CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Nikola founder lied to investors about tech, prosecutor says in fraud trial

Jody Godoy
Tue, September 13, 2022 



Trevor Milton, founder and former-CEO of Nikola Corp.,

 exits court in New York City

By Jody Godoy

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Nikola Corp founder Trevor Milton became a billionaire by lying to investors about the most important aspects of his low-emission vehicle company, a prosecutor told jurors as Milton's fraud trial began on Tuesday.

Prosecutors have said Milton sought to deceive investors about the electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker's technology starting in November 2019. He left the company in September 2020 after a report by short seller Hindenburg Research called the company a "fraud."

"He lied to dupe innocent investors into buying his company’s stock," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos said in U.S. District Court in New York. "On the backs of those innocent investors taken in by his lies, he became a billionaire virtually overnight."

Milton, 40, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud.

Milton’s attorney Marc Mukasey on Tuesday called the case "prosecution by distortion" and said the entrepreneur sought to express a vision about the future of trucking, not mislead investors.

Milton was "stoked" on the company's plans and had a good faith basis for his statements, Mukasey said. The attorney also took aim at a 2018 video prosecutors later showed jurors of a truck appearing to drive on its own power when it was actually rolling down a hill.

"As far as I know, it's not a federal crime to use special effects in a car commercial," he said.

Prosecutors allege Milton "doubled down" on earlier lies when the company went public. Nikola has said it did not claim the truck was moving under its own power, only that it was "in motion."

Milton's attorneys also have indicated they will argue other top executives at Nikola, including its general counsel, approved of Milton's statements.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos on Monday oversaw the selection of a panel of 12 jurors and four alternates in federal court in Manhattan.

Milton was indicted last year. Prosecutors said he made false statements about Nikola's progress on developing its technology as the company joined the mounting number of tech and electric vehicle companies going public through special purpose acquisition vehicles or SPACs.

Milton's statements on social media and in podcasts targeted retail investors who piled into the stock market during COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdowns, they said. Milton also stands accused of defrauding the seller of a Utah ranch, who said in a civil lawsuit that he accepted Nikola stock options as part of the purchase price based on the former CEO's claims about the company.

Nikola has spent more than $20 million on Milton's legal defense so far, according to its public filings.

The company went public in June 2020 through a reverse merger with VectoIQ Acquisition Corp. Nikola's market value topped $33 billion that month, but has since fallen below $3 billion.

Nikola agreed in December to pay $125 million to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's claims that the company defrauded investors by misleading them about its products, technical advancements and commercial prospects.

(Reporting by Jody Godoy and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Jonathan Oatis and David Gregorio)

 

Trevor Milton founded buzzy EV

company Nikola and positioned 

himself as the next Elon Musk

—then his $34 billion house of 

cards came crashing down

Christiaan Hetzner

Tue, September 13, 2022 

For many, he’s the worst fraudster since Elizabeth Holmes fooled some of the world’s smartest people with her blood testing company Theranos.

Trevor Milton is due in court today, where he will stand trial for manipulating investors with promises he was the next Elon Musk and his company, Nikola Corp., the next Tesla.

He even duped a gullible General Motors, who signed a partnership just weeks before his elaborate ruse was uncovered.

It wasn’t until Hindenburg Research’s Nate Anderson unveiled nearly two years ago to the day that his fuel cell semi was a sham that the house of cards he so meticulously constructed came crashing down.

The rise of Nikola

First unveiled as a prototype to the public in December 2016, the Nikola One semi truck “dared to reimagine” the modern truck by running on pure hydrogen with only water vapor as a tailpipe emission.

While this technology exists today, it has never been successfully produced and sold at mass scale due to its prohibitive costs. Only Toyota, its partner BMW and Hyundai are still clinging to the technology as an alternative to battery-powered passenger cars.

So when the stock debuted in 2020 via a reverse merger with a blank-check investment vehicle known as a SPAC, investors snapped up shares to get in on the ground floor of the next Tesla. Sure enough, its market cap briefly surpassed that of industry veteran Ford, surging to $34 billion despite Nikola never having brought a single product yet to market.

More lies ensued in the process, as it rushed out announcements it could produce hydrogen cheaper than anyone else, had a game-changing battery technology up its sleeve and would build a new pickup truck called the Badger for the lucrative retail market.

General Motors agreed in September 2020 to a manufacturing partnership receiving 20% of its shares as part of a deal to build its Badger, lifting the value of its stock yet again.

At the time shares in Tesla had begun their unprecedented pandemic surge as many retail investors, in lockdown and working from home, had time and money to spare.

This new class of shareholder believed traditional automakers to be doomed in the long term, saddled with stranded assets like combustion engine plants that would have to be written off, and preferred high-growth startups with lofty dreams.

Milton preyed on this type of investor. "The generation that is investing now cares more about the environmental impact of what you’re doing than they do if you’re six months or eight months from revenue," he told CNBC's Fast Money in June 2020. "They don’t care, they’re like, you know what, you’re changing the world, you’re going to reduce emissions more than anyone else, we’re invested into you.”

When GM signed the deal, CEO Mary Barra failed to properly explain what technology her company was actually securing. Hindenburg Research was convinced GM merely looked to bask in the collective shine of its charismatic founder, “a forward-thinking, fresh, visionary entrepreneur capable of rivaling Elon Musk’s allure.”

Milton's fall

Days later it dropped a bombshell report that the 1,000-horsepower Nikola One truck featured in its promotional video, in reality, had no drivetrain at all and was in fact merely filmed cleverly as it rolled down a hill, documenting a raft of further misstatements that took advantage of investors' willingness to believe.

“Nikola is an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies over the course of its founder and executive chairman Trevor Milton’s career,” Anderson’s professional short-selling firm reported, adding it had “never seen this level of deception at a public company, especially of this size.”

A point-by-point rebuttal promised by Milton never ensued. Instead, all he could offer were half-denials.

Shortly thereafter he stepped down as CEO. In July 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Milton. That December, Nikola Motors settled out of court with the SEC over fraud charges, agreeing to pay a $125 million fine.

Its stock is currently trading over 5% lower, but it still manages to hold a market cap of $2 billion as the company has finally brought a truck to market, the Nikola Tre. That is, however, largely thanks to the efforts of its partner CNH Industrial, whose Iveco Daily serves as the underlying product.

On Tuesday, Milton will have to answer for his years of deception.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Meta Seeks Out Secrets From Over 100 Companies to Win Antitrust Suit

Leah Nylen and Alex Barinka
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- To defend itself against the federal government, Meta Platforms Inc. says it needs its rivals to divulge some of their most closely held secrets.

Facebook’s parent company has so far subpoenaed 132 companies for documents, including Snap Inc., ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and the audio startup Clubhouse, and has warned that it may seek information from 100 more. The subpoenas have set off a cascade of legal challenges from Meta’s rivals, which accuse the company of using antitrust litigation as an excuse to dig through their confidential data.

The hunt for information was triggered by the US Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Meta in 2020, alleging that the company monopolized the social networking market in part through its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Meta contests the allegation that it has a monopoly and argues that the market is constantly evolving, with newcomers like TikTok and Clubhouse as key examples.

A trial isn’t likely until 2024 at the earliest, but both sides are marshaling evidence for the case.

Kellie Lerner, an antitrust litigator at the law firm Robins Kaplan LLP who isn’t involved in the suit, said Meta’s requests seek “massive amounts of competitively sensitive information.”

“You have a company accused of anticompetitive conduct who is now seeking very competitively sensitive information in discovery,” said Lerner, who has litigated many antitrust disputes. “The sheer breadth of what they are trying to get through discovery is something that, in my view, is not typical.”

Meta has asked for documents relating to some of the most important and sensitive elements of how competitors do business, according to court filings, including how they acquire users, scale up products and make money from features. It also wants materials on rivals’ marketing and sales strategies, quality metrics, contact information for their biggest advertisers, and details on their efforts to attract users from competitors, among other secrets.

Meta’s request is “overbroad and abusive,” Snap said in court filings. A California federal judge is set to decide Tuesday how much Snap -- a key figure in the FTC suit and a company that Meta previously tried to acquire -- must turn over to aid the defense’s case.

Meta’s request seeks “materials on every product and nearly every aspect of Snap’s business, with a time range that spans almost Snap’s entire existence,” lawyers for that company said. “Snap should not be forced to hand Meta insiders a competitive playbook.”

In court filings, Meta said it needs the information from its rivals to dispute the FTC’s contentions that it is a monopoly and doesn’t face competition.

“Meta competes vigorously with many companies to help people share, connect, communicate or simply be entertained,” Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said. “As a natural step in preparing our defense to the FTC’s lawsuit, we have served subpoenas on companies with which we compete or which we believe have other information relating to the FTC’s claims.”

While Snap is among the most vocal opponents of Meta’s subpoenas, it’s not the only one. TikTok complained that Meta has sought its “most confidential and highly sensitive business information.” Pinterest Inc., Microsoft Corp.’s LinkedIn and others raised concerns about Meta’s “highly invasive” requests, which they said seek their “most competitively sensitive documents.”

Other companies that Meta has subpoenaed include Tinder parent company Match Group Inc., Twitter Inc., Reddit Inc. and Oracle Corp.

Meta’s document requests also aren’t limited to US social networking services. It has sought information from Line Corp. -- a company owned by SoftBank Corp. and Naver Corp. that’s the top messaging service in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand -- as well as Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Group Inc., which owns Viber, a messaging app popular in India, Ukraine and Russia.

Beyond the scope of the requests, Meta’s rivals say the company’s history of hoarding intelligence on competitors should be considered. In 2013, Meta -- then known as Facebook -- acquired a little-known Israeli startup called Onavo that gave the social giant information on ​​how often users open other apps on their phones. Facebook used Onavo’s data to find ways to quash or buy potential rivals, including WhatsApp, the FTC alleged in its complaint.

Apple Inc. banned Onavo in 2018, saying the data collection violated its App Store rules, and Facebook shut it down in 2019. That year, the social giant ​​launched a new research app called Study that would compensate users for data on what smartphone apps they download, what features they use and how much time they spend on them.

TikTok is worried that Meta’s lawyers may inadvertently disclose information that could be used by the company, given its history of copying the features and tactics of its competitors. Meta duplicated Snapchat’s Stories product and TikTok’s short-form videos on both Facebook and Instagram. And the company is currently looking at changing users’ content feeds in a way that would resemble the approach used by TikTok.

TikTok’s attorneys said they have tried for months to narrow Meta’s request and asked the court to limit the information that Meta’s in-house lawyers could view.

“They cannot unlearn any highly sensitive competitive information they receive from TikTok, and it is unclear how they can do their job as in-house antitrust lawyers without advising Meta on competitive matters,” TikTok’s lawyers said.

Lerner, the antitrust litigator, noted that Meta also sought expansive documents from the FTC itself, asking the court to force the agency to turn over its original analysis of the 2012 Instagram and 2014 WhatsApp deals. The judge rejected Meta’s request.

“It reflects their scorched-earth defense strategy here to fight in whatever manner is available to them,” she said.

In One Chart
The Meta meltdown: This chart shows Facebook’s fall from grace among the most valuable U.S. companies

Published: Sept. 13, 2022 

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms was the fifth-most-valuable company in the U.S. near the end of last year, but has since fallen behind Visa, Tesla and others


Meta Platforms Inc. has seen a sharp decline in its market value since the end of last year, taking the company from the fifth-most-valuable U.S. company as of December to now the 10th-most-valuable. ASSOCIATED PRES

Dogged by competitive and macroeconomic threats, Meta Platforms Inc. is sinking down the ranks of the largest U.S. companies.

After a 9.4% daily slide in its stock, Meta META, -9.37% ranked 10th by market value as of Tuesday’s close, falling below Visa Inc. V, -3.37% for the first time since the start of August. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, ranked fifth among U.S. companies as recently as December, according to Dow Jones Market Data, and joined the four other Big Tech companies — Apple Inc. AAPL, -5.87%, Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -5.50%, Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL, -5.90% GOOG, -5.86% and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -7.06% — in the $1 trillion club briefly last year.


Meta’s shares have been punished this year, however, amid concerns about competitive dynamics and the impact of economic uncertainty on advertising revenue. That $1 trillion market cap has been cut by more than half, allowing several companies to jump in front of Meta — which announced its new corporate name last October — on the valuation chart.


Meta’s market value has taken a steep plunge in the past year. SENTIEO

Visa was valued at $413 billion as of Tuesday’s close, compared with $412 billion for Meta. Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM, -2.34% is next on the list with a market capitalization of $397 billion, per Dow Jones Market Data. Standing above Visa are still the four other Big Tech companies in Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon, as well as Tesla Inc. TSLA, -4.04%, Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRK.A, -3.32%, UnitedHealth Group Inc. UNH, -3.25% and Johnson & Johnson JNJ, -2.60%.

Meta’s stock suffered its sharpest daily decline since February in Tuesday’s trading amid broad-market pressure brought on by the latest consumer-price-index reading, which resurfaced fears about the potential effects of inflation on the advertising landscape.

“Meta, like the other social-media companies, has been negatively affected by the moves that Apple did in the advertising business as well as the general anticipation of lower ad spending as we might be going into a recession,” said Nick Mazing, the director of research at Sentieo, who’s been tracking the changes in market values over recent weeks.

In-depth: Apple decimated Meta’s ad-tech empire. Now, it’s homing in on Facebook’s advertisers, too.

“Additional factors include competition from TikTok and investor skepticism regarding the company’s metaverse efforts,” Mazing said.

Executives at Meta have cautioned about the impact that inflationary pressures and other economic issues could have on the business, with Sheryl Sandberg, then the company’s chief operating officer, telling investors on Meta’s last earnings call that “recessions put pressure on marketers to make sure their ad budgets are spent in the smartest way possible,” though she thought that Meta tools could help them maximize their investments.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on that July call that “we seem to have entered an economic downturn that will have a broad impact on the digital advertising business.”.

Visa shares have held up better amid the inflationary backdrop, falling just 8% on the year as Meta shares have lost 54%.

While Meta executives have sounded a cautious tone on the current landscape, Visa’s management team has come off more upbeat due to the nature of the payments giant’s business. Back in April, Visa Chief Financial Officer Vasant Prabhu said that inflation had “net-net” been positive for Visa, and as recently as Monday, he said that consumer spending remained resilient.

Visa “is somewhat isolated from the big macro story, the persistent inflation, as they get paid on nominal volumes,” Mazing told MarketWatch, noting that the company has also been benefiting from the big rebound in international travel and the spending that comes with it.

Meta briefly flirted with placement outside the top 10 U.S. most valuable U.S. companies at the start of August, but its dip below Visa this time around keeps it inside the top 10 as fellow technology company Nvidia Corp. NVDA, -9.47% has also seen its value fall sharply in recent weeks.

Nvidia ranked as high as seventh by market cap earlier this year, but it now stands in 15th place with a $327 billion valuation, per Dow Jones Market Data, amid inventory issues that have hit revenue totals and a U.S. crackdown on sales of high-performance artificial-intelligence technology to China.

KICK BACK
Vedanta picks Modi's home state for $20 billion India semiconductor foray -sources

Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil
Mon, 12 September 2022 


By Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattil

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Vedanta Ltd has selected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat for its semiconductor project, two sources told Reuters, the first major step in its $20 billion joint venture with Taiwan's Foxconn.

Vedanta obtained financial and non-financial subsidies including on capital expenditure and cheap electricity from Gujarat to build the semiconductor plants, the first source with knowledge of the matter said.

The project will include display and semiconductor facilities near the largest city of Ahmedabad in the western state, the source added, declining to be named ahead of an official announcement.

While lobbying for incentives, Vedanta had sought 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of land free of cost on a 99-year lease, and water and power at concessionary and fixed prices for 20 years, Reuters reported in April.

A spokesperson for Vedanta did not respond to a request for comment while Foxconn did not immediately respond.

A senior official in Gujarat's science and technology department, and another in Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel's office, declined to comment.

An announcement is expected this week with a formal signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two sides, which is likely to be attended by Patel and Vedanta officials, the source added.

Other regions including India's richest state of Maharashtra in west and Telangana and Karnataka in the south had also been in the running to host Vedanta-Foxconn's mega project.

But in the last leg of negotiations in recent weeks, Gujarat pipped Maharashtra to the post.

India's semiconductor market is estimated to reach $63 billion by 2026 from $15 billion in 2020, the government says.

Most of the world's chip output is limited to a few countries like Taiwan and late entrant India is now actively luring companies to "usher in a new era in electronics manufacturing" as it seeks for ways to have seamless access to chips.

Vedanta, an oil-to-metals conglomerate, decided in February to diversify into chip manufacturing and formed the joint venture with Foxconn.

(Reporting by Aditya Kalra and Munsif Vengattill in New Delhi, additional reporting by Sumit Khanna in Gujarat; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Does it pay to talk salary? Experts weigh in as California joins a growing wave of states with laws to combat 'culture of secrecy' in the US workforce


Serah Louis
Tue, September 13, 2022



A growing number of states and cities have begun establishing laws to encourage pay transparency — although there are still many corporations around the country that keep salary talk hush-hush.

“There's definitely a culture of secrecy in the United States,” says Andrea Johnson, director of state policy, workplace justice and cross-cutting initiatives at the National Women’s Law Center, based in Washington, DC.

“That comes from a lot of different directions. But it's definitely coming from employers that have long felt that it's to their advantage to keep pay and how they set pay secret.”

This workplace culture appears to be slowly shifting as more states introduce laws around salary transparency.

California recently made headlines for approving a landmark bill mandating more transparency from employers when it comes to disclosing wage gaps and posting salary ranges on job listings.

Some experts say these laws are especially advantageous when it comes to attracting new hires or reducing pay inequity — but there may be caveats for both employers and employees to watch out for as well.

More states are requiring salary ranges on job listings

California’s new law would require employers with at least 15 workers to include the hourly rate or salary range on job listings. The bill is heading to Governor Gavin Newsom, who has until Sep. 30 to either veto or sign it into effect.

Over a dozen states and localities have some sort of law requiring salary disclosure. And since 2018, eight states have passed laws requiring employers to post salary ranges on job listings, says Johnson.

Some laws, such as in Colorado, prevent employers from inquiring about their employee’s past salary experience as well. Twenty states have protections in place to allow employees to discuss their wages with a colleague without facing retaliation from an employer.
How can these laws change the employment landscape

Experts like Johnson have advocated for these laws to help reduce racial and gender wage gaps — which often get swept under the rug when there’s less transparency in the workplace.

Women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man makes, according to 2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And Department of Labor data indicates most racial minority groups also earn significantly less on average compared to white workers.

California’s new law also says companies based in the state with more than 100 employees will also need to show their median gender and racial pay gaps, which is a notable first for a U.S. state.

“I think we're in a moment of cultural change in the last few years, where employers are realizing that it's actually to their advantage to be more transparent about pay,” says Johnson, adding that the country is still contending with a tight labor market.

July data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that there were 11.2 million job openings on the last day of the month — compared to 11 million openings in June. Johnson believes employers who post their salary ranges may have better luck attracting new talent.

Johnson believes employers can actually benefit from being more transparent — by building trust with their employees.

“Transparency is power,” she says.

However, there’s also been some pushback from businesses. New York City’s pay transparency law was delayed from May to November. And some companies have reportedly been excluding remote work applicants from Colorado, which requires that even companies that aren’t based in the state follow its pay transparency law for an employee who does reside in Colorado.
Are there any drawbacks to these laws?

These pay transparency laws can vary across the country, which means employees and employers need to do their research first.

“The devil is in the details,” notes Beth Ann Lennon, a labor and employment lawyer at Sherman & Howard, based in Denver, Colorado.

Some states require salary postings on job postings, while others only provide this information upon request or during the application process. Some may require companies hiring outside of the state to adhere to the same rules.

And Lennon says while the intent behind these laws may be to encourage more open dialogue around pay and to address pay inequity, she adds, “Whether that intent is being accomplished, I think, is more of the open question.”

She offers the example of an employee negotiating for a higher salary in a state like Colorado that bars employers from using past wage experience to determine the employee’s current salary.

“There are laws telling you don't talk to your employees in the way that you historically have — as it relates to what are your pay expectations, what have you made in your last jobs? That kind of back and forth sometimes really helps an employee advocate for themselves,” Lennon explains.

“And so one of those tools that an employee may have previously had is gone.”
What do employees need to know?

If you’re trying to figure out how your pay compares to your coworkers, you may have considered sharing your salary information with them, or asking them about their own.

But talking about salary with a coworker remains a controversial topic — some employers still discourage the practice.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, employees have the right to talk about wages with another employee, while some states also include their own laws and protections around discussing pay.

“But that doesn't always stop an employer from retaliating and somebody potentially being demoted or losing their job, which can be really harmful and not immediately remedied,” notes Johnson.

For those who would prefer to keep that information to themselves, Lennon says you also have the right to not engage in conversations about salary with another employee as well.

For those on the job hunt, Johnson recommends looking into your state laws.

If you’re able to request salary information from a potential employer, she says it’s important to do so as quickly as possible to help you decide how to negotiate.

Stellantis to buy back shares worth about $920 million from GM

Tue, September 13, 2022

The logo of Stellantis is seen on a company's building in

 Velizy-Villacoublay near Paris

(Reuters) - American-Italian-French automaker Stellantis NV said on Tuesday it will buy back shares worth about 923 million euros ($919.31 million) from General Motors Co.

Stellantis said it would buy back about 69.1 million common shares, or about 2.2% of the company's share capital.

General Motors currently holds this stake in Stellantis in warrants, which it will convert into equity shares for Stellantis to purchase on Thursday, according to the statement.

GM was issued these warrants by Peugeot SA in 2017 as part of the U.S.-based automaker's sale of Opel-Vauxhall business. In 2021, Peugeot completed its own merger with Fiat Chrysler to become Stellantis.

In addition to the price for shares, Stellantis will also pay GM in 1.2 million common shares of car parts maker Faurecia SE and about 130 million euros in cash for rights to dividends paid by Peugeot and Stellantis.

Wells Fargo Commits to Racial-Equity Audit Ahead of Hearings

Hannah Levitt
Tue, September 13, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. will commission a third-party racial-equity audit after years of advising shareholders to vote against one, as Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf prepares to appear at a pair of congressional hearings.

The audit will examine Wells Fargo’s business in diverse communities and support of diversity in its workforce, according to a statement Tuesday. Wells Fargo hired law firm Covington & Burling LLP to do the assessment and plans to publish results by the end of next year.

Wells Fargo has come under fire from lawmakers this year after a Bloomberg News investigation found the lender approved fewer than half of mortgage refinancings sought by Black homeowners during the pandemic, a lower rate than for White applicants. The scrutiny was further heightened by a New York Times report that the wealth-management division had conducted sham interviews with Black and female candidates for positions that were no longer available, prompting the firm to review and adjust hiring practices.

“Commissioning this work is a critical next step in reinforcing our commitment to racial equity and closing the wealth gap in this country,” Scharf said in the statement. “We consistently strive to measure our progress and hold ourselves accountable.”

Wells Fargo joins rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. in agreeing to such an audit. The San Francisco-based firm urged shareholders to vote against a shareholder-proposed racial-equity audit earlier this year and last year, arguing that it was already committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. On both occasions, shareholders rejected the proposals.

There are some differences, at least in phrasing, between the audit proposed at this year’s annual shareholder gathering and what Wells Fargo said it’s undertaking. The earlier proposal asked the board to study the lender’s “adverse impacts” on communities of color. In its statement Tuesday, the bank said the review will focus on efforts to “serve diverse communities and promote a diverse workforce.”

Scharf and peers including JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon are set to testify before the House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee next week.

Checkout.com Will Eliminate About 5% of Employees in Latest Cut

Ivan Levingston
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- Checkout.com is eliminating 5% of its staff, the latest in a series of job cuts that’s swept technology companies this year as investors pull back on funding.

The company confirmed that it was reducing its workforce by about 100 people in a statement in response to Bloomberg questions on Tuesday.

“This decision did not come lightly, but will allow us to focus on the strategic priorities against our mission,” a company spokesperson said in the statement.

A wave of layoffs is hitting technology startups that rely on funding from increasingly cautious investors. Publicly announced job cuts jumped to 37,000 in the second quarter from under 3,000 a year ago, according to Layoffs.fyi, which collects data on jobs in the tech industry. Buy-now-pay-later giant Klarna Bank AB said in May it would trim about 10% of its workforce and in July announced a “down round” that cut its valuation to $6.7 billion from $45.6 billion.

Read More: Startups That Grew Fast Learn Shrinking Can Be Just as Tough

Checkout.com separately fired several employees earlier this year due to harassment complaints that arose from an off-site trip to Cyprus, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

Checkout.com was last valued at $40 billion in January after raising $1 billion from investors including Tiger Global Management and the Qatar Investment Authority. At the start of the year, the company said it employed more than 1,700 people in 19 countries.

It processes payments for companies such as Pizza Hut Inc. and Farfetch Ltd., according to its website. In recent years it also made a significant push into working with cryptocurrency companies such as Coinbase Global Inc. and Binance.

Read More: Checkout.com Fires Staff Over Harassment Claims From Cyprus Trip

Fintech and cryptocurrency transactions accounted for more than half of the company’s payments volume, its chief financial officer told the Wall Street Journal in January. Many crypto trading platforms have seen transactions drop amid a broader downturn in valuations for the digital currencies.

Singapore Exchange Makes Push for Full Disclosure of CEO Pay

Ishika Mookerjee
Mon, September 12, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- Singapore Exchange Ltd. is planning changes to its corporate disclosure rules, including asking companies to reveal exactly how much their chief executive officers are paid.

own as SGX RegCo, will consult the market on requiring disclosures for the remuneration of CEOs and directors, according to a statement. It will also propose imposing a nine-year cap on the tenure of independent directors. It didn’t provide a timeline for either consultation.

There’s been a global push for more transparency on executive pay, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission last month introducing a rule requiring disclosure of additional details such as performance incentives. Singapore is also seeking to change low board renewal at local companies, where it’s common to see independent directors in their positions for about a decade or longer.

“I’m quite disappointed with how companies have approached the whole long-serving IDs matter,” Tan Boon Gin, CEO of SGX RegCo, said at a briefing. Meanwhile, “remuneration disclosures remain poor” with companies citing competition as the reason, he added.

Only 5% of companies fully disclosed the remuneration amount in dollar value paid to both directors and CEOs on a named basis, with breakdowns for salary, bonus and benefits, according to a review by KPMG LLP of the Code of Corporate Governance disclosures for Singapore-listed companies. The review’s findings were released in June.

The Singapore regulator is making a push for companies to become more ESG-conscious, also requiring mandatory climate-related disclosures as well as those around board diversity.

Smallest French Corn Crop Since 1990 Shows Drought’s Huge Toll

Megan Durisin
Tue, September 13, 2022 



(Bloomberg) -- French farmers are collecting their smallest corn crop in more than three decades, highlighting the massive toll that summer drought has wrought on Europe’s food supplies.

Heat and dryness gripped much of the continent throughout summer, in what may be its worst drought in at least 500 years. That’s been particularly brutal for farmers, who are already dipping into winter forage reserves to feed cattle as pastures wither and who face shrinking output of everything from potatoes to sugar.

The corn harvest has just kicked off in France, one of Europe’s agricultural heavyweights. The country’s production of the staple grain used to feed chickens and pigs will fall 25% to 11.6 million tons, the lowest since 1990, its agriculture ministry said Tuesday. The adverse weather has reduced harvests of almost all crops from last year, apart from oilseeds, the report showed.

“No region is spared from the drop in yield,” the French ministry said of corn.

The smaller crops threaten to keep food prices high. Consumer food costs in July already jumped 12% from last year in the European Union and even more in the UK. The bloc is importing corn from nations like Ukraine to help ease the shortfall, although sales from the war-torn country are expected to fall by half versus the prior season.

Fields in Germany and Romania, other key EU producers, also suffered from drought. Plus, producers are grappling with spiraling costs of fertilizer and gas, which is used to dry crops like corn after they’re harvested.

Still, rains have picked up this month, according to forecaster Maxar. That should improve conditions for winter-wheat planting that is now underway.

French corn futures were little changed near the highest in almost three weeks on Tuesday.

P3 PUBLIC PENSIONS FUND PRIVATIZATION

OTPP Is Said to Near Deal to Buy EQT’s Stake in Packaging Firm

Manuel Baigorri and Kiel Porter

Mon, September 12, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, one of Canada’s largest public-sector pension managers, is nearing a deal to buy a stake in specialty packaging company GPA Global from buyout firm EQT AB, according to people familiar with the matter.

OTPP is poised to beat out rival bidders for the stake in GPA, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. The parties are hammering out the final details of a transaction that could be announced in the next few weeks, the people said.

The Canadian fund and Asian private equity firm FountainVest Partners were among shortlisted bidders vying for the stake, Bloomberg News reported last month. The deal could value the packaging business at about $700 million to $800 million, people familiar with the matter have said.

While discussions are at an advanced stage, they could still be delayed or fall apart, the people said. Representatives for OTPP and Stockholm-based EQT declined to comment.

GPA, founded as Green Packaging Asia in 2007, makes premium packaging for items including electronics, beauty products, cannabis, wine and spirits, according to its website. It has manufacturing sites across North America, Europe and Asia. EQT bought a co-controlling stake in the business in 2017 for an undisclosed amount, with the business co-founders remaining as majority shareholders after the transaction.

OTPP, which has set a target of $300 billion in net assets by 2030, has made similar acquisitions in the past. It bought a stake in packaging firm Logoplaste from Carlyle Group Inc. last year for an undisclosed amount.