- Vista Outdoor to sell sporting products unit in $1.91 bln deal, cuts sales forecast Reuters
- Vista Outdoor falls after selling its sporting products business for $1.9B Seeking Alpha
- Vista Outdoor sporting unit to stay in Anoka after $1.9B sale to Czech firm Star Tribune
- Czechoslovak Group Acquires Federal, CCI, Hevi-Shot, Remington Ammo & Speer | An Official Journal Of The NRA American Rifleman
- Vista Outdoor Enters into Definitive Agreement to Sell Sporting Products Business to Czechoslovak Group for $1.91 Billion Yahoo Finance
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Singapore arrests 10 foreigners, seizes S$1 bln assets in money laundering probe – Reuters
- Singapore arrests 10 foreigners, seizes S$1 bln assets in money laundering probe Reuters
- Singapore files charges against 10 with ‘Chinese passports’ in money-laundering bust South China Morning Post
- Singapore Busts $736 Million Laundering Ring Holding Bentleys and Luxury Houses Bloomberg
- S$1 billion in houses, cars, money and goods seized or frozen in one of Singapore’s largest money laundering probes CNA
- Who are the 10 foreigners arrested at GCBs and prime area condos as part of money laundering probe CNA
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Berkshire Hathaway stock scales record as operating profit tops $10 bln – Reuters
- Berkshire Hathaway stock scales record as operating profit tops $10 bln Reuters
- Berkshire shares hit all-time high as investors cheer strong earnings, Buffett’s near-record cash pile CNBC
- Berkshire Operating Earnings Rise on Insurance Strength Bloomberg Television
- Warren Buffett is trying to tell us something about the economy with Berkshire Hathaway’s earnings and the $147 billion of cash on hand Fortune
- Berkshire Hathaway reports strong Q2 earnings; Inflation data to watch; Campbell Soup to buy Rao’s Yahoo Finance
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Microsoft defeats gamers’ bid to block $69 bln Activision deal in US court – Reuters
- Microsoft defeats gamers’ bid to block $69 bln Activision deal in US court Reuters
- As of today, Microsoft could consummate the Activision Blizzard purchase without fear of sanctions from a U.S. court: investment bank Macquarie recommends going ahead FOSS Patents
- Preliminary Injunction Denied in “Gamers’ Lawsuit” Against Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard TechRaptor
- Microsoft defeats gamers’ bid to block $69 billion Activision deal in US court Yahoo Finance
- Microsoft defeats gamers’ bid to block $69 billion Activision deal in US court The Economic Times
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U.S. bankruptcy judge approves Binance.US $1.3 bln deal for Voyager – Reuters
- U.S. bankruptcy judge approves Binance.US $1.3 bln deal for Voyager Reuters
- US Judge Approves $1,300,000,000 Binance.US Deal With Voyager After Dismissing SEC Objections The Daily Hodl
- Binance.US Takes Over Voyager’s Assets With Judge’s Approval TheStreet
- SEC dealt blow as Judge clears Binance.US to buy Bankrupt Voyager Digital Assets – Will this affect Ripple and Binance securities case? Crypto News Flash
- US Bankruptcy Judge Approves Binance.US $1.3B Deal for Voyager Digital, but Hurdles Remain – Here’s the Latest Cryptonews
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White House blasts Exxon over historical $56 bln annual profit
WASHINGTON, Jan 31 (Reuters) – The White House on Tuesday expressed outrage on Tuesday at Exxon Mobil Corp’s record net profit in 2022 of $56 billion, a historical high not just for the company but for the entire Western oil industry.
Oil majors are expected to break their own annual records due to high prices and soaring demand, pushing their combined take to near $200 billion. The scale has brought renewed criticism of the oil industry and sparked calls for more countries to levy windfall profit taxes on the companies.
A White House statement said Exxon’s (XOM.N) profit margin was particularly galling as Americans paid record high prices at the pump. It criticized attempts by Republicans in the House of Representatives to push policies aimed at supporting the oil industry.
“The latest earnings reports make clear that oil companies have everything they need, including record profits and thousands of unused but approved permits, to increase production, but they’re instead choosing to plow those profits into padding the pockets of executives and shareholders while House Republicans manufacture excuse after excuse to shield them from any accountability,” the White House said.
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President Joe Biden has blasted oil companies and refiners for much of the last year for enjoying surging profits as gasoline prices soared. In June, he Biden wrote to executives of major oil refiners and complained they had cut back on production to pad profits, according to a copy of a letter seen by Reuters.
Exxon’s CFO Kathryn Mikells responded to growing criticism over the industry’s windfall profits and suggested the answer is not increased taxes.
“We look at the EU tax on the energy sector, and you know, it’s just unlawful and bad policy trying to tax something, when what you actually need is for it to increase,” Mikells said. “It has the opposite effect of what you’re trying to achieve.”
Reporting By Trevor Hunnicut and Steve Holland; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Sabrina Valle; Editing by Franklin Paul and David Gregorio
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Adani’s $2.5 bln share offer backed by investors, despite short-seller attack
MUMBAI, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s $2.5 billion share sale inched closer to full subscription on Tuesday as investors pumped in funds after a tumultuous week for his group in which its stocks were pummeled by a scathing short-seller report.
The secondary share sale of flagship Adani Enterprises (ADEL.NS) was subscribed 93% on Tuesday, including the anchor investor portion, Indian stock exchange data showed. The share sale needed at least 90% subscription to go through.
By Monday, the book building process of the country’s largest share sale had received only 3% in bids, amid swirling concerns that the share sale could struggle due to a market rout in Adani’s stocks in recent days.
The share sale is critical for Adani, not just because it is India’s largest follow-on offering and will help cut debt, but also because its success will be seen as a stamp of confidence by investors at a time the tycoon faces one of his biggest business and reputational challenges of recent times.
The offer closes days after Adani’s public faceoff with Hindenburg Research, which on Jan. 24 flagged concerns about the use of tax havens and “substantial debt” at the group. It added that shares in seven Adani listed companies have an 85% downside due to what it called “sky-high valuations”.
That has since sparked $65 billion in cumulative losses for stocks of the Adani group, which called the report baseless.
The support for Adani’s share sale came even as the flagship’s shares were trading at 2,967 rupees, up nearly 2.5% but below the lower end of the share sale price band of 3,112 rupees.
“It looks down to the wire with just a few hours remaining on the last day, but the offering should go through. Institutions seem to be subscribing to capitalise on opportunity to buy in bulk quantities outside the open market,” said Dipan Mehta, founder director of Elixir Equities.
Adani Group’s total gross debt in the financial year ended March 31, 2022, rose 40% to 2.2 trillion rupees ($26.83 billion). Adani said on Sunday – while responding to Hindenburg’s allegations – that over the past decade the group has “consistently de-levered”. Hindenburg later said Adani’s “response largely confirmed our findings and ignored our key questions.”
The group had in recent days repeatedly said investors were standing by its side and the share offering would go through, amid rising concerns that may not happen. Bankers at one point had considered tweaking the pricing of the issue, or extending the sale, Reuters had reported.
Adani even said the Hindenburg report was a “calculated attack” on the country and its institutions while its CFO compared the market rout of its stocks to a colonial-era massacre.
Demand from retail investors remained muted, garnering bids only worth around 10% of the shares on offer for that segment. On Tuesday, demand mostly came from foreign institutional investors, as well as corporates who bid in excess of 1 million rupees each, data showed.
Over the weekend and through Monday, Adani’s firm held extensive discussions with investment bankers and institutional investors to attract subscriptions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the talks.
Abu Dhabi conglomerate International Holding Company (IHC.AD) said it will invest $400 million in the issue.
“The follow-on public offering has to go through to restore investor confidence,” said V. K. Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist at Geojit Financial Services.
The Hindenburg report and its fallout have drawn global attention. Adani is now the world’s eighth richest person, down from third ranking on Forbes’ rich list last week.
Adani Transmission (ADAI.NS) rose 1.6% on Tuesday, after losing 38% since the Hindenburg report, while Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSE.NS) climbed 3.2%.
Adani Total Gas (ADAG.NS) languished at its 10% lower price limit, while Adani Power (ADAN.NS) and Adani Wilmar (ADAW.NS) were down 5% each.
Global index publisher FTSE Russell said on Tuesday it continues to monitor publicly available information on the group, in particular from the Indian regulatory authorities.
Hindenburg said in its report it had shorted U.S.-bonds and non-India traded derivatives of the Adani Group. On Tuesday, U.S. dollar-denominated bonds issued by Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone continued their fall into a second week.
($1 = 82.0025 Indian rupees)
Reporting by M. Sriram and Chris Thomas; Editing by Aditya Kalra and Muralikumar Anantharaman
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Amazon’s AWS to invest $35 bln in Virginia
WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) cloud services division said Friday it plans to invest another $35 billion by 2040 to expand data centers in Virginia.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) said the new investment will create 1,000 jobs. Virginia Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin said AWS will establish multiple data center campuses across Virginia.
In 2021, AWS said from 2011 to 2020 it had invested $35 billion in data centers located in northern Virginia and had 3,500 full time employees at its data centers in the state.
Pending approval by state lawmakers, Virginia is developing a new “Mega Data Center Incentive Program,” which would allow the company to receive up to a 15-year extension of Data Center Sales and Use tax exemptions on equipment and software.
AWS also will be eligible to receive a state grant of up to $140 million “for site and infrastructure improvements, workforce development, and other project-related costs.”
Amazon shares closed up 3.8% Friday.
Amazon in 2018 after a long contest announced northern Virginia would be home to its second headquarters known as “HQ2” and eventually employ more than 25,000 employees. As of April, Amazon said its headcount assigned to the site was around 5,000.
Youngkin has faced some criticism for withdrawing from a competition to attract a new Ford Motor (F.N) battery plant expected to be built with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) (300750.SZ), the world’s largest battery producer.
Youngkin defended his decision Friday, telling Bloomberg News that he looks “forward to bringing a great company there. It won’t be one that uses kind of a Trojan-horse relationship with the Chinese Communist Party in order to gain.”
A spokesperson for Youngkin has said that “while Ford is an iconic American company, it became clear that this proposal would serve as a front for the Chinese Communist party.”
Ford declined to comment on Youngkin’s decision to withdraw.
In July, Ford said it plans to localize 40 GWh of battery capacity in North America starting in 2026. It also announced CATL would provide battery packs for Mustang Mach-E models for North America starting in 2023 and would discuss cooperation for batteries in Ford vehicles around the world.
“Our talks with CATL continue – and we have nothing new to announce on either front,” Ford said.
Michigan is also a candidate for the Ford battery plant, sources said, and a decision could be made in the coming weeks.
Reporting by David Shepardson and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Himani Sarkar
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Failed crypto exchange FTX has recovered over $5 bln, attorney says
NEW YORK/WILMINGTON, Del., Jan 11 (Reuters) – Crypto exchange FTX has recovered more than $5 billion in liquid assets but the extent of customer losses in the collapse of the company founded by Sam Bankman-Fried is still unknown, an attorney for the company told a U.S. bankruptcy court on Wednesday.
The company, which was valued a year ago at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy protection in November and U.S. prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of orchestrating an “epic” fraud that may have cost investors, customers and lenders billions of dollars.
“We have located over $5 billion of cash, liquid cryptocurrency and liquid investment securities,” Andy Dietderich, an attorney for FTX, told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey in Delaware at the start of Wednesday’s hearing.
Dietderich also said the company plans to sell nonstrategic investments that had a book value of $4.6 billion.
However, Dietderich said the legal team is still working to create accurate internal records and the actual customer shortfall remains unknown. The U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission has estimated missing customer funds at more than $8 billion.
Dietderich said the $5 billion recovered does not include assets seized by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, where the company was headquartered and Bankman-Fried resided.
FTX’s attorney estimated the seized assets were worth as little as $170 million while Bahamian authorities put the figure as high as $3.5 billion. The seized assets are largely comprised of FTX’s proprietary and illiquid FTT token, which is highly volatile in price, Dietderich said.
ASSET SALES
FTX could raise additional funds in the coming months for the benefit of customers after Dorsey approved FTX’s request for procedures to explore sales of affiliates at Wednesday’s hearing.
The affiliates — LedgerX, Embed, FTX Japan and FTX Europe — are relatively independent from the broader FTX group, and each has its own segregated customer accounts and separate management teams, according to FTX court filings.
The crypto exchange has said it is not committed to selling any of the companies, but that it received dozens of unsolicited offers and plans to hold auctions beginning next month.
The U.S. Trustee, a government bankruptcy watchdog, opposed selling the affiliates before the extent of the alleged FTX fraud is fully investigated.
In part to preserve the value of its businesses, FTX also sought Dorsey’s approval to keep secret 9 million FTX customer names. The company has said that privacy is needed to prevent rivals from poaching users but also to prevent identity theft and to comply with privacy laws.
Dorsey allowed the names to remain under wraps for only three months, not six months as FTX wanted.
“The difficulty here is that I don’t know who’s a customer and who’s not,” Dorsey said. He set a hearing for Jan. 20 to discuss how FTX will distinguish between customers and said he wants FTX to return in three months to give more explanation on the risk of identity theft if customer names are made public.
Media companies and the U.S. Trustee had argued that U.S. bankruptcy law requires disclosure of creditor details to ensure transparency and fairness.
In addition to selling affiliates, a company lawyer on Wednesday said FTX will end its 19-year $135 million sponsorship deal with the NBA’s Miami Heat and a 7-year about $89 million deal with the League of Legends video game.
FTX’s founder, Bankman-Fried, 30, was indicted on two counts of wire fraud and six conspiracy counts last month in Manhattan federal court for allegedly stealing customer deposits to pay debts from his hedge fund, Alameda Research, and lying to equity investors about FTX’s financial condition. He has pleaded not guilty.
Bankman-Fried has acknowledged shortcomings in FTX’s risk management practices, but the one-time billionaire has said he does not believe he is criminally liable.
In addition to customer funds lost, the collapse of the company has also likely wiped out equity investors.
Some of those investors were disclosed in a Monday court filing, including American football star Tom Brady, Brady’s former wife supermodel Gisele Bündchen and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Reporting by Dietrich Knauth in New York and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Del.; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Mark Porter, Matthew Lewis and Anna Driver
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Microsoft in talks to invest $10 bln in ChatGPT owner -Semafor
Jan 9 (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is in talks to invest $10 billion into OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, which will value the San Francisco-based firm at $29 billion, Semafor reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The funding includes other venture firms and deal documents were sent to prospective investors in recent weeks, with the aim to close the round by the end of 2022, the report said.
Microsoft declined to comment, while OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
This follows a Wall Street Journal report that said OpenAI was in talks to sell existing shares at a roughly $29 billion valuation, with venture capital firms such as Thrive Capital and Founders Fund buying shares from existing shareholders.
OpenAI, founded by Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk and investor Sam Altman, made the ChatGPT chatbot available for free public testing on Nov. 30. A chatbot is a software application designed to mimic human-like conversation based on user prompts.
The Semafor report said the funding terms included Microsoft getting 75% of OpenAI’s profits until it recoups its initial investment once OpenAI figures out how to make money on ChatGPT and other products like image creation tool Dall-E.
On hitting that threshold, Microsoft would have a 49% stake in OpenAI, with other investors taking another 49% and OpenAI’s nonprofit parent getting 2%, the report said, without clarifying what the stakes would be until Microsoft got its money back.
Microsoft, which invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, was working to launch a version of its search engine Bing using the AI behind ChatGPT, the Information reported last week.
Reporting by Aarati Krishna in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.