Bloomberg Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to introduce a two-year ban on foreign home buyers to tackle housing affordability in Canada if he’s re-elected. The proposed restriction is an attempt to cool a housing market that has soared during the Covid-19 pandemic. Surging prices have become a central issue in the campaign for the September 20 vote, in which Trudeau ...
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Peru’s economy rebounds by 42% after slump last year
Bloomberg Peru’s economy rebounded in the second quarter, shrugging off political and financial volatility as it recovers from one of the world’s deepest slumps last year. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 41.9% in the three months through June from the same period a year earlier, the national statistics institute said. The result was higher than the 41.5% median estimate of ...
Read More »German business confidence falls amid persistent supply squeeze
Bloomberg German businesses are growing increasingly concerned that a global supply squeeze and rising infections will damp the economic recovery. A gauge by the Munich-based Ifo Institute falls to 99.4 in August from 100.7 in July, more than economists predicted in a Bloomberg survey. An index measuring expectations also falls, while current conditions were judged more favourably. Strong consumer spending ...
Read More »Pfizer to acquire Trillium for $2.3bn
Bloomberg Pfizer Inc, maker of a top-selling Covid vaccine, will buy all the shares of Trillium Therapeutics Inc it doesn’t own, gaining the immune cancer drugmaker for an equity value of $2.26 billion. Pfizer will pay $18.50 a share for Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Trillium, the companies said in a statement. The price represents a 118% premium to the stock’s 60-day weighted ...
Read More »UK construction, manufacturing boost wage inflation
Bloomberg Britain’s construction, manufacturing and food preparation industries are pushing wages higher across the economy due to a shortage of workers to fill available jobs. Building companies increased advertised pay by 6.7% from February to July 2021 to draw more workers into the industry, according to data from jobs site Indeed. That compares with wage growth of just 0.8% across ...
Read More »India plans $81b sales of its infrastructure assets
Bloomberg India plans to raise 6 trillion rupees ($81 billion) from selling state-owned infrastructure assets over next four years to help bolster the government’s finances and plug its budget deficit, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan will include sale of road and railway assets, airports, power transmission lines and gas pipelines, said the people who asked not ...
Read More »Intel spends $6m to meet Vietnam coronavirus rules
Bloomberg Intel Corp has spent 140 billion dong ($6.1 million) in just one month to meet strict Vietnamese anti-virus mandates for factories in Ho Chi Minh City to ensure it can keep operations going. The costs include providing sleeping accommodations for workers, according to Ho Thi Thu Uyen, head of external affairs for Intel in Vietnam and Malaysia. Intel Vietnam ...
Read More »SoftBank makes first Africa bet on OPay at $2b valuation
Bloomberg SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led a $400 million funding round for OPay, valuing the Nigerian mobile-payments platform at $2 billion and marking the investment vehicle’s first bet in Africa. Also participating in the round were Sequoia Capital China, DragonBall Capital, the venture arm of Chinese food-delivery giant Meituan, Redpoint China, Source Code Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia and 3W Capital, ...
Read More »Southeast Asia’s green shift may yield $12.5tn in gains
Bloomberg Southeast Asia stands to reap $12.5 trillion in economic gains by 2070 if it takes urgent moves to slow climate change, while inaction could yield losses more than double that size, according to the Deloitte Economics Institute. The region’s gross domestic product could grow by an average of 3.5% per year over the next five decades if it nurtures ...
Read More »Infosys asked to explain bugs in portal
Bloomberg India’s finance ministry has summoned the chief executive officer of Infosys Ltd, Asia’s second-largest software service provider, asking him to explain why glitches in the nation’s new electronic tax filing portal have not yet been fixed. The snags in the portal haven’t been resolved after two and half months since its launch, and it hasn’t been available at all ...
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