Opinion

The difference between tech insiders and the hoi polloi is that the tech insiders make their real money long before a company goes public. This is especially true of the so-called unicorns — those tech companies with pre-IPO valuations of $1 billion or more. The insiders invest when the company is still in its early stages, while it’s raising money ...

Ten thousand here, another couple thousand there. Lately, dramatic job cuts seem to be par for the course at the world’s banks. Even by those standards, though, Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s plan to trim 10,000 to 12,000 jobs is eye-popping. The lender is “secretly” preparing to cut a quarter of its workforce in coming years, and shutter up to a ...

TThe global economic development initiative that China calls “One Belt, One Road” is considered one of Beijing’s major instruments in its geopolitical conflict with the US. But it’s unlikely to do much to boost Chinese power as it helps most of the world. China is investing in fixed assets and infrastructure from southeast Asia to the Balkans and East Africa. ...

After almost three years of wrangling and gridlock following the 2016 European Union (EU) referendum, more than half of British voters say they long for a strong leader. It’s not an unreasonable demand in the current bleak situation. The 2019 “Audit of Political Engagement” by the Hansard Society (a group co-led by the speakers of the two houses of the ...

The SoftBank Vision Fund paid about $7.7 billion for its 16.3 percent stake in Uber Technologies Inc. A more important number is what Uber’s bankers can turn that into when the ride-sharing company IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Investors in the Vision Fund, and in Masayoshi Son’s listed SoftBank Group Corp., are rightly expecting a windfall. This ...

The department store isn’t dead. Turns out, it was just in the changing room. In the week that Debenhams Plc, once a household name, passed into the hands of its lenders, Primark opened its biggest ever-outlet in Birmingham. The new store is an upgrade on the old awkwardly shaped unit Primark had occupied in the city since 2002. At 160,000 ...

It is astonishing that, even though the global financial crisis occurred a decade ago, we do not yet have a clear and convincing explanation of its basic cause. To be sure, theories abound. Liberals blame Wall Street greed and lax government oversight. The conservatives’ villain is the government’s aggressive promotion of homeownership, which flooded the economy with bad mortgages. Although ...

Tesla Inc.’s stock is back in its $260-$270 hot-zone again April 11, falling on news that a key supplier is taking things down a notch. Panasonic Corp. and Tesla are reportedly “tempering expansion plans” at the Gigafactory, the giant facility in Nevada that produces battery packs for the electric vehicle-maker. Panasonic supplies batteries and has invested heavily in the plant, ...

After several years of lobbying, Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund has persuaded the government that it would be a good thing to invest some of the country’s nest egg in unlisted renewable energy infrastructure projects. But the amount involved is paltry, given both the scale of the world’s climate-change challenge and the potential investment opportunities likely to be available to ...

Pushing Britain’s deadline for exit from the European Union (EU) to the end of October answers none of the questions that have been torturing the country for three years. The new schedule removes the immediate risk of an unintended no-deal Brexit, which would otherwise have occurred. That’s something. But it sheds no light on what needs to happen instead. Fatigue with ...