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Prices across the Internet have increased for 15 consecutive months, jacking up the cost of everything from drugs to pet products to flower arrangements, according to Adobe Digital Insights. In August, prices of online goods and services swelled 3.1 percent, year on year, and gained 0.1 percent on July’s prices, Adobe found. In contrast, online...

The average price of a home across 55 countries rose 9.2 percent from June 2020 to June 2021, the fastest rate since the 12 months ending in March 2005, according to consulting firm Knight Frank. The rate of increase was 4.3 percent between June 2019 and 2020. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Russia, Turkey, and the...

Grifols SA, a Spanish chemical and pharmaceutical giant, will buy a controlling stake in Germany’s Biotest AG for €1.6 billion, the companies announced. Like Grifols, Biotest manufactures blood plasma products. Grifols will pay €43 a share to acquire Biotest shares owned by Tiancheng International Investment, based in Hong Kong, which would give Grifols 89.88 percent...

Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchinson is merging its Indonesian telecommunications business with that of Qatar’s Ooredoo Group in a $6-billion marriage, according to the Financial Times. The companies will each own half of the new Ooredoo Hutchinson Asia, which, in turn, will own 65.6 percent of the new entity, to be called Indosat Ooredoo Hutchinson....

TransUnion, one of the three major U.S. credit bureaus, is in final negotiations to buy Neustar, a closely-held firm providing data analysis and cybersecurity services to a range of industries and Internet platforms, for $3.1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported. The sale could be finalized imminently, insiders told the WSJ. The deal would help...

Fox Corp. and News Corp, its parent, are continuing to gobble their way through the world’s media menu, adding more than 20 properties for almost $7 billion since Lachlan Murdoch took leadership of the company from his father, Rupert, in 2019. Last week, Fox grabbed website TMZ, dedicated to celebrity gossip, for something less than...

Goldman Sachs has continued its buying spree by agreeing to pay $2.2 billion, or about $12 a share, for GreenSky Inc., which makes loans for major one-time purchases such as kitchen remodeling or medical procedures. GreenSky works with big-box retailers, medical providers, and others to offer loans that it says are cheaper than credit card...

Chinese real estate giant Evergrande, with 200,000 employees and more than 1,300 residential developments across the country, owes $300 billion and has warned investors that it might have no alternative but to default. That announcement brought investors literally to the company’s doors, demanding their money back, and jolted analysts and the real estate industry to...

Tighter regulation of the housing and tech markets, flooding during the vacation season, and China’s declared “zero tolerance” policy toward the Delta virus slowed the country’s consumer spending to a growth rate of 2.5 percent in August, about $534 billion worth, year on year, compared to July’s 8.5 percent, The Wall Street Journal reported. The...