Zayo Group shares surged +9.2% during premarket Wednesday, following news of the Fiber network infrastructure company going private. As part of a $14.3 billion deal,  private-equity firms Digital Colony and EQT will pay $35 per share in cash for the company (which marks a 14.3% premium over Zayo's Tuesday closing price) and assume $5.9 billion of debt.Zayo operates a 130,000-mile data network in North America and Europe, spanning thousands of buildings and data centers. For Stockholm-based investment firm EQT, the deal would be its largest transaction in its 25-year history. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2020, subject to regulatory clearance and approval by Zayo shareholders.  

Sprint reported a weaker-than-anticipated fiscal fourth quarter earnings,  owing to a drop in the number of new subscribers. In the three months ended March, the the telecom company incurred a loss of 4 cents per share which is worse than the 1 cent loss that analysts were expecting (according to IBES data from Refinitiv). It suffered a net decline 189,000 phone subscribers during the quarter, compared to a net loss of 117,000 expected by analysts (based on FactSet data). Sprint’s total net operating revenue climbed + 4.4% to $8.44 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter.

Walt Disney announced Tuesday that it will push back the release of science-fiction sequel “Avatar 2” by a year, to December 2021, and it will debut new “Star Wars” films in 2022, 2024 and 2026. Read More...

General Motors’ self-driving car division, Cruise, said Tuesday it received a $1.15 billion investment, raising the unit’s value to $19 billion. Read More...

Mylan NV fell the most in 19 years after the drugmaker offered no updates on a strategic review that has been going on for 10 months as its businesses struggle around the globe. Read More...

The world’s biggest retailer, Walmart, is all set to open its first online pet pharmacy along with the opening of dozens more veterinary clinics in its stores, as it hopes to tap on the growing pet market and lure more U.S. pet owners who are spending billions of dollars each year on their dogs and cats. Walmart is expected to open more than 80 veterinary clinics in its stores on top of its already existing 21 clinics across six states.In these stores, pets can receive vaccines, care for minor illnesses and other routine exams. Additionally, Walmart would offer low-cost prescriptions through its online pharmacy called WalmartPetRX.com for pets to rival the top pet e-commerce business Chewy.com. Analysts have figured a rough 60% rise in the number of pet related items sold on its website last year.

Shares of American International Group surged 7.6% in the after-hours trading Tuesday, after the company reported an adjusted EPS of $1.58 in the first quarter that beat consensus estimates of $1.06 and was also higher than $1.04 in the same quarter a year ago. The first quarter consolidated net investment for the company stood at $3.9 billion compared to $3.3 billion in the year-ago quarter, reflecting favorable market conditions. The company’s CEO justified the performance by saying that its underwriting and expense discipline, coupled with improved business mix and reinsurance actions, are the reasons for General Insurance’s achievement.He expects that this performance will be sustained for the rest of the year. Many analysts have observed that Life and Retirement continue to deliver an adjusted low-mid-ROCE and a two-digit adjusted ROCE for consolidated AIG within three years. Q1 adjusted ROCE came at 11.6% compared to 7.7% in the year-ago quarter, while core adjusted

Amid weakening market prices for oil and gas, Royal Dutch Shell clocked an impressive quarter, generating plenty of cash and buying back sizable amounts of stock. Key highlights of the earnings report include: revenue at $85.66 billion compared to $91.11 billion in the same quarter a year ago and $104.6 billion in the last quarter of 2018; net income at $6.00 billion compared to $5.90 billion in the same quarter a year ago and $5.59 billion in the last quarter of 2018; earnings per ADS at $1.48 compared to $1.42 in the same quarter a year ago and $1.36 in the last quarter of 2018; and finally, operating cash flow at $8.63 billion compared to $9.47 billion in the same quarter a year ago and $22.0 billion in the last quarter of 2018. The segments that performed best in the quarter were oil products and chemicals segments.As of today, Shell has production capacity of about 650,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and 5.6 million tons per year of LNG, as well as 1.5

China ETF has a steep upwardly-sloped trend line and a bullish signal Since the global selloff ended in late December/early January, China’s market has moved sharply higher.The Shanghai Composite is up just shy of 25% since January 2 while the S&P 500 is up 17.4% during that same time period.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will travel to Washington for trade talks on Thursday and Friday, in an effort to avoid an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods announced by President Donald Trump.  U.S.officials have accused China of backtracking in the past week on substantial commitments made during months of negotiations aimed at ending their bruising trade war. Trump issued a new deadline to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25% from 10%. The higher tariffs would take effect on Friday if a deal is not reached by then.

Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay about $1 billion to resolve many lawsuits claiming the company sold defective metal-on-metal hip implants that ultimately had to be removed, according to a report in Bloomberg. The agreement resolves over 95% of the 6,000 cases in which surgeons extracted the company’s Pinnacle implants because they left patients unable to walk and in pain, according to the report. The $1 billion total includes an earlier settlement for more than $400 million and there are still about 4,500 pending suits by patients with artificial hips that were not made totally of metal or haven’t been surgically removed, Bloomberg added.

U.S.job openings rebounded sharply in March, while the pace of hiring was little changed, pointing to a growing worker shortage that could slow employment growth this year. Read more...

Semiconductor company Marvell Technology Group has confirmed on Monday its acquisition of Aquantica Corp, a leader in Multi-Gig Ethernet connectivity, for $13.25 per share. According to the company’s press briefing, this acquisition is expected to help Marvell in further diversifying its portfolio of copper and optical physical layer product offerings along with further extending its position in the Multi-Gig 2.5G/5G/10G Ethernet segments,.It is expected that a combination of Marvell’s gigabit PHY along with Aquantia's innovative Multi-gig automotive PHYs will create broadest and most advanced range of high-speed in-car networking solutions in the world. The acquisition is timely and important as ethernet in-vehicle networks for mainstream adoption is expected to grow at a 62 % annualized growth rate from 53 million in 2018 to 367 million by 2022.

This announcement sent Beyond Meat’s stock down 6% at the market opening, before rebounding as high as 7% against steeper losses in the broader market. Even though Beyond’s IPO debut remains that strongest this year, Tyson’s market value at $22.66 billion surpasses Beyond by almost $19 billion. Yet, Beyond and other such plant-based meat substitute manufacturers like Impossible Foods continue to threaten Tyson, which is struggling to capture the market through its products that more closely mimic the taste and texture of actual meat. Although the number of vegan and vegetarian customers has remained stable over the past decade, there is a rise of ‘flexitarian’ diets, where consumers are embracing plant-based substitutes in their diet.The U.S. meat substitute market is currently valued at about $1.44 billion but is expected to grow 74% to $2.5 billion by 2023. However, this market is not easy to grasp, especially for upstarts and even Beyond and Impossible Foods conti

Starbucks’ Chinese rival, Luckin Coffee, is all set to take its rivalry with Starbucks to the next level as it filed for an IPO with the U.S. Securities and Exchange on Monday. The company expects to raise $586.5 million in its initial public offering which implies an estimated offer of 34.5 million American depository shares (ADS) priced between $15 and $17 per ADS with each ADS representing eight Class A shares. The coffee maker has been expanding rapidly with currently 2,370 stores in 28 Chinese cities and a plan to open another 2,500 stores by the end of this year in an ambition to replace Starbucks as the go-to coffee shop. Coffee consumption in China has doubled to 8.7 billion cups last year from 4.4 billion in 2013 and is anticipated to rise to 15.5 billion cups by 2023.The Chinese coffee maker is rooting on this increase in consumption. Further, Luckin’s app also has the option of ordering food and beverages outside coffee.

TD’s latest offering spans 21 providers/fund managers covering around 90 Morningstar categories. An ETF (or exchange-traded fund) is an investment fund (a basket of securities) that tracks a particular index.ETFs are often regarded as relatively passive and lower-cost compared to several funds that involve picking individual securities. The move, according to TD, gives more than 7,000 registered investment advisors (RIAs) and TD Ameritrade’s 11 million individual investor client accounts access to “one of the largest and most diverse selections of non-proprietary, commission-free ETFs in the industry.” Last year, Vanguard Group announced commission-free online trading in almost 1,800 of its competitors' ETFs in addition to 77 of its own

SolarEdge Technologies’ earnings edged past analysts’ expectations for the first quarter. The solar energy technology company reported adjusted earnings of 64 cents per share, which exceeded analysts' estimates of 62 cents.Revenue of $271.9 million also beat analysts’ expectations of $265.4 million. Guy Sella, founder, chairman and CEO of SolarEdge, mentioned Europe as a strong contributor to the first quarter growth.

Mylan’s first-quarter revenue fell short of analysts' expectations.  The pharmaceutical company reported revenue of $2.5 billion, falling behind analysts’ expectations of  $2.69 billion.Revenue from its U.S. business declined -6%. However, the pharmaceutical company’s adjusted earnings came in at 82 cents per share, beating analysts’ estimates of 79 cents per share. For the full year, the company projects earnings to range between $3.80 and $4.80 per share, while predicting a revenue range of $11.5 billion to $12.5 billion.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals’ first-quarter earnings came in lower  than what analysts expected. Regeneron raked in adjusted earnings of $4.45 per share, missing Wall Street's expectation of $5.52.Revenue of $1.71 billion also was lower than analysts' $1.76 billion expectations.  CEO Leonard Schleifer emphasized that the company is optimistic about the potential of its  product Dupixent, which is now FDA-approved in atopic dermatitis and asthma in both adults and adolescents and is currently under Priority Review by the FDA for chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps.

Chevron’s leaders insist the company’s fortunes don’t rely on dealmaking, but the oil major nevertheless has much to lose if it does not prevail in an ongoing battle with Occidental Petroleum to take control of Anadarko Petroleum.Read More...