Business week in pictures

The logo of German carmaker Opel, a unit of stricken US giant General Motors, at the Geneva motor show. US industrial companies such as Eastman Kodak, media firms such as Univision Communications and carmakers including Ford and General Motors have a 45% chance of going bust in the next 12 months, according to credit ratings agency Moody's Photograph: Sascha Schuermann/AFP/Getty Images

Clothes hang in an empty shop on Hanzheng Street in China. The global economy will shrink this year for the first time since the second world war as the 'Great Recession' ravages businesses, consumers and financial institutions around the world, the International Monetary Fund warned Photograph: China Photos/Getty Images

The Climate Rush campaign group demonstrate outside the offices of the Royal Bank of Scotland, on Bishopsgate. Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, received a £10,000-a-year boost to his annual pension for working an extra month at the bank in January Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim in Cartagena, Colombia. Some of Latin America's richest businessmen met to discuss the current global economic crisis. One of the world's most exclusive clubs has seen its membership drastically shrink. The number of billionaires on the planet has fallen by nearly 30% as the financial havoc wreaked by the global economic crisis stretches from skid row to the gated estates of the super-rich Photograph: Pedro Mendoza/AP

... but Warren Buffett, the US investor dubbed the Sage of Omaha, continues to be a cheerleader for equities despite recent spectacular misjudgments on the timing of his buy and hold philosophy Photograph: Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty Images

People visit the 20th international MIPIM property trade show in Cannes. Savills, the upmarket estate agent, has slumped to a £7.7m loss after it was forced to write-off more than £40m following a buying spree on foreign businesses at the height of the property boom Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images

Merck announced a 1.1bn (£29.8bn) takeover of rival drug firm Schering-Plough, the second blockbusting deal in the pharmaceutical industry in as many months Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

The economic slump has taken the shine off bling, with profits plunging at Bulgari, the world's third largest jeweller. Demand for its Assioma watches, which cost upwards of £2,500, was particularly poor with sales down 11% Photograph: Tony Barson/WireImage

Visitors look at the Volkswagen Polo BlueMotion car at the Geneva car show. Volkswagen is ready to put its 100,000 German workforce on a four-day, 28-hour week if the European car market collapses even more drastically, executives said as the group presented record earnings for last year Photograph: Sascha Schuermann/AFP/Getty Images