Bloomberg PSA Group and General Motors Co. are set to announce on Monday the purchase of the Opel brand by the French company, creating the region’s second-largest automaker and allowing GM to exit the European market, according to people familiar with the matter. The two carmakers, which sent an invitation for a joint press conference in Paris on Monday, ...

  Being the fastest-growing large economy in the world is India’s destiny, and even the most poorly conceived economic policy imaginable can’t stop destiny. At least, that is, if you believe the government’s statisticians, who said on Tuesday that India’s GDP grew at 7% in the very quarter that the government withdrew high-value currency notes from circulation. Is India becoming ...

  When making a decision such as whether to hire, insure or lend to someone, is more data better? Actually, when it comes to fairness, the opposite is often true. Consider a recent Harvard Business Review experiment, which involved sending 316 fake applications to the largest U.S. law firms. All the applicants were among the top 1 percent of students ...

  Beijing had the best of intentions when it started to promote all-electric taxis in 2011. Not only would the green cars reduce the city’s choking pollution, but they’d highlight its commitment to becoming a center of innovation. There was just one problem: cold weather. Electric cars lose their charge quickly when temperatures drop, reducing their range, utility and — ...

  Bloomberg Europe’s appetite for natural gas is leading to a growth “renaissance” as its stores of the fuel languish at the lowest levels since 2013, according to Gazprom PJSC. Europe’s appetite for natural gas will probably meet or even exceed last year’s growth as the region needs to replenish its lowest gas storage levels since 2013, according to Gazprom ...

  Bloomberg Oil rose from a three-week low amid reports that the Benghazi Defense Brigades forces captured Libya’s biggest oil port. Futures advanced 1.4 percent in New York after three days of declines. Benghazi Defense Brigades forces captured Es Sider as fighting escalated, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because they ...

  Bloomberg Vitol Group BV is offering to sell Nigerian crude oil from a storage terminal in South Africa, five traders familiar with the matter said, in what may be a signal that the global supply glut is beginning to ease. The world’s biggest oil merchant has been offering 4 million barrels of Nigeria’s Qua Iboe for delivery to Europe ...

  JOHANNESBURG / AP Nigeria wants Royal Dutch Shell to reopen one of its main pipelines but the oil multinational is resisting, analysts say, for fear it could once again be bombed by militants. The Trans Forcados Pipeline, the main feed to the 400,000-barrel-a-day Forcados export terminal, has been shut for all but three weeks of the past year, Lagos-based ...

  BEIJING / AP China will raise its defense budget by about 7 percent this year, a government spokeswoman said Saturday, continuing a trend of lowered growth amid a slowing economy despite regional tensions over the South China Sea and other issues. Total defense spending would account for about 1.3 percent of projected gross domestic project in 2017, said Fu ...

  Bloomberg The world’s biggest pension fund posted the biggest quarterly gain in its history as Japanese stocks surged and a plunge in the yen boosted overseas investments after Donald Trump’s election victory. The Government Pension Investment Fund returned 8 percent, or 10.5 trillion yen ($92 billion), in the three months ended December 31, increasing assets to 144.8 trillion yen, ...