Bloomberg Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported third-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ estimates on stronger-than-expected growth in its home country. Sales rose 3.2 percent on a like-for-like basis to 21.8 billion euros ($23.9 billion), Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based Carrefour said in a statement on Wednesday. Analysts expected 21.7 billion euros. In France, sales climbed 1.2 percent, beating the estimate for 0.5 ...

  Bloomberg Starbucks Corp. will more than double its number of locations in China by 2021, increasing the company’s bet on a country that Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz says eventually could be a bigger market than the U.S. The chain will have 5,000 stores in mainland China within five years, up from about 2,300 now, the Seattle-based company said ...

  Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. is letting travellers exchange their Note 7 smartphones at special booths set up at America’s busiest airports. The program is part of Samsung’s worldwide effort to recall millions of Galaxy Note 7 phones, which are prone to catching fire and exploding. Customers can exchange the phones or get a full refund, a company representative said ...

  Bloomberg Standard Chartered Plc can finally start to move beyond its woes in India. The London-based lender is set to receive a $2.1 billion repayment in the next few weeks from Essar Global, the steel-to-power conglomerate that’s been one of its most problematic borrowers in the country, people with knowledge of the matter said. Standard Chartered may be able ...

  Bloomberg Banks should be given three to five years until new accounting rules for loan losses have an impact on regulatory capital, according to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Accounting standards that require banks to set aside money for expected bad-loan losses will enter into force in 2018 in most of the world, and in 2020 in the ...

  Dubai / Reuters Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) swung to a third-quarter net loss, it reported late on Tuesday, as the Gulf Arab state’s third-largest lender by assets was forced to set aside more cash to cover bad loans. The results, the first since the appointment of former Australia and New Zealand Banking Group banker Joseph Abraham as chief ...

  Bloomberg The Bank of Uganda lowered its benchmark interest rate by 100 basis points to 13 percent, saying slowing inflation gave it room to support flagging growth. Two of three analysts surveyed by Bloomberg predicted the reduction, while one expected policy makers to keep the benchmark rate at 14 percent. The monetary policy committee has cut the rate by ...

  Dubai / AFP A modest recovery in oil prices falls short of filling budgetary gaps in crude-exporting Gulf countries, the International Monetary Fund said, stressing the need to cut spending. The price of the region’s main commodity has partially rebounded and is hovering around $50 per barrel having hit a 10-year low of less than $30 in January, from ...

  Qayyarah / AFP Iraqi forces prepared to retake the country’s largest Christian town from the IS group on Wednesday, a key milestone in their progress towards the extremists’ main hub of Mosul. News of the move to recapture Qaraqosh sparked jubilation among Christians who had fled the town, with many dancing and singing in the city of Arbil. Launched on ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia has accused Belgium, a member of a US-led coalition fighting extremists in Syria, of killing six civilians in air strikes in the Aleppo region but the claim was swiftly denied by Brussels. “Six people were killed and four people injured to various degrees as a result of bombing that destroyed two homes” in the village of ...