1.MAERSK– Container shipping giant Maersk on Wednesday agreed to buy Hong Kong-based LF Logistics for $3.6 billion in an all-cash deal that will add hundreds of warehouses in Asia and help it expand beyond its core ocean freight business.The deal is one of the group’s largest takeovers to date and follows a series of acquisitions including logistics and e-commerce firms, a freight forwarder specialised in air freight and its smaller rival Hamburg Sud.
“Today we mainly help our customers import from Asia, but with this acquisition we make a big bet on long-term growth in Asia and on offering our customers better access to the Asian consumer,” Maersk Chief Executive Soren Skou said on a conference call.
2.APPLE: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has denied Apple Inc ‘s bid to exclude a shareholder proposal that would require the company to inform investors about its use of non-disclosure agreements and other concealment clauses, according to a document viewed by Reuters.
The move means that Apple will have to face a vote on the proposal at its annual shareholder meeting next year, barring a deal with the activist. Apple has said its policy is not to use concealment clauses, but former employees dispute that.
In September, investor Nia Impact Capital filed a shareholder proposal calling for Apple’s board to prepare a “public report assessing the potential risks to the company associated with its use of concealment clauses in the context of harassment, discrimination and other unlawful acts.”
Apple in October filed a response with the SEC saying it wanted to exclude the proposal because “the company’s policy is to not use such clauses.”
In a letter dated Monday, the SEC denied Apple’s request, saying that the company had not “substantially implemented the proposal.”
3.ALIBABA:-Chinese regulators on Wednesday suspended an information-sharing partnership with Alibaba Cloud Computing, a subsidiary of e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group, over accusations it failed to promptly report and address a cybersecurity vulnerability, according to state-backed media reports.
Alibaba Cloud did not immediately report vulnerabilities in the popular, open-source logging framework to China’s telecommunications regulator, according to 21st Century Business Herald, citing a recent notice by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
In response, MIIT suspended a cooperative partnership with the cloud unit regarding cybersecurity threats and information-sharing platforms, to be reassessed in six months and revived depending on the company’s internal reforms, the notice said.
This latest measure highlights Beijing’s desire to strengthen control over key online infrastructure and data in the name of national security. The Chinese government has asked state-owned companies to migrate their data from private operators such as Alibaba and Tencent to a state-backed cloud system by next year.
The suspension highlights Beijing’s concern at a vulnerability that has triggered a wave of panic among corporations and governments around the world. Apache Log4j2 is a Java-based tool that is widely used in enterprise systems and web applications.
“This vulnerability may lead to remote control of equipment, which may lead to serious harms such as the theft of sensitive information and interruption of equipment services. It is a high-risk vulnerability,” the telecommunications regulator said in a statement last week.
4.TESLA: Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he had sold “enough stock” to reach his plan to sell 10% of his shares in the world’s most valuable car company, according to an interview released on Tuesday.
The billionaire, who moved the company’s headquarters from California to Texas this month after his personal move last year, also slammed California for “overtaxation.”
Tesla shares, which had hovered near record-highs, lost about a quarter of their value after Musk said on Nov. 6 he would sell 10% of his stake if Twitter users agreed.
On Tuesday, Musk sold another 583,611 shares, bringing the total number of shares he has offloaded to 13.5 million – about 80% of what he had planned to sell.
“I sold enough stock to get to around 10% plus the option exercise stuff and I tried to be extremely literal here,” he said in the interview with satirical website Babylon Bee.
When asked whether he sold the stock because of the Twitter poll, he said he needed to exercise stock options that are expiring next year “no matter what.” He also added that he sold an additional “incremental stock” to get near 10%.
Out of the 13.5 million shares sold, 8.06 million were sold to pay taxes related to his options exercise.
5.ASTRA ZENECA :AstraZeneca Plc said on Tuesday it is working with Oxford University to produce a vaccine for the Omicron coronavirus variant, joining other vaccine-makers who are looking to develop the variant-specific vaccine.
“Together with Oxford University, we have taken preliminary steps in producing an Omicron variant vaccine, in case it is needed and will be informed by emerging data,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement.
Oxford did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside business hours.
The Financial Times first reported the news, citing Sandy Douglas, a research group leader at Oxford.
“Adenovirus-based vaccines (such as that made by Oxford/AstraZeneca) could in principle be used to respond to any new variant more rapidly than some may previously have realised,” Douglas told FT.
