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NEW YORK — American mega-investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway will invest $10 billion in Occidental Petroleum as the company battles to acquire rival Anadarko Petroleum, Occidental announced on Tuesday. Anadarko’s board had already approved an offer from Chevron when Occidental unveiled a higher bid last week, beginning a tug-of-war over the assets in the shale-rich Permian Basin in Texas.

“We have long believed that Occidental is uniquely positioned to generate compelling value from Anadarko’s highly complementary asset portfolio,” Vicki Hollub, Occidental’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.

“We are thrilled to have Berkshire Hathaway’s financial support of this exciting opportunity.”

Occidental’s proposed takeover valued Anadarko at $76 a share, compared to the $65 offered by Chevron on April 12. Occidental said it was disappointed that Anadarko had ignored its previous bids.

Anadarko on Monday agreed to resume talks with Occidental, after the board of directors declared that the rival offer “could reasonably be expected to result in a ‘Superior Proposal’” to Chevron’s offer.

Berkshire Hathaway is to receive $10 billion in Occidental shares, with the option to buy 80 million more at $62.50 a share, according to the Occidental statement.

But Chevron said on Tuesday it stood by its initial offer.

“We believe our signed agreement with Anadarko provides the best value and the most certainty to Anadarko’s shareholders,” a Chevron spokesman said.

But the company indicated last week it could walk away from the deal if bidding drove the price up too high.

“We can practically say Chevron will get out of the race,” Gregori Volokhine of Meeshaert Financial Services told AFP.

“It’s not that it’s hard to fight Warren Buffett but this maneuver will give Anadarko a lot of confidence to accept the offer” from Occidental, he added.

Shares in Anadarko were 0.5 per cent lower toward 15:00 GMT while Occidental had fallen an even steeper 1.7 per cent. Chevron was up 3.1 per cent.

BEIJING — US negotiators head to China on Tuesday to try to hammer out details to end the two countries' trade war, including the shape of an enforcement mechanism, the success or failure of which could set the trajectory of ties for years to come.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will travel to Beijing for talks beginning on April 30, followed by a visit by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He to Washington for more discussions starting on May 8. 

Both sides have cited progress on issues, including intellectual property and forced technology transfer to help end a conflict marked by tit-for-tat tariffs that have cost the world's two largest economies billions of dollars, disrupted supply chains and rattled financial markets.

Those issues are still on the table, according to the White House, but US officials say privately that an enforcement mechanism for a deal and timelines for lifting tariffs are sticking points.

Agreeing to a way to enforce a deal is one thing. Ensuring it holds up under ties strained by growing mistrust and geopolitical tensions will be another, say watchers of the relationship.

"An effective enforcement mechanism will define the deal," Tim Stratford, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham), told Reuters.

"The deal doesn't need to revamp China's economy. But it does need to provide a new methodology for dealing with our differences," said Stratford, a lawyer and former assistant US trade representative who has worked in China for more than three decades.

"This is incredibly high stakes. We have a particular window of opportunity, and a lot in the future of US-China relations rests on this," he said.

Earlier this month, Mnuchin said the two sides had agreed on establishing new "enforcement offices" to police an agreement, although he did not give specifics. On Sunday, he told The New York Times talks are entering a critical point: "We're getting into the final laps."

At a crossroads

US President Donald Trump said on April 4 that the two sides could have a deal worked out in about four weeks. On Thursday, he said he would soon host Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House — a meeting seen as needed to cement an agreement. 

Although a final date for a deal — if there is one — remains unclear, talks have brought China and the United States to a crossroads in their fraught relationship.

China has long defined commerce as the ballast in the relationship.

Now, some warn that the two are teetering towards a new type of "Cold War", as Beijing asserts its growing military strength in Asia and Washington ramps up scrutiny of Chinese tech companies and cracks down on Chinese espionage and influence campaigns at US institutions and universities.

Beijing sees US actions as efforts to contain its development.

But years of only piecemeal economic reforms in China and continued industrial policies that US companies complain have eroded their competitive edge have weakened key US business sector support for China. AmCham said this month that US businesses could no longer be counted on as a "positive anchor" in bilateral relations. 

US officials, chagrined by what they say have been years of Chinese stalling tactics in annual economic dialogues, have been adamant that a trade deal must have teeth.

Lighthizer has suggested that some form of the tariffs Trump imposed last year on Chinese goods as leverage in the dispute should hang over a deal to ensure compliance.

Any such a mechanism would be fragile, trade experts said.

For one, it would mean continued uncertainty for already trade war-weary businesses and markets.

They also say China's record of exploiting loopholes at the World Trade Organisation suggests it will look aggressively for new areas where it can say the United States is not living up to its pledges. If Washington reestablishes tariffs weeks or months down the road, it could lead to retaliation and the collapse of the deal.

In such a case, the two sides would find themselves back at square one, this time without negotiations as a viable way to deescalate disputes. 

Because of this, one American trade consultant said: "It takes great imagination and optimism to think we can come up with an effective enforcement mechanism beyond the short term."

A durable deal? 

Another source with knowledge of the trade talks argued that if the United States triggered the mechanism, Beijing would be unlikely to "come back to the table with this president", referring to Trump. 

"As long as there is a mechanism of tariffs hanging over the deal, it won't be durable," the source said. 

Trade advisers in China appear more confident that an agreement would not fall apart quickly because both sides need it politically, particularly Trump, who is seen in China as eager for a détente as the 2020 US presidential election approaches.

Wang Dong, an expert on China-US relations at Peking University, said it would be politically difficult for both sides to return to talks in the wake of a collapsed deal. 

"I'm not saying China will end altogether future talks with the Trump administration. But it would take time to build momentum again, to say the least," Wang said. 

AMMAN — The Housing Bank for Trade and Finance (Housing Bank) will distribute cash dividend to shareholders at a rate of 15 per cent of the share nominal value, according to a statement by the bank.

The bank’s general assembly on Thursday approved a recommendation by the board of directors in this regard.

During the general assembly meeting, which was presided over by Abdel Elah Al Khatib, chairman of the board of directors, the assembly approved the board of directors’ report and the financial results for 2018, as well as the bank’s plan for 2019. 

Despite increasing competition and economic challenges, the bank was able to register balanced financial growth in 2018, Khatib indicated. 

He said the bank’s total income grew by 7 per cent to reach JD 348.8 million in 2018 due to an increase in net interest income, commission income and other key indicators. However, the bank’s net profit recorded in 2018 was less than that of 2017. 

Its pre-tax profit totalled JD132 million compared with JD180 million in 2017, with its net profit standing at JD94.5 million compared with JD125.2 million in 2017. 

The bank attributed the decline to the implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standard Nine, in which provisions amounting to JD63 million were booked. 

The bank’s other financial indicators reflected a solid performance, with the capital adequacy ratio reaching 16.1 per cent and the liquidity ratio 124 per cent, both of which are higher than the rate required by the Central Bank of Jordan.

BENGALURU — A capital raise for Tesla Inc. will not come cheap and CEO Elon Musk must finally prove to investors that he can produce and deliver Model 3s and higher margin electric cars on time, Wall Street analysts said on Thursday. 

After unveiling a $700 million loss in the first quarter, Musk conceded on Wednesday evening that he needed to pull in more capital for the car world’s highest profile venture of recent years.

Seven Wall Street brokerages asked by Reuters said they expected Musk to tap investors for between $1 billion and $3 billion in the near future. 

The results also stressed the company’s paying off of $920 million in existing debt in the first quarter, but bond yields in the company surged on the news, while shares fell, as investors began to price in what that might cost. 

In European trading before the start of the US business day, investors were already demanding a record risk premium for holding Tesla’s $1.8 billion junk bond, pushing the yield on the 5.3 per cent note due in August 2025 to the highest in six months at 8.51 per cent. 

Tesla shares, already down more than 20 per cent this year, dipped 1.4 per cent to $255.13 in early trade. 

After months of uncertainty following Musk’s swiftly retracted claim last summer that he was set to take the company private, and a series of failures to meet production targets, they said the cost of new capital would now be far higher than a year ago.

“Obviously, investors would have appreciated that confession [to raise capital] when the shares were higher, the fundamental performance better and Elon Musk less erratic,” Evercore analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said in a note. 

Tesla’s first quarter results disappointed both in terms of sales and a sharp drop in the number of vehicles delivered to global customers, and there was scepticism over promises of a return to profitability in the third quarter.

“Ultimately we believe the company’s guidance is aggressive,” analysts from Wedbush Securities said in a note to clients.

Musk has long resisted the need to raise capital, but he told a conference call with analysts it was now the right time.

Several analysts covering the company argued Tesla needed to simplify operations. 

“For investors we think the question is whether or not people want to put capital into Tesla for Robo taxis and autonomous when Uber or Lyft or Nvidia could end up being better alternatives,” Roth Capital analyst Craig Irwin wrote.

“We don’t think Tesla would need to raise capital as urgently if they weren’t spending so much money on these initiatives outside of their core mission of producing awesome EV’s.”

CFRA analyst Garrett Nelson said Tesla’s timing — with the stock down more than 22 per cent year-to-date is quite inopportune to raise capital and that Tesla should have completed an equity issuance months ago.

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May has reportedly approved a limited role for China’s Huawei to help build a 5G network in the UK, shrugging off security warnings from senior ministers and Washington surrounding the telecoms giant, media said Wednesday.

Britain’s National Security Council, which is chaired by May, agreed on Tuesday to allow the Chinese technology giant limited access to build “non-core” infrastructure such as antennas, The Daily Telegraph newspaper wrote.

The Financial Times, citing those close to the meeting, added that the Chinese company had been banned from more sensitive “core” parts of the project. 

The Times newspaper meanwhile was more cautious, stating that May was “considering giving limited approval”.

Her reported moves come despite concerns raised by Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt.

May’s Downing Street office declined to comment on the story.

However, Digital Minister Margot James dismissed the media speculation.

“In spite of Cabinet leaks to the contrary, final decision yet to be made on managing threats to telecoms infrastructure,” she Tweeted.

She later told Sky News that while a final decision had not been made, James indicated that a security review had concluded.

“The decision has not been finally made yet and the prime minister will take advice from all of the relevant agencies and departments,” James added.

Huawei itself welcomed the report.

“Huawei welcomes reports that the UK government is moving towards allowing Huawei to help build the UK’s 5G network,” it said in a brief statement.

“This green light means that UK businesses and consumers will have access to the fastest and most reliable networks thanks to Huawei’s cutting edge technology.”

“While we await a formal government announcement, we are pleased that the UK is continuing to take an evidence-based approach to its work and we will continue work cooperatively with the government, and the industry,” the Chinese company added.

Britain’s move would be at odds with the United States, which has banned Huawei’s 5G technology from its territory and urged allies in the so-called Five Eyes intelligence sharing collective — comprising also Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand — to follow suit.

Huawei is the leading manufacturer of equipment for next-generation 5G mobile networks with almost instantaneous data transfer that will become the nervous system of Europe’s economy, in strategic sectors like energy, transport, banking and healthcare.

Spying fears 

The technology titan faces pushback in some Western markets over fears Beijing could spy on communications and gain access to critical infrastructure.

Last month, Britain identified “significant technological issues” in Huawei’s engineering processes that pose “new risks” for the nation’s telecommunications, according to a government report.

“Further significant technical issues have been identified in Huawei’s engineering processes, leading to new risks in the UK telecommunications networks,” read annual findings from the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre oversight board.

The board — which includes officials from Britain’s GCHQ cyber security agency as well as a senior Huawei executive and representatives from the UK telecommunications sector — added it could provide only limited assurance that risks posed by the Chinese tech giant to UK national security would be “sufficiently mitigated long-term”.

Shrugging off the widespread concerns, Egypt on Sunday said Huawei would roll out a 5G phone network there for the first time during the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations football tournament.

LONDON — World oil prices struck fresh 2019 peaks on Tuesday, boosting energy shares prices.

Crude futures extended Monday's sharp rally, which was triggered by a US crackdown on Iranian oil exports.

Brent North Sea crude reached $74.70 per barrel on Tuesday, the highest point since early November.

WTI hit a similar near six-month high at $66.19 per barrel. 

"UK markets have returned from their long break with solid gains for the FTSE 100, led by strength in oil stocks, thanks to the surge in crude prices over the past 24 hours," noted Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG trading group.

Brent had rallied more than $2 per barrel on Monday and WTI jumped $1.70. 

The White House on Monday announced it was calling an end to six-month waivers that had exempted countries from unilateral US sanctions on Iranian oil exports.

Starting in May, these countries — China, India, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Italy and Greece — would face sanctions if they continue to buy oil from Iran.

"This points to a big drop in the supply side, which boosts the commodity's price," said Margaret Yang Yan, market analyst at CMC Markets Singapore.

"Iran's daily oil output amounts to 1.3 million barrels, according to latest figures in end March." 

But she added that "the sustainability of oil's rally depends on Saudi and other OPEC members' actions to increase oil supply in the month to come".

Stephen Innes, head of trading and market strategy at SPI Asset Management, said rising crude prices meant $80 per barrel was now a "possibility".

"Oil quickly repriced higher on fears that markets could face an immediate supply crunch, adding more pressure to the already tenuous global supply squeeze," he added.

Energy and oil-linked shares jumped on Tuesday, with Tokyo-listed crude developer Inpex rallying 2.8 per cent and oil refiner JXTG up 1.1 per cent.

In London, BP shot up 2.4 per cent and Shell jumped 2.3 per cent — also as European stock markets reopened following the long Easter holiday weekend and before a deluge of corporate results this week.

"Some of the world's biggest technology companies are reporting earnings this week as well as a raft of the big European banks," Nick Twidale, chief operating officer at Rakuten Securities Australia, said in a note to clients. 

"Investors will be hoping for some better-than-expected results from both groups to keep the topside momentum in global equities."

Separately, Sri Lanka's stock market slumped 3.6 per cent as the Colombo Stock Exchange reopened for trading after terror attacks on Easter Sunday killed more than 320 people.

AMMAN — Citibank N. A. Jordan is working in collaboration with Citi’s Inclusive Finance group to advance financial access for 10,000 women across Jordan, according to a statement of the Citibank N. A. Jordan. 

Jordan has made progress in advancing financial inclusion for women in recent years, the statement said, citing the Global Findex data released by the World Bank.

 In 2018, a total of 26.6 per cent of women in Jordan had a bank account, recording more 10 per cent increase since 2014.

However, with just over one in ten women in Jordan participating in the formal economy, there is still more work to be done to ensure that women in Jordan are financially included across the country.

The collaboration will take place through Microfund for Women, which provides sustainable financial services that enable women in Jordan to achieve greater financial independence.

The Fund offers small business development loans that average $539 to some of the country’s most marginalised populations (96 per cent of them women), providing them with the financial resources they need to start their own micro businesses.

To help achieve this goal, Microfund for Women has received the sum of $5m from Citibank N. A. Jordan, through Citi’s partnership with the US Government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation. 

This amount will help provide loans to an additional 10,000 Jordanian women, increasing their number of borrowers by 7 per cent. 

Greater financial inclusion for these 10,000 women will be helpful for both the borrowers and the economy, the statement indicated. 

Noting that this is the first partnership with Citi N. A. Jordan, MFWs Managing Director Muna Sukhtian said, “This loan will be used to provide a financial resource for entrepreneurial youth, especially women in their start- ups which will have a direct positive impact on the beneficiaries and the society as a whole”.

In remarks, Nour Jarrar, Citibank N. A. Jordan’s CEO said, “The deal is just the latest example of how this innovative public-private partnership — the “Global Inclusive Finance Framework” — leverages inclusive businesses and local microfinance institutions in emerging markets across the world to extend microloans in local currencies to borrowers that need support”. 

So far, Citi Inclusive Finance and OPIC have funded 65 institutions in 50 countries. 

WASHINGTON/SINGAPORE — The United States is expected to announce on Monday that all buyers of Iranian oil will have to end their imports shortly or face sanctions, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters, triggering a 3 per cent rise in crude prices. 

The source confirmed a report by a Washington Post columnist that the administration will terminate the sanctions waivers it granted to some importers of Iranian oil late last year. 

Benchmark Brent crude oil futures rose by as much as 3.2 per cent to $74.30 a barrel, the highest since November 1, in early trading on Monday in reaction to expectations of tightening supply. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures climbed as much as 2.9 per cent to $65.87 a barrel, its highest since October 30.

US President Donald Trump has made it clear to his national security team over the last few weeks that he wants to end the waivers to exert "maximum economic pressure" on Iran by cutting off its oil exports and reducing its main revenue source to zero.

In November, the US reimposed sanctions on exports of Iranian oil after President Trump unilaterally pulled out of a 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and six world powers.

Washington, however, granted waivers to Iran's eight main buyers — China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece — that allowed them limited purchases for six months.

On Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will announce "that, as of May 2, the State Department will no longer grant sanctions waivers to any country that is currently importing Iranian crude or condensate", the Post's columnist Josh Rogin said in his report, citing two State Department officials that he did not name. 

On April 17, Frank Fannon, US assistant secretary of state for energy resources, repeated the administration's position that "our goal is to get to zero Iranian exports as quickly as possible".

Peter Kiernan, lead energy analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said "a severe loss in [Iranian] volumes will put pressure on the supply side, given the political uncertainty currently blighting other oil exporters, such as Venezuela and Libya".

Global oil markets have also tightened this year because of supply cuts led by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). 

As a result, Brent prices have risen by more than a third this year, and WTI more than 40 per cent over the same period. 

Kiernan said he expected the "Trump administration to try to rely on Saudi Arabia... to reverse policy and increase volumes to calm market fears of oil supplies quickly tightening".

Saudi Arabia is the world's biggest exporter of crude oil and OPEC's de-facto leader. 

"If there is a time for the US to be able to take a hard line it is now, with the Saudis having over 2 million barrels [per day] of spare capacity," said Tony Nunan, oil risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp. in Tokyo. 

Asia hit hardest 

An end to the exemptions would hit Asian buyers the hardest. Iran's biggest oil customers are China and India, who have both been lobbying for extensions to sanction waivers.

South Korea, a close US ally, is a major buyer of Iranian condensate, an ultra-light form of crude oil that its refining industry relies on to produce petrochemicals.

Government officials there declined to comment as well, but Kim Jae-kyung of the Korean Energy Economics Institute said the end of the sanction waivers "will be a problem if South Korea can't bring in cheap Iranian condensate [for] South Korean petrochemical makers". 

Japan is another close US ally in Asia that is also a traditionally significant buyer of Iranian oil.

Takayuki Nogami, chief economist at the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation said the end of the sanction waivers "is not a good policy for Trump". 

Nogami said he expected oil prices to rise further because of the US sanctions and OPEC-led supply cuts.

So far in April, Iranian exports were averaging below 1 million barrels per day (bpd), according to Refinitiv Eikon data and two other companies that track exports and declined to be identified.

That is lower than at least 1.1 million bpd estimated for March, and down from more than 2.5 million bpd before the renewed sanctions were announced last May. 

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK — Risk-taking has been the rage since the Federal Reserve (Fed) quit hiking interest rates at the end of last year. US stocks are back near record highs and investors are stockpiling the lowest-grade corporate bonds with only a smidgen of extra compensation for the added risk.

That rebounding mood on Wall Street may be welcomed by a president that has been demanding the Fed cut rates after markets fell sharply last year, and complaining that even pausing at the current level is the wrong call.

But if anything the “pause party” on Wall Street makes it even less likely that the US central bank will cut rates. Recent positive news on retail sales and exports, which have eased concerns of a sharply slowing economy, makes the case for a rate cut even weaker.

Investors at least have gotten the message, and shifted from projecting a rate cut later this year to now putting the odds at only 50-50 that the Fed will move lower by early 2020.

The state of financial markets, say some analysts, is evidence the Fed’s rate increases last year were on point, allowing the economy to continue growing while keeping risks in check. A rate cut at this stage would only be courting problems.

“The argument for why they should keep the possibility of a rate hike on the table is because of financial stability,” Citi chief economist Catherine Mann said in remarks on Wednesday to a conference on financial stability at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College.

After a decade of near zero interest rates, “moving towards a constellation of asset prices that embodies risks is critical for getting us to a more stable financial market”, she said, noting that both equity prices and low-grade bond yields show a market that remains too sanguine.

In their critiques of the Fed, US President Donald Trump, White House Chief Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow, and possible Fed nominee Stephen Moore have argued that lower rates would allow faster growth and be in line with Trump’s economic plans. They contend that, with the risk of inflation low, the central bank does not need to maintain “insurance” against it by keeping rates where they are.

Overlooked in that analysis are the financial stability concerns steadily integrated into Fed policymaking since the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis. Mann spoke at a conference named in honour of economist Hyman Minsky, who explored how financial excess can build during good times, and unwind in catastrophic fashion. The downturn a decade ago showed just how deeply that dynamic can scar the real economy.

Financial stability isn’t a formal mandate for the Fed, which under congressional legislation is supposed to maintain the twin goals of maximum employment and stable prices. But since the crisis the central bank has concluded that keeping financial markets on an even keel is a necessary condition for achieving the other two aims.

That does not mean an end of volatility or a guarantee of profits, but rather that risks are properly priced and that the use of leverage — investments made with borrowed money — is kept within safe limits. 

That’s a key reason why even policymakers focused on maintaining high levels of employment, like Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren, at times have taken on a hawkish tone in favor of rate increases. The worse outcome for workers, Rosengren and others have said, would be to let markets inflate too much, and crash again, even if that means risking a bit higher unemployment in the interim. 

Markets are currently “a little rich”, Rosengren said in recent remarks at Davidson College in North Carolina. 

Though not enough to warrant a rate increase, he said, it does argue against a rate reduction. Overall, Fed officials including Chairman Jerome Powell say they feel financial risks are within a manageable range, something policymakers feel has been helped along by the rate increases to date. 

The state of financial markets is “something that the Fed has to wrestle with”, Rosengren said. “It’s appropriate for interest rates to be paused right now.”