Bloomberg Georgia’s new central bank governor said he’ll repair public confidence in the regulator following bruising confrontations with the government, as he indicated that interest rates will continue to fall. The monetary authority “lost some credibility” due to a “quite turbulent 2015” amid clashes between the government and his predecessor over the lari’s exchange rate and plans to strip ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG investors expressed their frustration with management at the company’s annual meeting a year ago. Weeks later, co-Chief Executive Officer Anshu Jain was gone. Now it’s Chairman Paul Achleitner and Jain’s replacement, John Cryan, who are set to feel the displeasure of shareholders when they gather in Frankfurt on Thursday. With revenue plunging and the need ...

  London / AFP China’s biggest bank ICBC has become the country’s first lender to buy a precious metals vault in Britain, cementing its role as a major player in the gold market. ICBC has bought the London vault, used to store also silver, platinum and palladium, from British bank Barclays, which is exiting the precious metals business as it looks ...

AP Builders ramped up construction of new homes in April, suggesting that the market remains solid despite sluggish economic growth at the beginning of the year. Housing starts climbed 6.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.17 million units, the Commerce Department said. The increase makes up for much of March’s 9.4 percent drop in starts, a decline ...

  Bloomberg The biotechnology industry’s growth is providing the chance to attain attractive returns on commercial property in markets from Boston to Munich to Shanghai, according to Taimur Hyat, chief strategy officer for PGIM, Prudential Financial Inc.’s $1 trillion asset-management arm. “Biotech is causing a revolutionary change in the type of real estate opportunities we are seeing,” he said in ...

  Bloomberg Ikea, the world’s biggest furniture retailer, plans to sell about €900 million ($1 billion) of European retail parks surrounding its stores, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Ikea has hired Cushman & Wakefield Inc. to help market the assets, two of the people said. Josefin Thorell, a spokeswoman for Ikea, confirmed that the company plans to ...

  Bloomberg Home prices rose in the most Chinese cities in more than two years in April, with gains in second-tier cities surpassing advances in larger hubs. New-home prices excluding government-subsidized housing climbed in 65 cities, compared with 62 in March, among the 70 cities tracked by the government, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. That’s the most ...

  AFP Unions and employers in Germany’s construction industry on Wednesday agreed a pay hike of around five percent for some 750,000 workers in the sector. The employers’ federation, ZDB, and the union IG Bau said they have agreed a pay increase of 4.6 percent for workers in the west of the country in two stages over a period of ...

  Bloomberg The appetite for midcentury modern homes never seems to abate—at least not according to the real estate agents who sell them. “Midcentury modern was one of the biggest home design trends in 2015 but has only continued to pick up steam in 2016,” says Kerrie Kelly, Zillow Digs home design expert. According to a study, homes with “Midcentury” ...

  London / Bloomberg Burberry Group Plc unveiled a multi-year turnaround plan based on a narrower product range, its biggest cost purge in years and a sharper focus on bags and online sales, after lowering profit expectations for the second time in a month. Earnings for the year ending in March are likely to be near the bottom of the ...