US Altice expands in US with USD 17.7 billion Cablevision deal European telecoms group Altice will become a major force in the lucrative US cable market after it agreed to buy fourth-largest operator Cable vision for a mix of cash and shares in a deal worth USD 17.7 billion including debt. The move is the latest foray by French-Israeli billionaire and Altice founder Patrick Drahi, who built a telecoms and cable empire in recent years via debt-fueled acquisitions in France, Portugal and Israel.Drahi entered the United States in May by buying small regional cable group Suddenlink for USD 9.1 billion and had declared he would do more acquisitions so as eventually to earn half of Altice’s revenue there. GM to pay USD 900 million settles US criminal case General Motors Co (GM.N) has agreed to pay USD 900 million and sign a deferred-prosecution agreement to end a US government investigation into its handling of an ignition-switch defect linked to 124 deaths, two sources told Reuters. The deal means GM will be charged criminally with hiding the defect from regulators and in the process defrauding consumers, but the case will be put on hold while GM fulfills terms of the deal, one source said. No individuals would be charged in the criminal case, one of the sources said. The company’s expected USD 900 million payment, confirmed by a second source, is less than the USD 1.2 billion that Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) paid to resolve a similar case. WORLD Global stocks at three-week highs as Fed decision looms World stocks inched to a three-week high on Thursday while the dollar drifted lower against other currencies, as investors consolidated positions ahead of a nail-biting US Federal Reserve interest rate decision. There was a sense of relief as much as anything that after months of market speculation and advice from almost everyone from the IMF to the heads of the world’s top companies, that the wait for the Fed’s verdict would be over by 1800 GMT. Europe’s main share markets were left at a virtual standstill with Britain’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 all barely budged after two days of gains helped by a flurry of merger activity.Currency and bond market moves were low key too. Wal-Mart worker group splits in two A Wal-Mart Stores Inc worker group that has been one of the loudest voices pushing the retailer to boost wages and improve conditions has splintered over a disagreement about funding and strategic direction, according to people on both sides of the split. Both wings are claiming the name OUR Walmart and vow to continue their work, moves that could sow confusion among supporters.The United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which for years has provided important funding and resources to the OUR Walmart worker group, will only financially support the wing that it believes represents the broader set of workers. “Recently we had a group split from us,” said Barbara Getz, who said she is head of the health and safety team for the OUR Walmart grouping that is sticking with UFCW. AUSTRALIA The Australian share market has surged ahead of highly anticipated US Federal Reserve rates call, as energy stocks soar on a strong bounce in crude oil prices. Investors remain upbeat approaching the US Federal Reserve’s decision on whether to raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade, with financial markets predicting a 30 per cent chance of lift-off. At the 4.15pm (AEST) official market close, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 added 47.9 points, or 0.94 per cent, to 5146.8 points, while the broader All Ordinaries rose 47.6 points, or 0.93 per cent, to 5171.2 points. The growing sense that the US Fed may not hike interest rates has also pushed the Australian dollar above US72c for the first time in three weeks as per The Australian. Australian shares rose 1.5 per cent on Thursday for a second straight day of gains as all sectors rallied ahead of the US Fed’s interest rate decision later in the day. Banks and miners were among the clear winners with the “Big Four” lenders rising more than two percent in early trade. A jump in oil prices pushed energy stocks higher. The S&P/ASX 200 index added 73.83 points to 5,172.7 by 0215 GMT. The index closed 1.6 per cent higher on Wednesday, and is on track to post a second straight weekly gain. Analysts said the market could claw back some of the day’s gain as the near-month futures contract expires on Thursday and could add some volatility. Asian stocks hit a three-week high on Thursday after a jump in oil prices lifted Wall Street, with many investors taking last-minute positions ahead of the Fed’s policy decision. BANGLADESH According to The Daily Star, Poland is interested in investing in mining, coal extraction and installation of liquefied natural gas terminal in Bangladesh as the European country has experience in the sectors, a deputy minister said yesterday. Zdzislaw Gawlik, secretary of state for the treasury ministry, also said his country is keen to explore shell gas in Bangladesh. “We are bringing in very solid proposals of investment in Bangladesh,” he said. “I know Bangladesh is developing at a faster rate. So we are working at the government-to-government and business-to-business levels to intensify bilateral relationship.” Tea prices in Bangladesh edged higher for a second straight week at the weekly auction on Tuesday amid tight supplies and strong demand for quality leaf. Bangladeshi tea fetched an average 187.93 taka (USD 2.4) per kg at the 19th auction of the current marketing season, slightly up from 185.81 taka at the previous week’s sale when the prices snapped seven-week losing streak, an executive with National Brokers said. There was huge demand for quality tea, while volume dropped again this week compared with last week, helping prices to perk up, the executive said. About 1.93 million kg was offered at the sole auction centre in Chittagong, of which 6.5 per cent was unsold. In the previous auction, about 10 per cent of the 2.17 million kg offered went unsold. The national budget for the 2015/16 fiscal year that started in July raised the regulatory duty on tea imports by five per cent to discourage overseas buying. Tea prices fell sharply in the last marketing season on poor demand from local buyers as business sentiment was hit by renewed political unrest early this year that left more than 120 people dead and disrupted supplies. The country, however, has moved from being a net exporter to a net importer of tea due to rising consumption. CHINA China’s economic powerhouse is slowing, destabilising global markets. Beijing’s neighbors, unnerved over its pursuit of territorial claims, are increasingly cosying up to Washington. A threat of US cyber sanctions looms over Chinese companies. It might seem an ideal time for US President Barack Obama to take advantage of Beijing’s troubles and get tough when he hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state visit on September 25. Obama is expected to press Xi on issues that have strained relations between the two countries, but his approach will be tempered because for better or worse the world’s two biggest economies are inextricably bound together. That will mean a difficult balancing act for Obama. He is under pressure to send a strong message to Xi over cyber spying, Chinese economic policies and South China Sea disputes, but he does not want to upend a summit that could set the tone for relations for his last 16 months in office. Just as China shows that its domestic stock market can be something of a one-way street — investors can put money in, but not take money out — the biggest mutual fund company, Vanguard Group, is moving ahead with plans to expose more mom-and-pop investors to the country’s heavily restricted exchanges. With the Shanghai stock exchange down by 37 per cent and the Shenzhen exchange off by 43 per cent during the past three months, compared with just an 18 per cent drop on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, Vanguard is adding China mainland stocks to its USD 60 billion emerging markets fund in the coming year.Vanguard says adding A-shares — stocks that trade on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, as opposed to those that trade on the Hong Kong exchange — will diversify the fund, but acknowledges they pose unique risks related to tracking a benchmark. Steps taken by the Chinese government to restrict trading on domestic exchanges make it difficult for index funds to buy the stocks they need to replicate the performance of Chinese benchmarks, fund executives said. EUROPE According to The Guardian, Nestlé has failed in an attempt to convince European judges to let it trademark the shape of the four-finger version of a KitKat in the UK. The European court of justice ruled that the KitKat’s shape was not distinctive enough for consumers to associate it with the chocolate covered wafer. Nestlé is not seeking to trademark its two-fingered version of KitKat. Nestlé had argued that even without its red and white packaging or the word KitKat embossed on the chocolate, the shape of the bar should be regarded as distinct. The dispute between Nestlé and Cadbury, which has fought to prevent Nestlé securing a trademark, will go back to the UK high court for a final ruling that will determine whether rivals will be able to launch copycat KitKats in Britain.Despite the court’s failure to allow the trademark, Nestlé said it was pleased with the ruling. International creditors expect the first review of Greek reforms under the latest bailout to start in October, bringing changes to a memorandum of understanding signed with Athens and paving the way for debt rescheduling talks, Euro Zone officials said. Euro Zone finance ministers will discuss preparations for Greek reforms envisaged by the third bailout, worth 86 billion euros (USD 96.8 billion), at an informal meeting in Luxembourg on Saturday. No implementation review is possible before Greece’s September 20 parliamentary elections. “There are elections in Greece. We have to wait for the results,” Luxembourg Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, told Reuters in an interview. INDIA India requires sustained low inflation and a credible programme for fiscal rectitude to lower the cost of capital, Urjit Patel, a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said on Thursday, striking a hawkish note after government calls for interest rate cuts to boost the economy. The central banker also said in a speech to a business conference that he expected India’s current account deficit to be 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product in the 2015/16 fiscal year. New banking licences issued by the RBI were also aimed at lowering the cost of capital, Patel said. His remarks addressed concerns that commercial banks have failed to pass on recent cuts in the RBI’s main policy rate to their borrowers. India plans to address some pending tax disputes in the next few days, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday, but did not give details or say whether the cases in question included disputes with foreign companies that have spooked investors. Earlier this month, the finance ministry decided not to press claims for a Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT) against foreign portfolio investors. India remains locked in major back-tax battles with telecoms group Vodafone (VOD.L) and Cairn Energy (CNE.L). Arun Jaitley said last week that the government was trying to resolve pending tax cases, many of them outside the courts. JAPAN Japan’s exports slowed for a second straight month in August in a worrying sign that China’s economic slowdown could deal a damaging blow to the world’s third-biggest economy and force policymakers to inject fresh stimulus before too long. The data joins a string of depressing shipment numbers in key regional economies — including South Korea and Taiwan — which has heightened anxiety over a China-led slowdown in global growth and tempered bets of the US Federal Reserve lifting rates for the first time in almost a decade later on Thursday.Slowing exports could increase the chance of additional monetary easing from the Bank of Japan, because this could lead to lower factory output, slack economic activity and less momentum needed to offset deflationary pressure caused by a collapse in oil prices. Vietnam agreed with Japan on Tuesday to step up security cooperation, becoming the latest Southeast Asian country to seek closer ties with Tokyo as China maintains an assertive posture in disputed waters in the South China Sea. The agreement between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Vietnam’s Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong comes after a US expert said on Monday China appeared to be carrying out preparatory work for a third airstrip in contested territory in the South China Sea. China has overlapping claims with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei in the South China Sea. It is also embroiled in a row with Japan over a group of East China Sea islets. Earlier this year, Japan reached an agreement with Malaysia and the Philippines to strengthen security ties. MALAYSIA Southeast Asian stock markets rose on Thursday ahead of a likely policy move by the US Federal Reserve, with stocks in Malaysia outperforming and Singapore hitting a more than one-week high as a big jump in global oil prices boosted energy stocks. Oil prices jumped as much as six per cent on Wednesday after a US stock draw. Oil bulls were also encouraged by doubts on whether the Fed will decide to hike US interest rates on Thursday after tame August inflation data. Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur composite index was up 2.1 per cent on a rally in oil-related stocks. The index touched 1,691.93, a near six-week high, on resuming trade after a market holiday. Shares of oil and gas services firm Sapurakencana Petroleum Bhd was up seven per cent and Tenaga Nasional Bhd was 2.3 per cent higher, among top gainers. While Malaysia’s premier faces tough questions over the origin of hundreds of millions of dollars transferred to his bank accounts, the country has tentatively received good grades for its anti-money laundering efforts from a team of international experts, documents reviewed by Reuters show. A draft report by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body which monitors how countries fight illicit financial flows, said Malaysia had put in place a “robust policy framework” to combat money laundering.But it said the Asian country needed to be more effective in targeting high-risk offences and needs to pay more attention to transnational crime. The draft, dated Aug 4 and marked for official use, said the FATF inspection team found the Malaysian government had a “strong political commitment and well functioning coordination structures” to fight money laundering and that “significant resources have been allocated” to investigations in this field. RUSSIA General Motors (GM.N) executives said they remained committed to meeting their goal of reaching profitability in Europe by 2016, brushing aside concerns that a downturn in Russia could put their goal at risk. “We are confident about reaching our goal,” Opel Chief Executive Karl-Thomas Neumann told journalists at the Frankfurt auto show on Tuesday. In July, GM warned its European employees the Opel and Vauxhall brands were still posting significant losses, and meeting its goal of returning to profit by next year would be difficult given the crisis in Russia and the Euro Zone. But General Motors President Dan Ammann said on Tuesday the launch of a new Opel Astra would help boost sales. Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings Inc on Tuesday said it expected to complete its new AR-1 rocket engine by 2019 to replace a soon-to-be banned Russian engine, but the date could slip if it does not receive enough US government funding. Aerojet Vice President Julie Van Kleeck declined comment on reports that Aerojet has offered USD two billion to acquire United Launch Alliance (ULA), a 50-50 rocket launch venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co. Analysts say the bid is a strategic move by Aerojet to shut out rival Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, that is developing a new engine favored by ULA for use in its new Vulcan rocket. ULA has said Blue Origin’s engine programme is about two years ahead of Aerojet’s work on the AR-1 engine, a claim Aerojet disputes.Work on the new engines gained urgency after US lawmakers passed a ban on use of Russian RD-180 engines for launches of US military or spy satellites following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region of Ukraine last year. PAKISTAN Pakistan and Afghanistan have shelved a raft of agreements that promised to more than triple cross-border trade, officials said, as economic ties seen as key to regional stability fall victim to rivalry and suspicion. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani struck the trade deals with Pakistan soon after taking office last year as part of a broader rapprochement that included plans to share intelligence on Taliban insurgents active in both countries. That cooperation was aimed at tackling the Islamist militant movement, which has separate Afghan and Pakistani branches whose violent campaigns kill thousands of people each year and hamper much-needed development. The trade deals were supposed to be a step towards warmer relations and boosting Afghanistan-Pakistan trade from USD 1.6 billion now to USD five billion by 2017. But officials told Reuters that the agreements, which include reducing tariffs and granting each other preferential trade status, have stalled. Pakistani farmers will receive USD 3.2 billion in grants, subsidies and loan advances from the government, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced on Tuesday, in a bid to spur sluggish growth in one of the country’s main economic sectors. The new schemes represent the government’s largest economic development programme for the agricultural sector since it was voted into office in 2013.The funds will be provided through immediate cash grants and subsidies on agricultural inputs worth USD 1.4 billion, while loan advances worth USD 1.85 billion will also be made and disbursements begin this year, he said. “The conditions of the agricultural sector do not inspire confidence,” Sharif said as he announced the new package at a farmers’ convention in Islamabad. The package includes immediate cash grants for rice and cotton farmers, cuts in fertiliser prices, and a government scheme to pay insurance premiums for farmers who cannot afford them. THAILAND Thailand’s Total Access Communication Pcl (TAC) said on Thursday it is planning a major expansion of its fourth generation (4G) mobile network, as it seeks to displace rivals Advanced Info Service Pcl and True Corp. The country’s second largest mobile operator, controlled by Norway’s Telenor, has received regulatory approval to provide 4G services on the 1800MHz frequency band, which is currently used for 2G, Chief Executive Officer Lars Norling told a news conference. TAC also plans to increase its number of base stations to 32,000 in early 2016 from 17,000 now, aiming to provide 4G network coverage nationwide. The Asian Development Bank will lower its 2015 GDP growth forecast for Thailand from the current 2.9 to 3.0 per cent following weaker-than-expected performance in the first half, the Bangkok Post reported, citing Luxamon Attapich, the bank’s senior economist for Thailand.The new growth forecast, due to be announced on Sept 22, will be higher than 2.5 per cent, the paper reported. USA Fed Chair Janet Yellen has made clear she would rather delay an interest rate hike for too long than move sooner and risk jeopardising a tepid economic recovery, a conviction that will face its sharpest test yet on Thursday. Having weighed the economy’s steady march toward full employment against the backdrop of weak inflation and wage growth and turbulence overseas, the US central bank will issue its latest rate decision at the end of a two-day policy meeting. A rate hike would be the first in the United States in nearly a decade. Fed watchers, however, see the outcome as a toss-up, with Yellen’s consistently stated desire to see workers reap more benefits from the recovery, coupled with weak price rises and a variety of global risks, looming large. “It is a game-time decision. The key is what Yellen thinks and my guess is that she will want to wait,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “If you put yourself in her shoes, you don’t want to make a mistake by going too soon.” Oil prices were stable on Thursday as a US stock draw tightened the market while Asia’s economies showed new signs of weakness.US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were trading at USD 47.13 per barrel at 0430 GMT, virtually unchanged from their previous close, while Brent was up 6 cents at USD 49.81 per barrel. That followed a price jump of as much as six per cent in the previous session when data from the US Energy Information Administration showed the largest crude drawdown since February 2014 at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery point. Singapore-based brokerage Phillip Futures said that the stock draw was “a result of higher refining activity and lower US crude production which is helping the US inventory glut to ease off”.