Bloomberg In the shadow of an escalating trade war, momentum is picking up to protect the World Trade Organisation from turning irrelevant. The European Union will host trade ministers from the US and Japan next month in Brussels, according to two officials with knowledge of the meeting. The gathering will be part of an effort to address China’s trade practices ...

Bloomberg Apollo Global Management LLC, the investment firm led by Leon Black, agreed to acquire Aspen Insurance Holdings Ltd. for $2.6 billion, in the latest example of private equity investors expanding their insurance assets. Apollo will pay $42.75 a share for the Hamilton, Bermuda-based insurer, a premium of 6.6 percent to Monday’s closing share price, in an all-cash deal. The ...

Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. is expanding an alliance with Uber Technologies Inc. through a new investment and a plan to get self-driving cars on the road. The Japanese automaker is investing $500 million in Uber, the companies said. The deal values the ride-hailing giant at $72 billion, said a person familiar with the matter. As part of the pact, Toyota ...

Bloomberg Netflix Inc. hired Facebook Inc. executive Rachel Whetstone as the company’s new chief communications officer, putting a Silicon Valley veteran in charge of the streaming service’s messaging as it grapples with regulators and competitors in 190 countries. Whetstone has worked in communications at Google, Facebook and Uber, three companies that have faced controversy at home and abroad. She replaces ...

Bloomberg Judging from the jump in General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. shares, the market thinks President Donald Trump’s accord with Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement will enable US automakers to carry on business as usual. This could be right, with one big caveat: The companies are going to need Canada to join the deal, ...

A car can look like a fantastic bargain on the lot, only to reveal itself as a lemon when you drive it away. It’s not so different with trade agreements. Take the deal hammered out between the US and Mexico on automotive imports, which the two countries hope to extend to Canada, the third member of the North American Free ...

Shareholders in China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, the giant oil refiner known as Sinopec, have little to complain about this year. Thanks to excitement around the planned spinoff of its pipelines and marketing businesses and better margins in a time of weaker crude prices, the shares are up 38 percent this year. After announcing a record half-year profit over the ...

Storm clouds are brewing over the global technology industry. A host of hardware companies, including Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co, Foxconn Technology Group and Intel Corp are sitting on inventory stockpiles not seen since the financial crisis a decade ago. And it comes amid a possible US-China trade war; likely monetary tightening by the Fed; more expensive growth in China’s ...

Crispr is coming to the farm. The gene-editing tool, best known for its potential to prevent disease and fight cancer, is now being used to improve corn, wheat, rice, mushrooms and much else. It could lead to hardier, more plentiful crops and tastier, cheaper, more nutritious food. The problem is that Europe and the US are both pursuing flawed approaches ...

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell took to the podium at the annual Jackson Hole monetary conference, delivering a message of support for the central bank’s policy of ongoing gradual interest-rate increases. This policy stance is less about commitment to estimates of key policy variables such as the natural rate of interest and more about data dependence. Unfortunately, Powell left the ...