Vodafone Group PLC said Monday that it has agreed to sell Vodafone Hungary to 4iG Public Ltd. and Corvinus Zrt. for 1.7 billion euros ($1.81 billion), with the proceeds to be used for deleveraging.
The U.K.-based telecommunications company said due diligence has been completed and the companies have entered into binding terms on the deal, which is set to complete in January.
Swiss National Bank estimates it'll record $143 billion loss
Fixes the size of the 2021 profit.
The Swiss National Bank on Monday estimated it will lose 132 billion francs ($143 billion) for 2022, reportedly the largest in its history.
Solar Startup Enpal Nears $2.4 Billion Valuation in TPG-Led Investment
Enpal GmbH is close to raising new funds from a group of investors led by U.S. private-equity firm TPG Inc., in a deal that values the closely held German solar-panel company at $2.4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
A deal, assuming it is completed, is expected to be announced sometime this week, the people said. It would offer more evidence of how cuts to natural-gas supplies from Russia are accelerating the adoption of solar power and other clean-energy sources as alternatives to fossil fuels.
Russia's Cease-Fire in Ukraine Ends With Few Signs Fighting Abated
Russia's self-declared 36-hour cease-fire expired with little letup in the fighting on Sunday morning, as Russian forces continued shelling across eastern Ukraine and Moscow-installed officials accused Ukrainian forces of bombing a power plant in occupied Donetsk.
The cease-fire, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said would last from noon on Friday to midnight on Saturday, when the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated Christmas, brought little slowdown in the fighting. Ukraine dismissed the call to put down weapons as a ploy and refused to participate.
Sweden Can't Meet Turkey's Demands on NATO Expansion, Prime Minister Says
ISTANBUL-Sweden's prime minister said Sunday that his country can't meet some of the demands made by Turkey in order for the Nordic nation to enter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
"Turkey both confirms that we did what we said we would do, but they also say they want things we can't and don't want to give them," said Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, speaking at a security conference in Sälen, Sweden.
GLOBAL NEWS
Wall Street Sets Low Bar for Corporate Earnings Season
The stock market faces its next big test this week with the kickoff of a corporate earnings season that is expected to be dominated by worries about inflation and the health of the economy.
Analysts expect companies in the S&P 500 to report their first year-over-year decline in quarterly earnings since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, according to FactSet. Fourth-quarter profits are projected to have dropped 4.1%, a sharp reversal from the more than 31% growth logged a year earlier.
Retiring Chicago Fed President Sees Path for Slower Pace of Rate Rises
A long-serving Federal Reserve official set to retire from the central bank next week said he was hopeful milder inflation data would allow for the Fed to return to raising interest rates in more traditional quarter-percentage-point increments at its next meeting.
Tech Industry Reversal Intensifies With New Rounds of Layoffs
A new wave of tech layoffs signals how executives in the industry are pivoting from a growth-above-all mindset to protecting their bottom line.
After a bruising 2022 in which companies from small startups to tech giants slammed the brakes on expansion, some of the biggest names in the sector are demonstrating that an era of austerity is only beginning, with expenses scrutinized and moonshot projects abandoned. Amazon.com Inc. and Salesforce Inc. both announced plans for layoffs in the past week.
Higher Rates, Tech Selloff Fuel Options Boom
Investors trying to capitalize on higher interest rates and the deep selloff in big technology stocks are stoking a flurry of activity in the options market.
Popular stocks such as Amazon.com Inc. and Nvidia Corp. lost about half of their value in the past year, raising the worth of some options tied to those shares. Their share declines have been much steeper than many investors wagered, creating a mountain of deep in-the-money put option contracts-or those that allow investors to sell the shares at a price that is now far above current levels.
Foreign Investors Are Leery of China Bets, Despite Rebound Expectations
Market strategists say the stars are aligned in 2023 for Chinese assets to stage a comeback-but a return of foreign capital may take longer.
Foreign investors have pulled more than $100 billion out of China's bond market since February, according to two major Chinese clearinghouses. They have also dramatically slowed their investments in the country's stock market. Foreign institutions bought a net $13 billion worth of yuan-denominated shares last year via a Hong Kong stock-trading link, down sharply from $63 billion in 2021.
China Reopens to the World as International Travel Restrictions End
HONG KONG-Tens of thousands of travelers began to fly in and out of mainland China on Sunday as Beijing removed almost all of its border restrictions, bringing an end to pandemic measures that effectively sealed off the world's most populous nation from the rest of the world for three years.
The Chinese tourists heading abroad bring hope for relief to economies that had come to rely on spending by Chinese travelers in the years before the pandemic. The flow of travelers will likely remain restrained for a while as airlines readjust and some governments keep restrictions in place to prevent importing infections from China's largest Covid-19 outbreak yet.
Jair Bolsonaro Supporters Storm Brazil's Congress, High Court
SÃO PAULO-Thousands of protesters supporting Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed the presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court in the capital Brasília Sunday, many calling for military intervention to remove Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the leftist leader who took office last week.
Protesters dressed in Brazil's national green and yellow colors charged into the country's most important government buildings Sunday afternoon, smashing windows and furniture and ripping up documents before riot police forced them back into the streets by nightfall. Some 300 people were arrested, police said.
Biden Summit With López Obrador, Trudeau to Focus on Migration, Supply Chains
MEXICO CITY-President Biden is expected to focus on immigration, security and supply-chain problems when he meets with his Mexican counterpart on Monday for the North American Leaders' Summit-issues on which the two countries have had some differing views.
He and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will be joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for dinner that night, before all three meet on Tuesday. The countries have been working through trade disputes over implementation of their joint U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Beijing Signals Two-Year Internet Crackdown May Be Coming to an End
SINGAPORE-A top Chinese official said authorities have wrapped up investigations into the financial businesses of several internet companies, another strong signal that a two-year regulatory crackdown on China's homegrown technology giants may be winding down.
Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, told state media that the government had concluded a campaign to "rectify the financial businesses of 14 platform companies," with only minor problems left to be resolved. Mr. Guo, also the party secretary of the People's Bank of China, added in the interview published Saturday that officials would look to provide more support to tech companies and work toward making supervision of the tech sector more predictable going forward.
House Republicans Turn Focus to Spending, China After Dramatic Speaker Vote
WASHINGTON-The House will dive into its first week of substantive work with bills to cut Internal Revenue Service funding and investigate economic competition from China, after a leadership election that underscored Republican divides and the fragile position of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.).
Mr. McCarthy prevailed in his quest to be speaker of the Republican-controlled House shortly after midnight on Saturday. A small group of Republican holdouts had blocked him on 14 earlier ballots last week, turning a usually perfunctory process into a dayslong drama that previewed the potential for months of turmoil on spending issues in the narrowly divided chamber.
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This article is a text version of a Wall Street Journal newsletter published earlier today.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-09-23 0616ET
