International News

Bloomberg Fidelity National Information Services Inc. agreed to acquire Worldpay Inc. for about $34 billion in cash and stock, the biggest deal ever in the booming international payments sector. FIS, based in Jacksonville, Florida, will also assume Worldpay’s debt, bringing the enterprise value of the deal to about $43 billion, the companies said on Monday. FIS’s current shareholders will own ...

Bloomberg Lyft Inc. is seeking to raise as much as $2.1 billion in its initial public offering, valuing the firm at up to $19.6 billion. The No. 2 US ride-hailing giant is offering 30.8 million shares at $62 to $68 each, it said in a regulatory filing on Monday. At the targeted range, the San Francisco-based company’s offering will be ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s sugar mills can make the switch into ethanol easier than ever before, making it harder to predict how much sweetener will come from the world’s biggest producer and exporter. Take the case of Sao Paulo-based Usina Batatais. Just two years ago, no matter how low sugar prices got, the company had no choice but send at least 45 ...

Bloomberg Big companies often leave their suppliers hanging for weeks without pay, but Vodafone Group Plc is taking this a step further: it’s investing in a fund that makes money off the delay. The British phone operator poured 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) into the 2.4 billion-euro fund run by beleaguered Swiss asset manager GAM Holding AG, which generates returns ...

Bloomberg Low inflation sweeping across Southeast Asia is here to stay, raising the odds some of the region’s biggest economies may reverse course on interest rates this year. Food prices have been falling across the region, driving down inflation and pushing up real interest rates. Malaysia is already in deflation, while others like Thailand are seeing almost stagnant price growth. ...

Bloomberg Singapore Post Ltd. is likely to wind down or sell its loss-making US e-commerce business after conducting a strategic review of the unit, according to a Bloomberg survey. A potential divestment or shuttering of the business will bode well for SingPost’s long-term profitability, according to four analysts covering the stock. Two brokers including CLSA Ltd. have factored in benefits ...

Bloomberg China pledged greater cooperation with American and European companies on Belt and Road ventures, in its latest bid to counter criticism that President Xi Jinping’s initiative is focused on projecting Beijing’s influence at the expense of host countries. China wants to combine its manufacturing and construction know-how with the advanced technology of Western firms on the global trade-and-infrastructure program, ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe should abandon a scheduled increase in the sales tax this year as it risks pushing Japan’s economy into recession and hampering efforts to generate stable inflation, according to former economy minister Heizo Takenaka. “Of course a sales tax hike would increase the possibility of a recession,” said Takenaka, who is now a professor at Toyo ...

Bloomberg Germany’s effort to catch up to the digital age starts this week when the gavel falls on the auction for the airwaves to build ultra-fast 5G wireless networks. The rollout of the technology is critical as Europe’s biggest economy seeks to transition away from its reliance on old-school engineering. The country lags behind the likes of Albania and Moldova ...

Bloomberg Bruce Flatt put Wall Street’s biggest private equity players on notice that the Canadian juggernaut was coming for them three years ago. The head of Brookfield Asset Management Inc. told Bloom-berg Television then that his firm — pushing into private equity — should be mentioned in the same breath as Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group LP and KKR & ...