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LONDON, May 4 (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Summit Partners is looking to sell a stake in Swiss wealth manager Cinerius Financial Partners amid increasing consolidation in the sector, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Summit intends to bring in another private equity fund to help fund Cinerius' growth, particularly through acquisitions, one of the people said. Asset manager BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) provides debt financing for Cinerius' acquisitions through its private credit arm, the person added. BlackRock, Cinerius and Summit Partners did not respond to requests for comment. Belgian private bank Degroof Petercam is reviewing strategic options after drawing interest from rivals, Reuters reported last Friday.

☆ European Economies Are Finding New Ways to Pay for War on Their Doorstep
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( David Luhnow | Sandra Kilhof | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Danish lawmakers have canceled a 300-year-old religious public holiday to recoup the additional tax revenue. Photo: epa-efe/ShutterstockCOPENHAGEN—Denmark, a founding member of NATO, has no artillery, submarines or air-defense system. The small Nordic nation didn’t think it needed them because a ground war in Europe seemed far-fetched—until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The conflict in its neighborhood has set it and similar European nations scrambling to plug gaps in their armory. Denmark, one of the richest nations per capita in the Western world, has pledged to boost military spending from about 1.4% of gross domestic product to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s target of 2% by 2030.

The Ukrainian president cited prior examples of battlefield successes that were followed by Ukraine being granted new types of military aid. I would rather it was the other way round, as it would be easier for us, but it is like it is, and we are grateful for everything," the Ukrainian president said. "But we like your aircraft, just so you know Mr President," Zelenskiy quipped. "We need security guarantees today, while we are not in NATO," Zelenskiy said. A spokesperson for Zelenskiy in a statement said the Ukrainian government expected the summit to result in a joint statement.

☆ Ukraine tried to assassinate Putin by drone, Kremlin says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Shortly after the Kremlin announcement, Ukraine reported alerts for air strikes over the capital Kyiv and other cities. "The Russian side reserves the right to take retaliatory measures where and when it sees fit," the Kremlin added. "When the enemy can achieve nothing on the battlefield, it strikes at peaceful cities," Ukrainian military spokesperson Serhii Cherevatyi said. Elsewhere, oil depots were ablaze in southern Russia and Ukraine alike as both sides escalated a drone war ahead of Kyiv's promised spring counteroffensive against Russian forces. Blinken said later the U.S. government had authorised another $300 million worth of arms and equipment for Ukraine.

☆ US FDA approves first RSV vaccine from GSK
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

May 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved GSK Plc's (GSK.L) respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, the British drugmaker said on Wednesday, making it the first shot to be cleared for protection against a common respiratory disease that can be fatal for older people. The vaccine was approved for people aged 60 and older, the company said. The approval makes GSK, which has been neck-and-neck with Pfizer (PFE.N) in RSV vaccine development, the first company to tap into a multi-billion-dollar market and puts it ahead of rivals such as Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) and Bavarian Nordic (BAVA.CO). Analysts have estimated the market for RSV vaccines to cross $10 billion by 2030. GSK expects the vaccine to be available before the next RSV season in the United States, Chief Commercial Officer Luke Miels told Reuters on Wednesday before the approval.

☆ Russian navy vessels seen near Nord Stream before blasts - Nordic broadcasters report
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Russian navy ships were traced using satellite images and intercepted radio communication from the Russian fleet, the four broadcasters, Denmark's DR, Norway's NRK, Sweden's SVT and Finland's Yle, said. Authorities in Denmark, Sweden and Germany have said the explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and newly-built Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines that link Russia and Germany across the Baltic Sea were deliberate. The Kremlin on Tuesday denied Russian ships had any involvement in the sabotage and called for results of the investigations to be published. The Russian ships traced by the four broadcasters had all switched off their AIS signal, an automatic tracking system used on ship, they said. One of the ships in the area was Russian navy research vessel Sibiryakov, satellite images indicated.

☆ Denmark to make $250 mln donation to Ukraine for military use
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

COPENHAGEN, May 2 (Reuters) - Denmark will donate military equipment and financial support to Ukraine worth 1.7 billion Danish crowns ($250 million), the Nordic country's Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on Tuesday. The minister also said Denmark will reduce its military presence in Iraq starting in early-2024 and instead focus on the Baltic countries, offering NATO a battalion to defend the region. The rest of the year, the troops will remain in Denmark, ready to be deployed to the Baltic states in case of a crisis, the ministry of defence said. "We must be prepared for the Danish presence in the Baltics to be long-term, and there is a need for balancing between having soldiers on the ground and being ready to deploy them from Denmark," Poulsen said. ($1 = 6.8051 Danish crowns)Reporting by Louise Breusch Rasmussen, editing by Terje SolsvikOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Trans and nonbinary students have long had a place at women’s colleges. Here’s what they want you to know
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Elizabeth Wolfe | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

And Smith – while it opens its doors to trans women and some nonbinary applicants – does not accept admissions applications from trans men. Avery is among the trans and nonbinary students who do not identify as women and yet have been attending women’s colleges for decades. Nanney noted that scholars have identified trans alumni of women’s colleges as early as the 1980s. “There’s a lot of resistance, especially from leadership, to use the term ‘historically women’s college’ because they think that connotes the idea that these colleges are no longer ‘women’s colleges,’” Nanney said. He now identifies as a trans man and contributes to the Wellesley Trans Archive, a student-run Tumblr page that documents stories of past and current trans students.

☆ Payments are broken. From fraud to a lack of innovation, these are the biggest pain points in the space, according to experts.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Experts at the conference named time-to-money, faster payments processing leading to faster fraud, and political hurdles that stunt innovation as the biggest challenges for payments. But with faster payments comes faster fraud, Soups Ranjan, cofounder and CEO of Sardine, said. Still, the threat of faster fraud "shouldn't change why we lean into faster payments," Kirkpatrick added. "Because this problem will exist whether we have faster payments or we don't." "We don't have anything close to that in the US," Kirkpatrick added.

Volvo Cars, majority-owned by China's Geely Holding, said operating earnings fell to 5.1 billion Swedish crowns ($494.63 million) in the quarter from a year-ago 6 billion crowns, beating a mean forecast of 3.6 billion crowns, according to Refinitiv estimates. The automaker reaffirmed its outlook for "solid double-digit growth" in retail sales this year, provided there were no major supply disruptions. While demand for the company's cars was healthy, macroeconomic conditions were challenging, CEO Jim Rowan said. Lithium prices, a large source of cost for electric cars, had started to decline, expecting the full effect to kick in a few months' time, the CEO said. ($1 = 10.3107 Swedish crowns)Reporting by Marie Mannes, editing by Essi LehtoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Norway's DNB beats Q1 profit forecast as rates rise
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

OSLO, April 27 (Reuters) - DNB (DNB.OL), Norway's largest bank, reported a bigger-than-expected rise in first-quarter profit on Thursday, following a trend among Nordic banks benefiting from recent rate hikes. Net profit rose to 10.5 billion Norwegian crowns ($989.43 million) in the January-March quarter, from 7.6 billion crowns a year earlier, while analysts on average had expected 8.9 billion crowns, according to a poll compiled by the bank. Loans to customers increased 0.6% in the quarter while net interest income surged 39.8% to 14.6 billion crowns, just above analysts' average forecast of 14.5 billion, thanks to both increased volumes and interest rates. DNB said it had net reversals of impairment of financial instruments of 79 million crowns in the quarter compared with net reversals of 589 million in the year-earlier period. The net reversals in the oil, gas and offshore industry segment was 515 million in the quarter.

☆ Nordea Q1 profit tops forecast as interest rates rise
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

HELSINKI, April 27 (Reuters) - The Nordic region's biggest lender Nordea (NDAFI.HE) posted a larger than expected gain in first-quarter operating profits on Thursday, on the back of rising interest rates and despite weaker Nordic currencies. The rise in results followed a similar trend among other Nordic banks such as Swedish rival SEB (SEBa.ST), which on Wednesday beat market expectations and reported higher net interest income. The bank saw its net fee and commission income decline 8% year on year to 765 million euros. Net interest income climbed 35% to 1.77 billion euros. Nordea said individual net loan losses remained low despite the Nordic economies slowing and kept its management judgement buffer unchanged at 585 million euros.

Order intake at the company that makes a range of military and civilian hardware doubled to 17.02 billion crowns ($1.66 billion) from 8.1 billion, while its order backlog increased to 132.66 billion crowns from 128 billion crowns. Chief executive Micael Johansson said countries are increasing stocks to improve their own resilience, as well as to support Ukraine, which had translated into a strong order intake. Demand has been particularly strong in the surveillance and dynamics businesses, which include sensors, deterrents, support weapons and missiles, he said. Analysts at Citi said it was a strong start to the year for Saab, with sales, operating profit and orders beating consensus. Shares in Saab were up around 4.5% as the market opened, but reversed course later and at 0806 GMT were down 1.5%Operating profit for the maker of the Gripen fighter jet was 928 million Swedish crowns ($90.16 million) in the quarter, compared with 654 million crowns a year earlier.

☆ Mpox outbreak was wake-up call for smallpox preparation, vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Spencer Kimball | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul Chaplin said the rapid spread of mpox last year was a wake-up call for the company, which is based in Denmark. Bavarian Nordic's Jynneos vaccine is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to protect against both pathogens. Bavarian Nordic will finish delivering an order of 5 million Jynneos doses for the U.S government in the first half of this year. Bavarian Nordic estimates that the potential demand for the mpox vaccine could reach tens of millions of doses. "If you can reengineer a related virus like horsepox, you can engineer variola, which is the smallpox virus that infects humans," he said.

☆ NATO chief visits Kyiv: Jens Stoltenberg says Ukraine's "rightful place" is in the alliance
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Sana Noor Haq Luke Mcgee Alex Hardie Zahid Mahmood Victoria Butenko | Sana Noor Haq | Luke Mcgee | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday “Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” in his strongest remarks reaffirming ties with Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visits the Wall of Remembrance to pay tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv on April 20, 2023. Gleb Garanich/ReutersStoltenberg (left) and President Volodymyr Zelensky (right) meet during the alliance chief's historic trip to Ukraine on Thursday. Finnish public support for accession snowballed following the invasion of Ukraine, and also reignited calls from Kyiv to join. Speaking at a joint conference in Kyiv, Zelensky said he valued the support from the alliance but pressed Stoltenberg on when Ukraine would be invited to join NATO.

Volvo, a rival of manufacturers such as Daimler Trucks (DTGGe.DE) and Traton (8TRA.DE), forecast 2023 heavy truck sales in Europe and North America of 320,000 for each region. Handelsbanken analyst Hampus Engellau said the raised truck outlook sent a strong message that Volvo sees the second-half of 2023 as a good market for its trucks. Gothenburg-based Volvo, which also makes construction equipment and engines, said there was pent-up demand to replace aging fleets which had helped boost order intake. Shares in Volvo, one of Sweden's biggest employers, rose 1.2% in morning trade in a flat broader market (.OMXSPI). Volvo is not the only automaker to have had a good quarter.

German specialised property lenders such as Aareal Bank (ARLG.DE), Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBBG.DE) and Berlin Hyp, have a bigger concentration of real estate exposure, analysts added. Blackstone (BX.N) recently blocked withdrawals from its $70 billion real estate income trust after facing a flurry of redemption requests. Open-ended real estate funds in Britain have also battled to meet strong demand for redemptions. In Europe, CRE exposure for smaller banks, more at risk of deposit flight, is estimated at under 30% of all loans, Capital Economics said. "On the other, real estate owners themselves are going to face quite material increase in costs."

☆ Russia has a plan to sabotage European wind farms, gas pipelines, and internet cables, report say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Sinéad Baker | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Russia has been using ships to spy in Nordic waters, a joint investigation by four countries' public broadcasters found. They are collecting intel on wind farms, gas pipelines, and power and internet cables, report said. Norway's NRK reported at least 50 Russian ships gathered intelligence there in the last ten years. DR reported that intercepted Russian navy communications showed Russian ships who had turned off their transmitters sailing in Nordic waters. One of the ships, Russian marine research vessel "Admiral Vladimirsky," sailed near current and future offshore wind farms, and stayed there for a few days, the outlets found.

☆ Russian spy ships suspected of gathering intelligence in Nordic waters, investigation finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou Allegra Goodwin Anna Chernova Vasco Cotovio | Li-Lian Ahlskog Hou | Allegra Goodwin | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Russia has a fleet of suspected spy ships operating in Nordic waters as part of a program for the potential sabotage of underwater cables and wind farms in the region, according to a joint investigation by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. The investigation also said Russian ships appear suddenly following NATO exercises. One ship at the center of the investigation, the Admiral Vladimirsky, is officially used for underwater research expeditions, but is, according to the report, a Russian spy ship. A masked man emerged on the deck of the Admiral Vladimirsky, the ship at the center of an investigation that found a Russian fleet of suspected spy ships in Nordic waters. The investigation comes after Dutch intelligence officials warned Russia had tried to gain intelligence to prepare for the potential sabotage of critical infrastructure in their patch of the North sea.

☆ Lighting Round: Nordic American Tanker, Novartis, and Altria
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailLighting Round: Nordic American Tanker, Novartis, and Altria"Mad Money" host Jim Cramer breaks down several stocks, including Nordic American Tanker, Novartis and Altria

☆ US to advance small F-16 equipment sale to Turkey -sources
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Humeyra Pamuk | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The U.S. State Department could send the formal notification for the smaller sale, which includes radars and avionics, as early as Monday, the sources said. If it is cleared by Congress during the formal approval process, the package would be the first major military sale to Turkey that Congress has approved for years. The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs committees, who have cleared the modernization package during the informal review, declined comment. The package is separate from the proposed $20 billion sale of new Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits that Turkey requested in October 2021. Such conditions are likely to anger Turkey, which has said the United States had "endless" demands relating to the sale of F-16s and that Washington's behavior wasn't fair.

☆ After 18 years, Europe's largest nuclear reactor to start regular output on Sunday
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Essi Lehto | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HELSINKI, April 15 (Reuters) - Finland's much-delayed Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) nuclear reactor, Europe's largest, will begin regular output on Sunday, its operator said on Saturday, boosting energy security in a region to which Russia has cut gas and power supplies. Construction of the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) reactor, Finland's first new nuclear plant in more than four decades and Europe's first in 16 years, began in 2005. The plant was originally due to open four years later, but was plagued by technical issues. As a result of the startup, analysts have said Finland, the only Nordic country with a large power deficit, can expect lower electricity costs. Reporting by Essi Lehto; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Jan HarveyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ After 18 years, Europe's largest nuclear reactor starts regular output
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( Essi Lehto | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The new reactor is expected to produce for at least 60 years, TVO said in a statement on Sunday after completing the transition from testing to regular output. "The production of Olkiluoto 3 stabilises the price of electricity and plays an important role in the Finnish green transition," TVO Chief Executive Jarmo Tanhua said in the statement. Construction of the 1.6 gigawatt (GW) reactor, Finland's first new nuclear plant in more than four decades and Europe's first in 16 years, began in 2005. Russian state export monopoly Gazprom shortly after ended shipments of natural gas to the Nordic nation. Reporting by Essi Lehto; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Jan HarveyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The fallout from empty offices is coming. Here's where investors could see the pain
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Christina Cheddar Berk | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

As concerns about regional banks roiled markets, investors weighed another threat: commercial real estate. Also, layered on top of the property value pressure, are the tightening credit conditions brought on by the recent turmoil in the banking sector. There is no doubt this scenario is a toxic mix for the capital-intensive real estate industry. At the moment, many experts say the real estate market isn't causing trouble for banks, but fears about the financial system are likely worsening conditions in real estate because liquidity is being reduced. The biggest concern is seeing how many other companies join Brookfield , Blackstone and Pimco in handing back the keys on office properties, Clancy said.

OSLO, April 13 (Reuters) - Norway is expelling 15 Russian embassy officials that the foreign ministry said on Thursday were intelligence officers operating under the cover of diplomatic positions, a move which Moscow said it would respond to. The expulsions amount to a quarter of Russian diplomats currently accredited in Oslo, the Norwegian government said. It is the latest instance of a Western nation expelling Russian diplomats since the beginning of Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. So far this year, Estonia, the Netherlands and Austria have also expelled Russian diplomats. The Nordic country still seeks to maintain normal diplomatic relations with Russia, and Russian diplomats are welcome in Norway, Huitfeldt said.

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