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SINGAPORE / AP Organisers of the Singapore Airshow said $12.3 billion in airplane deals were signed at the event this week, a sharp drop from the last show in 2014. Leck Chet Lam, managing director of Experia Events, said that this year’s figure was comprised of 10 deals, with another 40 made at undisclosed values. There were 24 undisclosed deals ...

PARIS / Bloomberg French luxury-goods maker Kering SA reported fourth-quarter revenue growth that beat analyst estimates as the Gucci brand showed the first signs of a turnaround under Chief Executive Officer Marco Bizzarri and creative director Alessandro Michele. Sales climbed 8 percent on a comparable basis, Paris-based Kering said in a statement Friday. Analysts predicted growth of 4.1 percent, according ...

Bloomberg After spending billions on its web operations to take on rival Amazon.com Inc., the last thing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wanted to tell investors was that online sales momentum was slowing. Yet the world’s biggest retailer said that e- commerce sales rose only 8 percent in the fourth quarter. That’s down from 10 percent in the third quarter and 16 ...

Bloomberg Sainsbury’s takeover of Home Retail was already of questionable logic. Getting into a bidding war for the struggling company would be even less sensible. Steinhoff International Holdings — a furniture chain once based in South Africa that’s seeking to expand in Europe — made an offer of about $2 billion for Home Retail that threatens to derail Sainsbury’s agreement ...

TOKYO / Bloomberg Japan-based older brother of Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong Bin wants to install himself and their father at the top of the family business’s lucrative South Korean units, in the latest salvo of a year-long battle for control over the retail conglomerate. Shin Dong Joo has proposed a plan to form a new board of directors for ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy, said that the UAE supports any initiative to freeze the oil production ceiling by consensus of the members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, and Russia. Several OPEC-member countries and others have recently agreed to freeze production at last January’s levels in a move ...

Paris / AFP The OECD on Thursday cut its 2016 economic growth forecast to 3.0 percent from 3.3 percent owing to disappointing data, sluggish demand, weak investment and a high risk of financial instability. “Financial instability risks are substantial,” the 34-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its latest interim outlook, urging a strong collective response to combat ...

Cairo / WAM Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy of the UAE, has called for stronger joint pan-Arab economic action to counter current challenges, eliminate obstacles to intra-Arab trade and investment and speed up innovation and creativity to achieve economic diversification, development and prosperity. The UAE takes great interest in the issues of joint Arab action as a ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Emirates REIT (CEIC) Limited on Thursday announced its results for the year ended December 31, 2015. Emirates REIT delivered a strong financial and operating performance during 2015, consolidating its position as a leader in the UAE property asset management industry. By year end, the net asset value of the REIT stood at $469.6mn, an increase of ...

Shanghai / Afp A Chinese firm has splashed out $6 billion for a US tech firm that distributes products for Apple and Microsoft, the latest eye-popping acquisition by a Chinese company seeking greater profits abroad as the economy slows down at home. HNA will pay the enormous figure for Ingram Micro, a company statement said Wednesday, making it among the ...