Bloomberg Last year, Delta Air Lines Inc. unveiled a unique experiment in upgrades. It gave its very frequent flyers a chance to book a seat most can only dream of—on a private jet. For a few hundred dollars more, the dream could become reality. The carrier later backed away from the offer and is now transforming it into the ...
Read More »Airlines back third Heathrow runway at the right price
Bloomberg Britain’s decision to build a third runway at London Heathrow airport by 2025 gives airlines what they have been demanding for decades, providing the 16 billion-pound bill for lifting the hub’s capacity to 135 million passengers a year doesn’t fall on them. While carriers were unanimous in welcoming Tuesday’s government backing for the expansion of Europe’s busiest airport, ...
Read More »Germany’s Deutsche Bank under scanner as legal woes persist
Frankfurt / AFP Germany’s biggest lender Deutsche Bank will face renewed probing on Thursday, as investors pore over its third-quarter results after being hit with a multi-billion-dollar fine by the US Department of Justice. “It will be important to keep an eye on growth in provisions for legal risks,” Equinet analyst Philipp Haessler said. News of a $14-billion demand ...
Read More »PBOC to keep tabs on wealth-management products of banks
Bloomberg China’s central bank is conducting a trial monitoring of banks’ off-balance-sheet wealth-management products under its macro-prudential assessment system, according to people familiar with the matter. The WMPs will be included in calculating broad-based credit, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing non-public information. Currently, the products aren’t included in the assessment framework, and it’s not clear ...
Read More »Ex-IMF central banker gets tough on inflation in Mozambique
Bloomberg Mozambique’s new central bank governor is drawing on three decades of experience at the International Monetary Fund to tame surging inflation in the southern African country. Two months into the job, Rogerio Zandamela stamped his authority on the position at the weekend by hiking the key rate to the highest level in more than a decade, according to ...
Read More »EU banks to dodge split of investment banking and retail arms
Bloomberg European banks will probably dodge an attempt to force the separation of their investment banking and retail arms after the European Commission’s efforts to broker an agreement between lawmakers appear to have flopped. The European Parliament’s negotiating team failed to make progress on the so-called bank structural reform bill in a meeting with commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis ...
Read More »Lloyds shares fall on capital questions
Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s largest mortgage lender, posted a 15 percent decline in third-quarter profit as it took a 1 billion-pound ($1.2 billion) charge to compensate customers who were wrongly sold loan insurance. The bank’s shares fell as much as 3.8 percent as impairments climbed more than most estimates while an accounting change drove an improvement in ...
Read More »Bitterness as Egypt rolls out economic reforms
Cairo / AFP Facing a weeks-long shortage in a country already restless with rising prices, Egyptian authorities this week raided a Twinkies snack cake factory and confiscated its sugar stocks — all 2,000 tonnes. The raid on Sunday on Edita Food Industries, one of Egypt’s largest producers, came as discontent with increased food prices and empty shelves bubbles to ...
Read More »Congested Cairo to become regional hub for Uber
Reuters Ride-hailing service Uber plans to make Cairo a regional hub with an investment of more than $50 million in the next two years, building on its breakneck growth in the infamously traffic-clogged city, its Egypt general manager said. The company has committed to investing $250 million over the next five years in the Middle East, where Cairo, a ...
Read More »Kuwait’s Equate sets initial pricing for two-part bond
Reuters Kuwait’s Equate Petrochemical has set initial price thoughts for a two-part US dollar-denominated bond that is expected to be sold on Thursday, according to a document from the lead arrangers. The company’s initial guidance for a long-five-year bond was at the low end of 200s basis points over midswaps, while price thoughts for a ten-year debt tranche were ...
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