Financial Crisis

How First Republic’s Courtship of the Wealthy Led to Meltdown

First Republic Bank became the epicenter of the U.S. regional banking crisis after the wealthy clients it courted to fuel its breakneck growth started withdrawing deposits and left the bank reeling. Wall Street’s top banks, led by JPMorgan Chase & Co, have been trying for more than a week to raise capital for San Francisco-based […]

South Africa’s State of the Nation: Disaster!

I’m sitting in a house in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg having just heard President Cyril Ramaphosa’s State of the Nation address to the South African Parliament and obviously, the rest of the country on TV. The main agenda was solutions to the electricity crisis in South Africa. And I can’t quite believe what I’ve […]