The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.

WASHINGTON \ AP More Americans signed contracts to buy homes in February, with purchases surging in the Midwest ahead of the traditional spring buying season. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said that its seasonally adjusted pending home sales index rose 3.5 percent to 109.1, rebounding from a 3 percent decline in January. The index has reached its highest level ...

ROME / BLOOMBERG There are plenty of castles for sale across Europe, but few provide the opportunity for prospective owners to play the role of a feudal lord. It’s the difference between living like a prince and living as a prince. Now a castle has come onto the market to let you do the latter. The Umbrian Castle di Sismano, ...

Bloomberg Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. received a higher $14 billion takeover offer from a group led by China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co., raising the stakes for Marriott International Inc. to counter a second time to salvage a merger that would create the world’s biggest hotel operator. The takeover battle pits a 12-year-old Chinese firm with aggressive ambitions to ...

SINGAPORE / Reuters Indonesia is about to roll out its first passenger plane, one of several smaller, homegrown aircraft being studied in Asia, designed especially for short hops across the region’s emerging markets, where air travel is booming. State-owned aerospace firm PT Dirgantara Indonesia’s 19-seat N219, which cost $400 million and took just over five years to make, is scheduled ...

Bloomberg Shin Kyuk Ho, the 93-year-old founder of Korean-Japanese retail giant Lotte Group, has lost his board seat at the family-controlled conglomerate’s lodgings and duty-free sales unit Hotel Lotte Co. amid a leadership struggle between two of his sons. Shin’s term expired on March 28, Lotte Group said in a statement. He had been a board member since 1973, when ...

NEW YORK / AP Enjoy, an online concierge service for gadgets, is expanding beyond San Francisco and New York City nearly a year after it was launched. The startup, founded by former JC Penney CEO and Apple executive Ron Johnson, will be adding certain neighborhoods of Los Angeles this week and then Chicago in May. The service allows customers to ...

Bloomberg Virgin America Inc. received takeover offers from JetBlue Airways Corp. and Alaska Air Group Inc. after the carrier backed by billionaire Richard Branson put itself up for sale, according to people familiar with the matter. Discussions between Virgin America and the two bidders are ongoing, and a deal could be announced as early as next week, the people said, ...

Bloomberg If you were a pile of garbage on the street in India, here’s what might happen to you now: A concerned citizen takes your picture, then sends it by WhatsApp to the smartphone of the garbage police. Khaki-clad cops jump in their vehicles, rush over and order your cleanup. City officials fine the offender and maybe reward the whistle-blower, ...

Bloomberg There’s nothing plain about the vanilla market. The price of the bean used to flavour everything from ice cream and chocolate to cola and pastries more than tripled in the past year as output slipped and quality suffered. That should have been a boon for top producer Madagascar, the island nation off Africa’s southeast coast. Instead, the government is ...

Sunaina Rana / EMIRATES BUSINESS Karim Gerber, Middle East Region Manager of Oris watches, is a real man of action. He is devoted to bring brand’s exclusive and latest collection of timepieces to their customers in the region. Oris is a premium luxury brand of watches and Gerber is no stranger to the rarefied world of luxury. He started his ...