Bloomberg - Evening Briefing - China hides the ball

China took another step to obscure information about overseas funds going into and out of its sagging stock market. Now Beijing says it will stop publishing daily flows data. The decision follows a move in May to end data on intraday flows through trading links with Hong Kong. Investors will lose the ability to calculate net flows at the end of each trading day from Aug. 18. The only daily data published by the exchanges from that date onward will be the total turnover and the number of trades made in stocks and exchange-traded funds via the Hong Kong links, as well as the turnover of the 10 most active securities. This latest retreat into opacity follows attempts by Chinese policymakers to prop up faltering confidence among local investors, an effort that’s been battered by fleeing global funds. Overseas money managers offloaded about $4.1 billion of mainland shares this month. —David E. Rovella

Vitol Group paid a record dividend of $6.5 billion last year, the latest evidence of how the energy crisis has delivered spectacular riches to the world’s commodity traders. The payout represents an average of some $14 million for each of the roughly 450 employees who own the company—with some senior traders likely to have received multiples of that. The world’s largest independent oil trader has distributed more than $25 billion to its partners over the past 15 years. The four leading privately-owned energy traders—Vitol, Trafigura Group, Mercuria Energy Group and Gunvor Group—have made combined net profits of more than $50 billion in the past two years. By comparison, in 2018-2019 their combined earnings were just $6.8 billion.

An investor group led by Sixth Street agreed to buy property and casualty insurer Enstar Group for $5.1 billion in the second-largest private equity backed insurance deal of the year. Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s Liberty Strategic Capital and J.C. Flowers & Co. are also participating in the deal. Formed in 1993, Enstar helps other insurance providers manage their risks by acquiring or re-insuring legacy blocks of business, often accident-related policies written several years before.

Steven Mnuchin Photographer: Bloomberg

GSK and Flagship Pioneering entered a partnership to develop as many as 10 new drugs in a deal that could pay more than $7 billion to firms supported by the venture capital biotech. Flagship, which created mRNA Covid-vaccine maker Moderna, and GSK will jointly put $150 million upfront toward exploring new respiratory and immunology treatments. GSK will commit as much as $720 million for each of the 10 drugs, including upfront payments, if they reach all of their development and commercial milestones.

The Pentagon isn’t giving Congress and the public a full assessment of its difficulties in developing hypersonic weapons. This according to the Government Accountability Office, which says that despite test failures with Air Force and Army systems that were supposed to be operational by now, the Pentagon “is not comprehensively communicating and reporting to Congress its progress on managing risks.” The US lags behind nuclear-armed rivals Russia and China despite paying $12 billion to US defense contractors over six years.

Donald Trump revisited one of his favorite mantras on Friday night, Timothy L. O’Brien writes in Bloomberg Opinion: He would like to be president for life. “Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore,” he told a religious group at a Florida event. While Trump’s followers insist he didn’t mean it that way, O’Brien reminds that the Republican has never shown a willingness to surrender power. He and his allies waged dozens of legal challenges to the results of the 2020 election. They created slates of fake electors to undermine the Electoral College tally and Trump personally pressured state officials to dispute the results. Trump also fomented an insurrection at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to overturn his defeat at the hands of President Joe Biden. And he continues to perpetrate the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him. So, O’Brien writes, when Trump says he won’t give up power, it may be wise to take him at his word.

Donald Trump Photographer: Brandon Bell/Getty Images North America

A number of fiber optic cables carrying broadband service across France were cut overnight in the latest attack on the country’s infrastructure during the Olympic Games. Connections serving Paris, which is hosting the Olympic Games this week, and the games themselves weren’t affected, a spokesman for Olympics telecom partner, Orange SA, said. Still, it’s the second sabotage of French infrastructure in the past few days as the world converges on the capital. Coordinated fires on French rail lines disrupted trains ahead of the opening ceremony on Friday. 

It’s been almost two years since Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup, a controversial off-season spectacle that witnessed hundreds of deaths among migrant workers as they readied the planet’s biggest sporting event. Now the bill seems to be coming due. State-backed lenders that helped finance everything from highways and hotels to stadiums and sewage systems are grappling with rising loan losses. The gas-rich government has never let a Qatari bank fail, but the price this time may include placing limits on the $510 billion sovereign wealth fund just as its global profile reaches new heights.

Pyrotechnic fires ahead of the opening match of the FIFA World Cup between host Qatar and Ecuador in November 2022.  Photographer: Christopher Pike/Bloomberg

• South Korea says it’s identified Kim Jong Un’s potential successor.
• A war with North Korea would kill millions and cost $4 trillion.
• Investors see gold as a hedge in case of a Trump election victory. 
• Bloomberg Opinion: How Canada is defending its vast Arctic territory. 
• US machine maker blames China for its bankruptcy.
• The deadly dance of breaking up a ship.
• This is who is winning at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Hundreds of Venezuelans have taken to the streets to protest what they say is a fraudulent election victory claimed by Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s longtime leader who has presided over its economic collapse. Hundreds marched toward downtown Caracas from one of the city’s largest low-income neighborhoods. Some demonstrators appeared to be armed. Around 4:30 p.m., hundreds had reached Caracas’ international airport, screaming “freedom.” The demonstrations followed a press conference Monday morning in which the Maduro regime claimed opposition leader María Corina Machado was involved in a plot to alter voting results sent from polling places to electoral authority headquarters. Shortly after, Maduro was certified as Venezuela’s president elect.  

Riot police used tear gas against demonstrators during a protest by opponents of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Monday in Caracas. Photographer: Yuri Cortez/AFP

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