(Reuters) -Top-rated U.S. companies have financed their acquisitions mostly with equity and cash instead of debt this year, and could continue doing so even as M&A activity and hopes of interest rate cuts rise, bankers and investors said. High debt costs and worries of credit-rating downgrades for taking on debt made funding acquisitions with cash and stock with sky-high valuations more compelling,...

SYDNEY, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Google agreed on Monday to pay a A$55 million ($35.8 million) fine in Australia after the consumer watchdog found it had hurt competition by paying the country's two largest telcos to pre-install its search application on Android phones, excluding rival search engines. The fine extends a bumpy period for the Alphabet-owned internet giant in Australia,...

12:39 PM EDT, 08/05/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Shift4 Payments' ( FOUR ) shares slumped intraday Tuesday after the payments and commerce technology company reported weaker-than-expected second-quarter earnings and announced the departure of Chief Financial Officer Nancy Disman. Adjusted per-share earnings fell to $1.10 from $1.39 a year earlier, below the FactSet-polled consensus of $1.19. The adjusted EPS was diluted due...

12:37 PM EDT, 08/05/2025 (MT Newswires) -- National Bank has raised its one year target on Metro to $111, from $107, and kept its Sector Perform rating. Metro reports its third-quarter results on Aug. 13. Analyst Vishal Shreedhar is forecasting EPS of $1.54, in line with consensus; last year was $1.35. His forecast of 3.5% food sssg also reflects continued...