Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has attracted about 200,000 investors to apply for the retail portion of its Hong Kong share sale, Hong Kong Economic Times reported, citing unidentified sources. It would make Alibaba the most popular listing of the year by the number of subscribers, the paper said, while adding that the number of retail buyers is less than ...

Bloomberg Indonesian president Joko Widodo ordered an overhaul of the management of state-owned oil giant PT Pertamina, as the former Opec member seeks to reduce crude oil imports to rein in the current-account deficit. Former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama will become president commissioner of Pertamina, while Emma Sri Martini, chief executive officer of state-owned PT Telekomunikasi Selular, will be ...

Bloomberg Two of Australia’s richest people, Atlassian Corp co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and Fortescue Metals Group Chairman Andrew Forrest, are investing in an ambitious project to export solar power from a giant plant in Australia to Singapore via a 4,500 kilometre transmission cable. The project raised tens of millions of Australian dollars, said developer Sun Cable’s CEO David Griffin.

Bloomberg Japan and South Korea struck a last-minute deal to rescue their expiring intelligence-sharing pact, after a push from the Trump administration averted a blow to US efforts to strengthen its Asian alliance network. South Korea will suspend its plans to pull out of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and temporarily withdraw a complaint it made against ...

Bloomberg Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari ruled out the possibility of changing the constitution to seek a third term in office, Punch newspaper reported. The head of state, 76, was re-elected in March for a second four year mandate, the last he is permitted under the west African country’s constitution. Speculation is already turning to who the ruling All Progressives Congress ...

Bloomberg Millions of Hong Kong residents will vote on Sunday in local elections, marking their first chance to weigh in at the polls after five months of increasingly violent protests calling for greater democracy in the former British colony. Ahead of the District Council election, Hong Kong officials warned the vote could be postponed after some candidates came under attack ...

Bloomberg Indian PM Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) agreed to a surprise alliance with the rival Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) to form the government in the western state of Maharahstra, home to the country’s financial capital, Mumbai. Modi tweeted his congratulations to BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis, who was sworn in as chief minister of the state. Ajit Pawar of the ...

Bloomberg British PM Boris Johnson tweeted that he’s looking forward to releasing the Tory party’s manifesto on Sunday, less than three weeks before the country goes to the polls. Johnson said the manifesto will respect the Brexit referendum and allow the government to focus on delivering “real benefits” to the nation. The tweet followed an appearance by Johnson and the ...

Bloomberg Bogota was placed under curfew for the first time in decades as Colombia became the latest Andean nation to be convulsed by violent anti-government protests. The mayor’s office instituted a city-wide curfew, as demonstrators clashed with security forces a day after a nationwide strike. Masked youths fought with police, and there were outbreaks of looting and vandalism in many ...

The most favourable thing that can be said of President Trump’s 2017 tax cut — whose cost is reckoned at roughly $1.5 trillion over a decade — is that it disappointed. A harsher but perhaps more accurate judgment is that it flopped. It didn’t perform as advertised. This is not just a verdict on the past; it’s also a warning ...