Sydney / Bloomberg Air New Zealand Ltd.’s stake in Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. has attracted several potential buyers and talks are under way about a possible deal, said Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of Virgin Group Ltd. It’s not yet clear whether Virgin Group itself, which owns about 10 percent of Virgin Australia, will increase its stake in Australia’s ...

  Bloomberg Singapore’s property market may be closer to a bottom than Hong Kong, according to LaSalle Investment Management, which oversees more than $58bn in real estate funds. Governments in Asia’s two most expensive residential markets have imposed curbs in recent years to tame prices and improve affordability. As demand has dropped amid a slowdown in the region’s economies, home ...

  Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP, the world’s biggest private-equity property investor, plans to sell hotel buildings in London, Dublin and Amsterdam for about 980 million euros ($1.1 billion), according to people with knowledge of the matter. The hotels are all operated under Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.’s DoubleTree brand, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information ...

  Bloomberg New York real estate developer Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. offered to buy a controlling stake in Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd., a unit of distressed IDB Development Ltd., according to two people familiar with the matter. IDBD said it received a non-binding offer that values the insurer at $743 million, without identifying the bidder. Michael Alpert, the president of ...

  Washington / AP Long-term U.S. mortgage rates rose this week but remained at low levels that could entice purchasers amid the current home buying season. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said that the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage increased to 3.64 percent from 3.58 percent last week. It’s far below its level a year ago of 3.87%. The average rate on 15-year ...

  Bloomberg Donald Trump criticized the wind-power industry this week for killing birds. A far bigger threat is real estate developers and their tall buildings. About 599 million birds are killed annually in the U.S. when they fly into windows, trailing only loss of habitat and cats as the top causes of bird deaths, according to the National Audubon Society. ...

  Washington / AP Americans signed more contracts to buy homes in April for the third straight month, driving pending home sales to the highest level in more than a decade. The National Association of Realtors said that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index surged 5.1 percent last month to 116.3, the highest since 117.4 in February 2006. The April ...

  Bloomberg Spanish lender Banco Popular’s plan to sell about €2.5 billion ($2.8 billion) of new shares has dealt a brutal lesson to investors trusting past efforts by regulators and management to clean up European bank balance sheets. The stock fell to a 26-year low after the offering was announced this week. The fact is that Banco Popular was supposed ...

  EMIRATES BUSINESS Saxo Bank, the online multi-asset trading and investment specialist, has announced a new white label partnership with Lufax, China’s largest internet finance company. The partnership, expected to launch within the next three months, will see Lufax leverage the trading technology that underpins the award-winning SaxoTraderGO — providing Lufax’s considerable client base with a seamless experience across mobile ...

  BLOOMBERG Barclays Plc’s credit-card chief wants his hands on Jes Staley’s freed-up capital. Amer Sajed, promoted to run Barclaycard in April, says he has the backing to expand in markets like Germany and the US from Staley. After joining the executive committee, the advocate for growth has a say in how the bank’s resources will be deployed. “I am ...