September, 2018

• 23 September

  Tata warns UK steel-making needs ‘big profits’ to survive

  

  Bloomberg The smoking towers of the Port Talbot steelworks have dominated the South Wales skyline for more than a century. If they’re to continue to do so for decades to come, they’ll need to make more money. The past decade has seen some of the most traumatic years for the plant. Hurt by the global financial crisis and then by ...

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• 23 September

  Indian billionaire KM Birla says he’s hungry for deals

  

  Bloomberg Kumar Mangalam Birla, the billionaire chairman of the acquisitive Indian conglomerate that bears his name, said he’s hungry for more deals after creating the nation’s biggest mobile-phone operator. His Aditya Birla Group continues to look for targets in the US, Europe and India that make business sense and are likely to add value, the 51-year-old said at Bloomberg’s India ...

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• 23 September

  India plans doubling of sugar export aid

  

  Bloomberg India, the world’s top sugar producer after Brazil, is considering a proposal to provide 45 billion rupees ($617 million) assistance to sugar mills to boost exports and cut domestic surplus next year. The government plans to provide a subsidy of 13.88 rupees per 100 kilograms of cane to sugar mills in the year starting from October 1, compared with ...

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• 23 September

  Shareholders of Japan’s Takeda ‘skeptical’ of its Shire takeover

  Bloomberg One of the top 10 shareholders in Japanese drugmaker Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is “skeptical” on the value that will be created from the group’s $62 billion takeover of rare disease specialist Shire Plc, the Sunday Times reported, citing the unidentified investor. The deal, the biggest in Osaka-based Takeda’s history, has already faced opposition from a group of investors that ...

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• 23 September

  China’s bullet trains are coming for Hong Kong’s airlines

  

  Bloomberg Still bruised from a typhoon that grounded hundreds of flights, Hong Kong’s status as Asia’s top aviation hub faces a new threat: Chinese bullet trains. The world’s longest high-speed rail network extends to downtown Hong Kong starting on Sunday, providing a direct connection to 44 mainland destinations. With the addition of services from Guangzhou and Shenzhen — the major ...

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• 23 September

  Comcast’s $39bn Sky win extends its ‘media empire’

  

  Bloomberg Comcast Corp. won a bidding war for Sky Plc with a $39 billion offer for Europe’s largest satellite broadcaster, staving off rivals 21st Century Fox Inc. and Walt Disney Co. to extend the US cable giant’s empire abroad. In a rare auction overseen by UK regulators, Comcast bid 10 percent more than Fox on Saturday, all but assuring that ...

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• 23 September

  Porsche to cull diesel cars in shift to electric vehicles

  

  Bloomberg Porsche AG will stop offering diesel versions of its cars, marking the latest blow for the technology that has come under intense scrutiny by regulators and environmental groups. Porsche will focus on gasoline, electric and hybrid vehicles because demand for diesel is declining, the Stuttgart, Germany-based manufacturer said in an emailed statement. For the sportscar manufacturer diesel “has traditionally ...

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• 23 September

  MIT, Yale double estimates of US undocumented immigrants

  

  Bloomberg The US may have double the number of undocumented immigrants as commonly estimated, according to a new study that has the potential to further fuel the debate over one of the nation’s most politically charged topics. While the US government and several outside groups have put the number of undocumented migrants at about 11 million or 12 million, the ...

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• 23 September

  IPhone XS buyers undeterred by high prices, few upgrades

  

  Bloomberg The iPhone XS is as much as $200 more expensive than last year’s already pricey iPhone X and represents one of the smallest advances in the product line’s history. But that means little to the Apple Inc. faithful or those seeking to upgrade their older iPhone. Hundreds of consumers lined up at Apple stores around the world either the ...

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• 23 September

  Is the denuclearisation process of Korea for real?

  

  After the big bang of the Singapore summit in June, with its showy but vague North Korean commitment to denuclearisation, many analysts doubted that the deal had any real substance. But we’re beginning to see the first signs of what a serious accord would look like. This week’s North-South summit meeting in Pyongyang produced accord on some basic essentials of ...

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