WORLD
Ant to buy back shares at 70% lower valuation than at IPO
Each investor would be allowed to sell up to 7.6% of their equity rather than cashing out completely, according to a person familiar with the matter, asking not be identified discussing private details of the arrangement.
WORLD
Yellen’s China trip offers economic guardrails in tense rivalry
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen struck a positive but pragmatic tone during a press conference capping a four-day visit to Beijing.
TECHNOLOGY
Apple plans a slow, appointment-only rollout of its $3,500 Vision Pro
Apple will also sell the Vision Pro through its US web store in early 2024 before expanding online elsewhere. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the rollout.
BUSINESS
Bangladeshi banks plan India Rupee transactions as reserves fall
Eastern Bank, which opened rupee accounts with the State Bank of India and ICICI Bank, will announce the plan for rupee trade on July 11. The other Bangladeshi lender offering the same service is the state-run Sonali Bank.
BUSINESS
Byju’s crisis prompts top India venture firm to shift strategy
Perceived corporate governance lapses are sending shockwaves through the South Asian nation’s fledgling startup economy. Byju’s, once India’s most valuable upstart, is in turmoil after missing a deadline on financial statements, skipping payments on a $1.2 billion loan and losing its auditor and some of its board members.
WORLD
Meta’s Threads app draws millions seeking a Twitter alternative
On Threads, people can post text and links and reply to or repost messages from others. The app will let users port over their existing follower lists and account names from Instagram, Meta’s photo and video-sharing app that counts major brands, celebrities and creators among its more than 2 billion users.
BUSINESS
India-dominated clearing union moves toward Rupee settlement
All the members of the Asian Clearing Union, which includes all South Asian countries as well as Iran and Myanmar are on board with the plan, said Khaing Shwe War, director general at the Central Bank of Myanmar.
BUSINESS
BofA stocks indicator sees S&P 500 surging 16% in next 12 months
BofA’s Sell Side Indicator, which tracks sentiment toward US equities on a monthly basis based on asset-allocation recommendations provided to the bank and Bloomberg, rose 0.33 percentage point to nearly 53% in June.
WORLD
How Threads features differ from Instagram and Twitter
On Threads, pre-existing Instagram users can access a “text-based conversation app.” It resembles Twitter in its format, dynamics and even name, — “threads” on Twitter are a series of connected tweets from one account. Not surprisingly, Meta has been open about challenging Musk’s most recent acquisition, with Zuckerberg claiming that “hasn’t nailed it.”
WORLD
AI seen fueling Microsoft to $3 trillion value: Morgan Stanley
The analysts, led by Keith Weiss, named Microsoft their top pick among large cap software companies, and said that it is the best placed in the sector to benefit from the growth of AI.
BUSINESS
India's largest lender SBI rejigs senior leadership to boost dominance: Report
Government-run State Bank of India is fortifying its dominance at a time when a merger between HDFC Bank Ltd.
BUSINESS
Tata weighs buying Temasek’s stake in Pay TV Platform, sources say
Tata Group is contemplating whether to delay the planned Tata Play listing because of market conditions, the people said.
BUSINESS
Adani Green weighs raising $1.5 billion in funding
Billionaire Gautam Adani's renewable energy unit's board is set to discuss plans to raise funds from institutional investors on Thursday, the firm said earlier this week in a stock exchange filing.
BUSINESS
BlackRock wants to make it cheaper to trade Bitcoin, Larry Fink says
Bitcoin rose more than 12% in June alone and is up more than 80% year-to-date.
BUSINESS
Fed minutes reveal divisions over decision to pause in June
The minutes also showed that a large majority of policymakers — “almost all” — agreed that more tightening will likely be needed this year
BUSINESS
Instagram unveils Threads app, a threat to Musk’s Twitter
As of the Wednesday launch of Threads, Twitter is still limiting how many tweets per day users can view — a measure Musk called “temporary” in order to fend off data scrapers and bots.
INDIA
India increases Africa lending in the race to counter China
Forty-two African nations received about $32 billion or 38% of all credit extended by India in the last decade — just a few percentage points below its neighbors, Harsha Bangari, the managing director of India’s Export Import Bank said in an interview.
WORLD
Xi Jinping urges open supply chains after curbing exports of key metals
The world’s No. 2 economy wants to work with nations to “reject the moves of setting up barriers, decoupling and severing supply chains,” Xi said in a virtual speech to Shanghai Cooperation Organization leaders.
WORLD
Half of fake watches are Rolex Replicas, Watchfinder CEO says
As many as 10% of the watches received from sellers last year were determined to be fakes during an authentication process, according to Watchfinder Chief Executive Officer, Arjen van de Vall.
TRENDS
Monday was the hottest day ever as global temperatures rise
The average worldwide temperature was 17C (63F), just above the previous record of 16.9C reached in August 2016, according to data from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. The new high underscores the extremity of 2023’s summer in the northern hemisphere.
WORLD
US to curb China access to Cloud Services like Amazon, WSJ says
Washington is considering requiring cloud providers to seek government permission before serving Chinese firms that employ such platforms to train AI models, the Journal reported.
BUSINESS
Markets roar approval for embattled South Asian economies
Optimism about a turnaround in crisis-ridden Sri Lanka and Pakistan saw stock gauges in both countries test their best intraday gains in more than a decade.
BUSINESS
Google set to hire former Apple executive as India policy head
Sreenivasa Reddy, currently a senior engineering executive at Microsoft Corp., is likely to join Google toward the end of this year, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private.
WORLD
Xi Jinping’s metal curbs risk backfiring as G-7 seeks China alternative
The new export licensing system unveiled late Monday highlighted China’s dominant position in global production of gallium and germanium, which are used to make chips, electric cars and telecommunications equipment.
