Bloomberg BlueMountain Capital Management LLC has found a potent ally in its fight to overhaul leadership of bankrupt utility giant PG&E Corp: activist investor ValueAct Capital Management. BlueMountain, a PG&E shareholder that pushed to keep PG&E out of bankruptcy, launched a proxy fight to replace its board in the days prior to the company’s Chapter 11 filing in January and ...
Read More »Daimler, BMW to develop self-driving cars
Bloomberg Daimler AG and BMW AG have agreed to cooperate on developing self-driving cars, the latest move by the luxury-car rivals to share cost as a technology shift shakes up the industry. The German manufacturers have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop the next generation of autonomous-driving technology, which should be market-ready by the middle of the next ...
Read More »Can Patrick Shanahan transform the Pentagon!
In the days after he resigned as secretary of defense in December, Jim Mattis told people he hoped to be succeeded by Patrick Shanahan, his deputy. Shanahan has remained in limbo since then as acting secretary, perhaps trying to convince President Trump’s critics that he will be independent, the way Mattis was, while simultaneously reassuring the White House that he ...
Read More »Draghi has a vision for Europe
Mario Draghi is rarely afraid to adopt difficult positions on the subject of Europe’s future. The president of the European Central Bank (ECB) has advocated that the euro zone should build a capital market union, complete the banking union and move towards a centralised budget – even though political leaders are reluctant to take those steps. Last week, Draghi took ...
Read More »If JPMorgan is hurting, what hope for Europe?
It’s shaping up to be another tough quarter for securities firms, the world’s biggest trading house has warned. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s grim assessment of market conditions this year is more than a stark reminder that the wallet keeps shrinking. The US firm warned this week that it expects trading revenue to shrink by a low-teens percentage in the first ...
Read More »Avoiding a catastrophic conflict in South Asia
The alarming new standoff between India and Pakistan could end in any number of ways, from talks and a quick truce, to a series of military escalations that risk ending in a nuclear exchange. At such a perilous moment, the need for calm and dialogue is plain – but more than this is required. The longtime South Asian rivals need ...
Read More »US should grab the talent China is driving away
From the 1990s through the early 2010s, it looked as if China could do no wrong. Its economy grew at a breakneck pace as its companies hungrily gobbled up market share in a wide array of manufacturing industries. Its political system, although authoritarian, seemed increasingly stable, as power passed from Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao to Xi ...
Read More »Hyundai plan lacks that new car smell
Hyundai Mobis Co.’s latest plan brings to mind one image: a damp squib. Again. The South Korean chaebol’s auto-parts unit released an outline to “maximize†shareholder value. It’ll do anything but that. The company also formally proposed family heir Euisun Chung as CEO of the unit, which has been under fire by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. So Chung had ...
Read More »Central banks signal that it’s time to be selective
In his testimony to Congress, Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed that the Federal Reserve has undertaken a dramatic policy pivot, opening the door even wider for other central banks to also adopt more dovish stances. The shift increases the risk that many on Wall Street could slip back into the comforting belief that renewed central bank support is sufficient to ensure ...
Read More »Bilibili billionaire!
Bloomberg It’s hard to blame China’s biggest tech companies for being just a little envious of Bilibili Inc. The purveyor of animated videos, comics and mobile games like Sony Corp.’s Fate/Grand Order has an eye-watering 93 million monthly active users whose average age is 21. Bililbili’s American depositary receipts have surged 73 percent since its initial public offering in March ...
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