October, 2020

• 19 October

  Australia seeks clarity on coal import

  

  Bloomberg The Australian government is seeking clarification from Beijing on reports that China has suspended purchases of Australian coal amid heightened diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Chinese power stations and steel mills have been verbally told to immediately stop using Australian coal, people familiar with the order said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. Ports ...

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• 19 October

  ConocoPhillips to buy Concho for $9.7 billion

  

  Bloomberg ConocoPhillips agreed to buy Concho Resources Inc for about $9.7 billion in stock, the largest shale industry deal since the collapse in energy demand earlier this year and one that will create a heavyweight driller in America’s most prolific oil field. Investors will get 1.46 Conoco shares for each Concho share, the companies said in a statement. The transaction ...

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• 19 October

  Poland’s PGE to invest $19b for zero-emissions goal

  

  Bloomberg Poland’s largest utility plans to spend 75 billion zloty ($19.4 billion) by 2030 as it aims to become climate-neutral by mid-century. PGE SA seeks to invest half of that amount in renewable energy sources, including offshore and onshore wind as well as solar power plants, it said in a statement. Its 2050 strategy is conditional on a planned spinoff ...

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• 19 October

  Would Joe Biden be a friend to British PM?

  

  The US election is weeks away and the doomsayers for the UK’s relationship with a post-Trump America are out in force. Joe Biden is “an Irish-American with no particular love for Boris Johnson or Brexit Britain” thundered a Times of London column last week. Other Conservative voices predict that a Democrat victory would be disastrous for the Brits and end ...

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• 19 October

  Who are ‘Good Censors’ on internet

  

  When talking among themselves, Silicon Valley big shots sometimes say weird things. In an internal presentation in March 2018, Google executives were asked to imagine their company acting as a “Good Censor,” in order to limit the impact of users “behaving badly.” In a 2016 internal video, Nick Foster, Google’s head of design, envisioned a “goal-driven ledger” of all users’ ...

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• 19 October

  Do give China cheer for making polluters pay

  China’s ambitious pledge to decarbonise by 2060 requires the world’s top polluter to dramatically raise the cost of spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. A long-awaited national carbon market that is finally set to begin trading this year will be less demanding and more limited than initially anticipated, if draft plans are a guide. It’s worth welcoming anyway. Beijing could ...

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• 19 October

  Trump’s Republican vision is ‘America first’

  Even before Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in 2016, the aphorism “It’s Trump’s party now” had been endlessly recycled by those delighted and dismayed by The Donald “body-snatching” the GOP and transforming its vision of America. To quantify just how far Trump’s rhetoric has moved his party’s nationalistic needle, Bloomberg Opinion asked Keatext — a Montreal-based AI text analytics company — ...

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• 19 October

  Alibaba takes over China’s hypermart chain for $3.6b

  

  Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd will invest about $3.6 billion to double its stake in Sun Art Retail Group Ltd, taking control of China’s largest chain of hypermarts to try and fend off rivals like JD.com Inc in e-commerce’s hottest growth arena. Alibaba will raise its direct and indirect stake in the grocery chain to about 72% by acquiring equity ...

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• 19 October

  Ma’s Ant wins approval for Hong Kong IPO plan

  

  Bloomberg Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co won a key approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission for its listing in Hong Kong, paving the way for what could be the world’s biggest initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The Chinese regulator has given Ant a green light to seek a listing hearing with Hong Kong Exchanges ...

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• 19 October

  Covid-19: Singapore’s reopening failing to lift equity benchmark

  

  Bloomberg Singapore’s emergence from the Covid-19 shock is gathering pace, but that isn’t boosting the nation’s equity benchmark. That’s because the gauge is very much a bet on the global recovery rather than a wager on the city-state. The Straits Times Index is still 21% away from turning positive for the year, among the worst in Asia. Singapore’s plan to ...

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