International News

Frankfurt / Reuters As the European Central Bank moves into an unfamiliar world of negative interest rates and incentives to encourage banks to make loans to businesses and consumers, a north-south divide is opening up between euro zone lenders. In the north, anaemic demand for loans and a financial system already flush with cash mean banks see mostly costs. They ...

SINGAPORE/ reuters The U.S. economy remains on track for a gradual path of interest rate hikes and fears over the impact of a slowing global economy and bouts of financial volatility are overdone, San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams said on Tuesday. “Others’ economic fates do not spell our own,” Williams said in a speech at the National University ...

Bloomberg Cemex SAB is staging its biggest rally in four years as the largest cement maker in the Americas gets a boost from cost cuts, U.S. sales gains and a rebound in the Mexican peso. Lower interest rates and taxes also will help the company boost free cash flow by $350 million this year, more than the previously targeted increase ...

Bloomberg Newspapers have settled on a strategy to stop withering away: feast on each other for survival. For the owners of big-city dailies like the Chicago Tribune and Denver Post, buying smaller publications and slashing costs has become a way to buy time while figuring out how to make more money online. That was the logic behind the recent failed ...

Bloomberg Chile’s long-heralded economic recovery is on hold once again, at least for the rest of this year, the central bank said, cutting its growth and inflation forecasts for 2016. The world’s largest copper producer will expand 1.25 percent to 2.25 percent this year, policy makers said in their quarterly monetary policy report on Monday. The previous estimate was 2 ...

Bloomberg Rioprevidencia, the pension fund for public-sector workers from Rio de Janeiro state, is holding informal talks with holders of its $3.1 billion in bonds after a waiver for breached debt-covenants expired. Rioprevidencia, which is grappling with a 10 billion-real ($2.8 billion) budget hole this year, isn’t currently considering a full restructuring of its dollar-denominated debt and hasn’t hired any ...

lisbon / AP The construction cranes poking up from the jumble of terracotta roofs on Lisbon’s skyline can be counted on one hand — a dismal reminder for Ricardo Gomes of how little work there is for his construction company. The Portuguese Socialist government has promised to change that, advocating an end to Europe’s years of budget austerity by increasing ...

Bloomberg Pat Byrne, chairman of CityJet Ltd., purchased the carrier he once founded — less than a month after the sale of London City airport. Byrne, his management team and an unidentified consortium of private equity companies purchased CityJet, the largest airline at the airport, from Intro Aviation GmbH, the German company said in a statement, without disclosing financial details. ...

Madrid / AFP One of the world’s biggest renewable energy firms, Spain’s Abengoa, said on Monday it had been given a seven-month breathing space by its creditors for restructuring that should stave off the threat of immediate bankruptcy. The company ended 2015 with a debt of €9.4 billion, which it hopes to slim to €4.9 billion. It announced in November ...

Brussels / Reuters Three cases on the legality of bulk data collection pending at the top European Union court could spell trouble for a new transatlantic data pact that will underpin billions of dollars in digital trade. EU and U.S. officials clinched an agreement on the Privacy Shield framework on Feb. 2 after two years of difficult talks aimed at ...