Finance

Bullies are often told to pick on someone their own size. Donald Trump has just followed that advice. After America’s president threatened to start a damaging new trade war with China, Canada and Mexico, America’s two smaller neighbours looked for ways to placate him. Accused of doing too little to stem the flow of illicit drugs and migrants, they both won a month’s reprieve by promising to send more agents and troops to their borders with America. More

Kenneth C. Griffin (R) speaks during The New York Times Dealbook Summit 2024 at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 04, 2024 in New York City. 
Eugene Gologursky | Getty Images

Billionaire investor Ken Griffin’s flagship hedge fund climbed in a volatile January, according to a person familiar with the returns.
Citadel’s multistrategy flagship Wellington fund rose 1.4% in January, following a 15.1% gain in 2024, according to the person, who spoke anonymously because the performance numbers are private. All five strategies used in the fund — commodities, equities, fixed income, credit and quantitative — were positive for the month, the person said.

The Miami-based firm’s tactical trading fund gained 2.7% in January, while its equities fund, which uses a long/short strategy, also returned 2.7%, said the person. Meanwhile, Citadel’s global fixed-income fund returned 1.9%.
Citadel, which had $65 billion in assets under management as the year began, declined to comment.
Markets experienced violent price swings last month as investors grew wary of President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies. At the end of the month, an artificial intelligence competitor out of China called DeepSeek caused a massive sell-off in Nvidia and upended other megacap tech stocks.
The S&P 500 climbed 2.7% in January and is up 1.9% in 2025 following a stellar two-year run in 2023 and 2024. The equity benchmark scored a second consecutive annual gain above 20% last year, and the two-year gain of 53% is the best since 1997 and 1998, when it jumped nearly 66%. 
Before the new administration took office Jan. 20, Griffin criticized the steep tariffs Trump vowed to implement, saying they could result in crony capitalism.

The Citadel founder said domestic companies could enjoy a short-term benefit by having their competitors weakened. Longer term, however, tariffs do more harm to corporate America and the economy as companies lose competitiveness and productivity, Griffin said. More

Human resources software startup Deel has hit an annual revenue run rate of $800 million, the company told CNBC.
Deel also added two major new shareholders to its capitalization table, General Catalyst and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, as part of a $300 million secondary share sale.
“We are getting ready to go out, potentially next year or a bit later,” Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz told CNBC, discussing the firm’s IPO plans.

Alex Bouaziz, CEO and co-founder of Deel, onstage at the Collision 2022 conference at Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada.
Vaughn Ridley | Sportsfile | Getty Images

Human resources software firm Deel said it has hit an annual revenue run rate of $800 million and is ramping up preparations to go public with a view to IPO as early as next year.
The startup, which aims to simplify the process of hiring, paying and managing employees remotely, told CNBC that it hit the milestone after a 70% year-over-year bump in revenue in December. A revenue run rate is an estimation of a company’s future annual revenue, extrapolated from a monthly data point.

Deel has also added to its capitalization table with two new major shareholders following a $300 million secondary share sale conducted last year.
The company said that General Catalyst and an unnamed sovereign wealth fund — which CNBC understands is Mubadala Investment Company, the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi — joined the round as new investors.
It comes after Deel in 2022 hit a $12 billion valuation. Following the secondary share transaction, the company’s valuation was boosted to $12.6 billion, according to two sources familiar with the matter, who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
In an interview with CNBC, Deel CEO and co-founder Alex Bouaziz said the company is developing robust financial audits, compliance processes and infrastructure as it looks to ensure it’s in a good position to IPO.
“We are getting ready to go out, potentially next year or a bit later,” Bouaziz told CNBC, adding that the firm recently added two new board members including former Illumina CEO Francis deSouza and former Coupa Chief Financial Officer Todd Ford. “We believe we have the right reasons to go public.”

Bouaziz said that a public listing could help the firm further along on its mission to build a recognizable brand in HR and payroll software.
“When it comes to HR and payroll, I’ve never truly felt like someone captured the essence of a great brand,” he said. “No one really [builds] a brand that you feel resonates with people.”
“This is really what we want to build. This is, I think, a big part of the experience that we can bring to people. Being a public company can reinforce that sentiment, be part of the story and be part of the business,” Bouaziz added.
The CEO said that Deel is under no pressure from its financial backers to go public despite its large size. The firm currently has about 5,000 employees globally.
Founded in 2019, Deel is a platform that helps businesses with HR services such as onboarding, compliance, performance management, payroll and immigration support. It became popular during Covid-19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021, which drove the trend of hiring staff remotely.
Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, managing director of General Catalyst, said Deel’s “focus on enabling large enterprises to navigate the complexities of a global workforce fits seamlessly with our mission to back bold ideas that create enduring value.”
Zu Fürstenberg previously backed Deel in a seed investment when she was with European venture capital fund La Famiglia, which merged with General Catalyst in October 2023.

Motion to dismiss ‘baseless’ lawsuit

Against the backdrop of financial milestones and progress toward an IPO, Deel is currently facing litigation over claims that it facilitated money laundering transactions.
Last month, Deel was served a lawsuit in a Florida court which alleges it processed payments without proper licensing and enabled money laundering in relation to illegal payment transactions worth at least $2.27 million made on behalf of a former client, Surge Capital Ventures. It also accuses Deel of facilitating payments to Russia in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Deel strongly denies the claims and has fired back with a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, describing it as “riddled with baseless allegations, gross inaccuracies, conjecture, and downright falsehoods.”
Deel also alleged the suit was part of a “coordinated effort by a major investor in Deel’s primary competitor seeking to tarnish Deel’s stellar reputation.”
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Thomas Grady, is named as the incorporator of Waveling Insurance Services in a Florida Department of State filing. Waveling Insurance Services is now known as Ripple Insurance Services, which is a subsidiary of HR and payroll software firm Rippling. Grady is reportedly an investor in Rippling, according to Florida newspaper Naples Daily News, although CNBC was unable to confirm this.
Neither Thomas Grady nor Rippling were immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Bouaziz told CNBC he feels “pretty confident” about Deel’s chances of dismissing the lawsuit. More

Swiss banking giant UBS on Tuesday posted $770 million in fourth-quarter net profit, compared with a mean forecast of $886.4 million in a LSEG poll of analysts and with a $483 million estimate in a company-provided estimate.
The group announced plans to repurchase $1 billion of shares in the first half of 2025, along with up to an additional $2 billion over the second half of this year.

UBS shares lost ground after the lender’s fourth-quarter results and up to $3 billion share buyback plans failed to impress.
Switzerland’s largest bank on Tuesday reported net profit attributable to shareholders of $770 million, compared with a $483 million estimate in a company-provided consensus estimate and with a mean forecast of $886.4 million in a LSEG poll of analysts.

Group revenue over the period hit $11.635 billion, versus analyst expectations of $11.64 billion in a LSEG analyst poll.
The bank also announced plans to repurchase $1 billion of shares in the first half of 2025, along with up to an additional $2 billion over the second half of this year — but caveated that this target is subject to the lender achieving its “financial targets and the absence of material and immediate changes to the current capital regime in Switzerland.”
The group further proposes a $0.90-per-share dividend for the 2024 financial year, up 29% year-on-year.
Shares of UBS opened in positive territory, but were down 5.57% at 9:54 a.m. London time.
Deutsche Bank analysts noted “solid” fourth-quarter results but signaled that “the divisional mix could have been better,” given the performance of the Personal & Corporate Banking unit — which notched a 8% increase in the fourth quarter, “largely reflecting improvement in other income, partly offset by lower net interest income,” according to UBS.

“On balance a decent set of results, but perhaps not as good as at first glance,” Citi analysts said, flagging the welcome cost and dividend beat, but stressing that overall cost and cost-income guidance for end-2026 remains unchanged, while the net interest income (NII) “drag is set to continue” into the first quarter.
Other fourth-quarter highlights included:

Return on tangible equity hit 3.9%, compared with 7.3% over the third quarter.
CET 1 capital ratio, a measure of bank solvency, was 14.3%, unchanged from the third quarter.

Investment banking shone over the fourth quarter, with underlying revenues up 37% year-on-year amid “strong growth” in global banking and global markets performance. The group’s global wealth management division logged a 10% hike in revenues over the fourth-quarter stretch, “largely driven by higher recurring net fee income, a decrease in negative other income and higher transaction-based income.”
“What for us is always very important in investment bank to match or to get very close to the best in class in those areas where we want to compete,” UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti told CNBC’s Carolin Roth on Tuesday. “So if I look across equities effects, capital markets activities, you know, and also in M&A and leverage finance, we are definitely not only growing our revenues as a function of constructive market conditions, but we are also gaining market share.”
Addressing the bank’s core wealth management operations, he added, “If you look at return on risk related assets for the wealth management businesses have been expanding, so we had a couple of points of pick up in terms of return on risk related assets.”
In its outlook for the first quarter, the bank is guiding for a low-to-mid single digit percentage decline in NII in its Global Wealth Management operations, along with a steeper 10% drop in the NII of its Personal & Corporate Banking division.

Size matters

After weathering the storm of a turbulent government-backed tie-up with fallen domestic rival Credit Suisse in 2023, UBS said it was on track with its 2024 integration milestones and delivered an additional $700 million in gross cost savings in the fourth quarter. The group had hoped to achieve $7.5 billion out of a total of $13 billion in cost savings by the end of last year, with CEO Sergio Ermotti signaling in a Bloomberg interview last month that redundancies were “inevitable” as part of the process — even as the group aims to rely on voluntary departures.
UBS on Tuesday said it plans to achieve another $2.5 billion of gross cost saving this year.
The Swiss belt tightening adds to a picture of broader expense discipline and restructuring across Europe’s banking sectors, as lenders exit a period of high interest rates and claw profitability to keep pace with U.S. peers. On Monday, fellow Swiss bank Julius Baer revealed an additional target of 110 million of Swiss francs ($120 million) in gross savings, while HSBC last week said it is preparing to wind down its M&A and equity capital markets operations in Europe, the U.K. and the U.S.
Armed with a balance sheet that topped $1.7 trillion in 2023 — roughly double Switzerland’s anticipated economic output last year — UBS has been battling vocal concerns at home that its scale has breached the Swiss government’s comfort, depriving the lender of peers that can absorb it and facing Bern with a steep nationalization price tag, in the event of its failure. Questions now linger over whether UBS will face further capital requirements as a result.
The Swiss economy has already been backed into a fragile corner by depressed annual inflation — of just 0.6% in December — and a punitively strong Swiss franc, which only gained further ground on Monday as the global tumult resulting from U.S. tariffs pushed jittery investors toward the safe-haven asset.
“Of course, the ongoing tariff discussions are creating uncertainties, as you can see in the current environment, the market is very sensitive to any positive or negative developments,” Ermotti warned, while stressing some of the volatility has been priced in by markets.
“Of course, an escalation of tariffs, the tariff wars, would most likely translate into economic consequences in terms of potential recessions or inflationary pressure, which in turn, would force central banks to stop the easing path, and potentially even have to reverse that, would definitely be something that the market [has] not been pricing on, and would lead into higher spikes in volatilities. More

President Donald Trump appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Bessent announced in a CFPB statement.
Former Director Rohit Chopra posted a letter to Trump on social media platform X confirming that his term at the agency had “concluded.”
Chopra was often at loggerheads with the U.S. banking industry after pushing to drastically rein in practices around credit card late fees and overdraft fees, among other efforts.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, listens as investor Scott Bessent speaks on the economy in Asheville, N.C., Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024.
Matt Kelley | AP

President Donald Trump appointed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Bessent announced Monday in a CFPB statement.
Former Director Rohit Chopra on Saturday had posted a letter to Trump on social media platform X confirming that his term at the agency had “concluded.”

Bessent, a former hedge-fund manager who was confirmed as head of the U.S. Treasury on Jan. 27, will presumably lead the CFPB until a permanent pick is named.
“I look forward to working with the CFPB to advance President Trump’s agenda to lower costs for the American people and accelerate economic growth,” Bessent said in the statement Monday.
Chopra, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2021, was often at loggerheads with the U.S. banking industry after pushing to drastically rein in practices around credit card late fees and overdraft fees, among many other efforts. Trade groups representing banks fought these regulations in court, fending off rules that would have saved Americans billions of dollars in fees but that the industry called poorly considered or unjustified.
Banking groups had expected Chopra to be fired as soon as Trump was inaugurated, but Chopra remained on for nearly two weeks into Trump’s second term, continuing to fire off releases and weighing in on hot-button topics, including whether banks unfairly closed accounts.

While Chopra’s term was scheduled to run for roughly another two years, a 2020 Supreme Court ruling gave the president the power to fire the agency’s head at will.

Chopra said in the letter he tweeted Saturday that he saw a path for the next CFPB leader to enact “meaningful reforms,” including a possible cap on credit card interest rates.
The CFPB was created in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, which was caused in part by banks’ irresponsible lending and securitization practices.
But the agency has since been targeted by trade groups who unsuccessfully argued that the CFPB’s funding violated the U.S. Constitution, and more recently by conservative figures including X owner and Trump advisor Elon Musk, who has called for the elimination of the CFPB.
The Consumer Bankers Association said Monday it was “pleased” by Bessent’s appointment at the CFPB and that Bessent should take steps to reverse “partisan policies” made under Chopra.
“We’re hopeful that Secretary Bessent will take into account the real-world ramifications regulations have on America’s leading banks, the millions of consumers they serve, and the economy as a whole,” said CBA President Lindsey Johnson. More

DONALD TRUMP took North America to the precipice of a trade war over the weekend. On February 3rd he cooled things down, delaying tariffs on Canada and Mexico by a month as the countries attempt to reach a deal that may involve everything from immigration controls to trade concerns. The sudden about-turn underscored Mr Trump’s reputation as an agent of chaos who uses extreme threats to wrest concessions out of others. It is a dangerous game that can just as easily lead to miscalculations and corrosive uncertainty for the global economy. More

U.S. President Donald Trump hold up an executive order, “Unleashing prosperity through deregulation,” that he signed in the Oval Office on January 31, 2025 in Washington, D.C., while also speaking to reporters about tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The U.S. stock market was rocked Monday after President Donald Trump kicked off a possible global trade war. Shares of companies spanning the auto, industrial, retail and beverage industries with international supply chains were hit particularly hard.
Trump on Saturday slapped a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada, while adding a 10% levy on imports from China. The president said Monday that he’s pausing the Mexico tariffs for one month after Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to immediately send 10,000 soldiers to her country’s border to prevent drug trafficking. Trump also ramped up his tariff threats to the European Union.

Tariffs could not only increase the cost of transporting goods across borders, they could also disrupt supply chains and crimp business confidence. Goldman Sachs warned that Trump’s latest action could cause a 5% sell-off in U.S. stocks due to the hit to corporate earnings. Here are some of the most affected industries and stocks:
Automakers
These tariffs could have a material impact on the global automotive industry, which has a heavy reliance on manufacturing operations across North America.
Detroit’s big three car makers — General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis — could feel the pain from disrupted supply chains as a result of tariffs and may be forced to shift production from foreign factories to the United States.

Automakers getting crushed

Food and beverage
Constellation Brands, a large importer of alcohol from Mexico, is leading a sell-off among booze stocks.
Canada has threatened to pull American alcohol from its government-run liquor shelves in response to Trump’s 25% tariffs.

Restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill and avocado company Calavo Growers could feel the pain from more costly supplies, as these companies import avocados from Mexico.
Retailers
Sportswear brands Nike and Lululemon could be vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs because of their heavy reliance on Chinese imports, including fabrics. Their sizable business in China could also be hurt by the negative sentiment from the trade war.
Discount retailers such as Five Below and Dollar General could be among the hardest hit businesses, as imports from China usually make up a significant portion of their sales. Another victim could be Canada Goose, a Canada-based luxury outerwear firm.

Retailers getting hit

Railroads
Tariffs could be damaging to railroad operators, as heavy duties could slow the flow of goods being transported to the U.S., hurting their revenue and profits.

Stock chart icon

Union Pacific

Union Pacific Corporation moves freight to and from the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast, the Southeast, the Southwest, Canada and Mexico. Norfolk Southern and Canadian Pacific Kansas City are also exposed to the tariffs.  
Chinese e-commerce
Trump’s tariffs also targeted a trade provision that helped fuel the explosive growth of budget online retailers, including Temu. The orders against China, Canada and Mexico all halt a trade exemption, known as “de minimis,” which allows exporters to ship packages worth less than $800 into the U.S. duty-free.
PDD Holdings-owned Temu and Alibaba’s AliExpress may no longer be able to take advantage of the loophole to sell cheap apparel, household items and electronics.

Stock chart icon

PDD Holdings More

British payments startup GoCardless reported a net loss of £35.1 million ($43.8 million) in the full year ending June 2024.
GoCardless CEO Hiroki Takeuchi said its his aim for the company to post its first full-year profit in 12 to 18 months’ time.

Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless.
Zed Jameson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Financial technology unicorn GoCardless more than halved losses in 2024 and said it’s aiming to reach full-year profitability by 2026.
The London-based startup, which helps businesses collect recurring payments such as subscriptions, reported a net loss of £35.1 million ($43.8 million) in the full year ending June 30, 2024.

That was a 55% improvement from the £78 million GoCardless lost the year prior.
The firm noted that “restructuring activity” at the end of the full year ending June 2023 contributed to a reduction in operating losses in 2024. In June 2023, GoCardless announced it was cutting 15% of its global workforce. That took GoCardless’ salary expenses down 13% to £79.2 million in the company’s 2024 fiscal year.
Still, while this improved the company’s financial picture, GoCardless’ CEO Hiroki Takeuchi told CNBC that revenue growth also helped significantly.
“We’re much more focused on the cost side … We want to be getting very efficient as we scale,” Takeuchi said in an interview last week. “But we also need to continue growing. We need both of those things to get to where we want to be.”
GoCardless grew revenue by 41% to £132 million in full-year 2024. Of that total, £91.9 million came from customer revenue.

Last year also saw GoCardless record its first-ever month in profit in March 2024. Takeuchi said its his aim for GoCardless to post its first full-year profit in 12 to 18 months’ time, adding it’s “well on track” to do so.

‘No plans’ to IPO

Back in September, GoCardless acquired a firm called Nuapay, which helps businesses collect and send payments via bank transfer.
Asked whether GoCardless is considering further mergers and acquisitions in future, Takeuchi said the firm is “actively looking,” adding: “We’re seeing lots of opportunities come up.”
Following its acquisition of Nuapay, Takeuchi said GoCardless is currently testing a new feature that allows clients to distribute funds to their own customers.
“If you take something like energy, the vast majority of the payments are about collecting money,” he told CNBC.
“But then you might have some of your customers that have solar panels on their roof and they’re sending energy back to the grid, and they need to get paid for that energy that they’re generating.”
GoCardless, which is backed by Alphabet’s venture arm GV, Accel and BlackRock, was last privately valued by investors at $2.1 billion in February 2022.
Takeuchi said the firm had no need for external capital and that there are “no plans” for an initial public offering in the near term.
Fintechs have been watching Swedish fintech Klarna’s plan to go public closely — but many are waiting to see how it goes before deciding on their own plans.
With technology IPOs at historic lows, several startups have instead opted to provide employees and early shareholders liquidity by selling shares in the secondary market.
In November, Bloomberg reported that GoCardless had chosen investment bank Lazard to advise it on a $200 million secondary share sale. GoCardless declined to comment on the report. More