Bloomberg Offshore hedge fund managers and priced-out young Australians have long argued the pace of house price growth in the nation’s biggest cities is unsustainable. They may finally be right. After two years of double-digit growth, the Sydney house price index gained just 3.2 percent in the year to September, the weakest increase since 2012, according to the latest ...
Read More »Japan Display secures $637mn infusion from govt-backed fund
Bloomberg Japan Display Inc., a struggling Japanese maker of smartphone screens, agreed to a 75 billion yen ($637 million) injection of cash from a government-backed fund. The supplier to Apple Inc. will issue 45 billion yen of convertible debt to Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, already its largest shareholder, Japan Display said in a statement in Tokyo on Wednesday. ...
Read More »Brookfield buys Reliance mobile tower biz for $1.6bn
Mumbai / AFP Indian internet and telecoms company Reliance Communications said on Wednesday it had agreed to sell its mobile phone tower business to Canadian asset management giant Brookfield for $1.6 billion. Reliance Communications said the deal represented the largest investment by a foreign investor in Indian infrastructure and comes as Brookfield seeks to capitalise on liquidity constraints at ...
Read More »Mistry wants Tata barred from board meetings
Bloomberg Cyrus Mistry, the ousted chairman of Tata Sons Ltd., wants an Indian court to restrain the family scion from attending board meetings, according to a filing made by the executive against his abrupt dismissal from the post. Mistry also asked the National Company Law Tribunal to appoint an administrator to manage Tata Sons, according to the filing seen ...
Read More »China demands emission cuts as year’s worst smog chokes Beijing
Bloomberg China called for better coordination to cut emissions after a sixth day of heavy smog engulfed much of the northern part of the country and spurred the year’s highest alert. With the toxic haze shrouding the capital Beijing, coastal Tianjin, and surrounding Hebei province, the environmental protection ministry called for cities to coordinate anti-emission measures such as halting ...
Read More »Beijing’s worst smog prompts 351 flight cancellations in 2016
Bloomberg Beijing and other regions of north China were blanketed by the year’s worst bout of noxious smog, prompting officials to cancel 351 flight departures from the capital’s airport because of limited visibility. The concentration of PM2.5 — the particles that pose the greatest health risks — was 402 micrograms per cubic meter near Tiananmen Square at 5 p.m. ...
Read More »Southwest website fails, thwarting booking, check-in
Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co.’s website failed, blocking access to booking and flight check-in tools in a busy holiday travel week. The carrier said it was making progress in fixing the disruption and was getting reports of successful transactions and online check-in attempts around 5:45 p.m. New York time. The failure affected all customers but didn’t have any impact on ...
Read More »Nigeria’s Arik resumes flights after truce with unions
Lagos / AFP Nigeria’s Arik airline has resumed flights following a deal to end a one-day strike that paralysed its operation, the company said on Wednesday. Aviation unions called the strike on Tuesday to protest non-payment of seven months of salaries to Arik workers, non-remittance of taxes and the sacking of five union leaders. Thousands of local and foreign ...
Read More »Coca Cola to buy stake in CCBA for $3.15 billion
Brussels / AFP Soft drinks giant Coca-Cola has agreed to pay more than three billion dollars to recently-merged AB InBev for control of Africa’s biggest soft drinks bottling company, both companies said on Wednesday. On merging with SABMiller in September, Belgian-Brazilian giant AB InBev found itself with 54.5 percent in Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) and Coca-Cola said in October ...
Read More »UK retail sales grow at fastest pace
Bloomberg UK retail sales grew at their fastest annual pace in more than a year this month, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which also warned that pressure on shoppers’ budgets could increase over the coming year. The CBI’s monthly retail-sales index climbed to 35 in December, the highest since September 2015, from 26 in November. Clothing ...
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