There are moments in a government’s lifetime that symbolise a change of ideological direction. Last week UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to raise taxes to pay for social care and bail out the National Health Service (NHS) was one of them. However worthy the objectives, the result will leave the country with the highest tax burden since 1945. Crucially ...

Poor man’s private equity or private equity’s poor cousin? Blank-check companies, which will soon be arriving in Singapore, could easily fall in one or the other group, depending on the quality of their early sponsors. Celebrities need not apply. Serena Williams or A-Rod won’t be luring Indonesian travel booking website Traveloka or Vietnamese gaming firm VNG Corp to Singapore. And ...

Think used cars are expensive? Take a look at totaled cars. Copart Inc is a $34 billion company that specialises in auctioning off wrecked cars that insurers deem too damaged to justify the cost of repairs. The insurance companies and other sellers — which include banks, charities and, increasingly, used-car dealers — get what’s recovered in the auction, but they ...

Apple Inc’s dominance over the mobile-app economy has just suffered its first significant setback. It could mark the beginning of a real antitrust reckoning for the technology giant that may benefit the livelihoods of millions of app developers. US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued her decision in a landmark antitrust suit brought by video-game publisher Epic Games Inc against ...

Bloomberg Italy’s new state-backed airline, Italia Trasporto Aereo SpA, will seek to buy the Alitalia name in time for its start of service in mid-October, according to people familiar with the matter. A market-price auction of the brand was outlined in a decision released by the European Commission. It’s one of the measures required in order to consider ITA a ...

Bloomberg Japan Airlines Co plans to raise about 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion) via subordinated bonds and loans to shore up its capital in case the coronavirus pandemic hurts travel demand longer than it expects. The Tokyo-based carrier said it secured around 200 billion yen in loans from four Japanese banks and plans to sell 100 billion yen of bonds. ...

Bloomberg American Airlines Group Inc will hold on to more of its record $21 billion in cash amid continued uncertainty over the industry’s recovery from a pandemic-driven slump. The carrier previously said it would bring liquidity down to between $10 billion and $12 billion at some point next year, with anything above that level being used to pay off debt. ...

Bloomberg A surge in coronavirus infections is delaying, but not derailing, the recovery at several US carriers, including United Airlines Holdings Inc and Southwest Airlines Co. Most major carriers said customer bookings have slowed in recent weeks, signalling through regulatory filings and comments at an industry conference that the path out of the Covid-19 era remains bumpy. Even so, several ...

Bloomberg Ryanair Holdings Plc is forcing investors who aren’t European Union citizens to sell any shares purchased after January 1, in a reminder of the lingering constraints on investors tied to the Brexit split. Non-EU citizens have been barred from buying stock in the Irish discount airline since the UK left the bloc at the start of the year. When ...

Bloomberg Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd has decided to close its pilot base in London, saying many of its staff there haven’t had any flying duties since April 2020 because of the impact of the pandemic. The airline didn’t disclose how many pilots would be affected, but said in a statement they are being offered the option of relocating to Hong ...