Bloomberg In appointing a relatively unknown figure to be his new head of government, Emmanuel Macron is sending out a clear message: his solution to turning around the flagging presidency is more Macron. The mayor of a small southern French town, 55-year-old Jean Castex only started to make a name for himself earlier this year when he was appointed to ...

Bloomberg North Korea is ruling out more talks with the US, saying the American authorities are using the idea as a mere political tool. “We do not feel any need to sit face-to-face with the US,” North Korea Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday. The US does not consider ...

Bloomberg Portugal protested the UK requirement that British travellers self-isolate when they return to England from the Iberian nation as “profoundly unfair.” It’s “absurd,” Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said on RTP3 television station. “When a country that has 28 times more deaths from Covid-19 than Portugal wants to impose quarantine rules to passengers from Portugal, I would say that ...

Bloomberg US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, the Trump administration’s main representative for North Korea, will visit South Korea on Tuesday before heading to Japan, Yonhap reported Saturday, citing unidentified diplomatic sources. Biegun will visit Seoul on July 7, where he is likely to meet South Korean counterpart Lee Do-hoon along with diplomatic officials at the foreign ministry and ...

Bloomberg Commerzbank AG’s leadership was toppled in a shareholder revolt led by Cerberus Capital Management after failing to turn around a lender that’s struggled since its bailout in the financial crisis. Chief Executive Officer Martin Zielke, in the job for just over four years, has offered to resign, though the bank’s supervisory board still has to accept his resignation and ...

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc pledged to boost investments in China to capture more wealth and retail clients even as political tension escalates after Beijing launched sweeping new security legislation to crack down on Hong Kong. The bank, which has come under fire over its support for the legislation, announced it was starting a new service to provide customers in mainland ...

Bloomberg China’s banking and insurance regulator for the first time published names of companies that it alleges committed shareholder violations in the industry, warning investors against misbehaviour as the sector tries to attract private and foreign capital. The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission’s list of 38 companies, published on its website, didn’t identify the banks or insurers they invested ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s central bank devalued the naira at one of its currency auctions, according to people familiar with matter. The weakening comes after Governor Godwin Emefiele announced last month that the bank plans to unify its multiple exchange rates to improve the transparency of its currency-management system. At an auction for importers, the central bank asked that bids for foreign ...

Bloomberg European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde’s signature crisis-fighting tool is becoming the focus of disagreement among policy makers in what could amount to her first major test of discipline. Governing Council members face a potential rift over how much their emergency bond-purchase program should stay weighted towards weaker countries such as Italy, according to multiple conversations with central-bank ...

Bloomberg Unione di Banche Italiane SpA (UBI) rejected Intesa Sanpaolo SpA’s unsolicited takeover bid as insufficient and increased its dividend estimate just days before the public offer is set to start. The value of the offer is “inadequate” and “penalizes the shareholders of UBI Banca compared with the shareholders of Intesa” the bank said in a statement on Friday. The ...