Opinion

  Vladimir Putin is sabotaging Europe’s energy supply, and the economic outlook looks grim. Isn’t that enough to get governments into emergency mode? And yet, the European finance ministers who bothered to show up in Brussels spouted their usual, calm one-liners: Europe is working on contingencies, an economic recession can still be avoided and it is impossible to predict whether ...

As the race to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the UK Conservative Party and British prime minister heats up, the sole candidate not promising tax cuts needs to stick to his fiscal guns. Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor of the exchequer, is the current frontrunner. He faces a tough fight, though, with all of the other candidates pledging to ...

The cybersecurity community was set alight by the announcement of new cryptographic algorithms designed to protect our digital futures. Now the race is on to roll out software and hardware that will secure computers against a threat that still only exists in theory. After a six-year search, the US Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology announced it had ...

  While leveraged buyouts struggle, one corner of private equity just keeps on going — the pursuit of infrastructure assets such as airports, gas pipelines and broadband networks. Combine strong demand for these inflation-proof businesses with rising borrowing costs, and the risk of overpaying for deals is rising. The Italian billionaire Benetton family and Blackstone Inc clinched an agreement to ...

  In recent months, the Federal Reserve has taken a lot of heat from asset managers for letting inflation run out of control and now risking a recession with rapid rate hikes. The chorus of complaints revolves around its perception in the marketplace. “If the Fed doesn’t do its job, the market will,” wrote Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square ...

When Foxconn Technology Group’s Young Liu toured Asia last month, he avoided speaking about the one client for which the Taiwanese company is most famous. In meetings with the leaders of India, Indonesia and Thailand, the chairman focussed on developing semiconductors and building electric vehicles instead of churning out Apple Inc iPhones. That’s a stark contrast to eight years ago, ...

The meal deal served by the Benettons to minority investors in Autogrill SpA arrived cold. The billionaire family has just agreed to sell its controlling stake in the motorway-restaurant operator to Swiss duty-free retailer Dufry AG in an ungenerous deal, gaining a position of influence in the combined business. That leaves fellow shareholders deprived of the takeover at a premium ...

  Supporters of outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have turned on him after his downfall, accusing him of a breezy disregard for truth and integrity in public life. But no one can pretend that this fatal trait was previously unknown. If Johnson’s journalistic career was distinguished by fake news and fabricated quotes, as well as racist jibes, his personal ...

  If there’s something the leaked Uber Technologies Inc documents show — aside from the questionable ways in which the company sought to break into new markets in Europe — it’s just how much the European political establishment has soured on doing business with US tech firms. Although previous years were marked by friendly encounters between American executives and European ...

In the specter of Shinzo Abe’s shocking assassination, the party to which he dedicated his life secured a resounding victory in the upper house election. Now Fumio Kishida, Abe’s sometimes rival, long-serving foreign minister and now successor, must use his mandate to secure what Abe never could: the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) long-held goal of constitutional reform. The 75-year-old ...