Cairo / AFP Egypt floated the country’s pound on Thursday as part of a raft of reforms, after a dollar crunch and exorbitant black market trade threatened to grind some imports to a halt. The government of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is rolling out an austerity programme and seeking billions in support from abroad in order to meet …

  Bloomberg BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, said that India is the biggest opportunity for the firm within Asia as it expands lending where banks fear to tread. The asset manager is pushing into private credit in the region as unprecedented monetary easing by central banks has weighed on bond market rates. Almost $10 trillion of securities from …

  Zurich/ AFP Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, said on Thursday it defied market expectations by posting a profit amid a vast cost cutting programme. Net earnings came in at 41 million Swiss francs (38 million euros, $42 million), a massive decline of 95 percent from the same quarter last year. But the bank still did better than analysts had …