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

As the world’s equities markets are buffeted by bouts of intense volatility, analysts have started uttering a chilling phrase: bear market. China’s markets have entered this territory, and the US might not be too far behind. That possibility invariably leads to speculation that the declines are harbingers of worse to come, in other words, a recession. This question has attracted ...

SINGAPORE / AP Organisers of the Singapore Airshow said $12.3 billion in airplane deals were signed at the event this week, a sharp drop from the last show in 2014. Leck Chet Lam, managing director of Experia Events, said that this year’s figure was comprised of 10 deals, with another 40 made at undisclosed values. There were 24 undisclosed deals ...

PARIS / Bloomberg French luxury-goods maker Kering SA reported fourth-quarter revenue growth that beat analyst estimates as the Gucci brand showed the first signs of a turnaround under Chief Executive Officer Marco Bizzarri and creative director Alessandro Michele. Sales climbed 8 percent on a comparable basis, Paris-based Kering said in a statement Friday. Analysts predicted growth of 4.1 percent, according ...

Bloomberg After spending billions on its web operations to take on rival Amazon.com Inc., the last thing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wanted to tell investors was that online sales momentum was slowing. Yet the world’s biggest retailer said that e- commerce sales rose only 8 percent in the fourth quarter. That’s down from 10 percent in the third quarter and 16 ...

Bloomberg Sainsbury’s takeover of Home Retail was already of questionable logic. Getting into a bidding war for the struggling company would be even less sensible. Steinhoff International Holdings — a furniture chain once based in South Africa that’s seeking to expand in Europe — made an offer of about $2 billion for Home Retail that threatens to derail Sainsbury’s agreement ...

TOKYO / Bloomberg Japan-based older brother of Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong Bin wants to install himself and their father at the top of the family business’s lucrative South Korean units, in the latest salvo of a year-long battle for control over the retail conglomerate. Shin Dong Joo has proposed a plan to form a new board of directors for ...

BEIJING / Bloomberg The head of China’s securities regulator has been removed from his post after last year’s $5 trillion stock- market bust, an unprecedented government rescue and a renewed crisis as plunging Chinese equities last month reverberated around the world. Xiao Gang, 57, a former head of Bank of China Ltd., had been chairman of the China Securities Regulatory ...

BOGOTA / AP Citibank is planning to sell the consumer banking operations it has operated for a century in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia as South America’s three biggest economies suffer a major downturn. The New York-based bank said Friday in a statement that its decision was prompted by a desire to allocate resources where it can generate the best returns. ...

Colombo / AFP Sri Lanka’s central bank raised benchmark interest rates for the first time in nearly four years by 50 basis points ahead of a possible IMF bailout. The Central Bank of Sri Lanka raised its lending rate from 7.5 to 8.0 percent, saying that relatively cheap money had the potential to fuel demand-driven inflation that could undermine the ...

Frankfurt / Bloomberg With German government bonds on their longest winning streak in more than a year, investors are set to scour inflation data next week for clues as to whether the European Central Bank will provide more stimulus next month. A measure of euro-region inflation expectations stayed near a record low this week even as the central bank pledged ...