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| | The Biden administration is seeking help from Wall Street as it tries to bolster Ukraine’s economic recovery. At the forefront of the push is the development agency USAID, which has secured an initial wave of finance industry assistance from Bank of America and Nasdaq. Officials say it’s just the beginning. "It's our job to continue to find ways to bring the Ukrainian ingenuity and Ukrainian experience and resilience to bear with incredible American commercial strength,” USAID Europe and Eurasia bureau deputy assistant administrator Mark Simakovsky told MM. “We’re really focused on it.” USAID and Bank of America announced this week that the lender will assign a senior capital markets executive to advise Ukraine’s government on how to finance the country’s rebuilding effort. In a separate move rolled out with USAID, Nasdaq will waive listing fees and provide technical assistance for Ukrainian companies when they pursue an IPO — a potential boon for Ukraine’s tech sector. Simakovsky said the Nasdaq waiver would help businesses list with fewer expenses so they can direct capital to hiring staff and bringing products to market. “This partnership with two U.S. financial sector powerhouses will galvanize investment in Ukraine from all over the world, and send a strong signal that Ukraine is open for business,” USAID Europe and Eurasia bureau assistant administrator Erin McKee told MM. The partnerships were several months in the making. Officials hope to send a signal that more U.S. companies should consider pitching in, as Ukraine simultaneously defends itself against Russia while looking ahead to a massive rebuilding effort. “The idea was to get somebody in there and then show other companies that they should add people to the mission,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told MM. Simakovsky said there’s a "benefit to American companies to be first movers in playing a leading role in helping Ukraine recover and remain resilient now during the war and also when the war ends."
| | | | A message from ASTA: AAdvantage MEMBER? YOUR MILES MAY BE AT RISK. Starting May 1, American Airlines will deny AAdvantage miles and loyalty points for bookings made through most travel agencies to favor their “preferred” channels. If you book with a travel advisor, your points and miles could be lost. This is especially harmful to business, government, rural, and elderly travelers who depend on the services and savings that agencies provide. Congress – Don’t let American Airlines eliminate consumer choice. | | | In the case of BofA, Moynihan floated the idea with USAID Administrator Samantha Power about a year ago, and then conversations continued with Penny Pritzker, the U.S. special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery. “What’s interesting about [Ukraine President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy is he’s fighting a war, in some ways of unprecedented nature, and at the same time is reforming the country and changing the internal politics and the things that went on before. So he’s really fighting on two fronts here,” Moynihan said. “Because of those two situations, you really are going to have a need for expertise to help them figure out how to finance the rebuilding of the country.” The challenge entails “several hundreds of billions of dollars of rebuilding funds and figuring out how to access the markets,” he said. “Our teammate is a capital markets expert,” Moynihan said. “Their day-to-day experience would be figuring out, what's the financing needs? The duration? What can be done in the markets without government support? … Right now, they’re getting a lot of grants of military aid and supplemental aid, but you’ve got to put the place back on a firm footing fiscally. They need to rebuild a lot of infrastructure in the country, especially in the eastern half of it.” The financing for Ukraine’s recovery is expected to be a mix of public and private capital. “You can’t say, ‘Go fight Russia,’ and then say, ‘And by the way, you guys figure out what to do next.’ So there will have to be a series of grants,” Moynihan said. “Think of those as being more of the equity. If you do the financing right, they can be the equity underneath a public-private partnership. … That grant can provide the capital base on which you can get private sector money on top.” Power and Pritzker promoted the Bank of America and Nasdaq partnerships at a packed Ukraine House event in Washington Wednesday where Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal also spoke. BofA president of international Bernard Mensah and Nasdaq executive vice chairman Edward Knight represented their companies on stage. Power encouraged other businesses in attendance to “also think creatively.” Happy Friday – Send tips to zwarmbrodt@politico.com.
| | | | THE GOLD STANDARD OF POLICY REPORTING & INTELLIGENCE: POLITICO has more than 500 journalists delivering unrivaled reporting and illuminating the policy and regulatory landscape for those who need to know what’s next. Throughout the election and the legislative and regulatory pushes that will follow, POLITICO Pro is indispensable to those who need to make informed decisions fast. The Pro platform dives deeper into critical and quickly evolving sectors and industries—finance, defense, technology, healthcare, energy—equipping policymakers and those who shape legislation and regulation with essential news and intelligence from the world’s best politics and policy journalists.
Our newsroom is deeper, more experienced, and better sourced than any other—with teams embedded in the world’s most active legislative and regulatory power centers. From Brussels to Washington, New York to London, Sacramento to Paris, we bring subscribers inside the conversations that determine policy outcomes and the future of industries, providing insight that cannot be found anywhere else. Get the premier news and policy intelligence service, SUBSCRIBE TO POLITICO PRO TODAY. | | | | | | | | | Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's IMF-World Bank meeting schedule includes discussions with top officials from Kenya, Ecuador and Sweden ... BIS general manager Agustín Carstens is among the speakers at a Peterson Institute event on the future financial system at 3 p.m. … Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda speaks at Peterson at 5 p.m. ‘Covid is weird’ — Voters in November have the unusual opportunity to pick between two presidential candidates who have already led the country, with both boasting about economic growth during their tenure. But as Victoria Guida reports in a new column, the campaigns are relying on data that’s warped by the pandemic. What Larry Fink is reading — Per the WSJ, the House select committee on China says BlackRock and MSCI played a role in funneling billions of dollars of American retirement savings and other investments into index funds that included blacklisted Chinese companies. BlackRock and MSCI say they didn’t violate the law and that they have little discretion to exclude Chinese entities from index funds. Tough housing news — The NYT reports that mortgage rates have risen above 7 percent for the first time this year, as the housing market shows signs of slowing. “Potential home buyers are deciding whether to buy before rates rise even more, or hold off in hopes of decreases later in the year,” Freddie Mac chief economist Sam Khater said. “It remains unclear how many home buyers can withstand increasing rates in the future.” SPR watch — National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said the White House will “make sure gas prices remain affordable” when asked whether the administration would consider tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, CNBC reports.
| | | | A message from ASTA:   | | | | | McHenry’s future — Retiring House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry is vowing to serve out the remainder of his term as other retiring Republicans step down early, Jasper Goodman reports. "They need to make a decision for themselves on leaving before their term is up," McHenry said at an event hosted by Semafor. "But, look, it's a two-year term." McHenry told Jasper that recent comments from Senate Banking Chair Sherrod Brown about his openness to a stablecoin deal are "a welcome sign." McHenry said that his meeting last week with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was likewise "a positive sign.” "It's good," McHenry said of the Schumer meeting. "His interest in what [Rep. Maxine] Waters and I have been working on is quite welcome. He's versed on the set of issues related to our legislative agenda and highly informed." More title insurance drama — Katy O’Donnell reports that Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) is calling for the SEC to investigate “irregular trading activity” in shares of a technology company that could benefit from a Biden administration pilot program designed to curtail title insurance fees.
| | | | POLITICO IS BACK AT THE 2024 MILKEN INSTITUTE GLOBAL CONFERENCE: POLITICO will again be your eyes and ears at the 27th Annual Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles from May 5-8 with exclusive, daily, reporting in our Global Playbook newsletter. Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground covering the biggest moments, behind-the-scenes buzz and on-stage insights from global leaders in health, finance, tech, philanthropy and beyond. Get a front-row seat to where the most interesting minds and top global leaders confront the world’s most pressing and complex challenges — subscribe today. | | | | | | | | | MM Q&A: UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt — The United Kingdom’s top economic policy official is in the U.S. this week at a moment when it seems Britain’s economy may be on the upswing. After experiencing a recession late last year, the IMF this week said it expects the U.K. to return to growth. But it may not be enough to allow Hunt to hold onto his job overseeing His Majesty’s Treasury, with polls indicating a potential landslide loss for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government in upcoming elections. MM spoke with Hunt as he made a swing from New York to Washington for the IMF-World Bank spring meetings. What follows are highlights of the conversation edited for length and clarity. (For further reading, MM reported earlier this week on how Hunt is engaging in the debate around seizing Russian assets.) Can you share a readout of your stop in New York? I’ve been meeting investors. I had a big investor summit at Bloomberg. The feeling I got was that people here really do believe that Britain has turned a corner and the British economy has turned a corner. We've been through a bumpy patch. People in New York know London and the U.K. very, very well. I think the thing that is creating interest in the U.K. is our tech sector more than anything else. There’s concern that some companies may be shunning listings in London and instead going public in the U.S. Is your government doing anything to address that? We are doing a lot. We have a very vibrant tech scene. We have more startups than anywhere else in Europe, more venture capital. But the one thing that isn't happening at the moment as much as we want is people choosing to IPO in London. So I've announced the Edinburgh Reforms and the Mansion House Reforms, which are designed to increase capital flows in London from pension funds. We've also relaxed the listing rules for founders who are floating their tech companies to be competitive with those in Nasdaq. Our objective is for the U.K. and the London stock market in particular to become Europe's Nasdaq. We're on our way to achieving that, but there's a lot more work to do. Do you have any concerns about the U.S. tipping into isolationism based on how the election goes? What’s at stake for U.S.-U.K. relations based on what happens here in November? Whatever happens in the U.S., we will continue to be the strongest European ally of the United States. But I think it's very important that European countries recognize that when it comes to America's role in the world, we are actors, not observers. In the end, we have to be prepared to spend more on defense. Donald Trump is someone who's made that case very loudly, but actually it's been made by every American president while I've been in public life. That is a reasonable request from the United States that Europe contributes more to its own defense because as the world's superpower they can point to problems in the Middle East, challenges in Asia, which also have to occupy U.S. attention. So if we don't want the U.S. to be isolationist, then we've got to be prepared to cough up. You’re running the London marathon this weekend. Tying it back to the upcoming U.K. election, at what stage of the race are Conservatives at in terms of winning back the public? Do you have any running tips that could be used to win back the electorate? The last six miles from Canary Wharf to Buckingham Palace are always the hardest. We're just entering that last six miles at the moment. We're doing the hard yards is the answer but we can get over the finish line with a great result.
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