Bloomberg Businessweek-Europe Edition 8/7/2017

Americas The U.S. tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on Aug. 2. Although the launch came just days after North Korea’s trial of a missile that experts say could reach California, it was “not a response,” military officials said. A company involved in setting up voting systems for Venezuela’s July 30 constituent assembly elections said President Nicolás Maduro’s government manipulated results, inflating turnout by at least 1 million. Venezuelan authorities rejected the allegation. ▷ 10 ● Apple beat Wall Street expectations with a surge in demand for iPads and Mac computers. In the quarter ended July 1, sales rose 7 percent from the previous year and profit jumped 12 percent. ● A faction of bitcoin users created a blockchain-based currency called Bitcoin Cash. ● The number of honeybee colonies in the U.S. increased 3 percent in…

Donald Trump has a habit of projecting his anxieties while trying to mask them. You can sometimes tell what’s going on inside the White House by checking the president’s Twitter feed—and assuming the opposite of whatever he claims. Take the recent White House shakeup that abruptly remade his senior staff. On the morning of July 31, Trump fired off a tweet extolling the booming stock market and low unemployment rate and then added, a bit defensively, “No WH chaos!” This was a sure sign that the chaos inside the White House had reached a fever pitch. Within an hour of Trump’s tweet, the president’s new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, who’d been on the job for only 10 days, was sent marching. This followed the sudden firing of Chief of Staff Reince Priebus,…

President Nicolás Maduro’s bogus vote to rewrite Venezuela’s constitution is an affront to its democratic government. To persuade him to change course, the country’s neighbors will have to forge an unprecedented common front. Notwithstanding the regime’s claims, the number of Venezuelans who voted for a new constitutional convention on July 30 was likely well below half the number who voted against it two weeks before. In the day preceding the vote, some 15 people were killed. But more unrest won’t deter the regime from dissolving the opposition-controlled legislature, cracking down further on protesters, and booting internal dissenters such as the attorney general. What’s needed is concerted and sustained action. The U.S. has just added Maduro to its list of Venezuelan officials facing sanctions, which Mexico, Panama, and Colombia have said they will…

For one of China’s most powerful investors, Guan Jun is surprisingly difficult to track down. On a sweltering July afternoon in Beijing, two Bloomberg staffers set out to find Guan, who until recently controlled a stake in airlines-to-finance conglomerate HNA Group Co. that on paper was worth almost $18 billion. The first stop was the headquarters of cosmetics company Beijing Mei Yue Xi Beauty Technology Ltd., which corporate registries indicate Guan controls. On the fifth floor of a nondescript building in a quiet neighborhood of the capital, the office was empty and locked. A man in the hallway said whoever worked there had moved away a couple of months before. Another dead end: an apartment that Guan listed as his address in Hong Kong filings. The current tenant, who would give…

Airlines ● Owns Hainan Airlines, China’s largest private carrier ● Paid $450 million for a stake in Azul, Brazil’s third-largest airline ● Bought cargo handler Swissport International in 2015 for 2.7 billion Swiss francs ($2.8 billion) ● Acquired about 19 percent of Virgin Australia in 2016 ● Paid $1.5 billion for Gategroup, the world’s second-largest airline catering company Financials ● Owns a 9.9 percent stake in Deutsche Bank worth more than $3 billion ● Paid $446 million for a 25 percent stake in the U.S. asset management unit of U.K.-South Africa financial-services company Old Mutual ● Agreed to buy SkyBridge Capital, the investment company founded by former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci (pending regulatory review) Hotels ● Bought a 25 percent stake in Hilton Worldwide for $6.5 billion in 2016 ● Bought Carlson Hotels, parent company of Radisson hotels, in 2016 ●…

People flocked to the party Tesla Inc. threw at its California factory—and livestreamed around the world—on July 28 to celebrate the first delivery of its long-awaited Model 3. More than 500,000 people have put down deposits on the sedan, drawn in part by the $35,000 price tag—a bargain compared with the six figures that one of the automaker’s Model S sedans or Model X SUVs can command. Yet the new car’s sticker price is just a starting point, and many buyers could still find Tesla’s brand of cool well out of reach. “One question for Model 3 reservation holders is: How much are they really willing to pay?” says David Whiston, an auto analyst with Morningstar Inc. “Thirty-five grand is going to get you a very basic model. The average Model…