International News

Bloomberg Billionaire Jack Ma has declared Bitcoin a potential bubble, reiterating his caution over the volatile crypto-currency as his Ant Financial launched blockchain-based money transfers between Hong Kong and the Philippines. The founder and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. extolled the possibilities of the decentralised ledger on which Bitcoin is based but warned that the digital currency itself may ...

Bloomberg Farmers in Australia, the world’s biggest exporter of chickpeas, have halved their plantings after the nation’s top customer hiked tariffs to levels that rendered the trade untenable, according to an industry association. India imposed a 30 percent import tariff on chickpeas in December before increasing it to 40 percent in February and to 60 percent in March. The country ...

Bloomberg Thailand will seek bids in the fourth-quarter for a $5.5 billion high-speed rail project that’s part of a wider plan for a train network to China. The bidder will build the first half of the network in Thailand, Minister of Transport Arkhom Termpittayapaisith said. His ministry expects to receive detailed designs this month from China, its partner for the ...

Bloomberg The Treasury Department is planning to heighten scrutiny of Chinese investments in sensitive US industries under an emergency law, putting Washington’s trade war with Beijing on a potentially irreversible course. Under the plan, the White House would use one of the most significant legal measures available to declare China’s investment in US companies involved in technologies such as new-energy ...

Bloomberg British businesses aren’t the only ones unhappy with the state of Brexit negotiations. Companies in the rest of the European Union aren’t thrilled either. Exactly two years after the referendum, nearly half of 800 executives surveyed across six EU countries by law firm Baker McKenzie said their businesses had reduced investment in the UK since the Brexit vote, according ...

Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP is nearing a first close of $5 billion for its inaugural infrastructure fund, according to people familiar with the matter. The fundraising, expected to be finalised this week, is slightly behind schedule but will mark the biggest initial close for a first-time fund across any alternative investment strategy after SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund and the ...

Bloomberg General Electric Co. is nearing the sale of its factory power-generation unit to Advent International for at least $3 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported. The private equity firm apparently triumphed over a competing bid from Cummins Inc. and a transaction may be announced, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter who weren’t identified. The assets include ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration has collected more than $775 million so far from its metal import tariffs, as lawmakers from both parties blasted the duties and said the process for requests by companies for exclusions must improve. The tariffs President Donald Trump imposed in March have generated $582 million from steel imports and $195 million from aluminum as of last ...

Bloomberg Xiaomi Corp. said it hasn’t set a timeframe to revive an offering of Chinese depository shares, a delay that could hurt China’s ambitions to lure its tech giants to list in the domestic market. The Chinese phonemaker had no dispute with China Securities Regulatory Commission on the proposed listing, Chief Financial Officer Chew Shou Zi said at a briefing ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump’s threats of a trade war with China are sending jitters through the hedge-fund community. Pinpoint Asset Management and SPQ Asia Capital have recently cut a measure of risk called net exposure — the difference between bullish and bearish bets — for hedge funds that invest in China. FengHe Asia Fund, which focuses on China, Taiwan and Vietnam, ...