International News

  Bloomberg Randstad Holding NV agreed to pay $429 million for jobs site Monster Worldwide Inc., one of the first e-commerce companies to go public in the 1990s at the dawn of the Internet era. Randstad will acquire Weston, Massachusetts-based Monster for $3.40 a share in cash, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday. That’s 23 percent above Monster’s ...

  London / AFP British company bosses won pay hikes of ten percent last year, creating a growing wages gap as workers faced restraint, a study showed recently. The average pay package of a FTSE 100 chief executive rose to £5.48 million ($7.12 million, 6.46 million euros) in 2015, from £4.96 million in 2014, according to research from the High ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German industrial production rebounded in June, official data showed, but analysts warned that the expansion won’t redeem a sluggish second quarter for Europe’s biggest economy. Industrial output posted growth of 0.8 percent in June compared with the previous month, preliminary data adjusted for price, calendar and seasonal effects from the federal statistics office Destatis showed. It ...

  Brussels / AFP EU member states let Spain and Portugal off the hook on Tuesday, deciding against fines for their repeated breach of budget deficit rules meant to bolster growth and the public finances. EU Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici said the decision reflected “an intelligent application” of the Stability and Growth Pact which sets the ...

  London / AFP Retail sales surprisingly recovered in Britain during July as warmer weather offset widespread economic uncertainty triggered by the country’s vote to exit the European Union, a survey revealed on Tuesday. A joint survey by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and financial group KPMG showed retail sales grew by 1.1 percent in July compared with a year ...

  AFP China’s producer prices fell at their slowest rate in nearly two years in July, the government said, a sign of improving conditions in the world’s second largest economy. The producer price index (PPI), which measures the cost of goods at the factory gate, fell 1.7 percent year-on-year last month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said, as a ...

  Tokyo / AFP India’s love for fried food could help curb its crude oil imports. The nation of 1.3 billion people can make at least 2 million tons of biodiesel annually by processing used cooking oil from restaurant chains, said Ramakrishna Y.B., the head of an Indian government panel that’s looking at the potential for fuels derived from plants. ...

  TOKYO / AP China’s passenger-vehicle sales accelerated the most in 17 months, as General Motors Co. and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co. boosted deliveries and dealers offering discounts helped clear inventories in the world’s biggest auto market. Retail sales of cars, sport utility and multipurpose vehicles climbed 23 percent to 1.6 million units in July, the biggest monthly percentage gain ...

  Bloomberg McDonald’s Holdings Co. Japan posted a profit in the second quarter, ending a streak of seven consecutive losses by attracting more customers with promotional menus as it sought to rebuild its image after a series of food scandals. Net income was 300 million yen ($2.9 million) in the three months ended June, based on first-half results the company ...

  Bloomberg The wave of office buildings under construction in London is a bigger threat to rents and values than the risk of companies moving out after the UK’s vote to leave the European Union, according to UBS Group AG. “We saw a build-up of oversupply of office space long before Brexit which can’t be stopped,” Thomas Wels, global head ...