Split (1)

train · 730k rows

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.

id stringlengths 32 32	url stringlengths 31 1.58k	title stringlengths 0 1.02k	contents stringlengths 92 1.17M
5a8cc8224e077873a3ddbe4abed40086	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ftc-twitter/ftc-probes-twitter-over-ad-targeting-practices-idUSKCN24Z2SN	FTC probes Twitter over ad targeting practices	FTC probes Twitter over ad targeting practices By Reuters Staff1 Min Read FILE PHOTO: The Twitter logo and stock prices are shown above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after the opening bell in New York, U.S., January 23, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is probing Twitter Inc TWTR.N for alleged violations of a law that prevents the social network from using personal data provided for security purposes to target ads, the company disclosed on Monday. In a regulatory filing, Twitter said it received a draft FTC complaint alleging violations between 2013 and 2019. Twitter said it estimates probable loss of between $150 million and $250 million in settlement charges, and has already recorded $150 million of that estimate in accrual related to the allegations. Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika SyamnathOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
ff382065670cd21b7e6e419dbc0d50b4	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fujitsu-divestiture-idUSKCN1B12JI	Fujitsu to sell mobile phone operations: Nikkei	Fujitsu to sell mobile phone operations: Nikkei By Reuters Staff1 Min Read A logo of Fujitsu is pictured at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) JAPAN 2016 at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan, October 3, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/File Photo (Reuters) - Fujitsu Ltd 6702.T is looking to offload its mobile operations as the Japanese information technology company faces stiff competition from bigger rivals in a highly lucrative mobile phone market, the Nikkei business daily reported. The company, which spun off its mobile phone operations into a separate company last February, has drawn interest from investment funds including Tokyo-based Polaris Capital Group and Britain's CVC Capital Partners Ltd [CVC.UL], as well as Chinese personal computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd 0992.HK, the Japanese newspaper added. First-round bidding could open as soon as September, and is expected to bring offers in the tens of billions of yen (hundreds of millions of dollars), Nikkei reported. Tokyo-based Fujitsu would stop developing and manufacturing mobile phones, but looks to keep a minority stake in the business and keep its mobile phone brand alive, the report said. (This story corrects attribution in first paragraph.) Reporting by Laharee Chatterjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen CoatesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
3da3face7c992207f02a5b0c2a400769	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-full-truck-alliance-fundraising/chinese-startup-full-truck-valued-at-nearly-12-billion-after-softbank-led-round-sources-idUKKBN2840G8?edition-redirect=uk	Chinese startup Full Truck valued at nearly $12 billion after SoftBank-led round - sources	Chinese startup Full Truck valued at nearly $12 billion after SoftBank-led round - sources By Kane Wu, Julie Zhu2 Min Read HONG KONG (Reuters) - Full Truck Alliance has reached a valuation of nearly $12 billion after the Chinese truck services startup raised $1.7 billion in a new funding round, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The fundraising comes as the truck-hailing platform is planning an offshore initial public offering (IPO) as early as next year, the sources said, with one of them adding that the venue is likely to be New York. The Chinese company on Tuesday announced the completion of the fundraising, which was led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, Permira and Fidelity. Full Truck Alliance, the result of a 2017 merger between truck service platforms Yunmanman and Huochebang, connects drivers with truck owners and their mutual client base. Existing investors, including All-Stars Investment, GGV Capital, Hillhouse Capital Group, Tencent Holding and Yunfeng Capital also joined the funding round, the company said. Full Truck Alliance, often described as China’s “Uber for trucks”, did not immediately respond to Reuters queries on its valuation and IPO plans. The sources declined to be identified as the information is confidential. The company, which has over 10 million registered truck drivers and over 5 million truck owners on its platform, plans to use the funds for technology, service and business model innovations. On-demand logistics service in China is crowded, with Manbang, Huolala and Kuaigou as market leaders. Didi is also hiring van drivers for logistics service. Bloomberg News had earlier reported that the funding round at the Chinese company valued it at about $12 billion after investment. Reporting by Kane Wu and Julie Zhu in Hong Kong; additional reporting by Yilei Sun in Beijing; Editing by Ramakrishnan M. and Sherry Jacob-PhillipsOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
3916e68262aeca7cf571ee92f6891ded	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funding-circle-ipo-idUKKCN1M80K1?edition-redirect=uk	Funding Circle makes lackluster $2 billion London debut in test of demand	Funding Circle makes lackluster $2 billion London debut in test of demand By Dasha Afanasieva3 Min Read LONDON (Reuters) - Funding Circle FCH.L struggled to shine on its 1.5 billion pound ($2 billion) market debut on Friday as the British peer-to-peer lending platform tested investor appetite for both large listings and financial technology firms. FILE PHOTO: Signage is seen outside the entrance of the London Stock Exchange in London, Britain. Aug 23, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo Although shares in the company backed with a 150 million pound investment by Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen initially rose, they slipped during morning trading to below their launch price of 440 pence per share. Funding Circle, which was launched in 2010, is the first of Britain’s new breed of peer-to-peer financial technology firms to launch an initial public offering (IPO) and the flotation is being closely watched as an indicator of investor demand. The IPO, which valued Funding Circle at around 1.5 billion pounds, is expected to help to set the tone for a string of large listings in Europe. London is seen as one of Europe’s financial technology hubs and bankers have been eagerly eyeing the flotation of firms such as money transfer service Transferwise - a challenger to banks which charge high fees for sending money abroad. Based on its offering size and pricing, which was set at the bottom end of the 420-530 pence per share range set originally by the company and its advisers, Funding Circle raised around 440 million pounds on the London Stock Exchange. While the stock opened in London at 460 pence per share, it then slipped and was trading at 439 pence at 0922 GMT. ‘INVESTOR DIALOGUE’ Funding Circle’s online lending platform enables investors including banks, asset managers, insurers, government-backed entities and funds to lend to small and medium-sized businesses in Britain, the United States, Germany and the Netherlands. The company said that in the six months to the end of June it had an adjusted loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of 16.3 million pounds on revenue of 63 million pounds. Funding Circle's flotation is a boost to the London Stock Exchange LSE.L, which has been looking to attract large technology firms for whom New York is often more enticing because of its track record of technology floats. Cyber security firm Avast traded lower when it went public in May 2018, while Alfa Financial ALFAAL.L, which provides software for the asset finance industry, rose sharply on its May 2017 listing. A banker working on Funding Circle’s debut said the deal would set the tone for others: “Once you get to three or four, it begins to be a track record and it opens a dialogue with investors.” Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva; Editing by David Goodman and Alexander SmithOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
75eb15e092e44db7cc364c9fc54d182a	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funding-startups-idUSKCN0ZV0ED	Venture capital investments rebound for tech startups	Venture capital investments rebound for tech startups By Heather Somerville4 Min Read SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Venture capital investments in startups rebounded in the second quarter, as a general stock market recovery helped restore confidence, according to a new report published on Friday. Slideshow ( 2 images ) Investors plowed $15.3 billion into venture-backed startups in the second quarter of this year, a 20.5 percent increase over the $12.7 billion invested in the first quarter, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. The report’s conclusions are based on data from Thomson Reuters. “There was a bit of a pause in the first quarter when the public markets took a beating,” said Sean Cunningham, managing director of Trident Capital Cybersecurity. “The public markets are back. Everyone is bullish.” Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] and messaging app Snapchat boosted the quarter, raising a combined total of $4.8 billion, or nearly a third of total investments. In terms of total dollars, second-quarter investments outpaced all but three quarters since 2000, the height of the dot-com boom, suggesting that despite widespread concerns over valuations and a dormant market for tech initial public offerings, venture capitalists and institutional investors are not shying away from writing big checks. “It’s not heading straight to the moon and it’s not going off a cliff,” said Tom Ciccolella, who leads the venture capital practice for PwC, a consulting firm. Even as total funding was up sharply, the number of deals was down by about 5 percent, falling to 961 from 1,011 during the first quarter. “We are being more selective,” said Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and faculty adviser to the university’s venture capital fund. “We’re not going to invest in everything that says ‘We are the Uber of X’ or ‘the Facebook of Y.’” Indeed, the bar for companies seeking venture capital funding is higher than it was a year ago. After a rash of startups that had received huge funding rounds over the last year failed to reach growth targets or proved to be unsustainable businesses, investors pulled back. The global stock selloff last summer and hammering of tech stocks early this year increased anxiety. Valuations are generally lower this year, with venture capitalists reporting valuations dropping by 30 percent to 50 percent, and the lower prices are helping to get deals done. The involvement of mutual funds and sovereign wealth funds continues to drive huge deals. The biggest deal of the quarter was Uber’s $3.5 billion round from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, followed by Snapchat’s $1.3 billion round from Fidelity Investments and T. Rowe Price, among others. It was the first time that two venture-backed startups in the same quarter raised billion-dollar-plus investments, according to PwC. Uber’s $1.2 billion financing in the second quarter of 2014 was the first round of that size on record. Venture capitalists continue to favor software startups, which took in $8.7 billion in funding, a 70 percent increase from the previous quarter. Other industries saw a pullback. Investments in financial services fell 25 percent to $601 million, likely a response to recent struggles at lending platforms Prosper Marketplace and Lending Club. “We’ve gone pretty cold on these lending platforms,” Gordon said. Reporting by Heather Somerville; Editing by Sue Horton and Bill RigbyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
03d08121e3bacf612eeebaf1de8a86ad	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-bankofamerica-survey-idUSKCN10R1MF?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FbusinessNews+%28Business+News%29	Investors cut cash, load up on EM and U.S. stocks: BAML	Investors cut cash, load up on EM and U.S. stocks: BAML By Claire Milhench3 Min Read LONDON (Reuters) - Global investors have cut their cash holdings sharply and added to emerging market and U.S. stocks in August as global growth expectations have rebounded, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) survey indicated on Tuesday. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., July 28, 2016. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid - RTSK416 Cash levels dropped to 5.4 percent from a 15-year high of 5.8 percent in July, the bank’s monthly poll of fund managers showed, as risk appetite picked up. A net 23 percent of investors now expect the global economy to improve over the next 12 months, an optimism reflected in the overall equity allocation recovering to a net overweight of 9 percent. This was up from a net 1 percent underweight last month - the first underweight in four years. Among the biggest beneficiaries of this switch were emerging market stocks, where the allocation rose to a net 13 percent overweight - the highest level since September 2014. This was up from 10 percent last month. Emerging market equities .MSCIEF have rallied hard since January, and are up over 15 percent year-to-date. BAML said central banks’ creation of a low and stable rates environment was a big factor driving the optimism. Only 13 percent of respondents expect the negative interest rate policies pursued by the Bank of Japan or the European Central Bank to end within the next 12 months. In addition, fewer managers are taking out protection against a sharp fall in equity markets in the next three months, suggesting they think the global rally has legs. “Investors are less bearish, but sentiment has yet to shift from ‘fear’ to ‘greed’. As such, we expect stock prices to rise further until bonds throw another tantrum,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BAML. The allocation to U.S. equities swelled to its highest since January 2015, at a net 11 percent overweight, but the allocation to euro zone stocks remained low at a net 1 percent overweight. The UK equity allocation improved slightly to a net 21 percent underweight from 27 percent underweight last month. Investors had cut their UK exposure sharply after Britain’s shock vote to leave the European Union. The outcome of the referendum wiped billions off share prices, pushed sterling to a 31-year low against the dollar and raised fears of a recession in Britain. Perhaps concerned that the Brexit vote had set a precedent for other EU members, 22 percent of poll respondents said EU disintegration was now the biggest tail risk haunting global financial markets. This was followed by renewed Chinese devaluation, chosen by 18 percent, and U.S. inflation, picked by 16 percent. A total of 173 participants with some $518 billion under management responded to the poll, which was carried out between August 5-11. Editing by Robin PomeroyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
17c9695bbe94b04608f22b487817bc6b	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-commodities/broad-basket-commods-funds-post-largest-net-inflow-in-seven-years-idUSKCN1FZ1DX?feedType=RSS&feedName=PersonalFinance&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+news%2Fwealth+%28Reuters+Wealth+News%29	Broad-basket commods funds post largest net inflow in seven years	Broad-basket commods funds post largest net inflow in seven years By Jennifer Ablan3 Min Read NEW YORK (Reuters) - Financial advisors and smaller retail investors, wary that inflation may be brewing again, ratcheted up their bets on funds in Morningstar’s Commodities Broad Basket fund category in January, the largest net inflow of cash since March 2011. The commodities category attracted $1.9 billion last month, compared with negative outflow of $186 million in December and cash inflow of $319.5 million in November, according to Morningstar data. Inflation fears gained traction this week when the U.S. Labor Department reported rising consumer and producer prices in January. “The ‘deflationary and disinflationary mindset’ has eroded. Getting out of that mindset is quite helpful to commodities,” Jeffrey Sherman, deputy chief investment officer at DoubleLine, said about the multiyear decline in the broad commodities market which bottomed in January 2016. The U.S. Consumer Price Index jumped 0.5 percent in January, well above expectations, the Labor Department said on Wednesday. On Thursday, it said producer prices accelerated, boosted by strong gains in gasoline and healthcare costs. The Labor Department’s producer price index for final demand increased 0.4 percent last month after being unchanged in December. The Broad Basket fund category invests across the breadth of the commodities markets: metals (nickel, copper), energy products (crude oil, heating oil, unleaded gasoline, natural gas) agricultural products (cotton, sugar, soybeans, wheat, live cattle). The demand for commodities has also filtered through hedge funds, which have their highest exposure to commodities since 2012, Credit Suisse reported. Major money managers DoubleLine and Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco) have expressed bullishness around commodities. In a Dec. 5 webcast, DoubleLine chief executive Jeffrey Gundlach, known as Wall Street’s Bond King, told investors commodities were attractive relative to U.S. stocks, which have been in a multiyear bull market. Wall Street had wildly volatile trading last week that pushed the market into correction territory. Since Thursday, the S&P 500 has surged 4.56 percent, its strongest four-session performance since mid-2016. The index remains down about 6 percent from its record high on Jan. 26. [.N] Gundlach also said in December that commodities prices historically have surged late in past economic cycles. Assets of the DoubleLine Strategic Commodity Fund, launched in May 2015, have grown from around $30 million as recently as last December to the current $207 million. Mihir Worah, Pimco’s CIO of asset allocation and real return, has said “we know historically commodities do well in the late stages of an expansion as supply bottlenecks fail to keep up with demand growth.” Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Matthew Lewis and David GregorioOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
8b67271832950ef8d67eb4b1e37bdb29	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-gundlach/doublelines-gundlach-high-yield-market-flashing-yellow-on-recession-idUSKCN1P22FD	DoubleLine's Gundlach: High-yield market flashing 'yellow' on recession	DoubleLine's Gundlach: High-yield market flashing 'yellow' on recession By Jennifer Ablan, Trevor Hunnicutt3 Min Read NEW YORK (Reuters) - The high-yield “junk” bond market, which has been a leading indicator of recessions, is flashing “yellow now,” Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of Doubleline Capital, said on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive and chief investment officer of DoubleLine Capital, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York May 4, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Gundlach, who oversees more than $121 billion of assets under management, said on an investor webcast that the signal “may be ... a false positive,” but “this is something we’re going to have to watch very, very carefully.” Gundlach said the current buy-the-dip mentality reminds him of the complacency that took place in the 2007-2008 credit market right before the great financial crisis. “There’s potential for that here. Because the panic in December was a buying panic - not a selling panic - you never saw the VIX truly spike the way you want for a panic. You want to see that thing over 40. It never made it to 40.” The CBOE volatility index, which is known as the VIX and which is often seen as an investor fear gauge, stands around 20.50 points. Gundlach said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday pivoted from pragmatism to a “Powell Put” - that the Fed under his leadership will act like an options contract to prevent stocks from falling too much. Powell said on Friday that the U.S. central bank “wouldn’t hesitate” to adjust how quickly it lets its balance sheet shrink if it starts to cause problems in financial markets. Powell also said the Fed “will be patient” with monetary policy as it watches how the U.S. economy performs. Since those remarks, the U.S. stock “market has been throwing a party,” Gundlach said. On Friday, when markets were also boosted by a monthly U.S. jobs report that blew past forecasts, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 3.3 percent while the S&P 500 index advanced 3.4 percent. Both the Dow and S&P added to gains Monday and Tuesday. Gundlach said the ballooning U.S. federal government debt is “a completely horrific situation” and that the United States could be at a “tipping point” in a “debt-compounding cycle.” “Are we growing at all or is it all just the increase in debt?” Gundlach asked. Gundlach on Dec. 11 said that the next move in the dollar was lower and that the S&P 500 index would fall below its February 2018 lows. Both predictions turned out to be accurate. The DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund, which Gundlach manages, surpassed 97 percent of its peers in 2018, according to Morningstar data. (This story has been refiled to delete extraneous line) Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
949757e0b73c2301c9f574949bcd8cee	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-gundlach/gundlach-says-strange-environment-to-be-cutting-u-s-corporate-taxes-idUSKBN1DZ381	Gundlach says 'strange environment' to be cutting U.S. corporate taxes	Gundlach says 'strange environment' to be cutting U.S. corporate taxes By Jennifer Ablan3 Min Read NEW YORK (Reuters) - DoubleLine Capital Chief Executive Jeffrey Gundlach, who voted for President Donald Trump, warned on Tuesday that it is a “strange environment” to be cutting U.S. corporate taxes with the economy already in its eighth year of expansion. FILE PHOTO - Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S., May 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid “A tax cut will reduce revenue and it will grow the deficit and therefore, it will probably grow bond supply, and perhaps boost economic growth,” Gundlach said on an investor webcast. “And if it does and the amount, it is going to be bond unfriendly.” In a follow-up interview with Reuters, Gundlach, known on Wall Street as the Bond King, said: “Growth has accelerated already, and the deficit is already going up, so why cut taxes?” DoubleLine manages more than $115 billion in assets, as of Sept. 30. Gundlach on the webcast reiterated his prediction that the benchmark 10-year Treasury could hit 6 percent “come the next presidential election or a year later. “I don’t think it is at all strange to think we can tack on something like 75 basis points, on average, with volatility of course, per year for the next four years or so,” he said. Gundlach predicted the next big move in the U.S. dollar would be down, which is why DoubleLine is still positive on emerging markets. Gundlach said it is “getting very near the end” of the outperformance in U.S. corporate credit debt versus Treasuries and added that quantitative easing has supported risk assets such as corporate credit and high-yield “junk bonds.” “It is going to be very interesting to see how the markets can hang on to the easy gains that were made in 2017,” Gundlach said. “It’s just so far, so good. The Fed has tightened four times, they’ve embarked on quantitative tightening.” On the Federal Reserve, Gundlach said Fed chair Janet Yellen is leaving a “pretty good legacy,” with no financial market crisis. “She got us off of zero (percent) and she started us on the wind down - the quantitative tightening - and so far, nothing has blown up,” Gundlach said. Asked about bitcoin mania, Gundlach told Reuters that he is not at all surprised by it. “It’s a sign of the times. Like the dot coms back in the day,” he said. Gundlach added that he does not own Bitcoin “just like I never bought a dot-com stock back in the day.” Bitcoin powered to a record high of $11,850 on Tuesday. Reporting by Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Diane CraftOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
51329ecd3a7fcca181f6c278f082a23a	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-idUSKBN1AP2H7?il=0	Gundlach's Total Return Bond Fund posts ninth straight month of outflows	Gundlach's Total Return Bond Fund posts ninth straight month of outflows By Jennifer Ablan, Trevor Hunnicutt4 Min Read NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors pulled $200 million from Jeffrey Gundlach’s DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund in July, extending an outflow streak that began in November, according to Morningstar Inc data on Wednesday. Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital, speaks during the Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S., May 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid The fund, managed by Gundlach, a closely watched investor, and DoubleLine Capital LP President Philip Barach, has posted outflows of $3.6 billion so far this year. The fund had total assets under management of $53.61 billion as of the end of July, the research service said. The withdrawals are notable given that other bond funds are swimming in new cash from investors and at a time when the DoubleLine fund’s performance has been strong. Some $203 billion flowed into bond funds in the first half of 2017, and bond funds overall have not recorded a single week of outflows all year, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade group. DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund’s lower-cost institutional shares were up 3.2 percent this year through Tuesday, beating its benchmark, according to data from Thomson Reuters’ Lipper research unit. “Doubleline Total Return and Core Fixed Income have consistently generated stronger performance records than the Lipper peer average, while incurring below average risk,” said Todd Rosenbluth, director of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA, in an email. “Both funds have a top five-star ranking from CFRA Research.” Gundlach, who started discussing his views on Twitter in May, in a tweet early Wednesday said that DoubleLine is a top-ranked fund company by net cash inflows this year through July. Overall, the firm pulled $253 million into its mutual funds and ETFs during July and $2.5 billion this year, ranking 24th of 405 fund families, Morningstar data showed. “Looks to me DBL Funds are growing significantly,” Gundlach wrote on his Twitter account @TruthGundlach. Gundlach, who as chief executive officer at DoubleLine oversees more than $110 billion in assets, is known on Wall Street as the “Bond King.” Last month, Gundlach sounded a bearish tone and told Reuters he expected gold prices to rise. He also said he initiated an options trade designed to profit if market volatility ramped up. The CBOE Volatility Index has spiked from 9.4 on July 21 to 11.1 on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said North Korea “will be met with fire and fury” if the nuclear-armed nation threatens the United States. The U.S. Federal Reserve is already on a path of raising rates and is expected to start unwinding its $4.5 trillion balance sheet this year. The tightening of monetary policy by the Fed and other policymakers globally could erode bond prices. In a recent interview with Reuters, Gundlach said DoubleLine was “trying to focus on our strategy: growing our other funds.” He was referring to the SPDR DoubleLine Total Return Tactical ETF, DoubleLine Core Fixed Income Fund, DoubleLine Shiller Enhanced CAPE, DoubleLine Low Duration Bond Fund, DoubleLine Infrastructure Income Fund and DoubleLine Flexible Income Fund. Those six funds have attracted $5.8 billion this year, according to Morningstar. “We are marketing our other funds and not DBLTX,” Gundlach said. “We are accomplishing exactly what we planned.” DoubleLine Funds President Ron Redell said in an emailed statement that “as our net inflows show, we continue to execute our business objective of manageable growth firmwide, with increasing diversification of our assets under management into our strong-performing line of equity and fixed income strategies.” Gundlach has said repeatedly that he did not want to grow DoubleLine into a monstrous firm. He told Reuters in 2014, when DoubleLine crossed $60 billion in assets under management, that “most people think the definition of success is more. It’s gotta be more all the time. There’s a quality-of-life aspect and a way of maximizing the probability of success.” Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Tom Brown and Leslie AdlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
032a31d20041148bc47c93840dc89ab2	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-idUSKCN0XN2LF	Gundlach says 'reasonable' to start moving into Treasuries	Gundlach says 'reasonable' to start moving into Treasuries By Jennifer Ablan3 Min Read NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, the influential head of DoubleLine Capital, said on Tuesday that investors looking to purchase Treasuries in the wake of the bond market’s sell-off are making a prudent move. Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive and chief investment officer of DoubleLine Capital, speaks at the Sohn Investment Conference in New York, May 5, 2014. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz “I think it is a reasonable strategy to start legging into the Treasury market,” Gundlach said in a telephone interview. U.S. Treasury yields rose on Tuesday, with the benchmark 10-year yield hitting its highest levels in almost five weeks. For its part, the 30-year yield reached its highest since early February at 2.764 percent before retreating to 2.755 percent. “We’ve been buying a little bit today ... we bought a small amount of guaranteed mortgages,” particularly Freddie Mac MBS, Gundlach said. He added that investors who want to purchase equities at this juncture should consider non-U.S. stocks. “They are down more than U.S. stocks. If U.S. equities go higher, it would seem very implausible that other markets would not participate in the rally even more,” Gundlach said. Gundlach, who runs $95 billion at DoubleLine, said he does not expect much from the latest Federal Reserve meeting but does expect somewhat “hawkish” language about the potential for hikes at meetings later this year. Gundlach suggested that a “helicopter money” drop could be the government’s next big monetary and fiscal move to stimulate the U.S. economy. “Helicopter money is going to happen,” he said. He was referring to an idea made popular by U.S. economist Milton Friedman in 1969, who said dropping money out of helicopters for citizens simply to pick up was a sure way to restart the economy and effectively fight deflation. Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, echoed the same idea in February. Last year, Gundlach correctly predicted that oil prices would plunge, junk bonds would live up to their name and China’s slowing economy would pressure emerging markets. In 2014, Gundlach correctly forecast U.S. Treasury yields would fall, not rise as many others had expected. Last month, Gundlach told Reuters that he foresees a “global growth scare” between now and the end of the summer, triggered by a presidential nomination of Donald Trump. Trump’s protectionist policies could mean negative global growth, Gundlach warned. “As he gets the nomination, the markets and investors are going to worry about it more. You will see a downgrading of global growth based on geopolitical risks. You must factor this into your risk-management.” Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Tom BrownOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
31d272b424684c801e2758c9cead12b4	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline/doublelines-gundlach-30-year-u-s-treasury-signals-higher-bond-yields-idUSKCN1ME2NN	DoubleLine's Gundlach: 30-year U.S. Treasury signals higher bond yields	DoubleLine's Gundlach: 30-year U.S. Treasury signals higher bond yields By Jennifer Ablan2 Min Read FILE PHOTO: Jeffrey Gundlach, CEO of DoubleLine Capital LP, presents during the 2018 Sohn Investment Conference in New York City, U.S., April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid NEW YORK (Reuters) - Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of Doubleline Capital, on Thursday said the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond yield has broken above a multiyear base, which should lead to significantly higher yields for financial markets. “As I have been saying, two consecutive closes above 3.25 percent on the benchmark 30-year Treasury means that my statement in July 2016 that we were seeing the low - I said italicized, underlined and in boldface - is now, looking at the charts, thoroughly corroborated,” Gundlach told Reuters. On Thursday, the 30-year Treasury note closed at 3.35 percent, compared with 3.34 percent on Wednesday. “The last man standing was the 30-year, and it has definitively broken above a multiyear base that should over time carry us to significantly higher yields,” Gundlach said. “Also, the curve is steepening a little in this breakout, which is another sign that the situation has changed.” Gundlach, who manages $123 billion, said the stock market in the United States “has started to take notice, and will continue to, particularly if the speed at which rates rise becomes alarming.” Gundlach noted that stocks outside the United States are already down significantly from the Jan. 26, 2018, synchronized high, “which will go down in history as the peak for the global stock market for this cycle.” Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
3add0f745a9ba01833c5fb753aaabcec	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-engagement-antibiotics-idUSKCN0X70YN	Investor group launches campaign to curb antibiotic use in food	Investor group launches campaign to curb antibiotic use in food By Simon Jessop, Martinne Geller, Lisa Baertlein4 Min Read LONDON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fifty four large investors managing 1 trillion pounds ($1.41 trillion) in assets have launched a campaign to curb the use of antibiotics in the meat and poultry used by ten large U.S. and British restaurant groups. McDonalds and JD Wetherspoon were among those to receive a March 15 letter from institutions including Aviva Investors asking them to set a timeline to stop the use of medically important antibiotics in their supply chains. The other eight approached were Domino’s Pizza Group, Brinker International, Darden Restaurants, Mitchells & Butlers, Restaurant Brands International, Restaurant Group, The Wendy’s Company and Yum! Brands. The move follows warnings from the World Health Organization that the world is moving towards a post-antibiotic era in which many infections would no longer be treatable because of the overuse of antibiotics. Eighty percent of antibiotics produced in the United States are given to livestock, the coalition said in a statement, adding that failure to confront their “irresponsible” use threatens both health and investor returns. “These large food companies are key ingredients in the portfolios of most of our pensions and savings, thus it is a case of proper risk-management to ask them to work out how they will meet this challenge,” said Jeremy Coller, chief investment officer of Coller Capital. “The world is changing, regulation on antibiotic use is set to tighten and consumer preferences are shifting away from factory farmed food. As stewards of these food companies and responsible investors, we want to protect both human health and shareholder value.” Drug-resistant infections could cost the world about $100 trillion in lost output by 2050, the coalition statement said, citing recent academic research. Among other investors to sign the letter were Boston Common Asset Management, Impax Asset Management and EdenTree Investment Management. Domino’s Pizza Group spokeswoman Nina Arnott said the company’s suppliers only used antibiotics when necessary to treat disease, under veterinary supervision, and that they are not used to prevent disease or boost livestock growth. “We are also encouraging our suppliers to reduce the use of antibiotics for therapeutic purposes, and trials are under way to assess the feasibility of achieving this goal,” she said. In a written response dated March 24, JD Wetherspoon said that growth-promoting substances, including antibiotics, were already banned across all of its livestock supply chains. Mitchells & Butlers said the use of antibiotics in livestock production is an important issue and the company is reviewing the matter across all species as part of its sourcing policy. The Restaurant Group, meanwhile, said that it ensured responsible animal welfare standards throughout its supply chain and it is a strict requirement of suppliers’ contracts that antibiotics are used only for the treatment of disease. McDonalds said it had received the letter and would respond to the coalition. Yum!, Wendy’s, Darden and Brinker did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while a Restaurant Brands representative was not immediately available for comment. Editing by David GoodmanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
7f64e098f2f644a31b84edfaa30b9c83	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-hedgefunds-kass/toxic-cocktail-brewing-for-u-s-asset-managers-hedge-fund-investor-kass-idUSKCN1SR1VT	'Toxic cocktail' brewing for U.S. asset managers: hedge fund investor Kass	'Toxic cocktail' brewing for U.S. asset managers: hedge fund investor Kass By Jennifer Ablan3 Min Read Slideshow ( 2 images ) (Reuters) - Hedge fund investor Doug Kass said on Tuesday that he is shorting several investment managers, including T. Rowe Price Group Inc and Franklin Resources Inc, as they could be “the next group to feel disruption” and may be headed for large share price falls. Kass, who runs Seabreeze Partners Management, said in a note to clients that he does not believe investors are aware of how commoditized the money management business has become. “As an example, a year ago, a boutique fund manager, Salt Financial, began to pay clients five basis points a year to manage their money!” Kass wrote. “More and more money is going to passive products and strategies and away from active managers - who have failed to meet the returns of the indices,” Kass said. “Passive products are by definition not as energetic - it is a strategy that trades less actively - compared to active managers.” More importantly, the fee differential between active and passive managers is wide - with passive providing an attractive low-cost fee alternative to active, Kass said. Overall, a “toxic cocktail may loom ahead for investment managers,” he said. Kass predicted lower stock market prices; less volume and activity as low-cost passive strategies continue to replace high cost active strategies; lower transaction pricing (commissions) provided by online services like E-Trade and Fidelity Investments; reduced investment management fees, reflecting the continued share gains of passive products and strategies over the active ones. Even many of the larger money management firms, including Fidelity and The Vanguard Group are offering some no-fee based exchange-traded funds (ETFs), he said. “I expect the competitive challenges to active managers like T. Rowe and Franklin to intensify in the coming years,” Kass said. Kass warned that larger brokerages such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group which are moving their business mix towards the retail investor and have very high cost fee-based wrap products “are particularly vulnerable to the trends discussed.” Reporting By Jennifer Ablan; Editing by Nick ZieminskiOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
992ecd4dc1c5dae6f1a2aa14588b9cbc	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-survey-baml/investors-raise-cash-buffers-as-gloom-gathers-over-global-economy-baml-survey-idUSKCN1LY1HB	Investors raise cash buffers as gloom gathers over global economy: BAML survey	Investors raise cash buffers as gloom gathers over global economy: BAML survey By Helen Reid4 Min Read LONDON (Reuters) - Investors cut equity exposure this month as they grew more wary that economic growth may slow, but kept a long-standing preference for mega-cap tech stocks, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s monthly survey indicated on Tuesday. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., August 22, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid BAML’s September survey found investors’ outlook on economic growth had worsened significantly, driving them to increase cash holdings. A net 24 percent of those surveyed expected global growth to slow in the next year, up from 7 percent in August. This was the worst such outlook since December 2011. A trade war remained the biggest tail risk cited by investors. September was the fourth straight month this was cited as the biggest fear, though its dominance was receding. Fears of a slowdown in China were increasing, as were worries about rising global interest rates. As a result, the average cash balance climbed to an 18-month high of 5.1 percent, from 5.0 percent in August. Overall allocation to equities fell 11 percentage points to a net 22 percent overweight - near July’s levels which were the lowest in 18 months. The “most crowded” trade for the eighth straight month was “Long FAANG and BAT” - acronyms for U.S. tech giants Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, and China’s Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. The two other crowded trades were short positions on emerging market equities followed by long dollar. A divergence in regional preferences yawned ever wider: investors’ allocation to U.S. equities rose to the biggest overweight since January 2015, while allocation to euro zone equities fell to an 18-month low. The United States was the most favored equity region for a second month running, BAML strategists said. This reflected a decoupling between the strong U.S. economy and the weaker rest of the world. Investors’ outlook for U.S. corporate profits was at its most favorable in the survey’s history, with the biggest divergence with emerging market profits since January 2014. Nearly half of investors (48 percent) thought the current decoupling would end, however, due to U.S. growth slowing, while 24 percent saw it continuing. Just 28 percent saw growth in Asia and Europe accelerating. “Investors are holding on to more cash, telling us they are bearish growth and bullish US decoupling,” said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist. EM AND EUROPE STILL UNDER PRESSURE Allocation to emerging stocks tumbled to a 10 percent underweight, the lowest since March 2016. The survey noted a “massive reversal” from the 43 percent overweight measured in April 2018 when emerging markets were the investors’ favorite. “September rotation shows investors are selling emerging markets, banks and materials in favor of Japan, healthcare and industrials,” wrote the strategists. The most contrarian trade, they said, is long EM and short U.S., while they also recommended long materials and short healthcare for investors wanting to bet on China stimulating its economy more in the fourth quarter. While global investors cut their allocation to euro zone equities to the lowest since December 2016, they bought more UK equities. Amid increasingly intense Brexit negotiations, global investors’ allocation to UK equities rose to a net 24 percent underweight from 28 percent underweight. While European investors are moving into defensive sectors, sector conviction is low, they added. European fund managers’ allocation to tech stocks fell to its lowest in nine years, while their weighting in banks hit a two-year low. “We expect sentiment-driven rallies to be short-lived and see only temporary factors supporting EU financials,” wrote the strategists. Evidence of earnings growing more than 10 percent would be the biggest catalyst for a sustained rise in European stocks, the survey found. (This story corrects date in third paragraph to 2011 from 2001) Reporting by Helen Reid; editing by Sujata Rao and David StampOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
2606d02ead74656e6d14febab94d71a0	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-survey-baml/tech-still-all-the-rage-while-bears-prowl-emerging-markets-baml-survey-idUSKBN1KZ178?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews	Tech still all the rage while bears prowl emerging markets: BAML survey	Tech still all the rage while bears prowl emerging markets: BAML survey By Helen Reid4 Min Read LONDON (Reuters) - Global investors remain overwhelmingly bullish on U.S. and Chinese tech shares, while short positions on emerging equities are growing increasingly popular, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s latest monthly fund manager survey showed on Tuesday. Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S., April 3, 2018. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson Investors picked “Long FAANG and BAT” as the “most crowded” trade for the seventh straight month, BAML’s August survey found, referring to U.S. tech giants Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, and China’s Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. Tech has kept its crown, even though results-driven declines by Facebook and Twitter last month triggered anxiety over the mega-cap stocks responsible for the lion’s share of stock market gains in the U.S. and China. Going short emerging-market equities was the second most popular trade, according to the survey, which was conducted between Aug. 3 and Aug. 9 - just before Turkey’s lira plunged 16 percent against the dollar on Friday. Investors had a small underweight on EM equities, but BAML said prior EM crisis lows saw investors’ underweight at -27 percent, versus -1 percent today - suggesting investors could slash allocations a lot further from here. Among risks to global markets, investors said for the third month in a row that trade war was the most concerning. They continued to position for a global monetary tightening cycle led by the U.S. Federal Reserve. A net 54 percent of investors were underweight bonds, while 20 percent were overweight global banks, which gain from higher interest rates. Overall, global investors became more cautious in August, raising their cash allocation to 5 percent from 4.7 percent. The increased caution was tempered with a more positive outlook on the profit cycle, with a net 5 percent saying profits will improve. European fund managers were relatively more bullish, cutting their cash allocations to 4.3 percent from 5 percent. The proportion of European investors expecting stronger economic growth rose to the highest since April, and the share expecting a recession in the next 12 months also fell to its second lowest ever. U.S. EQUITIES IN FAVOR, UK STOCKS DUMPED Investors’ allocation to U.S. equities rose to the biggest overweight since January 2015, making the U.S. the top equity region for the first time in five years as Wall Street stocks delivered strong earnings. The U.S. was the most favorable region in terms of corporate profits, according to 67 percent of surveyed investors - the highest proportion in 17 years. Meanwhile, investors pulled money from UK equities, which saw the biggest one-month drop in allocations since May 2016 as concerns of a no-deal Brexit rose. After six months of falling allocations to euro zone equities, investors added to the region again. As the S&P 500 volatility gauge .VIX hit its lowest since January on Aug 9, surveyed investors showed the lowest conviction on record for buying volatility. Accordingly, going long volatility would be a staunchly contrarian bet, going against the grain of current investor thinking, while BAML also suggested “long BRIC/short FAANG” and “long bonds” as trades for the contrarian investor. Reporting by Helen Reid; editing by Sujata Rao, Larry KingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
970d7d56cf61b33b66724c7715c178a5	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-thirdavenue-junk-insight-idUSKBN0U627V20151223	Hidden in plain sight: Big risks at failed Third Avenue fund were clear to some	Hidden in plain sight: Big risks at failed Third Avenue fund were clear to some By Tim McLaughlin, Ross Kerber, Svea Herbst-Bayliss8 Min Read BOSTON (Reuters) - In the months before the blowup of Third Avenue’s junk bond fund in early December, investors and financial advisors called the New York-based investment company to voice their concerns about the growing percentage of hard-to-trade, illiquid assets in the fund’s portfolio. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission logo adorns an office door at the SEC headquarters in Washington, June 24, 2011.REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst “I would call up and they would say, ‘We’re under control, we have plenty of cash,’” said Richard Berse, president of Northstar Financial Advisors Inc in New Jersey. But Berse, who had as much as $2.5 million in client money in the fund, got burned. Less than a month after his last call to Third Avenue Management LLC, the $789 million Focused Credit Fund abruptly blocked investor withdrawals and announced on Dec. 9 it would liquidate the fund’s assets. The extent of the losses are unclear. Brad Alford, chief investment officer of Alpha Capital Management in Atlanta, also said he told Third Avenue the fund was too volatile because it was holding too much in illiquid assets. “I just became very uncomfortable with it,” said Alford, who pulled out of the fund this summer. The biggest mutual fund blowup since the 2008 financial crisis underscores how difficult it can be to rein in a mutual fund taking outsized risks compared with its peers, even though Focused Credit officially had many overseers. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is now investigating the fund’s meltdown, did not get involved until it was clear Third Avenue’s only recourse was to liquidate the fund, according to people familiar with the situation. Executives at Third Avenue and its parent company, Affiliated Managers Group Inc, declined to comment or did not respond to several requests to comment for this story. When compared with other junk bond funds, Focused Credit carried an elevated amount of risk. The fund disclosed, for example, that its so-called Level 3 assets, or securities that are hard to value and trade, were 20 percent of assets at the end of July. That was higher than any other U.S. junk bond fund with at least $500 million in assets, according to a Reuters analysis of fund disclosures. And the fund had 76 percent of its portfolio exposed to very low rated “CCC+” rated securities and below, compared with a median level of 22 percent among similar junk funds, according to analysts at Citigroup. Launched in 2009, Focused Credit found its way into the portfolios of mom-and-pop investors, pension plans and nonprofits, fund disclosures show. It differed from other junk bond funds because it favored creditor claims and stock warrants tied to companies going through bankruptcy. One of its biggest investors was Boston-based Fidelity Investments’ Strategic Advisers Income Opportunities Fund, which had a $128 million stake at the end of October. Fidelity declined to comment on the fund’s current exposure. Graystone Consulting, Morgan Stanley’s independent adviser to institutional and wealthy clients, originally recommended the fund in 2014 via a due diligence report that clearly highlighted the fund’s liquidity risks, Morgan Stanley spokesman James Wiggins said. Graystone then produced an updated assessment in 2015 in which liquidity risk is also highlighted, he added. “Graystone stands behind its review process. Third Avenue has a strong track record as an investment manager and has found historical success in illiquid instruments,” Wiggins said. BLUNT AND AUTOCRATIC Third Avenue, led by long-time chief executive David Barse, did not recognize the danger the fund was in until it was too late. In fact, fund management team members discussed internally that they believed the fund still could ride out a storm of redemptions less than 90 days before the fund’s collapse, said former and current employees who requested anonymity. Inside Third Avenue, some of the company’s 100 or so employees were unsettled by Barse’s management style, which they saw as blunt and autocratic, according to interviews with about a dozen former and current Third Avenue employees. Perhaps most importantly, Barse’s hard-charging personality made it hard for subordinates to bring him bad news, these sources said. In recent years, some even complained to AMG, the parent company of Third Avenue, but Barse, who had led the firm more than two decades, remained firmly in control. Barse sometimes berated employees in front of colleagues, reducing them to tears, according to the current and former employees. In the months before Focused Credit’s collapse, key people jumped ship as the fund hemorrhaged assets, declining to less than $1 billion from more than $3 billion in 2014. Three of Focused Credit’s eight-member team, for example, left during the first half of 2015, according to current and former Third Avenue employees. Barse, 53, did not return messages seeking comment. He made a positive impression in some circles. Barse is a trustee of Brooklyn Law School, where he graduated in 1987. The chair of the school’s board, Stuart Subotnick, said he didn’t know what to make of the criticism. “David is a tough guy. I would imagine there are a lot of guys in that business who are jealous of him or don’t like him, and this was an opportunity to dump on him,” Subotnick said. AMG Chairman Sean Healey, who declined comment for this story through a spokeswoman, personally got involved in the discussions that led to what the two sides ultimately described as Barse’s mutually agreed departure from the firm after the junk bond fund’s demise, according to people familiar with the situation. Under Barse’s direction, assets at Third Avenue peaked at $26 billion in 2006, but by the time of his departure managed assets had dwindled to about $8 billion. And investment advisory fees at the firm’s flagship Value Fund were just $22 million in the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 2014, down 77 percent from $97.2 million in fiscal 2007, fund disclosures show. “I hope you appreciate that David and everything he stood for are being disassociated from the fund,” said Martin Shubik, an 89-year-old Yale University economist who is an independent director for the Focused Credit Fund. Five of the fund’s six other independent directors did not return messages or referred questions to Jim Hall, Third Avenue’s general counsel, Hall did not return messages seeking comment. The sixth director could not be reached. DEAN OF DISTRESSED INVESTING The board charged with oversight of Third Avenue’s five mutual funds, including Focused Credit, largely allowed Barse and his top lieutenants to run operations as they saw fit. That’s according to past and current employees who had direct knowledge of interactions between Barse’s team and independent fund board directors. Some mutual fund experts criticize outside directors, in general, for not challenging investment company management teams. It’s not uncommon, for example, for some directors at large mutual fund companies to sit on the boards of dozens of funds and to receive fees from each in what critics call a cozy rubber stamping operation for management. “People know what side their bread is buttered on,” said Alan Palmiter, a Wake Forest University professor who studies the fund industry. Founded in 1986 by Martin Whitman, now 91, Third Avenue prides itself on finding deep value in beaten-up securities. “Cheap and safe” is the company’s guiding principle. Whitman, considered the dean of American distressed investing, remains chairman and a portfolio manager at Third Avenue. He did not return messages seeking comment. Whitman, Barse and other top executives sold their controlling stake to AMG in 2002. But day-to-day operations did not change. A cornerstone of AMG’s approach is operational autonomy and independence, allowing principals such as Barse to run fund operations. “That’s their business model and if they change it, no one would ever sell to them again,” said billionaire investor Mario Gabelli, who founded fund management firm GAMCO in 1977. Reporting By Tim McLaughlin, Ross Kerber and Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Martin HowellOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
ce17e32df21451fad1b51dd1ca865033	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-valueline-idUSKCN0X82KK	Value Line Funds to buy Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund: filing	Value Line Funds to buy Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund: filing By Reuters Staff2 Min Read BOSTON (Reuters) - Value Line Funds plans to buy the Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund, according to a recent regulatory filing, taking a first step into the growing investment sphere of alternative funds that are cheaper and designed for retail clients. Value Line, which is well-known for its stock and mutual fund research and has offered mutual funds since 1950, plans to integrate Alpha Capital’s $20 million Alpha Defensive Alternative Fund into its lineup of more than a dozen funds which jointly oversee roughly $2.2 billion in assets. Alternative investments for retail clients, often called liquid alternatives or liquid alts, have become increasingly popular as investors worry that plain stock and bond investments will not carry them through retirement and demand more access to hedge fund-like strategies. Shareholders will vote on the proposed deal on June 10, 2016, the filing said. Bradley Alford, who runs Alpha Capital and previously worked at the Duke Endowment, will continue to manage the fund, the filing said. The news was first reported by Investment News. Since January the Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund has returned nearly 1 percent, performing modestly better than the Standard & Poor’s 500 index which is roughly flat for the year. The Alpha Defensive Alternatives Fund is a tiny player in an asset segment where the Blackstone Alternative Multi-Strategy fund is the biggest player with $4.2 billion in assets. Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
1eb53d599b2beec72894f81d374bcece	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fusion-blockchain/singapore-start-up-secures-12-3-billion-in-assets-for-blockchain-platform-idUSKCN1IX5EE?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews	Singapore start-up secures $12.3 billion in assets for blockchain platform	Singapore start-up secures $12.3 billion in assets for blockchain platform By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss2 Min Read FILE PHOTO: Representations of the Ripple, Bitcoin, Etherum and Litecoin virtual currencies are seen on a PC motherboard in this illustration picture, February 13, 2018. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo NEW YORK (Reuters) - FUSION, a Singapore-based crypto-finance start-up, has secured $12.3 billion in financial assets from three strategic partners that have committed to lock in those funds with the organization’s public blockchain platform, FUSION founder DJ Qian told Reuters. The secured funds come from FormulA, Carnex, and KuaiLaiCai, three companies operating in asset management, car financing, and restaurant supply chain management, respectively. The locked-in funds represent a commitment from the three companies, which have deposited their assets with the FUSION blockchain, for them to manage them or handle transactions from those funds. Blockchain, the system powering cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, is a shared database that is maintained by a network of computers connected to the internet. BLOCKCHAIN EXPLAINED Reuters breaks down blockchain in an interactive guide. “FUSION is like a value connector,” Qian said in an interview late on Thursday. “Every company has its own ecosystem and the money flows from one player to another. But that ecosystem is actually limited. “What FUSION is trying to do is create a platform that will help those ecosystems connect with each other once they have digitized their assets,” he added. By locking the assets onto FUSION, companies are able to gain access to a global finance network, interact across various cryptocurrencies and have a broader choice of financial instruments, Qian said. FUSION raised more than $100 million in a token sale in February but had to return half of that to investors because the start-up had already hit its limit for capital, said Qian. It raised more than $50 million in less than 24 hours for its token offering. Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Dan GreblerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
42d12c24b4a5e9fbb830ab7968b6124f	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-future-enterprises-m-a-reliance-indus/reliance-to-buy-future-groups-retail-arm-for-3-38-billion-idUSKBN25P0N6	Reliance to buy Future Group's retail arm for $3.38 billion	Reliance to buy Future Group's retail arm for $3.38 billion By Reuters Staff1 Min Read FILE PHOTO: The logo of Reliance Industries is pictured in a stall at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Trade Show at Gandhinagar, India, January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Amit Dave NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries RELI.NS said on Saturday it has agreed to acquire the retail and wholesale business and the logistics and warehousing business of Future Group in a deal valued at $3.38 billion, including debt. Like many other store chain owners, Future Group’s business has been hit by a slowing economy and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. ($1 = 73.1140 Indian rupees) Reporting by Sankalp Phartiyal in New Delhi; Editing by Andrew HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
57d337c0ed8a03fc82bae81ebefc2e78	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-argentina-lagarde/lagarde-warns-g20-leaders-that-trade-tensions-threaten-global-economy-idUSKCN1O03NP	Lagarde warns G20 leaders that trade tensions threaten global economy	Lagarde warns G20 leaders that trade tensions threaten global economy By Reuters Staff1 Min Read International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde arrives for the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina November 30, 2018. REUTERS/Luisa Gonzalez BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde called on G20 leaders to urgently de-escalate trade tensions and reverse tariff hikes, warning that they risked slowing global growth. “Pressures on emerging markets have been rising and trade tensions have begun to have a negative impact, increasing downside risks,” Lagarde said in a statement issued at the conclusion of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires. Reporting by Cassandra Garrison, editing by Ross ColvinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
d03af1d147438ffb7551e64e9901c25f	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-argentina-trump-statement/us-china-declare-90-day-halt-to-new-tariffs-white-house-says-idUSKCN1O101U	China, U.S. declare 90-day halt to new tariffs: White House	China, U.S. declare 90-day halt to new tariffs: White House By Michael Martina, Roberta Rampton5 Min Read BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - China and the United States agreed to halt additional tariffs in a deal that keeps their trade war from escalating as the two sides try again to bridge their differences with fresh talks aimed at reaching an agreement within 90 days. U.S. President Donald Trump, U.S. President Donald Trump's national security adviser John Bolton, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin attend a working dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping after the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque The White House said on Saturday that President Donald Trump told Chinese President Xi Jinping during high-stakes talks in Argentina that he would not boost tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 percent on Jan. 1 as previously announced. Beijing for its part agreed to buy an unspecified but “very substantial” amount of agricultural, energy, industrial and other products, the White House said in a statement. The two sides would also launch new trade talks to address issues including technology transfer, intellectual property, non-tariff barriers, cyber theft and agriculture, it said. If no deal is reached within 90 days, both parties agreed that the 10 percent tariffs will be raised to 25 percent, the White House said. On Sunday, China’s state-run media lauded the “important consensus” reached by the two leaders but did not mention the 90-day deadline. Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods in September. China responded with its own tariffs. Trump has also threatened to put tariffs on another $267 billion worth of Chinese imports, as the relationship appeared set to worsen in the weeks ahead of the Argentina meeting. “I think this is not a breakthrough - it’s more of avoiding a breakdown. This is not a worst case outcome but the hard work is ahead of them,” said Paul Haenle, Director at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center in Beijing. “The Chinese have to come into (the talks) with a sense of urgency,” he added. ‘INCREDIBLE DEAL’ As part of the deal, China agreed to start purchasing agricultural products from U.S. farmers immediately, the White House said. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump hailed his agreement with Xi. “It’s an incredible deal,” Trump said. “What I’d be doing is holding back on tariffs. China will be opening up. China will be getting rid of tariffs.” He said under the deal China would buy a “tremendous amount of agricultural and other product” from the United States. “It’ll have an incredibly positive impact on farming.” State Councillor Wang Yi, the Chinese government’s top diplomat, told reporters in Buenos Aires that the two sides believed the agreement “effectively prevented the expansion of economic frictions between the two countries”. “Facts show that joint interests between China and the United States are greater than the disputes, and the need for cooperation is greater than frictions,” he said. U.S. companies and consumers are bearing part of the cost of the U.S. tariffs on China by paying higher prices for goods, and many companies have increased prices of imported goods. At the same time, U.S. farmers have been hurt by reduced Chinese imports of soybeans and other products. China "is open to approving the previously unapproved" deal for U.S. company Qualcomm Inc QCOM.O to acquire Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors NXPI.O "should it again be presented," the White House statement said. In July, Qualcomm - the world’s biggest smartphone-chip maker - walked away from a $44 billion deal to buy NXP after failing to secure Chinese regulatory approval, becoming a high-profile victim of the China-U.S. trade dispute. Qualcomm and NXP did not immediately respond to requests for comment late on Saturday. TEMPORARY REPRIEVE Beyond trade, Xi also agreed to designate the drug fentanyl as a controlled substance, the White House said. For more than a year, Trump has raised concerns about the synthetic opioid being sent from China to the United States, which is facing an epidemic of opioid-related deaths. Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the United States appeared to come out slightly ahead in the overall agreement. “Beijing at best gets a temporary reprieve from additional tariffs, but was unable to get the U.S. to agree to return to ‘business as usual’,” he said. “Instead, only the pace of deterioration has changed, not the direction of the relationship,” Kennedy added. The 90-day talks deadline falls just days before China’s annual meeting of parliament in the first week of March, a politically sensitive time for Beijing. Sun Zhe, co-director of the China Initiative at Columbia University, said China might have made greater concessions this time but may be looking for more out of the United States in the coming months. “I think China compromised more. They bet that the United States would appreciate that China doesn’t want to break the relationship even though China was pushed very hard,” he said. “Some Chinese speculate about what compromise the United State can make in the future because China promised a lot and Trump just promised to not raise U.S. tariffs,” he added. Additional reporting by David Shepardson in Washington, John Ruwitch in Shanghai; Editing by Will Dunham and Darren SchuettlerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
45d015fbdfadb6014884c7e2574ea7bd	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-argentina-usmca/u-s-canada-mexico-sign-trade-deal-trump-predicts-congress-approval-idUSKCN1NZ0HE	U.S., Canada, Mexico sign trade deal, Trump shrugs off Congress hurdle	U.S., Canada, Mexico sign trade deal, Trump shrugs off Congress hurdle By Roberta Rampton5 Min Read BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - The United States, Canada and Mexico signed a North American trade pact on Friday, with President Donald Trump brushing aside concerns that he could face difficulties getting the deal through the U.S. Congress. The leaders of the three countries agreed on a deal in principle to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which governs more than $1.2 trillion of mutual trade, after acrimonious negotiations concluded on Sept. 30. Friday’s signing potentially ends a big source of irritation for the U.S. administration as it pivots to a much bigger trade fight with China that threatens the global economy. All eyes are on a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday after a G20 summit in Buenos Aires. Trump had vowed to revamp NAFTA during his 2016 presidential election campaign. He threatened to tear it up and withdraw the United States completely at times during the negotiation, which would have left trade between the three neighbors in disarray. The three were still bickering over the finer points of the deal just hours before officials were due to sit down and sign it. “It’s been long and hard. We’ve taken a lot of barbs and a little abuse and we got there,” Trump said after the signing. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau still had a few barbs of his own on Friday. He called the deal by its old name NAFTA, prodded Trump over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs, and said General Motors Co's GM.N decision to cut production and slash its North American workforce, including in Canada, was a "heavy blow." “Donald, it’s all the more reason why we need to keep working to remove the tariffs on steel and aluminum between our two countries,” Trudeau said. Mexico’s outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto was warmer. On his last day in office, he said the new deal was forged with the “firm belief that together we are stronger and more competitive.” Slideshow ( 6 images ) Legislators from the three countries must still approve the pact, officially known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), before it goes into effect and replaces NAFTA. But the U.S. landscape will shift significantly in January when Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, after winning midterm elections in November. Presumptive incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi described the deal as a “work in progress” that lacks worker and environment protections. “This is not something where we have a piece of paper we can say yes or no to,” she said at a news conference on Friday, noting that Mexico had yet to pass a law on wages and working conditions. Other Democrats, backed by unions that oppose the pact, have called for stronger enforcement provisions for new labor and environmental standards, arguing that USMCA’s state-to-state dispute settlement mechanism is too weak. “There is still a ways to go to gain support in the new Congress for this agreement,” said Representative Bill Pascrell, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee. Still, Trump and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expressed confidence that the NAFTA replacement would pass Congress. “It’s been so well reviewed I don’t expect to have very much of a problem,” Trump said. Slideshow ( 6 images ) Lighthizer said the pact was negotiated from the beginning to be a bipartisan agreement. “I think we’ll get the support of a lot of Democrats,” he told reporters. Trump had forced Canada and Mexico to renegotiate the 24-year-old agreement because he said the existing pact encouraged U.S. companies to move jobs to low-wage Mexico. U.S. objections to Canada’s protected internal market for dairy products was a major challenge facing negotiators during the talks, and Trump repeatedly demanded concessions and accused Canada of hurting U.S. farmers. Matt Blunt, the head of the main lobbying group for GM, Ford F.N and Fiat-Chrysler FCHA.MI, applauded the deal, saying it would keep north American automotive manufacturing competitive and included a first-ever provision to address currency manipulation. “However, we remain concerned that the continued imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico will undermine the benefits of the USMCA,” added Blunt, who heads the American Automotive Policy Council. Foreign brand automakers have expressed concerns that the new rules of origin, which require more high-value content be produced in the United States or Canada, will be too burdensome. BDI, Germany’s main industry association, said in a statement that the autos rules of origin were “a retrograde step compared with NAFTA.” Reporting by Roberta Rampton, Matt Spetalnick and Caroline Stauffer in Buenos Aires and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Additional reporting by David Lawder, Richard Cowan and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Editing by Susan Thomas and Rosalba O’BrienOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
3846053386ebe0ce1393bd146d6dfc26	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-china-idUSKCN1190I7	U.S., China ratify Paris climate deal, setting stage for G20	U.S., China ratify Paris climate deal, setting stage for G20 By Roberta Rampton, Nathaniel Taplin5 Min Read HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - China and the United States ratified the Paris agreement to cut climate-warming emissions on Saturday, marking a major step toward the enactment of the pact as early as the end of the year and setting the stage for other countries to follow suit. The world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases made the landmark announcement as heads of state from the Group of 20 biggest economies, or G20, arrived for a summit in the city of Hangzhou, parts of which resembled a ghost town as Chinese security locked down the area. U.S. President Barack Obama’s last scheduled trip to Asia before leaving office however got off to an awkward start. Soon after Air Force One landed, a Chinese security official blocked National Security Adviser Susan Rice on the tarmac, speaking angrily to her before a Secret Service agent stepped between the two. China has gone to great lengths to try to make the Sept 4-5 G20 summit a success, hoping to cement its standing as a global power, but a range of thorny diplomatic topics could overshadow the agenda. G20 leaders are likely to renew their promises to use tax and spending policies to invigorate the sluggish world economy, although a new pro-growth push was unlikely. Overcapacity in the global steel industry, a sore point for China as the world’s largest producer of the metal, barriers to foreign investment and the risk of currency devaluations to protect export markets will also figure in the discussions. Beyond economics, there may be friction over territorial disputes in the South China Sea and a U.S.-South Korea decision to deploy a missile defense system in South Korea to counter missile and nuclear threats from North Korea. Related CoverageU.N. chief tolls bell for climate change skepticsChina, U.S. and Europe pledge support for global aviation emissions pactSee more stories When Obama met Chinese President Xi Jinping, he told him they would have candid talks on cyber, human rights and maritime issues. Nevertheless, the climate deal set a positive tone.. “Just as I believe the Paris agreement will ultimately prove to be a turning point for our planet, I believe that history will judge today’s efforts as pivotal,” Obama said after he and Xi handed ratified documents to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. “We have a saying in America that you need to put your money where your mouth is. And when it comes to combating climate change, that’s what we’re doing. Both the United States and China, we’re leading by example.” At a joint ceremony, Xi said it “speaks to the shared ambition and resolve of China and the United States in addressing global issues”. French President Francois Hollande said it was an important step that would pave the way for the implementation of the Paris agreement at the end of the year. Slideshow ( 7 images ) RESIDENTS LEAVE IN DROVES The stakes are high for China to pull off a trouble-free G20 summit, its highest profile event of the year, and security in Hangzhou was intense. Volunteer security agents prevented journalists from filming in deserted parts of the normally bustling city of 9 million people. Residents left in droves after authorities declared a week-long holiday for the summit, shut down the city’s famous West Lake beauty spot and offered free travel vouchers worth up to 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) to encourage people to visit out-of-town attractions. Slideshow ( 7 images ) More than 200 steel mills in surrounding districts were shut as part of a bid to limit pollution. With the summit wedged in between the Brexit vote and the U.S. presidential election, G20 leaders will be keen to mount a defense of free trade and globalization. Concerns about subdued growth will be a major concern. The world’s biggest economies have pulled out the monetary policy stops to promote growth, but central banks are now “pretty close” to the limits of their ability to stimulate economies, said Angel Gurria, head of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the absence of “breakthrough, collective” policies, global growth was likely to remain weak, he told Reuters. “We have left our good central bankers to do all the heavy lifting.” In separate remarks to Reuters, Pascal Saint-Amans, the director of the OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, addressed the thorny issue of multinational corporate tax liability, which the European Commission's recent decision against Apple Inc AAPL.O has brought into sharp relief. The European Commission said this week that Apple owed up to 13 billion euros ($14.50 billion) in back taxes to Ireland, based on existing regulations, a decision that both Apple and Ireland, which relies on low taxes to attract investment, have vowed to fight. China is using the G20 to push its diplomatic agenda with a raft of bilateral meetings. China and Turkey pledged earlier in the day to boost counter-terrorism ties, setting aside previous disagreements over China’s treatment of a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority. Reporting by Kevin Yao, Sue-Lin Wong, Michael Martina, Roberta Rampton, Engen Tham, Ruby Lian and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon in Paris; Writing by John Ruwitch; Editing by Raju GopalakrishnanOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
f9d4f937fa9fb98e96a1a156438de86b	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-china-idUSKCN11B0IT	G20 promises to coordinate on economy, but little in way of concrete steps	G20 promises to coordinate on economy, but little in way of concrete steps By Kevin Yao, Michael Martina6 Min Read HANGZHOU, China (Reuters) - Leaders from the world’s top economies broadly agreed at a summit in China on Monday to coordinate macroeconomic policies, but few concrete proposals emerged to meet growing challenges to globalisation and free trade. At the two-day gathering in the scenic Chinese city of Hangzhou, the world’s most powerful leaders also agreed to oppose protectionism, with Chinese President Xi Jinping urging major economies to drive growth through innovation, not just fiscal and monetary measures. “We aim to revive growth engines of international trade and investment,” Xi said in a closing statement. “We will support multilateral trade mechanisms and oppose protectionism to reverse declines in global trade.” Discussions at the meeting were distracted by North Korea test-firing three medium-range ballistic missiles in a defiant reminder of the risks to global security. North Korea has tested missiles at sensitive times in the past to draw attention to its military might. But Monday’s launch risked embarrassing its main ally Beijing, which has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure a smooth summit meeting. Beijing said it hoped relevant parties would avoid taking any actions that would escalate tensions. The United States called the launch reckless, while Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told U.S. President Barack Obama that it was unforgivable. On other fronts, the United States tried but failed to finalise a deal with Russia for a ceasefire in Syria on the sidelines of the summit. Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a longer-than-expected discussion about whether, and how, they could agree on a deal, a senior U.S. administration official said. But in talks earlier on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov were unable to come to terms on a ceasefire for the second time in two weeks, although they will meet again this week. Related CoverageG20 economies well placed to deal with Brexit uncertainty: communiqueJapan PM Abe: stressed to G20 need to avoid risks to global growthSee more stories The G20 called for the formation of a global forum to take steps to address steel excess capacity and encourage adjustments, the White House said in a statement, one of the controversial issues discussed at the summit. China produces half the world’s annual output of 1.6 billion tonnes of steel and has struggled to decrease its estimated 300 million tonne overcapacity, and rising prices have given companies there an incentive to boost production for export. ISOLATIONIST TREND With the summit taking place after Britain’s vote in June to exit the European Union and before the U.S. presidential election in November, G20 leaders had been expected to mount a defence of free trade and globalisation and warn against isolationism. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who supports protectionist trade policies, has pulled into an effective tie with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, erasing a substantial deficit. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party was relegated to third place behind an anti-immigrant party in a regional election on Sunday. “I’m very unsatisfied with the outcome of the election,” Merkel told reporters in Hangzhou. “Obviously it has something to do with the refugee question. But I nevertheless believe the decisions made were right and we have to continue to work on them.” Slideshow ( 19 images ) One of the few areas where there was progress was in protecting the environment. China and the United States ratified the Paris agreement on cutting climate-warming emissions on the eve of the G20 summit, setting the stage for other countries to follow suit. In a communique issued several hours after the close of the summit, the G20 leaders warned that global growth was weaker than anticipated, with downside risks continuing, and repeated the acknowledgement that monetary policy alone could not create balanced growth. It said new challenges including terrorism and immigration complicated the global economic outlook, and that the G20 agreed use all policy tools available to drive strong and sustainable growth. Slideshow ( 19 images ) British Prime Minister Theresa May, attending her first G20 summit, said governments needed to “do more to ensure that working people really benefit from the opportunities created by free trade.” “This discussion goes to the heart of how we build an economy that works for everyone.” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, speaking after the summit, also said more inclusive growth was a priority in the global economy. “We need increased growth, but it must be better balanced, more sustainable, and inclusive so as to benefit all people,” she said. It was the last time that Obama attended a G20 summit. His visit to Hangzhou got off to a chaotic start. There was no rolling staircase provided for Air Force One when it landed and Obama had to disembark from an exit in the plane’s belly. Then, a Chinese security official blocked National Security Adviser Susan Rice on the tarmac and yelled at another U.S. official trying to help journalists get closer to Obama. China levelled responsibility at the United States and journalists for the fracas. Obama told reporters he “wouldn’t over-crank the significance” of the airport events. When he left China on Monday, he boarded Air Force One via a full-sized staircase provided by Hangzhou International Airport. Additional reporting by Sue-Lin Wong, Michael Martina, Roberta Rampton, Ruby Lian, Kevin Yao, Nate Taplin, William James and Engen Tham in HANGZHOU, and Ben Blanchard, Nick Heath, Jason Subler and John Ruwitch in BEIJING, and Jack Kim and Ju-min Park in SEOUL; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Ryan WooOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
faaaffb92af26ecdd8e2bbfb1eefd467	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-china-obama-erdogan-idUSKCN11421W	Obama to meet Turkey's Erdogan in China on September 4	Obama to meet Turkey's Erdogan in China on September 4 By Reuters Staff2 Min Read WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama will have a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during the G20 summit in China next month and is likely to have at least an informal talk with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the White House said on Monday. Obama wants to talk with Erdogan about events in Turkey after July’s attempted coup, the military campaign against Islamic State, and how to promote stability in Syria, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes told reporters. The White House said it opposes Turkey’s push into areas in northern Syria controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, an opposition group the Obama administration supports, as it stands to erode the united front against Islamic State. The Obama-Erdogan meeting is scheduled for Sunday. It was not certain whether Obama would hold a formal meeting with the Russian president during the G20 summit of the world’s biggest economies, which runs Sept 4-5. But the two leaders often speak on the margins of such summits, Rhodes said. “We usually try to find an opportunity for the two leaders to try to spend some time together, usually to focus on Syria and Ukraine,” Rhodes said. The United States is at odds with Russia over the eastern Ukraine conflict and Washington and Moscow have struggled to stop fighting in Syria’s civil war. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a meeting between Putin and Obama has not yet been coordinated, Russian RIA news agency reported. “We are ready,” RIA cited Peskov as saying. “But there is no final agreement yet.” Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Timothy Gardner in Washington; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Moscow; Editing by Chris Reese, Alistair Bell and Richard BalmforthOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
59d06e637810d96b4947416f84314c46	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-climatechange-idUSKCN10Z0A5	Investors urge G20 nations to ratify Paris climate deal this year	Investors urge G20 nations to ratify Paris climate deal this year By Reuters Staff2 Min Read OSLO (Reuters) - Investors managing more than $13 trillion of assets urged leaders of the Group of 20 on Wednesday to ratify a global climate deal by the end of 2016 and to step up efforts to shift from fossil fuels. A total of 130 investors, grouped in six coalitions, wrote a letter to G20 leaders and also called on them to double global investment in clean energy, develop carbon pricing and phase out fossil fuel subsidies. Among backers were the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, Swedish National pension funds, Aegon, AustralianSuper, the Church of England Pensions Board and the New York City Comptroller, it said. “The Paris Agreement provides a clear signal to investors that the transition to the low-carbon clean energy economy is inevitable and already under way,” the investors wrote to G20 leaders before a Sept. 4-5 summit in China. The letter called on the G20 to “complete your process for joining/ratifying the Paris Agreement in 2016 if possible.” Many major emitters of greenhouse gases, led by China and the United States, have said they will formally join up to last December’s Paris Agreement on climate change this year. But no G20 nation has yet completed the process. France has ratified but is waiting to submit documents with other European Union nations. As of Tuesday, the United Nations says that 23 small nations representing only 1.1 percent of global emissions have completed the formalities. The deal requires at least 55 nations representing 55 percent of global emissions to become law. The investors said that countries ratifying the Paris Agreement quickly would be “better able to attract investment in low and zero carbon energy solutions.” Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Richard BalmforthOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
d9ef9bce2c9cbe494bf9500c4c4615ae	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-funds-regulations-idUSKBN14W2HJ	Global watchdog finalizes proposed rules to tackle asset management risks	Global watchdog finalizes proposed rules to tackle asset management risks By Huw Jones4 Min Read LONDON (Reuters) - Global regulators flagged on Thursday they would revisit plans on whether to designate big asset managers such as BlackRock BLK.N and Vanguard as being globally systemic and requiring tougher scrutiny, despite fierce resistance from the sector. The Financial Stability Board (FSB), which coordinates financial regulation across the Group of 20 economies (G20), published final recommendations on Thursday for addressing actual and potential risks from “structural vulnerabilities” in the asset management sector. The 14 recommendations will be fleshed out by regulators over the coming two years for implementation. They include several modest changes to the original proposals published by the FSB in June last year. “The policy recommendations will better prepare asset managers and funds for future stress events,” said Daniel Tarullo, who chairs an FSB committee on supervisory and regulatory cooperation. An initial attempt by the FSB to single out which funds are globally systemically important institutions (G-SIFIs) and needing tougher rules was derailed by IOSCO, the global securities market regulators’ body after opposition from big funds. This resulted in a switch of focus to the sector’s activities. IOSCO will flesh out many of the FSB’s 14 recommendations in 2017 and 2018 to put into practice. The FSB indicated on Thursday that after the end of 2018 it would revisit its initial proposals on whether to designate funds as being globally systemically important. Some funds had hoped the proposals were dead and buried. The Investment Company Institute, a funds industry body based in Washington, said it was concerned that the FSB still intends to revisit prior work on systemically important funds. “If the FSB engages in an evidence-based analysis, we believe the FSB will conclude, at a minimum, that there is no basis for considering regulated funds and their managers for possible G-SIFI designation,” ICI President and CEO, Paul Schott Stevens, said in a statement. Regulators have become concerned about the promise open-ended funds make to give investors their money back on a daily basis, even in stressed markets when liquidity is tight. The fear is that such a “liquidity mismatch” can encourage cash raising through fire sales of assets such as bonds at the risk of undermining wider financial stability through contagion. As many banks have shrunk under the weight of tougher regulation and changes in markets, asset management has grown from $53.6 trillion in 2005 to $76.7 trillion in 2015, or 40 percent of global financial system assets. The recommendations also address the move by asset managers into “shadow-banking” or market financing activities such as lending securities or offering loans to companies as traditional banks retreat. The FSB stopped short of saying how redemptions could be curbed in stressed markets, saying there should be a range of tools such as “gates” and redemption fees. The FSB also recommended on Thursday that regulators should provide guidance on stress testing of individual open-ended funds on their ability to pay back investors quickly in stressed markets. Stress testing, which checks resilience to extreme market shocks, is common in banking since the financial crisis and is burdensome and time-consuming. Some asset managers already do their own stress-testing of individual funds, but this is patchy across the sector. Editing by Susan Thomas, Greg MahlichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
ae25cf4edf0642e7ef1ae2d2d4a1b192	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-france-usa-idUSKBN15V292	France says U.S. position on Middle East peace 'confused and worrying'	France says U.S. position on Middle East peace 'confused and worrying' By John Irish3 Min Read BONN, Germany (Reuters) - France considers the U.S. position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “confused and worrying”, its foreign minister said on Thursday, reacting to U.S. President Trump’s dropping of the America’s commitment to a two-state solution. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (R) welcomes French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault prior to the G-20 Foreign Ministers meeting in Bonn, Germany February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Thilo Schmuelgen Jean-Marc Ayrault met Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at a G20 meeting of foreign ministers in Bonn where, he said, he got some reassurance about Washington’s stance on Russia, but little on the Middle East. “I found that there was a bit more precision (on foreign policy) even if I found that on the Israeli-Palestinian dossier it was very confused and worrying,” Ayrault said of his meeting. “I wanted to remind him after the meeting between Donald Trump and (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu that in France’s view there are no other options other than the perspective of a two-state solution and that the other option which Mr Tillerson brought up was not realistic, fair or balanced.” He did not specify what other option Tillerson had proposed. At a news conference in Washington with Netanyahu on Wednesday, Trump said: “I am looking at two-state, and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like.” On Russia, Ayrault said he was happy to hear Tillerson say that sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine would only be lifted if there was progress on the Minsk agreement to end fighting in east Ukraine. “With Russia we have some serious points of disagreement and they have to be put on the table. It’s not by making friendly statements that problems will be resolved,” Ayrault told reporters. Tillerson remained “quite general” on the subject, he said. Related CoverageGermany says building more Israeli settlements may end two-state solution Having just returned from Tehran, Ayrault said he was concerned by the new administration’s calls to review from scratch the agreement between major powers and Iran over its nuclear program. “The deal must be completely respected by Iran, but it is out of the question to open up a new construction site for an agreement that was reached in difficulty. I sense that there was a difference of opinion or at least question marks,” he said. He said the real debate on Iran now was not the nuclear deal, but its “interference” in the region, especially Syria and Iraq. When asked whether Tillerson had clarified the U.S. position on Syrian peace negotiations and whether it still backed U.N. efforts, Ayrault said it appeared so, but that more talks would take place on Friday. “Between the campaign speech, the tweets and what I heard from Tillerson, it’s the start of clarification,” Ayrault said, referring to the administration’s foreign policy. Editing by Louise IrelandOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
7b4781128e06236243708ee2cf831d24	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-idUSKBN19K239	Protests, policy rows, volatile leaders — welcome to the Hamburg G20 summit	Protests, policy rows, volatile leaders — welcome to the Hamburg G20 summit By Noah Barkin7 Min Read HAMBURG (Reuters) - Summits of world leaders are usually highly choreographed affairs that leave little to chance. French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte attend the press conference after the meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany June 29, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch They are held in locations that are easily shielded from demonstrators. And policy differences are papered over by envoys behind closed doors well ahead of time. But the G20 meeting in Hamburg next week will be different. Host German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a high-risk gamble by choosing to hold the summit in the center of the northern port city, partly to show the world that big protests are tolerated in a healthy democracy. This has created a huge challenge for police. On the policy front, she is determined not to surrender too much ground to U.S. President Donald Trump on climate change, trade and migration, possibly setting the scene for an unusual public clash. “Quite honestly, it is hard to know what will happen in Hamburg,” said a senior German official who has been involved in the preparations and who declined to be identified. “It will not be a summit of great unity, that’s for sure.” “The biggest concern is security,” the official said. “If we have another Genoa, it will be a failure,” the official added, referring to the 2001 G8 summit in which protesters engaged in violent clashes with police. One person was shot dead and hundreds were injured. The stakes are high at the July 7-8 summit for Merkel, who is in the midst of a federal election campaign and can ill afford images of chaos and disharmony. Her relations with three of the most high-profile participants, Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, are strained. Trump and Putin will be meeting face-to-face for the first time, an encounter which will be intensely scrutinized and could overshadow the entire summit. Merkel chose Hamburg, the city where she was born before her father moved the family to communist East Germany, to send a message of openness. It was the nightclubs of Hamburg, which traces its history back to mediaeval times and was badly bombed in World War Two, that helped to launch the Beatles. Related CoverageMerkel issues warning to Trump ahead of G20 summit The city is one of the biggest trading hubs in Europe. It is home to some of Germany’s biggest media groups and perhaps its most potent symbol of left-wing dissent, the Rote Flora, a former theater in the city’s Sternschanze district that has been occupied by anti-capitalist squatters for nearly three decades. An additional incentive for Merkel, an avid opera fan, was the opportunity to show off Hamburg’s new architectural marvel, the Elbphilharmonie concert hall, where G20 leaders will gather for dinner on the first evening of the summit. “WELCOME TO HELL” Ahead of the summit, the German government has played up the fact that protesters will be allowed to voice their opposition to the event. The message to leaders like Trump, Putin and Erdogan is clear: tolerance for public dissent is a cornerstone of a confident, open democracy. “We are a country where people have a right to demonstrate,” said Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert. “Every citizen has a right to protest. And that counts for the G20 too.” That message has put huge pressure on German police. If they cannot keep the peace, Hamburg officials have acknowledged, it will amount to a defeat for Merkel in her own backyard. Some 20,000 police, with dogs, horses and helicopters and 7.8 kilometers (4.8 miles) of steel barriers will be deployed. Police will be facing off against tens of thousands of protesters who plan to encircle the convention center in the heart of the city where leaders will meet - a far cry from Schloss Elmau, the idyllic, isolated retreat in the Bavarian Alps where Germany held a G7 summit two years ago. Security officials say that up to 8,000 of the demonstrators will be anarchists and left-wing radicals whose main goal is to disrupt the summit. They are planning a protest on the eve of the G20 that they have dubbed “Welcome to Hell”. “The policies of the G20 have created hellish conditions in many countries around the world,” Andreas Blechschmidt, one of the organizers of the July 6 protest, told Reuters in front of the Rote Flora, which stands just a few hundred meters from the site where the leaders will meet. Slideshow ( 5 images ) “We want to show them that we can turn up the heat too,” he said. Behind him, a large banner reading “Capitalism will end anyway, you decide when” hung from the graffiti-covered squat. Other protests will be held on July 7 and 8. Police are also worried about clashes between supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the militant group engaged in an armed struggle against the Turkish state, and Turkish nationalists who support Erdogan. “More so than Trump, the presence of Erdogan is mobilizing people across Europe,” said Werner Raetz, a veteran German activist involved in the planning of the G20 protests. CLIMATE, TRADE, MIGRATION On policy however, the German government views Trump and his “America First” doctrine, as its biggest headache. At previous G20 summits, a broadly united West led by the United States and Europe would push countries like Russia, China, India and Brazil to follow its lead. But since Trump entered the White House, the Western consensus has broken down. Trump ignored pleas from his Western allies at a G7 summit in Sicily last month and announced he would pull out of the Paris climate accord. His administration has been threatening countries like Germany and China with punitive trade measures on steel in the run-up to the G20. Washington even appears to be backtracking on language pledging to “fight all forms of protectionism” that Trump approved at the G7, say German officials, who list migration as another source of contention. On both climate and trade, Merkel’s best ally in Hamburg may prove to be Chinese President Xi Jinping, who will meet her in Berlin before the summit. “Everything is open,” said Ulrich Speck, senior research fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute think-tank in Brussels. “There is not a clear Western position. It’s a big change in the international landscape.” A decade ago, at a G8 summit in Heiligendamm on Germany’s Baltic coast, Merkel managed to coax President George W. Bush - who like Trump had pulled out of a global climate pact shortly after taking office - into supporting a new climate deal with substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. In the aftermath, German media anointed her “Gipfelkoenigin”, or queen of summits, for her ability to forge sensitive compromises between leaders with disparate views. But in a speech to the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Thursday, Merkel acknowledged that no such compromises were likely in Hamburg. “These will not be easy talks,” she said. “The differences are obvious and it would be wrong to pretend they aren’t there. I simply won’t do this.” Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold, Andreas Rinke and Roberta Rampton; Writing by Noah Barkin, editing by Peter MillershipOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
f531aaf8143bc00b16b439aee8cd9031	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-protests-idUSKBN19S1BA	Police gain upper hand after Hamburg's day of G20 clashes	Police gain upper hand after Hamburg's day of G20 clashes By Joseph Nasr, Sabine Siebold4 Min Read HAMBURG (Reuters) - Police gained the upper hand in Hamburg early on Saturday morning after a day of running clashes with anti-capitalist protesters seeking to disrupt the city’s G20 summit of global leaders. Heavily armed police commandos moved in after activists had spent much of the day attempting to wrest control of the streets from more than 15,000 police, setting fires, looting and building barricades. With meetings between leaders of the club of 20 largest global economies finished for the day, police stormed the last holdouts, who had gathered in the Schanzenviertel district, an area known for its left-wing activism and culture of squatting. With two months to go before she seeks re-election, Chancellor Angela Merkel had hoped to cement Germany’s growing global leadership role with a demonstration of its unwavering commitment to free speech, assembly and dissent by holding the summit in the center of a city with a proud radical tradition. Protesters torched cars and lorries, smashed windows in banks, looted retail stores and hurled paving slabs and other objects before police managed to restore order. Some 197 officers were injured after two days of clashes in the port city. Police made 19 arrests and detained dozens more. Standing in a nearby falafel restaurant, Mohammad Halabi, 32, a Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee some 18 months before, surveyed the scene with disbelief. “They are crazy. I can’t believe my eyes,” he said. “They have such a beautiful country and they’re destroying it.” Slideshow ( 34 images ) But G20 participants said they had never seen protesters closer to such a summit than in Hamburg and praised the work of police in keeping the event safe, suggesting Merkel’s gamble had paid off. BEETHOVEN VS HENDRIX “I have every understanding for peaceful demonstrations but violent demonstrations put human lives in danger,” Merkel had said earlier. Most of the 100,000 protesters were peaceful, hoisting signs saying the G20 leaders were not welcome, or engaging in mass bicycle processions through the city center wearing brightly coloured uniforms. When world leaders including U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping gathered for a Beethoven concert in the Elbphilharmonie concert hall on one side of the river, protesters blared the music of Jimi Hendrix from the other side. But in the night’s most dramatic scenes, police pursued members of the radical Black Bloc movement, which wants to overthrow capitalism, across scaffolding as they sought refuge on rooftops. Below, burning barricades billowed thick smoke. Slideshow ( 34 images ) Despite the chaos that threatened to overwhelm parts of the city during much of the day, the summit, with thousands of participants from dozens of countries, was largely unaffected. Police declined to clear U.S. first lady Melania Trump’s motorcade to leave her hotel for a tour of the historic harbor, and protests delayed buses taking visitors away from the state dinner that concluded the meetings. The summit is due to conclude on Saturday. (This version of the story has been refiled to fix day in paragraph one) Reporting by Joseph Nasr, Andrea Shalal, Thomas Escritt and Klaus Lauer; Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Gareth Jones and Bill TrottOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
f0b5bfe57e58490d61d26e4a32b156d7	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-steel-idUSKBN19T0VI	Merkel expects debate on steel overcapacity to remain tough	Merkel expects debate on steel overcapacity to remain tough By Reuters Staff1 Min Read German Chancellor Angela Merkel leaves after holding a news conference to present the outcome of the G20 leaders summit in Hamburg, Germany July 8, 2017. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt HAMBURG (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it was important to stick to aggressive deadlines for addressing overcapacities in the global steel market, or the United States could resort to unilateral action by imposing fines or tariffs. Merkel said leaders from the world’s 20 leading economies set an August deadline for an OECD-led global forum to compile information about the problem, with a comprehensive report on potential solutions to be presented by November. “I hope that this multilateral format will be used to show that we can solve one of the big strategic issues we face through joint action,” Merkel told a news conference after the end of a two-day G20 summit. But she said discussions on the issue would likely remain difficult. Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Noah BarkinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
bbf89b12b3ab39d1c4a3637c52fade63	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-germany-usa-analysis-idUSKBN16R09Y	G20 ministers give Mnuchin space to define Trump trade agenda	G20 ministers give Mnuchin space to define Trump trade agenda By David Lawder5 Min Read BADEN BADEN, Germany (Reuters) - Wary of their first official encounter with U.S. President Donald Trump’s blustery trade agenda, the world’s top finance officials were relieved to find new Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin polite and business-like over the weekend. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin after meeting with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in Berlin, Germany, March 16, 2017. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch But they yielded ground to the newcomer’s push for the Group of 20 major economies to abandon a decade-old pledge to resist protectionism and to delete communique language on financing the fight against climate change. According to G20 officials who interacted with Mnuchin at the meeting in the spa and casino town of Baden-Baden, Germany, many opted not to challenge Mnuchin on protectionism language. Instead they chose to give some space to him and Trump’s new administration to refine their trade views in the hopes for moderation by the time Germany hosts a G20 leader’s summit in July. Five weeks into his new job, the former Goldman Sachs and commercial banker is currently the only Senate-confirmed Trump appointee working at Treasury. And the Trump administration has not yet decided on the specific policies it will use to make good on campaign pledges to shrink U.S. trade deficits and grow American manufacturing jobs. Options under consideration range from more aggressive anti-dumping enforcement efforts to renegotiating trade deals and enacting a proposed border tax levied on imports. During his campaign, Trump threatened unilateral tariffs on Mexican and Chinese goods and said he would quit the North American Free Trade agreement unless it is renegotiated to his liking. “We have a new administration in Washington which still has to define precisely its narrative, especially in the context of what was said in the campaign,” said Pierre Moscovici, European Commission Economic Affairs Minister. “I think Mnuchin is an articulate, constructive and pragmatic man,” Moscovici said. “More work needs to be done to find common ground. It was not ready here. It is not a total surprise.” FIRST IMPRESSIONS Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso, who tangled with Mnuchin’s predecessor, Jack Lew, last year over dollar-yen exchange rate volatility, said he was impressed with Mnuchin’s understanding of economics and financial markets. “That’s why I think we can do good business together,” Aso told reporters. In the G20 plenary sessions, Mnuchin took to the floor only once, reading from a prepared statement, according to a G20 official, while counterparts from China and France argued forcefully in favor of keeping the anti-protectionism pledge. While Mnuchin concentrated on making good first impressions with his G20 counterparts, U.S. negotiators behind the scenes insisted that they could no longer accept previous language vowing “to resist all forms of protectionism.” This was replaced with a watered-down pledge to “strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies” - language viewed by some participants as preserving U.S. flexibility on trade policy. German Finance Minster Wolfgang Schaeuble, who met with Mnuchin in Berlin before the Baden Baden meeting, said consensus could not be reached on the meaning of protectionism.. He suggested at a news conference that Mnuchin may not have had a clear mandate to negotiate on trade issues. Asked about this, Mnuchin said he knows Trump’s desires on trade and negotiated them from Baden Baden, adding: “the new language makes sense.” RITUALISTIC PHRASE The deletion of a “ritualistic phrase” in the G20’s core language could over time diminish U.S. influence, said Eswar Prasad, a former International Monetary Fund official and trade policy professor at Cornell University. “The U.S. may have won this battle by forcefully imposing its will on the rest of the G20, but the outcome represents a step backward in U.S. global leadership on issues such as the promotion of free trade and tackling climate change,” said Prasad. But the Baden Baden meeting established Mnuchin as a pragmatic operator in the Trump administration’s drive for a more level playing field on trade, said Domenico Lombardi, another former IMF official now with the Centre for International Governance Innovation, a Canadian think-tank. “It’d be in the interest of Germany and Europe to establish a strong, bilateral relationship with the new Treasury secretary rather than questioning his authority,” Lombardi said. “The alternative for them would be to negotiate directly with Trump and that would be worse.” Additional reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Leika Kihara; Editing by Mary MillikenOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
09b166457e35953556583935f1744fda	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-japan-infrastructure/worlds-top-economies-lay-out-principles-on-debt-sustainability-at-g20-meet-idUSKCN1TA09U	World's top economies lay out principles on debt sustainability at G20 meet	World's top economies lay out principles on debt sustainability at G20 meet By Tetsushi Kajimoto3 Min Read FUKUOKA, Japan (Reuters) - Finance leaders from the world’s top economies on Sunday adopted new principles to ensure countries that lend and borrow for infrastructure spending do so in a sustainable manner, a move seen as addressing concerns that China’s lending practices have saddled some emerging nations with huge debt. U.S. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso, Saudi Arabia's Monetary Authority Governor Ahmed Alkholifey, Saudi Arabia's Finance Minister Mohammed Aljadaan, Russia's Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina, Vietnam's Finance Minister Tran Yuan Ha, South Africa's Finance Minister Dondo Mogajane, Managing Director of IMF Christine Lagarde, ADB's President Takehiko Nakao, India's Finance Minister Normal Sitharaman, Romania's Finance Minister Eugene Teodorovici and other delegates react as they pose for a family photo during the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting in Fukuoka, Japan June 9, 2019. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon The principles, signed off by the Group of 20 finance leaders who gathered in the southern Japan city of Fukuoka, called for securing transparency and responsible, sustainable financing for infrastructure projects. “We stress the importance of maximizing the positive impact of infrastructure to achieve sustainable growth and development while preserving the sustainability of public finances,” the G20 finance leaders said in a communique. They endorsed the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment as their “common strategic direction and high aspiration” at their two-day meeting that ended on Sunday. The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors will seek endorsement for the principles at their leaders’ summit to be held in Osaka, western Japan, on June 28-29. As this year’s G20 chair, Japan has been spearheading efforts to find common ground on ways to address an increasing number of developing nations saddled with massive debt for building of roads, railway and port facilities. Some of them were part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which critics say includes high-cost projects that put borrowing countries in a debt trap - a claim Beijing denies, with President Xi Jinping in April saying the initiative must be green and sustainable. China, which was initially cautious about the new principles, has become more accepting of the idea as it saw the economic and financial benefits of promoting high-quality infrastructure, Japanese officials involved in the negotiations on the principles have said. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the debt transparency initiative was not aimed at reining in China’s Belt and Road, despite the Treasury’s past criticism that the program has saddled poor countries with unsustainable debt. He told Reuters in an interview that debt transparency was an important objective for all G20 countries. “I don’t think that should be aimed at China. I think the answer is, this is an important initiative that should be a G20 initiative,” Mnuchin said. While most of the Belt and Road projects are continuing as planned, some have been shelved for financial reasons including a power plant in Pakistan and an airport in Sierra Leone. Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Christopher CushingOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
055e30cbf39f894ecd47caba82c333f7	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-japan/g20-finance-chiefs-to-warn-of-trade-risks-differ-on-how-pressing-idUSKCN1T82LJ	G20 finance chiefs to warn of trade risks, differ on how 'pressing'	G20 finance chiefs to warn of trade risks, differ on how 'pressing' By Francesco Canepa, David Lawder5 Min Read FUKUOKA, Japan (Reuters) - Global trade tensions threaten an expected pick-up in economic growth this year and in 2020, a draft communique by the world’s financial leaders showed on Saturday, but the policymakers were divided on whether the need to resolve them was “pressing”. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s 20 biggest economies, the G20, are meeting in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka to discuss the global economy amid rising trade tensions between China and the United States. “Global growth appears to be stabilizing and is generally projected to pick up moderately later this year and into 2020,” the draft G20 communique, seen by Reuters, said. “However ... risks remain tilted to the downside. These include, in particular, intensified trade and geo-political tensions,” said the draft communique, which may yet change before it is released on Sunday. The draft statement, to which all the G20 financial leaders have to agree, contains a sentence in square brackets -- which means it was not yet agreed -- that trade and investment were important engines of growth. “We reaffirm our leaders’ conclusions on trade from the Buenos Aires Summit and recognize the pressing need to resolve trade tensions,” the sentence still under discussion said. If the sentence is dropped from the final statement, it would mean rowing back on an agreement reached by G20 leaders last year in Argentina that while the existing international trade system -- the World Trade Orgnisation -- needs improvement, it helps world growth and should be fixed. Related CoverageG20 agrees to wrap up Big Tech tax rules by 2020U.S. Treasury's Mnuchin says Trump-Xi meeting has parallels to Buenos Aires summitSee more stories G20 leaders also agreed last December to review the WTO reform in Osaka later this month. But progress in overhauling the WTO, which still functions under rules created a quarter of a century ago, has been slow, partly because of U.S. actions to block appellate judge appointments. A Japanese finance ministry official who attended Saturday’s G20 session told reporters that most of the group’s members voiced concern that escalating trade tensions posed a huge downside risk for the global economy. “With so many countries expressing concern over the fallout (from the trade tensions), there seems to be some momentum to reflect that in the communique. But there’s no conclusion yet” on the language of trade, the official told reporters. KURODA HAILS MEXICO DEAL Relations between the United States and China have deteriorated since U.S. President Donald Trump in early May accused Beijing of reneging on commitments to change its ways of doing business with the rest of the world. Washington raised tariffs on Chinese goods and threatened new levies, while Beijing has retaliated. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who will hold talks with China’s Yi Gang on the sidelines of the G20 gathering, said the United States wants free, fair and balanced trade with China, in part to close a gaping U.S. trade deficit with China. Slideshow ( 10 images ) But the United States is prepared to levy tariffs on virtually all remaining Chinese imports if the “right deal” cannot be reached to satisfy U.S. demands for better Chinese protections of intellectual property and curbs to technology transfers and state subsidies, Mnuchin said. “If we can’t have that, the end result will be that my expectation is that many companies will move their production out of China to other locations,” due to tariffs, Mnuchin said. He said his scheduled meeting with People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang will not be a “negotiating meeting” on trade issues, reinforcing the view there will be little breakthrough in the row between the world’s two largest economies. Slideshow ( 10 images ) He added that any major progress will rest with Trump’s expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a G20 leaders’ summit late this month. In a rare positive development, the U.S. administration said it will put off imposing tariffs against Mexico after the two countries reached a deal to contain the migration of immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border. “It’s a very good outcome not just for the United States and Mexico, but for the global economy,” Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda told reporters. Additional reporting by Leika Kihara, Jan Strupczewski, Tetsushi Kajimoto and Christian Kraemer; Writing by Leika Kihara and Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Kim Coghill and Richard PullinOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
b37232164bbecbc77860b858a20c0528	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-summit-trump-putin-meeting/kremlin-says-putin-and-trump-will-have-impromptu-meeting-at-g20-ria-idUSKCN1NZ1PH	Kremlin says Putin and Trump will have impromptu meeting at G20: RIA	Kremlin says Putin and Trump will have impromptu meeting at G20: RIA By Reuters Staff1 Min Read MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will have a brief impromptu meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Argentina just as he will with other leaders at the G20 summit, RIA news agency cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying on Friday. Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled a planned meeting with Putin in Argentina after Russia captured three Ukrainian navy vessels and their crews off the coast of Crimea. Reporting by Maria Tsvetkova; Writing by Polina Nikolskaya; Editing by Christian Lowe and Tom BalmforthOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
693ae6208c62de1030c93949b4d4b3b9	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-summit/trump-xi-meet-iran-tension-to-overshadow-g20-summit-in-japan-idUSKCN1TR022	Trump-Xi meet, Iran tension to overshadow G20 summit in Japan	Trump-Xi meet, Iran tension to overshadow G20 summit in Japan By Malcolm Foster, Michael Martina5 Min Read TOKYO (Reuters) - Concerns over trade, conflict and oil will dominate a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Japan this weekend, with attention focused on a meeting between the leaders of the United States and China, embroiled in a lengthy trade war. FILE PHOTO: The logo of G20 Summit and Ministerial Meetings is displayed at the G20 Finance and Central Bank Deputies Meeting in Tokyo, Japan January 17, 2019. REUTERS/Issei Kato Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will meet for the first time in seven months to discuss deteriorating ties between the world’s two largest economies. But prospects of progress look slim, as neither side has given ground after talks broke down in May. Many G20 members have a stake in the outcome of the meeting because the row has disrupted global supply chains, slowed world growth and prompted dovish views on interest rates among some of the group’s central banks. But some have expressed disquiet that the trade row might overshadow efforts to tackle pressing international issues. The Sino-U.S. trade clash is “serious”, but it shouldn’t “take a multilateral body hostage”, said an official of French President Emmanuel Macron’s Elysee office. Trump will arrive in Japan’s western city of Osaka just a week after calling off a retaliatory air strike on Iran after it shot down an unmanned U.S. aircraft. The threat of Middle East conflict has driven up global oil prices. The leaders of Russia and Saudi Arabia, both G20 members, will also attend the two-day summit that starts on Friday, ahead of a meeting of oil cartel OPEC on July 1 and 2 to discuss oil supply policy. Financial markets have rallied since Trump and Xi spoke by telephone last week and agreed to meet in Osaka and revive trade talks that collapsed in early May, after the United States accused China of reneging on its pledges. The two sides have slapped tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of each other’s imports in the nearly year-long trade war, even as they have tried to hammer out a broad trade deal. “ANY OUTCOME” Trump views his meeting with Xi, probably to be held on Saturday, as a chance to see where Beijing stands and is “comfortable with any outcome”, a senior U.S. official said, on condition of anonymity. White House officials have declined to discuss expectations ahead of the summit, saying only they are hopeful for Chinese leaders to follow through on commitments to compete fairly. Beijing counters that U.S. demands for a host of economic reforms amount to a violation of its sovereignty. Publicly, Chinese officials say the trade war’s effects are controllable and they are in no hurry to reach a deal. Many in Beijing hope the prospect of the 2020 U.S. election campaign could deter Trump from trade measures that risk upsetting farmers and businesses among his voter base. “Right now we feel, actually, that we have more stamina than the U.S. side,” said Liang Ming, a trade expert at the Chinese commerce ministry’s Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. “NEW TRAJECTORY” Xi is unlikely to delve into the details of a potential trade deal, as he did at a meeting with Trump in Buenos Aires in December, said a source who recently met Chinese trade officials. Instead, Xi will try to “set a new trajectory” for ties, the source quoted the trade officials as saying. Privately, Chinese trade experts acknowledge disagreement in policy circles about confronting Washington on trade, with many wary of further U.S. tariffs. American sanctions on China’s telecoms giant Huawei Technologies could also figure in the leaders’ talks. A truce in the trade spat is more likely than a deal, however, said Matthew Goodman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, formerly an international economic adviser to former President Barack Obama. Several other G20 members, such as India, Japan, Mexico and European Union nations, have had to grapple with the Trump administration’s effort to remake trade ties in ways more favorable to the United States. TENSIONS IN GULF Ominous prospects of Middle East conflict loom over the summit, as the drone shootdown followed a series of explosive strikes on oil tankers in the Gulf. A White House official said Trump would also meet at least eight world leaders, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, to win support for sanctions on Iran. Japanese host Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants the G20 summit to focus on reforming the World Trade Organization, empowering female workers and reducing plastic trash in the ocean. He also wants to discuss global rules for data governance that balance protection of personal and intellectual property with freer flow of medical, industrial and non-personal data. However, the United States believes China will only gather data but not share it, a Japanese government source said. Such differences could make it difficult for the leaders to craft a final communique, officials say. “There’s not many topics all participants can agree on,” another Japanese government official said. “Maybe plastic garbage reduction is the only area no one opposes.” Reporting by Malcolm Foster, Christopher Gallagher, Michael Martina, Roberta Rampton, Aaron Sheldrick and Yoshifumi Takemoto; Writing by Malcolm Foster and Simon Webb; Editing by Clarence FernandezOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
7ab9b2d6ce9208a42121aba57bbc6113	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g4s-m-a-allied-universal/allied-extends-g4s-shareholders-acceptance-period-for-buyout-deal-idUSKBN29V2AN	Allied extends G4S shareholders' acceptance period for buyout deal	Allied extends G4S shareholders' acceptance period for buyout deal By Reuters Staff1 Min Read (Reuters) - Allied Universal said on Tuesday it had extended the time for G4S shareholders to accept its offer to buy the British security services firm, making the move a day before Canadian rival GardaWorld’s extended offer expires. Shareholders now have until Feb. 9 to accept the U.S. company’s offer for G4S, which the security company had accepted in December, leaving GardaWorld behind and potentially ending a tense, months-long bidding war. Allied’s offer of 245 pence per share was 10 pence higher than GardaWorld’s bid. The offer document sent to G4S shareholders was set to expire on Tuesday, according to Allied’s statement from Jan. 5. G4S has restructured its business, following a series of setbacks, and the bidding war between the U.S. and Canadian companies for the London-listed firm began when GardaWorld made its offer for G4S public on Sept. 14. Reporting by Aishwarya Nair and Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay DwivediOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
54897c106717ef1cc00c3fe1f13141c0	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-economy-facebook/libra-launch-wont-happen-until-regulators-are-happy-coeure-idUSKCN1UD22J	Libra launch won't happen until regulators are happy: Coeure	Libra launch won't happen until regulators are happy: Coeure By Francesco Canepa, Leigh Thomas4 Min Read CHANTILLY, France (Reuters) - Global regulators will not let Facebook launch its Libra currency until all their concerns, ranging from money laundering to financial stability, have been addressed and “a prolonged discussion” may be needed first, the man in charge of their response told Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen on representations of virtual currency in front of the Libra logo in this illustration picture, June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Facebook FB.O announced Libra -- a new digital coin backed by four official currencies and available to billions of social network users around the world -- a month ago, adding that it was hoping to launch as soon as next year. That goal may prove optimistic. Benoit Coeure, the European Central Bank board member who chairs an international working group on Libra, said Facebook’s global reach meant the cryptocurrency had to be safe “from day one” for its users, the financial system and authorities fighting crime. “You’ve got to be safe, robust and resilient from day one,” Coeure said in an interview on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting in Chantilly, France. “It’s not a learning process: either it works or it doesn’t.” Regulators fear Libra, which in its original design would let users transfer money using a pseudonym, may be used to launder money or finance terrorism. They also want to know what safeguards Facebook and the other 27 members of the Libra Association have in place to ensure they could withstand a run on reserves and that users’ privacy and ownership rights are protected. This may involve a “prolonged discussion” among regulators on how to change existing national and international rules to cover Libra, Coeure said. “Down the road we might find that there are gaps or inconsistencies that would require a prolonged discussion by regulators on how to do it differently,” he said. “Authorities are not going to let any such projects happen before we have answers to our questions and before we have the right regulatory framework.” Cryptocurrencies are subject to patchy rules across the world, with the technology remaining mostly unregulated. While some smaller countries, from Belarus to Malta, have brought in specific laws, major economies have tended to apply existing financial rules. Coeure said his G7 working group on stablecoins will work on the matter until the International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting in October, when it will hand it over to the Financial Stability Board of global financial regulators. Facebook said earlier this week it would not proceed with the launch of Libra until regulatory concerns are addressed. ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR Libra has also raised questions about the role of private companies in the currency world, traditionally the province of the public sector. Advocates say it gives ordinary people, particularly in poorer countries with a volatile currency, access to a safe store of value because Libra is backed by a basket comprising the U.S. dollar, the British pound, the euro and the yen. But Coeure was skeptical about weakening authorities’ control over their own monetary system and handing it over to a private company. “Market discipline is useful but I wouldn’t see it as progress to shift monetary sovereignty from governments to private multinationals,” he said. He added there was concern at the G7 about granting that sovereignty to “large companies having enormous market power which occasionally have been indicted of misusing their client data.” A source told Reuters last week the U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved a roughly $5 billion settlement with Facebook over its investigation into the social media company’s handling of user data. But there were also lessons for regulators to learn. Coeure said initiatives like Libra showed people did not trust fully in the traditional financial system a decade after the start of the global crisis and were seeking alternatives. “We as the official community globally have not been fully successful in restoring trust in the financial system which is why you see demand for alternative propositions. That is a message we have to take seriously.” Reporting by Francesco Canepa and Leigh Thomas; Editing by Catherine EvansOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
f6bafe30374aadb90f8fbc6fd64e8f8f	https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g7-economy/g7-urges-tough-libra-regulation-agrees-to-tax-digital-giants-idUSKCN1UD0MS	G7 urges tough Libra regulation, agrees to tax digital giants	G7 urges tough Libra regulation, agrees to tax digital giants By Leika Kihara, David Lawder4 Min Read CHANTILLY, France (Reuters) - Digital currencies such as Facebook’s planned Libra raise serious concerns and must be regulated as tightly as possible to ensure they do not upset the world’s financial system, Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers said on Thursday. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire of France, which holds the rotating presidency of the G7 top world economies, told a news conference the group opposed the idea that companies could have the same privilege as nations in creating means of payment - but without the control and obligations that go with it. “We cannot accept private companies issuing their own currencies without democratic control,” Le Maire said. In a summary of the informal G7 talks in Chantilly, north of Paris, the French presidency said the ministers and governors had agreed that “stablecoins and other various new products currently being developed, including projects with global and potentially systemic footprint such as Libra, raise serious regulatory and systemic concerns”. Governments are starting to worry that big tech companies are encroaching on areas that belong to governments, such as issuing currency. Facebook’s June 18 announcement of Libra heralded an effort to expand beyond social networking and move into e-commerce and global payments. The G7 are concerned that Facebook’s ambitions for a digital currency might not only weaken their control over monetary and banking policies but also pose security risks. “A global stablecoin for retail purposes could provide for faster and cheaper remittances, spur competition for payments and thus lower costs, and support greater financial inclusion,” European Central Bank board member Benoit Coeure, the chairman of the taskforce, told the G7 meeting. Related CoverageStablecoins like Libra must be held to highest standards: G7G7 finance chiefs agree to tackle digital tax challenges: summary “However ... they give rise to a number of risks related to public policy priorities including anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, consumer and data protection, cyber resilience, fair competition and tax compliance.” DIGITAL TAXES The G7 also agreed that large tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook or Apple can be taxed in the countries in which they make money, even without being physically present there. They also agreed that there should be a minimum level of tax to discourage countries from competing in a “race to the bottom” to attract business from digital multinationals. “A minimum level of effective taxation, such as for example the U.S. GILTI regime, would contribute to ensuring that companies pay their fair share of tax,” the chair summary concluded. The U.S.’s Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income regime (GILTI) aims to subject overseas intangible income to 10.5% to discourage firms from shifting profits abroad to avoid the nominal U.S. corporate tax rate of 21%. G7 finance ministers and central bank governors pose for a family photo, during the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Chantilly, near Paris, France, July 17, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol Using the GILTI regime could help allay possible U.S. fears that the new rules could discriminate against U.S. companies. “We’re beginning to develop a framework ... We feel very strongly that this should not just be geared at the U.S. digital companies,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told journalists. An outline of the new regime and its implementation is to be developed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) by the end of the year, so that the details can be agreed by the end of 2020. Several European countries including France, Italy, Britain and Spain have already introduced their own taxes on digital companies or plan to do so. Washington saw the French levy as discriminating against U.S. companies, and launched a probe that could lead to the imposition of tariffs on French goods. Le Maire said Paris would keep its levy in place until the new, internationally agreed tax replaced it. The meeting comes amid growing global economic uncertainty as U.S.-China trade tensions and slowing trade threaten to undermine a prolonged recovery. Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas, Myriam Rivet, Francesco Canepa and Michael Nienhaber; writing by Leika Kihara and Jan Strupczewski; editing by Mark John and Kevin LiffeyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.