Bloomberg After spending billions on its web operations to take on rival Amazon.com Inc., the last thing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wanted to tell investors was that online sales momentum was slowing. Yet the world’s biggest retailer said that e- commerce sales rose only 8 percent in the fourth quarter. That’s down from 10 percent in the third quarter and 16 ...

Bloomberg Sainsbury’s takeover of Home Retail was already of questionable logic. Getting into a bidding war for the struggling company would be even less sensible. Steinhoff International Holdings — a furniture chain once based in South Africa that’s seeking to expand in Europe — made an offer of about $2 billion for Home Retail that threatens to derail Sainsbury’s agreement ...

TOKYO / Bloomberg Japan-based older brother of Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong Bin wants to install himself and their father at the top of the family business’s lucrative South Korean units, in the latest salvo of a year-long battle for control over the retail conglomerate. Shin Dong Joo has proposed a plan to form a new board of directors for ...

BEIJING / Bloomberg The head of China’s securities regulator has been removed from his post after last year’s $5 trillion stock- market bust, an unprecedented government rescue and a renewed crisis as plunging Chinese equities last month reverberated around the world. Xiao Gang, 57, a former head of Bank of China Ltd., had been chairman of the China Securities Regulatory ...

BOGOTA / AP Citibank is planning to sell the consumer banking operations it has operated for a century in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia as South America’s three biggest economies suffer a major downturn. The New York-based bank said Friday in a statement that its decision was prompted by a desire to allocate resources where it can generate the best returns. ...

Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka’s central bank raised benchmark interest rates for the first time in nearly four years by 50 basis points ahead of a possible IMF bailout. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka raised its lending rate from 7.5 to 8.0 percent, saying that relatively cheap money had the potential to fuel demand-driven inflation that could undermine the ...

Frankfurt / Bloomberg With German government bonds on their longest winning streak in more than a year, investors are set to scour inflation data next week for clues as to whether the European Central Bank will provide more stimulus next month. A measure of euro-region inflation expectations stayed near a record low this week even as the central bank pledged ...

WASHINGTON / AP The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it is giving managing director Christine Lagarde a second five-year term. Lagarde, the first woman to hold the post, was the only candidate nominated. Her new term starts July 5. Lagarde, 60, was named the IMF’s 11th managing director in 2011. She has led the multinational lending agency through the European ...

MOSCOW / Bloomberg Marine Le Pen’s National Front party is reaching out to Russian banks for the 25 million euros ($27.7 million) it needs to bankroll its 2017 presidential campaign, the party’s treasurer Wallerand de Saint Just said. “I will look for funds where I know I might get them,” Saint Just said in a telephone interview. “I found some ...

Bloomberg Bank of America Corp.’s Bruce Thompson, who stepped down as chief financial officer last year, will stick with the company in a role dealing with the lender’s biggest corporate clients. Thompson, 51, was set to pursue opportunities at another firm after Paul Donofrio, 55, was named CFO in July, people with knowledge of the situation said at the time. ...