February, 2022

• 7 February

  Australia PM Morrison’s discomfort mounts after damaging text leak

  

    Bloomberg Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, lagging in the polls before an election later this year, is dealing with the fallout from a leaked text message from his deputy Barnaby Joyce branding the premier “a hypocrite and a liar.” Joyce has apologized for the texts, which were sent in March last year before he took the deputy prime minister ...

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• 7 February

  Johnson’s brave face can’t hide his fading grip on power

  

    Bloomberg Hours after one of Boris Johnson’s longest-standing allies quit — with a stinging rebuke of his judgment — the UK prime minister gathered shell-shocked staff in Downing Street to tell them “change is good.” But while Johnson has tried to put his trademark optimistic spin on yet another week of turmoil, the ebullient persona that carried him to ...

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• 7 February

  Macron would beat Pecresse in French presidential vote: Poll

  

    Bloomberg President Emmanuel Macron would face conservative candidate Valerie Pecresse and defeat her in a runoff if elections were held now, according to a poll. Support for Macron was at a field-leading 24% in the Ipsos Sopra Steria poll, followed by Pecresse of the Republicans at 16.5%. If replicated in the first round of voting in April, that outcome ...

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• 7 February

  N Ireland government on hold over ‘Brexit row’

  

    Bloomberg Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party cranked up the prospects of a prolonged political crisis following the resignation of the region’s First Minister, warning it won’t return to the power-sharing Executive unless issues related to Brexit are resolved. “The DUP will not be involved in forming a government in Northern Ireland until those issues have been satisfactorily addressed,” the ...

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• 7 February

  Intesa’s $25bn pledge fails to wow well-served investors

  

    Bloomberg Europe’s biggest bank payout-plan failed to excite investors who’ve grown accustomed to fat payout ratios and dividends at Intesa Sanpaolo SpA. The Milan-based lender said it will disburse more than 22 billion euros ($25 billion) to shareholders through 2025. While that put it ahead of Italian rival UniCredit SpA in the contest to offer Europe’s bank investors the ...

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• 7 February

  BofA CEO Moynihan gets a 31% raise to $32mn

  

    Bloomberg Bank of America Corp (BofA) boosted Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan’s compensation 31% to $32 million for 2021, a year in which the firm set a record for profitability. His package includes $1.5 million in salary and a $30.5 million in stock-based incentive awards, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender said in a filing. A year ago, Moynihan took ...

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• 7 February

  Europe’s banks step up profit pledges as higher rates loom

  

    Bloomberg As interest rates finally inch up, European banks are telling investors to expect something they haven’t seen in almost 15 years: returns in the teens. Several of the region’s top lenders recently raised their profitability targets as they expect higher income from lending. The upgrades range across the whole of Western Europe, from Nordea Bank in Helsinki to ...

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• 7 February

  China calls on banks to boost property lending

  

    Bloomberg China called on banks to boost real estate lending in the first quarter and eased a key debt restriction for developers, a sign that authorities are becoming increasingly concerned about the industry’s liquidity crisis. In previously unreported window guidance issued last month, regulators told banks to step up lending to developers after at least two quarters of consecutive ...

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• 7 February

  Danske Bank cuts 60 jobs

  Bloomberg Danske Bank A/S has cut 60 jobs as part of plans to reduce costs and operate with a smaller labour force. The cuts were made across the organization in January, Karsten Breum, head of human resources at the Copenhagen-based bank, said in an emailed statement. Denmark’s largest bank, which is due to publish 2021 earnings on Thursday, currently employs ...

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• 7 February

  Czechs raise rates to highest in EU in one last big hike

  

    Bloomberg The Czech central bank raised borrowing costs to the highest level in the European Union, (EU) delivering what’s probably its last large increase and outlining a relatively dovish outlook for the rest of the year. The koruna weakened. Policy makers raised the benchmark rate to 4.5% from 3.75%, as predicted by a majority of economists in a Bloomberg ...

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