Bloomberg Kenya’s biggest mortgage lender plans to double its home-loan business over the next two years by offering longer repayment periods, its chief executive officer said. KCB Group Ltd, which has 70 billion shillings ($685 million) in home loans and is also the country’s biggest bank by assets, wants to have 20,000 mortgages on its books by the end of …

Bloomberg It may finally be time to load up on risky assets, Bank of America (BofA) says. The bank’s proprietary Bull & Bear Indicator, which measures investor sentiment by weighing factors like equity and bond fund flows, gave its first “buy” signal since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, strategists led by Michael Hartnett wrote in a note. …

Bloomberg As a growing number of cryptocurrency ventures struggle for funding, cut staff or shut down, all is well in one small corner of the industry: lending. Creditors focussing on the crypto arena say they’re finding strong demand from borrowers who don’t want to sell their virtual coins at depressed prices, as well as from big investors eager to borrow …

Bloomberg Debt-laden Jet Airways India Ltd. is trying to renegotiate contracts with its vendors as lenders demand a revival plan by month-end from India’s second-largest airline by passengers, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The Naresh Goyal-led airline is in talks to defer or reduce payments to vendors including aircraft lessors and those providing engineering, spare parts, credit …

Bloomberg Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings Pte is exploring options for its stake in global retailer AS Watson Group, including a partial sale, people with knowledge of the matter said. Temasek is working with an adviser to consider possibilities for its 25 percent holding in AS Watson after receiving some preliminary interest, according to the people, who asked not …

Bloomberg For department stores, the fight for New York is fiercer than ever. In a sign of retrenchment ahead of rivals’ expansion, luxury retailer Saks Fifth Avenue is shutting the doors of its women’s store at Manhattan’s Brookfield Place this week — a location it opened just two years ago. While Saks’s smaller men’s store will stay open, the failure …

Bloomberg After Apple Inc.’s shock profit warning, investors were quick to make the connection: if Chinese consumers are cutting back on iPhones, Louis Vuitton handbags could be next. Apple’s sales revision cascaded through global markets, hitting suppliers and rivals, but also a raft of luxury-goods companies that rely on the same clientele that likes to splurge on Apple’s latest products. …

Bloomberg Strong data and soothing words pulled markets out of a tailspin last week, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and his colleagues have plenty of chances next week to bring traders closer to policy makers’ viewpoint on interest rates. Surprisingly robust US labour figures helped close some of the gap between investors and the Fed’s projections, which imply two …

Bloomberg Brexit will return as the dominant driver for the pound next week as Parliament debates UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s divorce deal. Sterling lost over 5 percent in 2018 as fears of a hard exit from the European Union grew, and the currency’s direction this year will depend on whether lawmakers will be able to avoid the UK crashing …

Bloomberg With brand-name drillers unwilling to jump in, Venezuela is resorting to a newly formed US company for help in shoring up production from its crude reserves, the largest in the world. Schlumberger Ltd and Halliburton Co, the world’s biggest oil-service providers, have announced over $2 billion in combined write-offs for unpaid bills in Venezuela since the second quarter of …