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Bloomberg Canadian construction company Aecon Group Inc., the target of a takeover by a Chinese rival, has withdrawn from a group bidding on a new bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. John Beck, Aecon’s chief executive officer, said the decision to withdraw from bidding on the Gordie Howe International Bridge has nothing to do with the proposed C$1.2 billion ($930 ...

Bloomberg Once revered in Germany for building Volkswagen AG into the world’s biggest automaker, former Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn is now facing a growing backlash in his home country, with calls for him to be held accountable for the diesel cheating scandal following his US indictment. Politicians from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition, as well as opposition lawmakers, weighed ...

Bloomberg A whale in the corporate bond market is going on a diet. Apple Inc.’s holdings of company debt shrank in the latest quarter for the first time since 2013, as the maker of the iPhone adjusts to new tax laws. The tech company held about $136 billion of corporate bonds as of the end of March, representing about half ...

Bloomberg Dan Loeb’s Third Point is calling for United Technologies Corp. to break apart, saying that a split into aerospace, elevator and climate-controls companies would boost shareholders by $20 billion. Having such disparate businesses under one corporate roof has led to “poor management execution” and a lagging share price, Third Point said in a letter to investors. The activist firm ...

The UK isn’t doing as badly as many predicted since it decided to exit the European Union in 2016. Employment rates remain high. Exports, which had surged to records in 2016, held up nicely in 2017. But it’s not doing particularly well either. Since the financial crisis a decade ago, output per hour in the UK has remained essentially unchanged. ...

Services, services, services, services. That’s the mantra that you’ll surely hear most as Xiaomi Corp. tries to convince investors that a hardware company with razor-thin margins is worth $100 billion. “We pioneered an amazing, innovative business model underpinned by courage and trust,” founder Lei Jun said in an open letter accompanying its offer document in which he reiterated a pledge ...

Emmanuel Macron’s youthful energy stands in sharp contrast with France’s biggest banks, whose shares have, in the main, languished since his election as president. Societe Generale SA, once the poster child for French expertise in derivatives, has the most work to do to restore investor confidence. A more energetic approach to succession planning and to pruning underperforming businesses — with ...

The biggest short-term threat to the US economy comes from President Donald Trump’s dangerous maneuvers on trade, not the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. But knowing this doesn’t much help the Fed do its job, which is getting more complicated for reasons closer to home: The outlook for inflation is shifting, and Fed officials are wondering how to respond. At their ...

European Union bureaucrats have come up with an ingenious mechanism for getting maverick governments, mostly in Eastern Europe, into line. The EU wants the power to cut off funding to countries it sees as weakening the rule of law. At the same time, if the bureaucrats get their way, the affected governments would be forced to provide financing for the ...

After a two-day ‘informal summit’ between Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, China and India agreed to avoid military disputes on their contested Himalayan border. Left unresolved was a much bigger issue: what China is doing in Pakistan. Fifty years ago, Pakistan’s foreign minister gave a box of mangoes to Mao Zedong, little realizing that this gesture would secure a special ...