Investments and Business

Taylor Swift has descended on Southeast Asia, or one small part of it at least: All of her six sold-out shows are in Singapore, the region’s wealthiest nation.Many of her fans in this part of the world, which is home to more than 600 million people, are disappointed. But the Singapore leg of Ms. Swift’s wildly popular Eras Tour, which began last weekend and ends on Saturday, is a soft power coup and a boost for the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery.The shows — and the undisclosed price that Singapore paid to host them — have also generated diplomatic tension with…

The activist investor group that is seeking to buy Macy’s increased the pressure on the department store chain on Sunday, raising its offer and disclosing additional details about its financing plans.Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management said in a news release that they were now offering $24 per share, valuing the retailer at $6.6 billion. The new offer is up from the $21 a share they last put forward and a 33.3 percent premium to Macy’s closing share price of at $18.01 on Friday.Arkhouse and Brigade named additional investors they had brought on as equity partners, Fortress Investment Group and…

The F.T.C. sued to block the biggest supermarket merger in U.S. history. The regulator moved to block Kroger’s $25 billion bid for Albertsons, warning that the deal would raise prices and damage union workers’ bargaining power. Insider trading from home The husband of a former BP merger and acquisitions manager who pleaded guilty this month to eavesdropping on her phone calls and then using what he had learned to illegally earn $1.76 million isn’t alone in exploiting remote work to obtain confidential information. There’s also, for example, the chief compliance officer (yes, the chief compliance officer!) who is accused of…

Shares of New York Community Bank slid more than 25 percent on Friday, a day after the lender said its loss in the fourth quarter was $2.4 billion more than it had previously reported, and also announced the departure of its chief executive and a board member.Shares of other regional banks were also lower: Valley National Bank and Columbia Banking System both fell more than 2 percent. The KBW Regional Bank Index, which tracks performance of U.S. regional banks, fell more than 1 percent.The drop in shares of other banks is a sign investors are still nervous about the potential…