(Bloomberg) The arrest of Huawei Technologies Co.’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, has thrown a spanner in the works for the prospect of improving relations between the U.S. and China. There is a debate raging in Beijing on whether the country should continue with trade talks, or see the move as part of a wider American campaign against China and retaliate accordingly. Either way, the U.S. is continuing to make things hard for companies and countries that threaten its global tech dominance. 

EquityLine Mortgage Investments Corporation, a Canadian mortgage company that finances projects traditionally ignored by mortgagors, will seek to raise US$10 million in a preference share offer that opens in Kingston on December 10. The start-up company aims to list on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE), and subsequently, on the Toronto Stock Exchange.  The offer includes $5Mn of 8% preference shares at US$2 each, with an option to upsize the offer. On the overseas market, it will seek to raise an additional US$20 million. The funds will allow the company to acquire portfolios of mortgage assets worth nearly the value of the sums it raises from the market. Another overseas entity, MPC Clean Energy, is also making an offer in the local market which opened on Monday.

EIGHT founders of Toronto-based Alignvest Acquisition II Corporation and certain other investors close to the company that proposes to buy out 100 percent of regional insurer Sagicor may receive CAN$129 million in profit as the holders of a special class of shares. At the close of its initial public offering (IPO) in May 2017, Alignvest issued a total of 12,887,500 Class B Shares for an aggregate price of C$25,785 or approximately C$0.002 per Class B Share. Some 86 percent of these shares, a total of 11,112,271 Class B shares, were issued to individuals described as the founders of Alignvest. (Trinidad Express) 

(CNBC) OPEC is meeting at its headquarters in Vienna, Austria, with the aim of reaching an accord over production levels for the next six months. Saudi Arabia has been leading calls for the group to trim output, amid surging supply and fears that an economic slowdown will erode fuel demand. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih told reporters on Thursday morning that a cut of 1 million barrels would be sufficient. That level is less than many analysts anticipated.

(CNBC) U.S government debt prices rose on Thursday, with investors rattled by volatility in equity markets and anxiety around a potential yield curve inversion. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note sank to around 2.892 percent, while the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond dipped to 3.157 percent. Bond yields move inversely to prices. Yield curves typically slope upward, as investors expect higher returns as they take on more risk the longer amount of time it takes for a bond to reach its maturity. But recently the spread between the 2-year and 10-year yields has narrowed, while the spread between the 3-year and 5-year yields already inverted earlier this week. That’s a point of nervousness for investors as yield inversions tend to precede a recession.

International remittance company MoneyGram has been fined in its home market for failing to crack down sufficiently on fraudulent money transfers within its global network, but Jamaican agent Lasco Financial Services Limited says there is no negative impact for the local operations. Through a press release on the JSE, Lasco Financial Services assured shareholders that the development is not a threat to MoneyGram’s ongoing business nor to Lasco Financial Services commercial activities. It further stated that since the original prosecution in 2012, MoneyGram has taken significant steps to improve their compliance programme and have remediated many of the issues which were originally detected.

(Source: JSE)

At this point, the Fed should pause on interest rate increases, says Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari. Hiking rates too forcefully before necessary could risk causing a recession in the U.S. economy, Kashkari argues. Kashkari believes rates are "close to neutral," a level hotly debated ever since Fed chief Jerome Powell's controversial comments last month.

(Source: CNBC)

T&T faces the possibility of losing CARICOM markets for the export of fuel as the price of fuel coming out of T&T is likely to increase. Minister of Energy Franklin Khan told the Senate yesterday that CARICOM countries now have the option of sourcing their products on the open market. He said Petrotrin still has the ability to supply small cargoes, including aviation fuel, to small CARICOM countries that gives it a strategic advantage. However, with a change in the business model and Petrotrin having to import products from outside of the CARICOM region, there is a possibility of increases in prices.

(Source: The Guardian)

President Donald Trump joined the leaders of Canada and Mexico at a global meeting in Argentina on Friday to sign a revised North American trade pact that he called "ground-breaking" and a benefit for "working people. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is meant to replace the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has long denigrated as a "disaster". He appeared with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and outgoing Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto at the Group of 20 nations summit in Buenos Aires for the formal signing ceremony. Each country's legislature must also approve the agreement.

(Source: CNBC)

The door has been left open for Sagicor Financial to accept an acquisition offer better than the US$536Mn one now on the table from Canadian company Alignvest Acquisition II Corporation. Sagicor Financial Corporation group chief operating officer Ravi Rambarran revealed on Wednesday that the possibility of a takeover battle is covered in the Arrangement Agreement between the two entities. The Arrangement Agreement said Sagicor was free to negotiate with other entities offering a “superior” proposal once it gave Alignvest adequate notice. The Canadian company has also negotiated the right to increase its offer in those circumstances. Officials said once regulatory approval was received, Sagicor Financial would be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and delisted from the Barbados Stock Exchange, the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.

 (Source: NationNews)