Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak will add $100 billion in credit losses to banks in the Asia-Pacific region this year with Chinese lenders bearing the brunt of the damage, according to S&P Global Inc. “Some activity will be lost forever,” Shaun Roache, S&P’s Asia-Pacific chief economist, wrote in a note on Tuesday. “We estimate an income loss of about $211 billion, …

Bloomberg Bank of East Asia Ltd., (BEA) the Hong Kong lender that has been besieged by activist investor Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., is considering options including a sale of insurance assets as part of its strategic review, according to people familiar with the matter. BEA could seek more than $1 billion from a sale of assets including its life …

Bloomberg Bank of Montreal (BMO) is splitting up its trading operations in Canada, the US, Asia and London, following other firms including Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) in taking measures to ensure business continues amid the coronavirus outbreak. “We are separating some of our critical trading staff to our business continuity plan sites in some locations as part of our …

Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to eliminate as many as 140 positions at its private bank in Switzerland as it moves teams to cheaper locations to cut costs, according to a person familiar with the matter. The bank notified employees that it will be moving jobs in operations, technology and other support functions to locations including Scotland, the Philippines …

Bloomberg Sweden’s Riksbank signalled it is preparing liquidity measures to protect the largest Nordic economy from the fallout of the coronavirus, but said interest-rate cuts aren’t likely to play a role in any emergency package. “Our assessment right now is that maintaining the supply of liquidity is the most important thing,” Governor Stefan Ingves said in a statement on Tuesday. …

Bloomberg South Africa’s rand plunged by almost 8% against the dollar, touching its weakest level on a closing basis since January 1980, as investors fled riskier assets, with tumbling oil prices adding to nervousness spurred by the spreading coronavirus. The currency soon pared losses as investor panic eased to trade 1.9% weaker at 15.9726 per dollar in Johannesburg. It briefly …

Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd and Air France-KLM became the latest airlines to announce massive cuts in flights as the coronavirus impedes travel. Qantas cut almost a quarter of its international flights for six months, grounded most of its giant A380 jets and slashed management pay as the outbreak hammers demand for travel. Air France said it plans to cancel 3,600 …

Bloomberg Federal regulators hit Boeing Co with proposed fines totalling $19.7 million for allegedly installing unapproved cockpit equipment in hundreds of 737 Max and Next-Generation aircraft. The company put the devices into a total of 791 planes even though the aircraft weren’t certified for the devices, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a press release. The fine would be …

Bloomberg Target Corp has joined Kroger Co in limiting purchases of items like hand sanitiser and disinfecting wipes in response to widespread stockpiling due to the coronavirus. Target began restricting customers to six items per person, spokeswoman Danielle Schumann said. Signs posted in stores say the move is “due to high demand.” Kroger made a similar move earlier this month, …

Bloomberg A few years ago, Amazon.com Inc’s quick delivery team debated doing something radical for the e-commerce giant: asking shoppers to consider the environment. The team building Amazon’s Prime Now same-day delivery service knew that the quickest delivery options tended to be the worst for the planet. A guaranteed one-hour delivery window sometimes meant sending couriers in mostly empty vehicles …