WASHINGTON (AP) ― The Obama administration cracked down Monday on certain overseas corporate mergers and acquisitions, aiming to curb American companies from shifting their ownership abroad to shirk paying U.S. taxes. New regulations from the Treasury Department will make these co-called corporate inversions less lucrative by barring creative techniques that companies use to lower their tax bill. Additionally, the U.S. will make it harder for companies to move overseas in the first place by tigh

Sept. 23, 2014

Charles Plosser (Bloomberg)Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser, who votes on policy this year, will retire after eight years in which he became a consistent critic of the central bank’s unprecedented easing. Plosser, 66, will step down on March 1, the reserve bank said Monday in a statement. The bank’s Chairman James Nevels, founder of The Swarthmore Group, and Deputy Chairman Michael Angelakis, chief financial officer of Comcast Corp., will lead a search committee to

Sept. 23, 2014

Inflation running below the Federal Reserve’s target argues for “patience” on interest-rate increases and may require letting the economy run “a little hot,” New York Fed President William Dudley said. “Depending on where inflation is, I can certainly imagine a scenario where the unemployment rate dips a little below” what the Fed considers maximum employment, he said Monday in an interview with Matthew Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News. “We really need the economy to run a little hot f

Sept. 23, 2014

THE HAGUE (AFP) ― Dutch electrical appliance group Philips said Tuesday it wants to split the company in two, separating its health care-lifestyle and lighting businesses after stripping away less profitable activities.“We’re preparing Philips for the next century,” CEO Frans van Houten told a telephone press conference. Philips CEO Frans van Houten. (Bloomberg)“Giving independence to our lighting solutions business will better enable it to expand its global leadership position and venture into

Sept. 23, 2014

SHANGHAI (AFP) ― The largest stock offer in history has made Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, China’s richest person with a fortune of $25 billion, an annual wealth ranking in the world’s second-largest economy showed Tuesday.“It has been an amazing year for China’s best tycoons despite the jitters about the Chinese economy,” said China-based luxury magazine publisher Hurun Report in its annual rich list.Ma reaped more than $800 million selling shares in the company he set up 15 yea

Sept. 23, 2014

Siemens AG agreed to buy Dresser-Rand Group Inc. for $7.6 billion including debt as Europe’s largest engineering company is expanding its business with oil-and-gas equipment in the U.S. Siemens will pay $83 a share in cash, the Munich-based company said in a statement Monday. Dresser-Rand shares surged 9.4 percent to $79.91 on Sept. 19 after people familiar with the matter said that Siemens was preparing a bid. The agreement scuppers a competing plan by Switzerland’s Sulzer AG to merge with Dres

Sept. 22, 2014

DUBAI (AFP) ― Dubai property prices are cooling to “healthy” levels after a two-year rally during which real estate rebounded from a slump when the global financial crisis hit in 2009.Developers at a property show have rolled out scale models of latest projects, including Mall of the World, a larger-than-life venture announced in July complete with temperature-controlled high streets, a theme park, hotels and a theatre.Also on display at the Cityscape show on Sunday were models of mansions for s

Sept. 22, 2014

BEIJING (AP) ― Drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline was fined $492 million on Friday for bribing doctors in China, the biggest such penalty ever imposed by a Chinese court.The court sentenced the company’s former China manager, Briton Mark Reilly, and four Chinese codefendants to prison but postponed the sentences for two to four years, suggesting they may never be served. The court said it granted leniency because the defendants confessed.The case, first publicized in mid-2013, highlighted the widespread

Sept. 21, 2014

More buyers are picking Apple Inc.’s iPhone 6 Plus over the iPhone 6 in this debut weekend, according to a Piper Jaffray Cos. survey, and supplies of the larger model already are selling out in some U.S. stores. The iPhone 6 Plus is “more popular,” Gene Munster, an analyst for Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis, said in a report Saturday. The survey of 386 Apple customers waiting in line in Minneapolis and New York Friday found that 57 percent intended to buy the iPhone 6 Plus, he said. Munster said h

Sept. 21, 2014

About 40 countries will crack down on tax avoidance by multinational companies from 2017 under a global plan, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. Nations are committed to tackling “aggressive practices which erode the tax base and artificially shift corporate profits to low or no-tax jurisdictions,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria told reporters Saturday at a meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Cairns, Australia. The OECD and G20

Sept. 21, 2014

CAIRNS, Australia (AFP) ― G20 nations including the United States and China said Sunday they can overcome geo-political tensions and financial risks to achieve extra combined growth of 1.8 percent, adding trillions of dollars to the world economy.Their two-day meeting in Cairns was focused on developing a suite of policies to reach an ambitious goal of raising the total GDP of the 20 major world economies by two percent above current projections over the next five years.Finance ministers and cen

Sept. 21, 2014

A pedestrian carries a shopping bag as she passes a giant Apple Inc. logo outside a new Apple store on Princess Street in Edinburgh. (Bloomberg)Apple Inc. is set to launch two new iPads and release the next version of its Mac operating system at its next event on Oct. 21, a Daily Dot report said, citing sources familiar with the matter.The company plans to unveil the sixth generation of its iPad and the third edition of the iPad mini, as well as its operating system OS X Yosemite, which has unde

Sept. 18, 2014