Banking

Bloomberg It was supposed to be the best of times for the biggest US banks: Rising interest rates and corporate tax cuts would boost profitability and spur lending, while deregulation lowered costs. The optimism didn’t last. Loan books probably expanded only slightly last quarter while revenue failed to match the acceleration posted in the first three months of the year, ...

Bloomberg Pakistan’s central bank increased its key rate for a second straight meeting as economic pressures build ahead of a tense national vote. The target policy rate was raised to 7.5 percent from 6.5 percent, State Bank of Pakistan Governor Tariq Bajwa said in a Karachi briefing. The increase by 100 basis points was predicted by nine economists in a ...

Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP plans to start raising its next global private equity fund three years after gathering about $18 billion from investors for its last pool. The firm is expected to seek more than $20 billion when it starts marketing its eighth buyout fund later this year, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be ...

Bloomberg Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. (MUFG) is considering job cuts at its securities operations overseas to keep them profitable. The brokerage arm of Japan’s biggest bank may reduce headcount in the UK and the US, reflecting market conditions, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co. Chief Executive Officer Saburo Araki said, without giving details. The firm had 605 employees in Europe and ...

Bloomberg When an indebted infant health-care company in Atlanta wanted to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a rival in Pasadena, it turned to a lender thousands of miles away in London. Barclays Plc is helping Aveanna Healthcare LLC get a $221 million loan for its purchase of Premier Healthcare Services LLC, adding to a $900 million debt ...

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG became the latest foreign bank to be allowed to underwrite China’s corporate bonds as the government opens up the onshore debt market. The German bank has received approval from the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, or NAFMII, to underwrite corporate bonds sold by both onshore and offshore issuers in the interbank market, it said ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has started approaching banks for its first-ever loan, aiming to establish a group of banks with which it will work on future deals, reports said. The Public Investment Fund (PIF), has asked lenders to participate in a multi-billion dollar loan, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Lenders ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) agreed to pay an undisclosed multimillion-dollar sum to settle claims of defamation brought by former executive Omeed Malik, who was fired by the bank earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The settlement comes in response to a claim Malik brought in April, said the person, who asked not to ...

Bloomberg Punjab National Bank that saw its earnings wiped out by an unprecedented fraud aims to report the nation’s biggest bank profit by selling some assets, according to people familiar with the matter. Punjab National Bank (PNB) is targeting net income of more than ₹5,000 crore ($730 million) for the three months through September 30, boosted by asset sales and ...

Bloomberg A reluctance by banks in Ghana to lend is threatening to stall one of Africa’s fastest expanding economies. With almost a quarter of all outstanding loans in the country at risk of not being repaid, credit granted to the private sector is increasing at nearly the slowest pace in four years. At stake is the 6.8 percent growth that ...