April, 2016

• 17 April

  Al Rajhi’s Q1 profit rises 33pc, beats forecasts

  

    Reuters Al Rajhi Bank, Saudi Arabia’s second-largest lender by assets, reported a 32.8 percent rise in first-quarter net profit on Sunday, beating analyst forecasts as it cut wage costs and fee income increased. The bank made a profit of 2.02 billion riyals ($538.7 million) in the three months to March 31, up from 1.52 billion riyals in the same ...

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• 17 April

  Scope for more Hungary base rate cuts limited

  

    Budapest / Reuters The scope for further cuts in the National Bank of Hungary’s record-low 1.2 percent base rate is increasingly limited, central bank Managing Director Barnabas Virag was quoted as saying on Saturday. “The room to further reduce the central bank’s base rate is increasingly limited,” Virag, who is not a rate-setter but is in charge of monetary ...

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• 17 April

  Bank Indonesia adopts new policy rate to boost economy

  

    Bloomberg Indonesia’s central bank said it will use the seven-day reverse repo rate as its benchmark policy instrument to help spur lending and support growth in Southeast Asia’s biggest economy. The new benchmark — which is the interest the central bank pays to borrow from commercial lenders, currently at 5.5 percent — will replace the 12-month reference rate of ...

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• 17 April

  National Bank of Kuwait reports Q1 profit slide

    Reuters National Bank of Kuwait , the Gulf Arab state’s largest commercial lender, reported a 18.2 percent fall in first-quarter net profit, it said in a statement on Sunday, as it failed to repeat a one-off gain from an asset sale. The bank made a net profit of 78.9 million dinars ($261.6 million) in the three months to March ...

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• 17 April

  ECB has legal leeway on helicopter money

    Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) may have the freedom to pursue the most extreme forms of monetary financing should the economic situation warrant, Deutsche Bank AG said. “The ECB at face value faces the strictest legal obstacle to monetary financing, not least due to the historical inflation traumas experienced by member states,” analysts including London-based George Saravelos said ...

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• 17 April

  SNB can fight strong franc with interventions, rates

  

    Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has room to cut interest rates further below zero and is willing to increase the size of its balance sheet through currency intervention to prevent an already “significantly overvalued” franc from strengthening, President Thomas Jordan said. “There’s a willingness to intervene if necessary, and we can use our balance sheet if it makes ...

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• 17 April

  Asia’s richest man is building Chicago’s priciest penthouse

  

    Bloomberg When the 95-storey Vista Tower is completed in 2020, it will be the third-tallest building in Chicago, and at its very top will be a 7,000-square-foot duplex penthouse, currently offered for $17.1 million. If it sells, the penthouse would just barely eke out an all-time record for Chicago’s most expensive residential real estate. (A penthouse on the 89th ...

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• 17 April

  IKEA finalising its biggest overhaul in decades

  

  DELFT / Reuters In two medieval Dutch cities, IKEA’s most senior executives are finalising the biggest overhaul at the Swedish-born furniture empire in over 30 years. The aim is to help the world’s largest furniture seller better adapt to changing consumer tastes, manage its increasing size and avoid the fate of other dominant retailers overtaken by new market entrants. However, ...

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• 17 April

  China’s HNA Group buys currency exchange firm ICE

  

    LONDON / Reuters Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has agreed to buy British bureau-de-change operator International Currency Exchange (ICE), the companies said, the latest takeover in a European investment spree aimed at expanding its business outside Asia. The acquisitive Global Fortune 500 company, which secured an all-cash $1.5 billion purchase of Swiss airline caterer Gategroup Holdings on last Monday, has ...

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• 17 April

  Rules for Norwegian Air in dispute over US-Europe flights

  

    DALLAS / AP Norwegian Air Shuttle has won preliminary approval to expand flying between the US and Europe using an Irish subsidiary. The decision by the US Department of Transportation was a setback for the major US airlines and their labour unions, who said the subsidiary will be an unfair, low-wage competitor on key trans-Atlantic routes. The decision followed ...

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