Bloomberg European banks will probably dodge an attempt to force the separation of their investment banking and retail arms after the European Commission’s efforts to broker an agreement between lawmakers appear to have flopped. The European Parliament’s negotiating team failed to make progress on the so-called bank structural reform bill in a meeting with commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis …

  Bloomberg Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s largest mortgage lender, posted a 15 percent decline in third-quarter profit as it took a 1 billion-pound ($1.2 billion) charge to compensate customers who were wrongly sold loan insurance. The bank’s shares fell as much as 3.8 percent as impairments climbed more than most estimates while an accounting change drove an improvement in …

  Cairo / AFP Facing a weeks-long shortage in a country already restless with rising prices, Egyptian authorities this week raided a Twinkies snack cake factory and confiscated its sugar stocks — all 2,000 tonnes. The raid on Sunday on Edita Food Industries, one of Egypt’s largest producers, came as discontent with increased food prices and empty shelves bubbles to …