New Bank of England Governor (Bailey) Appointed

Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, has been appointed as the new governor of the Bank of England. The move is not without controversy, with the FCA being criticised over its supervision of Neil Woodford (formerly fund manager at Invesco Perpetual, since rebranded to Invesco)'s flagship fund which was suspended in June 2019 and eventually closed.

Saudi Aramco IPO Goes Live Raising $25.6bn

The shares were priced at 32 Saudi Riyals or 8.53 USD. The valuation is $1.7 trillion versus $2 trillion target. This makes it more valuable than Apple, valued at $1.17 trillion.

US-China Trade War Hits Hardware Vendors' Bottom Line - Cisco, HP Enterprise and Dell

CISCO CEO, Los Gatos resident and Maths and Computing graduate Chuck Robbins (who succeeded John Chambers as CEO in July 2015), has blamed the macroeconomic climate for poor results. HPE made similar comments.

Saudi Aramco Plans Tadawul Listing

Saudi Arabian Oil Company is planning to list on Tadawul.

The TASI (Tadawul All Share Index) denominated in Saudi Riyal (where one SAR is around 27 cents) is down around 2%.

Foreign listing plans have been put on the shelf for now. Oil in Saudi Arabia is relatively cheap to extract being close to the surface.

Planned Float on NYSE For "Innovative and Agile" Virgin Galactic

Sir Richard Branson announced this move would "open space to more investors" and in doing so "thousands of new astronauts". Virgin Galactic is already merged with public firm Social Capital Hedosophia (which has shares and warrants on the NYSE and invests in "innovative and agile technology companies"), making its listing process simpler. Hedosophia shares jumped 11% in anticipation.

VG was founded in 2004 and has so far invested more than $1bn in its development program. Flights to space will be charged at $250,000 a ticket.

Operationally, VG conducts its manufacturing, design and test from purpose built facilities in California and New Mexico.

Spaceport America New Mexico, the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport, on an 18,000 acre site, is the launchpad for its planned operations (also used by Boeing and UP Aerospace).

Blackstone Real Estate Buys Out the Bellagio

BREIT (Blackstone Real Estate Investment Trust) has formed a joint venture to buy out Bellagio Real Estate for $4.25 billion. The joint venture owns the property and receives rent payments. MGM Resorts will lease back the property and be responsible for all capital expenditures. Blackstone President and COO, Jon Gray, remarked his team were "big believers in MGM Resorts and Las Vegas". JP Morgan was financial advisor to MGM Resorts. Citigroup and Morgan Stanley were finanical advisors to BREIT.

UK's Conservative Whip Amber Rudd Resigns

Amber Rudd has resigned the Conservative whip in response to the sacking of 21 Tory MPs in the run up to Britain's advertised EU exit date of 31 October.

She was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions by Prime Minister Theresa May on 16 November 2018 and reappointed by Boris Johnson in July 2019.

A whip ensures "party discipline" in a legislature. Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada have all embraced the whip system inherited from British rule.