December, 2018

• 17 December

  StanChart spins off private equity unit

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc reached an agreement to separate its private-equity unit, ending more than two years of effort by Chief Executive Officer Bill Winters to get out of the business. Intermediate Capital Group Plc said on Monday that its funds are buying a majority of the bank’s private-equity assets in a transaction valued at about 790 million pounds ($997 ...

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• 17 December

  Europe’s retail apocalypse spreads to online from malls

  

  Bloomberg Europe’s retail crisis is spreading from bricks-and-mortar stores to e-commerce as Asos Plc plunged the most in 4 1/2 years after warning that Christmas shopping got off to a disastrous start. The gloomy update from a UK online retailer that competes with Amazon.com Inc. and has furnished fashions to the likes of Meghan Markle shows that retail weakness is ...

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• 17 December

  Instacart to close its Whole Foods delivery in split from Amazon

  

  Bloomberg In 2014, when Instacart Inc. was a younger grocery-delivery startup, Whole Foods was its first major relationship—Instacart’s debut national retail partner and an investor as well. A lot has changed since then. Amazon.com Inc. now owns Whole Foods and runs its own delivery service. So the startup and grocery chain are splitting up for good. Instacart said it will ...

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• 17 December

  H&M price cuts take shine off sales growth

  

  Bloomberg Hennes & Mauritz AB reported its fastest quarterly sales growth in three years, though analysts said the big question is how much the struggling Swedish retailer cut prices on clothes to clear excess inventory. The shares fell in Stockholm trading. Revenue rose 12 percent to 56.4 billion kronor ($6.2 billion) in the three months through November, according to a ...

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• 17 December

  The man taking on Boeing with a $22bn jet order at stake

  

  Bloomberg The crash of a Boeing Co. plane that killed 189 people in Indonesia is spiralling into a $22 billion feud between the aircraft maker and one of Asia’s most influential aviation bosses. In a rare public dispute between the planemaker and one of its biggest customers, the head of PT Lion Mentari Airlines has threatened to cancel an order ...

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• 16 December

  Mexico allocates $23bn for Pemex to boost oil output

  

  Bloomberg Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is boosting Petroleos Mexicanos’ budget to 464.6 billion pesos ($23 billion) next year to reverse flagging oil production and increase domestic fuel output. The proposal sent to the lower house of congress would increase Pemex’s total budget, including capital investments, by 14 percent in 2019 compared with 407 billion pesos this year, according ...

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• 16 December

  Dominion wins nod for $7.9bn Scana takeover

  

  Bloomberg Dominion Energy Inc.’s $7.9 billion takeover of a troubled South Carolina utility was approved by state regulators, clearing way for a deal that nearly collapsed over costs from a failed nuclear project. The unanimous vote comes nearly a year after Dominion proposed buying Scana Corp, which spent about $4.9 billion to expand the V.C. Summer nuclear plant then walked ...

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• 16 December

  Occidental CEO wants to keep rigs running

  Bloomberg Occidental Petroleum Corp will look for ways to cut costs other than dropping rigs, in response to the recent slump in oil prices, according to Chief Executive Officer Vicki Hollub. “We’re going to keep our rigs running and we’re going to figure out how to reduce costs in some other way that’s not impacting people who are depending on ...

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• 16 December

  Premier Oil eyes bid for Chevron North Sea assets

  

  Bloomberg Premier Oil Plc is considering a bid for a package of North Sea oil and gas assets put on the block by US oil major Chevron Corp that’s worth about $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The first round of bids is due before the end of the month, the people said, asking not to be ...

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• 16 December

  Xinyi Energy postpones $582mn Hong Kong IPO

  

  Bloomberg Xinyi Energy Holdings Ltd, an owner and operator of solar farms in China, is postponing a Hong Kong initial public offering of as much as $582 million, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The unit of Xinyi Solar Holdings Ltd has no timetable for relaunching the deal, said one of the people, who asked not to be ...

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