Monarch, HSBC, Microsoft: Business news in brief, Tuesday 27 September 2016
|
Version 0 of 1. The owner of Monarch Airlines is in talks with several interested parties about a potential takeover of the carrier as it prepares to throw it a multimillion-pound lifeline. Greybull Capital is understood to be in discussions with Chinese firm HNA Group, the company behind Hainan Airlines, about a potential deal, with others thought to be waiting in the wings. Monarch was forced to deny “negative speculation” over the weekend that it is in financial trouble, and sources close to the situation confirmed that the airline is in no immediate danger of going bust. A spokesman for Monarch said: “Over the weekend, there has been negative speculation about Monarch's financial health. Our flights are operating as normal, carrying Monarch passengers as scheduled. “To weather tougher market conditions and to fund its ongoing growth, Monarch expects to announce a significant investment from its stakeholders in the coming days.” Greybull, which acquired a controlling stake in Monarch in 2014, is thought to be finalising details of a cash injection over the coming days. Part of the money is expected to go towards helping pay for a new fleet of 30 Boeing MAX 8s. The firm booked a £19.2m pre-tax profit in the 12 months to the end of October 2015 following a £57.3m loss a year earlier, according to accounts filed at Companies House. But aviation analyst Alex Macheras told the Press Association: “Out of all the carriers we have in the UK it wouldn't surprise me if Monarch were to declare bankruptcy, purely because we've known that they've been in such a fragile state for so long.” AP Governments worldwide should pass new laws to facilitate the sharing of information between themselves and the private sector in order to better combat financial crime, HSBC's top lawyer told a banking conference in Geneva on Monday. “Put simply, the way we do financial crime compliance is outdated,” Stuart Levey, chief legal officer at HSBC told the annual Sibos financial conference. Levey, who was under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US treasury department from 2004 to 2011, called on the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force to set far-reaching global standards to help banks share information with governments and vice-versa. National secrecy and privacy laws often prevent such sharing, Levey said, hindering cross-border efforts to stop illicit money flows. “...data privacy and bank secrecy restrictions are increasingly tough in a number of countries,” Levey said, without naming which countries he was referring to. HSBC is among a number of major European banks fined and criticized in recent years by US authorities for failing to adequately prevent money laundering. The bank paid $1.9bn as part of a global settlement in 2012 for failing to stop drug cartels from pumping at least $800m through the bank. Levey said all countries should create information-sharing authorities similar to that which exist in the United States under the PATRIOT act and in Britain via the Joint Money Laundering Intelligence Task Force, established by Prime Minister Theresa May when she was Home Secretary. Levey said failure to promote better solutions would lead to the worsening of the current problem whereby banks exit riskier business areas for fear of financial penalties, excluding some legitimate businesses such as charities from the system. Reuters Microsoft is joining with Adobe to offer more marketing products via the cloud, the software giant said yesterday. With the partnership, Adobe will make Microsoft’s Azure platform the preferred vehicle for offering Adobe’s cloud-based marketing and creative services, the companies said in a statement. At the same time, Microsoft will make Adobe’s marketing platform the favored service for its cloud-based customer software. Both Microsoft and Adobe — an early pioneer in the shift to the cloud — are trying to boost sales of their cloud offerings, where subscription-based services can be more lucrative than traditional installed software. The partnership allows them to join forces in opposition to Salesforce.com Inc., which competes with Adobe for cloud-based marketing customers and is both a Microsoft rival in customer software and a Microsoft partner in other areas. In the quarter ended 30 June, Microsoft reported revenue from Azure doubled in the period. Satya Nadella, well into his third year at the helm of the world’s biggest software company, has been reorienting Microsoft’s business around cloud and productivity services to fuel growth as traditional software sales shrink. Annualised revenue from commercial cloud products was more than $12.1bn, a number that Microsoft has pledged will reach $20bn by fiscal 2018. PA Shell Nigeria is refusing to confirm a report by Niger Delta militants that they have bombed its Bonny oil pipeline in the south, crippling its exports. Friday night's bombing breaks a month-long ceasefire between militant groups and the government and comes days after repairs from an earlier attack had allowed exports to resume. Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo says he cannot comment on the incident. The Niger Delta Avengers say its attack is “only a wake-up call” responding to a clampdown by security forces that it says violated the ceasefire. The military has reported arresting at least two Avenger commanders last week. The ceasefire began as the two sides tried to negotiate an end to attacks, which the government says have halted 40 per cent of oil production and causing a recession. AP Dubai Airports is boosting the number of specialised facilities to handle Airbus A380 planes at the Middle East's busiest airport as hometown carrier Emirates grows its fleet of the double-decker aircraft. The firm said Monday it plans to add 10 more A380 gates with air bridges at Dubai International Airport's Concourse C. That will leave it with a world record 47 gates designed for the mammoth aircraft. The government-backed airport operator plans to complete the project by 2018 at an undisclosed cost. It's part of plans to boost capacity at the airport to 118m passengers by 2023. Dubai International is the world's third-busiest airport, and handles more international passenger traffic than any other. Emirates is by far the world's largest A380 operator. AP Protesters shouted insults at Rodrigo Rato, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, as he and 64 others entered court for a trial over the alleged misuse of corporate credit cards at a Spanish bank. Prosecutors are seeking a 4 year jail term for Rato, 67, who headed Bankia group between 2010 and 2012. The court says investigations indicate there was fraudulent administration and misappropriation of millions of euros of bank funds by the accused in the use of the “opaque” credit cards for irregular and undeclared expenses between 2003 and 2012. The trial started Monday but questioning of the accused will begin Friday. Rato was IMF chief from 2004 to 2007 and a leading figure in Spain's acting ruling Popular Party from 1996 to 2004. AP Pfizer will not split into two publicly traded companies, a decision that, at least for now, ends Wall Street speculation over the drugmaker's future. The company believes it is best positioned to maximize shareholder value in its current form, but said Monday that it's reserving the right to split in the future if the situation changes. The maker of Viagra and the pain treatment Lyrica has been talking about a split for several years, thinking that two companies might grow faster than one. But the chances of the split actually taking place began to fade over the summer due to rising sales for key new drugs from Pfizer and rising prospects for its drugs under development. AP Audi, Volkswagen’s most profitable division, lost its second development chief in the wake of the German automaker’s emissions-cheating scandal after Stefan Knirsch stepped down with immediate effect. Knirsch, 50, is leaving the luxury-car maker in “agreement with the supervisory board,” the company said Monday in a statement. The executive, who previously ran the brand’s motor and transmission development, served as Audi’s top engineer for less than 10 months. The Volkswagen unit didn’t specify the reasons for Knirsch’s sudden departure. Audi, a critical incubator for technology at Volkswagen, has been a focal point of investigations over the origins of the crisis in recent weeks. Issues with US regulators over 3-liter diesel engines that were developed by Audi remain unresolved, even after a settlement over smaller motors was reached this summer. Bloomberg |