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Japan's Nippon Steel to buy U.S. Steel in $14.9 billion deal

Source: CNBC/Reuters

Published Mon, Dec 18 2023 6:07 AM EST

Japan’s Nippon Steel said on Monday it would buy U.S. Steel in a deal valued at $14.9 billion, helping it add significant capacity in a key market that is primed for a price hike.

U.S. Steel’s shares rose about 28% to $50.35 in premarket trading, but were still trading well below the offer price of $55. That represented a premium of 142% since the company announced a strategic review process on Aug. 11. The all-cash offer represents an equity value of about $14.1 billion and the world’s No.4 steelmaker said it had secured financing commitments to fund the transaction.

The deal is expected to help Nippon move toward 100 million tonnes of global crude steel capacity, while significantly expanding its production in the United States, where steel prices are expected to rise as automakers ramp up production following their recent deals with labor unions to end strikes.

All of U.S. Steel’s commitments with its employees, including all collective bargaining agreements in place with its unions, will be honored, Nippon said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/18/japans- ... llion.html

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2024 is the biggest election year in history

More on that:

2024 Is the Biggest Global Election Year in History
by Bryan Walsh
January 3, 2024
Introduction:

(Vox) On January 1, Future Perfect published its predictions for 2024. The forecasts range from the number of poultry that will be culled because of bird flu this year to which film will win the Oscar for Best Picture. (Oppenheimer — take it to the bank.) But no single subject was covered by more predictions than who will win some of the most important elections around the world this year.

That’s because 2024 will be the biggest election year in history. More than 60 countries representing half the world’s population will go to the polls in 2024, with an estimated 4 billion people voting in presidential, legislative, and local elections. Those elections will range from the massive — India’s multi-day legislative elections (the largest in the world) and Indonesia’s presidential poll, the world’s biggest single-day vote — to tiny North Macedonia’s presidential election.

2024’s elections will include polls that will be free and aboveboard, like Iceland’s presidential election, which will be held in the world’s third most democratic country, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. Then there are the countries with somewhat less free elections, like North Korea. (North Koreans have a choice when they go to the polls in the same way that my son has a choice between “cereal” and “cereal” for breakfast.) In between will be most of the rest of 2024’s elections, including the US presidential election, where the winner of the popular vote actually lost the election two out of the last six campaigns.

The stakes for 2024’s democratic contests will be enormous — not just for the countries going to the polls, but for the world as a whole.
Democracy on the ballot

Will Taiwan, which goes to the polls on January 13, risk increasing the chance of war with China? Will the African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, finally lose power in post-apartheid South Africa? Will the European Parliament continue to see a surge in far-right parties? And, when Donald Trump and Joe Biden face off again in the US, as expected, will the results be any different from those in 2020?

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/202 ... t-voting

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South Korea maps out $470B plan to build chipmaking hub - report

January 16, 2024

South Korea has unveiled plans by firms such as Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc to spend more than $470 billion setting up the world’s largest chipmaking cluster, in a bid to join a global race to safeguard domestic supply, Bloomberg reported on Monday

The government on Monday outlined a blueprint involving investment of 622 trillion won ($470.31 billion) from the private sector in the years leading up to 2047.

According to the report, they will spend the money to build 13 new chip plants and three research facilities, on top of an existing 21 fabs. Spanning Pyeongtaek to Yongin, the area is expected to be the largest in the world, capable of producing 7.7 million wafers monthly by 2030, the report added.

The envisioned investment is up sharply from when Seoul first unveiled Samsung’s and Hynix’s plans in 2023. Korea’s government, which works closely with private firms on national imperatives, has been boosting its support for a domestic chip sector that accounts for about 16 percent of total exports, according to Bloomberg.

It’s pledged to protect a linchpin of its economy while grappling with rising global competition. As Japan and Taiwan aggressively invest in their own chip sectors, the Korean government is committing to extending big tax breaks to local chip firms, the report added.

https://technode.global/2024/01/16/sout ... ub-report/

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US postage stamp and shipping prices go up Sunday

Source: ABC News/GMA

January 19, 2024, 10:57 AM

The U.S. Postal Service will increase stamp prices starting Sunday, a USPS representative confirmed to "Good Morning America."

The cost of first-class stamps will rise from 66 cents to 68 cents for letters weighing one ounce or less.

Package shipping costs will also increase by nearly six percent, with Priority Mail Express costs going up by 5.9 percent, Priority Mail increasing by 5.7 percent, and Ground Advantage going up 5.4 percent.

The price hikes, the fifth increase in two years, are part of the Postal Service's ten-year "Delivering for America" plan to raise rates and recover from plunging profits – a projected $160 billion loss over the next ten years

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/posta ... =105867721

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Macy's Rejects $5.8 Billion Takeover Offer From Investors

Source: Bloomberg

January 21, 2024 at 7:00 PM EST
Updated on January 21, 2024 at 7:41 PM EST

Macy’s Inc. said Sunday that it wasn’t interested in a bid from Arkhouse Management Co. and Brigade Capital Management to take over the retailer, claiming the offer lacked “compelling value.”

The investors made a $5.8 billion, or $21 a share, offer for the company last month and Arkhouse earlier Sunday threatened to take its offer to shareholders if the department store chain doesn’t step up negotiations. The offer represents about a 19% premium to Macy’s closing price on Friday.

Macy’s board has determined it won’t “enter into a non-disclosure agreement or provide any due diligence information to Arkhouse and Brigade,” the company said after Arkhouse issued its statement. It said that information provided by the investors failed to address concerns over their ability to finance the transaction.

Arkhouse earlier said that advisers from all parties had held initial conversations and financing was discussed. It urged Macy’s to “engage expeditiously in good faith discussions,” pointing out that Macy’s shares had retreated from the high they reached after the offer was unveiled.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... areholders

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Amazon fined for 'excessive' surveillance of workers

30 minutes ago

Amazon has been fined €32m (£27m) in France for "excessive" surveillance of its workers, including measures the data watchdog found to be illegal.

The CNIL said Amazon France Logistique, which manages warehouses, recorded data captured by workers' handheld scanners.

It found Amazon tracked activity so precisely, it led to workers having to potentially justify each break.

This, the CNIL said, was illegal while it also questioned why Amazon needed to keep workers' data for 31 days.

France's data protection agency investigated Amazon warehouses following complaints by employees as well as media coverage of conditions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68067022

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eBay is laying off 1,000 employees, about 9% of its staff

eBay is cutting 1,000 roles, about 9% of its full-time employees, the company’s CEO announced online Tuesday.

The company also plans to scale back its contracts with its “alternate workforce” in the coming months.

CEO Jamie Iannone cited the “challenging macroeconomic environment” as an external pressure but added that there are factors the company can control.

“While we are making progress against our strategy, our overall headcount and expenses have outpaced the growth of our business. To address this, we’re implementing organizational changes that align and consolidate certain teams to improve the end-to-end experience, and better meet the needs of our customers around the world,” the note said.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/23/business ... 6150083468

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Bloomberg: Judge Rules Fox Must Face Smartmatic's $2.7 Billion Defamation Suit

Fox Corp. was ordered to face a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic Corp., one of two voting technology companies falsely accused on Fox News of rigging the 2020 US presidential election against Donald Trump.

The decision Wednesday by a New York judge is the latest setback for Fox after the media giant agreed in April to pay $788 million to settle a similar suit by Dominion Voting Systems Inc., the other company targeted by the conspiracy theory. Fox continued airing the allegations even after they were widely debunked.

Justice David B. Cohen in Manhattan denied Fox Corp.’s motion to dismiss the suit after finding Smartmatic had sufficiently laid out claims that executives at the parent company — including Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch — were involved in directing the election coverage by its subsidiary. Fox News Network LLC, along with several of its current and former on-air personalties, are also named in the suit and previously lost their attempts to dismiss the case.

“In essence, plaintiffs allege that no programming, messaging, or employment decisions were made at News without Corp.’s knowledge, approval, and direction, thus rendering News wholly dominated by Corp.,” Cohen said in the ruling.

https://news.yahoo.com/fox-must-face-sm ... 35812.html

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Levi's extends naming rights deal with 49ers stadium ($170 million), then announces major layoffs

January 25, 2024

Barely 10 years into a 20-year naming-rights deal, the deal has been extended by 10 years.

Via Ben Fischer of Sport Business Journal, Levi Strauss and the 49ers have agreed to extend the naming-rights deal at Levi’s Stadium. It was due to run through 2033. It will now go through 2043.

The existing deal pays $11 million per year, on average, from 2013 through 2032. The next deal increases the value to $17 million per year for 10 years.

https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootba ... rough-2043

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UPS to cut 12,000 jobs, citing softer demand and higher labor costs

The shipping giant is cutting more than 2 percent of its workforce after reporting a decline in fourth-quarter revenue.

By Aaron Gregg
January 30, 2024 at 10:51 a.m. EST

UPS plans to cut 12,000 jobs as a part of a plan to save $1 billion in costs, executives said Tuesday. ... The layoffs will eliminate around 2.4 percent of its global workforce of roughly 495,000, with about 75 percent of the job reductions coming in the first half of 2024. Executives said they don't expect those jobs to return.

"It's a change in the way we work," chief financial officer Brian Newman told investors. "So as volume returns to the system, we don't expect these jobs to come back. It's changing the effective way we operate."

The company's business has suffered, logging revenue of $24.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, down 7.8 percent from the same period the year before, with executives citing softer demand. ... Chief executive Carol Tom said in a statement that 2023 "was a unique and difficult year and through it all we remained focused on controlling what we could control, stayed on strategy and strengthened our foundation for future growth,"

Executives also pointed to higher labor costs. UPS last summer reached a new deal with the Teamsters that included raises of up to 55 percent over five years for certain workers.

{snip}

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... -job-cuts/

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23andMe’s Fall From $6 Billion to Nearly $0

From celebrity ‘spit parties’ to a drop in the bucket: The once-hot DNA-testing company is struggling to profit

Jan. 31, 2024 5:30 am ET

Five years ago, 23andMe was one of the hottest startups in the world. Millions of people were spitting into its test tubes to learn about their ancestry. Oprah had named its kit one of her favorite things; Lizzo dressed up as one for Halloween; Eddie Murphy name-checked the company on “Saturday Night Live.” 23andMe went public in 2021 and its valuation briefly topped $6 billion. Forbes anointed Anne Wojcicki, 23andMe’s chief executive and a Silicon Valley celebrity, as the “newest self-made billionaire.”

Now Wojcicki’s self-made billions have vanished. 23andMe’s valuation has crashed 98% from its peak and Nasdaq has threatened to delist its sub-$1 stock. Wojcicki reduced staff by a quarter last year through three rounds of layoffs and a subsidiary sale. The company has never made a profit and is burning cash so quickly it could run out by 2025.

https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/2 ... k-913468f4



Credit: PETER DASILVA/REUTERS

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Republicans Have Nothing to Impeach Joe Biden On. And They Finally Know It.

House Republicans are starting to realize that, even after months of investigation, they have no reason to impeach Joe Biden. The House GOP has for months accused Biden of corruption. But after interviewing dozens of witnesses and sifting through the Biden family’s financial records, they have found no evidence of wrongdoing by the president. Senior Republicans are finally starting to come around to that, CNN reported Friday.

“While I think that it’s pretty clear, I don’t know that the case has been adequately made to the American people,” Representative Scott Perry told CNN.

But it doesn’t seem as if the case has been “adequately made” to the Republican caucus, either. The party hasn’t done a formal count yet, but one GOP lawmaker, speaking anonymously, told CNN there are likely about 20 Republican representatives who don’t think there is sufficient evidence to impeach Biden.

Republicans have such a narrow majority that they can only afford to lose two votes. And even if the House did manage to pass articles of impeachment, the move would fail immediately in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

https://newrepublic.com/post/178720/hou ... mpeachment

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What the Samotsvety Group Can Teach Us About Predicting the Future.
by Dylan Matthews
February , 2024

Introduction:

(Vox) The question before a group made up of some of the best forecasters of world events: What are the odds that China will control at least half of Taiwan’s territory by 2030?

Everyone on the chat gives their answer, and in each case it’s a number. Chinmay Ingalagavi, an economics fellow at Yale, says 8 percent. Nuño Sempere, the 25-year-old Spanish independent researcher and consultant leading our session, agrees. Greg Justice, an MBA student at the University of Chicago, pegs it at 17 percent. Lisa Murillo, who holds a PhD in neuroscience, says 15-20 percent. One member of the group, who asked not to be named in this context because they have family in China who could be targeted by the government there, posits the highest figure: 24 percent.

Sempere asks me for my number. Based on a quick analysis of past military clashes between the countries, I came up with 5 percent. That might not seem too far away from the others, but it feels embarrassingly low in this context. Why am I so out of step?

This is a meeting of Samotsvety. The name comes from a 50-year-old Soviet rock band — more on that later — but the modern Samotsvety specializes in predicting the future. And they are very, very good at it. At Infer, a major forecasting platform operated by Rand, the four most accurate forecasters in the site’s history are all members of Samotsvety, and there is a wide gap between them and fifth place. In fact, the gap between them and fifth place is bigger than between fifth and 10th places. They’re waaaaay out ahead.

While Samotsvety members converse on Slack regularly, the Saturday meetings are the heart of the group, and I was sitting in to get a sense of why, exactly, the group was so good. What were these folks doing differently that made them able to see the future when the rest of us can’t?

Read more here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/202 ... s-tetlock