International News

Bloomberg About two years after Blackstone Group LP registered India’s first real estate investment trust, the private equity giant is close to taking it public. Rising interest rates threaten to get in the way. Blackstone and local partner Embassy Group plan to file a prospectus for an initial public offering of the REIT as early as next month, a deal ...

Bloomberg The European Union is on course to hand dozens of UK-based companies a pre-Brexit tax bombshell, according to people familiar with a state-aid probe that could lead to bills exceeding 1 billion pounds ($1.3 billion.) A decision in the European Commission’s investigation into a controversial tax break for UK-based multinationals will be ready later this year, well before Britain’s ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co are considering a strategic alliance to work together on a range of commercial vehicles, a move that would enable two of the world’s largest automakers to share the burden of meeting tougher environmental rules. The potential alliance on several projects, including vans and other commercial vehicles, won’t lead to an exchange of equity ...

Bloomberg 21st Century Fox Inc accepted a sweetened, $71.3 billion bid from Walt Disney Co for its entertainment assets, outbidding Comcast Corp in a battle for one of the media industry’s biggest prizes. The $38-a-share price is about $10 a share higher than what Disney offered in December — and $3 above Comcast’s bid from last week. The new agreement ...

Bloomberg Consumer confidence slid for a seventh month in Sweden amid sliding housing prices and a tumbling krona, adding to woes as the largest Nordic economy now also faces a possible trade war. The National Institute of Economic Research’s consumer confidence indicator unexpectedly slid to 96.8 in June, which is the lowest in almost two years. Swedes became more pessimistic ...

Bloomberg BOE Technology Group Co.’s stock market reversal is dramatic even by China’s outsized standards. It took less than a year for the Apple Inc. supplier to go from one of the nation’s best-performing stocks to among its worst — a precipitous selloff that may not be over. China’s largest maker of screens for TVs and phones shed more than ...

Bloomberg Deadly dust storms sweeping over the densely-populated north Indian plains are part of a “new normal” of disruptive weather events worsening the country’s already-lethal air pollution and causing disruption in the $2.3 trillion economy. In recent months, dust clouds and storms have killed hundreds of people, destroyed thousands of homes and farmers’ crops and led to flight cancellations. The ...

Bloomberg Mercari Inc. soared on its first day of trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, underscoring investor optimism in its prospects. Shares of the Japanese online marketplace traded at around 5,300 yen in Tokyo on Tuesday, rallying from the 3,000 yen price at the initial public offering on June 11. Mercari raised $1.2 billion, Japan’s biggest for a technology company ...

Bloomberg ZTE Corp. dived 27 percent after American lawmakers passed a bill to restore severe penalties on China’s second-largest telecoms gear-maker, potentially up-ending a deal struck with President Donald Trump to allow it to get back in business. The company has lost $7.2 billion of market capitalisation in the past week, as its Hong Kong shares slid to their lowest ...

Bloomberg Vietnam boasts one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, optimistic citizens and a stable government. But below the surface of positive data points lies discontent that spilled over during recent protests across the country. Hundreds of anti-riot police blanketed central Ho Chi Minh City on June 17, the nation’s thriving commercial centre, to prevent demonstrations after thousands of Vietnamese took ...