Author: The Editorial Team

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – The Kings Arms Hotel is a 300-year-old inn next to London’s Hampton Court Palace, once the home of Henry VIII. It’s poised to open soon after refurbishment, with rooms costing about 250 pounds ($318) a night. Guests can dine on traditional fare in the Six restaurant, a reference to the monarch’s many wives, or grab a pint on the terrace. In this most English of settings, it’s fitting the owner…

HARARE (Capital Markets in Africa) – For Zimbabwe’s government, the reintroduction of the national currency a decade after its demise is a return to “normalcy.” For most of the country’s citizens, it’s a bitter reminder of years of hyperinflation, which destroyed their savings and left them bartering for daily basics. “Remember 2008, when you needed trillions of dollars to buy bread? In Zimbabwe time goes backward,” said Edwin Mapondera, 34, who sells wooden sculptures in the affluent…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Last month, the U.S. Treasury increased the number of economies it scrutinizes to 21 from 12 and expanded its watch list from four to nine, adding countries such as Ireland, Italy and Singapore under new tougher criteria. It again refrained from labeling China a manipulator. The Commerce Department on May 23 proposed allowing U.S. companies to seek trade sanctions against goods from countries with “undervalued’’ currencies, though it said it did not intend…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – President Donald Trump has already given the global economy trade wars. Now there are signs he may be gearing up for a currency war, too. With a series of tweets on Tuesday aimed at the European Central Bank and an announcement by Mario Draghi, its president, that he was prepared to cut interest rates further below zero in response to Europe’s slowing growth, Trump made a rare American presidential intervention into another…