More companies are using Hong Kong as a platform to tap yuan funds to finance their operations, thanks to the city’s active capital market and a new 200 billion yuan (US$28.68 billion) liquidity facility that provides steady, cheap yuan funding, according to a Standard Chartered report on Wednesday. Among companies that have yuan exposure, about 24 per cent said they would like to increase yuan fi...
More companies are using Hong Kong as a platform to tap yuan funds to finance their operations, thanks to the city’s active capital market and a new 200 billion yuan (US$28.68 billion) liquidity facility that provides steady, cheap yuan funding, according to a Standard Chartered report on Wednesday. Among companies that have yuan exposure, about 24 per cent said they would like to increase yuan financing over the next three years, according to Standard Chartered, citing the results of a survey...
A Hong Kong car owner has lost HK$500,000 (US$63,800) to scammers posing as petrol company staff who exploited surging fuel prices by offering bogus top-up deals for membership cards, police have said. The victim received unsolicited WhatsApp messages from fraudsters claiming to represent a fuel company, police said on their CyberDefender Facebook page on Wednesday. The scammers promised discounts...
A Hong Kong car owner has lost HK$500,000 (US$63,800) to scammers posing as petrol company staff who exploited surging fuel prices by offering bogus top-up deals for membership cards, police have said. The victim received unsolicited WhatsApp messages from fraudsters claiming to represent a fuel company, police said on their CyberDefender Facebook page on Wednesday. The scammers promised discounts through prepaid petrol cards and lured the victim into making immediate purchases. Global oil...
American Ocean Minerals Corp., a deep-sea exploration company led by former Rio Tinto Chief Executive Officer Tom Albanese , is combining with Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. in a reverse merger, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The all-stock deal values the combined company at about $1 billion on a pro forma equity basis, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing...
American Ocean Minerals Corp., a deep-sea exploration company led by former Rio Tinto Chief Executive Officer Tom Albanese , is combining with Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. in a reverse merger, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The all-stock deal values the combined company at about $1 billion on a pro forma equity basis, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. As part of the transaction, a group of institutional investors have committed to a $150 million private placement and a $75 million pre-public financing, the people said. Citigroup Inc. and Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. arranged the placement, while Moelis & Co. was financial adviser to Odyssey, they added. Following the transaction, which is subject to approval from Odyssey shareholders, the company will be operated as American Ocean Minerals Corp. and trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol AOMC, the people said. Representatives for American Ocean Minerals and Odyssey declined to comment. The deal comes as the US and its allies seek new sources of critical minerals used in batteries, industrial manufacturing and defense supply chains, amid growing concern over reliance on a small number of producer countries. American Ocean Minerals is building its portfolio across the Cook Islands’ exclusive economic zone and U.S.-regulated international waters, including the Clarion-Clipperton Zone and the Penrhyn Basin in the Pacific Ocean, the people said. The company plans to focus on polymetallic nodules — potato-size ocean-floor deposits rich in nickel, iron, copper, cobalt, manganese and rare earths, all essential for electrification, batteries and steelmaking. Rising demand for these critical minerals, combined with their concentrated supply, is increasing the urgency to develop alternative sources. The Cook Islands spent years building a formal regulatory framework for seabed mining, putting the South Pacific nation ahead of many other jurisdictions in setting out h...
Evidence Points To Ukraine Being Behind TurkStream Attempted Sabotage (To No One's Surprise) Via Remix News, Secret service documents allegedly prove that the Ukrainians planned to blow up the Turkish and Blue Stream pipelines years ago, permanently cutting Europe off from cheap Russian gas, reports Magyar Nemzet , citing a report out of Ellenpont. However, Serbia’s intelligence chief is denying t...
Evidence Points To Ukraine Being Behind TurkStream Attempted Sabotage (To No One's Surprise) Via Remix News, Secret service documents allegedly prove that the Ukrainians planned to blow up the Turkish and Blue Stream pipelines years ago, permanently cutting Europe off from cheap Russian gas, reports Magyar Nemzet , citing a report out of Ellenpont. However, Serbia’s intelligence chief is denying that Ukrainians were the perpetrators, instead claiming that they had reports of a possible attack planned by a certain migrant gang group of radical muslims but had not considered it legitimate intel . However, this same chief also does not rule out that Ukraine was the contractor behind the scheme. The Serbian section of the Turkish Stream gas pipeline was set on fire in a sabotage operation on Sunday. Since this pipeline supplies Hungary with gas, blowing up the pipeline would have put the country’s gas supply at risk. The portal also reported that, in response to the explosives found near the TurkStream pipeline in Serbia last weekend, a presenter on one of Zelensky’s propaganda TV stations stated: “If the Ukrainians want to blow up the Turkish Stream, they will blow it up.” President Zelensky has been accused by Budapest of openly interfering in the Hungarian elections by creating an energy crisis to help opposition leader Péter Magyar. Kyiv wants to cut Hungary off from all Russian oil, and they are counting on Magyar’s Tisza Party to do this. Since January, Kyiv has refused to reopen the Druzhba after a Russian attack, with Hungary and Slovakia claiming Zelensky is keeping the pipeline closed on purpose. Back in August last year, after a Ukrainian attack on part of the pipeline in Russia , the section was repaired quickly, and Hungary’s foreign minister made it clear that they expected no further attacks on such vital energy infrastructure. In September 2022, when the Ukrainians destroyed Nord Stream, they were allegedly planning a double attack, writes Magyar Nemet, ...
Lucy Baldwin, global head of research at Citi, sees the US-Iran ceasefire deal letting markets return to the themes that were in focus before the start of the war. (Source: Bloomberg)
Lucy Baldwin, global head of research at Citi, sees the US-Iran ceasefire deal letting markets return to the themes that were in focus before the start of the war. (Source: Bloomberg)
The Trump administration is expected to significantly scale back its plan to seek additional funding for the war in Iran ahead of what is likely to be a contentious fight over the request in Congress, The Washington Post reported, citing U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter. The eventual ask of Congress is likely to fall between $80 billion and $100 billion, officials said, less than...
The Trump administration is expected to significantly scale back its plan to seek additional funding for the war in Iran ahead of what is likely to be a contentious fight over the request in Congress, The Washington Post reported, citing U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter. The eventual ask of Congress is likely to fall between $80 billion and $100 billion, officials said, less than half the amount of an earlier proposal to offset costs of the conflict. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the attacks would be paused after the two sides agreed to a two-week ceasefire. He welcomes NATO chief Mark Rutte to the White House on Wednesday, as the war with Iran has pushed U.S. relations with other members of the military alliance to a crisis point. Trump on Friday requested a 10% cut in non-defense spending for the 2027 fiscal year and a massive $500 billion increase in the military budget. Notable defense stocks: Lockheed Martin ( LMT ), RTX ( RTX ), Northrop Grumman ( NOC ), Boeing ( BA ), Honeywell ( HON ), General Dynamics ( GD ), GEAerospace ( GE ), L3Harris Technologies ( LHX ), TransDigm ( TDG ), and Huntington Ingalls ( HII ). Dear Readers: We recognize that politics often intersect with the financial news of the day, so we invite you to click here to join the separate political discussion. More on markets, etc. AI Already Took 3 Million Jobs Iran Could Be The Tipping Point For The Consumer-Led Economy About Those Orders For Durable Goods That Factories In The U.S. Received AM Markets Need to Know: U.S.-Iran ceasefire updates, Hormuz transit fees, and more Stock futures jump, crude oil slides after Trump suspends Iran attack for two weeks
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - APRIL 7: U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on April 7, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. Vance is supporting Orban's bid for reelection in Hungarian parliamentary elections scheduled for April 12. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst - Pool/Getty Images) Pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images Vice President JD Vance has sai...
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - APRIL 7: U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks at a joint press conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on April 7, 2026 in Budapest, Hungary. Vance is supporting Orban's bid for reelection in Hungarian parliamentary elections scheduled for April 12. (Photo by Jonathan Ernst - Pool/Getty Images) Pool | Getty Images News | Getty Images Vice President JD Vance has said the Iran ceasefire is a "fragile truce." The ceasefire, announced Tuesday, halted attacks on the country for two weeks and triggered a relief rally in global markets. Speaking in Hungary, Vance said Wednesday that Iran's foreign minister had responded well to the ceasefire but others in the country had been "lying" about the agreement. "This is why I say this is a fragile truce," he said. "You have people who clearly want to come to the negotiating table and work with us to find a good deal, and then you have people who are lying about even the fragile truce that we've already struck." Vance, who has been campaigning for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's re-election, said the U.S. had "clear military, diplomatic and, maybe most importantly, we have extraordinary economic leverage" over Iran. "The President has told us not to use those tools. He's told us to come to the negotiating table. But if the Iranians don't do the exact same thing, they're going to find out that the President of the United States is not one to mess around. He's impatient. He's impatient to make progress," Vance added. U.S President Donald Trump threatened earlier this week that a "whole civilization will die" without a deal for a ceasefire. He warned Iran had to either cut a deal or face massive strikes on its civilian infrastructure. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.
A German dentist pension fund that’s facing a loss of half its assets sued its ex-managing director for about €50 million ($58 million). The fund, known by its German acronym VZB, filed the case in the Berlin Labor Court earlier this month, a spokeswoman for the tribunal said in an e-mailed statement without disclosing the amount sought. The fund is seeking about €50 million from Ralf Wohltmann, p...
A German dentist pension fund that’s facing a loss of half its assets sued its ex-managing director for about €50 million ($58 million). The fund, known by its German acronym VZB, filed the case in the Berlin Labor Court earlier this month, a spokeswoman for the tribunal said in an e-mailed statement without disclosing the amount sought. The fund is seeking about €50 million from Ralf Wohltmann, people familiar with the lawsuit said. VZB and a lawyer for Wohltmann didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment. VZB, which caters to more than 10,000 dentists in the wider Berlin area and the city of Bremen, said it’s facing losses of about €1.1 billion after many of its investments — including backing a shrimp farm — soured. It had about €2.2 billion in assets under management by the end of 2024. The loss is the starkest example yet of a slow-burning crisis engulfing several German pension funds that poured money into opaque and risky corners of finance to prop up returns eroded by years of ultra-low interest rates. Some of those strategies have suffered large losses since rates have risen. Wohltmann was VZB’s managing director for 25 years until he was suspended in early 2025 and later dismissed. VZB claimed he violated his contract because he was invested in a company that in turn did business with VZB. The fund has blamed some of its losses on him and has also sued former officers and advisers. The Berlin Labor Court in January threw out a suit for wrongful dismissal from Wohltmann. He has appealed that ruling. Read More: German Dentists’ Fund Sues Advisers Over €1.1 Billion Loss
You know how much you have saved up in your 401(k) account. But how much does everyone else have? Mutual fund giant and retirement plan administrator Fidelity offers up this very information. Here are the average 401(k) balances for every age group participating in its plans as o
You know how much you have saved up in your 401(k) account. But how much does everyone else have? Mutual fund giant and retirement plan administrator Fidelity offers up this very information. Here are the average 401(k) balances for every age group participating in its plans as o