Cruise, the autonomous vehicle division of General Motors (GM), which owns a majority stake, said on Tuesday that T. Rowe Price and a group of existing investors have subscribed to $1.15 billion in new shares, with the unit currently valued at $19 billion. The latest round of financing includes General Motors, Softbank Vision Fund of Japan, and Honda Motor. The department plans to launch cars by the end of 2019, and this round of financing should provide the company with urgently needed cash.
Porsche, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, has agreed to pay 535 million euros to end an investigation into the operation of its sports car diesel engine. The prosecutor's office in Stuttgart, Germany, stated on Tuesday that the company's development department ignored its legal obligations, ultimately resulting in excessively high levels of pollution from diesel vehicles sold. The fine covers cars sold since 2009 equipped with Volkswagen Audi AG V6 and V8 engines.
Chevron announced its withdrawal from the Anadarko Petroleum acquisition war, and Buffett's support for Western Petroleum is expected to win. Previously, Chevron agreed to acquire Anadarko for approximately $33 billion on April 12, but Western Petroleum offered a $38 billion acquisition price on April 24 and later increased the cash ratio of the offer to 78%. Chevron believes that raising the acquisition price is too risky and therefore chooses to give up.
Siemens will spin off Oil, Gas, and Power Group (GP) for public listing and transfer its majority stake (currently 59%) in Siemens Gomesa to Oil, Gas, and Power Group, creating a new heavyweight enterprise in the energy market with a business model of 30 billion euros and over 8 employees. The listing process should be completed before September 2020, and Siemens will relinquish its majority stake in the Oil, Gas and Power Group.
Huawei plans to build a 400 person chip research and development factory in the heart of the UK silicon chip industry near Cambridge, just a 15 minute drive from ARM Holdings headquarters. Huawei will build a research and development base for components such as optical fibers, known as optical semiconductor devices. Qualcomm and Huawei are negotiating a patent settlement, and Huawei may pay over $500 million in patent fees annually, but it is far from the $4.5 billion Apple has settled. The main reason is that Huawei has a large number of patents in the communication field, especially in 5G technology, which allows Huawei to conduct cross patent licensing with Qualcomm, greatly reducing core licensing patent fees.
Nestle plans to abandon its direct delivery of frozen pizza and ice cream to stores in the United States and instead shift to a warehouse network already used for delivering frozen meals and snacks. The new distribution model will improve operational efficiency and profitability, but it will have to close all the frozen distribution centers and inventory transfer points of 8 companies. This move will result in 4000 job positions being laid off.
Toyota Motor and Panasonic announced that they will integrate their residential related businesses. The new company Prime Life Technologies, jointly funded and established, will take over Toyota Home, Misawa Homes from Toyota Group, and Panasonic Homes from Panasonic Group. The new company will be established on January 7, 2020, with Panasonic Group and Toyota contributing the same proportion of capital. The new company will also carry out a new generation of urban construction business that connects cars and homes through the internet. Toyota and Panasonic announced a partnership in December 2017 on their car battery business. We also plan to jointly establish a new company in the field of battery development and production by the end of 2020.
Softbank, a subsidiary of Softbank Group, will acquire 1.51 billion shares of Yahoo! JAPAN for 456.5 billion yen, increasing its shareholding in Yahoo! JAPAN to 44.64%. Softbank Group currently holds 36% of Yahoo Japan's shares and will sell the shares through Yahoo Japan's acquisition offer.
Facebook rejected co founder Chris Hughes' request on Thursday to spin off the world's largest social media company. Lawmakers urge the US Department of Justice to launch an antitrust investigation. Mark Zuckerberg's college roommate Hughes called for the separation of WhatsApp and Instagram, but Facebook rejected the request and stated that the focus should be on regulating the internet. In 2004, Hughes co founded Facebook with Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz at Harvard University. In 2007, he left Facebook.
Mitsubishi Corporation has established a policy to support the operation and reconstruction of Chiyoda Corporation, a large complete equipment enterprise. Chiyoda Chemical is expected to experience significant final losses in the fiscal year 2018 (as of March 2019). Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsubishi UFJ Bank will jointly provide over 150 billion yen in investment and loans to support the reconstruction of Chiyoda Chemical, which has advanced technology for liquefied natural gas (LNG) equipment.
Panasonic will increase the operating revenue of its newly established internal company 'China Northeast Asia Company' by 40% to 1 trillion yen by 2021 compared to 2018. Panasonic believes that although China's home appliance market is losing its strong momentum, the market size is still the largest in the world and will become an innovation center on par with the United States. We plan to strengthen the local development of IoT appliances and other related products, and in the future, we will also consider placing products developed in China in the Japanese market.
Thyssenkrupp Elevator has won the largest service contract in its airport solutions business history, responsible for the operation and maintenance of 90 passenger boarding bridges, covering a VIP boarding bridge exclusively for the use of the Qatari royal family and senior government officials at Doha Hamad International Airport. This contract also involves serving over 500 sets of aircraft support equipment, which will provide support for the aircraft once it lands. In addition to being responsible for the maintenance of passenger boarding bridges, ThyssenKrupp Elevator has also installed 234 elevators, 105 escalators, and 52 electric walkways at Hamad International Airport in Doha.
[Carrefour] Carrefour, a French retailer, is considering several plans, including the sale of its Chinese business, or will follow the steps of several other multinational retail companies that have withdrawn from the Chinese market in recent years. Carrefour may seek about $1 billion for its China business, but it may also choose to divest some shares or not sell them.
Novartis announced that it will acquire the dry eye drug Xiidra from Takeda Pharmaceuticals in Japan, paying a preliminary deposit of $3.4 billion, and will pay up to $1.9 billion when it reaches specific sales milestones in the future. Xiidra is a drug developed by British pharmaceutical company Shire, acquired by Takeda in January this year, with sales of $400 million last year. This is a potential heavyweight drug with annual sales likely to exceed $1 billion.
Morgan Stanley's Russian subsidiary has stated that it plans to issue a formal notice to the Russian Central Bank to close its banking operations in Russia in the first quarter of 2020. Morgan Stanley announced at the end of last year that it plans to voluntarily close its banking operations in Russia. Morgan Stanley will retain its consulting business in Russia, which will not require a license.
Oracle, a software company, will abolish its China Research and Development Center (CDC). The entire CDC has approximately 1600 employees, with over 900 confirmed layoffs in the first batch, of which over 500 are from the Beijing R&D Center. Oracle is undergoing a global business restructuring, resulting in some people leaving their positions. In 1989, Oracle officially entered the Chinese market. In 2002, the company established its first research and development center in Shenzhen, and subsequently established research and development centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Nanjing.
Recently, 3M announced the acquisition of medical technology company Achievement Inc. and its subsidiary KCI from a consortium composed of institutions such as APAX for $6.7 billion (including debt). Acelity is an advanced wound care technology and solution provider with a revenue of $1.5 billion in 2018. The consortium is composed of private equity investment company Apax Partners, Canadian pension fund giant CPPIB and Canadian Civil Service Pension Investment Board (PSP).
Last week, Sony signed a full partnership agreement with Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, who had just left 20th Century Fox Television (now under Disney's umbrella), to jointly create the Marvel Television Universe and develop a series of television programs that are comparable to Disney's long series produced through Marvel Television.
Occidental Petroleum has revised its acquisition proposal for Anadarko Petroleum, increasing the cash ratio of the bid and eliminating the requirement for shareholder voting. The move by Western Petroleum aims to defeat its rival Chevron and seize precious assets at the heart of the US oil boom. Western Petroleum has also announced an agreement with French oil giant Darrell. After completing the acquisition of Anadarko, Western Petroleum will sell Anadarko's oil and gas assets located in Algeria, Ghana, Mozambique, and South Africa to Total for $8.8 billion.
The Louisiana ethane cracking furnace factory invested by Lotto Group in South Korea is about to be completed. The factory will produce ethylene (1 million tons) and ethylene glycol (700000 tons) from shale gas blended from North America. The investment scale has reached 3.1 billion US dollars. This is a joint venture project between Lotte Chemical and West Lake Chemical in the United States, with Lotte owning 90% of the shares. After the scheduled start-up of the US factory, Lotte's ethylene production will increase from 2.92 million tons per year to 4.5 million tons per year, and Lotte Chemical is expected to develop into the world's seventh largest petrochemical company.
Multinational Corporation Dynamics [2019. 05.17]
[Wal Mart] Wal Mart Inc. is stepping up its competition with Amazon. A few weeks after Amazon announced the launch of one-day delivery service, the company also announced that it will provide one-day delivery service free of freight in some parts of the United States, and plans to make this service cover 75% of the population of the United States this year. Amazon announced on April 25th that it plans to provide a one day delivery service to its Prime members and expects to invest $800 million in the second quarter alone.
Volkswagen has decided to restart its preparation for the launch of the truck and coach department, which was postponed in March. An IPO (initial public offering) will take place before the summer. In order to focus its business resources on passenger cars, Volkswagen renamed its departments involved in large-scale commercial vehicle business, such as Scania AB in Sweden and MAN Energy Solutions in Germany, as the TRATON Group. Starting from 2018, we have been promoting the preparation for listing. We had planned to go public in the spring of 2019, but due to the harsh market environment, we have stopped preparing for listing. Volkswagen also announced the launch of independent production of batteries for pure electric vehicles (EVs). We will invest nearly 1 billion euros in production in Salzgit, western Germany.
Recently, a series of patent infringement disputes between Huawei and Samsung were resolved through mediation in Guangdong. Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. and Samsung (China) Investment Co., Ltd. reached a global settlement in the series of infringement disputes involving standard essential patents, and reached a framework 'Patent License Agreement' on the issue of cross licensing of standard essential patents worldwide. The relevant lawsuits filed by both parties worldwide have been resolved in a package, and follow-up work such as the withdrawal of relevant cases has been initiated in recent days.
Siemens' first artificial intelligence laboratory outside of Germany will be located in Beijing. Artificial intelligence is the core technology for successfully achieving digital transformation, providing huge opportunities for all industries. 'Siemens AG's Chief Operating Officer, Boloren, stated that with its unique IoT platform, Siemens will continue to contribute to China's digital process.
Nestle announced on Thursday that it has entered exclusive negotiations to sell its skin health business Nestle Skin Health to a consortium led by European private equity giant EQT Partners and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The transaction is worth 10.2 billion Swiss francs (approximately $10.12 billion). Nestle's skin health department was established in 2014, with sales of 2.8 billion Swiss francs last year. The department is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland and employs over 5000 employees in 40 countries. Last September, Nestle announced that it would sell this business to divest underperforming assets.
As the first company to provide autonomous taxi services, Waymo, a subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet, has served 1000 passengers, a milestone that took them six months. Despite their slow growth rate, they have achieved results. Waymo is currently the only unmanned driving enterprise in the world that is qualified to provide taxi services on public roads, but every vehicle is equipped with a human safety officer during operation. Previously, the highest future valuation of Waymo by major international investment banks reached $175 billion.
Nissan Motor will lay off 4800 employees globally in order to restore performance, without disclosing the specific situation of each country or region. New models will be launched for all major models, increasing the proportion of electric vehicles in global sales to 30%. Strive to improve returns in the United States and increase profit margins. French car giant Renault, which forms a corporate alliance, is seeking Nissan's opinion on a business merger. President Hiroshi Nishikawa stated that an agreement was reached between him and Renault Chairman Senna that this is not the time for this discussion.
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsubishi UFJ, Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland have agreed to pay a total of approximately 1.07 billion euros in fines to the European Union for their collusive behavior in foreign exchange trading strategies. Among them, Citigroup was fined 310.8 million euros, Sovereign Bank was fined 249.2 million euros, and JPMorgan Chase was fined 2