Banking

Bloomberg Credit Agricole SA’s trading revenue plunged in the fourth quarter, extending a tough quarter for French investment banking after volatile markets at the end of the year kept clients on the sidelines. Capital-markets and investment-banking revenue declined 29 percent in the last three months of 2018, led by fixed income. However, the lender’s earnings are less dependent on investment ...

Bloomberg It was supposed to be China’s answer to JPMorgan Chase & Co. But less than five years after China Minsheng Investment Group Corp. (CMIG) outlined plans to become a financial colossus, the company has instead turned into a symbol of the turmoil sweeping China’s once-vaunted private sector. After shocking investors with a missed bond payment last month, CMIG has ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG aims to rebuild in the Middle East after years of cost cutting and has hired executives to help win debt and advisory deals. “We have pivoted from a pure cost-control focus in 2018 to a controlled, disciplined growth phase in 2019,” Jamal Al Kishi, chief executive officer of the Middle East and Africa for the Frankfurt-based ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank pushed out its forecast for an interest-rate increase to early 2021, disappointing investors looking for signs of a policy easing later this year and sending the currency surging. Reserve Bank Governor Adrian Orr left the official cash rate at 1.75 percent on Wednesday in Wellington and said he expects to keep it there “through 2019 ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s central bank committed to a plan to raise interest rates this year and dropped a mandate that had allowed policy makers to intervene rapidly in the currency market to help drive inflation higher. The krona gained on the news, after many in the market had expected the Stockholm-based Riksbank to signal a more cautious stance. The bank left ...

Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) reduced purchases of bonds for the first time in two months, stepping in to arrest a decline in yields amid a global debt rally spurred by rising risks to growth worldwide. The central bank offered to buy 180 billion yen ($1.6 billion) of securities maturing in 10-to-25 years at regular operation, versus 200 billion ...

Bloomberg ABN Amro Group NV missed fourth quarter profit estimates on increased anti-money laundering costs and an anticipated dividend increase failed to materialise. The Dutch lender kept its dividend at 1.45 euros for 2018, the same as the year before, missing analyst estimates of 1.54 euros. Fourth quarter net income was 316 million euros, this result includes 85 million euros ...

Bloomberg Banco Santander SA reminded investors that juicy bonds can come with nasty surprises. The Spanish lender rattled the bank Additional Tier 1 market by saying it will skip an option to call 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) of perpetual contingent-convertible notes next month, sending the bonds tumbling. The announcement came right at the deadline for a decision, after the ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is paying some of the highest rates among large banks to raise debt this year, highlighting a key obstacle in the lender’s turnaround effort. Germany’s biggest bank this week sold $1.25 billion of three-year dollar bonds that pay 255 basis points over benchmark interest rates, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc may unveil plans to pay out more money to shareholders to fend off criticism of its investment-banking performance — and continued pressure from activist Edward Bramson. That’s a growing view among several analysts ahead of the London-based bank’s earnings report on February 21. Returning surplus capital could be part of a “cohesive strategy to improve returns,” said ...