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(Reuters) -Long-term Starbucks shareholders have written to the company to resume talks with its workers' union to discuss staffing, wages and other issues, a letter posted on the New York City Comptroller's website on Thursday showed. The letter, signed by Comptroller Brad Lander, Trillium Asset Management, the Shareholder Association for Research and Education and Pensions Investment Research Consultants, was addressed to Starbucks' board members Jorgen Vig Knudstorpand and Beth Ford and called on the company to reach a contract agreement with Starbucks Workers United. "We are concerned that Starbucks' labor relations have significantly deteriorated, as reflected by over one hundred Unfair Labor Practice complaints filed since the beginning of the year, in-store actions, partner walkouts and protests over store closings, and even strikes," the letter said. The New York City pension funds said they were the largest Starbucks stockholders within the group, with about 1.33 million shares. Starbucks did not respond to a request for comment. The union has been at odds with management for months. Talks between Starbucks and Starbucks Workers United, which represents more than 12,000 baristas, began in April last year but have since stalled. In December, union members staged multi-day strikes across several U.S. cities during the peak holiday season. "Over three years have passed since the first successful union election by Starbucks Workers United and yet no contract agreement has been reached," the letter said. The Starbucks' store in Buffalo, New York was the first company-owned location to unionize in the U.S. in December 2021. There are over 650 unionized Starbucks stores currently in the country, according to the SBWU's website. The SBWU republished excerpts from the shareholder letter on its website, without commenting further. Last month, Starbucks said it would shutter underperforming stores in North America, including its flagship unionized outlet in Seattle, as CEO Brian Niccol pushed ahead with a $1 billion restructuring aimed at reviving sales. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Mrinmay Dey and Juveria Tabassum in Bengaluru; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

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By Alun John, Ankur Banerjee and Manya Saini SINGAPORE/LONDON (Reuters) -Fear over credit quality in U.S. regional banks rippled through markets on Friday, dragging global financial stocks lower and reviving memories of the crisis of confidence that shook sentiment just over two years ago. The selloff hit Wall Street, with main equities indexes seeing a mixed open, as investors stayed on edge with banking sector worries adding to anxiety already heightened by escalating U.S.-China trade tensions and renewed worries about the global economic outlook. The banking sector's exposure to two recent U.S. auto bankruptcies has rekindled concerns about lending standards more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank's failure, when high interest rates drove paper losses on its bonds and sparked a global bank stocks rout. Investors are now trying to assess whether recent issues in U.S. credit markets will have a similar effect, as an overnight selloff on Wall Street rippled across Asia and Europe and shone a spotlight on the recent AI-led surge in broader stock markets that some fear could have created a bubble. Some analysts said, at this stage, the concerns around U.S. regional banks appeared idiosyncratic rather than a sign of something more systemic.  "Pockets of the U.S. banking sector including regional banks have given the market cause for concern," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.  "This includes Zions flagging an unexpected loss on two loans and Western Alliance alleging a borrower had committed fraud." MARKETS WHIPSAW Some of the largest U.S. banks fell in Friday trading, closing a week marked by broadly strong earnings on a dour note. The KBW Banks Index, which tracks large-cap banks, fell 0.4%.  White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Friday that banks have ample reserves and that he was optimistic that credit markets could stay ahead of the curve. He added in an interview with Fox Business Network that Trump administration officials led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve's Michelle Bowman are "cleaning things up right now" without providing further details. "What we see in the banks selling off overnight in the U.S., Asia wakes up to it, Europe wakes up to it, and so it spreads," said TD Securities head of global macro strategy James Rossiter. European banks fell almost 3%, with Deutsche Bank and Barclays sliding around 6%, and Societe Generale down 4.6%, after financial firms in Asia, especially Japanese banks and insurers sank. In early U.S. trading, the SPDR S&P regional banking ETF was up 0.4%, a day after the benchmark tumbled 6%, its steepest one-day selloff in six months.  Strong earnings from Truist Financial, Regions Financial, and Fifth Third bolstered investor sentiment, sending most U.S. regional banks higher in morning trading. Zions Bancorp, at the heart of the investor scrutiny, recovered some lost ground, after closing down 13%. Western Alliance was up 2.6% after losing roughly 11% on Thursday.  "Despite growing hopes of further rate cuts this year, attention is turning to the underlying health of the economy, as emerging credit losses amongst America’s regional banks raised further questions about lending practices," said Derren Nathan, head of equity research, Hargreaves Lansdown.  The U.S. KBW Regional Banking Index closed down 6.3% on Thursday.  The latest selloff came after Zions said it would take a $50 million loss on two commercial and industrial loans from its California unit, while Western Alliance disclosed it had initiated a lawsuit alleging fraud by Cantor Group V, LLC. Attorneys for Cantor denied the allegations. Credit impairments in private debt have been rising and default rates have hit 5.5%, said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer at RBC BlueBay Asset Management, citing the latest available data for the second quarter.    Despite tenuous gains in U.S. bank stocks, the gloom spread across other pockets of the U.S. financial sector, weighing on mortgage lenders, buy-now-pay-later firms, and brokerages. Analysts say that any cracks in credit on Wall Street are likely to spill over into other areas of the financial sector. Robinhood and Interactive Brokers fell 1.5% and 2%, respectively. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this week about credit markets: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more, and so everyone should be forewarned."      BROADER MARKET IMPACT  "The market is clearly priced for perfection," said Bo Pei, analyst at US Tiger Securities. "This leaves sentiment vulnerable, so even isolated negative headlines can trigger outsized reactions like what we saw yesterday."  European bank shares are up some 40% year-to-date. Gold meanwhile hit a fresh record high.  U.S. banks borrowed nearly $15 billion from the Federal Reserve's Standing Repo Facility (SRF) on Wednesday and Thursday, suggesting tightness in meeting funding obligations with large net Treasuries settlement due this week. That was the largest borrowing over a two-day period since the Covid-19 pandemic. On Friday morning, however, banks did not tap the repo facility, although they get another chance to do so in the afternoon. The SRF acts as a liquidity backstop for potential funding shortfalls. Introduced in July 2021 in response to the pandemic, the Fed's facility provides twice-daily overnight cash loans in exchange for eligible collateral such as U.S. Treasuries. "The market has been concerned on a bubble brewing on private credit for the past few months," said Alan Devlin, Global Financials Research Analyst, Impax Asset Management. "The market is basically shooting first, asking questions later." (Reporting by Ankur Banerjee in Singapore and Alun John in London and Manya Saini in Bengaluru. Additional reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss, Kevin Buckland, Stella Qiu, Dhara Ranasinghe, Jose Joel, Pritam Biswas and Medha Singh. Editing by Mark Heinrich, Mark Potter and Nick Zieminski)

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By Enes Tunagur and Jonathan Saul LONDON -A majority of countries at the U.N. shipping agency voted on Friday to postpone by a year a decision on a global carbon price on international shipping, after failing to reach consensus on the emissions reduction measure amid U.S. pressure. The decision to delay the deal is a blow to the European Union and other countries including Brazil which have been pushing for the global shipping industry to go greener and set out a price mechanism for decarbonisation.     Washington and Riyadh, the world's two largest oil producers, have strongly opposed a carbon price on shipping during talks in London at the International Maritime Organization. After days of disagreements, Saudi Arabia tabled a motion on Friday to defer discussions for one year, which was passed by a simple majority of 57 countries with 49 opposed who sought to continue with a deal. U.S. President Donald Trump called on IMO member states on Thursday to vote no, saying on his Truth Social platform that Washington would "not stand for this global green new scam tax on shipping and will not adhere to it in any way, shape or form". "The delay leaves the shipping sector drifting in uncertainty," said Faig Abbasov, director of shipping with environmental group Transport & Environment. (Reporting by Enes Tunagur and Jonathan SaulEditing by Peter Graff and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)