News

Bloomberg There’s a new owner of the Brooklyn Nets. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai exercised his option to buy the rest of the team that he didn’t already control — along with the Barclays Center arena — ending Mikhail Prokhorov’s ownership tenure and bringing another deep-pocketed international presence to the National Basketball Association. Financial terms weren’t ...

Bloomberg Pakistan’s Power Cement Ltd. has suspended almost a third of its output as demand and prices fall amid an economic downturn and higher costs bite. The second largest producer in the country’s south has shut about 3,150 tons per day of old, high-cost production capacity after market conditions rendered them unviable. Newer lines accounting for 7,700 tons remain operational. ...

Bloomberg Australia’s labour market surged in July, adding almost three times the forecast number of jobs, while unemployment remained stuck at 5.2% as the workforce swelled to a fresh record. The economy added 41,100 roles from the previous month, with more than three-quarters of them full-time, the statistics bureau said in Sydney. Economists had forecast a gain of just 14,000. ...

Bloomberg If self-reinforcing recession fears are the greatest risk to the record-long US expansion, as posited by Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan, the latest consumer sentiment report hinted that those concerns may be starting to emerge. “We have nothing to fear about a recession right now except for the fear of recession,” Moynihan said in a ...

Bloomberg Germany’s government is ready to run a budget deficit if Europe’s largest economy collapses, magazine Der Spiegel reported. Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz would be willing to increase debt in order to offset a tax revenue shortfall due to an economic slump, the magazine said, citing sources in the chancellery and the finance ministry that it ...

Bloomberg With interest rates on 30-year US debt hitting all-time lows this week, the government is once again considering whether to start borrowing for even longer. The US Treasury Department said that it wants to know what investors think about the government potentially issuing 50-year or 100-year bonds, going way beyond the current three-decade maximum. The government stressed that no ...

Bloomberg For Brits looking to escape the UK in an increasingly wet August, the pound might offer some relief with a recovery against the euro. Sterling ended a record run of losses against the common currency this week and analysts are cautiously optimistic on its near-term prospects. Growing resistance among opposition lawmakers to a no-deal Brexit has led traders to ...

Bloomberg As economic growth falls across Europe, Ukraine may be embarking on an upswing. Data showed expansion in the former Soviet republic surged last quarter, even as US-China trade tensions and a wider global slowdown weighed on most of the continent. The pace — 4.6% — was unexpectedly quick. The World Bank had warned that if growth didn’t top the ...

Bloomberg Steinhoff International Holdings NV former Chief Executive Officer Markus Jooste sees the retailer’s claim for more than $56 million against him as “vague and embarrassing.” The owner of Poundland in the UK and Pep stores throughout Africa said in June it will look to claw back base salaries, bonuses and other incentives paid to Jooste since 2009 because of ...

Bloomberg The Earth is losing its plants and humanity is to blame, according to a new study. Global vegetation growth has been in decline since the late 1990’s, due to changes in the water content of the atmosphere. An atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD), or the difference between saturation water vapor and actual water vapor, was found to stall or ...