International News

Bloomberg Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is most popular for people younger than 25, who the company says spend an average of more than 32 minutes a day on the photo-sharing app. For those 25 and older, usage is more than 24 minutes a day, the company said. Instagram is crediting much of the growth in engagement to its “Stories,” which was ...

Bloomberg UK construction growth slowed to the weakest in almost a year in July, according to IHS Markit. The Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 51.9, the lowest since August, from 54.8 in June. That’s below the 54 forecast by economists in a Bloomberg survey, although it remains above the 50 level dividing expansion from contraction. The construction sector was a ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and BMW AG agreed to upgrade more than 5 million diesel cars in Germany in a bid to salvage their beleaguered diesel technology and draw a line under an emissions scandal that shows no signs of abating after nearly two years. The deal, hashed out at an emergency summit in Berlin on Wednesday, also includes ...

Bloomberg Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics Co., rejected allegations that he paid bribes to a friend of South Korea’s former president to secure support for a key merger. Testifying for the first time in his graft trial, the 49-year-old said a 2014 meeting with then-President Park Geun-hye lasted less than five minutes while a pow-wow the next year ...

Bloomberg Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s largest wireless carrier, is considering selling about a 3 percent stake in its tower unit through an institutional share sale, people with knowledge of the matter said. The New Delhi-based company could pare its holding in Bharti Infratel Ltd. as soon as this month, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because ...

Bloomberg Daiichi Sankyo Inc.’s settlement of thousands of lawsuits blaming the company’s blood-pressure drugs for causing intestinal damage brings to $339 million the amount the drugmaker has paid for its handling of the medicines. Daiichi officials agreed on Monday to pay $300 million to resolve patient suits over its Benicar, Benicar HCT, Azor and Tribenzor blood-pressure treatments. The accord comes ...

Bloomberg Thyssenkrupp AG is considering a radical breakup plan as a possible alternative to the proposed combination of its European steel operations with India’s Tata Steel Europe Ltd., according to people familiar with the matter. Under the alternative scenario, Thyssenkrupp would retain its European steel operations and hive off most or all of the other activities, said the people, who ...

Bloomberg China’s foreign-exchange regulator is examining how some of the country’s biggest dealmakers used their domestic assets as collateral to get loans overseas, people familiar with the matter said. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange recently began reviewing loan guarantees for Anbang Insurance Group Co., Dalian Wanda Group Co., Fosun International Ltd., HNA Group Co. and the Chinese owner of ...

Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp. has as much as $65 billion in financing lined up as Chairman Masayoshi Son weighs whether to make a formal takeover offer for Charter Communications Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. The financing arrangement is among the new details that are emerging on Son’s plan to merge Charter with SoftBank’s struggling US wireless company ...

Bloomberg Mukesh Ambani has elbowed past Li Ka-shing to become Asia’s second-richest man as investors rallied behind his efforts to arm India’s poor with cheap data-loaded phones. Some analysts are beginning to focus on the costs of his ambition. The chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd. has added $12.5 billion to his wealth this year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, ...