International News

Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp has tapped investment bankers at Houlihan Lokey to explore options for easing WeWork’s cash crunch, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. Houlihan is working on cutting liabilities as WeWork mulls a separate deal that could hand control of the struggling office-sharing company to SoftBank, its biggest shareholder, according to the people. Other measures for ...

Bloomberg India, the world’s top palm oil consumer, is shunning purchases from Malaysia, the No 2. producer, after the southeast Asian nation’s prime minister criticised its policy in Kashmir, sparking the latest trade spat in the region. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad last month told the United Nations that India “invaded and occupied” Kashmir. Since then, many Indian buyers of ...

Bloomberg Labour talks between General Motors (GM) Co and United Auto Workers (UAW) leaders are pushing into Wednesday, inching toward a tentative agreement that could end a strike now in its fifth week. Negotiators are showing signs of progress: GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra made a personal appearance at the main bargaining table, and UAW bosses have summoned their ...

Bloomberg The UK will introduce mandatory checks on trucks to ensure they’re ready to cross the border in the event of a no-deal Brexit as a majority of businesses remain unprepared, the public spending watchdog said. The border will be “less than optimal” under a no-deal exit, meaning delays for businesses and the public, the National Audit Office (NAO) said ...

Bloomberg Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s incoming technology chief, defended her dual role as a rulemaker and enforcer of antitrust law, saying her investigations face intense scrutiny and can aid new regulation. Vestager faced some criticism from the European Parliament’s biggest party, which argued that it’s not possible to “strengthen antitrust efforts and fine tech giants and, at the same ...

Bloomberg Germany’s car industry built its world-class reputation on sedans like the Audi A4, the BMW 5-Series and the Volkswagen Passat, reliable models that look good in the family driveway or company lot. But a shift in consumer taste to more hulking vehicles is coming at the worst possible time. Demand for sport utility vehicles that initially took hold in ...

Bloomberg South Korea unveiled plans to speed up the adoption of electric cars, self-driving vehicles and even flying automobiles in the coming years to help revive a sagging economy. President Moon Jae-in said in a speech on Tuesday Korean companies will invest 60 trillion won ($50 billion) over the next decade into the future of transportation. The government will spend ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to employ women across villages to test water quality to combat rising challenges, amid scarcity of the resource across India. Women in villages across 256 water-scarce districts will receive training to ensure clean water supplies, Smriti Irani, the federal minister for women & child development, said in Mumbai. The programme will be expanded ...

Bloomberg An insolvency case in a remote city on the Tibetan Plateau shows how in China, most outcomes are better than getting booted out of the stock market. A local court in Qinghai — a huge and sparsely-populated province that’s home to the country’s largest lake — threw a lifeline to Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Co when it accepted a ...

Bloomberg Indonesia posted a surprise trade deficit in September as the US-China trade war and a global slowdown continued to weigh on exports in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. Exports contracted for an 11th consecutive month, falling 5.7% from a year ago but not as much as the decline of 6.5% forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. That resulted in ...