International News

LONDON / Reuters SAP is revising how it prices its core business planning software after a legal crackdown against high-profile customers Diageo and AB InBev caused a backlash with its wider customer base, who feared they might be hit by hidden, indirect charges. The German company said on Tuesday it will offer a new model for sales, licence audits and ...

Bloomberg Italian industrial output unexpectedly declined in February, adding to signs that the euro region’s upswing may have passed its peak. Production decreased 0.5 percent from January, when it fell a revised 1.8 percent, national statistics office said in Rome on Tuesday. Economists had predicted it would expand 0.8 percent in February, according to the median of 24 forecasts in ...

Bloomberg Telecom Italia SpA’s board said it will take every legal action necessary to block activist investor Elliott Management Corp. from pushing ahead with its own slate of directors at the company’s next shareholder meeting. Elliott, Telecom Italia’s second-biggest shareholder after Vivendi SA, wants to replace six Vivendi-backed directors at Italy’s former phone monopoly with its own candidates at the ...

Bloomberg Glencore Plc, the world’s largest commodities trader, started to loosen ties with Russian aluminum tycoon Oleg Deripaska after the US imposed harsh sanctions against his business empire. Glencore won’t proceed with a plan to swap its 8.75 percent stake in aluminum producer United Co. Rusal for shares in another one of Deripaska’s companies, London-listed En+ Group Plc. Chief Executive ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump predicted China will be first to buckle as the world’s largest economies teeter on the brink of a trade war that’s sent financial markets reeling, without indicating where his assessment sprang from. “China will take down its trade barriers because it is the right thing to do,” Trump told his 50 million Twitter followers on April ...

Bloomberg Jack Ma, the billionaire co-founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, urged Mark Zuckerberg to tackle the growing criticism aimed at Facebook Inc. by regulators and users around the world, and “really take it seriously.” China’s richest man and chairman of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Monday weighed in on the controversy, calling on his fellow internet pioneer to ...

Bloomberg China is evaluating the potential impact of a gradual yuan depreciation, people familiar with the matter said, as the country’s leaders weigh their options in a trade spat with US President Donald Trump that has roiled financial markets worldwide. Senior Chinese officials are studying a two-pronged analysis of the yuan that was prepared by the government, the people said. ...

Bloomberg SenseTime Group Ltd. has raised $600 million from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and other investors at a valuation of more than $3 billion, becoming the world’s most valuable artificial intelligence startup. The company, which specialises in systems that analyse faces and images on an enormous scale, said it closed a Series C round in recent months in which Singaporean ...

ZURICH / Reuters Swiss drugmaker Novartis is moving further into gene therapy by buying AveXis for $8.7 billion, adding a rare-disease treatment that could reap billions in sales. The acquisition reflects a surge of interest in biotech deal-making as large pharmaceutical companies seek promising new assets to boost their pipelines. The $218-per-share cash deal announced on Monday represents a 72 ...

Bloomberg The $4.2 billion Sequoia Fund bought a small position in Facebook Inc. as the stock slid late in the first quarter, investment manager Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb told clients. “The recent controversy enabled us to purchase a very unusual business franchise riding several powerful secular trends at a price-earnings multiple only a little higher than that of the overall ...