Aurelia Butler

HONG KONG (Reuters) -Bank of America and Citigroup (NYSE:C) have cut some investment banking jobs in Asia, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, joining global peers in paring headcount as China dealmaking slows.Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) (BofA), which is shrinking its investment banking business globally, did away with around half a dozen Hong Kong-based jobs on Thursday, two people familiar with matter said.David Lam, a managing director in BofA’s Greater China equity capital markets team, and Kevin Yang, a managing director in the bank’s China investment banking team were among those laid off, they said. Lam confirmed his departure when contacted by Reuters. Kevin Yang could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.Citi on Thursday trimmed four jobs from its China investment banking team, said one of the two people and a separate person. The Wall Street bank is laying off less than 1% of its workforce globally, people familiar with the matter have said.BofA and Citi both declined to comment on layoffs involving investment bankers in Asia. All sources were not authorised to speak to media and declined to be named.The number of the banks’ remaining China-focused investment bankers could not immediately be learned.After record dealmaking activity in 2021, M&A volumes and stock floats globally tumbled last year as volatility in capital markets and geopolitical tensions took their toll.China-related deals were particularly hard hit as harsh COVID-19 curbs, lifted only late in the year, hammered the economy.Other major banks that have trimmed Asia headcount include Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS).JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) has also cut around 20 investment banking jobs, mostly mid-level bankers focused on China deals, according to two separate sources. Bloomberg reported on Feb. 21 that the bank was laying off 30 bankers in Asia.”We regularly review our business needs and a small number of employees across Asia Pacific have been affected,” a JPMorgan spokesperson said, declining to comment on the number of layoffs and teams affected. Nomura Holdings (NYSE:NMR) Inc has cut 18 Asian banking jobs, most of them China-focused investment banking roles, sources have said. More

Investors’ bets on where UK interest rates will peak have shot higher over the past month, prompting an attempt by Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey to stop markets getting carried away.Futures markets are currently pricing in a jump in the BoE’s interest rate to just above 4.6 per cent by December. At the start of February, rates were expected to peak at around the current level of 4 per cent and fall slightly by the end of the year as investors worried that the UK was heading into a recession.That is despite a more mixed bag of UK economic data in recent weeks. Although headline inflation remains in double digits, domestic core inflation — which strips out volatile food and energy prices — declined more than forecast to 5.8 per cent in January from 6.3 per cent the previous month. Business surveys for February, by contrast, showed a faster than expected pick-up in activity. Bailey pushed back this week against the rapid shift in expectations, arguing that the central bank had “moved away” from a “presumption” that more rate increases were required. His comments led to a small decline in rate expectations, but traders are nevertheless betting that the BoE has become far more hawkish than it was a month ago.Some analysts argue that markets are overdoing bets that UK rates will follow those in the US sharply higher.“The consensus view appears to be that the BoE will largely mirror the US Federal Reserve over the next few months”, said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Economics. “It often has been a mistake in the past, however, to assume the [BoE] will follow the Fed.” February’s rebound in UK rate expectations came after a blockbuster US jobs report at the start of February, which shattered the impression of slowing economic activity and hopes of an imminent end to the Fed’s aggressive monetary tightening campaign. Traders spent the next month ramping up their expectations for where US rates might peak. Bailey’s comments “looked positively dovish”, said analysts at Rabobank, and stood in stark contrast with those from officials at the BoE’s peers in Europe and the US, where headline inflation is lower but proving stickier than previously forecast. The case for expecting the BoE to stop raising rates soon, and before the Fed, “remains strong”, Tombs said. Rate changes have a “proportionally bigger” impact on activity in the UK than they do in the US, since most UK corporate bank loans are floating rather than fixed rate, and “almost all” UK mortgages have to be refinanced within five years. These and other differences explain why the Fed last month warned “ongoing increases” would be needed to bring down inflation while the BoE suggested UK rates may have peaked. Bailey’s comments this week “make clear” the central bank’s monetary policy committee “is placing more emphasis on the substantial tightening already delivered”, Tombs said, though he did not completely rule out the possibility of a further quarter percentage point rate rise later this year. “In the US, it is rare for Fed officials to leave markets second-guessing its next policy decision,” Tombs said. “But the MPC has a penchant for drama.” More

Germany has frozen around 5.25 billion euros ($5.57 billion)in assets belonging to sanctioned oligarchs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the German finance ministry. The figure was 4.28 billion euros six months ago. The ministry shared this information in reply to a request from member of the German parliament Christian Goerke.”Since December, only 200 million euros in oligarch assets have been frozen, and for half a year, just one billion. Not a single oligarch has reported his assets since December,” Goerke criticized. Under Germany’s sanctions law, targets of European Union sanctions must declare their assets immediately, under penalty of a fine or up to a year in prison. Eight oligarchs have reported 31 asset positions to the Bundesbank so far, according to government figures. The value equals about 577 million euros. It is distributed among account balances, company holdings and securities.($1 = 0.9422 euros) More

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s trade unions are demanding the biggest wage hike in more than two decades at their spring pay negotiations, a national labour tally showed on Friday, as the government and central bank urge firms to raise workers’ wages to support the economy.A survey of more than 2,000 unions nationwide showed an average 4.49% raise request for this year, first time above 4% since 1998’s 4.36%, according to the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC). This is also the highest since the mid-1990s, a statement by JTUC shows. Workers in the world’s third-largest economy have been emboldened by policymakers’ calls for wage hikes to sustain a frail post-pandemic economic recovery threatened by a four-decade-high inflation.Despite the higher cost burden, major Japanese firms have promised large pay increases to retain skilled workers amid labour crunch. World’s largest car maker Toyota last week accepted a union demand for the biggest base salary growth in 20 years, followed by rival Honda’s agreement with its union requesting a 5% pay increase. Gaming giant Nintendo said it will lift workers’ base pay by 10%, while fashion brand Uniqlo parent Fast Retailing announced an up to 40% raise.The JTUC preliminary survey showed the average union demand during this year’s annual labour talks, called “shunto” in Japanese, was much larger than 2022’s 2.97%.JTUC, commonly known as “Rengo”, is the largest labour organisation in the country representing about seven million workers. Although those working at smaller businesses, on temporary terms or without union membership tend to receive a much smaller, if not flat, pay growth, the result of shunto is seen as a harbinger of the country’s wage trends.According to JTUC, its unions and companies last year agreed on average 2.07% wage hikes, higher than in previous two years but still short of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s request for a bigger increase to spur growth. As of January, Japan Economic Research Center estimated big firms would offer pay hikes of 2.85% on average for the year starting April, which would be the fastest pay rises since 1997.Bank of Japan officials have said the outcome of the wage hike talks is an important criterion to determine the future course of its ultra-loose monetary policy. More