International News

Bloomberg Ant Financial, the Chinese online finance behemoth that’s expected to seek an initial public offering, posted a 65 percent jump in profit in fiscal 2018 as it expanded its footprint in wealth management, consumer lending and overseas markets. The company controlled by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s billionaire co-founder Jack Ma posted $1.4 billion in pretax profit in the year ...

Bloomberg Frenzied demand for Ping An Healthcare and Technology Co.’s initial public offering failed to translate into a strong debut. The company, known as Good Doctor, closed unchanged in the worst first-day performance by a technology company on the city’s main board since October 2014. That’s after the company drew HK$373 billion ($47.5 billion) of retail money for a $1.1 ...

Bloomberg In the middle of a brand-new four-lane highway cutting through southern Sri Lanka’s jungle, Vijitha Gamage and his family left large piles of freshly harvested rice paddy to dry on the baking asphalt. They didn’t need to dodge traffic. On a recent afternoon, the barely used highway built with Chinese money through a rural stretch of the island nation ...

Bloomberg Two days of US-China trade discussions ended in Beijing with an agreement to keep on talking, and little else. China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported that both sides reached a consensus on some trade issues while acknowledging major disagreements on some matters. It said they would continue discussions, without providing specifics for when they would start again. Neither side ...

Bloomberg Shares of CBS Corp. and Viacom Inc. surged on speculation that a long-awaited merger between the two companies may finally be close. CBS Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves helped kick off the rally with stronger-than-expected results, signaling that his management team should stay in control in the event of a Viacom deal. The upswing gained additional momentum afternoon, when ...

Bloomberg The European Union is leaving open the option of a settlement with President Donald Trump over his controversial metal tariffs on the basis of US import quotas, according to officials from the bloc. An EU condition for such a deal would be that any US limits on steel and aluminum from the 28-nation bloc be set at levels no ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc. shares hit a record after Warren Buffett told CNBC he bought an additional 75 million shares of the iPhone maker in the first quarter. The Apple purchase, costing between $11 billion and $14 billion, adds to the almost 170 million shares that Buffett-run Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owned at the end of 2017, when it was already his ...

Bloomberg The US unemployment rate dipped below 4 percent for the first time in 17 years, but other details of the April jobs report kept any celebration in check. Despite reports of firms struggling to find skilled workers, average hourly earnings showed a deceleration, rising 0.1 percent from the prior month and 2.6 percent from a year earlier, both less ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration sought to temper expectations for a swift breakthrough on trade issues with China as a delegation of senior US officials prepares to visit Beijing this week. “It’s a big, big challenge. There’s a very different system over there and it’s a system that in all honesty has probably worked pretty well for the Chinese,” Trade Representative ...

Bloomberg Fortis Healthcare Ltd. shares extended their best monthly gain in more than three years after IHH Healthcare Bhd. and two Indian tycoons revised their offers in the race for the country’s second-largest hospital chain. The stock climbed 4.3 percent to 158.90 rupees, its highest close since March 15. Fortis shares gained 24 percent last month, the best performance since ...