Bloomberg Ikea, the world’s biggest furniture retailer, plans to sell about €900 million ($1 billion) of European retail parks surrounding its stores, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ikea has hired Cushman & Wakefield Inc. to help market the assets, two of the people said. Josefin Thorell, a spokeswoman for Ikea, confirmed that the company plans to …

  Bloomberg Home prices rose in the most Chinese cities in more than two years in April, with gains in second-tier cities surpassing advances in larger hubs. New-home prices excluding government-subsidized housing climbed in 65 cities, compared with 62 in March, among the 70 cities tracked by the government, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. That’s the most …

  AFP Unions and employers in Germany’s construction industry on Wednesday agreed a pay hike of around five percent for some 750,000 workers in the sector. The employers’ federation, ZDB, and the union IG Bau said they have agreed a pay increase of 4.6 percent for workers in the west of the country in two stages over a period of …