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(Bloomberg) -- Bayer AG slumped after the agriculture and pharma giant said it would have to slash costs as the pandemic’s impact on farm commodities extends into next year, further undermining the rationale for its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto Co.The stock fell as much as 13% in German trading. Bayer, already reeling from a legal battle over its herbicide Roundup, late Wednesday said it would cut 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) of annual costs and may also eliminate jobs and sell businesses.Chief Executive Officer Werner Baumann is confronting multiple challenges after getting his contract extended earlier this month. Besides Roundup, the German company faces slumping crop prices and demand for biofuel that threaten its agriculture unit just two years after the controversial Monsanto takeover.“It was already quite clear that the growth prospects of Monsanto had deteriorated over the last 2.5 years, though the magnitude of this decline is greater than...
After weeks of speculation, the plane engine maker will tap investors for money and issue new bonds....
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Here’s one potential reason to add some bullion coins or bars to your investment portfolio: They’re not making any more of them.All the gold that’s ever been mined would fit into a cube with edges 22 meters long — small enough to fit into three Olympic-sized swimming pools. Each year, miners and pawnbrokers add another 4,000 to 5,000 metric tons to an existing 197,576 ton pile, but jewelry demand alone uses up about half of that.With the metal hitting a record $2,075 a troy ounce in August, the concern we’re heading toward peak gold has reared its head again. The industry needs to commission 8 million ounces of projects by 2025 to maintain last year’s production levels, consultants Wood Mackenzie wrote in June, requiring some $37 billion of capital investment. Mine production fell last year for the first time in more than a decade. Even the British Broadcasting Corp. has been asking...
Allstate Corp. announced it will lay off about 3,800 employees and shut down offices. The job reductions will primarily affect claims, sales, service and support functions, and will help the property and casualty insurance provider to lower costs to maintain margins.The restructuring plan is a part of Allstate’s (ALL) transformative growth plan, and seeks “to increase personal property-liability market share by expanding customer access, improving customer value and investing in marketing and technology,” the company said. Allstate’s CEO Tom Wilson said "Implementing this plan is difficult as we still deal with the impact of the pandemic but necessary to provide customers the best value."The company expects the restructuring to result in pre-tax charges of around $290 million, with about $210 million to $220 million expected to incur in 3Q, which it is set to release on Nov. 5. It also expects a pre-tax charge of $50 million to $60 million to be...
U.S. electric car maker Tesla cut the starting price of its Chinese-made Model 3 sedans on Thursday by about 8% to 249,900 yuan ($36,805), once Chinese subsidies for electric vehicles are taken into account, according to its China website. Previously, the starting price for Model 3 sedans made in Tesla's Shanghai factory with a standard driving range was 271,550 yuan, after state purchase subsidies. Tesla did not disclose what batteries the cheaper version uses....
Shares in Datadog spiked 12% after the cloud security network announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft’s cloud computing service Azure.As part of the tie-up, Datadog (DDOG) will be available in the Azure console as a first-class service. This means that Azure customers will be able to implement Datadog as a monitoring solution for their cloud workloads through new streamlined workflows that cover everything from procurement to configuration. Datadog represents a first-of-its-kind integration of a third-party service into Azure.As a result, the partnership will offer more of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Azure customers the ability to deploy Datadog's observability platform to upgrade their cloud applications and workload migration initiatives. Microsoft shares rose 1.5% on Wednesday.“Azure is the first cloud to enable a seamless configuration and management experience for customers to use partner solutions like Datadog,” said Microsoft Azure’s Corey Sanders. “Together with Datadog, we are enabling customers to use this experience to monitor their Azure workloads...
"This is the confirmation that end demand in automotive, microcontrollers and specific programs with Apple are strong enough to more than compensate for the Huawei headwind," said Stephane Houri, head of equity sector research at Oddo BHF. The French-Italian chipmaker is set to report its final third-quarter earnings and fourth-quarter guidance on October 22....
