Author: Press Room

When New York’s nightlife reopened as pandemic lockdowns eased, partygoers wanted to drink one thing: cognac. “Everybody was ordering excessive amounts of bottles . . . at one point there was a shortage of Henny,” said club promoter Frankie Banks, referring to LVMH’s Hennessy brand cognac. But the party is now over. After a three-year boom, US demand for cognac has slumped, with the French groups that dominate the market — LVMH, Rémy Cointreau and Pernod Ricard — each reporting declining sales in their third-quarter earnings. The trend matches a slowdown in the broader market for luxury goods. Premium alcohol sales rocketed during Covid…

© Pavlo Gonchar / SOPA Images/Sipa via Reuters Connect The initial public offering (IPO) market opened November with three new issuers trading and one deal postponed. Reinsurer Hamilton Group initiated a $255 million US IPO, with the pricing due to be announced next week. The company aims to raise funds at a $1.9 billion market cap through its subsidiaries in Bermuda and Europe, offering diverse insurance products globally. In contrast, Waystar, a healthcare billing platform, has delayed its IPO until December. Furthermore, Shimmick (SHIM), a firm specializing in public water infrastructure, plans to raise $50 million at a $333 million…

Ohio Rep. Greg Landsman, a Democrat, canceled a town meeting scheduled for Saturday in the city of Lebanon in response to threats being made against Jewish people across the U.S. amid the war between Israeli forces and Hamas terrorists.Landsman, who is Jewish, announced Friday that the event in the Cincinnati suburb would be canceled, citing security concerns.”We have been advised by the House Sergeant at Arms and local law enforcement that due to problematic online discourse and very serious national threats against Jews, it is imperative we take necessary steps to keep people safe,” Landsman’s office wrote in a statement.FBI…

Investors need to pay careful attention to which bonds you’re buying.getty “Time to Buy Bonds” proclaims the cover of this week’s Barron’s. A recent New York Times headline reads, “Bonds Have Been Awful. It’s a Good Time to Buy.” The Telegraph’s Ambrose Evans-Pritchard chimes in, “This looks like the perfect entry point.” That may very well prove to be excellent advice. The Fed looks like it’s at or close to the end of the interest rate tightening that drove up yields to levels that finally look appetizing. But if you’re thinking of jumping in for a short-term trade, pay careful…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the ESG investing myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.UK investors pulled money out of so-called responsible funds at a record rate, as the market adjusted to the view that interest rates would stay higher for longer and ESG lost its shine in a more volatile market.Responsible investment funds registered a record outflow of £544mn in September, meaning investors have withdrawn more than £1bn so far in 2023, according to figures from the Investment Association.Responsible funds, which take into account environmental, social and governance factors in investment decisions, saw huge inflows…

© Reuters. Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk pauses during an in-conversation event with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, Britain, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Kirsty Wigglesworth/Pool via REUTERS (Reuters) -Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI will release its first AI model to a select group on Saturday, the billionaire and Tesla (NASDAQ:) CEO said on Friday. This comes nearly a year after OpenAI’s ChatGPT caught the imagination of businesses and users around the world, spurring a surge in adoption of generative AI technology. Musk co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in 2015 but stepped down from the company’s…

At a campaign rally in Houston on Thursday that opened with former President Donald J. Trump erroneously referring to jailed Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants as “hostages,” the Republican primary front-runner used a series of false and misleading claims to make his case for another term in the White House.Mr. Trump’s speech, delivered at the headquarters of a company that makes equipment for offshore drilling, touched on a range of issues, but he devoted much of his address to the topics of energy and jobs. And to illustrate his points, he turned to recycled — and in some cases outright…

SpaceX is gunning for a mid-November launch date of its massive Starship rocket. The previous launch in April failed and resulted in months of evaluations from the FAA. Now, it’s up to the FAA to approve the launch. Loading Something is loading. Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you’re on the go. download the app Elon Musk’s company SpaceX announced on Friday it hopes to schedule a second test flight of its Starship Super Heavy rocket by mid-November. However, the Federal Aviation Administration still hasn’t given the company the green light to launch.The second launch,…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In the past three months, Qantas has been found guilty of illegally sacking 1,700 workers, been accused of offering “ghost flights” to its customers, and lost 20 per cent of its stock market value.So when investors were asked at the airline’s annual meeting on Friday whether they would back a pay package for its executives, the result was a resounding no.In a severe snub to Australia’s flag carrier, 83 per cent of shareholders voted against the proposal. The fiery meeting at the…

© Reuters. A view of the city skyline, ahead of the annual National People’s Congress (NPC), in Shanghai, China February 24, 2022. REUTERS/Aly Song/File Photo SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The basic pension fund managed by China’s social security fund gained 5.1 billion yuan, or 0.33% in 2022, down from a 4.9% gain in 2021, the National Council for Social Security Fund said on Saturday. The shrink in yield was mainly impacted by deep changes in global economic and political situations and increasing fluctuations in the financial markets, the state investor said in a statement. China’s stock benchmark CSI 300 lost 21.6%…