Bloomberg The European Union blocked CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd.’s bid to create the U.K.’s biggest mobile carrier, the latest setback to consolidation that telecommunications operators say they need to funnel money into new networks. Hutchison’s plan to buy Telefonica SA’s U.K. mobile-phone business for as much as 10.25 billion pounds ($14.8 billion) and merge it with its Three unit ...

  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 ...

  Bloomberg Last week’s $1.3 billion rout in exchange-traded funds focused on emerging markets engulfed even Mexico, where a stellar earnings season was overshadowed by concern that global growth is slowing. Traders pulled $155.2 million from the nation’s flagship iShares MSCI Mexico Capped ETF in the five-day period ending May 6, the most among major developing nations after China, according ...

  Bloomberg Argentina’s Grupo Supervielle SA, controller of lender Banco Supervielle SA, is seeking to raise about $190 million in what is set to be the country’s first initial public offering since President Mauricio Macri took office. The bank expects to sell American depositary receipts for $11 to $13 each and issue common shares in Argentina for $2.20 to $2.60 ...

  Bloomberg A bad start to the year for Canadian natural gas producers is getting worse after wildfires in northern Alberta knocked out oil-sands operations that represent a key source of demand. Spot gas prices in Western Canada have been cut by more than half after oil-sands developers curtailed about 40 percent of their supply, reducing the amount of gas ...

  Bloomberg Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron-ore producer, will consider the sale of $10 billion of its best assets by the end of next year as it seeks to reduce its debt load amid sluggish demand. The Rio de Janeiro-based company also will try to raise $4 billion to $5 billion this year by selling such “non-core” businesses as ...

  Bloomberg Brazil’s real rose as the Senate gears up for a vote that would force President Dilma Rousseff out and into an impeachment trial she appears unlikely to survive, even as the central bank intervened to weaken the currency. The real strengthened 0.4% to 3.4639 per dollar in Sao Paulo as the monetary authority announced it would offer 20,000 ...

  The plight of the middle class is one of the hottest topics in the U.S. presidential campaign. Candidates compete to offer plans for the revival of the dependable middle, the foundation of society. The polarization isn’t only occurring in the U.S., though. In Germany, with its far more socialist income redistribution model, the middle class also is endangered. In ...