Frontrunning: June 26

• Chinese Stock Plunge Leaves State Media Speechless (BBG)
• China’s Market Selloff Accelerates (WSJ)
• Any Deal on New Greek Bailout Funds Put Off Until Weekend (WSJ)
• ECB keeps ELA funding limit for Greece unchanged for third day in a row (Reuters)
• Impoverished Greek City Stands With Alexis Tsipras (WSJ)
• Why It Won’t Be a Default If Greece Misses IMF Payment Next Week (BBG)
• Valeant Makes Takeover Approach to Zoetis (WSJ) - or how Ackman assures himself another good T+3 quarter
• From Deutsche Bank to Siemens: What's Troubling Germany Inc.? (BBG)
• Obamacare ruling puts Supreme Court on hot seat in U.S. presidential race (Reuters)
• IAC/InterActive Plans an IPO for Its Matchmaking Business (WSJ)
• Brooklynites Can Work Near Home as Offices Start to Rise (BBG)
• Russia 'playing with fire' with nuclear saber-rattling: Pentagon (Reuters)
• Japan’s Economy to Grind to a Halt in 2nd Quarter, JPMorgan Says (BBG)
• Chief Justice John Roberts Charts Own Path, Frustrating Right Again (WSJ)

Overnight Media Digest

WSJ

* European finance chiefs pushed off talks to seal a Greek bailout deal until the weekend, leaving only days to keep Athens from defaulting on a loan payment early next week. (http://on.wsj.com/1TOENoD)

* The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 vote, ruled the Obama administration can continue to subsidize health-insurance purchases by lower-income Americans in all states, preserving a centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act. (http://on.wsj.com/1HjvyYi)

* The FCC is proposing to close a loophole in wireless auctions that let partners of Dish Network Corp claim $3.3 billion in discounts intended for small businesses. (http://on.wsj.com/1LH9Blq)

* Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc has made a preliminary approach to buy animal-health giant Zoetis Inc, people familiar with the matter said. (http://on.wsj.com/1fGK2qC)

* Canadian mining giant Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc offered to take over K+S AG in a deal that, if successful, would create a company capable of dominating a big chunk of the global market for the fertilizer. (http://on.wsj.com/1eKOCEm)

* IAC/InterActiveCorp unveiled plans to pursue an IPO of its Match Group division, which includes dating site Match.com and dating app Tinder. (http://on.wsj.com/1RztLQd)

* Molycorp Inc filed for protection from creditors, becoming the biggest corporate failure in a bleak year for a mining industry. (http://on.wsj.com/1RzoPL7)

FT

Co-founder of digital invoicing company Tungsten Corp Plc , Edi Truell may take the company private from London's Aim stock exchange, after growing frustrated with short sellers.

Canadian fertilizer producer Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc said it made a "private proposal" to buy German rival K+S for about $7 billion.

South African police have been slammed for their role in killing 34 striking miners in 2012, after a report on the killings came out. This may call out for a further probe on the criminal liability of the officers involved in the killings.

Amazon.com Inc is focussing on getting its deliveries and logistics right in order to snatch business from physical stores. Hitting the 10,000 employee mark for the first time since its launch in 2013, the online retailer is targeting to provide same-day deliveries for products.

NYT

* The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday rejected calls to dedicate more airwaves for smaller wireless carriers in an auction expected next year. Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC, wrote in a blog post that he wanted to keep the level sold exclusively to smaller carriers at the level agreed to last year. T-Mobile US Inc and other smaller wireless carriers lobbied for months to increase the size. (http://nyti.ms/1NlcauR)

* The U.S. House of Representatives gave final approval on Thursday to a significant expansion of aid to workers displaced by global competition, sending to President Barack Obama the second half of a trade package that House Democrats had dramatically rejected just two weeks ago. (http://nyti.ms/1CxPLUF)

* Charter Communications Inc, in an attempt to distinguish itself from Comcast and its failed takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc, promised federal regulators on Thursday that a pair of deals totaling $67.1 billion would pose no threat to the growing market for online video because the combined company's future depended more on broadband than on its legacy video business. (http://nyti.ms/1CxOVHz)

* Taylor Swift said on Thursday that she would stream her latest album, "1989," on Apple Inc's new music service, apparently ending her brief dispute with the tech giant. (http://nyti.ms/1SP9KHP)

* For the first time since a crisis erupted over deadly defects in airbags made by his family's company, the reclusive chief executive of the Japanese supplier Takata Corp publicly addressed the issue on Thursday. He offered an apology but defended Takata's products as fundamentally safe. (http://nyti.ms/1GvUDLB)

* Lululemon Athletica Inc said on Thursday that it would recall elastic drawstrings in about 318,000 women's tops that could snap back and cause eye and face injuries. (http://nyti.ms/1KePjkH)

* Irate taxi drivers blocked roads, burned tires and attacked drivers who they thought were working for Uber, the ride-hailing company, during a day of protests Thursday that disrupted Paris and slowed traffic to a crawl. The strike in France is the latest in a series of challenges confronting Uber, which is based in San Francisco, in a number of European countries in which it operates. The taxi associations here oppose the company's efforts to expand its low-cost UberPop service. (http://nyti.ms/1NhcJVK)

Canada

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

** Canada's federal government is preparing a financial compensation package for Canadian dairy and poultry farmers as a way to blunt the impact of signing onto a massive Pacific Rim trade deal which could allow a surge of agricultural imports

from other countries. (http://bit.ly/1J9l50X)
** Sobeys Inc is preparing to shave 1,300 jobs in the wake of its takeover of Safeway Canada as the country's second-largest grocer looks to consolidate its distribution and office operations and cut costs. (http://bit.ly/1IhmGmN)

** Alberta's plan to increase carbon fees and toughen its climate strategy adds costs and more uncertainty to an industry already struggling to cope with the sharp plunge in oil prices. (http://bit.ly/1RC7P6S)

NATIONAL POST

** Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc submitted a written proposal to buy German fertilizer giant K&S AG , just two years after its last effort failed. The Saskatoon-based company. According to reports, the offer is in the neighbourhood of $8 billion. (http://bit.ly/1IhmYtZ)

** HarperPAC, a conservative third-party group, has announced it is shutting down operations less than a week after its launch. HarperPAC was formed by a team of Conservatives including several former political staffers. Its efforts included a radio ad that targeted Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau. (http://bit.ly/1Hks2g9)

Hong Kong

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

-- Beijing's top representative in Hong Kong on Thursday night hailed pro-establishment lawmakers' support for the electoral reform package and did not take them to task for the botched walkout before the vote last week. The news emerged from a "tea gathering" for 40 Beijing loyalists that also saw an unusually warm reception for the media pack. (bit.ly/1QSgmI1)

-- The government received no dividend from the HK$7 billion ($903.09 million) profit made by the Airport Authority in the last financial year, as it prepares to build a HK$140 billion third runway, its annual report shows. (bit.ly/1KfKokN)

-- Hong Kong's stock market watchdog, Securities and Futures Commission, said it did not support a draft proposal to allow companies to issue weighted voting rights, a week after the markets operator, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, said it would launch a second round of consultation on the contentious topic later this year. (bit.ly/1LykgSB)

THE STANDARD

-- Legislative Council President Jasper Tsang Yok-sing has apologised for taking part in a WhatsApp group chat on last week's political reform vote, but denied violating the principle of neutrality. He said his participation in the group chat was aimed at facilitating the motion debate so that the vote would not end up taking place at night. (bit.ly/1Lt5XxU)

-- Several pan-democrat lawmakers have turned to the instant messaging app Telegram following the fallout from the WhatsApp scandal that has gripped the pro-establishment camp. Telegram allows users to exchange messages just like WhatsApp, and can set up "secret chats" that offer end-to-end encryption with no trace of the message and users can set up self-destruct timers on messages. (bit.ly/1BFdt6m)

-- Restaurant chain Tsui Wah Holdings posted a flat profit last financial year despite robust growth in revenue, highlighting local eateries' wrestling with soaring rent and labour costs. For the year ending March, net profit edged up just 0.88 percent to HK$157.41 million ($20.31 million). (bit.ly/1NgtaBz)

HONG KONG ECONOMIC TIMES

-- Property group Wharf (Holdings) has won a bid for two residential sites in China's Hangzhou for 1.437 billion yuan ($231.46 million).

Britain

The Times

A tranche of projects was put on hold after it emerged that a 38.5 billion stg ($60.62 billion) investment programme overseen by Network Rail has been ravaged by chronic cost overruns and missed targets. In a sign of the severity of the crisis, Richard Parry-Jones, Network Rail's chairman, was replaced by Peter Hendy, the current transport commissioner of London. (http://thetim.es/1GLRn0U)

Debt management companies may have to pay clients compensation for selling services without considering their financial position and for other misleading practices, after a report by the UK financial regulator Financial Conduct Authority revealed that debt management companies routinely treat customers, especially vulnerable members of society, unfairly.(http://thetim.es/1GLRLN1)

The Guardian

The Scottish government has been accused of trying to bury a report that predicts North Sea oil revenues could be 40 billion stg less than the Scottish National Party's most optimistic forecasts by releasing it the day before Holyrood's summer recess - and after the deadline for emergency questions. (http://bit.ly/1KfFTqH)

More than 2 million stg in bonuses have been given to top managers of Lloyds Banking Group, just weeks after the bank was hit with a 117 million stg fine for mishandling payment protection insurance compensation claims. (http://bit.ly/1fHif9M)

The Telegraph

According to Westminster sources close to the Telegraph, the BBC Trust will be axed and its powers handed to the UK communications regulator Ofcom. (http://bit.ly/1e6Ig0R)

Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis will face shareholders for the first time at the retailer's annual meeting on Friday as they look for answers in a year that saw record losses of 6.4 billion stg and an accounting scandal. (http://bit.ly/1Hir7ii)

Sky News

Tyre manufacturer Goodyear is planning to close its only UK factory, with hundreds of workers facing the axe. All 330 staff at the company's Wolverhampton plant are set to lose their jobs in what the Unite union said would be a "devastating blow" for the area. (http://bit.ly/1RAGDpf)

Amazon.com Inc has sparked further anger over its UK tax bill after it emerged it paid just 11.9 million stg in tax last year despite the group taking 5.3 billion stg in sales. (http://bit.ly/1NkSpDv)

The Independent

The British government has said it plans to sell its stake in the Green Investment Bank, the first bank in the world established to make money out of environmentally sustainable projects. (http://ind.pn/1fHoNVF)

Low interest rates and loose monetary policies are threatening the future of the insurance and pension industries by forcing providers to switch their investments into riskier asset classes, a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned. (http://ind.pn/1NdRsfE)

Comments

[Haus-Targaryen]

Greek bailout extended by 6 months -- 

http://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/staatsverschuldung/athen-setzt-sich-du...

Deadlines.  The idea the ECB is a rules base institution is such a joke at this point & time.  Tsipras has the ECB by the balls.  They will do anything to keep Greece, as it is most definitely not contained. 

[Bearwagon]

Bullshittish! BTFD FTMFW!

[Oldwood]

Like everything else in the world it is the failures that provide the opportunities. In debt based economy, non payment is just a cost of doing business that is forced off onto the responsible players...the very foundation of socialist economic theory. The healthy pay for the sick, the employed pay for the unemployed, the responsible pay for the irresponsible. Easy peasy.

Just don't call it default or failure. Those terms have no place in a collective society where all things that would normally be considered default and failure are now hateful and destructive speech if accurately described. Instead all such "events" or simply a failure of our collective spirit. That individual or even national failures are the responsibility of the rest of the world. The only shame...or costs, are reserved to those who actually don't fail.

Greek failure is not their fault, it is Germany and the rest of northern Europe who actually prospered. They are now the "African Americans" of Europe, whereas they are the oppressed and demeaned populace who have become dependents of the EU, and as such stripped of their capability to be productive prosperous people, it is incumbent that the same group that enslaved them to this mentality should now sustain them in their new role as DEPENDENT.

[TeethVillage88s]

Public and Private Executives are not Responsible, True. Banks are not Responsible for their "Risk" in making bad Loans through their special powers to create money out of thin air. Corporate Bailouts (and they are all Corporate Bailouts) are not shows of Responsibility.

Didn't the US Financial Crisis of 2008 cause the Global Financial Crisis and put Europe into Recession. Didn't Greece get particularly hit hard by this European Recession & Financial Crisis. And aren't German, French, Spanish, Italian, and UK Banks obvious participants in the formation of the European Financial Crisis as well?

Yep, plenty of room for our Patriarchs to take Responsibility including Jailing Greek Oligarchs.

But they won't. And if Schauble is one of the Architects of the European Union and the Euro and the EU Banking System with Separate Sovereign Debt for each Country... then maybe the Troika is Irresponsible. Maybe the Troika is to blame for the unconservitive, Risky, European Banking, Accounting & Auditing Systems.

Who do we Trust?

Looks like Everyone Spins the situation for their own power and networks. That is Racketeering, my friend. And if Banks are too Large, too Risky, have too much power, have too much of the Market Share, and are centralizing power while dominating the Markets... that is Anti-Trust, Amigo.

Perhaps Bankers & Lawyers are Criminal Gangs, Hombre.

[Oldwood]

Why it won't be a default if greece misses IMF payment next week.

Because defaults are not allowed. It is the new "N" word that cannot be uttered in public or in print. As this article states, they will simply be in arrears.

“Non-payment of the IMF is unlikely to cause a catastrophic cascade of other liabilities,” said Zoso Davies, a credit strategist at Barclays Plc in London.

"The three major credit-rating companies have also said failure to pay the IMF wouldn’t constitute a formal default." So what is a "formal default" pray tell?

So is it just me wondering why so much worry about wording? Could it be that default actually means the exact same thing as non payment, and is simply not used because of legal definitions for derivatives. They are quiet clear that this wording is a deliberate means of preventing cascading defaults or "non payments".

The reason this is tolerated within the "industry" is that they ALL know it is a fraud and will do or say anything to keep the ponzi going. They have no other skills, street side shell games largely illegal now.

[Max Steel]

funny how bloomberg stressedon state media as if yankee state govt allow their news chaanel media to report truth .