May, 2016

• 21 May

  A massive, newly renovated French Château could be yours for $11.4mn

  

    Bloomberg When interior designer Timothy Corrigan bought Château du Grand-Lucé, an 18th century neoclassical mansion in France’s Loire Valley, for €2.2 million ($2.46 million) in 2005, “I figured I’d be there at least one weekend a month,” he said. “Last year, I was there a total of six days. This year, I haven’t been there once.” Now he’s putting ...

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• 21 May

  Brazil stocks drop as homebuilders tumble

    Bloomberg The Ibovespa extended a weekly drop as mining company Vale SA tumbled and real-estate companies slumped after a report that the government may cut the number of units to be built under its housing program. Vale was among the biggest contributors to the index’s slide on Friday amid lower metal prices. The BM&FBovespa Real Estate Index of 14 ...

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• 21 May

  Vanishing Hong Kong housing packages strip bankers of peak views

  

    Bloomberg Expat housing packages are so 2012. Long the golden privilege of the Hong Kong-based finance and banking crowd in Asia, the days of guaranteed housing allowances fat enough to rent a 4,000-square-foot harbor-view home on the Peak or a townhouse in exclusive Repulse Bay for HK$300,000 ($38,650) a month are gone. That perk is being slashed or eliminated, ...

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• 21 May

  SWIFT directs banks to share info on hacks

  

    LONDON / Reuters International financial messaging service SWIFT has directed all its client banks to share information on attacks on the system to help prevent hacking, after criminals recently used SWIFT messages to steal nearly $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank. It was reported earlier that Wells Fargo , Ecuador’s Banco del Austro (BDA) and Citibank, whose managing ...

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• 21 May

  UniCredit weighs stake sale, Yapi spills

  

    Bloomberg Yapi ve Kredi Bankasi AS fell most in more than 11 months after a report UniCredit SpA may sell its stake in Turkey’s fourth-largest listed lender. Yapi Kredi Bank declined 5.6 percent to 3.72 liras at close in Istanbul, the biggest decline since June 8. The stock also pared its gains for 2016 to 13.1 percent. UniCredit SA, ...

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• 21 May

  UBS to trim securities jobs as Ermotti cuts costs

  

    BLOOMBERG UBS Group AG is trimming some positions at the investment bank as part of a plan to reduce costs across the business in response to a revenue slump, according to people with knowledge of the situation. At least a dozen London-based employees in the securities unit lost their jobs this week, said the people, declining to be identified ...

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• 21 May

  EIB plans non-EU loans to stem migration crisis

  

    BRUSSELS / Reuters The European Investment Bank (EIB) wants to make more loans outside the 28-nation European Union to help tackle the migration crisis and will present plans to European Union leaders at their next meeting in June, its president said in a recent interview. Werner Hoyer cited rules that say the bank must lend 90 percent of its ...

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• 21 May

  Spain’s Bankia pays €1.2 billion over failed listing

  

    Madrid / Bloomberg Spain’s state-rescued lender Bankia said it has paid out 1.2 billion euros ($1.35 billion) in compensation to small investors who bought into its failed stock market listing in 2011. The bank returned money to over 190,000 people, either through its own claims scheme or following legal challenges, it said in one of the recently released statements. ...

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• 21 May

  An amusement park for taste buds!

  

    Bologna / DPA A group of Italians stares out onto a market from an office in Bologna where they are discussing plans for a new gourmet amusement park which only Italians could have dreamed up. Although much of the world is familiar with pizza and pasta only, Italians relish a rich-tasting array of meats, exotic vegetables, cheeses and sauces ...

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• 21 May

  Feathered friends flock high to lit up sky

  

    New York / DPA Duke Riley was just a child when he rescued an injured pigeon, taking care of it until it was ready to fly away again.But then the bird came back.Now, many years later, the experience has motivated the Boston artist to use a huge flock of pigeons in a piece of performance art high in the ...

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