Business

BERLIN — The European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator told German industry on Wednesday that it was his responsibility to help European companies weather the exit of Britain from the EU, and he warned Britain that its economy had much to lose.

In a series of speeches, Michel Barnier also said work remained to be done on how much Britain would pay the EU to cover its share of the EU budget after it leaves. British newspapers have reported his team has broadly agreed on a payment of around 50 billion euros ($59.25 billion).

The EU has given Britain until Monday to make an acceptable offer for a financial settlement, agree on the rights of EU citizens in Britain and ensure no hard border is set up with Ireland. Only then will it start talks on a future trade pact. 

German business is worried about the impact of Brexit — Britain is Germany’s third-largest export destination and its fifth-biggest overall trading partner. 

“The future of the EU is more important than Brexit,” Barnier told the BDA employers association and the BDI industry group and DIHK chambers of commerce.

Barnier said he was not sure if the “whole truth” had been explained to British business on the impact of Brexit.

“My responsibility before you and everywhere in Europe is to tell the truth to European businesses,” he said in the speech to the BDA employers association. A trading relationship with a non-EU member inevitably involved friction, he said.

“Whatever the outcome of the current negotiations, there will be no business as usual,” he said.

Some politicians in Britain have argued that German companies depend on them for business, so Berlin under Chancellor Angela Merkel may help London get a deal.

But only about 6 per cent of Germany’s trade in goods is with the United Kingdom, compared with 56 per cent with the other EU countries, Barnier said — making it clear Britain had the most to lose.

Barnier also pointed to value-added tax returns and the imports of animals and animal projects that are subject to checks at the EU’s borders as potential problems.

And he warned there was no guarantee that judgements by UK courts on trade disputes would automatically be recognised across the EU after Brexit.

The BDI industry association and DIHK chambers of commerce stressed that the onus was on the British government to shift in its negotiations.

“The British government must move so that the EU can give the green light in two weeks for phase two of the talks,” said the BDI and DIHK groups.

“There can be no cherry picking for London. It is clear: our priority is to strengthen the EU and develop it further,” they said, stressing that the freedoms of the internal market would not be diluted for Britain during any transition phase.

Barnier also warned that companies should prepare for a possible “no deal”, which implies returning to trade tariffs under World Trade Organisation rules, and border controls.

That scenario would lead to higher transport and storage costs, hitting companies operating on a just-in-time basis, he said.

“The no-deal scenario is not our scenario, but since it cannot be ruled out, we have to prepare for it,” he said.

LONDON — The University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English speaking world, is planning to sell its first bond in the coming days armed with a newly-minted triple A credit rating.

Teaching since 1096, Oxford has hired US investment bank J.P. Morgan to raise at least 250 million pounds ($331.83 million) in what is expected to be an ultra-long 100-year bond.

Individual Oxford colleges have issued debt in the past, but this planned sale, which will be marketed in London and Edinburgh this week, would be the university’s first as a whole.

Rating agency Moody’s assigned Oxford a “triple A” rating on Tuesday ahead of the anticipated deal, matching the top grades of slightly younger UK rival Cambridge and top US institutions like Harvard and Stanford.

The rating reflected “Oxford’s position as a world-leading research institution, attracting significant funding and leading academics”, Moody’s said, “in addition to the University’s strong balance sheet with a large endowment and low leverage”. 

If the bond sale goes as planned, it would have the longest duration of its kind and add to a series of debt issuances from UK universities in recent years which have seen levels of government funding drop.

A number have also given shrill warnings that the UK’s split from the European Union could hurt their finances if they are no longer allowed to be part of lucrative European research projects and it becomes harder to keep or attract staff.

Oxford, which topped a Times global university ranking for the first time last year, was one of those. “To be honest we’re really quite worried about it,” its Vice Chancellor Professor Louise Richardson said at the time. 

One coincidence of Oxford’s timing meanwhile is that it comes as the UK government is trying to raise funding to cover some of the costs of the student loans it gives to UK learners. 

The plan to re-package some  £3.7 billion of student loans via securitisation — an instrument famously used to repackage sub-prime mortgage loans in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis — was expected to be launched earlier this year but was put on hold when Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election.

WASHINGTON — The sales of new single-family US homes quickened for the second straight month in October, rising to the highest level since the housing bubble, according to data released on Monday.

The increase could point to a recovery in sales after what had been a sluggish year amid tightening supply and rising prices.

But the monthly gain was boosted by the storm-damaged southern US, which continued to see robust sales.

Sales of new homes rose 6.2 per cent compared to September to an annual rate of 685,000 units, seasonally adjusted, the fastest pace since October 2007, the Commerce Department said in its monthly report.

The result overshot the expectations of analysts, who had been expecting a 2.5 per cent decline.

The estimates are subject to a high degree of uncertainty, however. Sales in September, which originally were reported as a 10-year record, were revised down.

Analysts have said the tight housing market is weighing on sales and pricing houses beyond the reach of many would-be homeowners.

Yet, sales in the South, which suffered back-to-back hurricanes at the end of the summer, rose to 383,000 units — the highest level since October 2007 — even though it was an increase of just 1.3 per cent from the prior month.

Sales soared in the northeast, jumping 30.2 per cent, also a 10-year record, while sales in the Midwest surged 17.9 per cent.

The brisk sales pace drew down the supply of available new homes to 4.9 months, a 5.8 per cent decline, but in raw numbers the pool of houses for sale changed little at 282,000, the highest since May 2009.

Despite the strong demand, the median sales price fell 3.7 per cent to $312,800 but the average sales price hit its highest level on record, rising five per cent to $400,200.

PARIS — Bitcoin, which this week soared to a new record high of more than $8,000, is the monetary equivalent of Uber, since it bypasses central bank regulation and could be attractive for financially fragile countries, economists say.

Nevertheless, it is precisely the lack of oversight that opens up the users of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to risks and dangers, analysts warn.

“Bitcoin? It’s about ‘Uber-ising’ currency, about not having a central bank that decides the price,” said Ludovic Subran, chief economist at credit insurer Euler Hermes, referring to Uber, the ride-hailing app that has set the cat among the pigeons in the taxi sector in recent years.

“Yes, it’s exactly that: it bypasses a central regulatory authority. That’s the genius of this invention,” agreed Yves Choueifaty, founder of the Paris-based asset management firm Tobam, which this week launched the first European fund investing in bitcoin. 

Bitcoin is not regulated, but is traded on specialist platforms. It has no legal exchange rate and no central bank backing it. Launched in 2009 as a bit of encrypted software written by someone using the Japanese-sounding name Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin is controlled and regulated by its community of users. 

Investors are already referring to it as “digital gold”, as the bitcoin soared to a new record high of more than $8,000 this week, a staggering rise in value from just under $1,000 at the beginning of the year. 

“We have no need for central banks,” said Yves Choueifaty, suggesting that institutional investors may be behind the recent sharp gains, even if insisted that there was “no bitcoin bubble”.

The growing interest in bitcoin is catching mainstream attention: the CME Group of Chicago, one of the world’s biggest exchanges, has decided to launch a bitcoin futures marketplace. 

Prestigious US universities are offering courses in blockchain technology, on which cryptocurrencies are based.

‘Dollarisation 2’ 

Virtual currencies could also prove attractive to economic players in countries such as Zimbabwe or Venezuela, whose fiat currencies have been ravaged hyper-inflation. Caracas, for example, has had to issued a new 100,000-bolivar bill, when just a year ago, the biggest-denomination banknote was 100 bolivars. 

“Think of countries with weak institutions and unstable national currencies. Instead of adopting the currency of another country — such as the US dollar — some of these economies might see a growing use of virtual currencies. Call it dollarisation 2,” said the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, recently.

Economists also suggest the bitcoin could be of interest to developing countries where individuals often find it easier to access the internet than traditional bank accounts.

Nevertheless, central banks and the big financial institutions are concerned that virtual currencies can be used for illicit purposes and are highly speculative by nature. 

“It’s the exact definition of a bubble,” the head of Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, warned recently in comments that immediately sparked an uproar on social media among bitcoin’s supporters. 

The head of the French central bank or Banque de France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, warned in the summer: “People are using the bitcoin today are clearly doing it at their own risk and at their own peril.” 

‘No intrinsic value’ 

Nobel laureate, Jean Tirole, also insisted that the current bitcoin boom was a “bubble”. 

“It’s something that has no intrinsic value,” he told AFP on the sidelines of a conference in Paris this week. 

“It could collapse from one day to the next. I would be completely against French banks, for example, investing in bitcoin.” 

Euler Hermes economist Subran called on the financial authorities to make potential investors more aware of the risks. 

“There’s a lot of money to be made. And a lot of money to be lost,” he said. 

“We’re seeing more and more people wanting to venture there, but they’re not fully aware of the risk.” 

Bitcoin has regularly suffered abrupt falls, for example, in cases of friction between the members of the community who oversee it and the members who produce it, when the regulatory authorities issue any warnings, or if there are data hacks.

But more often than not, bitcoin quickly makes up any losses and some investors are predicting it will soon top the $10,000 level. Back in 2011, it had struggled to pass $1. 

CHICAGO/NEW YORK — US stores offered deep discounts, entertainment and free gifts to lure bargain hunters on Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday retail season, but some shoppers said they were just browsing the merchandise, reserving their cash for Internet purchases.

Still, a sharp rise in online sales brightened the overall outlook for those traditional retailers that have expanded beyond brick-and-mortar outlets, sending their shares higher in day-after-Thanksgiving trading. Stores also had carefully managed inventory, seeking to ward off any post-holiday liquidation that would weigh on profits.

There was little evidence of the delirious shopper frenzy customary of Black Fridays from past years, even as some stores appeared to be getting creative with gimmicks besides heavy discounts to draw in customers.

No actual data for Friday’s brick-and-mortar business was immediately available. 

Despite anecdotal signs of muted in-store sales — fewer cars in mall parking lots, shoppers leaving stores without purchases in hand — consumers are still expected to spend more overall this holiday season than last, analysts and industry executives said.

Black Friday online sales totalled at least $3.54 billion by 8pm EST (01:00 Saturday GMT), up 15.6 per cent from a year ago, according to Adobe Analytics, which measures transactions at the largest 100 US web retailers. On Thanksgiving Day, US shoppers spent more than $2.87 billion online. 

Adobe projected internet sales would still reach a record $5 billion by the end of the night, with online retailers forecast to rake in an additional $6.6 billion on Cyber Monday. 

Indeed, some chains struggled to keep up, with brief online outages experienced by Lowe’s, H&M and the Gap, among others, according to website performance monitors. 

Macy’s Inc. customers in several states, including Texas, Arizona and Illinois, took to social media to complain about the retailer’s credit card processing system. The company acknowledged that processing was taking longer than usual in its stores and said it was working on the problem.

The hiccups dragged Macy’s shares 0.6 per cent lower in extended trading. They had ended the regular session up 2.1 per cent, boosted by comments from Chief Executive Jeff Gennette, who told CNBC that Macy’s was better off this year than last, had robust online demand and was in a good place for holiday promotions.

Macy’s and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. did a better job of ordering and controlling inventory this time, according to Burt Flickinger, managing director of Strategic Resources Group, a consultancy with seven researchers out in the field.

“The turnout this morning has been relatively slow, but it is still the best we have seen in three years,” Flickinger said, citing improving consumer confidence, a strong job market and healthy housing prices.

Fair weather across much of the nation also was factor, said National Retail Federation President Matthew Shay.

Some shoppers were enticed by the promise of spectacle, while others felt the pull of nostalgia. 

“It’s like a hangout, it’s an experience,” said Jonathan Lin, 17. “All my friends are back from college and we got together.”

“There’s something nostalgic about being at the stores this early,” Jennifer Stasiak said at Chicago’s popular Oakbrook Centre.

Not everyone found the Black Friday magic irresistible.

“I avoid the store, too many crowds,” said Elana Silverstein, 32, a school counselor enjoying a warm, sunny day at a Los Angeles park. Instead, Silverstein said, she bought several personal items on sale on Thursday night through the online marketplace Groupon.

Major retailers generally traded higher on Wall Street. J.C. Penney climbed 0.6 per cent and Wal-Mart Stores Inc edged upward. Amazon.com Inc. closed up 2.6 per cent at a record high.

Target Corp. did not fare as well, with analysts noting that it closed its stores for several hours overnight while many rivals kept their doors open. Its shares fell 2.8 per cent. 

Not what it used to be 

The period between the US Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas can make or a break a retailer, accounting for as much as 40 per cent of annual revenue and leading many businesses to go the extra mile to stoke shoppers’ interest. 

Godiva gave out free chocolates, while Sephora offered face masks and perfumes. Dancers entertained Bergdorf Goodman shoppers, according to The New York Post. 

Many chains, including Wal-Mart, Target, Macy’s and J.C. Penney, opened stores on Thursday evening and most were offering extended deals online. Some started offering in-store deals earlier this week.

Macy’s said some 16,000 shoppers were lined up outside its flagship Herald Square store in Manhattan when doors opened at 5pm on Thursday for its Black Friday eve sale. 

The deepest discounts included more than $200 off some Best Buy TVs; all bras across Victoria’s Secret Pink stores priced at $25; half-priced video games at Target; and $50 off PlayStation 4 Pro gaming consoles at Wal-Mart.

Here and there were signs of the pandemonium for which Black Friday was long known. 

A confrontation between two men in the parking lot of Willowbrook Mall in Houston left one shot and the other stabbed, though the origins of the clash and whether it was shopping-related was not immediately known, police said.

A false report of gunfire prompted shoppers to flee the Westland Mall in Hialeah, Florida. Stores reopened less than an hour later, a mall security supervisor told Reuters by phone.

Near Birmingham, Alabama, police broke up a fight on Thursday night between two women who may have been arguing over a sale item at the Riverchase Galleria, mall officials said. 

The growing online shopping trend, led by Amazon, has forced the toy chain Toys R Us and apparel retailers True Religion, the Limited, Rue 21 and Payless Shoe Source to file for bankruptcy this year. 

Still, traditional retailers earn the bulk of their revenue from in-store buys. Shoppers in brick-and-mortar stores can also be easier to tempt with impulse or add-on purchases than online browsers. Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, was crowded but not chaotic. Shoppers came for deals with nothing specific in mind. Many enjoyed the experience of trying on clothes rather than shopping online. 

A Macy’s employee there said it was less busy on Friday because the store had been open, and packed, on Thursday.

“They’re all online,” said Sarah Jones, 42, an employee at Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island. “I’ve worked in retail my whole life, trust me.” 

MILAN — Workers at Amazon’s main distribution hub in Italy are planning their first ever strike for Friday, trade unions said, while they are also striking at six warehouses in Germany, threatening to disrupt one of the year’s busiest shopping days.

Like the rest of Europe, Italians in recent years have embraced the US tradition of Black Friday, a day of heavy discounting by retailers on the day after Thanksgiving.

Unions said in a statement more than 500 Amazon workers at the Piacenza site in northern Italy had agreed to strike following a failure to negotiate bonuses with the company. 

Workers have also decided not to do any overtime until December 31, covering the peak season for the online retailer which hires temporary workers during this period.

Amazon employs around 1,600 people on a permanent basis at the Piacenza site, the first it built in the country after launching its Italian website in 2010.

The Verdi trade union in Germany said Amazon employees would also strike on Friday at six distribution centres in the country as part of a long-running dispute over pay and conditions.

“The world’s biggest online retailer wants to achieve record sales on this day, but employees have to produce record performance not only on this day so that everything runs how Amazon wants it,” said Verdi board member Stefanie Nutzenberger.

Amazon in Italy said in a statement it remained focused on trying to guarantee scheduled deliveries for its customers on Black Friday and in the following days.

The company said salaries paid to its workers were among the highest in the logistic sector, and that it also provided some benefits such as private medical insurance or money to pay for training programmes.

E-commerce is growing fast in Italy where online sales account only for 10 per cent of overall retail sales, according to consultancy EY, half the European average.

The US government on Tuesday urged businesses to act on an Intel Corp. alert about security flaws in widely used computer chips, as industry researchers scrambled to understand the impact of the newly disclosed vulnerability.

Homeland Security gave the guidance a day after Intel said it had identified security vulnerabilities in remote-management software known as “Management Engine” that shipped with eight types of processors used in business computers sold by Dell Technologies Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd., HP Inc. , Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and other manufacturers. 

Security experts said that it was not clear how difficult it would be to exploit the vulnerabilities to launch attacks, though they found the disclosure troubling because the affected chips were widely used. 

“These vulnerabilities affect essentially every business computer and server with an Intel processor released in the last two years,” said Jay Little, a security engineer with cyber consulting firm Trail of Bits.

For a remote attack to succeed, a vulnerable machine would need to be configured to allow remote access, and a hacker would need to know the administrator’s user name and password, Little said. Attackers could break in without those credentials if they have physical access to the computer, he said.

Intel said that it knew of no cases where hackers had exploited the vulnerability in a cyber attack.

Homeland Security advised computer users to review the warning from Intel, which includes a software tool that checks whether a computer has a vulnerable chip. It also urged them to contact computer makers to obtain software updates and advice on strategies for mitigating the threat. 

Intel spokeswoman Agnes Kwan said the company had provided software patches to fix the issue to all major computer manufacturers, though it was up to them to distribute patches to computers users. Dell’s support website offered patches for servers, but not laptop or desktop computers, as of midday Tuesday. Lenovo offered fixes for some servers, laptops and tablets and said more updates would be available on Friday. An HP representative said the company would soon post fixes on its support site.

Security experts noted that it could take time to fix vulnerable systems because installing patches on computer chips is a difficult process. 

“Patching software is hard. Patching hardware is even harder,” said Ben Johnson, co-founder of cyber startup Obsidian Security.

BRUSSELS — The European Union has agreed a plan obliging online retailers operating in the bloc to make electrical goods, concert tickets or car rental available to all EU consumers regardless of where they live.

Putting an end to “geoblocking”, whereby consumers in one EU country can not buy a good or service sold online in another, has been a priority for the EU as it tries to create a digital single market with 24 legislative proposals.

The agreement late on Monday between the European Parliament, the EU’s 28 member states and the Commission will allow EU consumers to buy products and services online from any EU country. The agreement applies to e-commerce sites including Amazon and eBay.

Companies will no longer be able to re-direct consumers to a country-specific website without their consent. However, consumers will still have to organise how to pick up a product if the company does not offer cross-border delivery.

Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip, responsible for the digital single market, said the proposal would put an end to unjustified discrimination for online shoppers.

“With the new rules, Europeans will be able to choose which website they want to buy from, without being blocked or re-routed. This will be a reality by Christmas next year,” Ansip said in a statement.

The proposal does not extend to copyright-protected content, which includes music streaming services such as Spotify and Apple’s iTunes, electronic books, television series and movies.

The Parliament had hoped to include these services, but music industries successfully argued this could lead to price increases in countries where such services are cheaper.

The European Consumer Organisation  argued that, by not including copyright-protected materials, consumer choice would be limited for people living or studying abroad.

“It is especially frustrating for consumers who belong to a linguistic minority and would like to watch series or films in their own language,” Monique Goyens, the director general of BEUC, said in a statement.

The European Parliament and member states are expected to approve the new legislation early next year. It is seen entering force by the end of 2018.

AMMAN — Trade delegates from the Republic of Korea held meetings on Monday with their Jordanian counterparts in a bid to build new trade partnerships between the two countries, according to a statement of the Korea Business Centre in Amman.

The visiting delegates, representing manufacturers and exporters of several products, came from the Korean city of Daegu.

The meetings were attended by the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to Jordan Lee Bom-yon and Jordanian businessmen who have interest in the Korean industries, according to the statement.