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  MADRID / AP Spanish clothes retailer Inditex, owner of the Zara store chain, posted Wednesday a 6.0-percent rise in its first-quarter net profit due to higher sales around the globe. The world’s largest fashion retailer by sales said profit for the quarter ending April 30 rose to 554 million euros ($621 million) from 521 million euros a year earlier. ...

  Shanghai / Bloomberg Walt Disney Co. has hosted over 600,000 visitors at its first theme park in mainland China since trial operations started early May, and its “enormous potential” has already prompted Disney to expand the resort, said Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger. “After we broke ground we paused to really recognize the growth of China’s tourism and Shanghai ...

  Bloomberg U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne warned that leaving the European Union could spark a fiscal crisis, as “Remain” supporters battle to turn around a referendum campaign that’s slipping away from them. Reduced trade and investment would leave a 30 billion pound ($42 billion) “black hole” that would have to be plugged by increased taxes and cuts ...

  Bloomberg If the U.K. votes to leave the European Union next week, it may not bode well for the 28-nation bloc’s oldest natural gas market. A so-called ‘ Brexit’ would probably cause the pound to plunge to its lowest in 30 years, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. That would make gas in the U.K. cheaper and temporarily boost ...

  Bloomberg Schneider Electric SE’s second attempt to buy a majority stake in U.K. software maker Aveva Group Plc proved short-lived after negotiations between the two companies ended just two days after they became public. “Following the termination of the preliminary discussions,” Cambridge-based Aveva said on Wednesday in a short statement that it had applied for its shares to begin ...

  Bloomberg The U.K. labor market showed signs of resilience in the face of the referendum on European Union membership as unemployment unexpectedly fell and wage growth accelerated. The jobless rate declined to 5 percent in the three months through April, the lowest since 2005, the Office for National Statistics in London said on Wednesday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG plans to bundle the components businesses of its different brands to save costs and will review disposing of peripheral assets, according to people familiar with the matter, part of a sweeping strategy review by CEO Matthias Mueller as he seeks to navigate Europe’s largest carmaker out of the emissions scandal. VW’s senior management presented a plan to ...

  Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin is trying to woo foreign investors into the battered Russian economy by offering a chunk of the world’s biggest miner of diamonds. Russia needs cash to help fill a hole in its budget, the result of a collapse in revenue from plunging oil prices. Putin has proposed selling stakes in state-controlled companies including banks and ...

  Bloomberg While some investors have been quick to blame next week’s Brexit vote for the slowdown in U.K. commercial property sales, there are growing signs the market will stall, whatever the outcome of the referendum. Investors spent £16.9 billion ($24.4 billion) on offices, stores, warehouses and other commercial properties from January through May this year, according to Real Capital ...

  Bloomberg Canadian consumer leverage remained near a record in the first quarter as rising mortgage liabilities offset a gain in disposable income. Credit-market debt including mortgages was 165.3 percent of after-tax income, slightly lower than the 165.4 percent reading in the fourth quarter, Statistics Canada said Tuesday in Ottawa. Persistent strength in the Toronto and Vancouver real estate markets ...