National Grid and SSE have shifted large parts of their UK operations into offshore holding companies to try to protect shareholders from any assets being nationalised by a future Labour government after Labour’s pledge included to take back into public hands the wires and pipes that deliver electricity and gas to homes and businesses. These…
Category: Business
Bernard Arnault’s luxury LVMH is set to buy Tiffany & Co for $16.7bn, after the US jeweller negotiated to raise the offer by $600m to clinch an agreement. Europe’s richest man and his group can restore Tiffany to its former glory as one of the top brands in global luxury. The boards of both companies…
28 people have died after a passenger plane crashed into houses in Goma City in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo according to locals. Nine family members on the ground and 17, passesngers and two crew members were among the victims. The small aircraft went down in the Mapendo neighbourhood after “missing” its take-off from the…
Rock Victoria, a Sri Lankan national, set up a cashew factory in Quilon (Kollam), South India in 1920 for processing of cashew nuts, with Swaminathan as a worker who later became a prominent cashew businessman. The first batch of cashews exported from India was from Kollam to USA in 1920 by Indian Nut Company, established…
Economist Philippon uses detailed evidence to argue that far from being the home of the free market competition, the US today has less competition than the much maligned EU, particularly in its products markets which are riddled with monopoly and monopsony. Declining competition has raised profits, depressed wages, weakened investment and undermined productivity growth. The…
Mr Bootle the chairman of Capital Economics argues that the automation and advances in AI will be a huge positive influence in our lives in the coming future and economic effects of artificial intelligence may not be as different from those of previous technological transformations as many suppose, that the speed with which the changes…
Charles Schwab is acquiring US online brokerage TD Ameritrade for $25bn, as a brutal price war forces the industry to consolidate. This acquisition will create a group of $5tn in assets. Walter Bettinger CEO of Schwab is set to run the combined company and Tim Hockey, TD Ameritrade’s ceo said he would step down next…
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk branded the laser scanning system Lidar ( light detection and ranging) which is being touted as the best way for autonomous cars to sense their environment. In April he said, Lidar was expensive and unnecessary as he believes that cameras combined with artificial intelligence will be enough to allow cars to…
Mr. Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president’s decision to allow sugarcane cultivation in the Amazon region has emerged as a further obstacle to a trade deal between EU and South America, European Commission officials have warned. The EU sealed a deal in June with the Mercosur bloc – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay after two decades…
Arconic, a $13bn US metals group has refused to release documents about the flammable cladding on Grenfell Tower to the public enquiry into the fire and a US lawsuit brought by survivors and victims’ families, citing a French law limiting disclosures. The company formerly known as Alcoa, has invoked the 1968 “ French blocking Statute”…