Category: Business & Economy

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…

Backstory: Epstein continued socializing with A-listers despite conviction – media, New reports on Jeffrey Epstein demonstrate deep-going corruption of US ruling elite The U.S. Virgin Islands government is seeking at least $190 million in penalties from JPMorgan Chase in connection to its banking relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. In a new legal filing on Friday, the USVI’s Attorney General…

SINGAPORE – DBS Bank has agreed to sell a 77.8 per cent stake in electronic payment services provider AXS to Tower Capital Asia, a private equity firm based in Singapore. The bank will retain a minority stake of 9.9 per cent in AXS, it said on Tuesday. It did not disclose the stake’s sale price. The deal is slated to…

NEW YORK – Standard Chartered is ramping up its bullish Bitcoin prediction, targeting as much as US$120,000 (S$161,000) by the end of 2024 – almost quadruple the current price – as increasingly cash-rich miners reduce their sales of the token. “Increased miner profitability per BTC mined means they can sell less while maintaining cash inflows, reducing net BTC supply and…

TAIPEI/BENGALURU – Taiwan’s Foxconn has withdrawn from a US$19.5 billion (SS26 billion) semiconductor joint venture with Indian metals-to-oil conglomerate Vedanta, it said on Monday, in a setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chipmaking plans for India. The world’s largest contract electronics maker signed a pact with Vedanta last year to set up semiconductor and display production plants in Mr Modi’s…

  According to the company, Spain imported 7,673 gigawatt hours (GWh) of liquefied natural gas from Russia last month, which accounted for 26.8% of the kingdom’s total purchases. From January to June, Spain purchased 41,145 GWh of LNG from Russia, Enagas added. Russia is followed by Algeria and the United States. Algeria exported to Spain 21% of the total amount…

BENGALURU – Nearly 900 Amazon workers at a warehouse in Britain will stage a strike for three days in the coming week over a pay dispute, labour union GMB said on Saturday. The strike will take place from July 11-13 at Amazon’s warehouse in Coventry, for two hours during the morning and two hours in the evening on the three…

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday said she agreed Washington will listen to Chinese complaints about security-related curbs on U.S. technology exports and might “respond to unintended consequences” as she ended a visit to Beijing aimed at reviving strained relations. Yellen defended “targeted measures” on trade that China’s leaders complain are aimed at hurting its fledgling tech industries. She…