News

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy may be heading for its first recession since 2009, with economists slashing their forecasts in the wake of the Brexit vote and now seeing two quarters of contraction this year. While the 0.1% decline in gross domestic product anticipated in each of the third and fourth quarters is modest, it will mark the end of ...

  Bloomberg French executives brushed aside concerns about the U.K. vote to leave the European Union, reporting improving confidence in the first major survey of business sentiment since the British referendum. Business sentiment rose two points to 102 in July, while sentiment among manufacturing executives climbed one point to 103, national statistics office Insee said Thursday. The increase suggests that ...

  Bloomberg Galenica AG, the owner of Switzerland’s biggest pharmacy network, agreed to buy Relypsa Inc. for about $1.53 billion to gain a new medicine and a commercial network in the U.S. The Swiss company will pay $32 per share in cash for Redwood City, California-based Relypsa, it said in a statement on Thursday. That’s 59 percent above yesterday’s closing ...

  Bloomberg Exxon Mobil Corp. has a clear path to expanding its reach in Papua New Guinea after its rivals said they wouldn’t counter a $2.5 billion bid for gas explorer InterOil Corp. Oil Search Ltd. and Total SA had offered to buy InterOil in May in a deal that valued the company at $2.2 billion. Exxon topped it with ...

  RIYADH / TNS Foreign investments in the Kingdom recorded a rise of 9 percent, equivalent to SR94.32 billion by the end of the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year. The total value amounted, by the end of the first quarter of this year, to SR1.135 trillion, compared to SR1.041 trillion by the end ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, regained its position as China’s top crude supplier in June, after losing out to Russia over the previous three months, customs data showed on Thursday. China imported 4.569 million tonnes of crude from Saudi Arabia in June, or 1.112 million barrels per day (bpd), down 14.2 percent on the year but ...

  REUTERS Egypt’s central bank governor said that the time was not right to float the Egyptian pound, which has come under intensifying pressure in recent weeks, but he left the door open to a possible devaluation. Economists say a devaluation is all but inevitable. But the timing is crucial to maximise its impact while mitigating the inflationary effect, particularly ...

  REUTERS OPEC member Algeria’s trade deficit widened to $10.83 billion in the first six months of 2016, 27.2 percent more than in the same period last year due to a fall in energy earnings as oil prices tumbled, data showed. Oil and gas exports, which accounted for 93.55 percent of Algeria’s sales abroad, dropped 33.6 percent to $11.86 billion ...

  REUTERS Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu National Petrochemical Co (Yansab) beat analysts’ forecasts as its second-quarter net profit trebled due to higher production and sales. The firm, a subsidiary of Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), made a net profit of 689.3 million riyals ($183.8 million) in the three months to June 30, up from 227.4 million riyals in the same period ...

  BLOOMBERG Saudi Arabian mobile-phone operator Etihad Etisalat Co. started talks with lenders about refinancing 8 billion riyals ($2.1 billion) of debt to get better terms, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Mobily, as the company is known, began discussions with banks after putting the sale of its mobile towers on hold, some of the proceeds of which ...