Month: December 2019

(Bloomberg) — The pickup in China’s economy in November adds to the optimism from the trade deal announced last week, though plenty of downside risks remain as the nation heads into 2020.Industrial output and private consumption were both much stronger than expected, with production jumping 6.2% from a year earlier and retail sales climbing 8%, data released Monday showed. At the same time, fixed-asset investment in the first 11 months of this year grew at 5.2%, the slowest pace since at least 1998.If the trade deal is signed early next year as the U.S. has indicated and tariffs on some …read more […]

I’ve got a story for you. It’s funny.
And, better still, it could put some extra jingle in your pocket.
It involves a man who lives in Alaska, not too far from where I once called home.
He’s a duck hunter.
But this time the ducks won. They just about burned his house down.
About a week ago, he did what he always does when he bags a few birds. He tied them to a string and hung them on his front porch to dry out overnight.
It never caused a problem before. But the hunter recently painted his house. And when he did, he pulled …read more […]

Dec.16 — International Flavors and Fragrances has reached a $26.2 billion agreement to buy DuPont’s nutrition unit. The latest deal in the fast-growing food ingredients business is the biggest ever for the New York-based company. IFF has fought off competition from Irish dairy producer Kerry Group in order to win this deal. Bloomberg’s Manuel Baigorri reports on “Bloomberg Markets: European Open.” …read more […]

Google has told its Turkish business partners it will not be able to work with them on new Android phones to be released in Turkey, after the Turkish competition board ruled that changes Google made to its contracts were not acceptable. Turkey’s competition authority had fined Google 93 million lira ($17.4 million) in September 2018 for violating competition law with its mobile software sales. Turkey’s competition board ruled on Nov. 7 that changes which Google made in its contracts with its business partners in line with the board’s demands were inadequate as they still did not allow changes …read more […]

(Bloomberg Opinion) — The U.K.’s election of a right-wing, pro-market government with a thumping majority would certainly seem like a green light to foreign companies wanting to buy London-listed rivals. But the new political climate for takeovers may be hazier than it seems.Boris Johnson’s administration is still only four months old, so it’s hard to know precisely how it would approach a sizable, serious, fully funded foreign takeover bid. The old chestnuts that surface now and again include an attempt on the big drugmakers, AstraZeneca Plc or GlaxoSmithKline Plc, a tilt by Exxon Mobil Corp. for BP Plc, or even …read more […]

Cineworld has offered to buy Toronto-based Cineplex for C$34 ($25.56) per share, a premium of 42% to the Canadian firm’s closing price of C$24.01 on Friday. The deal, which comes nearly two years after Cineworld bought U.S.-based Regal cinemas for $3.6 billion in February 2018, will add 165 cinemas and 1,695 screens to the company’s existing global network of 9,498 screens across 786 sites. “Going forward, our immediate post-acquisition objectives will be to combine Cineplex with our U.S. business,” Cineworld Chairman Anthony Bloom said. …read more […]

(Bloomberg Opinion) — As 2019 draws to a close, there’s more than a whiff of banking deregulation in the air. The U.S. has relaxed its lender stress tests and made it easier again for Wall Street to trade using its own funds. In Europe, capital requirements are being softened.The reining in of bank risk after the financial crisis is giving way to a loosening of the rules just as the desperation for yield makes banks more willing to gamble. This seems imprudent: Although banks are safer than they were before Lehman Brothers imploded, critical weaknesses remain.Sheila Bair was chair of …read more […]

(Bloomberg Opinion) — Brits haven’t felt very much like shopping this year, and understandably so. There’s been political gridlock and upheaval, the repeated threat of a hard Brexit and an election in December for the first time since 1923. No wonder despite strong employment, and wage growth outpacing inflation, U.K. consumers have been acting as if they’re in a recession.As a result, Britain’s army of shoppers have been choosing more classic colors such as black, navy, gray and camel rather than trendy shades at high-street stalwart Marks & Spencer Group Plc. Families have put off buying new fridges and dishwashers …read more […]