Business

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport reported a net profit Friday of 65 million euros ($64.8 million) in the first six months of the year as passenger numbers soared despite post-pandemic staff shortages that led to huge lines and piles of luggage.

The busy aviation hub had a net loss of 140 million in the first half of 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic that slammed the brakes on air travel around the world.

Passenger numbers also soared as the aviation industry worldwide rebounded strongly from the pandemic. Schiphol had 23.8 million passengers in the first half of the year, up from 5.6 million in the same period last year. Schiphol Group, which also includes smaller airports in Rotterdam and Eindhoven, handled 27.3 million passengers in the year’s first six months.

“It is great to see that so many passengers are back after the lifting of COVID travel restrictions. Unfortunately, staff shortages have impacted Schiphol in this period of steep growth, like other airports and airlines,” Schiphol CEO Dick Benschop said in a statement.

He said that the airport’s “service level is improving step by step” and pledged to continue to invest in infrastructure and make changes in the running of the airport where necessary.”

source

By Chen Aizhu and Marianna Parraga

SINGAPORE/HOUSTON (Reuters) -China has entrusted a defence-focussed state firm to ship millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil despite U.S. sanctions, part of a deal to offset Caracas’ billions of dollars of debt to Beijing, according to three sources and tanker tracking data.

    China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) stopped carrying Venezuelan oil in August 2019 after Washington tightened sanctions on the South American exporter. But it continued to find its way to China via traders who rebranded the fuel as Malaysian, Reuters has reported.

    Since November 2020 China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) has been carrying Venezuelan crude on three tankers it acquired that year from PetroChina, CNPC’s listed vehicle, the sources said. The oil is stored on a tank farm it also took over from PetroChina, the sources said.

The three CASIC tankers load in Venezuela with their transponders active, allowing third-party tracking, Eikon data showed.

The firm has taken 13 cargoes carrying a total of about 25 million barrels of oil, including two vessels due to arrive in China in September, according to the loading schedules of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA, and tanker tracking data from Refinitiv and Vortexa Analytics.

The 13 shipments, worth about $1.5 billion at formula prices for Venezuela’s flagship-grade Merey crude, were declared “crude oil” at Chinese customs, without specifying origin, said one of the sources.

    “These shipments are strictly under a government mandate, where CASIC was designated to move the oil as payment to offset Venezuelan debt (to China),” the person said.

    The three sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Without commenting on debt offset, China’s foreign ministry said on Friday the two nations are engaged in cooperation over “oil for humanitarian goods”.

“The cooperation meets Venezuela’s current needs and is also in line with humanitarian principles,” a ministry spokesperson said, adding that China opposes U.S. unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.

Media departments at CASIC and the General Administration of Chinese Customs did not respond to requests for comment. A CNPC representative declined to comment.

A second source said that although part of each cargo pays down debt, other goods, such as COVID-19 vaccines, are also being subtracted from the crude sales.

    “All money from proceeds stays in China. Venezuela’s foreign affairs ministry is in charge of conciliation and accountability,” said this person.

    At roughly 42,000 barrels a day, these shipments have increased total Venezuelan oil to China to about 420,000 bpd between January and July this year, equivalent to about 3% of China’s consumption, according to Emma Li, analyst with Vortexa, which tracks such flows.

China has not officially reported any crude oil imports from Venezuela since October 2019.

Venezuela’s debt dates to 2007, the era of then-President Hugo Chavez, when the country borrowed more than $50 billion from Beijing under loan-for-oil deals.

Reuters could not determine how much of Venezuela’s debt remains outstanding. In August 2020, Beijing agreed to extend a grace period for $19 billion of the loans, Reuters reported, but China and Venezuela have not said whether that period has ended.

GREEN CHANNEL

    China, the world’s top oil buyer, has over the past few years benefited from cheaper oil supplies from Iran and Venezuela, and has in recent months ramped up imports from Russia amid soured relations with Washington.

The country manages its crude imports under a rigid quota system for qualified refiners. The CASIC shipments are an exception, with no quota, said the first source.

    “They enter China under a special green channel,” the person said.

PDVSA and Venezuela’s oil and foreign affairs ministries did not reply to requests for comment. The U.S. Treasury Department, which enforces sanctions, declined to comment.

    CASIC, which started in 1956 as a defence research arm that developed China’s first missile, has over the decades expanded into a defence conglomerate specialising in space technology.

    It was picked for the oil job because it is politically powerful and has limited global financial exposure, making it less vulnerable to sanctions, said the first source.

    The company has since 2015 worked with state oil giants, including CNPC and Sinopec, in petroleum equipment manufacturing, digital technology and overseas projects, according to company websites.

    TRANSFER OF TANKERS, STORAGE

    The CASIC Venezuelan oil shipments are transported by three Very Large Crude Carriers – Xingye, Yongle and Thousand Sunny-, according PDVSA’s loading schedules and ship tracking by Vortexa and Refinitiv. 

    CASIC took over the vessels from PetroChina in 2020, shortly after PetroChina took control of them after a legal dispute with PDVSA over assets involved in a joint venture bankruptcy, two sources told Reuters. PetroChina told Reuters in 2020 that it had transferred the vessels but declined to say to whom.

    PetroChina also transferred to CASIC a tank farm based in the eastern coastal city of Ningbo, where the shipments are delivered, the sources added.

All Venezuelan oil cargoes received by CASIC were originally picked up at the Jose port by Cirrostrati Technology Co Ltd, a firm with no track record in oil trading, acting as intermediary for only these cargoes, according to PDVSA schedules.

    Cirrostrati could not be reached for comment. Reuters could not find the company’s registration or incorporation information, or independently determine other links between Cirrostrati and CASIC.

    The oil shipped by CASIC is mostly consumed by China’s independent refiners, which have increasingly relied on cheaper crude from Iran and Venezuela and more recently Russia to maintain operations.

    One independent refiner said they were offered the oil at $8 per barrel below benchmark Brent crude ex-storage basis, versus a discount of more than $30 for similar-quality crude marketed as a Malaysian export.

    “It is more costly, but it’s good that the government is now taking charge of these Venezuelan supplies, which saves us lots of logistics headaches and sanction-related risks,” said an executive with the refiner.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu in Singapore and Marianna Parraga in Houston. Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis in Washington Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Eduardo Baptista in Beijing, and the Beijing newsroom. Editing by Gerry Doyle and William Mallard)

source

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese food delivery company Meituan on Friday reported a better-than-expected 16.4% rise in quarterly revenue from a year earlier, despite a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in China.

Revenue rose to 50.94 billion yuan ($7.42 billion) for the quarter ended in June, beating the 48.59 billion yuan expected on average by 14 analysts, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

China experienced a surge in COVID cases in March and April that prompted lockdowns in several cities, including the commercial hub Shanghai, as part of the country’s policy to cut all transmission chains for the virus, roiling supply chains, disrupting businesses and hitting consumer spending.

The curbs severely hit Meituan’s delivery services and forced many vendors to shut.

While Meituan and other companies say their businesses started to revive in June as curbs eased, the spectre of COVID lockdowns continues to loom as outbreaks emerge, including in Sanya, a popular beach resort town.

Meituan, whose services also include movie ticketing and bike-sharing, said its loss for the quarter narrowed to 1.12 billion yuan, from 3.36 billion yuan a year earlier.

Sales from new initiatives, including its community e-commerce business Meituan Select, grew by 40.7% year on year to 14.16 billion yuan, partly driven by increased demand for Meituan Instashopping during the COVID resurgence.

Revenue from core local commerce, which includes food delivery and in-store, hotel and travel businesses, rose 9.2% to 36.78 billion yuan.

Analysts expect Meituan to take longer before it sees a rebound in its offline in-store and hotel operations, due to China’s strict COVID-control measures.

China’s tech companies reported lacklustre results for the April-June period, struggling in a slowing economy that has been hit by Beijing’s regulatory crackdown.

Earlier this month, Alibaba Group, owner of Meituan’s rival Ele.me, reported flat quarterly revenue, its first ever.

($1 = 6.8623 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(This story corrects sixth paragraph to show quarterly loss narrowed to 1.12 billion yuan from 3.36 billion yuan)

(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang and Brenda Goh; Editing by Jason Neely, William Mallard and Tomasz Janowski)

source

By Rachael Levy

(Reuters) – Elon Musk’s decision to have children with one of his top executives at Neuralink pushed the limits of corporate governance norms, according to nine corporate governance experts who offered divergent interpretations of the startup’s code of conduct for employees.

Known more widely for his electric car maker Tesla Inc and rocket developer SpaceX, Musk is also the chief executive of Neuralink, a company with about 300 employees that is seeking to develop chips that connect the human brain directly to machines.

He and Shivon Zilis, one of his direct reports at the company, had twin babies last November, Insider reported on July 6, citing a confidential court filing.

Zilis, 36, has since told some of her colleagues that she was not involved romantically with Musk, 51, and conceived the children with him through in vitro fertilization (IVF), according to five people familiar with the situation. Reuters could not establish the accuracy of Zilis’ account.

Zilis and spokespeople for Musk and Neuralink did not respond to requests for comment.

Relationships between supervisors and subordinates are frowned upon at companies and have cost some high-profile CEOs their jobs, as they violate most corporate policies and raise concerns about conflicts of interest, corporate governance experts said.

Neuralink’s 62-page employee handbook, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, prohibits dating, “personal relationships” and “close personal friendships” between employees in a direct supervisory relationship to avoid any conflicts of interest.

But the facts presented by Musk and Zilis’ relationship are so unusual that the corporate governance experts who reviewed the policy for Reuters expressed divergent views on whether they thought the entrepreneur had violated it by having children with his subordinate through IVF.

“Whatever lawyer wrote this language did not contemplate this situation,” said Nell Minow, vice chair of corporate governance consultancy ValueEdge Advisors, referring to the Neuralink code of conduct.

She added that the situation appeared to “fall between the cracks” of the policy’s intent to avoid conflicts of interest due to relationships between employees.

Neuralink’s code of conduct calls for relationships that can create a conflict of interest to be disclosed to the company’s “people operations manager” so that the company can decide whether it should take steps to eliminate any conflict.

Reuters could not learn whether Musk or Zilis had disclosed the relationship to Kristy Hilands, the people operations manager. Hilands did not respond to requests for comment.

Neuralink has accepted Zilis’ description of a non-romantic relationship, and she continues in her role as director of operations and special projects, a source familiar with the company’s handling of the matter said. In the weeks since the disclosure of their having children, Musk and Zilis have also continued working together, taking the helm at internal and external company meetings, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

For example, after learning in recent weeks that competitor Synchron had beaten Neuralink to a human trial in the United States, Musk sent Zilis to approach the company’s CEO Thomas Oxley and arrange a meeting, according to three sources familiar with the matter. Zilis and Musk spoke with Oxley shortly after about a possible investment by Musk in Synchron, the sources said.

OPEN TO INTERPRETATION

Four of the corporate governance experts said they believed Zilis having children with Musk through IVF should be read as having a “personal relationship” or “close friendship” under Neuralink’s code of conduct. The code defines a personal relationship as one where the individuals have a “continuing relationship of a romantic or intimate nature and who are not married to each other.” It does not define a close friendship.

“You’re layering intimate familial bonds over professional relationships,” said Gabriel Rauterberg, a corporate law professor at the University of Michigan. “There is always the worry that someone with greater power will use their professional power in ways that are inappropriate.”

The other five corporate governance experts interviewed by Reuters either did not think Musk and Zilis’ arrangement was a breach under the Neuralink policy or could not come to a definitive conclusion.

Usha Rodrigues, a professor at the University of Georgia’s law school, said Musk and Zilis’ situation “may fall under ‘close friendship’ if there is an ongoing, co-parenting type relationship, but that is subject to interpretation.”

The extent of Musk’s involvement in the life of his children with Zilis could not be learned by Reuters. The court filing published by Insider shows that in April, they asked for the children to take Musk’s last name. Musk and Zilis also listed the same address in Texas.

Joan Heminway, a business professor at the University of Tennessee’s law school, said one cannot easily prove that Musk and Zilis are close personally, even if they had IVF together. “That’s the new wrench here,” she said.

(Reporting by Rachael Levy in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis, Paritosh Bansal and Edward Tobin)

source

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s central bank has stepped up pressure on lenders with new instructions to grow loans, six bankers with knowledge of the matter said, as the world’s second-biggest economy faces an economic downturn and a plunge in borrowers’ confidence.

The informal message, issued via phone calls over recent months to commercial, rural and even foreign banks, was to lend more money to productive businesses and put less of it in financial investments, the banking sources said.

The calls, which the sources said came from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and in one case the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), are the latest in a series of official efforts to encourage money out of a financial system awash with cash and into lending that can drive real growth.

(Reporting by Shanghai and Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Kim Coghill)

source

BEIJING (Reuters) -Chinese food delivery company Meituan on Friday posted a better-than-expected 16.4% rise in quarterly revenue from a year earlier, despite a resurgence of COVID-19 cases in China.

Revenue rose to 50.94 billion yuan ($7.42 billion) for the quarter ended in June, beating the 48.59 billion yuan expected on average by 14 analysts, Refinitiv Eikon data showed.

China experienced a surge in COVID cases in March and April that prompted lockdowns in several cities, including the commercial hub Shanghai, as part of the country’s policy to cut all transmission chains for the virus, roiling supply chains, disrupting businesses and hitting consumer spending.

The curbs severely hit Meituan’s delivery services and forced many vendors to shut.

While Meituan and other companies say their businesses started to revive in June as curbs eased, the spectre of COVID lockdowns continues to loom as outbreaks emerge, including in Sanya, a popular beach resort town.

Meituan, whose services also include hotel booking and bike-sharing, said its loss for the quarter narrowed to 6.82 billion yuan, from 8.20 billion yuan a year earlier.

Revenue from core local commerce, which includes food delivery and in-store, hotel and travel businesses, rose 9.2% to 36.78 billion yuan.

($1 = 6.8623 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Yingzhi Yang and Brenda Goh; Editing by Jason Neely and William Mallard)

source

By Nupur Anand and Aditya Kalra

MUMBAI (Reuters) – India’s stricter digital lending rules have disrupted card services of foreign-backed fin-tech firms and jeopardised loan offerings of Amazon, prompting companies to chart a lobbying pushback, according to industry sources and a document seen by Reuters.

Citing concerns over high rates and unfair practices, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) this month said a loan borrower must deal directly with a bank, dealing a blow to prepaid card providers and shopping websites which act as intermediaries and instantly process deferred loan payments.

India’s digital lending market has grown quickly and facilitated $2.2 billion in digital loans in 2021-22, with startups attracting foreign backers and giving traditional banks a run for their money in the credit business.

The new rules have already hit prepaid card offerings of Tiger Global-backed Slice and Accel-backed startup Uni, which have partnered with banks and allowed users to split purchases into interest-free easy repayments, a feature not available with typical credit cards.

Solving “time-sensitive money crunches” made Uni popular: its cards were swiped for $67 million on average monthly, much more than credit card usage of some smaller private and public banks in India.

The RBI has said the new rules were to be implemented immediately, but added that “detailed instructions will be issued separately.”

Still, Uni suspended its card services this week due to the RBI rules, hitting hundreds of thousands of users, while Slice has put new card issuance on hold.

Worries are also rising that the rules will throttle plans of bigger players Amazon.com Inc and Walmart’s Flipkart to expand their popular buy-now-pay-later schemes that have tapped millions of users, three industry sources said.

That’s because currently Amazon and Flipkart facilitate loans for their shoppers. The bank pays the online merchant, while the borrower later makes loan payments to the lender. The new RBI rules, sources say, could impact this route if online merchants can’t receive payments directly.

“It is likely that seamlessness of availing credit by the customer will be severely impacted,” the Internet and Mobile Association of India, a top industry group representing Amazon and Flipkart, said in a draft internal lobbying document crafted in collaboration with consulting group PwC.

The group plans to push the RBI to carve out direct merchant payments as an exception under the new rules.

Flipkart has been bullish on the buy-now-pay-later business, saying in May it doubled its user base for the service to more than 6 million in seven months.

Sources said that two other groups representing payment firms and digital lenders also plan to lobby RBI to reconsider some provisions.

Slice said in a statement it was committed to comply with Indian regulations, which it said were a recognition of the rapidly growing industry. It did not comment on the business challenges.

The RBI, IAMAI and PwC, and none of the other companies responded to Reuters queries.

PROTECTING CONSUMERS

Among other new rules, the RBI has said fin-tech firms should recover charges of facilitating a digital loan from their banking partners, not the borrowers. And the firms must also appoint nodal officers and have better checks on user data.

Rahul Sasi, a cybersecurity expert who was on an RBI panel that helped draft the new regulations, told Reuters that while some disruption due to the new rules is inevitable, the ultimate aim is to protect consumers.

“The idea has been to always let the businesses run, it was not about killing the fin-techs,” he said.

Nevertheless, fin-tech firms are worried, and fear more regulations are on the way. Swapnil Bhaskar, head of strategy at Indian digital banking solutions provider “Niyo”, said the rules could lead to industry consolidation and slow down an industry that has grown at a rapid pace.

The disruptions have disappointed some users.

Athul Bhadran, a 28-year-old engineer, said he happily used his Uni prepaid card to manage his budget by splitting his bigger purchases, like the 19,000 rupees ($238) he spent on a washing machine. Now, he can’t.

“I always had the peace of mind if I wanted to spend a big amount,” he said.

(Reporting by Nupur Anand in Mumbai and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Additional reporting by M. Sriram; Editing by Kim Coghill)

source

(Reuters) – The Nasdaq ended sharply higher on Thursday, lifted by gains in Nvidia and other technology-related stocks as investors focused on the Federal Reserve’s Jackson Hole conference for clues about the central bank’s policy outlook.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to give a speech on Friday that investors will dissect for indications of how aggressively the Fed may move to raise interest rates as it battles decades-high inflation.

“We’re in a period of time between the end of the second-quarter earnings season and meaningful additional data from the Federal Reserve. Markets are churning a bit with a reasonably low level of volatility,” said Bill Northey, senior investment director at U.S. Bank Wealth Management in Minneapolis.

The yield on the closely watched 10-year Treasury note faded after recently hitting a two-month high. Declining interest rates tend to benefit technology stocks trading at high valuations.

“Lower interest rates have certainly put some support underneath some of the more growth-oriented sectors,” Northey said.

Nvidia rose after the graphics chipmaker gave a weaker-than-expected quarterly forecast that many investors viewed as signaling the worst of a sales downturn may be over. That drove a rally in the Philadelphia semiconductor index.

Apple, Amazon and Google-owner Alphabet also rose, making substantial contributions to the Nasdaq’s increase.

Data earlier in the day showed the U.S. economy contracted less than initially thought in the second quarter, dispelling some fears that a recession was underway.

Traders see a slightly greater likelihood of a third 75-basis-point interest hike from the Fed at its policy meeting next month, compared with a 50-basis-point increase. [FEDWATCH]

Fed officials on Thursday were noncommittal about the size of the interest rate increase they plan to approve at their Sept. 20-21 meeting, but they continued hammering the point that rates will rise and stay high until such high rates of inflation have been squeezed from the economy.

Electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc slid after a 3-for-1 stock split came into effect.

According to preliminary data, the S&P 500 gained 58 points, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 207.74 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 323 points.

Wall Street’s busiest trades: https://tmsnrt.rs/3ww2xId

Following Thurday’s rally, the S&P 500 remains down about 12% in 2022, while the Nasdaq is down about 20%.

Citigroup Inc climbed after saying it plans to close its consumer and commercial banking businesses in Russia starting this quarter.

Salesforce Inc fell after it cut its annual forecasts over “measured” spending from clients and a hit from a stronger dollar.

Additional chipmakers rallying on Thursday included Advanced Micro Devices and Broadcom.

(Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar, Devik Jain and Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru and by Noel Randewich in Oakland, Calif.; Editing by Maju Samuel, Aditya Soni and Grant McCool)

source

(Reuters) – Google will clearly label medical facilities in the United States that provide abortions in its search results and in Google Maps to avoid confusing them with anti-abortion centers, its top executive informed lawmakers on Thursday.

When users search for “abortion clinics near me”, the results box will display facilities verified to provide abortions, said Mark Isakowitz, vice president for government affairs and public policy for US and Canada at Google, in a letter to Senator Mark Warner and Representative Elissa Slotkin. (https://bit.ly/3CFFQoO)

The tech giant will also allow people to broaden their search to show other relevant listings, including from organizations that do not provide abortions, Isakowitz said.

Google’s response follows a letter dated June 17 from Warner and Slotkin urging Alphabet Inc Chief Executive Sundar Pichai to prevent misleading Google search results that directed users to anti-abortion centers.

About half of U.S. states have or are expected to seek to ban or curtail abortions following Roe’s reversal. The states, which include Idaho, Texas and 11 others, have adopted “trigger” laws banning abortion upon such a decision.

(Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

source

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Global shipping container suppliers China International Marine Containers and Maersk Container Industry in a joint statement on Thursday said they have abandoned a merger plan, citing significant regulatory challenges.

China International Marine Containers (CIMC) in September had agreed to buy the Danish shipping company AP Moeller – Maersk’s refrigerated containers maker for $987.3 million.

The U.S. Justice Department said the deal would have combined two of the world’s four suppliers of refrigerated shipping containers and further concentrated the global cold supply chain.

The Justice Department said it “would also have consolidated control of over 90% of insulated container box and refrigerated shipping container production worldwide in Chinese state-owned or state-controlled entities.”

Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who heads the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said the acquisition could have led to “higher prices, lower quality, and less resiliency in global supply chains” and “would have cemented CIMC’s dominant position in an already consolidated industry and eliminated MCI as an innovative, independent competitor.”

Germany’s Federal Cartel Office said in December it also had opened an investigation into the effects the takeover of Maersk Container Industry (MCI) by CIMC could have on markets.

Maersk said it was “unfortunate” the deal would not move forward, adding it “will now assess the best structural set-up to ensure the long-term development of the business.”

Founded by Maersk in 1991, MCI employs 2,300 people in China and Denmark.

(Reporting by David ShepardsonEditing by Bill Berkrot)

source