Even in pharma, M&A shouldn’t be this easy

M&A shouldn’t be this easy. London-listed drugmaker Shire Plc has nudged Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. to up its takeover proposal twice to 44 billion pounds ($62.5 billion). Allergan Plc said that it was considering a bid only to say it wouldn’t after its shares suffered a bad reaction. This auction may have a bit further to go. Takeda must have ...

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UK’s unreliable boyfriend is ghosting the pound

The pound’s slow but steady gains in the past year or so have seen it recover almost all of its post-Brexit referendum losses against the dollar. But in a welcome sign that monetary policy remains data-dependent rather than driven by what might be called fear of missing out, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney may have just halted its ascent. ...

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What happens in Treasuries doesn’t stay in Treasuries

President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion of tax cuts have to be funded somehow. Step forward ever more US Treasury bills and notes. As the bulk of the new supply is coming at five-year maturities or less, that’s having a pronounced effect on the US yield curve. And markets on the other side of the world are starting to feel it. ...

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Actually, Berlin can do little to stop ‘rent madness’

Last Sunday, 13,000 people took to the streets of Berlin carrying signs like ‘Renters Aren’t Lemons.’ Despite Germany’s tenant-friendly laws, a tide of gentrification is gradually turning Berlin from the ‘poor’ capital of cool into another generic hipsterville. The city calls it ‘rent madness.’ The smallest increase in rents between 2007 and 2016 was 34 percent in Marzahn-Hellersdorf, an area ...

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Will US follow China or EU in regulating tech

This seems to be the year when Americans hit the pause button on the advance of technology in their daily lives and grapple with how we got here and where we’re going. My Bloomberg colleague Tyler Cowen has written about a looming clash between the values of Washington, DC, and the values of the San Francisco Bay Area. They are ...

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Don’t blame Amazon for the retail apocalypse in US

The US president has repeatedly attacked one of the most successful American companies ever, Amazon.com Inc. Several times he has taken to Twitter to excoriate the giant online retailer, whose chief Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, a newspaper that has published a steady stream of articles that have proven embarrassing to Donald Trump and his administration. I will leave ...

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Indian banks’ bad run threatens economy

Bloomberg Scandals, bad debts, ATM cash shortages — India’s banking system has experienced them all in recent months and the bad run is starting to have repercussions for both the broader economy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India’s nearly $1.7 trillion formal banking sector is coping with $210 billion of soured or problem loans, and some regional banks have been ...

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Saudi top bank to drain liquidity to counter Libor rise

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s central bank plans to drain excess liquidity from the banking system to mitigate pressure on the riyal’s peg to the dollar as US interest rates rise, Governor Ahmed Abdulkarim Alkholifey said. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, as the central bank is known, will allow some deposits placed with commercial banks in 2016 to mature without rolling them ...

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Mauritius bank building ‘strong’ Kenya presence

Bloomberg SBM Holdings Ltd., owner of Mauritius’s second-biggest bank, said it expects to be one of Kenya’s largest lenders within a year after acquiring part of Chase Bank Kenya Ltd., while remaining open to more deals in the country. The purchase, signed off by Kenya’s central bank last week, will increase competition among lenders in East Africa’s biggest economy, where ...

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UK’s Hammond willing to look abroad for next BOE governor

Bloomberg UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond has indicated a willingness to look abroad when he begins his search for a successor to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney. Canadian-born Carney is due to step down at the end of June 2019 after becoming the first foreigner to run the UK central bank in its three centuries. Hammond declined ...

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