FB Roundup Samantha Walton, Bill Hwang, Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant

Samantha Walton saves Chicago landmark to create community space

Philanthropist Samatha Walton has saved the Old West Side Women’s Shelter in Chicago, a 132-year-old property, from demolition and intends to turn it into a community space. 

The Wolfson building property at 2678 West Washington Boulevard was under threat of demolition. 

The Washington Boulevard building was built at the end of the nineteenth century as a family home for Fred Morgan who founded The Morgan & Wright Bicycle Tire Company in Chicago in 1891. 

More recently, the building had operated as a shelter for women and single mothers until it was sold to a property investment firm in 2022 which had asked for permission to demolish the structure.

Samatha had read an article in Block Club Chicago that the building was facing demolition and stepped in. 

The three buildings that make up the property – the house, a coach house and a dormitory – will be turned into a multifunctional space to host technology, art and food programmes. 

Samantha is married to Lukas Walton, a grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton. He is known for his devotion to environmental and social issues and has donated at least $150 million to his family’s foundation which was established to improve K-12 education, to protect rivers and oceans and the communities they support. 

Lukas and Samantha Walton are worth $31.6 billion according to Forbes.

Bill Hwang convicted of fraud in New York

A jury in New York last week found Bill Hwang guilty of fraud and market manipulation, three years after his hedge fund Archegos Capital Management imploded.

As we reported at the time, the trial of the billionaire Korean-born American investor and trader began in May. 

The jury found that he had “deceived the market” with trading strategies that let him drive up the share price of a number of shares. He had been accused by several banks, including Credit Suisse and Nomura, of using highly leveraged total return swaps to hide his high and concentrated exposure to ViacomCBS, Baidu, Vipshop, Farfetch. 

At the end of March 2021, the limited partnership family office that managed his personal assets defaulted on a number of margin calls.

At its peak, Archegos Capital Management managed $35 billion in assets.

He was originally arrested on federal charges of fraud and racketeering at the end of April 2022. 

The jury found him guilty of 10 out of 11 charges. His chief financial officer Patrick Halligan was also found guilty on all three counts he was charged with. 

“Hwang and Halligan lied about Archegos’s positions in these companies and just about every other materially important metric investment banks would use in determining the firm’s creditworthiness,” US attorney Damian Williams told the BBC after the verdicts.

Hwang will be sentenced on 28 October. 

Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant are married

Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant were married ten days ago in a lavish wedding in Mumbai attended by a guestlist that included the global business community, Hollywood stars and even two British prime ministers. 

Anant Ambani is the youngest son of Mukesh Ambani. With an estimated net worth of $113.7 billion as of March 2024, Mukesh Ambani is the richest person in Asia and the 11th richest in the world, according to Forbes magazine. 

Radhika Merchant is the daughter of Viren Merchant and Shaila Merchant. Viren is the chief executive of Encore Healthcare, another billionaire.

Visitors to the wedding included British former prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson as well as Gianni Infantino, President of Fédération Internationale de Football Association, and Lee Jae-yong, Executive Chairman of Samsung Electronics. 

There was a pre-wedding party in the city of Jamnagar in March. In May, celebrations continued with a four-day cruise around the Mediterranean. The blessing itself took place at a 16,000-capacity convention centre in Mumbai which is owned by the Ambani family’s conglomerate. Before the blessing, the family hosted a community feast for the underprivileged community in the city called a Bhandara. 

Although the costs of the wedding itself have not been made public, tabloid newspapers estimate that the whole celebration will have cost around $600 million.