November, 2019

• 16 November

  China probes Hikvision Digital’s vice chairman

  

  Bloomberg Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co Ltd’s shares fell by the most in more than a month after China’s securities regulator opened a probe into alleged misconduct by its billionaire vice chairman. The investigation, announced in a filing, deals another blow to the surveillance giant that’s blacklisted by Washington. The Chinese seller of video cameras said the China Securities Regulatory ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Has America really gone soft on competition?

  

  It’s no secret that we live in an era of so-called “superstar” firms — the Facebooks, Apples and Microsofts of the world. As monopolies and oligopolies, they dominate their industries and generate enormous profits. Initially hailed for their technological achievements, they’re now accused (amazingly) of creating a drag on US economic growth. Could it be? The notion seems counterintuitive. New ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Capgemini’s $4b French deal is cheap

  

  It’s not quite a stitch-up — you’d need the state to be a big shareholder for that to apply. But the $4 billion takeover of tech consultancy Altran Technologies SA by domestic peer Capgemini SE looks like an attempt to build a French champion without giving the target’s shareholders a good price. With activist-in-chief Elliott Management Corp. siding with minority ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Jack Ma is ripping up a $12trn stock market

  

  Jack Ma is riding high. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the company he founded, has won approval to forge ahead with a Hong Kong share sale that could raise at least $10 billion. On November 11, China’s largest e-commerce company logged more than $38.3 billion of purchases during its annual Singles’ Day shopping event, a new record. The rest of China’s ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Trade war frontlines are friendlier than you think

  The island of Tsushima, halfway between Japan and South Korea, is about as close as you can get to the frontline of their trade war. Now part of Nagasaki prefecture, waves of Korean cultural, commercial and military influence have crested and receded over the hills of this verdant island since the Middle Ages. Here it’s apparent that centuries-old ties between ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  BHP’s new boss shows mining is still nervous

  

  When times are good, focus on the top line and the bottom line will look after itself. When times are bad, you should do the reverse. That looks a lot like the strategy the world’s biggest miner, BHP Group, has followed over the years in appointing its chief executive officers. The question the resources sector should ask in looking at ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Even the Fed research shows rates are too high

  

  New research from the Federal Reserve’s own economists reveal that estimates of the neutral real rate of interest are well below those of policy makers. The low estimates have important implications for policy makers and market participants, suggesting the Fed may still have some hawkish expectations of what can be accomplished in the future despite its dovish turn this year. ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Vodafone, Birla snared by India’s cash grab on telecoms

  

  For Kumar Mangalam Birla’s textile-to-telecom empire, adversity is a 100-year-old companion. In 1919, when the Indian businessman’s great-grandfather wanted to start a jute mill, the dominant British firm, Andrew Yule & Co., bought all the surrounding Calcutta land. The Imperial Bank, the forerunner of today’s State Bank of India, initially refused Birla a loan. The government of post-independence India stymied ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Motorola’s foldable Razr costs $1,500, launches in Jan

  

  Bloomberg Motorola is rebooting the iconic Razr flip phone as a 6.2-inch smartphone with a foldable display that gives the Lenovo-owned brand a unique selling point against Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co’s finest. The new device reprises the Motorola Razr name and looks like a modernised version of the original. It costs $1,499 and will be available for pre-order ...

  Read More »
• 16 November

  Apple unveils its MacBook Pro with bigger screen, keyboard

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc introduced its first major update to the MacBook Pro laptop in three years, adding a slightly larger screen to the top-end model, improved speakers, a better keyboard, and faster processors from Intel Corp. The new computer has a 16-inch screen, bigger than the 15.4-inch screen on the previous version. That alone may not be enough to spur ...

  Read More »