Inverness Graham exits HR software provider Swipeclock 

Philadelphia-based buyout firm Inverness Graham has sold Swipeclock, a US cloud-based HR management software solutions provider, to IRIS Software Group.

Inverness Graham established the Utah-based Swipeclock platform in 2017, according to a statement on Monday. The firm said that it had “transformed the business into a leading, fully integrated human resource management solutions provider, focused on helping small and medium sized businesses onboard and manage their workforces”.

Trey Sykes, Managing Principal of Inverness Graham, said that the firm’s involvement “drove substantial value creation and resulted in robust top and bottom-line growth, doubling revenue and tripling EBITDA”.

Piper Sandler and Paul Hastings advised Swipeclock.

Gold rally leaves wealth managers wondering if price is still right

Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin vowed last week to work together against what they called the “destructive and hostile” US. And few commodities have been as affected by their policies as gold.

Just days later, on Monday this week, the precious metal’s price soared to a record high of $2,450 per troy ounce — taking its gains to 25 per cent since October 5, just before conflict erupted in the Middle East. It is a rally that has been underpinned by the fracturing of the global monetary system, as nations like Russia and China seek to loosen their dependence on the US dollar.

With the safe haven asset trading at this all-time high, however, Chris Forgan, multi-asset portfolio manager at Fidelity, says: “the million dollar question, as an investor, is: is it still warranted?”

One of the puzzling elements when assessing gold’s recent rally is its disconnect from two usually closely-linked variables: the US dollar and the inflation-adjusted yields on US Treasuries.

“The jaws have opened up” between them, says Forgan, who has reduced the allocation to gold in his portfolio from 6 to 3 per cent, to take profits from the recent price surge.

A big factor behind this disconnect is that central banks have been boosting the bullion holdings in their reserves at an unprecedented rate since the start of 2022, to increase their resilience against western sanctions that could weaponise the primacy of the US dollar in global trade.

$600bnRussian US dollar reserves frozen by Washington after Russia invaded Ukraine

Official institutions led by China made their largest ever early-year gold purchases — buying 290 tonnes of the metal in the first three months, according to the World Gold Council, an industry group. The west’s move to freeze about half of Russia’s $600bn reserves, which are denominated in US dollars and euros, in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was the main catalyst for the buying spree.

Added to that has been a pivot to buying gold by Chinese consumers, as the real estate market and local equity markets disappoint, and concerns persist over stubborn inflation and high levels of global debt. All of this has pushed the precious metal’s price higher.

Even as expectations of US interest rate cuts were wound back in recent months, gold continued to roar higher.

John Reade, chief market strategist at the WGC, says this indicates that the reasons people are buying

Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: Macy’s, Lowe’s, Peloton, Zoom Video and more

Tom Hayes to ask Supreme Court to consider Libor rigging appeal

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Ranked: The Top Startup Cities Around the World

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May 21, 2024 Graphics/Design:

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The Top Startup Cities Around the World

This was originally posted on our Voronoi app. Download the app for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

A richly connected network of founders, venture capital firms, and tech talent are some of the key ingredients driving a startup ecosystem.

As engines of growth, these tech clusters are evolving on a global scale. While the world’s leading startup cities are concentrated in America, several ecosystems, such as Beijing and Seoul, are growing in prominence as countries focus on technological advancement to spur innovation.

This graphic shows the best startup cities worldwide, based on data from Pitchbook.

The Global Startup Ecosystem Rankings

To determine the rankings, each city was analyzed based on the scale and maturity of their startup ecosystem over a six-year period ending in the second quarter of 2023.

Among the inputs analyzed and used to calculate the overall development score were fundraising activity, venture capital deals, and exit value:

RankCityDevelopment ScoreCapital RaisedDeal CountExit Value 1🇺🇸 San Francisco90$427.6B19,898$766.3B 2🇺🇸 New York76$179.9B13,594$171.7B 3🇨🇳 Beijing76$161.2B8,835$279.2B 4🇨🇳 Shanghai73$130.3B7,422$186.8B 5🇺🇸 Los Angeles71$144.6B9,781$181.4B 6🇺🇸 Boston70$117.0B6,044$172.8B 7🇬🇧 London64$99.0B11,533$71.9B 8🇨🇳 Shenzhen63$46.4B5,020$66.3B 9🇰🇷 Seoul61$31.1B6,196$71.0B 10🇯🇵 Tokyo60$26.2B5,590$28.0B 11🇨🇳 Hangzhou59$50.7B3,361$88.7B 12🇺🇸 Washington D.C.55$43.7B2,706$28.2B 13🇺🇸 Seattle54$31.7B2,693$35.6B 14🇸🇬 Singapore52$45.7B4,507$38.0B 15🇺🇸 San Diego52$33.5B2,023$44.7B 16🇺🇸 Austin52$26.4B2,636$22.9B 17🇨🇳 Guangzhou52$24.7B1,700$24.0B 18🇮🇱 Tel Aviv51$21.0B1,936$32.2B 19🇺🇸 Denver51$26.8B2,489$29.9B 20🇩🇪 Berlin50$31.2B2,469$15.9B

San Francisco dominates the pack, with $427.6 billion in capital raised over the six-year period.

Despite a challenging funding environment, nearly 20,000 deals closed, highlighting its outsized role in launching tech startups. Both OpenAI and rival Anthropic are headquartered in the city, thanks to its broad pool of tech talent and venture capital firms. Overall, 11,812 startups were based in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2023, equal to about 20% of startups in America.

Falling next in line is New York City, which raised $179.9 billion over the same time period. Crypto firm Gemini and machine learning company, Hugging

Family offices become prime targets for cyber hacks and ransomware

Family offices, which manage significant amounts of money for wealthy families, often with small staffs, have become lucrative targets for hackers. But a growing fear of cyberattacks has not translated into better defenses. A recent survey shows less than a third of family offices say their cyber risk management processes are well-developed. A computer with a “system hacked” alert due to a cyber attack on a computer network. Teera Konakan | Moment | Getty Images

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high net worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

Family offices are under increasing attack from cybercriminals, and many don’t have the staff or technology to prepare, according to a new survey.

More than three quarters, 79%, of North American family offices say the likelihood of a cyberattack “has increased dramatically in the past few years,” according to a survey of single-family offices by Dentons, a global law firm. A quarter of family offices surveyed reported suffering a cyberattack in 2023, up from 17% in 2020. Half say they know another family office that suffered a cyberattack, according to the survey.

With their large wealth and small staffs, family offices have become lucrative targets for hackers and cybercriminals, experts say.

“It’s the Willie Sutton effect,” said Edward Marshall, global head of family office and high net worth at Dentons, referring to the famous bank robber who targeted banks “because that’s where the money is.”

Marshall said family offices often have minimal staff with access to highly sensitive information about a wealthy family’s finances and private companies. Since family offices value efficiency and speed over risk management, he said, today’s family offices often don’t have adequate technology and planning in place for possible cyberattacks.

“Family offices often have a bias toward efficient service versus security,” he said.

Using in-house security teams can be expensive for family offices, he added, while using third-party vendors and suppliers also creates risks from “sophisticated criminals and bad actors.”

The growing fears of cyberattacks, however, have not yet translated into better defenses. Less than a third of family offices say their cyber risk management processes are well-developed, according to the survey. Just 29% say their staff and cyber-training programs are “sufficient,” and

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Is The Yield Curve Still Relevant? An Economist Clarifies

When the US Treasury yield curve inverts (short rates rise above long rates) the shift is widely viewed as a reliable forecast that a recession is near. But this time has been different, or so it seems. The curve has been inverted since July 2022, the longest inversion on record, but a recession has yet to arrive.

Is the yield curve no longer relevant for business-cycle analysis? Or is this widely-followed signal just slow this time? Actually, it’s neither, explains Robert Dieli, an economist at NoSpinForecast.com, a business-cycle consultancy.

In a series of email exchanges with CapitalSpectator.com, Dieli outlines his views on the yield curve, of which he is a veteran analyst on behalf of his clients. “The last four recessions started after the yield curve inversion was resolved,” he advises. “The signal is not when the curve inverts.  The signal is when the curve goes back to its normal shape.”

In the following Q&A, Dieli shares additional thoughts (and charts) on the art/science of interpreting the yield curve for business-cycle analysis.

Q: What set of Treasury yield maturities do you prefer for monitoring the curve?

A: My criterion for whether we have an inverted yield curve is the yield on the 10-Year Treasury Note minus the current level of the Federal Funds Rate. In both cases I use the monthly average of each metric. I use the Fed Funds rate because the FOMC has complete control over its level and trend, which means that the duration and severity of a yield curve inversion are largely at their discretion. I use the 10-Year Note both because it has the longest continuous issuance history of the long-maturity securities (both the 20-Year and 30-Year Bonds have had gaps in issuance) and because it is currently the flagship rate in the bond market.

What is the track record for recession warnings for the yield curve when it normalizes after a period of inversion?

This chart shows the record of yield curve inversions going back to 1955. As you can see, we did not have inversions under my criterion, until the mid-1960s. The next two charts address the question you just posed.

During the period between 1955 and 1987 the curve inversions persisted into the recession periods. Note also that we had a period that I have marked as the “soft landing” where we had an inversion of the curve that was

Mining industry sceptical of EU joint purchasing plan for critical minerals

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Lazard AM expands UCITS range with ‘AI-enhanced’ US small-cap equity fund

The fund is designed to capture independent inefficiencies across the US small-cap market by systematically combining multiple idiosyncratic alpha sources through an “AI-enhanced” investment process, the fund house explained. Managed by the US systematic equity team led by portfolio manager Oren Shiran, the UCITS fund will provide access to the Lazard US Systematic Small Cap Equity strategy, which has provided annualised net returns of 10.9% since its launch in 2015, the firm said. Lazard AM co-head of ESG Nikita Singhal exits The San Francisco-based team uses a proprietary quantit…