Gunning for its biggest deal in nearly two decades, McDonald’s on Monday announced its plan to acquire Israeli personalization and decision logic technology company, Dynamic Yield.
The acquisition is in line with the company’s recent push towards technology across its different U.S. locations, as the company tries to come to terms with the digital revolution.
According to the company, McDonald’s is one of the pioneers within its industry space to integrate decision technology into the customer point of sale at a brick and mortar location.The acquisition is likely to help the company by changing digital drive-thru menus based on different factors like weather conditions and the current restaurant traffic.
Although the financial details of the deal are yet to be confirmed by either company, according to sources close to the deal McDonald’s is likely to pay more than $300 million - its biggest acquisition in two decades.
In 2019, according to the company, it is likely s
AstraZeneca plc says the European Commission (EC) has approved a label expansion of its diabetes drug, Forxiga.
Forxiga can now be used along with insulin in patients with Type-1 diabetes and a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 27 or more when insulin alone has not been able to control blood sugar levels, the company said.
Farxiga or Forxiga, as the drug is known outside the United States, is one of AstraZeneca’s top ten drugs by sales.It generated $1.39 billion in 2018.
S&P 500 companies returned a record $1.263 trillion to shareholders last year, according to data published Monday by S&P Dow Jones Indices.The amount is +37% higher compared to 2017.Share buybacks during the quarter were a record $223 billion.
For the full year 2018, Technology sector contributed to nearly a third (and the largest slice) of the S&P 500 buybacks at a total of $278.5 billion.
On the face of it, it may seem like Roku is in competition with Apple, who is likely to introduce smart TVs and other devices in the market which is likely to allow users to stream over-the-top content.But the presence of Roku’s CEO at the event suggests that both the companies are likely to work together to stay ahead of the curve.
According to the WSJ, Apple has been in talks with Roku and other platforms about hosting its TV app and the announcement of this arrangement is likely to happen on Monday.
Shares of Roku have risen ~114% from last year and with this jump, the company added ~$500 million to its market value, making it now worth $7.5 billion.
According to court documents released on Monday, the German pharmaceutical multinational, Bayer AG, and the American pharmaceutical major, Johnson & Johnson, have finally agreed to settle more than 25,000 U.S. lawsuits over their best-selling blood thinner Xarelto, for a total of $775 million.
Although Bayer and J&J are yet to admit liability under the agreement, the settlement resolves all the pending U.S. lawsuits over Xarelto.Plaintiffs accused the companies of failing to sufficiently notify patients on the risk of uncontrolled bleeding.
Bayer had jointly developed Xarelto with J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, which sells the blood clot preventer under a licensing agreement in the United States.
Xarelto emerged as Bayer’s best-selling drug in 2018 and contributed 3.6 billion euros ($4.07 billion) in revenue to the German group’s pharmaceutical business.
Hostess Brands and Nutella-owner Ferrero are competing to buy Kellogg's Keebler, Famous Amos and fruit snacks businesses, in a deal that could value the brands at roughly $1.5 billion.
In a recent shakeup across the food industry, big food companies are increasingly shedding smaller brands, as they intensify focus on the profit-makers.Taking advantage of such situations, companies like Hostess and Ferrero are placing a bet on these smaller brands as they believe the right strategy can successfully revive these already established brands.
According to sources familiar with the deal, both Hostess and Ferrero have put in their final offers to Kellogg for the cookie and fruit snacks brands.
Viacom had also previously said that it offered options to AT&T to reduce customers’ bills. AT&T had hit back claiming that some of Viacom’s channels were losing popularity, and called it “a serial bad actor” in negotiations with pay-TV companies.
If the dispute hadn’t been resolved, DirecTV customers could have lost access to Viacom channels like Nickelodeon, BET, MTV, Comedy Central and Paramount."We are pleased to announce a renewed Viacom-AT&T contract that includes continued carriage of Viacom services across multiple AT&T platforms and products," the companies said in a statement Monday.
Viacom shares surged as much as +8% on the news.
Avaya Holdings is reportedly considering a leveraged buyout offer from a private equity firm.
Citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, a Reuters report suggests that the telecommunications equipment and software vendor is being valued at more than $5 billion (including debt) by the private equity company.However, the identity of the potential acquirer has not been learned by Reuters yet, and the sources claimed that there is no guarantee that the proposed offer would actually translate into an actual acquisition.
Avaya emerged from bankruptcy protection around 15 months ago.
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American Airlines is cancelling 90 flights per day through April 24 as a result of the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
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The company’s same-store sales grew +3.8% year-over-year, beating analysts’ expectations of a flattish growth.
President and CEO Jeff Rosenthal pointed out that Hibbett’s digital sales surged +60% to account for 10.6% of the company’s total sales in the fourth quarter.Rosenthal cited “significant progress on our strategic initiatives along with compelling assortments from our key vendors" as key factors that bolstered the firm’s latest performance.
The analysts now expect Tesla to deliver 47,500 Model 3s this quarter, compared to their previous forecast of 55,000.
Cowen analyst Jeffrey Osborne seems skeptical on the U.S. market for Tesla cars, and anticipates the demand to decline until Tesla introduces a planned $35,000 version of the Model 3 in the second quarter.The analyst also mentioned that Tesla’s product price changes and the resulting pressure on margins have been incorporated in Cowen’s latest price targets on Tesla stock.
According to Cowen’s analysis, most of Tesla's first-quarter deliveries (22,000) is expected to come from the U.S. Additionally, China would probably deliver 10,000, Norway would supply 5,300, and the rest of Europe (outside of Norway) would account for 5,850 deliveries, according to the Cowen analysts’ forecasts.
Detroit based automobile manufacturer, General Motors, on Friday announced that it would make investments worth $300 million at its Orion Assembly Plant in Michigan, and is likely to add 400 jobs to build a new electric vehicle.
According to the GM CEO, Mary Barra, the new vehicle which will bear GM’s Chevrolet brand would be produced at its Orion plant outside Detroit.It was slated to be produced outside of the U.S. initially.
The $300 million investment comes as a part of the GM's pledge to invest a total of $1.8 billion in its U.S. manufacturing operations, which would create 700 new jobs and would support 28,000 jobs across six states.
According to the company, the reason for shifting the production of the new car to the U.S. is that it would require an advanced version of the platform used in the current Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle, which the Orion plant currently builds.
The company also warned that revenue growth could slow during the fourth and current quarter.
The shares of the sneaker giant closed on Thursday at record high of $88.01, after climbing more than 32% over the past 12 months.
Andy Campion, Oregon-based Nike’s CFO, told analysts on Thursday evening that it expects sales during its fiscal fourth quarter will be up a high-single-digit rate, on a constant currency basis.But currency headwinds are expected to reduce that growth by about 6 percentage points, therefore resulting in low-single-digit gains compared with a year ago.
For the quarter ending on February 28, the company reported an EPS of $0.68 versus an EPS estimate of $0.65.
U.S.home sales rose 11.8% in February, aided by accelerating wages and falling mortgage rates that are improving affordability.
The National Association of Realtors said that existing homes sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.51 million last month, a decisively sharp rebound from a pace of 4.94 million in January. Still, existing-home sales are down 1.8% from a year ago because of the severity of last year's slowdown.
The Boeing 737 trouble doesn’t seem to be ending, as Indonesia’s national airline handed Boeing its first official order cancelation following two deadly crashes in recent months.
Indonesian airline, Garuda, on Friday publicly announced it has told Boeing that it wishes to cancel its multibillion-dollar order for Boeing's 737 Max 8 passenger jet, citing that its passengers had lost confidence in the model after two deadly crashes in five months.
According to Garuda, it already sent a letter to Boeing on March 14, seeking to cancel the pending delivery of its 2014 order of 50 planes, of which just one had been delivered so far.
Estimated to be worth $4.9 billion, the cancelled order is the latest blow to Boeing over the 737 Max - its bestselling passenger jet.
The plane has been grounded by many authorities across different countries like U.S., Europe, China and Indonesia, but it's the first airline to say it's canceling a 737 Max 8 order.
Garuda spokesperson Ik
After what was a tepid year last year, the U.S. housing market started building up strength in 2019.
According to Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Survey, the average U.S. 30-year fixed-rate mortgage slipped to the lowest level in a year to 4.28% for the week ended Mar 21 from 4.31% recorded a week ago.It was also lower than the year-ago 4.45%.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.71%, down five basis points from 3.76% in the week earlier, while the five-year adjustable-rate mortgage was nearly flat at 3.84%.
Despite all the back and forth between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping’s negotiating teams, the U.S. and China will ultimately come to a trade agreement, according to one investor.READ MORE...
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Aerie Pharmaceuticals, Inc.announced that it has initiated the dosing in a phase II study on netarsudil ophthalmic solution in Japan for reducing elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension.
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