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Bloomberg Sheri Atwood is the rare Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose pitch includes intimate details about her family—namely, how it was broken up. Twice. “My parents had a horrific divorce,” says the 36-year-old former Symantec Corp. executive. “It felt like the only time they communicated was in court—and when it had to do with money.” Her own divorce years later, and ...

Tokyo / AFP Customers like Shigeaki Yamaguchi may be the last hope for McDonald’s Japan as it battles slumping sales in the wake of an embarrassing string of food scandals. At a location in Tokyo’s busy Shinjuku district, Yamaguchi munched on the chain’s newest culinary offering — french fries drizzled in brown and white chocolate syrup. “Delicious,” the 37-year-old proclaimed ...

Paris / Bloomberg Algeria has awarded UK-based Amec Foster Wheeler the front end engineering design (Feed) for three green-field refinery projects, which are estimated to have a total budget of around $6bn. A statement issued on 16 February by the state-controlled energy company Sonatrach said that the design contract for the three refineries has been “provisionally awarded to the tenderer ...

Paris / Bloomberg Equate Petrochemicals, a joint venture between US-based Dow Chemical and the Kuwaiti government, has commissioned a $70m carbon dioxide plant in Kuwait. The carbon dioxide-recovery facility has a capacity of 280 tonnes a day. The gas will be produced by existing Equate petrochemicals plants. It will filter and purify the carbon dioxide, then liquefy it, making it ...

Bloomberg Crude extended gains after industry data showed U.S. inventories declined, while Iran cautiously supported a proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia to freeze production at near-record levels. Oil rose as much as 4.3 percent in New York. U.S. crude supplies fell by 3.26 million barrels last week, the industry- funded American Petroleum Institute was said to report Wednesday. However, ...

Beijing / AFP Prada’s annual sales were broadly flat for a second consecutive year in 2015 as the slowdown in China continued to weigh on the high fashion and luxury goods brand. Weak sales in Asia Pacific outside of Japan and in the United States failed to offset an improved picture in Europe, where the weak euro bolstered sales to ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg Japan Airlines Co. expects operating profit of at least 200 billion yen ($1.8 billion) in the financial year that begins in April, according to two people familiar with the situation. The profit forecast compares with 204 billion yen in operating profit expected in the fiscal year that ends in March. The country’s second-largest airline will update its ...

Cape Town / Bloomberg South African Airways (SAA) will cancel a code- sharing agreement with Etihad Airways PJSC as the unprofitable carrier prepares to end direct flights between its home base in Johannesburg and Abu Dhabi, less than a year after introducing the route. SAA and Etihad signed a route-sharing partnership in May 2013 before expanding the alliance with additional ...

Bloomberg Airlines are extending leases on gas- guzzling four-engine planes on a bet that fuel prices will stay low for as long as the next three years, the world’s biggest airplane lessor said on Thursday. “We’re getting a boost we did not think we would get,” AerCap Holdings NV Chief Executive Officer Aengus Kelly said in an interview on Thursday ...

Canberra / Bloomberg It’s tough to overstate the tide of troubles that faced Alan Joyce, the chief executive officer of Qantas Airways Ltd., just two years ago. Losses had ballooned amid a capacity war with Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. and its foreign backers. Australia’s government wouldn’t guarantee Qantas’s debt, which was junk- rated at the time. The airline’s share price ...