Biden wants to compensate New Mexico residents sickened by radiation during 1945 nuclear testing

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023 


BELEN, N.M. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he’s open to granting assistance for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing, including in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.

Biden brought up the issue while speaking Wednesday in Belen at a factory that produces wind towers.

“I’m prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of,” he said.

The state's place in American history as a testing ground has gotten more attention recently with the release of “Oppenheimer,” a movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret Manhattan Project.

Biden watched the film last week while on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico spoke of how the first bomb was tested on soil just south of where the event was. The senator also discussed getting an amendment into the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which gives payments to people who become ill from nuclear weapons tests or uranium mining during the Cold War.

“And those families did not get the help that they deserved. They were left out of the original legislation,” Lujan added. “We’re fighting with everything that we have” to keep the amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act.

Last month, the U.S. Senate voted to expand compensation. The provisions would extend health care coverage and compensation to so-called downwinders exposed to radiation during weapons testing to several new regions stretching from New Mexico to Guam.

Biden said he told Lujan that he’s “prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of.”

The Associated Press

Minister launches review of B.C. port strike case to uncover 'structural issues'

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023 



VANCOUVER — Federal Labour Minister Seamus O'Regan is launching an examination of the recently resolved British Columbia port dispute to see if "structural issues" in negotiations led to a 13-day work stoppage last month.

In a written statement released Wednesday through social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, O'Regan said officials will immediately begin by reviewing reports on previous, similar disputes.

O'Regan said the goal is to create "a harmonious working environment" between unions and employers in future collective bargaining, in order to prevent future stoppages similar to the port strike from happening.

"Another dispute and disruption on that scale is still possible, and that's not good enough," O'Regan said in the statement. "The workers and businesses that depend on our ports deserve long-term solutions. They deserve answers."

The port labour dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada representing about 7,400 workers and the BC Maritime Employers Association came to an end last Friday, when the union announced its members voted almost 75 per cent in favour of ratifying a new deal.

But the unrest had been tumultuous.

Workers went on strike from July 1 to July 13, freezing the movement of billions of dollars worth of cargo at some of the country's busiest ports.

A tentative deal halted that strike action, but when the union caucus said it wanted to reject the contract, there was a brief return to pickets on July 18.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board ruled that move illegal without notice, forcing employees back to work the next day.

A full union membership vote rejected the tentative agreement on July 28, and O'Regan directed the industrial relations board to consider imposing a deal or binding arbitration on the two sides.

The union and employers announced they had reached a new deal with the help of the board on July 30, and it was ratified by last week's union vote.

In a written statement, BCMEA president and CEO Mike Leonard indicated employers may be interested in taking part in O'Regan's efforts to improve "port labour relations structure," saying the association welcomed the government review as an "opportunity to modernize" the process.

Groups such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce have called for "new tools" to settle labour disputes in critical supply-chain sectors, with the federation asking for the designation of ports as essential services.

Labour experts, however, said the federal government may have limited options to prevent similar strikes from happening when talks hit an impasse, as was the case with the B.C. port dispute.

University of Manitoba associate professor of Labour Studies David Camfield said workers' right to strike in Canada is already "very narrowly circumscribed," with only unionized workers eligible to take job action at a specific time after a collective agreement has expired.

Camfield said a push by the government to further limit strike action during collective negotiations — an act protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — may end up triggering legal challenges and getting bogged down in courts.

"I can understand why there are business groups putting pressure on the federal government to further restrict it, particularly for some kinds of workers," Camfield said. "But this is already a pretty restricted right."

Camfield said the number of strikes in Canada has not grown as fast as those in other countries such as the United States, and pales in comparison to the frequency of job action between the 1960s and the 1980s.

"The relative impact of strikes on the economy is actually really low compared to what it once was," he said. "But the tolerance level for inconvenience and disruption also has dropped, and so when workers like these port workers exercised their legal right, some people act like the sky is falling."

University of British Columbia professor emeritus Mark Thompson said a post-mortem of the port strike by someone not involved in the negotiations would likely show that "all of the parties were rather inept" in causing the work stoppage, and structural changes to labour relations are not warranted.

"Longshoring strikes cause economic damage, which is usually made up rather quickly," he said. "Stories of economic losses are greatly exaggerated … more skilled negotiators on both sides, plus the mediator, might well have ended this strike more quickly without direct intervention by the government."

Thompson said the strike may have been avoided if the employers addressed the union's non-wage concerns such as contracting out and job protection earlier in the negotiations.

Terms of the deal ratified by both the union and the BC Maritime Employers Association released by the CIRB this week included a commitment by employers to train workers to perform maintenance on new equipment.

Contracting out maintenance work to third parties had been one of the most contentious issues during the dispute.

The four-year agreement also contains several terms about workers' compensation, including boosts to hourly wages to a base rate of $57.51 by 2026.

There are also increases in the "Modernization and Mechanization retirement lump sum," bringing that payout to $96,250 in 2026 for eligible retirees, over and above normal pension entitlements.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press

LOW PAID TEMP WORKERS
Census workers logged hundreds of cases of violence, harassment by public: documents

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 9, 2023



OTTAWA — Statistics Canada documents show workers who went door-to-door to collect data for the 2021 census logged hundreds of workplace injuries and at least 15 assaults by members of the public.

The data tables obtained by The Canadian Press through access-to-information law list 680 injury reports, including more than 280 cases of harassment or violence.

In some of the most extreme examples, employees were punched, threatened with firearms, spat on or sexually assaulted.

In one case, a census interviewer was assaulted by a resident using a "pellet gun," while another had a "gun pointed at her from another vehicle," the documents say.

One worker was knocked down stairs after being punched in the face by a resident, and had to go to the hospital.

Another census employee was unwillingly detained in the home of an angry resident, the documents say. The event was reported to the RCMP.

In at least three separate instances, people collecting data for Statistics Canada reported that they were sexually assaulted by members of the public.

The majority of the census workplace safety complaints were traced to western and central provinces.

The Canadian government collects national population data every five years, and Statistics Canada representatives are sent to visit households that are late to submit their census questionnaires.

The injury reports from staffers showed there were 137 cases of people's dogs being aggressive or biting them, along with 158 slips, trips or falls.

Details about the total number of assaults and psychological injuries are redacted in the documents, as is information about any workplace fatalities.

Other categories of injuries included vehicle accidents, "potential contamination" and other "emergency" situations. The total number of incidents for each is also redacted.

The Canadian Press has contacted Statistics Canada and Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne, who is responsible for Statistics Canada matters, for comment, but neither responded by deadline.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

Liam Fox, The Canadian Press

National Steel Car workers ratify new deal, end 41-day strike

CBC
Wed, August 9, 2023 

Frank Crowder, United Steelworkers Local 7135 president, stands outside National Steel Car, workers picketed since June 29. (Samantha Beattie/CBC - image credit)

A new deal between National Steel Car and its workers has been ratified, officially marking the end of a 41-day strike at the rail car maker.

A press release from the Local 7135 of the United Steelworkers union (USW) says workers voted for a new contract that will include a 13 per cent wage increase over three years, with six per cent in the first year and a $1,000 signing bonus.

Members in the skilled trades will also get an extra one dollar per hour wage increase in each of the first and third years of the contract, the union says.

The new collective agreement will also add another health and safety representative at the workplace and will improve other health and safety provisions.

Other improvements, the union says, includes changes to the defined-benefit and defined-contribution pension plans, and increases in shift premiums, dental care, vision care and safety boots allowances.

"We believe that we achieved what we were looking for," Frank Crowder, president of USW Local 7135, said.

"We went out with only a 52 per cent majority in favour of a strike, but our presence on the picket line was 100 per cent."

Some 1,475 workers went on strike on June 29, calling on higher wages and improved safety, Crowder previously said.

The union said maintenance workers will head back to work immediately to conduct inspections of the plant, while the remainder of union members will return to work on Monday, Aug. 14.

Striking Workers Caught Coca-Cola Breaking BC Labour Laws


Local Journalism Initiative
Wed, August 9, 2023 

Striking Coca-Cola workers in Metro Vancouver caught the company breaking labour laws in apparent effort to keep the soda flowing during a weeks-long shutdown.

The BC Labour Relations Board has twice ordered Coca-Cola Canada Bottling to stop using workers it paid to do the work of striking members of Teamsters Local 213 at its bottling plant in Richmond.

Union members say they caught the company through an impromptu surveillance operation they dubbed a “flying picket line,” which involved Teamsters covertly tailing company trucks and speaking with drivers and passengers.

They found the company has flown in employees from as far as Quebec.

Coke Canada spokesperson Kathy Murphy said in a written statement that the company was “deploying our contingency plan as permitted by British Columbia labour laws.”

But Teamsters Local 213 business agent Jim Loyst said the board found the company’s conduct was illegal.

“They’ve chosen to break the labour code as part of their contingency plan, which obviously creates a lot of frustration on the lines for my members,” Loyst said.

“If the company would just follow the laws and respect them, the focus would be on getting back to the bargaining table.”

Teamsters Local 213 represents more than 400 Coca-Cola employees at the Richmond bottling site and at three distribution centres in the Lower Mainland, as well as another worksite on the Sunshine Coast.

Those workers have been on strike since July 13 after their collective agreement expired earlier this year.

Workers on the picket line say the dispute boils down to wages.

Ron Walsh, who has worked at the Richmond bottling plant for 26 years, said he and his colleagues have seen their expenses skyrocket since the last deal was signed in 2020.

Walsh and his colleagues never stopped working when the COVID-19 pandemic began. In fact, the bottling facility began operating 24-7 to keep up with the steady demand for Coke, A&W root beer and Canada Dry ginger ale. The company’s net sales dipped when the pandemic began, according to its public financial reports, but its profits have rebounded. It reported net revenues of a staggering $43 billion in its most recent fiscal year.

But its workers in the Lower Mainland say their wages have been eclipsed by runaway inflation. Walsh said many workers were hoping for more just to make ends meet in Metro Vancouver.

“We’re just trying to beat some of the inflation that’s happening,” Walsh said.

Workers had hoped picketing the plant would hurt the company enough to push them back to the bargaining table.

The last time workers went on strike in 2017, some local stores reported a shortage of the company’s products on their shelves. But that hasn’t happened this year.

Instead, Loyst said workers on the picket line have seen massive charter buses with tinted windows arriving at the bottling plant each morning, dropping off what appear to be dozens of people at the plant.

“We can observe them wearing safety vests for work boots and some are wearing COVID masks or hoodies, which seem to hide their identities,” Loyst said.

In British Columbia, it is illegal for a company to hire someone to do the job of a striking worker, even if they work for the same employer at a different facility. Legislation calls them “replacement workers”; many union members use the derogatory term “scab.”

But there are exceptions. Managers who fall outside of a collective agreement, for example, are allowed to do the work of striking union members.

Loyst said his members recognized some of the people coming into the bottling facility as managers. But they couldn’t place the others. The company erected a fence around the bottling plant during the dispute, Loyst said, and retained a security company to monitor picketing workers. Loyst claimed those security workers also stood in front of the mysterious workers when they got on and off the buses, meaning union members couldn’t identify them.

Loyst said the union responded by dispatching members to follow company trucks as they left the plant to see who was driving them.

“There’s guys who are out on the road full time who are following to see who is taking a trailer from point A to point B,” Walsh said.

“It’s a lot of fun,” said another union member who did not wish to be named. “You put the Mission Impossible music on, and off you go.”

Loyst said his members eventually identified multiple workers Coca-Cola had apparently brought in, including managers and workers from Prince George, Kelowna and Quebec.

The Teamsters brought a complaint to the BC Labour Relations Board, who issued a bottom-line decision on July 25 stating the company had violated the province’s labour laws and ordering them to stop.

Coca-Cola agreed to a second cease and desist on Aug. 1, Loyst said.

Coca-Cola has not faced any fines as a result of the violations, something Loyst believes highlights a flaw in the province’s labour laws.

“Why do we have to basically play cat-and-mouse to catch them doing something, when they should know better?” Loyst said.

Michelle Travis, a spokesperson with Unite Here Local 40, a union representing thousands of workers in hospitality and food services in B.C., says her union has filed multiple complaints to the labour board about the use of replacement workers and has won some of them. But the province’s labour code doesn’t outline any penalties for employers who break those rules, even though they can undermine a union’s leverage during a strike or lockout.

“If they break the law, I think there is a penalty that should come with it. It shouldn’t be acceptable for an employer to break the code multiple times and they don’t have to pay a stiff penalty,” Travis said.

Meanwhile, Walsh and his colleagues are hoping for a breakthrough at the bargaining table.

William Asomaning, a quality inspector at the Richmond plant, says the sharpest increases were for items like gasoline, rent and groceries — essentials that his family can’t opt out of.

“We were OK. But then with the inflation going on, we went from doing $300 of groceries every month to doing $300 every two weeks. That’s what it’s been for us,” Asomaning said.

Loyst said the company made two offers to the union during 22 days of bargaining, including a wage package that included a 10 per cent hike over three years. Some union members on the picket line said they were hoping for an increase as high as 15 per cent.

In her statement, Murphy said the union was asking for “a magnitude of increases that go beyond what is offered in the industry, across our business and that we simply cannot accept.”

Workers on the line, though, say they are just trying to keep up with the cost of living.

“Our rents have gone up. Groceries go up. Gas goes up all the time. We haven’t taken a raise and we’ve worked through it,” Walsh said.

Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

Disney CEO reaches out to striking Hollywood creatives with 'deep respect'

Danielle Broadway and Dawn Chmielewski
Wed, August 9, 2023


 Hollywood actors and writers on strike outside Disney studios in California


By Danielle Broadway and Dawn Chmielewski

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Walt Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger on Wednesday said he was committed to finding a solution to the Hollywood writer and actor strikes, citing his "deep respect" for creative professionals, as he signaled a turn from comments that inflamed tensions last month.

Iger last month told striking actors that their demands were "not realistic."

The Hollywood writers' strike entered its 100th day on Wednesday with contract talks stalled and people on the picket lines protesting what they say is a disregard for their demands. The actors strike started less than a month ago.

The growth of artificial intelligence has been a key issue for union members, who fear that it could replace their creative input.

"Nothing is more important to this company than its relationships with the creative," Iger said on a call discussing Disney's quarterly results on Wednesday.

"I have deep respect and appreciation for all those who are vital to the extraordinary creative engine that drives this company and our industry," he said.

Iger, who returned to Disney as CEO last year, did not say how he would help bring the strikes to an end.

In July, Iger angered members of both unions by saying that the demands of the SAG-AFTRA actors union for a labor contract with higher pay and limits on use of artificial intelligence were "not realistic."

Emmy-winning "Breaking Bad" actor Bryan Cranston about a week later took aim at Iger in remarks to striking actors, saying: "We don't expect you to understand who we are, but we ask you to hear us. And beyond that, to listen to us when we tell you, we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots."

Under Iger, Disney has created a task force to study artificial intelligence and how it can be applied across the company, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Dawn Chmielewski; Editing by Mary Milliken and Leslie Adler)

Disney Rises After Hollywood Strikes Save Company $3 Billion

Thomas Buckley
Wed, August 9, 2023


(Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co. rose more than 6% in extended trading after management of the world’s largest entertainment company said capital spending and outlays for movies and TV shows are coming in lower than projected.

Disney expects content spending this year to total about $27 billion, Kevin Lansberry, acting chief financial officer, said Wednesday on a call with investors after the Burbank, California-based company posted third-quarter results. Disney typically spends about $30 billion.

The savings are partly as a result of production cuts tied to writer and actor strikes in Hollywood, he said. Disney also forecasts capital spending of $5 billion, lower than projected previously, as the company shifts the timing of some projects. He reiterated Disney’s ambition to pay a modest dividend this year.

The comments lifted shares of Disney to as high as $92.80 in extended trading, reversing an earlier decline.

Earlier Wednesday, Disney reported fiscal third-quarter profit of $1.03 a share, beating the 99-cent average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales grew 3.8% to $22.3 billion in the quarter ended July 1, missing analysts’ projections slightly.

During the period, Disney’s online video operation cut its loss to $512 million from more than $1 billion a year ago. Just three months ago, management predicted the direct-to-consumer business would lose more than $750 million in the quarter. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger also told investors that the company will crack down on password sharing, echoing the recent effort from rival Netflix Inc. that has boosted subscriber numbers.

But subscribers to the Disney+ streaming service tumbled 7.4% to 146.1 million from the previous three months, missing the 154.8 million consensus analysts had expected. Nearly all of that shortfall was borne by the company’s Disney+ Hotstar in Asia. It lost almost 25% of its customers after Disney failed to renew streaming rights for popular cricket games in the Indian Premier League.

The company also announced it’s raising prices for some streaming subscriptions by as much as 27%.

The world’s largest entertainment company launched an extensive cost-cutting effort after Iger returned to run the company in November. That included 7,000 job cuts and other reductions in spending.

As part of that effort, Disney recorded $2.44 billion in costs in the third quarter to remove shows and movies from its online services and terminate deals with outside producers, greater than earlier projections. The company also recorded charges of $210 million due to severance costs. In a statement Wednesday, Iger said he expects to exceed the overall cost-cutting target of $5.5 billion.

Disney reported a 23% decline in profit, to $1.89 billion, in traditional TV — underscoring the troubles confronting that division. The business, which includes channels such as ABC and ESPN, has been buffeted by falling cable subscribers, lower broadcast advertising sales and higher programming costs for sports.

The company’s theme-park business, the world’s largest, earned $2.43 billion, an 11% increase from last year. Weakness at the Florida resorts was offset by a huge swing to profitability at the international theme parks.

Disney is in the throes of major upheaval: Iger signaled in a July interview with CNBC that TV networks including ABC, Freeform and FX, which contributed about half of Disney’s operating income before the pandemic, “may not be core” to the company any longer.

Speculation in Hollywood is also rampant with the notion that Iger is seeking to sell Disney to a larger tech company such as Apple Inc. Iger appeared to softly talk down that prospect on the call with investors Wednesday, saying that “anyone who wanted to speculate about such things would have to immediately consider the global regulatory environment. I’ll say no more than that.”

He’s also seeking to sell a stake in the ESPN sports business to a partner that can help accelerate the network’s transition to streaming. Iger recently hired former lieutenants Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs as consultants to advise on that effort.

On Tuesday, ESPN announced a long-term agreement with casino operator Penn Entertainment Inc. to license its brand for sports betting. Penn will make cash payments totaling $1.5 billion over the 10-year term and grant ESPN $500 million of warrants to purchase Penn shares.

The company is also conducting a search for a new chief financial officer after longtime executive Christine McCarthy left that position in July.

 Bloomberg Businessweek

 

Why Would Amazon Be An Anchor Investor In Arm's IPO? The Answer’s In The Cloud.

By 

MACK WILOWSKI

 

Published August 09, 2023

Pau Barrena / Contributor / Getty Images

Amazon is expected to be an anchor investor in one of the largest IPOs this year, and it could help boost the company's cloud business.

Bloomberg is reporting that Amazon (AMZN) is in talks to become an anchor investor in the initial public offering (IPO) of Arm Ltd., a British semiconductor and software design company.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Amazon is reportedly in talks with SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, to become an anchor investor in the IPO of U.K.-based semiconductor company Arm Ltd.
• Amazon's partnership could help entrench its dominant position in the global cloud computing market and prevent rivals such as Microsoft's Azure from taking away market share.
• The IPO, which is expected as early as next month, could be one of this year's biggest, raising up to $10 billion in capital.
  

What's Arm Got To Do With AWS?

Amazon's cloud-computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS), already works with Arm to produce the AWS Gravitron processor.1 A more involved partnership with Amazon could prove to be lucrative for Arm given AWS's dominance in the global cloud computing market.

(AWS) is the world's biggest provider of cloud services with a 32% global market share as of the first quarter. Microsoft's (MSFT) Azure and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google Cloud had the second and third-highest shares at 23% and 10%, respectively.2

For Amazon, it's a chance to cement its dominance in the cloud business. While AWS's market share has held generally steady over the years, Microsoft's Azure has been rapidly catching up, increasing its market share by 10 percentage points since 2017.3

Arm's Race For Anchor Investors

SoftBank (SFTBY), a Japanese conglomerate which has owned Arm since 2016, has reached out to several companies as it seeks to draw up funds for Arm's IPO, which is expected as early as September.

While SoftBank initially reached out to major chipmakers like Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA), it's since expanded its search for investors to big tech companies like Apple (AAPL), Amazon, and Google parent Alphabet, whose products heavily utilize semiconductors.4

A Boost for the IPO Market?

Arm's prospective IPO will likely be one of this year's biggest, and could raise up to $10 billion.5

Such an offering could provide a needed boost to the global IPO market, which has been struggling since the start of last year.

A bear market in stocks, rising interest rates, and general economic uncertainty have slowed demand for new offerings. There have been 615 IPOs worldwide so far this year, generating roughly $61 billion in capital. These figures are down 5% and 36%, respectively, from the first half of 2022, according to consulting firm EY.6

While the U.S. IPO market has bounced back slightly from last year's lows, activity remains far below its 2021 peak. The first half of 2023 saw 63 IPOs in the U.S., up from 51 in the same period last year but well below a peak of 416 through all of 2021. Proceeds have also fallen precipitously, to $10.1 billion in the first half from $155.8 billion in 2021, EY reported.7

Amazon shares fell 1% in early trading Wednesday. They're up by more than two-thirds so far this year, while those of Arm owner SoftBank have risen 14% over the same period.

YCharts

Once worth $47 billion, WeWork shares near zero after bankruptcy warning




Tue, August 8, 2023 
By Abhijith Ganapavaram and Shivansh Tiwary

(Reuters) -WeWork shares approached zero on Wednesday after the one-time startup darling warned it could go bankrupt in a stunning reversal of fortune for a company that was once privately valued at $47 billion.

The SoftBank-backed company has been in turmoil ever since its plans to go public in 2019 imploded after investors recoiled at its hefty losses, corporate governance lapses and the management style of then founder-CEO Adam Neumann.

WeWork's woes did not abate in subsequent years. It finally managed to go public in 2021 at a much-reduced valuation, but it has never turned a profit. Its major backer, Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, sunk tens of billions to prop up the startup, but the company has continued to lose money.

"WeWork was perhaps the most overhyped startup of recent years," said Steve Clayton, head of equity funds at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Shares of the company closed 38.5% lower at 12 cents on Wednesday.

Since its debut through a blank-check merger in October 2021, WeWork's shares have lost nearly all of their value, and were trading on Wednesday at 13 cents for a valuation of roughly $260 million. Numerous executives have departed, including CEO Sandeep Mathrani in May and three board members this week.

The search for a new CEO is on, WeWork said on Tuesday.

The company's business model involves taking long-term leases and renting out spaces for a short term. It expanded rapidly over the years, but the global coronavirus pandemic made shared office space less appealing.

"Fewer and fewer companies from mature large-cap businesses to startups are willing to enter into long-term leases for geographically fixed spaces," interim CEO David Tolley said on an analyst call on Wednesday.

The ongoing problems are a black eye for SoftBank, which kept pouring money into the company over the last several years. That company's head, Masayoshi Son, had personally backed Neumann, and bailed out WeWork in 2019 with $10 billion following the botched IPO.

SoftBank took billions of dollars in losses in the aftermath of the WeWork investment. Son subsequently expressed regret over his support of the company, saying that his "judgment was poor in many ways and I am reflecting deeply on that."

In March, WeWork reached a deal to cut debt by about $1.5 billion and extend the date of some maturities to save cash.

Cost cuts helped WeWork report a smaller net loss of $349 million in the second quarter from $577 million a year ago, but it still burned through $646 million in cash in the first six months of the year. It had $205 million in hand as of the end of June.

"Flexible workspaces have a future in the office ecosystem, but WeWork, in its current state, may not," BTIG analysts wrote on Wednesday as they downgraded the stock to "neutral."

WeWork said it was planning to shore up liquidity by cutting rent and tenancy costs, controlling expenses and reducing member churn.

The company's India division said the bankruptcy warning would not affect that unit.

(Reporting by Ananta Agarwal, Chavi Mehta, Shivansh Tiwary, Abhijith Ganapavaram, additional reporting by Amruta Khandekar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Arun Koyyur and Anil D'Silva)

U.S. judge greenlights Nio investor class action over factory claims

Chinese electric vehicle start-up Nio Inc. company logo is on display

 on its initial public offering (IPO) day at the NYSE in New York

Wed, August 9, 2023 
By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) - Nio Inc investors can proceed as a class in a lawsuit claiming the Chinese electric vehicle maker lied about building its own factory in Shanghai during its 2018 initial public offering, a U.S. judge has ruled.

The lawsuit in federal court in New York seeks damages from Nio, its executives and underwriters for a decline in share price after the carmaker said in March 2019 that it had scrapped plans to build the new factory it had said was "under construction" during the IPO.

U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis issued an order late Tuesday certifying a class of all investors who bought Nio American Depositary Shares (ADS) in the September 2018 IPO, and a class of investors who purchased ADS between Oct. 8, 2018 and March 5, 2019.

The defendants have denied the allegations. Their attorneys did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

The ruling is one of the final hurdles for the investors before a trial in the case. Securities class actions rarely go to trial; those that are not dismissed typically result in settlements. The company may also ask the judge to rule in its favor without a trial.

The investors anticipated the factory would give Nio its own manufacturing capacity and alleviate its reliance on a Chinese state-owned manufacturer some analysts viewed as "third tier."

But construction had never started, the lawsuit alleges, citing former employees and the lack of necessary construction permits.

The investors also claimed Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and several other underwriters failed to properly vet the company's statements.

When Nio disclosed the plant would not be built in March 2019, its ADS price dropped 30%, from around $10 to $7 per share, the investors said.

Nio ADS were trading at around $13.50 per share on Wednesday, down about 3.9% from Tuesday's closing price.The case is In re: NIO, Inc., Securities Litigation, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 19-cv-01424.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

US companies are barreling towards a $1.8 trillion wall of maturing corporate debt


Jennifer Sor
Tue, August 8, 2023 

US companies could pull back on hiring or cut headcount to deal with higher debt payments, Goldman Sachs said.(AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

There's $1.8 trillion of corporate debt maturing over the next two years, Goldman Sachs estimated.

Firms could be slammed with higher debt servicing costs as interest rates stay elevated.

That could eat into corporate revenue and weigh on the US job market.

US firms are barreling towards a giant wall of corporate debt that's about to mature over the next few years, Goldman Sachs strategists said in a note on Monday.

The investment bank estimated that $790 billion of corporate debt was set to mature in 2024, followed by $1.07 trillion of debt maturing in 2025. That amounts to $1.8 trillion of debt reaching maturity within the next two years, in addition to another $230 billion that will reach maturity by the end of this year, Goldman strategists said.

The wave of debt that will need to be refinanced could spell trouble for companies, as interest rates have been raised aggressively by the Fed over the last year. The Fed funds rate is now targeted between 5.25%-5.5%, the highest range since 2001.

The average interest rate on corporate debt will likely rise to 4.3% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2025, the bank estimated, up from the current rate of 4.3%.

Those rate increases are also likely to eat up a greater portion of company revenue, which could end up weighing on the economy. For every extra dollar spent to service their debt, firms will likely pull back on capital expenditures spending by 10 cents and labor spending by 20 cents, the strategists estimated, a reduction that could weigh down the job market by 5,000 payrolls a month in 2024 and 10,000 payrolls a month in 2025.

Experts have warned of trouble for US corporations as credit conditions tighten. Already, the tally of corporate debt defaults in 2023 has surpassed the total number of defaults recorded last year. As much of $1 trillion in corporate debt could be at risk for default if the US faces a full-blown recession, Bank of America warned, though strategists at the bank no longer see a downturn as likely in 2023.

Private Credit Firms Build Cash Hoards to Gain Share of $5.2 Trillion Consumer Debt Market

Carmen Arroyo and John Sage
Wed, August 9, 2023 




(Bloomberg) -- Private credit firms are raising billions of dollars to grab a share of the $5.2 trillion market that includes US consumer debt, seizing on a growth opportunity while the industry’s traditional lenders are in disarray.

Direct lenders such as Ares Management, BC Partners, KKR & Co., and Medalist Partners in recent months raised the money for funds designed to lend to consumer financing companies. Providers of auto and consumer loans have been unable or unwilling to tap their usual funding sources, namely regional banks and securities sales backed by assets like loan portfolios.

The private credit firms see a chance to increase returns for their investors and to diversify their offerings, lessening the focus on increasingly competitive corporate loans without adding an unmanageable amount of risk. While the more-opaque consumer debt market is vulnerable to a downturn in the economy and a given sector can be hit by defaults, loans backed by assets like real estate or autos can be attractive.

“Institutional funds may not want to increase their exposure to venture debt or corporate buyouts in an uncertain macroeconomic environment,” said Evan Carruthers, co-chief executive officer at asset-based private lender Castlelake. “But we believe they view asset-based private credit as offering similar returns to corporate debt with potentially less risk,” he said, adding this debt tends to be investment grade but with higher yields.

Direct lenders already are deploying some of the money raised to buy consumer loan portfolios from regional banks. The banks and credit unions, once among the biggest buyers of consumer debt, now are selling it to shore up liquidity after a crisis of confidence among some depositors and shareholders in March.

Loan Sales

Since then, California-based PacWest Bancorp and Georgia’s Synovus Bank are among the institutions that have sold portfolios including auto and consumer loans to private lenders.

KKR, Varde Partners and others bought the debt.

And Truist Financial Corp. unloaded a $5 billion student loan portfolio that it described as “non-core” in late June, while Western Alliance Bancorp sold roughly $3.5 billion in loans tied to commercial real estate, residential and commercial and industrial lending, as well as mortgage servicing rights and a slug of securities that were primarily collateralized loan obligations.

“The regional bank pullback has put this asset class at the forefront, with many lenders wanting to take advantage of the less crowded playing field,” T.J. Durkin, head of structured credit at Angelo Gordon & Co., said in an interview. “But we are still in the first innings of banks deleveraging, this has just started.”

Angelo Gordon raised over $1 billion for consumer loan strategies and other asset-based credits, more than its $800 million target. In Ares’ most recent earnings call, CEO Michael Arougheti said his company raised $1.8 billion during the second quarter in its latest alternative credit fund, which may include financings backed by assets like consumer or student loans. The firm to date has raised $4.4 billion in total for that fund.

And Blackstone Inc. is working on several deals with banks and other originators totaling $6 billion in this sector, according to a transcript from the firm’s latest earnings call. Jonathan Gray, Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer, said on the call the firm plans to “continue to serve their customers in areas like home improvement, auto finance, and renewables.”

ABS Inaccessible

Direct lenders are taking advantage of a breakdown elsewhere in the credit markets to enlarge their $1.5 trillion industry, and may ultimately gain greater pricing power on consumer debt.

Traditionally, banks and consumer finance companies could raise funds when needed in the asset-backed securities market by repackaging a portfolio of loans into bonds. But that market remains hostile to any but the most straightforward of offerings after the cost of borrowing shot up late last year.

Sales of ABS securities are down by 4.5% compared to this time last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News, after rate volatility in 2022 caused a slew of firms to pull transactions.

Consumer finance firms such as Upstart Holdings Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. instead struck deals with private lenders to raise capital. Castlelake LP recently agreed to buy up to $4 billion of loans from fintech lender Upstart, while KKR agreed to purchase as much as €40 billion ($43.8 billion) of buy-now-pay-later loan receivables from PayPal.

Financial technology consumer lender Oportun Financial Corp. agreed to sell $700 million of loans to a private lender duo, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

“We believe banks are going to keep getting out of consumer credit, leaving a lot of room for non-banks,” Durkin of Angelo Gordon said. “Eventually, it will make it more expensive for Main Street to borrow money.”

To be sure, direct lenders may find out that the asset-based finance market has unique risks in assessing the quality of vast portfolios of various types of loans. “A lot of people know how to underwrite a company, but few know how to do the same with consumer credit receivables, aircraft or royalties,” Castlelake’s Carruthers said.

Private credit managers say the opportunity is too big to ignore.

“We believe specialty finance lenders are well-positioned to capture even more of this market in the coming period, which opens up the door for private ABS origination,” according to a paper from Atalaya Capital Management last month.

(Updates with details on Ares fund in 10th paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

Short-seller Hindenburg has fueled a massive wealth wipeout for 3 of the world's richest men this year

George Glover
Tue, August 8, 2023 

A mural of Indian businessman Gautam Adani in Mumbai.

Indranil Mukherjee/Getty Images

Short-seller Hindenburg Research has targeted three of the world's wealthiest men this year.


It's made high-profile bets against Adani Group, Block, and Icahn Enterprises.


Gautam Adani, Jack Dorsey, and Carl Icahn have seen their wealth plummet in 2023.

Short-seller Hindenburg Research's big bets against Adani Group, Block, and Icahn Enterprises have fueled a massive wealth wipeout for three of the world's richest men this year.

Indian magnate Gautam Adani, Twitter and Block founder Jack Dorsey, and activist investor Carl Icahn have all seen their personal fortunes plummet, according to data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Adani has suffered the largest losses of the three, with his wealth plunging $57 billion since Hindenburg published a report in January that accused him of "pulling the largest con in corporate history", sparking major losses for his publicly-traded companies.

Dorsey lost a more modest $530 million after Hindenburg critiqued his payment firm Block – but Icahn has got nearly $16 billion poorer after the short-seller said in May that he used "Ponzi-like structures" to deceive investors.

On Friday alone, Icahn Enterprises' stock plunged 23% after it slashed shareholders' payouts from $2 to $1, which Icahn himself attributed to Hindenburg's "misleading and self-serving" report.

Icahn's wealth fell from $10.5 billion to $8 billion that day alone, per Bloomberg's index.

Hindenburg, which achieved prominence in the past with big bets against EV corporation Nikola and

 the Chamath Palihapitiya-backed firm Clover Health, has hit headlines this year with its high-profile reports targeting the three billionaires' companies.

Its attacks have erased $173 billion from the value of their publicly-traded companies, with the brunt of those losses borne by listed firms under the Adani Group umbrella, per Bloomberg.

Perhaps surprisingly, Hindenburg and its founder Nate Anderson probably only made tiny gains this year, according to the outlet, which cited data from S3 Partners showing the short-seller would have earned just $56 million from its bet against Icahn if it perfectly timed its exits.

 Business Insider

Investor That Took On Exxon Targets Deals in Critical Minerals

Mariana Durao and Saijel Kishan
Wed, August 9, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- Investment fund Engine No. 1, known for its battle with Exxon Mobil Corp. and recently taking a surprise stake in Vale SA’s base metals business, is eying more deals in critical minerals.

The company last month agreed to acquire 3% of the Vale unit, giving it an interest in mines producing metals such as copper and nickel that are key for the energy transition. Engine No. 1 says it’s now in talks with other producers, with a focus on those metals and battery ingredient lithium.

Critical metals are coming under the spotlight more as western nations increasingly view supplies as a matter of national security. As rising usage in electric vehicles and renewables stokes fears of shortages in years to come, automakers are rushing to lock in supply and there’s been a surge of mining investment.

“There’s a fundamental mismatch around the role these assets need to play and the availability of capital for them,” Erik Belz, Engine No. 1’s head of private capital, said in a video interview. “That narrative needs to change.”

Engine No. 1, which is focused on sustainable investments, was founded by hedge fund manager Chris James and is based in San Francisco. It hired Belz from Blackstone Inc. last year to oversee investments in commodities businesses that are transitioning to cleaner fuels.

Belz, who has pointed to the issue of private equity leaving the resources sector, said it’s crucial that money flows back into the industry so it can aid the green revolution.

“Shining a spotlight on a business like Vale Base Metals, in terms of what it offers to the market but also in terms of best (social and environmental) practices, is showing what good looks like in the base metal space,” Belz said.

Vale this year recruited former Anglo American Plc boss Mark Cutifani to lead an independent board overseeing the base metals subsidiary. Belz said Cutifani’s role is crucial to the business improving and that he’s working closely with Engine No. 1 in the mining space.

Engine No. 1 is best known for leading a shakeup of oil major Exxon’s board two years ago. It since started efforts to buy mining and fossil-fuel assets to help companies decarbonize.


Belz said the firm doesn’t plan to pursue an activist campaign against Vale’s base metals business, and is a long-term investor with plans to help turn the unit into a leader in North America-focused critical materials sector.

“It could naturally extend into other commodities over time, in a very interesting evolution,” he said.

Unprecedented levels of damage from storms this year is upending US towns and the insurance industry

MICHELLE CHAPMAN
Wed, August 9, 2023



The damage caused by a tornado to Beamer Place Apartments in Houston is seen on Jan. 25, 2023. A series of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. resulted in $34 billion in insured losses during the first half of the year, the highest amount ever for insured losses in the period, according to Swiss Re Group.

 (Yi-Chin Lee/Houston Chronicle via AP, File)

Waves of severe thunderstorms in the U.S. during the first half of this year led to $34 billion in insured losses, an unprecedented level of financial damage in such a short time, according to Swiss Re Group, as climate change contributes to the frequency and severity of violent meteorological events.

Damages from convective storms in the U.S., those that can come with hail, lightning, heavy rain and high winds, accounted for nearly 70% of the $50 billion in global catastrophic damages so far this year, the reinsurer said Wednesday. Those global figures includes earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

The storms in the U.S. were so severe, there were 10 that resulted in damages of $1 billion or more, almost double the average recorded over the past decade, according to Swiss Re, and Texas was the state most severely effected.

“The effects of climate change can already be seen in certain perils like heatwaves, droughts, floods and extreme precipitation,” Swiss Re Group Chief Economist Jérôme Jean Haegeli said in a prepared statement. “Besides the impact of climate change, land use planning in more exposed coastal and riverine areas, and urban sprawl into the wilderness, generate a hard-to-revert combination of high value exposure in higher risk environments."

There have been a multitude of high profile meteorological events to start the second half of the year including heatwaves in the U.S., northwestern China and southern Europe, and wildfires on Greek islands, Italy and in Algeria.

Damages and insurance losses from those events are still being tallied, Swiss Re said.

The figures for the first half of the year are in line with a report last month from another reinsurer, Munich Re, which said the series of thunderstorms that raked Texas in June was the most expensive single event in the U.S. for the year so far. The overall loss from those storms alone is estimated at approximately $8.4 billion.

“Devastating storms, which now seem to be the norm rather than the exception, are expected to continue to grow in intensity and severity," wrote Marcus Winter, CEO, North America at Munich Reinsurance America.

Winter said that it is “imperative” to act immediately in preparing communities for the "physical and financial risks of future climate-related weather events.”

Reinsurers are the insurance industry's insurers, covering losses that could upend an individual company. Munich Re and Swiss Re have operations across the globe, including the U.S.


Kerry Symons is a businessman in Perryton, a town of about 8,500 in the Texas Panhandle, one of the communities struck by a tornado in June, and he is also its mayor. Three of his buildings were damaged and destroyed, including a furniture store. He also lost some vehicles.

Symons said he is like most residents in Perrytown in that he is still arguing with insurance companies. Some residents have sought his assistance as mayor.

“There’s not a whole lot we can do for them as a city,” he explained.

One lesson Symons has learned from the ordeal is the importance of an annual accounting for the cost of what is inside a building and what it would cost to rebuild. One of his buildings, a furniture store, was acquired recently so the valuation was easy. Another building that he has owned for 20 years has proved more difficult.

The increasing frequency of extreme weather has created disruptions within the insurance industry and some insurers have retreated from states that are getting hit hard, such as Florida and California.

The pullback by insurers is happening despite years of skyrocketing premiums for property owners in hard hit states.

State Farm and Allstate have pulled back from California’s home insurance market, saying that increasing wildfire risk and soaring construction costs mean they’ll no longer write new policies in the nation’s most populous state.

Last month Travelers said catastrophe losses doubled in its most recent quarter and the company, considered a bellwether for the insurance industry due to its size, said it lost money.

AAA has said that it will not renew “a very small percentage” of homeowners and auto insurance policies in hurricane-wracked Florida, joining other insurers in limiting their exposure in the Sunshine State despite efforts by lawmakers to calm the volatile insurance market.

AAA insists it’s not leaving Florida, but that last year’s devastating hurricane season had led to an unprecedented rise in reinsurance rates, making it more costly to operate there.

Florida has struggled to maintain stability in the state insurance market since 1992 when Hurricane Andrew flattened Homestead, wiped out some insurance carriers and left many remaining insurers anxious about writing or renewing policies in Florida. Risks for carriers have also been growing as climate change increases the strength of hurricanes and the intensity of rainstorms.

UK would be outlier with Russia if it left ECHR, Law Society says

Rowena Mason

 Whitehall editor

THE GUARDIAN
Wed, 9 August 2023 

Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

The UK would be an international outlier along with Russia and Belarus if it left the European convention on human rights, a leading law body has warned, after a senior minister signalled that the move could be an option to stop small boat crossings.

Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said the government would do “whatever is necessary”, even if that meant pulling out of the ECHR, the 70-year-old pan-European treaty that protects human rights and political freedoms in the continent.

His comments are an escalation of the government’s previous statements that leaving the ECHR was not an immediate step it was going to take. It has insisted that it can deliver on Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” within the convention.


But the Conservatives could dial up their rhetoric against the ECHR in order to create a dividing line with Labour before an election, with senior MPs telling the BBC they thought Sunak could fight a campaign pledging to leave.

The Law Society, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, said small boat crossings by asylum seekers “will not be tackled by leaving an extremely successful international agreement designed to protect individual rights and support political stability”.

Related: Battle over Rwanda deportations to continue as No 10 gears up for appeal

Lubna Shuja, its president, said: “Leaving the ECHR would mean the UK would sit as an outlier in Europe, alongside only Russia and Belarus, who are already outside the convention.

“This would be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, when the government already has a perfectly good nutcracker it can use.”

The Law Society said bringing down the case backlog for asylum applications and tackling issues with the Illegal Migration Act would be the way to address problems with the system.

Human rights groups also expressed alarm. Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said leaving the ECHR “will not correct any of the failings of this government that have led to the record backlog in asylum claims, or the continued loss of life in the waters around Europe”.

Charlie Falconer, the Labour peer who was justice secretary in Tony Blair’s government, says Jenrick’s suggestion was yet another example of the “deliberate undermining of the law and lawyers by the government”, following the government attacking “lefty” members of the profession for failures in their own immigration policy.

The government’s plan to send people to Rwanda for processing of their asylum claims is still facing a supreme court battle. The first flight was stopped at the 11th hour in June last year after an appeal to the European court of human rights, which ensures that the rights enshrined in the convention are upheld by its 46 signatory countries. It is separate from the EU, which the UK voted to leave in 2016.

There are already calls from some within the Conservatives to withdraw from the ECHR. Suella Braverman, the home secretary, who is also a lawyer, has previously expressed a view that the UK should leave.

On Times Radio, Jenrick would not rule out withdrawal from the convention, saying the government would do “whatever is necessary”. “You can see from the prime minister, the home secretary and myself, our total commitment to this challenge,” he said.

Related: Downing Street backs Tory deputy chair over ‘back to France’ comments

“That’s why we’re working on every possible front. That’s why we have produced the most comprehensive plan, I believe, of any European country to tackle this issue. And we’ll do whatever is necessary, ultimately, to defend our borders and to bring order to our asylum system.”

Pressed directly on whether that could include leaving the ECHR, he said: “We will do whatever is required, take whatever necessary action is needed.”

Later on Wednesday, a No 10 source sought to dampen the suggestion that the UK would leave the ECHR. “Our stop the boats act will deliver the changes necessary to reduce the incentives for people to risk their lives through illegal crossings while remaining party to the ECHR,” the source said.

“Our world-leading partnership with Rwanda will work alongside this as part of our plan to stop the boats.

“The court of appeal was clear that the policy of relocating asylum seekers to a safe third country for the processing of their claims is in line with the refugee convention and we remain confident in the legality of the partnership. Our focus is now on next steps and our appeal.”

Jenrick gave his assessment as he announced that the government had struck a deal with Turkey to focus on coordinated actions to “disrupt and dismantle” people-smuggling gangs.

On Tuesday night the government announced the establishment of an operational “centre of excellence” by the Turkish national police and supported by the UK. The centre would aim to strengthen collaboration between the National Crime Agency and Home Office intelligence staff based in Turkey and their Turkish counterparts, the British government said.

UK
Starmer challenged over would-be MP’s Greenpeace links


David Hughes, PA Political Editor
Tue, 8 August 2023

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has been challenged by the Tories to ban members of “eco mob” Greenpeace from standing for the party.

Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps issued the demand after it emerged Labour’s candidate in Mid Bedfordshire, Alistair Strathern, was part of a zombie-themed publicity stunt in Westminster.

The Government has cut engagement with Greenpeace after the environmental group staged a protest at Rishi Sunak’s house.

Mr Strathern hopes to win Mid Bedfordshire for Labour when Tory former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries finally quits Parliament, as she promised to do in June.

The Sun newspaper revealed he had been part of a Greenpeace demonstration against the Government’s public order legislation in November 2022.

He was pictured in zombie make up outside the Home Office and the Houses of Parliament.


It is believed to be the only publicity stunt Mr Strathern joined for the group and he has never been party of any direct action.

Mr Shapps said: “Labour have gone too far this time – plotting to put eco-fanatics in Parliament.”

In a message to Sir Keir he said: “I’m challenging you to today ban members of the eco-mob from Labour’s candidate list.”

Labour candidate Alistair Strathern (PA)

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “A vote for Labour is literally a vote for the eco-zealots.”

Labour sources dismissed the criticism from ministers and the party has previously condemned Greenpeace for targeting the Prime Minister’s home earlier this month.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “The people of Mid Bedfordshire are sick of being taken for granted by the Tories and it’s time for change.

“They deserve an opportunity to elect a local, hardworking, full time MP, and that is exactly what Labour is offering.”