September, 2018

• 1 September

  HNA stake in Virgin Australia attracts new bidder interest

  

  Bloomberg HNA Group Co.’s minority stake in airline Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. is drawing interest from potential bidders as the Chinese conglomerate offloads non-core assets to reduce debt, according to people familiar with the matter. The approximately 20 percent stake could attract bids from existing shareholders in the company as well as other airlines and investment funds if HNA decides ...

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• 1 September

  Zara owner tumbles as ‘great’ gets ‘good’ for Morgan Stanley

  

  Bloomberg Sometimes good just isn’t good enough. Zara owner Inditex SA fell the most in six months after Morgan Stanley analysts cut their recommendation to underweight from equalweight and reduced their price target for the stock to the lowest among analysts tracked by Bloomberg. Inditex dragged European retailers lower, making the sector the worst performer in the broader regional index. ...

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• 1 September

  Coke inks deal to buy soda brand Moxie

  Bloomberg Coca-Cola Co. will buy New England cult-favourite soda brand Moxie from one of its independent bottlers as it looks to house more of its up-and-coming beverage brands under one roof. The soda giant, which recently completed the refranchising of its bottling operations in North America, has inked a deal to purchase Moxie from Coca-Cola of Northern New England for ...

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• 1 September

  US airports opening video game parlours for stuck travellers

  

  Bloomberg As airport time killers, the race for novel concessions inside the terminal is becoming more, well, playful. Especially when it comes to mollifying less-than-happy passengers. Last month, the first US airport video game lounges opened with three dozen Microsoft Corp. XBox rigs at Dallas-Fort Worth International, while John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York is hosting the first ...

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• 1 September

  The real importance of Trump’s Mexico move

  

  The best thing that can be said about President Trump’s latest trade initiative is that it moves the US back towards the kind of agreements Trump unwisely blew up when he became president. So, two cheers for Trump’s revamped free-trade agreement with Mexico and the one he may get soon with Canada. He wants to rebrand the package, of course, ...

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• 1 September

  Shale dividend for utilities is ending

  

  Maybe it’s utilities Elon Musk should have been courting for his take-Tesla-private fling. In a power-sector workshop convened by Bloomberg New Energy Finance in June, more than two-thirds of industry attendees said they think US electricity demand will have peaked by 2030. Looking at the past decade, hooking up millions of vehicles to the grid may offer the best route ...

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• 1 September

  The earnings boom isn’t just about lower taxes

  

  In the first quarter of this year, after-tax US corporate profits as measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis went up a lot (at an 8.2 percent annualised rate over the previous quarter), but pretax profits only went up a little (1.2 percent). That raised questions of whether all those great first-quarter earnings reports were mainly just the result of ...

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• 1 September

  The ECB should pick an Italian to supervise banks

  It seemed like good news for Europe when Sharon Donnery, deputy governor of the Irish central bank, made an application to be the top banking supervisor at the European Central Bank (ECB). She is widely regarded as extremely competent, has experience in important areas like nonperforming loans, and is a woman in an institution that badly needs women in leadership ...

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• 1 September

  By a 99.3 percent verdict, India’s cash ban was a farce

  

  In the chaotic final months of 2016, angry citizens were slamming the Reserve Bank of India by calling it the “Reverse Bank.” It’s taken Governor Urjit Patel, who had only recently stepped into the top job, almost two years to reassert his authority and reestablish the institution’s credibility with a couple of notable successes just this week. Ridicule flew thick ...

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• 1 September

  Aston Martin IPO looks like a case of a Ferrari envy

  

  Tech IPOs generate lots of excitement, but for sheer theater it helps to have something tangible — like a car. When Ferrari NV sold shares to the public in 2015, it parked half a dozen of its most recognisable vehicles outside the New York Stock Exchange. This seemed to do the trick. Before long, the company’s shares were valued as ...

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