Month: July 2020

(Bloomberg) — SoftBank Group Corp. quietly sold an additional $2.2 billion of its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. as part of the Japanese conglomerate’s fund-raising effort to pay down debt and buy back its own shares.The deal, which includes a collar contract and call spread, is expected to be settled between May 2024 and June 2024. The details were disclosed on page 276 of SoftBank’s year-end financial filing released on June 25, but have not been previously reported. A SoftBank Group spokesman confirmed the details of the sale.This step is the latest in an unwinding of a relationship between …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — SoftBank Group Corp. quietly sold an additional $2.2 billion of its stake in Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. as part of the Japanese conglomerate’s fund-raising effort to pay down debt and buy back its own shares.The deal, which includes a collar contract and call spread, is expected to be settled between May 2024 and June 2024. The details were disclosed on page 276 of SoftBank’s year-end financial filing released on June 25, but have not been previously reported. A SoftBank Group spokesman confirmed the details of the sale.This step is the latest in an unwinding of a relationship between …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Oil fell on signs that the recovery in oil consumption may be starting to slow.Futures in New York fell below $41 a barrel after struggling to surpass their highs from June in recent days. Indian road fuel sales fell in the first half of July as localized virus lockdowns occurred in several cites, and the Chinese city of Urumqi locked down some areas amid fears of another outbreak in the country. American unemployment figures barely dropped last week, highlighting the risks to a broader economic recovery.Though demand concerns are returning in some of the world’s largest consuming regions, …read more […]

Vaccine-focused biopharma Dynavax Technologies (DVAX) has announced a collaboration to develop a universal influenza (flu) vaccine with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.Mount Sinai’s work in this area is funded under a contract award from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as part of the Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) program.The Mount Sinai CIVICs team will evaluate a novel approach they have developed called chimeric hemagglutinin (cHA) designed to protect against all strains of influenza in combination with Dynavax’s CpG 1018TM adjuvant.Adjuvants are added to a vaccine to boost the immune response to produce …read more […]

Daimler will stop building Mercedes-Benz sedans in the United States and Mexico as it seeks deeper cuts after posting a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss. The German automaker will halt output of its Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, leaving the plant producing sport utility vehicles (SUVs) only, it said. “Daimler pre-released better-than-consensus second-quarter numbers,” Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois said in a note. …read more […]

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Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCLH) has announced that it has priced its $250M offering of 16,666,667 ordinary shares at a price to the public of $15.00 per share. Shares in NCLH plunged 16% in Thursday’s trading, bringing the share price down to $15.61.NCLH has also granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to 2,500,000 of additional ordinary shares, which must be exercised on or before August 17, 2020.The offering is expected to close on July 21, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions. The company says it expects to use the net proceeds from the offering for general corporate purposes.J.P. …read more […]

(Bloomberg) — Sanofi is studying potential acquisitions of U.S. biotechnology companies including Principia Biopharma Inc. as it seeks innovative treatments for clinical areas including multiple sclerosis and immune disorders, people with knowledge of the matter said.The French drugmaker is working with advisers to study potential deals, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson, who joined last year, is seeking to rejuvenate Sanofi by focusing on fast-growing areas where new medicines command high prices. There’s no certainty the deliberations will lead to a transaction, according to the people.Sanofi shares were little …read more […]

The shares of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd (NYSE: NCLH), Carnival Corp. (NYSE: CCL), and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd (NYSE: RCL) continued to dip in the after-hours session Thursday, as the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention extended its ban on cruise sailing in the United States.What Happened In an order Thursday, the CDC extended the suspension of “passenger operations on cruise ships with the capacity to carry at least 250 passengers in waters” through September 15.”If unrestricted cruise ship passenger operations were permitted to resume, passengers and crew on board would be at increased risk of COVID-19 infection and …read more […]

British Airways is permanently grounding its jumbo jets which are nicknamed “the queen of the skies”. …read more […]

Sweden’s Ericsson reported quarterly core earnings ahead of market estimates on Friday, buoyed by higher margins on the sale of telecom equipment, and said it was keeping its financial targets for 2020 and 2022. Despite the economic uncertainty over the coronavirus outbreak, many telecom companies globally have been moving ahead with plans to upgrade to 5G networks, pushing up Ericsson’s commercial contract wins to 99. Ericsson and Finland’s Nokia were also expected to be the beneficiaries of Britain’s decision this week to ban Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from next-generation 5G networks. …read more […]

In the wake of the Wirecard accounting scandal, exchange operator Deutsche Boerse said on Thursday it was proposing rules to enable it to quickly expel companies from the leading DAX index if those firms file for insolvency. The ruling, if adopted, could mean that Wirecard would leave the DAX index in August, rather than during a regular review of the index makeup in September. Wirecard was promoted to the DAX index of 30 leading companies in 2018, displacing Commerzbank, as the fortunes of a rising technology star underscored the declining fortunes of the nation’s top banks. …read more […]

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To minimize the number of forced cuts, large airlines have been offering a variety of early departure packages. United’s agreement with the Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) includes an early retirement deal for pilots 62 and older, as well as a slew of different options for pilots to voluntarily reduce their hours or take a leave of absence during which they would potentially receive health benefits as long as they keep up their training, covered by United. Bryan Quigley, United’s senior vice president of flight operations, sent the terms to pilots in a memo late Thursday which …read more […]

The former head of a key subsidiary of Wirecard, who was arrested earlier this month, has admitted wrongdoing to prosecutors for his role in a multi-billion-euros fraud, his lawyer said on Thursday. It is the first known confession of wrongdoing in the collapse of one of Germany’s biggest companies. The unidentified jailed executive was the chief executive officer of Dubai-based Cardsystems Middle East. …read more […]