LONDON / Reuters Sports Direct lowered its full-year core earnings forecast on Wednesday after Mike Ashley, the owner of Britain’s biggest sportswear retailer, revealed a trading slowdown in a newspaper interview. Flouting the rules on how companies disclose financial information, Ashley told the newspaper on Tuesday that Sports Direct was “in trouble, we are not trading very well”, sending its …

DALLAS / Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. pilots are seeking pay raises that would give them the highest compensation in the industry plus a bigger company contribution to retirement savings, according to a contract proposal presented to the carrier. The pay increases would average 4.1 percent annually for a compound gain of almost 33 percent over seven years under the plan …

Bloomberg Kingfisher, Europe’s largest home improvement retailer, beat forecasts with a 0.3 percent rise in annual profit, though it said it remained cautious on the outlook for France, its most profitable market. The firm, which trades as B&Q and Screwfix in Britain and Castorama and Brico Depot in France and other markets, said on Wednesday it made an underlying pretax …