Bloomberg Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) shares fell after the Swedish clothing retailer said severe increases in energy, freight and garment prices nearly wiped out profit in the past quarter. Operating income dropped 87% to 821 billion kronor ($80 million) in the three months through November 2022, H&M said, far off analysts’ estimates. The scale of the decline is ...

  Bloomberg Gucci named Sabato De Sarno as creative director at Kering SA’s biggest brand, filling a crucial role in the fashion world after the exit of star designer Alessandro Michele in late 2022. De Sarno will start his new role as soon as he completes all his obligations as fashion director for men and women’s ready-to-wear clothing at Valentino, ...

  Bloomberg Boeing Co added nearly 15,000 employees in 2022 and plans to hire another 10,000 workers this year, reversing the steep headcount reductions it made earlier this decade to preserve cash while the Covid-19 pandemic and 737 Max grounding flattened jet sales. Boeing has said earlier that it handed over 69 jets in December — including 54 from its ...

  Bloomberg Oil fell again on Monday along with broader commodities markets, as China’s return from Lunar New Year holidays failed to deliver hoped-for gains. West Texas Intermediate slid near to $78 a barrel after topping $81 last week. Risk-off sentiment appeared to permeate markets as European equities and US equity futures dropped at the start of a week marked ...

Bloomberg Shell Plc’s new chief moved to overhaul the energy major’s core business units just a month after taking the helm. Shell will combine its integrated gas and upstream divisions, and merge its downstream and renewables units, it said on Monday. It’s the second significant announcement in a week after Chief Executive Officer Wael Sawan launched a strategic review of ...

Bloomberg Parts of Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic hub, are being subjected to renewed water-supply cuts as ongoing electricity shortages disrupt pumping operations. A power failure at Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station, which supplies reservoirs in several high-lying areas of Johannesburg, resulted in critically low levels of supply, the municipality said on Twitter on Monday. While repairs have been completed, it ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Olaf Scholz is using a trip to Latin America to help Germany secure additional supplies of the lithium that car giants like Mercedes-Benz Group AG and Volkswagen AG need for their electric-vehicle batteries. Chile is the world’s second-largest supplier of lithium after Australia and much of its output is currently gobbled up by China. Scholz, who met with ...

  Bloomberg Denmark proposed to spend an extra 2.3 billion kroner ($340 million) on inflation aid, mainly targeting senior citizens. The government will now start talks with opposition parties in parliament to reach a broad deal and decide on the details, Finance Minister Nicolai Wammen told reporters in Copenhagen on Monday. Consumers in Denmark have been hit heavily by accelerating ...

  Bloomberg Germany’s economy shrank 0.2% at the end of last year — a worse outcome than previously flagged and one that makes a recession on the back of rising energy bills more likely after all. The figures Monday from the statistics office contrast with an estimate this month for output to have stagnated in the fourth quarter. They also ...

  Bloomberg Spanish inflation unexpectedly quickened in January after a five-month run of slowing price growth, prompting traders to boost their bets on how high the European Central Bank will raise interest rates. Consumer prices advanced by 5.8% from a year ago, up from the previous month’s 5.5% increase, the statistics institute in Madrid said Monday. That’s well above the ...