... --- ... .-. ..- -. 'SPRING'S'-JULY-21-2019 = SEE IT HERE:

THE SAVAGE INTEL...
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1. Freight Brokers Forced To Slash Prices To Keep Business


2. US NAVY’S ENERGY WEAPON GETS FIRST "KILL," SHOOTS IRANIAN DRONE


3. Busted Billion-Dollar Bagholders Hire Private Eyes To Probe Goldman-Led Airline Bailout

#1
BOOM & BUST


https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-19/margins-pressured-freight-brokers-forced-slash-prices-keep-business


Margins Pressured As Freight Brokers Forced To Slash Prices To Keep Business




[size=10]by Tyler Durden
Tue, 07/23/2019 - 04:15





Freight brokers continue to paint an ugly picture for the industry ahead. According to FreightWaves, despite higher rates at the end of June, brokers are saying that conditions have "eased" again and pressure is coming on gross margins from customers. 
J.B. Hunt called out "flattish" rates for its trucking business in its Q2 call as a reason for optimism and, on July 17, Morgan Stanley saied that “commentary stayed mixed this update as carriers continue to be notably more positive than peers as they see signs of an ‘adjustment’ to capacity in the coming months.” Late June data was also being used to peddle a stabilization narrative about the freight market where rates may have reached their bottom.
But new channel checks tell a starkly different tale.
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Management at Trident Transport in Chattanooga called June’s market as an extended “hangover” from Roadcheck week. They said margins will compress because capacity made a sluggish return to the market and drove rates higher. 
William Kerr, president of Chicago-based Edge Logistics said: 
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Quote :

“It was very difficult to cover loads and make margin, worse than it usually is, and no one knows why. The market was a little shaky for a while and it was pretty hard to make money for the rest of June.”

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Data and color from brokerage executives now say that the market is loosening once again. This chart shows the tightening in June and subsequent freeing up of capacity heading into July.
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Jason Roberts, vice president of sales at Chattanooga-based Avenger Logistics said: 
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Quote :

“Most customers are realizing now they have a lot of the power back in their hands, and they’re putting pressure on us to get their rates down or they’ll give it to someone else. We’ve had to cut some rates to keep the business. We had customers who had been sitting at higher margins, and we reduced the margins by 5 percent [i.e., 500 basis points] in some cases.”

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Kerr says his business continues to see good volume, despite being down about 2% on a national basis: “I’m very food and beverage focused — that’s insulated us a little bit from the volume volatility. We like to work with America’s largest shippers.”
Roberts continued, commenting on capacity: 
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Quote :

“As far as capacity goes, it’s loose as a goose. The competition for spot freight between brokers has heated up, and customers are being offered such 'wildly aggressive' rates that they have almost no choice but to take them." 

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He believes that "larger and mid-sized brokerages are bidding down lanes" and that large brokerages may be trying to buy market share while the mid-sized brokers could be trying to make a splash with a major customer. 
He continued: “In some cases they’ve gotten too aggressive and bit off more than they can chew. I believe that capacity is going to stay loose for the entirety of the summer and rates will continue to fall. Volume is going to be there, but I think rates are going to plummet and people are going to be cutthroat about how they try to gain a piece of that market share.”
Kerr says there's no indication that capacity is going to leave the market: “I think we might see some serious volatility in the second half of 2019, based on how crazy the weather’s been. We’re not hoping for that, but it might contribute to some market fluctuations for the rest of the year.”[/size]

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#3
COUPLE WITH FREIGHT AND OTHERS EXCEPT THOSE WHO CONTROL AIR SPRAY YOU LIKE BUGS!

Busted Billion-Dollar Bagholders Hire Private Eyes To Probe Goldman-Led Airline Bailout




[size=10][size=10]by Tyler Durden
Mon, 07/22/2019 - 23:45[/size]





Several years ago, when ZIRP and NIRP was (again) raging, investors jumped at the chance to buy $1.2 billion in bonds whose proceeds wound up with a cluster of airlines linked to Etihad Airlines. As Bloomberg details, the deal was unusual in several ways: Goldman had teamed up with two relatively obscure brokerages and controversial German financier Lars Windhorst was helping structure the deal behind the scenes.
Ultimately, the deal wound up going bust and a group of creditors has now hired a private eye firm to dig out the details into how the deal came together, including the roles played by Windhorst, Goldman and others.
The deal and its ensuing investigation are bad PR for Goldman Sachs and highlight the company's "willingness to raise large pools of capital in unorthodox or risky deals." It also pairs the company with Windhorst, who has been under scrutiny in recent weeks especially over his role in the blow up of the ill-named H20 fund.
Roger King, an analyst at research firm CreditSights said:


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"There were a lot of strange characteristics. It was a bizarrely complicated deal. A hairy deal no matter who brought it."

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One of the main questions about the deal was why did Goldman Sachs step in after another notoriously law-breaking bank, HSBC, dropped out. The financing likely wouldn’t have taken place without the help of a global bank.


Now, creditors including investment managers BlueBay Asset Management and Gramercy Funds Management have enlisted private investigators to help them push for maximum recoveries from the busted bonds. While it is not unheard of for bondholders to hire intelligence companies for due diligence purposes, it’s relatively rare that they will employ them in these types of scenarios.
Etihad had an issue in 2015. It had bought stakes in several smaller airlines but some of them, like Air Berlin, kept bleeding cash. Windhorst, who was once the airlline's largest shareholder, was looking to help fix these issues. He proposed that a special purpose vehicle close to Etihad could sell bonds and then turn around to slice up the proceeds to many of the smaller carriers. Those companies would then pay back the special purpose vehicle.
Anoa, a small brokerage that was contracted to work out the details by Windhorst, was an affiliated company of his investment arm. Anoa has since gone bust and its former CEO is now the CEO of Windhorst's private investment vehicle. Anoa helped design the transaction but it lacked fundraising firepower. HSBC was initially recruited to lead the deal, but the bank suddenly and inexplicably dropped out before the sale. It was reportedly the participation of Anoa that caused HSBC's skepticism. Others wondered whether or not the smaller brokerage would be able to commit to carrying out the complex transaction.
That’s when Goldman Sachs stepped in.
The deal needed to be cleared many times over at Goldman because of its complexity and because of the involvement of a sovereign entity, Abu Dhabi. Windhorst's involvement was also an issue.
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The SPV issued its first set of junk rated bonds in the amount of $700 million in September 2015. In April 2016, Senior Etihad executives and a Goldman Sachs banker were given an industry award for the structuring of the plan. Two months after that, the financing team raised another $500 million, bringing the total to $1.2 billion. 93.5% of the proceeds went to the airline group.
However, right after that last deal, things began to go south. Smaller airlines in the partnership like Air Berlin, Alitalia and Jet Airways fell victim to their financial woes and the bonds created. At the same time, Etihad decided it was no longer going to support the affiliate airlines and instead embarked on a management overhaul.
The bond offering documents didn’t explicitly guarantee support from Etihad, but there was always an "implicit understanding" that they would be there for support if needed. And now, the investor group in the bonds is left holding the bag with no choice left but to hire law firms and private investigators to try and maximize their recoveries.
Goldman's dealings with Windhorst were formerly the topic of a lawsuit by a former executive, Chris Rollins. Seth Redniss, a lawyer for Rollins said: "Whether in public or private, the evidence shows that top execs allowed these very large, risky deals to happen."
In other words, the buck - as in the case of 1MDB - stopped with none other than Lloyd Blankfein... who conveniently retired last year just as the heat was starting to build.[/size]
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CALIF. EQUAKE ANIMATION .. WOW