Bloomberg Africa is finally seeing the benefits from the recovery in cru-de prices as companies ramp up drilling from Algeria to Namibia. The rigs are returning and wildcatters are getting excited again after a years-long hiatus during the oil-price slump. From majors like Total SA to independents like Tullow Oil Plc, companies are snapping up exploration rights and doing deals. ...

Bloomberg The world’s biggest public energy company doesn’t worry about size when it comes to potential deal-making. The driver of any acquisition for Exxon Mobil Corp. isn’t the scope of the target, it’s whether the company finds more value in it than the market does, Darren Woods, chief executive officer of the Irving, Texas-based firm, said at the New Economy ...

Bloomberg Oil prices are likely to be “biased to the upside” for the rest of the year as demand from refineries rises in November and December, according to Citigroup Inc. An average price of $80 a barrel for this quarter is “realistic,” with spikes to $90 or even $100 possible if further disruptions worsen a supply crunch amid rising consumption, ...

Bloomberg Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Chief Executive Officer Christophe Weber pushed back against dissident shareholders seeking to stop the Japanese drugmaker’s acquisition of Shire Plc, saying he won’t release minutes of boardroom discussions. A group including members of Takeda’s founding family opposes the planned $62 billion acquisition of the UK-listed biotech firm, which would rank as the biggest overseas takeover by ...

Bloomberg Rents in the world’s costliest office market, Hong Kong, may fall for the first time in four years as an equities rout weighs on sentiment in the financial hub. Grade-A office rents in Central and Admiralty will decline by about four percent in 2019, Colliers International Inc. said in a report. That compares with an estimated gain of 9 ...

Bloomberg More signs have emerged that China’s housing market is cooling, with sales in the secondary market, land purchases by developers and contracted sales at the biggest builders all falling last month, as these three charts show. Sales of existing homes, which are quarantined from the government curbs on the new home market, last month plunged to a four-year low ...

Bloomberg Infosys Ltd. has returned to stability, almost a year after the appointment of a new chief executive ended a tumultuous period at the Indian software and services company. Chairman Nandan Nilekani, speaking on the sidelines of Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore, said that the turnaround is complete. “This is all very much from the past,” he said of ...

Bloomberg Chinese billionaire Li Shufu spent the past decade expanding his auto empire buying Volvo, a stake in Daimler AG and a startup that is building flying cars. Now he’s looking to reinvent the bullet train. Li’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group signed an agreement on Tuesday with state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. to build “supersonic trains” using homegrown ...

Bloomberg The US gave a stark warning to companies around the world: Evading sanctions on Iran will hurt. “I promise you that doing business in Iran in defiance of our sanctions will ultimately be a much more painful business decision than pulling out of Iran,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said at a news conference in Washington, after the US ...

Bloomberg Euro-area companies entered the final stretch of 2018 the most despondent in almost four years, burdened by protectionism and sliding markets. IHS Markit’s Purchasing Manager’s Index for manufacturing and services fell to 53.1 in October, the worst since September 2016, and a gauge of the business outlook fared even worse. “Expectations have slumped to the bleakest since the end ...