February, 2021

• 8 February

  IDB in talks to roll out loans to Latin America projects

  

  Bloomberg IDB Invest is in talks to roll out so-called decarbonisation loans to projects in Latin America as the multilateral institution looks to help the region meet its climate goals by accelerating the replacement of fossil fuel assets. “In energy, we are talking to different clients both in Chile and Costa Rica,” Chief Investment Officer Gema Sacristan said. “Our focus ...

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• 8 February

  Siemens Energy to slash 7,800 jobs

  Bloomberg Siemens Energy AG will cut roughly a sixth of workers from its gas and power division in the latest sign that the worldwide shift to green energy is upending the fossil-fuel businesses. The company will eliminate 7,800 jobs by the end of its 2025 financial year, including about 3,000 positions in Germany and 1,700 in the US. Roughly three-quarters ...

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• 8 February

  Covid vaccine distribution has a fairness problem

  

  Figuring out how to combine science with fairness in Covid-19 vaccine distribution is a tricky puzzle. Science can help predict how to distribute limited doses to minimise overall deaths, but that means acting fast, which might compromise fairness. That’s how we end up with outrage when hospital administrators get shots ahead of nursing home residents, or, as The Atlantic reports, ...

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• 8 February

  India can’t afford to go on a debt binge

  

  India’s economy has suffered more than most from the pandemic and so have its people. The country has lost more than a year’s worth of growth and perhaps a decade’s progress in its efforts to reduce poverty. The economic contraction — the first in India since the 1970s — has put pressure on its government like so many others to ...

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• 8 February

  Silicon Valley won’t last forever; Texas knows it

  Is Texas really a serious rival to California as a destination for high-tech? The growing exodus of banner companies — Oracle Corp, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Co, Tesla Inc’s Space-X and others — suggests that there’s something to the idea. Still, skeptics rightly point out that plenty of other places have made a bid to become the new Silicon Valley and never ...

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• 8 February

  Deutsche Bank, its rival are stuck in a mire

  In 2019, Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG explored (and abandoned) plans to fix their broken models by merging. Since then, they have been making some progress on their own and up against the pandemic. After five years in the red, Deutsche finally returned to a meager profit, while Commerzbank, the smaller rival, is at last embarking on a much-needed ...

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• 8 February

  Alibaba’s $38bn bond sale shows Jack Ma fans believe

  

  Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd drew robust orders for a $5 billion bond sale, demonstrating investor confidence in the e-commerce giant’s long-term prospects amid easing tensions with Chinese regulators. The four-tranche offer received more than $38 billion in orders at the peak, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The notes comprising 10-year, 20-year, 30-year and 40-year maturities were ...

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• 8 February

  Kuaishou’s rise to rival ByteDance value shows big Asia IPO window

  

  Bloomberg Kuaishou Technology’s eye-popping debut in Hong Kong following a mega $5.4 billion initial public offering has sent a strong signal to other listing candidates waiting in the wings — that this is a great time to go public. The operator of China’s most popular short-video service after ByteDance Ltd’s Douyin saw its shares almost triple on their debut, boosting ...

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• 8 February

  Thailand open to more stimulus if economic growth misses target

  

  Bloomberg Thailand’s government is ready to take more fiscal steps if economic growth falls below its base-case forecast, driven by the latest Covid-19 outbreak or delays in vaccinating the public, a Finance Ministry official said. “The government is ready to do more if needed, and we still have fiscal space left,” Kulaya Tantitemit, acting director general of the Fiscal Policy ...

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• 8 February

  US, Japan, Australia, India plan summit

  Bloomberg Australia, Japan, the US and India plan to hold a summit to strengthen ties amid China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region, the Sankei newspaper reported, citing unidentified government officials. The four countries are preparing for the teleconference meeting, whose agenda will include the protection of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, according to the newspaper. India has, however, ...

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