Bloomberg The battle for Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. may be over, but the company’s chief executive officer says it’s just the beginning for lodging-industry mergers. “Clearly the Marriott-Starwood transaction has created a lot of chatter about further consolidation,” Starwood CEO Tom Mangas said on a conference call with analysts in which he and Marriott International Inc. CEO Arne ...

Bloomberg U.K. house prices increased for a ninth month in March as rental investors rushed to purchase property before a tax increase, Nationwide Building Society said. The average price of a home rose 0.8 percent from February to 200,251 pounds ($287,280), the lender said in a statement on Monday. The annual rate of growth surged to 5.7 percent, the strongest ...

Bloomberg The average price of a Manhattan apartment topped $2 million for the first time, reflecting the closing of deals from a high-end buying frenzy that’s now showing signs of a slowdown. Buyers in the first quarter took ownership of condominiums in some of New York’s most-expensive developments after signing contracts as far back as three years ago, when construction ...

Bloomberg The true strength of the American labour market may be disguised. Wage growth — described as slow and unconvincing by Federal Reserve officials plotting their path to higher interest rates — is more robust by some measures than commonly acknowledged due to changes in the composition of the workforce. With unemployment close to the lowest in eight years, accelerating ...

Bloomberg Brazil economists lowered their forecast for the benchmark Selic rate for the first time in four months as the currency appreciated further amid speculation President Dilma Rousseff will be ousted. Economists lowered their Selic forecast to 13.75 percent at year-end 2016, from 14.25 percent previously, and also its current level, according to the weekly Focus survey conducted April 1. ...

Bloomberg Hewlett Packard Enterprise will sell its majority stake in IT services firm Mphasis Ltd. for about $825 million to Blackstone Group LP, as the U.S. private equity firm expands in India while the computer maker exits tangential businesses. The investment firm will buy at least 84 percent of HPE’s stake for 430 rupees per share, the U.S. company said ...

Bloomberg Global banks’ withdrawal from Latin America since the global financial crisis could undermine domestic banking systems just as the region requires substantial funding to ignite economic growth, according to a report from the International Monetary Fund. Brazil’s Banco Bradesco SA in July announced the $5.2 billion purchase of HSBC Holdings Plc’s local retail unit, raising concern in the local ...

AFP Groupon, the daily deals ecommerce operator which has been struggling since a hot public share offering, said it received a $250 million investment from a private investment fund. Groupon said it would use the cash infusion from Atairos to boost share repurchases and to revive growth. “Our partnership with Atairos will help accelerate our transformation while better positioning us ...

AFP Wall Street stocks opened modestly lower on Monday as Virgin America surged more than 40 percent on news it agreed to be acquired by Alaska Airlines in a $4 billion deal. Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 17.771.20, down 21.55 points (0.12 percent). The broad-based S&P 500 shed 2.76 (0.13 percent) to 2,070.02, while ...

Bloomberg Mexican conglomerate Alfa SAB is back in talks to take over Pacific Exploration & Production Corp. with a sweetened bid for the beleaguered Colombian oil producer, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Shares of Pacific jumped. A strong offer by Alfa could win support from Pacific’s biggest investor, O’Hara Administration Co., and the producer’s management, the people ...