Ares Management expanded its Asian direct lending team, while Dangote priced Africa's largest IPO to raise funds for its refinery. Meanwhile, Nvidia is weighing a $10 billion investment in Anthropic's potential public listing. In real estate and mortgage lending, lower-end Philadelphia apartments faced distress sales and non-bank mortgage lenders saw margin compression.
01Company specific
Ares Appoints James Garforth as Principal for Asia Direct Lending
Garforth's move from Australian private equity to Hong Kong positions Ares to capture Asia-Pacific direct lending demand as traditional banks retreat from leveraged buyout financing.
Ares Management appointed James Garforth as principal in its Asia direct lending business. Garforth joins from BGH in Melbourne, where he led the firm's capital markets business since 2023. He will be based in Hong Kong and report to Peter Graf, partner and head of Asia direct lending at Ares. Before his time at BGH, Garforth worked at KKR Capital Markets in Sydney and spent nearly a decade at Credit Suisse in leveraged finance and financial sponsors roles in New York and Sydney.
Dangote Prices Africa's Biggest IPO at $47 Billion
Funding mega-refinery expansion through public equity allows African energy markets to retain refining margins domestically rather than exporting raw crude for offshore processing.
Dangote priced Africa's largest share sale at $47 billion on Monday. The oil refinery offered 4.1 billion shares at 525 naira each in an initial public offering running through October 13. The share sale aims to raise $1.6 billion, or up to $2.1 billion if a greenshoe is exercised. The refinery processes 700,000 barrels of daily and reported an after-tax profit of $1.82 billion for the first half of 2026. Proceeds will fund a $14.3-billion expansion to double capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2029.
Dangote Profit ($M)
After-tax profit rebounded sharply in the first half of 2026.
SEC's Atkins Backs Clarity Act but Confirms Ongoing Crypto Enforcement
Allowing investment advisers to use state trust companies or self-custody removes Wall Street's institutional custody bottleneck, potentially unlocking asset manager flows into digital tokens.
coindesk.com reports that SEC Chairman Paul Atkins urged Congress to advance the Clarity Act ahead of a Senate procedural vote while confirming the agency will continue pursuing its own rules regardless. Speaking at a Solana Policy Institute event in Washington, Atkins outlined a three-pillar regulatory agenda focused on crypto issuance, transfer agent modernization, and custody. The SEC chairman has asked agency staff to develop a proposal that would allow investment advisers to self-custody crypto under certain conditions or use state trust companies as custodians. The regulatory push includes proposed rules designed to give entrepreneurs clearer pathways to raise using digital assets. Meanwhile, banking groups and state attorneys general have raised concerns regarding restrictions ahead of the Senate vote.
Lower-End Apartment Sales Surge in Philadelphia Amid Landlord Financial Strain
Mandatory court mediation and sheriff-only lockouts extend non-payment carry costs, turning Class-C leverage from a yield play into an unserviceable operational bottleneck.
Bisnow.com reports that sales of lower-end apartment buildings in Philadelphia have surged as small and medium-sized landlords face mounting financial distress. Northmarq tracked 31 multifamily sales with 25 or more units between the start of the year and July 22, nearly doubling the 16 transactions recorded over the same period in 2025. Class-C properties accounted for 71% of those sales, up from 46% last year. Ballooning operating costs, higher insurance premiums, and maturing floating-rate loans originated between 2020 and 2022 have squeezed landlords operating on tight margins. At the same time, post-pandemic tenant protections and mandatory precourt mediation have extended eviction timelines, while the Landlord Tenant Office closure in 2024 shifted all lockouts exclusively to the Philadelphia Sheriff.
Nvidia Considers Up to $10 Billion Investment in Anthropic IPO
Financing its primary tenant's listing creates a circular capital flow that inflates compute demand expectations while anchoring Nvidia's own data center hardware backlog.
Nvidia is considering an investment of up to $10 billion to serve as an anchor investor in Anthropic's potential initial public offering. Anthropic has selected for the listing, which could value the developer near $2 trillion and raise as much as $100 billion. The transaction would eclipse a previous record as the largest public debut on record. Nvidia's potential check functions as a strategic maneuver to secure hardware demand while participating in customer upside. The chipmaker previously committed up to $10 billion in November 2025 alongside Microsoft Azure infrastructure, creating a financial feedback loop where the hardware supplier finances its own tenant. Anthropic reported an annualized run rate surging past $65 billion by July 2026, up from $9 billion at the end of 2025. The terms of the offering remain under negotiation and subject to change without a completed S-1 filing.
Phoenix Bank Core Relaunches Under New Brand Name PhoenixWorx
Bundling digital capabilities directly into core software gives small financial institutions the unified data infrastructure required to satisfy stricter federal third-party risk oversight.
americanbanker.com reports that CORA Group has rebranded the core banking software it acquired from Finastra as PhoenixWorx. CORA Group, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Constellation Software, purchased the banking products three months prior for an undisclosed sum. The rebrand bundles previously separate products, including the digital banking system MalauzAI, into a single core offering serving approximately 200 firms such as community banks and credit unions. The relaunch coincides with proposed federal from agencies including the Board and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. that increases supervisory oversight of third-party bank vendor relationships. PhoenixWorx president and CEO Joe Gomez stated that the company focuses on data access and technology roadmaps for community financial institutions. Fintech analyst Tyler Brown noted that PhoenixWorx competes against major providers like FIS, Fiserv, and Jack Henry despite having a smaller .
IMBs Face Rising Costs in Second-Lien Market as Banks Enter
Commercial banks using low-cost deposit bases to aggregate second-liens undercut nonbank originators who depend on secondary market securitizations and warehouse lines for execution.
americanbanker.com reports that independent banks face mounting pressure in the second-lien securitization market as major commercial lenders re-enter the space. Rising have driven banks back into home line of credit products, squeezing nonbank originators who previously filled the vacuum left after the financial crisis. Large institutions including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase are now sponsoring securitizations and aggregating loans from originators like United Wholesale Mortgage and HomeTrust Bank. This bank competition threatens nonbanks that lack similar economies of scale and modern servicing platforms. Meanwhile, KBRA data shows that nonprime HELOCs carry elevated risk, with 30-day-plus rates hitting 3.9% compared to 2.6% for prime products.
Second-Lien Deal Types (2025 vs Current)
Closed-end seconds dominate issuance across both periods.
Capital deployment ranges from mega-tech IPO plans to distressed property sales and tightening mortgage margins. What is unresolved is whether shifting regulatory postures in crypto and banking oversight will help or hinder private capital recovery across these exposed sectors.
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