August, 2016

• 30 August

  Mondelez scraps US$23bn merger plans with Hershey

  

    AFP US industrial snacks giant Mondelez International said Monday it had dropped plans to merge with chocolatier The Hershey Company. The announcement came nearly two months after Hershey, the maker of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey’s Kisses, rejected a $23 billion takeover offer from Mondelez. “Following additional discussions, and taking into account recent shareholder developments at Hershey, we ...

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• 30 August

  Dotcom wins right to live-stream appeal

    AFP Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom was on Tuesday granted his wish to live-stream his bid to avoid extradition to the United States where he is wanted on online piracy charges. Attempts by the United States to block the live-streaming request were rejected by Judge Murray Gilbert in the Auckland High Court. Lawyers for the US argued live-streaming could pollute ...

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• 30 August

  Citigroup’s Brazil assets value put at $450 million

  

    Bloomberg Banco Santander SA, Spain’s biggest bank, hired Morgan Stanley as an adviser to help it buy Citigroup Inc.’s retail assets in Brazil for $350 million to $450 million, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Santander, whose Brazil unit generates about 19 percent of the Madrid-based company’s revenue, also is working with Credit Suisse Group AG, ...

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• 30 August

  ICBC turns back bad-loan tide

  

    Bloomberg Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, reported the first decline in its bad-loan ratio since 2012 in the second quarter, while eking out 1 percent profit growth. ICBC’s non-performing loans fell 4 percent to 196.3 billion yuan ($29.4 billion) at the end of June from three months earlier, according an earnings ...

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• 30 August

  Fed bans, fines ex-Barclays trader

  Bloomberg Former Barclays Plc trader Christopher Ashton, a member of “The Cartel” chat room where bank traders allegedly manipulated foreign-exchange rates, is being fined $1.2 million by the Federal Reserve and permanently banned from U.S. banking. Ashton, previously global head of the FX spot business at Barclays in London, was accused of using electronic chat rooms to manipulate currency pricing ...

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• 30 August

  Poland to snag UK’s back-office bank jobs

  

    Bloomberg Poland is joining the queue of countries aiming to lure financial-services jobs from London as banks look to ensure unfettered access to the European Union’s single market after Britain leaves the bloc. Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is traveling to London this week and says he’ll meet “dozens” of banks, hedge funds and investment managers to present Poland ...

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• 30 August

  Scotiabank Q3 profit climbs on int’l banking

  

    Emirates Business Bank of Nova Scotia, Canada’s third-largest lender by assets, said quarterly profit rose 6.1 percent, led by higher earnings in domestic and international operations. The bank raised its dividend 2.8 percent to 74 cents a share. Net income for the fiscal third quarter ended July 31 rose to C$1.96 billion ($1.5 billion), or C$1.54 a share, from ...

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• 30 August

  JPMorgan S Asia dealmaker to head Aviva’s M&A

  

    Bloomberg Aviva Plc hired Chetan Singh, a managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co., to head its mergers and acquisitions globally as the British insurer scouts for deals outside its home market. Singh, who led dealmaking for financial institutions in Southeast Asia at JPMorgan, will join Aviva as chief M&A officer on Sept. 26 and report to Chief Financial ...

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• 30 August

  Central bankers get tired of gold as lower exports cut cash

  

    Bloomberg Central banks — holders of about 32,900 metric tons of bullion — cut their purchases by 40 percent during the three months through June, compared with the same period a year earlier, to the lowest since 2011, World Gold Council figures compiled by Bloomberg show. It was the third-straight quarterly drop, the longest such streak in at least ...

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• 30 August

  EU orders Apple to pay €13bn in Irish taxes

  

    Bloomberg Apple Inc. was ordered to repay a record 13 billion euros ($14.5 billion) plus interest after the European Commission said Ireland illegally slashed the iPhone maker’s tax bill. The world’s richest company benefited from a “selective tax treatment” in Ireland that gave it a “significant advantage over other businesses,” the European Union regulator said on Tuesday in its ...

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