Alibaba’s online payment affiliate, Ant Financial Services Group, announced late yesterday that it’s raised more than $4.5 billion from investors—boosting it to a valuation of roughly $60 billion. Beyond online payments, Ant handles “low-risk money market funds and a wallet app” for smartphones around China – NYTimes and WSJ
Word has leaked that Comcast is negotiating to purchase DreamWorks Animation SKG for more than $3 billion—a “healthy premium” over DW’s current $2.3 billion value – WSJ
Law360 on what the new liquidity regulations for big banks will mean for the way they do business – Law360
Ongoing investigations into VW as a result of the emissions scandal have revealed a powerpoint deck from 2006 apparently providing instructions for how to cheat US emissions tests. That will not help the cause – NYTimes
Looks like VW may soon have some new company – Bloomberg and Marketplace
A few things (okay, 5 of them) to watch for as the Fed’s April meeting wraps up – WSJ
Fresh off Senator Warren’s vociferous opposition to its plan to allow another Steve (Cohen) to reenter the hedge fund game, the SEC’s reversing course on the fate of Steven Rattner, the “former Wall Street deal maker” involved in an alleged “pay-to-play arrangement,” who was set to return to the securities industry after a 5-year regulatory ban – WSJ
With recent iPhone sales down, Apple’s incredible 13-year run of quarterly revenue growth ended rather unceremoniously yesterday with the announcement that its Q2 revenue slid 13% (to a mere $50.6 billion, mind you) – NYTimes and WSJ
Speaking of streak busters, the oil price freefall has finally caught up with Exxon, as S&P has stripped the energy company of its “perfect” AAA credit rating that it’s held for more than 60 years. Microsoft and J&J are the two remaining American companies to retain the triple-A mark – WSJ
Online lender LendingClub Corp. is reportedly readying its “first sale of bonds backed by its unsecured loans” as it looks for “new funding sources in a challenging market,” even as others in the industry are “dialing back” new securitization issuance – WSJ
Why go all the way to Panama [or Switzerland. Or the Caymans] when you’ve got Delaware right in your backyard? – Bloomberg
The NYTimes allows for F. Scott Fitzgerald to have actually come from somewhere other than Manhattan or Long Island and pays a bit of respect to those Middle West roots with this nice little piece that retraces some of Fitzgerald’s St. Paul footsteps – NYTimes