Andrew here. The shooting spree in Midtown Manhattan continues to reverberate. Corporate leaders across the country are huddling with their security teams, assessing necessary actions following a shooting that clearly targeted the N.F.L. This episode comes after last year’s killing of Brian Thompson, the C.E.O. of UnitedHealthcare, a few blocks away, and raises questions about whether this will become a new normal.
We also continue to grieve and remember the victims, including Wesley LePatner, a senior executive at Blackstone; Julia Hyman, a young executive at Rudin Management, the real estate company that owns the building; Aland Etienne, a security guard; and Didarul Islam, a New York City police officer. We have more below.
I also want to thank all of the readers who reached out, expressing gratitude for my calling on businesses to proactively address issues like gun violence. The truth is, in this very fraught political moment, there is virtually no appetite to touch this topic in public or in private. Unfortunately, I don’t see that changing. Companies view engaging in any discussion that could be described as a “social issue” as simply too high a cost. But if the cost is that of the life of an employee, killed in cold blood, what would it take to speak out? Let us know what you think.
The cost of corporate security
For many businesses and property management companies, the tragic shooting at 345 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan on Monday has raised questions about security — including guards, access systems, cameras and more.
But how much more will it cost companies to secure an office building? And what do they have to consider beyond stationing guards at the front desk? Danielle Kaye digs into the questions.
Security for several New York finance firms was visibly higher after the shooting. Goldman Sachs had a dedicated team of police officers and security guards at the entrance and inside its Manhattan headquarters, the firm’s head of human resources, Jacqueline Arthur, wrote to employees on Tuesday, The Times reported.
Security firms have since received a slew of inquiries. Amanda DeAlmeida, an executive vice president at Building Security Services & Systems, said her husband, who handles marketing for the company, heard from several potential clients on Tuesday. Existing customers asked for price quotes to change their security systems and for meetings to discuss layered access controls and gunshot detection technology.
John Torres, the president of security and technology consulting at Guidepost Solutions, told DealBook that he had received lots of calls in the past 24 hours from corporate clients asking about the cost of introducing new technology and other security upgrades in a way that’s aesthetically pleasing.
“They also want their customers and tenants to feel safe, like they’re in a fortified building,” he added. “So they’re asking us to balance all those things.”
Some of what corporate clients have to consider: whether to pay more for armed guards rather than unarmed ones; whether to limit access to specific floors to people with office badges; and potential investments in gunshot-detection technology.
Armed guards cost a lot more. In New York City, armed officers face far more requirements than unarmed ones, often making them double the price of unarmed guards, DeAlmeida said. Some companies shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for armed personnel.
There’s also the “intimidation factor,” according to DeAlmeida: Having armed guards in the lobby “sends the wrong message to certain people,” she said.
Some security firms recalled the killing of the UnitedHealthcare C.E.O., when they saw a swift surge in requests for executive security. After that C.E.O., Brian Thompson, was shot in Midtown Manhattan, Knight Security, a security guard service in the New York City area, experienced an uptick in inquiries.
“It comes in fast,” Edward Troiano, Knight’s owner, told DealBook. “You get a lot of requests, and then it just kind of goes away again.”
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Tsunami waves lash Pacific coasts, leading to mass evacuations. An 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the North Pacific Ocean off Russia’s northern Pacific coast hours ago, hitting coastal areas there and forcing workers to flee parts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Areas as far away as Alaska, California and Hawaii issued warnings or advisories. Officials warned that ports and coastal infrastructure were especially at risk.
Anthropic is reportedly closing in on funding at a $170 billion valuation. The artificial intelligence start-up is poised to raise up to $5 billion in the round, according to Bloomberg; investors could include Iconiq Capital, Amazon and the Qatar Investment Authority. The growing costs of the A.I. race will also be a focus of earnings reports by Meta, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, which come out on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Trump administration further unwinds climate protections. Lee Zeldin, the head of the E.P.A., said on Tuesday that his agency planned to revoke a key declaration that since 2009 has underpinned U.S. policy on fighting climate change by setting limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars and other industrial sources of pollution. The move would strip the agency’s ability to regulate such emissions under the Clean Air Act, and could hamper efforts by future administrations to rein in business pollution.
Remembering Wesley LePatner
Wall Street was shaken to learn that one of their own was among the victims of Monday’s shooting at 345 Park Avenue: Wesley LePatner, one of the top-ranking female executives at the investment giant Blackstone.
Tributes came in from all corners, as colleagues remembered her as a rising star and a role model, especially for women.
LePatner, 43, was among Blackstone’s top real estate executives. She was the global C.E.O. of the Core+ part of the firm’s enormous $325 billion real estate business. In January, she also became C.E.O. of what’s known as BREIT, Blackstone’s $53 billion flagship real estate fund for retail investors.
Before joining Blackstone in 2014, she had spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs.
She was widely admired, known for leaving supportive comments for colleagues on LinkedIn and having chaired Blackstone’s women’s network. “She was just this amazing light,” Jon Gray, Blackstone’s president, told The Times. (Gray teared up in a Zoom call with the firm’s employees when discussing LePatner on Tuesday.)
Tony James, Blackstone’s former executive vice chairman and now a chair of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, told Bloomberg that “she, in my view, was one of the people that had the potential to lead any organization, including Blackstone and including the Met, where we just put her on the board.”
Josh Kushner, the founder of the investment firm Thrive Capital, wrote on X, “She was an incredible mentor to me when I was her analyst during my time at GS, and a deeply supportive friend ever since.”
LePatner was deeply involved in Jewish causes. Among them was the UJA-Federation of New York, which awarded her the Alan C. Greenberg Young Leadership Award in 2023. She also helped found the Altneu Synagogue in New York.
“Wesley was extraordinary in every way — personally, professionally and philanthropically,” the organization said, noting that her achievements were “all the more notable as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field.”
What others said about LePatner:
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“What happened to her is devastating and heartbreaking if it happens to anyone, but to somebody who was just so good, earnest and kind in every way, it’s really doubly heartbreaking,” Jeff Fine, a Goldman partner, told the Times.
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“Wesley lived as we all should strive to live: with civic purpose, compassion, and a commitment to something greater than herself,” Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, posted on X.
Waiting for more trade deals
There may have been little meaningful progress in trade talks over the past 24 hours, especially the hugely consequential ones with China. But several companies have issued new warnings about President Trump’s trade war.
The latest: Shares in Adidas, and Mercedes-Benz fell on Wednesday as the European companies warned that tariffs would eat into their full-year profits. Other companies with large global supply chains, including Procter & Gamble and Whirlpool, issued similar gloomy forecasts; P&G said that it would also raise some prices for U.S. consumers.
That comes as investors brace for Wednesday’s Fed decision. Despite pressure from Trump, the central bank is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged. That said, two Trump-appointed members of the Fed’s rate-setting committee, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, called for an immediate cut.
Jay Powell, the Fed chair, is expected “to highlight the uncertainty in inflation and growth projections due to the tariff impact,” Mohit Kumar, an economist at Jefferies, wrote in an investor note on Wednesday.
China is also in focus. American and Chinese negotiators concluded the latest round of trade talks in Stockholm on Tuesday without a firm deal. Investors and businesses are on tenterhooks over whether Trump would at least extend a truce on tit-for-tat tariffs beyond mid-August.
Other things to watch:
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Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said that aspects of Washington’s preliminary trade deal with the E.U. still had big unresolved issues: “Digital services taxes and the attacks on our tech companies” are “going to be on the table,” he told CNBC on Tuesday.
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Trump warned India that steeper levies were possible if talks break down. New Delhi is willing to accept tariffs of as high as 25 percent, according to Reuters.
The trade war could be less costly than initially feared. The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday forecast that the world economy would most likely grow by 3 percent this year — up from its 2.8 percent assessment in April, but still down from 2024.
A proxy war in Texas
Proxy advisers are the latest target of the backlash against D.E.I. and E.S.G. — and they’re fighting back.
Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, two leading proxy advisers, sued Texas last week over a first-of-its-kind state law that sought to make it harder for them to consider environmental or diversity factors when giving advice to their clients, Niko Gallogly reports.
Proxy advisers have come under increased scrutiny from Republican politicians. In May, Republicans in the Senate sent a letter to Glass Lewis and I.S.S. demanding information on how they provide advice to clients. And attorneys general in Missouri and Florida have opened investigations into the D.E.I. and E.S.G. policies at both firms.
The Texas law goes into effect Sept. 1. It requires proxy advisers who consider E.S.G. factors to disclose they use “nonfinancial factors” and “subordinates the financial interest of shareholders” when making recommendations.
It also asks them to provide a financial analysis for voting recommendations that diverge from the board of directors’ endorsements.
Both firms’ lawsuits criticize the asymmetrical nature of the law, which requires them to show financial analysis only in cases where their advice differs from that of the board.
The law effectively shifts the balance of power away from shareholders to executives, said Jonathon Zytnick, an associate professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. This is about “suppressing shareholder dissent,” he said, by ensuring their “advisers won’t speak out against the board.”
THE SPEED READ
Deals
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Palo Alto Networks is said to be near a deal to buy CyberArk, an Israeli cybersecurity provider, for more than $20 billion. (WSJ)
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Evercore agreed to buy Robey Warshaw, a London-based deal advisory firm that counts some of Britain’s biggest companies as clients, for $196 million. (FT)
Technology and artificial intelligence
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“How China Is Girding for an A.I. Battle With the U.S.” (WSJ)
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Apple is said to have lost a fourth A.I. researcher to Meta in a month, as the iPhone maker struggles to rethink its approach to the technology. (Bloomberg)
Best of the rest
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A criminal gang hit upon a novel way to get into insider trading: courting elite students to become potential tipsters at investment banks like Rothschild. (Bloomberg)
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“When Your Husband Is in a Hamptons Scandal” (Vanity Fair)
We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].
Andrew Ross Sorkin is a columnist and the founder of DealBook, the flagship business and policy newsletter at The Times and an annual conference.
Bernhard Warner is a senior editor for DealBook, a newsletter from The Times, covering business trends, the economy and the markets.
Sarah Kessler is the weekend edition editor of the DealBook newsletter and writes features on business.
Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006.
Danielle Kaye is a Times reporter, covering business and policy for the DealBook newsletter.
Niko Gallogly is a Times business reporter, covering diversity and environmental and social justice efforts in corporate America. Email them at [email protected].
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