Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s plan to kick-start domestic solar-panel manufacturing depends for now on a federal fund with less than a half billion dollars that’s already being tapped to pay for products including military drones and baby formula. That funding—even if fully dedicated to solar production—would only be enough to open a few factories capable of cranking out a ...

  Bloomberg The stock offering for Brazilian power company Eletrobras raised $6.9 billion, becoming the world’s second-largest equity deal of 2022, while also privatising Latin America’s biggest utility in the process. Eletrobras and state-run development bank BNDES sold a combined 697,476,856 shares at 42.00 reais ($8.56) a piece, a discount of about 2.4%, according to a filing, confirming an earlier ...

  Bloomberg There may never be a new refinery built in the US despite surging gasoline prices as policymakers move away from fossil fuels, according to Chevron Corp. “We haven’t had a refinery built in the United States since the 1970s,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. “My personal view is there will never ...

  Bloomberg Talks between South Africa’s beleaguered power utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd and its biggest labor unions on wages have reached a stalemate, the latest crisis for the utility that’s struggling to boost electricity supply. The unions “responded with dismay” after negotiations failed to reach a conclusion during the final round. That’s when Eskom highlighted that it was unprofitable ...

  Bloomberg Trafigura Group posted record first-half profit, even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced the commodities giant to pare back its activities as trading risk soared. Wild swings in prices and arbitrage opportunities helped to deliver net profit of $2.7 billion in the six months through March, Trafigura said in a report. At the same time, the war sharply ...

When war is raging in Ukraine, talk of reconstruction may seem premature. How can the country rebuild anything given the constant threat of attack? And yet, it’s right that governments and multilateral fore, along with Ukraine itself, are focusing on rebuilding. Although the first principle of help for Ukraine has to be military aid along with humanitarian support, it is ...

Private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc and Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd have made a binding offer for chemist chain Boots. If it can close a deal, the consortium has a good chance of making a decent return on the British high-street stalwart. But the remedy for Boots won’t be cheap or easy. The formal proposal, fully ...

  The global trade in the cheapest foods is grinding to a halt. In April, Indonesia temporarily banned exports of palm oil, cutting off India from one of its biggest sources of imported nutrition. India, in its turn last month, set a ceiling on exports of sugar, helping to keep more calories in the domestic market. Sugar is now hovering ...

  The most significant event in China was the gaokao — the annual two-day national exam to qualify for college. Anxious parents wait while their children go through the nine-hour ordeal. Those with younger kids sift through the test questions — published once the exams are over — preparing their offspring for the inevitable. As for couples considering starting a ...

  Bloomberg Finnair Oyj, the hardest-hit among European airlines from the closing of Russian airspace, is planning an overhaul of its strategy that would see a smaller operation pivoting westward. “As a first step, the first response when we are reviewing our strategy on the back of the Russian airspace closure, we have pivoted our network to the west, and ...