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In light of the recent stark warning from the United Nations that the world is on course to reach the limit of tolerable warming in a scant 21 years, nuclear power is getting some overdue attention and enthusiasm. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is coming around to the view that nuclear power has a crucial role in climate ...

With Brexit negotiations paralysed, and fewer than 100 days till the clock runs out, it’s worth remembering that the UK government — despite its assurances — remains entirely unready for a no-deal exit from the European Union. Pretending otherwise helps no one. In recent weeks, the government has started making some frantic preparations. It has directed 2 billion pounds to ...

A new year, a new central bank governor. Yet the first salvo to come out of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) policy arsenal in 2019 is encouragement of good old “extend and pretend” lending. Banks and shadow banks are being allowed a one-time restructuring of loans of up to 250 million rupees ($3.6 million) to micro, small and medium ...

Investors like targets – even ambitious ones – as long as they’re grounded in reality. South Korea’s flailing automakers, Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp., are targeting combined sales of 7.6 million vehicles in 2019, slightly more than their 2018 target, the companies said in regulatory filings. That’s bold considering the global auto market is forecast to shrink at ...

In the annals of General Electric Co.’s storied 126-year-history, 2018 will go down as a year almost everyone with ties to the company would like to forget. GE lost nearly $90 billion of its market value, its A-level credit rating, its place in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and any pretensions it still had of being a breeding ground for ...

Bloomberg India’s central bank will permit lenders to restructure stressed loans to small companies, breaking from a five-year-old policy of eschewing sweeping corporate debt overhauls. The Reserve Bank of India will allow one-time restructuring of loans to micro, small and medium-sized companies that are in default, the regulator said in a statement. To be eligible for the program, the loan ...

Bloomberg A market indicator watched by the Fed as one of the most accurate gauges of economic health is pricing in lower rates for the first time in more than a decade. The little-known near-term forward spread, which reflects the difference between the forward rate implied by Treasury bills six quarters from now and the current three-month yield, fell to ...

Bloomberg Call it a New Year’s resolution for Royal Bank of Canada’s top investment banker: Doug McGregor wants to spend more time with private equity in 2019. As head of RBC Capital Markets, McGregor spent a decade expanding a Canadian bank-owned firm once focussed on its home turf into a global operation with more bankers, resources and revenue in the ...

Bloomberg The Board of Access Bank Plc announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with Diamond Bank Plc regarding a potential merger of the two banks that will create Nigeria and Africa’s largest retail bank by customers. This follows its selection as preferred bidder after a competitive process undertaken by the Board of Diamond Bank. The proposed merger ...

Bloomberg Absa Group Ltd is having a hard time convincing some investors it can win back the market share lost while under the control of Barclays Plc. South Africa’s third-largest lender was once the leading retail bank with over 10 million customers and more mortgages on its books than any of its Johannesburg-based peers. Now, released from the shackles of ...