Bloomberg A prolonged period of low interest rates risks making economic downturns more severe, according to Bank of England (BOE) deputy governor Jon Cunliffe. Speaking in London, Cunliffe said the drop in long-term market rates in developed economies partly reflected an over-pessimism about long-term prospects, and was also part of a structural trend. One “challenge of low for longer for ...
Read More »India’s HDFC surrounded by lending crisis
Bloomberg All around HDFC Bank Ltd, India’s biggest lender by market value, the news seems to be bad and getting worse: economic growth is slowing, loan losses are rising and shadow banks are mired in crisis. And yet investors keep piling into HDFC Bank’s stock, convinced it will emerge a winner from India’s financial woes. The company’s market value has ...
Read More »Kenya plans to borrow $4.1b from external banks
Bloomberg Kenya plans to borrow 422 billion shillings ($4.1 billion) from external lenders after lawmakers approved the government’s proposal to increase its debt limit. The government of the East African nation is negotiating or about to sign 44 loan agreements with 15 lenders including the African Development Bank, China, Japan and the World Bank, parliament documents show. The lawmakers approved ...
Read More »Trade doubts lurk in yuan fixing amid ‘markets rally’
Bloomberg Considering the lack of enthusiasm for the so-called mini trade deal in China, the country’s disappointing trade data, an unexciting yuan fixing and the cautious-sounding analyst commentaries, it was a wonder that emerging markets were able to make any headway at all. But catch-up was predictably the order of the day following the US rally, so most currencies strengthened, ...
Read More »Investors shun China small banks despite half-price deals
Bloomberg To see how little investors love China’s small banks, look no further than the nation’s largest online auction site. On Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Taobao platform, a Chinese court tried to auction off 1.5 million shares of a rural bank in the eastern Zhejiang province for a starting price of $161,000 — about half their appraised value. After three ...
Read More »US-EU jet tariff war will drive up travel costs, warns Clark
Bloomberg A face-off between the US and European Union over jetliner tariffs risks making travel more expensive for passengers, the world’s biggest long-haul airline has warned. Tit-for-tat import duties on Boeing Co and Airbus SE planes would ultimately increase the cost of the aircraft and hence also fares, Emirates President Tim Clark said on Monday in Dubai, where the carrier ...
Read More »US set to hit EU with $7.5b Airbus sanction
Bloomberg The World Trade Organization on on Monday formally authorised the US to impose tariffs on about $7.5 billion worth of European exports annually in retaliation for illegal government aid to Airbus. Members approved this month’s arbitration award — the largest in the trade organisation’s history — at a special meeting of the dispute settlement body at the WTO’s headquarters ...
Read More »Bamboo Airways expects $1b market cap at listing
Bloomberg Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways expects a market capitalisation of as much as $1 billion at its planned listing in the first quarter next year. The startup carrier plans to list about 400 million shares on either the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange or Hanoi Stock Exchange as early as January, Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nguyen Khac Hai said in ...
Read More »Bed Bath surges after it names new CEO
Bloomberg Bed Bath & Beyond Inc shares soared after the company named Target Corp’s head merchant Mark Tritton as its new chief executive officer. Analysts were broadly encouraged by the announcement given Tritton’s successful tenure at Target. Loop Capital’s Anthony Chukumba cited the new CEO’s “retail/consumer pedigree†and merchandising and private label development “experience and expertise.†Morgan Stanley’s Simeon Gutman ...
Read More »Russia’s pizza king wants to use cloud to take over the world
Bloomberg Once you crack the profit code for delivering hot pizzas in the Arctic, where blocks of cheese arrive on nuclear icebreakers, expanding into more hospitable climes like Britain and Nigeria is as easy as pie. Or so says Fyodor Ovchinnikov, the freshly crowned franchise czar of Russia and soon, he’s betting, beyond. From a single basement oven in his ...
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