Europe challenged by inadequate private investment

A gaping hole

Reuters

Etihad's Alitalia grab not as loony as it looks

Political insurance

Tax steroids justify Bayer's $14-billion Merck deal

Bayer buy

Alstom's train future is with Siemens, not GE

Don't miss the train

GE's Immelt sets powerful stage for his successor

Jeff's legacy

Siemens' Alstom proposal attractive but risky

Your turbines, my trains

Alstom split would energise business units

Shrink to grow

Manchester United's crisis has silver lining

A blessing in disguise

Germany takes anti-debt cult a step too far

How to spend it

Volkswagen has no reason to improve Scania bid

Pricey vision

Modern cars, dated governance

Rynair's loss highlights the need to change

Preparing for take-off

Culture and value

Business Standard

New German government to take chances on growth

An expensive deal

Other people's money

EasyJet's growth will get harder to replicate

HarderJet

Renault hit by adverse geopolitical winds

Still on its legs

SAP's bet on the cloud is beginning to pay offSAP's costly catchup strategy in cloud computing is starting to deliver. The world's largest business software company has been generating most of its sales growth through services for web-based computing lately. As revenue from SAP's traditional business of software licences declines, the rationale for its expensive cloud acquisitions is beginning to show.Since December 2011, SAP has splashed out $9 billion for cloud software specialists Successfactors, Ariba and Hybris. Without this M&A spree, SAP probably would be in a very difficult situation right now. Cloud sales increased threefold to euro 547 million in the first nine months of the year. For every euro of revenue SAP lost in its established business, it created euro 3.40 of additional cloud revenue.Better still, SAP's cloud performance remained strong between July and September 2013 - the first full quarter after former US security analyst Edward Snowden's revelations about inte

Break in the clouds

Split Nobel prize shows bubbles are worth watching

Fama's markets

BAE and EADS show the value of M&A scepticism

Consolation prize

Airbus has got the sales. Now how about profit?

Olaf Storbeck