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Bloomberg Isabel Diaz Ayuso, Madrid’s combative conservative leader, won a second term as regional president, cementing her position as Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s most powerful critic. Ayuso’s People’s Party claimed 65 seats in the vote, more than doubling its representation in the regional assembly, with Sanchez’s Socialists getting 24 and falling to third place in number of votes behind a ...

Bloomberg Vietnam has ordered a strict border control after lengthening the quarantine period to include additional time at home and imposing some movement restrictions as it traces the recent flare up in coronavirus cases to overseas travellers. During a virus task force meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam ordered intensified inspections on arriving travellers, according to a post on ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition is rapidly revising its pandemic strategy over concerns its controversial lockdown law may suffer a court setback, which would be the second legal defeat in quick succession just months before September elections. Germany’s Constitutional Court is considering at least 289 challenges to the law, which was pushed through in April after authorities failed to find ...

Bloomberg Citigroup Inc’s retail operations in Australia are drawing interest from a host of local lenders, according to people familiar with the matter. National Australia Bank and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., the country’s third- and fourth-largest lenders by value, are in talks with Citigroup over the assets, the people said, asking not to be identified as the ...

Bloomberg Italy is mulling extending the fiscal benefits for banking mergers and acquisitions it introduced at the end of last year, according to a draft decree seen by Bloomberg. The move could further entice potential buyers of state-owned Banca Monte Paschi di Siena SpA, which Italy must sell before the end of 2021 as part of an agreement with the ...

Bloomberg Australia’s securities regulator is probing Westpac Banking Corp on allegations of insider trading, just months after the country’s second-biggest lender paid a record fine to settle breaches of anti-money laundering laws. The allegations relate to Westpac’s role in executing a A$12 billion ($9.3 billion) interest-rate swap transaction with a consortium of AustralianSuper Pty Ltd and a group of IFM ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp (BofA) named new leaders for its global mergers and acquisitions business as investment-banking fees surge to a record. Patrick Ramsey, head of global M&A, was promoted to chairman of global M&A alongside Steve Baronoff, according to a memo from Matthew Koder, who runs the corporate and investment bank. A company spokesman confirmed the contents of ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged for an eighth straight meeting, warning its forecast for an economic recovery was threatened by the country’s biggest virus wave since the pandemic began. The Bank of Thailand held the policy rate on Wednesday at 0.5% in a unanimous decision, as expected by all 22 economists in a Bloomberg survey. ...

Bloomberg Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd’s (ANZ) first-half profit climbed as the lender wound back bad debt provisions made during the pandemic and the country’s economic recovery builds. Cash earnings from continuous operations rose to A$3 billion ($2.3 billion) in the six months through March 31, compared with A$1.4 billion in the same period a year earlier, according ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s central bank (RBNZ) said it’s prepared to further tighten mortgage lending restrictions if needed to rein in the country’s red-hot housing market. The Reserve Bank would use loan-to-value ratios or new tools currently under consideration to restrict the amount of money banks can lend for house purchases, the RBNZ said in its semi-annual Financial Stability Report on ...