London Seeks More Chinese Listings as City Battles IPO Drought
London is seeking to attract more Chinese firms to list on its stock exchange as the city struggles with a shrinking equity market and a deal drought across Europe.
'We need to get more IPOs happening in London,' Chris Hayward, policy chairman of the City of London Corp., said in an interview from Shanghai. 'We don't want to lose business across the Atlantic.'
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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Standard Chartered's Singapore jobs hit as bank chases US$1.5b return to investors
SINGAPORE, June 19 — Standard Chartered has laid off about 80 employees in Singapore, with many roles from its technology and operations teams being offshored to India, according to a report by financial careers site eFinancialCareers. The London-based bank's latest round of job cuts comes under its global 'Fit for Growth' cost-saving programme, which aims to return US$1.5 billion (RM6.38 billion) to shareholders. This move could mark just the beginning of deeper restructuring, as 'sources at the bank in Singapore said the 80 jobs currently being offshored to India are likely only the start'. Responding to queries from The Straits Times, a Standard Chartered spokesman said: 'Singapore remains a critical centre for their global businesses and technology and operations teams,' though he declined to comment on whether the layoffs were directly tied to shareholder returns. 'We continually look to enhance our operations to serve our clients better. As a global firm, we maintain a dynamic blend of world-class local talent in our key markets, including Singapore, and leverage the multi-disciplinary expertise housed in our global business service hubs,' the spokesman added. Despite the cuts, the bank is still actively recruiting in Singapore. A check on its careers portal shows more than 60 open roles, including infrastructure engineers, marketing specialists and digital product leads. Standard Chartered, which earns most of its revenue from Asia and the Middle East, reported stronger-than-expected earnings in the fourth quarter of 2024. Last November, it cut 100 jobs across its Singapore, London and Hong Kong offices as part of its earlier efforts to save over US$1 billion. The latest move comes as global banks continue to restructure their operations. DBS has said it will trim 4,000 contract and temporary roles over the next three years, citing automation and AI adoption. HSBC also announced a wave of cuts in October 2024, mostly targeting senior positions to reduce duplication. Singapore's financial sector remains a key pillar of the economy, contributing 13.8 per cent to GDP in 2024 — up from 12.5 per cent in 2018 — and employing nearly 200,000 people.
News24
19 minutes ago
- News24
Who went to Paris with Paul? Tenderpreneur joined Mashatile's France-SA business trip
Sibuyile Magingxa, Johannesburg's water tanker tenderpreneur, was part of the delegation that joined Deputy President Paul Mashatile in Paris. Also present was musician Lesedi Phala, who is Magingxa's romantic partner and allegedly the niece of SA's ambassador to France, Nathi Mthethwa. Attempts to obtain clear answers on who invited them resulted in a comical loop of referrals and evasions from Mashatile's office, the Department of International Relations, and the Department of Trade and Industry. In May, a South African delegation led by Deputy President Paul Mashatile travelled to Paris for the South Africa-France Investment Conference. The message was clear: South Africa was open for business and eager to attract foreign investment. But while ministers and diplomats delivered speeches about transparency and reform, social media told another story. Photos and videos revealed that two people, Sibuyile Magingxa and Lesedi Phala, were in attendance, despite not appearing on the published list of private sector delegates. Magingxa is one of the two tenderpreneurs at the centre of Johannesburg's R263-million water tanker contract, which is currently the subject of an internal investigation, while Phala - a former Miss South Africa contestant and musician - is his romantic partner. Our research suggests she is also the niece of South African Ambassador to France Nathi Mthethwa. Although Magingxa and Phala did not appear on the list of 80 delegates published by the French hosts, they were nevertheless present at key events and appear to have enjoyed unfettered access to South Africa's international charm offensive. A video Magingxa posted on Instagram seemingly shows him walking a few steps behind Mashatile when he was greeted by dignitaries and ministers at the Hôtel d'Évreux in Paris on 21 May. Photos posted by Phala on Instagram show her posing separately with both Mashatile and Mthethwa at an evening reception hosted at the South African Embassy a few days later. It's important to point out that taxpayers did NOT pay for Magingxa and Phala's trip - they covered their own flights and accommodation costs - but as delegates, they were invited to official dinners, receptions and events that were not open to the public. Their presence - and the efforts of different departments to avoid explaining it - offered a rare glimpse into how influence truly operates in the South African political ecosystem: quietly, and often without accountability. Fingerpointing When we first received a tipoff about Magingxa and Phala's Paris jaunt, we asked Mashatile's office and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) for an explanation. After days of Dirco ghosting us, Mashatile's spokesperson, Keith Khoza, forwarded us what he told us was the department's response: Dirco plays an integral role in reviewing, advising and endorsing government delegation compositions … [Magingxa and Phala's] participation and roles were aligned with the objectives of promoting private sector involvement in South Africa's economic diplomacy. The delegation included some heavy hitters: the CEOs of Eskom, Transnet, the Industrial Development Corporation, the Development Bank of South Africa, Sygnia, and Bigen, as well as senior executives from MTN and VW. So where, we asked, did a controversial tenderpreneur and a social media influencer fit in? But when we returned to Dirco with further questions, it disowned Khoza's response. Instead, spokesperson Clayson Monyela told us that Dirco was not involved in the decision on who to invite and referred us back to Mashatile's office, which then referred us to the Department of Trade, Industry, and Competition (DTIC) … which then referred us back to Dirco. At every stage, officials pointed elsewhere, and no single department accepted responsibility for answering our questions. This recursive loop of referrals did not clarify anything; it instead created a fog of unaccountability, where responsibilities were acknowledged in passing but never fully owned. It would be comical, if it were not so revealing. Invitations without records With no one willing to own the decision to invite Magingxa and Phala, we reached out to Mthethwa, who has been South Africa's ambassador to France since 2024 and, it is alleged, is also Phala's uncle. According to the embassy in Paris, most of the private sector delegates had been handpicked, but 10% - including Magingxa and Phala - reached out to the embassy directly to request invitations. 'Their participation stemmed from an open and inclusive invitation extended to entities in the private sector whose interests aligned with the investment and trade objectives of the SA-France Investment Conference,' the embassy told us in an official response from Mthethwa. The explanation might have held up had there been any official public call for South African businesses to participate in the first place. AmaBhungane searched for one. We asked for it. None was produced. There was no announcement from Dirco, no statement from the DTIC, and no trace of it on the embassy's platforms. In fact, the only public call we could find was a post from the French Chamber of Commerce in South Africa, inviting South African companies to attend the conference, which said it was an initiative of 'the South African Embassy in Paris, in collaboration with the Office of the Deputy President of South Africa, Mr Paul Mashatile'. In its initial response, the embassy told us that 'any qualifying entity that approached the embassy and met the criteria received an invitation to participate', adding that Magingxa and Phala's inclusion 'was not a result of any personal intervention or nomination by Ambassador Mthethwa'. The embassy said: Any suggestion to the contrary is unfortunate, demeaning and must be repudiated as it seeks to impugn the person of the ambassador. But if they had somehow missed the 'exiting news' on the French-South African Chamber LinkedIn post, South African small businesses had no such window. The only 'application' process, it appears, was knowing whom to call and when. It also seemed strange that neither Magingxa nor Phala's names appeared on the list of 80 private sector delegates published by the French hosts. But again, the embassy was ready with a response: 'It is important to clarify that neither Ms Phala nor Mr Magingxa confirmed their attendance on time, and as a result, they were not included in the final list of confirmed participants.' However, when asked for the final list of delegates, the embassy refused, claiming the list was 'proprietary and privileged'. No vetting The embassy told us any qualifying entity that asked to be included in the delegation for Mashatile's trip got the green light. So, we asked, who qualified? 'The conference brought together state-owned enterprises [SOEs], large corporates, medium-sized companies, black industrialists, small, medium and micro enterprises [SMMEs], women-owned businesses, and enterprises owned and managed by the youth,' the embassy told us. 'The entities linked to Ms Phala and Mr Maxingxa meet the criteria mentioned above and operate across the key sectors of the South African economy.' But do they? Phala is listed as a director of four companies - Novo Shi, Law and Life, Letha Ukuthula Holdings, and Luxxo Enterprises - but none of them seem to have any public profile or operational footprint. Instead, her public profile is linked to her work as a model, influencer and musician. AmaBhungane sent detailed questions to Phala about the Paris invitation, her company roles, and ties to Mthethwa. She did not respond to questions sent to her. Magingxa is more active in business, but he is no ordinary entrepreneur. He is a director of Nutinox, a company awarded half of a R263-million contract by Joburg Water in 2024 to provide water tankers to the City. After amaBhungane raised questions about potential collusion in the tender, Joburg Water told us it had launched a formal investigation. A familiar face One name on the official delegate list that did catch our attention was Xolisile Guqaza, a businessman from the Eastern Cape who, in 2013, was one of four people accused of defrauding the Department of Arts and Culture of R2.5 million by claiming to have booked singer R Kelly for a fake performance. According to reports, money flowed through shell companies, and Guqaza was seen ducking photographers in court by hiding under a paper bag. The case was withdrawn in 2016 at which point Guqaza had established a new business, Zoliset, that rents equipment to mines and water tankers to municipalities. When we investigated the R263-million water tanker contract, we found signs of possible collusion between the bidders: the two winning bidders, Magingxa's Nutinox and Builtpro, run by 27-year-old Emmanuel Sserufusa, who previously shared an address in Johannesburg. But Builtpro had also appeared to share an address with another unsuccessful bidder: Zoliset. When we contacted Guqaza in November 2024, he denied having any business ties to Nutinox or Builtpro. He described the address his company shared with Builtpro as a multi-tenant office park and said he was unaware of the other companies operating from the location. Yet photos from Magingxa's Instagram account show that the trio are well-acquainted: both Magingxa and Sserufusa were photographed at his homecoming event in December 2024, and after Mashatile's official trip ended, Magingxa posted photos of himself, Phala and Guqaza at the Monaco Grand Prix. 'This time around, I would like to respond to these questions in person,' Guqaza wrote to amaBhungane in response to the questions sent to him. 'Call me so we can confirm the time and venue for our meeting.' We offered to set up a Zoom meeting, but Guqaza declined and did not take us up on the offer to extend the deadline for a written response. Supplied. The R263-million tender As far as we know, the R263-million Joburg Water tender remains under formal investigation. In February 2025, Mayor Dada Morero announced a probe into the deal following amaBhungane's reporting. But since then, efforts to obtain updates from the City or MMC Jack Sekwaila have led nowhere. AmaBhungane has since uncovered that Magingxa and Sserufusa jointly operate a third company, M and S Traffic Services. According to the company profile, Magingxa is listed as chief executive officer and Sserufusa as chief operations officer - concrete evidence that the two winning bidders did not just share an address but have been in business together. In February 2025, we wrote to Joburg Water describing the document we found, which pointed to possible collusion in the tender. It responded that once it became aware of the media allegations, its internal audit department was tasked with investigating the matter, and the investigation is ongoing. AmaBhungane sent detailed questions to Magingxa and Sserufusa about their business dealings and potential links to the R263-million water tanker contract. Neither responded to the questions. Free pass? If the embassy had Googled Magingxa, our December 2024 investigation would likely have been the first result that came up. And the images we found show Magingxa and Phala were not just casual observers. They were moving in spaces reserved for South Africa's official face to the world. But this cuts no ice with the embassy. 'The embassy administration does not have the capacity to conduct probity checks of companies that requested participation,' it told us. When we asked whether any other arm of government had vetted the delegates who would have direct access to the deputy president and the other ministers on the trip, the embassy got defensive: 'Please explain why any vetting was required?' it wrote. It added: We are not aware of any delegate who has been found guilty of any wrongdoing. But considering that the whole point of the trip was to sell South Africa as a place where French companies could do business, was this the face of South African business that we wanted to show? 'There is no delegate who was crowned as the face or representative of South African business. This is your creation entirely,' the embassy told us in a follow-up response, adding: 'Please accept that your subjects of interest were not the focus of the conference.'
Forbes
20 minutes ago
- Forbes
WhatsApp Rolls Out Ads, Breaking Its ‘No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!' Pledge
POLAND - 2024/02/23: In this photo illustration a WhatsApp logo seen displayed on a smartphone. ... More (Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) For several years, WhatsApp characterized itself on a defining promise: no ads, no gimmicks and no data-hungry distractions. This week, that promise was officially broken. Meta, which acquired the messaging giant over a decade ago, is rolling out advertisements within WhatsApp's 'Updates' tab — an important shift for a platform that long resisted ad-driven revenue models. The move marks WhatsApp's first consumer-facing ad integration, as well as Meta's push to monetize its 3-billion-user crown jewel beyond business tools. 'We've been talking about our plans to build a business that does not interrupt your personal chats for years,' Meta wrote in a June 16 blog post. 'We believe the Updates tab is the right place for these new features to work.' Now, alongside updates from friends and family, users will see sponsored content from businesses. Meta says it will use only limited information for ad targeting, such as a user's city, language and the channels they follow. Notably, it claims it won't access message content, group chats or call data. 'Your personal messages, calls and groups you are in will not be used to determine the ads you may see,' the team wrote. Still, the changes breach the core ethos that helped WhatsApp gain popularity and once set it apart from the more overtly data-hungry design of other social platforms. The tension between WhatsApp's founding values and Meta's business model was laid bare as early as 2018, when co-founder Brian Acton told Forbes he left the company over Facebook's plans to monetize the app by introducing targeted ads in the Status feature and its behind-the-scenes pressure to weaken WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption. In the interview, Acton was unambiguous: 'Targeted advertising is what makes me unhappy.' At the time, Facebook insisted it wouldn't compromise user privacy, but security researchers pointed out to Forbes that there were 'nuanced' ways to extract metadata or scan messages for keywords before encryption, potentially enabling ad targeting without technically breaking encryption. Even earlier, in a now-famous 2012 blog post, WhatsApp co-founders Acton and Jan Koum described their aversion to advertising in detail, and, in the post, even quoted Fight Club to make their point: 'At every company that sells ads, a significant portion of their engineering team spends their day tuning data mining, writing better code to collect all your personal data… We are simply not interested in any of it.' Koum reportedly also kept a note from Acton taped to his desk reading: 'No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!' That ideology was central to WhatsApp's identity. After Meta's $19 billion acquisition in 2014, WhatsApp dropped its $0.99 annual subscription fee but promised to keep the app free of third-party ads and spam. That era is now over. Meta earned more than $160 billion in advertising revenue last year, including Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp is now being folded into the company's broader monetization strategy — and time will tell what kind of trade-offs users are willing to accept. Beyond ads in Status, Meta is introducing promoted channels and paid subscriptions for channel followers. But even if the changes don't affect message threads directly, Meta's ad-driven incentives continue to be at odds with WhatsApp's encryption-first reputation. Online, the backlash was swift. Reddit threads are peppered with users threatening to jump ship to Signal and Telegram. One comment, upvoted more than 3,500 times, reads: 'Meta/Facebook promised to never add advertising to WhatsApp when they acquired the app for $19bln. The moral of the story: Never trust the Zuck.' Others appear less concerned. Since the ads live in the lesser-used Updates tab, many casual users may barely notice. Despite backlash over Instagram ads, Threads rollouts and Facebook redesigns, Meta's platforms have consistently retained users — particularly in markets like India, Brazil and Indonesia, where WhatsApp is used daily to work, shop and bank. Still, WhatsApp is no longer the lean, user-first app it once was. It's now part of Meta's full-stack data-and-commerce engine, with all the complexity — and controversy — that brings. As WhatsApp enters its next era, it's difficult not to consider how unlikely this shift may have looked to its early users. 'Remember, when advertising is involved, you the user are the product,' the app's 2012 manifesto warned. In 2025, that product is mature, monetized and unmistakably meta.
