News

  Bloomberg Spanish unemployment fell to a seven-year low in the fourth quarter in a boost for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who has made job creation the centerpiece of his administration. The jobless rate dropped to 18.6 percent in the three months through December, the National Statistics Office said in Madrid on Thursday. That’s down from 18.9 percent in the ...

  Bloomberg The UK economy is maintaining its stellar performance since the Brexit vote, but the reasons may be cause for concern. Growth beat expectations again in the fourth quarter, coming in at 0.6 percent, but the make-up of the performance hints at ongoing weak links. The expansion is still being almost entirely driven by services and consumer spending, continuing ...

  Bloomberg Johnson & Johnson agreed to buy Actelion Ltd. for $30 billion and spin off the Swiss drugmaker’s research and development operations, clinching its largest deal ever to become a leader in medicines for a rare type of high blood pressure. J&J, already the world’s biggest maker of health-care products, is fulfilling its goal of gaining a new drug ...

  Bloomberg To convince investors to finance a pan-European war against Uber Technologies Inc., a French ride-hailing app 50 times smaller has a one-word pitch: profit. Chauffeur-Prive is near closing a 50-million-euro ($53 million) fundraising round to expand out of Paris into the rest of Europe, with the promise it can extend a five-year streak of growth while turning a ...

  Bloomberg Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV expects debt to fall by at least 45 percent this year as the Italian-American carmaker enters the final stretch of a plan to turn liabilities into cash by selling more expensive autos. The stock jumped. Net industrial debt will narrow to less than 2.5 billion euros ($2.7 billion) this year from 4.6 billion euros ...

  Bloomberg Apple Inc. results next week will likely show iPhone sales growing again, bucking a year of declines. That’s the good news. The bad news: The average selling price of the handsets in the key holiday quarter ending in late December may show customers settling for older iPhone 6S models, rather than the iPhone 7, introduced in September, according ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabian construction firm Abdullah Abdul Mohsin al-Khodari and Sons said that the total value of its delayed work as of Dec. 31 last year was 312.7 million riyals ($83.4 million), a slight improvement from the previous quarter. As builders in the kingdom rely on the government for most of their contracts they’ve suffered as the pace of ...

  Bloomberg Yes, you heard it right — Singapore’s home prices are set to make a comeback after a three-year losing streak. And analysts think property developer stocks are the best way to play that rebound. Amid a restructuring push to boost a slowing economy, the government could signal its intention to reconsider property cooling measures as early as the ...

  Bloomberg After years of relying on American consumers, Vietnam is turning to its Asian neighbors after US President Donald Trump dashed hopes for a Pacific trade deal that stood to benefit the export-reliant nation the most. The end of the Trans-Pacific Partnership “will push us to expand in other markets,” Nguyen Duc Kien, deputy head of the National Assembly ...

  Bloomberg China isn’t just buying Australia’s coal assets, it’s also expanding access to the limited infrastructure needed to ship it globally. Yancoal Australia Ltd.’s $2.45 billion purchase of the biggest slice of Rio Tinto Group’s coal operations will double the Chinese-owned miner’s output in the country. The deal also includes a 36.5 percent stake in Port Waratah Coal Services ...