AOL said on Wednesday it would buy Adap.tv, which helps businesses buy and sell ads for online video electronically, for $405 million, its largest acquisition since the 2011 purchase of the Huffington Post. In recent months, AOL has turned its attention to video advertising as it tries to get more sales from marketers and reduce its reliance on lucrative but dwindling revenue from its dial-up subscription service. AOL also reported higher-than-expected revenue for the second quarter on an increase in display, search and ads from third-party networks. AOL said it was paying $322 million in cash and about $83 million in stock for Adap.tv.

Wal-Mart weighs bid for Li?s HK supermarket chain

Wal-Mart Stores is considering making a bid for the Hong Kong supermarket business being sold by a company controlled by Asia?s richest man Li Ka-shing, Reuters reported. Li?s Hutchison Whampoa conglomerate has set an August 16 deadline for initial bids for ParknShop, which it values at as much as $4 billion, sparking interest from corporate and private equity buyers. Wal-Mart, the world?s largest retailer, is working with a bank as it weighs its options for ParknShop ahead of next week’s preliminary bid deadline. Last year, Wal-Mart announced plans to open

100 new stores in China over the next three years and create 18,000 jobs in an effort to boost its mainland China business.

BoE ties rates to jobs; markets unconvinced

The Bank of England broke with tradition on Wednesday, saying it planned to keep interest rates at a record low until unemployment falls to 7% or below, which it views as unlikely for another three years. But its attempt to steer expectations about future rate moves and bolster a fledgling economic recovery underwhelmed investors who brought forward expectations for when rates would rise from a record low ? the opposite of what the central bank was hoping for. BoE governor Mark Carney said a recovery in Britain?s economy was underway and appeared to be broadening but had a long way to go. ?We?re not at escape velocity right now,? he said at his first BoE news conference. ?This remains the slowest recovery in output on record.?

HK nabs $5.3 m in ivory, rhino horns, leopard skins

A shipment of illegal ivory, rhino horns and leopard skins worth $5.3 million was seized in Hong Kong?s second big bust of endangered species products in a month. The haul is also the latest in a string of big ivory seizures over the past year in the southern Chinese city. Some 1,120 ivory tusks, 13 rhino horns and five pieces of leopard skin weighing a total of 2,266 kg were confiscated at Hong Kong?s port, the government announced on Wednesday. They were found on Tuesday hidden in a shipping container declared as wood from Nigeria. Wildlife activists say China?s growing presence in Africa is to blame for an unprecedented surge in poaching of elephants for their tusks.

?Japan?s fiscal goal elusive even with tax hikes?

Japan cannot meet its budget-balancing target simply through its planned doubling of the sales tax over the next two years, a government draft estimate obtained by Reuters showed, indicating that more fiscal measures will be needed to rein in its snowballing public debt. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is struggling to balance the need to stimulate growth in the world?s third-biggest economy ? via his ?Abenomics? policy prescription ? and reining in the industrial world?s heaviest public-debt burden. The draft estimate, to be submitted to the government?s top economic and fiscal policy panel, puts the country?s primary budget, which excludes new bond sales and debt servicing ? at a deficit of 2% of GDP in the fiscal year to March 2021, missing its goal of a surplus. The ratio is currently 7%.