Bloomberg Nakumatt Holdings Ltd., Kenya’s biggest retail chain, is in talks to sell as much as 25 percent of the business to reduce debt that more than tripled over the past five years as it expanded. The company, based in the capital, Nairobi, is in discussions with foreign and domestic investors that are expected to be concluded within weeks, ...

  Shanghai / AFP China’s three biggest airlines all reported surging net profits in the third quarter, statements showed, as the country’s economy stablises. Net profit for China Southern, Asia’s biggest airline by fleet size, leaped to 3.31 billion yuan ($425.1 million) in the three months to September, nearly three times the 1.18 billion yuan made in the same period ...

  Bloomberg United Parcel Service Inc.’s shares dropped after the package giant agreed to purchase freighter jets valued at $5.3 billion to continue its international expansion. Delivery of the 14 Boeing Co. 747-8 jumbos will begin next year, the Atlanta-based courier said in a statement. The planes will be used in international markets and allow the courier to bring smaller ...

  Bloomberg Southwest Airlines Co. fell the most in three months and pulled down other carriers after reporting that a key revenue measure may tumble this quarter, raising doubts about a possible recovery in pricing power. Revenue from each seat flown a mile will decline as much as 5 percent in the last three months of the year after dropping ...

  Bloomberg Interjet, Mexico’s third-biggest carrier, is in talks to sell an equity stake to American Airlines Group Inc. or United Continental Holdings Inc., said Chairman Miguel Aleman Velasco. Aleman Velasco declined to say how large a stake is for sale or what price it might fetch. No agreement has been reached, he told reporters Thursday in Mexico City. “We’re ...

  Bloomberg Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s biggest lender by assets, let its bad-loan buffer sink further below a regulatory minimum to avoid reporting a bigger decline in third-quarter profit. ICBC’s bad-loan coverage ratio slumped to 136 percent, compared with a minimum of 150 percent, the bank told Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Net income fell 0.2 ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc reported a surprise jump in pretax earnings on the highest revenue at its investment bank in two years, while pushing out profitability targets on a weaker outlook and looming charges for misconduct. Pretax profit, excluding one-time costs, rose to 1.33 billion pounds ($1.6 billion), beating the 776 million-pound average estimate of seven ...

  Bloomberg A former supervisor working for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) downloaded confidential information on portable computer storage devices that haven’t yet been recovered, the agency said in a statement. Before retirement, the employee downloaded “more than 10,000 records” about the regulator’s activities and some personal information about staff members, the OCC said. The November ...

  Bloomberg Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s largest bank, is expanding its aviation finance business into the Americas and hired Olivier Trauchessec to lead the push. Trauchessec, who previously worked at BNP Paribas SA, will report to Lance Markowitz, head of leasing and asset finance in the Americas, the bank said in a statement. “The addition of a New ...

  Bloomberg BNP Paribas SA, France’s largest lender, reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as it benefited from a surge in fixed-income trading that has lifted bank earnings in Europe and the U.S. Net income rose 3.3 percent to 1.89 billion euros ($2.06 billion) from 1.83 billion euros a year earlier, the Paris-based bank said. That compares with the ...