(Bloomberg) -- China has penalized 10 of the country’s most popular livestreaming apps, suspending some of their operations in a renewed crackdown on fast-growing services backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. and ByteDance Ltd.Regulators singled out ByteDance’s Xigua and three apps run by Tencent-backed firms -- Bilibili Inc., Huya Inc. and DouYu International Holdings Ltd. -- among those subject to punishments ranging from halting new user sign-ups to suspending content updates for “main channels,” the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a notice posted Tuesday. The watchdog said those services must rectify vulgar and other problematic content and that it’s blacklisted selected live-streaming hosts, without elaborating. NetEase Inc.’s CC Live and Baidu Inc.’s Quanmin were also among those named.Beijing is intensifying scrutiny over the country’s internet giants as they deepen forays into content and user contingents grow into the hundreds of millions. Livestreaming in particular has burgeoned in past years as platforms...
American Airlines Group Inc. (AAL) is planning to upsize its share and convertible bond sale to $2 billion, Bloomberg reports.According to the report the ailing US carrier will sell $1 billion of new shares in the offering, while a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the shares will be priced at $13.50/share.This represents a 10% discount to Monday’s closing price, with shares falling 7% during the day’s trading. That brings the stock’s total year-to-date loss to 48% as AAL grapples with the financial fallout of the travel freeze triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.At the same time, the convertible note sale was also increased to $1 billion, with a set price of a 6.5% coupon and a 20% conversion premium, the Bloomberg sources said.On Sunday the U.S carrier had revealed plans raise $1.5 billion from selling shares and convertible notes.It is also proposing a $1.5 billion private offering of aggregate...
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump signed an order Monday temporarily halting access to several employment-based visas, affecting hundreds of thousands of people seeking to work in the U.S. The technology industry said the move would hurt the economy.The order freezes new H1-B and H-4 visas, used by technology workers and their families, as well as L visas for intra-company transfers and most J visas for work- and study-abroad programs, including au pairs, through the end of the year.The issuance of new green cards will also remain halted through the end of the year.The new action will pause some H2-B visas for seasonal workers, with an exception for those in the food-processing industry, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Monday.Twitter Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. called the order “short-sighted,” saying immigrant tech labor could help the U.S. economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Alphabet Inc. Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai...
(Bloomberg) -- Disgruntled customers don’t sit on hold anymore. They text and Zoom and Whatsapp and web chat and email, and they don’t want to wait 72 hours for a response. For MessageBird, the Dutch software company that helps clients make sense of the deluge, that’s meant a surge in sales and plans for an initial public offering.Robert Vis, MessageBird’s 36-year-old founder and chief executive officer, said there’s been a fundamental shift in the enterprise communications industry, away from the calls and emails that made up customer inquiries in the past to a proliferation of apps. It’s been driven by on-demand digital businesses, such as Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc., and the growth of cloud-based tools such as those from Slack Inc. MessageBird is on track to grow by 50% to about 300 million euros ($337 million) this year, he said.“We’re working with bankers and my CFO has the directive...
(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks climbed and the yen retreated after President Donald Trump said that the U.S.-China trade deal is intact, easing doubts sparked by reported comments from a senior adviser.Futures on the S&P 500 had opened higher Tuesday, then tumbled over 1% for a time after Trump aide Peter Navarro was quoted saying the trade agreement signed in January was over. Crude oil slid along with the offshore yuan, before all the moves began reversing when Navarro said the remark was taken “wildly” out of context. Trump later tweeted that he hoped China would continue living up to the deal.“It does indicate that the market remains very sensitive to U.S.-China tensions,” Patrick Bennett, head of macro strategy for Asia at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Hong Kong, said of the reaction to the trade headlines.The swings in risk assets Tuesday followed what had been a constructive session on Wall...
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Monday walked back on his earlier remarks that the U.S.-China trade pact was "over", stoking volatility in markets already frazzled by the coronavirus pandemic. Navarro said his comments were taken "wildly out of context", while U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed in a tweet the deal with China was "fully intact". "Hopefully they will continue to live up to the terms of the agreement," Trump said on Twitter....
