BERLIN, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Canada's Rock Tech Lithium (RCK.V) plans to build a converter plant in Brandenburg, the German state surrounding Berlin, to make battery-grade lithium hydroxide for electric vehicles, the state's energy ministry and the company said on Monday.The plant will be in the town of Guben, a roughly 90-minute drive from where Tesla (TSLA.O) is building its gigafactory, which...Read More
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar soared to its highest in nearly three years versus the Japanese yen on Monday as investors remained confident the U.S. Federal Reserve will announce a tapering of its massive bond-buying next month despite softer U.S. payrolls figures.Traders shrugged off Friday’s mostly lacklustre jobs report, pushing U.S. bond yields higher. The yen, which is known fo...Read More
WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - The debt burden of the world's low-income countries rose 12% to a record $860 billion in 2020 as countries responded to the COVID-19 crisis with massive fiscal, monetary, and financial stimulus packages, the World Bank said in a report released Monday.World Bank President David Malpass said the report showed a dramatic increase in the debt vulnerabilities facing low-...Read More
ATLANTA, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Global Payments Inc (GPN.N) CEO Jeff Sloan said in an interview he would be open to a large acquisition again, two years after acquiring peer TSYS in a $21.5 billion all-stock deal, while continuing to chase small bolt-on purchases to bolster growth."I certainly see deals as big as TSYS in our future," Sloan, who has led the Atlanta-based payments processor since 2013...Read More
Oct 8 (Reuters) - The job market recovery for U.S. women faced a setback in September, much as it did about a year ago after many school districts switched to online learning. But the drop-off in the number of women working or looking for a job last month was much smaller than in 2020 as more schools reopened this year.The data, included in the monthly U.S. employment report here released by the...Read More
Oct 11 (Reuters) -China's major copper smelters in September kept outputflatmonth on month, as maintenance and curbs on power usageprevented them from making more metal and cashing in on highertreatment charges, Antaike said on Monday. The 22 smelters surveyed by Antaike churned out 768,300tonnesof refined copper cathode last month, versus 767,600 tonnes inAugust and up 3.8% year on year, the stat...Read More
WASHINGTON, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Data-rigging allegations against International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva were set to loom over the opening of week-long IMF-World Bank annual meetings on Monday as the Fund's executive board failed to conclude its review after yet another marathon meeting.The IMF board met on Sunday with Georgieva and the law firm that claims she pressured...Read More
Oct 11 (Reuters) - Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N) said on Monday it has applied for U.S. emergency use authorization for its tablet to treat mild-to-moderate patients of COVID-19, putting it on course to become the first oral antiviral medication for the disease.An authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could help change clinical management of COVID-19 as the pill can be taken at h...Read More
LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - China has won the artificial intelligence battle with the United States and is heading towards global dominance because of its technological advances, the Pentagon's former software chief told the Financial Times.China, the world's second largest economy, is likely to dominate many of the key emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, synthetic biology...Read More
Oct 11 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency trading firm Copper.co said on Monday former British finance minister Philip Hammond has joined it as a senior adviser to help with strategy as the London-based company expands its global footprint.Copper.co provides tools and services to acquire, trade, and store cryptocurrencies. The company completed an extended $75 million funding round in June, led by investo...Read More
WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - The White House is considering a wide ranging oversight of the cryptocurrency market to combat the growing threat of ransomware and other cyber crime, a spokeswoman said on Friday."The NSC and NEC are coordinating across the interagency to look at ways we can ensure that cryptocurrency and other digital assets are not used to prop up bad actors, including ransomware c...Read More
(Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp on Monday named long-time finance chief Domenic Dell'Osso as its chief executive officer, months after ousting former top boss Doug Lawler.Dell'Osso joined Chesapeake in 2008 and was appointed CFO in 2010. He takes the reins from Chairman Mike Wichterich, who has served as interim CEO since Lawler's departure in April.Once the second-largest U.S. natural gas prod...Read More
STOCKHOLM, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Economists David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens won the 2021 Nobel economics prize on Monday for pioneering "natural experiments" to show real-world economic impacts in areas from the U.S. fast-food sector to migration from Castro-era Cuba.Unlike in medicine or other sciences, economists cannot conduct rigidly controlled clinical trials. Instead, natural experi...Read More
(Adds quotes from MTN CEO, company's profits and dividend policy)KAMPALA, Oct 11 (Reuters) - MTN Uganda said on Monday it had set the price of its initial public offering for the sale of a 20% stake at 200 Ugandan shillings ($0.0558) per share, as the East African nation's biggest telecoms operator launched the country's biggest IPO."The MTN IPO is officially open," MTN Uganda Chief Executive Wim...Read More
(Adds context, further sourcing)Oct 11 (Reuters) - The European Union hired banks on Monday to sell its first ever green bond, memos from two lead managers seen by Reuters showed, taking its first step towards becoming a major force in the environmentally friendly debt market.The 15-year green bond, due February 2037, will raise 12 billion euros ($13.87 billion), the memos said, making it the larg...Read More
CAIRO, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Egyptian payments firm e-finance for Digital and Financial Investments has raised its institutional share offering to 23.5% of the company's total eventual capital after strong demand, one of the managers of the offering said on Monday.The state-controlled firm is offering shares to institutional investors in a sale that closes at 15:00 GMT on Monday. A smaller one-week o...Read More
BEIJING (Reuters) -The Shanghai Stock Exchange has put the brakes on scores of upcoming initial public offerings, including Syngenta's planned $10 billion flotation, slated to be the world's largest this year, in a move it blamed on outdated financial data.Though it's not unusual for Chinese regulators to seek updated financial information from IPO candidates at the start of each quarter, the move...Read More
SHANGHAI/LONDON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Chinese property firms' bonds were hit with another wrecking ball on Monday as Evergrande (3333.HK) looked set to miss its third round of bond payments in as many weeks and rival Modern Land became the latest scrambling to delay deadlines.High-yield Chinese bond markets were being routed once again as fears about fast-spreading contagion in the $5 trillion sec...Read More
LONDON (Reuters) - Stagflation jitters stunted growth in global shares on Monday, while bets that major central banks will tighten monetary policy pushed up bond yields and lifted the dollar to a near three-year peak against the Japanese yen.Brent oil prices extended their bull run to reach ground last visited in late 2018, with gains across the energy complex stoking inflation concerns."Higher en...Read More
Oct 11 (Reuters) - Chinese developer Sinic Holdings said on Monday it would likely default on its 2021 bonds, as it does not have enough financial resources to the make payments by their maturity date. (Reporting by Arundhati Dutta in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens) Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The aut...Read More