DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

Since the early days of the invasion, Mr. Putin has conceded, privately, that the war has not gone as planned. “I think he is sincerely willing” to compromise with Russia, Mr. Putin said of Mr. Zelensky in 2019. To join in Mr. Putin’s war, he has recruited prisoners, trashed the Russian military and competed with it for weapons. To join in Mr. Putin’s war, he has recruited prisoners, trashed the Russian military and competed with it for weapons. “I think this war is Putin’s grave.” Yevgeny Nuzhin, 55, a Russian prisoner of war held by Ukraine, in October.

☆ Factbox: Who is Russian businessman Vladimir Potanin?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Dec 15 (Reuters) - Vladimir Potanin, who was placed on a U.S. sanctions list on Thursday, is one of Russia's wealthiest businessmen. - Potanin, 61, is the president and largest shareholder at Nornickel, the world's largest producer of palladium and refined nickel. In 2021 Nornickel was the world's top producer of refined nickel, used to make stainless steel and important for electric vehicle batteries. - The son of a high-ranking Soviet trade official, Potanin was educated at Moscow’s elite diplomatic academy. - Potanin has taken care to stay on the right side of President Vladimir Putin, for instance by accepting a $2 billion fine after Nornickel angered the president by causing Russia's biggest Arctic oil spill two years ago.

☆ Mukesh Ambani will take credit where it’s due
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Shritama Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Boss Mukesh Ambani might do precisely that to fund a push by his $220 billion Reliance Industries (RELI.NS) conglomerate into consumer lending. The company is spinning off and listing its little-noticed non-bank financial company. More than rivals, Ambani is sitting on a treasure trove of data to assess the credit worthiness of borrowers. As a home-grown tycoon, Ambani has a better chance of success than other late entrants to financial services. On Oct. 21, Reliance revealed plans to spin off Reliance Strategic and rename it Jio Financial Services.

☆ Putin's war in Ukraine looks more and more like a failure. Past Russian leaders haven't survived similar mistakes.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-04 | by ( Joy Neumeyer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

Instead, Russia's failing war effort has raised doubts about Putin's hold on power. For now, Putin looks secure, but past Russian leaders have suffered at home for blunders abroad. By the following summer, the Germans had taken huge swathes of Russian-controlled territory and a million Russian soldiers were dead. Captured Russian soldiers after the defeat at Tannenberg, in present-day Poland, on August 30, 1914. After an ineffectual troop surge, Gorbachev gave up on trying to improve the situation, and the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989.

☆ Manchester United owners, reviled by many of the team's fans, may sell club
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Manchester United has said it was commencing a process to explore strategic alternatives, including a new investment or a potential sale, 17 years after the American Glazer family bought the English Premier League soccer club. The last silverware they won was the Europa League and League Cup back in 2017. Wealthy Asian tycoons, especially those from China, have been buying European teams in recent years including Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers and Italy’s Inter Milan. Manchester United shares jumped as much as 20% after Sky News first reported on the sale process, giving the club a market capitalization of $2.6 billion. The Glazers bought the club for 790 million pounds ($939.07 million) in 2005 in a highly leveraged deal which has been criticized for loading debt onto the club.

☆ Jeff Bezos plans to give away most of his fortune: Why 'it’s a big deal,' from a philanthropy expert
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Tom Huddleston Jr. | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Jeff Bezos finally said he plans to give away the "majority" of his $122 billion fortune during his lifetime. Bezos had 'resisted developing a public philanthropic identity'Why is the 58-year-old Bezos just now committing to giving away the bulk of his fortune? For years, Soskis says, Bezos "resisted developing a public philanthropic identity," a position that the researcher believes had "become increasingly untenable" amid public criticism of Bezos' massive wealth. Gates and Buffett are the founders of the Giving Pledge. The analogy could be seen as an attempt to explain why Bezos has waited to announce his philanthropic plans, and why those plans still remain somewhat vague.

☆ China’s Billionaires See Huge Losses as Economy, Markets Sputter
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Dan Strumpf | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

HONG KONG—China’s richest saw the biggest drop in their collective wealth in decades over the past year, as the country’s stock markets plunged and the economy slowed, in large part due to Beijing’s zero-tolerance policy toward Covid-19. Both the Forbes and Hurun Rich List of China’s wealthiest people released this week showed a sharp drop in the fortunes of the country’s tycoons. Forbes on Thursday said China’s 100 richest saw their collective wealth decline by $573 billion since last year’s rankings, the biggest drop since the magazine began tracking the country’s wealthiest more than two decades ago.

☆ Russia's elite fear for their safety after a Putin ally advocated punishing those who don't support the war, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Sophia Ankel | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Putin ally Yevgeny Prigozhin has been an influential player during Russia's war in Ukraine. He said that tycoons who don't show enough support for the war should face "Stalinist repressions." Prigozhin's comments have worried Russian elites, who told Bloomberg they fear for their safety. The officials told Bloomberg they were concerned for their own safety, and that they were checking in with each other regularly to see if their family members are safe. Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Bloomberg that Prigozhin is "behaving like a parallel government."

KYIV, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Monday it had invoked wartime laws to take control of stakes in a top engine-maker and four other strategic companies from some of the country's richest men. The companies included engine maker Motor Sich, energy companies Ukrnafta and Ukrtatnafta, vehicle maker AvtoKrAZ and transformer maker Zaporizhtransformator. The decision was announced at a joint news conference of Danilov, Reznikov and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, an unusually high-profile panel that signalled the sensitivity of the move. The officials did not elaborate on the size of the stakes that had been taken over,Asked if other companies' shares could be taken over, Reznikov declined to comment after the news conference. At the news conference, Danilov answered: "It depends how much influence they have on the state of our country".

☆ Russia's war on Ukraine latest news: Russia resumes participation in grain deal
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Russian defence ministry said it had received written guarantees from Kyiv not to use the Black Sea grain corridor for military operations against Russia. * Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was important to stand up to "crazy Russian aggression that destabilises international trade." * Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he and Zelenskiy discussed sending grain to African countries. * The U.N. coordinator for the grain deal said he expects loaded ships to depart Ukrainian ports on Thursday. * The British government said it had sanctioned four Russian steel and petrochemical tycoons in relation to the war in Ukraine.

☆ China's richest people lost about $13 billion in just one day due to a market sell-off after President Xi Jinping secured a third term
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Huileng Tan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The 13 richest people in China lost $12.7 billion on Monday alone, per Bloomberg. Their losses were due to a massive market sell-off over President Xi Jinping's third term in office. Tencent founder and CEO, Pony Ma, was the biggest loser in the market rout, as his net worth plunged by $2.5 billion to $24 billion, per Bloomberg. Alibaba founder Jack Ma lost $1.2 billion, bringing his net worth down to $29 billion, while JD.com's Richard Liu saw his net worth fall by $1.3 billion to $9 billion, according to Bloomberg. Alibaba shares fell 13% on the Nasdaq and 11% in Hong Kong.

☆ Why China won't bail out its real estate sector
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( Evelyn Cheng | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

A year after Chinese developer Evergrande 's debt problems began rattling investors, the country's real estate troubles have only gotten worse. Some homebuyers refused to pay their mortgages due to construction delays, while property sales plunged. He expects Beijing will want to gradually resolve the problems in real estate and reduce the industry's role in the economy. Explosive growth in China's real estate industry over the last two decades minted tycoons who were not afraid of flaunting their wealth. It contrasts with an average four to five quarters for previous real estate slumps in China, the report said.

☆ Yacht linked to sanctioned Russian tycoon leaves Hong Kong
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG — A superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov left Hong Kong for South Africa on Thursday, nearly two weeks after the U.S. accused the city of operating as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals. The marine department confirmed that the $500 million superyacht Nord left Hong Kong on Thursday afternoon but did not elaborate. The Nord arrived in Hong Kong on Oct. 5 from Vladivostok, Russia, putting the Chinese territory in the crosshairs of U.S.-China tensions. The U.S. State Department said the presence in Hong Kong of assets belonging to sanctioned individuals called into question the “transparency of the business environment” in the city. Hong Kong leader John Lee later said that while Hong Kong complies with United Nations sanctions, authorities “cannot do anything that has no legal basis” when it comes to sanctions unilaterally imposed by other jurisdictions.

☆ Ye becomes Donald Trump’s social media frenemy
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The rapper formerly known as Kanye West is buying social media firm Parler for an undisclosed price. That may be partly because Trump has launched his own app, Truth Social. That gives the former president’s followers even less reason to engage with Parler and Truth Social. If Musk wriggles out of the Twitter deal, Parler will still have to compete for Trump’s attention. That leaves Ye looking like the least promising of the three would-be social media tycoons.

☆ Superyacht struggle: Is Hong Kong now safe harbor for sanctioned Russians?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Marie Brockling | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

A superyacht linked to a Russian oligarch has produced the latest ripple of tensions between the United States and China after it moored in Hong Kong’s harbor. Hong Kong said Tuesday it would not seize the superyacht, defying Washington and raising fears that the global financial hub could become a haven for individuals sanctioned over the war in Ukraine. “Secondary sanction is more a practical matter rather than a legal or moral matter as Hong Kong banks handling Russian transactions could be sanctioned,” Sun added. The Hong Kong Marine Department did not respond to a request for comment on the number of Russian yachts in its harbors. “We will have to see how much money eventually flocks to Hong Kong and how they are being handled in order to assess the impact on U.S.-China relations,” Sun said.

☆ China’s Communist Party Congress: What It Means for Business
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-08 | by ( Keith Bradsher | More About Keith Bradsher | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The main task of China’s ruling elite at the party congress, a gathering that happens once every five years and typically lasts a week, will be to confirm the lineup of China’s leaders. Mr. Xi’s speech will be full of Communist Party ideological jargon and probably very long — his speech at the start of the last party congress, in 2017, lasted more than three hours. Domestic Ideology: ‘Common Prosperity’One of Mr. Xi’s favorite economic policy initiatives in recent months has a simple, innocuous-sounding name: “common prosperity.” The big question lies in what it means. Common prosperity, a longtime goal of the Communist Party, has been defined by Mr. Xi as reining in private capital and narrowing China’s huge disparities in wealth. And Mr. Xi has strongly discouraged speculation in housing, pushing instead for government subsidies for the construction of more rental apartments.

Persons: Xi, tycoons Organizations: Communist Party, Beijing Locations: Shanghai, China

☆ Madeleine McCann’s parents lose libel case over claims they were involved in her disappearance
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

PARIS — The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday against the parents of missing British toddler Madeleine McCann, saying that Portugal had given them a fair hearing in their libel battle against a former Portuguese policeman. Kate and Gerry McCann sued Amaral for libel. In 2015, a Portuguese court ruled in their favor, ordering Amaral to pay them damages. “We took action for one and only one reason: Mr Amaral’s unfounded claims were having a detrimental impact on the search for Madeleine,” the statement said. “The focus is now rightly on the search for Madeleine and her abductor(s).

☆ Petrodollar rush may disappoint Western financiers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Yet Western financiers hoping to share in the spoils of a 1970s-style petrodollar boom will be disappointed. In previous petrodollar booms, energy producers have recycled their windfalls into the Western financial system. These financial flows, known as petrodollar recycling, mean that the money Westerners spend on fuel eventually makes its way back into their economies through energy producers’ financial investments. Either way, it would mean that Westerners miss out on some of the spoils of the new petrodollar boom. A more muted petrodollar boom might not be such a bad thing after all.

☆ India renewables push gets lift from patient money
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MUMBAI, Sept 19 (Reuters Breakingviews) - As global borrowing costs rise, patient foreign investors are stepping up to help tycoons recycle capital and speed India’s energy transition. The wider deal will help the unit of $19 billion Mahindra and Mahindra (MAHM.NS) repay a shareholder loan as Indian businesses deleverage en masse. In April, Tata Power (TTPW.NS) struck a deal with BlackRock (BLK.N) and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterSimilar tie-ups helped renewables power 60% of India’s energy capacity additions in the past six years, according to Moody’s. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

The Hong Kong billionaire is offering $240 million to buy out minority shareholders in Caymans-registered Lifestyle International (1212.HK), his department store chain. Several Hong Kong tycoons have fallen foul of the notorious tests, which the Cayman Islands will scrap at the end of this month. Hong Kong dropped the rule in 2014, but is home to just 8% of the city’s listed companies. Lifestyle is domiciled in the Cayman Islands, which at the end of August will drop a requirement for the so-called headcount test. Almost 60% of primary-listed Hong Kong companies are domiciled in the Caribbean tax haven.

Suzanne Plunkett/CNN Restricted view: Concorde's windows were much smaller than those on a normal passenger airplane. Suzanne Plunkett/CNN Concorde cloakroom: Despite the space limitations, there was room for a closet to ensure Concorde's well-heeled passengers wouldn't crease their coats and garments. Suzanne Plunkett/CNN Work with perks: "The flight attendants loved being on it; the passengers loved being on it. Suzanne Plunkett/CNN Switches and dials: Meanwhile, in the cockpit, the pilots relied on simple analog dials and switches to control the super-fast jet. There are always rumors of new supersonic aircraft in the works, and I enjoy tracking the updates, but nothing seems concrete yet.

Persons: CNN —, it’s, Lewis Whyld, “, I’ve, I’d, Lewis, would’ve, Ian Waldie, Suzanne Plunkett, Gordon, Su Marshall, Richard Quest, Richard Ford, MARTYN HAYHOW, tycoons, Mario Tama, CNN's, ”, you’re, nothing’s, wouldn’t, –, we’ve, I’m Organizations: CNN, Concorde, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, downdraft, South West News Service, UK, Concorde Alpha, Aerospace Bristol, Business, British Airways, CNN Concorde, Getty, Bristol Aerospace, eBay, afterburners, Royce, Royce Olympus, Alpha, Aerospace, UK’s Press Association, The Telegraph, It’s Locations: Bristol, England, Clifton, Concorde, London, New York, AFP, Filton, France, Ukraine

Search resuls for: "tycoons"

21 mentions found