Bloomberg Go-Jek, Indonesia’s biggest ride-hailing service, agreed to acquire three local financial-technology companies, underscoring its ambition to become the dominant player in the country’s nascent digital-payments industry. The deals bring together Kartuku, Indonesia’s largest offline payments-processing company; Midtrans, the nation’s top online-payment gateway; and Mapan, a local community-based saving and lending network, Go-Jek said. Go-Jek and the three companies now ...
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Tencent to buy 5% stake in Yonghui for $639mn
Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd. agreed to buy a 5 percent stake in China’s Yonghui Superstores Co. for about $639 million, joining rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in teaming up with a bricks-and-mortar retailer. Shenzhen-based Tencent is buying about 478.5 million shares from existing shareholders at 8.81 yuan apiece, Yonghui said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange. The price ...
Read More »Brexit clears first milestone with hard yards ahead
Bloomberg The first phase of Brexit talks is done. Now comes the hard part. UK Prime Minister Theresa May has secured agreement from the European Union to move on from discussing the divorce terms to mapping out a plan for the future trade relationship. Before that, she wants to nail down a transition deal as soon as possible. This is ...
Read More »BMW’s battery materials need to grow 10-fold
Bloomberg BMW AG’s needs for car-battery raw materials such as cobalt and lithium will surge 10-fold by the middle of the next decade, pushing the German carmaker increasingly to forge long-term deals as shortages loom. Purchase contracts with five- to 10-year time frames are close to being completed, the manufacturer’s head of procurement told reporters in Munich. Concerns about supply ...
Read More »China wants ‘cooperation’ as UK seeks to boost trade
Bloomberg China wants to deepen financial and investment links with the UK as Britain seeks to boost two-way trade once it leaves the European Union. Vice Premier Ma Kai said both countries should also push cooperation to a new level in areas including nuclear-power generation, manufacturing, high-speed rail, high-end manufacturing, and trade and investment liberalisation. “The United Kingdom has obvious ...
Read More »Uber ex-manager details data-scraping, surveillance
Bloomberg Fresh details of Uber Technologies Inc.’s alleged surveillance tactics and in particular its scraping of competitors’ information from the internet were revealed in a court filing. Prosecutors involved in a criminal investigation of Uber learned of the tactics from a former manager of the company’s global intelligence unit who had documented them in a letter to an in-house lawyer ...
Read More »Toyota deepens Panasonic battery ties for EVs
Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. deepened a partnership with battery producer Panasonic Corp. as Asia’s biggest carmaker, which initially bet big on hydrogen for clean technology, accelerates efforts to make its presence felt in electric cars. The largest supplier of electric-car batteries and Toyota together are exploring the development of prismatic cells, and the collaboration will include solid-state batteries, the two ...
Read More »Uber embraces Asian taxi foes to win riders
Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. is embracing the taxi industry in Asia, turning some of its former enemies into allies as it tries to win over customers from Bangkok to Tokyo. Uber said it will bring Howa’s fleet of 4,000 taxis onto its app so customers in the Thai capital can get a quicker and more convenient ride. It’s the latest ...
Read More »Europe sets pace for global M&A as politics hurt US deals
Bloomberg Europe, often a laggard compared to the US in mergers and acquisitions, has turned out to be the hot spot for deals this year. A more stable economic outlook and growing confidence in Europe has boosted dealmaking activity in the region, while in the US, the unresolved battle to lower US corporate tax rates as well as fewer blockbuster ...
Read More »â€˜Britain loses most jobs since two years’
Bloomberg Britain shed jobs at the fastest pace in almost 2 1/2 years between August and October in a sign that the labour market is slowing. The number of people in work fell by 56,000, the most since the period through May 2015, the Office for National Statistics said. The decline exceeded the median forecast of economists. Pay growth accelerated, ...
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