Tara Lachapelle On Sunday evening, John Oliver bemoaned the struggle of the newspaper industry. On Monday evening, News Corp. embodied it. The $7.5 billion publishing company controlled by billionaire Rupert Murdoch reported fourth-quarter results that drew a dull response from investors. While total company revenue beat estimates, advertising sales fell 5 percent and profit was below expectations. The stock ...

  Bloomberg Oil held declines below $43 a barrel as weekly US industry data showed crude stockpiles expanded, keeping supplies at the highest seasonal level in at least two decades. Futures were little changed in New York after losing 0.6 percent on Tuesday. Inventories rose by 2.09 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report. Government ...

  Bloomberg US electricity consumers could end up paying more than $2.5 billion for nuclear plants that never get built. Utilities including Duke Energy Corp., Dominion Resources Inc. and NextEra Energy Inc. are being allowed by regulators to charge $1.7 billion for reactors that exist only on paper, according to company disclosures and regulatory filings. Duke and Dominion could seek ...

  Bloomberg State Grid Corp. of China’s hopes of buying one of Australia’s biggest electricity distributors may be slipping away amid national security concerns and a protectionist backlash against foreign ownership of critical infrastructure. Government-owned State Grid, the world’s largest utility, and Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. are vying to buy Ausgrid, which supplies 1.6 million homes in ...

  Bloomberg As loss-laden power distribution companies delay millions of dollars in payments for clean-energy capacity, India is looking to create a dedicated green energy trading platform in a bid to give the renewable sector more selling options. The country’s largest power exchange, Indian Energy Exchange Ltd., is looking to roll out a dedicated platform for the trade of clean ...

  Bloomberg As Chinese companies go on a record $157 billion overseas buying binge, they’re collecting their corporate trophies at the cheapest levels in four years. The median price they’re paying this year amounts to 14 times the Ebitda — or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — of the target companies, down from a multiple of 16 in ...

  Bloomberg Palm oil stockpiles in Malaysia declined in July as exports from the world’s second-largest producer surged to the highest this year. Inventories fell 0.2 percent to 1.77 million metric tons at the end of July from a revised 1.775 million tons a month earlier, according to data released by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board on Wednesday. That compares ...

  BLOOMBERG China’s official bad-loan ratio held at 1.75 percent in the second quarter after almost three years of increases, suggesting some progress as President Xi Jinping’s officials try to defuse risks from the nation’s explosion in credit. The China Banking Regulatory Commission didn’t give reasons in Wednesday’s data release. Lenders have stepped up efforts to clean up nonperforming debt ...

  Bloomberg China’s imports of corn and feed grains are set to slump after the government increased the amount auctioned from state reserves and domestic prices dropped to a decade low, according to analysts. The government is offering about 7.9 million metric tons of corn from its stockpiles for a third week. That compares with 6 million tons offered in ...

  Bloomberg The failure of Delta Air Lines Inc.’s worldwide computer network this week spotlights the vulnerability of the information systems sustaining the biggest US carriers, each of which has contended with major disruptions during the last year. Complex networks cobbled together over the decades need major overhauls requiring significant new investments, said Bob Edwards, a former chief information officer ...