Equity

Microsoft has officially announced its partnership with Kind, a US start-up, to launch, on the market, software that keeps track of the marijuana plants from seed to sale within the legal market.

"We believe that in the area there will be significant growth. With industry regulations, there will be more transactions and we believe there will be more sophisticated requirements and tools ", to be respected and to develop, Kimberly Nelson says, responsible for solutions to the state governments and local Microsoft.

The Russian giant Rosnet oil could fall into Chinese or Indian hands. According to reports from Bloomberg, Vladimir Putin is thinking of selling the idea to consolidate public finances weighed down by oil prices to a minimum. In a context aggravated by European sanctions and counter-moves by the Federation, that have accelerated a crisis that would require budget cuts difficult to achieve, according to the rumor reported by Bloomberg, the Kremlin is seeking a buyer for the 19.5% of the leaders of the Rosneft oil, and he would be just trying to place it in a joint venture between the Chinese and Indians. The revenues expected from the partial privatization of at least 700 billion ribli ($ 11 billion).

While polls see the lead again Remain faction in referundum on Brexit next June 23, the fears about the exit of Britain European Union weigh on merger between Deutsche Boerse and the London Stock Exchange. The alarm is launched by the Wall Street Journal, according to which, even if the British were to choose "remain", the merger, which would create a colossus with $ 30 billion of market capitalization, is winning widespread skepticism in the German political world.
According to insiders, the Brexit would lead to severe obstacles to closing the agreement, due to expected pressures on the political front, an even stricter regulatory scrutiny and decided a change in the valuation of both companies.

Bad news for Swisscom employees wishing to take early retirement. According to the opinion of Syndicom, professional trade union, the biggest Swiss telecom operator plans to review its policy on pension fund by cutting the services offered.

The Complan Foundation Board, which manages the cash assets of the second pillar of Swisscom employees, think of suppressing the bridging pension for those who opt for early retirement, as Syndicom makes public today in a note; simultaneously, the conversion rate and the technical reference rate should be revised downwards.

Marriage in the beauty products industry: Revlon buys Elizabeth Arden for 870 million dollars, in an all-cash transaction. Revlon will pay $ 14 for each share of Elizabeth Arden, offering a 50% premium over the closing price of $ 9.31 per share of Elizabeth Arden. A big company is born in the beauty industry, which has already obtained the approval of the boards of both companies.

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.

The latest Fed minutes had opened the door to a second rate hike in response to continued solid consumer spending figures, an acceleration in demand for credit, and a squeeze on wages, as the US is almost in full-employment. However, the latest job creation figures (38,000) dashed hopes of a rapid rate hike.

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.