Bloomberg A unit of GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd defaulted on a $500 million bond after ending an exchange offer with existing bondholders. GCL New Energy Holdings Ltd announced the default in a Monday exchange filing. The firm, which operates solar power plants, is majority owned by GCL-Poly, one of the world’s leading makers of solar-grade polysilicon, and whose shares have ...
Read More »Indian firms hungry for LNG cargoes
Bloomberg Indian firms are returning to the liquefied natural gas (LNG) spot market as prices for the fuel recede from record-high levels. Importers including Indian Oil Corp and Petronet LNG Ltd have issued at least eight tenders seeking supplies for February to March delivery in the last two weeks. So far, four of them have been awarded. Most end-users stopped ...
Read More »2021 is a tipping point for the female leaders
Will 2021 be the year that leadership becomes feminine? As the year begins, there are more top female leaders than ever before. In the US, about a quarter of the legislature is female. Kamala Harris just became the first woman Vice President. Half of the Biden-Harris administration’s cabinet is female — another first. Women leaders are making gains in business ...
Read More »Is Boris Johnson still PM of the UK?
In the eyes of many voters, Boris Johnson stopped being prime minister for the whole of the United Kingdom as soon as the Covid pandemic began to rage last March. Instead he appears to have shrunk to the status of England’s uncertain chief executive, taking orders from technocrats and scientific advisers. North of the border, it is Nicola Sturgeon, leader ...
Read More »Can the gentrification process be stopped?
Supporters and opponents of gentrification seem to agree on one thing: It can’t be stopped. The more important question is whether the process can be managed — its benefits maximised and its costs mitigated. With enough will and engagement at the community level, as well as strong direction and coordination from local governments? The first thing to note is that ...
Read More »What to call a merged Exxon Mobil-Chevron?
What would one even call a merged Exxon Mobil and Chevron? Exron sounds a little too much like another former energy powerhouse from Texas. Standard Oil would be a reasonable compromise given it would reunify so many of the baby Rockefellers. But the PR types and the lawyers might think it best not to put that in front of the ...
Read More »India’s half-a-trillion dollar budget aims to spur growth
Bloomberg India unveiled a spending plan of almost $500 billion as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to dig Asia’s third-largest economy out of its pandemic-induced slump. His government’s plan relies on taxes, including higher levies on some imports to boost self-reliance, selling state assets and dividend income to partly fund the nearly 35 trillion rupee ($480 billion) ...
Read More »Jakarta to get 23.1mn Astra shots via Covax
Bloomberg Indonesia will receive as many as 23.1 million doses of the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine in the first half, boosting the government’s inoculation efforts as Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to rise by record numbers. The Southeast Asian nation will get the shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the World Health Organization-backed Covax initiative, the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry said ...
Read More »Companies mull excluding HK from legal contracts
Bloomberg International companies operating in Asia are considering leaving Hong Kong out of legal contracts amid concerns about China’s growing control, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn’t identify. Lawyers in the region have received a surge of queries from clients about excluding Hong Kong from governing law and arbitration clauses when conducting business there or entering into joint ...
Read More »AIA, China Strategic among bidders for BEA life insurer
Bloomberg Hong Kong insurance giant AIA Group and China Strategic Holdings, an investment firm backed by billionaire Henry Cheng, are among final bidders for Bank of East Asia (BEA)’s life insurance unit, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The companies have submitted binding bids for the asset, proceeding into the final stage of negotiations, the people said, asking ...
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