Speaking after remarks to the Economic Club of Minnesota, Bessent said President Donald Trump's proposal would be forward-looking and would not require investors to unwind current holdings. 'The idea here is bygones are bygones,' Bessent said. 'We're not going to have a forced sale here.' The proposal would seek to ban institutional investors from purchasing single-family homes in the future, as part of a broader effort to address housing affordability ahead of the US midterm elections. Bessent said the administration's objective is to 'push out the marginal buyer' and prioritise traditional individual owners. Officials are still considering the structure of the policy, including thresholds that could define when an investor becomes an aggregator, potentially based on ownership of a dozen or two dozen homes. The administration also wants to ensure families who rent homes to relatives are not affected. Bessent said large financial institutions began acquiring single-family housing stock in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, when private equity firms were among the few buyers with sufficient liquidity. He added that tax advantages, including depreciation and expensing, have supported continued institutional investment in the sector....

TDR Capital has raised around '3.3bn, equivalent to roughly $4.2bn, from sales of Asda supermarkets, warehouses, and petrol forecourts since acquiring the retailer in 2021 alongside the Issa brothers. Clayton Dubilier & Rice has raised about '3.2bn, or around $4.1bn, from Morrisons' property portfolio since completing its '7bn acquisition in 2022. Much of the capital has been generated through sale-and-leaseback transactions, leaving both retailers paying rent on assets they previously owned. TDR used proceeds from a '1.7bn sale-and-leaseback of 27 Asda warehouses with Blackstone to help finance its acquisition, and later raised a further '568m from supermarket sales. Clayton Dubilier & Rice has also used property sales to address Morrisons' debt burden. In 2024, the firm sold Morrisons' 337 petrol forecourts to Motor Fuel Group, another portfolio company, in a '2.5bn deal that included Morrisons taking a roughly 20% stake in the buyer. Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....

Tesla delivered 1.63 million vehicles globally in 2025, a 9% fall from 1.79 million in 2024, according to figures released by the company. Notably, about 50,850 of those vehicles are considered 'other models,' a collection that includes the Cybertruck as well as its older Model X and Model S. Tesla reported fourth-quarter sales of 418,227, a 15.6% drop from the same period last year and far more than analysts expected. Tesla stock fell more than 2% as the market opened after the New Year holiday. Tesla, once the global EV sales leader, has seen its market share in Europe and China eroded by the rise of Chinese competitors. China's BYD, which delivered 2.26 million EVs in 2025, has now taken the top global EV sales spot. Tesla is also facing more competition in the United States ' although notably not from Chinese automakers, which are barred from selling vehicles in the country. But it was the elimination of the $7,500 U.S. federal tax incentive that seems to have delivered the biggest blow in the fourth quarter. Tesla sold a record-breaking 497,099 vehicles in the third quarter ' a 29% increase from the previous quarter ' as consumers raced to buy EVs before the federal EV tax credit disappeared. Since then, sales have retreated in spite of efforts to woo buyers....

But as companies scale across states and/or add new revenue streams, tax exposure also can quietly expand in the background. The U.S. has more than 12,000 distinct sales tax jurisdictions, and each has its own rules and rates. So, even a small misstep can snowball into significant penalties or create challenges during due diligence. At the most basic level, sales tax is what a business collects from customers on taxable goods or services. Use tax applies when a company purchases taxable items and no sales tax was charged (which commonly occurs from an out-of-state vendor). For example, if a startup based in California orders $10,000 of equipment from an Oregon supplier, the business likely owes use tax to California. The point of the system is to keep local and remote sellers on equal footing. However, complexity arises because rules differ dramatically by state and industry. For founders, that complexity becomes more than a compliance nuisance ' it's a business risk. Noncompliance can delay funding, lower valuation and, in some cases, create personal liability....