Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc posted its best quarter since the pandemic began as an improving economic outlook drove optimism about the ability of borrowers to repay loans and its strategic reset to Asia remained on track. First-quarter profit more than doubled as $400 million of loan loss reserves were released, spurred by the rollout of vaccination programs in markets like ...

Bloomberg Global banks’ losses related to the collapse of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management topped $10 billion after Nomura Holdings Inc and UBS Group AG disclosed more than $3.7 billion of combined hits from the collapse of the US family office. The Japanese bank booked about 245.7 billion yen ($2.3 billion) of losses in the three months ended March 31, ...

Bloomberg Shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd were the most hit among peers after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) capped founder’s tenure as chief executive officer of a bank to 15 years. That gives the world’s wealthiest banker Uday Kotak less than three years to find a successor, according to a note by Suresh Ganapathy, an analyst at Macquarie ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc’s decision to exit retail banking operations in 13 markets outside the US including China was crucial for its ability to redeploy capital to areas where it can make bigger profits, according to an internal memo by the bank’s Asia-Pacific chief. “This was not about any specific markets or the attractiveness of individual consumer markets,” Peter Babej said ...

Bloomberg Zimbabwe’s CBZ Bank Ltd., the country’s biggest lender, begun voluntary job cuts as it deals with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic on the corporate landscape. The bank needs to review its structures and operations to adapt to new ways of working, according to a memo from group CEO Blessing Mudavanhu and its chief human resources officer. “The manner ...

Bloomberg Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will fail to reach his goal of stable 2% price growth during his term after what will have been more than a decade of stimulus to stoke inflation, according to the Bank of Japan’s latest forecasts. Even with an economy expected to show a faster recovery from the pandemic, a slew of ...

Bloomberg Bond investors, emboldened by a recovering economy and a global vaccine rollout, are taking on more risk, sometimes a lot more risk. Insurers, pension systems and high-grade credit managers in the US and Europe are buying bigger amounts of junk-rated debt to offset shrinking yields, forcing high-yield investors to jostle for allocations of BB rated bonds — the safest ...

Bloomberg Thai equities face new hurdles as the country’s worst Covid-19 outbreak will further squeeze corporate earnings and delay an economic recovery, according to Thailand’s second-biggest private money manager. Investor optimism over prospects for a return of foreign tourists has been eroding amid a new wave of the virus that took hold this month, said Vasin Vanichvoranun, executive chairman at ...

Manama / Emirates Business The total value of trade between the GCC and Bahrain in Q1 2021 reached $1.76 billion, a rise of 6 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the latest figures released by Bahrain’s eGovernment and Information Authority. Accounting for more than a third of this figure, non-oil bilateral trade between the UAE and ...

Bloomberg Oil falls as India’s worsening Covid-19 crisis weighed on the near-term outlook for demand ahead of a key Opec+ meeting later this week. Futures in New York slid 1.7% towards $61 a barrel. Signs of strain on India’s refiners are starting to emerge. Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. has cut processing rates, while Indian Oil Corp has so far ...