April, 2018

• 15 April

  French group Sodexo’s core profits fall in first half of year

  

  Reuters French food services and facilities management group Sodexo reported a well-flagged fall in first-half core operating profit and kept its recently reduced targets for sales growth and margins for the 2017/18 full year. Sodexo, which is the world’s second-biggest catering company after Compass Group, struck a cautious tone over its medium-term goals although Chief Executive Denis Machuel said he ...

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• 15 April

  GSK slims portfolio with sale of rare disease gene therapy drugs

  

  London / Reuters GlaxoSmithKline is divesting its rare disease gene therapy drugs to private biotech company Orchard Therapeutics as Chief Executive Emma Walmsley makes good on her promise to prune the drugmaker’s pharmaceuticals portfolio. Financially, the transaction will not move the dial for Britain’s biggest drugmaker, but it offers a sign that Walmsley is making progress in reshaping the company ...

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• 15 April

  Avoiding a US debt crisis

  

  The Congressional Budget Office last week released its annual budget and economic outlook report, and although the news was gruesome, the report was greeted in Washington with a giant yawn. The assumption among Republicans and Democrats is that the political rewards for curbing runaway budget deficits are too meager to justify the risks. There’s a consensus to do nothing — ...

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• 15 April

  Strikes shouldn’t derail Macron’s plans

  When the French government unveiled its plan to make the national railway company more competitive and curtail benefit for some workers, commentators in France feared crippling protests comparable to those in 1995, when Alain Juppe’s government had to backtrack on rail sector reforms. Early signs were that President Emmanuel Macron would escape a similar fate. Polls showed support for his ...

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• 15 April

  Cure for hangovers in fintech mergers and acquisitions

  Private equity has continuously cheering the fintech party. Francisco Capital’s purchase of electronic payments specialist VeriFone Systems Inc. helped to lift shares of French rival Ingenico Group SA on Tuesday amid speculation more deals will follow. All this looks more like a hangover cure than a new spin on the dance floor. While the underlying story of electronic payments is ...

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• 15 April

  $7 billion hasn’t moved the needle on financial crime

  Europe’s banks are eager to show that the money they’ve splurged on bolstering their compliance departments is paying off: HSBC Holdings Plc’s reporting of a suspicious transaction helped Angola recover $500 million linked to an alleged fraud involving the son of a former president. The bigger picture is less encouraging. Despite a cascade of rules, regulations and record-breaking fines, that ...

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• 15 April

  The dollar is casualty of trade spat with China

  

  In recent weeks, investors witnessed a rare concurrence of market developments. Widespread concern about escalating trade conflicts caused equities to plunge and US Treasury yields to decline. So far, the reaction has been a textbook case of investor behaviour. Yet, for all the turmoil, the dollar did not prove to be a safe harbour, and has remained weak against major ...

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• 15 April

  A rebuttal of Jack Ma’s op-ed piece on China being open

  

  In an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Jack Ma made the case against escalating trade tensions between the world’s two most powerful economies. “Both Sides Would Lose a US-China Trade War,” was the headline. It’s the same argument I made a month ago, and I wasn’t the first because, frankly, it’s kind of ...

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• 15 April

  Facebook can’t remain a benevolent dictatorship

  

  As lawmakers grill Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it’s clear many are wrestling with whether and how the government should regulate tech companies. A recurring question is whether they have any inherent ideological biases. In his testimony to the Senate, Zuckerberg called Silicon Valley “an extremely left-leaning place.” While voter patterns at the regional level and likely the employee level at ...

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• 15 April

  Flush with cash, Canada banks poised for expansion, takeovers

  

  Bloomberg Canadian banks have amassed their biggest war chest in five years — and they’re ready to use it. The country’s six largest lenders are approaching their strongest capital position since 2013, leaving them with enough resources to pursue acquisitions, buy back shares or build from within. That has the chiefs of Canada’s big banks weighing options. “It’s great to ...

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