Bloomberg Less is sometimes more. The private banking arm of Germany’s cooperative lenders, a group of around 900 local banks with total assets of 891 billion euros ($1 trillion), has almost halved the number of customers while also nearly doubling assets under management within a few years. DZ Privatbank now takes care of more than 18 billion euros for the …

Bloomberg Timely delivery of Lockheed Martin Corp’s $29 billion CH-53K King Stallion helicopter for the US Marine Corps may be jeopardised by a potential shortage of specialised metal components two years after the bankruptcy of a key supplier. In an illustration of how even the biggest defense contractor depends on its supply chain, the Navy’s aircraft development and acquisition command …

Bloomberg General Electric Co. has completed its initial design for the first commercial supersonic aircraft engine in decades, a major hurdle for developing private planes and, perhaps eventually, jetliners that fly faster than the speed of sound. The twin-shaft, twin-fan design will slash travel times by hours after 50 years in which the average speed of private jets has increased …

Bloomberg As Sears Holdings Corp goes through bankruptcy, retail landlords wondering how they could be impacted might want to look at a 2015 deal. Mall owner Macerich Co struck an agreement that year with the struggling department-store operator to redevelop a 300,000 square-foot store at Kings Plaza Shopping Center, a high-traffic mall in Brooklyn, New York. Three years and $100 …

Bloomberg US retail sales rose less than forecast in September, as a broad-based increase was overshadowed by a drop in restaurant receipts that may reflect the impact of Hurricane Florence. The value of overall sales rose 0.1 percent for a second month, compared with the median forecast of economists for a 0.6 percent gain, Commerce Department figures showed. So-called retail …

Bloomberg Someday soon you may not have to show a driver’s license or passport at the airport security lane in the US. The Transportation Security Administration unveiled a multistep plan to make increased use of facial recognition and other biometric identification tools to improve accuracy and speed wait times. TSA, which has tested biometric systems in Los Angeles and Atlanta, …

ABU DHABI / Emirates Business The value of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), transactions with any Middle Eastern & North African (Mena) involvement rea-ched $45.1 billion during the first nine months of 2018, according to Refinitiv, formally Financial & Risk business division of Thomson Reuters. The amount is 65% more than the value recorded during same period in 2017 and an …

Bloomberg Abu Dhabi shelved plans for an initial public offering of a 25 percent stake in Spanish oil refiner Cepsa. “Recent international economic developments have created uncertainty in international capital markets,” said Cepsa, which is controlled by Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Mubadala Investment Co. The offering would have valued Spain-based Cepsa at between 7 billion euros ($8.1 billion) and 8.1 billion …

DUBAI / WAM Arab Health, an exhibition for healthcare and trade professionals in the Mena region, has outlined the role of tech start-ups in playing a more vital role in the healthcare industry in areas such as personalised medicine and more efficient technology-enabled care models. The report, titled ‘Technology: Accelerating Innovation Across Healthcare’, revealed that digital health start-ups are said …

CAIRO / WAM Noura bint Mohammed Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development, announced that the UAE will host the 22nd Conference of Arab Culture Ministers in 2020, which coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (Alecso), and the UAE’s hosting of the world’s arts and culture at Expo 2020 in Dubai. …