October, 2019

• 7 October

  Eskom’s $4bn-coal bill headache largely of its own making

  

  Bloomberg South Africa wants coal producers to help debt-stricken state power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. tackle its skyrocketing costs of the fuel — a problem that’s largely of its own making. Eskom traditionally signed so-called “cost-plus” contracts for coal with mining companies that managed and operated shafts the utility helped finance. In 2015 then-Chief Executive Officer Brian Molefe criticized …

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• 7 October

  CNPC quits flagship Iran gas project as US sanctions bite

  

  Bloomberg China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is no longer a partner in Iran’s biggest natural gas project, and the Persian Gulf nation will develop Phase 11 of the giant South Pars field on its own, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said. CNPC was the only international partner left in the project, after Total SA of France withdrew last year when …

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• 7 October

  HSBC to cut up to 10,000 jobs in cost-cutting drive, says FT

  

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc may eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs as part of a cost-cutting drive, according to a Financial Times report that signalled Europe may bear the brunt of the initiative. The plan would result in a substantial reduction in HSBC’s workforce of about 238,000, the FT said, citing two people briefed on the matter. The bank, one …

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• 7 October

  EU stocks to gain from Brexit deal: JPMorgan

  

  Bloomberg Euro-area stocks would stand to gain more from a Brexit deal by the end of this month than UK shares, JPMorgan Cazenove strategists said. While such a scenario would be bullish for domestic British companies, a strengthening of the pound would take away much of the upside for UK equities, strategists led by Mislav Matejka wrote in a note. …

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• 7 October

  German banks pass ‘rates pain’ to retail clients

  

  Bloomberg A growing number of German banks are passing on negative interest rates to their retail customers as the costs become too high to bear on their own. Berliner Volksbank, the country’s second-largest cooperative lender, started to apply a minus 0.5% rate on deposits exceeding 100,000 euros ($110,000) in its first charge for retail clients. The move may encourage other …

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• 7 October

  Goldman says it’s early to call end to equity bulls

  

  Bloomberg It’s too early to bid farewell to the decade-long equity bull market as stocks are still providing healthy returns for investors, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “Even with low profit growth the corporate sector has a high free-cash-flow yield and the dividend yield (plus buybacks) ought to still provide a reasonable relative return,” Peter Oppenheimer, Goldman’s chief global …

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• 7 October

  Greece sees 2.8% economic growth in 2020

  Bloomberg Greece’s government is forecasting 2.8% economic growth in 2020, which it says puts it on track to meet a budget target agreed with creditors while still enacting tax relief measures. The creditors, however, have warned that the cost of polices to which Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government has committed will create a shortfall of up to 900 million euros …

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• 7 October

  Facebook skeptics offer derivatives to bet on Libra delays

  

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc’s proposed cryptocurrency has faced such overwhelming scorn since it was announced in June that an exchange is facilitating bets on whether the social-media company can come close to meeting its target launch date. CoinFLEX, a crypto-futures exchange that launched earlier this year, is offering derivatives that pay out based on the likelihood Libra will be operational by …

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• 7 October

  Singapore’s PropertyGuru plans to raise $257m, Australian listing

  

  Bloomberg PropertyGuru Pte, a Singapore-based provider of online real estate classifieds, plans to raise as much as A$380.2 million ($257 million) and list on the Australian stock exchange. The shares’ indicative price range is between A$3.70 and A$4.50, giving a market capitalisation at the upper end of around A$1.36 billion, the company’s October 7 prospectus shows. A book build to …

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• 7 October

  US stocks slump as trade roils outlook; Treasuries fluctuate

  

  Bloomberg Futures on US equity indexes ticked lower while the yuan slipped on Monday on concern China may be increasingly reluctant to agree a broad trade deal with the Trump administration. European stocks gained and Treasuries fluctuated. Contracts for the three main US gauges came off their session lows but still pointed to a weak start on Wall Street after …

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