Hedge funds vs. Big Tech — Facebook's mega office deal — Stocks for kids

Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week.

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The savviest hedge funds need employees with specific skills to keep up — and keep ahead — in a rapidly changing world. That means data scientists, coders, engineers, and systems managers.

And while those skills might seem to make most sense in Silicon Valley, Wall Street has been working for years to pry people away from Big Tech. And as Bradley Saacks reports, it looks like the efforts have been paying off for some:

You can read the full story here:

3 charts map out the epic poaching war between top hedge funds and Big Tech, and show which firms are coming out ahead in an escalating battle

There's also plenty to talk about when it comes to the winners and losers on the performance front in 2020. After a tumultuous start to the year, many big-name hedge fund managers are back in the black.

And $34 billion Citadel is dominating 2020 — Bradley took a look at how it's outperforming rivals:

Citadel is up more than 16% in its flagship Wellington Fund YTD through July, and its standalone Global Fixed Income fund is meanwhile up nearly 12%.
In July alone, Wellington was up 2.7% and Global Fixed Income returned 2.1%.
The five strategies that feed into Wellington — equities, fixed income and macro, global credit, commodities, and quant — are all positive for the year.

But plenty of players haven't been so lucky. Bradley also rounded up seven big names that are tanking as their credit and quant strategies flounder.

Keep reading for a look at who's leading Goldman Sachs' merchant-banking division; what Facebook's mega NYC real-estate deal means for the future of the office; and why one JPMorgan-backed fintech is looking for ways to let kids play the stock market.

Enjoy the weekend,

Meredith

Who's in the driver's seat at Goldman's merchant-banking division

Goldman Sachs' merchant-banking division has been ground zero for CEO David Solomon's push to build an alternatives investing powerhouse. The firm's planning to raise at least $100 billion over the next five years from outside investors.

That strategy has required a combining of several disparate teams from across the company, which prompted some turnover. But the management team has stabilized in recent months, and Dakin Campbell gives us a rundown of who's now running the show.

Read the full story here:

REVEALED: Goldman Sachs leaders who are now running the powerful merchant-banking division that's raising $100 billion for a new alternatives push

A quick fix for private-share woes?

As Bradley Saacks and Meghan Morris reported this week, some of the world's most well-known private companies have lost value since the pandemic's start.

And even before the pandemic hit, a survey of venture capitalists found that a majority believed unicorns were "significantly" overvalued. But bankers and valuation experts see a potential quick fix to falling valuations: SPACs, which have taken Wall Street by storm over the last month.

Read the full story here:

Big investors have been slashing valuations on stakes in private companies like Palantir and Sweetgreen. But bankers say there could be a quick fix.

Don't write off the office just yet

Vornados Farley Building rendering

Facebook told employees this week that they can work remote until 2021. But meanwhile, the tech giant also went forward on a massive lease to take all of the office space in the Farley Building on Manhattan's West Side.

The deal signifies a major vote of confidence in New York City's office market at a moment when its future has been thrust into question by the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the full story here:

Facebook just reached a blockbuster deal to lease the massive Farley Building in NYC as a tech and engineering hub. Here's why it's a huge win for a shaken office market.

Cold storage is a red-hot real estate play

amazon fresh

Once an obscure corner of real estate, cold storage has seen an uptick in demand from a growing e-grocery industry, shifting consumer preferences for fresh foods, and the antiquation of decades-old cold spaces.

As Dan Geiger reported this week, cold-storage giant Lineage Logistics has expanded its dominance in the space by scooping up 24 warehouses across the US for more than $500 million. Lineage is owned by investment firms Bay Grove Capital, D1 Capital Partners, and Stonepeak Partners.

Read the full story here:

Here's how the private-equity backed industry leader is spending $500 million to tighten its grip on the market.

Parental control for investing

kids

Greenlight, the personal financial management app for kids and parents, has seen its user base double since the start of the year. Now it's building an investing feature where kids can propose stock and ETF trades to their parents.

"To build true wealth, you really need to learn how to invest," Tim Sheehan, cofounder and CEO of Greenlight, told Business Insider's Shannen Balogh. "So we want the kids to try to learn that as early as they can, and to do it in a supervised environment."

Read the full story here:

A JPMorgan-backed personal finance app catering to children has doubled users this year. Now it's eyeing ways to let kids play the stock market.

Careers

Inside Jefferies' all-virtual summer internship: 5 weeks of charity work, and guest appearances from the CEOs of Blackstone and Zoom.
Average fintech salaries are in the six figures: A talent exec at $5.3 billion Plaid lays out 3 ways to get your foot in the door.
Boutique banks like Evercore and Moelis are saving tens of millions in travel and entertainment costs: Here's what that newfound efficiency could mean for the future of business travel.

Real estate

Facial-recognition could be coming to your office: Here's how companies are pitching the tech to landlords and trying to allay privacy concerns.
Ghost kitchens are pitching themselves as the future of restaurants: These are the 14 companies in the space that you need to know.
Real-estate developers are racing to reimagine struggling retail space as apartments or last-mile logistics hubs: They're betting the risky strategy could be a lifesaver for struggling shopping centers.

Fintech and payments

PayPal's CFO outlines ambitious plans to become your virtual wallet: Here's why potential partnerships with the likes of Amazon and Alibaba make more sense now.
Top fintech investors see a big opportunity in disrupting how people and companies pay their bills: Here are 8 startups on the verge of breaking out.
A peek inside Goldman Sachs' internal idea factory that's hatched products like a LinkedIn for Wall Street: Here's what else it's trying to disrupt at the bank.