Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. paid 5.8 billion pounds ($9.1 billion) for Electricite de France SA’s U.K. electricity networks unit, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mayor Boris Johnson is spending 140 million pounds ($218 million) to encourage more Londoners to get on two wheels with a cycle-hire program that sprinkles the capital with as many as 5,000 bikes starting today.

U.K. consumer confidence fell more than economists forecast this month as the prospect of government spending cuts undermined Britons’ optimism on the economic recovery, GfK NOP said.

The International Accounting Standards Board, which sets rules used in more than 110 countries including Japan, Germany, and the U.K., said bookkeeping for insurance contracts should be the same in all jurisdictions.

The new Czech government, in office for less than a month, won’t commit to a target date for joining the euro, even as exporters suffer from the strengthening koruna, Prime Minister Petr Necas said.

A report identifies countries with the largest shadow economies, many of which are half as large as official GDP—a huge loss in tax revenue

Sanofi-Aventis SA Chief Executive Officer Chris Viehbacher has support from his board of directors to offer as much as $70 a share for Genzyme Corp., or about $18.7 billion, said three people with knowledge of the situation.

AstraZeneca Plc raised its earnings forecast for the third time this year and doubled a share buyback plan as the anti-clot drug Brilinta moved one step closer to approval and a U.S. court upheld a patent on the Crestor cholesterol medicine.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe’s second-biggest airline, more than doubled quarterly profit, topping analysts’ estimates, as rising travel demand boosted a recovery in ticket prices and as freight transport surged.

Shorter hours, government subsidies—it's just like 1924

The British PM says it's time Turkey got into the European Union

Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest carmaker, reported the biggest quarterly profit in 2 years on higher demand in China and the U.S. for the Golf compact and Audi A5 coupe.

BP Plc has written to Venezuela’s state oil company “raising the possibility” of selling its stakes in three oil projects in the South American country to its Russian venture, TNK-BP Holding, Petroleos de Venezuela SA Vice President Eulogio del Pino said in a mobile phone text message.

The embattled oil giant's first American CEO embraces a high-risk survival plan

BP Plc objected to proposed legislation that would bar the oil company from operating new drilling leases in U.S. waters, saying it could trigger job losses and threaten the nation’s energy security.

Kazakhstan, the former Soviet republic that last sold international debt in 2000, is planning a debut Islamic bond sale to broaden its investor base after canceling a Eurobond offering last week.

The following companies’ shares may have unusual moves in European trading. Stock symbols are in parentheses and prices are from the last close.

ConocoPhillips plans to sell its entire 20 percent stake in Russia’s OAO Lukoil, valued at about $9 billion, after gains in crude prices spurred a jump in second-quarter profit at the third-largest U.S. oil company.

Infineon Technologies AG, Europe’s second-largest chipmaker, raised its fiscal 2010 forecast for a third time on semiconductor demand from makers of cars and consumer electronics.

Portugal Telecom SGPS SA agreed to buy a stake in Telemar Norte Leste SA to remain in the Brazilian telecommunications market as it sells its shares in the country’s biggest mobile-phone operator to Telefonica SA.