Marriott announced the debut of The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, making its foray into the luxury yachting space.

Kroger Co. said it is buying rival Albertsons Cos Inc. in a deal that values the company at $24.6 billion, one of the biggest deals in the history of the grocery industry in the U.S.

There were over 60 million skier visits to U.S. resorts last season, the highest ever reported. The past two years also posted record individual domestic participation—10.5 million in 2020/2021 and 10.7 million in 2021/2022.

Blackstone will invest $500 million in privately held Resolution Life and help it raise roughly $2.5 billion. Blackstone will manage Resolution Life’s illiquid investments in areas such as private credit, private real estate and asset-based finance. The arrangement will add as much as $25 billion to the private-equity firm’s assets under management in the first year and is expected to contribute a total of more than $60 billion over the next six years.

Apartment demand turned negative last quarter, the first Q3 in at least 30 years that such a phenomenon occurred. Net demand was -82,095 units in Q3 among the markets tracked, bringing year-to-date net demand to -47,143 units.

The Fed has lifted rates by 0.75 percentage point at each of its past three meetings, bringing its benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 3% and 3.25% last month—the fastest pace of increases since the 1980s. Officials have indicated they could make a fourth increase of 0.75 point at their Nov. 1-2 meeting and raise the rate above 4.5% early next year.

The once-hot real estate market is swiftly slowing down, with mortgage rates for a 30-year fixed loan over 6% — up from 3.29% at the start of the year.

A U.S. Sentencing Commission report said that guilty pleas by corporations have trended downward in recent decades, reaching 90 in 2021 from a high of 304 in 2000.

With the surge in energy costs and rising interest rates weakening household demand, exports and imports should increase by just 1% in 2023, down from a previous forecast of 3.4%.

U.S. retail vacancy fell to 6.1% in the second quarter, the lowest level in at least 15 years, while asking rents for U.S. shopping centers in the quarter were 16% higher than five years ago.