Bloomberg Africa is finally seeing the benefits from the recovery in cru-de prices as companies ramp up drilling from Algeria to Namibia. The rigs are returning and wildcatters are getting excited again after a years-long hiatus during the oil-price slump. From majors like Total SA to independents like Tullow Oil Plc, companies are snapping up exploration rights and doing deals. …

Bloomberg The world’s biggest public energy company doesn’t worry about size when it comes to potential deal-making. The driver of any acquisition for Exxon Mobil Corp. isn’t the scope of the target, it’s whether the company finds more value in it than the market does, Darren Woods, chief executive officer of the Irving, Texas-based firm, said at the New Economy …

Bloomberg Oil prices are likely to be “biased to the upside” for the rest of the year as demand from refineries rises in November and December, according to Citigroup Inc. An average price of $80 a barrel for this quarter is “realistic,” with spikes to $90 or even $100 possible if further disruptions worsen a supply crunch amid rising consumption, …

Bloomberg Rents in the world’s costliest office market, Hong Kong, may fall for the first time in four years as an equities rout weighs on sentiment in the financial hub. Grade-A office rents in Central and Admiralty will decline by about four percent in 2019, Colliers International Inc. said in a report. That compares with an estimated gain of 9 …

Bloomberg More signs have emerged that China’s housing market is cooling, with sales in the secondary market, land purchases by developers and contracted sales at the biggest builders all falling last month, as these three charts show. Sales of existing homes, which are quarantined from the government curbs on the new home market, last month plunged to a four-year low …

Bloomberg There’s what you think you said. There’s what you actually said. And perhaps most importantly for the steward of the world’s largest economy, there’s what people heard. That’s a lesson that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is learning the hard way as he seeks to steer the economy between the twin shoals of overheating and recession while being buffeted …

Bloomberg DNB ASA finally feels it’s getting some respect from investors, but it has some way to go in matching its Nordic rivals on its income mix. With Nordea Bank Abp moved to Finland and Danske Bank A/S mired in a money laundering scandal, Norway’s DNB is now Scandinavia’s biggest bank by market value. While calling itself the largest Scandinavian …

Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has achieved half of its revenue-growth goal, but it isn’t stopping there. On his first day as chief financial officer, Stephen Scherr told investors the firm is ahead of schedule on its objective of $5 billion in new revenue by 2020. Goldman Sachs has already increased revenue firmwide by $2.5 billion through a series of …

Bloomberg The co-head of a key markets business at BNP Paribas is st-epping down after the French bank reported some of the worst fixed-income trading results for third quarter. Adrian Boehler, who was co-head of the foreign exchange, local markets and commodities unit, will seek “another career opportunity” within Paris-based BNP Paribas while his counterpart Francisco Oliveira will become sole …

Bloomberg Macquarie Group Ltd., the Australian investment bank, is building up a European front in a risky business where few rivals have been able to tread since the financial crisis. The bank has hired Massimiliano Pignatelli and Pablo de Mattos in London to make market bets with shareholders’ money, known as proprietary trading, according to people familiar with the matter. …