July, 2018

• 14 July

  China’s unicorns stampede into an IPO quagmire

  From China, without love. The stampede of unicorns is losing fans. Xiaomi Corp fell as much as 6 percent in its debut in Hong Kong, while most of last year’s hottest listings, from ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co to Ping An Healthcare & Technology Co, are trading below their IPO prices. Yet it seems nothing will stop the unicorns. In ...

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• 14 July

  Theresa May’s Brexit plan leaves bankers in the dark

  Theresa May’s government has presented its eagerly awaited proposal on the future relationship between Britain and the EU after Brexit. One area that merits careful scrutiny concerns the City of London and financial services, given their weight on the country’s economy and central position in global markets. After the Chequers agreement, it became clear that the UK would want to ...

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• 14 July

  Trump’s four rules for conducting a trade war

  

  New tariffs on Chinese imports went into effect only on July 6, so it is too early to say how the trade war is going and which country, if any, will win it. Even the most die-hard free trader should admit that in theory it is possible that the threat of tariffs can induce other countries to make concessions that ...

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• 14 July

  Dying to survive, China shows the way on drug prices

  

  US President Donald Trump exulted this week over Pfizer Inc’s decision to delay planned drug price increases a day after he attacked the company on Twitter. He should take a look at China, where President Xi Jinping has done much better. Over the past two weeks, the US pharmaceutical giant quietly cut the prices of more than a dozen of ...

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• 14 July

  Lifehacks for when a robot wants your job

  

  Can’t code, or speak Bahasa? Didn’t go to school with a CEO’s son or daughter? A robot will take your trading seat. Read on if you want to save your job. The threat from automation is in the flows part of banks’ global markets business, the most important chunk of the biggest division of investment banking. Investment banks garner 70 ...

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• 14 July

  Deutsche Bank wins China nod for corporate bonds

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG became the latest foreign bank to be allowed to underwrite China’s corporate bonds as the government opens up the onshore debt market. The German bank has received approval from the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, or NAFMII, to underwrite corporate bonds sold by both onshore and offshore issuers in the interbank market, it said ...

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• 14 July

  Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund plans first multi-billion dollar loan

  

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund has started approaching banks for its first-ever loan, aiming to establish a group of banks with which it will work on future deals, reports said. The Public Investment Fund (PIF), has asked lenders to participate in a multi-billion dollar loan, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Lenders ...

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• 14 July

  BofA agrees to settlement with former executive

  Bloomberg Bank of America Corp. (BofA) agreed to pay an undisclosed multimillion-dollar sum to settle claims of defamation brought by former executive Omeed Malik, who was fired by the bank earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The settlement comes in response to a claim Malik brought in April, said the person, who asked not to ...

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• 14 July

  PNB aims for India’s biggest bank profit

  

  Bloomberg Punjab National Bank that saw its earnings wiped out by an unprecedented fraud aims to report the nation’s biggest bank profit by selling some assets, according to people familiar with the matter. Punjab National Bank (PNB) is targeting net income of more than ₹5,000 crore ($730 million) for the three months through September 30, boosted by asset sales and ...

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• 14 July

  Ghana banks pulling brakes on lending

  

  Bloomberg A reluctance by banks in Ghana to lend is threatening to stall one of Africa’s fastest expanding economies. With almost a quarter of all outstanding loans in the country at risk of not being repaid, credit granted to the private sector is increasing at nearly the slowest pace in four years. At stake is the 6.8 percent growth that ...

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