Bloomberg Kroger Co agreed to buy Albertsons Cos in a deal with an enterprise value of $24.6 billion that would create a US grocery giant with almost 5,000 stores and annual revenue of about $200 billion. Investors will receive $34.10 for each share in Albertsons, which includes a special dividend, the companies said in a statement. That reflects a ...
Read More »Eurowings pilots to stage three-day strike over workload dispute
Bloomberg Pilots at Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s discount carrier will strike for 72 hours after Germany’s Vereinigung Cockpit union called Eurowings’ latest offer “completely insufficient.†The current dispute centers “exclusively†around a reduction of pilot workload and not pay for cockpit staff, according to a statement issued by the union. The employees “have no choice but to express their displeasure about ...
Read More »Delta Airlines is free to resume share buybacks, but won’t: CEO
Bloomberg Delta Air Lines Inc. says it’s not interested in buying back shares anytime soon, even though pandemic-related restrictions have finally ended. “Our sole priority at Delta is to make sure that any excess cash that we’re generating is used to pay down debt, and we acquired a meaningful amount of debt during the pandemic,†Chief Executive Officer Ed ...
Read More »Fast retailing rises after profit outlook tops projections
Bloomberg Uniqlo owner Fast Retailing Co rises the most in three months after the company issued an outlook for profit and sales for the current fiscal year ahead of analysts’ projections. Asia’s largest retailer is forecasting a record profit for the year ending August 2023, thanks to improving demand for its cheap casual apparel in Japan and a weaker ...
Read More »Hong Kong airport traffic surges after hotel quarantine scrapped
Bloomberg Hong Kong International Airport’s September passenger traffic volume increased by 133% from a year earlier, after authorities scrapped some of the city’s harshest travel restrictions, including requirements for hotel quarantine and a pre-boarding Covid test. Passenger throughput climbed to 525,000, 10% higher than in August. The growth was boosted by visitors to and from Southeast Asia, the Airport ...
Read More »Cost of candy soars by 13.1% in US
Bloomberg Giving out treats this Halloween will be a lot more expensive than usual. The cost of candy and chewing gum jumped 13.1% in September from last year, the most ever, according to US inflation data. This comes just before what’s arguably candy’s most important holiday — Halloween. The culprit is expensive sugar. US refined sugar prices have soared ...
Read More »Nato-China tension over Ukraine flares at conference in Iceland
Bloomberg A senior Nato official confronted a Chinese diplomat over China’s failure to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, injecting tension over the war into an international conference about the Arctic. The unusually frank exchange between Admiral Rob Bauer, chair of the alliance’s Military Committee, and He Rulong, China’s ambassador to Iceland, followed a speech by Bauer on Nato’s role ...
Read More »China’s Xi vows victory in tech battle after US chip curbs
Bloomberg Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged his nation will prevail in its fight to develop strategically important tech, underscoring Beijing’s concern over a US campaign to separate it from cutting-edge chip capabilities. “We will focus on national strategic needs, gather strength to carry out indigenous and leading scientific and technological research, and resolutely win the battle in key core technologies,†...
Read More »Imran Khan faces test at polls in bid to gain Pakistan momentum
Bloomberg Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan faces a crucial popularity test as he contests in seven of the eight by-elections on Sunday, looking to build momentum for his campaign to pressure the six-month-old government into calling an early national vote. The seats fell vacant after all 131 lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party resigned from parliament’s lower house in April ...
Read More »Obama jumps in to campaign for Democrats
Bloomberg Former President Barack Obama will travel to Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin at the end of October to rally voters in key battleground states to support Democrats in the Nov. 8 midterm elections that will decide the balance of power in Washington for the next two years. Obama will be in Atlanta on Oct. 28 to campaign with candidates ...
Read More »