May, 2019

• 12 May

  Malaysian premier gets reprieve in by-election after year of discontent

  

  Bloomberg PM Mahathir Mohamad’s ruling coalition retained a parliamentary seat in a by-election in Borneo, providing him a reprieve amid sliding approval ratings. Pakatan Harapan’s candidate won the Sandakan seat in the state of Sabah by 11,521 votes, according to the Election Commission. The special poll was called after the incumbent, father of Saturday’s victor Vivian Wong, died in March. ...

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• 12 May

  Duterte set to gain allies, shut out critics in midterm vote

  

  Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he hasn’t lost an election in his three-decade political career. He’s hoping his candidates for the midterm vote on Monday will continue that winning streak as voters assess his three years in office. Even with slowing economic growth and controversial policies including a deadly drug war, the firebrand leader is poised for a majority ...

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• 12 May

  Yellow Vests weaker, but hit 6-month mark

  

  Bloomberg France’s Yellow Vest demonstrations drew a lower turnout and drifted away from Paris to smaller cities, suggesting the movement is weakening as it hits the six-month mark. Police estimated 18,600 people took to the streets around France, including 1,200 in the capital, on the movement’s 26th Saturday of protests, AFP reported, citing the interior ministry. Police counted fewer than ...

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• 12 May

  Brexit Party leads in UK in EU election poll

  

  Bloomberg The Brexit Party has more support in the UK ahead of this month’s EU elections than the Conservatives and Labour combined, according to an Opinium survey for the Observer newspaper. The party, fronted by Nigel Farage and founded only last month, would take 34 percent of the vote in the May 23 election, compared with 21 percent for Labour ...

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• 12 May

  US, China are living in different universes

  

  Have US and Chinese trade negotiators been meeting with each other in recent months, or with bands of convincing impostors? You almost have to ask the question, because media reports about who “broke the deal” over the past week seem to have been filed from two different universes. In a Reuters report and attributed principally to three US government sources, ...

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• 12 May

  Singapore spreads the wealth

  

  Singaporeans may be in line for some good news. The central bank’s decision to transfer S$45 billion ($33 billion) to the island’s sovereign wealth fund could push back an increase in the consumption tax. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement that foreign-exchange reserves of S$404 billion are more than it needs to manage the local dollar ...

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• 12 May

  UniCredit can’t rely on M&A as a cure-all

  Unlike some of his peers, UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier can’t be faulted for wavering. In his three years on the job, he has sold assets and cut costs to put Italy’s largest bank on a more solid footing. He now faces a much harder task: finding growth. While the headline first-quarter results the lender were the ...

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• 12 May

  The UK should accept the ‘net zero’ challenge

  The UK has been a leader in the fight against climate change, reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by more than 40 percent from 1990 levels. Now the government’s Committee on Climate Change wants to set a far higher goal: net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. Although short of what climate activists in London have lately been demanding, this target is still ...

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• 12 May

  Hong Kong’s IPO game slips well behind the US

  

  Hong Kong’s stock exchange is poised to lose its crown as the world’s leading IPO fundraising venue again, and this time there may be no easy way back. The bourse trails in third place behind the Nasdaq and New York exchanges so far this year, having topped the global rankings in three out of four years between 2015 and 2018. ...

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• 12 May

  Adding more customers won’t fix Commerzbank

  

  Good things come to those who wait. If you’re a Commerzbank AG shareholder, that could be a very, very long time. The German lender is midway through a revamp that aims to revive profitability, in part, by gaining customers. On May 8, Commerzbank showed it has been steadily winning those new clients. But it’s still far from clear whether the ...

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