MUNICH, Germany Europe’s growing army of robot workers could be classed as “electronic persons” and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution. Robots... More »
BERLIN Germany denied interfering in Chinese home appliance maker Midea’s 4.5 billion euro ($5 billion) bid for industrial robot maker Kuka on Friday, saying it was not organising a rival offer. German media have reported that German Economy Minister Sigmar Ga... More »
SEATTLE General Electric Co (GE.N) has agreed to buy a unit of South Korea’s Doosan Engineering and Construction Co (011160.KS) that produces key components of combined-cycle power plants, the head of the U.S. company’s power division said on Tuesday. The $250... More »
Across the U.S. Farm Belt, top grain handlers have banned genetically modified crops that are not approved in all major overseas markets, shaking up a decades-old system that used the world’s biggest exporting country as a launchpad for new seeds from companie... More »
TOKYO Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (7011.T) on Monday said it was too early to decide whether to offer support to sister company Mitsubishi Motors Corp (7211.T), which is facing a financial hit after admitting to falsifying fuel economy data on its vehicles... More »
MUMBAI Embattled Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya’s UB Group has denied allegations that it used 4.3 billion rupees ($65 million) of bank loans to now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines to buy property overseas. Mallya, a liquor baron and lawmaker, has been at an unknown l... More »
WASHINGTON The U.S. government has approved the sale of up to nine Boeing Co (BA.N) P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol planes to Britain in a deal valued at up to $3.2 billion, the U.S. Defense Department said Friday. The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Age... More »
CANBERRA France has sent it largest business delegation in nearly two decades to Australia, spruiking the economic benefits of its bid for the A$50 billion ($38 billion) contract to build a fleet of 12 stealth submarines for Australia. Executives from French c... More »
JAKARTA A consortium made up of Indonesia’s state energy firm PT Pertamina and Japan’s Marubeni Corp (8002.T) has signed a deal with General Electric (GE.N) for the U.S. firm to provide gas turbines for a $2 billion power plant in Java, Pertamina said. The con... More »
BERLIN Chihira Kanae is greeting visitors to the world’s biggest travel fair in Berlin this week, answering questions and guiding people in the right direction. But one passer by’s attempt to ask her out for dinner is met with silence. That’s because Chihira K... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp (6502.T) has granted Canon Inc (7751.T) exclusive negotiating rights for its medical equipment unit after a hotly contested auction, with a report putting Canon’s offer at more than 700 billion yen ($6.2 billion). The conglomerate put Toshib... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp (6502.T) said its board of directors would hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss the planned sale of its medical equipment unit and announce the outcome swiftly if a decision is reached. The cash-strapped Japanese company said in a statemen... More »
TOKYO Canon Inc is front-runner to buy the healthcare business of Toshiba Corp with a bid of over 700 billion yen ($6.2 billion), Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported. Toshiba, a laptops-to-nuclear conglomerate seeking cash to restructure after an accounting scan... More »
GRAND FORKS, N.D. In a basement lab of a North Dakota research center, Beth Kurz and an assistant are peering through a scanning electron microscope, studying samples from the state’s vast Bakken shale oil formation. Kurz, a hydrogeologist, is part of a team, ... More »
NEW DELHI A doctor at a hospital in India’s capital, New Delhi, was recently tracking a wall of monitors displaying the vital signs of intensive care patients admitted hundreds of miles away when red-and-yellow alerts rang out. The oxygen flow to a 67-year-old... More »
Alcoa Inc said on Monday it had signed a $1.5 billion long-term contract with General Electric Co’s aviation unit to supply components used in aircraft engines. The aluminum producer will provide advanced nickel-based superalloy, titanium and aluminum componen... More »
(This January 8 story has been corrected in paragraph 10 to say Mark Alexander is “president” not “senior vice president” of Campbell Soup’s Americas Simple Meals and Beverages unit) By Siddharth Cavale and Subrat Patnaik Campbell Soup Co is to start disclosin... More »
STOCKHOLM Swedish home appliance maker Electrolux said on Monday its CEO Keith McLoughlin would retire and be replaced by senior executive Jonas Samuelson, just a month after the biggest deal in the company’s history collapsed. McLoughlin will hand over on Feb... More »
TOKYO Japan’s Toshiba Corp (6502.T) said on Monday it will cut nearly 7,000 consumer electronics jobs after a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, in an overhaul that will streamline the sprawling conglomerate into a company focused on chips and nuclear energy. To... More »
General Electric Co (GE.N) expects to announce a decision next month about whether it will move its headquarters out of Connecticut, a spokesman said on Sunday. GE Chief Executive Jeff Immelt had previously said the U.S. conglomerate planned to decide the futu... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp said on Monday it would discuss its restructuring measures and it may announce the impact on its business for this fiscal year ending March. The Nikkei business daily reported over the weekend the company is expected to forecast a record net... More »
STOCKHOLM Sweden’s Electrolux (ELUXb.ST) said on Monday its deal to buy General Electric’s (GE.N) appliance business had fallen through after GE terminated the $3.3 billion agreement. The U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal court in July to stop Electro... More »
TOKYO Fifty individual shareholders of Toshiba Corp sued the Japanese conglomerate in Tokyo on Monday, seeking 301.99 million yen ($2.45 million) in damages after the firm’s stock plunged in the wake of a multi-billion dollar accounting scandal. The lawsuit ag... More »
TOKYO Japan’s securities watchdog will recommend that Toshiba Corp should be fined 7.37 billion yen ($59.84 million) for accounting violations, a person familiar with the process told Reuters on Saturday. The source said the Securities and Exchange Surveillanc... More »
SAN FRANCISCO Snapchat, maker of a free mobile app that lets users send videos and messages that disappear in seconds, is struggling to gain traction with advertisers, fuelling investor concern that its $16 billion valuation isn’t justified by a business that ... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp is set to sell its image sensor business to Sony Corp for around 20 billion yen ($164.68 million) as part of a restructuring plan laid out earlier this year, sources with knowledge of the deal said on Saturday. Toshiba, whose businesses rang... More »
Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management has accumulated $2.5 billion in General Electric (GE.N) shares since May — a roughly 1 percent stake — making it one of the company’s top 10 shareholders, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a white paper Trian plans to di... More »
Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (RR.L) may announce a reduction of 400 management jobs in its marine division this week, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Chief Executive Warren East’s aim with the marine restructuring will be to s... More »
In a sign that what is old is new again, U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co is producing its own science fiction podcast series in an effort to raise its profile among a younger, tech-savvy audience. GE, in partnership with The Slate Group’s podcast network... More »
DALIAN, China In a cavernous showroom on the outskirts of this port city in northeastern China, softly whirring lathes and svelte robot arms represent Dalian Machine Tools Group’s (DMTG) vision of an automated future for Chinese manufacturing. On closer inspec... More »
Companies and organizations are pledging to provide funds, goods and services to help thousands of migrants arriving in Europe from war-torn and impoverished countries. Companies are helping through both corporate and employee schemes. Following are some examp... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp (6502.T) swung to a first-quarter loss on weak PC and TV sales, raising pressure on its new chief executive, who is already tasked with improving governance after a $1.3 billion accounting scandal. Toshiba on Monday reported an April-June op... More »
NEW YORK Chemical giant DuPont Monday will face the first trial in litigation from residents near one of its plants in West Virginia who have accused the company of sickening them by emitting a toxic chemical that leaked into their drinking water. Carla Marie ... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp (6502.T) is set to report an operating loss of more than 10 billion yen ($83 million) in the April-June quarter hurt by weakness in the consumer electronics business, the Nikkei business daily reported. Toshiba last reported a first-quarter ... More »
BOSTON Investors in Discovery Communications Inc, including Manning & Napier Inc and BlackRock Inc, withheld support for a member of the company’s compensation committee, recent securities filings show, after the cable network operator gave its CEO the richest... More »
SEOUL SK Hynix Inc, the world’s No. 2 DRAM chip maker, on Tuesday said it plans to spend 31 trillion won ($25.94 billion) to build two new chip plants in South Korea, aiming to update its production technologies to boost competitiveness. The firm, which compet... More »
General Electric Co (GE.N) said on Monday it was cutting 262 more jobs at its Lufkin oil unit in Texas and closing a foundry as it grapples with the plunge in global oil prices. GE earlier this year said it planned to eliminate some 575 jobs from Lufkin, bring... More »
TOKYO Tom Scott, a former U.S. executive at Toshiba Corp (6502.T), remembers his former boss Atsutoshi Nishida as an aggressive leader who could motivate staff but also rattle them with tough sales targets and an occasional dressing down. “He gave me goals tha... More »
TOKYO The Japanese affiliate of Ernst & Young LLC has launched an in-house investigation into its audit of Toshiba Corp in the wake of the electronics maker’s $1.2 billion accounting scandal, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Ernst & Young ShinNihon ... More »
TOKYO Toshiba Corp’s (6502.T) chief executive Hisao Tanaka and a string of other senior officials resigned on Tuesday for their roles in the country’s biggest accounting scandal in years. Tanaka will be temporarily replaced by Chairman Masashi Muromachi after ... More »
PARIS An attempt by Airbus to make history by crossing the English Channel in an electric plane ended in wounded pride on Friday after a French pilot claimed to have beaten it by hours. In a further twist, a Slovenian businessman said he might have beaten both... More »
A clothing designer area is pictured at TechShop in the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco, California April 24, 2014. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith In the shadow of Internet monoliths such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, it’s easy to forget that Silico... More »
