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Japan’s Nomura axeing jobs and bank branches to cut costs by $1 billion

Logo of Nomura Holdings is pictured in Tokyo
A logo of Nomura Holdings is pictured in Tokyo, Japan, December 1, 2015. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

April 4, 2019

By Takashi Umekawa and Abhinav Ramnarayan

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Nomura Holdings will cut $1 billion in costs from its wholesale business and shut more than 30 of 156 domestic retail branches in its latest overhaul, the ailing bank said on Thursday.

Nomura also plans to axe about 100 jobs in London — the center for its European investment banking business — as part of the overhaul, a banking source told Reuters.

The wholesale segment has been dragging on the performance of Japan’s biggest brokerage and investment bank, pushing it to its heaviest quarterly loss in nearly 10 years in the three months to December.

Nomura then put the business, which serves corporations and institutional investors, under review as CEO Koji Nagai focused on reducing reliance on volatile global markets and building up stable revenue flows.

The target of cutting $1 billion in costs will be achieved over the “medium term”, with 60 percent completed by the end of the financial year to March 2020, Nomura’s joint COO Kentaro Okuda said in an investor day presentation.

The cost reduction will result in revenue gains between $300 million and $400 million, with the ultimate target of building a wholesale platform that delivers consistent pretax income of $1 billion, he said without giving a timeframe for that goal.

The segment swung to a pretax loss of 95.9 billion yen ($861 million) in the third quarter, versus a 14 billion yen profit a year earlier.

Nomura’s wholesale business has been squeezed by lower trading revenue in fixed income and what the bank described on Thursday as rigid indirect costs, adding that revenue for the business fell 24 percent to $4.9 billion in the past financial year.

The bank said it would “de-emphasize” all operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa while sharpening its focus in Asia, excluding Japan, and the Americas, where it aims to increase business with corporate clients.

CORPORATE FOCUS

The planned London job cuts represent part of this push, the banking source said, declining to be named.

The source, who has knowledge of Nomura’s business strategy, said the investment bank will also focus more on the corporate business rather than rates. It will also shift focus from bond trading to the primary market managing bond sales for borrowers.

Nomura will look to maintain all of its existing relationships regardless of the job losses, he added. The bank is a primary dealer for a number of European government bond issuers.

When asked about how many jobs will be cut as part of the global overhaul, Nomura CEO Nagai declined to comment.

A document seen by Reuters shows that Nomura would look for a 50 percent cost reduction in its trading business in Europe, Middle East and Africa while also aiming to digitize its systems.

The plans include pursuing “strategic growth opportunities” in China, where the bank last week received regulatory approval to set up a majority-owned brokerage joint venture.

For the year ended in March, analysts expect the company to post its first annual loss since 2009, Refinitiv data shows, hurt also by a steep drop in profit at its retail business.

Japanese banks have been accelerating cost-cutting by shutting down domestic branches as they grapple with ultra-low interest rates and a declining population at home.

Nomura’s plans to pare its retail footprint at home comes after rival Mizuho Financial Group last month said that it would book about 500 billion yen of impairment losses on fixed assets, including costs from closing branches at home and software-related expenses.

(Reporting by Takashi Umekawa in Tokyo and Abhinav Ramnarayan in London; Additional reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee in Hong Kong; Editing by Himani Sarkar and David Goodman)

Source: OANN

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Russian lawmaker cheers findings of Mueller's report

A senior Russian lawmaker has welcomed the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on Russian involvement in the U.S. presidential election, saying this gives the countries a chance to mend ties.

Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper chamber of the Russian parliament, said in a social media post on Monday that Mueller's probe was accompanied by "two years of incessant lies," but proved that there was no collusion, something that "we in Russia knew from the start."

Mueller's report found no evidence that U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign conspired with Russian officials to influence the 2016 elections.

Kosachev said the conclusion of the investigation gives Trump enough space to repair ties with Russia, but he said he is uncertain if Trump will "take this risk."

Source: Fox News World

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Mob power-struggle could be brewing, will be 'all-out war': reports

Concerns of an “all-out war” within the mob are brewing after the apparent hit on reputed Gambino crime family boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali outside his New York City home Wednesday night due to the timing of the late "Teflon Don" John Gotti’s brother’s release from prison about six months ago, reports said Thursday.

Since 73-year-old Gene Gotti’s release in September, after a 29-year sentence for dealing heroin, law enforcement sources have been concerned about the possibility of a bloody power struggle within the family, reports have said.

REPUTED GAMBINO CRIME BOSS KILLED IN NEW YORK CITY TRIED DODGING BULLETS BY HIDING UNDER SUV, COPS SAY

If Gotti, a reputed capo in the family, is linked to the murder of Cali, who had close ties to the Sicilian Mafia, “there’s going to be an all-out war,” a source told the New York Post Thursday. “The Sicilians are not going to sit back and let that happen.”

Cali, 53, was shot several times around 9:15 p.m. Wednesday outside his red-brick colonial-style house in the Todt Hill section of Staten Island. His family was reportedly inside at the time.

Surveillance footage outside Cali’s home showed the mobster appeared to have been drawn out of his house when the gunman backed his pickup truck into Cali’s Cadillac SUV, a law-enforcement official who saw the video told the Daily Beast. At least 12 shots were fired. Footage showed that after Cali was shot he had tried to crawl under his SUV to hide, police said.

GRAPHIC IMAGE: FRANK CALI'S KILLING RECALLS NYC'S LAST MAJOR MOB HIT DECADES AGO

Cali’s murder recalled the last major last mob hit in New York City more than three decades ago. Then-Gambino boss Paul Castellano was fatally shot outside Sparks Steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan in 1985 — an act that authorities said was ordered by Gene’s brother, John Gotti, in a power move to seize control of the family.

“It’s in his bloodline,” a source told the Post of Gene Gotti, likening Cali’s killing to that of Castellano. “This is very similar in some ways to what happened to Paul Castellano in front of Sparks Steakhouse.”

FILE - The body of mafia crime boss Paul Castellano lies on a stretcher outside Manhattan's Sparks Steak House in Dec. 1985 after he and his bodyguards were gunned down at the direction of John Gotti, who then took over as boss. (Associated Press)

FILE - The body of mafia crime boss Paul Castellano lies on a stretcher outside Manhattan's Sparks Steak House in Dec. 1985 after he and his bodyguards were gunned down at the direction of John Gotti, who then took over as boss. (Associated Press)

When John Gotti died in prison from throat cancer in 2002, his other brother, Peter rose as godfather. Power again shifted to the family’s Sicilian faction after Peter was put behind bars, with Domenico Cefalu taking over before passing leadership to Cali in 2015.

5 BLOODY MOB-RELATED KILLINGS IN AMERICA

Under mob protocol, Gene Gotti’s release from prison entitles him to a key role within the family, according to the Post.

But police have said it is too soon to tell whether Cali’s death was mob-related, let alone linked to Gene Gotti.

“It’s total speculation,” a source told the New York Daily News about a possible connection to Gotti. “But it’s also something to look out for. Was Gene trying to reclaim some of his business and Cali wasn’t going for it?”

The Gambino Family was once among the most powerful criminal organizations in the U.S., but federal prosecutions in the 1980s and 1990s sent its top leaders — including the Gotti brothers — to prison and diminished its reach.

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Cali was considered a unifying figure in the family, credited with recruiting new immigrant gangsters from Italy and focusing on the heroin and Oxycontin trades, the Post reported.

No arrests have been made in Cali’s murder.

Source: Fox News National

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Americans to bet $8.5 billion on NCAA’s ‘March Madness’ basketball tournament: report

NCAA Basketball: SEC Conference Tournament-Tennessee vs Auburn
Mar 17, 2019; Nashville, TN, USA; General view of pyrotechnics in the arena prior to the championship game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Auburn Tigers in the SEC conference tournament at Bridgestone Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jim Brown-USA TODAY Sports

March 18, 2019

By Hilary Russ

NEW YORK (Reuters) – About 47 million people – one in five American adults – are expected to bet a combined $8.5 billion on “March Madness,” the annual men’s college basketball tournament, a new report said on Monday.

A plurality of bettors – 29 percent – favor Duke University’s Blue Devils to win, according to a report from the American Gaming Association (AGA), a casino industry group.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s tournament to determine the Division I men’s basketball champions begins on Tuesday and ends April 8 in Minneapolis.

This year is the first time the tournament will be held since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May 2018 allowed states to legalize, regulate and tax sports betting.

Eight states now offer legal sports wagers, including Nevada, which was never subject to a ban.

More than $5.9 billion has been bet on sports in those eight states since the court decision, the AGA said in its report.

As the nascent legal U.S. sports betting industry expands, major events like the NCAA’s March Madness are providing first glimpses of how many betters may want to move from illegal to legal wagering, and how much money casinos, racetracks and bookmakers stand to make in the years to come.

Forecasts had suggested Americans would wager $325 million this year on another traditionally huge betting event, the Super Bowl.

But the two biggest state markets so far – Nevada and New Jersey – fell short. Nevada handled just $146 million of legal bets, an 8 percent drop from the previous year’s record $159 million.

A report from Eilers & Krejcik gaming analysts on Friday estimated that if all 50 U.S. states had legal online sports betting, sportsbooks would handle $15.2 billion of total wagers just for March Madness alone, grossing about $1.2 billion of revenue.

By March of 2023, as many as 39 states could have legal sports betting, Eilers & Krejcik found.

As for this year, March Madness will likely generate $4.6 billion of wagers from 40 million people betting with friends and colleagues through a total 149 million brackets, the AGA said.

The remaining $3.9 billion of wagers will come mostly by way of illegal offshore websites and bookies, though 4.1 million people will also place legal bets through licensed casinos and sportsbook operators.

“These results indicate there’s still work to do to eradicate the vast illegal sports betting market in this country,” said AGA Chief Executive Officer Bill Miller in a statement.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ, editing by G Crosse)

Source: OANN

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Ballot Harvesting Divide Persists Amid Elections Debate

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During last week’s fierce partisan debate over House Democrats’ campaign finance/elections and ethics overhaul, there was one thing Republicans and Democrats appeared to agree on:  the dearth of information about ballot harvesting – the controversial practice of campaign workers, union members, and volunteers collecting mail-in ballots from voters and delivering them to election officials to be counted – and its impact on elections.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell criticized the Democratic measure, which was designed to make voting easier and which passed on a party-line vote, for not addressing “sketchy” ballot harvesting practices. The GOP leader pointed to the fraud uncovered in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, which both Democrats and Republicans have condemned.

It was illegal to collect absentee ballots in North Carolina because Republicans passed a law barring the practice. But some form of ballot harvesting takes place in 19 other states, where little or no data has been collected on the practice’s impact and abuses.

The Democrats’ bill, HR 1, is “suspiciously silent on the murky ballot harvesting practices that recently threw North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District into chaos,” McConnell said during a recent speech on the Senate floor.

Shortly after the midterms, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan made national headlines by calling the practice “bizarre” and arguing that what happened in California, where several seats in traditionally red Orange County flipped, “defies logic.” Several Republicans saw election night leads dwindle away in the days and weeks afterward as mail-in and absentee votes were counted. Three years ago the state legislature passed a law making it lawful for anyone to collect voters’ absentee ballots and drop them off.

Democrats have countered that the GOP hasn’t shown any documented evidence of fraud involved with the practice and is simply trying to make it harder for Democrats to vote, especially in minority communities where voters may not be close to polling places or have transportation available to them.

John Santos, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, told RealClearPolitics that the party is fighting to overturn laws barring ballot harvesting in Arizona and other places because there “is no evidence of widespread fraud” that “would justify blanket bans.”

During consideration of HR 1 on the House floor last week, Democrats voted down amendments from GOP Reps. Ken Calvert of California and Mark Walker of North Carolina that would have prohibited ballot harvesting nationwide.

“For years, conservatives who questioned ballot harvesting – a practice where unvetted organizers can go door-to-door, collecting absentee ballots like candy – were criticized and demeaned,” Walker (pictured) said in a statement afterward. “Now, as we see election fraud in my home state and House Democrats are rightfully calling for additional election-security measures, they are rejecting common-sense proposals, fearing a breakdown of their legislated electoral advantages.

“Ballot-harvesting is a cooking pot for election fraud and abuse, and we need to get all the cooks out of the kitchen,” he added.

Before the GOP amendment was rejected, the Native American Rights Fund, the oldest and largest nonprofit law firm devoted to defending the rights of Indian tribes, wrote a letter to members of Congress calling on them to oppose Calvert’s proposal, arguing that “mailing locations are not as accessible for natives on tribal lands as they are to non-natives off tribal lands. Home mail-service does not exist throughout Indian Country.”

The Calvert amendment is a solution in search of a problem, the group wrote, adding, “On the rare occasions in which improprieties are alleged to have occurred in the handling of ballots, such as those that have come to light in North Carolina … they are already prohibited under state law. The answer to these sorts of violations is to use existing laws, not pass unneeded federal legislation that will disenfranchise Native American voters.”

Republicans say they proposed the nationwide ban precisely because states have become a patchwork of expansions and prohibitions regarding the practice, depending on which party controls the legislature.  

Calvert said last week that the practice lacks transparency, which has understandably led to voter concern. He said California Secretary of State Alex Padilla and other election officials “have provided little if any information on the rules and regulations covering ballot harvesting since Democrats legalized the practice” there.

On March 4 he sent a list of 27 questions to his local Riverside County Registrar of Voters that he said remain unanswered. For instance, he questioned whether those turning in collected ballots are required to provide their name or the name of the organization they are working on behalf of or any other identifying information, and whether they are barred from turning over a ballot to another individual or organization before turning it in to an authorized voting location.

Calvert also asked whether the registrar requires any identifying information from the individual who drops off the ballot, whether a list of those persons is created and whether that list is subject to public disclosure. Because the law states it’s illegal to fail to “deliver the ballot in a timely fashion,” he asked what constituted a “timely fashion” and if there were any hard deadlines involved.

“Our election laws should always be focused on what protects the confidence and integrity in our elections, not what gives one party an advantage over the other,” Calvert said a statement.

In response to Calvert’s questions, Padilla said only that California is “expanding opportunities for eligible citizens to register to vote and for registered voters to cast their ballot.”

“These opportunities include in-person early voting, the option to vote-by-mail, and giving voters the power to decide who they most trust to return their vote-by-mail ballot for them if they so choose,” he told the Riverside Press Enterprise.

“As other states are rolling back voting rights, California is modernizing our elections and making it easier for all eligible citizens to participate.”

McConnell said he and other Republicans have opposed ballot harvesting and called for other “common-sense” election safeguards only to be “demonized by Democrats and their allies.”

Susan Crabtree is a veteran Washington reporter who has spent two decades covering the White House and Congress.

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Kamala Harris Reports Income Over $2 Million on Return

U.S. Senator Kamala Harris and her husband reported more than $2 million in income on their 2018 federal tax return, with the vast majority stemming from her husband’s work as a partner in a law firm.

The California senator, one of 18 declared candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, released 15 years’ worth of tax returns Sunday, dating back to when she first held elected office.

Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, a partner at DLA Piper, reported taxable income of $1.8 million, including $157,352 from her Senate salary. The couple paid $697,611 in taxes this year with an effective rate of 38.4 percent. In 2017, before the Republican tax overhaul went into effect, they paid an effective tax rate of 40 percent and paid about a half-million dollars in taxes on lower income.

The couple reported more than $225,000 in state and local tax payments, but the tax overhaul capped the amount they could deduct from their federal taxes at $10,000. Emhoff did not qualify for a 20 percent deduction for pass-through business owners included in the new law because the deduction isn’t granted to law firms.

Harris is widely viewed as a top-tier contender in a large and growing Democratic field, running competitively in surveys for third place behind the much better-known former Vice President Joe Biden, who hasn’t officially announced, and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. She raised $12 million in the first quarter of 2019, second only to Sanders.

Harris has focused her message around progressive economics and social justice for immigrants, African Americans and the LGBT community. She has proposed cutting taxes for middle-income and low-income families by providing tax credits and direct payments to those households.

She has also proposed to pay for these tax breaks by rolling back benefits for those making more than $100,000 and to put a levy on banks with more than $50 billion in assets.

Before being elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris served as the California attorney general and as the San Francisco district attorney. She’s scheduled to campaign in the important early state of South Carolina this week.

Harris joins several other 2020 hopefuls, including Senators Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, in releasing more than a decade of tax returns. Democrats have been using the release of their tax information to contrast with President Donald Trump, who in the 2016 campaign became the first presidential candidate in more than 40 years to refuse to release his returns.

Senator Bernie Sanders, who released only one year of returns when he ran for the Democratic nomination in 2016, has said he’ll make 10 years’ worth of returns public by April 15, the tax filing deadline. Sanders’ campaign manager Faiz Shakir said Saturday that the senator’s tax returns will be “boring.”

House Democrats have asked the IRS to hand over Trump’s tax returns, citing a 1924 law that allows the chairmen of the tax-writing committee to demand the returns of any American taxpayer. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who oversees the agency, has asked the Justice Department to review the request, but Trump, White House officials, Republican members of Congress and the president’s lawyers have all said it would be a violation of his privacy to do so.

House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal has given the IRS an April 23 deadline to release the returns but the fight is expected to drag on for some time.

Source: NewsMax Politics

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Deutsche Bank merger talks heighten uncertainty for U.S. staff

A statue is pictured next to the logo of Germany's Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: A statue is pictured next to the logo of Germany's Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, Germany September 30, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

March 20, 2019

By Matt Scuffham

(Reuters) – Deutsche Bank AG’s merger talks with Commerzbank AG has put its 10,000 U.S. workers on edge, three employees told Reuters, with some concerned a deal could pressure Deutsche to further shrink or even dispose of its U.S. businesses.

The future of the bank’s U.S. trading and investment banking presence had already been in question, with some shareholders calling for further cuts on top of ones announced last year, and speculation has intensified following confirmation of the merger talks on Sunday.

The German government, which has a 15 percent stake in Commerzbank, is expected to retain a stake in the combined business if a deal materializes. Some employees fear that could pressure the bank to focus on its home market.

Both banks have cautioned that the outcome of the talks remains uncertain, and the process could drag on for months. In the meantime key employees could decamp to rival Wall Street banks and hedge funds, further weakening a business that has underperformed for years. Several executives have left the bank’s U.S. operations in recent months.

“We don’t know what’s going on. Everything is up in the air,” said one senior employee within the bank’s U.S. equity sales business, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Chief Executive Christian Sewing reiterated in a memo to staff on Sunday that Deutsche aimed to remain a “global bank with a strong capital markets business,” and a source familiar with the matter said the merger would not change the bank’s commitment to a strong U.S. presence.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment on Wednesday.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz, reportedly a proponent of the merger, has previously stressed the need for Germany’s banking sector to support German companies who want to go abroad to export.

After the 2007-2009 financial crisis, Deutsche maintained a large presence on Wall Street, even as European rivals like Credit Suisse Group AG made big cuts to U.S. investment banking operations.

Deutsche Bank’s U.S. business has brought in around half of revenue for its overall investment banking unit, which includes corporate and investment banking as well as trading, even though it came with a relatively high cost of capital.

However, encumbered by litigation and regulatory investigations into past misconduct, the business has struggled to compete with Wall Street rivals.

Deutsche had said last May that it would reduce its global headcount to well below 90,000 from 97,000. That included a 25 percent cut in equities sales and trading jobs, a significant number of which were in New York, where it has lagged rivals.

Cutting more jobs in the United States would not provoke the same political pushback that the two banks would face if they axe jobs in Germany, banking analysts say.

PAY CONCERNS

Even if Deutsche Bank keeps its U.S. operations largely intact following a Commerzbank deal, some staff fear pay and bonuses would decline because the combined entity would face a backlash from German taxpayers if its remuneration was seen as excessive.

Commerzbank, which is focused on personal and commercial lending, typically pays its staff less than Deutsche Bank. If the German government were to retain a stake in a combined entity, lawmakers would likely argue that it should keep a tight rein on pay.

Traders at Deutsche Bank’s U.S. equities business have already felt a squeeze, with some receiving substantially smaller bonuses for 2018, the sources said.

That has contributed to a decline in morale, which has been exacerbated by the departure of senior staff including Brad Kurtzman, co-head of equities trading in the Americas, who is leaving at the end of this month, the sources said.

A recent focus on recruiting college graduates, held up by senior management as an affirmation of the bank’s long-term commitment to the trading division, has done little to quell concern, they added.

One employee, who asked not to be named, said further defections are considered likely as staff look to pre-empt further cuts should the Commerzbank deal go through.

(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)

Source: OANN

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The Wider Image: China's start-ups go small in age of 'shoebox' satellites
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)

Source: OANN

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German drug and crop chemical maker Bayer holds annual general meeting
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)

Source: OANN

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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.

Source: Fox News World

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FILE PHOTO: Small toy figures are seen in front of a displayed Huawei and 5G network logo in this illustration picture
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)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The logo commodities trader Glencore is pictured in Baar
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.

(Reporting by Muvija M in Bengaluru)

Source: OANN

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