Birmingham / AFP Prime Minister Theresa May said Britain would start the formal process for leaving the EU before April as her governing Conservative Party opened its annual conference on Sunday. Though many Conservatives headed to the congress in Birmingham, central England still jubilant about Britain’s June referendum vote to leave the European Union, the centre-right government has come ...
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Telefonica to weigh opening O2 IPO to individual investors
Bloomberg After failing with an initial public offering of its infrastructure unit, Telefonica SA is likely to test investors’ appetite again with the sale of its U.K. mobile-phone business, only this time with a possible twist. The Spanish phone carrier is considering whether to set aside part of an initial public offering of U.K. mobile operator O2 for individual ...
Read More »Iceland’s fishing industry roots for rate cut
Bloomberg While the world around it frets over ultra-low interest rates, Iceland’s fish export industry is rooting for another rate cut to maintain market share amid a strengthening krona. “The appreciation of the krona is a large factor in the operations of fishing companies and can impact their bottom line,” Heidrun Lind Marteinsdottir, managing director of Fisheries Iceland, an ...
Read More »Did billionaire Trump avoid taxes for 18 years?
Washington / AFP Donald Trump declared a loss of nearly $1 billion on his 1995 income tax return, allowing him to legally avoid paying taxes for almost two decades, according to documents obtained by The New York Times. The revelations come after the outspoken Republican presidential candidate repeatedly refused to make his tax filings public, the first candidate to ...
Read More »Arrium faces $30.6mn steelworks hit
Bloomberg Australian steel and iron ore producer Arrium Ltd. may face costs of as much as A$40 million ($30.6 million) following storms that caused blackouts and forced BHP Billiton Ltd. to halt its Olympic Dam copper operation. Arrium’s steelworks in the south-coast town of Whyalla and the mining of iron ore to feed the mill have been halted since ...
Read More »Indians disclose $10bn in hidden wealth
New Delhi / AFP Indians have declared almost $10 billion in hidden wealth under a government amnesty on tax evasion, as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s moves to crack down on huge piles of black money. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the four-month scheme that closed on Friday had resulted in 64,275 declarations of previously undisclosed assets and ...
Read More »Yuan joins IMF reserves in first revision since 1999
Bloomberg The yuan took on the mantle of a global reserve currency Saturday, a milestone that is seen breathing life into China’s bond markets by prompting estimated inflows of as much as $1 trillion over the next five years. The currency’s entry into the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights — alongside the dollar, euro, pound and the yen ...
Read More »China factory gauge stable at post-2014 high
Bloomberg China’s official factory gauge steadied at the highest level in almost two years while services picked up, suggesting that the economy’s stabilization continued last month and reducing prospects for additional policy easing. The data add to evidence of improvement as government fiscal support and a soaring property market help underpin growth. Fresh signs of stability may lead policy ...
Read More »Thousands protest steel plant over Vietnam fish deaths
Hanoi / AFP Thousands of Vietnamese protesters surrounded a Taiwanese steel plant on Sunday, some scaling walls and holding signs demanding its closure, as anger flares against the firm for dumping toxic waste into the ocean killing tonnes of fish. Huge crowds on motorbike and foot gathered at the Formosa plant in central Ha Tinh province, with some holding ...
Read More »Saudi’s Kingdom Holding sells four seasons Toronto for C$225mn
Reuters Saudi Arabia’s Kingdom Holding , the investment firm owned by billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, said on Sunday it had sold the Four Seasons Hotel Toronto for a gross price of 225 million Canadian dollars ($171.8 million). The property was sold to family investment vehicles related to Shahid Khan, Pakistani-American founder of automobile parts maker Flex-N-Gate Group and ...
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