Banking

Bloomberg Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley, poised to announce the fate of the lender’s African business, must convince investors he can improve the investment bank’s profits just as slumping trading revenue batters the industry. Staley is leaning toward maintaining the securities unit without pursuing a major restructuring or spinning off the business, according to people familiar with the ...

Bloomberg China Zheshang Bank Co. postponed gauging demand for a $1 billion Hong Kong initial public offering, after stock buyers reported difficulty transferring money out of mainland China, people familiar with the matter said. Potential cornerstone investors from China told deal arrangers they couldn’t get timely regulatory approval to send money across the border, according to the people, who asked ...

BLOOMBERG For the next three days,European Central Bank (ECB) officials will walk a communications tightrope. With the latest inflation figures showing the return of price declines, the window of opportunity is closing for the ECB to signal any stimulus intentions for its March 10 decision before a self-imposed quiet period starts on Thursday. Executive Board member Benoit Coeure, the architect ...

SYDNEY / Bloomberg The $5.3-trillion currency market is getting harder for traders to make money in as price changes that once took months or weeks now happen more quickly, says Hugh Killen, Westpac Banking Corp.’s head of trading for foreign exchange, fixed income and commodities. Liquidity is drying up because investors and banks are shying away from taking risk, and ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc. was sued for fraud by investors and creditors of a bankrupt Mexican oil services firm over claims they were harmed by a loan scheme that also led the bank to cut 2013 profit by $235 million and fire at least a dozen people. Citigroup’s loans led to the 2014 collapse of the Mexican firm, Oceanografia SA, and ...

ZURICH / Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank could lower the amount of bank reserves that are exempt from its negative interest rate if it needs to ease policy further, the central bank’s president said. “So far we do not plan any change, but of course the exemption threshold is a possible policy instrument,” SNB President Thomas Jordan said in an ...

Beijing / Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is seeking a loan of as much as $4 billion from at least eight banks, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The banks are expected to begin marketing a $3 billion loan to other lenders, with the intention of increasing the size depending on demand, the people said. The loan would ...

WARSAW / Bloomberg Dropping valuations aren’t enough to convince Eastern Europe’s third-largest lender Erste Group Bank AG to buy assets in Poland, the region’s biggest market, amid growing political uncertainty in Warsaw. Consolidation among Polish banks has been slowed by uncertainty stemming from the government’s plan to convert $44 billion in foreign currency-denominated loans, a proposal called “pure evil” by ...

Canberra / Bloomberg The cost of insuring the debt of Australia’s largest banks surged by the most in four years after a report by research firm Variant Perception fueled speculation about risks in the nation’s housing market. The average cost of credit default swaps for the four biggest Australian lenders surged by 18.6 basis points, the largest one-day increase since ...

Bloomberg Petroleo Brasileiro SA secured a $10 billion loan from the China Development Bank as the beleaguered state-owned oil producer endures the worst crude market in a generation and faces more than double that amount in maturities over the next two years. The lifeline is part of a deal to supply crude to the Asian country, Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras ...