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

ABU DHABI / Emirates Business A predicted boom in flexible working could contribute $10.04 trillion to the global economy by 2030, according to the first comprehensive socio-economic study of changing workplace practices. The analysis, commissioned by Regus and conducted by independent economists, studied 16 key countries to delve into the state of flexible working both now and through 2030. Regus …

Bloomberg Oil hit the lowest in a month after the US government data showed expanding crude stockpiles. Futures fell as much as 3.2 percent in New York on Wednesday. Domestic crude inventories rose by more than twice the rate forecast by analysts last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. Stored supplies have been growing for four weeks, the longest …

Bloomberg Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) again sought to reassure markets after one of its biggest customers complained about the pain of high prices. “There is no cause for alarm,” Opec Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo said, adding that India had sent a letter bemoaning the state of the oil market. While insisting supplies are sufficient, he neglected to specify how …

Bloomberg Drax Group Plc agreed to buy some of Iberdrola SA’s power plants for 702 million pounds ($923 million), boosting its clean energy assets in a further shift away from burning coal. The acquisition involves pumped storage, renewable hydro and gas-fired power assets and will increase the utility’s generation capacity by more than 60 percent to about 6.6 gigawatts, Chief …

Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc’s pension manager plans to invest 250 million pounds ($329 million) of its pension scheme into renewable energy infrastructure for wind and solar in the UK, joining around 30 other firms making similar climate change pledges. Amazon.com Inc. also committed to installing 20 megawatts of solar power at depots around the country, while EDF Energy Plc said …

Bloomberg PG&E Corp. has deliberately left customers in the dark for the first time as a precaution to prevent wildfires from breaking out. Almost 60,000 customers in six counties across the Sierra Nevada foothills and Northern California country were blacked out during a windstorm, according to Melissa Subbotin, a company spokeswoman. About 70 percent of those customers will have electricity …

Bloomberg US stocks fell as the week’s second big serving of corporate earnings did much less to reassure bulls than the previous day’s almost uniformly strong reports. The dollar and Treasuries rose. The S&P 500 Index slid back below 2,800, heading for a second loss in three days. IBM’s disappointing results dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average lower by more …

Bloomberg Europe’s dark pools are filling up with equities again as some trading bans imposed under the MiFID II rules get lifted. About 8 percent of all equities trading took place on private stock markets known as dark venues in the past month, after regulators ended suspensions on nearly half of the previously affected stocks, according to a Bloomberg calculation …

Bloomberg Nordea Bank Abp, Scandinavia’s biggest lender, now risks being dragged into a money laundering scandal that has rocked the Nordic and Baltic region. Bill Browder, the UK-based investor tracking dirty money flows out of Russia, has filed complaints with Nordic prosecutors alleging he can pinpoint 365 Nordea accounts in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway that received $175 million from …

Bloomberg Danske Bank A/S’s top pick for a new chief executive officer was rejected by the Nordic nation’s financial regulator, adding to turmoil at the lender that is mired in a money laundering scandal. The Copenhagen-based bank on Wednesday withdrew its application to the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority to name 40-year-old Jacob Aarup-Andersen, the head of its wealth management, as …