Business

Red Numbers for Credit Suisse Again After Blow Due to War Ukraine
Business, News

Red Numbers for Credit Suisse Again After Blow Due to War Ukraine

Credit Suisse is once again in the red, partly due to the war in Ukraine. Due to the conflict, the Swiss financial group has announced that it is dealing with a financial blow of 200 million francs, converted into almost 195 million euros.   Once again, the bank is set aside a lot of money for legal proceedings about scandals that have been going on for some time. Credit Suisse decided in March to stop issuing new loans in Russia because of the war, a step that many parties in the financial sector have taken. However, the bank is probably not the only financial group to experience losses due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For example, Société Générale recently announced its withdrawal from Russia by selling its stake in Rosbank. As a result, the French bank has to write off bi...
Hungary Repeats: We Do Not Support Import Ban on Russian Oil
Business, Hungary, News, Russia

Hungary Repeats: We Do Not Support Import Ban on Russian Oil

Hungary will not support European sanctions targeting Russian oil and gas, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said. In doing so, the minister repeated a previously expressed view of his government via Facebook.   Still, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Tuesday that a European import ban on Russian oil is in the works. France has been calling for a ban on Russian oil for some time now. German parliamentarians last week announced that a majority in the Bundestag is in favour of an oil embargo against Russia. Berlin has been cautious until now because Germany is very dependent on that oil. Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has called for a boycott of Russian oil several times. The European Union has introduced a package of sanctions against Russia becau...
Former Minister: Russia’s Economy Shrinks Largest Since 1994
Business, News, Russia

Former Minister: Russia’s Economy Shrinks Largest Since 1994

The Russian economy is heading for a contraction of more than 10 percent this year. That would be the biggest drop in the gross domestic product (GDP) since the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, said former finance minister Alexei Kudrin.   He currently heads the Russian Court of Auditors and is Minister of Finance from 2000 to 2011. Russia is struggling with rising inflation, partly due to the sanctions for the invasion of Ukraine. In addition, there is a capital flight, the massive transfer of assets across borders. The sanctions against the country also mean that Russia faces a debt crisis. According to Kudrin, the Russian ministries of economy and finance are currently working on new forecasts. He tells the Russian news agency RIA that the contraction will ...
HP Buys Video Conferencing Specialist Poly
Business, News, Technology

HP Buys Video Conferencing Specialist Poly

HP Inc wants to respond to the trend towards more home working and is investing about three billion pounds in Poly, which makes headsets and webcams, among other things.   Poly is the current name of Plantronics, which renamed itself in 2018 after it acquired Polycom. You know the company mainly for its professional headsets and web cameras that are used in many large companies. The takeover, therefore, seems to have been mainly prompted by the rise of more homework and hybrid office work in that area. HP has auctioned $3.3 billion for the company and says it sees a large growth market in Poly's portfolio, which is a nice extension of the printers and desktops that HP Inc already makes. According to a survey by HP, 75% of office workers continue to invest in their home office "to...
Trade In Nickel on London Stock Exchange Shut Down
Business, News, UK

Trade In Nickel on London Stock Exchange Shut Down

Trading in Nickel was halted on Tuesday on the metal exchange in London. Bloomberg news agency reported that trading would endure suspension for the rest of the day.   Earlier in the day, the nickel price had broken the $100,000 per ton mark for the first time.   Investors fear that Russia will no longer be able to export its production due to sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine.
Facebook is No Longer Growing
Business, News, Technology

Facebook is No Longer Growing

Social platform users are in decline for the first time in recent history. The share price has also fallen sharply. What is going on?   On the stock exchange in New York, the share of Facebook parent Meta Platforms fell by 23 percent in the so-called after-hours trading. It is about the first time since the IPO ten years ago that the share has not increased in value every year, with one exception. So that immediately drops 23% is unprecedented. As a result, the company was (temporarily) worth about $ 200 billion less in one fell swoop. The fall in prices follows troubling messages for shareholders during the presentation of the quarterly figures of Meta. For example, it is the first time that the number of monthly users of Facebook has dropped. That number has fallen from 1.930 bil...
Brexit Attracts A Lot of British Companies to Flanders
Business, Europe, News, UK

Brexit Attracts A Lot of British Companies to Flanders

2021 was a full year in terms of foreign investment in Flanders. Thanks to Brexit, there was a remarkable amount of investment from the United Kingdom.   Flanders Investment and Trade, the agency that attracts and guides foreign investors, can announce record figures. International companies launched 295 new investment projects in Flanders last year. In addition, they announced 6,233 additional jobs. Traditionally, American companies are the largest investors in Flanders. Only last year - in full corona crisis - they had to leave the first place to the Netherlands. But this year, America is again number 1, with 64 files representing a quarter of the total number of investment projects. The British are in second place, with 49 investment projects accounting for a market share of al...
US Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Resigns After Reports of Dubious Stock Market Transactions
Business, News, US

US Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Resigns After Reports of Dubious Stock Market Transactions

Richard Clarida, the deputy chairman of the US central bank, is stepping down shortly before the end of his term due to reports of dubious stock market transactions. He will step down Friday, the Federal Reserve reported Monday.   Clarida has been the Fed's vice-chairman since late 2018. His term normally expires at the end of January. Clarida has come under fire for the past year over private stock market operations in 2020, as markets collapsed due to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, the Fed was gearing up to commit major resources to contain the Covid crisis. According to a report by The New York Times, Clarida had bought an equity fund the day before an influential decision by the Fed to intervene in the markets. As a result, prices rose again. Clarida had previously sta...
Largest Producer Sees Condom Use Fall by 40 Percent Since the Start of the Corona Crisis
Business, Malaysia, News

Largest Producer Sees Condom Use Fall by 40 Percent Since the Start of the Corona Crisis

The world's largest producer of condoms, Malaysian company Karex, says the use of its products has fallen by 40 percent since the corona pandemic.   The company is trying to make up for that with other products. For example, it will also make medical gloves, writes the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. Karex CEO Goh Miah Kiat sees the closure of hotels and the sex industry during the pandemic as the reason for declining condom use. In addition, several governments have stopped campaigns to distribute condoms. Karex makes one-fifth of all condoms in the world. Initially, the company thought that condom sales would rise sharply due to the lockdowns. Instead, Karex makes condoms for brands such as Durex and distributes its own products. It makes 5 billion condoms a year and exports them to ...
Amazon Under Fire for Tornado Deaths in Warehouse: They Prioritize Productivity Over Human Lives
Business, News

Amazon Under Fire for Tornado Deaths in Warehouse: They Prioritize Productivity Over Human Lives

Amazon is under fire because a slew of tornadoes in the US state of Illinois destroyed a department store and killed six people. The relatives wondered about the procedure followed when it became clear that a potentially dangerous storm was on the way.   How quickly did executives at the Amazon department store in Edwardsville intervene when it became clear that a devastating tornado was on the way? That is the question that some relatives of the six fatalities, who died when the roof collapsed, are asking themselves. One of them is Rachel Clayton, who lost her brother in the storm. "This would never have happened if they put human lives above productivity," she wrote in a Facebook post. "Everyone knows that Amazon only cares about that. If the company had immediately rescued all e...