What made the business news in Asia and Europe this morning? Here's our daily business round-up:
Continue reading the main storyEuropean Union leaders will meet in Brussels on Wednesday as fears mount over the region's debt crisis, amid concern that Greece may have to leave the euro.
Leaders are expected to hear the new French President, Francois Hollande, challenge the EU's German-led austerity drive.
The head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, is also keeping up the pressure on Greece to fix its finances.
In an interview with the BBC, Ms Lagarde said there had to be more tax collection and structural reform.
That is despite the deep unpopularity of austerity measures imposed on Greece by the IMF and European Union in return for bailout funds.
Greek politicians are divided over whether to continue supporting those measures and face a 17 June election.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has warned that the eurozone crisis could harm the growth of East Asian economies.
The bank said that a "serious disruption" in the eurozone could hurt growth and dent demand for exports from East Asia.
It said that East Asian countries needed to boost domestic demand to rebalance their economies and sustain growth.
In company news, Fiat and Mazda have formed an alliance to develop two-seater sports cars.
The alliance will work on a car for Fiat's Alfa Romeo brand and a roadster with a different engine and styling for Mazda.
The cars will be built at Mazda's plant in Hiroshima. Both will be based on a new version of Mazda's MX 5, the car that Mazda is best known for.
Business headlines
The Indian rupee hit a record low against the dollar in early trade on Wednesday.
The Indian currency fell to 55.82 rupees against the US dollar, down from 55.39 on Tuesday.
The slide comes amid concerns that slowing growth and a high rate of inflation may hurt India's economy.
Lenovo, the world's second largest PC maker, has reported a big rise in annual profits thanks to strong demand for its products in China.
Beijing-based Lenovo made $473m (£300m) in the year to 31 March, compared with $273m in the previous year.
Japan's exports rose less-than-forecast in April, hurt by a drop in shipments to China and Western Europe.
Exports rose by 7.9% from a year earlier. Most analysts had forecast growth of close to 12%.
Reebok India has lodged a police complaint against two former executives, accusing them of commercial and financial irregularities.
The firm alleged that former managing director Subhinder Singh Prem and ex-chief operating officer Vishnu Bhagat set up secret warehouses, fudged accounts and indulged in fictitious sales.
It said such activities by the two had resulted in a loss of almost 13bn rupees ($233m; £160m).
UK defence giant BAE has signed a £1.9bn ($3bn) deal with Saudi Arabia to supply aircraft, including 22 Hawk trainer jets, and training equipment.
According to trade union Unite, 218 jobs at the East Yorkshire factory where the aircraft is made will now be saved.
Retail sales volumes in the UK fell by 2.3% in April, largely because of a record fall in petrol sales, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Sales of fuel were down by 13.2% in April. In March, motorists had panic-bought petrol ahead of a threatened tanker driver strike.
Sales of clothing and footwear were also affected by April's record rainfall.
Luxury fashion retailer Burberry has reported strong growth in annual profits as it continues to expand around the world.
Pre-tax profits were up 24% to £366m, with sales also up 24% to £1.86bn.
The company said the Asia Pacific region accounted for 37% of both retail and wholesale revenue. The firm plans to invest £200m this year and open 12-14% more space.
The latest Business Daily podcast considers the impact that a slowdown in China could have on the rest of the world.
Money becomes new church battleground - The Guardian
The Rev Paul Perkin seemed bewildered by the question: what was his take on the latest scheme for conservative evangelical churches to withhold money from the rest of the Church of England in order to keep it out of the hands of liberals, gay people or women priests?
"I can't talk about that," he said. "You'll have to ask James Paice." Both men are vicars in south London. And both are directors of the company set up last month to implement this scheme, the Southwark Good Stewards Company. It is the latest, and perhaps the most serious, move in a bitter power struggle within the CofE and the wider Anglican communion.
Not contributing to central funds could represent a serious threat to the rest of the CofE, whose cohesion depends in part on a redistribution of money from rich, largely suburban and middle-class parishes to the inner cities and the countryside where congregations are too small and the buildings too old to be economically sustainable.
Although the Good Stewards Company claims not to be separating from the rest of the CofE, this reading is plausible only if you assume it is the rest of the CofE that has separated from Christianity.
The money will be made available only to churches that commit themselves to a rejection not just of homosexuality, but of liberalism: they must sign "in good faith" a declaration that they will "reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed … Pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord." Such people include the present archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.
The involvement of Perkin in this protest brings it very close to the heart of the institutional church. His is one of the most prosperous and well connected parishes in England: St Mark's, Battersea Rise, in south London, which hosted an international meeting of conservative bishops last month. Apart from encouraging others to hold back money, it is also preparing a network of sympathetic lawyers in case the church fights back.
St Mark's has a long history of financial and political links with conservative churches outside England, but it also stands very close to the central networks of the CofE. Until last year, the church's most senior civil servant, William Fittall, who is the secretary general of its governing body, the General Synod, was a regular worshipper there, a licensed reader who sometimes preached for them.
Before last month's meeting, the congregation were treated to a sermon from the archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, one of the leaders of the conservative movement, who said: "The world has invaded the church. So the contest we have, as Bible-based, Bible-believing Christians, is on two fronts. It is against the world, but it is also against those in the church who have come to terms with the world, who have made their peace with the world, who have compromised with the world, who have given up biblical standards in order to be thought well of in the world."
He warned the congregation they would be vilified, discriminated against, and turned into second-class citizens for their beliefs. "Alas, the truth of the matter is that there are occasions in which the church is being used to persecute the church," he said.
Last year, the evangelical parties blocked the appointment as bishop of Southwark of the two liberal candidates, Jeffrey John, who is gay, and Nick Holtam, who is sympathetic to gay marriage. The compromise candidate, Christopher Chessun, has failed to promote any evangelicals in his first year in office. This month 100 of them demanded, and got, a meeting with the bishop to complain about this.
Even those among conservatives who do not support the financial boycott, and they are a majority, now feel aggrieved at the lack of promotion for evangelicals.
And among the others, the dream of financial independence from the rest of the church has been nurtured for years.
The Rev Richard Perkins, who runs a small independent but still Anglican chapel in Southwark, once blogged: "Why would you give money to a corrupt central administration that'll use it to fund ministries which we oppose? … We shouldn't fund heresy. That's disgraceful."
These tensions are mirrored in the wider Anglican communion, which the conservatives hope to control because they far outnumber the liberal churches of the Anglo-Saxon world. They believe they speak for the true CofE, never mind what the archbishop of Canterbury or the synod may decide. They have set up a body calling itself the Anglican Mission in England.
Five retired English bishops, among them Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the former bishop of Rochester who was the evangelical candidate for archbishop of Canterbury last time, have promised to act as bishops for those clergy who sign up to the pledge not to accept women bishops or tolerate gay people in the church. It is not at all clear that these arrangements are legal, since the authority of the bishops over their clergy is established by the law of England. But any legal battle would be enormously expensive and time consuming. There is no sign that the rest of the Church of England has the stomach for it.
One crisis is approaching rapidly. This summer the synod must decide whether to accept legislation allowing women to become bishops that will not make special provision for their opponents. The present draft is the product of years of wrangling. If it goes through unamended Nazir-Ali predicts that more clergy will come over to his organisation. They will attempt to leave the rest of the CofE, taking their money and their churches with them – all the while claiming, as their rhetoric already suggests, that it is the rest of the church that has left them.
But if the bishops water down the draft to avoid this open split the other side – a great majority of the church – will probably rebel. Campaigners for women bishops threaten to vote the whole measure down rather than accept amendments that would give them a permanent second-class status. The bishops meet later this month to decide and their space for compromise is vanishingly small.
Stocks higher on housing but Europe worries linger - Yahoo Finance
NEW YORK (AP) -- Hopes that the U.S. housing market is starting to recover and the economy is on the mend sent stocks higher on Wall Street.
But the gains are being constricted from continuing worries that Greece's political deadlock could fracture the European Union and roil global markets.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 75 points Wednesday to 12,707. The Standard & Poor's 500 added nine points to 1,340. The Nasdaq composite rose 15 points to 2,908.
Home builder stocks rose after the Commerce Department said builders started work on new homes at an annual pace of 717,000 last month, 2.6 percent more than in March. It was a heartening sign for the beleaguered housing market, which seems to be forming a bottom and starting to recover. Construction rose for both single-family homes and apartments.
Target Corp. rose after a strong earnings report. Target said revenue at stores opened at least a year rose 5.3 percent, the strongest performance in six years for that period. Target's results illustrate that Americans are beginning to spend cautiously as economic uncertainty persists. Though the job market is still shaky, falling gas prices have given shoppers hope.
As signs of a global economic slowdown persist, prices of commodities have come off highs. Oil prices continued their march downwards from $105 in the beginning of the month to $93. Crude oil prices were down $1 on Wednesday. Gold prices fell $18 to $1539, the lowest level since December.
In Europe, a potentially chaotic situation was developing in Greece, where power-sharing talks collapsed Tuesday and new elections were called for next month. There is already concern in other European countries about how a possible Greek exit from the euro would affect the rest of the continent.
On Wednesday, Spain's prime minister warned that the country, which is trembling under a 24.4 percent unemployment rate, could be locked out of international markets due to problems in the EU.
"Right now there is a serious risk that (investors) will not lend us money or they will do so at an astronomical rate," Mariano Rajoy told Spanish lawmakers.
Financial pressures extend well beyond Europe too. The Indian rupee hit a new all-time low against the dollar with investors increasingly seeking a safe place to put their money. The rupee sank to 54.44 against the dollar Wednesday, surpassing the prior low of 54.39 on December 15.
Among other stocks making big moves:
— JC Penney plunged 14 percent, the most in the S&P 500 index, after the retailer reported a bigger-than-expected first-quarter loss. Sales plummeted as shoppers are rejecting their new pricing plan.
— Abercrombie & Fitch fell 11 percent after reporting that its first-quarter net income shrank 88 percent because of higher costs and declining sales in established stores and in Europe.
— General Electric rose 3.6 percent, the most of the 30 stocks in the Dow, after the company said its finance unit will pay a special dividend of $4.5 billion to the parent company this year. It had suspended the payments in 2009 during a freeze in credit markets.
Body of missing Harvard Business School student whose wife was pregnant with first child found in harbor - Daily Mail
- Nathan Bihlmaier, 31, was celebrating graduation at Irish pub when he was asked to leave for being too drunk
- Portland Police Chief confirmed it was the 31-year-old, saying: 'It’s a tragic end'
- Was due to graduate on Thursday
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The body of a Harvard Business School student who went missing on Sunday after drinking with friends in an Irish bar has been found.
Nathan Bihlmaier, 31, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, disappeared while celebrating his upcoming graduation with two friends.
Divers returned to the Maine harbor today after finding clothing on Monday belonging to the 31-year-old and later pulled the body from the water around noon.
Portland Police Chief Michael Sauschuck confirmed it was the 31-year-old, saying: 'It’s a tragic end. We had high hopes throughout working with the family and the community to bring Nate home. These weren’t the circumstances that we wanted to.'
Vanished: Harvard student Nathan Bihlmaier, 31, was last seen by the Portland waterfront late on Saturday night. He is pictured with his wife, Nancy
Last seen: He and two friends had visited the Old Port area before Mr Bihlmaier vanished around 1am, divers found a body there today
Found? A missing poster of Nathan Bihlmaier, 31, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is seen today in Portland, Maine. Police have yet to confirm the identity of the body
Police say Bihlmaier was separated from friends after being asked to leave a waterfront pub at 12:20am on Sunday because he was intoxicated. He later failed to return to his hotel.
His wife is pregnant with their first child. He was due to graduate on Thursday.
Police told the Portland Press Herald that Mr Bihlmaier and two friends traveled to Portland for the weekend to celebrate their graduation from business school.
The revelers visited the Old Port area on Saturday night, before Mr Bihlmaier was asked to leave the bar soon after midnight because he was drunk.
Police confirmed that he had 'a little bit too much to drink', but added that he did not cause a disturbance while leaving the bar.
'At that point he left the bar very cooperatively,' police chief Michael Sauschuck said, according to the Bangor Daily News. 'There were no altercations - he just left voluntarily after being spoken to by bar staff.'
He spoke to his friends on the phone, but did not return to the hotel where they were staying. They searched for him to no avail and reported him missing at 9am.
Concerned: His pregnant wife, Nancy Hi Bihlmaier, rushed to the coastal city after receiving the news
'He is a well-established individual from a strong family. He has a wife who is expecting their first child. There is no reason he would [purposely] go missing,' Lt Gary Hutcheson told the Press Herald.
According to his cell phone records, Mr Bihlmaier did not venture far.
Police tracked his movements through his phone signal after he left the bar until his battery apparently died 40 minutes later.
Family: Mr Bihlmaier, originally from Kansas, with his wife Nancy and his parents Cheryl and Steve
Mystery: Police tracked him after he left Ri Ra, pictured, until his phone battery died 40 minutes later
The Coast Guard and the Portland harbormaster worked together with police to launch the underwater hunt for clues.
They even used a cadaver dog on an inflatable raft to search for the man's scent.
His pregnant wife, Nancy Hi Bihlmaier, rushed to the coastal city after receiving the news that her husband was missing, as did around 20 of his business school friends.
A spokesman for the school told the Press Herald: 'His friends describe him as really one top-notch guy.'
Mr Bihlmaier, whose family comes from Kansas but who is now based in the Boston area, specializes in the business of healthcare, and is employed by medical provider Optum.
He has previously worked at several other healthcare firms, as well as for the Department of Health and Human Services.
CANADA STOCKS-TSX ends up 1 pct as gold miners rally - Reuters
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Junk paper on black money - Express Buzz
When the issue of black wealth stashed away by Indians became an election issue in 2009, thanks to the Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani coming out with a white paper on black money, the knee-jerk reaction of the Congress was that it was a figment of imagination. Within a week the party had to abandon its denial mode. The prime minister was forced to assure that within 100 days the new government would take steps to bring back the monies stashed away. The Congress president Sonia Gandhi had to say that the party would address the issue of bringing back black money. The new government told Parliament through the President’s Address in June 2009 that it “was fully seized of the issue of illegal money of Indian citizens outside in secret bank accounts” which it “will vigorously pursue”. The next year, however, the president completely forgot the issue.It was a year later, in 2011, that the Union finance minister remembered the issue. He said that a rigorous study would be carried out to get a reliable estimate of the black money stashed abroad. In March 2011 an MoU was signed between the Central Board of Direct Taxes and three expert bodies — National Council of Applied Economic Research, National Institute of Financial Management, and National Institute of Public Finance and Policy — to do the study and report within 18 months, by September 2012. Suddenly the minister announced in his budget speech on March 16, 2012 that he could come out with a white paper on Black Money soon. That white paper came out a few days ago on May 21. Three years after it promised vigorously to pursue black money, the government has thus produced a white paper on black money. What is the need, however, for the white paper now when ‘the rigorous study’ to get ‘reliable estimates’ of black money initiated by the government is scheduled to be over in September?When the white paper says innocuously that there is no reliable estimate of black wealth in or outside India and so a rigorous study is on, it is no innocent statement. The intention is to undermine the estimates made by diverse sources. Also the white paper ignores that those estimates were time specific. The estimates of 1960s and 1980s and 1990s cannot be compared with one another and seen as conflicting. What the white paper leaves unsaid is that since there is no reliable estimate of black money it is not a serious issue. The unstated but obvious objective of the white paper is to trivialise the estimates of black money by such credible sources such as Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as not reliable. Is it not how the Congress started in 2009, namely that the amount of black wealth of India abroad was a ‘figment of imagination’? Is the white paper implying the same without saying explicitly?The white paper refers to black money estimates made in 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and in the early part of 1990s, till 1995. The amount of black money generated before early 1990s would be insignificant as compared to the post-financial liberalisation period from early 1990s. The GDP of India for 2012-’13 will cross `100 lakh-crore. Till 1980s, it was less than `1 lakh-crore — just 1 per cent of the size of today’s economy on rupee to rupee basis. The black money generated in the last 15 years and that what is being generated now is incomparably huge. The information in the white paper on the estimates of black money till 1995 is 17 years old and is irrelevant. Anyone familiar with recent economic history knows that there is no comparison between pre-liberalisation and post-liberalisation Indian economy. The GFI estimated that most of the black money has been stashed away post 1991. Applying the IMF estimates of the informal economy in India (at 23.7 per cent of the GDP mentioned in the white paper itself) the amount of black economy in India would now be about `24 lakh-crore. Against these huge numbers the white paper talks of `36,000 crore as black component of the GDP in 1983-’84 (page 12) as if the said figures are relevant now. This white paper is thus fit only for archives. It is an old paper to be junked, not a white paper to be preserved. Actual money was only the source of white or black money till 1980s. Now new money known as derivatives (which are just speculative monies that turn into actual monies) are a bigger source of black money. The global speculative money stock of $82 trillion (`4,610 lakh-crore) in 1997 has multiplied by more than 10 times to $618 trillion (`33,990 lakh-crore) in 2009. As compared to the real global economy of $58 trillion (`3,190 lakh-crore) speculative money stock is 10 times more. Again, the cash wealth of the rich rose from $5.7 trillion in 1997 to $32.8 trillion in 2009. Some 40 per cent of it, `556.5 lakh-crore, is black money. This is managed by banks as trustees. Just one bank — UBS — alone manages $2.7 trillion (`148.5 lakh-crore). This is outside the balance sheets of banks. In India the total of forex, stock and commodity market speculative money stock is `685 lakh-crore. It has outstripped the real economy by almost seven times. Yet, the white paper totally omits this huge source of black money.The most ridiculous claim made in the white paper (page 17) is that part of the black money stashed away abroad is ‘already returned’. It refers to the infamous PN or Participatory Note under which anyone, including an Indian, abroad can invest black money in the name of an approved investment institution. It shamelessly admits (para 2.8.3) that ultimately Indians could be the owners of the PN and therefore large parts of the PN and may represent ‘return’ black monies stashed away by Indians. It can’t be more ridiculous. The PNs are not Indian monies in India, but Indian monies abroad which have escaped tax. To claim they are return of Indian monies is a fraudulent claim as well.The white paper is deafeningly silent on the names of those who have stashed away monies abroad. Ottavio Quattrocchi’s millions and Hasan Ali’s billions are standing examples. Not to speak of the suspected holdings of the Sonia Gandhi family, estimated at between $10-19 billion. When such suspects rule, how will black money come? Only white paper will.(Views expressed in the column are the author’s own)S Gurumurthy is a well-known commentator on political and economic issues. E-mail: comment@gurumurthy.net
Who Speaks for Small Business? Not the NFIB - Huffington Post
The National Federation of Independent Businesses loves to wrap itself in the flag of neighborhood Mom and Pop shops when it lobbies on Capitol Hill, but many small business owners maintain the NFIB's agenda doesn't address their priorities, and say the lobbying group even fights against policies that small businesses need. As Reuters recently reported, "the NFIB uses the politically valuable mantle of small business to pursue an agenda that may take its cues from elsewhere."
Listen to Frank Knapp, president of the South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce, who identifies the NFIB as a "'small-business pretender' and 'lapdog' of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce" in the Reuters article.
Or take it from Freddy Castiblanco, owner of Terraza 7 Live Music, a café and music venue in Elhurst, NY. "They disguise themselves as mom and pop shops," says Castiblanco. "But they don't speak for me."
Reuters details the NFIB's record of lobbying for issues that benefit big businesses, not necessarily small ones:
"Consider a widespread state tax loophole that lets big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot transfer income to out-of-state subsidiaries. This loophole often allows the chain retailers to pay no state income tax, while small businesses do. Yet the NFIB has fought against closing such loopholes."
Reuters also referred to New Jersey cabinetmaker J. Kelly Conklin, who in April wrote this in The Hill: "Whether we're talking about health care or taxes (or both at the same time), NFIB always seems to side with the big fellas -- big insurance, big banking, big business -- not little guys like me. Why? I don't know."
For more information, see the piece Family Values @ Work published together with Democracy Strategies, titled: "The National Federation of Independent Business? Driving a far-right political agenda far from the needs of small business."
As that document points out, the NFIB in 2010 received a gift of $3.7 million from Karl Rove's group Crossroads GPS -- a contribution which a Wall Street Journal opinion piece described as part of a "trial run" at what Crossroads called "funding the right," adding that Crossroads CEO Steven Law considered the initiative "money well spent."
The appreciation was mutual. In that same year, the NFIB reported paying more than $3 million for "advertising services" to Crossroads Media LLC, a Virginia-based firm that does media placement for American Crossroads and shares office space with a number of other Super PACs.
Figures for 2011 and 2012 are not yet public.
The NFIB has also been far from independent in its allocation of PAC money. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly 94 percent of NFIB's PAC contributions went to Republicans in 2010. This election cycle, the figure is closer to 98 percent.
NFIB leadership is deeply rooted in conservative Republican politics. The organization's president, Dan Danner, served as deputy director in the White House Office of Public Liaison under Reagan. Chief lobbyist Susan Eckerly worked in George W. Bush's Labor Department. And the group recently retained Mark Warren, former chief counsel of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, as a lobbyist.
Yet small business owners are much more diverse in their political views. According to a New York Times blog, in a poll of small-business owners commissioned by American Express OPEN, respondents were nearly evenly divided among those identifying as Republicans (33 percent,) Democrats (32 percent) and independent or unaffiliated (29 percent).
Who speaks for small business? Many voices -- but not the NFIB.
Follow Ellen Bravo on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@Ellen_Bravo
SUSAN IN CHICAGEO: I never said anything about getting him drunk and kicking him out. what a bar, or mine did, was cut you off ( not serve you anymore drinks), and not throw them out. now if they wanted to fight because of it, and some do, yes, we would have them leave. my comment was you CANNOT make adults do anything they do not want to do. we have called many a cab or friends for drunk customers but you can't make them get into the car. the only left is to call the cops who CAN make you get into the car.
- jaydee, hot springs, usa, 23/5/2012 22:08
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