Travel & Tourism

Capital Calls: It sure feels good to be a banker

1 Jul 2021

Concise views on global finance: Global deals in the first half of the year broke all records.

Vaccine passports are a patchy travel fix

1 Jul 2021

European Union passes went live on Thursday. But even within the bloc there are quibbles over standards and risks from viral variants. At a global level, rifts are amplified. Even with a central authority and consensus on approved jabs, governments can impose their own curbs.

Getlink’s Brexit blues may have happier M&A ending

25 Jun 2021

The $9 bln Channel Tunnel operator has been hit by travel curbs and reduced UK-France trade. Shares a fifth below pre-Covid peaks don’t reflect recovering traffic flows or duty-free sales. A decades-long concession increases the appeal to yield-hungry infrastructure funds.

Capital Calls: Platinum Equity, FTC chair, Tui

16 Jun 2021

Concise views on global finance: The buyout firm acquires textbook company McGraw Hill and the maker of Singer sewing machines; Joe Biden’s pick for the Federal Trade Commission brings swagger; and another capital hike will still leave the German holiday group heavily indebted.

The Exchange: IAC Chairman Barry Diller

15 Jun 2021

The media mogul has backed businesses ranging from travel to gambling to dating and more. Plus, he’s behind Little Island, a new park in New York. Diller shares his thoughts on the reopening of the world, IAC’s unique model and why Netflix has already won the streaming war.

Capital Calls: Corporate America blowback

15 Jun 2021

Concise views on global finance: An investor lawsuit against Trump-era rules on shareholders' proposals is the latest sign of the tables turning.

Capital Calls: Airbus signals liftoff, Bill Gates

27 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: The global aircraft industrial complex got a boost after the European plane maker said it hopes to churn out more of its A320 short-haul workhorses per month than expected; Microsoft founder’s huge private investment vehicle under scrutiny.

India’s Oyo Hotels tidies for new overseas guests

27 May 2021

The SoftBank-backed budget-lodging aggregator wants to borrow $600 mln to refinance debt. Using an offshore syndicated loan suggests a restructuring is working and courts potential IPO investors. For now, Oyo also dodges the issue of how far its peak $10 bln valuation has fallen.

Capital Calls: Apollo, Microsoft

20 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: The second of the asset manager’s three founders moves on; the software firm is pulling the plug on Internet Explorer.

The Exchange: Trip.com CEO Jane Sun

18 May 2021

Where are Chinese travellers headed these days? How is the pandemic changing outbound tourism and business travel? Will China’s recent anti-monopoly regulations affect Trip’s approach to partnerships and deals? Sun shares her views in an exclusive discussion with Breakingviews.

Capital Calls: AT&T’s bankers, Blackstone in Italy

17 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: The U.S. telecom giant’s unwinding of its purchase of Time Warner is a gift for advisers on Wall Street; a court rules that the U.S. private equity firm’s 2013 purchase of Corriere della Sera’s HQ was valid.

Capital Calls: Amazon EU tax win, Scooter SPAC

21 Jan 2022

Concise views on global finance: Jeff Bezos’s e-commerce giant wins a victory over the European Union, but the battle has already moved on; Bird’s $2.3 billion price tag is relatively high but less pie-in-the-sky than some recent deals.

Capital Calls: Uber, Roblox

11 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: Free rides for Covid jabs won’t help the ride-hailing app’s labor battle with Washington; the online games platform’s year-on-year growth decelerated sharply in April.

Star tempts Crown with riskier game of chance

10 May 2021

The Aussie casino operator is proposing an all-stock merger valuing its larger rival at $7.1 bln, including synergies. The deal is loaded with iffy assumptions about benefits that would take time to materialise. Even so, Blackstone will be pressured to sweeten its cash bid again.

Capital Calls: U.S. jobs miss, Elon Musk goes live

7 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: Fed boss Jay Powell has his work to do as America adds far fewer jobs than anticipated; drawing an audience of crypto-nerds, Tesla gearheads and regulators won’t be hard for the electric-car maker boss when he hosts SNL. Drawing laughs will be.

Capital Calls: Pfizer, ConocoPhillips

4 May 2021

Concise views on global finance: About $6 bln of additional earnings from Covid vaccines at the U.S. drug giant should mean more capital returned to investors; the independent oil group is offloading stock in Canada-based Cenovus it collected as part of a deal four years ago.

Capital Calls: Chubb and Hartford, Swimming pools

22 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: The company led by Evan Greenberg twice raised its bid for its Connecticut rival, but so far to no avail; a blowout quarter for private-pool maker Pool Corp points to buoyant wealth and spending trends, but only for some.

Thruppence: Lessons from a few border crossings

19 Apr 2021

Lockdowns are easing in some countries as vaccination efforts pick up. But professionals eager to get back on the road still need to become quick studies on the fine print of pandemic-era international travel rules. Three itinerant Breakingviews columnists share their notes.

Capital Calls: Goldman Sachs, U.S. currency report

16 Apr 2021

Concise views on global finance: The Wall Street bank’s communications veteran, Jake Siewert, goes back to the future, sort of; Taiwan is dubbed a forex interventionist but avoids manipulator label.

Viewsroom: Cross-border travel hassles, Alibaba

15 Apr 2021

For businesspeople eager to get back on the road, three lucky Breakingviews editors share their experiences of hopping across the Atlantic, traveling to India and navigating Europe’s arbitrary rules. Asia columnists discuss how Beijing has come down hard on Jack Ma’s tech empire.