International News

Bloomberg Minnesota leaders are starting work on a $2 billion light rail project, the state’s largest infrastructure project — and the kind of spending that may help keep recession risk at bay. Spending by cities and states is a bright spot that could help to extend the expansion, now in its 10th year and within months of becoming the longest ...

Bloomberg First, Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya faced losing his “palatial” London home, with UBS Group AG saying it wanted to foreclose. Then, a judge said he should be extradited to India. Now, banks are eyeing two superyachts and a collection of valuable cars that they believe he may own. A group of Indian banks — which are trying to collect ...

Bloomberg Central Group, which controls Thailand’s biggest shopping mall and department store operator, plans to invest $200 million in ride-hailing giant Grab, people familiar with the matter said. The deal seals a strategic partnership under which the conglomerate will help Grab expand its business in Thailand, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private. ...

Bloomberg The chairman of Huawei Technologies Co. says the company would “never do anything to harm any country, any organisation or any individual,” according to an interview in the Globe and Mail. Technological divisions between countries with different ideologies “would not be beneficial for humanity, nor for technological progress,” Liang Hua said in an interview at Huawei’s headquarters in Shenzhen, ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s retail sales missed estimates in December, as a slowing mainland economy dampened consumer sentiment and the surge in cross-border tourists failed to translate into a spending bump. The city’s retail sales by value expanded 0.1 percent last month from a year earlier, compared with the median estimate of 1.4 percent among six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg and ...

Bloomberg Malaysia has asked the World Health Organisation (WHO) to retract a report that says the palm oil industry is deploying tactics similar to tobacco lobbyists to influence research into the health effects of its products. The report, published in the Bulletin of WHO, makes claims that “casts aspersions on the reputation of our scientists and researchers” and ignores findings ...

Bloomberg Luckin Coffee, the ambitious Chinese startup rolling out thousands of stores to take on Starbucks Corp., is beginning preparations for a US initial public offering (IPO) that could raise around $300 million, people with knowledge of the matter said. The company is working with Credit Suisse Group AG on the deal, which could take place as soon as the ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration proposed ending a complex system of drug rebates that influence tens of billions of dollars in US pharmaceutical spending, a mo-ve that could upend the relationship between drugmakers and pharmacy benefits middlemen. The proposal, a long-awaited part of the administration’s plan to target high list prices of drugs, would ban rebates paid by drugmakers to pharmacy ...

Bloomberg KKR & Co., Blackstone Group LP and Apollo Global Management LLC posted strong fundraising results in a volatile quarter. KKR hauled in $11.3 billion in the fourth quarter, while Blackstone and Apollo collected $38.6 billion and $21.6 billion, respectively, showing that the appetite for their longer-term strategies remains robust. Shares of KKR rose as much as 6.3 percent following ...

Bloomberg After a dismal December, dealmakers made a comeback in January, logging $275 billion of mergers and acquisitions globally to mark the best start to a year in almost two decades. “M&A came back even though the markets felt choppy, and that shows how confident CEOs are,” said Susie Scher, co-head of the global financing group at Goldman Sachs Group ...