FILE PHOTO: Banners of Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank are pictured in front of the German share price index, DAX board, at the stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, September 30, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo
March 29, 2019
By Pamela Barbaglia and Liana B. Baker
LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) sank 17 percent in the first quarter of 2019, as concerns about an economic slowdown and fears of a no-deal Brexit in Europe spooked chief executives and corporate boardrooms from pursuing big tie-ups.
While dealmakers expected a slowdown after 2018 emerged as the third-strongest year on record for M&A around the world, some worrying signs emerged, including a major drop in cross-border activity.
Cross-border M&A fell 45 percent in the first quarter of the year, as companies focused mainly on building scale on their home turf. Activity in Europe plunged 67 percent, according to Refinitiv data, and dragged down global M&A volumes to $927 billion.
“Many companies feel there is a lot at stake given all the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the trade tensions between the U.S. and China,” said Dirk Albersmeier, co-head of EMEA M&A at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
While megadeals in the United States, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co’s $74 billion deal to buy Celgene Corp, were a bright spot lifting global activity, Europe saw the average deal size shrinking well below the $5 billion mark.
Britain lost its ranking as the world’s third-biggest M&A market to Saudi Arabia, with activity down 62 percent to $40 million while German M&A tanked 76 percent to $17 million.
The region could remain anemic for deals for some time, investment bankers said, with the exception of some companies having to merge to build national champions, such as German lenders Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank.
British companies planning their post-Brexit survival could also turn to deals to better withstand a possible downturn, said Philip Noblet, head of UK investment banking at Jefferies.
“The amount of pressure on these companies will accelerate in the coming months and for some the choice will be between domestic consolidation and restructuring,” Noblet said.
Currency volatility in Britain has so far deterred overseas buyers from bidding for global champions trading in London, but that could change after Brexit, Noblet added.
While global stock markets rose in the first quarter, central banks appeared to be bracing for decelerating growth. Earlier this month, the U.S. Federal Reserve abandoned projections for any interest rate hikes this year amid signs of an economic slowdown.
“The macro-economic outlook is murky,” said Wilhelm Schulz, chairman of Citigroup Inc’s EMEA M&A. “It’s not just because of Brexit or trade tensions. The main reason why people are sitting on the sidelines is the slowdown in global growth.”
U.S. OFF TO A STRONG START
In contrast to Europe, the United States, which is the largest M&A market, got off to its strongest start since 2000, with $489.52 billion dollars in announced deals, up 9.4 percent compared to a year ago.
The number of deals was down by 40 percent year-over-year, however, indicating that big-ticket transactions were the main driver.
Consolidation in the healthcare industry, which was the busiest sector with $181 billion in value, shows no signs of slowing down, said Sullivan & Cromwell LLP M&A lawyer Krishna Veeraraghavan.
“Between competition for new drugs, improving technology, the aging of the global population, a number of factors will continue to drive M&A in the healthcare sector, whether it’s biotech or insurance providers,” Veeraraghavan said.
Unsolicited approaches, such as Barrick Gold Corp’s $18 billion bid for Newmont Mining Corp in February, made a comeback, as well as offers to gatecrash previously announced deals. This exuberance could be a sign of the M&A markets overheating, investment bankers said.
In March, Germany’s pharma group Merck KGaA launched a hostile $5.9 billion all-cash takeover offer for Versum Materials, which already had agreed to a merger with U.S. rival Entegris.
British packager RPC Group ditched a previous deal to be acquired by Apollo Global Management LLC after receiving a higher offer from plastics maker Berry Global Group Inc worth 3.34 billion pounds ($4.4 billion).
“We haven’t seen this volume of deal jumps in a long time, especially cross-border activity, until this quarter. This is significant because it signals an elevated level of energy and a willingness to take more risk,” said Michael Carr, co-head of Goldman Sachs’ Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
Companies could now time their deals to get out ahead of the start of the 2020 election cycle, said UBS Group AG’s co-head of Americas M&A said Marc-Anthony Hourihan.
“No technology or healthcare company would want their deal to become a talking point during the U.S. primaries,” Hourihan said. “Clients are already thinking about their game plans for political football.”
(Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia in London and Liana B. Baker in New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)
Maxine Waters still believes the “Kremlin Klan” won the White House for President Trump, despite the evidence indicating otherwise.
But no one can convince her that just because Special Counsel Robert Mueller found there was no collusion with Russia, that it’s over.
“This is not the end of anything!” Waters told MSNBC’s Joy Reid as they realized the report was a giant nothing burger for Democrats.
“This is the— well, it’s the end of the report and the investigation by Mueller. But those of us who chair these committees have a responsibility to continue with our oversight,” Waters said.
“There’s so much that, uh, needs to be, you know, taken a look at at this point,” she claimed,” and so it’s not the end of everything.”
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election did not find that any U.S. or Trump campaign officials knowingly conspired with Russia, according to details released on Sunday.
Attorney General William Barr sent a summary of conclusions from the report to congressional leaders and the media on Sunday afternoon. Mueller concluded his investigation on Friday after nearly two years, turning in a report to the top U.S. law enforcement officer.
Barr wrote to congressional leaders that “the investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” according to the Daily Mail.
Democrats aren’t giving up.
House Intel Committee chairman Adam Schiff insisted on “This Week” that there is “significant evidence of collusion”.
FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flutters on top of a 160-metre tower in North Korea's propaganda village of Gijungdong, in this picture taken from the Tae Sung freedom village near the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), inside the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, April 24, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
March 25, 2019
SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea sent back its officials to an inter-Korean liaison office in the North’s border city of Kaesong on Monday, reversing a decision two days ago to withdraw the officials, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.
A group of four to five officials showed up at the office earlier in the morning saying they came to work “as usual,” the ministry said in a statement.
Though the presence of the North’s head of the office was not confirmed, the two sides held a consultation and will “continue to operate the office as usual,” the ministry said.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin and Joyce Lee; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Jordan Belfort may have been the "Wolf of Wall Street," but Elizabeth Holmes owned the wolf of Silicon Valley. Or so she said.
As her company was facing serious trouble, the then-CEO of Theranos reportedly jetted off across the U.S. to purchase a Siberian husky -- that she later claimed was a wolf. A real wolf.
Holmes, 35, who was once considered a Silicon Valley sensation, carefully crafted her CEO image. She wore black turtleneck sweaters, which earned her the honor of being nicknamed “the next Steve Jobs.” Her company had allegedly discovered a new way of doing blood testing, a method in which Theranos said it could perform dozens of tests with just a few droplets of blood.
However, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal discovered Theranos’ technology was inaccurate and the secretive company was using routine blood-testing equipment for the vast majority of tests.
Following the report, Theranos began its demise. Walgreens ended its blood-testing partnership with the company as Theranos came under investigation by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As her company was facing serious trouble, then-CEO of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes jetted off across the U.S. to purchase a Siberian husky she later claimed was a wolf, a report said. (Getty Images)
Throughout the chaos, Holmes thought the company “could still be saved,” according to Vanity Fair. The former CEO bought the 9-week-old Siberian puppy and named him Balto after the famous sled dog who helped lead a pack across Alaska to bring medicine to an illness-ravaged region.
Holmes took Balto under her wing and allowed him to go to work with her -- despite scientists warning the animal’s hair might contaminate samples, according to the magazine. The dog was not potty trained and allegedly urinated and defecated in the headquarters of Theranos. Often.
Later, Holmes found Balto “had a tiny trace of wolf origin,” like most huskies, Vanity Fair reported. Going forward, Holmes referred to her dog as a "wolf" to whoever asked about Balto.
The report noted a year after Holmes bought Balto, in September 2018, Theranos shut down. Holmes was charged with “11 criminal felony counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy,” Vanity Fair reported. She could face up to 20 years in prison if she’s convicted.
Holmes is living in San Francisco and is engaged, the magazine reported. She reportedly ditched the black turtlenecks for yoga pants.
Jack’s Twitter Claims the Right is NOT being #ShadowBanned … Do you Believe That? by Peter Boykin @PeterBoykin How can Twitter claim to have First Amendment rights, while also hiding behind Section 230 of our legal codes? Section 230 says this “no provider or user of interactive computer service shall be treated as the […]
Less than three months after taking office, New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose favorability numbers have plummeted in some recent polls, is already front and center in a GOP congressional candidate's upcoming campaign advertisement.
The 30-second spot, obtained by Fox News and currently available on YouTube, features Michele Nix, a candidate for the North Carolina 3rd Congressional District seat in the race to replace the late Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., who died in February.
"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: she has the media, she has the followers, but bless her heart, she has some terrible ideas," Nix says. "Guaranteeing government jobs for some, while killing small-town jobs for others. Her green deal is a bad deal for North Carolina."
Nix concludes: "I'll stand up to socialism. Congress needs a good, strong dose of conservative, mature common sense."
More than a dozen other Republicans and several Democrats have entered the district race, with a primary set for April 30 and runoffs tentatively scheduled for July 9 if needed. The general election will either occur in July or September, depending on whether a primary runoff is necessary.
Nix's ad in the strongly Republican-leaning district offered a strong signal that upcoming congressional campaigns will take their cue from President Trump's messaging on Ocasio-Cortez, and on socialism in general. Trump has repeatedly vowed amid a humanitarian and political crisis in Venezuela that "America will never be a socialist country," and his administration has dismissed Ocasio-Cortez as a clueless politician who's in over her head.
A Gallup poll released Friday shows that Ocasio-Cortez's unfavorable rating has risen by 15 points since last September, when she had yet to win the general election, increasing from 26 percent to 41 percent of the American adults polled.
Among the possible causes: The Green New Deal resolution Ocasio-Cortez introduced earlier his year suffered a botched rollout, including the release of an official document by her office that promised economic security even for those "unwilling to work," as well as the elimination of "farting cows" and air travel. Prominent Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, have criticized the plan.
And a newly published poll from Siena College shows that Ocasio-Cortez is seen as New York's "biggest villain" when it comes to Amazon's decision to spurn the city and abandon plans for a second headquarters in Long Island City. Ocasio-Cortez repeatedly suggested that Amazon was receiving billions in cash handouts from the city -- though it would have received tax reductions as incentive to build the headquarters. New York City's Democrat mayor, Bill de Blasio, publicly called out Ocasio-Cortez's confusion on the topic.
However, despite the blowback from top Democrats and her own constituents, the 29-year-old freshman congresswoman has also managed to increase her favorability rating, if only by seven points. About 31 percent of surveyed people view her favorably, compared to 24 percent in September, according to Gallup.
Nearly three-quarters of Republican respondents say they view her negatively, with only 5 percent having a positive view. Among the Democrats, 56 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez, compared to only 15 percent of the Democrats polled who don’t support her.
“Laughing at Trump, as the libs did, sure stopped him from being POTUS,” right-wing activist Mike Cernovich tweeted late last year. “Laughing at AOC, as the cons are doing now, sure is hurting her.”
FILE PHOTO: Jason Greenblatt (C), U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, arrives to visit Kibbutz Nahal Oz, just outside the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel August 30, 2017. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
April 19, 2019
JERUSALEM (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan will not involve giving land from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to the Palestinians, an American envoy said on Friday.
Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, apparently sought to deny reports on social media that the long-awaited plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would involve extending Gaza into the northern Sinai along Egypt’s Mediterranean coast.
“Hearing reports our plan includes the concept that we will give a portion of Sinai (which is Egypt’s) to Gaza. False!”, Greenblatt, one of the architects of the proposal, tweeted on Friday.
The American plan is expected to be unveiled once Israel’s newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forms a government coalition and after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends in June.
Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner said on Wednesday the plan would require compromise by all parties, a source familiar with his remarks said.
It is unclear whether the plan will propose outright the creation of a Palestinian state, the Palestinians’ core demand.
The Palestinians have long sought to set up a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East War, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
The last round of U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Frances Kerry)
LinkSpace’s reusable rocket RLV-T5, also known as NewLine Baby, is carried to a vacant plot of land for a test launch in Longkou, Shandong province, China, April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee
April 26, 2019
By Ryan Woo
LONGKOU, China (Reuters) – During initial tests of their 8.1-metre (27-foot) tall reusable rocket, Chinese engineers from LinkSpace, a start-up led by China’s youngest space entrepreneur, used a Kevlar tether to ensure its safe return. Just in case.
But when the Beijing-based company’s prototype, called NewLine Baby, successfully took off and landed last week for the second time in two months, no tether was needed.
The 1.5-tonne rocket hovered 40 meters above the ground before descending back to its concrete launch pad after 30 seconds, to the relief of 26-year-old chief executive Hu Zhenyu and his engineers – one of whom cartwheeled his way to the launch pad in delight.
LinkSpace, one of China’s 15-plus private rocket manufacturers, sees these short hops as the first steps towards a new business model: sending tiny, inexpensive satellites into orbit at affordable prices.
Demand for these so-called nanosatellites – which weigh less than 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and are in some cases as small as a shoebox – is expected to explode in the next few years. And China’s rocket entrepreneurs reckon there is no better place to develop inexpensive launch vehicles than their home country.
“For suborbital clients, their focus will be on scientific research and some commercial uses. After entering orbit, the near-term focus (of clients) will certainly be on satellites,” Hu said.
In the near term, China envisions massive constellations of commercial satellites that can offer services ranging from high-speed internet for aircraft to tracking coal shipments. Universities conducting experiments and companies looking to offer remote-sensing and communication services are among the potential domestic customers for nanosatellites.
A handful of U.S. small-rocket companies are also developing launchers ahead of the expected boom. One of the biggest, Rocket Lab, has already put 25 satellites in orbit.
No private company in China has done that yet. Since October, two – LandSpace and OneSpace – have tried but failed, illustrating the difficulties facing space start-ups everywhere.
The Chinese companies are approaching inexpensive launches in different ways. Some, like OneSpace, are designing cheap, disposable boosters. LinkSpace’s Hu aspires to build reusable rockets that return to Earth after delivering their payload, much like the Falcon 9 rockets of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“If you’re a small company and you can only build a very, very small rocket because that’s all you have money for, then your profit margins are going to be narrower,” said Macro Caceres, analyst at U.S. aerospace consultancy Teal Group.
“But if you can take that small rocket and make it reusable, and you can launch it once a week, four times a month, 50 times a year, then with more volume, your profit increases,” Caceres added.
Eventually LinkSpace hopes to charge no more than 30 million yuan ($4.48 million) per launch, Hu told Reuters.
That is a fraction of the $25 million to $30 million needed for a launch on a Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems Pegasus, a commonly used small rocket. The Pegasus is launched from a high-flying aircraft and is not reusable.
(Click https://reut.rs/2UVBjKs to see a picture package of China’s rocket start-ups. Click https://tmsnrt.rs/2GIy9Bc for an interactive look at the nascent industry.)
NEED FOR CASH
LinkSpace plans to conduct suborbital launch tests using a bigger recoverable rocket in the first half of 2020, reaching altitudes of at least 100 kilometers, then an orbital launch in 2021, Hu told Reuters.
The company is in its third round of fundraising and wants to raise up to 100 million yuan, Hu said. It had secured tens of millions of yuan in previous rounds.
After a surge in fresh funding in 2018, firms like LinkSpace are pushing out prototypes, planning more tests and even proposing operational launches this year.
Last year, equity investment in China’s space start-ups reached 3.57 billion yuan ($533 million), a report by Beijing-based investor FutureAerospace shows, with a burst of financing in late 2018.
That accounted for about 18 percent of global space start-up investments in 2018, a historic high, according to Reuters calculations based on a global estimate by Space Angels. The New York-based venture capital firm said global space start-up investments totaled $2.97 billion last year.
“Costs for rocket companies are relatively high, but as to how much funding they need, be it in the hundreds of millions, or tens of millions, or even just a few million yuan, depends on the company’s stage of development,” said Niu Min, founder of FutureAerospace.
FutureAerospace has invested tens of millions of yuan in LandSpace, based in Beijing.
Like space-launch startups elsewhere in the world, the immediate challenge for Chinese entrepreneurs is developing a safe and reliable rocket.
Proven talent to develop such hardware can be found in China’s state research institutes or the military; the government directly supports private firms by allowing them to launch from military-controlled facilities.
But it’s still a high-risk business, and one unsuccessful launch might kill a company.
“The biggest problem facing all commercial space companies, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, is failure” of an attempted flight, Liang Jianjun, chief executive of rocket company Space Trek, told Reuters. That can affect financing, research, manufacturing and the team’s morale, he added.
Space Trek is planning its first suborbital launch by the end of June and an orbital launch next year, said Liang, who founded the company in late 2017 with three other former military technical officers.
Despite LandSpace’s failed Zhuque-1 orbital launch in October, the Beijing-based firm secured 300 million yuan in additional funding for the development of its Zhuque-2 rocket a month later.
In December, the company started operating China’s first private rocket production facility in Zhejiang province, in anticipation of large-scale manufacturing of its Zhuque-2, which it expects to unveil next year.
STATE COMPETITION
China’s state defense contractors are also trying to get into the low-cost market.
In December, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) successfully launched a low-orbit communication satellite, the first of 156 that CASIC aims to deploy by 2022 to provide more stable broadband connectivity to rural China and eventually developing countries.
The satellite, Hongyun-1, was launched on a rocket supplied by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp (CASC), the nation’s main space contractor.
In early April, the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALVT), a subsidiary of CASC, completed engine tests for its Dragon, China’s first rocket meant solely for commercial use, clearing the path for a maiden flight before July.
The Dragon, much bigger than the rockets being developed by private firms, is designed to carry multiple commercial satellites.
At least 35 private Chinese companies are working to produce more satellites.
Spacety, a satellite maker based in southern Hunan province, plans to put 20 satellites in orbit this year, including its first for a foreign client, chief executive Yang Feng told Reuters.
The company has only launched 12 on state-produced rockets since the company started operating in early 2016.
“When it comes to rocket launches, what we care about would be cost, reliability and time,” Yang said.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Gerry Doyle)
Werner Baumann, CEO of German pharmaceutical and chemical maker Bayer AG, attends the annual general shareholders meeting in Bonn, Germany, April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay
April 26, 2019
By Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger
BONN (Reuters) – Bayer shareholders vented their anger over its stock price slump on Friday as litigation risks mount from the German drugmaker’s $63 billion takeover of seed maker Monsanto.
Several large investors said they will not support aspirin investor Bayer’s management in a key vote scheduled for the end of its annual general meeting.
Bayer’s management, led by chief executive Werner Baumann, could see an embarrassing plunge in approval ratings, down from 97 percent at last year’s AGM, which was held shortly before the Monsanto takeover closed in June.
A vote to ratify the board’s actions features prominently at every German AGM. Although it has no bearing on management’s liability, it is seen as a key gauge of shareholder sentiment.
“Due to the continued negative development at Bayer, high legal risks and a massive share price slump, we refuse to ratify the management board and supervisory board’s actions during the business year,” Janne Werning, representing Germany’s Union Investment, a top-20 shareholder, said in prepared remarks.
About 30 billion euros ($34 billion) have been wiped off Bayer’s market value since August, when a U.S. jury found the pesticide and drugs group liable because Monsanto had not warned of alleged cancer risks linked to its weedkiller Roundup.
Bayer suffered a similar defeat last month and more than 13,000 plaintiffs are claiming damages.
Bayer is appealing or plans to appeal the verdicts.
Deutsche Bank’s asset managing arm DWS said shareholders should have been consulted before the takeover, which was agreed in 2016 and closed in June last year.
“You are pointing out that the lawsuits have not been lost yet. We and our customers, however, have already lost something – money and trust,” Nicolas Huber, head of corporate governance at DWS, said in prepared remarks for the AGM.
He said DWS would abstain from the shareholder vote of confidence in the executive and non-executive boards.
Two people familiar with the situation told Reuters this week that Bayer’s largest shareholder, BlackRock, plans to either abstain from or vote against ratifying the management board’s actions.
Asset management firm Deka, among Bayer’s largest German investors, has also said it would cast a no vote.
Baumann said Bayer’s true value was not reflected in the current share price.
“There’s no way to make this look good. The lawsuits and the first verdicts weigh heavily on our company and it’s a concern for many people,” he said, adding it was the right decision to buy Monsanto and that Bayer was vigorously defending itself.
This month, shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis recommended investors not to give the executive board their seal of approval.
(Reporting by Patricia Weiss and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Alexander Smith)
KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s military, which ousted President Omar al-Bashir after months of protests against his 30-year rule, says it intends to keep the upper hand during the country’s transitional period to civilian rule.
The announcement is expected to raise tensions with the protesters, who demand immediate handover of power.
The Sudanese Professionals Association, which is spearheading the protests, said Friday the crowds will stay in the streets until all their demands are met.
Shams al-Deen al-Kabashi, the spokesman for the military council, said late Thursday that the military will “maintain sovereign powers” while the Cabinet would be in the hands of civilians.
The protesters insist the country should be led by a “civilian sovereign” council with “limited military representation” during the transitional period.
The army toppled and arrested al-Bashir on April 11.
FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture, March 30, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
April 26, 2019
By Charlotte Greenfield
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – China’s Huawei Technologies said Britain’s decision to allow the firm a restricted role in building parts of its next-generation telecoms network was the kind of solution it was hoping for in New Zealand, where it has been blocked from 5G plans.
Britain will ban Huawei from all core parts of 5G network but give it some access to non-core parts, sources have told Reuters, as it seeks a middle way in a bitter U.S.-China dispute stemming from American allegations that Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for espionage.
Washington has also urged its allies to ban Huawei from building 5G networks, even as the Chinese company, the world’s top producer of telecoms equipment, has repeatedly said the spying concerns are unfounded.
In New Zealand, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network that includes the United States, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in November turned down an initial request from local telecommunication firm Spark to include Huawei equipment in its 5G network, but later gave the operator options to mitigate national security concerns.
“The proposed solution in the UK to restrict Huawei from bidding for the core is exactly the type of solution we have been looking at in New Zealand,” Andrew Bowater, deputy CEO of Huawei’s New Zealand arm, said in an emailed statement.
Spark said it has noted the developments in Britain and would raise it with the GCSB.
The reports “suggest the UK is following other European jurisdictions in taking a considered and balanced approach to managing supplier-related security risks in 5G”, Andrew Pirie, Spark’s corporate relations lead, said in an email.
“Our discussions with the GCSB are ongoing and we expect that the UK developments will be a further item of discussion between us,” Pirie added.
New Zealand’s minister for intelligence services, Andrew Little, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
British culture minister Jeremy Wright said on Thursday that he would report to parliament the conclusions of a government review of the 5G supply chain once they had been taken.
He added that the disclosure of confidential discussions on the role of Huawei was “unacceptable” and that he could not rule out a criminal investigation into the leak.
The decisions by Britain and Germany to use Huawei gear in non-core parts of 5G network makes it harder to prove Huawei should be kept out of New Zealand telecommunication networks, said Syed Faraz Hasan, an expert in communication engineering and networks at New Zealand’s Massey University
He pointed out Huawei gear was already part of the non-core 4G networks that 5G infrastructure would be built on.
“Unless there is a convincing argument against the Huawei devices … it is difficult to keep them away,” Hasan said.
(Reporting by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
FILE PHOTO: The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company’s headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, July 18, 2017. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
April 26, 2019
(Reuters) – Glencore shares plunged the most in nearly four months on Friday after news overnight that U.S. regulators were investigating whether the miner broke some rules through “corrupt practices”.
Shares of the FTSE 100 company fell as much as 4.2 percent in early deals, and were down 3.5 percent at 310.25 pence by 0728 GMT.
On Thursday, Glencore said the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is investigating whether the company and its units have violated some provisions of the Commodity ExchangeAct and/or CFTC Regulations.
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