UK Firm Fires Russian Over Voting For Putin
London real estate brokerage Egre has fired one of its agents after complaints from a Ukrainian activist, who argued that she should be punished for voting for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The three-day election in Russia saw Putin win 87% of the vote, according to the official tally published on Monday. Russians living abroad were also able to cast their ballots at embassies and consulates, including in the UK.
The queue outside the embassy in London drew the attention of one Nazar Smyk, who lives in the UK and describes himself as a buyer of equipment for the Ukrainian military.
“Not all Russians are oppositionists,” Smyk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday. “There are also c**ts such as Yulia Vorobyova. She openly votes for Putin while living in London. Do you know what happens to supporters of war?”
A follow-up post showed what Smyk claimed to be screenshots of Vorobyova’s Instagram, in which she purportedly said she was on the way to cast her vote at the embassy despite the pouring rain.
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“When Western media think we (Russian people) don’t vote for Putin. Well, we do!” one of the captions from the screenshots said. “Mission accomplished,” another read.
Smyk then posted the address of her employer, with a call to “show Yulia what she needs to be responsible for.”
When Vorobyova made her account private, Smyk called her a “dumb c**t” and said it was too late. “We will f**k you and the company you work for,” he added.
On Tuesday, Smyk posted a letter he received from Egre, revealing that Vorobyova had been dismissed.
“It has recently come to our attention that one of our consultant agents, Yulia, has posted a pro-war message on social media,” the company said. “Yulia is no longer associated with our company.”
Юлія нахуй вилетіла з компанії ?
— Nazar Smyk (@nazar_london) March 19, 2024
ТРО Лондон працює ??? pic.twitter.com/pzfiiaxwvq
Smyk also said he had spoken with Egre’s owner and that “in order to show its pro-European position, the company will donate funds for the humanitarian needs of Ukrainians through the British-Ukrainian fund,” as well as vetting any new hires – presumably to ensure they aren’t Russians with unapproved political beliefs.
After Russia launched its military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, the US and its allies moved to ban Russian officials, plants, animals, artists, and even certain letters of the alphabet, all in an effort to show their support for the government in Kiev.
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Goldman: Office Mortgages Are Living on Borrowed Time
At the start of the week, a lawyer specializing in advisory services for lenders and servicers of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS) in the United States told us that the office segment of the commercial real estate market has been surprisingly quiet in the first quarter, despite the countless news headlines about towers being dumped on the market for hefty discounts.
The reason for this recent calm in the CRE space might be explained in a note by Vinay Viswanathan of Goldman Sachs on Tuesday.
Viswanathan explained that the total amount of outstanding commercial mortgages set to mature by year-end has exploded from $658 billion at the start of last year to $929 billion in mid-March.
He said this high amount of debt that has been extended and modified rather than refinanced “helped mitigate a default wave and a sharp pick-up in losses on CRE loan portfolios.” He noted the main driver of this has been the “willingness of lenders and borrowers to modify and extend maturing loans rather than refinancing or forcing a foreclosure.” In other words, the can was simply kicked down the road until after the presidential elections.
Meanwhile, the stresses are building for the office segment as tower loans that have fully paid off at maturity sink below 60%. However, the maturity payoff rate for loans backed by other property types has been near a decade high.
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The analyst asked how long will the game of musical chairs last:
“While extensions and modifications are not unusual phenomena in the CRE market, particularly during times of rising financial distress and tight lending conditions, the low likelihood that funding costs revert to pre-COVID levels begs the question: how long can this trend continue?”
Viswanathan expects “the wave of modifications to persist in the near term as refinancing stays uneconomical for most commercial real estate borrowers, while foreclosures remain an unappealing proposition for lenders in an illiquid property market.”
Given that swaps traders and economists at Goldman forecast fewer Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts for the full year and put the odds of a June rate cut around 50%, the higher-for-longer theme suggests risks are undoubtedly surging across the CRE space for 2025.
Viswanathan believes “the risk of a negative feedback loop of distressed sales and lower property prices is largely contained to the office sector.”
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