August, 2018

• 6 August

  How Europe could help the UK to cancel Brexit

  UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting on Friday with President Emmanuel Macron of France is part of a wider effort to sell her Chequers plan for Brexit to European Union heads of government – and to loosen the grip of Michel Barnier, the unyielding civil servant who’s conducting the negotiations on their behalf. Her campaign is failing. Europe doesn’t like ...

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• 6 August

  Free trade is rare and certainly no utopia

  

  President Donald Trump recently suggested the removal of all tariffs and non-tariff barriers to global trade. Sounds intriguing, but free trade is rare and it’s certainly no utopia. Historically, it’s been largely confined to periods when a major global power promoted the free exchange of products in its own enlightened self-interest. That was true of Great Britain in the 19th ...

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• 6 August

  HSBC’s cost problem is a downer for investors

  

  HSBC Holdings Plc investors should strap in for a bumpy ride. With costs rising in the first half, the London-based lender may find tamping down expenses a challenge as it moves ahead with its pivot to Asia and a focus on China’s Pearl River Delta. The brewing trade war that has swept across the bank’s largest markets in the region ...

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• 6 August

  Germany is getting tougher on Chinese money

  

  It’s not particularly logical that, after years of permissiveness towards Chinese investors buying up German industrial jewels, Berlin has decided to ban the acquisition of Leifeld Metal Spinning — a technologically advanced but small firm from the town of Ahlen in North Rhine-Westphalia. While it sends a clear signal that the anything-goes era is over, it’s also a worrying consequence ...

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• 6 August

  House of Fraser seeks funds as China rescuer pulls out

  

  Bloomberg House of Fraser Ltd. needs a new lifeline after a Chinese retailer pulled its plan to buy a majority stake, leaving the UK department-store chain on the brink of collapse and threatening about 17,000 jobs. Would-be rescuer C.banner International Holdings Ltd. shelved plans to raise funds for the purchase of a 51 percent stake in the British chain, citing ...

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• 6 August

  Taiwan to hit back at airlines ‘saying island belongs to China’

  

  Bloomberg Taiwan is looking at ways to hit back at foreign airlines that recently caved in to pressure from Beijing to refer to the island as part of China. The transportation ministry is studying countermeasures, according to an official who asked not to be identified because they are not authorised to speak publicly. Taipei-based United Daily News reported earlier the ...

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• 6 August

  World’s biggest passenger jet starts new life

  

  Bloomberg Danish tourists bound for Cyprus got more room than they’d bargained for as the first second-hand A380 superjumbo began its new life with a trip to the Mediterranean holiday island from Copenhagen. The Airbus SE plane, the world’s biggest passenger jet, was hired by Thomas Cook Group Plc for a four-hour flight to Larnaca, a comparatively short hop for ...

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• 6 August

  BAE profit falls as US costs hit contract wins

  

  Bloomberg BAE Systems Plc earnings fell almost 10 percent in the first half as Europe’s biggest defense company booked hits against its US operations, offsetting gains from major contract wins. Underlying earnings before interest, tax and amortisation dropped to $1.14 billion from 967 million pounds a year earlier, London-based BAE said in a statement. While BAE has won contracts to ...

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• 6 August

  Gump’s survived San Francisco earthquake but not e-commerce

  Bloomberg Gump’s Holdings LLC,, the San Francisco retail landmark that survived the 1906 earthquake, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after succumbing to the rise of online shopping and shifting consumer habits. After years of losses, the 157-year-old Bay Area department store had been trying to find a buyer, or additional financing since May, to no avail. The closely held ...

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• 6 August

  Dior brought back saddle bag with a global Instagram blitz

  

  Bloomberg Excitement for the return of Dior’s equestrian-inspired Saddle bag line—which dominated the “it bag” era of the early 2000s alongside Balenciaga’s “Lariat” and the Fendi “Baguette” before being discontinued—has been bubbling up since designer Maria Grazia Chiuri put them in her runway show in February. Trendsetting models Bella Hadid and Elsa Hosk were soon spotted carrying vintage Saddle bags, ...

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