Corporate

Zurich Insurance Group referred its profit fell from a year earlier in the first quarter, but added that an improved economic outlook could help the company’s prospects for the rest of the year.

The Swiss insurer said net income fell to $607 million in the first quarter from $875 million a year earlier. A more than 3 percent change to Britain’s Ogden rate, a tool for calculating personal injury and accident claims, dampened Zurich’s core property and casualty business in the first three months of 2017.

Swiss Life had a «good start» to the year 2017, with fee revenue of 340 million Swiss francs, an increase of 5% compared with the same period a year ago. Premiums dropped 1% to 6.5 billion francs, the company said in a statement today. Five analysts polled by Reuters had on average expected gross premiums to fall 1.3 percent to 6.595 billion francs.
"Swiss Life has made a good start to the year," Chief Financial Officer Thomas Buess said in a statement. "We also managed to increase fee income and assets under management in the first quarter of 2017. That shows we are continuing our progress toward implementing our group-wide program ‘Swiss Life 2018’."

Credit Suisse USA said Tuesday it will expand its Research Triangle Park operations, creating 1,200 new jobs and spending $70.5 million on capital investments.

Eric Varvel, president and chief executive of Credit Suisse USA, said the company had planned to expand earlier in North Carolina, but held off because of House Bill 2, known as the transgender restroom law.

“While it was on the books, we chose to halt our expansion plans in the state and consider other options,” Varvel said. “We realize the recent repeal of HB2 contains some compromises, and while not perfect, it is an important first step that re-establishes the minimum conditions for us to expand our presence in the state.”

Adecco’s first-quarter profit rose more than a fifth, better than expected, as the world’s largest temporary staffing company continued to get a boost from major markets in southern Europe while projecting modest growth in the U.S.

Net profit attributable to shareholders rose to €176 million ($192.2 million) in the three months to March, beating the average estimate of 165 million in a Reuters poll of analysts. Sales rose to €5.73 billion, better than the poll average of 5.68 billion.

Dutch staffing company Randstad last month reported a 21 increase in net profit during the quarter, boosted by strong growth in France and Germany. U.S. rival Manpower’s earnings rose 3.8 percent in the first three months as it saw broad improvement across Europe.

Shareholders in Swiss pesticide and seed giant Syngenta have accepted the company’s takeover by state-owned ChemChina, the companies said Friday, which would be the biggest overseas acquisition by a Chinese firm.
The proposed merger is part of a broader wave of consolidation in the agro-chemicals sector that has worried environmental activists and farmers.
At the closing date for the offer on May 4, shareholders holding around 80.7 percent of the company’s stock had accepted the US$43-billion takeover, according to a preliminary count. Subject to confirmation of the results, “the Minimum Acceptance Rate condition of 67 percent of issued Syngenta shares has been met”, they said in a statement.

Facebook had another strong quarter, beating estimates to start 2017. Revenue in the first quarter climbed 49% to $8 billion, which was significantly higher than most analysts expected, and net income was $3 billion or $1.04 per share, compared with consensus estimates of just 87 cents.

It earned that from 1.94 billion users, up from 1.86 billion last quarter, growing at a faster 4.3% compared to 3.91% last quarter.
Facebook said in its last quarterly update that it expects to see its advertising growth rate "come down meaningfully" in 2017 as it stops adding more advertising to the news feed.

Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has become Deutsche Bank AG’s largest shareholder after increasing its stake in the German lender to almost 10%, according to a filing made by asset manager C-Quadrat and other entities. It took HNA’s stake to 9.92%, following an initial stake of 4.76%, which it had earlier secured through C-Quadrat.
The acquisition of a significant stake in a pillar of European finance is another example of China’s growing global influence. Last year, Chinese firms announced around $220 billion worth of deals for foreign companies, far more than any previous year. HNA’s increased stake in Deutsche Bank makes it the lender’s largest shareholder, ahead of members of Qatar’s royal family and U.S. money manager BlackRock, according to public filings.

EFG International completed the integration of Ticino’s private bank BSI, the bank it bought last year, according to a statement today.

With the transaction, BSI (Europe) was renamed into EFG Bank (Luxembourg). The company henceforth will use the EFG brand only. In Switzerland, almost all branches and offices have already been rebranded with the new logo. The rebranding of global locations will follow regional timelines.