International News

Bloomberg Unilever’s departing Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman, in a major push into India that may be his last deal, agreed to pay about $1 billion more than his closest rival for GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s consumer business in the country, according to people familiar with the matter. The Anglo-Dutch conglomerate agreed to pay $3.8 billion in cash and stock from its ...

Bloomberg Intellectual property theft is one of the main points of contention in China’s dispute with Washington, and just days after President Xi Jinping promised to resolve the US’s “reasonable concerns,” China has announced an array of punishments for IP theft. The government set out a total of 38 different punishments to be applied to IP violations, starting this month. ...

Bloomberg If you’re a high-net-worth individual in Asia into fine dining, jewellery and luxury skin cream, best not to live in Shanghai. The Chinese city overtook Hong Kong as the most expensive for a basket of luxury goods and services on a price-weighted basis, according to Bank Julius Baer & Co.’s annual Wealth Report Asia, which tracks spending by the ...

Bloomberg Music-streaming service Spotify Technology SA saw its market value jump $779 million as China’s Tencent Music Entertainment Group kicked off its long-awaited US initial public offering. Spotify owns 8.9 percent of the company, whose largest shareholder is Tencent Holdings Ltd. with 59 percent, according to its IPO filing. Spotify closed up 3.2 percent to $140.68 a share on the ...

Bloomberg Less than a decade after the financial crisis nearly tore the euro area apart, a long-anticipated push to shore up the single currency finally started taking shape at a meeting of the bloc’s finance ministers, though it will likely underwhelm those calling for tighter integration. The compromise struck on Tuesday after almost 16 hours of talks in Brussels paves ...

Bloomberg France and Germany agreed to a compromise proposal on how to tax large tech companies that scales back the broad plan initially envisioned by Paris, according to a joint statement issued in the early hours of Tuesday. The new proposal would only tax the European advertising revenue of digital companies at 3 percent, rather than a wider base encompassing ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc is experimenting with iPhone marketing strategies it rarely uses — such as discount promotions via generous device buyback terms — to help goose sales of its flagship product. Company executives moved some marketing staff from other projects to work on bolstering sales of the latest handsets in October, about a month after the iPhone XS went on ...

Bloomberg Europe’s medicines watchdog is bracing to make do without one of its most trusted partners. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) stopped assigning work to the UK’s pharmaceutical regulator earlier this year, unsure whether the two organisations will need to stop collaborating after Britain leaves the European Union in March. Preparing for a potential split, the EU body has also ...

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp, which last year announced a plan to bring broadband to 2 million people in the rural US, is boosting the program to reach another 1 million customers across more states. The Microsoft Airband Initiative will now be in 25 states by this time next year, more than doubling the program’s original reach and adding states including California, ...

Bloomberg Unilever agreed to acquire GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s Indian consumer business, including malted milk drink Horlicks, for 3.3 billion euros ($3.8 billion) to boost its footprint in one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies. It’s one of the Anglo-Dutch company’s largest acquisitions under departing Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman, who in January is handing over to personal-care head Alan Jope. It’s ...