London / Bloomberg U.K. house prices rose for an eighth month in February as rental investors rushed to purchase homes before a tax increase, Nationwide Building Society said. The average price of a home climbed 0.3 percent from January to 196,930 pounds ($277,000), the lender said in a statement on Thursday. The annual rate of growth accelerated to 4.8 percent …

Bloomberg Accor SA, the biggest hotel operator in Europe, and Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. are among companies considering bids for Carlson’s hotel group, which includes the Radisson and Park Plaza brands, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group could fetch about $2 billion in a sale, and a buyer could be chosen as soon …

BERLIN / Bloomberg Vonovia SE, the German property company that last month failed in an attempt to buy its largest competitor, said full-year profit more than doubled after it added properties and tapped new revenue sources. Funds from operations excluding sales, a measure of a real estate company’s ability to generate cash, rose to €608 million ($660 million) from €286.6 …

MUMBAI / Bloomberg A rusty six-story steel structure surrounded by tin-sheet huts stands on a prime plot overlooking one of Mumbai’s largest open spaces of greenery: The horse-racing track in the city’s plush Mahalaxmi area. What was to be a soaring luxury skyscraper from DB Realty Ltd. has been languishing for more than five years, with the developer’s website still …

Bloomberg If you’ve been paying attention to auction coverage recently, the outlook seems grim: The value of artworks on offer has plummeted, volume and totals are down significantly, and various news organizations (including this one) have sounded ominous warnings of an imminent market decline. But all of this is drawn from a tiny sliver of the art market. Bloomberg’s auction …

Bloomberg For an industry that is losing money on almost every transaction, the world’s commodity shippers are remarkably busy grabbing any cargo they can get their hands on. From space, where satellites track ship movements, it all appears like the market is booming, data compiled by Bloomberg show. At giant iron-ore loading terminals in Brazil and Australia, millions of tons …

Tokyo  / Bloomberg In a quest to reduce their reliance on one of the world’s least profitable banking markets, Japanese lenders are setting their sights on a much more lucrative one: Mexico. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) Inc. and Mizuho Financial Group Inc. are among so-called megabanks expanding in Mexico, riding the coattails of Japanese automakers that are building factories …

FRANKFURT / Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG is set to lose two of its most senior investment bankers in Asia as Bill Nichol and Joaquin Rodriguez Torres plan to depart this year, people familiar with the matter said. Nichol, who runs investment banking for financial institutions in the Asia-Pacific region, plans to leave in May after more than 13 years with …

Jakarta / BLOOMBERG Indonesia’s top banks may get a lift from new government plans to spur the economy, which are seen boosting loan growth while allowing them to protect margins that are already among the world’s widest. The Financial Services Authority, known as OJK, will lower the ceiling for deposit rates this month for major lenders, a step it intends …

Bloomberg One week before a long-awaited stimulus decision, European Central Bank (ECB) officials are privately deliberating over how to enhance their monetary policy stance without maiming its transmission. Committees studying how to mitigate the impact on banks have prepared potential measures that range from variations on a tiered deposit rate to techniques for countering the impact of stimulus on excess …