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☆ Credit Suisse investor loses faith in management over cash outflows
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Thomae said investors were particularly disappointed that withdrawals had continued after Credit Suisse CEO Ulrich Koerner and Chairman Axel Lehmann had said the situation had stabilised. Deka, which is owned by Germany's unlisted savings banks, holds a stake of 0.02% in Credit Suisse, according to Refinitiv data. Credit Suisse shares rebounded on Friday, gaining nearly 4% after losing nearly 15% on Thursday when shareholders took fright at results described by one shareholder as "catastrophic." The market is still wondering what the risk/return profile of “New Credit Suisse” will look like," Venditti said. Ratings agencies said Credit Suisse had 'some momentum' in its restructuring, including disposing of non core assets and slashing costs, but faced significant risks ahead.

☆ Memphis officers charged in Nichols death face review of older cases
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Brendan O'Brien | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

"This involves any criminal case that [the officers] were involved in. It is any case where there were criminal charges that were brought by the DA anytime since they became officers." The beating occurred despite the use-of-force policies that Memphis and other U.S. cities pledged to strengthen after the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. The five officers were members of SCORPION, a now-disbanded specialized police unit that was formed in October 2021 to concentrate on crime hot spots. Several of the officers who have been fired had received written reprimands or short suspensions for violating department policies, according to their personnel files.

☆ Ackman's Pershing Square reaps $2.7 bln from rate trade but down 9% in 2022 -letter
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Nell Mackenzie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

U.S. stock indexes had a dismal 2022 with the S&P 500 slumping almost 20%, as the Federal Reserve battled soaring inflation with aggressive interest rate hikes that roiled markets. The assets minus the liabilities in Ackman's fund trade at a discount to its share price. "This possibility is also something that we do not feel is currently reflected in PSH's share price," it said. The interest rate hedges were initiated in late 2020 and early 2021. In 2022 the fund entered new positions in long-term interest rates, currencies and energy it said.

☆ Britain’s Drax says power plants would still run during strike action
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Companies Drax Group PLC FollowLONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Power plants operated by British generator Drax (DRX.L) will still be able to operate if strike action by Unite union workers go ahead later this month, the company said on Wednesday. Drax’s power plants can make up around 7% of Britain’s electricity supply. “In the event of industrial action, Drax has robust plans in place to ensure the power station continues to safely generate renewable electricity for millions of homes and businesses,” a spokesperson for Drax said. The company dismissed claims made by the Unite union that the industrial action could lead to power cuts in the country. “The strike action at Drax will inevitably cause considerable strain on the national grid but this dispute is completely of the company’s own making,” Unite regional officer Shane Sweeting said.

Companies Bp Azerbaijan FollowBp Plc FollowLONDON/BAKU, Feb 8 (Reuters) - BP Azerbaijan has declared force majeure on loadings of Azeri crude from the Turkish port of Ceyhan, after a series of earthquakes on Monday, the company said on Wednesday. The notice was issued to oil shippers following a temporary suspension of loading operations from the Ceyhan Marine Terminal (CMT), BP Azerbaijan spokeswoman Tamam Bayatly told Reuters by email. BP Azerbaijan operates the Azerbaijan and Georgia sections of the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline. Azerbaijan uses the Turkish port of Ceyhan as its main crude export hub, with a flow of about 650,000 barrels per day (bpd). The Iraqi crude pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan oil export hub resumed flows on Tuesday evening and a tanker docked to load Iraqi crude at Ceyhan earlier in the day.

☆ China car sales plunge 38% in January as subsidies, tax cut end
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, Feb 8 (Reuters) - China's passenger car sales slumped 38% in January, reversing a 2.4% gain in the previous month, industry data showed on Wednesday, as demand weakened after a tax cut on combustion engine cars and subsidies on electric vehicles (EV) expired. Sales of new energy cars that include pure battery EVs and plug-in hybrids also fell 6.3% in January after a blistering 90% growth in 2022, the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) said. "New energy car sales in January didn't meet our expectation, with a rare year-on-year decline in a single month sales," said Cui Dongshu, secretary general of CPCA in an online briefing on Wednesday. He said the Lunar New Year and the end of EV subsidies were among the factors leading to the decline. New energy vehicles accounted for a quarter of the total 1.3 million car sales in the month, CPCA data showed, down sharply from 35% in November 2022.

Brent crude futures were up $2.70, or 3.3%, to $83.69 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $3.03, or 4.1%, to $77.14 per barrel. The U.S. dollar index fell after the data, raising oil prices. The BTC terminal, which exports Azeri crude oil to international markets, will be closed through Wednesday. Iraqi crude oil loadings from storage in Ceyhan were ready for resumption on Tuesday, but bad weather was preventing vessels from berthing, a trade source said. Iraq's crude oil pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port was still halted, the Kurdistan Regional Government's energy ministry said.

The U.S. dollar index fell after the data, raising oil prices. Forecasted stronger demand in China also lifted crude prices on Tuesday. The BTC terminal, which exports Azeri crude oil to international markets, will be closed on Feb. 6-8. Iraqi crude oil loadings from storage in Ceyhan were ready for resumption on Tuesday, but bad weather was preventing vessels from berthing, a trade source with direct knowledge said. Iraq's crude oil pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port was still halted, the Kurdistan Regional Government's energy ministry said.

The West blocked several major Russian banks' access to the international SWIFT payments system soon after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, with dominant lenders Sberbank (SBER.MM) and VTB (VTBR.MM) - Russia's No. 2 bank - forced to shutter operations across much of Europe. Kostin, in an interview with state television channel Rossiya 24, said the bank had managed to grow its retail and corporate loan portfolios, but that sanctions accounted for all the lender's losses. VTB was forced to buy FX on the open market when the rouble had weakened sharply to more than 100 against the dollar, Kostin said. VTB was profitable in January and hopes to post profits in 2023 with a similar number of zeroes as the 320-billion-rouble figure achieved in 2021, Kostin said.

The bumper earnings have prompted new calls to further tax the sector as households struggle to pay their energy bills. In a strategy update, BP said it will increase annual spending by $1 billion for both renewables and oil and gas with a sharper focus on developing low-carbon biofuels and hydrogen. That compared with $4 billion a year earlier and $8.2 billion in the third quarter of 2022. The results were impacted by weaker gas trading activity after an "exceptional" third quarter, higher refinery maintenance and lower oil and gas prices. But for the year, BP's $27.6 billion profit exceeded its previous record of $26 billion in 2008.

Companies Bp Plc FollowLONDON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - BP (BP.L) reported on Tuesday a record profit of $28 billion in 2022, lifted by a surge in energy prices since Russia's invasion of Ukraine as the company increased its dividend by 10% in a sign of confidence in the market's continued strength. BP's fourth-quarter underlying replacement cost profit, the company's definition of net income, reached $4.8 billion, compared with forecasts of a $5 billion profit in a company-provided survey of analysts. That compared with $4 billion a year earlier and $8.2 billion in the third quarter of 2022. BP boosted its dividend by 10% to 6.006 cents per share. It halved its dividend to 5.25 cents in July 2020 for the first time in a decade in the wake of the pandemic.

A massive earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria early on Monday had halted operations at Ceyhan and stopped key crude oil flows from Iraq and Azerbaijan. A trading source said the vessel was given the all clear to load Iraqi oil from storage. While Iraqi crude flows and exports have resumed, exports of Azeri crude were still stopped. The Azeri BTC pipeline was however still working and sending oil to storage in Ceyhan, two sources said. The Alfa Baltica and the Nordlotus tankers were waiting in the area for the Azeri crude BTC terminal at Ceyhan to reopen.

☆ China says it will set up yuan clearing arrangements in Brazil
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BEIJING, Feb 7 (Reuters) - China's central bank has signed a memorandum of understanding on setting up yuan clearing arrangements in Brazil, it said on Tuesday, in a move to help boost the currency's global clout. The establishment of such arrangements for the renminbi (RMB), or the yuan, would be beneficial to cross-border transactions, and further promote bilateral trade and investment facilitation, the People's Bank of China said on Tuesday. China has in recent months signed similar yuan clearing deals with Pakistan, Kazakhstan and Laos. Two-way trade between China and Brazil reached $172 billion in 2022, according to data from Chinese customs. Reporting by Beijing Newsroom, Liangping Gao and Kevin Yao, Editing by Louise Heavens, Kirsten DonovanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russia ready to meet India's oil needs at 'market price', Rosneft says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BENGALURU, India, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Russia was willing to meet India's oil needs at 'market price', the CEO of top Russian oil major told Reuters on Monday. Russia has emerged as the largest supplier of oil to India, replacing Iraq. When asked if Russia will give an additional stake to ONGC Videsh or other Indian companies in its Sakhalin-1 project, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said the decision to do so lay with the Russian government. Russia last year approved the requests of ONGC Videsh, the overseas investment arm of state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC.NS), and Sakhalin Oil and Gas Development Co (SODECO), a consortium of Japanese firms, to retain their 20% and 30% stake respectively in the project. Reporting by Nidhi Varma in Bengaluru, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Kim Coghill and Louise HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ UK watchdog warns crypto firms to prepare for tougher rules on adverts
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

LONDON, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Britain's financial watchdog warned crypto businesses on Monday to get ready for tighter rules on advertising later in the year, warning that any breaches could mean up to two years in prison. "All cryptoasset firms marketing to UK consumers, including firms based overseas, will soon need to comply with the new UK financial promotions regime," the Financial Conduct Authority said in a statement. "Firms must start preparing now for this regime. We will take robust action against firms breaching these requirements." Reporting by Huw Jones, Editing by Louise HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Russia's Sberbank to launch DeFi platform in coming months - Interfax
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Feb 3 (Reuters) - Russia's largest lender Sberbank (SBER.MM) plans to launch a decentralised finance (DeFi) platform within the next few months, the Interfax news agency reported. Sberbank says it wants to make the Russian decentralised finance system the best in the world, and is currently beta testing its own platform. Traditional financial institutions are looking at how to get into the space and integrate DeFi technology with their existing regulated operations. Sberbank will launch open testing in March of its platform and aims to start commercial operations by the end of April, the Interfax news agency quoted Konstantin Klimenko, head of products at Sberbank's blockchain laboratory, as saying. Sberbank's DeFi platform will be based on the Ethereum blockchain, the second-largest crypto currency by market capitalisation after bitcoin, Klimenko said on Friday.

☆ Intel faces yet another EU antitrust fine despite court win last year
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BRUSSELS, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Intel (INTC.O) could face yet another EU antitrust fine despite winning its court fight last year against a 1.06 billioneuro ($1.2 billion) penalty imposed 14 years ago for hindering a rival, the U.S. chipmaker said in a regulatory filing. Intel last year convinced Europe's second-top court to scrap the fine handed out by the European Commission in 2009 for giving rebates to four computer makers to buy most of their chips from the company and not from rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O). "Given the procedural posture and the nature of this proceeding, we are unable to make a reasonable estimate of the potential loss or range of losses, if any, that might arise from this matter," it said. Companies risk fines up to 10% of their global turnover for EU antitrust breaches. ($1 = 0.9217 euros)Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, Editing by Louise HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Crypto hacks stole record $3.8 billion in 2022, led by North Korea groups - report
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Josh Smith | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The report by Chainalysis found hacking activity that "ebbed and flowed" throughout the year, with "huge spikes" in March and October. October was the biggest single month ever for cryptocurrency hacking, with $775.7 million stolen in 32 separate attacks, the report said. "It isn’t a stretch to say that cryptocurrency hacking is a sizable chunk of the nation’s economy," Chainalysis said. Targets in "decentralized finance" or DeFi, a thriving segment in the cryptocurrency sector, accounted for more than 82% of the cryptocurrency stolen in 2022, the report said. Last year saw a record amount of crypto transactions related to illicit activity overall, reaching $20.1 billion, Chainalysis said in January.

☆ Exclusive: European telecoms' advertising venture set for EU approval -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BRUSSELS, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE), Orange (ORAN.PA), Telefonica (TEF.MC) and Vodafone's (VOD.L) plan to take on Big Tech with their own advertising joint venture is set to win unconditional EU antitrust approval, people familiar with the matter said. The joint venture marks the telecoms sector's first attempt to take on Meta (META.O) and Alphabet'S (GOOGL.O) Google in the lucrative online advertising sector and diversify their revenue streams. Google is the world's leading seller of online advertising, well ahead of Meta, with the business generating about 80% of its revenue. The EU competition enforcer describes the joint venture as a privacy-led, digital identification solution to support the digital marketing and advertising activities of brands and publishers. Earlier this week, pan-European consumer lobbying group BEUC voiced concerns over how data would be collected by the joint venture and how the partners aim to get users' consent.

☆ 'Party is over': Hapag Lloyd CEO says freight rates to keep declining
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HAMBURG, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Container freight rates will keep declining in the current realignment of shipping demand and supply, said the chief executive of Germany's liner Hapag Lloyd (HLAG.DE), the world's number five by transport capacity. "Now we have to fight for every box again to get our ships full," he said. However, he expects freight rates will not fall below costs, which were being kept high by expensive charter rates, high fuel costs and the need to adjust fleets to running on low carbon fuel. Ship docking and scrapping was increasing this year after a period when ship owners kept old vessels running to meet high demand, he said. At the same time, Hapag Lloyd expects to receive a series of new ships it ordered in recent years, including some giant 23,600 twenty foot equivalent unit (TEU) vessels.

☆ Exclusive: EU may miss gigabit target, more investments needed, telecoms group says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Foo Yun Chee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Total telecom investment in Europe peaked at 56.3 billion euros in 2021, the highest since 2016, but still lagged behind other regions, the report said. "Europe continues to trail its peers worldwide in terms of telecoms investment. The study also noted the large gap between the returns on investment for telecoms operators and those for Big Tech. "There is an acute discrepancy between the returns on investment in European telecoms infrastructure and the returns on investment of the largest services that run over this infrastructure," it said. "When it comes to internet access, it is telecoms operators that shoulder the investment burden, while in terms of new value creation it is tech companies that benefit the most."

☆ Case of mad cow disease in Netherlands is old age variant
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

AMSTERDAM, Feb 1 (Reuters) - A case of mad cow disease discovered on a farm in the Netherlands is the old age variant that is not dangerous to public health, the agriculture ministry said on Wednesday. "Atypical cases of (mad cow disease) occur sporadically in older cows," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the last found case in the Netherlands dated back to 2011. The other variant of mad cow disease, the classic type of infection, is usually caused by contaminated animal feed. Widespread cases of mad cow disease hit cattle herds in Britain and other European countries in the 1990s. Atypical cases have occasionally been detected and can lead to temporary trade restrictions.

New Jersey-based Celsius filed for U.S. bankruptcy in July last year, after freezing customer withdrawals from its platform. She was tasked with investigating accusations by Celsius customers that the company operated as a Ponzi scheme and also with reporting on its handling of cryptocurrency deposits. Celsius gathered crypto deposits from retail customers and invested them in the equivalent of the wholesale crypto market. It raised some of the initial capital to fund its business by creating and selling its own crypto token, called "CEL". "The business model Celsius advertised and sold to its customers was not the business that Celsius actually operated," the report said.

☆ GM reports higher quarterly profit, expects strong earnings in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

REUTERS/Aly SongDETROIT, Jan 31 (Reuters) - General Motors Co (GM.N) on Tuesday reported a higher quarterly net income for the fourth quarter, and forecast stronger-than-expected earnings in 2023, sending its shares up over 5% in premarket trading. The company expects its core auto operations to perform at a consistently strong level in 2023, with full-year net income attributable to stockholders of $8.7 billion-$10.1 billion, adjusted EBIT of $10.5 billion-$12.5 billion, and diluted and adjusted earnings per share of $6.00-$7.00. The company expects adjusted automotive free cash flow of $5.0 billion to $7.0 billion in 2023, with net automotive cash from operating activities of $16.0 billion to $20.0 billion. EBIT-adjusted income of $3.8 billion topped the year-earlier $2.8 billion, as higher prices and increased sales volume in North America more than offset higher costs. Diluted adjusted earnings per share of $2.12 in the quarter compared with $1.99 a year earlier.

☆ Black Friday, holiday sales spur demand at South Africa's Shoprite
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

JOHANNESBURG, Jan 31 (Reuters) - South Africa's biggest supermarket group Shoprite (SHPJ.J) reported a 16.8% jump in half year sales on Tuesday, supported by a record Black Friday and festive season as both cash-strapped shoppers and upmarket consumers went after deals. But the offerings would hurt margins of its South Africa supermarkets business, the company said. The retailer, with over 2,100 stores across Africa, said group sales for the six months ended Jan. 1 jumped to 106.3 billion rand ($6.10 billion). The group's core business, Supermarkets South Africa, which contributes up to 80% to the topline, grew sales by 17.5%, with like-for-like sales growth of 11.1%. Its rest of Africa business grew sales by 17.5% in rand terms.

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