March, 2020

• 10 March

  Foresight Energy is latest coal miner facing bankruptcy

  Bloomberg Foresight Energy LP filed for bankruptcy protection after it was unable to turn a profit on coal mining anymore as power generators switched to cleaner and cheaper fuels. The company, founded by the late billionaire Christopher Cline, is among a wave of US miners to file for Chapter 11 in recent years, including Murray Energy Corp, which owns a ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Aon agrees to buy Willis Towers in $30bn deal

  

  Bloomberg Aon Plc agreed to buy Willis Towers Watson Plc in an almost $30 billion, all-stock transaction announced a year after previous takeover talks fell apart. Under the terms of the agreement, Willis Towers Watson shareholders will receive 1.08 Aon shares for each of their shares, with existing Aon investors owning about 63% of the company once the deal is ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  UK bond issuance set to surge to highest level in nearly a decade

  

  Bloomberg UK bond issuance is set to surge to the highest level in nine years with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government expected to unveil a significant increase in budget spending. Sales of gilts will rise to 166 billion pounds ($218 billion) in the 2020-2021 financial year, according to the median forecast of 13 bond dealers surveyed by Bloomberg. The nation’s ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Facebook names two women to its board

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc. named two new directors, appointing Tracey Travis, chief financial officer of Estée Lauder Cos., and longtime McKinsey & Co. executive Nancy Killefer at a time when board’s role at the social media company is under intense scrutiny. The addition of the two women, announced in a statement, makes Facebook’s board 40% female. Fewer than 10% of companies ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Musk worries SpaceX won’t get to Mars before he dies

  

  Bloomberg An exhausted-looking Elon Musk said he’s unsure his rocket company SpaceX will accomplish its foundational mission — getting to Mars — before he dies. “If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely going to be dead before we go to Mars,” Musk said at the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington. “If it’s taken us 18 years just ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Europe likely heading into recession

  

  Bloomberg The euro-area economy may be headed for its first recession in seven years as the coronavirus outbreak takes an increasing toll on businesses and consumer confidence. With Italy sweeping a lock-down across the country and infections nearly doubling in Spain, economists at Morgan Stanley and Berenberg expect euro-zone gross domestic product to shrink in the first half of the ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Google scrubs virus misinformation on search, YouTube

  

  Bloomberg On February 28, questions about the coronavirus swirled around Google’s offices. The company was being criticized for YouTube’s handling of hoax videos, a major company conference was canceled and an employee in Zurich tested positive. In the midst of this, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai sent a memo reminding thousands of his workers about Google’s important role as a ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Anwar likely to lead Malaysia opposition over Mahathir

  

  Bloomberg Anwar Ibrahim is most likely to lead the country instead of former leader Mahathir Mohamad if the opposition coalition returns to power, according to a top leader in the bloc. “I will have a meeting, and I think most probably it’s going to be Anwar,” former Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said in a Bloomberg Television interview ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  With Italy lockdown, Europe struggles to limit virus spread

  

  Bloomberg Europe struggled to find a unified response to the new coronavirus as Italy became the first democratic country since World War II to announce a nationwide lockdown. As countries across the region put in place their own piecemeal measures to slow the spread of the highly infectious virus, Austria said it will block travellers from Italy unless they can ...

  Read More »
• 10 March

  Kabul hosts parallel presidential inaugurations

  

  Bloomberg The Afghan capital hosted rival presidential inaugurations after US efforts failed to broker a rapprochement between its two would-be presidents. Ashraf Ghani, the former president, took the oath of office on March 9, after he was declared the winner of the country’s contested presidential election. Abdullah Abdullah, the former chief executive who’s also declared himself the winner of the ...

  Read More »