Bloomberg Walmart Inc.’s plan to shed control of its UK grocery chain, Asda, reflects a global strategy to emphasize faster-growing markets over some of its more mature ones. The world’s largest retailer said that Asda will combine with British retailer J Sainsbury Plc, mixing the UK’s second-biggest supermarket chain with No. 3 Asda in a deal worth about $10 billion. ...

There may be other major global metropolises (Los Angeles springs to mind) that have invested more effort and money than Mexico City to bring in water from afar. But there is surely none that has invested as much effort and money to send the water back out. Mexico City’s hydrological paradox is that (unlike Los Angeles) it gets more than ...

It is awesome to be Jeff Bezos. The Amazon.com Inc. CEO is the world’s richest person. He has a meme-worthy physique. And investors love him when he shows them the tiniest bit of profit love. Amazon recently reported a dinky 3.8 percent operating profit margin on more than $51 billion in sales. It was the highest operating profit margin since ...

The state of the auto industry in 2018 reads like a series of paradoxes. In order to sell cars now so they can invest in the next-generation electric and environmentally friendly vehicles, auto producers are moving away from the production of smaller, more environmentally friendly sedans. And at a time when oil prices and interest rates are rising, creating affordability ...

Bloomberg Brexit is helping to drive big year for UK mergers. Dealmaking by UK companies such as J Sainsbury Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Sky Plc is poised to hit a record this year amid a surge in foreign takeover interest and domestic consolidation as local businesses brace for Brexit. Acquisitions involving British firms have soared to more than $275 billion ...

Bloomberg Twitter Inc. inked more than 30 deals with publishers including Walt Disney Co. and NBCUniversal to beef up its video offerings with more news, entertainment and sports. NBCUniversal, part of Comcast Corp., agreed to distribute live video and clips on Twitter through its media properties, including NBC News, MSNBC and E! News. Viacom Inc. is creating new show formats ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump says his trade actions may cause “a little pain” in the short term, and a new study shows US agricultural workers could be hurt the most. The tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports that Trump has proposed, plus promised retaliatory duties by China, would reduce US gross domestic product by $2.9 billion and cost almost ...

Bloomberg Jan Koum’s exit from Facebook Inc. could prove costly. A speedy departure may prevent him from collecting as much as $1 billion in stock awards. The chief executive officer of messaging unit WhatsApp confirmed in a Facebook post that he was leaving the company. The announcement comes before the final three vesting dates of restricted stock unit awards tied ...

Bloomberg In the end, the fate of AT&T Inc.’s $85 billion merger with Time Warner Inc. will come down to he said versus he said. Lawyers for AT&T and the Justice Department clashed one last time at the close of a six-week trial over the proposed combination, a deal the government aims to stop. The judge overseeing the antitrust case ...

Bloomberg Nordic banks, once coveted as the best-run and best-capitalised in Europe, appear to be losing their luster. After publishing first-quarter results, banks based in Sweden and Denmark are among the year’s worst performers in the Bloomberg index of European financial stocks. In fact, you need to have been an investor in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA or ...