Bloomberg Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. is considering a sale of some emerging-market drugs, as the Japanese drugmaker expands a push to cut debt after its $62 billion takeover of Shire Plc, people familiar with the matter said. The company is working with Bank of America Corp to gauge potential buyer interest in emerging-market assets it acquired through its 2011 purchase of ...
Read More »China drone giant unearths $150mn losses
Bloomberg DJI has unearthed cases of fraud involving its own employees that may trigger losses of about 1 billion yuan ($150 million) for the world’s largest drone maker, marking one of the largest recent cases of graft among China’s technology giants. SZ DJI Technology Co, which discovered the corruption in an internal probe, said it’s fired multiple workers who inflated ...
Read More »Taiwan’s Dec export plunges to 3-year low
Bloomberg Taiwan’s December export orders plunged the most in almost three years in the latest warning sign for global trade. Export orders fell 10.5 percent in December versus the same period a year ago, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs, the biggest decline since April 2016. The US was a rare bright spot, with orders gaining 5.6 percent, while ...
Read More »Carlos Ghosn makes yet another bid for bail in Tokyo
Bloomberg At this time of year, Carlos Ghosn would normally be hobnobbing with the global elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Instead, he’s languishing in a Tokyo prison. Now the ousted Nissan Motor Co chairman is making a last-ditch effort to win release on bail by pledging to remain in Japan before his trial for alleged financial misconduct. ...
Read More »Gears of WTO could come to a halt amid US concerns: Canada
Bloomberg The operation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) may soon stall because of US delays in appointing new judges, Canada’s trade minister said as he prepares to convene another round of reform talks in Davos. Jim Carr, in an interview with Bloomberg’s Kathleen Hays in Tokyo, said the US refusal to appoint judges to the appellate body of the ...
Read More »Facebook endows AI ethics institute at German varsity
Bloomberg Facebook Inc is endowing a new institute devoted to the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI) at the Technical University of Munich, in Germany. The new center, which Facebook is funding with an initial grant of $7.5 million over five years, will investigate issues around AI safety, fairness, privacy and transparency, Joaquin Quinonero Candela, Facebook’s director of applied machine learning, ...
Read More »US shutdown pain yet to infect economic-growth forecasts
Bloomberg For all the hand-wringing and headlines over the fallout of the US government shutdown, most forecasters still don’t expect it to cause too much pain to the economy so long as it doesn’t endure. Analysts project the government will reopen by mid-February, though if the closure lasts through March, the disruption will cause economic growth to dip below 2 ...
Read More »Just Eat CEO exits with threat from rivals rising
Bloomberg Just Eat Plc’s CEO is leaving after a surge in competition from rival apps and pressure from an activist shareholder to speed up decision-making and consider the sale of assets. Peter Plumb is stepping down with immediate effect, with Peter Duffy, chief customer officer, appointed as interim CEO. In December, shareholder Cat Rock Capital Management LP recommended Just Eat’s ...
Read More »London home asking prices dip to lowest since 2015
Bloomberg London home asking prices fell to their weakest level in 3 1/2-years in January as sellers spooked by Brexit held off putting their properties up for sale. Asking prices in the capital slipped 1.5 percent from December to 593,972 pounds ($765,000), the lowest level since August 2015, according to Rightmove. New listings in the first two weeks of the ...
Read More »Will the global credit boom really go bust?
We are in the midst of a worldwide credit boom that may be without precedent. The debt explosion suggests that the global economy — all the national economies combined — is being driven heavily by massive government and private borrowing. Is this debt buildup stable? Or is it the harbinger of a sharp economic slowdown or crash? No one really ...
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