Bloomberg The European Central Bank (ECB) may have the freedom to pursue the most extreme forms of monetary financing should the economic situation warrant, Deutsche Bank AG said. “The ECB at face value faces the strictest legal obstacle to monetary financing, not least due to the historical inflation traumas experienced by member states,” analysts including London-based George Saravelos said ...

  Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has room to cut interest rates further below zero and is willing to increase the size of its balance sheet through currency intervention to prevent an already “significantly overvalued” franc from strengthening, President Thomas Jordan said. “There’s a willingness to intervene if necessary, and we can use our balance sheet if it makes ...

  Bloomberg When the 95-storey Vista Tower is completed in 2020, it will be the third-tallest building in Chicago, and at its very top will be a 7,000-square-foot duplex penthouse, currently offered for $17.1 million. If it sells, the penthouse would just barely eke out an all-time record for Chicago’s most expensive residential real estate. (A penthouse on the 89th ...

DELFT / Reuters In two medieval Dutch cities, IKEA’s most senior executives are finalising the biggest overhaul at the Swedish-born furniture empire in over 30 years. The aim is to help the world’s largest furniture seller better adapt to changing consumer tastes, manage its increasing size and avoid the fate of other dominant retailers overtaken by new market entrants. However, ...

  LONDON / Reuters Chinese conglomerate HNA Group has agreed to buy British bureau-de-change operator International Currency Exchange (ICE), the companies said, the latest takeover in a European investment spree aimed at expanding its business outside Asia. The acquisitive Global Fortune 500 company, which secured an all-cash $1.5 billion purchase of Swiss airline caterer Gategroup Holdings on last Monday, has ...

  DALLAS / AP Norwegian Air Shuttle has won preliminary approval to expand flying between the US and Europe using an Irish subsidiary. The decision by the US Department of Transportation was a setback for the major US airlines and their labour unions, who said the subsidiary will be an unfair, low-wage competitor on key trans-Atlantic routes. The decision followed ...

  JOHANNESBURG / Reuters South African retailer Edcon has received support from its lenders to defer 1.6 billion rand ($110 million) of interest payments to December to boost its liquidity, it announced recently. Taken private in a highly leveraged buyout by Bain Capital in 2007, the country’s biggest clothing retailer said close to 80 percent of holders of a 2018 ...

Bloomberg Airbus Group SE is poised to win an order for at least 30 A321 single-aisle jetliners from Delta Air Lines Inc. valued at $3.5 billion or more at list prices as part of a wider fleet overhaul at the US carrier, according to people familiar with the plan. Details of the transaction are still being worked out and Atlanta-based ...

  Havana / AP In the Old Havana neighbourhood Cubans call Angel Hill, a dramatic transformation is underway. Crumbling old buildings are being replaced with expensive, shiny new restaurants and restored buildings for wealthier Cubans and tourists. Here are the stories of five residents of Calle Habana on how the changes are impacting them financially. Pedro Alejandro Lopez, 83 Lopez and ...

Bloomberg Google’s YouTube is developing new musical talent as part of an initiative called Foundry, as the company aims to improve strained relations with the music industry and bring more exclusive programming to the world’s most popular video site. YouTube said it has already hosted workshops with more than two dozen artists at its production facilities in Los Angeles and ...