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  Bloomberg Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported higher first-half earnings and maintained its full-year outlook as European revenue held up despite bad weather. Recurring operating income rose 5.3 percent at constant exchange rates to 706 million euros ($781 million), the eighth straight increase, Boulogne-Billancourt-based Carrefour said on Thursday in a statement. Analysts predicted 683.5 million euros, the average of ...

  Bloomberg With Americans buying more new homes than at any time since the recession, the cost of the wood used to build them is getting a lot more expensive. Lumber prices are off to their biggest rally in more than a decade, touching a 19-month high last week as demand increased from builders. But almost a third of all ...

  Bloomberg Komatsu Ltd., the Japanese maker of construction and mining machinery that last week offered to buy Joy Global Inc. for about $2.89 billion, said first-quarter profit fell 52 percent as demand languished in strategic markets such as the Middle East and Indonesia and the stronger yen crimped overseas revenue. Net income fell to 15.6 billion yen ($149 million) ...

  Bloomberg Star Mica Co., a Tokyo-listed real-estate company founded by an ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker, plans to double returns from apartments using Airbnb to house tourists from abroad. The company owns about 2,500 apartments mostly in Tokyo, and is considering renting some of them to overseas visitors from as early as next year using services such as that ...

  Bloomberg Schneider Electric SE raised its earnings forecast for the year on improving construction markets in the U.S. and Europe with the exception of the U.K., where the company is expecting a slowdown following the Brexit vote. The world’s biggest maker of low- and medium-voltage equipment increased the target for adjusted Ebita margin improvement to 0.6 to 0.9 percentage ...

  Bloomberg Developers racing to turn Brooklyn into a thriving technology office market may be finding Manhattan a less-fruitful target for poaching tenants. Leasing in Manhattan by tech, advertising, media and information tenants — known to real estate brokers by the acronym TAMI — fell in the second quarter to the lowest level in more than three years, according to ...

    AP Facebook is once again getting pushy about how people message one another. Two years ago, the social-media giant forced its users to adopt its Messenger app for direct communication, a change it enforced by deactivating messages in the main Facebook app and steering users to the app. There was an uproar, some users thought Messenger violated their ...

  AFP Apple announced the sale of its billionth iPhone, a milestone for the company as it seeks to keep momentum in a competitive smartphone market. Chief executive Tim Cook made the announcement at a staff meeting at the company’s California headquarters. “IPhone has become one of the most important, world-changing and successful products in history,” he said in a ...

  Relaxnews According to new research from Technavio, as the Internet of Things begins to grow in popularity, no smart home will be complete without at least one set of wireless Bluetooth speakers. Portable speakers that sync with tablets, smartphones, PCs and TVs are already a huge hit among consumers and every Consumer Technology Association (formally the Consumer Electronics Association) ...

  AP Samsung Electronics Co. reported second-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates, fueled by stronger sales of Galaxy S7 smartphones and aggressive cost cuts. Net income, excluding minority interests, was 5.83 trillion won ($5.1 billion) in the period, the Suwon, South Korea-based company said in a filing Thursday. That compares with the 5.64 trillion-won average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. ...