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By Gabriel Araujo SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Shares in Brazilian shopping mall operators soared on Wednesday as Multiplan reported figures above pre-pandemic levels for the fourth quarter of 2021 and a Bank of America survey pointed to expectations of a solid recovery in the sector. Multiplan said in its operational preview that quarterly same store rent jumped 41.4% from the same period of 2019, while same store sales rose 10.3%. Sales were up 8.1% when compared with the last quarter of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in Brazil, supported by a strong performance during the holiday season. “December was a major highlight, as sales reached 110.1% of the sales seen in the same period of 2019 … In the fourth quarter, sales were above 2019 levels for the first time in the year, totaling 5.6 billion reais ($1.01 billion),” Multiplan said. Multiplan’s figures were backed by a Bank of America survey showing a K-shaped recovery in the sector, with 92% of Brazilian consumers back at th

CAIRO (Reuters) – A United Nations mission said on Wednesday it has spoken to crew members from an Emirati vessel that was seized by the Yemeni Houthi movement earlier this month. “As part of its routine weekly patrol, (the UN Mission to support the Hudaydah Agreement) visited As-Salif port and neighbouring areas this afternoon. The patrol team saw the RWABEE vessel from a distance and spoke to its crew members,” the mission said on Twitter. Yemen’s Houthis say the Emirati cargo vessel that they seized in the Red Sea had been carrying military hardware, but the Saudi-led coalition, fighting the Iranian-aligned Houthis, says the ship had been carrying medical equipment. (Reporting by Ahmad Elhamy) Source

With the finance ministry saying it is watching the sale at Citibanamex, Mexico’s No. 3 consumer bank, for signs of undue market concentration, the most established players in the country appear to be less favored in the carve-up. Alejandra Marcos, an equity analyst at Intercam Banco, said Slim’s Inbursa, now Mexico’s seventh-largest bank, has the means to present a strong offer and would not face the same obstacles as peer Grupo Financiero Banorte from antitrust regulators due to the latter’s market share. “The only Mexican bank with the financial capacity for this is Inbursa, but of course other groups of entrepreneurs could join to make an attractive offer,” Marcos said. A spokesman for Slim did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Banorte did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile tycoon Salinas, who controls the supermarket and banking chain Elektra that includes Banco Azteca, said on Tuesday evening he had asked his team to study the purchase of the Citigrou

By John McCrank NEW YORK (Reuters) – A surge in options trading by individual investors helped lift market volumes to record highs in 2021, but it also made trading the derivatives more difficult for many institutional investors, according to a Coalition Greenwich study released on Wednesday. Options volumes soared to a record 9.87 billion contracts last year, a 32.2% increase over 2020, which was itself a record-setting year for volumes, Options Clearing Corp data showed. The number of individual options account holders grew to the highest levels ever last year, and the amount of smaller trades, which are indicative of retail trades, increased to significant levels of market share, said Shane Swanson, senior market structure and technology analyst at Coalition Greenwich. “Whether driven by the meme stock phenomenon, zero-commission trading or simply by retail investors looking to get heightened exposure to the market, retail trading in options grew by leaps and bounds in 2021,

By Felix Onuah ABUJA (Reuters) -Nigeria will lift a ban on Twitter from midnight after the social media platform agreed to open a local office, among other agreements with authorities in the West African country, a senior government official said on Wednesday. The Nigerian government suspended Twitter on June 4 after it removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists. Telecoms companies subsequently blocked access to users in Nigeria. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, director general of the National Information Technology Development Agency said in a statement that Buhari had given approval to lift the suspension. “Twitter has agreed to act with a respectful acknowledgement of Nigerian laws and the national culture and history on which such legislation has been built…,” Abdullahi’s statement said. The company would work with the federal government and the broader industry “to develop a Code of Conduct in line with global best practices, applicabl

PARIS (Reuters) -Franco-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah, whom Tehran has sentenced to five years in prison but was recently living under house arrest, has once again been incarcerated, France’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday, demanding her immediate release. The new move against the Adelkhah, a researcher affiliated to Paris’s prestigious Sciences Po university whose detention had triggered a rift between the two countries in the past, comes as France and other western powers are negotiating with Iran to revive a nuclear accord. “The decision to re-incarcerate her, which we condemn, can only have negative consequences on the relationship between France and Iran and reduce the trust between our two countries”, the ministry said in a statement. “France demands the immediate release of Ms. Adelkhah”, it added. Adelkhah was arrested in 2019 and handed a five-year prison sentence in 2020 before being put under house arrest. French President Emmanuel Macron critised https://www.reuters.