International News

Bloomberg UK bond issuance is set to surge to the highest level in nine years with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government expected to unveil a significant increase in budget spending. Sales of gilts will rise to 166 billion pounds ($218 billion) in the 2020-2021 financial year, according to the median forecast of 13 bond dealers surveyed by Bloomberg. The nation’s ...

Bloomberg Facebook Inc. named two new directors, appointing Tracey Travis, chief financial officer of Estée Lauder Cos., and longtime McKinsey & Co. executive Nancy Killefer at a time when board’s role at the social media company is under intense scrutiny. The addition of the two women, announced in a statement, makes Facebook’s board 40% female. Fewer than 10% of companies ...

Bloomberg An exhausted-looking Elon Musk said he’s unsure his rocket company SpaceX will accomplish its foundational mission — getting to Mars — before he dies. “If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars,” Musk said at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington. “If it’s taken us 18 years just ...

Bloomberg The euro-area economy may be headed for its first recession in seven years as the coronavirus outbreak takes an increasing toll on businesses and consumer confidence. With Italy sweeping a lock-down across the country and infections nearly doubling in Spain, economists at Morgan Stanley and Berenberg expect euro-zone gross domestic product to shrink in the first half of the ...

Bloomberg On February 28, questions about the coronavirus swirled around Google’s offices. The company was being criticized for YouTube’s handling of hoax videos, a major company conference was canceled and an employee in Zurich tested positive. In the midst of this, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai sent a memo reminding thousands of his workers about Google’s important role as a ...

Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak in South Korea is showing signs of slowing as the rate of new daily infections falls and health authorities almost finished testing members of a religious sect at the centre of the epidemic, the country’s health minister said. With the number of new cases slowing to 367 from 483 the day before, Health Minister Park Neung-hoo ...

Bloomberg Trip.com Group Ltd’s top two executives will stop drawing salaries, part of a series of wage-cutting moves at China’s biggest online travel service provider to cope with the coronavirus outbreak. Chairman James Liang and Chief Executive Officer Jane Sun will no longer receive salaries beginning this month, and other members of the company’s top management will also voluntarily cut ...

Bloomberg Tesco Plc agreed to sell its Asian businesses to Thai billionaire Dhanin Chearavanont for more than $10 billion, clinching a record deal in Thailand even as the coronavirus outbreak damps enthusiasm for mergers and acquisitions worldwide. Britain’s largest supermarket chain said it plans a 5 billion-pound ($6.6 billion) special dividend after the sale of the assets to Chearavanont’s Charoen ...

Bloomberg Grab Holdings Inc closed offices in Singapore and Thailand for five days of cleaning after a Singapore-based employee, who previously visited the Bangkok office, tested positive for the coronavirus. “One employee who is based in our corporate office at Marina One West Tower in Singapore has come down with Covid-19,” Grab said on Monday in an emailed statement. “The ...

Bloomberg Japanese merchants said they’re facing the toughest economic environment since the global financial crisis as the country braces for the full impact of the spreading coronavirus. Store managers, barbers, taxi drivers and others who deal directly with Japanese consumers haven’t been this pessimistic about their prospects since 2009, according to a Cabinet Office survey on Monday. An index measuring ...