International News

Bloomberg The international jewellery business that’s part of the empire controlled by Nirav Modi, the billionaire accused of masterminding India’s biggest bank fraud, was driven towards US bankruptcy protection after Indian authorities began seizing and freezing assets. The company’s attorney outlined that background at a Manhattan federal bankruptcy court hearing. Modi, the chief executive officer of the parent company of ...

Bloomberg The world’s biggest labour market will soon get its first regularly updated monthly jobless rate similar to closely-watched gauges in other major economies like the US and Europe. Monthly updates of China’s survey-based urban unemployment rate will be released from April, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said. Until now, the only regular official unemployment rate has been a ...

Bloomberg PE firms including Warburg Pincus are vying with suitors across Asia for control of a TPG-backed Indonesian consumer finance company, people with knowledge of the matter said. Taiwan’s Cathay Financial Holding Co. and South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group Co. are among first-round bidders for a stake in PT BFI Finance Indonesia, said the people, who asked not to be ...

Bloomberg CVS Health Corp. completed the third-largest corporate bond sale on record to fund its acquisition of Aetna Inc., testing the appetite of a market that’s off to its worst annual start in decades. The pharmacy giant issued $40 billion of investment-grade debt in a nine-part offering, people with knowledge of the matter said. That’s surpassed only by Verizon Communication ...

Bloomberg The European Union voiced mounting concern over US President Donald Trump’s plan to impose punitive import tariffs, as Germany signalled alarm over the resignation of pro-trade Trump adviser Gary Cohn in an emerging trans-Atlantic dispute over protectionism. “We hope that eventually this initiative from the US side will not be followed through,” European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said ...

Bloomberg BlackBerry Ltd., seeking ways to stem revenue declines, is dusting off its old patents and asking other companies to pay up for using technology BlackBerry claims it invented years ago. The latest skirmish broke out, when BlackBerry sued Facebook Inc in federal court in Los Angeles, claiming the social media giant has built swaths of its empire on messaging ...

Bloomberg UK pension liabilities increased by 7.6 trillion pounds in the five years through 2015, government figures published on Wednesday show. They stood at 7.6 trillion pounds, with the state pension—a universal entitlement paid by the government—accounting for more than half the amount, the Office for National Statistics said. There were more than 2 trillion pounds of entitlements linked to ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s threat that he could tax cars imported from Europe was premised on the idea that German automakers pour Benzes and Bimmers into the US while making it “impossible” for American cars to sell there. General Motors Co., America’s largest carmaker, largely bailed from Europe last year for reasons that had less to do with protectionism than ...

Bloomberg China is attempting to pull off an unusual fiscal feat: Cut taxes, boost spending and shrink the deficit, all with a slowing economy. Premier Li Keqiang announced the first budget deficit goal reduction since 2012, to 2.6 percent of gross domestic product from 3 percent. He also pledged tax cuts of 800 billion yuan ($126 billion) for companies and ...

Bloomberg Billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan’s Aircel Ltd. has asked an Indian court to initiate bankruptcy proceedings as it’s unable to repay about 500 billion rupees ($7.7 billion) of dues. The mobile carrier owes about 150 billion rupees to secured financial creditors and the rest to operational unsecured creditors, including those who provided it goods and services, Janak Dwarkadas, a lawyer ...