Aurelia Butler

Italy’s Benetton family – the largest investor in Autogrill through its Edizione holding company – will transfer its entire 50.3% stake to Dufry at an exchange ratio of 0.158 new Dufry shares for each Autogrill share, according to Dufry. Edizione will become Dufry’s largest shareholder with a stake of between about 25% and 20%. After the transfer, Dufry will launch a tender offer for the remaining Autogrill shares, wherein shareholders would receive 0.158 new Dufry shares for each Autogrill share. Alternatively, Autogrill shareholders will receive a cash component of 6.33 euros ($6.43) per Autogrill share.Xavier Rossinyol will lead the combined Group as chief executive officer, Dufry said, adding that Autogrill’s current CEO Gianmario Tondato da Ruos will assume the position of executive chairman of the North American business of the combined entity. The companies had confirmed they were in non-exclusive talks in late June. Basel-based Dufry operates around 2,200 shops at airports, cruise liners, seaports and other tourist locations worldwide.Dufry’s organic sales more than doubled in the first quarter of 2022, driven by a strong rebound in European travel as coronavirus curbs were eased. However, organic sales were still 40% below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.Autogrill runs bars, cafes and restaurants at 139 airports internationally, including 80 in North America, as well as on motorways in Europe. Dufry said the combined company will cater to 2.3 billion passengers in more than 75 countries, generating revenue of 13.6 billion Swiss francs ($13.90 billion) and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 1.4 billion Swiss francs. ($1 = 0.9843 euros)($1 = 0.9783 Swiss francs) More

(Reuters) – IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva is pushing China and other Group of 20 economies to speed up debt relief for a growing number of heavily indebted countries, warning that failure to do so could unleash a damaging “downward spiral.”Georgieva told Reuters it was crucial to jumpstart the largely stalled Common Framework for debt treatments that was adopted by the G20 and the Paris Club of official creditors in October 2020 but has failed to deliver a single result thus far.”This is a topic we cannot have complacency on,” she said. “If trust is eroded to a point that there is a downward spiral, you don’t know where it would end,” the head of the International Monetary Fund said in an interview late last week ahead of this week’s meeting of finance officials in Indonesia.Georgieva said she spoke with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who holds the rotating presidency of the G20 this year, during last month’s Group of Seven meeting in Germany and urged him to push for greater unity on debt before the G20 leaders summit in November.”G20 leaders don’t want to be in a situation in which that issue dominates the conversation just because we are not making progress,” Georgieva said.Western officials are stepping up criticism of the G20 Common Framework process after nearly two years of glacial progress blamed largely on foot-dragging by China, the world’s largest sovereign creditor, and private sector creditors.Georgieva said almost a third of emerging market countries and twice that proportion of low-income countries were in debt distress, with the situation worsening as advanced economies raised interest rates.Capital outflows from emerging markets were continuing and almost one in three of these countries now had interest rates of 10% or higher, Georgieva said, noting more middle-income countries, including Sri Lanka and Malawi, were seeking help from the fund, with others likely to follow.”The pressure on us to move is very high,” she said, noting the war in Ukraine had exacerbated the crises emerging market and developing economies faced because of the pandemic.Georgieva said it was imperative to agree on debt relief for Zambia, Chad and Ethiopia, three African countries that have requested help under the Common Framework and whose creditor committees meet this month.She urged China to better coordinate among its multiple lenders, warning Beijing would be the “first to lose dramatically” if current debt problems tipped into a full-blown crisis.Georgieva said she was encouraged China had agreed to co-chair Zambia’s creditor committee.”My message to everybody is, let’s stop the finger pointing,” she said. “There’s a job to be done.” More

TOKYO (Reuters) -The death of Shinzo Abe, namesake of Japan’s “Abenomics” policy, makes any immediate challenge to his legacy highly unlikely but could eventually allow Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to phase out Abe’s government spending and monetary stimulus.In a rare act of political violence that shocked the nation, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister was gunned down on Friday while campaigning for Sunday’s parliamentary election, where his party’s coalition expanded their upper house majority.Kishida is unlikely to do anything immediately that could antagonize lawmakers loyal to Abe, who led the biggest faction in Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after stepping down as premier in 2020, analysts say.But ultimately his absence and the LDP’s victory in Sunday’s election, helped by an Abe sympathy vote, could give Kishida political capital to change policy course.Kishida’s LDP-led conservative coalition was set to increase its majority in the upper house in the election two days after Abe’s assassination.People close to Kishida have said the premier and his aides want to move toward normalising fiscal and monetary policies and gradually whittle down the Abenomics experiment launched nearly a decade ago.”There likely won’t be a quick reversal of Abenomics, or an exit from ultra-loose monetary policy,” said Koya Miyamae, senior economist at SMBC Nikko Securities.”In the long run, however, the Bank of Japan must consider some form of tweak to its monetary policy given problems such as the weak yen,” he said. “That will mean former or incumbent BOJ executives will remain strong candidates as next central bank governor.”Kishida, who belongs to a smaller LDP faction, remained under pressure from Abe and his supporters to maintain massive stimulus and choose a reflationist dove as the next Bank of Japan governor in April.Abe’s absence could change the balance of power within the party, diminishing the influence of advocates of big government spending and ultra-loose central bank policies.”Abe led a group of reflationist-minded ruling party lawmakers favouring big spending, so his absence will have a huge impact on the party’s power balance,” said Daiju Aoki, chief Japan economist at UBS Sumi Trust Wealth Management.POWER BALANCE SHIFTBacked by huge public support for his campaign to pull Japan out of chronic deflation, Abe deployed in 2013 his “three arrows” – aggressive monetary easing, flexible fiscal spending and a long-term growth strategy.The BOJ’s massive stimulus, driven by Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, helped reverse a relentless yen rise that hurt Japan’s exporters, boost stock prices and improve business sentiment. Economists, however, criticized a lack of a credible growth strategy and reforms to help the economy shift sustainably into higher gear.So far, Kishida has stuck with Abenomics, deploying big spending packages to cushion the economic blow from the COVID-19 pandemic and recently to soften the impact of soaring energy and raw material costs.He has also endorsed the BOJ’s ultra-low interest rate policy, even as other central banks raises rates, sending the yen to two-decade lows.”When we look at Japan’s gross domestic product, corporate profits and job conditions, it’s clear Abenomics has produced great results. What’s important now is to generate wage growth,” Kishida told a television programme on Sunday.Eventually, Kishida may seek to dial back some of the radical monetary experiment put in place by Kuroda, which has strained financial institutions’ profits and crippled pricing in the bond market.Kishida’s administration was forced to water down Japan’s budget-balancing commitment after fierce pushback from Abe and his allies. Abe’s death could pave the way for Kishida to focus more on efforts to rein in Japan’s government debt burden, the biggest in the industrial world.”Abe was a flag-bearer of those who support fiscal expansion. Those people lost their driving force,” said Mikitaka Masuyama, professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies. “I would not say Kishida’s position within the party is rock solid, but he is now more likely than before to have better control over the party.”While the BOJ is unlikely to reverse ultra-loose monetary policy anytime soon, the fading influence of pro-growth lawmakers could also affect Kishida’s choice of BOJ governor.The prime minister has the final say in who will succeed Kuroda, handpicked by Abe to deploy a monetary bazooka to eradicate deflation, when his second five-year term ends.Masayoshi Amamiya and Hiroshi Nakaso, career central bankers, are considered among strong candidates, with Amamiya seen as taking a more dovish stance than Nakaso – who had cautioned about the drawbacks of prolonged monetary easing.”Abe was said to have favoured a reflationist-minded person head the BOJ. The change in the ruling party’s power balance could affect the choice of BOJ governor,” said Aoki of UBS Sumi. More

Prime minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling coalition is heading for a clear victory in elections for Japan’s upper house, presenting a historic opportunity to revise the country’s pacifist constitution after the assassination of Shinzo Abe boosted voter turnout. The vote came two days after the country’s longest-serving prime minister was killed by a lone gunman while giving a campaign speech in the western city of Nara. Analysts had initially expected voter turnout to be a historic low. But projections from state broadcaster NHK suggest that more people voted than in the 2019 election after political parties united in condemning Abe’s shooting as “a challenge to democracy”. The campaign was fought over the cost of living crisis and security issues tied to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not constitutional reform. But the strong outcome gives Kishida, known for his moderate views, a chance to revise Article 9, which stipulates that land, sea and air forces “will never be maintained”. This was a life-long ambition for the hawkish Abe. As of midnight local time, NHK’s exit polls suggest that the LDP and its coalition partner, Komeito, won 73 of the 125 seats up for grabs. Adding the seats won by two other parties backing constitutional reform, the ruling coalition clinched a two-thirds majority needed to revise the constitution, which was written by US occupying forces after the second world war.The hurdles to a revision remain high. In a poll conducted by NHK ahead of the election, 37 per cent of those surveyed said the constitution should be revised, while 23 per cent were against a revision. Parties in favour of reform are also divided on which part of the constitution should be amended.The win also gives Kishida a freer hand to shape his policy and appoint people close to him in powerful positions. Analysts said, however, that the loss of Abe, the nation’s most polarising and influential leader in decades, could rock the power balance inside the LDP.Thanks for reading FirstFT Asia and here is the rest of the day’s news — AmandaFive more stories in the news1. Wirecard forged client details to secure €900mn SoftBank investment New details reveal the German payments group created a fake client list and lied about internal records to secure the confidence of SoftBank after an FT investigation raised questions about its business in 2019. The deception came before a much larger attempt at data fraud by the company months before its collapse. Wirecard’s former chief executive and managers are likely to face trial this year over charges of fraud, breach of trust and market manipulation.2. China reimposes curbs as BA.5 variant spreads Omicron outbreaks Eleven Chinese cities are under full or partial lockdowns as authorities rush to stamp out the more infectious Omicron subvariant that has become dominant in the west. The restrictions are part of President Xi Jinping’s stringent zero-Covid policy and come only weeks after a two-month lockdown in Shanghai left residents frustrated and stalled the global economy. 3. Twitter hires elite law firm to sue Elon Musk for ending $44bn acquisition Twitter hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz as it readies for a legal battle against Musk for walking away from his deal to acquire the social media company. The San Francisco company is preparing to file a lawsuit with the Delaware Court of Chancery against Musk early this week. Wachtell Lipton defended Musk in an earlier lawsuit and is arguably the leading litigation practice in Delaware, where many companies are incorporated.4. Canada waives Russian sanctions to ease Germany’s gas shortage Canada will allow the export of a turbine to Russia to repair the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies Germany with much of its Russian gas. The export was originally blocked owing to Canada’s sanctions against Russia’s energy sector. Ukrainians criticised the move as another example of the west bowing to Russian threats to cut off gas from Europe. 5. Sri Lanka opposition parties in talks after protesters ransack capital Opposition parties in Sri Lanka have started talks to form a new government after the president and prime minister resigned owing to public pressure. Thousands of protesters, angered by rising prices and shortages, stormed the houses of the country’s leadership on Saturday. Sri Lanka’s economic collapse is one of the starkest examples of emerging market countries buckling under the pressure of the pandemic and surging costs.

Protesters, angered by rising prices and shortages of goods, gathered outside the Presidential Secretariat (the Old Parliament Building) in Colombo on Saturday © Chamila Karunarathne/EP/Shutterstock

The day aheadTory party elections The UK Conservative party’s backbenchers elect new officials for the 1922 committee today. The first task for this newly elected parliamentary body will be to agree on rules for electing the next British prime minister, which is expected to take place by early September.Vigils for former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe A vigil for the country’s longest-serving prime minister is expected tonight in Japan, followed by a funeral on Tuesday. Abe was assassinated in the city of Nara on Friday during a campaign speech, shocking a nation where political violence and gun ownership are rare. What else we’re reading Cutting China tariffs will not tame inflation, warns US commerce secretary Gina Raimondo conceded in an NBC interview that removing US tariffs on Chinese goods would not fight high prices in a “very significant way.” While the senior administration official still supported the move, her statement highlighted the White House’s difficulty countering inflation. President Joe Biden is expected to make a decision on the removal soon. Abortion bans will hit the poor hardest Denying women access to abortion in many US states will worsen inequality and increase financial hardships for women and their families, Caitlin Gilbert reports. Studies show that children of women denied abortions were more likely to live in a household that could not afford to pay for basic living expenses compared to children of women who received an abortion earlier.

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Opinion: What Shinzo Abe’s assassination means for ‘Pax Japonica’ The assassination of Japan’s former PM prompted flashbacks of the country’s bloody political past. While Pax Japonica will most likely remain, it is dangerous to assume that such stability is determined by low public interest in politics, argues Leo Lewis.Drier, hotter weather fuels Europe’s fire season It’s getting hotter earlier in Europe. Last month marked Europe’s second warmest June on record, according to the EU’s earth observation agency Copernicus. The hotter and drier weather is making the continent more prone to combustion. Current areas under wildfire in the Mediterranean are four times greater than the 15-year average, Steven Bernard and Mumena Choudhury report.Opinion: Get ready for salaries to become more public Pay transparency is on the rise in the US and Europe to close the gender pay gap. But the burden should not fall on women to be more assertive about pay rises, argues Pilita Clark. For decades, countries have mandated equal pay for equal work.Life & ArtsFrench feminist Niki de Saint Phalle created bright sculptures of women that embodied joy in a “defiant and rebellious way.” Take a look at some of her most famous pieces, including the L’Oiseau Amoureux that sold for an excess of $600,000 in 2020.

Niki de Saint Phalle paints Le Monde, c1981 © Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) More