Bloomberg Russia is looking to sell dozens of stakes in state companies ranging from its oil-pipeline monopoly to its second-largest lender over the next three years as the government struggles to cover its budget gap, according to a draft privatization programme. After years of delays, the government is reviving plans to offer shares in Transneft PJSC and VTB Bank ...

  Bloomberg Bank Hapoalim Ltd., Israel’s largest bank, approved a plan to cut 12 percent of the workforce, answering the call of regulators to slash costs as it seeks to boost its dividend. The lender expects about 1,500 workers to choose voluntary retirement over the next four years in a plan that will cost the bank about 1.2 billion shekels ...

  Bloomberg Apollo Global Management LLC is starting to raise money for a new buyout fund that could reach almost $20 billion in size, as the private equity firm tears ahead on an unprecedented buying spree. “We are currently on pace to deploy more capital in 2016 than in any other year in our history,” Josh Harris, who co-founded Apollo ...

  Bloomberg Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s self-imposed deadline for declaring whether he will stay in office beyond 2018 is fast approaching, with British newspapers saying he could decide to step down as soon as next week. The 51-year old Canadian may announce his decision “within days,” the Times and Mail Online reported. A decision could come at his ...

  Bloomberg United Overseas Bank Ltd., (UOB) Southeast Asia’s third-largest lender, said third-quarter profit fell 7.8 percent from a year earlier, as the bank set aside higher provisions for soured loans to the struggling oil and gas industry. The shares fell. Net income fell to S$791 million ($567 million) in the three months to September from S$858 million a year earlier, ...

  Brussels / AFP Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Union leaders on Sunday finally signed a landmark trade deal seven years in the making, after it was nearly being torpedoed by a small region of Belgium. The ceremony in Brussels had been pushed back from Thursday after French-speaking Wallonia, with just 3.6 million people, initially vetoed an agreement ...

  Bloomberg UK Business Secretary Greg Clark wrote to Nissan Motor Co. setting out four key assurances, including a pledge to seek tariff-free access to the European Union market in a post-Brexit deal, to persuade the company to make a new investment at a plant in northeast England. “What I said is that our objective would be to ensure that ...

  AP United States companies are cutting merger deals at a record pace even though antitrust regulators have moved to oppose several recent high-profile combinations. So far this month, companies have agreed to mergers and acquisitions valued at more than $251 billion, financial-information provider Dealogic said. That surpasses the previous record of $240 billion in July 2015. Last week alone ...

  Bloomberg French growth rebounded in the third quarter as part of a start-stop expansion that leaves Europe’s second-largest economy lagging its neighbors such as Spain. Gross domestic product in France expanded 0.2 percent in the three months through September after shrinking 0.1 percent in the previous period, national statistics office Insee said. That compares with a 0.3 percent increase ...

  Bloomberg General Electric Co. has no intention of letting its 3-D printing ambitions die. A day after shareholder resistance derailed an acquisition in that market, GE said it would buy a 75 percent stake in closely held Concept Laser GmbH for $599 million. At the same time, GE bumped up the offer for Swedish 3D printing company Arcam AB ...