By Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro, Amy-Jo Crowley and Andres Gonzalez LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. buyout house Blackstone is weighing options for Dutch merchant bank NIBC, including a possible sale, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The fund manager has been informally sounding out other banks and potential financial buyers to gauge their appetite, said the…
By Suban Abdulla LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s services sector kicked off the second quarter with its fastest growth in a year, boosted by new orders, but it passed the cost of rising wage bills on to consumers, adding pressure on the Bank of England to keep raising interest rates. The final S&P Global/CIPS UK Services Purchasing…
By Sinead Cruise, John O’Donnell and Tom Sims LONDON/DUBLIN (Reuters) – European savers are pulling more of their money from banks, looking for a better deal as lenders resist paying up to hold on to deposits some feel they can currently live without. The trend emerged as some of the region’s biggest lenders outlined a…
By Victoria Waldersee BERLIN (Reuters) -BMW will not cut electric vehicle (EV) prices in China and may raise some car prices at a global level, to help weather the higher input costs of EV production, it said on Thursday following first quarter results. The carmaker reported a higher earnings margin for its cars segment, at…
By Howard Schneider WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, asked on Wednesday about what the Fed would do in the event of a U.S. debt default, repeated the mantra of Fed leaders on that issue: A default is unthinkable, the U.S. government needs to pay its bills, and there was little the central…
By Donny Kwok and Georgina Lee HONG KONG (Reuters) – The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) raised its main policy rate on Thursday, following a hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve, even as weakness in its pegged currency forced the de facto central bank to drain cash in the banking system to 15-year lows. Hong…
A look at the day ahead in U.S. and global markets from Mike Dolan If the Federal Reserve needs more information on what to do for its next move on interest rates, relentless stress in regional bank shares again this week may yet figure highly. As the Fed delivered what markets assume will be the…
By Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla and Nerijus Adomaitis LONDON/OSLO (Reuters) – Energy giants Shell and Equinor reported higher-than-expected first-quarter profits on Thursday, using the heft of their trading desks to offset lower oil and gas prices. The stronger-than-expected profits from the two companies follow forecast beating results from rivals Exxon Mobil, Chevron and BP over…
HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong’s March retail sales rose 40.9% from a year earlier, the second biggest percentage rise on record, as consumer and visitor spending continued to improve, though the low base of comparison also contributed, government data showed on Thursday. Sales increased to HK$33.6 billion ($4.28 billion) in a fourth consecutive month of…
By Khalid Abdelaziz, Sarah El Safty and Nafisa Eltahir KHARTOUM/CAIRO (Reuters) – The conflict shaking Sudan has dealt a crippling blow to the heart of the country’s economy in the capital Khartoum, as well as disrupting internal trade routes, threatening imports and triggering a cash crunch. Across swathes of the capital factories, banks, shops and…
