the bottomline

WASHINGTON:

Citibank will pay $425 million in fines to settle federal civil charges of attempting to manipulate key benchmarks used to set interest rates for investments in derivatives and US Treasury bonds as well as a range of consumer loans.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced two settlements Wednesday with Citibank, part of the big Wall Street bank Citigroup Inc.

In some instances, the regulators said, Citibank and its Japanese affiliates tried to manipulate benchmark rates even while they knew the agency was investigating the bank’s practices in that area.

It was the latest action by regulators to penalize major European and US banks for alleged rigging of global interest and currency-exchange rates. Banks together have paid several billion dollars in settlements. (AP)

OAK BROOK, Ill:

Protesters demanding a higher minimum wage are expected to march on the McDonald’s Corp. headquarters near Chicago ahead of the fast-food giant’s annual shareholders’ meeting.

Organizers say the protests will begin Wednesday morning with a strike at the Rock N Roll McDonald’s in downtown Chicago. Striking cooks and cashiers will later join a march on the McDonald’s headquarters in Oak Brook. Demonstrations are also expected Thursday during the shareholders’ meeting. (AP)

LONDON:

HSBC Holdings will issue $2 billion of bonds that would convert into shares if the bank’s capital strength falls below a certain level, it said on Wednesday.

HSBC said the so-called contingent convertible bonds, or “CoCos”, would pay an annual interest of 6.875 percent. The bonds will convert into shares if HSBC’s core equity Tier 1 capital ratio falls below 7 percent.

Bonds that convert into shares or are cancelled when a bank’s capital falls below a certain level are increasingly being sold by banks to improve their capital cushion in case they run into trouble. (RTRS)

LONDON:

Britain’s telecommunications regulator said it would not impose new price controls on Royal Mail Plc’s wholesale or retail products, citing the declining letters market and increased competition in parcels.

Shares in Royal Mail were up 1.5 percent at 528.5 pence at 0729 GMT on the London Stock Exchange, ahead of a 0.7 percent gain in the FTSE 100.

Royal Mail’s prospects hinge on its ability to cut costs and modernise operations to gain a larger share of the parcels market in light of declining letter volumes. (RTRS)

LONDON:

British outsourcing firm Serco Group Plc forecast 2016 profit ahead of current market expectations, benefiting from several contracts running for longer and others being more profitable.

Shares in Serco soared as much as 13 percent, with analysts saying the “surprise” guidance hike was a positive and it would leave the group in a strong net debt position by the end of the year.

The stock was the top percentage gainer on the FTSE 250 midcap index on the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Serco has suffered in recent years following problems with government contracts that included overcharging the British government for monitoring criminals and escalating costs on a deal to provide accommodation to UK asylum seekers. (RTRS)

LONDON:

British retail giant Marks and Spencer posted sliding annual earnings Wednesday, and its share price sank after warning that a new turnaround plan for its clothing division would hit profits.

Net profits slid 16 percent to £406.9 million ($592 million; 529 million euros) in the group’s financial year to April 2, M&S said in a results statement. That compared with profit after taxation of £486.5 million in 2014/2015.

Shares plunged more than eight percent as new boss Steve Rowe predicted that its overhaul and tough trading conditions would have an “adverse effect” on its performance. (AFP)

DETROIT:

Daimler AG reached a new contract that covers US unionized workers that build diesel engines for heavy trucks at Detroit factory, the United Auto Workers said late Tuesday.

UAW Local 163, which represents some 2,300 workers at Daimler’s Detroit Diesel division, said its members had ratified a five-year contract that raises compensation for all workers.

The new agreement includes a $5,000 signing bonus and a small wage increase. (AFP)

OSLO:

Shareholders in the Norwegian company Opera Software have accepted a bid from a Chinese consortium valuing the group at 10.5 billion kroner ($1.2 billion, 1.1 billion euros), Opera announced on Wednesday.

The consortium, led by the Golden Brick Silk Road investment fund, still needs the approval of US and Chinese regulatory authorities before it can complete the acquisition of the world’s fifth most-used web browser.

At 1430 GMT on Tuesday, the offer had been accepted by shareholders representing 90.6 percent of ordinary shares and 90.9 percent of voting rights, Opera said in a statement. (AFP)

MOSCOW:

Russia’s biggest bank Sberbank on Wednesday announced a nearly four-fold growth in net profits in the first quarter, citing a recovery in borrowing and “moderate stabilisation” of the economy.

Net profit grew from 30.6 billion rubles ($464 million) in the first quarter of 2015 to 117.7 billion rubles ($1.79 billion), surpassing expectations.

“Improvement in our return on equity in the first quarter of this year was attributable to continued recovery of net interest income, a reduction in the cost of risk and tight control over operating expenses on the back of moderate stabilisation” of the economy, Sberbank’s financial chief Alexander Morozov said in a statement. (AFP)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia:

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday that it will build a second factory in Malaysia as part of expansion to meet rising local demand.

The new 2 billion ringgit ($488 million) plant will be built by Toyota and its local partner, UMW Corp. Toyota said that the plant, to be built in the central state of Selangor, will have an initial capacity of around 50,000 units a year. (AP)