International News

Bloomberg A rare plot of land that’s zoned for a hotel near Singapore’s central business district has attracted a record bid as developers shift focus after last year’s property cooling measures. Midtown Development Pte, bid S$562.2 million ($415 million) for the site, the highest among eight offers received, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said. The land adjacent to Club Street, an ...

Bloomberg Du Zhenye outperformed his peers in China last year by selling nearly all his stock holdings and piling into bonds. He’s predicting 2019 will be similar for the market. “Bonds will be a sure bet,” said Du, who plans to buy short-dated debt issued by local government financing vehicles, as well as long-dated government and policy bank notes. Falling ...

Bloomberg More Xiaomi Corp shareholders are rushing for the exit. An undisclosed investor sold 231 million Class B shares at HK$9.45 apiece, according to people with knowledge of the matter, a 5.1 percent discount to Tuesday’s close. The placing follows the end of a six-month lockup last week that has allowed early shareholders to sell Xiaomi stock for the first ...

Bloomberg PT Bukalapak.com, an Indonesian e-commerce marketplace, is preparing to complete a new round of fundraising that includes $50 million from Mirae Asset-Naver Growth Fund, according to people familiar with the matter. The investment may be announced as soon as this week, said the people, asking not to be identified because the details aren’t yet public. They declined to comment ...

Bloomberg Aston Martin and Bentley Motors saw this crash coming — but it’s still going to sting. Speaking onstage at a conference in Detroit before and after the British Parliament rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, the chief executive officers of two companies synonymous with UK carmaking had been bracing for disaster. Both have been making arrangements to do ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration has ordered thousands of furloughed federal employees back to work without pay to inspect planes, issue tax refunds, monitor food safety and facilitate the sale of offshore oil drilling rights. The efforts in recent days illustrate how President Donald Trump is trying to limit the impact of the partial government shutdown and shield favoured industries as ...

Bloomberg The much-anticipated alliance announcement by Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co left investors feeling let down as it lacked a big-bucks plan to join forces on electric vehicles and self-driving cars. Wall Street was hoping for a blockbuster deal, such as the billions of dollars General Motors Co. landed for its self-driving unit from Honda and SoftBank Vision Fund ...

Bloomberg The German economy will have to lean on homegrown support to put the brakes on a slowdown after its worst performance in five years. Record-low unemployment, stronger wage gains and fiscal stimulus will underpin domestic demand after Europe’s growth engine stuttered in the second half of 2018, even though it avoided a recession. With export prospects deteriorating, those buffers ...

Bloomberg Ren Zhengfei, the billionaire founder of Huawei Technologies Co, broke a years-long silence to dismiss US accusations the telecoms giant helps Beijing spy on Western governments. Ren denied suggestions that Huawei aids the Chinese government in espionage, saying it has no regular contact with Beijing as his technology empire faces its biggest crisis in its three decades of existence. ...

Bloomberg Private-home sales in Singapore halved in December from the month prior as developers marketed fewer projects and buyers decamped from the city-state on holiday. Developers sold 602 units last month versus 1,201 in November, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said in a statement on Tuesday. That took the 2018 sales tally to about 9,246. The total number of apartments launched ...