BRUSSELS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The European Commission has started proceedings to assist Alphabet's Google in complying with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), it said in a statement on Tuesday. "Android is open by design, and we're already licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA. However, we are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather ...
BRUSSELS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The European Commission has started proceedings to assist Alphabet's Google in complying with the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA), it said in a statement on Tuesday. "Android is open by design, and we're already licensing Search data to competitors under the DMA. However, we are concerned that further rules which are often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation," Clare Kelly, Google's Senior Competition Counsel, said. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Foo Yun Chee; Writing by Charlotte Van Campenhout)
Close Brothers Group Plc is selling £250 million ($342 million) of Tier 2 notes on Tuesday as possible delays to the UK motor finance complaints support the lender’s outlook. The 10.5-year non-call 5.5 subordinated note is being marketed at around 6.5%, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company plans to use the proceeds to diversify and further strengthen its capital structure, i...
Close Brothers Group Plc is selling £250 million ($342 million) of Tier 2 notes on Tuesday as possible delays to the UK motor finance complaints support the lender’s outlook. The 10.5-year non-call 5.5 subordinated note is being marketed at around 6.5%, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company plans to use the proceeds to diversify and further strengthen its capital structure, including refinancing existing securities, said the person who asked not to be identified. Banks and car manufacturers had to set aside billions of pounds to refund UK buyers of car loans who were unlawfully charged hidden commissions for years. Close Brothers’ Additional Tier 1 bond, the riskiest form of bank debt, has seen its price buffeted as a result. Following a ruling from the Supreme Court in August, regulators at the Financial Conduct Authority established a redress scheme whereby lenders were told they would need to pay £8.2 billion ($10.8 billion) to wrongly charged customers. The program is set to cost the industry a further £2.8 billion to implement. The lenders are lobbying the FCA to change its program and reduce the amount of money they are on the hook for. RBC Capital Markets analyst Benjamin Toms upgraded its rating for Close Brothers’ shares earlier this month. He sees the timeline for the final motor finance scheme being extended and taken to judicial review, leading to a potential multi-year delay and pausing of compensation payments. The bonds are expected to be rated Baa2 by Moody’s Ratings. Bank of America Corp. and UBS Group AG are leading the sale that’s set to price later today. Read more: How Hidden Car Loan Fees Came Back to Bite UK Banks: QuickTake Issuer Profile Debt distribution: CBG LN Equity DDIS Capital structure: CBG LN Equity CAST Related securities: CBG LN Equity RELS Ratings history: CBG LN Equity CRPR This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation
Google was handed a six-month European Union deadline to lift technical barriers to rival AI search assistants on Android and give key data to other search engine providers in the latest round of its Big Tech crackdown. EU watchdogs announced under the bloc’s flagship DMA they would review whether Google is in compliance with strict laws on making Android interoperable with competing AI software a...
Google was handed a six-month European Union deadline to lift technical barriers to rival AI search assistants on Android and give key data to other search engine providers in the latest round of its Big Tech crackdown. EU watchdogs announced under the bloc’s flagship DMA they would review whether Google is in compliance with strict laws on making Android interoperable with competing AI software and also unlocking valuable search data — under fair terms — for rival search engines. While the announcement is a step shy of being a formal investigation, the EU aims to pressure Google to re-engineer its services to allow rival companies to access Android’s operating system and the company’s valuable search data. The Brussels-based authority gave the company six months to comply, or face the threat of future penalties. “With today’s proceedings we want to help Google by explaining in more detail how it should comply with its interoperability and online search data sharing obligations under the Digital Markets Act,” EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement. Clare Kelly, senior competition counsel at Google, said the US company is concerned that further rules “often driven by competitor grievances rather than the interest of consumers, will compromise user privacy, security, and innovation.” The escalation comes as Alphabet Inc.’s Google separately faces upcoming penalties under the DMA over allegations it unfairly favors in-house services across its sprawling search empire and for preventing app developers from steering consumers to offers outside of its Play Store. The company is also being probed over concerns it unfairly demotes certain news results. The wave of EU scrutiny risks adding to its €9.5 billion EU fines tally and worsening fraught relations with the Trump administration . Under Tuesday’s proceedings, the EU may later decide to launch a formal probe if Google doesn’t step into line. That could pave the way for potential fines as high as 10% of g...
Indonesia ’s decision to join US President Donald Trump ’s “Board of Peace” has raised eyebrows at home, with critics zeroing in on how it deviated from Jakarta’s values by serving the interests of only the US and Israel instead of Palestine. Some observers, however, argue that the move is “consistent” with Indonesia’s proactive foreign policy stance and allows it access to major powers. President...
Indonesia ’s decision to join US President Donald Trump ’s “Board of Peace” has raised eyebrows at home, with critics zeroing in on how it deviated from Jakarta’s values by serving the interests of only the US and Israel instead of Palestine. Some observers, however, argue that the move is “consistent” with Indonesia’s proactive foreign policy stance and allows it access to major powers. President Prabowo Subianto was among several world leaders flanking Trump at Thursday’s signing of the board’s charter on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum . More than 20 other countries have joined – including Albania, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Hungary, Israel, Kosovo, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. Advertisement “Indonesia’s presence is certainly a form of international recognition of Indonesian diplomacy, position and views on world peace in general and peace in the region in particular,” Foreign Minister Sugiono said in a video statement released on Friday. The president had “carefully considered various strategic aspects” before he decided to join the board, according to Sugiono. US President Donald Trump holds up the signed “Board of Peace” charter on Thursday. Photo: EPA “Palestinian independence and recognition of Palestinian sovereignty are things we have been striving for. The Board of Peace is one concrete alternative we can currently rely on to achieve these goals,” he said. “We will ensure that the efforts carried out by the Board of Peace remain focused on Palestinian independence and the achievement of a two-state solution.”
jetcityimage Kroger ( KR ) is back on my radar for an investment, trading at a reasonable valuation of 13.4x forward P/E and looking relatively safe as a consumer staples business in an expensive stock market. Despite the recent write-off involving the automated fulfillment network driving the share price lower, that realism by management should, in my opinion, help Kroger focus on delivering valu...
jetcityimage Kroger ( KR ) is back on my radar for an investment, trading at a reasonable valuation of 13.4x forward P/E and looking relatively safe as a consumer staples business in an expensive stock market. Despite the recent write-off involving the automated fulfillment network driving the share price lower, that realism by management should, in my opinion, help Kroger focus on delivering value to both customers and shareholders by focusing on getting back to basics. With less emphasis on e-commerce efforts, Kroger should have more cash to return to shareholders in the coming years, which will help to continue to grow its 2.2% dividend in addition to strong annual share repurchases, which will be discussed more later. With Kroger now 14.2% off 52-week highs, this consumer staples company is starting to look appealing again in an expensive market. Data by YCharts Since I last wrote about Kroger back in February 2021, the company has had a total return, including dividends, around 105% compared to the S&P 500's total return of 75%. Since this time period roughly five years ago, Kroger has also lowered its share count a solid 17.1% from 790 to 655 million shares. I have been a shareholder in and out of Kroger over the years since the 30% fall back in 2017 from the overreaction to when Amazon purchased Whole Foods and before Berkshire Hathaway invested in the business in 2020, which sent the shares up sharply. After the recent pullback, Kroger's valuation is looking enticing again, especially in the expensive stock market these days. Latest Q3 2025 Results Kroger last released Q3 2025 earnings on December 4th, reporting mixed results with slowing growth, with identical sales up a healthy 2.6% (excluding fuel) and adjusted EPS of $1.05 for the quarter. The unadjusted GAAP figures showed an operating loss of $1,541 million and EPS of negative $2.02, which need to be taken with a grain of salt as they include $2.6 billion ($3.00 loss per share) of impairment and relate...
Advancing Innovation: AMD Embedded x86 Solutions for Networking and Storage AMD Watch the Webinar Introduction This webinar will explore the critical role of embedded CPUs in networking and storage applications. The AMD Embedded x86 portfolio was purpose-built for secure packet processing in network switches, routers, firewalls, and storage. During this webinar, you’ll learn about: – Advanced embe...
Advancing Innovation: AMD Embedded x86 Solutions for Networking and Storage AMD Watch the Webinar Introduction This webinar will explore the critical role of embedded CPUs in networking and storage applications. The AMD Embedded x86 portfolio was purpose-built for secure packet processing in network switches, routers, firewalls, and storage. During this webinar, you’ll learn about: – Advanced embedded computing solutions that optimize workloads and reduce costs, enabling flexible deployment across storage controllers, all-flash arrays, and high-performance storage and networking appliances, including switches, firewalls, and routers. – Leadership performance for throughput, efficiency, and connectivity, including support for high-bandwidth memory interfaces, networking, to accelerate storage I/O and reduce data bottlenecks in cloud and edge deployments. – Reliability and longevity designed for mission-critical networking and storage workloads, ensuring consistent performance, reduced downtime, and long-term availability for deployments that must run seamlessly over extended lifecycles. – Software and tools that simplify deployment and accelerate time-to-market. Presenter Jeffrey Ho AMD, Director of Product Marketing, Storage & Networking Jeffrey Ho is director of product marketing in embedded x86 for the Storage and Networking segment at AMD. He is a seasoned semiconductor professional with more than 30 years of experience in device analysis, application engineering, technical marketing, and product line management. Jeffrey has a background in embedded systems, multi-core processor design, and use-cases. Jeffrey Ho AMD, Director of Product Marketing, Storage & Networking Jeffrey Ho is director of product marketing in embedded x86 for the Storage and Networking segment at AMD. He is a seasoned semiconductor professional with more than 30 years of experience in device analysis, application engineering, technical marketing, and product line management. Jeffrey has a ba...
AMD has introduced a new low-latency video decode solution for Radeon GPUs on Linux with the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver as part of the Mesa 26.1 release. This Linux patch, utilizing Video Core Next (VCN), is designed to maximize the performance of AMD Radeon hardware-accelerated multimedia decode and encode. The patch aims to deliver a high-performance decoding kernel that reduces video decoding la...
AMD has introduced a new low-latency video decode solution for Radeon GPUs on Linux with the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver as part of the Mesa 26.1 release. This Linux patch, utilizing Video Core Next (VCN), is designed to maximize the performance of AMD Radeon hardware-accelerated multimedia decode and encode. The patch aims to deliver a high-performance decoding kernel that reduces video decoding latency, although it requires more power consumption from the GPU, trading off some efficiency.For users of the RadeonSI Gallium3D driver, this option can be enabled with the AMD_DEBUG=lowlatencydec environment variable. By default, this option is turned off due to its more aggressive power profile. The default setting is a higher-latency mode, which is more power-efficient. This distinction is particularly important for AMD laptops running Radeon GPUs on Linux, as they must balance performance and efficiency. While desktop users might benefit from having the new low-latency mode enabled by default, laptop users will need to consider the trade-off between reduced battery life and faster video decoding.