Business and Finance news

Nasdaq OMX Group said the number of Greater China companies that list on its exchange could double in as little as two years, fueled by a growing appetite for these shares from a wider range of U.S. institutional investors.
Three of the top 10 performing initial public share offerings in the United States this year […]

China’s government should keep fiscal stimulus spending intact for another year to allow for a “full recovery in 2011,” central bank adviser Fan Gang said.
Investment in China’s real estate sector is starting to resume and some industries are beginning to utilize previously idled capacity, Fan said. The government’s stimulus is needed to keep […]

German producer prices rose for the first time in 11 months in August as energy costs increased.
Prices gained 0.5 percent from a month earlier after falling 1.5 percent in July, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. Economists forecast a 0.2 percent increase, according to the median of 24 estimates in a […]

General Motors has agreed to sell a major portion of its European Opel division to a consortium led by the Canadian auto supplier Magna, the automaker announced Thursday.
Under the plan, Magna, along with Russia’s Sberbank, will take over 55% of Opel. Opel employees will own another 10%, leaving GM with just 35% of Adam […]

Turkey, which has cut its key interest rate more than any other G-20 country, will likely slash it again as inflation slows to closer to the levels of the European Union which the country aims to join.
The Ankara-based central bank will probably reduce the overnight borrowing rate half a percentage point to 7.75 […]

The European manufacturing industry’s contraction slowed more than initially estimated in July, adding to indications the worst recession in six decades may have bottomed out.
An index of euro-area manufacturing activity rose for a fifth month, increasing to 46.3 from 42.6 in June, Markit Economics said today. The July figure is the highest in […]

Orders for Japanese machinery resumed falling in March, a sign that managers remain wary of upgrading factories and equipment before an economic recovery takes hold.
Bookings, an indicator of capital investment in the next three to six months, fell 1.3 percent from February, when they gained a revised 0.6 percent, the Cabinet Office said […]

New Zealand’s banks should increase provisioning against bad and doubtful debts as the worst recession in more than three decades curbs profits and drives up unemployment, the central bank said.
“There are clear signs of financial strain emerging in large parts of the business sector,” Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard said in his six-monthly […]

China’s property prices fell by a record in March and new construction tumbled in the first quarter, dragging down growth in the world’s third-biggest economy.
Real-estate prices in 70 major cities fell 1.3 percent in March from a year earlier, the most since records began in 2005, the National Bureau of Statistics said in […]

ProLogis Inc. plans to offer 115 million common shares in a registered public offering partly to cut back on borrowing under its global line of credit.
The Denver-based warehouse developer (NYSE: PLD) also says it has repurchased more than $220 million of its senior notes.
ProLogis is the third-largest property management company in the Nashville area, managing […]