Singapore to ease VC rules to promote financing for startups

  Bloomberg Singapore is proposing to ease regulations for venture capital managers including shortening their application process in a bid to promote financing for startup development. Under a consultation paper published by the Monetary Authority of Singapore Wednesday, new and existing VC managers won’t be subject to the same capital requirements and business conduct rules that currently apply to fund ...

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Hong Kong’s PCCW to sell $1.1bn stake

  Bloomberg Billionaire Richard Li’s PCCW Ltd. plans to sell a HK$8.53 billion ($1.1 billion) stake in telecommunications unit HKT Trust & HKT Ltd., amassing cash as the Hong Kong tycoon shifts into greater media investments. The shares of both companies fell. PCCW will sell 840.7 million shares of Hong Kong’s largest phone company for HK$10.15 apiece, it said in ...

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Bucking anti-trade trend, EU clears deal with Canada

  Bloomberg The European Union’s parliament approved a trade deal with Canada on Wednesday, extolling the pact as a sign of cooperation at a time when many political forces, including US President Donald Trump’s administration, are trying to halt globalization. After three hours of debate on Wednesday and years of negotiations preceding that, the legislature approved the deal by a ...

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BlackBerry files patent-infringement suit against Nokia

  Bloomberg BlackBerry Ltd. filed a patent-infringement lawsuit against Nokia Oyj, demanding royalties on the Finnish company’s mobile network products that use an industrywide technology standard. Nokia’s products including its Flexi Multiradio base stations, radio network controllers and Liquid Radio software are using technology covered by as many as 11 patents, BlackBerry said in a complaint filed in federal court ...

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Cigna faces off with Anthem, escalating fight by ending deal

  Bloomberg Simmering tensions between Anthem Inc. and Cigna Corp. exploded as Cigna sued to end their $48 billion deal, and Anthem moments later said it would fight to keep the merger alive. The clash came just hours after the other US health insurance megadeal, a $37 billion tie-up between Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc., ended peacefully with the companies ...

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AIG posts $3.04bn loss, adding to CEO’s woes

  Bloomberg American International Group Inc. posted its fourth loss in six quarters, burned again by higher-than-expected claims costs as Chief Executive Officer Peter Hancock struggles to sustain profitability. The net loss widened to $3.04 billion, or $2.96 a share, from a $1.84 billion, or $1.50, a year earlier, the New York-based insurer said in a statement. The fourth quarter’s ...

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What did Michael Flynn tell the Russians?

  Michael Flynn’s real problem isn’t the Logan Act, an obscure and probably unenforceable 1799 statute that bars private meddling in foreign policy disputes. It’s whether President Trump’s national security adviser sought to hide from his colleagues and the nation a pre-inauguration discussion with the Russian government about sanctions that the Obama administration was imposing. “It’s far less significant if ...

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Asia’s junk heart is at risk of a China cardiac arrest

  High-yield bonds have become the world’s hottest commodity as investors try to ride the global rally in stock markets. In Asia, however, that could mean dangerous times ahead. On Monday, Road King Infrastructure Ltd. raised $300 million selling dollar bonds to yield 7.95 percent. Preliminary price talk centered around the 8.625 percent mark but demand was so strong that ...

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Trump and the dangers of radical tax reform

  President Donald Trump and his allies in Congress have big plans for tax reform, and there’s something to be said for ambition. But the way they’re promoting their ideas suggests they don’t quite understand their consequences — and that raises larger questions about whether the plan could work at all. House Republicans have long proposed cutting the corporate tax ...

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