Silicon Valley Bank's parent company SVB Financial Group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday in New York. Silicon Valley Bank was shut down by California financial regulators on March 10 and was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Silicon Valley Bank is not part of the Chapter 11 filing. More: - The bankruptcy allows SVB Financial Group to find buyers for its other businesses not under federal control.
- SVB's other businesses include SVB Capital, its investment management firm, and SVB Securities, its investment bank.
- The newly appointed CEO of SVB Financial Group, William Kosturos, said the company is working on returning the maximum recoverable value for stakeholders of the company.
- In its Chapter 11 filing, SVB named Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street as holding more than 5% of its voting securities.
- The company also carries $3B in bond debt and nearly $4B in preferred stock.
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Chinese developer Evergrande Group is close to making a debt-restructuring deal with foreign bind investors. According to sources, the Guangzhou-based property developer has agreed on the outlines of an agreement that would extend its debt maturities while allowing it to defer some coupon payments. More: - Evergrande is the most indebted property company in the world, with more than $300B in debts.
- The company defaulted on its U.S. dollar bonds in 2021.
- Chinese real-estate firms defaulted on more than $30B of international bonds in 2022.
- According to sources, investors have agreed to take a small cut on some of the bonds Evergrande holds, meaning they would get less than the face value of the bonds.
- The amount of the cut has not been decided.
- Evergrande is due in court in Hong Kong on March 20, where the company is expected to show it has made some progress in its negotiations with bondholders.
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 A message from FORTE GROUP ChatGPT, "when it comes to whether 'ilities' should be prioritized in software engineering, who is right, the CTO or the CEO?" To learn the answer firsthand, join Forte Group on March 30th, 2023, for a virtual panel discussion, "The balance between business expectations and CTOs' software sustainability needs." This webinar is ideal for CTOs, IT managers, project managers, software developers, and anyone involved in making technology decisions within their organization. At this event, you will learn the following: - The key challenges arise when balancing business expectations with software sustainability needs.
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A group of Silicon Valley executives, including Peter Thiel, and some U.S. lawmakers are meeting on Wednesday to discuss China, national security, and other concerns ahead of TikTok’s CEO’s appearance before Congress on Thursday. The group is called the Hill & Valley Forum and is hosting a dinner on Wednesday evening with about 200 attendees. More: - The dinner is being paid for by venture-capital firms 137 Ventures, Founders Fund, and Jacob Helberg, a former Google policy adviser.
- Helberg is also a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
- Expected speakers at the dinner include Thiel, investor Vinod Khosla, and other founders, financiers, and executives.
- Helberg and others attending the dinner have been prepping Congress with lines of questions about TikTok in preparation for the testimony with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
- The Biden administration has demanded that TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stake in the social media app or risk a U.S. ban.
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U.S. users of Meta Platform’s Facebook and Instagram can now pay to be verified on the apps. Meta rolled out its new verified subscription, Meta Verified, in the U.S. on Friday, following weeks of testing in Australia and New Zealand. More: - Meta Verified costs $11.99 monthly for Facebook and Instagram accounts that sign up through a web browser and $14.99 monthly for iOS and Android mobile sign-ups.
- Users are asked to join a waitlist to be verified.
- Meta said users need to provide government identification to authenticate their accounts.
- Meta Verified subscribers would also receive increased security checks and the ability to talk to a real person about account issues.
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The London Metal Exchange found bags of stones at one of its warehouses instead of the nickel they were supposed to contain. The discovery comes weeks after commodities trader Trafigura Group said it was a victim of a systematic fraud that could cost it as much as $577M. More: - Trafigura said it thought it was buying containers full of nickel, but what it received did not contain the metal.
- Trafigura accused metals trader Prateek Gupta of being behind the alleged fraud and has started legal proceedings.
- LME said it found nine cases of missing nickel amounting to about 54 tons, worth about $1.3M.
- The LME has ordered all its licensed warehouse operators to inspect the nickel in storage to check for irregularities.
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China’s Finance Ministry has suspended Deloitte’s Beijing office for three months over “serious audit deficiencies” in the firm’s work with a big state-owned asset manager. The accounting firm was also fined about $31M. The suspension comes after an investigation into Deloitte’s audits of China Huarong Asset Management. More: - China Huarong received a $6.5B bailout from state-owned financial institutions in late 2021 after suffering considerable losses in 2020.
- China’s Finance Ministry said Deloitte did not assess the true value of China Huarong’s assets or provide proper audit opinions on unusual transactions even after identifying them.
- Deloitte said it cooperated fully with the ministry’s inspection and regretted its work fell below the required auditing standards.
- China Huarong is one of the largest state-owned bad-debt managers.
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- The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine to Russia.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Moscow. Xi is also expected to speak with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming days.
- YouTube restored the channel of former President Donald Trump after banning him following the Jan. 6 riot.
- Bitcoin crossed $27,000 on Friday, the first time since June 2022. The increase comes a week after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
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Upcoming Events - March 20 - Inside Interview with Rollworks - Clearing the Path to ABM Success: Addressing the Issues Holding You Back (Watch On Demand)
- March 21 - Inside Startups Coffee Break (Register Here)
- March 27 - Inside Interview with Zscaler - Zero Trust Defense Strategies to Take Your Security to the Next Level (Watch On Demand)
- March 30 - A panel on how CTOs balance and prioritize NFRs into their roadmaps (Register Here) *
- March 30 - Inside.com Book Club - The Creative Act by Rick Rubin (Register Here)
- April 18 - Human Resources Summit'23 (Register Here)
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 |  | Vanessa Omeokachie writes the daily Inside Business newsletter. Her interests include finance, technology, and entrepreneurship. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, attending concerts and music festivals, traveling, and exploring. Connect with her on Twitter @VanessaOmeo or on LinkedIn. |   | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 and 1972 Fords. | |
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Read Constructor's 4 Essential Ecommerce Strategies to Increase Profit and Succeed in a Challenging Economy | |
