April, 2018

• 2 April

  Starwood bids $1billion for Swedish firm Victoria Park

  Bloomberg Starwood Capital Group offered to buy Victoria Park AB in a $1 billion deal that would give the US investment firm a foothold in Sweden’s rented-residential real estate market. The cash offer to shareholders in Victoria Park values the Swedish company at about 8.68 billion kronor, Starwood said in a statement to the stock exchange in Stockholm. Victoria Park ...

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• 2 April

  Nissan’s Infiniti seen recharging its attack on BMW, Audi

  

  Bloomberg Infiniti is recharging its attack on BMW and Audi. The Nissan Motor Co. premium brand wants to use the structural changes enabled by the industry’s shift toward electric and self-driving cars—such as a larger cabin and fewer components under the hood—as a chance to inject a Japanese touch of simplicity and space into its models. That entails a minimalist ...

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• 2 April

  Need to explore new ways to fight income inequality

  

  The market creates income inequality; governments reduce it through taxes and social transfers. That’s the conventional picture — only it doesn’t work as well as it used to, and new ways of fighting inequality are needed, likely focusing on moving more people into better-quality jobs. In a recent paper (and a shorter blog post), two economists at the Organization for ...

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• 2 April

  Xi’s carrot could be a market catalyst

  

  Call it the carrot and stick. After the National People’s Congress repealed presiden- tial term limits, allowing Xi Jinping to rule beyond 2023, China’s 64-year-old leader is handing out some nice sweeteners. Two major announcements show the pace of financial reform is quickening. As Bloomberg News reported in January, China will indeed merge its banking and insurance watchdogs. At the ...

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• 2 April

  $1.5 trillion fund dares active crowd to prove its worth

  

  Active investment managers argue that increased market volatility provides an environment in which their stock-picking skills can shine. The world’s largest pension fund wants them to put their money — or rather their fees — where their collective mouths are. Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF), which has about 163 trillion yen ($1.5 trillion) of assets, is changing how it ...

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• 2 April

  Asian banking is about to get more interesting

  A period of tranquility in Asian central banking appears to be ending, and that’s not a bad thing. India and Indonesia are probably done cutting interest rates. Their next steps are likely to be hikes, with the Philippines following suit. While these nations’ central banks are minnows relative to the Bank of Japan and People’s Bank of China, their rate ...

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• 2 April

  A Facebook owned by users could solve a lot

  

  Facebook Inc. is trouble. It’s in trouble, too, with politicians in multiple countries now sniffing into its lackadaisical approach towards protecting user privacy and investors knocking $95 billion (about 18 percent) off its market capitalization in the past week and a half. But the company also just seems congenitally inclined to push things too far, to treat its users again ...

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• 2 April

  Lone dissenter right to sound a warning on India lenders

  

  When the sole dissenter on a stock that has 50 buy recommendations ratchets up his bearish call with a ‘buyer beware’ warning on the whole industry, you sit up. When the stock in question is ICICI Bank Ltd, which had to downsize an initial share sale of its securities business (ICICI Securities Ltd) amid lacklustre demand, you take notice. Among ...

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• 2 April

  A Walmart-Humana deal sounds wild, but would make sense

  

  As if the health-care-merger frenzy weren’t wild enough already, it looks as if Walmart Inc. may soon dive into it. The mammoth discount retailer is reportedly in early-stage talks to acquire Humana Inc., a health insurer valued at $41. The potential merger comes on the heels of a December offer from drug-store chain and pharmacy-benefits manager CVS Health Corp. to ...

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• 2 April

  Deutsche Bank plans board shifts as CEO Cryan’s future is questioned

  

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is preparing to reshuffle its supervisory board as the future of Chief Executive Officer John Cryan and Chairman Paul Achleitner is called into question. John Thain, a former CEO of Merrill Lynch, is expected to join the troubled German bank in May, according to a person with knowledge of the lender’s plans. He is one of ...

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