Bloomberg It was supposed to be another regular flight on one of Pakistan’s busiest domestic routes between its two biggest cities. State-run Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) Corp’s PK 8303 flight had a normal departure from the eastern city of Lahore. Close to landing before 2:45 pm local time, the pilots told passengers to fasten their seat-belts as it approached Karachi’s …

Bloomberg Meituan Dianping reported a smaller slide in revenue than analysts projected after the Chinese internet services giant proved resilient to virus-induced lockdowns. Sales fell 12.6% to 16.8 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) in the three months ended March, compared with the 15.6 billion yuan average of analysts’ estimates. It reported net loss of 1.58 billion yuan, while analysts projected a …

Bloomberg As BlackRock starts to kick the tires of Sweden’s credit market at the behest of the Riksbank, a world of trouble is about to reveal itself. “This market seems completely dead,” said Hakan Karlsson, chief executive of MaxFastigheter i Sverige AB, a property firm with an unrated bond maturing in September. “If we want to retain the possibility of …

Bloomberg China set its daily yuan reference rate at the weakest level since 2008 after the currency hit a seven-month low in onshore trading amid increasing political tensions with US. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) put the yuan fixing at 7.1209 per dollar. That compares with the 7.122 average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of traders and analysts. The …

Bloomberg The robots advising investors at the biggest Nordic banks just had their best quarter since being switched on. Much of their sudden popularity has coincided with the crisis triggered by Covid-19. But the banks behind the bots say the development has also laid bare where human financial advisers add no value, and robots do. At the biggest Nordic bank, …

Bloomberg Singapore’s currency looks set to remain under pressure as global headwinds outweigh the benefits of an easing in the nationwide lockdown. The US dollar-Singapore dollar pair has failed to break below technical support at its one-month low, suggesting its next move could well be higher. Data this week is expected to show the nation’s economy contracted 1.8% y/y in …

Bloomberg Investec Chief Executive Officer Fani Titi saw a sign of things to come when he dropped by the bank’s headquarters last week. The usually buzzing escalators that criss-cross the four-story building in Sandton, South Africa’s business capital, were eerily silent. He was one of only 440 employees in an office block normally occupied by 10 times that number. Two …

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG asked its top managers to join executive committee in foregoing a month’s pay after the lender resumed a sweeping job cuts program to reduce expenses. “As our restructuring plans progress, the management board and the group management committee have decided to lead by example and give a broader group of senior managers the opportunity to be …

Bloomberg Oil fell, paring a weekly gain, as investors weighed improving supply fundamentals against doubts surrounding China’s economic growth. Futures in New York slid 2% but notched a 13% increase for the week. Major producers continue to scale back production. US explorers laid down another 21 oil rigs, bringing the total to the lowest since 2009. Beijing abandoned its economic …

Bloomberg China’s banking regulator is asking big banks to maintain annual growth of at least 5% in outstanding loans to the manufacturing sector, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Saturday. By the end of 2020, the ratio of mid-to-long term loans to the sector should rise by 1 percentage point compared to the start of the year, the newspaper reported, …