February, 2018

• 18 February

  IOC to support North Korea for 2020 Tokyo games

  Bloomberg The International Olympic Committee will support North Korea’s participation in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, IOC President Thomas Bach told Kyodo News in an interview. “We will take the same approach in every respect with regard to Tokyo 2020 as we took with Pyeongchang 2018…We have always applied strict political neutrality, and then the same we will do for Tokyo ...

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• 18 February

  Toyota’s Sony-loving design chief bets on buses, supercars

  

  Bloomberg The man with the final word on design at one of the world’s biggest automakers sees a future dominated by self-driving boxes-on-wheels and souped-up sports cars. For Simon Humphries, who as of this year oversees design globally across Toyota Motor Corp.’s namesake and luxury Lexus brands, mobility will follow two divergent paths. One is the e-Palette, a customizable robo-van ...

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• 18 February

  World’s largest technology deal hinges on Qualcomm

  

  Bloomberg Broadcom Ltd.’s bid for Qualcomm Inc. is a good place to start negotiations between the two companies on what would be the biggest deal in the history of technology, according to Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. The influential proxy adviser, though, stopped short of recommending that Qualcomm shareholders vote for the current offer of $82 a share, in a report. ...

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• 18 February

  Deere raises sales forecast amid signs of farm recovery

  

  Bloomberg Deere & Co., the world’s largest farm machine maker, raised its full-year sales forecast, and there’s reason to believe that good news will keep coming. After a prolonged slump for crop prices that slashed farmer income, fundamentals are starting to rebound, according to Farha Aslam, an analyst at Stephens Inc. There’s a chorus echoing that view. Bunge Ltd. Chief ...

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• 18 February

  Uber seeks to make peace with London regulator

  

  Bloomberg Uber Technologies Inc. is launching a range of measures, including 24-hour telephone support hotlines and better contact with local police, in a bid to appease London’s regulator ahead of a court battle over its license to operate in the city. The ride-hailing company will now report “serious incidents” that occur during a passenger’s journey to the police, rather than ...

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• 18 February

  Roche hunting for tech startups to boost research

  Bloomberg For Roche Holding AG, collaborating with tech startups is no longer enough. Now it wants to own them. The Swiss oncology giant bought three tech companies and joined forces with another in the past eight months as it seeks to take advantage of a flood of data from patients and clinical studies. The most recent deal, a $1.9 billion ...

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• 18 February

  Layoffs arrive in Brexit Britain; and auto workers are up first

  

  Bloomberg In his 50 years working in Britain’s car industry, John Cooper has survived plenty of upheavals. None is scarier than the prospect of Brexit. Being split off from their biggest market means the job cuts and production slowdown UK carmakers have imposed the past few months could be just a prelude to wholesale shutdowns. The shock is only beginning ...

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• 18 February

  Ugh – inflation is back

  

  Anyone looking for good economic news will be disappointed by the latest inflation report, which showed the Consumer Price Index (CPI) advancing by 0.5 percent in January. By itself, this isn’t especially alarming — prices jump around month to month — but it has troubling implications for the future. To some economists, it suggests the possibility of another financial crisis ...

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• 18 February

  Enough lies: India’s banks get an ultimatum on bad loans

  

  The Indian central bank is shutting down its halfway houses for debt addicts. In the process, it’s also throwing out an infuriating alphabet soup: CDR, SDR, S4A and their ilk. Lenders will now have a much cleaner—and stricter—system for dealing with distressed large borrowers. If they still try to hide bad loans, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will whack ...

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• 18 February

  South Africa’s bonds have no patience for time or space

  Time and space are wonderful things — except South Africa doesn’t really have the luxury of either. The ruling African National Congress party are trying to smooth the end of President Jacob Zuma’s political career, and decided not to set a deadline for him to respond to their decision that he should leave office. An extended exit has the capacity ...

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