February, 2019

• 9 February

  SoftBank’s Son transforms $5.5bn to $17bn overnight

  

  Bloomberg Call it the Masayoshi Son mathematical distortion field. The founder of SoftBank Group Corp. added about 1.94 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) to the market value of his company— by unveiling a plan to buy back shares worth less than a third of that amount. Based on his own stake, Son’s net worth rose by about $5 billion. His fortune ...

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• 9 February

  Philippines OKs $72 billion budget

  

  Bloomberg The Philippine Congress approved the 3.76 trillion-peso ($72 billion) budget for 2019, ending an impasse that put on hold funding for new government projects. Lawmakers ratified the spending plan in Manila, just before a three-month recess until May 20. The Philippines missed the year-end deadline to approve the 2019 budget — the first time in almost a decade — ...

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• 9 February

  Lenders dump Anil Ambani group after $1.8bn of value razed

  

  Bloomberg Lenders dumped shares of Anil Ambani group companies they held as collateral after their market value plummeted about 126 billion rupees ($1.8 billion) this month, adding to the litany of woes plaguing the Indian billionaire. Creditors sold a total 5.5 billion shares in four companies — Reliance Power Ltd., Reliance Infrastructure Ltd., Reliance Communications Ltd. and Reliance Capital Ltd. ...

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• 9 February

  Sony announces $910mn share buyback plan

  

  Bloomberg Sony Corp. is buying back as much as 100 billion yen ($910 million) of its own shares, the electronics maker’s first-ever large scale repurchase. The shares rose as much as 4.8 percent in early trading in Tokyo after announcing the buyback, which will start on Tuesday and last through March 22. This is the first share repurchase aimed at ...

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• 9 February

  Jaguar China woes lead to Tata Motors loss for history books

  

  Bloomberg The China slowdown sending tremors through the business world has resulted in the biggest record loss in India’s corporate history. Tata Motors Ltd. shares had their biggest drop in 26 years in Mumbai trading after the company unveiled a writedown in its luxury Jaguar Land Rover Automotive Plc unit. The decline of as much as 30 percent was the ...

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• 9 February

  Franklin Templeton sees India’s growth untouched by poll outcome

  

  Bloomberg India’s biggest foreign-owned money manager expects the nation’s economic growth and company earnings to be insulated from national elections even as stock market volatility increases in the run-up to voting. “Elections can only boost or dampen sentiment depending on the news flow, but they won’t massively impact the underlying earnings and economic growth of India,” said Anand Radhakrishnan, chief ...

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• 9 February

  Trump is stumbling his way to a Mideast retreat

  

  Iraqi President Barham Salih measured his words in a telephone interview from Baghdad. He didn’t want to worsen a quarrel with President Trump over US access to an air base in western Iraq. But Iraqi politics is fragile, and ill-considered statements by American presidents can have big consequences. “I appreciate what the US has done to help Iraq,” Salih told ...

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• 9 February

  India’s RBI is right to cut interest rates

  

  Call it beginner’s luck. India’s interest-rate cut, a surprise to most economists, was justified: Inflation is well below target and growth is slowing across all major economies. In that regard, the South Asian country is firmly in the mainstream. Where India isn’t in the mainstream is in the inability of a nominally pro-business government to hang on to a central ...

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• 9 February

  Brexit and heatwaves are hell for holidays

  Europe’s tour operators are on a holiday from hell. TUI AG, which until now has defied the downturn in the region’s travel market, cautioned on earnings. Then Thomas Cook Group Plc, which delivered a nasty profit warning in November, said it was “reviewing” its airline business. These two mainstays for Europe’s holidaymakers have been hit by a triple-whammy. First, last ...

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• 9 February

  Dispelling myths of China’s EV market

  China is ‘half of everything,’ such as aluminum, steel and copper consumption. For the electric vehicle (EV) sector, China is at least half of everything, if not far more, in three key areas: It represents 76 percent of all commissioned lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity; logged 60 percent of global EV sales in fourth-quarter 2018; and held 50 percent of global public ...

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