February, 2017

• 22 February

  Ambani’s phone pricing helps Reliance regains No. 2 India ranking

    Bloomberg Reliance Industries Ltd. regained its position as India’s second most-valuable company after its shares posted their biggest advance in eight years. The stock surged 11 percent at the close, valuing the company at 3.92 trillion rupees ($59 billion), as investors cheered Chairman Mukesh Ambani’s decision to end free data plans at his phone venture from April. HDFC Bank ...

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• 22 February

  China housing gets dearer in a year amid property curbs

  

    Bloomberg China home prices increased last month in the fewest cities in a year, signaling property curbs to deflate a potential housing bubble are taking effect. New-home prices, excluding government-subsidized housing, gained last month in 45 of the 70 cities tracked by the government, down from 46 in December, the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. Prices fell in ...

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• 22 February

  India imports wheat amid falling domestic production

  

    Bloomberg Wheat production in India will probably fall short of a government forecast, spurring the world’s second-biggest grower to import a large quantity amid declining domestic inventory. Prices in Mumbai dropped for a third day. Production is set to total 91 million tons in the 2016-17 crop year, according to the median estimate of eight traders and analysts surveyed ...

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• 22 February

  Toshiba soars on optimism for sale of memory chip division

  

    Bloomberg Toshiba Corp. jumped the most on record on optimism the company will be able sell its memory chip division and survive the crisis caused by a writedown at its nuclear business. Shares soared 22 percent, the most on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg going back to 1974. Volume on Wednesday was three times the 30-day average. ...

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• 22 February

  Trump eyes easing Obama rules for sprawling pipeline network

  

    Bloomberg The hints of a pipeline spill are subtle: the hiss of rushing fluid, a streak of rainbow sheen. Tucked far below ground, a ruptured line can escape notice for days or even weeks, especially in the backcountry, where inspectors rarely venture. Regulators in the waning hours of the Obama era wrote rules aimed at changing that, and the ...

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• 22 February

  May faces calls to tighten takeover rules after Kraft-Unilever

  

    Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May came under pressure to tighten takeover rules, and do so quickly, in the wake of the failed Kraft Heinz Co. bid for Unilever Plc. “I use the expression sitting ducks, and I’d worry about who’s next,” Vince Cable, Business Secretary until 2015, said in an interview. “We have very weak takeover code in ...

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• 22 February

  German business confidence improves

  

    Bloomberg German business confidence unexpectedly improved, underpinning the Bundesbank’s prediction that economic growth strengthened at the start of the year. The Munich-based Ifo institute’s business climate index rose to 111 in February from a revised 109.9 in January. That compares with a median estimate of 109.6 in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The German economy expanded at the fastest ...

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• 22 February

  Britain gains momentum on trade and consumer spending

  

    Bloomberg The UK economy grew more than previously estimated in the final three months of 2016 but it may be the last hurrah. Gross domestic product rose 0.7 percent instead of 0.6 percent, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. It followed growth of 0.6 percent in the previous two quarters. Trade and consumer spending provided the biggest ...

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• 22 February

  Only Germans love the euro these days

  

    French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen unsettled investors with her pledge to pull France out of the euro and re-denominate all French debt in newly minted francs. Polls suggest Le Pen won’t get the chance; she is expected to lose a second-round runoff. Even if polls are correct this time, that doesn’t mean the euro is safe. In fact, ...

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• 22 February

  Unilever’s boldest defence? A Colgate or Nestle deal

  

    Unilever was all smiles when Kraft Heinz Co. abandoned its attempt to buy the U.K. consumer company for $143 billion. In an unusual joint statement, the two companies referred to their “high regard” for each other. This isn’t how bitterly contested takeover situations normally end. The Anglo-Dutch consumer giant must have wanted to end things amicably — or at ...

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