International News

  Berlin / AFP Embattled automaker Volkswagen has been forced to suspend manufacture of the popular Golf model at its main production plant in Germany, a spokesman said on Saturday. But the decision by the car giant, locked in a legal battle with parts suppliers, will not affect its annual production target. Production of the Golf will be suspended “from ...

  Bloomberg The world’s worst-performing major currency of 2016 is starting to win some friends. Old Mutual Asset Managers Plc., which oversees 327 billion pounds ($427 billion), said it turned bullish on the pound after U.K. economic data signaled the country was resilient in the wake of the June vote to leave the European Union. Sterling bulls were immediately rewarded ...

  Shanghai / Bloomberg China Investment Corp., the $814 billion sovereign fund, is leading a Chinese investor group in talks for a multibillion-dollar iron-ore streaming deal with Brazil’s Vale SA, people familiar with the matter said. The consortium is negotiating the potential purchase of a portion of Vale’s future iron-ore output for as long as 30 years, two of the ...

  Bloomberg Origin Energy Ltd., the Australian energy producer and retailer, plans to start the sale of an Australian wind farm project after gauging interest from potential buyers, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Sydney-based company will ask next week for expressions of interest for its planned Stockyard Hill project west of Melbourne, one of the people said, ...

  Bloomberg Australia upheld its decision to block foreign bidders from buying a majority stake in state-owned power network Ausgrid for more than A$10 billion ($7.6 billion), triggering a warning from China that the move will hurt bilateral ties. The deal would go against the national interest, Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison said in a statement on Friday, confirming last week’s ...

  New Delhi / Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi promoted a deputy governor to lead India’s central bank, ensuring that sweeping reforms initiated under Raghuram Rajan would continue. Urjit Patel, who oversees the monetary policy department at the Reserve Bank of India under Rajan, has been appointed for three years, the government said in a statement on Saturday. Patel, 52, ...

  Bloomberg Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati is putting trust-building at the top of her agenda as she tries to get more Indonesians to pay their taxes to raise funds for a massive infrastructure plan aimed at stimulating growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. “My job, first, is to restore confidence in the whole fiscal policy and our budget,” Indrawati ...

  London / AFP Retail sales in Britain, a key driver of the economy, rebounded 1.4 percent in July from June’s drop, official data showed on Thursday, indicating no immediate fallout from Brexit but analysts warn of a tough year ahead. Sales by volume rose far higher than expected following a 0.9-percent drop in June that had been caused by ...

  Bloomberg United Bankshares Inc. agreed to buy Cardinal Financial Corp. in an all-stock deal valued at about $912 million to expand in the Washington, D.C, region. The buyer will pay 0.71 United share for each Cardinal share, a price that represents 2.24 times Cardinal’s tangible book value as of June 30, the companies said Thursday in a statement. The ...

  Bloomberg Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko, whose fertilizer company is investing more than $6 billion in potash mining, said it could take at least a decade for the potash market to work off the excess because of the past “disruptive” actions by the largest sellers. Potash prices have collapsed since 2013, when a trade pact between Russian and Belarusian producers, ...