April, 2017

• 18 April

  Trump seeks shift in tech outsourcing visa allotments

  

    Bloomberg President Donald Trump was expected to take aim at information-technology outsourcing comp- anies on Tuesday when he orders a review of H-1B visa programs to favor more skilled and highly paid applicants. An administration official who briefed reporters in advance named Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. and Mphasis Corp. as examples of outsourcing companies that would ...

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• 18 April

  Post Holdings to buy Weetabix in $1.8bn deal with Bright Food

    Bloomberg US cereal company Post Holdings Inc. agreed to buy Weetabix Ltd. from Bright Food Group Co. of China for 1.4 billion pounds ($1.8 billion), adding the British breakfast staple to a portfolio that includes Grape Nuts and Honey Bunches of Oats. The deal for the maker of oval-shaped cereal bricks gives Post a stronger presence in the UK, ...

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• 18 April

  Saudi Arabian bonds provide much-needed breathing room

  

    Saudi Arabia blazed the global debt capital markets with its first-dollar denominated Islamic bond offering. The $9 billion bond attracted more than three times as many bids as were offered. The money will provide additional breathing room to the government’s finances, just as the $17.5 billion international bond debut last year, which was the largest of its kind in ...

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• 18 April

  China’s tale of two cycles shows bad debt bogeyman lives

  

    A business cycle upswing is giving the impression that China’s financial vulnerabilities are also on the mend. Yet the evidence in support of this cheery view is patchy at best. Since financial booms and busts play out over a far longer horizon and have a bigger amplitude than more frequent waves in corporate sentiment, a dose of skepticism about ...

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• 18 April

  Weirdly, Trump’s right on privacy

    On one issue, at least, President Donald Trump has united the country: More than 70 percent of the public — across political parties — oppose a bill he signed that rolls back rules protecting online privacy. Unfortunately, it’s an issue on which Trump and the Republican Congress happen to be mostly right. The rules in question, which hadn’t yet ...

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• 18 April

  Restore occupied territories to Palestinians

    Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli prisons launched a hunger strike demanding better conditions, more contacts with relatives, and to end Israel’s practice of detentions without trial. Thousands staged solidarity march in West Bank and Gaza. The hunger strike was led by Marwan Barghouti, who was arrested during Palestinian uprising in 2002 and convicted on multiple counts of murder for ...

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• 18 April

  Tax cuts don’t work the way free marketers expect

  

    Economists who lean toward the free-market side of the ideological spectrum often say that tax cuts help the US economy by encouraging people to work more. Greg Mankiw, a Harvard economist who earns a very high income from his famous textbooks, has repeatedly claimed that higher taxes will discourage him from working more. The supposed mechanism is simple — ...

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• 18 April

  Belle fits private-equity playbook perfectly

  

    Private-equity investors aren’t like you or me. Should there be any doubt, take a look at footwear retailer Belle International Holdings Ltd., which despite a 21 percent share price gain this year has the dubious distinction of being the worst-performing stock on the Hang Seng Index since it joined the benchmark in 2010. Bad Footing Since it joined Hong ...

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• 18 April

  Amazon should offer free phone or internet in Europe

  

    Amazon.com Inc. doesn’t need any help, but here is some unsolicited advice anyway. The company needs and wants to expand its Prime membership outside the US, and the craftiest tactic to build its shopping club is to throw in free home internet or mobile phone service in Europe. Sound wacky? Stick with us. Prime is essential to Jeff Bezos’s ...

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• 18 April

  Starting local airline in India a ‘misadventure’: Lufthansa

  

    Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG said starting a domestic airline in India, the world’s fastest growing aviation market, will be a “misadventure” because of high jet fuel taxes and the cost of operations. Lufthansa’s comments come weeks after Qatar Airways Ltd said it plans to start an airline in India with as many as 100 planes, as the Gulf carrier ...

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