Bloomberg A US judge decided it’s too risky to let an engineer stop wearing a device that tracks his whereabouts while he awaits trial on charges he stole trade secrets from Apple Inc’s autonomous-driving project before taking a new job in China. But, in a setback for federal prosecutors, the judge said in a separate ruling that electronic monitoring is ...
Read More »Year’s best US IPO is a little-known biotech with 420% surge
Bloomberg Karuna Therapeutics Inc may not be the year’s best-known initial public offering, taking a back seat to names like Beyond Meat Inc and Uber Technologies Inc. But for those on the hunt for generous returns, early bets on the mid-cap drugmaker paid off handsomely. Thanks to some positive study results in November, Karuna is 2019’s best-performing US IPO. Early ...
Read More »France’s pension riots are a warning to world
When it comes to retirement, France is like other countries, only more so: Everything about its system is untenable. It’s untenable that it has 42 separate public pension schemes — one for train drivers, another for opera singers, and so on. It’s untenable that the French think they have a God-given right to retire at 62 or even earlier. And ...
Read More »UK PM has a Bank of England problem
After a landslide victory in the UK general election, Boris Johnson has many difficult choices ahead — not least on Brexit. One imminent personnel decision, however, will reveal a lot about whether Britain still wants to play in the big league globally. Johnson’s government is about to pick a new governor for the Bank of England, as Mark Carney’s term ...
Read More »DuPont’s breakups only lead to more breakups
Round and round the DuPont merry-go-round of financial engineering we go. The chemicals giant agreed on Sunday to sell its nutrition and biosciences division to International Flavours & Fragrances Inc. via a tax-friendly Reverse Morris Trust transaction that values the business at about $26 billion. DuPont de Nemours Inc. will receive a one-time $7.3 billion cash payment and its shareholders ...
Read More »US-China deal will be a short-term truce
There are times, including in armed conflict, when adversaries see it in their own interests to opt for a truce and sell it to the outside world as a steppingstone to a comprehensive peace. But both sides know it will be only a prelude to renewed tensions down the road. This could well be the best way to think of ...
Read More »Indian court turns back the clock on Tata coup
How do you unscramble an egg called Tata Sons? The second law of thermodynamics says orderly things gradually turn more chaotic, and there’s no going back, no separating yolks from whites. But the appeals judge of India’s corporate law arbiter thinks he can reverse time. Or so it would appear from his order declaring that Cyrus Mistry, deposed three years ...
Read More »For FedEx, it could always get worse
It can always get worse for FedEx Corp. Back in June, I wrote that the parcel-delivery company had managed to fall out of a basement window when it issued fiscal 2020 guidance that fell well short of already depressed expectations. Two guidance cuts later, it seems we’ve sunk below the foundation and are in the dirt with the worms. The ...
Read More »China’s chip quest is all heart, not enough brain
China has made developing its own chip industry a matter of patriotic pride. It helps that “China chip†and “China heart†sound the same in the local language. The strain of this 1.7 trillion yuan ($243 billion) endeavour may be too much for the debt-clogged arteries of its municipal governments, though. Over the past decade, Beijing hasn’t hesitated to deploy ...
Read More »Slump in Germany’s air travel points to spread of flight shame
Bloomberg Mounting concern about carbon emissions may be altering travel habits in Europe’s largest economy as figures from German airports show a steady decline in passengers taking domestic flights. The number of people flying between German cities fell 12% in November from a year earlier, according to the ADV industry group, marking a fourth straight monthly drop and mirroring a ...
Read More »