Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — Advent International Corp. agreed to buy satellite owner and weather forecaster Maxar Technologies Inc. in a deal that values the company at about $4 billion.

Private equity firm Advent will pay $53 per share for Maxar, the companies said Friday. Maxar shares more than doubled in pre-market trading to $49.75 after closing at $23.10 on Thursday.

Maxar’s share price sagged this year as the company missed earnings targets and revised its 2022 projections lower. Advent said it would prioritize Maxar’s work with the U.S. defense and intelligence agencies. 

The transaction is worth a total of $6.4 billion including debt.

Maxar, which is based in Westminster, Colorado, operates satellites that can collect detailed images from space. Its technology is used for geospatial intelligence and defense and also powers Google Maps, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported on the deal earlier.

“Maxar is a uniquely positioned and attractive asset in satellite manufacturing and space-based high-resolution imagery,” said Shonnel Malani, global head of Advent’s aerospace and defense team, in a statement. 

(Updates with Advant executive comment)

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©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Mazars Group, the accounting firm used by crypto giant Binance Holdings Ltd. and other big players in the industry to vouch for their assets held in reserve, has halted all work for crypto clients, dealing a major blow to an industry seeking to shore up confidence in the wake of FTX’s collapse. 

The French firm suspended work for cryptocurrency firms because of indications that markets haven’t been reassured by the “proof-of-reserves” reports it had published so far, according to an email from the firm seen by Bloomberg News. The firm was also concerned about intense media scrutiny, the email said.

“Mazars has indicated that they will temporarily pause their work with all of their crypto clients globally,” a spokesperson for Binance said in a statement to Bloomberg News on Friday. “Unfortunately, this means that we will not be able to work with Mazars for the moment.” A Mazars spokesperson said the firm will issue a statement in due course, declining to comment further.

The decision is a setback for an industry that’s been trying to bolster its credibility with investors following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, which has been accused of misusing customer funds. Auditors have faced similar backlash in recent weeks, given that FTX itself had engaged such services prior to its collapse that seemingly missed any warning signs. Cryptocurrencies fell after the report, with Bitcoin down as much as 2.7% in early Europe trading. BNB, the native token of Binance Smart Chain, fell as much as 4.5%.

Paris-headquartered Mazars has been at the forefront of the crypto industry’s rush to conduct proof-of-reserves reports for the likes of Binance and other large exchanges, including Crypto.com and Kucoin. A spokesperson for Crypto.com said it would “continue to engage with reputable audit firms in 2023,” while Kucoin didn’t immediately respond a request for comment. A website hosting Mazars’s reports for crypto clients is currently inactive. 

Incomplete Picture

Proof of reserves reports have faced scrutiny as they are not comparable to a full audit, in that they only show a firm’s assets, not its liabilites, and instead serve as snapshots in time that say information provided by clients broadly checks out. 

These disclosures have failed to calm investors, with many opting to pull their tokens off exchanges in fear of further implosions. Over the past two weeks, a net $554 million in stablecoins and more than $2 billion in Bitcoin and Ether have been withdrawn from centralized exchanges, according to data from CryptoQuant — though this is largely stabilized compared to the mass withdrawals seen when FTX collapsed in early November.

“It is unclear how far the solvency contagion could run, and proof of reserves is not the same as proof of solvency,” said Simon Taylor, head of strategy and content at crypto startup Sardine. “The issue with FTX was that while it had reserves, those reserves were massively over valued relative to their risk in a bank run scenario.”

The Binance spokesperson said the exchange is exploring how it might provide additional transparency on its reserves in the coming months.

The cryptocurrency sector has long been plagued with a lack of established auditing standards, the consequences of which were laid bare in the recent unraveling of FTX. The exchange’s co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested this week in the Bahamas, and faces civil and criminal charges in the US for wire fraud among other allegations.

John J. Ray, FTX’s new CEO, told US lawmakers on Tuesday that the defunct exchange had used accounting software QuickBooks to try and keep track of its finances, a system he said was wholly unsuitable for a company of its size. 

Read: FTX Collapse Puts Auditors in Crosshairs of Clients, Regulators

FTX had previously engaged auditing services by Armanino LLP and Prager Metis CPAs LLC. Ray said that FTX had yet to go through Armanino’s recent audit of the firm’s books, adding: “We do have to look through the books and records and look at the audits themselves and see how comprehensive they were to see if the audit would have picked up anything that we see. Certainly we’re going to look at the related party disclosures that are in those audits, whether there’s any footnotes or exceptions.”

Afraid of Crypto?

Many crypto companies have argued that they struggled to engage auditors at the top of the food chain for a deeper look at their books, due in part to the industry’s tarnished image as a vector for money laundering and other fraudulent behavior. Several companies have pledged to release full audits in due course, including Binance.

“Many audit firms are scared to work with crypto businesses,” said Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao in a Thursday interview on CNBC. When asked why Binance hasn’t engaged a Big Four auditor — a moniker that refers to the largest accountancy companies PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG — Zhao added that such firms “don’t even know how to audit crypto exchanges.”

All four firms either declined or did not respond to requests by Bloomberg News to be interviewed.

Critics have pointed out that, while it may be challenging, it is not impossible for cryptocurrency companies to secure full audits. Coinbase, the US-based publicly-listed exchange, works with Deloitte for its annual audited statements.

“Over the last several years, we’ve seen more auditors build out their practice to cater to the unique challenges crypto companies face,” said Maya Zehavi, a cryptocurrency angel investor. “It’s a shame that obfuscated business norms that have become the standard for offshore exchanges will ruin access for legit crypto companies to get professional auditing.”

Others have bemoaned an historic lack of expertise among top-tier auditors about how to analyze blockchain transactions and cryptoassets. Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO of crypto asset management firm CoinShares, described several difficulties in getting a 2017 audit of its books by Deloitte over the line.

“It has always been difficult for them to play catch-up, because the people they have in-house don’t really have the skills,” Mognetti said in an interview. The process required a significant amount of training from CoinShares to teach Deloitte’s auditors how to properly vet a crypto firm’s books, he said, with the report then passed around to numerous partners overseas out of concern for the firm’s reputation.

The following year, the team at Deloitte in charge of CoinShares as a client was turned over with new staff, meaning that CoinShares would need to start the training all over again, Mognetti said. CoinShares now works with Grant Thornton for its annual audit. A spokesperson for Deloitte declined to comment on Mognetti’s statement.

Not Sufficient

Ultimately, a consensus remains that proof of reserves reports are insufficient, even as a stepping stone for crypto companies eager to show their financial health.

“If, for example, there are different parties that have claims on these assets, that might not necessarily come out through a proof of reserves report, and similarly that wouldn’t look at the internal control environment of these companies,” said Esther Mallowah, head of tech policy at the ICAEW, a global professional body for chartered accountants. “It’s a start, and it’s better than nothing, but I don’t think they provide the complete picture that investors need.”

A report published Thursday by industry group UK Finance included suggestions that as a first step, crypto firms should be required to meet local accounting and audit standards laid out under so-called client assets rules, which were strengthened after the 2008 financial crisis. “This would provide a framework for identification of client assets, segregation and safeguarding, reconciliation, and registration and legal title,” the group said.

–With assistance from Anna Irrera, Sidhartha Shukla and Philip Lagerkranser.

(Updates with fresh context from third paragraph onwards)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Mazars Group, the accounting firm used by crypto giant Binance Holdings Ltd. and other big players in the industry to vouch for their assets held in reserve, has halted all work for crypto clients, dealing a blow to an industry seeking to shore up confidence in the wake of FTX’s collapse. 

The French firm suspended work for cryptocurrency firms because of indications that markets haven’t been reassured by the “proof-of-reserves” reports it had published so far, according to an email from the firm seen by Bloomberg News. The firm was also concerned about intense media scrutiny, the email said.

“Mazars has indicated that they will temporarily pause their work with all of their crypto clients globally,” a spokesperson for Binance said in a statement to Bloomberg News on Friday. “Unfortunately, this means that we will not be able to work with Mazars for the moment.” A Mazars spokesperson said the firm will issue a statement in due course, declining to comment further.

The decision is a setback for an industry that’s been trying to bolster its credibility with investors following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, which has been accused of misusing customer funds. Auditors have faced similar backlash in recent weeks, given that FTX itself had engaged such services prior to its collapse that seemingly missed any warning signs. Cryptocurrencies fell after the report, with Bitcoin down as much as 2.7% in early Europe trading. BNB, the native token of Binance Smart Chain, fell as much as 4.5%.

Paris-based Mazars has been at the forefront of the crypto industry’s rush to conduct proof-of-reserves reports for the likes of Binance and other large exchanges, including Crypto.com and Kucoin. A spokesperson for Crypto.com said it would “continue to engage with reputable audit firms in 2023,” while Kucoin didn’t immediately respond a request for comment. A website hosting Mazars’s reports for crypto clients is currently inactive. 

Incomplete Picture

Proof-of-reserves reports have faced scrutiny as they are not comparable to a full audit, in that they only show a firm’s assets, not its liabilites, and instead serve as snapshots in time that say information provided by clients broadly checks out. 

These disclosures have failed to calm investors, with many opting to pull their tokens off exchanges in fear of further implosions. Over the past two weeks, a net $554 million in stablecoins and more than $2 billion in Bitcoin and Ether have been withdrawn from centralized exchanges, according to data from CryptoQuant — though this is largely stabilized compared to the mass withdrawals seen when FTX collapsed in early November.

“It is unclear how far the solvency contagion could run, and proof of reserves is not the same as proof of solvency,” said Simon Taylor, head of strategy and content at crypto startup Sardine. “The issue with FTX was that while it had reserves, those reserves were massively over valued relative to their risk in a bank run scenario.”

The Binance spokesperson said the exchange is exploring how it might provide additional transparency on its reserves in the coming months.

The cryptocurrency sector has long been plagued with a lack of established auditing standards, the consequences of which were laid bare in the recent unraveling of FTX. The exchange’s co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested this week in the Bahamas, and faces civil and criminal charges in the US for wire fraud among other allegations.

John J. Ray, FTX’s new CEO, told US lawmakers on Tuesday that the defunct exchange had used accounting software QuickBooks to try and keep track of its finances, a system he said was wholly unsuitable for a company of its size. 

Read: FTX Collapse Puts Auditors in Crosshairs of Clients, Regulators

FTX had previously engaged auditing services by Armanino LLP and Prager Metis CPAs LLC. Ray said that FTX had yet to go through Armanino’s recent audit of the firm’s books, adding: “We do have to look through the books and records and look at the audits themselves and see how comprehensive they were to see if the audit would have picked up anything that we see. Certainly we’re going to look at the related party disclosures that are in those audits, whether there’s any footnotes or exceptions.”

Afraid of Crypto?

Many crypto companies have argued that they struggled to engage auditors at the top of the food chain for a deeper look at their books, due in part to the industry’s tarnished image as a vector for money laundering and other fraudulent behavior. Several companies have pledged to release full audits in due course, including Binance.

“Many audit firms are scared to work with crypto businesses,” said Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao in a Thursday interview on CNBC. When asked why Binance hasn’t engaged a Big Four auditor — a moniker that refers to the largest accountancy companies PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG — Zhao added that such firms “don’t even know how to audit crypto exchanges.”

All four firms either declined or did not respond to requests by Bloomberg News to be interviewed.

Critics have pointed out that, while it may be challenging, it is not impossible for cryptocurrency companies to secure full audits. Coinbase, the US-based publicly-listed exchange, works with Deloitte for its annual audited statements.

“Over the last several years, we’ve seen more auditors build out their practice to cater to the unique challenges crypto companies face,” said Maya Zehavi, a cryptocurrency angel investor. “It’s a shame that obfuscated business norms that have become the standard for offshore exchanges will ruin access for legit crypto companies to get professional auditing.”

Others have bemoaned an historic lack of expertise among top-tier auditors about how to analyze blockchain transactions and cryptoassets. Jean-Marie Mognetti, CEO of crypto asset management firm CoinShares, described several difficulties in getting a 2017 audit of its books by Deloitte over the line.

“It has always been difficult for them to play catch-up, because the people they have in-house don’t really have the skills,” Mognetti said in an interview. The process required a significant amount of training from CoinShares to teach Deloitte’s auditors how to properly vet a crypto firm’s books, he said, with the report then passed around to numerous partners overseas out of concern for the firm’s reputation.

The following year, the team at Deloitte in charge of CoinShares as a client was turned over with new staff, meaning that CoinShares would need to start the training all over again, Mognetti said. CoinShares now works with Grant Thornton for its annual audit. A spokesperson for Deloitte declined to comment on Mognetti’s statement.

Not Sufficient

Ultimately, a consensus remains that proof-of-reserves reports are insufficient, even as a stepping stone for crypto companies eager to show their financial health.

“If, for example, there are different parties that have claims on these assets, that might not necessarily come out through a proof-of-reserves report, and similarly that wouldn’t look at the internal control environment of these companies,” said Esther Mallowah, head of tech policy at the ICAEW, a global professional body for chartered accountants. “It’s a start, and it’s better than nothing, but I don’t think they provide the complete picture that investors need.”

A report published Thursday by industry group UK Finance included suggestions that as a first step, crypto firms should be required to meet local accounting and audit standards laid out under so-called client assets rules, which were strengthened after the 2008 financial crisis. “This would provide a framework for identification of client assets, segregation and safeguarding, reconciliation, and registration and legal title,” the group said.

–With assistance from Anna Irrera, Sidhartha Shukla and Philip Lagerkranser.

(Updates with fresh context from third paragraph onwards)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc.’s live audio service, Twitter Spaces, is down after a number of journalists that had just been suspended from the social network found they could still participate on it.

Twitter owner Elon Musk said late Thursday night that the company was fixing an old bug and the audio service “should be working tomorrow.” Earlier in the evening, Musk’s network threw reporters from CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, among others, into a seven-day suspension for allegedly disclosing the location of his private jet.

Twitter Suspends Journalists Who Musk Says Imperiled His Safety

BuzzFeed News reporter Katie Notopoulos went live on Twitter Spaces to discuss the abrupt spate of bans — which came without communication to either the journalists or their publications — and was joined by Drew Harwell of the Washington Post and Matt Binder of Mashable, two of the suspended reporters. Their tweets were no longer visible and they could not post new ones, however they were still allowed to speak on the Spaces service.

Musk dropped in on the session as well, after it accumulated thousands of listeners, to say tersely that anyone who doxxes — gives personal location information about another person — will be suspended. The journalists countered that they had not posted any real-time flight data, as he alleged, but by then the billionaire had quit the call. The dialogue drew more than 40,000 listeners at its peak.

Twitter Spaces went down while Notopoulos’ session was still ongoing, disconnecting everyone, she said in a later tweet. No recording or information about that session is available on Twitter now.

Musk’s bans have set alarm bells ringing among European Union regulators and politicians, who warned that Twitter will have to tread carefully when new rules on digital content and media freedom take effect in coming months.

“News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” said European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova in a tweet. “There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.”

–With assistance from Jillian Deutsch, Stephanie Bodoni, Benoit Berthelot and Agatha Cantrill.

(Updates with EU warnings starting in sixth paragraph)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — In the next decade, millions of new cars will go electric and thousands of energy grids will switch to renewable sources. For many regular drivers and small business owners, this will mean an enormous, and very unpredictable, shift in their electricity bills.

Arcadia Power Inc. sees that as a golden opportunity. The company, based in Washington, DC, sells a software system that allows its customers — bigger companies like Ford Motor Co. and Salesforce.com Inc. — to get a single snapshot of what energy they use, how much they pay for it and where.

Arcadia, formed in 2014, spent its first seven years in the community solar business, managing accounts for renters and businesses that financed solar panels in exchange for a discount on power bills. Since November 2021 it has also offered a software service, called Arc, that collates data from utilities into an API. That’s quickly turned Arcadia into a far splashier technology startup prepping to go public soon.

Today, Arc has over 300 paying clients and accounts for roughly half of Arcadia’s business. Chief Executive Officer Kiran Bhatraju says sales from the new venture will soon outpace the solar side since the software sits at the center of the expected multi-trillion-dollar transition to clean energy.

“We’re the building block tools for others,” says Bhatraju. “Unlocking this data makes solar more effective, makes storage more valuable, makes your [electric vehicle] more valuable.”

It has made his company more valuable, too. On Friday, Arcadia announced $125 million in fresh financing, less than eight months after raising $200 million. The startup is valued at $1.5 billion. It claims to have access to the usage and tariff data for 95% of US utilities. After raising capital in May, Arcadia acquired a rival, Urjanet, allowing it to expand overseas.

Arcadia is basically banking on utilities remaining dinosaurs. All the information the startup collects — on energy usage, rates and payments — exists in electricity bills, spreadsheets, quarterly reports and PDFs. But, by Bhatraju’s telling, no one has done the legwork to sift through, aggregate and package it as usable digital tool. And he doesn’t see utility providers rushing to compete with him. “This is just not on their priority list,” he says.

The executive compares his Arc service to Plaid, the software backend that connects consumer bank accounts to financial apps like Venmo. In the same way, Arcadia wants to be invisible but useful to everyday consumers. Ford, for instance, uses Arc to sort out the best time for customers to charge their electric cars and assess how much charging will cost. 

Electric vehicles present a large opportunity. Carmakers, delivery operations and trucking firms have all pledged to electrify their fleets over the coming decade, responding to ESG shareholder pressure and state laws. That shift will bring sudden changes to the price of electricity, as charging stations all jump into the grid. For companies running these fleets, that’s a big unknown in costs. “We’re just at this tipping point where this is about to become a problem,” says Jeff Osborne, managing director for sustainability and mobility at investment bank Cowen & Co LLC. 

Aside from carmakers, Bhatraju says Arc is seeing “incredibly fast-growing” uptick in use in carbon accounting, the booming industry for tracking and auditing corporate emissions. Salesforce began offering Arc as an app for its clients earlier this year as part of the larger company’s  emissions accounting service, Net Zero Cloud. “Basically, Arcadia solves that problem for our customers out of the box,” says Ari Alexander, the general manager for Salesforce’s net zero programs. (While Alexander says that Salesforce has seen “tremendous feedback” on Arcadia’s product, he declined to share any numbers.)

According to Bhatraju, financial technology companies have also expressed interest, particularly in Arcadia’s ability to see how often customers paid energy bills on time. Big finance is certainly interested. Hedge fund Magnetar Capital LLC joined the latest round financing Arcadia, along with existing investors Keyframe Capital Partners and Macquarie Asset Management’s Green Investment Group. 

Arcadia looks like the kind of tech most investors love — light on assets, low on capital and high on margins. Bhatraju says his software business has gross margins of around 80% and will be profitable “soon.” Arcadia is considering a public listing but Bhatraju wouldn’t give any specifics on timing. “When it looks like the markets are receptive again, we may take a look,” he says. He ruled out an IPO via SPAC, the route that has devastated several renewable energy companies recently. 

Osborne, the analyst, says the market for energy data is too nascent for an accurate size estimate. But there’s clearly growing demand for software to help manage the rapid changes in power usage and prices that many industries see coming. Some companies, such as Voltus Inc., have tried selling this as virtual grid providers. Osborne notes that a few solar operators and energy storage firms like Fluence Energy Inc. are also developing satellite businesses similar to Arcadia. 

“That’s what everyone wants,” he says. “Whether it works or not: The jury is still out.”

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — When Epameinondas Gerolimatos, a soft-spoken 41-year-old, got his degree in economics in 2003, he assumed, like many other Greeks, that a career in banking would mean long-term job security. The 2010 financial crisis and its decade-long fallout rattled his country’s faith in the industry, but Gerolimatos is again part of a sector that is shaping up to become one of Greece’s most influential – tech.

After signing up for a national unemployment registry, in May Gerolimatos was offered a spot in a free certificate program run by Microsoft. A month later, he was one of 25 out of 150 to pass his course, which is part of an effort to train 100,000 would-be specialists in information technology by the end of 2025. Three months and yet another Microsoft certificate program later, Gerolimatos was weighing job offers, eventually becoming a security engineer at a global accounting firm. 

As tech companies go big on Greece, Gerolimatos’s story may soon become common. While a recent surge in inflation and a growing fear of recession could slow international investment, so far, the sector has been thriving.

In 2020, Microsoft announced plans to build three data centers outside Athens, doubling its number of local employees to just above 300 for the time being. In Thessaloniki, the country’s second-largest city, Cisco set up an international innovation and digital skills development center, and Pfizer is building a network of research hubs focused on artificial intelligence. This fall, Google announced that it would break ground on a cloud hub near Athens that it claims will boost the country’s economic output by more than 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) and create 19,400 new jobs by 2030. The government has also been pouring money into the sector: in coming years, it plans to develop innovation districts in Athens and Thessaloniki that will house large enterprises, academic institutions, startups and incubators.

Beyond the Mediterranean nation’s obvious charms and easy access to Africa and the Middle East, global tech players have also been lured by generous tax incentives and an abundance of renewable solar and wind energy. Although the numbers remain relatively low – just above 330 million euros in 2021 – foreign direct investment in Greece’s information and communication technology sector has more than tripled in the past two years, and now accounts for roughly 3% of the country’s total GDP. In 2021, the sector ranked sixth out of 19 economic sectors in terms of attractiveness for foreign direct investment. If the ruling New Democracy party has its way, that number could grow bigger still. In a recent speech at the opening of a new data center run by cloud computing company Digital Realty, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced his ambition for technology to contribute 10% to the country’s economic output in the next five years.

“This year, Greece set a record in filing and granting approvals for new patents,” the Prime Minister told the crowd, citing this as evidence of ongoing innovation. Since taking office in 2019, when the country was starting to climb out of its debt crisis, Mitsotakis has pushed tech as one of Greece’s paths toward prosperity.

This is an appealing narrative, and a slightly ironic one for a prime minister in the midst of a tech-related scandal. Mitsotakis has been under intense pressure since August, when it was revealed that businesspeople, journalists and political opponents had their phones tapped with sophisticated malware. The government has repeatedly denied that its security services bought or used the spyware, called Predator, whose parent company was based in Greece. Still, action has been taken to rein in renegade tech use. In early December, the lawmakers approved a law that would ban malware and make it harder for national intelligence services to put someone under surveillance.

Mitsotakis, naturally, wants to direct public attention elsewhere. With a national election scheduled for next year, he has been trying to make good on previous campaign promises, such as making it easier for people who left the country during the economic crisis to return home. A rise in well-paid tech jobs has offered a critical assist in achieving this goal. 

“Some 20% of new hires are people who were living and working abroad,” said Theodosis Michalopoulos, Microsoft’s general manager for Greece, Cyprus and Malta.

One returnee is Christina Leimoni, who left a director-level job in the UK to become Microsoft’s Chief Operating Officer for Greece, Cyprus and Malta. Before she took the position, Leimoni hadn’t considered moving back to her home country, in part because she was concerned that as a lesbian, she and her wife and daughter “would not have been regarded as a family.” The dynamism of today’s Greece convinced her to take the role, and rather than return to the closet, Leimoni has become an advocate for LGBTQ issues. “There’s an amazing momentum in the country,” she reflected.

The c-suite isn’t the only rank at which the demand for experience has outpaced available supply. To draw in skilled international talent, the government launched a visa program in 2021 for digital nomads, and so far has issued some 450 visas. For local talent, tech companies have taken it upon themselves to train prospective employees. In addition to Microsoft’s certificate programs, more than 250,000 businesses and individuals have gone through Google training initiatives in Greece. “Technology can’t be useful if there are no digital skills,” said Peggy Antonakou, the company’s Southeast Europe general manager.

Of course, Athens is far from the only city with aspirations of becoming a tech hub. Lisbon has tried for years, with limited success. But with Greece now on stable political and economic footing, big tech companies say that investing in it isn’t a difficult decision. The country has sped up its digital transformation in recent years, boasts a well-educated population whose salary expectations are a relative bargain for international employers, and is renowned for its stunning natural beauty and quality of life. As Antonakou said of the search giant’s investment, “If not now, then when?”

On a warm and sunny November morning in Athens, a mix of journalists, laid-back locals and government officials gathered at a café and events space close to the site of an ancient market for the launch of a new website that was the result of a collaboration between Google, the tourism ministry and the city. As attendees stretched out on blue banquettes bearing the logo of Olympic Airlines, presenters explained how the site’s curated audio walks offered a novel take on Athens by featuring stories from native Athenians. The aim, they said, was to transform the Greek capital into “an open-air museum.”

Athens, of course, has long been described as a museum. But the infusion of tech money and jobs promise something different, for both the capital and country at large. Rather than looking backward, the hope is that Greeks may soon have another success story to brighten their future.

(Updates with further details on FDI in fifth paragraph. A previous version of this story was corrected as it described “Athens: The city is the museum” as an app. It is a website.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Backlash against Elon Musk suspending journalists from Twitter Inc. has spread among senior European politicians, with threats of future sanctions and lawmakers leaving the platform. 

“News about arbitrary suspension of journalists on Twitter is worrying,” said Commission Vice President Vera Jourova in a tweet. “There are red lines. And sanctions, soon.” 

Twitter suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists — including from the Washington Post, CNN, and the New York Times — covering the social network’s billionaire owner Elon Musk, who alleged they were endangering his family. Musk said the suspended profiles were of people who had posted his real-time location, describing the information as “basically assassination coordinates.“

Jourova — one of the EU’s more senior officials — cited the Digital Services Act and the Media Freedom Act, two major pillars of European tech regulation. The DSA — the EU’s content moderation rulebook which would ban arbitrary suspensions of accounts — was made law in the fall, but companies won’t start the compliance process until the summer. Companies like Twitter first have to report the number of users they have in the EU in February.

The European Commission proposed the Media Freedom Act in September to establish new safeguards for media. The plan is in the early stages of negotiations in the EU institutions. 

The German Foreign Ministry also voiced its concern — via Twitter, stating that ““#PressFreedom must not be switched on and off at will. As of today, the journalists listed below can also no longer follow, comment or criticize us. This means we have a problem @Twitter.” 

Twitter has drawn criticism from the German government since Musk’s purchase of the platform. In a press conference on Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit said the government is in the process of evaluating its policy on using the platform.

The French minister in charge of industry Roland Lescure tweeted on Friday morning that he would suspend his account. “Following the suspension of journalists’ accounts by @elonmusk, I am suspending all activity on @Twitter until further notice”, he wrote. The French digital minister Jean-Noel Barrot tweeted he was “distressed by the drift in which Elon Musk precipitates Twitter”. 

–With assistance from Agatha Cantrill, Benoit Berthelot and Stephanie Bodoni.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — Listen to Bloomberg Crypto on the iHeartRadio App, Apple Podcasts or  Spotify.

It’s hard to imagine, but it was only a mere month ago that disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was the undisputed king of the digital-asset industry. Now the 30-year-old is under arrest and facing criminal charges from the U.S. The Department of Justice as well as civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. FTX has declared bankruptcy, and almost a million creditors are at risk of not getting all of their money back.

Meanwhile, contagion continues to spread through the ecosystem. Attention has centered on crypto exchange Binance, which was hit with more than $1 billion in withdrawals in recent days. Some market watchers also fear the stablecoin Tether could be the next crypto domino to fall. 

Bloomberg crypto editor Anna Irrera and Bloomberg reporter Misyrlena Egkolfopoulo join the show.

Subscribe to the Bloomberg Crypto Newsletter at https://bloom.bg/cryptonewsletter 

This podcast is produced by the Bloomberg Crypto Podcast team: Supervising producer: Vicki Vergolina, Senior Producer: Janet Babin, Producers: Sharon Beriro and Muhammad Farouk, Associate Producers: Mo Andam and Ty Butler. Sound Design/Engineer: Desta Wondirad.

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©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) — European Union member states reached a deal on a ninth package of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, targeting Moscow’s access to drones, additional banks as well as officials responsible for allegedly abducting children from Ukraine. 

The measures, which enter into force once published in the EU’s official journal, were agreed by the bloc’s ambassadors Thursday evening and impact more than 100 individuals and dozens of entities, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. The EU also agreed to ban direct exports of drone engines to Russia or third countries, such as Iran, which could then supply drones to Russia.

The sanctions will target three banks — the Russian Regional Development Bank, Credit Bank of Moscow and Dalnevostochny Bank — four media outlets, export restrictions on more chemicals and technologies used for military purposes, as well as goods, including several types of hard drives, radio-navigation equipment, generators, computers, laptops, cameras and lenses, and more than 100 individuals and entities.

Among those set to be sanctioned are family members and associates of both Yury Kovalchuk, a long-time acquaintance of President Vladimir Putin, and the head of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, according to one of the documents. Also on the list are military personnel involved in missile planning units, constitutional court judges, Putin’s economic aide Maxim Oreshkin, political parties as well as dozens more politicians, media executives, army officials and military entities, including the national guard, the armed forces and its main intelligence directorate.

The EU is also set to sanction Valentina Tereshkova, a member of Russia’s parliament who was the first woman in space, and Oscar winner Nikita Mikhalkov, who is a prominent pro-Putin TV commentator, the document shows.

In addition, the measures are due to hit officials and governors allegedly involved in the transportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, and officials involved in the seizure of Ukrainian agricultural products. Russia denies the children have been abducted, saying they have been relocated for their own protection.

Mining Sector

The latest package of sanctions will also ban new investments in Russia’s mining sector, with the exception of activities involving certain critical raw materials.

The sanctions could change before they are formally adopted on Friday. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said earlier this week that his government had lobbied the EU to remove some Russian officials from the next round of sanctions.

As part of discussions on Thursday evening, EU member states discussed a mechanism to carve out specific exemptions, on a case-by-case basis, for a small number of previously sanctioned individuals and entities significantly involved in food-related deals, the people said. Transactions can also be rejected for national security reasons. Guidance will be provided outlining what persons and entities would qualify as significant. 

–With assistance from Natalia Drozdiak, Aaron Eglitis, Slav Okov and Tony Halpin.

(Updates with details on individuals in fifth paragraph)

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(Bloomberg) — French auditing firm Mazars Group has paused work for all crypto clients globally, according to crypto exchange Binance, which was a customer of the auditing firm.

“Mazars has indicated that they will temporarily pause their work with all of their crypto clients globally, which include Crypto.com, KuCoin, and Binance. Unfortunately, this means that we will not be able to work with Mazars for the moment,” a spokesperson for the firm said in an emailed statement to Bloomberg News on Friday.

Mazars, Crypto.com and Kucoin didn’t immediately return requests seeking comment. 

Bitcoin fell as much as 2.4% to $16,978 in early Europe trading following Binance’s statement.

Paris-headquartered Mazars has been at the forefront of the crypto industry’s rush to conduct so-called “proof of reserves” reports for the likes of Binance and other large exchanges, following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November.

However proof of reserves reports have faced scrutiny as they are not a full audit, in that they only show a firm’s assets, not its liabilites, and instead serve as snapshots in time that say the information provided by clients broadly checks out.

“We embrace additional transparency and we are looking into how best to provide those details in the coming months,” the Binance spokesperson added. 

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