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  Seoul/ AP Kia Motors Corp., South Korea’s second-largest automaker, posted a solid first-quarter net profit on Wednesday on the back of a weaker Korean won and strong demand for its SUVs and motorhomes. Net profit stood at 944.6 billion won ($822.7 million) during the January-March period, up 4.6 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory ...

  Seoul / AFP An extended export slump and weakening domestic consumption saw South Korea’s economic growth slow in the first quarter, despite record low interest rates, the central Bank of Korea said. Asia’s fourth largest economy expanded 0.4 percent in the January-March period from the previous quarter, and 2.7 percent compared to a year earlier.On-quarter growth in the final ...

  THE HAGUE / AP Royal Philips says an international arbitration panel has ordered Japanese company Funai Electric Co. to pay the Dutch electronics firm $152 million compensation over a breach of contract. Philips launched the arbitration proceedings in 2013 after terminating a $200 million deal to transfer to Funai its audio, video and media accessories unit and license the ...

  Tokyo / AFP Troubled conglomerate Toshiba announced it had booked a $2.3 billion write-down of its US nuclear unit Westinghouse but said the sale of its medical devices business would reduce its forecast net loss for the year ended March. A once proud pillar of corporate Japan, the company has been besieged by problems, most notably a profit-padding scandal ...

  Shanghai / AP The financial services affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba raised $4.5 billion in funding, it said, calling it the largest single private placement by an Internet company. The move values Ant Financial Services Group at roughly $60 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, quoting people familiar with the situation. Previous media reports had said the company ...

  Ratnapura / AFP From the Queen of Sheba to Britain’s Duchess of Cambridge, Sri Lanka’s sapphires have adorned royalty through the ages, but a flood of cheap imitations is threatening the island’s reputation for the precious stones. Ceylon sapphires, known after the island’s colonial-era name, enjoyed a huge boost five years ago when it was revealed that one formed ...

  Bloomberg Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Air Berlin Plc and other airlines cancelled hundreds of flights in Germany on Wednesday as a strike by public-services workers at airports hobbled operations in Frankfurt, Munich and Cologne. Lufthansa eliminated 895 flights, or 60 percent of the services it had scheduled for Wednesday, Germany’s biggest carrier said in a statement. Munich airport, where a ...

  Bloomberg After years of battling Apple Inc. in courtrooms and retail stores, Samsung Electronics Co. may be ready to offer an olive branch. That’s expected to cost the Korean company almost $9 billion upfront. Samsung is in close talks with Apple to be the exclusive supplier of displays for iPhone models scheduled for release next year, according to people ...

  Bloomberg Steinhoff International Holdings NV said it won’t raise its offer for French electronics retailer Darty Plc, handing victory to GroupeFnac SA after a protracted auction. Steinhoff’s offer of 160 pence a share in cash is final and won’t be increased, the South African company said in a statement on Wednesday. Fnac raised its offer to 170 pence a ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s Flynas will decide on whether to order Boeing 737MAXs or Airbus 320NEOs before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, the airline’s chief executive announced on Wednesday. Paul Byrne told reporters on the sidelines of an industry event in Dubai that it had decided against a potential order of Bombardier’s CS300 aircraft because the plane ...