Reuters Creditors have agreed in principle to Saudi Binladin Group’s (SBG) request for a two-year extension on a 10 billion riyal ($2.7 billion) Islamic credit facility used to pay for delayed building work at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, sources said. Reuters reported last month that SBG had asked a syndicate of banks for the credit to be extended ...

  Bloomberg Elon Musk may think hydrogen-powered vehicles are rubbish, but Toyota Motor Corp. and a cadre of Japan’s leading manufacturers are betting otherwise — and not just on cars. With the blessing of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Toyota is at the forefront of Japan’s efforts to use hydrogen and fuel cells to power cars, heat homes and keep factories ...

  Bloomberg Iron ore keeps getting told the end may be nigh: so far in 2017, the response has been that the end’s just another high. The raw material’s rally has been powerful enough to drive futures in China back to $100 a metric ton as spot prices trade at levels last seen in 2014. On the Dalian Commodity Exchange, ...

  Bloomberg Takata Corp., the troubled air-bag maker behind the biggest auto safety recall, said it will probably report a third consecutive annual loss as it booked a one-time charge after agreeing to settle a US criminal investigation. Net loss will probably be 64 billion yen ($562 million) in the year through March, compared with a November forecast for a ...

  Bloomberg Cheap Hong Kong equities are suddenly back in vogue with Chinese investors. As tightening capital controls turn the city’s stock market into one of the few Beijing-approved destinations for offshore investment, mainland traders are piling into shares that have long been priced at much lower levels than their counterparts in China. Average daily inflows through Hong Kong’s exchange ...

  Bloomberg Copper posted the biggest gain in almost four years, leading a surge in metals, as exports from China jumped and BHP Billiton Ltd. signaled a halt in shipments from the world’s largest copper mine. Silver neared the longest string of weekly gains since 2011 and mining stocks rose. Overseas shipments from China, the top industrial-metals user, rebounded in ...

  Bloomberg A Triple-Eh credit rating? For Canada, maintaining the trust of borrowers is a source of national pride, like winning the gold medal in Olympic ice hockey: hard-earned international validation of the nation’s skill, discipline and strong stewardship. But Fitch Ratings is warning that the country’s prized standing in the eyes of creditors may suffer because of protectionist measures ...

    Bloomberg Just a year after Russia won the title of the world’s largest wheat supplier, it’s already in danger of losing it. The US Department of Agriculture has cut its forecast for Russian wheat exports this season for a second time, to 28.5 million metric tons. That’s closing the gap to the 27.5 million tons of shipments now ...

  Bloomberg Vancouver’s multimillion-dollar homes are increasingly out of reach for Vancouverites. And nothing speaks to the Canadian city’s affordability crisis more than its empty houses. Vacant or temporarily occupied dwellings have more than doubled since 2001 to 66,719 last year as neighborhoods are hollowing out, said Andy Yan, director of Simon Fraser University’s City Program, who analyzed census data ...

Bloomberg Consumer confidence retreated in February from a 13-year high as Americans tempered expectations of their finances and the economy, with sentiment remaining sharply divided among party lines. The University of Michigan said that its preliminary index of sentiment cooled to a three-month low of 95.7 from 98.5 in January. The median projection in a Bloomberg survey called for 98. ...