Bloomberg Lotte Group said the Chinese government ordered the halt of the conglomerate’s 3 trillion won ($2.6 billion) theme-park project in northeastern China, in the group’s latest setback in a country that’s stepping up economic retaliation against South Korea for pushing ahead with the deployment of a US missile shield. The government order to suspend the development in Shenyang ...
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Fleeing to cash, Pakistani businesses seek to avoid tax trap
Bloomberg Running a wholesale grocery shop in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi, 43-year-old Khan used to write as many as 40 checks a month to buy goods from sugar to Unilever NV tea bags. That changed when authorities, in a bid to clamp down on widespread tax avoidance, started charging a levy on every bank transaction above ...
Read More »Egypt remittances, foreign inflows jump after float
Bloomberg Remittances from Egyptians working abroad are surging and foreigners bought more than $250 million in local assets during the beginning of the week, further signs of growing confidence in the nation’s economy after it floated the currency and secured a $12 billion IMF loan. Expatriate workers sent home $4.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2016, up 12 ...
Read More »â€˜Pressure on Qatar state finances easing but austerity needed’
Reuters Pressure on Qatar’s state finances is easing because of higher oil prices and the government may not need to issue an international bond this year, but it is still seeking ways to save money, finance minister Ali Sherif al-Emadi said. “We may not issue a bond this year given where oil prices are – right now we are ...
Read More »Rio Tinto swings to biggest gain since 2013 on iron rally
Bloomberg Rio Tinto Group is delivering on a promise to reward investors as it emerges from an industry-wide downturn by paying out a bigger-than-expected dividend and announcing a surprise $500 million share buyback. Last year’s 81 percent surge in iron ore prices helped the world’s second-biggest mining company report its first gain in annual profit since 2013, exceeding analysts’ ...
Read More »UK media proposal to hinder Fox plan to buy rest of Sky
Bloomberg Film director and lawmaker David Puttnam is proposing measures in the UK’s House of Lords aimed at frustrating Rupert Murdoch’s 11.7 billion-pound ($14.6 billion) plan to merge his US media company, 21st Century Fox Inc., with European pay-television broadcaster Sky Plc. The amendments to the proposed Digital Economy Bill would subject media acquirers to a so-called fit-and-proper test ...
Read More »Energy Transfer to get Dakota access pipeline nod from USA
Bloomberg The controversial Dakota Access pipeline is set to gain the final go-ahead for completion after President Donald Trump asked for a speedy approval. The US Army said it will grant Energy Transfer Partners LP the easement it needs to finish the line that will ship almost half a million barrels of crude a day from North Dakota’s shale ...
Read More »Apple hires Amazon’s Fire TV head to run Apple TV business
Bloomberg Apple Inc. has hired Timothy D. Twerdahl, the former head of Amazon.com Inc.’s Fire TV unit, as a vice president in charge of Apple TV product marketing and shifted the executive who previously held the job to a spot negotiating media content deals. The moves suggest a renewed focus on the Apple TV and on providing more content ...
Read More »UK profits squeezed as pound’s drop ramps up company costs
Bloomberg UK companies are facing tighter margins as the pound’s slide starts to fuel cost increases, according to the British Chambers of Commerce. Sterling’s drop since Britain voted to leave the European Union is having a negative impact on the domestic sales margins of nearly half of businesses surveyed, while the effect on exports is mixed, the BCC said. ...
Read More »British firms lack digital defenses at board-level
Bloomberg Only 5 percent of large UK companies say their boards include directors with expertise in information technology or cyber security, even though the vast majority identify hacking and other digital threats as serious risks, a report showed. In the event of a cyber attack, more than half of companies in the FTSE 100 stock index cited contingency, crisis ...
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