September, 2017

• 17 September

  Mandarin Oriental receives proposals for HK’s Excelsior

  

  Bloomberg Mandarin Oriental International Ltd. has received interest from potential buyers of the Excelsior hotel in Hong Kong in what would be a test of the resilience of demand for the city’s commercial real-estate assets that has sent prices soaring. There were at least five bids for the property valued at $3.8 billion, including a Chinese-backed consortium of Sun Hung …

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• 17 September

  Philippines needs more than 50 billion pesos to rebuild Marawi

  

  Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said $975 million will not be enough to rebuild the southern city of Marawi, citing massive damage caused by the conflict between government troops and IS-linked militants that’s been running for almost four months. Duterte also said he wants the budget that was slashed from the Commission on Human Rights to be spent instead on …

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• 17 September

  Toshiba aims for chip deal with Bain by September 20

  

  Bloomberg Toshiba Corp. is aiming to finalise a deal to sell its memory chips business to a group led by Bain Capital at a September 20 board meeting, despite opposition from partner Western Digital Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. Toshiba’s effort faces resistance because the Bain group now includes several Western Digital competitors, including Seagate Technology Plc, …

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• 17 September

  India gold demand stifled in top buyer by prices, laundering curbs

  Bloomberg Rising gold prices and government measures to enforce compliance in the Indian jewellery industry are deadening demand in the world’s second-largest bullion market at the start of the traditional festival season when buying usually explodes. “If you ask me, I wouldn’t purchase gold even if it was Diwali,” Prathamesh Mallya, chief analyst at Angel Commodities Broking, said, referring to …

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• 17 September

  Putin and Russian voters have enthusiasm problem

  

  According to the Daily Beast’s latest scoop, “a Russian operative” used Facebook to organize an anti-Muslim event in Twin Falls, Idaho, that attracted a grand total of four people. Inside Russia, the Kremlin appears to have a similar inability to stoke crowds. Last Sunday, Russia held the last string of local elections before the 2018 presidential poll. Few people showed …

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• 17 September

  Driving India’s irrepressible bulls

  

  India’s economy is not doing as well as many had hoped. Growth has been slowing for several quarters, and even if there’s a slight recovery in coming quarters, the signs for the medium term aren’t propitious. There appears to be no end in sight to a slow-moving banking crisis. And private investment has crashed, reflecting pessimism at Indian businesses about …

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• 17 September

  How the CFPB should respond to equifax breach

  In the worst possible way, the monumental data breach at Equifax—involving the names, addresses and social security numbers of some 143 million people—draws attention to a long-neglected gap in the US system of financial oversight. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ought to take the lead in putting this right. The three big US credit reporting companies—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion—have …

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• 17 September

  Democrats can build on their healthcare victory

  The Republicans’ failure to repeal Obamacare has created a political opening. The American public, threatened with the withdrawal of health insurance from millions of people, has largely come to embrace the idea of universal coverage. At such a moment, Democrats are right to advance ideas for building on the gains accomplished by the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, many of them …

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• 17 September

  New nuclear launch rules won’t make America safer

  

  “We have taken every step man can devise,” said President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, “to insure that neither a madman nor a malfunction could trigger nuclear war.” Apparently lots of people are starting to doubt that this is true. The latest entrant is an op-ed article this week in the New York Times. The authors, Jeffrey Bader and Jonathan D. …

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• 17 September

  Merkel sees endgame as Schulz faces reality

  

  As the home stretch for the September 24 vote heaves into view, it’s hard not to conclude that a fourth term is Chancellor Angela Merkel’s for the taking. The polls have barely shifted over the past five weeks, with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union-led bloc solidifying the lead it’s held since the spring and no relief for Social Democratic Party leader …

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