"It doesn't seem like being unable to go out and socialize has stopped people from wanting new clothes, after all taking the bins out or a trip to the supermarket have become the equivalent of going out to a club or pub, and people still wanted new joggers and sweatshirts to hang out at home", says Danni Hewson, analyst with AJ Bell.  

Whatever the reason, it seems the COVID-19 pandemic is not proving to be quite the death knell for the fashion and clothing industry as had previously been feared. Along with the record results from UK's Asos, Japan's Fast Retailing has similarly reported a surprise jump in first-half profits.    

Elsewhere, the Biden administration has unveiled its plans for a clampdown on global corporate tax evasion, with a commitment for the world's biggest multinationals to pay their dues in the countries where they make money. 

Beijing is now officially home to more billionaires than anywhere else, outstripping New York for the first time.

With more top tech and manufacturing firms signing up to the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored moratorium on deep-sea mineral mining, we have a short explainer on this contentious practice.

And finally, where exactly are those missing corporate billions ending up? Our graph will tell you.

Read on for all the day's business news in full.

Louise Greenwood,

Digital correspondent

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Online fashion giant Asos has more than tripled first-half profits to a record $146 million in the six months to 28 February, as revenues soared by 24 percent. Asos is one of the few clothing brands that appears to have prospered in the pandemic, refocusing its range on leisure and home wear, away from formal dresssing. Sales growth has reached 24 percent over the last six months, as the firm added one and half million new customers to its loyal base. 

UK sales in particular flourished, up 39 percent. However, the group adds that it remains cautious about the medium-term outlook, with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic weighing particularly hard on the budgets of its core buyer base of 16 to 24-year-olds. 

The group added that the integration of the TopShop, TopMan, and Miss Selfridge brands that it acquired earlier this year from Sir Philip Green's failed Arcadia empire were "progressing to plan," with costs halving on previous expectations to around $13.7 million. 

Elsewhere Japan's Fast Retailing, the parent of Uniqlo, has reported a 23 percent jump in half-yearly profits. The group says operating profit was $1.53 billion in the six months to the end of February, with the best-selling items being jogging pants and cotton face masks. However analysts say growth for the rest of the year has been thrown into doubt by the coup in Myanmar, where Uniqlo has a substantial manufacturing base. 

Meanwhile, there was a surprise jump in the number of shoppers visiting malls and retail parks in the UK last month. The figures, from the respected Springboard research group, show the annual decline in visitor numbers halved by the end of the month. The four-day Easter public holiday saw footfall in central London and other major cities rising to to three times that seen over the same period in 2020.

The Biden administration has submitted new proposals for a global minimum corporation tax. As expected, the plans call on the world's biggest firms to pay levies to national governments based on their sales in each country. As part of U.S. COVID-19 reconstruction efforts, the aim is to speed up negotiations with the OECD on an internationally agreed framework to stop the proliferation of national "sweetheart" deals to tempt tech firms and startups to individual jurisdictions and to stop low-tax location "shopping" by tech giants.   

The White House has also called for a domestic tax-raising regime to fund $2 trillion worth of investment in infrastructure, clean energy, and manufacturing over the next two decades as part of Biden's "Made in America Tax Plan." The President added that he is "sick and tired of ordinary people being fleeced" on the taxation issue. 

Beijing is now home to more billionaires than any other world city, according to Forbes' annual rich list. China's capital now has more than a hundred billionaires, adding 33 in the past year and narrowly beating New York City, which hosts 99 and has held the top ranking for the last seven years. China's surging tech sector and a string of lucrative flotations have boosted the city's super-rich population. Beijing's richest resident is Zhang Yiming, the founder of the video-sharing app TikTok and chief executive of its parent firm ByteDance, with a personal net worth of $35.6 billion. 

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The Australian government has hinted it may provide funding for mining operations owned by GFG Alliance the troubled holding company of metals magnate Sanjeev Gupta. The group is under pressure after the collapse of its key lender, the chain financier Greensill Capital, last month. On Wednesday, Credit Suisse began legal proceedings against two of GFG's Australian businesses, applying to courts in both New South Wales and London for liquidation orders. The Australian finance minister Simon Birmingham has said financing options provided last time the country's steelworks were threatened with administrations are again being considered. 

The Dutch technology investor Prosus NV has sold shares equivalent to 2 percent of the valuation of China's Tencent Holdings, in the world's largest-ever block trade. In a Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing, Tencent said Prosus sold 191 million shares worth $14.6 billion, reducing its overall stake to 28.9 percent. 

Fintech startup Ramp has raised $115 million in a funding round led by digital payments giant Stripe and private equity backers. The deal values the group, which offers corporate cards and software for managing employee expenses, at $1.6 billion. Ramp says it will use the fresh capital on product development.

GameStop, the video games retailer at the center of the so-called Reddit rally of day trading, says it plans to elect activist investor Ryan Cohen as chairman in an ongoing shake-up. The company also says it is nominating six people, including Cohen, to stand for election to its board at the annual meeting of shareholders in June. Shares of GameStop were up over 3 percent in pre-market trading.

Twitter is reported to have held talks to buy audio app Clubhouse in a deal provisionally valued at $4 billion. Discussions have since stalled with Twitter declining to comment publicly. San Francisco-based Clubhouse has carved a niche as an invite-only app with an audio chatroom option that has attracted 10 million weekly active users, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.

Two of the biggest home delivery apps in the U.S. are reported to be considering a credit card launch. The grocery delivery app Instacart and food delivery firm DoorDash are in talks with backers including JPMorgan Chase & Co over a card that may offer cashback and various promotional offers and discounts, as business surges during the lockdown, despite growing competition in the sector. 

BMW and Mercedes-Benz have seen record first-quarter vehicle deliveries, largely driven by demand in China, especially for plug-in hybrid and fully electric vehicles. Sales of BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce vehicles have surged more than a third to 636,606 in the three months to the end of March, with deliveries in China doubling. Mercedes has seen sales jump over a fifth to 581,270, with its Daimler offshoot enjoying a 60 percent jump in deliveries to China, where it will debut three other electric vehicle models this year.

Chinese-backed self-driving truck startup TuSimple is planning to raise $1 billion through a flotation on the Nasdaq, which may value the firm at up to $7 billion. The six-year-old startup filed for an IPO last month with a view to a stock market debut on April 15. San Diego-based TuSimple specializes in research and development of so-called "level four" fully autonomous driving technology for trucks.

Danish top-end TV and stereo maker Bang & Olufsen says it saw double-digit sales growth in the third quarter. The group is expecting full-year revenue of up to $399 million after posting a 14 percent sales rise in its third-quarter ending in February.

Results of Amazon's closely watched union election in Alabama are expected to emerge later on Thursday, with signs that just over half of staff turned out to vote. More than 3,200 mail ballots were received by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, in an election over fairer employment terms at Amazon open to over 5,800 workers at Amazon's chief U.S. warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

Spain is to cut its 2021 growth forecast after a renewal of lockdown conditions caused a worse-than-expected first quarter. Economy Minister Nadia Calvino says she expects the EU's fifth biggest economy to grow by under previous estimates of 7 percent this year. 

Thousands of staff at banks HSBC and JP Morgan are to continue working from home full-time after the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions are eased. In a letter to investors, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon says he expects 10 percent of the U.S. investment bank's 255,000 employees to home work full-time. HSBC's UK call center staff are in talks that could allow 1,200 workers to make a permanent switch to remote working.

The world's largest cruise company, Carnival, has reported a quarterly loss of nearly $2 billion, but future bookings are 90 percent higher than the end of 2020 for the first quarter of this year. Carnival last year sold ships to borrow $4 billion from investors and the bonds have jumped in value. It's been particularly hard-hit by the ongoing U.S. ban on cruises due to the pandemic. CGTN Europe spoke to Shanti Kelemen, investment director at Brown Shipley, about the outlook for the cruise liner sector.

We thought it could be years until a vaccine was developed, we didn't know how long this would last. And the people that put money into those bonds did so knowing that they could have easily lost everything. So, yes, it's been a strong return, but there also was a lot of risk. And it's not just Carnival – that's happened in a lot of different sectors, particularly related to travel and aviation, where the future of those companies really was in doubt.

The firm is expected to report another loss-making quarter. How do you see things beyond that? 

It'll take them some time to get back up to full capacity. They also retired some of their ships, so they'll need new ships. What this pandemic has done for a lot of larger companies is they've been able to raise cash, they've been able to weather it. And if you think if they can get through, there might be less competition from smaller players that maybe didn't survive and couldn't raise that cash. We've got a lot of pent-up demand that does give the potential that companies like Carnival might be able to charge higher prices. 

These kinds of industries depend on 100 percent vaccination. You simply can't sail a cruise ship with a couple of people not having vaccines. 

That's the approach a lot of places are taking. There's been a lot of political pushback against using vaccine passports, so we'll have to see how that plays out. That's a government decision, not a market decision. P&O in the UK has said that initially this summer they want to just do cruises for people who are vaccinated. That obviously does things like exclude younger people that haven't been offered it. So we'll have to see what the pathway is forward. Maybe that's something to have in place for a short amount of time, and it changes at some point in the future when COVID-19 is further under control.

And finally, U.S. President Joe Biden says he is "sick and tired" of corporate tax exploitation fleecing ordinary Americans. The latest figures show where those missing dollars and euros are ending up.