As the world watches to see if Emmanuel Macron succeeds in shaking France out of its statist torpor, it should bear in mind that he would first need to somehow bypass the country’s entrenched mandarins, the elite-educated cadre that run France’s most important bureaucracies and whose cohorts tend to have leadership roles throughout French industry; they often have the biggest ...

Bloomberg The design for a new class of safe financial assets intended to strengthen the euro area will be published imminently after almost a year of delay, according to officials familiar with the matter. The report, commissioned by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, will offer a plan for bundling government debt from the bloc’s 19 nations into a security ...

Bloomberg Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Randal Quarles, the central bank’s supervision chief, shared a laundry list of ways to make regulation less burdensome for Wall Street — including streamlining capital rules, overhauling post-crisis trading limits and making major changes to how the agency conducts stress tests. “Confusion that results from overly complex regulation does not advance the goal of a ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. may not be willing to help customers invest in bitcoin, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t plowing into the technology underlying the cryptocurrency. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender has applied for or received at least 43 patents for blockchain, the ledger technology used for verifying and recording transactions that’s at the heart of virtual currencies. ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Korea left its key interest rate unchanged as inflation remains below target and the nation’s currency trades near a multi-year high. The unanimous decision to keep the seven-day repurchase rate at 1.5 percent, in the next-to-last rate decision before Governor Lee Ju-yeol’s term ends in March, was forecast by all 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The ...

Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, plans to increase its bonus pool for last year as the lender makes progress on its three-year restructuring plan, two people familiar with the plans said. The pool may increase by a low single-digit percentage, but is yet to be finalised, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified ...

BLoomberg Steinhoff International Holdings NV, the global retailer fighting to recover from an accounting scandal, sold its luxury Gulfstream 550 private jet to a US aircraft broker as it seeks to boost liquidity. The plane, with serial number 5113, was registered to Annapolis, Maryland-based Avpro Inc. on January 12, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration’s online records. The luxuriously ...

Bloomberg Airbus SE is in talks to sell new A380 superjumbo planes to British Airways this year after securing a programme-saving deal from Persian Gulf operator Emirates, according to people familiar with the matter. The UK carrier, which currently has 12 A380s in its fleet, had said in the past that it was looking for six to seven second-hand A380s. ...

Bloomberg United Continental Holdings Inc. is set to debut an upgraded economy section with bigger seats on some international flights, following similar moves by US rivals. United will introduce what it’s calling Premium Plus later this year, spokeswoman Maggie Schmerin said, without giving further details. A memo sent to United employees said the new section will have additional perks including ...

Bloomberg The day of the service duck and emotional support chicken on airlines may be drawing to a close. Delta Air Lines Inc. said it will more thoroughly vet passengers’ efforts to fly with all manner of unusual animals, which often board US airlines under the guise of psychological or medical support. “Customers have attempted to fly with comfort turkeys, ...