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Global Guardian acquires UK risk management company

McLean-based global firm announced last week it has acquired United Kingdom-based Solace Global Risk, a travel company with a significant European presence.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. According to the company, Solace Global Risk will continue to operate under its current brand and serve its European clients with expanded operational capabilities for the next 12 to 18 months.

It was not made clear what will happen to the Solace branding after the 12-to-18-month integration period, how many Solace employees will join the Global team, or whether there will be any leadership transitions. Global Guardian did not immediately return requests for comment.

“This significantly accelerates Global Guardian’s growth trajectory and strengthens our international presence, representing a pivotal moment in our mission to be the most trusted global security firm,” Global Guardian CEO Dale Buckner said in a statement. “By integrating Solace Global Risk’s industry-leading travel risk management platform with our operational expertise, we are shaping the future of integrated security — where human expertise and technology work seamlessly together to deliver smarter, faster and more effective protection for our clients.”

Global Guardian announced it will transition its clients to Solace’s technology platform and continue developing it to enhance performance and introduce additional features.

“It became clear very early in our conversations with Global Guardian that we are deeply aligned in our commitment to client safety and operational excellence,” Solace Global Risk Managing Director Emily Roberts said in a statement. “This acquisition creates unprecedented opportunities for our clients to access comprehensive risk management solutions backed by both cutting-edge technology and proven field capabilities from a single provider.”

Global Guardian provides risk management services that protect employees and families from political, environmental and bad actor threats worldwide. Its services include 24/7 support from its global security operations center, personnel-based and executive protection, medical support and transport, travel intelligence and emergency response in over 140 countries.

Defense contractor to add 288 workers at Roanoke night-vision goggle factory

Texas-based contractor Elbit Systems of America will invest $30 million to expand its night-vision googles facility, with plans to create 288 jobs, announced Wednesday.

Once the is complete, it will bring the site’s workforce to more than 1,000 employees.

“Elbit America’s continued growth in County strengthens America’s defense capabilities and supports our brave service members at home and abroad,” Youngkin said in a statement.

The timeline of the expansion, the square footage of the expansion and more details on whether it would involve a new building or merely renovate an existing building were not provided. Elbit and the governor’s office did not immediately return requests for comment.

A company news release stated that the $30 million investment would fund enhancements, expansion efforts, machinery and tools.

Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, Elbit America provides high-performance products, systems, technology, and support services for the defense, homeland , law enforcement, commercial aviation and medical instrumentation markets. It has 16 locations and more than 70 research labs, and a workforce of over 3,300 employees. It is a subsidiary of the Israeli global military technology company Elbit Systems.

“The need for highly sophisticated night vision systems is growing in the U.S. and abroad, as
militaries modernize their technologies to heighten situational awareness and successfully
operate in all conditions,” said Erik Fox, senior vice president and general manager of the warfighter systems division at Elbit America, in a statement. “As one of the few manufacturers who produce image intensification tubes and these military grade systems, we must grow to keep up with demand.”

The Virginia Partnership worked with the Roanoke Regional Partnership and the county to secure the project for Virginia. In addition, Youngkin approved a $1.2 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to assist with the project, as well as a performance-based grant of $300,000 from the Virginia Investment Performance Grant.

The Virginia Jobs Investment Program, which provides consultative services and funding to companies creating new jobs, will support the jobs created through the expansion.

Spanberger calls on U.Va. board to wait on hiring next president

Summary:

  • Gov.-elect says U.Va. board should pause hiring next university president until she takes office
  • Board’s presidential search committee has met with multiple candidates this fall
  • Former president Jim Ryan resigned under political pressure from Trump White House

Update: Read Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s response to Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger

Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger sent a letter to the ‘s board leaders Wednesday calling on them to delay hiring a new university president or choosing final candidates until after she takes office in January 2026.

A U.Va. alumna, Democrat Spanberger’s letter to university Rector Rachel Sheridan and Vice Rector Porter N. Wilkinson — both appointed by Republican — takes exception with the board’s actions over the past six months, a fraught period that included Jim Ryan’s resignation as president in June under pressure by the and the university’s October agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice that some faculty groups have criticized as capitulation to the White House.

“The actions of the have severely undermined the public’s and the university community’s confidence in the board’s ability to govern productively, transparently and in the best interests of the university,” Spanberger wrote. “This loss of confidence is reflected in the numerous votes of no confidence from both the faculty senate and the student council — constituencies essential to the university’s success and those directly affected by the critical decisions before the board.”

In a statement issued Wednesday, U.Va. said, “University leaders and the Board of Visitors are reviewing the letter and are ready to engage with the governor-elect and to work alongside her and her team to advance the best interests of U.Va. and the commonwealth,” U.Va. said in a statement Wednesday.

Spanberger’s letter notes that five Youngkin U.Va. board appointees have been rejected this year by the Democratic-controlled state Senate Privileges & Elections Committee, a political squabble between the governor and Senate that’s now being considered by the Supreme Court of Virginia following a ruling this summer in the senators’ favor.

The state Senate committee refused along party lines to confirm 22 of Youngkin’s appointees to the boards of U.Va., George Mason University and Virginia Military Institute, as Democratic lawmakers  accused Youngkin of attempting to control state universities through political influence by their boards.

Currently, all of the state’s public universities and colleges’ boards are made up entirely of Youngkin appointees, some of whom have significant ties to the Trump administration. In October, the Supreme Court of Virginia heard the state attorney general’s appeal of a Circuit judge’s decision in July to issue a preliminary injunction that blocked GMU, VMI and U.Va.’s rectors from seating disputed board appointees. George Mason’s board currently does not have enough confirmed members for a quorum, required by law for it to meet.

Spanberger, whose transition team released the letter Wednesday afternoon after The New York Times reported on it earlier in the day, asks the U.Va. board “to refrain from rushing this search process and from selecting the finalists for the presidency or a president until the board is at full complement and in statutory compliance, meaning that I have appointed and the General Assembly has confirmed new board members.” She pledged to make appointments to university boards soon after her Jan. 17, 2026, inauguration.

Sen. Aaron Rouse, D- and chair of the Senate Privileges & Elections Committee, released a statement later Wednesday supporting Spanberger’s letter. “The legitimacy and transparency of the search for the university’s next president are critical not only to U.Va.’s success but also to maintaining public confidence in our commonwealth’s institutions of ,” he said.

U.Va.’s presidential search committee has met twice with job candidates in October and November closed sessions, and according to the public minutes for the Nov. 3 meeting, the committee will meet at an undisclosed location Nov. 17 to interview candidates. A Nov. 3 university news story said that the committee has begun narrowing the field of more than 60 candidates to a “handful” who will be invited for in-person interviews this month. According to Jason Isaacson, the chair of search firm Isaacson Miller, interest in the job has increased after U.Va. entered into the agreement with the Department of Justice.

Meanwhile, Paul G. Mahoney, a former U.Va. Law dean, is serving as U.Va.’s interim president.

The U.Va. chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which has been critical of the university’s board, wrote in July to Sheridan and other board members that it “strongly objects” to the process used to appoint an interim president and the permanent head of the university. The chapter “must object to the absence of formal and significant faculty consultation and role in decision making,” its letter reads. The same organization called this week for the university to rescind its agreement with the .

Anthropic invests $50B in AI data centers, Microsoft expands

Summary

  • announces $50 billion investment in in Texas and New York.
  • builds Atlanta data center linked to Wisconsin “supercomputer.”
  • Projects will create thousands of construction and permanent jobs.
  • growth raises concerns over energy use, costs, and investment bubble.

company Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new data centers in Texas and New York.

Microsoft also on Wednesday announced a new data center under construction in Atlanta, Georgia, describing it as connected to another in Wisconsin to form a “massive supercomputer” running on hundreds of thousands of chips to power AI technology.

The latest deals show that the tech industry is moving forward on huge spending to build energy-hungry AI infrastructure, despite lingering financial concerns about a bubble, environmental considerations and the political effects of fast-rising electricity bills in the communities where they’re constructed.

Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, said it is working with London-based Fluidstack to build the new computing facilities to power its AI systems. It didn’t disclose their exact locations or what source of electricity they will need.

Another company, cryptocurrency mining data center developer TeraWulf, has previously revealed it was working with Fluidstack on Google-backed data center projects in Texas and New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. TeraWulf declined comment Wednesday.

A report last month from TD Cowen said that the leading cloud computing providers leased a “staggering” amount of U.S. data center capacity in the third fiscal quarter of this year, amounting to more than 7.4 gigawatts of energy, more than all of last year combined.

Oracle was securing the most capacity during that time, much of it supporting AI workloads for Anthropic’s chief rival , maker of ChatGPT. Google was second and Fluidstack came in third, ahead of Meta, Amazon, CoreWeave and Microsoft.

Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs. It said in a statement that the “scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier.”

Microsoft has branded its Atlanta data center as Fairwater 2, after the original Fairwater complex being built near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company said it will help power its own technology, along with OpenAI’s and other AI developers. Microsoft was, until earlier this year, OpenAI’s exclusive cloud computing provider before the two companies amended their partnership. OpenAI has since announced more than $1 trillion in infrastructure obligations, much of it tied to its Stargate project with partners Oracle and SoftBank.

The tech industry’s huge amount of spending on computing infrastructure for AI startups that aren’t yet profitable has fueled concerns about an AI investment bubble.

Investors have closely watched a series of intertwined deals over recent months between top AI developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic and the companies building the costly computer chips and data centers needed to power their AI products. Anthropic said it will continue to “prioritize cost-effective, capital-efficient approaches” to scaling up its business.

US Mint in Philadelphia presses final pennies as the 1-cent coin gets canceled

Summary

  • halts production to save $56 million.
  • Final pennies struck in Philadelphia after 230 years.
  • Trump ordered phase-out amid rising production costs.
  • Pennies remain legal tender but will no longer be made.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The U.S. Mint on Wednesday ended production of the penny, a change made to save money and because the 1-cent coin that could once buy a snack or a piece of candy had become increasingly irrelevant.

The last pennies were struck at the mint in Philadelphia, where the country’s smallest denomination coins have been produced since 1793, a year after Congress passed the Coinage Act. Officials said the final few pennies would be auctioned off.

“God bless America, and we’re going to save the taxpayers $56 million,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said just before hitting a button to strike the final penny.

Pennies remain legal tender, but new ones will no longer be made.

The last coin to be discontinued was the half-cent in 1857, Beach said.

President ordered the penny’s demise as costs climbed to nearly 4 cents per penny and the 1-cent valuation became somewhat obsolete. Billions of pennies remain in circulation, but they are rarely essential for financial transactions in the 21st century .

“For far too long the United States has minted pennies which literally cost us more than 2 cents,” Trump wrote in an online post in February. “This is so wasteful!”

Still, many people have a nostalgia for them, seeing them as lucky or fun to collect. And some retailers voiced concerns in recent weeks as supplies ran low and the end of production drew near. They said the phase-out was abrupt and came with no government guidance on how to handle transactions.

Some rounded prices down to avoid shortchanging shoppers. Others pleaded with customers to bring exact change. The more creative among them gave out prizes, such as a free drink, in exchange for a pile of pennies.

“We have been advocating abolition of the penny for 30 years. But this is not the way we wanted it to go,” Jeff Lenard of the National Association of Convenience Stores said last month.

Some banks, meanwhile, began rationing supplies, a somewhat paradoxical result of the effort to address what many see as a glut of the coins. Over the last century, about half of the coins made at mints in Philadelphia and Denver have been pennies.

But they still have a better production cost-to-value ratio than the nickel, which costs nearly 14 cents to make. The diminutive dime, by comparison, costs less than 6 cents to produce, and the quarter nearly 15 cents.

Back in 1793, a penny could get you a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy. These days, many sit in drawers or glass jars and are basically cast aside or collected.

No matter their face value, collectors and historians consider them an important historical record that can be traced back for more than 200 years. Frank Holt, an emeritus professor at the University of Houston who has studied the history of coins, laments the loss.

“We put mottos on them and self-identifiers, and we decide — in the case of the United States — which dead persons are most important to us and should be commemorated,” he said. “They reflect our , our religion, our art, our sense of ourselves, our ideals, our aspirations.”

Brown Edwards acquires Virginia Beach-based accounting firm

Roanoke-based accounting firm announced last week that it has acquired -based , a move that will enhance its presence in the region.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. DesRoches is a firm that provides specialized accounting and tax services to condominium and homeowners associations throughout the region. Mark DesRoches founded the firm in 1988, and his brother, Mark, joined in 1993.

The adds more than 25 DesRoches professionals to Brown Edwards’ team, increasing the firm’s experts in the Hampton Roads region to over 50, as the DesRoches employees will remain in Virginia Beach.

“We’re excited to welcome the talented professionals from DesRoches & Co. to strengthen our presence in Virginia Beach and neighboring cities,” Brown Edwards CEO Laura Sprouse said in a statement.

The acquisition will also result in a significant of Brown Edwards’ homeowners association services and condominium practice, the company said.

It was not made clear what roles Mark and David DesRoches will play in the combined company, and Brown Edwards and DesRoches did not immediately return requests for comment. However, in a statement, Mark DesRoches said, “We’re proud to combine our industry knowledge, diverse experience and talented staff with Brown Edwards. This union allows us to build on our legacy while offering even greater services and value to our clients.”

Meanwhile, David DesRoches said in a statement that partnering with Brown Edwards “marks an exciting new chapter for our team and our clients. This acquisition allows us to scale our impact, deepen our expertise and continue delivering the personalized service we’ve built our reputation on — now with even greater resources behind us.”

Brown Edwards reported approximately $88 million in fiscal 2024 revenue and has more than 450 employees. In 2024, the firm ranked No. 69 in Inside Public Accounting’s Top 500 CPA firms ranking, which is based on net revenue. Forbes named it to the 2023 America’s Best Tax and list.

With their government contracts in limbo, small businesses await a historic shutdown’s end

Summary

  • Federal shutdown delayed payments and canceled small business contracts.
  • Contractors faced problems and possible .
  • Some firms may shift focus to private-sector projects.
  • Policy discussions at small business summit overshadowed by shutdown.

NEW YORK (AP) — The end of the longest U.S. in history would be a relief for small businesses that depend on or funding. For seven weeks, they’ve been reducing spending, weighing layoffs and looking for stable work while trying to reach shuttered government offices, according to several contractors.

House lawmakers are returning to on Wednesday to vote on compromise legislation that would fund the government through Jan. 30. A majority of are expected to vote against the bill, which is likely to win approval in the Republican-led chamber.

Small business owners with government contracts say the shutdown has caused payment delays and the cancellation of some projects, and they will be working to make up for lost time and money, if the government reopens.

Uncertainty on projects

Jackson Dalton, owner of Black Box Safety, a maker of personal protective equipment, was awarded a $1.9 million federal contract for flashlights the day before the shutdown started on Oct. 1.

The contract, which would account for 6% of his annual revenue, required the company in El Cajon, California, to spend $1 million at the outset. Dalton said he was unable to because the contracting office did not return his emails or phone calls.

“It’s had a major impact on our cash flow, on our operations,” he said. “Our suppliers are freaking out because they’ve been anticipating this award for like a year. And so they’re trying to spin up and order raw materials to build the goods needed for this contract.”

The only government communication Dalton said he’s received during the shutdown was an emailed stop work order. The contact called for the work to be performed in 120 days.

Considering non-government projects

Eric Veal is owner and president of Interactive Knowledge in Charlotte, North Carolina, which creates digital interactive experiences for museums, educational organizations and cultural spaces with a staff of eight. About 60% of his work this year has come from contracts with the Smithsonian Institution. The Smithsonian is partly funded by the and partly funded by private donors and other sources.

“Federal employees are not able to work at all, and invoices and projects are at a complete halt,” Veal said. Since the Institution isn’t completely funded by the government, some staff was still working during the shutdown, but it’s “just difficult to complete the work without a full staff.”

He cut down on expenses and was considering laying off some employees if the shutdown stretches past mid-November.

“Our cash flow is affected, and so we are having to make small-level changes in terms of expenditures,” he said. “What we have not had to do yet is consider any type of staffing changes or, you know, major changes, but we, we’ve got, we’ve a date on the calendar that we will start to consider doing those things. And that’s really Nov. 15th.”

The shutdown has made him think about focusing more on work in the private sector.

“We rely on these contracts for the bulk of our work,” Deal said. “So the shutdown is making us second-guess that decision, in terms of really hitching our wagon as heavily as we had to Smithsonian. … We are considering really lessening our reliance as a company on federal contracts.”

A distraction from policy issues

The shutdown has made it harder for small businesses to focus on other policy issues they advocate for in Congress. About 2,000 small business owners attending a summit on Oct. 29-30 summit in Washington, D.C., organized by Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, met elected officials, policymakers and other speakers to discuss issues like , accessing capital and employee retention.

Participant Joe Gelardi, whose company in , Virginia, provides operational support, management and technology services to agencies and original equipment manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, said the shutdown overshadowed what the businesses were trying to accomplish.

“All of us planned for many months to come here (Washington) because we’re trying to help be proactive advocates for the small business community, to help work with legislators in the House and the Senate, to craft policy that will help to make more firm conditions for growth for small businesses across all industries,” Gelardi, president and CEO of Vectrona, said. Instead, the conference ended up “being overshadowed by the fact that this shutdown is in place.”

Meanwhile, the shutdown has impacted his business, which provides technology and training for members of the military to operate complex equipment, he said. The government not operating has caused delays in processing new contracts, bids and proposals, and creates “a lot of uncertainty,” he said. Gelardi said he hasn’t been paid for some contracts, but his team has kept working.

“That is just one example of what’s happening all over the defense space. Companies are being asked to carry the load, and we do it in most cases because we don’t want to let our customer down, we don’t want to harm the relationship, we want them to be able to trust us,” he said. “But it’s really unfortunate that the federal government is transferring the burden of that and asking us to be the ones to carry that cost and find a way to fund the work and manage.”

Contracts canceled

Karen Jenkins, president, CEO and founder of management consulting firm KRJ Consulting, said the shutdown has affected her business based in Columbia, South Carolina, as much as the COVID-19 pandemic did. A contract she won last year that was supposed to have a renewable option this year was canceled, she said.

“There were other contracts that we were tracking that we were going to pursue this year and had a high probability of winning because we probably had the best past performance and rate and things of that nature, but they were pulled,” Jenkins said. “Hopefully and prayerfully, when the government does reopen and with all the furloughs, that they’re going to need some additional capacity. And we are just trying to hold on for dear life to see if we can maintain so that we can be that resource for the government when it reopens.”

BigBear.ai to acquire Warren County-based AI company for $250M

SUMMARY:

  • BigBear. to acquire Ask Sage for $250 million, closing late 2025 or early 2026
  • Ask Sage serves more than 100,000 users in government and sectors
  • Nicolas Chaillan, Ask Sage founder, to join as chief technology officer

government tech contractor BigBear.ai announced this week that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ask Sage, a fast-growing, secure generative platform tailored for defense and national , for $250 million.

BigBear.ai made the announcement as part of an earnings report released Monday. The company expects the to close in the late fourth quarter of this year or early in the first quarter of 2026.

Headquartered in , Ask Sage’s AI capabilities are specifically designed for defense and national security agencies, as well as other highly regulated sectors. According to BigBear.ai CEO Kevin McAleenan, Ask Sage supports more than 100,000 users on 16,000 government teams across hundreds of commercial companies.

“By integrating Ask Sage with BigBear.ai, we are creating what the market has been asking for: a secure, integrated AI platform that connects software, data and mission services in one place,” McAleenan said in a statement. “Despite delays resulting from the , we believe the potential for new business in the field of border security and defense remains strong, and we expect to see those opportunities, including accelerated spending resulting from the One Big Beautiful Bill, to materialize into contracts next year.”

In the call, McAleenan stated that the acquisition of Ask Sage provides BigBear.ai with a proven, secure and model-agnostic generative AI platform, meaning the platform can work with various AI models, rather than being tied to a single vendor.

McAleenan also revealed during the earnings call that, as part of the merger, Ask Sage founder and CEO Nicolas Chaillan will join BigBear.ai as its chief technology officer.

In the role, Chaillan will focus on enhancing BigBear.ai’s broader portfolio and increasing the efficiency and velocity of its product development and innovation.

“Nick is one of the most respected voices in secure mission-grade AI, having served as the former Chief Software Officer for both the U.S. Air Force and Space Force and founded multiple companies over the past 25 years,” McAleenan said during the call. “He has proven that he can build technology the Pentagon actually uses rapidly and iteratively to support critical missions.”

A BigBear.ai spokesperson said there are about 28 employees who will join BigBear.ai from Ask Sage, bringing the BigBear.ai headcount to around 650 employees.

Headquartered in McLean, BigBear.ai is a federal contractor that provides artificial intelligence technology and services for defense, national security and critical infrastructure. The company generated $158.2 million in revenue in 2024, an increase from $155.2 million in 2023.

In its third-quarter report, the company disclosed that year-over-year revenue decreased 20% to $33.1 million, compared to $41.5 million for the third quarter of 2024, primarily due to lower volume on certain Army programs. However, this year’s third-quarter net income was $2.5 million, compared to a net loss of $15.1 million for the third quarter of 2024. The company projects it will earn revenue between $125 million and $140 million for the whole year.

Fed may soon start buying bonds to manage market liquidity, Williams says

Summary

  • President said the central bank is nearing the point where it will restart bond purchases.
  • Williams stressed the move would be a technical step to manage , not a change in monetary policy.
  • The Fed plans to halt runoff in December after ending quantitative tightening.
  • The balance sheet has fallen from a $9 trillion peak in 2022 to about $6.6 trillion.
  • Williams said banks should freely use the Fed’s to manage cash needs.

NEW YORK (Reuters) -New York President John Williams reiterated on Wednesday the time is getting closer when the U.S. central bank will have to restart bond purchases as part of a technical effort to maintain control over short-term .

Williams, in the text of a speech to be delivered to a conference at his regional Fed bank, noted that when these purchases happen they have no implications for monetary policy. He did not comment on the outlook for short-term interest rates in his prepared remarks.

Instead, the New York Fed chief tackled the implications of the central bank’s decision late last month to stop the drawdown of its balance sheet at the start of December. Williams said the Fed, by way of “inexact science,” is looking for the level of reserves it considers to be “ample,” which allows for firm control of the central bank’s interest rate targets as well as normal money market trading conditions.

“The next step in our balance sheet strategy will be to assess when the level of reserves has reached ample,” Williams said. “It will then be time to begin the process of gradual purchases of assets that will maintain an ample level of reserves as the Fed’s other liabilities grow and underlying demand for reserves increases over time.”

Williams’ comment on the Fed’s balance sheet followed a choppy period for short-term funding markets around the time of the October 28-29 policy meeting.

The Fed cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point to the 3.75%-4.00% range at that meeting to help bolster a weakening job market even as remains stubbornly above the 2% target.

The central bank also announced plans to stop shrinking the size of its balance sheet at the start of December, ending what had been called quantitative tightening, or QT, due to rising volatility in .

QT had been allowing Treasury and mortgage bonds owned by the Fed to run off and not be replaced, in a bid to remove the sea of liquidity that was added during the COVID-19 pandemic. That effort took the Fed’s balance sheet from its overall $9 trillion peak in 2022 to the current overall level of about $6.6 trillion.

USE OF STANDING REPO FACILITY ENCOURAGED IF NEEDED

In a speech last week, Williams flagged the looming need to soon commence gradual outright purchases of bonds to maintain a balance between market liquidity and a growing .

Williams also said in his prepared remarks on Wednesday that a new tool called the Standing Repo Facility, or SRF, which provides fast cash to eligible banks, has been working well as a source of liquidity for those who need it, and he encouraged banks to tap it without worrying that borrowing from the Fed signals a problem.

The SRF’s “effectiveness relies on market participants availing themselves of the SRF based on market conditions, free of worries about stigma or other impediments,” Williams said, adding “I fully expect that the SRF will continue to be actively used in this way.”

 

(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Paul Simao)

 

Atlanta Fed’s Raphael Bostic to retire in February

Summary

  • President , 59, will retire at the end of his term in February.
  • His exit opens a new seat on the Fed’s rate-setting committee as Trump pushes for more control.
  • Bostic, the first Black and openly gay regional Fed president, has warned remains high.
  • The Atlanta Fed’s board will choose his replacement, subject to Fed board approval.
  • Trump has also sought to oust Fed Governor as he aims to reshape the central bank.

(AP) — Raphael Bostic, president of the Bank of Atlanta, will retire at the end of his current term in February, opening up a new seat on the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee at a time that President is seeking to exert more control over the central bank.

As president of one of the Fed’s 12 regional banks, Bostic, 59, serves on the 19-member committee that meets eight times a year to decide whether to change a key short-term interest rate that influences borrowing costs throughout the . Only 12 of the 19 participants vote on rates at each meeting. The regional Fed presidents rotate as voters, and the Atlanta Fed’s president will next vote in 2027.

Bostic’s replacement will be selected by the Atlanta Fed’s board of directors, which are made up of local business and community leaders, not the . The terms of all the regional Fed presidents end in 2026.

Bostic is the first Black and openly gay president of a regional Fed bank in the Fed’s 112-year history. He has recently expressed concerns that inflation is still too high for the Fed to cut its key rate, and in recent months suggested he supported just one rate cut this year, while the Fed has cut twice.

The Fed’s Washington, D.C.-based board of governors will vote on whether to approve Bostic’s replacement. Trump has sought to gain more control over the Fed’s board, which would potentially give the administration more sway over the approval of the regional Fed presidents. Three of the current seven members of the board were appointed by Trump.

Trump has also sought to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, which would have given him a fourth seat on the board. But Cook has sued to keep her seat and the Supreme Court has allowed her to stay in the job while the issue is fought out in court.

The regional Fed banks were set up specifically to ensure that voices outside Washington and New York would have a say in the central bank’s decisions.

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Fed this year for not cutting as quickly as he would prefer. The Fed reduced its key rate by a quarter-point at its September and October meetings, but Chair Jerome Powell said at a news conference last month that another cut in December is not a “foregone conclusion.”