Stories

The strange case of the ‘$100m deli’ and the elite colleges that own a slice

A tiny sandwich shop in New Jersey backed by a hedge fund in Hong Kong is at the center of one of the strangest episodes in America’s crazed stockmarkets.

The generational feud that rocked Apollo

Private equity billionaire Marc Rowan and his protégé Imran Siddiqui invented one of the slickest money-making machines in financial history. Then they fell out.

The many lives of Leon Black

Long before an outcry over his financial ties to Jeffrey Epstein prompted Black to quit his Wall Street firm, the billionaire’s triumphant career was punctuated by near-misses and tragedy.

Inside the secretive $500bn investment firm that helped the Kushners at 666 Fifth Avenue

Brookfield is a name that towers over the global investment industry. Yet what exactly it is, and how it operates, is maddeningly difficult to ascertain.

The leveraging of America: how companies became addicted to debt

Junk bonds and “efficient balance sheets” made sickly cases of companies like rental chain Hertz, which entered the pandemic owing $12,400 for every $10,000 car.

Tom Barrack saved Michael Jackson’s finances; his investors say they need a rescue too

A dealmaker like no other, Barrack is a fixer for Middle Eastern royalty and a close ally of Donald Trump. Yet data seen by the FT show the performance of his Colony Capital has been, at best, mixed.

One house tells the story of America’s brutal economic recovery

418 Homeplace Drive was one family’s dream. It is also a microcosm of the recklessness behind the financial crisis, and the fragile stability that followed.

A suspect in the US college bribery scandal had a plan to save capitalism

Bill McGlashan had tried everything from dotcom startups to selling cholesterol pills. On Richard Branson’s private island, he reinvented himself as a social visionary.

The man who has to handle Elon Musk

When Tesla’s founder considered taking the carmaker private, its lead independent director was an investor who has made millions of dollars from a decades-long association with the volatile billionaire.

How the biggest private equity firms became the new banks

Blackstone, Apollo and KKR run more money in their lending arms than in their buyout funds, becoming principal bankers to a large tract of corporate America.

Peter Williams of Jack Wills on the joy he gets from ploughing

The founder of the clothing label taught me how to drive a tractor in a straight line – and explained how brands create obsessions.

Kwame Anthony Appiah on race, nationalism and identity

The celebrated philosopher told me why the election of Donald Trump never dented his hopes for a more liberal America.

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