International News

  AFP Leading Australian publisher Fairfax Media said it would post nearly Aus$1 billion in writedowns in the year to July, while it announced the creation of a new reporting segment for its lucrative online real estate division. Like its global peers, the group, which owns The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers, has had add to slash jobs …

  Bloomberg Tokyo Gas Co., Japan’s second-biggest buyer of liquefied natural gas, is in talks with European companies to swap cargoes it owns from the U.S. with those in Asia to reduce shipping times and costs. The utility is offering cargoes from the Cove Point project on the U.S. East Coast, which is expected to start up late next year …

  Bloomberg Corporate earnings are heading for a fifth straight quarter of declines, dragged down mostly by energy companies’ struggles with low oil prices and a tepid global economy that threatens to throttle sales growth in many industries. U.S. companies as varied as hamburger chain McDonald’s Corp. and Honeywell International Inc., a maker of gas-processing equipment and cockpit controls, have …

  Bloomberg SolarCity Corp. board members approved a $2.6 billion buyout from Elon Musk’s Tesla Motors Inc. in the solar industry’s biggest deal to date. Tesla agreed to pay $25.37 a share in stock for the largest U.S. rooftop solar company, according to a statement. Analysts have said the price is too low and investors have questioned the wisdom of …

  Bloomberg Nissan Motor Co. is growing faster in the U.S. than any mass-market carmaker and edged past rival Honda Motor Co. in this year’s first half. That might not be a good thing for Nissan’s bottom line. Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn wants Nissan to pass Honda and get 10 percent of the North American market. Yet Nissan’s growth …

  Bloomberg Verizon Communications Inc. agreed to buy GPS vehicle-tracking company Fleetmatics Group Plc in an all-cash deal valued at $2.4 billion, vaulting the telephone giant deeper into the automotive-technology market. Verizon will pay $60 a share for the Dublin, Ireland-based company, a 40 percent premium to Fleetmatics’ closing price last week, according to a statement. With its wireless business …

  AP China’s ambitions to become a pioneer in nuclear energy are sailing into troubled waters. Two state-owned companies plan to develop floating nuclear reactors, a technology engineers have been considering since the 1970s for use by oil rigs or island communities. Beijing is racing Russia, which started developing its own in 2007, to get a unit into commercial operation. …

  Bloomberg Investors led by Chinese online games developer Shanghai Giant Network Technology Co. agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s online casino-style games unit Playtika Ltd. for $4.4 billion in cash, even as gambling remains illegal in the Asian country. The consortium includes Yunfeng Capital, the private equity company founded by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Chairman Jack Ma, China Oceanwide …

AFP Veteran politician Yuriko Koike was elected on Sunday as Tokyo’s first woman governor, according to media exit polls, and immediately vowed to get a grip on the megacity’s troubled 2020 Olympic preparations. Public broadcaster NHK, Jiji Press and other major media forecast the 64-year-old Koike as the winner just after polls closed at 8 pm (1100 GMT). Koike is …

  Bloomberg Chinese billionaire Jack Ma wants to pry the lid off China’s opaque charities. Ant Financial, the affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. he controls, is using the technology behind bitcoin to record transactions and improve the accountability of the country’s philanthropic organizations. The company began a tamper-proof ledger based on blockchain technology to record donations made by its …