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  DUBAI / WAM The value of announced M&A transactions with any Middle Eastern involvement reached US$4.7 billion during the first quarter of 2016, a decline of 67% compared to the first quarter of 2015, Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, said in its the quarterly investment banking analysis for the Middle East ...

  Bloomberg Even if oil producers didn’t seal the output freeze deal they hoped would stabilize the market, they saw revenues soar in the run up to the failed meeting last weekend in Doha. The 29 percent advance in prices since word first leaked that Saudi Arabia and Russia were considering capping output boosted the value of global oil production ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is considering a dual listing as a way to reach investors beyond the local stock market for the sale of shares in state-owned oil giant Aramco, which could be the world’s largest initial public offering, the kingdom’s deputy crown prince said. “We are thinking about several options,” Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who heads Saudi Arabian Oil ...

  Tokyo / AFP Mitsubishi Motors shares nosedived again on Thursday as panic selling wiped about $2.5 billion off the automaker’s market value in response to its shock admission that it cheated on fuel-efficiency tests. The embarrassing revelation is the latest in a string of recent scandals to hit Japanese firms, while German giant Volkswagen struggles to restore its badly ...

  Kuala Lumpur / Bloomberg Malaysia is selling global Islamic bonds against the backdrop of an increase in credit risk amid a dispute between a troubled state-investment company and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund over debt obligations. The government is marketing $1 billion of Shariah-compliant notes due in 2026 at 135 basis points over Treasuries and $500 million of bonds ...

  Panama City / AFP Japan on Wednesday agreed to finance a $2.6 billion monorail Panama intends to have built by 2022 as an extension of its young metro system, the Panamanian government said. “This financing Japan is giving us today is recognition of the solidity and credibility of Panama,” a statement quoted President Juan Carlos Varela saying during a ...

  New Delhi / Bloomberg The returns for overseas investors in India’s ambitious 100-gigawatt solar programme are about to get a big leg-up. And no, New Delhi won’t be paying the producers much more than the rock-bottom tariff of 4.34 rupees (7 cents) per kilowatt-hour. So where will the extra profit come from? Speaking in London, Indian Power Minister Piyush ...

    Bloomberg U.K. retail sales posted their biggest monthly decline in more than two years in March as Britons bought less of everything from food to clothing. The volume of sales excluding auto fuel fell 1.6 percent from February, the most since January 2014. Total sales dropped 1.3 percent. Both far exceeded the modest declines forecast in a Bloomberg ...

  Bloomberg German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble cast doubt on whether Greece’s bailout will succeed, while citing progress on the more immediate task of concluding a review of Greek compliance with the aid program that’s needed to unlock more funds. “We can make it, I’m not that pessimistic, we’ve made progress,” Schaeuble said during a panel discussion in Berlin late ...

Bloomberg Swiss watch exports posted the biggest quarterly drop since 2009 as the industry faces declining demand in all its main markets. Shipments dropped 8.9 percent in the first quarter, adjusted for working days, according to data from Switzerland’s customs office. Exports declined 16 percent in March to 1.5 billion francs ($1.5 billion), the lowest level for that month in ...