Bad banker
JPM in spotlight with Qualtrics losses, M&A jitters and wild story that won’t die.
Good morning.
JPMorgan had a busy 24-hour news cycle. The bank launched a private markets index tracking 6,400 companies, its M&A chief called April “challenging” and Bloomberg reported a JPMorgan-led syndicate is staring down USD500 million ($691 million) in paper losses on a debt deal for software firm Qualtrics.
But the most-read story on the WSJ site remains the one about the ex-banker who accused a female colleague of making him her office s** slave, and apparently turned down USD1 million from the bank to keep quiet before demanding USD11.75 million and going public. Despite JPMorgan’s denials and mounting scepticism about his claims, the banker refiled his lawsuit earlier this week.
The latest twist, courtesy of the New York Post is that the Manhattan DA investigated the claims last year, reportedly found nothing, and referred the 35-year-old for mental health treatment instead.
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Shares in Infratil, the ASX-listed infrastructure investor that part-owns data centre operator CDC, surged 15% on Wednesday after CDC signed what it called the largest data centre contract in Australian history: a 555 megawatt, 30-year deal with a US customer equivalent to 40% of the country’s total existing capacity.
