April, 2021

• 13 April

  China sends 25 warplanes near Taiwan in biggest drill

  

  Bloomberg China’s air force sent 25 fighters and bombers over the Taiwan Strait, escalating military pressure on the government in Taipei as it boosts ties with the US. Beijing deployed 14 J-16 and four J-10 fighters, four H-6K bombers, two Y-8 anti-sub warfare planes and one KJ-500 early warning aircraft into the southwest section of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, ...

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• 13 April

  US to station 500 more troops in Germany in ‘message to Nato’

  

  Bloomberg US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that 500 additional troops will be stationed in Germany from the fall, marking a reversal of former President Donald Trump’s planned draw down. President Joe Biden, said in February he was freezing Trump’s plan to withdraw about 9,500 soldiers from Germany — a move that had stunned European and North Atlantic Treaty Organization ...

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• 13 April

  Rhetoric builds over Ukraine tensions with Blinken in Europe

  

  Bloomberg Ukraine and Russia ratcheted up their rhetoric as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Brussels to discuss the escalating tensions with his European partners. Meeting with Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia, which has amassed troops near the two countries’ border, is threatening to destroy his country. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ...

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• 13 April

  Burundi sees EU lifting sanctions before end of year

  

  Bloomberg Burundi and the European Union have accelerated talks on lifting sanctions imposed by the bloc, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Albert Shingiro. The EU placed penalties on some politicians and state officials and froze government financing in 2015 during a political crisis that followed former President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term, a move seen by the ...

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• 13 April

  Hong Kong sets election date on December 19

  

  Bloomberg Hong Kong will hold its Legislative Council election on December 19 after delaying the vote by more than a year because of the pandemic, a move that allows the government to push through changes that give China a veto over any pro-democracy politician. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced the changes on Tuesday, after she said her advisory Executive ...

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• 13 April

  Ameriprise to buy BMO unit with $124bn in client funds

  

  Bloomberg Bank of Montreal (BMO) agreed to sell its Europe, Middle East and Africa asset-management unit to Ameriprise Financial Inc. for $847 million, marking Chief Executive Officer Darryl White’s biggest move yet to trim the bank’s portfolio of non-core businesses. The sale includes the opportunity for some US clients to move to Ameriprise’s Columbia Threadneedle Investments unit, subject to their ...

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• 13 April

  Big US banks cut loans to record low again, as deposits jump

  

  Bloomberg The 25 biggest US banks collectively reduced their loan holdings by 8% in the year through March, according to the Federal Reserve’s latest weekly survey. Total loans fall by $447 billion to $5.45 trillion, Fed data show. Meanwhile, total deposits, which provide the funds that banks lend out to borrowers, jumped 16% to $10.13 trillion. Their combined loan-to-deposit ratio ...

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• 13 April

  Credit Suisse cuts bonuses following Archegos loss

  Bloomberg Credit Suisse Group AG slashed the amount of money set aside for bonuses by hundreds of millions of dollars and used the savings to limit financial hit from the implosion of Archegos Capital Management, Financial Times (FT) reported. Cuts to bonus pool accruals and other one-off items added about $600 million to underlying profit before tax for the first ...

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• 13 April

  Ex-BOJ member Sakurai sees no rate cuts without fresh crisis

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is highly unlikely to deepen its negative interest rate without a fresh economic crisis on a massive scale, according to former board member Makoto Sakurai, whose term ended last month. “The BOJ didn’t lower rates” even at the height of the pandemic shock last year in March, Sakurai said in his first interview since ...

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• 13 April

  Goldman Sachs to open new office in Birmingham

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is opening a new office in Birmingham, marking the investment bank’s second UK location outside London. The new building is set to open in the third quarter of 2021 and will eventually have several hundred staff across a number of divisions, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday. Engineering will be the first business ...

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