When Unilabs, the Swiss medical diagnostics business owned by private equity firm Apax, sought buyers to refinance its loans this month, it was by invitation only. The decision to restrict who could buy its loans, while also cutting typical investor protections, is a classic sign of a red-hot credit market in which private equity owners are emboldened to sideline investors who will be more demanding should a […]
By Girish Gupta and Andrew Cawthorne | CARACAS CARACAS Venezuelan authorities called on the Supreme Court on Saturday to review its decision this week to annul the opposition-led congress, which critics have decried as a “coup” and a lurch into dictatorship. President Nicolas Maduro said in an address on state television in the early hours of the morning that the conflict between the Supreme Court and National […]
“Trying to fight ISIS while pretending that we can ignore the Syrian civil war that was its genesis and fuels it to this day is a recipe for more war, more terror, more refugees, and more instability,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Thursday night. Photo Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, left, with Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey’s foreign […]
Hedge funds betting on a sharp drop in global equities suffered further this quarter, while the broader industry’s returns lagged behind those of US and European stocks. The flagship fund of Crispin Odey, who for several years has been warning of a violent bursting of a bubble inflated by central banks, is narrowly down for the year. The fund endured a nearly 50 per cent decline last […]
Panama has a new tourist attraction: the building hosting the offices of the Mossack Fonseca law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal. That is why, workers there say, the sign announcing the firm has been taken down from where it used to be outside the dark-tinted edifice in Panama City’s modern banking district. Too many tourists were stopping to take selfies in front of […]
By Lesley Wroughton and Robert-Jan Bartunek | BRUSSELS BRUSSELS U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reassured his nervous European counterparts over Washington’s commitment to NATO on Friday and pressed them again to spend more on defence, triggering a rebuke from Germany. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was neither “reachable nor desirable” for Germany to spend the agreed NATO target of two percent of member states’ economic […]
Investors are flocking back to European equities and propelling a rally across continental stock markets as money managers downplay fears around the upcoming French elections and fallout from Brexit. The shift — which follows a torrid 2016 when investors pulled roughly $100bn from the asset class — has been driven by hopes of a synchronised global economic expansion accelerating. European stock fund managers received $1.5bn in the […]
By Toby Sterling and Joshua Franklin | AMSTERDAM/ZURICH AMSTERDAM/ZURICH Swiss bank Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) has been dragged into yet more tax evasion and money laundering investigations, after a tip-off to Dutch prosecutors about tens of thousands of suspect accounts triggered raids in five countries. Coordinated raids began on Thursday in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, France and Australia, the Dutch office for financial crimes prosecution (FIOD) said on […]
DuPont (DD.N) said on Friday it would buy a unit of FMC Corp (FMC.N) and sell its crop protection business to the company to win European Union approval for its merger with Dow Chemical (DOW.N), and delayed the deal’s closing again. DuPont said its $130 billion merger with Dow Chemical, which was expected to close in the first half of 2017, is now anticipated to close between […]
With Adam Rawnsley Looking for a deal. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has offered to be interviewed by the FBI and House and Senate investigators examining the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, “but has so far found no takers,” according to the Wall Street Journal. In a statement on Thursday evening, Flynn’s lawyer Robert Kelner, […]
By Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald | VALLETTA/BRUSSELS VALLETTA/BRUSSELS The European Union offered Britain talks this year on a future free trade pact but made clear in negotiating guidelines issued on Friday that London must first agree to EU demands on the terms of Brexit. Those include paying tens of billions of euros and giving residence rights to some 3 million EU citizens in Britain, the proposed […]
By Ingrid Melander and Johnny Cotton | PARIS/MALESHERBES, France PARIS/MALESHERBES, France A 90-minute train ride from the Gare de Lyon station in Paris traces a political gulf between big-city voters and the rest, a divide that has shaken up Britain and the United States and has an outside chance of doing the same in France’s upcoming vote. The further you go, the greater the support for the […]
Friday 05.10 BST Overview Asian stocks were mostly positive on Friday as investors prepared to end a solid first quarter of 2017 and Wall Street closed in on record highs. Hot topic 1 South Africa’s rand was 1.2 per cent weaker in Asian trading in the wake of the nation’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, being dismissed on Thursday by President Jacob Zuma. The currency has shed a […]
By Michelle Nichols | NEW YORK NEW YORK The United States’ diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focussed on making the war-torn country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration’s initial and public stance on Assad’s fate. The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European […]
By Nichola Saminather | SINGAPORE SINGAPORE The dollar extended its overnight gains in early Asian trade on Friday on signs of strong U.S. economic growth, while the euro inched up after sliding overnight on data suggesting slowing growth in Europe. Stock markets in Asia were off a bit despite solid gains on Wall Street as investors awaited China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index data for March. The […]
By Diego Oré and Andrew Cawthorne | CARACAS CARACAS Opposition leaders branded Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro a “dictator” on Thursday after the Supreme Court took over the functions of Congress and pushed a lengthy political standoff to new heights. There was swift and widespread international condemnation of the de facto annulment of the National Assembly, where the opposition won a majority in late 2015 amid an […]
Politics & Economics British Prime Minister Theresa May has outlined her desire for a trade deal with Qatar once the UK leaves the European Union She told an investment conference in Birmingham that Britain wants to work more closely with the Gulf state on defence, education and financial services. (Source: Al Jazeera English YouTube channel) Source link
ZURICH The “political temperature” in the Balkans has risen significantly, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama told a Swiss newspaper, citing tensions in Macedonia over the country’s ethnic Albanian minority. Balkan states Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro all hope to join the European Union, but political feuds, ethnic strife and lingering misgivings over the wars of the 1990s complicate this process. [nL5N1GY69H] Rama, the Socialist Party […]
LONDON Britain will tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft on Thursday to do more to stop extremists posting content on their platforms and using encrypted messaging services to plan attacks. Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Sunday tech companies should stop offering a “secret place for terrorists to communicate”, after British parliament attacker Khalid Masood was widely reported to have sent encrypted messages moments before he killed […]
Friday is inflation day. A quiet week for economic data springs into life with reports on Japanese jobs and industrial production; French consumer spending; German unemployment; UK GDP; and US personal income and consumer sentiment. Prices will be a constant theme, with various inflation iterations presented by Japan, France and the US — the latter in the form of the PCE deflator. But arguably the most intriguing […]
By Anthony Esposito | MEXICO CITY MEXICO CITY Mexico’s states are turning to Asia and beyond as some U.S. companies put investment plans on hold south of the border following President Donald Trump’s calls to bring jobs back home. A delegation of three Mexican state leaders, headed by the National Confederation of Governors (Conago), traveled to China this week to meet with business leaders and discuss investment […]
By Lesley Wroughton | ANKARA ANKARA U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson arrived in Turkey on Thursday for talks with a NATO ally crucial to the fight against Islamic State but increasingly at odds with Washington and its European partners. Tillerson will meet President Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the U.S.-led fight against Islamic State, including the planned offensive against its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, where Turkey has […]
The State Department on Wednesday notified Congress of its intent to proceed with the sale without the conditions, according to Micah Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Congress now has two review periods to examine the sale and raise any objections. Continue reading the main story Mr. Tillerson will attend his first meeting of NATO on Friday in Brussels, where he may run into […]
Thursday 08:35 BST What you need to know ● Stock markets mixed after Wall Street’s steady display● Shanghai Composite hits 6-week low amid liquidity concerns● Sterling holds above $1.24 as traders ponder Brexit implications● Dollar index above 100 as euro softens on ECB report● Oil prices add to Wednesday’s 2.1 per cent gain and gold dips——————- Hot topic Traders are keeping a wary eye on the action […]
