Economy

(Reuters) -TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is valuing itself at about $300 billion, after it recently approached investors about a share buyback program, according to two people familiar with the matter and a document viewed by Reuters. ByteDance reached out to investors in recent weeks, offering a price of $180.70 per share, the people said. The current offer price is an increase of 12.9% from the per share price of $160 in their last buy back program. The news about the valuation was earlier reported by the Wall Street Journal.ByteDance did not have any IPO plan in sight, one of the sources said, adding that the buyback program is a way to provide Bytedance with liquidity.This is the third buy back program for investors from Bytedance, which has been conducting share buybacks since 2022. The company in Dec 2023 offered to buyback around $5 billion worth of shares from investors at a price of $160 each, which valued the company at $268 billion. ByteDance had been planning to carry out the buyback program regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, another source said, declining to be identified.ByteDance, whose global revenue grew 30% last year to $110 billion, has been facing a legal battle over its U.S. assets. A law signed by U.S. President Joe Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The White House has said it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national-security grounds but not a ban on TikTok.TikTok and ByteDance sued in U.S. federal court in May, seeking to block the law signed by Biden.Both TikTok and ByteDance declined to comment. More

Albanese this week said he told Trump on the call that the United States has a trade surplus with Australia and it was in Washington’s interest to “trade fairly” with its ally.Under the first Trump presidency, Australia won an exemption from U.S. tariffs for its aluminium and steel exports.In remarks broadcast on Sky News on Sunday, Albanese described the call as a “very good beginning to our relationship”.It was a “positive phone call that we had. We spoke for 10 minutes, it was one of the first phone calls that he made,” the leader of Australia’s centre-left Labor government said, according to a transcript.Albanese’s call with Trump also covered security ties including the AUKUS deal, which will see Australia buy U.S. nuclear submarines next decade and develop a new class of nuclear powered submarines with the U.S. and Britain.Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said this month that the government was confident of its alliance with the United States, its biggest security partner.One potential issue for the government is the relationship between the incoming administration and Australia’s ambassador in Washington, former Labor Party prime minister Kevin Rudd, who previously made disparaging comments about Trump in his capacity as the head of a U.S.-based think tank.Albanese, asked if Rudd would stay in the role, said he was doing “a terrific job” and would remain.”He is Australia’s appointment and it says something about the importance of the United States that we have appointed a former prime minister,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., according to a transcript on Sunday. More

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BRASILIA (Reuters) – Diplomats from the Group of 20 major economies struggled on Saturday to overcome differences on paying to tackle climate change, taxing the super rich and addressing the Ukraine war as they negotiated a joint statement before their leaders’ summit.The G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday and Tuesday comes as the United Nations COP29 climate talks enter their second week, with negotiators debating a new goal for how much money richer nations will cough up to confront climate change. U.N. officials and other delegates in Baku expressed hopes that a strong message from the G20 leaders could help provide political momentum for a COP29 deal on climate finance.    However, four diplomats involved in the talks in Rio said they were at a familiar impasse: developed nations want some of the wealthier developing countries to contribute financing to tackle global warming, but the developing world says it is up to the world’s wealthiest nations to foot the bill.Reaching a global accord may only get tougher with the return to power of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump, who is preparing to again pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord.Addressing the Russian invasion of Ukraine has also been a prickly issue for the G20 since 2022, and the war in Gaza has added to the group’s geopolitical divisions.G20 sherpas leading the talks in Rio have tried to avoid discussing the wars in advance meetings all year. Now diplomats say they plan to limit any text to a general paragraph based on U.N. principles and the need to respect peace, followed by a paragraph on Ukraine and another on Palestine.The taxation of large fortunes, a proposal dear to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, host of the G20 summit, has also hit a stumbling block.In a last minute change of mind, Argentina refused to sign off on the inclusion of the proposal in the final communique.Argentina’s strong opposition to taxing the super-rich came after its right-wing libertarian President Javier Milei visited Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, making him the first foreign leader to visit the U.S. president-elect.Sources involved in G20 talks said Argentine negotiators, at Milei’s request, now seek to remove mention of taxing the most wealthy, which might only enter the communique with a note reflecting that it was not backed by Argentina. More

LIMA (Reuters) -With Donald Trump’s imminent return to the U.S. presidency looming over the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday that unilateralism and protectionism needed to be rejected in favour of economic globalization.Xi’s critique of protectionism at APEC offers a preview of how China will seek to position itself once Trump takes office in January. Trump has pledged to impose tariffs on Chinese imports in excess of 60% but Beijing and Chinese companies are hoping that his protectionist policies will also irk U.S. allies in Europe and Asia – giving China an opening to increase its global influence and improve trade ties.In a speech read out to business executives by Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao on Friday at the APEC CEO Summit, Xi said that economic globalization was facing “countercurrents,” without specifying any particular country or leader.”The world has entered a new period of turmoil and change, unilateralism and protectionism are spreading, the fragmentation of the world economy has intensified,” Xi said.”Hindering economic cooperation under various pretexts, insisting on isolating the interdependent world, is reversing the course of history,” he added.Xi listed a series of recent measures the Chinese government has taken to attract foreign investment, including increasing the number of Chinese industries that can receive foreign investment, as well as unilateral visa exemptions to foreigners visiting China.”China will implement more independent and unilateral opening-up policies, expand the network of high-standard free trade zones facing the world, and open even further the door into China,” said the Chinese leader, who is due to meet U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday in Peru.However, some analysts said that China’s pitch as an alternative or counterbalance to a protectionist Trump-led United States has lost its shine compared to 2016, when Trump was first elected. Ja Ian Chong, a political scientist at National University of Singapore, said that unlike 2016, there were now widespread concerns in the international community about how Chinese state subsidies to industrial sectors and their resulting overcapacity negatively affect other countries’ economies. “China is as protectionist as the U.S. might be, its economy is far less open today than it used to be,” Chong said.BUSINESS PITCHXi was accompanied by hundreds of Chinese business executives on his trip to Peru, as Beijing seeks to significantly expand trade ties with resource-rich Latin America. Several business leaders at the APEC CEO Summit, running alongside the main event, said the Asian presence this year outweighed that of the U.S., Canada and Australia, with the Mexicans notably absent. One Peruvian businessman quipped how the Chinese “vastly outnumbered” everyone else, motivated by the official visit of President Xi. “The only Americans we saw were those sponsoring like Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL),” he said.Several Chinese executives Reuters spoke to said the state visit and the inauguration of a Beijing-backed megaport project were a big incentive: “Most businesses like mine in logistics came because the President is here,” said one businessman who had travelled from Shanghai to Lima. “We get a lot of second hand information, being here in Peru makes a difference,” he added.Preliminary plans to build an e-commerce distribution center in Chancay to house merchandise from China were discussed on sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO Summit on Friday, two Peruvian delegates said. The proposal would transport goods from over 75,000 shops in southern China’s Yiwu, an export hub, to the Pacific port that is expected increase trade between Asia and South America. More

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Addressing a Welsh Labour Conference in Llandudno, north Wales, Starmer did not refer directly to the farmers’ complaints, but he said he stood by the decisions made in finance minister Rachel Reeves’ Oct. 30 budget statement.”Make no mistake, I will defend our decisions in the budget all day long,” he said.”I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality, I will defend the tough decisions that were necessary to stabilise our economy.”While Starmer spoke, hundreds of farmers protested outside the conference venue over a budget measure that will mean more of them having to pay inheritance tax. Their protest included a convoy of tractors.Farmers have warned that the move will threaten the viability of farms, force them to sell land, make produce more expensive and threaten food security.One of the protesting farmers, Gareth Wyn Jones, told Sky News that Starmer had angered the farmers further by not speaking to them after his speech.”It’s so frustrating that he’s run out the back door like a flippin’ rat, people here have come here to talk to him,” he said.Farmers plan a major protest in London on Nov. 19.UK businesses have also warned that increased employment taxes and a rise in the minimum wage from the budget will stoke inflation and have a negative impact on investment and jobs. More

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