questions about how residents acquired their stands and whether the council complied with existing court orders.
On October 29, 2025, Justice Happias Zhou issued a consent order in case HCH5444/25, setting aside demolition notices issued to named applicants in St Martins Extension. It barred the City of Harare from evicting those applicants or demolishing their homes without a valid court order. It also prohibited further development without written council approval.
The order did not automatically protect every property in St Martins. The available information does not establish whether Masunga, Chengeta or their specific properties were among those covered.
The council has maintained that it did not demolish properties protected by the order. Its spokesperson, Stanley Gama, told local media that the municipality was targeting structures whose owners had repeatedly been warned against building illegally.
“We are only demolishing structures built illegally whose owners were told and warned many times not to proceed with construction,” Gama said.
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume told NewsDay on August 15 that residents with approved building plans should produce them during council inspections. He said the municipality had repeatedly warned residents to obtain the necessary documents but declined to comment on the legality of the specific demolitions in St Martins.
Harare’s principal housing director, Edgar Dzehonye, later said residents had been warned against building in the area because it had not been adequately serviced.
These explanations raise a separate question: whether residents who received council allocation letters and agreements of sale also had valid planning and building approvals. An allocation to occupy a stand does not necessarily establish that a house was authorised for construction. The status of the residents’ documents, the approved layout, and individual building permits are therefore central to determining whether the demolitions were justified.
Precious Shumba, director of the Harare Residents’ Trust, said the demolitions were particularly troubling because of the court order protecting residents allocated stands by the municipality.
“Despite that, the town planning department and legal officers in the Chamber Secretary’s Department issued directives to the Municipal Police to demolish the houses of St Martins Extension residents,” he said.
Zimbabwe’s Constitution, under Section 74, prohibits the eviction of people from their homes or the demolition of their homes without a court order made after considering all relevant circumstances. The National Human Settlements Policy also calls for alternative accommodation to be prepared before relocations and demolitions. Residents say they were not offered alternative housing.
The controversy reflects long-standing problems in Harare’s land administration. A 2019 commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Tendai Uchena identified unauthorised land sales, weak administration and poor record-keeping by local authorities. It found that land barons had sold state land without authority, sometimes allegedly working alongside council officials.
Shumba said the Harare Residents’ Trust wrote to the president on July 22, 2026, calling for the publication of the report of the commission of inquiry into the financial affairs of the city of Harare. The organisation also wants the findings of the Justice Maphios Cheda commission of inquiry into the city’s governance crisis implemented.
David Jenje, chairman of the St Martins Residents Association and the St Martins Housing Happiness Pay Scheme, said residents had paid for their stands years before receiving allocation letters.
He said the council’s Education, Housing and Community Services Committee resolved in 2019 to expedite the allocation and servicing of the land.
“Most of the members had paid deposits of $5,000 as far back as 2018 … Allocations were made in July 2019 after completion of payment of intrinsic land value. All the allocation letters and agreements of sale were signed in February 2020. These demolitions were illegal,” Jenje said.
ZimRights, a human rights organisation, said the demolitions raised questions about the rule of law and accountability.
Harare South MP Trymore Kanopula called for a halt to further demolitions until the land allocations had been audited and investigated. He also urged the government to present the findings of the commission of inquiry into state land sales to Parliament.
Parliament’s speaker referred the matter to the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works for action.
Minister Daniel Garwe said the government did not carry out demolitions and could not interfere with court processes. He acknowledged that the Harare City Council had approximately 5,000 demolition orders and said the government had sometimes tried to delay demolitions while seeking solutions.
For Nhete, however, official interventions offer little comfort. His house is gone, and he says he has no insurance to recover his investment.
“Unlike some who had home insurance, I didn’t have one,” he said. “I cannot recover the loss and pain. My hope is in the courts of law that Harare City Council must be held accountable and pay us back.”
IRGC says underground military complexes allow missile production to continue even under heavy bombardment.
Published On 7 Nov 20267 Nov 2026
Iran is building underground military complexes able to sustain weapons production and storage even under heavy bombardment, according to the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi made a series of announcements on Saturday about the military’s capabilities during a news conference in Tehran, Iranian media reported.
list of 3 itemsend of list
Among the achievements listed were an “underground missile city” set to be unveiled, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
Mohebbi said the IRGC had rapidly transferred its missile and drone production lines from the surface to underground facilities. This allows Iran to continue producing missiles while its adversaries assumed its stockpiles were dwindling, he explained.
The spokesperson also outlined advances in stealth technology. He maintained that such improvements had allowed Iran’s missiles and drones to pierce air defence systems and accurately strike targets during previous rounds of fighting with the United States and Israel.
“Today, every weapon used by the IRGC Aerospace Force is manufactured using homegrown knowledge and expertise. Moreover, our products are not even derived from reverse-engineering captured enemy war material,” Iran’s IRNA news agency quoted Mohebbi as saying.
A recent report by US newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, shows that Iran caused billions of dollars in damage to US bases throughout the Middle East during previous rounds of fighting.
Meanwhile, a separate report by the Reuters news agency found that Iran had successfully targeted Gulf infrastructure on at least 135 occasions during the same period, causing billions of dollars in damage and lost revenues.
Mohebbi also warned on Saturday that restrictions on the range of Iranian missiles had been lifted. The warning follows a statement from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, who said that there would be “no geographical limits” to Iran’s response if it were attacked again by the US and Israel.
The US-Israeli war on Iran was launched on February 28, prompting Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz and triggering a global energy crisis. Mediation efforts have stepped up recently, as regional countries hope to bring the war to an end.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said the US military launched limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, while also claiming Washington had made “a lot of progress” in talks with Iran.
Tehran has repeatedly warned that it will target Gulf energy infrastructure if the fighting resumes. Such attacks would likely push energy prices even higher.
Meanwhile, Washington has also imposed additional sanctions on Iran as it seeks to force Tehran to concede to its demands. The restrictions have further strained the country’s economy, forcing Iran to adopt new trade routes.
On Saturday, US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced it was establishing a new task force that will support ongoing US efforts to prevent Iran from using land routes to transport advanced weapons and other materials.
The US has also imposed a naval blockade on Iran to prevent it from exporting oil.
At Clifton’s in downtown Los Angeles, a Halloween wedding is taking place, a courtship between a woman and a demon lord. Modantus is his name, his head a skull, with brassy adornments ascending like a satellite dish. He doesn’t talk so much as click, growl and grunt as if clinging to life.
Before dinner is served, a masked man approaches people in the crowd — half in costumes, half in formalwear — in Clifton’s second-story ballroom, once a swing dancing haven. He’s in a vested suit, his mask, a sort of triangular sundial, reflecting light off of the candles at a head table.
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1. Patrons arrive to to attend “The Dark Wedding.” 2. The Clifton’s tiki bar at its Halloween event. 3. The Clifton’s facade. 4. Neil Biondich, center, backstage prior to the show with the cast getting ready for “The Dark Wedding.” 5. Cast members perform and interact withe guests.
“I’m collecting fears,” the man says, as a singer nearby performs a Gothic rendition of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun.” Nightmare creatures from the netherworld feast on the worries of mere mortals, he explains, and so he invites guests to unload some of their own.
Clifton’s, the famed institution that dates to 1935, once a Depression-era oasis designed to look like a woodsy, Northern California lodge, has quietly started operating again after years of post-pandemic fits and starts. Its new operators, Neil Biondich and Alex McCullough, are ramping up events to activate the myriad spaces inside the building, all five stories of forest-themed kitschy wonder. That means magic shows in a mystical basement, karaoke in a lavish tiki bar, and live immersive theater parties in the main room, like its Halloween weekend event “The Dark Weekend.”
And for those who miss Clifton’s as a casual hangout space, their vision also includes two restaurants, the first of which they hope can come online in early 2027.
Their dream — a grand one — is to turn the space into an immersive entertainment venue, one where a live action role playing game (LARP) is running daily. Clifton’s, with its collection of oddities, be it a taxidermied bear or a bartop meteorite, is just the sort of fantastical place, they reason, to house a never-ending “Dungeons & Dragons”-inspired game.
A painting displayed backstage shows a vintage Clifton’s.
“We’re not looking to radically change what this place looks and feels like,” says Biondich, an entrepreneur who has worked in 3D animation and directed commercials. “It should feel just like coming to Clifton’s. There just happens to be some decor that takes you deeper into an urban fantasy.”
Except, for now, maybe don’t call it Clifton’s.
Guests arrive at Clifton’s on Halloween weekend.
Here’s where the story becomes more complicated. Biondich and McCullough do not have access to the Clifton’s name. They’re attempting to rebrand the building as Sanctuary, and running all events and ticketing via Sanctuarydtla.com. If one goes to the official Clifton’s site or social media pages, it will tell you programming at the space is paused.
Prior owner Andrew Meieran recently sold the building to real estate investment firm Robhana Group. Meieran, however, retained the name Clifton’s and its intellectual property (IP). He hasn’t ruled out reviving the brand elsewhere someday.
He bought downtown’s Broadway location in 2010 and invested more than $14 million in renovating it, including building out its heavily detailed tiki bar, complete with a vintage speedboat. Meieran has been outspoken about the challenges of running a large nightlife business downtown but held onto the brand, he says, because Clifton’s is a rarity, a unique only-in-California business.
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1. Actors perform during the Clifton’s Halloween immersive event “The Dark Wedding”. 2. Nathalie Bryan as the bride during “The Dark Wedding.” 3. VIP guests in the Clifton’s dining room.
“It’s not a restaurant,” Meieran says. “It’s not a bar. It’s not a theme park. It’s sort of in between all these things. It’s hard for both an operator and a guest, in terms of appealing to everybody. It wants to be the cafeteria for the people who want the cafeteria. It wants to be an immersive nightlife destination for the people who want that. It also wants to be a tourist destination and a place for families.”
Both Biondich and Meieran are careful when speaking about the other party, and hesitant to do so on the record. The relationship, it’s safe to say, is challenged. Both want to see Clifton’s revived but have yet to come to an agreement. After initially declining to comment on the talks, Meieran later emailed a statement.
“Clifton’s has never been just a building — it’s a concept that’s endured more than ninety years of upheaval: the Depression, a world war, riots, a pandemic, and a city whose people and tastes have changed many times over,” he wrote. “We’re working with the building’s owners to put a foundation in place that allows Clifton’s to thrive for another ninety years, bringing Clifton’s special brand of magic to Broadway for generations to come.”
Cast member Nugget performs during “The Dark Wedding”
Neil Biondich, co-founder of Sanctuary DTLA and co-executive producer of the Clifton’s Halloween immersive event “The Dark Wedding.”
Biondich is, for now, moving forward with the Sanctuary name, even developing an app that will bring augmented reality monsters to the venue. He describes his vision for the LARP as something between “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Pokémon Go.”
“We’ll eventually have glasses where you can see people in neighboring dimensions,” Biondich says. “We call it a dimensional tuner. You can look at higher frequencies and see if there’s any fae spirits around, or down-tune it and see if there’s any undead spirits or demons around.” Once the game launches, those who play it will receive rewards, such as discounted food or drinks.
It’s a welcome moment for Clifton’s to reemerge. Downtown has struggled since the end of the pandemic, with many workers not returning to its plethora of office space and a significant number of business abandoning the neighborhood, jeopardizing what was once a robust community. There are some smattering signs of life right now, however. Cole’s, for instance, is set to reopen in the coming weeks, and there’ve been rumblings that the Original Pantry will also soon return.
Guests at one of the bars following the Clifton’s Halloween event “The Dark Wedding”.
“Everybody who works and lives down here loves downtown,” Biondich says, “and they’re doing everything they can to bring it back and make it a more palatable place for people to come and enjoy. I really enjoy the passion of people who live downtown. It’s infectious.”
Biondich envisions a day when the building now known as Clifton’s operates as a restaurant in the day and early evening, then “wakes up” at night with actors in monster garb in its core bar spaces. Long term, he is planning a late-2027 opening of a second, more upscale restaurant in the venue. He intends for the comedy, magic and karaoke events to continue.
Biondich wants people to speak of Sanctuary in the same way they would talk of other noteworthy immersive venues. He cites art collective-turned-experiential firm Meow Wolf as an inspiration, only Sanctuary would have a more linear narrative that would emphasize game-inspired socializing.
“Our goal is to make this an international destination,” Biondich says. “If you’re going to Los Angeles, you’re going to check out Clifton’s for Sanctuary, in a similar way one would go to a Meow Wolf.”
Guests during the Clifton’s Halloween immersive event “Dark Wedding”
But he’s also trying to walk a line, to assure longtime fans of the space, as well downtown residents, that Clifton’s will still primarily cater to them. He’s hired a chef, he says, and Clifton’s serves a limited menu — a burger, fish tacos — on days it’s open. While many of the early events, such as a “Dungeons & Dragons” social club or a “Super Smash Bros.” tournament, have courted the geek community, Biondich, a Northridge resident, says once the lower-level restaurant is open, it will honor the Clifton’s legacy.
That means that yes, there will be a Jell-O dish.
What does it mean when a Sunset Strip hotel installs a white pool table with gold balls and puts a swing set on the roof?
It means that Ian Schrager, the New York lifestyle entrepreneur who co-founded Studio 54, is again reaching west to try some new ideas.
Ian Schrager shows off the rooftop of the Public West Hollywood.
This time, his new hotel property is known as the Public West Hollywood. It opened Oct. 30, occupying the same 1962 building that was home to the Standard Hotel from 1999 to 2021.
Though rates start at about $450, Schrager said he is guided by the idea of “luxury for all.” The hotel, which also goes by PUBLIC, includes 137 guest rooms and suites and plenty of cultural and health-and-wellness programming, including Pilates, sound baths and DJs. There’s a bakery/coffee shop, a lobby bar and restaurant, a poolside scene festooned with greenery. There’s a small club called Studio with black velvet walls and six Renaissance portrait “paintings” in ornate frames. (If you watch those portraits carefully, you may see their expressions change.)
And then there’s the roof.
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1. The hotel’s rooftop pool. 2. Schrager opened the hotel’s roof up as a 14,000-square-foot park-like area. 3. A swing set on the rooftop terrace, which non-hotel guests can access with a $35 day pass.
Faced with a snug property that has already been declared a protected local cultural resource, Schrager persuaded West Hollywood officials to let him reinforce some walls and open the hotel’s roof up as a 14,000-square-foot park-like area for up to 400 guests. Surfaced with artificial turf and pebbles, it has a swing set, firepits, picnic tables, a running track, a bar, a 30-foot-wide screen for movies and panoramic views of the Hollywood Hills and city skyline. (Non-hotel guests can access the area until 5 p.m. by buying a $35 day pass.)
“Approximately 75% of the public space in the hotel is outdoors,” Schrager said. “We feel that’s just the right thing to do when you’re in Southern California. It brought another dimension to the hotel.”
Yet Schrager confessed that he’s still not exactly sure how that will work.
“We never know how people are going to use the space,” Schrager said. “We do the best we can … and then we make adjustments.”
The hotel’s lobby bar and restaurant.
There’s luminous LED lighting in public rooms.
The Public’s building, a three-story structure by Midcentury Modernist architect Herbert R. Kameon, opened as the Thunderbird Inn and featured wave-shaped balcony walls, which remain. Later it became the Hollywood Sunset Hotel, then the Golden Crest retirement home. Its profile grew when the Standard Hotel, a venture by André Balazs, opened in 1999 and raised eyebrows with its upside-down sign, a DJ booth next to the front desk, a poolside deck covered in blue artificial turf and (as shown in a 2000 episode of “Sex and the City”) a glass box in its lobby, which often contained models and actors in provocative poses. After the Standard shut down, the building fell idle for years.
Its new incarnation features design contributions from Schrager and British minimalist designer John Pawson and departs from upscale boutique hotel tradition in several ways.
The lobby floor is white, the furniture supplying pops of blue, green and red. The front desk is a trio of pink podiums (one for self-check-in, two to be staffed). The luminous LED lighting in public rooms and corridors hints at a UFO arrival and pays homage to artists James Turrell and Dan Flavin. Room service is limited because, Schrager said, the cost of delivering a soft-boiled egg to someone’s room makes no sense for anyone anymore.
“I think really what’s important is that everybody who is working at the hotel is personable, is friendly, is charming and genuinely interested in being helpful,” Schrager said. “I think that’s more important than the gold buttons, gold epaulets and all the other accoutrements.”
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1. Gold pool table balls. 2. Plants fill the restaurant.
As much as he loves coming up with design ideas, Schrager said, most are “a little bit like the special effects in a movie. They can make a good movie better, but they can’t make a bad movie good.”
In the Public Hotel’s guest rooms, almost everything is white and there are no visible TVs. Instead, each room has a bench housing an angled projector. Click your remote control and you have an 11-foot-wide image on a white wall — a sort of private screening room.
“I couldn’t bear to have a big, black ugly TV on the wall in my pristine hotel room,” Schrager said, adding that “it’s going to change the industry. Everyone’s going to do that and get rid of the television because it just makes sense.”
Schrager, 80, speaks with a thick Brooklyn accent. He won wide attention as co-owner of the New York night club Studio 54, which opened in April 1977, nearly 50 years ago. Though it lasted just under three years, that scene became an emblem of its era, but it ended poorly for Schrager. In 1980, he was convicted of tax evasion and served about a year in federal prison. In 2017 — after reinventing himself as a hotelier, achieving sustained success and expressing remorse — he was pardoned in 2017 by President Obama.
“I wanted it for my family,” Schrager told the New York Times. “It’s hard to be a good example for your kids when you did something like what I did, and you try to teach your kids to live by the rules and be an upstanding person.”
Schrager’s rise in the hotel business was steep. In 1984, he and business partner Steve Rubell opened Morgans Hotel, a pioneer in the “boutique hotel” category. Soon Schrager and Rubell expanded Morgans Hotel Group to include the Royalton and Paramount hotels in Manhattan and the redesigned Mondrian (now known as the Valorian) in Los Angeles. After selling his interest in Morgans Hotel Group, Schrager teamed with Marriott International to build that company’s Edition brand, including the Edition hotel that has been in business on Sunset in West Hollywood since 2019.
Lobby pool table, the Public West Hollywood hotel.
With the Public in WeHo, Schrager is building yet another brand, one which already includes New York’s Public Hotel (opened in 2017). Schrager’s partner in Public Hotels is Highgate Hotels, a New York-based global hotel that is handling financing and management while Schrager focuses on “branding, marketing and creating the vibe.” If all goes to plan, Schrager said, Public will soon open three more hotels in Manhattan, the first within 18 months.
But first, he needs to help introduce the Public to West Hollywood. In the run-up to opening, the New York-based Schrager said, he’s been visiting L.A. weekly for the last few months.
And since his own hotel was unfinished, where has he been sleeping?
“I hate to say this. The Four Seasons.”
Earnings Call Insights: Fabrinet (FN) Q1 fiscal 2027
CEO Seamus Grady said the quarter was “an excellent start to fiscal 2027,” highlighting “first quarter revenue that was well above our guidance range” and “record non-GAAP earnings per share of $4.34.”
Seeking Alpha’s Disclaimer: This article was automatically generated by an AI tool based on content available on the Seeking Alpha website, and has not been curated or reviewed by humans. Due to inherent limitations in using AI-based tools, the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of such articles cannot be guaranteed. This article is intended for informational purposes only. Seeking Alpha does not take account of your objectives or your financial situation and does not offer any personalized investment advice. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank.
At a new luxury yacht club, boats will be outfitted with slatted decks, hulls and portholes, but they won’t be bobbing in a marina. Instead, they will be anchored to the dusty desert floor — in Joshua Tree.
Lucky Find Hospitality, a boutique hotel development and management firm, says the company is less than a year away from breaking ground on Compass Yacht Club, a nautical themed hotel where guests will stay in yachts designed to serve as hotel rooms. These rooms — specifically, 30 two-level luxury yachts and 28 boat houses — will be arranged in a circle around a central clubhouse that will feature a restaurant, bar and swimming pool, all just a five-minute drive from the entrance to the national park.
A rendering of one of the 58 boats that guests could book during their stay.
(Compass Yacht Club)
“You fall asleep in a yacht, wake up in the desert with a view of the mountains, and you’re a few minutes from one of the most beautiful national parks in the country,” said Nick Ovanessoff, managing director of the firm. “It sounds a little crazy, and that’s exactly why we love it.”
The improbable nautical-themed resort has been a long, hard labor of love, said Lucky Find Hospitality’s CEO, Rigel Bitterman. Born in Idyllwild and raised on a sailboat in San Diego, Bitterman grew up camping and rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park. After helping to launch close to 40 boutique hotel projects around the globe, his company purchased a 23-acre parcel across the highway from Auto Camp in 2023. The team has been working ever since to clear the many geotechnical, biological and cultural hurdles that make developing anything in the high desert so challenging.
“It’s wild how long it takes to get things done out there,” Bitterman said.
A rendering of the interior of a room.
(Compass Yacht Club)
The property was already zoned for commercial use when Lucky Find Hospitality purchased it, but a section of the parcel is in a FEMA flood zone, which meant that the company had to work through the federal government as well as local municipalities to obtain permits and entitlements. Lucky Find has also prioritized environmentally friendly development processes, spending extra time to ensure that the Compass Yacht Club will use minimal water and be constructed of sustainable materials. To cause minimal impact on the environment, the yachts will be built off-site and placed on the desert floor by a massive crane.
Yet another challenge came from the local community, which has historically been hostile to new development. Bitterman has tried to play nice, hosting ongoing quarterly town hall meetings to keep locals abreast of the project and receive feedback from them, but the meetings are inevitably confrontational.
“I’m tarred and feathered every time,” he said.
One community member described the project as “gentrification at its finest” at a town hall last December. Another suggested that Lucky Find Hospitality replace the hotel’s yacht theme with something more appropriate for the desert: spaceships.
It seemed to be a popular idea.
“The whole room started chanting ‘Spaceships, spaceships,’” Bitterman said.
Each luxury yacht will be constructed of sustainable materials.
(Compass Yacht Club)
Despite the expected — and unexpected — challenges, Bitterman is confident the project will move forward. Approval on the final conditional use permit should be coming by the end of the year, which will allow portions of the property to open to the general public in addition to hotel guests. If all goes according to an already elongated schedule, the team will break ground in 2027 and Compass Yacht Club will open by the end of 2030. In the meantime, Lucky Find Hospitality together with its design partner Rad Labs, has a modular yacht hotel room design ready to go.
Over the past 10 years Lucky Find Hospitality has helped launch hotels where guests sleep in yurts, treehouses, glamping tents and Airstreams and. But Bitterman said Compass Yacht Club has been the company’s wildest, hardest and most dear to his heart projects yet.
“It’s partly my origin story, growing up on a boat and always being fascinated by boat design,” he said. “Everything we do is small and unique, but I’ve never been able to bring something to market quite like this.”
Buying a home in California requires a colossal amount of money — and coming up with a 20% cash down payment of $180,000 for a median price home is a staggering hurdle for many would-be buyers.
That down payment amount is based on the statewide median $900,000 price tag for a house, according to recent data from the California Assn. of Realtors. In Los Angeles County, the median price for a single-family home is $935,000. In Orange County, it’s $1.5 million.
Proposition 37 on the Nov. 3 ballot would allow the state to amass a $25 billion down payment assistance program for middle-class households. For perspective on the enormity of the measure before voters, one of the state’s existing down payment programs, California Dream For All, launched several years ago with $500 million, just 2% of the funding involved in Proposition 37.
The ballot measure would allow qualified prospective homebuyers to borrow up to 17% of the sales price of a new home, contributing 3% of the down payment from their own funds.
The program would not be funded by taxpayers, but instead by the interest charged to borrowers on their down payment loans, also referred to as second mortgages. The measure has garnered widespread support, including from Gov. Gavin Newsom, statewide unions and mayors from Santa Monica to San José.
“Prop. 37 is a historic opportunity to expand homeownership opportunities for generations of working families — at zero cost or risk to taxpayers,” Newsom said in a statement.
But Proposition 37 carries a significant caveat: Any home purchased through the program must be new construction, which could limit its potential reach because of the high cost of building, some critics said.
Also, the proposition does not spell out the terms or interest rates on the loans, which would be worked out if the measure is approved. And some have questioned whether there will be sufficiently robust interest from investors to buy the state-issued bonds that will be used to fund the down payment loans.
The concept of down payment assistance is not new. Cities and states, including California, have long offered such programs to low- and middle-income homeowners, either in the form of loans or grants, and there are reportedly more than 2,700 such programs across the country.
Nevada, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York all have programs to help homebuyers afford a down payment. Since 2021, New York has dispersed $70 million in down payment assistance. In Massachusetts, more than $146 million has been doled out in down payment help to homebuyers since 2020.
Under Proposition 37, down payment loans would work like any other, and would carry an interest rate and payback period — all of which would be determined by the California Housing Finance Agency.
To qualify, borrowers would need to have lived in the state for at least a year and earn no more than 200% of the local median income; in Los Angeles County, for example, that equates to a family of four earning no more than $216,200 a year.
Borrowers don’t have to be first-time homebuyers, which is often a requirement of down payment aid programs. But they would need to live in the home.
The program would restrict the price of qualifying homes, depending on the county where someone is trying to buy. A general estimate, though, is that would-be homebuyers would be limited to houses costing between $1 million and $1.5 million and the homes, more importantly, would need to be new construction.
While Proposition 37 has little opposition, and is supported by unions, chambers of commerce and organizations representing builders, the League of Women Voters opposes the ballot measure, concerned it would saddle residents with too much debt and that the terms of these loans are opaque, the details worked out only after the vote.
Only buyers of newly-built homes would be eligible for these loans. That could include existing commercial buildings that had been converted into homes, such as condos or townhomes.
This provision is uncommon as many existing down payment assistance programs don’t strictly limit the type of home someone can buy — only the sale price. Bob Hertzberg, former Senate Majority Leader and the architect of the proposal, said he wanted Proposition 37 to spur new construction.
“The problem is we have to increase supply,” Hertzberg said. The shortage of homes in the state is estimated to range anywhere from 840,000 to upwards of 3 million.
By creating more demand for new homes, he said, the hope is that builders will respond en masse.
But some groups are wary of this logic. One analysis, funded by the Proposition 37 campaign, estimated that this program could result in the building of 190,000 homes in the state, although the report’s author said it was “impossible to know” the true number given the various factors that impact housing.
Matthew Lewis, director of communications for California YIMBY, an organization that advocates making it easier and cheaper to build homes, said high prices make it clear that the demand for homes already exists and that Proposition 37 does little to address a bigger issue: the cost of building.
“In concept, [Proposition 37 is] a great idea,” Lewis said. “The thing we’re concerned about is, California is still way behind on its housing production goals, so there’s the risk of an unintended consequence of instead of having 10 people bidding on a house, now you’ve given a couple folks down payment assistance, and so there’s now 12 people bidding on the same house.”
To drive builders to construct eligible homes, the measure would allow them to opt into a “qualified builder” option. As long as they adhere to price caps, agree to certain labor requirements and fix repairs that arise, they’re protected from lawsuits from buyers concerning defects 10 years after construction of the home.
Homebuilders say even given some relief from litigation, they aren’t sure Proposition 37 would push construction into overdrive.
“There are so many more things the state, city and county could do to help add more supply [of homes],” said Paul Schon, a developer who builds apartments in L.A. County. He said tackling permitting times and red tape involved in building would have a greater impact. “This is minor,” he said.
Many down payment assistance programs offer interest-free loans to homebuyers, including an existing program run by CalHFA.
But in order to be self-funding, the fixed-rate loans offered through Proposition 37 would carry interest. If passed, the state would issue revenue bonds, selling them to investors and using that money to issue loans to homebuyers. The investors are repaid with the interest paid on the loans.
According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, CalHFA would decide the total amount of bonds to issue and over what period of time.
Revenue bonds are generally viewed as riskier than other types of government bonds, in part because they’re backed by the promise of revenue from a specific project — in this case, payment by individual borrowers. That means interest rates on these loans could be higher than borrowers might like or be able to afford.
Hertzberg said he’s talked to investors who may be willing to buy these bonds at cheaper rates, given the crushing issue the funding is trying to solve. This would keep interest rates down for borrowers. He said he’s appealing to foundations and socially-minded tech leaders.
One of the biggest financial backers of the measure is the political nonprofit Building a Better California, which has been fighting the billionaire’s tax with help from wealthy donors, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin.
Hertzberg, for his part, refused to name any organization or person who may be interested in buying the bonds that would fund this program.
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.
The Hotel Clark has been throwing its stately shadow across Hill Street since 1914, first as a fancy lodging in the formative years of downtown Los Angeles, then as a last-resort residential hotel for the aged and desperate, then as a vast, lifeless structure between Grand Central Market and Pershing Square (now Biddy Mason Park). The 11-story hotel hadn’t seen a paying guest for more than 30 years.
That is, until now.
Last month, downtown historian Nathan Marsak was at Angels Flight when, as he recalls, “A guy comes up and says, ‘You like the Clark? I just had drinks there.’ And he slaps his receipt down. And I lost my damn mind.”
The lobby inside Hotel Clark.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Marsak, who admits to “a fetish for old, lost Los Angeles,” once called the Beaux-Arts hotel a “great gray monument to grinding attrition.” Since the 1990s, Marsak has kept watch on the Clark, often labeled a “zombie building” because of its long idleness. Marsak included it in his 2002 book “Los Angeles Neon,” and has looked down upon it from his part-time gig taking tickets atop the Angels Flight Railway on Bunker Hill.
In the downtown community, there had been rumors of a reopening over the years, but that seemed less likely as time went on. Kim Cooper, a close observer of downtown politics and co-owner of Esotouric tours, said that after a while, it seemed that the hotel’s owner, the Chetrit Group, “just locked the door.”
To see that structure “so dilapidated and dirty and covered in bird droppings and decades of grime, it broke my heart,” Marsak said. Still, “as long as they didn’t tear it down, there was always hope.”
When he and relatives bought the hotel 27 years ago, owner Michel Attias of the Chetrit Group said people assumed they would flip the building.
“I guess they know by now that’s not the case,” he said. “Many of those people have left town by now.”
Michel Attias at the Hotel Clark.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Attias stood in the hotel lobby, whose design leans toward gray, black, white, earth tones and chrome. Guest rooms include zebra-print wallpaper and faux alligator-skin panels.
“We wanted chic modern but also comfortable and warm,” said Attias, noting that new artworks and rugs are still arriving. A “luxury sports bar” is due to open by Super Bowl Sunday. As of Oct. 21, general manager Adrienne Craig said, about 120 of its guest rooms were ready to rent, with others soon to follow. Rates start at about $200 nightly.
There have been at least three near-openings during his firm’s ownership, Attias acknowledged. But now, he said, it’s the right moment.
“We have a lot coming,” he said. “We have the Olympics. Downtown is starting to move again. I’m very, very confident that downtown is going to get back on its feet.”
Members of the Chetrit family, based in New York, hold extensive real estate through multiple companies, some of which have suffered legal and financial troubles in the last two years. In Los Angeles, the Chetrit Group also owns the long-idle Trinity Auditorium, also known as the Embassy Auditorium and Embassy Hotel. Also a 1914 Beaux-Arts building, it includes about 180 guest rooms along with an 1,800-seat performance space. Attias said he hopes to open the Trinity Auditorium before the Olympics.
“We’re not done,” Attias said.
Added Craig: “Hotel Clark is amazing. Trinity is out of this world.”
Vintage postcards and photographs are from the collection of historian Nathan Marsak.
(Courtesy of Nathan Marsak)
Look closely at the Clark, including the rooftop neon and the old fire escapes with the initials “CH” in ironwork (for Clark Hotel), and you may catch hints of its tangled history, from early opulence to urban decay, international intrigue and municipal dysfunction.
Eli P. Clark made big money as a railway pioneer in Los Angeles and beyond. But by 1914 he had moved on to other investments. He built the Clark Hotel with 555 rooms, each with a private bath (a notable luxury at the time) and a bold sign outside proclaiming its “absolutely fireproof” construction.
The building’s rooftop neon signage was apparently added a few decades later, along with the rounded letters that spell the hotel’s name and run vertically down one corner of the building. Dozens of vintage photos of the Clark’s ballrooms, restaurants, ashtrays, room keys, menus, postcards, matchbooks, coat hangers and candleholders are visible at BunkerHillLos Angeles.com, having been gathered by Marsak.
A mosaic by the pool inside Hotel Clark.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
But somewhere in the middle decades of the 20th century, as investors began to look away from downtown, the Clark hit the skids. In a 1975 classified ad in the L.A. Times, the Clark offered rooms at $75-$95 monthly, including “special waterbed suites.”
By the 1980s, the Clark had become a residence of last resort, housing many seniors and others on limited incomes. The nearby Rosslyn (built in 1914, now a mix of low-income and market-rate apartments) and Hotel Cecil (built 1924, now low-income and supportive housing) followed similar paths.
The pool inside Hotel Clark.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
By 1989, the Clark had been acquired by May Wah International Enterprises, which was rooted in China and associated with the Chinese government, Attias said. May Wah vowed to revamp the building with a “friendship store” to market Chinese imports and hotel above that might rival the Biltmore. But first May Wah wanted the old tenants out. Twenty of them filed suit against May Wah, saying they were subjected to spells without heat or water, and won a $1.7-million settlement. But by 1992, May Wah had succeeded in evicting the last two tenants.
By 1999, when May Wah sold it to the Chetrit family, the building was empty, its historic interiors rearranged in anticipation of the Chinese hotel that never opened. (During this period, Attias said, the building’s guest-room count changed from 555 to 348.) As Attias tells the story, the hotel was close to opening in 2008 when that year’s financial crisis hit. It came close again in 2013-14, when the Chetrit family invested in another renovation but ran into opposition from the hospitality workers union Unite Here Local 11 and L.A. City Councilman José Huizar.
“José Huizar,” said Attias dryly. “We know where he is now.” (Huizar, who served on the city council until 2020, pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 2023 and was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison.)
Though the hotel’s owners eventually got the city permissions they needed, Attias said, a partnership with other hoteliers dissolved and the Clark went to the back burner again, as did the Embassy Auditorium. Another near-opening followed in 2019.
Attias said the family decided in 2025 to finally open the Clark, later retaining OTH Hotels Resorts to manage it.
And now, said Attias, “we’re here.”
In mid-September, the Clark had begun a quiet, soft reopening. Now configured with 348 guest rooms, it includes a Mediterranean restaurant called Votana; a cocktail lounge; a 17-by-29-foot courtyard pool, poolside bar and (in homage to Chetrit family history) a pair of Moroccan tile fountains.
In addition, a ballroom with space for 600 is due to be completed soon. Craig estimated that the business, a nonunion shop, employs about 100 people now and will likely reach 200 workers in coming months.
A guest room inside Hotel Clark.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
This rebirth may not comfort those seeking more affordable housing downtown, but for anyone eager to see more legal commerce on Hill Street or more hotel rooms in the run-up to the 2028 Games, it’s progress. This boost in room supply may also encourage travelers who have seen downtown hotel rates jump by more than 10% in the last year. Analytics company CoStar reports that downtown hotels averaged $200-$210 per night from June through September.
“There’s nowhere to go but up,” Craig said. “The possibilities here are endless.”
A few weeks ago, Craig’s team gave Marsak a tour of building (and bought a batch of Angels Flight tickets to distribute among guests. The historian declared himself mostly delighted.
“Having the Clark open, facing Hill Street — which can get rough — is so brave of them,” said Marsak. “I can’t applaud it enough.”
As for the inside and that zebra-print wallpaper, it’s “not what I would have done,” he said. “I believe that Beaux-Arts buildings should be Beaux-Arts inside and out. But you can’t have everything.”
Apex Group’s Peter Hughes on AI hype, tokenization, private credit and what Jeff Bezos got wrong.
Peter Hughes founded Apex Group Ltd. in Bermuda in 2003. Today, it manages more than $3.5 trillion in assets across 52 countries, with 100-plus offices, 13,000 employees, and 90 regulatory licenses—growth built on more than 50 acquisitions over eight years and a bet Hughes made roughly five years ago that traditional finance and decentralized finance, or DeFi, were headed for convergence, not collision.
In this conversation with Global Finance, Hughes—who spent time at KPMG and Hemisphere Management before founding Apex—traces that bet from BlackRock Inc.’s decision to add bitcoin to its balance sheet to Apex’s enabling the development of the compliance-focused Layer 2 blockchain initiative, T-Rex. He pushes back on Jeff Bezos’s prediction of an artificial intelligence-driven labor shortage, defends private credit against claims that it’s a broken asset class, and argues that traditional exchanges and crypto-native platforms are racing toward the same end state.
Global Finance: Was there a critical moment or aha moment that sparked a major change in your firm?
Peter Hughes: Absolutely. Bridging traditional finance and DeFi has been my focus for five years. Before that, we serviced crypto funds investing in bitcoin, working strictly with regulated partners to manage risk. I wasn’t sure if crypto would go mainstream, but seeing BlackRock put bitcoin on its balance sheet five years ago proved it was here to stay. That was the turning point.
We later ran a project with a client, lowering a fund’s subscription minimum in Luxembourg from 1 million Swiss francs to 1,000 so more people could access it. That was great, but our real value proposition lay in our scale—we operate across 50 countries under 35 regulators.
So you take something that’s high risk, like crypto, and then you say, “Well, actually, if it’s regulated and you’ve got clean AML around it, it’s a digital asset, and then it becomes accessible for everyone.” From there, I focused on building the distribution rails. We are now approved in 20 jurisdictions for on-chain transfer agency, enabling seamless settlement of digital securities. Our target by next year is a platform giving funds access to 50 new distribution channels across wealth, retirement, retail, and crypto-native channels. As tokenized money market funds transition to a 24/7/365 operational model, the broader asset world will inevitably follow. Building these locked-in distribution rails today ensures a highly valuable position for the future.
GF: Has blockchain changed the way your business operates, and do you see it likely becoming more integral in the future?
Hughes: Blockchain is the end state for how everything ends up; crypto is just a small piece of what we service. We focus on the regulated side—digital assets backed by clean AML.
My view is that everything will move on-chain, creating cheaper fund structures and frictionless finance. But that only works in a regulated environment. We favor public, permissioned chains because you know where the money is coming from, where it’s going, and that it’s clean. We supported the launch of the Layer 2 compliance initiative, T-Rex, which is operated by an independent foundation, to validate that every transaction moving across chains is fully verified.
I’m looking toward a world where custody, administration, transfer agency, and distribution all sit on-chain and interlink seamlessly—yielding faster speeds, higher volumes, and lower costs. So we’re all-in on blockchain. Crypto is part of it, but the core focus is digital assets: regulated securities that trade 24/7/365 like crypto, but with the institutional guardrails built in.
GF: Do you expect any relaxation for crypto in China?
Hughes: It’s difficult to tell, but stablecoins will eventually replace fiat on corporate balance sheets because they function as both payment tools and yield-bearing instruments. Their growth is currently limited by regulation—like MiCA in Europe and the Genius Act and Clarity Act in the US—designed to protect traditional bank deposits. But tokenized money market funds already offer the same yield without the payment functionality. It’s only a matter of time before yield- bearing stablecoins gain widespread adoption.
GF: Will Apex pursue any more acquisitions in the near future?
Hughes: We don’t need any new acquisitions. I bought 50 businesses over an eight-year period, each designed to add a new technology, open a new geography, or add a new product set. Every one is handpicked to complement what’s already there, so you can cross-sell both ways. People look at that from the out- side and say we just buy businesses—but for the last three years, it’s really been distribution businesses and technology businesses, aimed at building the technology rails to be the distribution leg for asset managers globally. That’s the direction I’ve always been moving in not just being good infrastructure and doing a good job for clients like other asset servicers but layering in and distributing their products to help them get bigger. That’s when you go from being a vendor to a real partner—when you’re shifting their P&L upwards. In September, I announced we’ve brought in a head of product from Revolut, because I want us building products and releasing them in eight-week sprints. If you’re not moving that fast in a tech evolution like this, you get left behind. So now it’s about building the technology of the future ourselves, rather than buying it in. We’re already servicing tokenized money market funds that run 24/7/365, fully on our own tech stack—and we want to keep enhancing that.
GF: Will there be fewer workers in the future due to AI or tech innovation?
Hughes: I hosted a conference for our clients in London and told them people are running an AI race that ends in a trap—you embed AI across everything, decide you don’t need people any- more, and suddenly your AI costs go up tenfold. That kills businesses. I’m not rushing into that trap. I’m adding AI thoughtfully, so data flows seamlessly end to end instead of being pushed and pulled by people, and I’m using it to build incremental products that add value for clients. I don’t think we’ll have fewer people, and I don’t think our salary costs go down—I think the same people will service more revenue. What it does change is who we hire. Instead of people doing manual work in Excel, we can bring in people who add real thought leadership, PhDs who help us think about how to value funds for the future. It doesn’t get cheaper for us. We just get better talent.
GF: Jeff Bezos insists AI will cause a labor shortage.
Hughes: I don’t see how it leads to a shortage. In places like India, where 18 million people enter the workforce every month, it’s exactly those keying-into-dashboards, keying-into-keyboards jobs that a lot of that workforce would traditionally have done—and a lot of people there see AI as a real threat because of it. So no, I don’t agree. When the manual layer goes, even my son—he’s at university in the UK—asks me, well, what job is he going to do when he leaves? He’s not going to start as an accountant, not going to start as a lawyer, because the bottom rungs of the ladder are being taken out. Firms are only hiring the top 10% into those entry positions now, whether that’s investment banking or what- ever else. So I don’t see it. Bezos is obviously very successful, but I don’t see how he’s right on this.
GF: What’s your view of the turbulent private credit space?
Hughes: The turbulence comes from growth—the volume of investor capital coming in but coming into a format that doesn’t work: a mismatch in liquidity. If you want to get out, you can’t, and that’s a structuring problem, not a problem with underly- ing returns. I still think private credit is a great asset class—10% annualized returns with low volatility. The friction came from structuring it into interval funds, which isn’t the right structure for private credit. When people raised concerns, the response was “wait for the next valuation, in four months you’ll see there’s no problem”—but the technology exists for weekly or daily valuation. If that information had come through faster, people wouldn’t have panicked. Instead, redemptions piled up and it became a vicious circle. The asset class itself is as strong as it always was—it was the structure, and the slow information flow, that caused the problem. And there’s no real slow down here: Revolut recently announced that Ares and Apollo are making their private credit funds available on the platform, with a €1 minimum investment. That’s not just a headline—it shows both the confi- dence in the asset class and what’s now possible in terms of democratizing it.
GF: Can we say that there is also an element of democratization of finance in what you do?
Hughes: That’s been a theme for the last three or four years — democratization, giving more access. But I think the way access happens will get more appropriate and more sophisticated going forward. People talk about interval funds in the U.S. as democratizing private markets, but for me that’s the wrong structure — it’s exactly why you saw noise around private credit funds: they were structured for retail, but there was a mismatch in liquidity. I think democratization gets broader and more sophisticated from here. It started with high-net-worth and wealth; as regulators get more comfortable, it’ll extend into wealth, retirement and retail. Think about why a private equity fund is high risk: it’s illiquid, you’re locked in for seven to ten years, it has a big ticket size, and it’s valued infrequently. Take away those three barriers and it trades like a normal equity, with a normal equity’s risk profile — which means it should be accessible to retail. Regulators are starting to understand that, though it’ll take time.
Anthony Noto covers corporate finance and private credit. Contact him at anoto@gfmag.com
Some find success sweet but fleeting, others spend years building to the pinnacle, and then there are those whose lasting glory evolves into a dynasty.
After tearing Manchester City apart in large spells of their 4-2 Champions League victory on Wednesday, Paris St-Germain look well on track to join the latter bracket.
The back-to-back European champions sliced through City with astonishing ease to take a 3-0 lead into half-time, and were still able to score another despite a spirited second-half fightback from the Premier League leaders.
After obliterating Inter Milan 5-0 in the 2025 final before squeezing past Arsenal on penalties in last season’s showpiece game, Luis Enrique’s side are aiming to win a third consecutive European crown.
They would be the fifth team to do so going back to 1956, and just the second in the Champions League era.
“This PSG team are on a different level,” Chris Sutton told BBC Radio 5 Live at half-time.
“They have just run all over Manchester City, who haven’t been able to string passes together. It’s been an absolute pummelling for Man City.”
To mark PSG’s latest display of attacking excellence, we’re looking at how the Parisians compare to those clubs who have enjoyed the most dominant eras in European competition.
Some will point out that football existed before the European Champion Clubs’ Cup began in 1955 – so apologies to Stan Cullis’ ‘world-champion’ Wolves outfit and the Mitropa Cup’s early Vienna heavyweights.
However, this top 10 debate is centred around winning European football’s grandest prize.
Paris St-Germain 2025-present
OK, straight in with the current champions, because this is a dynasty in the making.
Paris St-Germain are hoping to enter that bracket and the 4-2 win against Manchester City on Wednesday reminded the rest of Europe why you shouldn’t bet against them becoming continental champions for a third successive season.
PSG had a lacklustre start to the domestic season – they always do, don’t they? – but boast an uncanny ability to click into gear when it matters.
In Manchester, Luis Enrique’s side were at their unstoppable best. A ruthless blend of silky flicks and slick off-the-ball movement that saw a dazed City caught several frames behind.
“Unbelievable. PSG, what a team,” Sutton said.
“PSG’s press, I don’t think there’s another team that press with their intensity and ferocity.
“This [City] is one of the best teams in the Premier League getting an absolutely roasting. This is them [PSG] having a slow start to the season. Heaven help everyone.”
The Parisians have been France’s most dominant force since the arrival of Qatar Sports Investments 15 years ago, but it took a change of approach for the holy grail of continental success to arrive.
“It’s the end of the glitter,” professed president Nasser Al-Khelaifi after years of lavish spending, ushering out the “flashy, bling-bling” era.
Instead, Enrique arrived in 2023 intent on building a coherent team. There was still significant investment, but on younger players who could be moulded by his philosophy and discipline while given room to flourish.
The result was two scintillating Champions League triumphs.