Do Kwon
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, whose cryptocurrency ecosystem collapsed in a $40 billion wipeout in May, told The Wall Street Journal that he lost almost all his net worth in the crash.
“This doesn’t bother me,” he said in the interview. “I live a fairly frugal life.”
Mr Kwon told the newspaper he was probably a billionaire when the Luna token that Terraform Labs backed was trading near $100. That coin is now trading at close to zero.
Investigators in South Korea and the US are now looking into the circumstances around the unravelling of TerraUSD, the stablecoin Mr Kwon championed that crumbled from its dollar peg last month.
The event wiped out the savings of thousands of investors globally and set off a wider implosion in cryptocurrencies.
South Korea this week barred some current and former Terraform Labs employees from leaving the country, as prosecutors step up their investigation into TerraUSD. Prosecutors are also looking to invalidate Mr Kwon’s South Korean passport, according to local media.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission is also investigating whether the marketing of TerraUSD before it crashed breached federal investor protection regulations. Terraform Labs told The Wall Street Journal it would not comment on any active investigations.
In an attempted comeback, Mr Kwon unveiled a new Luna coin last month that was distributed for free to holders of the original token. The new one, called Luna 2.0, has slumped to $1.97, from a high of $18.87, according to CoinGecko.
Sam Bankman-Fried
Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency billionaire who co-founded digital-asset exchange FTX Trading, is providing credit lines to try to stem contagions for his beleaguered industry.
Cryptocurrency lending platform BlockFi, which had been raising funds at a reduced valuation, said that it secured a $250 million revolving line of credit from FTX.
Last week, cryptocurrency exchange Voyager Digital, whose shares are down 90 per cent this year on the Toronto Stock Exchange, received a $200m credit line — a mix of cash and USDC stablecoins — as well as a separate, 15,000-Bitcoin revolving credit line from Alameda Research, Mr Bankman-Fried’s trading company.
A wave of liquidation has triggered fear of contagion risks in the cryptocurrency industry, after a broad-based sell-off in digital assets and the spectacular collapse of the TerraUSD and Luna tokens.
Major lenders Celsius and Babel Finance have frozen withdrawals while cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital is facing liquidity troubles.
“Sam Bankman-Fried is the new John Pierpont Morgan — he is bailing out cryptocurrency markets the way the original JP Morgan did after the crisis of 1907,” Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, said, referring to that year’s banking panic, which led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
Mr Scaramucci said he had invested alongside Mr Bankman-Fried, who has a net worth of $8.96bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, in several cryptocurrency ventures.
An FTX representative, when asked for comment about the credit lines, referred to a Twitter thread from Mr Bankman-Fried.
“We take our duty seriously to protect the digital asset ecosystem and its customers,” he wrote on Twitter.
In a recent interview with NPR, Mr Bankman-Fried, 30, said he has a responsibility to consider stepping in, “even if it is at a loss to ourselves”, to stem contagions and help the industry thrive.
“This past weekend was critical in terms of finding white knights who could help develop a bid to stabilise this market,” Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer at asset management company Arca, wrote in a note last week.
Major cryptocurrency players have a history of bailing out key troubled companies.
Last year, FTX provided $120m debt financing for Liquid Group after hackers stole from the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange. FTX later acquired Liquid.
In April, Binance led a $150m round for the creator of popular game Axie Infinity to help restore user funds affected by a hack.
Mukesh Ambani
India’s market regulator imposed a combined penalty of 3m Indian rupees ($38,444) on Reliance Industries and two company officials for failing to promptly disclose information about the sale of a stake in one of its units to Meta Platforms, Silver Lake Partners and Vista Equity Partners in 2020.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) initiated proceedings against billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s oil-to-retail conglomerate, as well as its compliance officers, Savithri Parekh and K Sethuraman, for alleged non-adherence to the fair disclosure principles around unpublished price-sensitive information, it said in an order on its website last week.
A Reliance Industries representative declined to comment on the regulatory action.
The penalty, although small, marks another instance of regulatory censure on the conglomerate led by Mr Ambani, the world's ninth-richest person with a net worth of $90.7bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The group raised more than $20bn in exchange for a 33 per cent stake in Mr Ambani’s technology venture, Jio Platforms, which lured partners including Meta, then known as Facebook, and Google. Meta invested $5.7bn in Jio Platforms in 2020.
As part of its probe on stake sales in Jio Platforms, the Sebi order said that there was a lot of news flow around Meta investing in Reliance’s digital unit in March and April, 2020, before the corporate announcement on April 22.
A March 24, 2020, news report on this deal by the Financial Times was widely circulated in Indian media but Reliance and its compliance officers did not issue any clarification on the development.
Sebi regulations require that “the listed entity may, on its own initiative, also confirm or deny any reported event or information” to stock exchanges, according to the order.
Reliance announced on May 4 that Silver Lake Partners would invest about $753m in Jio Platforms. On May 8, it announced Vista’s $1.5bn investment. The two deals were announced a day after the stipulated window of disclosures, the order said.
“Companies would be unsure on the timing of making crucial disclosures, and on responding to speculation in media,” said Shriram Subramanian, founder of proxy advisory company InGovern Research Services.
“While PIT [prohibition of insider trading] regulations need to be taken seriously by companies and the principle of 'when in doubt, disclose' applies, companies may also find it hard to disclose at the time of crucial negotiations in transactions.”
Ray Dalio
It is “naive and inconsistent with how the economic machine works” to think the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates “will make things good again, once it gets inflation under control”, Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, wrote on LinkedIn last week.
While tightening leads to less consumer spending, which may reduce inflation, it does not make things better, Mr Dalio said.
“It just shifts some of the squeezing of people via inflation to squeezing them via giving them less buying power,” he said.
On June 15, the US Federal Reserve’s raised interest rates by a larger-than-expected 0.75 per cent to rein in rising inflation.
It just shifts some of the squeezing of people via inflation to squeezing them via giving them less buying power
Ray Dalio,
founder of Bridgewater Associates
The 75 basis point increase raised the short-term federal funds rate to a range of 1.5 per cent to 1.75 per cent, with Fed officials projecting the rate to increase to 3.4 per cent by the end of this year and 3.8 per cent in 2023.
“There isn’t anything that the Fed can do to fight inflation without creating economic weakness,” Mr Dalio wrote in his conclusion.
“With debt assets and liabilities as high as they are and projected to increase due to the government deficit, and the Fed also selling government debt, it is likely that private credit growth will have to contract, weakening the economy,” he said.
“Over the long run the Fed will most likely chart a middle course that will take the form of stagflation,” he said.
Two weeks ago, Mr Dalio, who has a net worth of $16.1bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, said central banks around the globe will be required to cut interest rates in 2024 after a period of stagflation constrains their economies.
“We believe that we are in a tightening mode that can cause corrections or downwards moves to many financial assets,” he said in an interview with the Australian Financial Review newspaper at the time.
___________________
Watch: US Federal Reserve raises interest rates by 75 basis points
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
Scoreline
Man Utd 2 Pogba 27', Martial 49'
Everton 1 Sigurdsson 77'
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
How it works
A $10 hand-powered LED light and battery bank
Device is operated by hand cranking it at any time during the day or night
The charge is stored inside a battery
The ratio is that for every minute you crank, it provides 10 minutes light on the brightest mode
A full hand wound charge is of 16.5minutes
This gives 1.1 hours of light on high mode or 2.5 hours of light on low mode
When more light is needed, it can be recharged by winding again
The larger version costs between $18-20 and generates more than 15 hours of light with a 45-minute charge
No limit on how many times you can charge
Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
INFO
Everton 0
Arsenal 0
Man of the Match: Djibril Sidibe (Everton)
The specs
Engine: four-litre V6 and 3.5-litre V6 twin-turbo
Transmission: six-speed and 10-speed
Power: 271 and 409 horsepower
Torque: 385 and 650Nm
Price: from Dh229,900 to Dh355,000
Juliet, Naked
Dir: Jesse Peretz
Starring: Chris O'Dowd, Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke
Two stars
Vidaamuyarchi
Director: Magizh Thirumeni
Stars: Ajith Kumar, Arjun Sarja, Trisha Krishnan, Regina Cassandra
Rating: 4/5
Paatal Lok season two
Directors: Avinash Arun, Prosit Roy
Stars: Jaideep Ahlawat, Ishwak Singh, Lc Sekhose, Merenla Imsong
Rating: 4.5/5
Who are the Sacklers?
The Sackler family is a transatlantic dynasty that owns Purdue Pharma, which manufactures and markets OxyContin, one of the drugs at the centre of America's opioids crisis. The family is well known for their generous philanthropy towards the world's top cultural institutions, including Guggenheim Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate in Britain, Yale University and the Serpentine Gallery, to name a few. Two branches of the family control Purdue Pharma.
Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg were Jewish immigrants who arrived in New York before the First World War. They had three sons. The first, Arthur, died before OxyContin was invented. The second, Mortimer, who died aged 93 in 2010, was a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma. The third, Raymond, died aged 97 in 2017 and was also a former chief executive of Purdue Pharma.
It was Arthur, a psychiatrist and pharmaceutical marketeer, who started the family business dynasty. He and his brothers bought a small company called Purdue Frederick; among their first products were laxatives and prescription earwax remover.
Arthur's branch of the family has not been involved in Purdue for many years and his daughter, Elizabeth, has spoken out against it, saying the company's role in America's drugs crisis is "morally abhorrent".
The lawsuits that were brought by the attorneys general of New York and Massachussetts named eight Sacklers. This includes Kathe, Mortimer, Richard, Jonathan and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, who are all the children of either Mortimer or Raymond. Then there's Theresa Sackler, who is Mortimer senior's widow; Beverly, Raymond's widow; and David Sackler, Raymond's grandson.
Members of the Sackler family are rarely seen in public.
PLAY-OFF%20DRAW
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Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015
- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany
- At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people
- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed
- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest
- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France
Fast%20X
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Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
