Former GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt reportedly tops the list to replace Travis Kalanick as Uber's CEO

• Troy Wolverton
 

• 20h
• 7,219

Jeffrey Immelt could soon jump from GE to Uber. Thomson Reuters

Jeffrey Immelt, the former CEO of GE, is now the top candidate to become the new CEO of Uber, Recode reported on Saturday, citing "numerous" unnamed sources.

A majority of the board of the app-based taxi company is leaning toward Immelt, but two other candidates are still in the running, Recode reported. The board expects to vote on a new CEO within the next two weeks, according to the online news outlet.

"We know it is never going to be a perfect choice, but everyone is becoming exhausted," an unnamed source told Recode, adding, "We need someone with the skills to move us along."

Uber has effectively been headless since Kalanick resigned in June. In addition to Kalanick, the company has lost multiple executives this year and has numerous holes in its executive team, including for chief financial and operating officers.

The company has experienced a string of controversies and scandals since the beginning of the year. But the most crucial was triggered by an investigation into sexual harassment at the company and Uber's overall workplace culture that was spurred by allegations from a former female engineer. In the wake of that investigation, which found evidence of numerous incidents of harassment, Uber fired more than 20 employees, and a group of Uber investors forced Kalanick to resign.

Uber's CEO search has since become the source of yet another series of controversies. Benchmark Capital, an early investor in the taxi company, has sued Kalanick, charging that he has impeded the search for a new CEO and is scheming to get himself reappointed to the position. Other Uber investors have been harshly critical of Benchmark for its suit, and Kalanick is trying to get the case dismissed and sent to arbitration.

Immelt would replace Travis Kalanick, who resigned in June.Steve Jennings/Getty Images

Immelt resigned his position as CEO of GE on August 1. He remains the conglomerate's chairman.

Investors and employees criticized Immelt's tenure as the company's CEO; GE's stock was trading at a lower level when he stepped down than it was when he took over in 2001.

And he may have another knock on him: He's not a woman. In the wake of the sexual harassment complaints, many inside and outside Uber have been urging the company to appoint a woman to its top role.

However, that may not be too much of a hindrance for Immelt. According to Recode and The Washington Post, none of the three remaining candidates for Uber's CEO position is female.

Read the full report on Recode »

SEE ALSO: Uber's absent leadership: The $69 billion startup needs a lot more top executives than just a new CEO

NOW WATCH: We tried Amazon's $50 tablet — here's what it's like

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Total is buying Maersk Oil in a $7.5 billion deal

• Bate Felix and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Reuters

• 5h
• 2,016

Patrick Pouyanne, Chief Executive Officer of Total, speaks during the 26th World Gas Conference in Paris, France, June 2, 2015.REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

PARIS/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Total is buying Maersk's oil and gas business in a $7.45 billion deal which the French energy major said would strengthen its operations in the North Sea and boost earnings and cash flow.

For Danish company A.P. Moller Maersk, the sale of Maersk Oil, with reserves equivalent to around 1 billion barrels of oil, fits with a strategy of focusing on its shipping business and other activities announced last year.

The world's top oil companies have been back on the takeover trail over the last year, helped by signs of a recovery in the oil market.

Total expects its biggest oil deal since it acquired Elf in 2000 to generate financial synergies of more than $400 million per year, in particular by combining assets in the North Sea.

Total has been betting on new rather than mature fields in the North Sea and the acquisition gives it further economies of scale by making it the second largest player in the region.

The deal illustrates Total's strategy of using a strong balance sheet to acquire attractive assets from competitors having emerged from the prolonged oil downturn stronger than some of its rivals.

"It was time for us to do what a real oil and gas company would do in a period such as this when prices are lower and costs are down. Either launch new projects or acquire new reserves at attractive prices," Total Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne told reporters.

The purchase also signals some oil majors are prepared to invest to replenish reserves and boost production, anticipating an oil price recovery. With current prices of $50 per barrel most majors are simply struggling to balance their books.

Triple-E class container ship "Madison Maersk" of Maersk Line loaded with containers is berthed at Nansha port in Guangzhou, Guangdong province June 26, 2014. REUTERS/Alex Lee

Alternative to float

Pouyanne said that Total had proposed a deal to Maersk as an alternative to floating the business.

"There was a debate within Maersk and they finally accepted given that it was attractive and also the fact that an IPO in a tense oil market would not be a right move," he said, adding that no other oil major was bidding for the assets.

Under the terms of the deal, A.P. Moller Maersk will get $4.95 billion in Total shares and Total will assume $2.5 billion of Maersk Oil's debt.

Maersk said it plans to return a "material portion of the value of the received Total S.A. shares" to shareholders in 2018 and 2019 in the form of extraordinary dividend, share buyback or distribution of shares in Total.

Soren Skou, who took charge of Maersk last year, has embarked on a major restructuring to concentrate on its transport and logistics businesses and separate its energy operations in the face of a drop in income.

Skou said he had not decided whether to take up the offer of a seat on the Total board.

Analysts at Jefferies said the price was 5 percent ahead of its estimates and 18 percent more than consensus of $6.3 billion.

AP Moller Maersk shares were up 3.7 percent by 0900 GMT while Total shares dipped 0.7 percent.

The Danish oil company has access to high-quality fields in the Norwegian and UK North Sea.

Maersk has a 8.44 percent stake in the giant Johan Sverdrup project led by Norway's Statoil which is expected to start pumping 440,000 barrels per day in 2019, rising to 660,000 bpd by 2022.

Maersk is currently developing the Culzean gas field which is expected to start production in 2019 and which could supply up to 5 percent of Britain's gas demand.

Maersk lost a long-standing agreement to operate Al-Shaheen in Qatar to Total last year, but is according to media reports in talks with Iran to develop the oil layer of the South Pars field, which is an extension of the Qatari field.

Total last month signed a major deal with Iran to develop the gas part of South Pars.

Total also said it was investing $3.5 billion over five years in Qatar's offshore Al Shaheen oilfield .

(Additional reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Karolin Schaps, Stine Jacobsen and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen; Editing by Keith Weir)

Get the latest Oil WTI price here.

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2017. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

The US fired the first shot in a trade war with China

• Linette Lopez
 
•   

• Aug. 18, 2017, 4:25 PM
• 87,718

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 8, 2017.Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP

The US has initiated an investigation into China's theft of US intellectual property (IP) using Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.

What that boils down to is that the US just fired the first shot in a trade war with China.

"On Monday, President Trump instructed me to look into Chinese laws, policies, and practices which may be harming American intellectual property rights, innovation, or technology development," said ambassador Robert Lighthizer in a statementon the US Trade Representative website.

"After consulting with stakeholders and other government agencies, I have determined that these critical issues merit a thorough investigation. I notified the President that today I am beginning an investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974."

China sees the use of Section 301 as an act of aggression because it allows the American president to act against the Chinese economy without consulting the World Trade Organization (WTO). China has been a member of the organization since 2001. The use of Section 301 fell out of fashion around that time because US leaders didn't see the point of using it anymore as the WTO's framework had more legitimacy. Even allies were complaining about its use.

"The law hasn't been used in 15 years and there's a good reason for that," economist Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics told Business Insider. "We built a brand-new trading system so we didn't have to use this law."

Chinese warnings

China has been warning the Trump administration against bypassing the WTO since January. And even though initiating a 301 investigation is not a violation of the WTO in and of itself, earlier this week Chinese state media was alive with condemnation of the Trump administration for even considering it. 

“Section 301 has been denounced by other nations for its unilateralism since it came out," said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson. "The US has made promises to the international society, noting that it will execute the section in a way that accords with WTO rules. The US should keep its promises and not become a destructive force that undermines multilateral rules."

That isn't to say that the US doesn't have a legitimate grievance; experts around the world pretty much agree that China has a problem with stealing companies' trade secrets. 

"They're going to be mad, but I think at the same time they know the game that they're playing and they're going to be mad about being caught more than anything else," said Brian O’Shaughnessy, an IP attorney at Dinsmore & Shohl LLP and president and chair of the Board of the Licensing Executives Society, an organization for IP professionals. "There's no question they're manipulating the IP system."

But again, it's how the US is going about doing this that is offensive not only to China but to US allies watching too. Even without anti-globalist Steve Bannon in the White House (he was fired Friday), many in the Trump administration will carry on his ideology through policy, including the president.

"There is no winner in a trade war," Hua Chunying, a representative for China's foreign ministry, said in a press conference on Thursday. "We hope the relevant people can refrain from dealing with a problem in the 21st century with a zero-sum mentality from the 19th or the 20th century."

US products

All this makes even our allies nervous about their dealings with this administration, and according to reports they are prepared to fight fire with fire. China is ready too, of course, and it has quite a lot of fire.

From 2001 to 2016, US imports from China increased by a factor of 3.5, while US exports to China increased by nearly a factor of six — but never mind that.

China consumes a ton of products made by Trump's base. It is the largest market for US soybeans (62% in 2016) and airplanes (25% of Boeing passenger planes in 2016). It the second-largest market for US cotton (14% in 2016), auto (17% in 2016), and semiconductors (15% in 2016). But never mind them, and never mind any of that.

And then there's what a trade war would do to the cost of things Americans buy. The Institute of International Finance touched on this in a recent paper:

"A trade war between US and China will hurt not only Chinese manufacturers, but also upstream suppliers and downstream distributors such as US retailers. Per China's Ministry of Commerce, the final US retail price of imported Chinese goods can be several times of their imports prices.

"For example, a regular down jacket selling for $200 in US retailers usually costs only $40 to import from China. Retaliatory measures from Beijing will also hurt China-based US businesses, which made $517 billion in revenue and $36 billion in profit in 2015."

If China retaliates, the price of American goods will go up, and markets that were once open to us may start to close.

Deutsche Bank

SEE ALSO: In light of Bannon's interview, revisit China's clearest warning to Trump since his election

Bitcoin is more valuable than gold — but nowhere near as stable

• Caroline Cakebread
 

• Aug. 18, 2017, 6:35 PM
• 5,703

 More Charts

 
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Bitcoin has had its ups and downs since its introduction in 2009, but it's been on a rocket-ship ride of late. On Sunday, it surpassed the $4,000 mark for the first time.

Some investors consider bitcoin a safe haven that's comparable to gold. Like gold, the digital currency isn't tied to one country or central bank. When a particular country experiences a political or economic crisis, its national currency can often take a nosedive; it's global nature and usage make bitcoin more insulated from such problems. 

In fact, the cyber currency, like gold, can benefit from crises and uncertainty. Gold and bitcoin surged 4% and 3%, respectively, after Donald Trump won the election. And some investors are linking the recent spike in bitcoin's value to the escalating war of words between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un over the latter's missiles and nuclear program.

Despite their similarities, there's one key difference: Gold has been much stabler than bitcoin, as we can see in this chart from Statista, which is based on data from Coindesk and onvista. So, for investors looking for a safe bet, the precious metal is still the way to go.

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

Get the latest Bitcoin price here.

China's Lenovo posts first-quarter loss on higher costs, sluggish PC market

• Reuters

• 15h
• 40
 

A product of Lenovo is displayed during a news conference on the company's annual results in Hong Kong Thomson Reuters

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Chinese personal computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd posted a first-quarter loss on Friday citing higher costs and slower growth in the personal computer market, and said the outlook was challenging due in part to supply constraints.

The $72 million loss the company reported for the three months ended June was its first quarterly loss since September 2015, and compared with a profit of $173 million for the same period last year.

It lagged forecasts for a profit of $5.29 million, according to the average of 8 analyst estimates in a Thomson Reuters poll.

Supply constraints of key components as well as cost increases weighed on its bottom line and would continue to do so in the short term, the company said.

Revenue was flat at $10.01 billion, in line with an estimate of $10 billion.

PC shipments dropped 6 percent year-on-year, compared with a 3 percent decline for the industry, Lenovo said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Lenovo lost its position as the world's largest PC maker to HP Inc in the quarter, according to data from Gartner.

(Reporting by Sijia Jiang and Donny Kwok, Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and Stephen Coates)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2017. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

STOCKS GET CRUSHED: Here's what you need to know

• Akin Oyedele
 

• 20h
• 9,569

Gary Cohn Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Stocks sold off Thursday as false rumors swirled that Gary Cohn, President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, was resigning. The concern on Wall Street was that Cohn's departure could stifle some of the administration's business-friendly plans including tax reform. 

The major equity indexes lost more ground after a van plowed into a crowd in Barcelona, Spain, in what authorities said was a terrorist attack. 

By the market close, the S&P 500 had logged its second largest one-day decline of the year. 

Safe haven trades like Treasurys and gold rallied as stocks sold off. The benchmark 10-year yield fell more than 3 basis points to 2.18%, and was hovering near its lowest level since the end of June. Meanwhile, gold climbed about $5 an ounce to near $1,288.

Here's the scoreboard: 

• Dow: 21,750.73, -274.14, (-1.24%)
• S&P 500: 2,430.01, -38.10, (-1.54%)
• Nasdaq: 6,221.91, -123.19, (-1.94%)

1. Walmart reported second-quarter earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street estimates, boosted by an increase in foot traffic and by strong online sales. Walmart said food categories delivered their strongest comparable-store sales performance in five years, as food inflation boosted performance by "approximately 30 basis points."
2. Alibaba , China's top e-commerce firm, crushed analysts' estimates with a 56% rise in first-quarter revenue. The results were driven by growth in online sales, which make up most of its business.
3. Activist investor Bill Ackman says shares of payroll-processor ADP could double in five years, and the company needs to improve its profit margins and integrate its business lines. Ackman's hedge fund Pershing Square disclosed earlier this month an 8% holding in ADP. Pershing Square's disclosure of its stake sparked a testy-back-and-forth between the activist fund and the company which handles many Americans' paychecks.

Additionally: 

False rumors that Gary Cohn is leaving the White House just spooked Wall Street — for good reason

The Fed just fired off a stark warning — and it highlights one of the biggest risks for stocks

Banks are cutting back on lending to the riskiest borrowers

America's CEOs realized the deals they'd cut with Trump aren't worth it — Detroit's experience shows us why

'The president is becoming more isolated': Trump's Charlottesville response may force GOP lawmakers to move on without him

Snap executives have started selling their shares