Bloomberg The hotel development unit of Thailand’s richest man said room bookings have started to recover from the disruption caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak. The spread of the disease impacted some 60% of the hotel and retail properties in Asset World Corp’s portfolio by deterring tourism and sparking event cancellations, according to its Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Wallapa Traisorat. ...

Bloomberg Tesla Inc’s financing arrangements in China may be the subject of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiry that the electric-car maker disclosed last week, according to analysts at Evercore ISI. The financing Tesla lined up from local banks last year may have allowed the carmaker to delay recognition of capital expenditures, Chris McNally, who rates Tesla shares the ...

Bloomberg Pay increases across India’s organised sector will probably grow at the slowest pace since 2009 this year, according to a survey from Aon Plc. Companies will increase average pay by 9.1% in 2020, down from 9.3% in 2019 and 9.5% the previous year, Aon said in a report. The small increase reflects a deep slowdown in Asia’s third-largest economy, ...

Bloomberg Indonesia plans to impose excise duty on plastic bags, sugary drinks and vehicle emissions with the new levies expected to net the government about $1.7 billion in additional revenue annually. The new measures, apart from bolstering tax collections, are aimed at tackling climate change as well as a growing prevalence of chronic diseases, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati told ...

Bloomberg A growing number of China’s private companies have cut wages, delayed paychecks or stopped paying staff completely, saying that the economic toll of the coronavirus has left them unable to cover their labour costs. To slow the spread of the virus that’s claimed more than 2,000 lives, Chinese authorities and big employers have encouraged people to stay home. Shopping ...

While candidates jostle for advantage in the Democratic presidential primary, and the news media play the odds, President Donald Trump already knows the identity of his opponent. Indeed, his campaign, with the full support of the Republican Party, is already waging a vigorous crusade to destroy his opposition. No, it’s not Joe Biden, who inspired Trump’s shakedown of Ukraine. Trump’s ...

The euro zone’s response to the sovereign debt crisis is usually associated with austerity. Yet some member nations have forged their own path: Spain and Portugal, for example, overhauled their labour and product markets, helping them return to growth. Now, these structural reforms are under threat in Madrid, as a left-wing coalition of the Socialist Party and Podemos wants to ...

Jupiter Fund Management Plc is getting something of a bargain in its purchase of Merian Global Investors, based on the post-announcement pop in the acquiring firm’s share price. Odd, then, that the deal has a clause that could see a dramatic drop in the takeout price if the target firm stumbles in the next two years. Jupiter is paying 370 ...

One of the world’s most pivotal economies is reeling from a self-induced policy mistake. Japan is now paying the price for last quarter’s consumption-tax hike, just as it begins to wrestle with the impact of the coronavirus. Japan’s gross domestic product tanked 6.3% in the final three months of 2019, the Cabinet Office said, almost twice the drop economists anticipated ...

Before a scandal dashed Benjamin Griveaux’s hopes of becoming the next mayor of Paris, the preferred candidate of French President Emmanuel Macron could be found promoting his answer to the capital city’s increasingly dysfunctional housing market. What the average priced-out Parisian needed, according to Griveaux, was a handout of 100,000 euros ($108,380) to use as down-payment in return for a ...