Some things just don’t last long. On January 19, consumer goods giant Unilever Plc walked away from a deal that came to light just over the weekend. It declined to increase its 50 billion-pound ($68.2 billion) proposal to buy GlaxoSmithKline’s Plc’s consumer health arm. Citing financial discipline is an elegant way for Chief Executive Officer Alan Jope to extract himself ...

  Back in March, an investment fund called Archegos Capital Management collapsed after building up vast derivatives bets on several stocks, precipitating billions of dollars in losses for its lenders. The incident raised a troubling question about the country’s financial early-warning system: How could regulators have remained unaware of such a large concentration of risk until it was too late? ...

The walls are closing in on Boris Johnson. The UK prime minister’s defiant posture in the House of Commons rallied loyalists but failed to placate new and old enemies within his party, who are calling on him to quit over lockdown-defying gatherings held at 10 Downing Street during the pandemic. Conservative members of Parliament can trigger a leadership contest with ...

  Bloomberg UK retail sales plummeted in December as the spread of the Omicron variant kept shoppers at home. The volume of goods sold in stores and online fell 3.7% from November, the biggest drop since January 2021’s lockdown, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. Economists had expected a decrease of 0.6%. Sales excluding auto fuel declined 3.6%. The ...

  Bloomberg An estimated 62% of the US aviation fleet is approved to perform low-visibility landings at most airports without fear of interference from 5G mobile phone service, according to aviation regulators. New safety buffers agreed to on Tuesday by wireless companies also allowed an expansion to the number of airports where flights can safely operate, the Federal Aviation Administration ...

  Bloomberg American Airlines Inc. is suing the Points Guy travel site for letting frequent flyers manage their miles outside the carrier’s own website. The airline accused the Points Guy of violating its trademark as well as privacy rules associated with its AAdvantage loyalty program. It asked the federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, for an order stripping all American ...

  Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd applied to end a pre-pandemic agreement with cabin crew as it seeks more flexibility on rostering to recover from the Covid crisis, a move unions said jeopardizes salaries and working conditions. Qantas said it has asked Australia’s Fair Work Commission to terminate its agreement with long-haul cabin crew after a proposal for a new four-year ...

  Bloomberg Airbus SE staff at a wing-assembly plant in Broughton in Wales are set to vote on strike action after rejecting a pay offer, posing a potential risk to production as the company cranks up build rates for narrow-body jets. Toulouse, France-based Airbus is in discussions with the Unite union to try and avoid industrial action, a spokesman said ...

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden said Russia will “pay a heavy price” if any of its forces move across the border into Ukraine after earlier suggesting Western allies might struggle to react to a small-scale attack. As the top US diplomat meets Russia’s foreign minister in Geneva, Biden said he has issued clear warnings to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who ...

  Bloomberg US President Joe Biden will seek to win Japan’s backing for a common response to Russia if it attacks Ukraine during his first virtual summit on Friday with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Ahead of the talks, a senior administration official said Biden wants to discuss a “strong, united response that would result from further Russian aggression toward ...