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Strict Covid-19 testing for high-profile Bloomberg forum as S’pore revives global event hub ambition

aseanpr
6 minutes

SINGAPORE - One of the most-watched global events to be held in Singapore since the start of the pandemic was under way on Wednesday (Nov 17) in a meticulously planned albeit muted fashion, as the Republic took another step towards business as usual as a leading events hub. The Bloomberg New Economy Forum (NEF) saw Covid-19 testing and safety measures implemented with no hiccups for about 300 international business and government leaders who descended on Sentosa island's ritzy Capella hotel. As part of a pilot scheme by Singapore starting this week - to allow larger gatherings of fully vaccinated attendees who undergo prior testing - the NEF is helping create a blueprint for how such events can be done, Bloomberg Media's global communications head Brian Strong told The Straits Times. "The protocols are stringent in the best way possible - to keep people safe," he added. All participants international and local must be fully vaccinated, and must take a daily antigen rapid test (ART) provided free of charge by organisers at seven testing stations around the island. Members of the media were assigned to take their tests at a relatively deserted Sentosa Beach Station carpark, with only...

SeaPRwire

JPMorgan faces regulatory requests over message preservation

elean
2 minutes

(BLOOMBERG) - JPMorgan Chase & Co, which rattled employees earlier this year by ordering them to save work-related messages on their personal phones, said regulators have been asking questions about how it preserves records. The largest US bank has been responding to requests for information "concerning its compliance with records preservation requirements in connection with business communications sent over electronic messaging channels that have not been approved by the firm," JPMorgan said in a regulatory filing Monday. The company is engaged in "certain resolution discussions", but there's no guarantee that the talks will result in a resolution, according to the filing. JPMorgan declined to comment beyond the filing. As Wall Street sent most employees to work from home at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic last year, the question emerged of how securities firms would maintain their tight grip on employee communications as required by regulators - even prompting an industry-wide alert from the Securities and Exchange Commission's inspections unit. Earlier this year, JPMorgan ordered traders, bankers, financial advisers and even some branch employees to sift through years of mess...

SeaPRwire

Grab CEO confident Spac merger to close by year-end after delay

elean
3 minutes

SINGAPORE (BLOOMBERG) - Grab Holdings chief executive officer Anthony Tan said he's confident the merger of the ride-hailing and food-delivery giant and a US blank-cheque company will be completed by year-end, following a delay caused by a review of its financials. The Singapore-based start-up last week postponed the expected completion of the deal with Altimeter Growth Corp - set to be one of the largest-ever mergers with a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) - to the fourth quarter as it works on an audit of the past three years. When announcing the pact in April, Grab said in an investor presentation its completion target was July. "We decided to be proactive," Mr Tan said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. "We wanted to set the bar in transparent financial reporting. It may have taken a little longer than we expected." Grab, which operates across South-east Asia, is the latest company to be affected by intensifying scrutiny from US financial regulators on deals involving Spacs. After a frenzy of listings, the Spac market has been hit by a crackdown by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as lawsuits from shareholders, falling stock prices and d...

SeaPRwire

Blackstone bets billions on reopening and travel revival

elean
2 minutes

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - Blackstone Group is doubling down on a post-Covid 19 economic recovery, investing heavily in businesses that will benefit from a world that's gradually reopening. New York-based Blackstone invested US$17.7 billion in the first three months of the year, buying hotels including Extended Stay America, private-jet operator Signature Aviation and UK travel company Bourne Leisure. Investors continued to bet solidly on Blackstone, which saw its assets under management swell to a record US$648.8 billion, the company said on Thursday in an earnings report. Even as credit markets recovered and the stock market kept soaring, travel- and entertainment-related assets were struggling as people continued social distancing and local restrictions limited capacity at hotels and other venues. Blackstone says the firm is now seeing signs across its portfolio of companies that people's behaviour is shifting: At the Cosmopolitan hotel of Las Vegas, money going into slot machines was at record levels. Forward bookings for travel in the UK were also at a high. "This should be good time for the real world," Blackstone President Jonathan Gray said in an interview. "Businesses like tel...

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Bitcoin surpasses US$21,000 for first time amid dizzying rally

elean
3 minutes

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - Bitcoin surpassed US$21,000 (S$27,900) for the first time, another milestone in what's been an eye-popping rally for the controversial digital asset this year. The world's largest cryptocurrency surged as much as 10 per cent to US$21,293 in New York on Wednesday (Dec 16), vindicating forecasts that were scoffed at months ago and leading to even higher prognostications. Bitcoin has almost tripled this year, with the rally accelerating on Wednesday after breaching US$20,000 earlier for the first time. "We have a new line in the sand and the focus shifts to the next round number of US$30,000," said Antoni Trenchev, co-founder and managing partner of Nexo, a crypto lender. This "is the start of a new chapter for Bitcoin. It's a narrative the media and retail crowd can properly latch onto because they've been noticeably absent from this rally". Bitcoin has surged despite a severe crash in March that saw it lose 25 per cent amid the coronavirus pandemic. Proponents have seized on the narrative that the coin could act as a store of wealth amid supposed rampant central-bank money printing, even as inflation remains mostly muted. In addition, some Wall Street firms ha...

ACN Newswire
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Huatai Securities and Bloomberg Establish Global Strategic Collaboration

indie
3 minutes

BEIJING, Nov 18, 2020 - (ACN Newswire) - Huatai Securities Co., Ltd. ('Huatai Securities') and Bloomberg, today jointly established a global strategic collaboration to accelerate digital transformation at one of China's leading securities groups. Harnessing Huatai Securities' financial services expertise and Bloomberg's global technology experience, the two companies will collaborate on financial technology, market-making services, index product development and risk management, among other areas, to further support Huatai Securities' technological transformation and international business expansion. "Technology adoption at global financial institutions over the past year has continued to accelerate, and Huatai Securities is keeping pace. Our investments in the digitization and transformation of our business through big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing have enabled us to develop a robust financial services ecosystem," said Yi Zhou, CEO of Huatai Securities. "By working with Bloomberg, we will be able to benefit from their technology innovation and decades of experience in financial information services, enterprise solutions and risk assessment. This important collab...