February, 2019

• 11 February

  Drax captures first CO2 in move to reduce emissions

  

  Bloomberg Drax Group Plc has started capturing carbon dioxide at its Yorkshire power plant for the first time in a pilot project to develop the technology. The six-month bioenergy carbon capture and storage test aims to suck up a ton of carbon dioxide a day at its biomass plant, with technology that isolates the pollutant from flue gases released when ...

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• 11 February

  China’s holiday spending slows, underlining tough start to 2019

  

  Bloomberg The downward pressure on China’s consumption persisted over the Lunar New Year holiday, the annual festival when people travel, shop, and give gifts or money. People in China spent 1.01 trillion yuan ($149 billion) at restaurants, shopping malls and online outlets over the week-long holiday, according to the Ministry of Commerce. That was 8.5 percent higher than during last ...

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• 11 February

  Imran Khan pledges ‘deep’ Pakistan reforms as IMF vows support

  

  Bloomberg Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan pledged to carry out deep structural reforms of an economy that’s staring at a balance-of-payment crisis, after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) offered to avert it. There was a convergence of views on structural reforms in a meeting with Managing Director Christine Lagarde in Dubai on February 10, Khan said in a twitter post. Pakistan ...

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• 11 February

  ‘Revenue’ flows push India’s budget gap wider

  

  Bloomberg India’s budgets show the government’s been fixing unrealistic revenue targets, and in the process setting itself up for falling short of fiscal deficit goals. While the government has estimated 19.8 trillion rupees ($280 billion) as revenue receipts for the year starting April, history shows it’s missed income targets in each of the past five fiscal years. The risk of ...

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• 11 February

  Toshiba to slash operating profit forecast by half

  

  Bloomberg Toshiba will cut its year operating profit forecast to between 20 billion and 30 billion yen ($180 million and $270 million) from the 60 billion-yen projection it made in November, Nikkei Asian Review reported, without saying where the information came from. Increased costs in sectors like energy are dragging down earnings from core operations, the report said. Toshiba will ...

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• 11 February

  Apple iPhone shipments down by 20% in China

  

  Bloomberg Apple Inc.’s Chinese smartphone shipments plummeted an estimated 20 percent in 2018’s final quarter, underscoring the scale of the iPhone maker’s retreat in the world’s largest mobile device arena against local rivals like Huawei Technologies Co. The domestic market contracted 9.7 percent in the quarter, but Apple declined at about twice that pace, research firm IDC said in a ...

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• 11 February

  Ghosn effect: Nissan, Renault operating profit forecast to decline this fiscal year

  

  Bloomberg What kind of financial blow has the widening scandal surrounding Carlos Ghosn delivered to Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA? Investors are about to get a glimpse when closely watched earnings releases come out this week. The alliance partners have spent the last two months coping with a major reputational hit from Ghosn’s arrest, indictments by Tokyo prosecutors over ...

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• 11 February

  UK economy wilts amid Brexit jitters

  

  Bloomberg The UK economy buckled under the strain of Brexit uncertainty in the fourth quarter. Gross domestic product (GDP) increased a smaller-than-forecast 0.2 percent, compared with 0.6 percent in the third quarter. December alone saw the economy shrink by 0.4 percent, the most since before the 2016 vote to leave the European Union. The slowdown over the quarter came as ...

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• 11 February

  Drugmaker Bristol-Myers gains after Starboard Value takes stake

  

  Bloomberg Shares of drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. gained, with acquisition target Celgene Corp. falling after activist hedge fund Starboard Value was said to have taken a stake in Bristol-Myers. The size of Starboard’s stake and any plans that Jeff Smith’s hedge fund might have for its investment in the $81 billion drugmaker couldn’t immediately be learned when Bloomberg reported the ...

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• 11 February

  Panalpina investor rebuffs DSV’s $4bn takeover offer

  

  Bloomberg Panalpina Welttransport Holding AG’s largest shareholder rejected a $4.2 billion offer from Denmark’s DSV A/S, saying the Swiss air-cargo company would do better with its own expansion plan. The Panalpina committee of the Ernst Goehner Foundation, which holds 45.9 percent of the stock, said in a statement it “supports Panalpina’s board of directors in pursuing an independent growth strategy ...

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