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Bloomberg Home Retail Group Plc said its board will unanimously recommend J Sainsbury Plc’s 1.4 billion-pound ($2 billion) bid after South African retailer Steinhoff International Holdings NV withdrew from the battle to acquire the Argos owner. The announcement effectively ends a protracted takeover saga that began on January 5 when Sainsbury first disclosed its interest. After weeks of wrangling over ...

Bloomberg Kenya Airways, the east African country’s struggling national airline, is to cut up to 600 jobs as part of a bid to achieve $200 million in savings, the airline. The reductions at the airline, partly owned by the government as well as Air France KLM, could see around 15 percent of the 4,000-strong workforce cut. As part of efforts ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc.’s relaunch of its online payments business in 2013 was greeted with scepticism. PayPal Holdings Inc. had a huge head start and credit card companies like Visa Inc. already had products that made buying something on the Web as easy as swiping a card. It seemed doubtful digital shop owners would want to team up with Amazon and ...

Bloomberg Singapore home prices dropped for a tenth quarter, posting the longest losing streak in almost two decades, as tighter mortgage curbs cooled demand in Asia’s second-most expensive housing market. An index tracking private residential prices fell 0.7 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, matching the longest series of losses since 1998, according to ...

Bloomberg GFH Financial Group ( GFH ), a prominent regional financial group, announced that it has signed an agreement with Palace Revive Developments Limited worth £100 million to be a key partner in the prestigious No. 1 Palace Street development in central London, a project being developed by Northacre, the leading British developer. Under the agreement, GFH will become a ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Hilton Hotels & Resorts opened Hilton Alexandria King’s Ranchon Friday. The hotel marks Hilton Worldwide’s 18th in Egypt, showcasing the company’s commitment to expanding its operations and further strengthening its presence in the country. “As we continue to spearhead the hospitality industry in Egypt and around the world, we’re proud to expand our world-class offerings,” said ...

Bloomberg Mort Zuckerman, who co-founded Boston Properties Inc. in 1970 and has been its chairman since 1997, will leave the company’s board next month following its annual election of trustees. Zuckerman, 78, won’t seek re-election at the company’s annual meeting, Boston Properties, the biggest U.S. office real estate investment trust, said. In honor of his “long and dedicated service,” Zuckerman ...

Reuters Anbang Insurance Group Co’s unexpected withdrawal this week of its $14 billion offer to buy Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc is a wider blow to the unprecedented drive by Chinese companies to acquire North American and European assets. Fresh disclosures by Starwood on Friday showed how Anbang’s hard-charging Chairman Wu Xiaohui backed out of the deal even after ...

Shanghai / AFP China Construction Bank (CCB), the country’s second-largest lender, reported flat growth in net profit in 2015, as bad loans jumped with economic growth slowing. The bank’s net profit edged up 0.14 percent year-on-year to 228.15 billion yuan ($35 billion) in last year, slowing from a 6.1 percent annual increase in 2014, according to a statement that was ...

WARSAW / Reuters Poland’s Alior Bank has agreed to buy Bank BPH from General Electric for 1.225 billion zloty ($329 million) and said it will look to make another acquisition this year after moving into the country’s top 10. Shares in the lender, which has a market capitalisation of 4.67 billion zlotys, jumped by up to 5.7 percent, with investors ...