News

  Reuters Saudi Oger has begun talks with potential buyers for its 20.93 percent stake in Arab Bank in a deal that could raise about $1 billion for the embattled construction giant, sources aware of the matter said. Oger was one of two large Saudi contractors charged with implementing the kingdom’s grand infrastructure plans before the fall in oil prices ...

  Bloomberg The UK dropped out of businesses’ top five locations for investments for the first time in seven years as fears about the country’s plans to exit the European Union added complexity to international deals, consultants Ernst & Young LLP said in a survey of executives. British businesses rank behind investments in the US, China, Germany, Canada and France, ...

  TOKYO / AP US electric car maker Tesla says it plans to start working with Japanese electronics company Panasonic Corp. on solar energy. Tesla’s said on its corporate blog Monday that the companies have signed a non-binding letter of intent to begin collaborating on Panasonic’s production of photovoltaic cells and modules at a facility under construction by San Mateo, ...

  Bloomberg Manhattan rents decreased in September, marking only the second time since February 2014 that median rents for the borough fell from a year earlier. That’s great if you’re single and earning $100,000 a year, or part of a household that spends $100,000 a year on rent. For everybody else in New York, the new rental market data, published ...

  Bloomberg Rebiotix Inc., a closely held biotechnology company, said its drug that restores beneficial gut bacteria was better than a placebo at keeping life-threatening intestinal infections from recurring in a human trial. Recurrences of infections with Clostridium difficile, a potentially deadly microbe that often attacks sick, hospitalized patients, were prevented in 63.9 percent of people who took the drug, ...

  Frankfurt / AFP There will still be more books than you could ever read, but visitors to this week’s Frankfurt Book Fair will also be invited to don virtual reality goggles, visit an interactive classroom and discover 3D-printed art as publishers plug into new technology. Organisers of the world’s largest publishing event say the focus on art and technology ...

  Bloomberg Britain’s heating season has started with a bang, as natural gas contracts reverse a two-year slump. Gas for next-day delivery in the UK is on its longest rising streak since at least 2007, when records of broker data compiled by Bloomberg began. The contract has added 23 percent this month, after rising 52 percent in September in the ...

  AFP China’s growth slipped to a seven-year low of 6.6 percent in the third quarter, according to a survey, despite ample stimulus and a red-hot property market in the world’s second-largest economy. The median forecast for expansion in gross domestic product (GDP), based on a poll of 18 economists, represents an easing from the second quarter’s 6.7 percent. It ...

  Bloomberg China will continue to relax policies designed to shrink its coal production capacity by allowing some mines to boost output to cool rising prices, according to Australia’s Whitehaven Coal Ltd. The world’s biggest producer and user of the fuel may increase the number of days of production allowed at “better mines” while limiting activity at less efficient ones, ...

  Bloomberg Zinc, this year’s best performing metal, has the potential to extend gains to the highest level since 2011 because of a shortfall in ore production, assuming that Glencore Plc doesn’t restart idled mines, according to Japan’s biggest producer. Prices could advance to $2,500 a metric ton by March because of “super tight” ore supply after companies cut output, ...