By Michael Flaherty and Ankit Ajmera Greenlight Capital escalated its battle against General Motors Co (GM.N) on Thursday, posting credit ratings documents that it said the automaker inappropriately changed to undermine the hedge fund’s proposal to create two classes of GM stock. Greenlight, which owns 3.6 percent of GM shares, has said its dual share plan would boost GM’s value by creating a dividend class and a […]
We’ve known for years that a key protocol that allows global cellular networks to communicate with each other had vulnerabilities — and nobody really took it that seriously. Hackers and politicians alike have been warning for years that these flaws in the calling and text message routing system, known as Signaling System 7 (SS7), can be used to intercept and redirect calls and text messages, allowing hackers […]
Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday rounded off the strongest set of quarterly results from “big oil” for over two years, even as a fresh slide in crude prices raised doubts over the sustainability of recovery from one of the deepest downturns in industry history. Earnings from the Anglo-Dutch group in the first three months of this year more than doubled from the same period of 2016. This […]
Authored by 720Global’s Michael Lebowitz via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, “History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums” – Alan Greenspan The ability to see beyond the observable and the probable is the most important and under-appreciated characteristic of successful investors. For example, visualize a single domino standing upright. With this limited perspective, one can establish what the domino is doing in the […]
FAI is a leading provider of mission-critical aviation services, based in Germany With 23 aircraft, FAI serves corporations, government agencies and NGOs including the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain, 4th May 2017 Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company (Mumtalakat), the sovereign wealth fund of the Kingdom of Bahrain, announced today its investment in a significant minority stake in Axtmann Aviation Holding […]
A nation’s future depends on its young people, Noura Al Kaabi told a forum in Riyadh on Thursday. The Minister of State for Federal National Council Affairs spoke at Unesco’s International Forum of NGOs about the importance of investing in youth for the country’s future. “Investing in young citizens is a wise insurance policy for a better, brighter tomorrow,” she said. “The youth are not only the […]
One of the EU’s most senior officials has called for a ceasefire in the verbal hostilities over Brexit with Theresa May, warning that looming talks could become “impossible” if calm is not restored. The intervention by Donald Tusk, European Council president, marks a concerted effort to defuse escalating tension between Brussels and London after the UK prime minister accused EU officials of trying to sabotage her election […]
Cameron Mackintosh speaks with all the ease – but with little of the arrogance – of someone who has made a billion dollars doing what he loves. “I was a lucky boy to be born when I was,” he says. Coming from the third richest man in the British music industry, it is perhaps the understatement of the century. The run of stage smashes he produced in […]
Google is trying to make email on Android safer with a new warning that doesn’t prevent access to shady pages but cautions that you are proceeding at your own risk. Image: Google Google is rolling out a new anti-phishing feature in Gmail on Android that stops users immediately proceeding to a page if they click a suspicious link. The new feature is designed to make it easier […]
As noted earlier, while European stocks and US equity markets have ignored the commodity crash in China, which in addition to iron ore plunging limit down, also saw rubber tumble 7% lower, and steel rebar, coke, coking coal plunge over 6% … … Axiom’s Gordon Johnson warns (as we did a month ago) that the worst is yet to come, and in fact, the “backdrop of […]
How do best performing companies and leaders deliver value with a vision and foundation for success? SAP works with some of the best companies and CEOs across the region in helping them achieve transformation through innovation and technology. This new CEO Innovation Series, supported by SAP will share and tell the best stories of achievement and feature top leaders on how they continue to lead by example. […]
11:00 am Suppose we could be brave, Bryce, and go with a pic of Jeffery Lacker as our portrait for today 11:01 am Well, he stepped down from the Richmond Fed after fessing up to helping a colleague at a sister publication — Medley — on a story 11:02 am 11:03 am I could give you a rival’s analysis of the story 11:03 am It’s not the […]
HSBC has beaten analysts’ expectations for its first-quarter results as strong trading conditions, rising interest rates and a weaker dollar lifted earnings, bringing welcome relief from its heavy miss at the end of last year. Pre-tax profits, adjusted for one-offs and currency moves, reached $5.9bn, surpassing consensus forecasts of $5.3bn. Shares opened up 3.4 per cent in London trading, hitting 668.30p. Europe’s biggest bank by assets, which […]
Or at least not just about the Panama Papers. This election is about saving journalists their jobs. You see, the thing is, this really was the government that kept on giving. And I’m not referring to the just announced minimum wage increase which we will get in two years time, nor the hundreds of employees who have just started working with government and have been immediately given […]
By Rishika Sadam and David Ingram Facebook Inc reported surging quarterly profit and revenue on Wednesday, helped by its fast-growing mobile ad business, but its shares dipped from a record high in after-hours trading as investors showed some nervousness about future earnings. The world’s biggest online social network, which is nearing the five-year anniversary of its initial public offering, is searching for new types of advertising features […]
HONG KONG Hong Kong’s next leader, Carrie Lam, vowed on Thursday to heal political and social divides, pledging to return the global financial hub to its “normal course of development”. Lam takes office on July 1 after being selected in March amid widespread concern that Beijing’s meddling had sealed her victory and denied the freewheeling former British colony a more popular leader. The former civil service chief […]
Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress are poised for a high-stakes vote on healthcare reform on Thursday that could decide whether the president will achieve one of the key elements of his domestic legislative agenda following a rough first 100 days in office. After three months of roller-coaster efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act — the healthcare law known as Obamacare that was […]
China has rapidly emerged as the leading issuer of green bonds, spurring excitement among the green finance community that they will help the world’s largest emitter reduce its choking pollution. But although the amount raised is carefully tracked, how the money is being spent is less clear. China issued $36bn of green bonds in 2016, up from almost none the year before, and analysts expect it to […]
Sign up to receive FirstFT by email here The Federal Reserve said it believed the recent slowdown in US growth was likely to prove temporary as it stayed on course for a further increase in short-term interest rates as soon as June. The US central bank kept its target range for the federal funds rate at 0.75 per cent to 1 per cent following its latest two-day meeting. In […]
Mr. Abbas, 82, who was among the negotiators on hand for the historic signing of the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn in 1993, indicated that he did feel optimistic that nearly a quarter-century later Mr. Trump might be the president who finally builds on that initial agreement to forge a final resolution to the conflict. Continue reading the main story Praising Mr. Trump’s “courageous leadership,” […]
While we doubt anything material will emerge for various obvious reasons, the NY Post reports that the DOJ is probing Goldman Sachs for alleged Treasury auction rigging: the charge is that Goldman, one of the 23 US primary dealers, won almost all Treasury bond auctions from 2007 to about 2011 even after the Treasury department established safeguards to maintain competitiveness. The case is said to center on […]
DUBAI // Education systems in the Middle East must improve and the root causes of youth unemployment have to be tackled, experts say. A panel on Wednesday responded to the findings of the Arab Youth Survey saying public schools in the region were not preparing young Arabs for the challenges of the future jobs market. “Curricula are a big problem in this region,” said Roy Haddad, director […]
Rackspace CEO Taylor Rhodes. Image: Rackspace The CEO of cloud services company Rackspace, Taylor Rhodes, has announced he is to leave the company. Rhodes said he is leaving to join a “smaller private company” that doesn’t compete with Rackspace, but which is using cloud technology to “to disrupt what has been a very low-tech industry.” Rhodes said: “This opportunity fits my strengths and skills, and I think […]
Theresa May has formally launched her election campaign with an attack on “European politicians and officials”, whom she accused of threatening Britain and trying to sabotage her attempt to win re-election. Standing on the steps of Number 10, Mrs May set out to inflame Brexit tensions, claiming that events of recent days showed that “there are some in Brussels who do not want these talks to succeed”. […]
