Tokyo / AFP Sompo Holdings said on Wednesday it would buy Bermuda-based Endurance Specialty Holdings for $6.3 billion, becoming the latest Japanese firm to make an overseas acquisition as it faces slowing growth at home. The all-cash deal for New York-listed Endurance, which has a strong presence in the lucrative US market, is expected to be completed by the end …

  Geneva / AFP Switzerland said on Wednesday it had widened its probe into Malaysia’s scandal-tainted state investment fund, 1MDB, with transactions worth $800 million under scrutiny and evidence pointing to fraud through “a Ponzi scheme”. The Swiss attorney general opened an investigation into the troubled 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in August 2015 following allegations that some of the money …

  Seoul / AFP Samsung’s drug-manufacturing unit plans to raise as much as $2.0 billion in November with what looks set to be South Korea’s third-largest initial public offering (IPO). Samsung Biologics, a contract manufacturer of biotech drugs for global pharmaceutical firms, had announced the IPO plan back in April — with parent Samsung Group seeking new growth engines as …