(Bloomberg) -- Southwest Airlines Co. raised about $4 billion by selling shares and convertible notes, stepping up a push to add liquidity as the coronavirus pandemic all but erases demand for flights.The carrier sold 70 million shares at $28.50 apiece and $2 billion of convertible notes due in 2025, according to a statement. Southwest increased both the stock and bond portion of the sale from what it had previously targeted.Southwest is following United Airlines Holdings Inc. in offering equity amid the biggest crisis in the industry’s history, as carriers rush to raise funds even after receiving billions of dollars in government aid. Southwest is also cutting the number of Boeing Co. 737 Max jets it will take through December 2021 by more than half, and said the travel outlook demand remains bleak.“While United’s equity offering last week raised investor fears of similar action at other airlines, what has been surprising is...
(Bloomberg) -- South Africa’s gold industry output has dwindled to a fifth of its 1970s’ peak as ever-deepening shafts and higher costs take their toll. The coronavirus may pose an even bigger threat.The pandemic jeopardizes the future of a 134-year-old industry that once employed more than half a million workers on the world’s biggest gold field. While Cyril Ramaphosa’s government has been praised for its rapid response to the health crisis, the country’s five-week lockdown and the strict conditions attached to reopening gold mines risks undermining their viability.To ensure the social distancing needed to safeguard tens of thousands of workers in the world’s deepest mines, the nation’s gold producers will only be allowed to operate with half their normal employees. That may make them unprofitable, even as they struggle with the added burden of screening workers for virus symptoms and testing of those who display them.“They are pretty much on a...
(Bloomberg) -- John Tyson, the billionaire whose family business reigns as the largest meat processor in the U.S., took out ads in national newspapers to complain about a “breaking” food supply chain.No one would argue that supplies aren’t an issue right now. Even Donald Trump is invoking the Defense Production Act to secure meat production. But the roots of this problem go back to decades of consolidation that Tyson’s own company helped lead. Tyson Foods Inc. and its top two rivals -- JBS SA and Cargill Inc. -- control today about two-thirds of America’s beef, and the large bulk of it gets processed in a few dozen giant plants. Pork and chicken are similarly dominated.While Tyson pointed out that the pandemic has affected businesses of all sizes, the producers, which also include Smithfield Foods Inc., have such a stranglehold on output that it leaves the supply chain with few remedies when...
The preparations reflect Boeing's confidence that it can tap the capital markets to strengthen its finances, even as the largest U.S. planemaker weighs seeking government aid. Boeing has lined up investment banks to potentially market an offering to bond investors in the coming days, provided that market conditions are favorable, the sources said, cautioning that the exact timing and size of the offering had not been decided. Boeing declined to comment....
(Bloomberg) -- Before the accounting scandal and the stock crash and the defaulted loans, Luckin Coffee Ltd.’s billionaire founder Lu Zhengyao was an ideal customer for Credit Suisse Group AG.“I’ve had I don’t know how many dinners with him in Beijing and he’s absolutely the poster child for what we want to do,” Tidjane Thiam said at a conference last year when he was still head of the bank. He lauded Lu’s relationship with the firm that ranged from private banking to stock sales. “He’s a dream client.”Luckin’s dramatic fall from grace this month blindsided some of the top names in global finance but few have seen a bigger fallout than Credit Suisse. The lender lost a high-profile Hong Kong IPO in the wake of the scandal and reported a five-fold increase in loan losses at its Asia Pacific unit, primarily due to a default by Lu. The bank is conducting...
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. equity-index futures advanced, helped by a late rally in Alphabet Inc. and Asian stocks heading for bull-market territory, ahead of a policy decision by the Federal Reserve.Contracts on the S&P 500 Index climbed 1% as of 11:32 a.m. in Tokyo, while futures advanced 1.2% on the Nasdaq 100 Index and 0.8% on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Alphabet shares surged in after-hours trading after the company reported first-quarter revenue that beat analyst expectations.The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.7%, pushing its rebound from a March 23 low to more than 20% and set to enter a bull market.The U.S. central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee two-day meeting concludes Wednesday. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is seen facing a big decision about giving more guidance on the future path of interest rates.“Traders are expecting a significant rewrite in today’s FOMC policy statement when the Fed will, in unambiguous terms,...
