By Alexander Marrow MOSCOW (Reuters) – Already Russia’s dominant lender, state-owned Sberbank has become one of the country’s leading technology players, taking on an increasingly important role as sanctions and exiting rivals create gaps only a handful of firms can fill. Once a Soviet savings behemoth, Sberbank’s image has gradually been transformed under CEO German…
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International, one of the banks in Europe most exposed to Russia, posted a bigger-than-expected 49% rise in profit in the first quarter. Net profit in the quarter was 657 million euros ($724.28 million), up from 442 million euros a year earlier, the bank said. Analysts had expected profit of…
By Amy-Jo Crowley, Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro and Andres Gonzalez LONDON (Reuters) – Blackstone is weighing options for Spanish gambling company Cirsa, including an initial public offering (IPO), people familiar with the matter told Reuters. The U.S. buyout group recently invited proposals from investment banks to manage a possible share sale and refinancing of Cirsa’s debt,…
(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people are descending on Omaha, Nebraska to attend the annual shareholder weekend for billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Buffett, 92, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 99, are due to answer about five hours of shareholder questions at Berkshire’s annual meeting on Saturday. The meeting will be broadcast…
By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) – The humiliating spectacle for Russia of two drones flying over the walls of the Kremlin, its historic seat of power, has spawned conflicting theories about who did it and why – but for Vladimir Putin the incident could yet prove useful politically. Although the drones were destroyed before causing…
By Naomi Rovnick and Dhara Ranasinghe LONDON (Reuters) – The ECB may not be done with rate hikes just yet, but its own admission that aggressive tightening is now making itself felt in the euro zone economy is enough for markets to bet that peak rates could arrive sooner rather than later. Interest rate-sensitive two-year…
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy on Thursday visited American citizen Paul Whelan in the prison he has been held in Mordovia in eastern Russia, the U.S. embassy said. “Paul has been wrongfully detained in Russia for more than 4 years, and his release remains an absolute priority. The U.S. government will…
By Stephanie van den Berg and Toby Sterling THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin must be brought to justice for his war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday in The Hague, calling for a new international tribunal for the “crime of aggression.” “We’re going to set up a specific tribunal……
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Denmark’s central bank raised its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 2.85% on Thursday, following a rate hike earlier in the day by the European Central Bank. “The interest rate increase is a consequence of the increase by the European Central Bank of its main monetary policy rate, the deposit…
BERLIN (Reuters) – Inflation has passed its peak in Germany as energy prices have eased, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Thursday, adding that the downward trend is expected to continue. Energy prices have eased from a 23% increase in January to a 19% rise in February and a 3.5% rise in March. “That…
