Aurelia Butler

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BENGALURU (Reuters) – Ford Motor (NYSE:F) said on Friday it plans to restart manufacturing at its factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, two years after it ended production in India, the world’s third-largest car market.The major U.S. carmaker said it intends to use its shuttered Chennai plant in Tamil Nadu for manufacturing for export but did not give details of what it will build. Ford previously built both cars and engines at the factory.”The move will see the facility re-purposed to focus on manufacturing for export to global markets,” Ford said in its statement.Ford stopped producing cars in India for domestic sale in 2021 after struggling to boost volumes and pulled the plug on export car production there in 2022, effectively exiting a huge market dominated by Asian rivals.The automaker still builds engines in India for export at its factory in the western state of Gujarat. If it decides to restart car manufacturing in Chennai, it would mark a re-entry for the brand’s vehicle business.”This step underscores our ongoing commitment to India as we intend to leverage the manufacturing expertise available in Tamil Nadu to serve new global markets,” Kay Hart, president, international markets group at Ford said in a LinkedIn post.Hart said the company has submitted a letter of intent to the state government and details about the type of manufacturing and export markets will be shared later.Ford’s comments come two days after Tamil Nadu’s chief minister said that the two were in talks to restart manufacturing in the state for exports.The automobile hub of Chennai is home to several carmakers such as Hyundai Motor (OTC:HYMTF), Nissan (OTC:NSANY) Motor and Renault (EPA:RENA). New entrants like Vinfast and Tata Motors (NYSE:TTM)’ Jaguar Land Rover plan to build new factories there to construct electric vehicles.Ford’s return to India will lead to an increase in its workforce by up to 3,000 people in the next few years from the 12,000 people it currently employs, Hart said. More

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Chinese regulators on Friday hit PwC’s auditing unit in mainland China with a six-month business suspension and a record fine of 441 million yuan ($62 million) over the firm’s audit of troubled property developer China Evergrande (HK:3333) Group.The business suspension and fines are the toughest ever penalty received by a Big Four accounting firm in China. The regulators’ action puts the spotlight the Big Four’s activities in the country and on how big a role they play in auditing major Chinese companies. Chinese authorities have been examining PwC’s role in the accounting of Hengda Real Estate, the name of Evergrande’s mainland unit, since the China Securities Regulatory Commission accused the developer in March of a $78 billion fraud over a period of two years through 2020.”We are disappointed by PwC Zhong Tian’s audit work of Hengda, which fell unacceptably below the standards we expect of member firms of the PwC network,” PwC network, the alliance of PwC’s global member units, said in a statement.Here are some details on the Big Four’s activities in China * THE BIG FOUR AUDITING FIRMS IN CHINAThe Big Four accounting firms – PwC, EY, Deloitte, and KPMG – were the top four auditors, ranked by revenue in China in 2022, based on a report by the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants, an industry association.The four firms audit 18 of China’s 20 biggest state-owned companies by assets, or 95.1% of the total assets as of 2023, research published in July showed. The research was led by professor Chen Hanwen from University of International Business and Economics and professor Han Hongling from Zhejiang University.Their research also found the Big Four audited the majority of China’s biggest banks, insurers and brokerages in 2023, with their audited assets making up 63.2% of the total 461 trillion yuan worth of total assets of China’s financial institutions.In total, the Big Four audited 12% of the companies listed on Shanghai Stock Exchange and 5% of companies on Shenzhen bourse by this March, PwC said on its official website.* HOW HAVE THE BIG FOUR ATTRACTED CHINA BUSINESS? The Big Four firm’s strong market position in China is similar to the level they enjoy in the U.S., Jackson Johnson, president and founder of Johnson Global Advisory said. Johnson Global Advisory is an audit quality advisory firm based in Washington, D.C., with clients globally, including in Greater China.Johnson said this market position was built on the Big Four’s workforce, experience, and global resources, which “the next tier” of local Chinese firms could hardly compete with. The Big Four are also able to attract high quality staff, he said.If major Chinese companies hire the Big Four as their auditors for financial statements this can bring down financing costs, the research by Chen and Han showed.Their research also showed that the Big Four accounting firms handled 23 of the 25 biggest initial public offering deals on China’s A-share market by the end of 2023.* PREVIOUS REGULATORY ACTION AGAINST BIG FOUR IN CHINAChina fined auditing firm Deloitte 211.9 million yuan ($30 million) in March 2023 for failing to perform its duty in assessing the asset quality of China Huarong Asset Management Co Ltd.The finance ministry at that time said Deloitte had failed to discover the real situation of the underlying assets in its audit and ignored the approval compliance for Huarong’s major investment matters.Deloitte said at the time it respected and accepted the ministry’s decision.($1 = 7.0940 Chinese yuan renminbi) More

LONDON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) -The dollar fell on Friday to its lowest level this year against the Japanese yen after media reports reignited the debate about an outsized Federal Reserve rate cut next week.The U.S. currency fell 1% to 140.36 yen, the lowest since late December, and last traded 0.7% lower at 140.87. The euro, pound and Swiss franc made gains against the dollar.U.S. economic data this week appeared to support the case for a typical 25 basis point (bp) cut next week, with the measure of consumer price inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices rising more than expected in August.However, market analysts said reports by the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times saying a 50 basis point cut is still an option, and comments from a former Fed official arguing for an outsized cut, caused a shift in market expectations.”A couple of articles were published in the Wall Street Journal and the FT suggesting that a 50 bp move was still in play, which has led markets to once again re-evaluate their expectations,” said Henry Allen, macro strategist at Deutsche Bank.”That was something of a surprise to investors, who had been increasingly pricing in 25 bps, not least after the core CPI (inflation) print was a bit stronger than expected on Wednesday.”Traders were assigning a roughly 40% chance of a 50 bp cut by the Fed next Wednesday, up from around 25% on Thursday and 15% on Wednesday, according to money market pricing.Former New York Federal Reserve President Bill Dudley said on Friday there was a strong case for a 50 bp cut, arguing rates were currently 150-200 basis points above the so-called neutral rate for the U.S. economy, where policy is neither restrictive nor accommodative. “Why don’t you just get started?” he said.The euro was last up 0.11% at $1.1086 after rising 0.57% on Thursday after the European Central Bank cut interest rates by 25 bps but ECB President Christine Lagarde dampened expectations for another cut next month.Expectations that interest rates will be higher than previously expected tend to boost a currency by making fixed income assets in the country or region more attractive, and vice versa.The euro “is eyeing $1.11 again after the combined support of a not-dovish-enough European Central Bank and rising dovish bets on the Fed,” said Francesco Pesole, currency strategist at ING.The dollar index, which tracks the currency against six peers, was 0.1% lower at 101.06.Sterling was little changed at $1.3119, around its highest in a week. The Bank of England is expected to hold interest rates at 5% next week after kicking off easing with a 25 basis point reduction in August.The dollar fell 0.51% against the Swiss franc, which like the yen is particularly sensitive to expectations about Fed policy and U.S. bond yields.Investors were also looking to the Bank of Japan’s interest rate decision next Friday, where it’s expected to keep rates steady at 0.25%.BOJ board member Naoki Tamura said on Thursday the central bank must raise rates to at least 1% as soon as the second half of the next fiscal year but added that it would likely raise rates slowly and in several stages. More