HSBC has agreed to sell its Canadian business to the Royal Bank of Canada for $10bn as it scales back its global network outside Asia amid pressure from its largest investor to break up. Shares in HSBC rose almost 5 per cent on the deal news, with the bank saying that it may return some proceeds to investors. The deal, if approved by regulators, would bolster the position of RBC, Canada’s most significant asset lender. «Following a thorough review of the business, which assessed its relative position within the Canadian market and its strategic fit within the HSBC portfolio, concluded that there was a material value upside from selling the business,» said HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn. The Canada sale follows similar exits of loss making consumer operations in France and the US. HSBC took a $3bn hit when it sold its French retail network to Cerberus for €1 last year. The transaction is expected to be completed in late 2023, and the board plans to «proactively» consider how much sur

Qatar is to provide Germany with liquefied natural gas under a long-term supply deal that marks a big step forward in efforts by Europe’s biggest economy to wean itself off Russian gas. Under the two sales and purchase agreements signed yesterday by state-owned QatarEnergy and US group ConocoPhillips, about 2mn tonnes of LNG will be sent to Germany annually for at least 15 years, with deliveries expected to start from 2026. Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, welcomed the agreements. « have to realise that Germany will be purchasing less if we want to adhere to our climate goals.» In this event, the companies «will have to deliver the volumes they have bought to other countries». The agreements would contribute to Germany’s energy security «with a supply period that extends for at least 15 years», said Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister and chief executive of QatarEnergy. Kaabi added that Qatar separated «politics from business», referring to an apparent protest by G

 Inflation in Germany and Spain fell in November, prompting a rally in eurozone government bonds as investors bet that price growth in the bloc had peaked and the European Central Bank would shift to smaller interest rate rises.A slowdown in energy and services prices helped inflation in Germany to fall in line with expectations to 11.3 per cent in the year to November, down from a 71-year peak of 11.6 per cent in October, according to data from the country’s federal statistical agency yesterday.Meanwhile, food prices rose in Germany at a faster pace of 21 per cent, and rental prices also accelerated slightly to 1.9 per cent. Carsten Brzeski, head of macro research at ING Bank, said he was «still a bit cautious about calling this peak inflation», saying there were still significant price pressures for companies to pass on to consumers that could lead to another increase in inflation before February. But he said eurozone inflation was likely to fall for the first time in 17 months when

  Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the average mortgage rate would probably soar to 6 per cent at the start of 2023 and that mortgage approvals would continue to fall as the squeeze on real incomes intensified. As a result, he forecasted that UK house prices would. As a result, it loses 8 per cent in the next 12 months. «Given we still think mortgage rates will average 5 per cent in 2023, we expect a 12 per cent peak-to-trough fall in house prices,» he said. Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at estate agent Knight Frank, said he expected house prices to drop about 10 per cent over the next two years «as a new lending landscape emerges after 13 years of ultra-low rates». The property market is already showing many weaknesses, with the average UK house price flatlining in September for the first time in almost a year. In addition, newer data from mortgage provider Halifax showed house prices falling between September and October, the f

 Facebook and Instagram parent Meta has been fined €265mn by Ireland’s privacy watchdog over its handling of user data, bringing the total amount European regulators have fined the technology giant to nearly €1bn. The fine, revealed yesterday by the Irish Data Protection Commission, ends an inquiry launched last year when details of more than 500mn Facebook and Instagram users were published online. Meta has often been in the crosshairs of privacy regulators worldwide, with Ireland’s data watchdog often taking the lead in Europe as the company’s European headquarters are in Dublin. The personal data of 533mn users across 106 countries were published on a hacking forum in 2019, including names, locations and some email addresses. Facebook subsequently fixed the vulnerability on this feature, where external parties could collect data through scraping. Meta said it reviewed the decision carefully and «protecting the privacy and security of people’s data is fundamental to how our business

 Businesses have urged ministers to delay the introduction of an internationally agreed corporate tax or risk burdening them with «impossible» reporting deadlines. However, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed in the Autumn Statement that a 15 per cent effective minimum tax rate for all subsidiaries of UK multinationals will be included in the spring finance bill and enacted from the end of 2023. The proposed minimum business levy is part of an agreement signed by 136 countries last October, which was coordinated by the OECD club of mostly rich nations and hailed as the most significant tax reform in over a century. The policy is designed to stamp out profit shifting and corporate tax havens, but implementation has been delayed, and no country has yet enshrined the policy in law. Businesses say they need more time to prepare for the change while finer details still need to be clarified by the OECD. The OECD is due to respond to concerns about the minimum tax rules, with updated guidance to

  Dulux owner Akzo Nobel has warned of a «big scarcity» of painters and decorators in the UK, exacerbated by Brexit and the pandemic, as the group backs a start-up developing a painting robot to ease the labour crunch. «Especially in the UK, we see a great scarcity of painters. We’re concerned,» said José Antonio Jiménez Lozano,managing director. « With Brexit, we have also seen a reduction of the people coming from some other European countries». Triggered by a lack of workers in the industry, Akzo Nobel has expanded beyond producing paints to invest in tech that it hopes will address the shortage. The Dutch group has acquired a minority stake in French start-up Les Companions, which has developed a robot that can spray paint large surfaces through a mainly automated process. «I don’t think will because, at the end of the day, the painting and the decorating job is very,» said Jiménez. «There are a lot of obstacles» to making the robot practical on a building site, said one painting c

  Christine Lagarde has warned that the European Central Bank «is not done» raising interest rates ,  saying that inflation «still has a way to go» .  Her comments came after a sharp fall in European wholesale energy prices ,  combined with an easing of supply chain bottlenecks ,  encouraged hopes that eurozone inflation was slowing .  US inflation also fell in October and global data indicators suggest that this year’s rampant global inflation has peaked .  «I would like to see inflation having peaked in October ,  but I’m afraid that I would not go as far as that» . Economists polled by Reuters expect eurozone inflation to have slowed to 10 . 4 per cent in November when the latest price data is released by the European Commission’s statistics agency tomorrow .  But Lagarde said there was still some «pass-through» ,  from higher wholesale energy prices to consumer prices ,  to come .  Natural gas prices had fallen about 40 per cent since their peak in September ,  but Lagarde said thi

  British businesses are "at risk" because the government has failed to set a coherent blueprint for a microchip supply industry, according to a critical report from the influential cross-party business select committee of MPs. A semiconductor strategy was due this autumn from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It added that Britain is also missing out on inward investment and falling behind other governments taking the issue more seriously. Semiconductors are the brains of modern electronics, vital for everything from consumer products to healthcare and cars. The crisis in the UK industry, from continuing uncertainty over the ownership of the technology firm Arm Holdings to government intervention over China's links to the chip manufacturer Newport Wafer Fab, has thrust the lack of a strategy into the spotlight. Globally, the industry is worth more than $500 billion and is expected to be more than $1 trillion by 2030. The UK, meanwhile, is racing to pr

  After several waves of lay-offs and departures, Twitter’s ads business team has shrunk so much that many agencies no longer have any point of contact at the company and have received little to no communication in recent weeks, according to four industry insiders. One media buyer said that some brands had been unable to get feedback on how previous campaigns had performed because of the staffing shortages. In addition, Musk is under pressure to draw revenues from Twitter, as he faces $1bn in annual interest payments after loading the company with $13bn of debt to help fund his acquisition of the business. On October 27, the day he closed his $44bn deal to buy Twitter, the Tesla and SpaceX head sought to reassure marketers that the platform would not become a «free-for-all hellscape» despite his plans to relax content moderation restrictions. Soon afterwards, he conducted phone calls and meetings to reassure top ad agencies and brands. In the meetings, Musk appeared across all the deta

 Economists expect the US economy to continue adding jobs in November despite rising interest rates and concerns of a looming recession. Wall Street expects the number of people on US payrolls to have increased by 200,000 from the previous month, according to economists polled by Reuters. US job creation has come in stronger than expected for seven months, bolstering the case for the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise its policy rates by a historically significant 0.75 percentage points in the past four meetings as it battles with high inflation. «The Fed will be hoping for some loosening in labour market conditions in next week’s report to justify a smaller increment policy rate hike at its next meeting in December, as is widely expected,» said Horsfield. Conflicting currents buffeted the Chinese economy in November, muddying the picture of the strength of the country’s factory sector. The Caixin-Markit manufacturing purchasing managers’ index should provide clues. Analysts at Barcla

  France’s financial regulator is seeking to fine H2O Asset Management a record €75mn and ban its chief executive from the investment industry for a decade over the firm’s extensive investments in illiquid bonds tied to German financier Lars Windhorst. At the hearing of the French regulator’s enforcement committee, an AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers ) official alleged that there had been «grave deficiencies» in H2O’s investment process, arguing that the firm was not authorised to invest in such illiquid bonds in funds open to daily withdrawals from retail investors. The regulator’s recommendations come more than three years after the Financial Times exposed the scale of the firm’s outsized bet on Windhorst in 2019. Windhorst, a flamboyant financier who turned 46 this week, made his name in the 1990s as a teenage entrepreneur and was hailed as a wunderkind by then-German chancellor Helmut Kohl. In 2020, H2O was forced temporarily to halt redemptions on its core funds after the AMF

 Rising gas prices resulting from the war in Ukraine have forced the UK to nearly double its coal imports in the fight to keep the lights on through the Winter. The increasing use of coal-generated power in the UK comes after years of the country shifting to cleaner electricity from gas-fired power plants and renewables but is deemed vital as Russian president Vladimir Putin crimps gas supplies to Europe. Figures from Kpler, a commodity analytics firm, show that last month more than 560,000 tonnes of coal came into British ports, compared to the 291,089 tonnes that arrived in October 2021, a 93 per cent increase. In the first ten months of this year, the UK imported more than 5.5 million tonnes of coal, already exceeding the 4.2 million tonnes throughout 2021. «Absent the option of burning fuel oil - the most cost-efficient power generation option right now - coal- is very much the best option out there, albeit the most polluting one, too.» However, with gas prices like these, relying

  According to fresh warnings from energy industry executives and analysts, Europe's energy crisis will persist for years if the region fails to reduce demand and secure new gas supplies. Mild autumn weather and a dash to fill up European storage sites have bolstered the region's energy security this winter. Still, concerns are starting to mount over whether sufficient supplies will be available next summer and the following winter. «We are in a gas crisis, and we will continue to be in a little bit of a crisis mode for the next two or three years,» said Sid Bambawale, head of liquefied natural gas for the Asia region at Vitol, the world's largest independent energy trader, speaking at the Financial Times Commodities Asia Summit in Singapore. The warnings present European policymakers with an uncomfortable reality. Despite having already spent hundreds of billions of euros ensuring storage sites are filled this winter and providing support to households and businesses, the

Sterling looks «vulnerable» to further falls, and the looming recession could have «serious» effects on British society, according to the hedge fund firm of billionaire trader Chris Rokos. Rokos Capital Management, which manages about $14.5bn in assets, told its investors that the UK had suffered a bigger shock to its terms of trade than other developed countries because of the impact of Brexit, deglobalisation and the coronavirus pandemic. Such a deterioration, which puts pressure on an already yawning current account deficit and can fuel inflation, made it harder for policymakers to control consumer price growth, the firm wrote in a letter by the Financial Times. «The recession that is required to tame inflation in the UK is deeper than that needed elsewhere, with potentially serious societal implications,» it said. Rokos declined to comment further. Rokos, one of the world’s most considerable macro hedge funds, profited during the UK’s gilt market crisis in September, thanks to bets

  An Australian court has moved to block an $8.4bn coal mine development in Queensland on human rights grounds in a landmark case highlighting the mounting legal challenges to fossil fuel extraction worldwide. Fleur Kingham, president of the Land Court of Queensland, said yesterday that «climate change was a key issue» in the decision and that the project would have infringed on the rights of First Nations people in Queensland because of its climate impact. A growing number of cases in jurisdictions from the Netherlands to the Philippines have been launched to challenge government policies and block fossil fuel extraction on climate grounds. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg this week joined a class-action lawsuit brought by more than 600 young people that alleges Sweden’s climate policies are insufficient. Youth Verdict obtained the legal challenge against the Galilee Coal project, a First Nations-led group because its climate impact would violate their human rights. «Wherever the coal

  Mongolia opened a new rail line to China yesterday that the landlocked country’s prime minister said would help it weather the zero-Covid controls disrupting cross-border trade with its neighbour. After almost three years of disruption caused by Covid-19 and China’s strict rules, cross-border trade is nearing pre-pandemic levels. Zuunbayan-Khangi is one of three new rail links to China that Luvsannamsrai said would boost export capacity by a further 4,500 cars per day and help lessen Mongolia’s traditional reliance on trucks to carry iron ore, coal and other bulk commodities. Truck traffic across the two countries’ 4,630km frontier has been frequently disrupted because of China’s fears that drivers would transmit the virus. It links to a newly built counterpart in China that can transport commodities to industrial hubs such as Baotou in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia. Luvsannamsrai became prime minister in January 2021 and has launched a revival policy to boost exports to China

Twitter has disbanded its entire Brussels office, sparking concerns among EU officials about whether the social media platform will abide by the bloc's new rules on policing online content. Julia Mozer and Dario La Nasa, who were in charge of Twitter's digital policy in Europe, left the company last week, according to five people with knowledge of the departures. The executives had led the group's effort to comply with the EU disinformation code and the bloc's Digital Services Act, which came into force last week and sets new rules on how Big Tech should keep users safe online. It is still being determined whether the pair resigned or were made redundant. Mozer and La Nasa declined to comment. Twitter did not respond to requests for comment. The Brussels exits are symptomatic of a trend from India to France, where local Twitter executives who had positions to deal with state officials abruptly left the group in the cuts. "I am concerned about the news of firing suc

  The Riksbank raised rates by 0.75 percentage points to 2.5 per cent, the highest level since 2008, and hinted that further increases were likely. «It's a fact that we have a 2 per cent inflation target, which is 9 per cent. So it's essential to get back to 2 per cent, and we think that everyone will be better off if we get there sooner rather than later,» Ingves said. According to October's figures from the Value-guard index, Swedish house prices have fallen 14 per cent since their March peak. Ingves said the peak-to-trough fall should be about 20 per cent and that it should be «manageable», as prices had risen dramatically before this year. The central bank expects the economy to contract by 1 per cent next year, a change from its previous forecast of minus 0.5 per cent growth. The Riksbank was one of the last major central banks to lift its interest rate above zero, only in May this year, prompting accusations that it was not responding appropriately. In 2010 and 2011,

  The European Central Bank has «limited» room to raise interest rates in smaller increments as government policies to cushion households and businesses from soaring energy prices will keep eurozone inflation higher for longer, a senior policymaker has said. Schnabel told a conference in London, signalling her desire to continue with rate rises of 0.75 percentage points, «the largest risk for central banks remains a policy that is falsely calibrated on the assumption of a fast decline in inflation, and hence on an underestimation of inflation persistence». She said the impact of government support measures meant the ECB would have «to raise rates further, probably into restrictive territory», where growth would be constrained, to bring eurozone inflation down from a record level of 10.7 per cent in the year to October and back to its 2 per cent target. «Many fiscal measures that are popular among the electorate, such as tight price caps or broad subsidies, risk fuelling medium-term inf

  The BoE had said it would reconsider its plans for interest rates if the government imposed measures in the statement that changed the picture for the economy immediately, deepening the economic downturn and putting downward pressure on inflation. «I expect that further increases in the bank rate are going to be required to ensure a sustainable return of inflation to target,» he said. However, the deputy governor made clear he would consider another considerable interest rate rise at the next meeting in mid-December if he saw that companies still felt able to raise prices to defend profit margins and increase wages significantly higher than the 2 per cent inflation target. Ramsden added that although his bias was «towards further tightening», he would «consider the case for reducing the bank rate» if the economy developed differently from his expectations and persistent inflation stopped being a concern. At its last meeting, the MPC signalled that if inflation began to shrink, expect

  China’s state-owned banks have launched a new effort to strengthen the finances of the country’s struggling property developers, with more than Rmb220bn (31$bn) being announced yesterday in unused credit lines. Bank of Communications, China’s sixth-largest bank by assets, was the first to tell support, agreeing to an Rmb100bn credit line for Chinese developer Vanke and Rmb20bn for Midea Real Estate, in a clear sign of more excellent government support for stronger performers in the sector. BoCom said the loans would support the developers’ needs in «project developments, mortgages, merger and acquisition deals, bond investment, letter of guarantee and supply chain financing». The state banks’ loans are the first significant offering to developers after regulators decided on a support package last week that was widely interpreted as a turning point for the sector. Vanke’s fate contrasts with Evergrande, which defaulted last year with many of its peers, including Kaisa and Fantasia, an

  Credit Suisse has forecast a pre-tax loss of up to SFr1.5bn in the fourth quarter, with the Swiss bank reporting that wealthy clients had withdrawn up to 10 per cent of assets since the start of October. In its fourth profit warning since January, the bank said the scale of the client outflows — after a string of social media rumours about its health — had led the bank to dip into liquidity buffers at the group and legal-entity level. Credit Suisse said it had «fallen below certain legal-entity-level regulatory requirements». Across the group, the bank bled SFr84bn of assets as wealth management, asset management and retail banking customers switched cash holdings, investments and deposits to rivals. JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein said the bank was «not out of the woods yet stabilising the franchise. Wealth management outflows at 10 per cent of assets under management in the fourth quarter are very material at a level seen by UBS in the global financial crisis on an annualised bas

  Energy traders would have to stump up an additional $33bn in margin payments if a plan by Brussels to cap the price of a key European gas benchmark goes ahead ,  a leading exchanges operator has warned .  Producers and traders that rely on the Dutch TTF futures market face an 80 per cent rise in the payments they make as insurance to secure their deals ,  Intercontinental Exchange has told the European Commission ,  according to a memo seen by the Financial Times .  Such a large increase in margin requirements could «destabilise the market» ,  ICE ,  the Atlanta-based group that runs the TFF market ,  said .  Margin requirements on swaps and futures used by energy producers have already doubled this year ,  according to the European Central Bank ,  forcing many firms to draw on bank credit lines and conduct more trades privately ,  where margin requirements are lower . ICE’s warning comes as EU authorities race to finalise a planned ceiling on the region’s gas prices ,  which soared

The EU will demand that derivatives traders use accounts at clearing houses in the bloc for some of their transactions as part of plans to take a share of the €115tn market processed through the City of London. Banks dealing with large quantities of contracts deemed «systemic» by regulators would have to clear a minimum amount of business via active accounts in EU-based clearing houses, officials briefed on the proposals said. The plans are part of a package aimed at boosting Europe’s capital markets while reducing its reliance on the UK’s financial services sector after Brexit. The European Commission is planning to outline the measures next month. Politicians in the EU are unhappy that euro-denominated derivatives are handled in a market outside their regulators’ direct oversight. The draft rules aim to address what the EU sees as a «strategic vulnerability», a senior commission official said. «It’s not about shifting all your business from London to the EU and never doing business w

  Elon Musk may still be the world’s richest person, but his fortune is going backwards at a rate of knots, shedding $8.6 billion on Monday alone. Tesla, the maker of electric cars, accounts for most of his fortune, but the tightening of Covid-related restrictions in China has been painful for the marque. Its China crisis is not the only issue weighing on the Tesla share price. Last night, Tesla shares closed up $2.04, or 1.2 per cent, at $169.91. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the new owner of Twitter is worth $169.8 billion, but that is down by an extraordinary $100.5 billion this year. Critics argue that Musk’s woes with Tesla can be attributed to his will-he, won’t-he acquisition of Twitter, which finally took place last month. The 51-year-old has dispensed with about 60 per cent of the social media network’s employees since taking charge, including a round of redundancies on Sunday. In addition, Tesla’s dependence on Musk is listed as a risk in security filings, wh

 Two Estonian citizens have been arrested and charged with what US prosecutors described as a $575mn cryptocurrency fraud and money laundering scheme. Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin are accused of defrauding hundreds of thousands of victims, said the US Department of Justice, which unsealed an indictment against them yesterday. The arrests of both men, aged 37, in Tallinn, Estonia, are the latest indication that law enforcement agencies are becoming increasingly focused on illicit crypto activity across the globe. «New technology has made it easier for bad actors to take advantage of innocent victims, in the US and abroad, in increasingly complex scams,» said assistant attorney-general Kenneth Polite. Between 2015 and 2019, more than $550mn worth of HashFlare contracts were set up with customers worldwide. But those contracts were fraudulent, prosecutors have alleged. www.sba.tax

  The OECD said yesterday that the UK economy is set to be the worst performer in the G20 bar Russia over the next two years, underlining the impact of high energy prices on Europe as a whole. The OECD said in its latest economic forecasts that UK gross domestic product would fall 0.4 per cent in 2023 and rise 0.2 per cent in 2024. In an apparent reference to Brexit, Álvaro Santos Pereira, OECD acting chief economist, said the economic adjustment underway in the UK had compounded longstanding concerns about the country’s low productivity growth. The OECD said the risks to the UK’s poor outlook were «considerable», noting that acute labour shortages could «force firms into a more permanent reduction in their operating capacity or push up wage inflation further». The OECD said the world economy was «reeling» from the most considerable energy shock since the 1970s. The OECD expected growth next year of just 0.5 per cent in the US and euro-zone, with Germany entering a recession and the mo

«We have witnessed one of the most abrupt and difficult collapses in the history of corporate America,» James Bromley of Sullivan & Cromwell told a US court yesterday. He added that bankruptcy proceedings had «allowed everyone for the first time to see under the covers and recognise the emperor had no clothes». FTX filed for US bankruptcy protection on November 11 as its customers fled and executives discovered billions of dollars in missing funds, exacerbating turmoil in cryptocurrency markets. The case has been marked by allegations of misconduct, major governance failures, and a jurisdictional dispute between the US and the Bahamas, where FTX’s small inner circle ran the business. Bromley said the bankruptcy team had found that «substantial funds» were transferred from the exchange to Bank-man-Fried’s crypto hedge fund Alameda Research and «substantial amounts of money were spent on things unrelated to the business». He said that this included around $300mn of real estate in the

  The dollar has fallen in the past fortnight from a 20-year high as signs of inflation easing in the US fuel speculation that the Federal Reserve will soon slow down its rate rises. The greenback has declined more than 3 per cent against a basket of six peers in November, leaving it on track for the biggest monthly fall since July 2020, according to Refinitiv data, and sparking a debate in currency markets over whether the currency has peaked. This month’s fall comes as investors scrutinise early indications that US inflation may finally be easing, potentially paving the way for the Fed to reduce the speed at which it has been boosting borrowing costs. However, some data, such as those on the housing and manufacturing sectors, have also suggested the broader economy is facing rising headwinds, another deterrent to Fed monetary tightening. Everything is pointing to disinflation in the US, and with that, we will see a slowdown in the US economy in the first quarter of next year. The yen

  After years of state support and Beijing’s desire to cut its own reliance on oil imports ,  China produces three-quarters of the world’s batteries and dominates production of their materials and components .  The bank’s analysts say demand for finished batteries could be met without China within the next three to five years ,  thanks largely to big investments in the US by South Korean conglomerates LG and SK ,  which have been attracted by massive subsidies from US taxpayers .  Goldman forecasts that the market share of the Korean battery makers in the US will rise to about 55 per cent in three years ,  from 11 per cent in 2021 .  The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in August means huge tax benefits and other subsidies for localising battery supply chains and fuelling the uptake of EVs . Goldman expects the «average eligible EV in the US» will receive more than $10 , 000 in benefits .  Ross Gregory ,  partner of electric vehicle consultancy New Electric Partners ,  said despi

 Crypto exchanges such as the bankrupt FTX that bundle together services kept separate by mainstream institutions should be more tightly regulated before they become a risk to the financial system, a senior Bank of England official has warned. Digital asset exchanges created risks to their markets by operating businesses that encompassed trading, lending, clearing and custody of client assets, Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor, said yesterday. However, he noted that traditional markets maintain careful separation between these different roles to guard against risks. «But part is also because the crypto institutions at the centre of much of the system exist in largely unregulated space and are very prone to the risks that regulation in the conventional financial sector is designed to avoid». The sudden failure of FTX, considered until recently one of the most responsible crypto venues, has heaped pressure on other exchanges. For example, Changpeng Zhao, Binance's chief executive, ha