Bloomberg UK house-price inflation will slow in 2017 as affordability stretches potential buyers, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Values will rise just 3 percent and the number of transactions will see a moderate decline, RICS said in a statement on Wednesday. That compares with a year-on-year price increase of 6.9 percent in October, according to the ...

  Bloomberg BlackBerry Ltd. boosted its fiscal 2017 earnings outlook and posted a profit in the third quarter, showing the company’s bet on moving more into software and completely away from handsets is paying off. Fiscal third-quarter earnings per share, excluding some items, were 2 cents, compared with analysts’ average estimate of a loss of 1 cent. BlackBerry said it ...

  Bloomberg Actelion Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Jean-Paul Clozel is known for his faith in the Swiss drugmaker’s experimental medicines, an optimism that may have helped scuttle a deal with Johnson & Johnson. New suitor Sanofi has the perfect negotiating tool. The French company’s takeover offer may include a contingent value right, or CVR, worth about $20 of the $275 ...

  London / AFP Europe’s main stock markets dropped on Wednesday, with focus once more on Italian bank Monte dei Paschi, whose shares tumbled on fading hopes that it will avoid a state bailout. Around 1115 GMT, London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index was down 0.2 percent compared with the close on Tuesday. In the eurozone, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 slipped 0.1 ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s stock market rose on Wednesday on the eve of the government’s release of its 2017 budget, and Egypt’s extended a bull run fuelled by for- eign money and last month’s float of the Egyptian pound. The Saudi stock index climbed 0.4 percent, though trading volume shrank to its lowest level in two months as ...

    Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s long-awaited drive to free up more oil revenue by shifting to solar power generation is expected to pick up speed next quarter, according to local developers eyeing contracts. “I’m fully expecting within the first quarter 500 megawatts to come out in tenders and then it’ll ramp up,” said Paddy Padmanathan, the chief executive officer of ...

  Riyadh / AFP Crowds are jamming the aisles of a Riyadh coffee and chocolate exhibition this week, as Saudis indulge the country’s sweet tooth and craze for caffeine. The International Coffee and Chocolate Exhibition, which opened on Tuesday and will run to Friday, is billed as the largest of its kind in the Middle East. In its third year, ...

    Bloomberg The man overseeing energy policy in western Europe’s biggest oil- producing nation says the worst downturn in the history of Norway’s offshore industry appears to have bottomed out as this month’s historic OPEC deal continues to reverberate across the globe. Terje Soviknes, who was named as Norway’s next petroleum and energy minister on Tuesday, replacing Tord Lien, ...

  TRIPOLI / Reuters Operations at Libya’s southwestern Sharara oilfield were gradually resuming on Wednesday after the lifting of a two-year blockade on a pipeline leading from the field, a senior official said on Wednesday. “We started running the wells and then gradually we will start pumping to the Zawiya refinery,” the official, who works at the field, told Reuters ...

  Bloomberg Oil extended its advance as industry data showed US crude stockpiles declined last week, trimming an inventory overhang. February futures rose as much as 0.9 percent in New York after climbing 0.5 percent on Tuesday. Crude inventories dropped by 4.15 million barrels, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report. That compares with a forecast 2.5 million-barrel decrease ...