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

  Los Angeles / AFP A huge debut for “Rogue One” has seen Walt Disney Studios become the first distributor in history to hit $7 billion in annual global box office receipts, it said. The $290 million worldwide opening for the “Star Wars” spinoff puts Disney’s haul for 2016 at $2.7 billion in North America, also an industry record, and ...

  Bloomberg A federal judge said Volkswagen AG continues to make progress in settlement talks with car owners and regulators to fix or get about 80,000 Audi, VW and Porsche vehicles with emissions-cheating 3.0-liter diesel engines off US roads. US District Judge Charles Breyer, saying he was optimistic a resolution would be reached, ordered a “final continuance” and told lawyers ...

  Bloomberg Ericsson AB is considering cutting about 1,000 jobs in Italy, about a quarter of its local workforce, after losing out on a contract to manage the country’s largest wireless network, according to people familiar with the matter. The Swedish company wasn’t selected to merge and run the network of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd. and VimpelCom Ltd., said the ...

  Bloomberg Facebook Inc. risks a multimillion-euro fine for allegedly misleading European Union merger watchdogs when it won approval to buy the WhatsApp messaging service in 2014. The EU’s antitrust authority said in a statement on Tuesday it suspects Facebook supplied “incorrect or misleading information” on linking data with WhatsApp when regulators cleared the tie-up two years ago. Officials said ...

  Reuters Egypt’s blue chip stock index surged to a record high on Tuesday while Qatar’s market was supported by a potential $44 billion bank merger but other major Gulf bourses were dampened by profit- taking. Cairo’s index jumped 3.4 percent to 12,148 points, exceeding its previous all-time high of 12,039 points reached in April 2008. The index is up ...

  London / AFP Global markets struggled on Tuesday as traders mulled the impact of this week’s deadly attacks in Europe before the Christmas and New Year holiday. Frankfurt and London were flat around midday after Monday’s fatal attacks in Germany and Turkey, Paris eked out gains and most Asian indices faltered. At least 12 people were killed and dozens ...

  Bloomberg Qatari banks Masraf Al Rayan QSC, Barwa Bank QSC and International Bank of Qatar (IBQ) QSC are in talks on a three-way merger as consolidation accelerates across the Middle East’s banking industry. The potential combination would create the largest sharia-compliant bank in Qatar and the third largest such lender in the Middle East, with assets worth more than 160 ...

  Tokyo / AFP The Bank of Japan on Tuesday lifted its view of the economy for the first time in over a year, as the sliding yen boosts exports, offering some hope for Tokyo’s stuttering growth programme. Policymakers held fire on further stimulus and said they would maintain a plan to keep the yield on government 10-year bonds around ...

  London / AFP British bank Lloyds on Tuesday bought Bank of America’s UK credit card division MBNA for £1.9 billion in the first acquisition since its government bailout during the global financial crisis. The deal, worth $2.4 billion or 2.3 billion euros, will bolster the group’s position in Britain’s prime credit card market, Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) said in ...

  New York / AFP New York’s state bank regulator fined Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo $235 million for “sweeping violations” anti-money laundering laws and deliberately concealing information from bank examiners. The big Italian bank failed to flag questionable transactions and deviated from policies designed to root out wrongdoing, which “seriously (compromised) the security of the international financial system,” said Maria ...