Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Etihad Airways, the national airline of the UAE, has announced a comprehensive new global agreement with WME | IMG to become a major long-term partner to the fashion industry by supporting 17 fashion week events around the world annually. Under the agreement, which is the first multinational, multi-year airline sponsorship supporting the fashion industry, ...

  Bloomberg Following complaints from retailers, MasterCard Inc. and Visa Inc. have introduced software that they say will speed up slow check-out times for shoppers with new chip-based cards. With the new software, the checkout experience for owners of the security-enhanced chip cards should come closer to those with the old magnetic stripes, the companies say. Consumers will be able ...

  Paris / AFP Delta ordered 37 of Airbus’ medium-haul A321 aircraft with a catalogue price $4.2 billion (3.7 billion euros) as the US airline seeks to quickly retire older planes. “The order for the A321s is an opportunistic fleet move that enables us to produce strong returns and cost-effectively accelerate the retirement of Delta’s 116 MD-88s in a capital ...

  Bloomberg Restaurant Group Plc shares plunged in London after the UK owner of Frankie & Benny’s eateries forecast another hit to profits amid deteriorating sales. The stock fell as much as 25 percent to 282.1 pence, the lowest in almost four years. It was down 23 percent at 10:52 a.m., extending its drop this year to 58 percent. After ...

  Paris / AFP Jean-Marc Janaillac, head of French transport group Transdev, is likely to be nominated to head Air France-KLM on Tuesday following the surprise resignation of CEO Alexander de Juniac, French economic newspaper La Tribune reported. “According to our information, the group’s nomination committee which met on Friday decided to propose Tuesday to the Air France-KLM board the ...

  Frankfurt / AFP German sportswear and equipment maker Puma said business increased in the first quarter and that it is expecting a boost from major sporting events such as Euro 2016 and the Brazil Olympics. Like its arch-rival Adidas, which earlier this week lifted its forecasts on the back of a strong first quarter, Puma said it got off ...

  London / AFP Britain’s state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) said net losses more than doubled in the first quarter owing to an exceptional payment back to the government. Losses after tax in the first three months of the year stood at £968 million ($1.4 billion, 1.2 billion euros), which compared with a net loss of £459 million in ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s Commercial International Bank (CIB) approved a two-week extension for an offer by Beltone Financial to acquire its subsidiary CI Capital, CI Capital’s Chief Executive Officer Mahmoud Atalla told reporters. “CIB approved Beltone’s request to extend the period of the offer to acquire CI Capital by two weeks, ending on May 12,” Atalla said. In February, ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egypt’s central bank kept its key interest rates unchanged in its first decision since it raised rates by 150 basis points last month. The bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) kept the overnight deposit rate at 10.75 percent and the overnight lending rate at 11.75 percent, it said in a statement. Egypt has been struggling to restore economic ...

  Bloomberg ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s second-largest lender by assets, reported the biggest drop in quarterly profit in at least 15 years after setting aside reserves on top of bad-loan provisions to cushion future defaults. Net income fell 76 percent to 7 billion rupees ($105 million), or 1.2 rupees a share, for the three months ended March 31, from 29.2 ...