Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam resigns after spying scandal - CNN

The board of directors unanimously accepted Thiam's resignation at a meeting on Thursday, appointing Credit Suisse (CS) veteran Thomas Gottstein as the new CEO, the Swiss investment bank said in a statement Friday.

Last year, Credit Suisse's ex-chief operating officer, Pierre-Olivier Bouée, was implicated in two separate spying operations, one involving the former head of wealth management Iqbal Khan. Khan had left Credit Suisse for crosstown rival UBS (UBS).

Bouée stepped down after that operation came to light. More recently, he was blamed for ordering a spying operation on Credit Suisse's former head of human resources for several days last February.

"I had no knowledge of the observation of two former colleagues. It undoubtedly disturbed Credit Suisse and caused anxiety and hurt. I regret that this happened and it should never have taken place," Thiam said in the statement.

Thiam will step down following the presentation of 2019's fourth quarter and annual results next week.

Credit Suisse said previously that former COO Bouée had not informed Thiam or any other member of the bank's senior leadership of the surveillance on Khan. It added in December that it found no indication that Thiam and other members of the executive board or board of directors knew anything about the second spying case until the media reported on it.

Bouée and Thiam worked closely together for nearly two decades at various firms before joining the Swiss bank, according to their Credit Suisse biographies. The pair were at McKinsey in Paris between 2000 and 2002. Bouée followed Thiam to British insurer Aviva (AVVIY) in 2004. They both joined Prudential, another British insurer, in 2008 before heading to Credit Suisse in 2015.

In Friday's statement, the bank's lead independent director Severin Schwan said Chairman Urs Rohner had led the board "commendably during this turbulent time."

"After careful deliberations, the Board has been unanimous in its actions, as well as in reaffirming its full support for the chairman to complete his term until April 2021," Schwan added.

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2020-02-07 07:25:00Z
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Sears at the Arnot Mall to close in April - WENY-TV

Right now, Sears as a company is trying to restructure its business after declaring bankruptcy in 2018. The former CEO of Sears, Eddie Lampert, purchased the company back for $5.2 billion during proceedings, and now owns Sears through TransformCo. According to multiple national media outlets, a score of other locations are being closed, with closure dates coinciding with the Arnot Mall location. However, the Big Flats location is not listed on other closing compilations.

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2020-02-07 01:06:00Z
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Uber stock turns higher on narrower-than-expected loss, prediction of profit by end of 2020 - MarketWatch

Less is more.

Uber Technologies Inc. shares dipped 5% then rose 5% in after-hours trading Thursday after the company reported a narrower-than-expected loss and fourth-quarter revenue largely in line with Wall Street estimates. More significantly, Uber disclosed in a conference call it expected to reach an adjusted profit by the end of 2020 — earlier than its previous goal of 2021.

The losses continued to mount for Uber UBER, +0.76%, which reported revenue of $4.07 billion, in line with expectations of $4.07 billion from analysts polled by FactSet. But the rate at which Uber is losing money is slowing demonstrably, to the relief of investors.

See also: Uber earnings preview: Another big loss is expected, but so is cost-cutting

The ride-hailing service said it lost $1.1 billion, or 64 cents per share, compared with FactSet estimates of a loss of 68 cents per share. With its latest money-losing quarter, Uber has lost approximately $8.5 billion since its May 2019 initial public offering, but offered proof that an aggressive austerity program is making progress. (In the same quarter a year ago, Uber lost $887 million, or $1.97 a share.)

“We recognize that the era of growth at all costs is over,” Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement following the earnings announcement. “In a world where investors increasingly demand not just growth, but profitable growth, we are well-positioned to win through continuous innovation, excellent execution and the unrivaled scale of our global platform.”

“We are challenging the team to get to profitability,” Khosrowshahi later said in a conference call with analysts. He said he expects Uber to be profitable on an Ebitda basis (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in the fourth quarter this year. “We are confident we can reach long-term margins” while eliminating what he called “empty calories” in system inefficiencies, he added.

As Uber cut losses, its business continues to grow. Gross bookings, which include the total value of ride-hailing and food-delivery orders placed on the app, improved 28% year-over-year to $18.1 billion in the quarter. Another key business indicator, monthly active platform consumers, surged 22% to 111 million.

The company has been cutting costs — whether through more than 1,000 jobs cut in three recent rounds to selling its food-delivery service in India to Zomato for a 9.9% stake — in an aggressive bid to make money. Khosrowshahi has vowed to reach adjusted Ebitda profitability by the end of 2020 instead of 2021.

“Uber finally delivered a quarter with minimal noise as it appears an improving pricing environment and a focus on a bloated cost structure is helping the model/fundamentals,” Wedbush Securities analyst Ygal Arounian said in a note Thursday following Uber’s results. Wedbush maintains an Outperform rating on Uber shares, with a price target of $50, implying a 35% upside to its closing price of $37.09 on Thursday.

Uber shares have tumbled 11% since the company went public on May 10, 2019, compared to a gain of 16% for the broader S&P 500 SPX, +0.33%  .

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2020-02-06 22:43:00Z
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Casper Sleep Shares Rise 13% in First Day of Trading - The Wall Street Journal

Casper Sleep CEO Philip Krim celebrated the company’s IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, where many startups have had a tepid welcome.

Photo: lucas jackson/Reuters

By

Allison Prang

Allison Prang
The Wall Street Journal
• Biography
• @allisonprang
• allison.prang@wsj.com

Updated Feb. 6, 2020 4:49 pm ET

Shares of Casper Sleep Inc. closed about 13% higher on their first day of trading Thursday, a day after the mattress-seller priced its IPO at the lower end of its expected price range.

Shares closed at $13.50 a share, higher than the company’s public offering price of $12 a share. The stock opened above its IPO price Thursday at $14.50 a share and reached an intraday high of $15.85 a share.

Those gains, however, were after the company cut its public offering price. Casper’s public offering price of $12 a share Wednesday was well below its initial range of $17-to-$19 a share, and at the low end of the $12-to-$13 a share range it set Wednesday morning.

The company has a valuation of about $535 million, based on its number of common shares outstanding before any options were exercised by the offering underwriters and also on Thursday’s closing price. Casper had been valued at $1.1 billion in a private funding round early last year.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Philip Krim declined to comment specifically on the company’s price cut in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Thursday. Mr. Krim said he has watched the turmoil in the IPO market, but it isn’t something the company is focused on.

“Today’s a really exciting milestone,” Mr. Krim said.

Casper, founded back in 2014, reported a larger loss for the first nine months of 2019 versus the comparable period a year prior, but revenue rose. The company’s loss grew almost 5% to $67.4 million, while revenue rose 20% to $312.3 million.

Mr. Krim on Thursday said Casper is focused on profitability and its operating leverage improved in 2019.

Casper, which sells foam mattresses online and delivers them through the mail, went public during a touchy time for IPOs. Investors have grown more tepid toward highly-valued startups that burn through money, and some companies in 2019 nixed their plans to go public, including the parent of WeWork, the coworking space company, and Endeavor Group Holdings Inc., the owner of the Miss Universe Pageant and the biggest talent agency in Hollywood.

Endeavor pulled its own IPO plans after shares of Peloton Interactive Inc., the exercise-bike company, struggled on their first day of trading on public markets. The stocks of ride-share companies Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., which both went public last year, have also traded below the prices at which they went public.

Casper was selling 8.35 million common shares in its IPO. The company said it gave an option for underwriters to buy as many as 1.25 million shares for overallotments.

Related Video

Unicorns are getting haircuts, meaning high-flying startups are seeing their valuations shrink when they go public. WSJ explains why differences in the private and public markets are bloating what these companies might actually be worth.

Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com

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2020-02-06 21:49:00Z
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Uber lost less than expected last quarter as revenue growth accelerated, lost $8.5 billion last year - CNBC

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, appears on CNBC's Squawk Box at the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan,. 22nd, 2020.

Adam Galici | CNBC

Uber stock rose in extended trading on Thursday after the company announced a fourth-quarter loss that was narrower than analysts had expected and moved its EBITDA profitability forecast forward.

The company's shares spiked when CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on the company's earnings call that the company was moving its EBITDA profitability target to Q4 2020, ahead of its original promise of profitability in 2021. They're now up more than 8% after hours.

Here's how the company did:

• Loss per share: Excluding certain items, 64 cents, vs. 68 cents as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
• Revenue: $4.07 billion, vs. $4.06 billion as expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

Uber's revenue growth accelerated on an annualized basis to 37% from 30% one quarter ago, the company said in a statement. Net loss attributable to Uber for all of 2019 totaled $8.51 billion, primarily because of stock-based compensation.

Uber's top segment, Rides, including ride-sharing services and fees from drivers, delivered $13.51 billion in gross bookings, up 18% and below the $13.60 billion estimate among analysts polled by FactSet.

Uber attributed growth in Rides to ongoing global expansion, access to pick up and drop off passengers at airports the world over, and higher-priced premium offerings for passengers like Uber Comfort, which uses vehicles with more head- and legroom.

Gross bookings from the Eats segment, including payments from restaurant and delivery partners, came in at $4.37 billion, up 71% and above analysts' $4.13 billion estimate.

Uber is still paying out a massive amount of what it calls "driver referrals and excess driver incentives" to drivers in its food and ridesharing business.

Eats referrals and incentives for drivers cost Uber $1.13 billion in 2019, and $319 million in Q4 alone, according to the filing. Rides driver referrals and excess driver incentives cost Uber $123 million in 2019, with $20 million of that in Q4, the filing said.

Given those payouts to drivers, Eats adjusted net revenue clocked in at $1.38 billion for the year, up from $759 million in 2018. Rides adjusted net revenue hit $10.62 billion for 2019, versus $3.04 billion in 2018.

Adjusted EBITDA for all segments except Rides were all in the red year over year. Rides produced $742 million in EBITDA, up some 281%.

In the quarter Uber had 111 million monthly active platform consumers, the number of unique consumers who completed a ride or received a meal through Uber at least once in a given month, averaged across the quarter. That figure is up from 103 million in the previous quarter and in line with the FactSet consensus estimate.

The company logged 1.9 million trips, including rides and Eats meal deliveries, in the fourth quarter, up from 1.8 million in the previous quarter, in line with FactSet consensus.

In its Q4 release, it also reminded shareholders that it is now the most downloaded app globally in two categories, ridesharing and food delivery on both the Apple App Store, and Google Play Store, according to SensorTower.

With respect to guidance, analysts polled by FactSet are expecting 2020 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $2.84 billion. Guidance is expected to come on the company's earnings call.

Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call at 4:30 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

WATCH: Uber is driving toward profits: JPMorgan

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2020-02-06 20:32:00Z
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Dow Jones On Track For 4% Weekly Gain After China-Fueled Rally - Investor's Business Daily

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1. Dow Jones On Track For 4% Weekly Gain After China-Fueled Rally  Investor's Business Daily
2. Stocks extend week's gains after strong employment report  msnNOW
3. Dow joins S&P 500, Nasdaq at records as China says it will slash tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods  MarketWatch
4. Dow Jones Futures: After Uneven Stock Market Rally, Qualcomm, Twilio, Paycom, Peloton Are Big Earnings Movers  Investor's Business Daily
5. Stock market live updates: Dow hits record, Twitter soars, Tesla recovers  CNBC
6. View full coverage on Google News

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2020-02-06 20:25:00Z
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SpaceX may spin out internet-from-space business and make it public - The Verge

SpaceX may spin off its massive internet-from-space initiative called Starlink into a separate business and take the company public, according to Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president. Shotwell made the comments today at an event for private investors in Miami, Florida, Bloomberg reports.

“That particular piece is an element of the business that we are likely to spin out and go public,” Shotwell said, according to Bloomberg. “Right now, we are a private company, but Starlink is the right kind of business that we can go ahead and take public.”

Starlink is an ambitious proposal: a constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites designed to beam down broadband internet coverage to every part of the globe. So far, SpaceX has launched 240 satellites for Starlink, making the company the operator of the largest active satellite constellation in the world. The company has plans to launch up to 24 missions this year, sending up 60 satellites per flight. Shotwell claimed last year that the company would start rolling out partial coverage with the constellation in 2020.

Pursuing an initial public offering for Starlink would be a big step for the Elon Musk-run SpaceX, which has remained private since it was founded in 2002. Musk, who notoriously hates publicly traded companies, has in the past said he wouldn’t take SpaceX public until the company’s Mars vehicle was complete. “Some at SpaceX who have not been through a public company experience may think that being public is desirable,” Musk wrote in an email to SpaceX employees in 2013. “This is not so. Public company stocks, particularly if big step changes in technology are involved, go through extreme volatility, both for reasons of internal execution and for reasons that have nothing to do with anything except the economy.”

The most recent valuation of SpaceX put the company at around $33.3 billion, according to CNBC. Most of SpaceX’s business has revolved around sending satellites or cargo into orbit, with NASA, the Department of Defense, or private satellite operators as customers. But with Starlink, SpaceX plans to sell a service directly to the general public. Customers will be able to purchase user terminals to patch into the Starlink constellation, turning SpaceX into a consumer-facing business.

Starlink has previously been advertised as an important part of SpaceX’s future. Musk has claimed that the revenue from the project will help fund sending people to the Moon and Mars. Right now, SpaceX is working on a next-generation rocket called Starship to jump-start the company’s interplanetary ambitions. Musk has said that the development of Starship could cost between $2 billion and $10 billion.

SpaceX isn’t the only company pursuing the internet-from-space business. Other private companies such as OneWeb, Kepler Communications, and even Amazon have proposed building massive constellations to beam internet coverage to the Earth below. So far, only SpaceX and OneWeb have begun launching satellites.

Starlink has also been a source of controversy for those in the astronomy community who are concerned that the massive constellation could muck up their observations of the night sky. The Starlink satellites are particularly bright and have already ruined exposure images taken by telescopes on the ground. SpaceX tried to mitigate this problem by coating one of its satellites to make it appear darker in the sky. It’s unclear if the coating has worked yet, and SpaceX plans to continue launching its bright satellites in the meantime.

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2020-02-06 19:06:16Z
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