New York / AFP Goldman Sachs reported a sharp decline in first-quarter earnings, but gave a fairly bullish outlook for the mergers and acquisitions business now that financial markets have stabilised. Earnings for the quarter ending March 31 were $1.2 billion, down 56.3 percent from the year-ago period. Revenues sank 40.3 percent to $6.3 billion. Nearly all of the big ...

  Tokyo / Reuters Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said inflation could be affected if the yen continued to rise excessively, leading to further easing measures to meet the central bank’s price target, the Wall Street Journal reported. Kuroda also told the paper that the BOJ was not targetting the exchange rate but that he would continue to ...

  Bloomberg China wants to get control of the most popular fast-food chain in the country. A consortium backed by sovereign fund China Investment Corp. has expressed interest in buying a majority stake in Yum! Brands Inc.’s China business, which runs more than 7,100 KFC and Pizza Hut eateries across the nation, people with knowledge of the matter said. The ...