International News

Bloomberg Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s rise into a $500 billion company was fuelled by a culture of internal competition, where teams raced against each other to make ideas work. To become an advertising powerhouse like Facebook Inc., the internal barriers are starting to come down. The seven main business units of China’s largest company are working to synchronise data and study ...

Bloomberg Huochebang and Yunmanman, China’s two biggest apps for Uber-like truck services, have agreed to merge, creating a company valued at more than $2 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Wang Gang, a backer of Yunmanman’s and an angel investor in ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, will become the chief executive officer of the new entity, the people said, asking ...

Bloomberg Chinese industrial profits maintained their recent surge, underscoring resilience in the economy and strength in producer inflation. Industrial profits increased 25.1 percent in October from a year earlier, compared with a 27.7 percent pace a month earlier that was the highest in almost six years, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. Profits in the first 10 months ...

Bloomberg Business Secretary Greg Clark said reviving Britain’s flagging productivity lies at the heart of the industrial strategy he was expected to unveil it on Monday to help chart the future of Britain’s economy as the country leaves the EU. While Britain would pursue the strategy “regardless” of Brexit, the plan will take the sting out of the uncertainty sparked ...

Bloomberg Women working in London are paid the least relative to their male counterparts in the whole of the UK. The gender pay gap in London is almost as big now as it was in 1997, meaning the UK capital has gone from having the narrowest divide to the widest in 20 years as other UK regions posted greater improvements, ...

Bloomberg Meredith Corp. agreed to acquire Time Inc. for $2.8 billion including debt, swallowing the once-mighty home of Fortune and Sports Illustrated after the internet age wreaked havoc on even the most prestigious magazine titles. The $18.50-a-share offer is an all-cash one, Meredith said in a statement. The deal gives Meredith, publisher of Better Homes & Gardens, a larger audience ...

Bloomberg Italian consumer confidence unexpectedly fell this month as shoppers start to plan their Christmas gift expenditures. The household sentiment dropped to 114.3 from a revised 116.0 in October, statistics agency Istat said Monday in Rome. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 12 analysts called for a November reading of 116.5. “It’s bad news ahead of Christmas,” said ...

Bloomberg Cable companies are settling on a new strategy to combat streaming services like Netflix and Hulu: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. Comcast Corp. and Charter Communications Inc., the two biggest US cable operators, are in talks to offer Hulu’s on-demand service through their set-top boxes, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Comcast, the largest cable ...

Bloomberg State-run Steel Authority of India Ltd. is heading for a turnaround this year as the government orders belt-tightening and asset disposals at the loss-making 63-year-old mill. “This year we’re expecting some cash profit to come into SAIL,” Aruna Sharma, secretary at the steel ministry, said in an interview in New Delhi. The ministry has directed the company to better ...

Bloomberg Alipay, China’s leading internet payments platform, will enforce a cap of 24 percent on interest rates charged by lenders on its site as Chinese authorities are said to be preparing to crack down on so-called online microlenders. The platform, part of the Ant Financial business controlled by billionaire Jack Ma, said in an emailed statement that it recently discovered ...