The Berkeley Blog

For several years now, there has been much controversy over how investment performance is measured in the private equity world. In an economy increasingly clouded by uncertainty, investors need to know that returns for a prospective investment are an accurate measure of performance.

The stock market might be acting like the biggest rollercoaster at the county fair, but publicly traded stocks and bonds are no longer the only game in town. We’re in the midst of seeing a paradigm shift from mainstream, publicly accessible markets, like stocks and bonds, to private capital.

As some states are forced to pause their re-opening plans because of surging COVID-19 cases, the question must be asked: Are we on the brink of another 2008 for banks that do a bulk of their business in real estate loans?

China is one of just eight nations in the world to possess more than 100 nuclear warheads in its military arsenal. Along with the other seven – India, Israel, Pakistan, France, UK, Russia, and the US – that means that at any time, if it was so inclined, it could destroy the world by launching [...]

The coronavirus might be here to stay, but that doesn’t mean that people are committed to riding it out in their big-city residences. A staggering one-third of Americans – some 109 million people – are at least considering a move to a place with a less dense population after the last 10 weeks of the [...]

The big name in delivery is Amazon, which normalized the idea of unlimited and free single-day shipping. They seem to be dominating the e-commerce game, but a new big and familiar competitor is set to shake up the board: Walmart. Walmart has long been a retail giant, but their recent foray into online shopping has [...]

Though reporting from China suggested new coronavirus cases may have been shrinking, new data from the beginning of February added 14,840 new infections from the Hubei province, the largest one-day increase so far recorded. According to the New York Times, the total number is now at 48,206. As of writing, 1,310 deaths have been recorded. [...]

Since the explosion of news about the outbreak of the coronavirus, there has been confusion over how to respond and on what will happen to the world economy as a result. It’s safe to say the virus won’t help the already slowing world markets, which could lead us further into slowing growth and eventually into [...]

Britain is set to remove itself from the European Economic Area (EEA), thus losing its passporting rights; that is, the right to do business with any other member of the EEA with few restrictions. That means that the financial hub that is Britain will be less attractive to foreign businesses and FDI in general, a [...]

The assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Soleimani has been dominating the news cycle, and that’s not for no reason: Of any of the strikes the United States has made, the resulting death of Soleimani will likely have the highest impact. This isn’t only because of the political implications, but for economic reasons as well. [...]

In this day and age of industry verticals and the ever need of being dynamic even within your space, none is more obvious than the IT business within small to mid-size operations. When speaking to any small-mid size CEO or executive about how they look at technology, it is usually in their top 10 important [...]

The Wall Street Journal reported in December that Sweden’s Riksbank, its central bank, one of the first to use negative interest rates, also became one of the first to end the policy. They did so because inflation was expected to rise to its target of 2% in the coming years. In addition, policy makers were [...]

Stories regarding Japan’s aging population aren’t uncommon today. The geographically small but globally impactful island nation is a place of interest for demographers, economists and the like who want to look forward at the impacts of an aging population. In the 1980s, Japan’s economy was growing fast, but now they face a demographic crisis that’s [...]

CNBC recently reported on Deutsche Bank’s perceived market risks for the United States, sent by Deutsche Bank’s chief economist Torsten Slok to a list of clients. As the new year dawns on us, I’ll go over some of these in relation to our business. For the sake of brevity, I’ll abridge, omit, and combine others [...]

Despite slowing growth and concern over when a global downturn will come, the U.S. remains a safe place for cross-border investment. National Real Estate Investor reported this week that cross-border real estate deals totaled $46.2 billion in the first nine months, up 17% from the $39.5 billion in the first nine months of 2018. That [...]

Bloomberg reported on November 20th that the rich in Europe are increasingly investing in precious metals, cash and cryptocurrency in efforts to hedge against a future recession, as well as avoid negative interest rates. Those rates are causing sitting cash to lose value, so for most of those holding it, banks are no longer a viable [...]

Talk within Senior Housing moves between concerns about undersupply and oversupply, with most discussion gathering around the latter. That particular concern isn’t hard to understand: while undersupply is optimistic for the developers, oversupply is an obvious problem. Oversupply is much scarier to think about for the optimistic Senior Housing space, which means it occupies a [...]

Private equity (PE) is currently considered a very attractive investment opportunity. Last year, there were a total of 2,296 funds in the market, while this year’s third quarter saw that number rise to 3,951. That’s a 72% increase in the number of P.E. funds. But what makes it that way, and why now? First, we [...]

While the rest of the European Union has seen an increase in foreign investment during the last three years, Britain has seen a decline that has put it at its lowest level of foreign direct investment (FDI) in six years. Despite that, it stayed at the top of the list. Financial Times reports that this [...]

The U.S. dollar is the currency of safety for the world. Given that the United States is also the originator of the impactful trade fight between itself and China, that creates a strange situation in which the U.S. economy is creating risk while propping itself up on risk aversion. Emerging Markets and their Role in [...]

On October 16th, The Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch reported from one of their polls that two-thirds of U.S. households are bracing for a possible recession. The Federal Reserve cut rates for a third time this year, giving many fearing a recession more reason to act accordingly. It may be the Fed’s intention to influence spending [...]

The middle market is an often-discussed topic within the Senior Housing industry, and one that is only becoming more debated as the demographic becomes more and more attractive to those on the outside looking in. There is a question you may be asking, then: why has investment in the middle-market product not been higher? In [...]

As global recession seems to be an increasingly common topic of conversation, most companies, firms and governments are asking one question: what is going to go wrong, and how can I keep myself from losing too much? As a company whose roots in real estate date back 30+ years, Omni Global Capital is used to [...]

The U.S. economy has long benefitted from overseas investments. Our current expansion is the longest on record, and foreign capital has been a significant part of that rise. According to Forbes, the United States has been the top destination for foreign direct investment, with over $4 trillion accounting for nearly 25% of total global stock [...]

Within many markets in the United States, the present Senior Housing inventory has aged to the point of being obsolete. Opportunities abound to challenge those older properties with new developments. The Value of Wellness A new focus on wellness has changed the Senior Housing landscape as well. The old idea of building a place that [...]

Today’s youth have great potential.  However, the general impression is that they are the “Entitlement Generation” who think that everything should be handed to them on a silver platter, that everyone should do things their way, and that they can only communicate via social media, going so far as to text each other while standing [...]