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Toshiba sells medical unit to Canon for US$5.9bn

TOKYO / AP Scandal-plagued Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp. sold its medical unit to Japanese camera maker Canon Inc. for 665.5 billion yen ($5.9 billion) on Thursday, both sides said. Separately, Toshiba said it reached an agreement with Chinese home appliance manufacturer Midea Group on selling its refrigerator and other so-called “white goods” business, targeting the end of March. Pricing ...

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Bharti pays US$662mn for Videocon Spectrum

New Delhi / Bloomberg Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s largest wireless operator by subscribers, said it will buy airwaves from Videocon Telecommunications Ltd. for six regions for 44.3 billion rupees ($662 million) to increase its network coverage. The carrier will use the 1,800 megahertz band spectrum for services in Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh East and West as well as ...

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India banks will chase Mallya for ‘every penny’: Jaitley

New Delhi / AFP Indian banks will strive to recover “every penny” from the troubled Kingfisher chief, who left the country owing more than $1 billion, the finance minister said on Thursday, as warnings sound over a mounting bad debt problem. More than a dozen lenders are chasing Vijay Mallya, dubbed the King of Good Times, for 90 billion rupees ...

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Malaysian companies invest over US$2.69bn in Asean

Kuala Lumpur / DPA Some 1,500 Malaysian companies have investments totalling 11.46 billion ringgit (US$2.81 billion) in Asean, said Prime Minister Najib Razak. “Malaysia is among the main investors in Asean with our firms investing widely in banking, commodities, hotel and tourism, aviation, manufacturing, and utility and infrastructure. Intra-Asean investments have also increased,” the prime minister said in reply to ...

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Amid challenges, Singapore’s financial sector resilient

Singapore / DPA Renowned economist Song Seng Wun was not surprised at all to learn, in March last year, that he was among 15 employees being laid off from CIMB Securities. After 25 years in Singapore’s financial services industry, Song has endured enough business cycles to understand that job cuts come hard and fast in his field when business conditions ...

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Brazil’s crushing debt loads lead to restructuring boom

Bloomberg Brazil’s economic quagmire, with an ever-growing corruption scandal on top of the longest and deepest recession in at least a century, is producing an unprecedented era of corporate debt restructuring in the country. The borrowing binge of Brazilian companies went on during the country’s economic boom earlier this decade has now turned into an albatross as tens of thousands ...

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Argentina’s Puente looks to 2017 IPO for global reach

Bloomberg Puente, an Argentine investment bank and brokerage, is looking to expand its international reach with plans for an initial public offering in 2017. The company, which seeks to sell a stake of about 20 percent through the IPO, may consider holding the offering in London or New York, company officials said on Thursday. Puente also announced that Emilio Ilac ...

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Brazil CPFL Renovaveis to invest US$400 million in clean energy

Bloomberg CPFL Energias Renovaveis SA, Brazil’s biggest renewable-energy generator, will invest 1.5 billion reais ($400 million) in renewable energy this year even as the country is hit by the worst economic crisis in decades. The Sao Paulo-based company will keep growing, organically and through acquisitions, Andre Dorf, CPFL Renovaveis’ president, said by phone from Sao Paulo. “We will invest in ...

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Colombia joins record LatAm borrowing spree in Euros

Bloomberg Colombia became the fourth Latin America country this year to take advantage of lower borrowing costs in Europe by selling debt denominated in the single currency, helping push euro bond sales from the region to a record €10.8 billion in the first quarter. Colombia sold €1.35 billion ($1.5 billion) of 10-year bonds to yield 3.875 percent. That’s down from ...

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Chicago settling $390 million tab when city can least afford it

Bloomberg Chicago taxpayers, already reeling from a financially strapped school system and mounting pension costs, are looking at a final tab of about $390 million to end ill-timed bets on interest rates. The city council on Wednesday authorized issuing as much as $200 million of bonds to help pay termination fees, estimated at $100 million, to unwind derivative contracts linked ...

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