August, 2017

• 7 August

  Builder looks beyond Chinese buyers for $100 bn Asian city

  

  Bloomberg Country Garden Holdings Co. said it’s looking to attract customers from countries such as Thailand and Vietnam as some Chinese buyers hit by capital controls have pulled back from the $100 billion Forest City project in southern Malaysia. China’s escalating crackdown on capital outflows this year has spooked buyers seeking to invest in property abroad, with some reconsidering past ...

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• 7 August

  WeWork to invest $500 mn into SKorea, Southeast Asia

  

  Bloomberg WeWork Cos., the world’s largest provider of shared work spaces, will invest $500 million in Southeast Asia and South Korea, as the New York-based company steps up its expansion plans in global markets. As part of the effort, WeWork will acquire Spacemob, a Singapore-based co-working startup founded in early 2016 by entrepreneur Turochas “T” Fuad and backed by Vertex ...

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• 7 August

  Korean prosecutors seek 12-yr jail for Samsung heir Lee J Yong

  

  Bloomberg Prosecutors demanded a 12-year jail term for Lee Jae-yong, accusing the billionaire vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co. of bribing a presidential confidante to increase his control over the world’s biggest maker of smartphones and memory chips. Lee has been in detention since February and is the highest-profile business figure drawn into a scandal that led to the ouster ...

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• 7 August

  Hong Kong Housing burden grows as home prices soar

  

  Bloomberg Living in the world’s most-expensive property market means having to set aside more than half your income as mortgage payments. Hong Kong’s mortgage-payment-to-income ratio rose to 54.2 percent in June, the highest since 1998, figures from Centaline Property Agency show. The low affordability is a result of the steep rise in home prices, which have kept soaring despite efforts ...

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• 7 August

  Samsung debuts rugged Galaxy S8

  Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. is introducing a new model for its Galaxy S8 smartphone line featuring a metal frame, larger battery and shatter-resistant screen. The Galaxy S8 Active, which the South Korean company says has passed military specification testing, is geared toward users in environments such as extreme outdoor sporting events and construction sites, where a standard device may succumb ...

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• 7 August

  France, Germany plan tax crackdown on US tech giants

  

  Bloomberg France is working with Germany and other partners to plug loopholes that have allowed US tech giants like Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. to minimise taxes and grab market share in Europe at the expense of the continent’s own companies. France will propose the “simpler rules” for a “real taxation” of tech firms at ...

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• 7 August

  UK economy takes a hit as consumer spending slumps

  

  Bloomberg UK consumers cut back on spending for a third month in July as house-price growth slowed sharply, dealing yet another blow to the economy. The broad-based weakness is being blamed on a squeeze on pockets as inflation outpaces wage growth as well as concerns about the health of the economy. The latest figures leave both household expenditure and the ...

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• 7 August

  Germans wait for penny to drop as expectations surge

  

  Bloomberg The German economy is all about records. Highs and lows. Never in the 27 years since the country’s reunification have more people held a job. Never have fewer people been unemployed. Companies haven’t assessed the business climate more positively and consumers have never been more optimistic about future income. That’s where the records end. Wage growth is lagging the ...

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• 7 August

  German industrial output falls in June

  Bloomberg German industrial production unexpectedly slipped in June as manufacturing and construction caused a temporary blip in the growth spurt of Europe’s largest economy. Output, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, fell 1.1 percent in June after rising 1.2 percent in May, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said on Monday. That’s the first drop in six months in the typically ...

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• 7 August

  $12-billion asset sale will take years, says French Finance Chief

  Bloomberg Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the French government’s $12 billion divestment program will take years to execute and he’s working on identifying which assets will be sold. “It won’t be in one go — we won’t do the whole thing over 15 days,” Le Maire said in an interview in his Paris office. “That wouldn’t reasonable.” He said ...

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