British bank Barclays said Thursday that net profit jumped 27 percent in the first quarter, boosted by rising interest rates and non-repetition of exceptional charges.. Barclays was "supported by higher interest rates and the continued investment in our transformation into a next-generation, digitised consumer bank", the lender added.
China's "godfather of baijiu" launched Hong Kong's largest IPO of the year on Thursday, with the holding company for four of his liquor brands raising around HK$4.5 billion despite a rocky start to trading. . Even so, its nearly HK$4.5 billion in proceeds still amounted to more than half of what the Hong Kong stock exchange generated from IPO offerings in the first quarter of 2023.
Energy giant BP on Thursday faces a shareholder revolt over its decision to slow its energy transition, with activist investors promising to block the re-election of the head of the board of directors.. "We recognise that some shareholders and other stakeholders may have different perspectives on the decisions we take," the BP board said in response to the resolution.
Asian shares were mixed in early trade on Thursday, following a session on Wall Street that saw major indices sink despite a surge in tech.. Blockbuster earnings results lifted the tech-heavy Nasdaq on Wednesday, but recession fears and concerns over the health of the banking sector dragged down the Dow and the S&P. Shares in Microsoft jumped 7.2 percent on the back of better-than-expected earnings, while Meta surged nearly 12 percent in after-hours trades following the announcement of first-quarter profits of $5.7 billion.
The US company Orbit Fab is aiming to produce the go-to "gas stations" in space, its CEO tells AFP, hoping its refueling technology will make the surging satellite industry more sustainable -- and profitable.. Orbit Fab also aims to serve private space stations currently under development.
Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported its worst quarterly profits in 14 years, blaming slowing consumer spending on electronics and a global microchip glut that hit its core memory business.. The company said that "overall consumer spending slowed amid the uncertain global macroeconomic environment".
Shares in Facebook parent Meta surged Wednesday after the internet titan reported it made a profit of $5.7 billion in the first quarter of this year, beating forecasts after a massive wave of cost-cutting and layoffs.. The profit came on revenue of $28.6 billion and as the number of people using Facebook every month grew to just shy of three billion, an earnings report showed.
US Republicans voted Wednesday to raise the national borrowing limit, but only in conjunction with drastic cuts, as they sought a showdown with President Joe Biden over "excessive" spending with a potentially ruinous credit default looming.. Biden has refused to entertain any debt limit increase involving spending cuts and McCarthy and his deputies hope the successful passage of the bill through the lower chamber of Congress will force the president to the table.
Pras Michel, a rapper in the 1990s hit trio The Fugees, was found guilty Wednesday of helping funnel money from a billion-dollar Malaysia scam into US politics.. Michel helped Low funnel the donations through shell companies, breaking laws that make it illegal for foreign nationals to contribute money to US political campaigns.
A Brazilian court on Wednesday ordered the countrywide suspension of messaging app Telegram after its parent company failed to provide data sought by authorities on neo-Nazis operating on the network, officials said.. Justice Minister Flavio Dino said the court had fined Telegram a million reais (about $198,000) per day for "not complying" with an ongoing probe into neo-Nazi activity on social networks, and ordered the "temporary suspension of (its) activities."
