Business & Finance News
Kohl’s Corp said on Thursday it plans to reopen a quarter of its stores by next week, as retailers start to get business going again in states where coronavirus-induced lockdown restrictions have eased.
Wall Street analysts looked past a surprisingly shaky first quarter for payment processors PayPal Holdings Inc and Square Inc hoping that the shift towards more online buying will see their businesses surge this year.
Millions more Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, suggesting layoffs broadened from consumer-facing industries to other segments of the economy and could remain elevated even as many parts of the country start to reopen.
Air France-KLM Chief Executive Ben Smith is right to tackle the subject of jobs at the struggling airline, said French government minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari on Thursday, as trade unions brace for possible cuts.
Britain’s biggest telecoms group BT suspended its dividend and said it would spend billions more on faster fibre broadband connections, as it prepares to meet the challenge posed by the merger of two of its biggest rivals.
GlaxoSmithKline has sold its stake in Unilever’s Indian business for $3.4 billion, marking India’s largest block trade, which will help the British company in its goal of reinvigorating its drug development pipeline.
Apple Inc said on Thursday that it was awarding $10 million to a maker of nasal swabs and other materials for collecting samples for Covid-19 tests in a move aimed at boosting the swab maker’s production to 1 million collection kits per week by early July.
The United States said there was “no valid basis” for the European Union to retaliate against U.S. goods in a long-running subsidy row after Boeing lost state tax breaks, but the EU said it was pressing ahead with its demand for tariffs.
JetBlue Airways Corp on Thursday posted a $268 million quarterly loss due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on air travel and said it had revised its order book with Airbus SE to reduce its aircraft capital expenditures by $1.1 billion through 2022.
Air France-KLM is opening talks with its French unions on workforce cuts, Chief Executive Ben Smith told Reuters, as the airline group warned of mounting losses with no clear end in sight to the coronavirus crisis.
U.S. stock index futures jumped on Thursday as a surprise rise in Chinese exports spurred hopes of a faster economic recovery, even as investors braced for data likely to show millions more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week.
PayPal Holdings Inc said it expects a strong recovery in payments volumes in the second quarter as social distancing drives more people to shop online, even as lockdowns start to ease, sending its shares up 8% in extended trading.
H&M , the world’s second-biggest fashion retailer, said local currency sales had tumbled 57% since the start of March compared with a year ago as the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns kept most of its stores closed.
British clothing retailer Next said on Thursday it plans to open its first standalone beauty shops by taking space in five former Debenhams stores, seeking to diversify its offer into faster growing markets.
Global sales of luxury goods are expected to slump by 50% to 60% in the second quarter even as some countries begin to ease coronavirus lockdowns and despite signs of recovery in the Chinese market, consultancy Bain said on Thursday.
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