Bleach seller gets time behind bars

January 18, 2024

Good Morning,

Retail spending in December was down on last year despite population growth, Former National Party leader Simon Bridges is in hospital with a broken wrist, China’s population decline has accelerated, Apple Inc.’s iPhone dethroned Samsung Electronics Co. devices to become the best-selling smartphone series over the course of 2023 & Waikato man Roger ‘living man’ Blake jailed for selling bleach as cure for Covid-19.

Let's jump in.

Before The Bell

Markets

  • Retail spending in December was down on last year despite population growth and steep price rises, a sign many households have put away their credit cards. (Herald)

  • Disappointing economic data from China and revised US interest rate bets dragged the Australian share market lower on Wednesday. (AFR)

  • A stock selloff deepened in Asia, after fresh data redoubled concerns about China’s economy and as investors curbed wagers on Federal Reserve interest rate cuts. (BBG)


Earnings and Data

  • Three of 'Big Six' US banks tap bond market post-earnings. (RT)

News Summary

  • A man who “seized upon the tragedy of the Covid pandemic as a money-making opportunity” by selling bleach as a cure for the virus, making his company more than $100,000 during the global event, has been sent to jail. (Herald)

  • Auckland Business Chamber CEO Simon Bridges is in hospital after an electric scooter accident today left him with a broken wrist and badly grazed face. (Herald)

  • Mental health experts are calling for a bipartisan effort at Parliament to further increase protections for MPs and workers, after Green MP Golriz Ghahraman's resignation. (RNZ)

  • China’s population decline has accelerated, with a second year of record-low birthrates. (Guardian)

  • The FBI has begun an investigation after the BBC revealed claims that the former CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) sexually exploited and abused men at events he hosted around the world. (BBC)

  • Apple Inc.’s iPhone dethroned Samsung Electronics Co. devices to become the best-selling smartphone series over the course of 2023, the first time South Korea’s largest company has lost the top spot since 2010. (BBG)

  • Britain's annual rate of consumer price inflation rose for the first time in 10 months in December, increasing to 4.0% from a more-than-two-year low 3.9% in November, official figures unexpectedly showed on Wednesday. (RT)

Deal Flow

Investments / M&A

  • NYSE-listed lithium giant Albemarle pressed sell on its 4 per cent stake in Tim Goyder’s Liontown Resources after market close on Wednesday, three months after its $6.6 billion takeover bid for the company was kiboshed by Gina Rinehart. (AFR)

  • London-based mid-market private equity group Livingbridge has called in UBS’ bankers to shop its Australian waste advisory and collections business Waste Services Group (WSG). (AFR)

  • Kinetic Group, one of the largest non-government-owned bus operators across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, wants a deep-pocketed capital partner to help it expand the business beyond buses to trains and trams. (AFR)

VC & Fundraising

  • Global investments in space startups jumped 31% sequentially in the fourth quarter, adding to signs of a rebound in the industry that has benefited from record launch activities and government contracts, according to a report by Space Capital on Tuesday. (RT)

Equity Raises

  • Mobile app provider Joint Stock Co. Kaspi.kz’s shareholders are planning to sell 9 million American depositary shares in an initial public offering.

    (BBG)

  • Wilsons tennis racket maker Amer Sport is planning to price its $1 billion U.S initial public offering (IPO) by the end of January, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, in the first major new share sale in 2024. (RT)

Debt

  • Italy has cleared the blockbuster €22 billion ($23.9 billion) sale of Telecom Italia SpA’s landline grid to KKR & Co. after a review process on an asset deemed to be of strategic interest to the state. (BBG)

Daily Picks

  • The NRL has scrapped penalties for illegal restarts in a bid to encourage more teams to take short kickoffs and dropouts. (Stuff)

  • When a landlord suspected their tenant was growing cannabis in a tent on their rental property, they tried to evict her. However, the tenant claimed the tent was to keep her orchids warm during the colder months. (Stuff)

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