Banking

Reuters China’s Legend Holdings struck a deal to buy a 90 percent stake in Banque Internationale a Luxembourg (BIL) for 1.48 billion euros ($1.76 billion) in the biggest takeover of a European deposit-taking bank by a Chinese firm so far. Legend, best known as owner of computer group Lenovo Group Ltd, is acquiring 161-year-old BIL from Precision Capital, an investment ...

Bloomberg UBS Group AG is leaning towards Frankfurt for its trading headquarters inside the European Union after Brexit, according to four people with knowledge of the matter. The Swiss firm’s investment bank employs about 4,800 bankers globally and could move 250 or more jobs out of London to Frankfurt and other European locations, two of the people briefed on the ...

Bloomberg Guatemala’s second major political crisis in two years could hurt economic growth if it drags on, interim Central Bank President Sergio Recinos said. The crisis, which deepened after a court overruled President Jimmy Morales’s attempt to expel UN-backed anti-corruption chief Ivan Velasquez, was a factor in the central bank’s decision not to raise interest rates, and has dampened investor ...

Bloomberg The man who predicted the 2008 global financial crisis also presaged the damage Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unprecedented cash ban would cause to India’s economy. Raghuram Rajan was governor of the Reserve Bank of India in February 2016, when he was asked by the government for his views on demonetisation, according to Rajan’s book “I do what I do”, ...

Bloomberg Resilient economic growth and a government campaign against excessive leverage are helping China’s largest banks, curbing their bad loans and underpinning their net interest margins. Those factors helped three of the big banks post higher-than-estimated second-quarter net income, led by Bank of China Ltd.’s 23 percent surge, the biggest increase in six years. Largest rival Industrial & Commercial Bank ...

Reuters Industrial and Commercial Bank of China is talking to governments and state-linked entities in the Gulf that are interested in issuing yuan-denominated bonds in China, said an executive at ICBC, China’s largest bank. One government entity is in the process of applying to issue such instruments, known as panda bonds, which would make it the first issuer from the ...

Reuters Nigeria’s United Bank for Africa (UBA) said it had made a provision on loans made to 9mobile, the mobile operator formerly known as Etisalat Nigeria. The lender did not give details of the provision but said it had a $125 million exposure to 9mobile. UBA said the exposure was secured, and part of a syndicated loan with 12 other ...

Bloomberg The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index extended its Asia session gain with investors continuing to unwind their short dollar exposure across the board as the gauge rebounded from its lowest level since January 2015. The greenback’s relief rally saw the euro slide a second day, set for its first two-day decline in two weeks. Euro-dollar was 0.2 percent lower at ...

Bloomberg Russia’s slow-motion banking crisis claimed its biggest victim yet, forcing the central bank to provide support for other lenders to prevent panic from spreading. Bank Otkritie FC, a month removed from being Russia’s biggest private lender, was taken over by a government-backed fund set up by the central bank to consolidate the sector. The move will place at least ...

Bloomberg A logjam is looming at the Bank of England as almost 80 foreign banks that are operating UK branches decide on their future in post-Brexit Britain. The first choice for lenders from the European Union using the passporting mechanism for their UK business— a device that will no longer be available after Brexit— is whether to stay or go. ...