Retail

Bloomberg Sears Holdings Corp., the department-store operator run by hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, obtained a new short-term loan partially funded by an investment firm that manages billionaire Bill Gates’s fortune. Cascade Investment has funded $125 million of a $500 million loan that Sears raised by using about 20 of its mortgaged properties as collateral, the retailer said in a ...

Bloomberg Associated British Foods (ABF), the biggest shareholder in Illovo Sugar, has reached an agreement to buy the rest of the South African sugar producer for 5.6 billion rand ($370 million) after raising an earlier offer. ABF, which holds a 51.35 percent stake in Illovo, has made an offer of 25 rand ($1.65) per share for the stake it does ...

Reuters Higher sales helped Saudi Arabia’s Almarai to post a marginal rise in first-quarter net profit on Sunday, though the Gulf’s largest dairy company warned of challenging market conditions in the face of the region’s economic slowdown. Saudi companies are grappling with a protracted slump in oil prices that is putting government and consumer spending under pressure. One indicator of ...

Bloomberg India is considering restricting the number of flights that can take off or land at airports to cut noise pollution, in line with several European and American nations, a senior official at India’s aviation regulator said. The environment ministry is working with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the regulator, to formulate guidelines on the maximum noise levels to ...

TOKYO / Reuters Activist investor Daniel Loeb claimed success after the surprise exit of convenience store pioneer Toshifumi Suzuki as CEO of Seven & i, saying it was a step forward for corporate governance in Japan, but his victory may turn out to be pyrrhic. The sudden departure of its 83-year-old patriarch left the $90 billion retail conglomerate without a ...

Bloomberg Boeing Co. landed new four orders valued at $1.5 billion for its 747 jumbo jetliners, giving life to a programme starved for sales amid waning demand for four-engine aircraft. The orders were reported on Boeing’s website this week and the identity of the customer wasn’t disclosed. The US planemaker also reported that it delivered fewer jetliners than a year ...

Bloomberg Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retail chain, will sell 100 percent cage-free eggs in the US by 2025, joining an industry-wide shift toward a practice that’s seen as more humane. As part of the transition, Wal-Mart and its Sam’s Club warehouse chain will require that its egg suppliers adopt United Egg Producers rules or an equivalent set of ...

MOSCOW / Reuters Russian holding company Sistema said it is in talks with private investors about selling a further stake in children’s goods retailer Detsky Mir. Sistema, which has said it plans to list the unit, sold a 23.1 percent stake in Detsky Mir to the Russia-China Investment Fund (RCIF) for 9.8 billion roubles ($143 million) in December, valuing the ...

LONDON / Reuters British retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) on Thursday reported another fall in quarterly underlying sales in its clothing division, illustrating the extent of the challenge facing its new boss. Steve Rowe, an M&S veteran of 26 years, succeeded Marc Bolland as chief executive of the clothing and food stores group on Saturday, stepping-up from the role he ...

San Francisco / AFP Amazon chief executive and founder Jeff Bezos defended his company’s workplace culture and costly growth strategy in a letter to shareholders made public this week. The work atmosphere at Seattle-based Amazon became a hot topic last year after a New York Times article portrayed it as a “hurtful,” Darwinian setting in which employees were pitted against ...