Category: Business & Economy

VIRGINIA – The mother of a 6-year-old Virginia boy who shot and wounded his elementary school teacher was charged on Monday with two US firearms felonies, and her lawyer said she will plead guilty to both offences under a deal with federal prosecutors. Deja Taylor was charged with being a user of illegal drugs in possession of a gun and…

Shares of Sage Therapeutics fell more than 50% Monday after the Food and Drug Administration approved the biotech company’s oral drug zuranolone for postpartum depression, but not for major depressive disorder, a bigger potential market. Shares of Biogen, which jointly developed the treatment with Sage, were up modestly. Who is Sage Therapeutics? Biogen Inc owns more than 10% of Sage…

Italy has dealt a surprise blow to its banks and sent shock waves across the sector in Europe by setting a one-off 40 percent tax on profits reaped from higher interest rates, after reprimanding lenders for failing to reward deposits. Sharply higher official interest rates have yielded record profits for banks, as the cost of loans has soared while lenders…

The European Commission (EC) has confirmed that it’s opening an in-depth investigation into Adobe’s proposed $20 billion bid for digital design software rival Figma. The Commission said that the acquisition “may reduce competition in the global markets for the supply of interactive product design software and for digital asset creation tools.” First announced last September, Adobe’s megabucks bid for one…

As SoftBank prepares to dive deeper into AI investments, the group posted an unexpected consecutive quarterly overall loss, as well as a continued loss in its existing investment business. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1 and 2 and its Latin American fund together posted a quarterly investment loss of 13 billion yen ($91 million). That is significantly less than the 2,919 billion…

HONG KONG – A number of global investors including Warburg Pincus and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board are opting out of Ant Group’s proposed share buyback after the Chinese fintech’s valuation was slashed by more than 70 per cent, according to people familiar with the matter. Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC and Carlyle Group are also among top foreign shareholders…

SINGAPORE – Cryptocurrency firm Blockchain.com has been granted a licence in its South-east Asian headquarters of Singapore that will allow it to expand its services to global institutional and accredited investors. The company was granted a major payment institution licence from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) on Aug 1. This comes less than a year after Blockchain.com, a pioneer…

ASIC has banned a Sydney mortgage and finance broker for six years from engaging in credit activities after allegedly making false disclosures and mishandling home loan applications among other offences. The broker, Qingshan Yu, was also banned from controlling a credit business and performing any function in relation to carrying on a credit business while the regulator cancelled the Australian…

SAN FRANCISCO – Moody’s Investors Service lowered the credit rating of 10 small and mid-sized US banks and said it may downgrade major lenders including US Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon, State Street, and Truist Financial as part of a sweeping look at mounting pressures on the industry. Higher funding costs, potential regulatory capital weaknesses and rising risks tied…

SINGAPORE – The manager of Lendlease Global Commercial Reit (Lendlease Reit) posted a distribution per unit (DPU) of 2.25 cents for the second half of financial year 2023 ended June, down 8 per cent from 2.45 cents in the corresponding period a year earlier. Distributable income rose 21.6 per cent to $52.2 million, from $42.9 million a year earlier, while…

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge to put Sam Bankman-Fried in jail ahead of his trial, which is scheduled to start in October. As he considers their request, the judge has imposed a broad, temporary gag order in the case. There were audible gasps in the courtroom on Wednesday when prosecutors told the judge they were seeking Bankman-Fried’s detention. His…

The French-Italian owner of the Ray-Ban and Oakley eyewear brands was sued for allegedly scheming with competitors to inflate prices by as much as 1,000%. Paris-based EssilorLuxottica SA, the world’s largest eyewear company, is the “instigator and primary enforcer” of the price-fixing scheme in the US market, forming illegal agreements with Frames for America Inc. and For Eyes Optical Co.,…

Greta Thunberg was photographed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg last Wednesday smiling broadly while flipping a double-bird – apparently to the opponents of heavily contested new EU environmental legislation known as the “Nature Restoration Law”.  According to the German news site Merkur.de, it was a “winner’s gesture” – if not the most sporting one – because at its Wednesday…

BAGHDAD — Hundreds of protesters attempted to storm Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and the seat of Iraq’s government, early Saturday following reports an ultranationalist group burned a copy of the Quran in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen. Security forces pushed back protesters, who blocked the Jumhuriya bridge leading to the Green Zone, preventing…

U.S. prosecutors have accused FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried of witness tampering and asked a federal judge to issue an order that would bar the former billionaire and other parties from making public statements likely to interfere with a fair trial. The prosecutors wrote to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday referencing a New York Times article titled “Inside the…

Fincantieri and Leonardo have signed a 190-million euro ($211.5 million) contract to maintain the Italian Navy’s Cavour aircraft carrier and the Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio Horizon-class destroyers. Work under the agreement will be conducted until 2028 by the Leonardo and Fincantieri joint venture Orizzonte Sistemi Navali (OSN). The companies will sustain the operational condition of each ship to maintain…