Tag Archives: investment

Netanyahu hours away from deadline for forming coalition government

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem May 19, 2019. Ariel Schalit/Pool via REUTERS

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had until late Wednesday to form a new ruling coalition with a recalcitrant ally or face the possible end of a decade of combative leadership of Israel.

As the hours ticked by, there was no sign of a breakthrough in talks with far-right former defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman. Parliament began a full-day debate on a motion to dissolve itself and call a new election if no deal is struck.

Political sources said Netanyahu was seeking agreement with the leaders of parties in the legislature for a mid-September election day.

Netanyahu had declared himself the winner of a national ballot last month, but he now has until midnight (2100 GMT) to tell President Reuven Rivlin whether he has put together an administration, and his political future hangs in the balance.

Failure to forge a coalition would take the task out of the 69-year-old Netanyahu’s hands, with Rivlin asking another legislator, either from the prime minister’s right-wing Likud party or from the opposition, to try.

That presidential move, which would sideline Netanyahu, can be avoided with a coalition agreement deal or if parliament approves an election.

Political commentator Chemi Shalev, writing in the left-wing Haaretz daily, said a last-minute agreement was still possible and Netanyahu would still be the favorite to win a new poll.

But he said Netanyahu’s critics now find themselves fantasizing about a world without him.

“It’s not an easy task, given his decade in power and the four more years he supposedly had coming. Young Israelis can’t even begin to imagine an Israel without him: Netanyahu as prime minister is all they’ve ever known,” Shalev wrote.

Lieberman has stuck to his guns in a battle with the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, a member of Netanyahu’s current interim government, to limit traditional military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students.

Without the support of Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party, which has five seats in the 120-member Knesset, Netanyahu cannot put together a majority government of right-wing and religious factions led by Likud.

Political commentators said that as the prospects dimmed for a compromise with Lieberman, Netanyahu would focus his efforts on enlisting the 61 votes needed in parliament to approve a new election.

The brinkmanship six weeks after the closely contested April ballot poses another challenge to Netanyahu’s decade-long rule and deepens political uncertainty in a country riven with division.

PEACE PLAN

A new election could also complicate U.S. efforts to press ahead with President Donald Trump’s peace plan in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even before it has been announced Palestinians have rejected it as a blow to their aspirations for statehood.

The White House team behind the proposal, including Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is in the Middle East to drum up support for an economic “workshop” in Bahrain next month to encourage investment in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. The group is due in Israel on Thursday.

Lieberman said on Wednesday he was not backing down in what he termed a matter of principle over the conscription issue, and he denied Likud allegations his real intention was to oust Netanyahu and lead a “national camp”.

“I am not a vengeful man and I don’t hold a grudge,” said Lieberman, who last year resigned as defense chief in a dispute with Netanyahu over policy toward Gaza.

Despite looming indictments in three corruption cases,

Netanyahu had appeared to be on course for a fifth term as head of a right-wing bloc after he squeezed past centrist challenger Benny Gantz, a former head of the Israeli armed forces.

Public attention had been focused less on coalition-building and more on moves Netanyahu loyalists were planning in parliament to grant him immunity and to pass a law ensuring such protection could not be withdrawn by the Supreme Court.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing in the cases and is due to argue at a pre-trial hearing in October against the attorney-general’s intention, announced in February, to indict him on bribery and fraud charges.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

FedEx commits $3.2 billion to raise pay, expand hubs after U.S. tax overhaul

A FedEx Express Boeing 737-45D (BDSF) OO-TNN aircraft is seen at the Chopin International Airport in Warsaw, Poland January 8, 2018. Picture taken on January 8, 2018.

By Eric M. Johnson

(Reuters) – Package delivery company FedEx Corp said on Friday it will spend more than $3.2 billion on wage increases, bonuses, pension funding and capital investment, taking advantage of the U.S. tax overhaul signed into law in December.

The Memphis, Tennessee-based company said it would invest $1.5 billion to significantly expand its hub in Indianapolis over the next seven years and modernize and enlarge its Memphis SuperHub.

The new tax code allows companies to immediately write off the full value of capital costs, which helps make projects more financially attractive, but that benefit starts to phase out in 2023. It also permanently lowers the U.S. corporate rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.

The announcement makes FedEx the latest U.S. company to promise higher pay for workers, citing the tax cuts.

FedEx, which said the recent tax changes would likely boost economic growth and investment in the United States, also said it would contribute $1.5 billion to an employee pension plan.

The company plans more than $200 million in higher compensation, about two-thirds of which will go to hourly employees with the remainder funding increases in performance-based incentive plans for salaried workers.

FedEx shares were down 0.3 percent in morning trading.

(Reporting by Rachit Vats in Bengaluru, Eric M. Johnson in Seattle, and Nick Carey in Detroit; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Meredith Mazzilli)

After shoddy China economic data, Xi says to persevere with reform

Xi Jinping

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will push forward supply-side reform and increase the number of middle-income earners, state television quoted President Xi Jinping as saying on Monday, after economic data for April fueled doubts about the economy’s health.

Xi’s speech to a meeting of top government economic regulators underscores the importance, and pressure, of managing China’s economic shift as growth has cooled to 25-year lows.

Investment, factory output and retail sales in the world’s second-largest economy all grew more slowly than expected in April.

The main thrust is to reduce ineffective supply and increase effective supply, Xi said, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

The government has made reducing the capacity glut one of its top priorities, and has vowed to put “zombie” companies out of business. But economists expect authorities to move slowly to avoid a sharp jump in unemployment.

In some regions there had not been forceful action on government policies, Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua. At the same time, some policies need to be further researched and drawn up.

For the state and society to remain stable over the long-term, the government must realize its goal of meeting people’s needs and expanding the number of middle-income earners, he said.

China must push forward reform of state-owned enterprises, accelerate change in how government functions and deepen the fundamental reforms of pricing, taxation, finance and social insurance, said Xi.

The government must also improve China’s income distribution system and strengthen people’s property protections, he said.

Separately, China’s State Council plans to encourage private investment, a major foundation of a stable economy, in part by removing hidden barriers, Xinhua said on Monday.

To that end, the State Council will send teams to government departments and provincial governments to inspect progress on promoting private investment, said Xinhua.

(Reporting by Beijing Monitoring Desk, Elias Glenn and Paul Carsten, Editing by Ed Osmond)

Global banking Fees Fall 29 Percent

A view of the exterior of the JP Morgan Chase & Co. Corporate headquarters in the Manhattan borough of New York City,

By Anjuli Davies

LONDON (Reuters) – Global investment banking fees fell 29 percent in the first quarter of 2016 from a year earlier as market volatility put a brake on dealmaking and equity and debt capital markets activity, Thomson Reuters data published on Monday showed.

Global fees for services ranging from merger and acquisitions advisory services to capital markets underwriting reached $16.2 billion by the end of March, the slowest first quarter for fees since 2009.

Regionally, fees in the Americas totaled $8.7 billion, down 32 percent from last year. Fees in Europe were down 27 percent at $3.9 billion and the Asia-Pacific region saw an 18 percent decline to $2.6 billion.

Investment banking income was dragged down across all products as global markets were hit by volatility sparked by global growth worries, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and a China slowdown.

Company boards and their chief executives were deterred from pulling the trigger on big transformative deals, in contrast to the record levels of activity seen last year, although the quarter saw a flurry of Chinese companies seeking Western targets.

Equity capital markets fees saw the steepest decline of 48 percent compared to a year ago, followed by a 26 percent fall in debt capital markets fees and an 18 percent decline in M&A revenue.

JPMorgan <JPM.N> topped the global league table for fees, drawing in $1.2 billion during the quarter, a decline of 23 percent compared to a year earlier but gaining slightly in overall wallet share.

The top five banks were all American, but European banks Barclays <BARC.L> and Credit Suisse <CSGN.S> each gained one place to rank sixth and seventh respectively.

<<<For the full league table click on: http://trmcs-documents.s3.amazonaws.com/3501ec8eae589bfbef9cc1729a7312f0_20160404083831_1Q2016_Global_Investment_Banking_Review.pdf >>>

(Editing by Susan Fenton)