Mexico / Bloomberg Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, a bright spot for its struggling US-based parent company, will benefit this year as a weak peso spurs an increase in remittances while inflation remains in check, Chief Financial Officer Pedro Farah said. Latin America’s biggest retailer also plans to invest more in e-commerce and sell non-core businesses such as its Suburbia apparel ...

Berlin / Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG, the sole airline so far to take delivery of Airbus Group SE’s new A320neo model, will limit the plane to domestic German routes until glitches with the engine cooling system are resolved in coming weeks. Lufthansa has flown its first A320neo between Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich since receiving the aircraft in January, and the ...

BANGKOK / Bloomberg Thai Airways International Pcl will continue to ground 10 Airbus A340s it hasn’t been able to sell because flying the four-engine planes isn’t worth it, even after fuel prices plunged more than 40 percent in the past year. “The fuel consumption is so uneconomical,” Thai Airways International President Charamporn Jotikasthira said in an interview in Bangkok. “All ...

Washington / Bloomberg It’s Valentine’s Day today, and Americans will buy $1.1 billion of confectionery to mark the occasion, according to data from the Washington-based National Confectioners Association. That’s up 2.6 percent from last year and the most since at least 2011. About three-quarters of that will be chocolate. The volume of US retail chocolate sales is expected to drop ...

Bloomberg Trading volumes in the credit-default swaps market — where banks and fund managers go to hedge against losses on corporate and government debt — have surged. Transactions tied to individual entities doubled in the four weeks ended Feb. 5 to a daily average of $12 billion, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysis of trade repository data. The ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Emirates NBD , has been awarded the Human Resource Development Award in the banking and financial sector by EIBFS (Emirates Institute of Banking and Financial Studies) in recognition of its commitment to Emiratisation. The award was presented by H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi to Husam Al Sayed General Manager HR, Emirates NBD. This ...

Nanama / Emirates Business A new report by KPMG has revealed that Bahrain enjoys some of the region’s lowest operating costs for financial services institutions. The report covered the average costs of a range of factors including commercial rental rates, occupancy cost, manpower cost, communication and utility expenses, in addition to the average cost of living. Financial sub-sectors that require ...

Manama / Emirates Business Khaleeji Commercial Bank (KHCB), one of Bahrain’s leading Islamic retail bank, formally inaugurated the opening of a new branch located in Juffair Mall, Juffair. With the launch of the new branch the Bank now has a network of 11 branches in the Kingdom of Bahrain from which to deliver its innovative banking products and services. The ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Al Hilal Bank is pleased to announce the dividend payout of its flagship fund, the Al Hilal Global Sukuk Fund. The Fund, which was launched in March 2012, distributed a 1.78% dividend to all registered unit holders as of January 27, 2016. Al Hilal Global Sukuk Fund’s objective is to generate a regular stream of ...

Bloomberg Zuercher Kantonalbank, Switzerland’s fourth- biggest bank, said it’s considering acquisitions in the country’s shrinking private banking sector as smaller rivals struggle with rising costs and negative interest rates. “Domestic private banking is interesting if it offers a certain size and is a good fit,” Martin Scholl, ZKB’s chief executive officer, said in an interview Friday. He said ZKB is ...