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Bloomberg Blackstone Group LP rode a widespread market advance in the second quarter, earning 36 percent more than a year earlier. The results fell short of analysts’ estimates as a downturn in energy prices hit private equity holdings. While the asset manager’s public holdings — shares of companies it’s taken public — tracked positively, private investments were “pressured by the ...

Bloomberg Ride-hailing provider Lyft Inc., emboldened by public stumbles by larger rival Uber Technologies Inc., is taking the leap into developing its own fully autonomous vehicles. Lyft is opening a self- driving vehicle development facility in Palo Alto, California, called “Level 5,” a nod to the designation of fully autonomous vehicles that don’t require human supervision. Several hundred employees will ...

Bloomberg Another week, another scare from the German car industry. What began with Daimler AG’s massive recall of more than 3 million diesel cars to lower their emissions, ended with Audi also embarking on a voluntary recall of 850,000 vehicles. Adding to the spate of bad news was a report in Der Spiegel magazine that the biggest car manufacturers — ...

Bloomberg Mangrove Capital Partners, the Luxembourg-based venture capital firm, has raised a $170 million fund to invest in European startups. But its outspoken founder has no interest in startups looking for a quick buck. The fund, which is Mangrove’s fifth since its founding 17 years ago, will invest in early stage companies, said co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Tluszcz ...

Bloomberg McCormick & Co. agreed to acquire Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc’s food business for $4.2 billion, adding French’s mustard and Frank’s RedHot sauce to its lineup of spices and seasonings. The deal brings a stable of well-known condiments to Sparks, Maryland-based McCormick. For Reckitt Benckiser, unloading the products continues an overhaul that began with an expansion into baby formula through ...

Bloomberg China aims to make the artificial intelligence industry a “new, important” driver of economic expansion by 2020, according to a development plan issued by the State Council. Policy makers want to be global leaders, with the AI industry generating more than 400 billion yuan ($59 billion) of output per year by 2025, according to an announcement from the cabinet. ...

Bloomberg A Facebook message pops up on my phone screen. “What’s going on in your world?” It’s from a robot named Woebot, the brainchild of Stanford University psychologist Alison Darcy. Woebot seems to care about me. The app asks me for a list of my strengths, and remembers my response so it can encourage me later. It helps me set ...

Bloomberg Qualcomm Inc., the biggest maker of chips used in mobile phones, forecast steep declines in profit and licensing sales, underscoring its dependence on the royalties that one of its largest customers, Apple Inc., has stopped paying. Sales in the company’s licensing division, which collects fees for use of its mobile technology, will sink as much as 47 percent in ...

Bloomberg Microsoft Corp.’s turnaround plan got back on track in the latest quarter, buoyed by rising sales of internet-based software and services. Profit in the fiscal fourth quarter exceeded analysts’ estimates and adjusted sales rose 9 percent as demand almost doubled for Azure cloud services, which let companies store and run their applications in Microsoft data centers. A tax-rate benefit ...

KHOBAR / Reuters State oil firm Saudi Aramco is considering building new facilities to add production of Arabian Heavy crude from the Zuluf offshore oilfield, industry sources said. The central processing plant is expected to have two units, known as trains, with a total capacity of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) to process Arabian Heavy crude supplied by electrical submersible ...