Flash Briefing: Alphabet disappoints; Mabula’s fugitive owner to be extradited; Bond king dethroned

By Alec Hogg.In today's global business headlines:.___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Alphabet shares fell 3% in after-hours trading after the company which owns Google last night delivered quarterly results revealing shrinking profit margins and overall revenue growth which disappointed analysts. The profit margin contracted from 24% to 21% with the benefits of its dominance in internet advertising offset by higher costs from elsewhere. Overall revenue rose 22% year on year, a number interpreted as disappointing because it was lower than the rate posted 12 months before. Investment analysts expressed concern that threatened regulation will hurt Google's internet advertising golden goose, with nothing evident in the rest of the group to offset that anticipated decline. Alphabet continues to invest heavily in its quest for its next big thing, spending a record $4bn on research and development in the December quarter.The celebrated career of 74-year-old fixed interest market guru Bill Gross has come to an ignoble end. Wall Street's one-time bond king announced his retirement yesterday after another year of poor performance. In 2014, Gross had an acrimonious departure from Pimco, the giant money manager he helped to build and where he once managed a bond fund with assets of $293bn – pretty close to South Africa's GDP. But his returns at Janus Henderson, which he joined four years ago, have been underwhelming. Initially enthusiastic investors have since abandoned Gross, whose flagship Janus fund now has under $1bn in assets under management. At one point the Pimco co-founder earned more than $200m a year with a reputation ranking alongside industry legends Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch.British Prime Minister Theresa May heads for Northern Ireland today in a two-day effort to arrange an acceptable divorce with the European Union. She only has a week to secure a deal to leave the EU while keeping open the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain, and the republic of Ireland to the south. We continue to see contrasting Brexit reactions from business. This morning Japan's Nissan announced it will no longer be tooling up the Sunderland plant to produce X-Trail SUVs as had previously been announced. On the other side, Canada's Sunrise Records says it has acquired the 100 store HMV chain, pulling the troubled retailer out of administration and securing the jobs of its 1,487 staff.In South African related news, owner of five-star Mabula Game Lodge in Limpopo, apparent billionaire Vijay Mallya, is losing his battle against being extradited from the UK to his native India. Mallya fled India in 2016 with creditors hot on his heels. Ever since, the Indian Government has been working to extradite the 63-year-old to face charges of defrauding banks by using his company to take out loans he had no intention of ever repaying. Yesterday the chief magistrate at the Westminster court granted the extradition order while describing Mallya as a "flashy, bejewelled, ostensibly billionaire playboy who charmed and cajoled these bankers into losing their common sense and persuading them to put their own rules and regulations to one side." Immediately after the finding, Mallya tweeted that he would appeal.

Flash Briefing: Alphabet disappoints; Mabula’s fugitive owner to be extradited; Bond king dethroned

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