January, 2019

• 27 January

  Trump loses on wall and declares victory

  After 35 days, President Donald Trump announced a deal to reopen the government on exactly the same terms that were available to him more than a month ago: A short-term funding bill with continuing negotiations on border security. Trump didn’t so much cave as he just plain lost. He didn’t have the votes, and as time went on he was ...

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• 27 January

  Putin doesn’t have clout to get deal with Japan’s Abe

  

  The window of opportunity for Russia and Japan to officially end World War II with a peace treaty narrowed again after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to Moscow on January 22 failed to end in a breakthrough. There’s still time for Abe to secure his legacy, but a lot depends on President Vladimir Putin’s increasingly shaky domestic standing. As I ...

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• 27 January

  India’s Lehman genie is out of the bottle yet again

  

  First, it was the IL&FS Group that ran out of money. Now that the bankrupt Indian infrastructure lender-operator has been sequestered from creditors, the country’s securitisation industry is on borrowed time. It all began with S&P Global’s Indian affiliate, Crisil, downgrading Jharkhand Road Projects Implementation Co.’s annuity-backed bonds to D after it skipped interest and principal payments. It’s a strategic ...

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• 27 January

  Elliott Corp has a point when it comes to EBay

  

  One of the internet’s earliest and most lasting successes, eBay Inc., is under pressure again to remodel itself to fix a persistently cheap share price. The latest initiative from a prominent investor lacks crucial details but also highlights eBay’s missed opportunities. Elliott Management Corp. disclosed that it owns more than 4 percent of eBay’s stock, and it unveiled a blueprint ...

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• 27 January

  Wall Street majors drop P2P lenders as China cracks down

  

  Bloomberg First came a sweeping government crackdown and a surge in defaults and failures at thousands of China’s peer-to-peer lenders. Now, in another troubling sign for the industry, some of the biggest investment banks have stopped taking them public. Wall Street firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc walked away from US initial public offerings of Chinese P2P ...

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• 27 January

  China names ICBC’s Yi Huiman as head of securities regulator

  

  Bloomberg Yi Huiman, a banking veteran who most recently chaired China’s largest lender, was named head of the country’s securities regulator, a role that puts him at the forefront of opening up the financial system to overseas firms. Yi, 54, will replace Liu Shiyu, who ran the China Securities Regulatory Commission for three years, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported, citing ...

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• 27 January

  Cerberus, Centerbridge bid for stake in ailing bank NordLB

  

  Bloomberg Cerberus Capital Management and Centerbridge Partners filed an 11th hour joint bid for a minority stake in ailing German lender NordLB, people familiar with the offer said. The rival private equity investors decided at the last moment to team up, submitting an undisclosed offer for 49.8 percent of the core assets of the regional wholesale bank after last night’s ...

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• 27 January

  Bank of Korea keeps rate unchanged

  

  Bloomberg South Korea’s central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged in the face of rising risks while pushing back against suggestions it may lower borrowing costs before too long. All but one of 25 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast the Bank of Korea would keep the seven-day repurchase rate at 1.75 percent, while one projected a 25-basis-point cut. ...

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• 27 January

  Philippines central bank to stay cautious on inflation

  

  Bloomberg The Philippines central bank will remain cautious on inflation even as price gains eased from a nine-year high in the past two months and economic growth slowed to a three-year low in 2018. “Even as we continue to see abating pressures on prices, the BSP will remain vigilant and ready to employ monetary responses to keep prices stable and ...

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• 27 January

  Airbus threatens to quit Britain over Brexit

  

  Bloomberg Airbus SE said it might be forced to move future investments out of the UK in the event of a no-deal divorce from the European Union, slamming the “madness” of Brexit supporters who assume the planemaker won’t abandon Britain. “If there is a no-deal Brexit, we at Airbus will have to make potentially very harmful decisions for the UK,” ...

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