WSJ What’s News - Jefferies Faces Questions After First Brands’ Collapse

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

P.M. Edition for Oct. 16. The auto-parts giant First Brands’ bankruptcy leaves investment bank Jefferies in the harsh spotlight of an accounting scandal. Plus, the endowments of American colleges posted their strongest returns in years. And after strong bank earnings this week, Heard on the Street writer Telis Demos discusses what might be missing in their reflection of the health of the economy. Sabrina Siddiqui hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Investment Bank Jefferies is facing tough questions after the collapse of Autopart's giant first brands. Jefferies has said that they didn't know of any fraud, and they have indicated that they felt like they were misled by the company. But the question is really more a matter of business judgment. Plus, President Trump says he and Putin will meet in Budapest to discuss an end to the war in Ukraine. And college endowments achieved their strongest returns in years. It's Thursday, October 16th. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal, filling in for Alex Ossala. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. President Trump says he's going to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest for talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

Trump said today on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he had a, quote, very productive call with Putin. He says the two agreed to set up a meeting next week for high-level advisors from the U.S. and Russia, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Trump's meeting with Putin is expected to follow, but there is no announced date for it. The conversation between the two leaders comes just a day before Trump is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Trump's declaring the phone call, quote, productive could weaken the prospect of the U.S. providing Ukraine with powerful tomahawk missiles that can travel more than a thousand miles. Trump in recent days had signaled that he was leaning towards sending the powerful weapons to Ukraine. When they meet, Trump and Zelensky are expected to discuss U.S. restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons provided by the U.S. to strike inside Russia.

And in another update from Washington, the U.S. government shutdown is now entering its third full week with no end in sight. Both Republicans and Democrats see a possible way out that would involve extending the health care subsidies that have been at the center of the fight. but both parties also think they are winning the battle of public opinion, offering little reason to concede. President Trump also hasn't yet indicated what kind of agreement he would back, if any. Top Republicans and Democrats believe that his support is crucial for any deal to pass. Jeffries, one of Wall Street's top investment banks, is facing questions because of its deep ties to auto parts maker-first brands, which,

collapsed in bankruptcy amid an accounting scandal. Jefferies played an important role at the firm through both its investment banking and asset management divisions. Over the summer, its bankers set out to help First Brands refinance corporate loans. Jeffries initially told prospective lenders that First Brands had roughly $5.9 billion of debt, but it turned out to be almost double that. Wall Street Journal reporter Alexander Gladstone joins me now to discuss. Alex, you reported that leaders at Jeffreys have tried to reassure investors that the bank is fundamentally sound, and that its bankers were unaware of any fraud at First Brands. Today was the bank's investor day.

Did we hear anything further from them? They closed it to press. We're getting dribs and drabs from people who were there. We've just heard that they were on a defensive footing and that there was some heat. And what is it that's causing investors to question Jeffrey's role here? The thing to understand about Jeffrey's role in First Brands is they were the company's capital markets investment bankers, Jeffries, through its asset management division, is also an investor in supply chain financing for first brands. It has been for years.

And so the bank sort of wears two hats with first brands or wore two hats. Over the summer, as they said, they tried to refinance these six billion of loans. After the company collapsed a few months later, we find out there's almost twice as much debt. But the question that some investors have had is that, you know, since the asset management side of Jeffries was involved in the supply chain financing, which is known as factoring, they should have known, or maybe they could have known more. And also just given the billions of dollars of off-balance sheet debt that was found, the question that some have asked is, well, Jeffries, it might have behooved them to do better work doing due diligence and examining what exactly they were representing when they got involved with First Brands as their investment banker. And what about First Brands? What is this scandal really about?

How do we get here? The first brands was founded and built by its sole equity owner and chief executive Patrick James, who resigned. He basically, over a period of about 15 or 20 years, rolled up all these different automotive aftermarket components brands. So these are like windshield wipers, spark plugs, filters, all these different brands that make these kinds of products that sit on the shelf in AutoZone, Walmart, O'Reilly. And so he financed this roll-up strategy by taking on a huge amount of debt, both on balance sheet and off-balance sheet debt, using this pretty complex web of different affiliates and companies and subsidiaries. So there is evidence, I wouldn't say it's proven yet, but there, what I've been hearing from my source is that there's evidence, the company was double pledging certain invoices. So there's a huge discrepancy between the amount of debt outstanding and the underlying collateral. And so right now, the books are messy and there's accountants and investigators going through it,

trying to figure out where the money went, what happened, and it's going to be a long and difficult process. As you pointed out, many lenders say they were misled by first brands, but some blame Jeffreys for not digging deeper into the company's finances. What does all this mean for the bank's future? Well, the asset management side of Jeffries, they only have about 45 million of exposure to first brands of their own, but there's about 700 million of its clients' money, which is now tangled up in this bankruptcy. The bigger issue, though, is really more a matter of Jeffrey's judgment. Jeffries has said that they didn't know of any fraud, and they have indicated that they felt like they were misled by the company, and there's many other people who feel misled by First Brands. But the question is really more a matter of business judgment.

And are there other problematic companies out there that are going to blow up in the future? We just don't know yet. That was the Wall Street Journal's Alexander Gladstone. Thank you, Alex. Thank you. Coming up, the endowments at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and others had a great year. So what's keeping America's colleges and universities on edge? That's after the break.

Stocks of larger banks lost some ground today after their strong earnings earlier this week, while Jeffrey's shares fell more than 10%. The Dow, S&P, and NASDAQ all closed lower, falling by less than 1%. And oil prices ended just under $57 a barrel, the lowest price since February 2021, due to a glut of oil and worries about a slowing global economy. We have several corporate news items today. Nestle said it would cut 16,000 jobs, about 6% of its workforce, and review its sprawling portfolio of over 2,000 brands.

The maker of Ness Cafe Coffee and Purina pet food is dealing with changes in consumer preferences after years of price increases and a shift away from eating processed foods. And IKEA, the Swedish company famous for its warehouses of low-cost furniture, is now raising prices on some products because of President Trump's tariffs. A fresh round of levies on furniture came into effect this week, and IKEA, which relies heavily on imports, is also trying to source more goods in the U.S. to counter the pain from tariffs. And the major U.S. banks reporting this week showed a robust economy

with good signs from nearly every indicator of consumer lending and financial health, like fewer late payments on credit cards and auto loans. But there might be something missing from this picture. Something banks have been doing in recent years is concentrating more of their business on relatively wealthier borrowers and consumers. That's Telethimos, a writer for Hurt on the Street and co-host of WSJ's Take on the Week podcast. A lot of banks identified a problem during the pandemic, which was that because a lot of people weren't spending as much and had gotten government stimulus, they looked more credit worthy than they really were. They got credit cards and auto loans that ultimately they couldn't really afford. In response, a lot of lenders tightened up their standards.

They said we really want to focus our business on wealthier people who actually still do a lot of borrowing. They borrow against their investments. They borrow against their homes, other assets. It's a big business. And the biggest banks have really been focused on growing in those wealth businesses. What that means is that banks' earnings really tell us a story about what's happening with relatively wealthy Americans and are not going to give us a good early warning indicator for people that are more economically vulnerable. And that's something that investors really would like from banks or someone in the absence of the government data that they often rely on to spot those trends.

That was Telas Demos, a writer for Hurt on the Street and co-host of WSJ's Take on the Week podcast. College and university endowments saw their best returns in years, held by stock market gains and increases in the value of private companies. At Harvard, the endowment gained 11.9 percent to $56.9 billion, while endowments at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University both gained more than 14 percent. Cambridge Associates said the median endowment gain was 10.9 percent for the fiscal year ending June 30th. But many schools are cautious about celebrating.

Endowment performance has taken on greater importance with the Trump administration saying schools aren't doing enough with their swelling endowments to help students. The administration has been in a prolonged fight with many universities, threatening billions in federal funding and hiking the tax rate on some school's income from investments. And finally, Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Lewa, and Zoran Mamdani face off in a debate tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern Time. To find out how New York City's candidates for mayor address the issues in a race that has riveted the city's financial and real estate industries, go to WSJ.com for the key takeaways. And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Pierre Biennamee and Zoe Culkin with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning.

Thanks for listening. Thank you.