1.DAIMLER:-Shares in commercial vehicle maker Daimler (OTC:DDAIF) Truck edged higher on its market debut in Frankfurt on Friday, marking its long-awaited spin-off from Daimler AG (DE:DAIGn).
The split was announced in February and pitched by the two companies as an opportunity to unlock value in both Daimler Truck and the owner of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and vans.
At 0855 GMT, Daimler Truck shares were trading at 29.03 euros, above their debut price of 28 euros. Daimler shares were down 17%, a technical side-effect of the spin-off.
“We are certain we will create value,” Daimler CEO Ola Kaellenius said, speaking to an emptier-than-usual hall in Frankfurt as pandemic restrictions limited the number of attendees.
“Trucks and cars have different requirements. We are thus unleashing the full potential of both companies,” he said.
Daimler AG, soon to be renamed Mercedes-Benz AG, has kept 35% of Daimler Truck shares, while 65% were spun off on Friday. Shareholders in Daimler received one share in Daimler Truck for every two Daimler shares they owned.
2.Tesla:Tesla Inc is being sued by a second female employee for sexual harassment in less than a month, with the two lawsuits alleging a “hostile work environment” against women at the car maker’s U.S. factory.
Erica Cloud, a Tesla assembly line worker, accused defendants including her former manager of “continuous and pervasive” sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed in Alameda County Superior Court in California on Wednesday.
She alleges the manager hugged and massaged her while making crude and suggestive remarks. She said she is now experiencing retaliation from other managers after complaining to Tesla’s human resources team about the misconduct.
Tesla and other defendants subjected her to “a hostile work environment stemming from animus towards her gender, sexual harassment,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit alleges that Tesla and other defendants failed to prevent and take corrective actions over sexual harassment and retaliation.
Tesla did not immediately responded to Reuters’ emailed questions about the lawsuit. Tesla does not have a public relations department.
3.GENERAL MOTORS:-General Motors Co plans to source rare earth magnets for its future electric vehicles from new U.S.-based manufacturing facilities under two separate deals announced on Thursday, a return to an industry the automaker had all but abandoned in the 1990s.
The agreements with MP Materials Inc and privately-held Vacuumschmelze are the latest push by GM to domestically source EV materials for its Ultium platform, a goal it hopes to achieve by 2025. GM did not disclose financial terms.
Shares of MP, which went public last year via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger, were up 6.5% on Thursday. GM’s shares fell 1%.
The Biden administration is putting pressure on automakers via tax incentives and other measures to invest and create EV supply chain jobs in the United States and reduce reliance on China.
GM, which hopes to sell more than 1 million EVs annually by 2025, signed a supply deal with a California lithium project in July and in October said it would work with General Electric Co to study,vehicles equipment rare earth supply chains.
4.STARBUCKS:The closely watched results come as Corporate America eyes new union organizing campaigns amid a U.S. labor shortage that has already led to higher wages at most large retailer and restaurant chains. Experts said the Starbucks results may encourage union activity at other companies.
“Although it’s a small number of workers, the result has huge symbolic importance,” said John Logan, a lStarbucks Corp employee on Thursday voted to join a union at one store in Buffalo, New York, delivering the coffee chain its first unionized company-owned location in the United States. Workers at a second location in the city voted to reject the drive to organize.
Employees at one Starbucks location in Buffalo voted to join Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
The vote count for a third store in upstate New York city ended without a definitive result because a number of ballots were still under review, a process that could stretch into early next year, according to Ian Hayes, an attorney for the union.
“We will keep listening,” Rossann Williams, president of Starbucks North America, said in a letter to employees after the vote. “These are preliminary results with no immediate changes to our partner relationship as the NLRB process continues.”
5.BOEING :-Veteran Boeing airplane programs executive Mark Jenks, who helped steer the 737 MAX program through a safety crisis, plans to retire, while supply chain executive Elizabeth Lund is to take over the role, the U.S. planemaker said on Thursday.
Jenks, a 38-year Boeing employee who has also held executive positions on space and defense programs, is the senior vice president overseeing production programs across Boeing’s commercial jetliner portfolio.
While his retirement plans had been in the works since last year, a spokesperson said, Jenks’ departure comes as the U.S. planemaker works to muscle through production and certification challenges on its 787 and 777X programs, while moving toward resuming deliveries of the 737 MAX in China.
Jenks will remain with Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit through the beginning of 2022, commercial airplanes chief executive Stan Deal told employees in a memo seen by Reuters.
Jenks was named head of the 737 program in 2019 after the 737 MAX was grounded in March of that year following two fatal crashes in five months.
