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World’s Biggest Pension Fund GPIF Boosts Its Treasuries Holdings

WHO HOLDS U$ DEBT?!

Masaki Kondo and Yumi Teso
Fri, July 14, 2023 




(Bloomberg) -- Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund boosted its holdings of Treasuries to a three-year high as the dollar’s strength against the yen offset losses on the securities.

Resilient demand from GPIF, as the world’s biggest pension fund is known, suggests that elevated yields and a weak yen may support Japanese appetite for Treasuries, even if US interest rates are coming off recent highs as the Federal Reserve’s monetary tightening campaign nears its peak.

GPIF holds ¥200 trillion ($1.4 trillion) worth of assets — a hoard about as big as Spain’s economy — and what it does has huge ramifications for Japanese portfolio flows, given that many of the nation’s other funds follow its lead. And investors from the Asia nation are the biggest foreign holders of Treasuries, with $1.1 trillion of the securities as of April.

The fund increased US government bonds and bills to 43.3% of its foreign debt holdings in the 12 months through March from 40.8% previously, according to an analysis by Bloomberg of the latest data released this month. That’s the highest since the allocation reached 47.4% in March 2020, and also came despite currency-hedging costs hovering around the highest in more than two decades.

While easing inflation in the US means that Treasury yields may start to fall sooner than rates in other bond markets, they are likely to remain attractive to Japanese investors, according to Kiyoshi Ishigane, chief fund manager at Mitsubishi UFJ Kokusai Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “As long as the yen doesn’t strengthen, Japanese investors will benefit both from income and capital gains in Treasuries,” he said.

Rebalancing flows resulting from fluctuations in exchange rates should continue to partly offset both depreciation and appreciation pressures on the yen, strategists at Barclays Plc, including Shinichiro Kadota, wrote in a research note.

To be sure, the yen has rebounded recently and there are plausible scenarios that could extend the rally and affect flows into Treasuries: Signs of long-awaited inflationary pressure in Japan could trigger an earlier-than-expected shift in the Bank of Japan’s loose monetary policy, the Federal Reserve appears to be nearing the peak of its rate-hiking cycle, and global recession risks highlight the yen’s value as a haven.

In the 12 month’s in question though, the dollar jumped 9.2% against Japan’s currency while Treasuries lost 4.5%. GPIF’s holdings of US government bonds and bills increased 8.2% in yen terms to ¥21.6 trillion.

It should also be noted that GPIF’s asset allocation doesn’t directly reflect its market view. The fund outsources investment to managers such as BlackRock Inc. and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management Co., with 86% of foreign bonds passively invested to track benchmarks. GPIF’s assets are also equally divided into foreign and local equities as well as bonds.

Saudis Expand Grasp on Global Food With BRF’s $1.1 Billion Deal

IMPERIALISM; HIGHEST FORM OF CAPITALI$M

Vinícius Andrade
Fri, July 14, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- BRF SA, Brazil’s biggest poultry producer, has raised 5.4 billion reais ($1.1 billion) in a share offering that lured investors including Saudi Arabia’s state-owned fund Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Co.

The company said it sold 500 million new shares at 9 reais apiece, a 5.7% discount to Thursday’s closing price, confirming an earlier Bloomberg report. An additional allotment of 100 million new shares was also sold.

The deal, Brazil’s biggest equity offering so far this year, also drew interest from beef producer Marfrig Global Foods SA. Salic bought 180 million shares, while Marfrig scooped up roughly 200 million shares, maintaining its stake in BRF at around 33%, according to a regulatory filing.

Salic’s investment marks the latest in a series of moves by Saudi Arabia to secure food supplies and also diversify its economy. The fund has purchased stakes in companies from Singapore-based agricultural trader Olam Agri Holdings to Indian rice producer LT Foods Ltd.

For Marcos Molina dos Santos, the meat tycoon who founded Marfrig about two decades ago, the transaction was an opportunity for him to take another step toward the combination of the protein producers, which he called “sister companies” in an interview with Bloomberg News earlier this year.

BRF, one of the world’s biggest poultry exporters, is selling assets to reduce leverage amid a business overhaul that started after Molina became its biggest investor. The share sale will accelerate attempts to reduce its net debt, which stood at 15.3 billion reais as of last March.

After the deal, the company’s net debt-to-adjusted Ebitda ratio may drop to 2.2 times, down from 3.4 times in the first quarter, Lucror Analytics credit analyst Josseline Jenssen wrote in a note, reaffirming a buy recommendation for the company’s dollar bonds.

BRF’s notes due in 2030 gained about 2 cents to 85 cents on the dollar, while the company’s stock fell as much as 6% in Sao Paulo Friday.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the leading coordinator for the transaction. Other underwriters were Banco Bradesco BBI, Banco BTG Pactual, Citigroup, Banco Itau BBA, Banco Safra, UBS BB and XP Investimentos.

--With assistance from Gerson Freitas Jr. and Lisa Wolfson.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Credit Suisse Offers Rare Example of Bank Disclosing EM Debt

Natasha White
Fri, July 14, 2023 


(Bloomberg) -- Credit Suisse is one of a handful of global banks publicly disclosing some loans to poor countries, as most of the rest of the industry instead clings to secrecy, according to a fresh study.

The Swiss bank, which was absorbed by UBS Group AG in a government-engineered takeover earlier this year, stands out for its relative transparency around such lending, according to research by UK nonprofit Debt Justice, which looked at multiple data sets spanning the past half decade and through the first half of 2023. The only other bank found to provide similar disclosures was Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the analysis showed.

Since 2021, global banks have kept a lid on about $37 billion of loans to sovereigns in the developing world, according to researchers at Debt Justice. The lack of visibility follows 2019 guidelines, known as the Voluntary Principles for Debt Transparency, which were backed by global banks and ushered through by the Institute of International Finance.

The goal of the principles was to help monitor the link between poor countries and their creditors, in order to help support sustainable lending and fight corruption. In all, however, global banks have only disclosed a total of $2.9 billion in loans since the voluntary principles were agreed, Debt Justice said.

“It’s a shocking failure of this voluntary approach that banks have been able to sign up for these principles and ignore them for the last four years,” said Tim Jones, head of policy at Debt Justice.

The study comes as the overall debt burden of developing countries swells. The portion of external public debt owed to private creditors stood at 62% of the total in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, according to research by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. African debtor nations now pay more in interest than they do on education or health programs, UNCTAD said.

The growing dominance of private credit in some of the world’s most vulnerable sovereign debt markets has led to calls for a recalibration. That’s as many of the world’s poorest countries face increasingly heavy financial burdens to deal with the fallout from climate change.

The bulk of loan contracts are struck under UK or New York law, and the UK government has donated almost half a million pounds to the debt transparency initiative. “We recognise that transparency practices need to be improved - including more private financial institutions contributing their data - and we continue to urge creditors to publish their data,” a UK government spokesperson said.

IMPERIALISM; HIGHEST FORM OF CAPITALI$M

Debt Justice said its research indicates that about 19 banks are withholding information on loans to vulnerable nations, including Standard Chartered Plc, Societe Generale SA and Deutsche Bank AG. The estimates are based on those banks’ involvement in syndicated lending to low-income governments, according to Debt Justice’s analysis of figures from Loan Radar, a data provider.

Spokespeople for Credit Suisse, MUFG, Societe Generale and Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Shaun Gamble, executive director of group media relations at Standard Chartered, said “our participation in any transaction, or relationship with a client, remains confidential.”

Sonja Gibbs, head of sustainable finance at the Institute of International Finance, said the institute and its members have “championed the principles of greater debt transparency” and have a “vested interest in supporting debt sustainability.” But without public sector creditors and borrowing countries being “fully on board,” greater transparency is “simply not possible,” Gibbs said.

Greater transparency won’t solve existing debt crises, but it can help prevent new ones, Debt Justice said. Full disclosure of borrowing and lending “enables money to be tracked, loans to be held to account, and also hopefully delivers lower interest rates for governments as well,” Jones said.

Banks, governments and other lenders have been stung in the past by hidden loan contracts. Credit Suisse is still dealing with the legal aftermath of its role in the so-called tuna-bond scandal in Mozambique. This month, the bank lost its bid to block an impending trial over allegations of wrongdoing, after a UK high court judge ruled that the $2 billion case should proceed.

In 2017, Republic of Congo saw its debt-to-GDP ratio soar by over 50% overnight as the International Monetary Fund learned of previously hidden loans from commodity traders, impacting the country’s credit rating and access to fresh funds.

“The only way banks will disclose loan information is if they are made to by legislation or regulations,” Jones said. “It’s time for governments to realize they need to actively regulate the banks to make them disclose this information.”

These US companies are so serious about keeping older employees that they’re offering ‘Grandparent Leave’



Paige McGlauflin

FORTUNE
Fri, July 14, 2023 

It’s no secret that the COVID pandemic accelerated a wave of retirements among older American workers. In 2021, the workforce participation rate for those aged 55 and over fell by nearly 2%, and retirees likely accounted for 2 million of the 3.5 million people missing from the labor force in 2022, according to Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

In an effort to hold onto older workers, who will account for at least 25% of the U.S. workforce by 2029, some employers have started offering a new benefit: grandparent leave, or paid time off to employees upon the birth or adoption of a grandchild.

Although it’s still rare, lending giant Fannie Mae, and Booking.com introduced the benefit in 2022. And other companies including job platform HireVue and small business workers’ compensation insurance brokerage firm EMPLOYERS have introduced it within the past few years. At Fannie Mae, employees receive one day of paid leave per year to meet a new grandchild or build relationships with current grandchildren. In the first half of 2023, 70 of the company’s 8,000 employees have taken grandparent leave, according to the company.

“It demonstrates our dedication to offering benefits for a very, very diverse group of employees at all different stages of life,” says Carrie Theisen, Fannie Mae’s vice president of total rewards. “And helps to support our mission and our commitment to family and community.”

Telecoms giant Cisco first introduced grandparent leave in 2017, after revamping its regular parental leave policy to be more gender inclusive, and offer more robust paid time off to caregivers.

Cisco employees receive three paid days within one year of the arrival of a new grandchild. Over 30% of Cisco’s roughly 40,000-strong U.S. employee base is over age 50, and grandparent leave is one of the most popular benefits with older employees, Ted Kezios, Cisco’s senior vice president of benefits, told Fortune. More than 800 U.S. employees have taken leave since the start of 2021, including nearly 200 who’ve used it so far this year.

“As we were looking at that, we said, ‘If you really want to create those moments that matter, especially around a new child being born or adopted, why don't you look at grandparents as well?” says Kezios.
‘I got to immerse myself’

Judie Williamson, a benefits consultant who’s worked at Cisco for seven years, first used her grandparent leave a few months after her grandson Anthony was born in December of 2017. Soon after her son-in-law returned to work, her daughter reached out for help with the new baby. “I just ran,” Williamson told Fortune. “Took the time off, and was there to take care of Anthony for her.”

Williamson used her leave again when her second grandson, Dominic, was born in 2020, and she’s planning to use it this year for a new grandchild due in August. Williamson lives near her daughter in California, and while she could simply visit on the weekend, she says there was something special about being able to get absorbed into her grandchildren’s lives for several days.

“It wasn't just the grandparents showing up after nap time when they're at their best,” she says about her leave. “I got to immerse myself into every inch of his life, staying there through the three days. When you’re there in this totality, you do see everything about your new little grandchild, just not spurts of time with them.”

Williamson says it’s important to her that Cisco recognizes this stage in an employee’s life, in addition to other major life experiences like the birth or adoption of a child. “We have to acknowledge that employees are working longer, and this particular event is going to happen more often, probably, than it did some decades ago,” she says.

Plus, it’s always rewarding to get excited responses to your out-of-office message informing colleagues that you’re on grandparent leave. “It's fun. It's really nice to work in that type of culture,” she says.

A bigger emphasis on flexibility

Grandparent leave may target a specific demographic, but workforce experts say it’s part of a larger trend of companies looking for new ways to hold onto employees by giving them more flexibility.

Organizations that focus on a well-being culture, including grandparent leave and other flexible time benefits, will have “the strongest people strategies to support a workforce, and [what] employees are going to want to see when choosing their next employer,” says Rebecca Starr, area president at insurance brokerage and consulting firm Arthur J. Gallagher’s HR consulting practice. As attracting and retaining top talent becomes an even higher priority for employers, she’s seeing her clients place more emphasis on offering lucrative benefits packages to employees.

A 2022 white paper from Gallagher found that some of the main drivers of worker retention right now are focused on work-life balance, including benefits aimed at work flexibility. And a January 2023 AARP survey of 2,000 respondents aged 40 and over found that, in addition to job stability and competitive pay, older employees consider workplace wellness benefits like paid leave or caregiving leave as a top requirement before accepting a job.

In addition to grandparent leave, Cisco offers employees a service that connects them and their families with a social worker, and up to four weeks of paid time off to deal with an unexpected emergency without requiring them to dip into their regular PTO bank, both introduced in the last two years. Similarly, Fannie Mae offers access to an elder care consultant who provides free services and resources to employees navigating care for an aging relative (or for themselves). The company has also expanded its paid family sick leave to 12 weeks this year. And several other companies have also started offering menopause benefits in recent years, including biotechnology company Genentech, Adobe, and computer chipmaker Nvidia.

“A lot of employers, as they start working through multiple generations in the workforce, are going to have to think about what flexibility means to them,” Kezios says. “How do you evolve and make sure that you're getting the right balance between what's best for your people, and also what's best for the company?”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

CMA only blocker of Microsoft’s £52bn Activision deal after US regulator loses appeal

Telegraph reporters
Sat, July 15, 2023 

Microsoft

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is now the only global regulator blocking Microsoft’s $69bn (£52bn) takeover of Activision after the US antitrust watchdog lost a key court appeal.

A US appeals court denied the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to block the Microsoft deal on Friday, clearing a path for the companies to close the largest gaming deal in history.


The ruling is a blow to the FTC and its chairman Lina Khan, who sought to block the merger over concerns that Microsoft would withhold Activision’s most popular games, including the Call of Duty franchise from rival consoles or services.

Microsoft won a legal appeal of the decision last week and the FTC’s failure to succeed in its own challenge now means the watchdog has few options to block it before next week’s July 18 deadline to complete the deal.

The CMA was the first global regulator to object to the Activision takeover and its blocking order is now the only remaining legal impediment.

The European Commission cleared the Microsoft deal in May after the tech giant agreed to offer Activision’s games on rival cloud streaming services for at least 10 years.

The British watchdog and the tech companies paused a legal battle over the ruling last week and have opened talks about how Microsoft could yet secure CMA approval, suggesting a compromise could be reached.

Xbox-maker Microsoft has offered to sell off the cloud-based market rights for games in the UK in a bid to get the deal over the line, Bloomberg reported.

Following the failure of the FTC’s appeal, Microsoft President Brad Smith said: “This brings us another step closer to the finish line in this marathon of global regulatory reviews.”

Shares in Activision climbed 4.4pc on the ruling and Microsoft rallied 1.5pc.

Microsoft has strong incentive to close the deal before the July 18 deadline to avoid paying a $3bn breakup fee to Activision.

The FTC declined to comment.

In a procedural move separate from this week’s developments, the CMA on Friday extended its deadline for issuing a legally final order on the deal until August 29.

How Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard win could dramatically alter the gaming industry

Daniel Howley
·Technology Editor
Fri, July 14, 2023 

Microsoft’s (MSFT) win against the Federal Trade Commission in its attempt to block its $69 billion purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI) could clear the way for the company to move forward with the largest deal in gaming history.

While the FTC is appealing US District Judge Jaqueline Scott Corley’s ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court, the momentum is increasingly moving in Microsoft’s favor. And if the acquisition moves forward, Microsoft could dramatically alter the landscape of the gaming industry, ranging from the home console market to mobile gaming and the still-nascent cloud gaming industry.

“I think it's very clear now that Microsoft, as a company, views gaming as a really important part of what the company does overall,” IDC research director of AR/VR and Gaming at IDC told Yahoo Finance.

“At a high level for Microsoft, getting a lot more content from Activision Blizzard…is a game changer.”
Microsoft Corporation (MSFT)

A new gaming giant

Activision Blizzard is the largest game publisher in North America. In addition to the hit “Call of Duty” franchise, the company also offers “World of Warcraft,” “Diablo,” and “Overwatch.” The firm, however, also owns mobile game publisher King, the company behind “Candy Crush.”

Adding those franchises to Microsoft’s existing first-party titles including “Halo” and “Forza” would catapult Microsoft past Nintendo (NTDOY) to make the company the second-largest home console maker by revenue behind Sony (SONY). It would also put Microsoft behind Tencent and Sony as the third-largest gaming company by global revenue.

More broadly, the deal would push Microsoft higher up the food chain in the global gaming industry as well.

Microsoft President Brad Smith addresses a media conference regarding Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard and the future of gaming in Brussels, on Feb. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, File)

“Historically, Sony would have twice the market share of Microsoft at all times. And so now with this acquisition, on a revenue basis they're the same size,” explained NYU Stern School of Business professor Joost van Dreunen. “It’s a huge moment for the games industry.”

A deeper push into mobile gaming

While much of the conversation surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition has focused on whether “Call of Duty” will continue to be available on Sony’s PlayStation services — Microsoft says it will for 10 years — a more overlooked aspect of the deal is the impact it will have on the mobile gaming space.

Mobile gaming has been one of the fastest-growing areas of the gaming industry, but Microsoft is largely left out of the conversation. With Activision Blizzard’s mobile gaming power, Microsoft will instantly become a major player in the space.

In March 2023, Activision Blizzard had 368 million monthly active users. Of that, 243 million fall under the company’s King business. In Q1 2023, Activision Blizzard reported consolidated net revenue of $2.4 billion. A whopping $956 million of that came from mobile.

“With a large trillion dollar company like Microsoft at the table, owning ‘Candy Crush’ as a franchise, ownership over ‘Call of Duty Mobile,’ the ‘Diablo’ franchise, all these major IPs, Microsoft is now in a position to play a more meaningful role in mobile that they haven't been able to obtain,” van Dreunen said.

It’s not just the addition of King that would make Microsoft a mobile gaming juggernaut, though. By adding Activision Blizzard’s library of titles to its Game Pass cloud gaming business, the company will become a mobile behemoth. Cloud gaming allows consumers with strong internet connections to stream games from the cloud to traditionally underpowered devices such as smartphones, smart TVs, and low-powered laptops

“Their vision is for Game Pass Ultimate, to be put on Azure, and the…Xbox Live games to be served up through either the Game Pass Ultimate subscription or probably some either reduced price tier or even a free tier in certain markets, which will be driven by advertising,” Ward explained.

By offering Game Pass Ultimate and King’s lineup on mobile devices, Microsoft will be able to reach gaming populations that either don’t have access to traditional consoles or can’t afford them.

Sony will be forced to adapt

A newly empowered Microsoft will also force Sony to adapt to market changes. The company is already working to bring more live services games, those that are constantly updated and played online, to market, and has been on a studio buying spree in recent years.

“I think they're going to need to ramp up, dramatically, their live service game catalog, either organically or through acquisition, so that they're prepared to deal with, potentiality, 10 years from now that the Activision Blizzard game catalog, including Call of Duty, may get increasingly skewed toward Xbox and Windows,” Ward said.

Sony will also need to push deeper into the cloud gaming space, something it currently offers but doesn’t emphasize nearly as much as Microsoft does with its own business.

“By redefining the boundaries of what the gaming ecosystem really is across different devices and technologies, Sony is now suddenly a much smaller player in a much bigger pool,” van Dreunen said. So they have to now become more innovative, they have to start thinking of alternative strategies on how to leverage their existing IP.”

As for Nintendo? The Mario maker has long been its own kind of gaming company. It relies largely on sales of its own franchises, and its Switch console, though a huge seller, can’t run high-powered games like “Call of Duty.” And while it could change that with its unannounced next-generation console, precedent would leave you to believe that the company is uninterested in hitting performance benchmarks.

For Microsoft and Sony, though, the Activision deal could just be the start of a new front in the battle for gaming dominance.

Daniel Howley is the tech editor at Yahoo Finance. He's been covering the tech industry since 2011. You can follow him on Twitter @DanielHowley.

Appeals court denies FTC bid to pause Microsoft purchase of Activision

Alexis Keenan
·Reporter
Sat, July 15, 2023

A federal appeals court denied the Federal Trade Commission’s request to temporarily stop Microsoft (MSFT) from closing its acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard (ATVI), removing one of the last hurdles to completing the $69 billion deal.

The decision made by a three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a ruling by a California federal district court judge on Tuesday saying it would not stop the transaction from moving forward while a separate FTC antitrust challenge plays out in court.

The deal still has to gain approval of UK regulators. The agency, Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), on Tuesday paused its legal proceedings to block the acquisition in favor of renewed negotiations with Microsoft. Microsoft has agreed to pay Activision a $3 billion break up fee in the event the tie-up failed to close by that date.

"We appreciate the Ninth Circuit's swift response denying the FTC's motion to further delay the Activision deal," Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith wrote on Twitter. "This brings us another step closer to the finish line in this marathon of global regulatory reviews."

Legal experts view the ruling as a win for Microsoft, even though the FTC's underlying lawsuit alleging the deal would harm competition remains pending.

They reason that Microsoft's costs to keep the deal afloat while awaiting the outcome of the FTC's lawsuit would reach a tipping point, given that the agency is under no deadline to resolve its case.

The FTC first filed a challenge to block the merger in December. Its lawsuit, brought in the agency’s in-house court, alleges that combining the two companies would suppress competition in three markets: gaming consoles, subscription content, and cloud-gaming.

The acquisition, if closed, would be the largest in Microsoft’s history and the largest in the gaming industry.

Microsoft, which owns gaming console Xbox, controlled 16% of the console market in 2021. Microsoft said in court documents that since 2021 its share of console sales rose to 21%, though it has remained in third place behind PlayStation (SONY) and Nintendo (NTDOY).

Key to the Microsoft-Activision deal is the "Call of Duty" video game franchise.. (AP Foto/Peter Morgan, File)

The key to tie up is Activision Blizzard's lucrative "Call of Duty" franchise. The game series earns Activision Blizzard billions each year, with the latest installment, 2022's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II," clearing $1 billion in sales in its first 10 days on the market.

Adding the Call of Duty and Activision's other game franchises to Microsoft’s existing first-party titles including “Halo” and “Forza” would catapult Microsoft past Nintendo (NTDOY) to make the company the second-largest home console maker by revenue behind Sony (SONY). It would also put Microsoft behind Tencent and Sony as the third-largest gaming company by global revenue.

Global regulators including those in the EU, Brazil, China, Japan, and South Korea have already approved the deal.

The UK's CMA has voiced concerns that the deal could make Microsoft so dominant in cloud gaming, that it could lead to “reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come."

To assuage regulators' concerns that Microsoft would abuse the deal to wall off its leading "Call of Duty" game from its rivals, the company has signed agreements with Switch console owner, Nintendo, and Nvidia promising to keep the game available on the competing platforms for at least 10 years.

The FTC did not immediately respond to Yahoo Finance's request for comment on the appellate court decision.

Microsoft-Activision deal could open 'the flood gates for more M&A' in tech: Analyst

Alexandra Garfinkle
·Senior Reporter
Fri, July 14, 2023 

Microsoft (MSFT) this week cleared a massive hurdle in court in its efforts to acquire Activision Blizzard (ATVI) for a whopping $69 billion. If the deal gets done as anticipated, it could mean much more tech M&A, Jefferies senior analyst Brent Thill recently told Yahoo Finance Live (video above).

"We think it opens the floodgates for more M&A," Thill said. "There's no question that anyone who was looking at doing M&A was looking at Microsoft's transaction with Activision. They were looking at Broadcom-VMware, they were looking at Adobe-Figma, all these deals in a holding pattern. If we can get these deals closed, we think, ultimately, it's going to open up confidence to make the move forward."

The good news, he added, is that the deal, and the court win, might mean that "ultimately if it's good for the consumer, the government can't just block everything."

Tech M&A has stalled amid a difficult macroeconomic climate and heightened regulatory scrutiny, led in the US by Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan. Though Microsoft's bid for "Call of Duty" maker Activision Blizzard was recently cleared by a judge, regulatory hurdles are still very much in place when it comes to Adobe's (ADBE) proposed $20 billion buyout of Figma. Meanwhile, Broadcom's (AVGO) $61 billion VMware (VMW) deal has been inching closer to completion, this month getting the OK from European regulators (though it is still under investigation by the FTC).

"M&A is a good cleansing process," said Thill. "We've gone through a huge cycle, where a lot of companies have gone public and a lot of companies that are operating would just be stronger together. So, I think this is a cleansing process we need to go through, and it helps to restore confidence back into tech, as well as for a lot of other names."

Deal-making possibilities remain across the tech space, said Thill.

"You look at infrastructure software, you look at cybersecurity," he said. "I think the new big one that we're starting to see is in AI. There are a lot of AI startups, and they'll never get scale on their own. They need big balance sheets, users, and data to get the scale."

But, he added, "there are multiple areas of the tech stack that will get consolidated, and many of these areas will benefit from M&A returning."

Allie Garfinkle is a Senior Tech Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @agarfinks and on LinkedIn.

Appeals court rejects the FTC’s last-ditch attempt to stop Microsoft from buying Activision

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard can close their merger as early as Saturday.

Kris Holt
·Contributing Reporter
Fri, July 14, 2023 

Dado Ruvic / reuters

The Federal Trade Commission has been unsuccessful in its last-ditch effort to pump the brakes on Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to grant the agency an emergency stay of a ruling that allows the deal to proceed in the US, leaving a UK regulator as the major outstanding hurdle.

A temporary restraining order was put in place last month to prevent Microsoft and Activision from closing the acquisition until Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley ruled on the FTC's request for a preliminary injunction. When Corley rejected the FTC's injunction request this week, she ruled that the agency had until 11:59PM PT on July 14th to obtain an emergency stay from the appeals court. Since that didn't happen, Microsoft and Activision are now free to close the deal as early as Saturday.


"We appreciate the Ninth Circuit's swift response denying the FTC's motion to further delay the Activision deal," Microsoft president and vice-chair Brad Smith wrote on Twitter. "This brings us another step closer to the finish line in this marathon of global regulatory reviews."

In her injunction ruling, Corley determined the FTC didn't prove its claims that the merger would harm consumers. The FTC said on Wednesday it would appeal Corley's decision. On Thursday, it asked the district court that ruled on the preliminary injunction in the first place to block the merger pending the appeal. Hours later, Corley denied that motion.

Back in December, the FTC sued to block the deal on the grounds that it would harm competition. An administrative hearing is set for early August. The agency sought a preliminary injunction to prevent the companies from closing the merger until the antitrust trial takes place. However, the merger deadline is July 18th.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are evidently confident of closing the deal by their Tuesday deadline. Activision’s stock will be delisted from the Nasdaq-100 index before the stock market opens on Monday, so the companies may finally seal the deal around that time.

If they can't do so by the deadline, they'll have to renegotiate terms or agree to extend the timeline. Otherwise, Activision can choose to walk away with a $3 billion breakup fee from Microsoft in its pocket. That seems unlikely at this point, as both companies are eager to join forces.

Microsoft and Activision have yet to resolve issues with a UK regulator, which blocked the deal over cloud gaming concerns. Microsoft has appealed that decision, but the companies and the Competition and Markets Authority agreed to put their legal battle on hold. The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which hears appeals on CMA decisions, will decide on July 17th if that pause will take effect.

The CMA said Microsoft and Activision were welcome to restructure the deal but warned that move may trigger a fresh merger investigation. The regulator has extended its deadline for making a decision until the end of August so it has more time to review a "detailed and complex submission" from Microsoft. However, the CMA said it aimed to bring things to a conclusion as soon as possible. Reports have suggested Microsoft could sell some cloud gaming rights in the UK to get the deal over the line.

UN says Damascus conditions for cross-border aid 'unacceptable'

Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS
Fri, July 14, 2023 

The delivery of humanitarian aid through the Bab al-Hawa crossing has been stalled since Monday, when a 2014 UN deal expired (OMAR HAJ KADOUR)

The United Nations is concerned about "unacceptable conditions" set by Damascus for allowing aid to flow through its Bab al-Hawa crossing to rebel-held areas in northwest Syria, according to a document reviewed Friday by AFP.

The delivery of humanitarian aid through the crossing has been stalled since Monday, when a 2014 UN deal expired.

A letter this week from Syrian authorities allowing use of the border crossing between Turkey and Syria "contains two unacceptable conditions," according to a document sent to the UN Security Council from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

OCHA said it was concerned that the Syrian government had "stressed that the United Nations should not communicate with entities designated as 'terrorist.'"

The second condition it bridled at was that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) should "supervise and facilitate the distribution of humanitarian aid" in northwest Syria.

The UN says more than four million people in northwest Syria are in need of food, water, medicine and other essentials.

Through an arrangement that began in 2014, the UN largely delivers relief to northwest Syria via neighboring Turkey through the Bab al-Hawa crossing.

Syria announced on Thursday that it would authorize the UN to use Bab al-Hawa to deliver vital humanitarian aid to millions of people in rebel-held areas for six months.

Syria's ambassador to the UN Bassam Sabbagh told reporters on Thursday that his country had taken a "sovereign decision" on allowing the aid to continue.

- 'Comprehensive and unrestricted' -

That announcement followed the expiration on Monday of a mechanism that has allowed UN convoys to use the crossing to rebel areas without authorization from Damascus.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Friday that "there's been no crossings in Bab al-Hawa with United Nations humanitarian aid," adding that authorities were reviewing Syria's authorization.

"We're taking a look at... what exactly was expressed in the letter," he said.

"These things need to be studied carefully," he added, reiterating the UN's "commitment to delivering humanitarian assistance guided by humanitarian principles of non-interference, of impartiality."

The OCHA document seen by AFP also called for the need to "review" and "clarify" parts of Damascus' letter, saying the deliveries "must not infringe on the impartiality... neutrality, and independence of the United Nations' humanitarian operations."

Damascus regularly denounces the UN aid deliveries as a violation of its sovereignty, and major ally Moscow has been chipping away at the deal for years.

Russia on Tuesday vetoed a nine-month extension of the agreement, and then failed to muster enough votes to adopt a six-month extension.

The 15 UN Security Council members had been trying for days to find a compromise to extend the cross-border aid deal.

Syria's conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.

"The scale of needs in Syria requires a comprehensive and unrestricted approach to humanitarian aid," the ICRC delegation in New York told AFP.

"We stand ready to support in ways that fall within our capabilities and with the consent of all parties involved."

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Syria gives green light to reopen key crossing to rebel-held northwest from Turkey— with caveats



Thu, July 13, 2023 

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Syrian government gave a green light Thursday for the United Nations to use a key crossing from Turkey to the country’s rebel-held northwest that was closed earlier this week, but it wants to take away U.N. control over aid deliveries to the region.

Syria’s U.N. ambassador, Bassam Sabbagh, said the government is granting the U.N. and its agencies “permission” to use the Bab al-Hawa crossing for six months starting Thursday, but he said it must be done “in full cooperation and coordination with the government.”

He told reporters the U.N. also should not communicate with “terrorist organizations” and their affiliates illegally controlling the Idlib region and must allow the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent to run aid operations in “terrorist” controlled areas,

Sabbagh made the announcement after delivering letters to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council president with the government’s decision. It followed Tuesday’s failure of the Security Council to renew authorization of aid deliveries through Bab al-Hawa, a U.N. operation that had been vital to helping a region of 4.1 million people.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said: “We’ve received the letter and are studying it for now.”

But Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, was clearly not impressed, saying Bab al-Hawa has “gold standard aid monitoring” yet now Syrian President Bashar Assad has said he will open it without U.N. monitoring.

“Control of this critical lifeline has been handed to the man responsible for the Syrian people’s suffering,” Woodward said. “The priority needs to be getting aid flowing again, fast, to the people who need it — and then getting certainty over its future. We will not hesitate to bring this back to the Security Council.”

The main insurgent group in northwest Idlib is Hayat Tahrir al Sham, whose origins were in al-Qaida. The group and other militants are a mix of home-grown fighters and foreign jihadis who began coming to Syria in 2011 after an initially peaceful uprising against Assad turned into an armed insurgency.

Many people in Idlib have been forced from their homes during the 12-year civil war, which has killed nearly a half million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. Hundreds of thousands live in tent settlements and have relied on aid that comes through the Bab al-Hawa border crossing.

The Security Council initially authorized aid deliveries in 2014 from Turkey, Iraq and Jordan through four crossing points into opposition-held areas in Syria. But over the years, Syria’s closest ally Russia, backed by China, has reduced the authorized crossings to just Bab al-Hawa from Turkey — and the mandates from a year to six months.

After the devastating magnitude 7.8 earthquake that ravaged northwestern Syria and southern Turkey on Feb. 8,, Assad opened two additional crossing points from Turkey, at Bab al-Salameh and al-Rai, to increase the flow of assistance to victim, and he extended their opening until Aug. 13.

The United Nations has also been using those crossings to deliver aid. But U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated after Tuesday’s vote that the secretary-general was trying to reopen Bab al-Hawa, which is closest to Idlib and where 85% of U.N. cross-border aid passed through.

Pressed on what “full cooperation and coordination with the government” will mean in practice, Sabbagh said that “I leave these details to the U.N. to explain,” saying the government wants Bab al-Hawa open. He said Syria also wants the U.N. to support the country’s development, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction of roads, power stations, mining activities.

On Tuesday, Syria’s close ally Russia vetoed a compromise resolution drafted by Switzerland and Brazil that would have extended the U.N. operation through Bab al-Hawa for nine months. That was supported by 13 of the 15 council members, as well as by the secretary-general and humanitarian organizations.

A rival Russian resolution that would have extended the aid deliveries only for six months but added new requirements failed to get the minimum nine “yes” votes for approval and was only supported by Russia and China. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the council that if Moscow’s resolution wasn’t accepted it would not approve any compromise.

The Russian draft resolution included language supporting Assad’s government, which has for years delayed U.N.-led negotiations on a new constitution as a key step to elections and ending the conflict that began in 2011. It also referred to U.S. and European Union sanctions on Syria and asked the secretary-general to provide a special report on the impact of these measures in December.

Eleven children die every week attempting to cross Mediterranean, new UN figures show

Harriet Barber
Fri, July 14, 2023 

This year, an estimated 11,600 children have made the dangerous crossing

 - Olmo Calvo/AP

An average of 11 children drown every week when attempting to cross the Mediterranean, according to new data from the United Nations.

The findings lay bare the tragic scale of the mounting refugee crisis in Europe, which last month left an estimated 100 children dead after a fishing boat sank off southern Greece.

This year, an estimated 11,600 children have made the dangerous crossing and an estimated 289 died or disappeared, according to Unicef, the UN’s branch for children.

Since 2018, 1,500 children have died or gone missing, the agency added.

Organised smuggling gangs charge thousands of pounds for the crossing, forcing hundreds of migrants onto run-down and unsafe boats, often before taking the engines away and leaving the vessels to drift.

Lisa Ward, an NHS paramedic who has worked on rescue boats in the Mediterranean, has witnessed first-hand the consequences of this exploitation.

“There are many, many babies, and children under three or four,” she said. “In one rescue I had three drowned toddlers brought to me in half an hour. I managed to get one breathing but I couldn’t sustain it. They all died. There were probably more [in the water]. The mothers were looking for their children.”

Hundreds of migrants are often forced onto run-down and unsafe boats

 - VINCENZO CIRCOSTA/AFP via Getty Images

Many shipwrecks on the Central Mediterranean Sea crossing leave no survivors or go unrecorded, making the true number of child casualties impossible to verify and likely much higher.

The majority of children depart from Libya and Tunisia, having already travelled from countries across Africa and the Middle East.

“Some of the children would have marks on them for torture; electric burns,” Ms Ward said. “Some would have urine burns, where people had urinated on the boat and the children had been sitting in it for days.

“On one rescue, the boat listed and everyone went into the water. Most of these people can’t swim. Male adults were taking life jackets off the children.”
‘Tackle trafficking and smuggling networks’

The UN said a huge proportion of the children that make the journey across the Mediterranean do so by themselves.

In the first three months of 2023, some 3,300 children – 71 per cent of all children arriving to Europe via this route – were recorded as unaccompanied or separated from parents.

Girls travelling alone are especially vulnerable and “likely” to experience violence, Unicef said.

“Instances of systematic rape are well known and well documented. So it is not with a light heart that we are saying these girls are facing extreme risks before, during and after their journeys,” Verena Knaus, Unicef’s global lead on migration told The Telegraph.

“In other instances, we encounter girls travelling on their own who paid the price for crossing a border with their bodies and are now bearing an unwanted child. We hear of this happening with smugglers, border guards and even those in search and rescue.”

Judith Sunderland, acting deputy director of Europe at Human Rights Watch, said “no one deserves to drown at sea but the thought of children – so many children – going under the waves is gut-wrenching.”

She said: “Each of us should think past the statistics to picture the children in our own lives facing that kind of death.”

“It’s important to tackle trafficking and smuggling networks for the real harms they cause to both children and adults, but the best way to minimise dangerous migration journeys is to create more safe and legal channels,” she added.

Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu declares state of emergency over food

Azeezat Oluwa & Cecilia Macaulay - BBC News, Lagos & London
Fri, July 14, 2023 

Many farmers, especially in the north of Nigeria, have had to stop cultivation because of the threat of violence from criminal gangs

Nigeria's President Bola Tinubu has declared a state of emergency to tackle rising food prices and shortages.

Some of the initiatives include using money saved by the recent removal of a fuel subsidy to provide fertiliser and grain to farmers.

Protection is also to be increased for farmers, many of whom have abandoned their land after becoming the target of gangs that kidnap for ransom.

Poorer households are to be helped too with $10 (£8) a month for six months.

"I assure all Nigerians that no-one will be left behind in these strategic interventions," said Mr Tinubu, who took office in May.

A UN report in January projected that 25 million Nigerians were at high risk of food insecurity this year - meaning they would not be able to afford enough nutritious food every day.

Concerns about food insecurity have been longstanding in Nigeria - Africa's most-populous country, which has also been battling widespread insecurity for several years.

More than 350 farmers were kidnapped or killed in the 12 months up to June 2022 alone, according to a Nigerian security tracking website.

Many of these attacks have taken place in the north of the country.

But new security measures would mean farmers could return to the farmlands "without fear of attacks", government adviser Dele Alake said.

No further details were given about how the government intends to tackle the notorious organised criminal gangs, whose members are referred to as bandits.

All matters relating to essential food and water will now to be the responsibility of the National Security Council, which is made up of the country's security chiefs and headed by the president.

Mr Tinubu's first major policy move after taking office was to remove the fuel subsidy, which had been in place for decades and kept the price of petroleum products low.

Its removal has led to increases of up to 200% in some parts of the country, but the new president has defended the move, saying it is essential to use that money more effectively.

The rise in fuel has had a knock-on effect on the economy, with many Nigerians depending on generators for their electricity supply.

Just a few days ago the Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria warned that bread prices would spike by 15%.

Some families have told BBC Pidgin that they cannot afford to buy bread.

"My monthly pension cannot cover the cost of buying bread everyday so we have switched to another more affordable food," Mallam Ado Yahaya, from the northern state of Kano, said.

The new monthly stipend is going to 12 million households via a scheme known as the National Safety Net Programme - it is separate from another initiative launched by the previous government through which they receive about $6 a month.

These more vulnerable people are also likely to be getting access to grain and fertiliser being offered to farmers - although the statement was not clear on numbers.

"It is expected that the programme will stimulate economic activities in the informal sector and improve nutrition, health, education, and human capital development of beneficiaries' households," President Tinubu said.

UN Warns That AI-Powered Brain Implants Could Spy on Our Innermost Thoughts



Frank Landymore
Fri, July 14, 2023

Thought Police

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has sounded the alarm bell on neurotechnology, warning that its "warp speed" advancement, catalyzed by artificial intelligence, poses a threat to human rights and mental privacy, Agence France-Presse reports.

In response, UNESCO will develop an "ethical framework" to address the potential human rights concerns raised by neurotech, it said at an international conference in Paris on Thursday.

"We are on a path to a world in which algorithms will enable us to decode people's mental processes and directly manipulate the brain mechanisms underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions," Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO assistant director-general social and human sciences, said at the event.

Brain-o-Scope

Roughly speaking, neurotech describes electronic devices that connect with your brain or nervous system, such as brain computer interfaces, also known as brain implants, and brain scans.

Typically, the tech has been reserved for more medical purposes, like helping paralyzed people move again, or regain their eyesight or hearing.

But recent advancements have given experts pause over its potential invasiveness. One study with decidedly dystopian implications was able to successfully pair the use of a large language model AI with a functional MRI brain scan to literally read people's thoughts and spell them out in words.

It's still early days for the field, but these advances wouldn't be possible without AI, which can be used to help process brain data at astonishing rates — and that has experts worried that we could be on the precipice of grim new privacy concerns.

"It's like putting neurotech on steroids," Mariagrazia Squicciarini, a UNESCO economist specializing in AI, told AFP.

Massive Investment

The enormous amounts of capital being pumped into the neurotech industry should also be cause for concern, not too dissimilar to how breathless AI hype has seen the tech run amok. Money talks, and it usually doesn't have the average person's best interests in mind.

Between 2010 and 2020, investment in neurotechnology companies soared to over $33 billion, according to a new UNESCO report coauthored by Squicciarini — a 22-fold increase. Meanwhile, the number of neurotech patents has doubled in half that time period.

Among many companies spearheading that charge is Elon Musk's Neuralink, which recently received approval from the Food and Drug Administration to test its brain implants in humans, and is now backed up by Musk's recently launched AI firm, xAI.

UNESCO representatives say neurotech isn't all bad, however — though there's a clear dearth of future-proofed regulation.

More on neurotech: Companies Already Investing in Tech to Scan Employees’ Brains

A new outbreak of Canadian wildfires is sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the US yet again

Eric Zerkel
Sat, July 15, 2023

A recent outbreak of wildfires in western Canada is again sending a plume of unhealthy smoke into the United States.

Air quality alerts were in effect Saturday for at least eight states across the northern Plains and upper Midwest as smoke from the wildfires returns.

Smoke will be heaviest across parts of Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa on Saturday before shifting southeastward later in the weekend. Minneapolis and Des Moines, Iowa, will see the worst of the smoke Saturday while cities such as Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and Cincinnati will begin to see the effects on Sunday.

The Midwest will continue to see poor air quality and decreased visibility into early next week as the smoke lingers.

Chicago experienced some of the worst air quality in the world amid heavy smoke in late-June.

This time, the smoke plume is not coming from the Canadian province of Quebec. It is instead funneling across Canada from much further away in the West, so it shouldn’t reach the Northeast like it did in early June, when New York City’s skies turned an apocalyptic shade of orange.

On Friday, the encroaching smoke dropped air quality in parts of Montana and North Dakota to code red, or unhealthy levels on the Air Quality Index, and to code orange, or unhealthy for sensitive groups, in Minnesota, according to airnow.gov

An out-of-control fire burns 60 miles southeast of Kamloops, British Columbia, on Wednesday, July 12, 2023. - Pete Laing/BC Wildfire Service

Wildfire smoke contains tiny pollutants known as particle matter, or PM 2.5, that can get into the lungs and bloodstream once inhaled. These pollutants most commonly cause difficulty breathing and eye and throat irritation, but have also been linked to more serious long-term health issues like lung cancer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The plume was birthed from nearly 400 fires sparked in Canada’s province of British Columbia in the past week, nearly half of which were started by 51,000 lightning strikes from thunderstorms, the BC Wildfire Service said. Some of those thunderstorms were “dry” or produced inconsequential amounts of rain to help squelch any fires, a dangerous prospect in a province experiencing the worst level of drought.

Parts of the US will be at risk of smoke for the foreseeable future depending on weather patterns and fire flareups because Canada is experiencing its worst fire season on record. More than 24 million acres have burned so far this year, an area roughly the size of Indiana.

British Columbia has had more than 1,000 fires start since April. Those fires have already burned through nearly three times the amount of land compared to an average year in British Columbia over the last 10 years, the BC Wildfire Service said.

ONE FATALITY

One firefighter died Thursday responding to one of the blazes near Revelstoke, British Columbia, a press release from the firefighter’s union said. The BC Wildfire Service confirmed the death to CNN. The firefighter has not been identified.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau eulogized the firefighter on Twitter Friday.

“The news from British Columbia – that one of the firefighters bravely battling wildfires has lost her life – is heartbreaking,” Trudeau said. “At this incredibly difficult time, I’m sending my deepest condolences to her family, her friends, and her fellow firefighters.”

 CNN.com