Safran SA launched a weak counter-attack against hedge fund TCI Fund Management Ltd.’s opposition to its proposed 9.7 billion euro ($10.3 billion) takeover of Zodiac Aerospace. The French jet engine maker is still short on strategic and financial justifications for the deal. Nor has it addressed the strong common-sense argument for giving shareholders a simple vote on the whole ...

  Every time a government sets out to abolish something people like, the well-liked thing moves to where it can’t be stopped. This has happened with prohibition, gambling, the war on drugs and digital piracy. Now it’s happening in China, where the government has been trying to crack down on bitcoin. As part of an effort to control capital outflows, ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Britain’s largest taxpayer-owned bank, laid out a plan to cut costs by 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) over the next four years as it posted its ninth straight annual loss and delayed profitability targets. The net loss widened to 6.96 billion pounds in 2016 from 1.98 billion pounds a year earlier, the ...

  Bloomberg Bank of Ireland Plc will hold off paying its first dividend since the financial crisis until next year, as the lender manages a pension deficit and boosts its capital levels. Bank of Ireland, based in Dublin, said underlying profit for 2016 dropped to 1.07 billion euros ($1.13 billion) from 1.2 billion euros a year earlier. Four out of ...

  Bloomberg Max Koep, Deutsche Bank AG’s head of equities for Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has taken a leave of absence, according to a person familiar with the matter. Koep may not return, said the person, who requested anonymity speaking about personnel matters. The firm has been cutting as much as 17 percent of its ...

  Bloomberg Goldman Sachs Group Inc. handed a surprise gift to bondholders in Canada this week by redeeming debt sooner than investors had expected, and some money managers are betting that other banks will follow its lead. The New York-based bank said that it was redeeming all of its $380 million in subordinated notes maturing in April 2022 for a ...

  Bloomberg Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), the country’s largest lender by assets, raised its dividend after posting first-quarter profit that beat analysts’ expectations, led by higher wealth-management earnings and a surge in trading revenue. Net income for the period ended Jan. 31 rose 24 percent to C$3.03 billion ($2.31 billion), or C$1.97 a share, from C$2.45 billion, or C$1.58, ...

  DETROIT / AP Car shopping isn’t just about kicking the tires anymore. It’s also about testing the technology. The rapidly evolving in-car infotainment and navigation systems can be bewildering for all but the most tech-savvy car buyers. The average vehicle on US roads is 11 years old; that means many people last went car shopping before iPhones were invented. ...

  Bloomberg Britain is betting that the rise of the machines will boost the economy as the country exits the European Union. As part of its strategy to champion specific industries, the UK government said in a statement on Sunday that it would invest 17.3 million pounds ($21.6 million) in university research on robotics and artificial intelligence. The government cited ...

  Bloomberg Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern said rapid advances in automation will threaten half of the world’s jobs as he backed calls by Bill Gates to fight inequality with measures such as a tax on robots. Disruption “starts at a slow pace and then comes a big step change. We have to prepare,” Kern said in an interview Thursday in ...