Bloomberg The trend for ultra-long European bond sales is gathering pace. Spain is the latest euro-region sovereign to sell 50-year bonds, with an issue via banks that’s likely to price on Wednesday. It follows half-century deals last month from France and Belgium as countries take advantage of historically low interest rates to issue ultra-long debt. Italy’s debt agency said …

  Bloomberg Forget for a minute that the flower industry sells beauty and fragrance. Underneath its elegance is a business as cutthroat as Game of Thrones with mulch. Take the case of the Candy Bouquet, a pretty, magenta-and-yellow flower that resembles a petunia. It was developed by a German grower, WesthoffVertriebsgesellschaftMBH, that says it was on the verge of selling …

  Bloomberg Big oil is dipping a few more toes into clean energy. Exxon Mobil Corp. is partnering with a company to capture carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. Total SA, the French oil supermajor, announced a $1.1 billion deal Monday to buy the battery maker Saft Groupe SA, complementing its 2011 purchase of a majority stake in the solar-panel maker …