International News

  New York / AFP US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is nearing a deal to buy US biotech firm Medivation, which specializes in cancer treatments, for nearly $14 billion, US media reported. Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal said the deal could be made public as early as Monday. The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said it could be ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German auto giant Volkswagen said on Monday it would halt production at six plants for several days as a legal dispute with two key suppliers deepened. Around 27,700 workers at factories in Emden, Zwickau, Kassel, Salzgitter, Brunswick, and the firm’s home base of Wolfsburg would see their work hours slashed by the end of August, the ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Executives at Uniper, a spin-off business uniting German energy giant EON’s fossil fuel operations, said on Monday the new firm is in good shape for a September stock market debut. “We are very close to the goal,” chief executive Klaus Schaefer told journalists on a conference call. Uniper expects to publish its prospectus in early September ...

  Bloomberg Russian wheat prices extended a rebound, capping the best run since April, as farmers charged more for high-protein grain after rains damaged crops there and in major competitor France. Wheat for loading at Black Sea ports rose 1.2 percent from a week earlier to $170 a metric ton as of Friday, Dmitry Rylko, director general of Moscow-based Institute ...

  Bloomberg Poland plans to keep its 2017 budget deficit below the European Union’s limit of 3 percent of gross domestic product even as a report showed the government revising down its outlook for economic growth. The shortfall is planned at 2.9 percent of GDP, the Finance Ministry said on its Twitter account on Monday. That compares with a 2.6 ...

  Bloomberg China National Chemical Corp. received approval from U.S. national security officials for its takeover of Swiss agrochemical and seeds company Syngenta AG, seen as the biggest regulatory hurdle that the $43 billion acquisition faces. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has cleared the transaction, the companies said in a statement on Monday. The deal, expected to ...

  Bloomberg NTPC Ltd., India’s biggest power producer, reported a 4 percent increase in its first-quarter profit on the back of higher energy sales. Profit for the three months ended June 30 rose to 23.7 billion rupees ($353 million) from 22.76 billion rupees a year ago, according to a stock exchange filing. Revenue climbed 11 percent to 189.4 billion rupees ...

  Bloomberg Shanghai Electric Power Co. said it’s seeking a stake in K-Electric Ltd., the $2.3 billion Pakistani utility, in what could become its largest overseas deal. The Chinese company is doing preliminary preparation work on acquiring a stake in K-Electric and hasn’t decided how much it will buy, it said in a Shanghai exchange filing Monday. Shanghai Electric Power ...

  Bloomberg Developer Bo San had already sold all the units in his 12-story high-rise in Yangon in Myanmar when he was forced to halt construction. Three months later he faces the task of having to remove two floors to comply with new height regulations, at a cost of $8 million. Since May, the regional government of Aung San Suu ...

  Bloomberg Japan’s Renesas Electronics Corp. is in talks to acquire U.S. chipmaker Intersil Corp. for about 300 billion yen ($3 billion), a person with knowledge of the matter said. No agreement has been reached, and the discussions may not result in a deal, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Renesas shares erased ...