Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG’s top ranks are bracing for a potential government-brokered merger with rival Commerzbank AG by mid-year as they run out of time to turn Germany’s largest bank around. Executives are concerned such a deal may become their only option if there’s no clear improvement in the first three months of 2019, people briefed on their thinking say. ...

Bloomberg Barclays Plc won permission to transfer large parts of its business from Britain to its Dublin-based subsidiary if needed, with a judge disclosing that the Brexit-driven move could affect thousands of the bank’s corporate clients. The London-based bank had requested court approval for the potential move, which was granted by High Court Judge Richard Snowden. Snowden described the move ...

Bloomberg India’s shadow lenders are facing a fresh threat, just as they were starting to recover from the fallout of landmark defaults last year by one of their own. The lenders could come up against a new cash shortage, if concerns about debt at conglomerate Essel Group ricochet through India’s money markets, according to Citibank and Credit Suisse. There’s reason ...

Bloomberg Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a populist push in his final budget before elections, cutting taxes for middle-class voters and giving cash handouts to farmers. The government will allocate 750 billion-rupee ($10.6 billion) a year for the cash plan for about 120 million farmers and give taxpayers 185 billion rupees of relief in the year to March 2020, ...

Bloomberg China has snapped up more US soybeans following two days of trade talks in Washington. State-run buyers Cofco Corp. and Sinograin purchased more than one million tons of American soybeans each, the companies said in separate statements on Saturday. The purchases are “to implement the consensus that the leaders of both China and the US have come to,” according ...

Bloomberg Talks for a $20 billion Malaysian rail project are still ongoing, with the Southeast Asian nation expecting to make a decision “as soon as possible,” the Star newspaper reported, citing Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir said the status of the East Coast Railway Link is being negotiated with China, and that he couldn’t disclose further information until the outcome ...

Bloomberg HNA Group Co., the debt-laden Chinese conglomerate on a selling spree, agreed to dispose of its last plot of land near Hong Kong’s former Kai Tak airport, ending ambitions for a massive residential project in the world’s most expensive property market. A unit of Wheelock & Co. agreed to buy the land from HNA’s Hong Kong International Construction Investment ...

Bloomberg Indonesia postponed construction of second phase of Jakarta’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project because of a land-use issue, the Jakarta Post reported. The company delayed the ground breaking of the project, that was originally scheduled in January, because the State Secretariat has yet to issue a land-use permit for Medan Merdeka, the area near the Presidential Palace, Sabandar said. The ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s limited supply of land has forced it to look at unusual and costly options to address a chronic homes shortage in the world’s least affordable housing market. One of the ideas the government is considering is to build four artificial islands in its central waters. This would cost HK$500 billion ($63.7 billion), the South China Morning Post ...

Bloomberg The British automotive industry saw investment plunge last year as carmakers delayed decisions on upgrading machinery and factories amid mounting concern about the impact of a hard Brexit. Spending plunged 46 percent to 589 million pounds ($769 million), the lowest since the global financial crisis, the Society of Motor Manufacturers said in a statement. Concern about the impact of ...