Walmart is offering bonds to finance its $16bn acquisition of Flipkart on Wednesday, joining the growing list of companies adding leverage to their balance sheets to finance deals.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he will sign an executive order to end a policy of separating children from migrants who cross the American border illegally, which has drawn fierce blowback around the world.

Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein on Wednesday tweeted “it is a moral imperative to stop separating families”, a day after he offered sympathy for policymakers tackling the immigration issue while noting the situation at the southern US border is “heart-rending”.

Altice Europe is selling its French and Portuguese tower businesses for a total of €2.5bn in cash, the telecoms and cable group said on Wednesday after market close.

Anglo Irish Bank’s former chief has received a six-year prison sentence after his conviction for a €7.2bn fraud and false accounting at Ireland’s failed lender.

Cambridge university has sold £300m of 50-year index-linked debt using the consumer prices measure of inflation, in what bankers say is a notable moment for the UK bond market.

US stocks were mostly higher on Wednesday, cautiously climbing back from days of declines triggered by the escalating trade dispute between the US and China.

Deutsche Bank will pay $205m for violations of New York banking law stemming from its foreign exchange trading business, in the latest rap on the knuckles from US authorities for Germany’s biggest bank.

Hungary’s parliament has passed a package of laws that would make helping refugees a criminal act, in what civil society groups said constituted a violation of human rights.

Executives from J Sainsbury and Asda pledged that small suppliers will not suffer as a result of their planned merger, but they frustrated MPs on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee by refusing to be drawn on the detail about which prices will fall and who will pay for the reductions.

The UK financial watchdog has been taken to task by a tribunal for its apparent attitude to pursuing senior managers over the Libor rigging scandal.

Sales of existing homes eased in May, missing economists’ expectations amid a mixed picture for the US property market.

UK pub group JD Wetherspoon said on Wednesday it was “monitoring” the global carbon dioxide shortage threatening beer and fizzy drink production.

UK regulators have cleared the merger to combine the Mirror titles with the Express and Star newspapers, having looked into the deal to see if it would hit media plurality.

Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway have named Atul Gawande, a surgeon and writer, as chief executive of a joint venture to tackle US employee healthcare.

Lloyds Banking Group announced the latest in a wave of job cuts and moves across the British banking sector on Wednesday, as lenders respond to growing investor pressure to digitise their operations and cut costs.

S&P has lowered its rating on Starbucks, saying that the coffee retailer’s plans to boost shareholder returns to $25bn by 2020 even as it confronts slowing sales growth could prompt it to issue more debt.

The US economy has the scope to grow and add more jobs without triggering the sort of high inflation seen when unemployment was last this low, the head of the US Federal Reserve has said.

The holding company behind Italy’s billionaire Recordati family has confirmed it is in talks with private equity group CVC to sell a stake in its pharma company.

Brussels has confirmed that its retaliation measures against Donald Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs will take effect on Friday, targeting some €2.8bn of US products.

AIG has purchased a UK life insurance business from Munich Re, the latest deal by the expanding New York-based insurance company.

EU member states and parliament have agreed new rules that will enable non-personal data to flow freely around the bloc, an important step towards creating Europe’s digital single market.

US stocks are poised to bounce back at the start of trading on Wednesday, as the trade war fears stoked by the Trump administration’s latest tariff pronouncement earlier this week start to subside.

BT has been fined £77,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office after it sent out nearly 5m spam emails to customers without their permission.