China’s banks have a deposit problem. For those outside the so-called Big Four lenders, there’s just not enough to go around. It’s not an issue for the biggest. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd, Bank of China Ltd, China Construction Bank Corp and Agricultural Bank of China Ltd all share one thing: sticky, low-cost retail deposits. Move down the ...

To Switzerland, and a beautifully engineered corporate U-turn. Zurich-based industrial group ABB Ltd. is considering a sale of its power grids business, according to Bloomberg News. The deliberations come nearly two years after CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer ardently rejected calls from activist Cevian Capital AB for the unit be separated. Perhaps he realises the justifications for keeping it are dwindling. The ...

There is a curiously retro aspect to the energy policies of the Trump administration, with its embrace of resource nationalism and love of extraction over efficiency. Coal, so redolent of the age of Bismarck, is its touchstone. And while the latest attempt to make coal competitive again, the Affordable Clean Energy proposal, is quite obviously not going to do much ...

Corporate banking in India is one of those painful-to-watch soccer games stretching goallessly into injury time. Neither the creditors nor the debtors have the energy to carry on, yet they’re dreading the long whistle: That’s when both sides lose. The match was supposed to end, going by the 180-day deadline the Indian banking referee gave lenders on March 1 to ...

Moody’s Investors Service published an in-depth look at US leveraged loans. And it seems the more the analysts dug in, the more alarmed they became. Yes, the nearly $1.4 trillion market can take comfort in a low 3.4 percent default rate that Moody’s projects will only get lower, most likely dropping to 2.2 percent over the next year. But that’s ...

Bloomberg Global carriers have flocked to India, lured by a domestic travel boom and what’s expected to be the world’s third-biggest aviation market by 2025. Yet India has proven an intensely competitive market, where profits are scarce and the life expectancy of weaker airlines is anything but certain. Jet Airways India Ltd., one of the first carriers to launch after ...

Bloomberg The sale of Toys ‘R’ Us’s last and most valuable remaining asset, its Asia operations, has become caught up in a battle between two groups of hedge funds over the future use of the brand by stores in that region. One group of funds, including Cerberus Capital Management and Cyrus Capital Partners, owns notes issued by the Asian stores ...

Bloomberg A vote on unionisation by 2,700 United Airlines in-flight catering workers can move forward over the company’s objections, the general counsel of the National Mediation Board ruled. The workers, who prepare and transport food for flights, are the only group of front-line United employees who don’t have union representation. In January, the hospitality union Unite Here filed a petition, ...

Bloomberg Air France-KLM Group’s French unions are drawing up a list of demands to present to incoming CEO Ben Smith as they continue to bristle over the appointment of a first foreign boss and the 300 percent salary hike that lured him. The Canadian, who starts before of end of next month, will be greeted by requests including higher pay ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi City Municipality (ADM), in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, has issued the first digital mortgage certificate worldwide making the UAE the first country in the world to offer digital real estate services through a smart services hub. The step culminates the upsurge in the digitalisation of services advocated by the Department of Urban ...