March, 2018

• 17 March

  FBI’s McCabe fired two days before retirement

  Bloomberg Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired the FBI’s former deputy director, Andrew McCabe — a favourite target for President Donald Trump and Republicans, two days before he was to retire. Sessions made the politically explosive decision after the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommended that McCabe be dismissed for not being forthcoming about authorising discussions with a reporter about a ...

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• 17 March

  Brexit will cost UK economy more than European Union

  

  There have been numerous estimates of Brexit’s cost to the UK but fewer similar ones for the European Union. But calculations are gradually surfacing, and while Europe’s costs are serious, it’s easy to see why the EU has a stronger negotiating position. Last week, the New York-based management consulting firm Oliver Wyman and the London-based law firm Clifford Chance published ...

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• 17 March

  Private equity has a money problem only Asia can fix

  

  Too much money and nothing to spend it on. That’s the problem facing cash-heavy private equity firms. They should look to Asia for answers. The region had a boom year for private equity transactions in 2017, with deals totaling $159 billion, up 41 percent from 2016 and topping the $133 billion record set in 2015, data from Bain & Co. ...

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• 17 March

  Brexit’s dialog of the deaf isn’t fooling London bankers

  

  We are about a year away from the UK’s formal exit from the European Union, its biggest trading partner, and we are none the wiser as to how it will work in practice. Every day that goes by without a politically acceptable solution — one that both sides can sell to their respective constituents — leaves companies and banks with ...

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• 17 March

  Trump’s odd choice for economics aide isn’t bad

  Lawrence Kudlow appears to be President Donald Trump’s pick to become the top White House economic adviser. At first glance, this television personality is an odd choice to lead the National Economic Council. But that doesn’t mean he’s a bad one. Kudlow is an avid supply-sider who never met a tax cut he didn’t like. He’s famously claimed that virtually ...

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• 17 March

  The purpose of a tech firm IPO has changed globally

  

  One of the themes of this economic cycle has been that tech startups have stayed private for a long time, choosing to raise money via venture capital rather than going public. When a downturn inevitably arrives, some may regret that. As prior cycles have shown, even if good startups technically can go public in a bad market, they generally don’t ...

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• 17 March

  Take a big stick to these Clouseau bankers in India

  

  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to think of India’s 21 state-run lenders as one gigantic bad bank that’s financially fragile, operationally weak, and forever in need of relief and rescue. But in trying to blame the banking supervisor for the latest manifestation of the lenders’ Inspector Clouseau-like ineptitude — a $2 billion scam at the second-largest — Finance Minister Arun ...

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• 17 March

  China is giving lithium-ion batteries a second life

  

  China is hoping to become the Detroit of the battery-powered electric-vehicle industry. Sales of EVs are expected to reach 1 million this year alone, and the government has big plans for expansion. But this welcome trend comes with a perplexing side effect: China is now using up more lithium-ion batteries than anywhere else in the world. What to do with ...

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• 17 March

  Boeing newest 737 Max makes first flight into cloudy market

  

  Bloomberg Boeing Co.’s newest and smallest 737 Max jetliner took flight for the first time, into blue skies—and a cloudy, crowded market. The takeoff, on March 16 by Boeing’s factory outside Seattle, was characteristically drama-free for the third of four planned models in the Max family. The plane touched down at Boeing Field at 12:59 pm on March 16. Boeing’s ...

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• 17 March

  Emirates all set to raise $600mn in sukuk sale

  

  Bloomberg Emirates is set to raise $600 million from the sale of Islamic bonds as the world’s biggest airline by international passengers joins a rush of borrowers from the Gulf region. The Dubai government-owned carrier sold 10-year amortising sukuk at a profit rate of 4.5 percent, the company said in an emailed statement. The yield was cut from an initial ...

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