SYDNEY (AFP) ― The owners of the 7-Eleven chain in Australia have taken control of coffee giant Starbucks’ struggling local operations in a bid to turn around its fortunes, the company said on Wednesday.While the iconic U.S. brand dominates in some parts of the world, it has failed to gain a foothold in a long robust Australian coffee market and only has 24 stores.The Withers Group, which has built its convenience store operations to include 600 outlets, has now acquired the local Starbucks lice

China Vanke Co., the nation’s biggest developer, is focused on developing homes for owner occupiers rather than investors because the country’s property industry has passed its “golden era,” said President Yu Liang. “The period in which everybody makes money out of property is gone,” Yu told reporters May 26 in Dongguan, a southern city in Guangdong province. “Vanke will take a cautiously optimistic approach to face the slowdown and target those buyers who need homes for self-use.” Pressure on C

Even in a high-stakes deal worth almost $120 billion, one that would create the world’s biggest drugmaker, the personal details matter. In a postmortem of the failed takeover talks between Pfizer Inc. and AstraZeneca Plc, a surprise offer, disagreement over a press release and the difference between a personal visit and a telephone chat played a big role. Chinese food had a cameo. “It’s sometimes not just about the money but about how you play the psychological issue behind a transaction,” said

Around 839 million workers still earn less than $2 a day

TOKYO (AFP) ― Sony’s latest bid to halt years of losses and resuscitate its brand has provoked snorts of derision among analysts who say it falls a long way short.The criticism came after Sony president Kazuo Hirai on Thursday pledged to drag the electronics giant out of a painful restructuring in the current fiscal year and pointed to ultra-high-definition technology as a possible savior for its money-losing TV unit.Hirai, appointed in 2012 to revive a company mired in losses, has centered his

Pfizer Inc. is on the verge of abandoning, for now, its effort to buy for 69.4 billion pounds ($117 billion) in what would have been the biggest deal ever in the drug industry. The deadline for Pfizer to make a firm offer arrives Monday, and the New York-based drugmaker almost certainly will announce that it won’t do so, said a person familiar with the plan who asked not to be identified because the process is confidential. Under U.K. government rules, the two drugmakers face an at least three-m

Stores may focus more on experience over selling

TOKYO (AFP) ― Japan’s central bank chief has forecast victory in his battle against stubborn deflation that has sapped growth for years, but expressed impatience over the pace of Premier Shinzo Abe’s policy blitz aimed at jump-starting the long-laggard economy.Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda said stimulus measures had boosted economic activity and produced durable inflation. But he warned that Abe’s government needed to step up its campaign for deeper, structural reforms that go beyond moneta

LONDON (AFP) ― Scandal-hit Barclays has been fined more than 26 million pounds ($43.87 million) after a former trader at the bank attempted to manipulate the price of gold, Britain’s financial regulator said Friday.The Financial Conduct Authority said in a statement that it had fined Barclays 26 million pounds “for failing to adequately manage conflicts of interest between itself and its customers as well as systems and controls failings” in relation to a fixed London pricing of gold over a nine

PARIS (AFP) ― French economist Thomas Piketty hit back Saturday at criticism by the Financial Times of his best-selling book on income inequality, telling AFP the newspaper was being “ridiculous.”The FT claimed Friday there was little evidence in the 43-year-old’s original sources to underpin his argument in “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” that an increasing share of total wealth is in the hands of the richest.But Piketty said: “The FT is being ridiculous because all of its contemporaries