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Bloomberg Commerzbank AG has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Rothschild & Co. as financial advisers as the German lender faces possible takeover bids from European competitors, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified people. The firms are advising Commerzbank on its options and not necessarily preparing a defense strategy for any acquisition attempt, the newspaper reported one of the people ...

Bloomberg With its shares and confidence surging, Nike Inc. was on top of the world in 2015. The company was at an “all-time high,” Chief Executive Officer Mark Parker said at an investor day in October of that year. He predicted sales would jump 63 percent by 2020 to total $50 billion annually. “It’s clear that Nike is a growth ...

Bloomberg Boeing Co. is investing in Pittsburgh-based Near Earth Autonomy, a self-guided drone startup, marking its first financial backing for a company specialising in autonomous technology since establishing the HorizonX venture fund in April. Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company, declined to specify the size of the investment. Near Earth Autonomy authorized the sale of about $10 million in equity, ...

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc.’s second headquarters, dubbed HQ2, has lured 238 proposals extending across 54 states, provinces, districts and territories in North America, the company said. Only seven US states refrained from bidding: Arkansas, Hawaii, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Vermont, according to a map Amazon published on its website. Cities are battling for Amazon’s investment of $5 billion ...

Bloomberg The Pentagon is accelerating production of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet even though the planes already delivered are facing “significantly longer repair times” than planned because maintenance facilities are six years behind schedule, according to a draft audit. The time to repair a part has averaged 172 days—“twice the programme’s objective”—the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog agency, found. The ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Dubai Land Department (DLD) announced that the total value of real estate transactions for the first nine months of this yearreaching AED 204 billion, achieved through 52,170 transactions. According to the report, there were a total of 37,633 transactions for land, residential units and buildings, generating a value of over AED 88 billion. There were also ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE Central Bank has warned against Bitcoin, terming it as unofficial and lacking sufficient supervision. The warning was made by Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, Governor of the UAE Central Bank, on the sidelines of the Islamic Financial Services Board Summit which started in Abu Dhabi on Monday. “Some nations have announced that they are not ...

DUBAI / WAM The UAE has been ranked first among Arab countries in terms of quality and performance of postal services. Chairman of Emirates Post Group, Mohammed Sultan Al Qadi, said that the UAE’s top regional ranking on the Integrated Index for Postal Development (2IPD), is a great achievement, and constitutes a new element on the postal policy map for ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The UAE is home to eight Islamic Banks, accounting for approximately 20 percent of total assets in the banking sector, which comprises 23 percent of total domestic credit as of the end of August 2017, Mubarak Rashed Al Mansouri, Governor of the UAE Central Bank, said. “The growth of Islamic banking has been supported by robust ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) Group announced on Sunday that its net profit for the first nine months of 2017 rose 13 percent year-on-year to AED1.69 billion. “Net profit for the third quarter of 2017 delivered a 10.8 percent year-on-year rise,” the bank said in a press statement. Revenues increased by four per cent for the ...