In the annals of General Electric Co.’s storied 126-year-history, 2018 will go down as a year almost everyone with ties to the company would like to forget. GE lost nearly $90 billion of its market value, its A-level credit rating, its place in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and any pretensions it still had of being a breeding ground for ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank will permit lenders to restructure stressed loans to small companies, breaking from a five-year-old policy of eschewing sweeping corporate debt overhauls. The Reserve Bank of India will allow one-time restructuring of loans to micro, small and medium-sized companies that are in default, the regulator said in a statement. To be eligible for the program, the loan ...

Bloomberg A market indicator watched by the Fed as one of the most accurate gauges of economic health is pricing in lower rates for the first time in more than a decade. The little-known near-term forward spread, which reflects the difference between the forward rate implied by Treasury bills six quarters from now and the current three-month yield, fell to ...

Bloomberg Call it a New Year’s resolution for Royal Bank of Canada’s top investment banker: Doug McGregor wants to spend more time with private equity in 2019. As head of RBC Capital Markets, McGregor spent a decade expanding a Canadian bank-owned firm once focussed on its home turf into a global operation with more bankers, resources and revenue in the ...

Bloomberg The Board of Access Bank Plc announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with Diamond Bank Plc regarding a potential merger of the two banks that will create Nigeria and Africa’s largest retail bank by customers. This follows its selection as preferred bidder after a competitive process undertaken by the Board of Diamond Bank. The proposed merger ...

Bloomberg Absa Group Ltd is having a hard time convincing some investors it can win back the market share lost while under the control of Barclays Plc. South Africa’s third-largest lender was once the leading retail bank with over 10 million customers and more mortgages on its books than any of its Johannesburg-based peers. Now, released from the shackles of ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business On New Year’s eve, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, took to Twitter to greet UAE residents. In ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The investment of UAE’s banks in Saudi Arabia and Egypt reached AED87.2 billion ($23.7 billion)at the end of Q3 2018, representing 12.5 percent of the total assets invested abroad, which amounted to about AED693 billion in September of the same year. Figures from the UAE Central Bank show that the value of investments by UAE banks, ...

DUBAI / WAM The value of the UAE’s online travel sales in 2018 is forecast to reach AED17.3 billion, driven by a growing population, increasing number of tourists, and UAE residents’ shift towards digital services, a new analysis from the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry revealed. The analysis, based on recent data from Euromonitor International, found that direct online ...

Bloomberg Oil headed for its first annual decline since 2015, slumping more than 20 percent in a turbulent year that saw fears of supply scarcity turn to expectations of a surplus. Crude surrendered early gains on Monday and fell as much as 1.3 percent in New York, on track for the worst quarterly drop since the last oil market crash ...