Nord Stream 2 "project is progressing on schedule and the auction process is ongoing." This was underlined by the number one of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
"Some games for the sea section has already been completed. Everything is going as planned – he added – we will start laying the pipes at the beginning of 2018. There are no doubt: 55 billion cubic meters of gas will arrive in Germany."
Spain’s Gamesa and Germany’s Siemens announced the merger of their respective wind energy business to create the leading builder of wind farms in the world. Gamesa said it has reached an agreement in principle but the final details have to be approved. It is not clear whether the German company will opt for the sale of its division.
Siemens and Gamesa are respectively the fourth and the seventh in the world manufacturer of wind turbines and, together, would account for 12.6% of the global market, becoming the second company in the industry world after Vestas, which is 13.2%, unseating Chinese Goldwind.
Starbucks, the US chain of coffee shops, is actually a bank. Customers have indeed deposited $ 1.2 billion charged in prepaid cards of the company in the first quarter of 2016, much higher figure than kept in warehouses of many US banks.
According to data from S & P Global Market Intelligence, for several years Starbucks has its prepaid cards with which you can buy at discounted prices and acquiring vouchers, coffee, pastries and salads in the chain shops without using cash. It is an alternative payment system to the credit card that could replace by 2020 a third of the bank cards. It is also a very effective customer retention system considered by marketing experts. And the American giant can count on 12 million "faithful" which sells millions of gift cards on the eve of Christmas.
Art Basel has announced it will produce a new report on the annual art market in collaboration with UBS. The author will be Clare McAndrew, the known economist for the report on the art market of TEFAF, which will stop sign. It is unknown if TEFAF will continue to produce a report and who will be the author.
"The problem is that the fake products today, have better quality and are cheaper than those who have the mark" Jack Ma, Alibaba guru said yesterday.
China’s largest portal of e-commerce has been repeatedly accused of being indifferent to the offering for sale of products that mimic the original: and do nothing to halt the trade.
However the words Alibaba boss left aftermath. In fact the official disapproval of the Director of the Centre for Research on e-commerce Hangzhou Cao She promptly arrived. "For a few specific cases it may be true, but it is wrong to generalize the phenomenon" also "is inappropriate for someone of Jack’s caliber But to say things like that."
From next August PostFinance will reduce the interest rates of different current accounts: the private account in CHF or EUR is even zero, from the current 0.01%. The result of this decision is the current difficult context of the interests in domestic and international financial markets, leading to pressure on operating results.
The interest rate on savings E-bill for private customers, business or associations (in CHF or EUR) is reduced to 0.05% from 0.10%, as the press release informs.
Walmart supermarket chain will no longer accept Visa cards in its stores in Canada from July 18, reasoned decision from the fees applied considered overly high. At first in Thunder Bay stores it will be impossible to use Visa and then it will be phased in across the country.
"Walmart made this business decision despite Visa offering one of the lowest rates available to any merchant in the country," a spokesperson said. "To ensure we are taking care of our customers’ best interests and delivering on our promise of saving customers money, we constantly work to reduce our operating costs, including credit card fees," Walmart Canada said.
Microsoft, with a flash deal, bought Linkedin cost of $ 26.2 billion, $ 192 per share, the largest professional network in the world.
Microsoft’s goal is to revive the social network, with over 400 million users, in recent months has disappointed investors and markets because of competition and a labor market recovery that also caters to more traditional channels. In fact, in recent months LinkedIn showed the first signs of weakness: in the last quarter of 2015 closed with a red amounting to $ 8.4 million compared to a profit of 2.9 million profit in the same period last year .
