August, 2019

• 7 August

  Elliott plays hardball again in Germany

  

  Elliott Management Corp. is resuming confrontational activism in Germany, potentially reviving fears that “locust” funds are back and up to no good. Investors are probably being too skeptical that Elliott will be able to force positive change. The activist hedge fund has lambasted managers at Scout24 AG, a Frankfurt-listed online real estate and car classifieds business capitalised at 5.4 billion ...

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• 7 August

  Indonesia’s growth sticks at 5% as trade war threatens

  Even the most promising national economies can get big stuff within their control basically right and still be blindsided by events utterly beyond their control. Like, ahem, the trade conflict and market tumult. That’s certainly the case with Indonesia, a sprawling country of more than 260 million people tipped to have one of the biggest economies by mid-century. President Joko“Jokowi” ...

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• 7 August

  Trump’s China yuan salvo is aimed at Fed

  The US Federal Reserve’s next meeting is still five weeks away, and President Donald Trump is already talking the economy into a recession in his campaign for lower interest rates. Markets shouldn’t take his latest salvo too seriously. The Treasury Department formally labelled China a currency manipulator for the first time since 1998 after Trump took to Twitter to castigate ...

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• 7 August

  UK, India nationalists will regret Brexit, Article 370

  

  Long on a roll, right-wing nationalists finally seem to be overreaching. Evidence came from two different sources this week: India and Britain. Brexit, advocated and promoted by mostly English nationalists, always threatened the breakup of Great Britain. With new Prime Minister Boris Johnson now vowing to leave the European Union on October 31 without a deal and regardless of the ...

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• 7 August

  Nissan-Renault deal is dead in all but name

  

  Even after a relationship is dead, couples often go through the motions of remaining in a marriage. That’s the best way to characterise what’s left of the alliance between Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. Renault must sell down its 43.4 percent stake in its Japanese partner to 5 percent-10 percent and both sides should “invest in new ventures,” Nissan’s ...

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• 7 August

  Electric scooters: Europe takes a wild regulatory ride

  

  This has been the summer of the electric scooter in Europe; but the UK and Ireland, which still ban the things, are probably right to hold out. So far, no government in the region has figured out a good way to regulate them. US e-scooter sharing companies like Bird, Lime and Jump (a subsidiary of Uber) have all been expanding ...

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• 7 August

  China’s central bank assures firms yuan won’t fall further

  

  Bloomberg Senior People’s Bank of China (PBOC) officials reassured foreign companies that the currency won’t continue to weaken significantly, a day after the yuan fell below 7 per dollar for the first time since 2008. The central bank held a meeting with a number of foreign exporters in Beijing, at which officials also said that companies’ ability to buy and ...

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• 7 August

  HSBC’s Swiss unit to cough up $329mn to settle Belgian tax probe

  

  Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc’s Swiss private banking unit agreed to pay about 294 million euros ($329 million) to settle a Belgian criminal probe into allegations it helped wealthy clients dodge hundreds of millions of euros in taxes. The preliminary agreement in Belgium’s largest criminal settlement still needs to be approved by a judge at a hearing that should take place ...

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• 7 August

  Bank of Thailand reduces interest rate to spur growth

  

  Bloomberg The Bank of Thailand unexpectedly cut its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for the first time in more than four years to boost the economy, and said it sees more room to ease as global risks surge. The Monetary Policy Committee voted five to two to cut its key rate by a quarter-percentage point to 1.5%, the central bank ...

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• 7 August

  India delivers rare interest rate cut to boost economy

  

  Bloomberg India’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by an unconventional 35 basis points, its fourth reduction this year to support a slowing economy. The repurchase rate was reduced to 5.4%, the lowest since 2010, surprising most of the 40 economists surveyed by Bloomberg who had predicted a quarter-point cut. AasthaGudwani, an economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch ...

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