For decades, France’s Valdunes SAS charged premium prices for the wheels it made for high-speed trains and other rail systems around the world. That strategy changed after a Chinese state-owned industrial conglomerate bought the company in 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new owner, Maanshan Iron & Steel Co. , or MA Steel, slashed prices in a bid to dominate the market. “We were told that we shouldn’t miss a single order. That was explicit,” recalled Jérôme Duchange, Valdunes’s former top executive in France.
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The European Union unveiled draft rules on Wednesday aimed at cracking down on state-subsidized foreign companies in Europe, a move that could allow regulators to pursue big Chinese companies in much the same way they have targeted U.S. multinationals such as Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., the Wall Street Journal reported. The legislation is the latest sign of Europe’s shifting stance toward China, the bloc’s biggest trading partner for goods and a crucial market for its exporters.
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Drugmaker Mundipharma International Ltd，owned by the billionaire American Sackler family, has kicked off the sale of its China unit in a deal that could fetch more than $1 billion, Reuters reported. Mundipharma has invited a select group of potential buyers, including private equity firms and local and international pharmaceutical companies, to bid for the asset. Initial bids are due by the end of May. Mundipharma hired Deutsche Bank last year to explore a sale of itself and some individual businesses. It decided to run a standalone sale process for its China business earlier this year.
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China’s antitrust watchdog is beefing up its senior ranks as authorities step up efforts to rein in the country’s powerful technology companies, the Wall Street Journal reported. Dong Hongxia will take on a new role as a third deputy director-general of the Antimonopoly Bureau, part of the powerful State Administration for Market Regulation. Ms. Dong, currently director of a division responsible for reviewing mergers, is an expert on antitrust issues and a frequent speaker at seminars and events.
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Smaller businesses are proving to be a weak link in China’s economic recovery as they struggle to fully bounce back from the effects of Covid-19, the Wall Street Journal reported. Like the U.S., China has tens of millions of small and medium-size private businesses, including restaurants and shops, which form the backbone of everyday economic activity. They account for as much as 80% of urban jobs and at least half of China’s tax revenue.
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Ping An Insurance Group and other investors have agreed to contribute to an $11.3 billion bankruptcy restructuring package to secure and rejuvenate a financially troubled corporate empire established by China's top university, Nikkei Asia reported. Peking University Founder Group (PKU Founder), a state-owned conglomerate founded by the university, has been in a Beijing court-supervised bankruptcy proceeding since February 2020.
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Shares rose in early European trading on Friday after retreating in Asia as the latest batch of economic data provided mixed signals about prospects for the recovery from the pandemic, the Associated Press reported. Two surveys showed Chinese manufacturing expanded in April but growth appeared to be slowing. Figures showed Europe’s economy contracted in the first three months of the year, while the U.S. economy steamed ahead, growing at a 6.4% annual pace.
World shares advanced Thursday ahead of the release of U.S. economic growth data and following a speech by President Joe Biden outlining ambitious plans for beefing up early education and other family oriented policies, the Associated Press reported. London’s FTSE 100 jumped 0.7% to 7,013.40. In Paris, the CAC40 climbed 0.6% to 6,344.17. Germany’s DAX slipped 0.2% to 15,262.39 as a report showed weakening consumer confidence. The future for the Dow industrials rose 0.4% and that for the S&P 500 surged 0.6%. U.S.
Fears of a selloff in China’s sovereign bond market have proved wrong, with traders now bracing for the pressure to build through May, Bloomberg reported. Instead of surging higher this month, benchmark 10-year yields are comfortably below their half-year average and little changed from late March, thanks to a slowdown in debt issuance by municipal authorities. Traders had been bracing for a seasonal increase in local bonds at a time when China’s commercial banks — the biggest buyers in the market — typically funnel funds to clients to meet tax payments.