February, 2017

• 16 February

  China’s global buying spree wanes amid capital flow curbs

    Bloomberg China’s record outbound investment slumped last month as authorities stepped up scrutiny of acquisitions overseas and other deals to keep money from flowing out of the country. The world’s biggest trading nation saw outward investment decline 35.7 percent from a year earlier in yuan terms in January, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday. Foreign direct investment to ...

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• 16 February

  Aussie unemployment rate falls despite full-time jobs plunge

    Bloomberg Australia’s unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in January, despite a plunge in full-time jobs, underscoring the mixed picture of the country’s labor market. Jobless rate fell to 5.7% from 5.8%; economists forecast 5.8% Employment rose 13,500 from Dec versus forecast 10,000 gain Full-time jobs slumped by 44,800; part-time employment rose 58,300 Participation rate fell to 64.6% from 64.7%; economi- ...

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• 16 February

  Apple struggles to make bigger deals, hampering strategy shifts

  

    Bloomberg “We are always looking at acquisitions,” Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told analysts last month. “There’s not a size that we would not do.” It’s a message he’s increasingly stressed over the past year as investors question how the world’s most valuable technology company plans to use its $246 billion cash pile to meet ambitious sales ...

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• 16 February

  Nestle braces for slowdown as new CEO plans restructuring

  

    Bloomberg Nestle SA’s new Chief Executive Officer Mark Schneider said it will take years to return to the growth rates targeted by his predecessors and will consider exiting underperforming businesses if he can’t fix them. The world’s largest food company forecast revenue will increase 2 percent to 4 percent on an organic basis this year, below a long-held goal ...

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• 16 February

  Bidding war for Stada unlikely to lift price

  

    Bloomberg Investors counting on a bidding war to drive up the price of German drugmaker Stada Arzneimittel AG well past its $3.66 billion in market value may be out of luck. The German maker of generic medicines this week said it had two offers, including one from Cinven Ltd. valuing it at about 56 euros-a-share. And people familiar with ...

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• 16 February

  Alphabet taps McCray to lead access unit, including fiber

  

    Bloomberg Alphabet Inc. named broadband executive Gregory McCray to lead its Access subsidiary as the company tries to develop a new strategy for the internet-communications business. With the appointment, the Access unit, which includes the high-speed Fiber internet service, is getting slimmer. Several hundred employees are moving over to Alphabet’s main Google business, according to a person familiar with ...

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• 16 February

  Serbia needs to stop financing ailing state companies: IMF

    Bloomberg Serbia needs to stop subsidizing unprofitable state companies to lock in progress the largest former Yugoslav republic has made in cutting the budget, staunching one of the largest drains on state coffers, the local head of the International Monetary Fund said. “Fiscal costs from loss-making state-owned enterprises need to be plugged,” said Sebastian Sosa in an Belgrade interview ...

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• 16 February

  Monopolies are worse than we thought

  

    Economists are increasingly turning their attention to the problem of monopoly. This doesn’t mean literal monopoly, like when one utility company provides all the power in a city. It refers to market concentration in general — when an industry goes from having 20 players to having only 10, or when the four biggest companies in an industry start taking ...

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• 16 February

  Buffett didn’t get a bargain on his latest Apple shares

  

    Part of Warren Buffett’s mystique is his fondness for a good value. He still lives in an Omaha house he bought in the 1950s. Buffett’s license plate at one point read “Thrifty.” When it comes to Apple Inc., however, Buffett’s firm isn’t exactly plucking from the bargain bin. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. first disclosed a $1 billion stake in Apple ...

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• 16 February

  Stop dithering over Greece

    Is Europe heading back to financial mayhem? Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras warned this week that it might be. Any further delay in reaching agreement between Greece and its creditors, he said, risked a new recession and a fresh crisis of confidence across the euro zone. Maybe that’s a little alarmist — but he’s right about one thing. ...

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