finance
BusinessReutersBezos sells Amazon shares worth $3.1 billion
During the first two working days of August, Bezos sold 1 million shares as part of a previously announced trading plan, according to the filings. Bezos, the world's richest man, had said he planned to sell stock worth about $1 billion each year to fund his rocket company, Blue Origin. The latest share sale leaves him with 54.5 million shares worth roughly $174.64 billion at the current market price.
BusinessReutersNintendo posts five-fold profit jump as Animal Crossing sales top 22 million
Japan's Nintendo Co Ltd on Thursday reported a more than five-fold jump in quarterly profit, driven by breakout demand for its Switch device and hit title "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" as the coronavirus lockdown lifts the games industry. Nintendo has proved a winner of the pandemic as stuck-at-home gamers flock to titles like "Animal Crossing", which sold 10.6 million units in the first quarter, bringing its total sales to 22.4 million since launching in March. "Animal Crossing" is a runaway hit, with more than half of new Switch devices first used to play the title during the quarter and total sales second only to "Mario Kart 8 Deluxe".
BusinessReutersTikTok to open first European data centre in Ireland
Chinese-owned video app TikTok, facing the threat of a U.S. ban, said on Thursday it will set up its first European data centre in Ireland, extending its presence in the country where it already has a hub dealing with regional regulatory issues. The move comes days after parent company ByteDance said it was considering moving TikTok's headquarters overseas, following a British media report that the unit could relocate to London. TikTok's 420 million euro ($499 million) investment in Ireland comes at a fraught time in relations between China and the West, with disagreements on a range of issues from trade and the handling of the coronavirus to the political situation in Hong Kong.
BusinessReutersCredit Agricole seeks to reclaim technology it developed with Wirecard
French bank Credit Agricole said on Thursday it will seek to reclaim the payments technology it was working on with Wirecard as part of their partnership. German payments firm Wirecard filed for insolvency in June, owing creditors 4 billion euros ($4.5 billion), after disclosing a 1.9 billion-euro hole in its accounts that its auditor, EY, said was the result of a sophisticated global fraud. Wirecard and Credit Agricole Payment Services had a "strategic partnership", aimed at facilitating online payments for merchants.
NewsReutersJapan's climate change efforts hindered by biased business lobby - study
Japan's powerful business lobby Keidanren is dominated by energy-intensive sectors that represent less than 10% of the economy, resulting in national policies that favour coal and hindering attempts to combat climate change, a new study said. The influence of the country's electricity, steel, cement, car and fossil fuel sectors undermines Japan's attempts to meet its Paris Agreement commitments, according to the report by London-based data analysis company InfluenceMap. The Keidanren, which has close ties with the trade and industry ministry as well as other government bodies, sits on expert panels and other forums where government policies are debated.
BusinessAFP NewsStock markets rise as US stimulus seems close
In the US, payroll services firm ADP reported on Wednesday the United States added a disappointing 167,000 private sector jobs in July. In an appearance on CNBC, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida acknowledged "some of the growth momentum has slowed" after key sectors bounced back in May and June following the shut down of much of the US economy to stop the coronavirus from spreading. "We'll get a bounceback in the third quarter... but it will take some time before we get back to the level of economic activity of February before the virus struck," Clarida said, predicting recovery may stretch through the end of next year.
NewsAFP NewsEurope ramps up controls fearing second virus wave
Europe on Wednesday tightened virus restrictions as fears of a second wave of infections spurred by the holiday season grew with the worldwide death toll crossing 700,000. Greece announced a "wake-up week," tightening restrictions after domestic infections saw over 380 new cases in August. Scotland reimposed restrictions in and around the city of Aberdeen, after a cluster of cases was identified there.
BusinessAFP NewsBrazil's Embraer reports $315 mln in losses
Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer reported second quarter losses of $315 million Wednesday, as sales plunged due to the coronavirus pandemic and a proposed joint venture with Boeing collapsed. In the second three-month stretch of last year, by comparison, Embraer posted profits of $7.2 million. This time the company's hardest hit branch was commercial aviation, which fell 82.8 percent compared with the same period of last year -- it delivered only four commercial airliners compared to 26 back then.
NewsAFP NewsUS plan for 'highest level' Taiwan visit in decades angers China
The United States announced Wednesday its highest-level visit to Taiwan since it switched diplomatic recognition to China in 1979, a move Beijing blasted as a threat to "peace and stability". The visit, headed by health chief Alex Azar, comes as relations between the world's two biggest powers plunge to historic lows. "Taiwan has been a model of transparency, cooperation and collaboration in the international community," he added.
NewsAFP NewsItaly defence ministry seeks closer ties with Libya
Italy's defence ministry said on Wednesday it would strengthen cooperation with Libya, citing a willingness for improved relations with the war-torn country's UN-recognised government. Italian Defence Minister Lorenzo Guerini met in Tripoli on Wednesday with Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of Libya's Government of National Accord, the ministry said in a brief statement. The ministry cited a "mutual willingness" to cooperate on defence "for an improvement" in relations.
BusinessAFP NewsUS sees deep private hiring slump ahead of jobs data
US private sector hiring slumped in July, the latest sign of the shaky footing of the world's largest economy as it struggles with a protracted coronavirus outbreak. Payroll services firm ADP reported on Wednesday the United States added just 167,000 private sector jobs in July -- nowhere near analyst' expectations of a 1.6 million rise in a month when many states rolled back reopening measures as they faced a surge in new COVID-19 infections. The report, along with data in a separate survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), was a bleak omen ahead of two new Labor Department data releases in the coming days, including the July unemployment rate on Friday and weekly new jobless claims data on Thursday, the latter of which has started rising again in recent weeks after falling for months.
BusinessReutersDelivery Hero seeks to challenge Uber Eats in Japan
The Berlin-based group, which operates in more than 40 countries, announced plans last month to enter the Japanese market, with an initial investment of 20-30 million euros. Ostberg said in Japan the company would deliver groceries, electronics, books and more, as well as takeaway food, a shift it has also been making elsewhere, although he does not want non-food to become more dominant than food overall. Ostberg said he was hoping for regulatory approval by the end of the year for Delivery Hero's $4 billion deal to buy South Korea’s top food delivery app owner Woowa Brothers.
BusinessReutersElectric vehicle charge network ChargePoint bags $127 million from investors
The latest equity financing round gives ChargePoint a total of $660 million raised since its founding in 2007, and most of that has come in the past four years. Based in Campbell, California, on the southern edge of Silicon Valley, ChargePoint has attracted funding from both private venture investors and large strategic investors, including German automakers Daimler AG and BMW, German electronics supplier Siemens AG, the venture arm of oil giant Chevron Corp and the trading affiliate of Japan's Toyota Motor Corp. Among returning investors to the latest round are American Electric Power, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Singapore GIC and Chevron Technology Ventures.
BusinessReutersTencent to consolidate China's Twitch-like services Douyu and Huya: sources
China's biggest video game and social media company Tencent Holdings <0700.HK> is driving a merger of Twitch-like game streaming platforms Douyu <DY8Ay.F> and Huya <HUYA.N>, as it seeks to consolidate its dominance in the industry. Tencent, which is already Huya's biggest shareholder and also owns over a third of Douyu, has been pushing the deal for months, four sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
BusinessAFP NewsMarkets rise as investors eye US stimulus talks, gold hits record
Asian markets tracked another record on Wall Street Wednesday as traders monitored talks on a key US stimulus package, though they remain on edge as Washington and Beijing plan a review of their much-vaunted trade deal. With key unemployment benefits and a ban on evictions already lapsed for millions of Americans, Republicans and Democrats remain far apart in talks on a fresh economic rescue package.
TechnologyReutersAre they any use? With Europe's black-box coronavirus apps it's hard to tell
Europe's experiment in using technology to fight coronavirus has achieved some early successes: millions of people have downloaded smartphone tracker apps and hundreds have uploaded the results of positive COVID-19 tests. In many of the 11 European territories using architecture designed by Alphabet's Google and Apple, apps have been made to be 'blind' to warnings of potential exposure to COVID-19 flowing through the system. In Switzerland, for example, the Federal Office of Public Health acknowledged that "the effectiveness of the SwissCovid App is difficult to measure because of the 'privacy by design'".
NewsAFP NewsVirus highlights plight of Europe's migrant farm hands
From Romania, Poland, Morocco and Thailand, thousands of people flock to Western Europe each year to help farmers harvest precious crops, often paid low wages for long, backbreaking days of work. The migrant labourers' often poor work conditions are a point of recurring controversy, but the coronavirus outbreak has thrown their plight into stark relief with the added risk of contagion in overcrowded, unsanitary living quarters. Several outbreak clusters were reported among workers -- with 174 infections on a farm in Bavaria in Germany, 250 on another in Aragon, Spain, and 170 in Provence, France, since the European harvesting season began.
NewsAFP NewsBanks snared by Hong Kong sanctions laws as US-China spat spirals
International banks in Hong Kong are caught in the crossfire of competing laws enacted by the United States and China as the superpowers clash over the city's future, with analysts warning businesses are being forced to pick a side. The first is a bipartisan US bill sanctioning Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for the current crackdown on political freedoms in the city. The second is a sweeping security law Beijing imposed on the finance hub that includes a ban on businesses complying with foreign sanctions.
NewsAFP NewsSingle mums feel 'invisible' in Germany's coronavirus crisis
Germany's huge coronavirus rescue packages have won praise at home and abroad. Pototschnik applied for the government's "immediate assistance" and promptly received 9,000 euros ($10,500) in her bank account. Under the scheme's rules, the cash can only go towards fixed business expenses, which Pototschnik hardly has.
LifestyleReutersFine art and face masks: London's Victoria and Albert Museum reopens
Five thousand years of art and design history will be joined by some more modern items when London's Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum reopens on Thursday - hand sanitiser dispensers and protective screens. Mask-wearing visitors will be allowed to tour exhibits on two of the museum's floors, strolling through 250 years of European Renaissance art, a dazzling Islamic Middle East gallery, and five centuries of fashion from around the world. The 160-year-old museum, named after Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, has been modified to meet the demands of social distancing regulations designed to prevent the spread of a COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 46,000 people in Britain alone.
BusinessReutersAlibaba Health raises $1.3 billion in Hong Kong's biggest secondary share sale in five years
Alibaba Health Information Technology has raised nearly $1.3 billion in Hong Kong's largest follow-on share sale since 2015, and industry experts say this could prompt more firms to tap investors for cash in the Asian financial hub. The Chinese company, an arm of internet retail giant Alibaba Group, said on Wednesday it would issue 499 million new shares priced at HK$20.05 ($2.59) apiece, an 8% discount to the stock's HK$21.80 closing price in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Alibaba Health shares were down 2.75% at HK$21.20 in the first session since the deal was finalised.
BusinessReutersFragmentation of financial regulation hindering COVID response: industry group
Banks' obligations to keep cash ‘ring-fenced’ within countries could reduce lending to Asian economies grappling with the fallout from the new coronavirus outbreak, a financial industry group said on Wednesday in a report. The need to run separate and different systems in different jurisdictions is a long-standing complaint of banks and asset managers, particularly in Asia where many operate in several markets. This fragmentation has been thrown into sharp relief by the COVID-19 pandemic as it could limit banks ability to lend to companies in countries hard hit by the virus, said the Asia Securities and Financial Markets Association, which represents some of the world’s largest banks and asset managers.
NewsReutersU.S. coronavirus fraud losses near $100 million as COVID scams double
U.S. losses from coronavirus-related fraud and identity theft have reached nearly $100 million since the pandemic emerged in March, while complaints of COVID-19 scams have at least doubled in most states, a consumer protection group said on Tuesday. Perhaps not surprisingly, the study found California, Florida, New York, Texas and Pennsylvania - the most populous of the 50 U.S. states - to be the five most targeted by coronavirus scams in the country. Together they accounted for about a third of more than 150,000 instances of COVID-related fraud reported nationally by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from mid-March, when the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, through July, the report https://socialcatfish.com/blog/coronavirus-scams-how-covid-19-stimulus-check-scams-shopping-scams-have-evolved-since-march-2020 showed.
BusinessAFP NewsStock markets gain support from US stimulus optimism
Stock markets recovered from early weakness on Tuesday as optimism about a fresh US economic stimulus package crept back into trading rooms. Democrats and Republicans are battling to hammer out a new package to help the US economy recover from the ravages of the pandemic, with analysts pointing to reports claiming good progress has been made.
NewsAFP NewsArgentina secures deal on 'impossible' debt
Recession-hit Argentina announced on Tuesday it has reached an agreement with three major creditors over the restructuring of a $66 billion debt, which the IMF described as a "very significant step" to solving its latest sovereign default crisis. The government of President Alberto Fernandez had set an August 4 deadline to complete a deal but it has now pushed the date to August 24 "to give effect to the agreement," which came after months of wrangling and extensions. "We resolved an impossible debt in the biggest economic crisis in memory and in the midst of the pandemic," said a delighted Fernandez.
