May, 2018

• 12 May

  Trump envoy to share stage with sanctioned tycoon at Putin forum

  

  Bloomberg The US ambassador to Moscow, pushing to build business ties with Russia, is scheduled to join a panel discussion this month at the Kremlin’s premier economic forum with Viktor Vekselberg, an oligarch slapped with American sanctions and linked to payments to Donald Trump’s lawyer. Jon Huntsman, appointed by Trump last year, has been encouraging American business leaders to attend ...

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• 12 May

  Trump alien-harboring move end up with surprise payday

  Bloomberg The US Department of Homeland Security, known for raids ending in mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, says it’s helping five “illegal aliens” recover $250,000 in back pay from a California building contractor. Their Hayward-based employer didn’t fare so well. Job Torres Hernandez, 37, was charged with illegal trafficking in a grand jury indictment unsealed and accused of failing to ...

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• 12 May

  N Korea could prosper if it makes a N-deal: Pompeo

  

  Bloomberg US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dangled the prospect of a far brighter future for North Korea if leader Kim Jong-un abandons his nation’s nuclear weapons programme after a summit with President Donald Trump in Singapore next month. Speaking alongside South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Wha at the State Department, Pompeo said he thinks the US and North Korea ...

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• 12 May

  Italy’s populists closer on policies, but premier still enigma

  

  Bloomberg Italian populist leaders Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini pushed their head-to-head bargaining for a new government into the weekend, leaving the choice of premier unresolved as a court lifted a ban on Silvio Berlusconi running for public office. Di Maio of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and Salvini of the anti-immigrant League expected to meet again on Saturday, ...

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• 12 May

  Trump is right on China but wrong on tariffs

  

  The US and China continue to head toward a possible trade war, as negotiations to bridge the gap between the two countries last week ended inconclusively. Donald Trump’s administration has demanded far-reaching Chinese concessions to reduce the bilateral trade deficit, address Beijing’s mercantilist trade practices, and open up key sectors of the Chinese economy to greater foreign competition. The White ...

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• 12 May

  In Brexit Britain, it’s survival of the fattest

  

  Britain’s big four banks, branded dinosaurs by the many upstarts that have sprung up since the crisis, were supposed to be extinct by now. Yet with Brexit around the corner, their bulky balance sheets and dominant market share are proving hard to kill. Judging by the latest proposed pairing of two challengers — CYBG Plc and Richard Branson’s Virgin Money ...

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• 12 May

  Barclays’s whistle-blower case leaves a bitter taste

  

  UK regulators have given Barclays CEO Jes Staley what looks like a slap on the wrist after his botched attempt to unmask a whistle-blower. He will be fined, but will get to keep his job — lucky for the board, given their lack of appetite for a power vacuum at the top of one of the country’s biggest banks. Ousting ...

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• 12 May

  Amazon gets physical with real-world consumers

  It was big news when Walmart Inc. agreed to buy most of Flipkart, India’s leading e-commerce company. Another online shopping king made a couple of moves that showed the importance of trying and buying in the real world. First, Amazon.com Inc. said last week that it had started to open “experience centers” in model homes to give people a taste ...

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• 12 May

  Walmart’s big India deal is an admission of defeat

  

  Walmart Inc. might want to portray its $16 billion purchase of India’s largest e-commerce firm, Flipkart Group, as a brilliant strategic move, long-planned in secret, that would allow the US retail giant to manage the transition away from big-box stores globally. Yet, the truth is that the deal represents a second-best outcome — if that — for Walmart as well ...

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• 12 May

  SoftBank wants to be Japan’s HNA. That’s good

  

  Many companies would shy from being lumped alongside indebted Chinese investment groups such as Fosun International Ltd. and HNA Group Co. It’s a comparison that Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. should welcome. Masayoshi Son’s company is trying to shed its image as a telecom operator. SoftBank’s US carrier Sprint Corp. has agreed to merge with competitor T-Mobile US Inc., leaving the ...

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