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Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
UBS Kicks Off Share Buyback Program of Up to $2 Billion
UBS Group AG is launching a program to repurchase as much as $2 billion worth of its own shares, it said in a release on Monday. The buyback is expected to kick off on July 1, it said, adding that the plan had been previously announced. The bank reiterated that it will 'communicate its 2026 capital return ambitions with its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 financial results early next year.'
Miami Herald
23-06-2025
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Tesla shares jump most in two months on robotaxi service launch
Tesla Inc. shares climbed after the automaker rolled out its long-promised driverless taxi service to a handful of riders, a modest debut for what Elon Musk sees as a transformative new business line. The first robotaxi trips were limited to a narrow portion of Tesla's hometown of Austin on Sunday, with an employee sitting in the front passenger seat of each vehicle to monitor for safety. The carmaker hand-picked a friendly group of retail investors and social-media influencers to serve as initial riders and live-stream their trips. In one video, Herbert Ong, who runs a fan account, marveled over the speed of the vehicle and its ability to park autonomously. Another influencer with the X handle @BLKMDL3 deemed his trip smoother than with a human driver. Sawyer Merritt, a Tesla investor who runs an account focused on the company, called the experience "awesome." With no kickoff event and little in the way of formal announcements, Tesla relied largely on word of mouth and media coverage ahead of the robotaxi launch. The unveiling was uncharacteristically low-key for a company that held a "Cyber Rodeo" to mark its Texas factory opening in 2022 and an invite-only party last year near Hollywood to unveil autonomous vehicle prototypes. While Musk has cautioned that autonomy is unlikely to "move the financial needle" at Tesla for at least another year, progress toward getting the service started has boosted the company's shares. The stock jumped as much as 11% Monday in New York, the biggest intraday gain since April 9, before paring gains to 8.7% at 1:04 p.m. Musk has been reorienting the carmaker around still-unproven technologies including self-driving vehicles and humanoid robots. Some investors are counting on new business segments to revive Tesla from a vehicle sales slump and consumer backlash against its chief executive officer. The company's shares are still down 20% this year. "While Tesla appears to be well positioned, we believe the opportunity is already priced into the stock," Joseph Spak, a UBS Group AG analyst with a sell rating on the shares, wrote in a report Monday. He raised his price target to $215, well short of its close at $322.16 last week. Videos of the robotaxi launch posted Sunday were mostly mundane, showing Model Y SUVs driving short distances, navigating intersections, avoiding pedestrians and parking - all with no one sitting in the driver's seat. The debut was "largely uneventful" and free of major missteps, with the start of revenue service marking a "critical milestone" for bulls in the stock, Barclays analyst Dan Levy said in a note. Still, there were some hiccups, like when one streamer tested a button to have the vehicle pull over and it instead briefly stopped in the middle of a road before it began moving again. Bloomberg reported Monday that other videos posted by early riders showed instances of vehicles driving faster than posted speed limits, and one of a robotaxi swerving into the wrong lane after botching a left turn. A spokesman for Austin's local government said the city had not received any safety incident reports about Tesla's robotaxis over the weekend. The first riders were charged a flat rate of $4.20 per trip, Musk said Sunday. Robotaxis will be available between 6 a.m. and midnight daily within a geofenced area of the city, not including the airport, according to terms some early riders posted. Service may be limited or unavailable in inclement weather. Tesla is deploying only 10 to 20 vehicles initially, aiming to show its cars can safely navigate real-world traffic, which has tripped up some other companies and brought regulatory scrutiny. Cruise, the now-defunct autonomy business of General Motors Co., grounded its fleet in late 2023 and had its operating license suspended in California following an accident that injured a pedestrian. Uber Technologies Inc. ceased testing self-driving vehicles after one of its SUVs struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona in 2018. Less than three years later, the company agreed to sell its self-driving business. Tesla hasn't said when the robotaxi service will open to the general public, though Musk has pledged to scale up quickly and expand to other U.S. cities in the near future. The carmaker will have some company in Austin. Waymo, the driverless-car unit of Google parent Alphabet Inc., is scaling up in the city through a partnership with Uber. Inc.'s Zoox is also testing there. Dan Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities with the equivalent of a buy rating on Tesla shares, said he expects robotaxis to be competitive with Waymo from the start. After a member of his team rode in one Sunday, the analyst told Bloomberg the robotaxi user experience was "better than expected." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Malaysian Reserve
20-06-2025
- Business
- Malaysian Reserve
Singapore's banking hub has a corner where cash is still king
IN the heart of Singapore, a financial hub where billions of dollars zip around the world over computer screens in nanoseconds, there's a crowded building where cash still reigns. Six days a week, hundreds of people line up in a rundown mall abutting Raffles Place square to buy and sell hard currency at one of around 30 money changer stalls. All manner of notes can be had in minutes: Singapore dollars for British pounds? Coming right up. Indonesian rupiah for Vietnamese dong? Icelandic króna? Maldivian rufiyaa? No problem. Some 150 currencies are available. 'Cash will remain forever,' said Abdul Haleem, 65, a veteran of the industry whose kiosk sits at the entrance to the narrow, three-story plaza called The Arcade. The towering offices of global banking giants JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of China Ltd. are just steps away. The number of licensed money changers in Singapore dropped during the Covid-19 pandemic when many people were unable to travel and retail shops struggled to pay rent. But there are close to 250 physical stalls still operating, and new ones continue to spring up across the city-state's 284 square miles of land. That's even though multi-currency payment apps such as YouTrip, Wise and Revolut have grown in popularity. To understand how so many cash dealers can survive the digital age, you need to know a bit about Singapore's place in the world. Though it's now among the richest countries — where financial titans from UBS Group AG to BlackRock Inc. manage more than $4 trillion and billionaires including James Dyson, Ray Dalio and Sergey Brin have set up family offices — the island nation remains a shipping and transit hub at its core. Hundreds of vessels anchor in Singapore's harbor each day, many waiting to load and unload cargo at one of the world's busiest maritime ports. For decades, that's made Raffles Place a prime location for money changers, just a few blocks from where the Singapore River empties into the Singapore Strait. Many sailors need to swap cash from their previous locations, and change money for their next destination. 'They get off the boat and come right here,' said Haleem, whose uncle Abdul Gaffoor, now 99, started City Money Changers on the Arcade's ground floor in 1980. Old-World Relic Many office workers also come in search of the best exchange rates — which are often better than what banks offer. It's an old-world relic resisting the bits and bytes revolution. Mobile phones and tablets have replaced newspapers, while emails and social media have supplanted faxes and letters. Now digital payments are coming for the ancient culture of coins and paper notes. Mohamed Rafik, 55, a partner at Arcade Money Changers, a stall opposite Haleem's, remains optimistic. His evidence is that there are new licensees entering the industry who wouldn't do it if they couldn't make a living. 'Money changers won't go out of business,' said Rafik, while handling cash and paper receipts on a busy afternoon. Digital payment wallets may seem attractive now, but the companies also have overheads and may try to increase rates in the long run, he predicted. Right now, a thriving tourism industry is driving demand during the summer school holidays. Singapore is close to Southeast Asian holiday hotspots like Phuket in Thailand, Vietnam's Ha Long Bay and Bali, Indonesia, where cash is still needed to pay for food at street stalls or small restaurants, or to offer tips. Travelers with cash also avoid the higher exchange rates and foreign transaction fees imposed by many credit cards. Life Lesson For Christina Ng, a teacher in her 40s who came to Haleem's stall for Korean won, cash gives a sense of security while traveling. Paying with notes and coins is also a lesson for her three children. 'I want them to learn how to use the cash and do the transaction, so they need to see the physical money,' she said. 'We don't want them to just tap, tap, tap without actually knowing what they're spending on.' The money changers are good leading indicators of travel trends. Whereas demand used to be strongest for US dollars and Malaysian ringgit, the Japanese yen is now most sought-after, along with Korean won and Taiwanese dollars, Haleem said. A record number of tourists have flocked to Japan to visit historic sites, dine on sushi and take advantage of the weakened currency. At the Arcade, the money changers carve out an existence on the fringes of the multi-trillion dollar global foreign-exchange market. Customers throng the narrow passages to scrutinize buy and sell rates at tightly packed stalls, which are required to post rates on electronic screens. Frugality gives them an edge against the financial institutions that occupy the opulent towers surrounding Raffles Place, according to Rafik at Arcade Money Changers. The changers will survive even if digital platforms cut their margins to zero to gain market share, he said. Congregating in one location attracts more customers, but it also pares margins to the bone. Foreign currency bought at a commercial bank can cost 1% to 4% or more once you factor in a poorer exchange rate and transaction fees. At City Money Changers, it's a high-volume, low-margin business where Haleem typically makes fractions of a penny on the dollar in a swap. 'Everybody wants to see the best price so they will shop around,' he said, while taking a break from his tiny kiosk. On Thursday afternoon, Haleem's stall was selling the greenback at S$1.2900, versus the S$1.2972 offered by DBS Group Holdings Ltd., Singapore's largest bank, on its retail app. The cash exchange rate wasn't as favorable as YouTrip's rate of S$1.2877 per US dollar. With all this cash on hand — some changers can turn over S$500,000 ($389,000) a day, he says — you'd expect to see armed guards all over the plaza. Not in Singapore, where violent crime is almost non-existent. Instead, the stall-holders rely on security cameras — there are some 90,000 across the city — to monitor activity. The dealers are the eyes and ears for each other, on the alert for any suspicious customers. Regulators have scrutinized the industry in the past, concerned about the potential for money laundering. In 2016, the Monetary Authority of Singapore cited a Raffles Place currency changer, along with other banks, for their roles in the scandal at 1MDB, the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund. The probe revealed inadequate risk management practices at the changer, and failure to identify the beneficial owners of funds. Money changers are now required to conduct customer due diligence measures for cash transactions exceeding S$5,000, or for those topping S$20,000 where the money is funded from an identifiable source like a bank account. That includes verifying customers' identities and keeping proper transaction records. The industry poses a 'moderate level' of money-laundering threats due to its cash-intensive nature, said a spokesperson for the MAS, the country's financial regulator. Haleem, who's been at this trade for 40 years, concedes that the future isn't all bright for his industry. Business is about half that of pre-Covid levels, and the increased competition is eroding margins, while wild currency swings can leave him sitting on devalued cash overnight. He predicts the trend toward digital payments is only going to accelerate. 'It will become worse and worse,' he said, though he thinks there will always be a little room in people's wallets for cold hard cash. One floor up at Crown Exchange, Thamim A.K., a money changer in his 60s, is more sanguine. Sitting in a backroom surrounded by wads of Korean won and Indonesian rupiah, he says his 40 years of trading, with all its ups and downs, gives him hope for the future. 'I've seen everything, all the currencies, fluctuations,' Thamim said. 'The bank notes business is still there. It's growing, in fact. It's fighting with digital.' –BLOOMBERG
Bloomberg
18-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
UBS Confirms Data Stolen After Cyber Attack on External Supplier
UBS Group AG said that information about the company had been stolen in a cyber attack on one of its suppliers, following a report a Swiss newspaper that data on more than 130,000 employees had been subject to a hack. 'A cyber-attack at an external supplier has led to information about UBS and several other companies being stolen,' the Zurich-based bank said in a statement on Wednesday. 'No client data has been affected. As soon as UBS became aware of the incident, it took swift and decisive action to avoid any impact on its operations.'
Bloomberg
13-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Crystal Palace FC Backer Eagle Files Confidentially for US IPO
Eagle Football Holdings Ltd., one of the most active investors in football clubs globally, has filed confidentially for a US initial public offering. The company, which owns more than 40% of English FA Cup winners Crystal Palace, has submitted a draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to an announcement Friday. Eagle has been working with UBS Group AG on the potential IPO, Bloomberg News reported in February.
