The company established its first overseas business in Hong Kong in 2013 in China. Then, it established the Singapore branch in 2014, the Israel branch in 2015, the New York office in 2016, and the Silicon Valley branch in San Francisco in 2017. It also expanded its European markets and branches in 2018.

Currently, the company manages over $14bn in assets for hundreds of thousands of high-net-worth clients in China.

Tang Ning, CreditEase founder and CEO, stated: “growing into the preferred wealth management brand for high-net-worth Chinese in the world is a five-year goal of CreditEase Wealth Management, which is also the next point for organizational remodeling in the next five years. After years of accumulation in capacity, CreditEase Wealth Management is fully prepared in terms of global investment capacity, scientific and technological capacity and service capacity for the international market. We are confident that, with the continuous consolidation of global product investment capacity, CreditEase Wealth Management’s global service capacity will also be further expanded and consolidated.”

CreditEase Wealth Management has a diverse portfolio that has committed to helping clients avail investment, products and opportunities for major asset categories–including a wide range of overseas living services, including: overseas study tours, overseas education consultations, investment and immigration, overseas property, tax planning, legal service referral, insurance, family trusts, high-end institutional internships, and so on.

It was featured among the world’s most-active financial technology investment institutions as of the first quarter of 2018, again in CB Insights—a world renowned market research organization. It rose from seventh place in December 2017 to third place in 2018.

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Sterling was down heavily against all major currencies, as investors sought to insure themselves against the increasing possibility that talks between London and Brussels will break down over the coming months.

Analysts said sterling’s slide – which makes imported goods and foreign travel more expensive but UK exports cheaper – would push up inflation and lead to a renewed crunch on living standards at a time when support for the government and its handling of Brexit has fallen sharply.

The impact from the weaker pound has been felt by Holidaymakers. The walk-up rate at Forexchange bureau de change in Cardiff airport had dropped to just $1.04 (€0.90).

Speculation against the pound has intensified in the past week, as markets have learned to deal with warnings from Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, and Liam Fox, the international trade secretary – about the possibility of Britain chaotically exiting the EU next March. While the government has insisted that it still expects negotiations with the EU over the next few months to prove successful, currency traders have been preparing themselves for the possibility of a deal not to emerge—and hedging against the possibility of harsh post-Brexit conditions.

With less than eight months to go before the UK’s planned departure date, financial markets have now started to take seriously the chances of chaos at the borders and damage to supply chains.

“What we are seeing is broad sterling weakness, a very aggressive weakening trend,” said Peter Kinsella, a strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

The pound lost more than half a cent against the dollar to trade below the $1.29 level for the first time since late August 2017. Sterling also dropped half a cent against the euro to its lowest level for nine months and also posted losses against the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc.

Sterling was trading above $1.43 against the US currency in April, but has been in steady decline due to Theresa May’s inability to find a Brexit plan acceptable to both the EU and her own party.

Analysts said the decision last week by the Bank of England to push official interest rates above 0.5% for the first time in almost a decade has failed to support the pound.

Investors believe the Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) will be in no hurry to move again following Carney’s hint that it would take another three years for official borrowing costs to double from 0.75% to 1.5%. Attention in the City will now focus on Friday’s growth figures for the second quarter of 2018, expected to show the UK economy expanded by 0.4%.

One former MPC member, Andrew Sentance, wrote on Twitter that the next stop for the pound could be $1.25 and that ultimately, it might fall below $1.10.

But analysts at the US investment bank, Morgan Stanley, said they expected the pound’s weakness to be temporary—stating that despite any prospects of further ups and down in negotiations in the coming months, Britain was likely to secure a deal with the EU.

“We see this as a short-term trade as the conclusion of any trade negotiations by early 2019 should cause the pound to strengthen” the analysts said. They predicted that by the end of next year, the pound would be trading at $1.50, around the level at which it stood before the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016.

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“I’m pleased Nasdaq was able to set new highs in terms of operating income and EPS, and deliver continued strong organic revenue growth across the non-transactional businesses, despite a challenging trading volume environment,” said Adena T. Friedman, President and CEO, Nasdaq. “Importantly, we are seeing growth in areas where we’ve invested materially to innovate for the benefit of our clients, bringing them new or enhanced capabilities and efficiencies, in particular in the Market Technology, Information Services and Corporate Solutions businesses.”

Ms. Friedman continued, “We have made significant early progress towards our 2017 execution priorities. We have improved our competitive position, as evidenced by higher market share in several key trading markets, progressed on our acquisition integrations, and continued our efforts to commercialize key disruptive technologies, as illustrated by early sales success of the Nasdaq Financial Framework, our next generation Market Technology offering.”

GAAP operating expenses were $335 million in the first quarter of 2017, up $20 million from $315 million in the first quarter of 2016. The increase primarily reflects incremental operating expenses from the acquisitions closed in 2016.

Non-GAAP operating expenses were $306 million in the first quarter of 2017, up $26 million from $280 million in the first quarter of 2016. This increase reflects $22 million of incremental operating expenses from the acquisitions closed in 2016 as well as $7 million due to organic growth, partially offset by a $3 million favorable impact from foreign exchange rate changes.

“We are making significant progress executing against our acquisition integration plans, and we remain on pace to hit our synergy target of $60 million by the end of 2017,” said Michael Ptasznik, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Nasdaq.

Mr. Ptasznik continued, “We are continuing Nasdaq’s strong track record on capital returns to shareholders with the announced 19% increase in our quarterly dividend and material first quarter share repurchases, the latter expected to largely offset the dilutive impact of equity-based compensation and other commitments in 2017.”

• Represents revenues less transaction-based expenses.
• Represents revenues from our Corporate Services, Information Services and Market Technology segments, as well as our Trade Management Services business.
• Refer to our reconciliations of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP net income (loss), diluted earnings (loss) per share, operating income and operating expenses, and total variance impact analysis included in the attached schedules.
• Represents revenues from our Corporate Services, Information Services and Market Technology segments.

On a GAAP basis, net income attributable to Nasdaq for the first quarter of 2017 was $169 million, or $0.99 per diluted share, compared with net income of $132 million, or $0.78 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2016.

On a non-GAAP basis, net income attributable to Nasdaq for the first quarter of 2017 was $187 million, or $1.10 per diluted share, compared with $153 million, or $0.91 per diluted share, in the first quarter of 2016.

As discussed, on our prior quarterly call, both GAAP and non-GAAP net income and EPS comparisons to the prior year period benefited from the 2017 adoption of ASU 2016-091, which in the first quarter of 2017 reduced the effective tax rate on our income statement, adding $0.13 to diluted EPS for the first quarter of 2017.  Cash tax payments were not affected by the change.

During the first quarter of 2017, the company repurchased 2.2 million shares of common stock for a total cost of $156 million.  As of March 31, 2017, there was $273 million remaining under the board, authorized share repurchase program.

On March 31, 2017, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $386 million and total debt of $3,621 million, resulting in net debt of $3,235 million. This compares to net debt of $3,200 million at December 31, 2016.

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The national vacancy rate, which stood at 15.9% in the previous quarter, has now fallen to 15.4%

Asking rent grew by 0.3 percent while effective rent rose by 0.4 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the report.

In the third quarter, asking rent for the sector grew by 0.3 percent while effective rent rose by 0.4 percent.

In the second quarter, asking and effective rent had risen 0.6 percent.

Construction activity rose from the third quarter, with 8.53 million square feet of new office construction completed.

The recent employment growth should pull the vacancy rate down further in 2017 while rent growth should accelerate back towards a 3 percent annual growth rate, the firm stated.

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