International News

Bloomberg Colgate-Palmolive Co is among bidders for the consumer arm of Nestle SA’s skin-health business, people familiar with the matter said, joining an auction process that’s been dominated by private equity firms. Colgate and Unilever NV are both bidding for the consumer-focussed part of Nestle’s business, which includes brands such as Cetaphil moisturisers and cleansers and the Proactiv acne treatment, ...

Bloomberg Luxembourg’s PM Xavier Bettel joked that Brexit is like Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” Unfortunately, many UK citizens in the Grand-Duchy have become the protagonists in a tragicomedy of their own. Since the June 2016 referendum, there’s been an influx of finance workers fleeing the City of London. But other Britons, employed at EU institutions, were essentially forced to ...

Bloomberg Japan’s restrictions on Chinese technology could damage bilateral ties, a Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman said in a warning that comes as the US has been pushing its allies to bar Huawei equipment from telecommunications networks as a security threat. Japan is preparing to announce the allocation of bandwidth for 5G communications next month and the tension over telecommunications with ...

Bloomberg Grab, Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing company, plans to double its staff in Singapore to 3,000 by the time it moves into new headquarters next year. Grab signed an 11-year lease for new offices in a development by Ascendas Real Estate Investment Trust. The Singapore-based startup has a five-year renewal option and will occupy all of the building, which has ...

Bloomberg South Korea’s Bithumb said it detected abnormal withdrawals of the company’s coins from its cryptocurrency exchange. The incident was found through the company’s abnormal-trading monitoring system in Seoul, it said. The exchange then halted cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals and moved investor assets to a so-called cold wallet, which is disconnected from the internet and less vulnerable to theft, and ...

Bloomberg Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, the biggest assembler of iPhones, posted fourth-quarter profit that beat analyst estimates as billionaire Terry Gou cuts costs at his manufacturing giant. Net income was NT$62.6 billion ($2 billion) in the three months ended December, Hon Hai said in a filing. That compares with the NT$36.6 billion average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Hon ...

Bloomberg Indonesia will close an island inhabited by endangered komodo dragons following reports of rampant smuggling of the giant lizards, the Tempo reported. Komodo Island in Manggarai Barat in East Nusa Tenggara province will be shut to tourists from January, the newspaper reported, citing Marius Jelamu, a spokesman for the provincial administration. The decision was taken after consulting the environment ...

Bloomberg Japan’s remarkably tight labour market just got even tighter. The jobless dipped again to around the lowest in almost three decades while the number of jobs available for each applicant has remained at a 44-year high since last year. Even in easy going sub-tropical Okinawa, which has traditionally lagged mainland Japan in economic development, the ratio is near a ...

Bloomberg Governments in the Asia Pacific region are accelerating efforts to fight malicious use of online media, unveiling laws that make it easier to target websites which enable distribution of criminal or fraudulent content. Australia said it will legislate “tough” new laws to prevent social-media platforms from being “weaponised” by terrorists and extremists who may use them to live-stream violent ...

Bloomberg Tech unicorns got a bounce in their step with Lyft Inc’s initial public offering valuing it at $22.4 billion after its first day of trading. Ride-hailing’s No. 2 provider in the US first raised its target range and then expanded its offering to raise $2.34 billion. While the shares closed up only 8.7 percent compared with the 21 percent ...