58.8
The pace of activity growth in the US manufacturing rose to its highest level in more than six years, according to a closely watched survey of manufacturing executives released on Friday. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing gauge climbed to 58.8 in August, from a reading of 56.3 the previous month. That compared with economists’ expectations for the manufacturing index to heat up to 56.5 and was the highest since April 2011.
$1bn
Legend Holdings is buying a 90 per cent stake in Banque Internationale a Luxembourg from its Qatari owners, Precision Capital, in a transaction bankers say is valued at over $1bn. The acquisition is the largest of takeover of a European deposit-taking institution by a Chinese company to date. Legend first made its name in 2005 when it bought IMB’s PC unit.
0.3%
Brazil’s gross domestic product expanded for the second consecutive quarter in the three months ended June, officially ending the worst recession in Latin America’s largest economy. GDP grew just 0.2 per cent in the quarter compared to the first three months of the year and 0.3 per cent compared with the same quarter a year earlier, the state statistics agency, IBGE, said. In the 12 months to end June, GDP declined 1.4 per cent compared with a year earlier because of the effect of earlier quarters of contraction. “Agriculture registered zero change [compared with the first quarter], industry fell 0.5 per cent and services grew 0.6 per cent,” said the IBGE in reference to the three months to end-June, 2017.
10%
Kenya’s stock exchange halted trading briefly midway through Friday’s session after blue chip shares plummeted by more than ten per cent following the Supreme Court’s decision to annul the result of the Aug. 8 presidential election. “When there is a movement in the market beyond a certain limit, we have to stop trading to allow the market to process the information,” Godfrey Odundo, CEO of the Nairobi Securities Exchange said. East Africa’s biggest economy has a history of disputed polls. The court decision to cancel the result, the first of its kind in Kenya’s history, sets up a new race for the presidency between Uhuru Kenyatta and veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga.
45%
With a fresh cash arsenal of $200m, Atlas Mara plans to increase its interest in Union Bank of Nigeria, its largest investment, to about 45 percent from 31 percent, of which only 22 percent is held directly. Once done, it will approach development finance institutions to bolster the Lagos-based lender’s capital levels, Atlas Mara said in a prospectus last month. From 2019, it will seek to scale up UBN’s operations by expanding existing businesses and making acquisitions, the document showed. So watch out for Union which now matches its brilliant leadership with the cash pool that is the envy of many.
