BEIRUT / Reuters Lebanon’s government has prequalified eight more companies to bid for its first round of offshore exploration and production licences after prequalifying 46 companies in 2013, Energy and Water Minister Cesar Abou Khalil said on Wednesday. The bidding process for offshore blocks 1, 4, 8, 9 and 10, was postponed for years because of political paralysis in ...

  Bloomberg Lotte Group plans to divide four key businesses valued at about $12 billion into operating and holding units, slashing the number of cross shareholdings to 18 from 67 and allowing its chairman to tighten his grip on a hotels-to-retail conglomerate rocked by a years-long family feud and a corruption trial. Lotte Confectionery Co. will absorb the investment companies ...

  Bloomberg Netflix Inc. agreed to provide television series to China-based iQiyi.com, the streaming-video service controlled by Baidu Inc., gaining access to the only major film market that had eluded the world’s largest paid video service. The licensing deal covers television dramas, animated series, documentaries and variety shows, iQiyi said in an emailed statement on Wednesday. Popular Netflix original content ...

  Bloomberg PSA Group is unlikely to revive its car sales soon in China, the world’s largest automotive market, until the automaker can improve staffing at dealerships, Chief Financial Officer Jean-Baptiste de Chatillon said. “We need to address and fix some human resources aspects of the question” following a 46 percent plunge in the French manufacturer’s first-quarter deliveries in China ...

  Bloomberg Linamar Corp. is a perfect poster child for globalization. Founded by a refugee fleeing Soviet aggression in his native Hungary, the Canadian auto-parts maker has 24,500 employees spread around 12 countries. Its supply chain weaves in and out of dozens of nations — a single part can cross seven borders before finding its final home in a completed ...

  Bloomberg Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she’s confident her country will prevail over the US in a lumber dispute and urged President Donald Trump’s administration to uphold free trade. Freeland said she raised trade matters with first daughter Ivanka Trump on the sidelines of a conference in Berlin, though it wasn’t the focus of the meeting. The US ...

  Bloomberg AT&T Inc. maintained its 2017 profit outlook despite losing wireless customers for the first time ever, reflecting rising competitive pressure in the mobile-phone business. With every major carrier now enticing consumers with unlimited data offers, Dallas-based AT&T shed 191,000 subscribers in the first quarter. Nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted a gain of 100,000. The results underscore ...

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump will open the door to new oil and natural gas drilling in Pacific waters off the coast of California with a directive that sets up a certain clash with environmentalists. Trump will order the Interior Department to review locations for offshore oil and gas exploration and consider selling drilling rights in territory that former President ...

  Bloomberg As dawn broke on the UK’s decision to leave the European Union last year, Julian Braithwaite was awoken by a phone call from a fellow diplomat in Geneva. The message was more like a warning: your world is about to change. The British ambassador to the World Trade Organization, until now a job more in name than practice, ...

  Bloomberg America’s working class is falling further behind. The rich-poor gap — the difference in annual income between households in the top 20 percent and those in the bottom 20 percent — ballooned by $29,200 to $189,600 between 2010 and 2015, based on Bloomberg calculations using US Census Bureau data. Computers and robots are taking over many types of ...