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Bloomberg Ant Financial, the Chinese payments giant controlled by Jack Ma, is expected to close a fundraising of at least $10 billion in the next few days, attracting Carlyle Group and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board as first-time investors, according to people familiar with the matter. The Hangzhou-based company is said to be valued at about $150 billion in ...

Bloomberg With one of the most tenacious activist investors breathing down his neck, Hyundai Motor Group’s crown prince is preparing to defend his family’s dominance of the world’s fifth-largest automotive empire by seeking to win over shareholders ahead of a looming showdown. After announcing about $1.5 billion in buybacks and stock cancellations in the past month, shareholder returns are “just ...

Bloomberg AT&T Inc. has few peers when it comes to corporate influence in Washington. But like the rest of the nation’s capital, it was caught on the outside looking in by Donald Trump’s election triumph. The Dallas-based telecom giant spent more than $350 million on advocacy in the past 20 years — including nearly $17 million last year alone. That ...

Bloomberg Virgin Money Holdings UK Plc, soared after receiving a 1.6 billion-pound ($2.2 billion) preliminary offer from rival CYBG Plc, as potential consolidation among smaller banks accelerates. CYBG, which lends to consumers and small-medium enterprises, is eyeing the Richard Branson-backed bank to give it greater scale, potential cost savings and access to its presence on the high street. Virgin Money’s ...

Bloomberg A Swiss wealth manager embroiled in an insider-trading case linked to Air Liquide SA’s $13.2 billion takeover of Airgas Inc. has lost his bid to avoid posting bail of 1 million euros ($1.2 million). A ruling from France’s top court revealed that a man identified as Thierry Z., working for wealth-management firm Stokors SA, was charged by criminal authorities ...

Dubai / WAM His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council has stated that Dubai’s rising global rankings in a range of economic indicators show that it is closing the gap with the world’s most competitive economies according to the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The United Arab Emirates is Moldova’s gate to other GCC states and the entire MENA region, said Tudor Ulianovschi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Moldova, before opening his country’s embassy in the UAE, which, he said, will serve the interests of the Moldovan community, not only in the Emirates, but ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM ADNOC Downstream Investment Forum, which will start in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, is a step forward in ADNOC’s innovative initiatives launched over the past years to provide added value to key companies, subsidiaries and the national economy in general. Commenting on the forum, Hamad Al Shamsi, Secretary-General of the Supreme Petroleum Council, underlined the significant role ...

TOKYO / WAM Mohammed bin Ahmed Al Bowardi, Minister of State for Defence Affairs, and Tomohiro Yamamoto, Japanese Minister of State for Defence, signed a joint cooperation agreement between the UAE and Japan in security and defence affairs. The agreement aims to exchange cooperation and defence expertise to support and develop strategic relations between the two countries and work to ...

Bloomberg The outlook for Indian online retailer Flipkart was decidedly gloomy when Kalyan Krishnamurthy became chief executive officer in January 2017. The startup’s valuation was dropping, fundraising was more difficult and Amazon.com Inc. was pledging $5 billion-plus to siphon away customers. So the 46-year-old former hedge-fund manager took some risks. He fired senior managers, set more-aggressive sales targets, boosted spending ...