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  Bloomberg Middle East international bond sales are off to the strongest ever start to a year as borrower demand for funds outstrips the firepower of local banks in an era of depressed oil prices. Hard-currency bond issuance from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which accounts for the bulk of the region’s capital markets and includes Saudi Arabia, its largest ...

  Bloomberg China’s evolving means of selling government debt is masking the true extent of the government’s planned borrowing levels. The official budget deficit target is 3 percent of economic output, but that doesn’t include all government debt. One category falling outside of the forecast is off-book bonds — or special bonds as they’re known in China — whose sales ...

  Bloomberg Australian millennials have the second-lowest level of home ownership for their peer group, an HSBC Holdings Plc survey found, just ahead of an oil-rich absolute monarchy. Only 28 percent of Australians aged between 19 and 36 own a home, the survey of more than 9,000 people in nine countries showed. That was well below France on 41 percent ...

  Bloomberg There are signs Britain is getting tougher on financiers just as it needs to attract them. Tax officials are pursuing probes into the residency status of HSBC Holdings Plc Chief Executive Officer Stuart Gulliver and Chi-X Global Inc. Chairman-Emeritus Anthony Mackay, as the government clamps down on people — oftentimes bankers — who work in the UK but ...

  Bloomberg German factory orders rebounded from their steepest decline in eight years in a sign the recovery in Europe’s largest economy remains intact. Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, rose 3.4 percent in February, after slumping a revised 6.8 percent in January, data from the Economy Ministry in Berlin showed on Thursday. The typically volatile reading compares with ...

  Bloomberg WPP Plc fell the most in a month after one of the advertising company’s biggest clients, consumer-product giant Unilever, said it would cut back on its marketing spending, fueling concerns about a broader ad-industry slowdown. Unilever, which sells Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, will produce 30 percent fewer ads as part of a cost-cutting drive, Chief Financial Officer ...

  Bloomberg Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company, reported record fiscal second-quarter earnings amid signs that US farmers are preparing to sow record acreage with soybeans this year. Profit excluding one-time items was $3.19 a share in the three months through February, St. Louis-based Monsanto said in a statement, beating the highest of 16 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. ...

  Bloomberg Unilever Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman is channeling an aborted takeover coup by Kraft Heinz Co. into some shock therapy of his own. Acknowledging that the failed $143 billion bid had energized his company, Polman announced his most sweeping overhaul of the consumer-goods giant in a bid to protect its independence after being caught off guard by the ...

  Bloomberg Seven & i Holdings Co. agreed to pay $3.3 billion for some Sunoco LP shops and gasoline retailers in an ambitious push by the 7-Eleven convenience chain owner to expand its US footprint with its largest deal on record. The purchase by the Japanese retailer’s 7-Eleven Inc. unit will add 1,108 gas stations and convenience stores in Texas ...

  Bloomberg Let the blame game begin — again — with House Republicans saying they still can’t reach a deal on reviving their health-care bill, likely delaying any chance of action until at least May. “And this time, we’ll have two weeks to let this all fester,” said Representative Dennis Ross of Florida, referring to the two-week recess that starts ...