August, 2018

• 12 August

  GE prepares $1.5bn sale of power-conversion unit

  

  Bloomberg General Electric Co. is working with bankers on a possible sale of its power-conversion business, people familiar with the matter said, as the fallen manufacturer attempts to regain its footing by slimming down. The unit formerly known as Converteam could fetch about $1.5 billion, below the $3.2 billion GE paid for the assets in 2011, said the people, who …

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• 12 August

  Indian Oil’s quarterly profit soars 50% as refining margin rises

  

  Bloomberg State-owned Indian Oil Corp. posted a 50 percent jump in quarterly profit as the margin for converting crude into fuels more than doubled. Net income climbed to 68.3 billion rupees ($992 million) in the quarter ended on June 30, from 45.5 billion rupees a year earlier, the company said in a stock-exchange filing. That compares with the 53.3 billion-rupee …

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• 12 August

  PMI signals improvement in Egyptian non-oil sector

  

  Cairo / Emirates Business The Emirates NBD Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for Egypt, sponsored by Emirates NBD and produced by IHS Markit, contains original data collected from a monthly survey of business conditions in the Egyptian private sector. Commenting on the Egypt PMI survey, Daniel Richards, MENA Economist at Emirates NBD, says, “The positive PMI reading for the first month …

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• 12 August

  Barclays hires analyst team from rival SocGen

  

  Bloomberg Barclays Plc, one of Europe’s biggest investment banks, hired a team of equity analysts from rival Societe Generale SA as Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley seeks to make more money from trading stocks. Warren Ackerman has joined from the French bank as head of European consumer equity research along with Michael Sanderson, who will be Barclays’s co-head of diversified …

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• 12 August

  Rupiah headwinds blow as policy makers prepare for rate decision

  

  Bloomberg The coming week may prove to be a crucial one for the Indonesian rupiah. As Wednesday’s policy decision approaches, Bank Indonesia finds itself under pressure to raise the benchmark rate again even after increasing it by a combined 100 basis points since mid-May to stem a slide in the currency. Rupiah headwinds have steadily increased in recent weeks and …

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• 12 August

  Credit expansion faster in China banks

  

  Bloomberg The outsize growth of a country’s banks is a sign that credit expansion is faster there than in other nations. In 1988, 9 of the 10 largest banks in the world were Japanese. Three years later the country’s financial system, along with its lenders, collapsed, sending Japan into its infamous lost decade (or three, considering the country is still …

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• 12 August

  Ruble dives the most since oil crash in 2015

  

  Bloomberg Some of Wall Street’s biggest banks are warning investors to steer clear of Russian assets after the ruble’s worst week since the 2015 oil crash amid mounting risks of crippling sanctions from the U.S. Morgan Stanley turned bearish and UBS Group AG closed its recommendation to buy the Russian currency, with analysts at both banks saying in notes that …

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• 12 August

  Goldman Sachs starts childcare service for sick kids in Japan

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group has introduced a childcare programme in Japan that specialises in looking after employees’ sick children, stepping up efforts to retain more female workers and improve diversity. Under the programme, when a child falls ill the bank will dispatch a babysitter or nurse from a local provider on request within two to three hours. It’s the first …

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• 12 August

  Suicidal ground worker crashes Alaska Air plane

  

  Bloomberg Step inside the cockpit of an empty commercial aircraft and the pilot controls are yours. You don’t need a key or any special passcode to power up the plane and fly it away, whether it’s a small regional jet or a giant twin-deck Airbus A380. The suicide-by-plane at Seattle’s Sea-Tac International Airport, which ended when a rogue airline employee …

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• 12 August

  Airbus drone sets flight-endurance record of 25 days

  

  Bloomberg Floating almost motionless at an altitude of 70,000 feet, Airbus SE’s Zephyr spy drone has extended the record for the longest flight within the Earth’s atmosphere to 25 days, two-thirds more than the previous best. The first production version of the solar-powered pseudo-satellite spent more than three weeks in the stratosphere on its maiden trip after taking off from …

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