October, 2018

• 16 October

  Luxury stocks take $160bn hit amid fear of China slowdown

  Bloomberg Luxury stocks declined on Tuesday as concerns mounted over a downturn in consumer sentiment in China, extending a sell-off that has seen global luxury companies lose about $160 billion in combined market value this month. The tumble continued after Italian menswear maker Ermenegildo Zegna Group said that Chinese consumers had become more careful in spending in the past few ...

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• 16 October

  ECB’s quest for tighter policy may face challenge from Ester

  

  Bloomberg The European Central Bank’s bid to wean itself away from ultra-loose monetary policy may be challenged by an unlikely development: the creation of a new overnight borrowing rate. Ester, which the ECB will publish by October next year, will eventually replace Eonia as the risk-free rate. However, unlike Eonia that is still anchored by the deposit facility, the Ester ...

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• 16 October

  For BoE, UK wage rise takes backseat to Brexit

  

  Bloomberg The fastest wage growth in almost a decade is a sign that inflation pressures are building, but the Bank of England may not act until it gets clarity on Brexit. Data from the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday showed average earnings excluding bonuses rose 3.1 percent in the three months through August, the most since January 2009. While ...

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• 16 October

  Goldman, StanChart hike Brexit job plans

  

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Standard Chartered Plc have recently expanded the number of staff moving to Frankfurt by April as financial services firms accelerate their Brexit planning, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision came after the European Central Bank toughened its demands for how many people and IT resources it expects banks to have in ...

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• 16 October

  Latvia probes unnamed banks over N Korea ties

  Bloomberg Latvia is looking into connections between several unnamed local lenders and a Turkish company sanctioned by the US for attempting to supply North Korea with weapons and luxury goods. Already grappling with the closure of its No. 3 lender and bribery charges against its central bank governor, the latest allegations stem from October 4 action by the Trea- sury ...

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• 16 October

  This lender halved clients, doubled assets under management

  

  Bloomberg Less is sometimes more. The private banking arm of Germany’s cooperative lenders, a group of around 900 local banks with total assets of 891 billion euros ($1 trillion), has almost halved the number of customers while also nearly doubling assets under management within a few years. DZ Privatbank now takes care of more than 18 billion euros for the ...

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• 16 October

  Lockheed’s $29bn helicopter running short of essential part

  

  Bloomberg Timely delivery of Lockheed Martin Corp’s $29 billion CH-53K King Stallion helicopter for the US Marine Corps may be jeopardised by a potential shortage of specialised metal components two years after the bankruptcy of a key supplier. In an illustration of how even the biggest defense contractor depends on its supply chain, the Navy’s aircraft development and acquisition command ...

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• 16 October

  Supersonic GE engine buoys billionaire’s goal of fast luxury jet

  

  Bloomberg General Electric Co. has completed its initial design for the first commercial supersonic aircraft engine in decades, a major hurdle for developing private planes and, perhaps eventually, jetliners that fly faster than the speed of sound. The twin-shaft, twin-fan design will slash travel times by hours after 50 years in which the average speed of private jets has increased ...

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• 16 October

  Sears bankruptcy may inflict pain on mall owners for years

  

  Bloomberg As Sears Holdings Corp goes through bankruptcy, retail landlords wondering how they could be impacted might want to look at a 2015 deal. Mall owner Macerich Co struck an agreement that year with the struggling department-store operator to redevelop a 300,000 square-foot store at Kings Plaza Shopping Center, a high-traffic mall in Brooklyn, New York. Three years and $100 ...

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• 16 October

  US retail sales miss economists’ forecasts

  

  Bloomberg US retail sales rose less than forecast in September, as a broad-based increase was overshadowed by a drop in restaurant receipts that may reflect the impact of Hurricane Florence. The value of overall sales rose 0.1 percent for a second month, compared with the median forecast of economists for a 0.6 percent gain, Commerce Department figures showed. So-called retail ...

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