Bloomberg Li Ka-Shing’s CK Asset Holdings Ltd. sold its 75 percent holding in The Center to a Chinese-led group for $5.15 billion, a record for a Hong Kong office tower, the Hong Kong Economic Journal reported. The deal will be announced in the near future, the Economic Journal reported, without saying where it got the information. Some domestic investors are ...
Read More »Hunting for deals, China dairy giants shake scandal
Bloomberg A decade after Chinese dairy companies were roiled by a scandal that poisoned thousands of children, investors are seeing the biggest players as safe bets. Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co. and China Mengniu Dairy Co. have soared to all-time highs as the companies hunt aggressively to build up their milk supply chains through foreign acquisition. Also underpinning the ...
Read More »Singapore home sales drop due to ‘ghost’ month
Bloomberg Singapore home sales fell in September as developers marketed fewer projects in a month considered inauspicious by Chinese homebuyers. Developers sold 657 units last month, down from a revised 1,246 in August, according to Urban Redevelopment Authority data released on Monday. That’s the lowest sales since January. A total of 73 new units were offered, down from 794 in ...
Read More »Gloom to boom: Gold gets sparkle back for India’s festivals
Bloomberg Until early this month, Indian jewellers expected the traditional surge in gold demand from the Hindu Festival of Diwali to be muted. The industry was struggling to cope with a slump in sales caused by a government crackdown on the black market, and efforts to increase financial transparency. In August, jewelers were dealt a fresh blow by a decision ...
Read More »Iraq forces seize Kirkuk areas in advance on Kurdish-held region
BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq’s central government forces launched an advance early on Monday into territory held by Kurds, seizing a swathe of countryside surrounding the oil city of Kirkuk in bold military response to a Kurdish vote last month on independence. The government said its troops had seized Kirkuk airport and had taken control of Northern Iraq’s oil company from ...
Read More »EU vows to save Iran deal, fears for N Korea mediation
LUXEMBOURG / Reuters The European Union vowed on Monday to defend a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers and urged US lawmakers not to reimpose sanctions after President Donald Trump chose not to certify Tehran’s compliance with the accord. Germany and France led a chorus of warnings to the United States, normally the EU’s closest foreign policy ally, ...
Read More »Catalan leader defends claim to independence
Bloomberg Catalan President Carles Puigdemont defended his region’s claim to independence as the Spanish government signaled it will move ahead with the process of suspending self-rule this week. In a letter to Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Puigdemont said his focus for the next two months will be dialogue and called for a face-to-face meeting as soon as possible, insisting ...
Read More »Venezuela regime wins 17 governor races
Bloomberg Venezuela’s autocratic regime claimed wins in 17 of the 23 states holding governor elections on Sunday, results that defied polls predicting widespread gains by the opposition. The government kept polling stations open hours past the scheduled 6 p.m. closing. Election officials emerged about 10:15 p.m. to announce the results. Votes were still being counted in one state. “This only ...
Read More »Merkel’s hand weakens ahead of coalition talks after state loss
Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel heads into potentially laborious talks this week to form a national government weakened after her Christian Democratic Union suffered a defeat in Volkswagen AG’s home state. Three weeks after Merkel’s CDU won the federal ballot, her party posted its worst election result in Lower Saxony since 1959 and lost in the state to the Social ...
Read More »US-Turkey dispute hinges on a gold dealer facing trial
At the center of the increasingly bitter dispute between the US and Turkey is a demand by an irate President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that American prosecutors free a Turkish-Iranian gold dealer who’s about to go on trial on money-laundering and fraud charges. The confrontation sharpened, as Erdogan protested in Ankara that the businessman, Reza Zarrab, was being squeezed as a ...
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