BWIB Finance Newsletter

Wednesday, May 19 to Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Dutch Court orders Shell to cut emissions

Source: WSJ

• Friends of the Earth Netherlands, an environmental nonprofit, started and led a civil lawsuit against Shell. The nonprofit alleged Shell failed to meet its own human-rights obligations because their production of oil and natural gas contributed to climate change.
• Dutch court ruled that Shell was partially responsible for climate change and must cut its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.
• This ruling could set precedent within other Western jurisdictions, especially Europe regarding oil and gas companies.

Zhang Yiming will resign from the CEO role at the end of the year

Source: Reuters

• Zhang Yiming is one of the co-founders of ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok and Duoyin. He will be stepping down from the CEO position because he said that he lacked the social skills needed to be an ideal manager.
• He will be succeeded by his college friend and co-founder Liang Rubo, and is the latest high-profile Chinese internet billionaire founder to resign.
• Zhang had managed the company through the time when former US President Donald Trump had sought to either ban TikTok or force ByteDance to sell its US business to Microsoft, Oracle, or Walmart.

AT&T will cut dividend payout to $8B from last year’s $15B

Source: WSJ

• AT&T’s stocks fell 8% after agreeing to merge its WarnerMedia business with Discovery. If the deal goes through, AT&T’s dividends would be cut nearly 50%.
• Although dividends would be cut, AT&T shareholders would own 71% of the new company with Discovery, potentially capturing some upside.
• AT&T is a member of the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, a group of stocks that have paid out higher dividends for at least 25 straight years, and this dividend cut could jeopardize its status.

M&A Deals

• Amazon is buying MGM. The deal is valued at $8.45 B, including debt, as the tech and streaming industry look to expand their presence within the entertainment industry. (Source: WSJ)
• Google strikes a deal with hospital chain HCA Healthcare Inc. to create healthcare algorithms and expand into the healthcare industry. (Source: WSJ)

Stocks Updates

• After a volatile week of trading, Bitcoin has dropped to around $40,000 from its all-time high of above $63,000 (Source: CNBC)
• Even though Nordstrom had beat expected revenues in its Q2 earnings report, its shares fell 7% in after-hours trading because loss per share was greater than expected. (Source: CNBC)

Financial Services Industry

• Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Wealth Management unit rolled out a revamped adviser-training program that bans trainee brokers from cold calling, and directs them to use internal referrals or LinkedIn messages to get clients instead. (Source: WSJ)
• Consumer-lending Chief Marianne Lake and CFO Jennifer Piepszak will lead JP Morgan Chase’s consumer bank division. They are viewed as contenders who’ll eventually succeed CEO Jamie Dimon. (Source: WSJ)
• HSBC plans to exit 90 of 148 branches, retail and small business banking operations, in order to focus more on wealth management and international banking, especially in Asia. (Source: WSJ)

Governments

• Update on Colonial Pipeline’s cyber attack: It has been revealed that Colonial Pipeline had missed a requested security review last year which has provided the opportunity for hackers recently. (Source: WSJ)
• The Biden administration’s tax enforcement plan would require businesses that receive more than $10,000 in cryptocurrency to report those transactions. (Source: WSJ)
• The European Union is speculated to open its first formal antitrust investigation into Facebook after the probe from complaints about Facebook favoring Marketplace. (Source: WSJ)

Written By:

Director: Jacquline Ruan

Managers: Vaibhavi Bamane, Melissa Chen, Stacy Kim