Retail

  Bloomberg Gol Linhas Aereas SA is offering to exchange $780 million of dollar-denominated notes for new securities maturing over a decade, as the Brazilian airline struggles to reshape its finances amid a deepening recession in the domestic market. Bondholders of five different tranches of debt, one of them maturing as early as next year, are being asked to accept ...

  Bloomberg A low-cost, low-fare carrier such as Spirit Airlines Inc. makes its living on passenger fees. That those fees, known as non-ticket revenue, dropped by more than $2 per passenger in the first quarter, compared to a year ago, might suggest a shift in travellers’ tolerance for additional charges. Spirit blames its sagging fee tally on low fares; travellers ...

  Berlin / Bloomberg Hugo Boss AG, the embattled German fashion retailer, reported its biggest drop in quarterly profit in at least six years and said it considers closing stores to reduce costs. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization and other items declined 29 percent to 93.5 million euros ($108 million) in the first quarter, the Metzingen, Germany-based company ...

  New York / Bloomberg Johnson & Johnson must pay $55 million to a 62-year-old South Dakota woman who blamed her ovarian cancer on the company’s talcum powder in the second such trial loss this year. J&J is accused in more than 1,000 lawsuits in state and federal courts of ignoring studies linking its Shower-to-Shower product and Johnson’s Baby Powder ...

  New York / Bloomberg Consumers in New York, California and Illinois sued PepsiCo Inc.’s Quaker Oats for false advertising, claiming the brand’s signature product contains a possible carcinogen that is not listed as an ingredient. The plaintiffs say in court documents that the company’s oatmeal has glyphosate, an herbicide the World Health Organization declared a probable carcinogen last year, ...

  JOHANNESBURG / AP South African shoppers flocked to the opening of one of Africa’s largest malls outside Johannesburg, despite rising unemployment and slowing economic growth. The Mall of Africa, which was opened last Thursday, spanning 130,000 square meters (140,000 square feet) registered 68,000 visitors, a spokesman for the mall’s owners said. “We did expect a high number but this ...

  Bloomberg Jeff Smisek walked away with $36.8 million in severance and benefits from United Airlines after he was ousted as chief executive officer last year. Smisek, 61, received about $6.6 million in cash plus equity awards valued at $29.4 million, according to a proxy statement filed by Chicago-based United Continental Holdings Inc., the airline’s parent. He resigned as president, ...

  Bloomberg Bombardier Inc.’s founding family is rejecting demands by Canada’s government to loosen its control of the company in exchange for financial assistance. “It’s not our intention to change anything in this regard,” Bombardier Chairman Pierre Beaudoin said in Montreal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is said to be pushing for corporate governance changes, including the dual-class structure that ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German retail sales, a closely watched measure of household confidence, declined in March, official data showed last week. Retailers’ sales fell by 1.1 percent in March compared with February, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. The previous month, retail sales had remained unchanged. On a 12-month basis however, business increased, edging up by ...

Bloomberg Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA agreed to sell Vietnam’s Big C grocery chain to Central Group at an enterprise value of €1 billion ($1.1 billion), extending an Asian divestment programme aimed to reduce the French retailer’s debt. Casino will receive €920 million in proceeds, the St. Etienne, France-based company said in a statement last week. The disposal will bring the total ...