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Allergan may need much more than a minor facelift

In just about two years, Allergan PLC has gone from a pharma darling on the verge of a massively lucrative Pfizer Inc. buyout to something of a pariah. Its stock has fallen 38 percent in the past nine months. Shareholders are reportedly recruiting activists. On its first-quarter earnings call on Monday, Allergan said it is in the midst of an ...

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International tourists are US’s renewable resource

President Donald Trump has made clear his view that the US doesn’t need any more immigrants. The mystery is why a veteran of the hospitality business would be so inhospitable to tourists, traveling executives, students and other visitors. Consider the State Department’s ill-advised plan to impose new screening requirements on the roughly 14 million people who apply each year for ...

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Is India’s oil addiction again undermining its economy?

From about the beginning of 2017, even skeptics had to admit, India looked to be recovering from a growth slowdown. Most dramatically, in the last two quarters for which data is available, investment in physical capital — which had long been too low for growth to recover — increased by 12 percent and 10 percent, respectively. In the first two ...

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SoftBank sans telcos means Masayoshi has little to offer

Finally. Get used to hearing that word a lot when people talk about the merger of Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. For SoftBank Group Corp. and its founder Masayoshi Son, that sigh of relief also needs a rejoinder: now what? In addition to successfully selling his unprofitable US telco, Son this year is on track to list the company’s ...

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Actually, equality is a mediocre goal. Aim for the progress

There are numerous takes on what made the Western world special during the era after World War II, including an especially large middle class, many years of peace and American hegemony. I’d like to nominate another candidate, namely that there was a rough correspondence between the major risks out there and the risks that government could afford to insure us ...

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Australia holds key rate as hiring bonanza winds down

Bloomberg Australia left its key interest rate unchanged at a record low — as expected — amid the slowing of a hiring boom. Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe kept the cash rate at 1.5 percent, where it has stood since late 2016, as the central bank waits for inflation to strengthen. The nation’s jobs growth has declined to a three-month ...

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Toronto-Dominion’s rivals employ ‘gamesmanship’

Bloomberg Canada’s big banks don’t seem keen to follow Toronto-Dominion Bank’s lead on mortgage hikes — at least not all the way. Posted mortgage rates have diverged in the past week following rate hikes by Toronto-Dominion, Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and National Bank of Canada. Bank of Nova Scotia and Bank of Montreal have stood ...

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StanChart nears earnings goal despite cost fears

Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc’s Bill Winters is closing in on his return target after three years spent struggling to transform the emerging markets lender, but the bank hasn’t shaken off concerns about costs and growth. The lender posted the highest quarterly revenue of the chief executive’s tenure and warned expenses may escalate this year. Nevertheless, a 7 percent increase in ...

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BofA predicts $800mn pretax charge on TruPS redemption

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. expects to book an $800 million pretax charge in the second quarter as it redeems $3.5 billion of trust preferred securities (TruPS), eliminating much of its remaining stockpile. Trust preferred securities are equity-like debt instruments that pay interest like bonds. Banks favoured issuing them during the financial crisis because they were treated like equity, and ...

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New Zealand banks feel heat from Australia’s bad behaviour

Bloomberg New Zealand regulators are seeking assurances that local lenders aren’t involved in the same unethical behavior coming to light in Australia’s banking inquiry. The Financial Markets Authority and Reserve Bank spoke with the heads of New Zealand’s major banks, telling them to provide evidence that they’re not engaged in practices unearthed by a Royal Commission in Australia, an RBNZ ...

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