Latest News on private equities market

By Karin Strohecker, Marc Jones, Rodrigo Campos and Cassandra Garrison

U.S. President Donald Trump was vague on Friday about whether he would sign or veto legislation to back protesters in Hong Kong as he tries to strike a trade deal with China, and boasted that he alone had prevented Beijing from crushing the demonstrations with a million soldiers.

British Airways and its pilots' union BALPA have reached a preliminary agreement to end the pay dispute that resulted in the first walkout by pilots in the airline's history, the union said on Friday.

Volkswagen's premium unit Audi wants to cut thousands of jobs to fund a costly transition to electric vehicles, but talks with powerful labor representatives have hit a logjam, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Asia-focussed insurer AIA Group Ltd on Friday named a senior executive at Chinese rival Ping An Insurance Group Co as its chief executive officer to replace company veteran Ng Keng Hooi.

"People are looking at the stock market that's going straight up and it's making them greedy," one analyst says.

Global private equity group KKR & Co has raised $1.5 billion for its first Asia-focused infrastructure fund, roughly half the total targeted, one person with direct knowledge said. KKR began to target Asia's infrastructure sector with a series of hires beginning about a year ago and launched its fundraising in 2019.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Friday that Beijing and Washington should strengthen communication on strategic issues in order to avoid misjudgment and misunderstanding, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported.

South African Airways (SAA) signed a deal on Friday with a union not involved in a strike that has crippled the heavily indebted carrier, giving its members a 5.9% pay rise backdated to April.

The leaders of the United States and China on Friday both underscored their desire to sign an initial trade deal and defuse a 16-month tariff war that has lowered global growth, providing a welcome boost to financial markets.

"People are looking at the stock market that's going straight up and it's making them greedy," one analyst says.

The board of Australia's second largest bank on Friday apologized unreservedly for 23 million breaches of money laundering laws, but stood by management despite pressure from politicians to review its leadership.

Tesla Inc on Thursday unveiled its first electric pickup truck that looked like a futuristic angular armored vehicle in gunmetal gray, as the California company took aim at the heart of Detroit automakers' profits.

China wants to work out an initial trade agreement with the United States and has been trying to avoid a trade war, President Xi Jinping said on Friday, but is also not afraid to retaliate when necessary.

A broad gauge of Asian equities made a slight recovery on Friday from three-week lows hit the previous day, with gains limited by investors' uncertainty over chances of China and the United States striking a preliminary deal soon to end their trade war.