Royal Dutch Shell Abandons Oil Exploration in the Arctic

And four other things you need to know now.

• Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) has abandoned its exploration in the Arctic, off the coast of Alaska, which had been hotly contested, because of the collapse in oil prices. The company is preparing for billions of dollars in writedowns, the Financial Times reports.  
• Saudi Arabia has withdrawn tens of billions in funds from asset managers around the globe in order to make up for the fall in oil prices and cut exposure to volatile equities markets.
• Chinese industrial profits posted the biggest drop since 2011 in August, when costs kept rising but prices kept falling. During August, profits of industrial companies dropped 8.8% from a year earlier, the biggest one-year fall since the National Bureau of Statistics began monitoring such data in 2011. For the first eight months of 2015, profits were down 1.9% from a year earlier.
• U.K.-based mobile telephony giant Vodafone (VOD) ended talks with Liberty Global (LBTYA) regarding a possible exchange of selected assets between the two companies. Vodafone had confirmed in June the two companies were discussing the asset swap.
• Separatists won the majority of votes in elections in the rich Spanish region of Catalonia, which have largely been presented as a vote on independence.  However, it is unclear whether this is enough to help the separatists break away from Spain and adds to uncertainty ahead of general elections in December.

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