Anglo American Plc is dabbling in creative M&A. Buying an English fertilizer project for just over $500 million, excluding debt, is more than manageable for a $35 billion mining giant that generated $1.3 billion in free cash flow in the first half of last year. It’s also a gamble on an unproven niche market that speaks to the paucity of ...

There’s an old saying in retail that despite all the bluster, not much really changes over the holiday shopping season: Those store groups that have been winning keep on doing so, while the losers continue to suffer. Target Corp. just became the exception to this rule. The big-box retailer has been a consistently strong performer over the past couple of ...

A would-be Boeing Co. takeover target has found its own dance partner. Woodward Inc., a maker of cockpit controls and engine-actuation systems, announced last week that it’s merging with fellow aerospace supplier Hexcel Corp. The all-stock deal values Hexcel, a maker of lightweight composite materials, at about $7.5 billion including debt, with Woodward shareholders set to own about 55% of ...

China is opening the deepest, darkest corner of its strained financial system to American financial institutions. It’s not clear why investors would want to go there, even with their eyes wide open. As part of President Donald Trump’s phase one trade deal, China will allow US institutions to apply for asset management company licenses (beginning with the provinces), permitting them ...

The club of UK takeover targets that never get bought has an undisputed leader — Pearson Plc. But the logic of taking the troubled educational publisher private now looks stronger than it has for some time. The company’s defenses could scarcely be weaker, and there’s a plausible recovery strategy to be built amid the wreckage. The firm has been clobbered ...

In the late 20th century, economists generally accepted the notion that financial capital should be allowed to flow freely between countries. But economists are beginning to question this consensus. That could lead to less open financial and currency policies around the world, or herald the coming of a new global monetary order. There are a number of reasons that free ...

Bloomberg Stack up US equities next to almost anything that is used to measure value right now, and the picture can elicit anxiety. Up 13 of the past 15 weeks, the S&P 500 is trading at historically high levels versus earnings, expected profits and sales. Does that mean there’s no way to justify putting more money into a market where ...

Bloomberg Stocks may be grabbing most of the headlines, but equities aren’t the only asset class in uncharted territory. Global currency volatility has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded. After the US and China put pen to paper on a trade deal that reaffirmed an agreement not to devalue their currencies, the JPMorgan Global FX Volatility Index is trading ...

Bloomberg Traditional hedge funds, pensions and endowments are boosting cryptocurrency holdings, according to the biggest Bitcoin trust provider. Grayscale Investments, which lets accredited investors own Bitcoin and other coins via its funds, said it took in $608 million last year, surpassing the total amount raised the previous six years. The majority of the inflows — about 71% — came from ...

Bloomberg The long-awaited trade agreement between the US and China may pave the way for Boeing Co to resume sales to the world’s second-largest aviation market, but the American giant has much catching up to do against European archrival Airbus SA. China Aviation Supplies Holding Co, which buys planes on behalf of the nation’s airlines, has been in talks with ...