San Francisco / AFP Online retail colossus Amazon has boosted its fledgling air cargo service as it moves to gain more independence from freight firms for delivery of online purchases. Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings will provide air cargo services to Amazon, which also obtained an option to buy a stake in the New York-based company, the companies said in ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong property stocks were downgraded by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which predicts a 20 percent decline in home prices as borrowing costs rise. The drop will be “driven chiefly” by a potential 150 basis points to 200 basis points increase in interest rates and the “limited prospect of any loosening of government cooling measures in the near ...

  Bloomberg The Qatar Investment Authority( QIA) is in advanced talks to buy the luxury St. Regis hotels in New York and San Francisco from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The properties may be worth as much as $1 billion, though they could sell for less, said the people, who asked ...

  Bloomberg Lone Star Funds and Oaktree Capital Group LLC are among bidders shortlisted for two portfolios of soured loans with a combined face value of 4.7 billion euros ($5.4 billion) being sold by Ireland’s so-called bad bank, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Cerberus Capital Management LP is also bidding for both the Project Ruby and ...

  Reuters In a corner of Shanghai, surrounded by a cement wall, lies one of the world’s most valuable fields of debris and garbage. On paper, the Guangfuli neighborhood is a real estate investor’s dream: a plot in the middle of one of the world’s most expensive and fast-rising property markets. But the reality is more like a developer’s nightmare, ...

  Sydney / BLOOMBERG Australia’s central bank forecast core inflation is unlikely to reach the bottom of its target this year and will probably only do so in the ensuing two years as the developed-world disinflation quandary emerges Down Under. The central bank, in its quarterly statement, left estimated economic growth at 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent this year and ...

  Milan / AFP Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo reported earnings ahead of market expectations as bad loan risks on its books diminished. Net profit fell 24.2 percent in the first quarter to 806 million euros ($920.4 million), which compares with forecasts by analysts of around 708 million. Operating profit dropped on the back of falling interest income and earnings from ...

  MILAN / AP-BLOOMBERG Italian prosecutors are investigating top former Deutsche Bank management on suspicion of market manipulation related to the sale of €7 billion of Italian government bonds in 2011. News agency ANSA reported that financial police have taken depositions and seized documents in Deutsche Bank’s Italian headquarters in Milan in recent days. Deutsche Bank, based in Frankfurt, Germany, ...

  Bloomberg The Belarusian central bank warned that the financial industry is under increasing strain from a buildup in overdue loans as company profits suffer during an economic contraction. “We are facing an accelerated manifestation of accumulated credit risks,” central bank Chairman Pavel Kallaur said at a news conference in the capital, Minsk. “The difficult situation in the real sector ...

  Horn, Austria / DPA There is nothing very Asian about the quiet little Austrian town of Horn. It is surrounded by rolling hills and forests, and like any respectable central European town, it boasts a medieval church, old buildings with red-tile roofs, and the manor-house of a local noble family. But when you enter the stadium of the Horn football ...