Reuters Turkish conglomerates are racing to add high-end apartment blocks and office towers to Istanbul’s rapidly-changing skyline, turning to one of the world’s most profitable real estate markets for quick returns as other parts of the economy suffer. Anadolu Holding, which has interests in banking, retail and brewing, plans to venture into real estate with two developments in Istanbul ...

  Bloomberg Cousins Properties Inc. agreed to buy Parkway Properties Inc. for about $1.95 billion in stock, then spin off the combined company’s Houston office buildings into a separate real estate investment trust. Parkway shareholders will receive 1.63 shares of Cousins stock for each share they hold, the companies said in a statement. The deal values Parkway at $17.46 a ...

  AP U.S. home prices continued their steady upward march in February as buyers competed for a limited number of available properties. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index rose 5.4 percent that month compared with a year earlier, according to a report released on Saturday. That’s down slightly from January’s 5.7% rise. Prices are rising even as sales ...

  Bloomberg India’s largest airline, which faced delivery delays for its first A320neo jets over issues with Pratt & Whitney engines, said it would consider a competing CFM International power plant for a later order. IndiGo, Airbus Group SE’s biggest customer for the fuel-efficient A320neo, has chosen Pratt for the first 150 of the aircraft, Aditya Ghosh, the carrier’s president, ...

  Bloomberg Jeff Smisek walked away with $36.8 million in severance and benefits from United Airlines after he was ousted as chief executive officer last year. Smisek, 61, received about $6.6 million in cash plus equity awards valued at $29.4 million, according to a proxy statement filed by Chicago-based United Continental Holdings Inc., the airline’s parent. He resigned as president, ...

  Bloomberg Bombardier Inc.’s founding family is rejecting demands by Canada’s government to loosen its control of the company in exchange for financial assistance. “It’s not our intention to change anything in this regard,” Bombardier Chairman Pierre Beaudoin said in Montreal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is said to be pushing for corporate governance changes, including the dual-class structure that ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German retail sales, a closely watched measure of household confidence, declined in March, official data showed last week. Retailers’ sales fell by 1.1 percent in March compared with February, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. The previous month, retail sales had remained unchanged. On a 12-month basis however, business increased, edging up by ...

Bloomberg Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA agreed to sell Vietnam’s Big C grocery chain to Central Group at an enterprise value of €1 billion ($1.1 billion), extending an Asian divestment programme aimed to reduce the French retailer’s debt. Casino will receive €920 million in proceeds, the St. Etienne, France-based company said in a statement last week. The disposal will bring the total ...

  Rome / AP Armed with shovels and sacks of cold asphalt, Rome’s residents fill potholes. Defying rats, they yank weeds and bag trash along the Tiber’s banks and in urban parks. Tired of waiting years for the city to replace diseased trees, neighbors dig into their own pockets to pay for new ones for their block. Romans are starting to ...

  Buenos Aires / AFP The paintings in Buenos Aires’ newest gallery may look like the work of great artists, but they are actually rip-offs — and the exhibition’s organsers want you to know it. One of the works doesn’t even look the part — it is supposed to be a masterpiece by the late Argentine painter Antonio Berni, but the ...