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Asia-Pacific
The Straits Times

We are the last generation of managers who manage only humans: Salesforce S-E Asia CEO

In the future, most companies will be operating teams that comprise both human workers and AI agents, says Arundhati Bhattacharya, president and chief executive of South and South-east Asia at Salesforce. SINGAPORE – Ask a worker in a modern and advanced country such as Singapore about artificial intelligence, and you may hear apprehension. Ask one in India, and you are more likely to hear hope. It may be that people who already enjoy a comfortable standard of living in advanced economies simply have less to aspire to. This disparity in sentiment towards AI could stem from the transformative impact that technology has had on Indian society, says Arundhati Bhattacharya, South and South-east Asia president and chief executive at cloud software provider Salesforce. She recalls an AI summit she attended in Delhi in February. “Not one of the attendees asked what would happen to their jobs,” she says. “How would AI help them and what are the opportunities – that was what all of them wanted to know. This was such a contrast to some of the other conferences I’ve been to in the West.” Amid global fears that AI will displace jobs, optimism about the technology is growing in India – home to the world’s largest youth population of some 371 million, says the 70-year-old Indian national. People in lower socio-economic classes, she notes, have benefited enormously from technologies like mobile connectivity and universal digital payments, which have transformed the way locals do business. Living standards in India have risen rapidly as a result. “Young people in such countries believe technology is going to make their lives better and, therefore, welcome AI,” says Bhattacharya. While Singapore already has the expertise, with digital services well entrenched in society, its ageing population makes it urgent for workers to become proficient in AI, Bhattacharya notes. This way, younger Singaporeans can combine their technological know-how with the experience of their older colleagues to take on more complicated tasks once considered too difficult. She says more needs to be done to educate people on how much AI can improve their lives. Beyond enhancing citizen services, it can open up new opportunities and knowledge fields once closed to them. In countries larger and less developed than Singapore, AI has become essential to delivering public services, she adds.

We are the last generation of managers who manage only humans: Salesforce S-E Asia CEO
North America
CNBC Finance

Chipotle is opening its first restaurant in Mexico

Fast casual chain Chipotle is set to open its first restaurant in Mexico this week, the company announced on Monday. The store will open on Thursday in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, part of the Monterrey metropolitan area. Chipotle said the opening is part of the Mexican food chain's previously announced partnership with restaurant group Alsea. Thursday's opening will be the first of a larger rollout of restaurants in Mexico, including an expansion into Mexico City in 2027, according to Chipotle. "We are entering Mexico with deep respect for the country's culinary heritage and a commitment to delivering the Chipotle experience with excellence," CEO Scott Boatwright said in a statement. "Our research has reinforced our belief that there is strong interest in high-quality, freshly prepared food served with the customization and convenience that Chipotle offers." Chipotle plans to open an additional 350 to 370 new restaurants this year as it works to regain growth after a stagnant year and entice customers with new menu offerings. International expansion through partnerships is a piece of that strategy. The company said it chose the Monterrey area because of its "strong economy, growing population and status as one of [Mexico's] leading business and innovation hubs." The new restaurant will feature the same menu as its existing U.S. locations. Chipotle and Alsea signed the Mexico development agreement last year as the U.S. chain breaks into the market. The company currently operates more than 4,100 stores worldwide, including in countries across the Middle East and Europe. Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services. Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes. Global Business and Financial News, Stock Quotes, and Market Data and Analysis.

Chipotle is opening its first restaurant in Mexico
North America
CNBC Finance

Paramount, WBD hit with lawsuit from 12 states, including California, to block merger

A group of 12 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit Monday challenging Paramount Skydance's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The lawsuit, which came after weeks of speculation on if and when it would be filed, seeks to block the merger on antitrust concerns. CNBC's David Faber reported earlier in the day that the lawsuit was expected to come on Monday. The merger deal would combine two storied film studios — Paramount and Warner Bros. — as well as streaming platforms Paramount+ and HBO Max. Paramount CEO David Ellison has previously said the streaming services would become one following the transaction. Led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is also brought forth by attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. "The unlawful merger of these two entertainment behemoths would lead to higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the U.S.," Bonta said in a release. In a lengthy statement released on Monday, a Paramount spokesperson called the lawsuit a "misrepresentation of competition in the entertainment industry today," adding that it plans to "vigorously defend the transaction and demonstrate that this challenge is inconsistent with sound competition policy and the competitive realities of the media marketplace." "Delaying this transaction will only harm entertainment workers who have already suffered over recent years as technology has disrupted their livelihood and cost California tens of thousands of entertainment jobs," Paramount's statement continued. The lawsuit filed Monday raised concerns about the size of the combined company, adding that the merged entity would control nearly one-third of films and nearly a third of basic cable TV programming. The attorneys general asked Warner Bros. and Paramount not to close the merger until after the judicial process concludes and threatened to file a temporary restraining order if they didn't comply. On Monday, Bonta held a news conference in front of the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles reiterating the points made in the lawsuit. "This merger would snuff out competition, drive up prices, diminish content quality, and produce fewer movies and shows each year," Bonta said during the event. "We have antitrust laws and merger controls for a reason, because competition is the lifeblood of a healthy and vibrant economy." Paramount countered in Monday's statement, saying that the merger would "create a stronger, well-capitalized, creative-first media company that is better positioned to compete with companies like Netflix that have come to dominate the industry for audiences, premium content, and creative talent. Put simply, any attempt to block this transaction undermines the very principles antitrust law is designed to promote: more competition, more choice for consumers, and more opportunities for creators and workers."

Paramount, WBD hit with lawsuit from 12 states, including California, to block merger
Europe
The Guardian

Tripling US union membership would shift $1.2tn to workers annually – report

A delegate holds a ‘Union Yes!’ sign during the Democratic national convention in Chicago in August 2024. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenA delegate holds a ‘Union Yes!’ sign during the Democratic national convention in Chicago in August 2024. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesUS unionsTripling US union membership would shift $1.2tn to workers annually – reportMore density would also narrow racial pay gaps, while a decline in density correlated to surges in wealth inequality Tripling union membership in the US would lead to a 14.5% raise for the median US worker, shifting $1.2tn to workers annually and significantly narrowing racial wage gaps, according to a new report released on Wednesday. The report from the Economic Policy Institute notes that union membership rates across the workforce, also known as union density, was once three times as high as it is today. Union density in the 1950s was more than 30% before it started to decline in the 1960s. By the 1980s, union density dropped to 22.2% only to decline even further in recent decades, to 10% in 2025. Despite the lower union density, public approval of labor unions has remained high in recent years, with more than 68% of Americans viewing unions favorably in 2025. More than 50 million US workers would join a union if they could. The report notes that the decline in union density comes amid aggressive union busting by corporations and new anti-union laws. Declines in union density have also correlated to surges in wealth and income inequality. Since 1979, worker productivity has increased in the US at a pace 2.7 times faster than the pace of pay increases for workers. “By making it harder and harder for workers to organize and bargain collectively, the rich seized more and more income and wealth, destroying the US middle class,” Robert Reich, former US secretary of labor, writes in the foreword of the report. “Now the wealth of the richest Americans has exploded: the richest 0.1% own more than five times the combined wealth of the entire bottom half of the country.” If union density in the US tripled to 30%, the median worker would see a 14.5% raise amounting to $7,700 annually – over $1.2tn annually to workers – or nearly $270,000 over a 35-year career. It would also narrow the racial wage gap and increase health insurance coverage. These changes would reverse one-third of the rise in inequality since 1979, according to the report. Wage premiums that come with union membership are historically between 15% to 20%, according to the report, and may be underestimated due to low union density. Collective bargaining agreements also increase wages across the board for non-union workers. “I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with workers, no matter where you go – big city, small town – who basically are saying over and over again: ‘My rent keeps going up, my paycheck does not stretch as far as it used to, I walk into the grocery store and I ask myself, when did shit get so expensive?’ It is just a constant.” said Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of labor unions in the US, during a press conference on Wednesday. The report also offered a roadmap on how union membership can increase, including passing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act that would strengthen collective bargaining rights and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act that would guarantee collective bargaining rights for public sector workers. The report also cites proposals that would guarantee annual raises for newly unionized workers and require collective bargaining at companies where the CEO to worker pay ratio exceeds 100:1. Revoking “right to work” laws and restrictions on public sector bargaining would alone increase union density in the US from 9.9% to 14.4%, according to the report. Personal health and wellbeing are also cited in the report as benefits of increasing union density, as states with high union densities have more public education investments, Medicaid expansions and voting rights.

Tripling US union membership would shift $1.2tn to workers annually – report
Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

Sensex today | Stock Market Live: Sensex falls over 600 points as Iran tensions and oil surge rattle markets

Candle stick graph chart of stock market investment trading, Stock exchange concept design and background. Vector illustrations. | Photo Credit: EMOJOEZ Sensex Today, Nifty 50 | Stock Market Live Updates - Find here all the live updates related to Sensex, Nifty, BSE, NSE, share prices and Indian stock markets for 13th July 2026. Indian equity markets opened sharply lower on Monday as escalating US-Iran tensions fuelled a surge in crude oil prices, dampening global risk appetite and weighing on investor sentiment. At 9.16 a.m., the Sensex was down 614.01 points, or 0.79%, at 76,955.38, while the Nifty declined 178.85 points, or 0.74%, to 24,028.05. Asian markets mirrored the cautious mood, with Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s KOSPI falling sharply amid concerns over rising energy costs and renewed geopolitical uncertainty. Brent crude climbed above $78 a barrel, raising worries over inflation, India’s import bill and corporate margins. Despite the near-term headwinds, investors will closely monitor the ongoing earnings season, with results so far broadly in line with expectations. Analysts expect corporate earnings to remain resilient over the medium term, while the recent return of foreign institutional investors as net buyers, strong domestic institutional flows and record SIP inflows are likely to provide support to the market. Crude oil trends, global developments and earnings will remain the key drivers of today’s trade. * Crude oil: Brent above $78, raising concerns over inflation and India’s import bill. * FII flows: Foreign investors turned net buyers last week, offering market support. * Domestic flows: Record SIP inflows and DII buying continue to underpin sentiment. * Key monitorables: Crude oil movement, West Asia developments, corporate earnings and FII activity. India seeks favorable trade terms in US negotiations, rejecting quick deals amid rising exports and economic resilience.

Sensex today | Stock Market Live: Sensex falls over 600 points as Iran tensions and oil surge rattle markets
Asia
The Hindu BusinessLine

Rupee braces for pressure with oil taking centre-stage on US-Iran flare up

The Indian rupee is poised to weaken at Monday's open, with the market's ​focus swinging back to oil after Iran expanded strikes on ‌Gulf states following U.S. attacks, reviving risks to ​India's trade balance. The rupee is expected to ⁠open in the 95.55-95.60 range against the U.S. dollar on Monday, traders said, after settling at 95.3250 on Friday. For the local ‌currency, the focus has swung back to crude oil prices after hostilities between the United ‌States and Iran re-escalated, with U.S. President Donald ‌Trump ⁠saying the ceasefire is over. The rupee traded in ⁠a 94.96-95.60 range last week, largely mirroring moves in crude oil, for which India relies heavily on imports to meet its requirement. ​Traders expect that relationship to ‌persist this week with markets assessing the implications of the latest Middle East strikes and counter-strikes on energy supplies. Beyond the focus on oil, market participants are ‌watching how the Reserve Bank of India responds, a ​currency trader at a private-sector bank said. Bankers said the RBI has been providing its ⁠usual support to the rupee, and the extent of intervention could become more pronounced due to the potential impact ‌from rising oil prices. The private-sector bank trader added that he is monitoring the impact of oil-driven inflation concerns on U.S. Treasury yields. Over the weekend, Tehran expanded its attacks to Qatar and the United ‌Arab Emirates, while the United States launched fresh hits on Iran, ​in the latest part of a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks tied to shipping through ⁠the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said on Sunday that the ⁠Strait remained open to commercial traffic. Earlier, Iran had indicated the strait had been shut. "The latest exchange ‌of strikes has raised fresh doubts about the prospects for a lasting agreement, despite continuing diplomatic contacts," ​ANZ Bank said in a note. Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments. We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.

Rupee braces for pressure with oil taking centre-stage on US-Iran flare up
North America
CNBC Finance

The AI boom just found two new winners: Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase

American megabanks on Tuesday gave evidence that the global artificial intelligence boom isn't just benefiting tech giants and chip makers. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase each posted record quarterly revenue hauls, fueled by massive gains in equities trading and investment banking. Behind the surge in activity — Goldman revenue jumped 39% to $20.3 billion, while JPMorgan saw it rise 27% to $58 billion — is the fact that AI is "everywhere in financial markets," JPMorgan CFO Jeremy Barnum told reporters. "These are booming environments with a ton of activity, big IPOs, big index rebalancing, a lot of activity in Asia," Barnum said Tuesday. "A lot of it is downstream of the AI theme, writ large on a global basis. It's just a very, very, very active environment." The quarter showed that the AI boom is creating winners far beyond Silicon Valley. While Nvidia and hyperscalers including Alphabet have captured many of the headlines, Goldman, JPMorgan and other banks are profiting from the massive flows of capital into AI. They are advising on AI-related deals, financing data centers and power infrastructure, underwriting debt and equity offerings, and facilitating the surge in trading that has accompanied the global race to deploy the technology. That is creating "a ripple effect" across the American economy and giving banks a flood of new opportunities to provide financing and trading solutions across public and private markets, Goldman CEO David Solomon told analysts Tuesday. "We are in the middle of an AI capex super cycle where there are demands on financing in every single financing instrument, in every region of the world and across every single industry," Solomon said. Capex is short for capital expenditures, or investments made by a business for physical assets like factories. Goldman is preparing for a three-to-five year investment cycle that is still in its early stages, he told analysts. While the AI buildout isn't new, what's changed is that it has broadened out beyond chips and software to include power providers and infrastructure players. The top beneficiaries of this trend are the three biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, according to Wells Fargo banking analyst Mike Mayo. The AI investment boom "reached a tipping point" in the second quarter, Mayo said.

The AI boom just found two new winners: Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase
Europe
BBC Business

The mysterious crypto firm backed by Farage's biggest donor

In fact, the single biggest buyer of the precious metal last year was a company you've probably never heard of – a crypto firm called Tether. The El Salvador-based company runs USDT, the world's biggest stablecoin, which is a form of crypto backed up by hard currency. It serves as a conduit between riskier, volatile cryptocurrencies and the conventional finance system, essentially used as an offshore dollar. Yet Tether bought more gold last year than anyone, according to European Central Bank data. It keeps it stored in a James Bond-style Swiss former nuclear bunker, according to Tether's boss. Tether says it also owns as much US Government debt as some G20 nation states, some $135bn (£101bn), which is more than South Korea. It is a huge player, almost taking on the characteristics of a private central bank. Yet it employs just 200 people. It is also, perhaps inadvertently, entangled in the questions around the funding of Nigel Farage's Reform party. Last August, Harborne gave £9m in cash to Farage's Reform party – the biggest party donation in British history. He gave a further £3m to Reform in October and an additional £3m in January. All the donations were declared. Harborne had given £5m directly to Farage, a previously undisclosed personal gift which was the subject of parliamentary investigations, before Farage resigned as an MP. Farage and Harborne have both said there were no strings attached to the personal gift, nor to the political donations to Reform. The Bank of England's governor Andrew Bailey recently confirmed that Farage raised the issue of cryptocurrency regulation and the related issue of central bank digital currencies with him in September last year.

The mysterious crypto firm backed by Farage's biggest donor
North America
CNBC Finance

Jamie Dimon says AI has helped JPMorgan cut up to 40% of jobs in certain roles: Live updates

This is CNBC's live coverage of bank earnings reports for JPMorgan, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Citigroup. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs all reported earnings Tuesday that beat expectations. Three CEOs weighed in on the state of the consumer and discussed how they're thinking about artificial intelligence. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said all of the company's major businesses posted record revenue last quarter. He added that the "U.S. economy has demonstrated notable resiliency this year, with stronger business investment and hiring." Dimon said artificial intelligence has helped the bank cut up to 40% of jobs in certain roles, though he noted that most of those people were offered positions elsewhere in the company. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, meanwhile, said it was one of the strongest quarters to date for his company. "Every business segment reported double digit net income growth and strong returns on equity," he said. He told CNBC that it's up to management teams to mitigate the impact from AI job losses. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said the bank's deals backlog is at the highest level in five years, which bodes well for revenue in future quarters. Solomon also said he sees AI as a transformational technology that enhances talent rather than replacing people. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said he sees AI as a transformational technology that enhances talent rather than replacing people. "There has been much debate around the broader implications of AI on the workforce," he said. "While it will change how work gets done, it will not replace what matters most in driving our business, our extraordinary people." He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times earlier this year arguing that the AI "job apocalypse" is overblown.

Jamie Dimon says AI has helped JPMorgan cut up to 40% of jobs in certain roles: Live updates