BWIB Finance Newsletter

Wednesday, April 7 to Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Alabama Amazon workers voted to not unionize

Source: WSJ

• Amazon workers at the Bessemer facility voted against unionizing, a victory for the company which has been fighting labor-organizing efforts.
• The effort to unionize started last summer when a group of workers in the Bessemer facility contacted the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) and began outreach.
• Some workers chose not to unionize because they didn’t see how a union would significantly improve their pay and benefits.

President Biden willing to negotiate corporate tax hike in infrastructure plan

Sources: CNBC, NPR

• President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan will be a “once-in-a-generation investment” and will be funded by a hike in the corporate tax rate.
• The White House asks President Biden if he would consider a corporate tax rate lower than 28 percent.
• Some of the plan’s spending provisions include electric vehicle investments, bridges and roads, improvement of road safety, and airports.

Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, passed away at 99 years old

Source: WSJ

• Prince Philip was the longest serving royal consort and died the oldest-ever male member of the British royal family.
• Queen Elizabeth, 94 years old, has been gradually delegating jobs and power to her son Prince Charles, and grandson Prince William.
• Support for Prince Charles is less than for the queen, and 40% of Britons think Prince William should succeed the throne instead of Prince Charles.

COVID-19

• The U.K. restricted AstraZeneca’s vaccine to people under 30 due to concerns of potentially fatal blood clots in rare instances. (Source: WSJ)
• Florida will be suing the CDC, stating that cruise ships should be allowed to resume sailing. Cruise lines want to be given the same attention and treatment as the airlines industry. (Source: CNBC)
• COVID-19 Vaccine deliveries of Johnson & Johnson will drastically decrease next week due to low supply. J&J doses are estimated to plunge by 80%, from 4.9 million last week to 700,000. (Source: WSJ)
• Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. tested an antibody drug which reduced the risk of developing symptomatic COVID-19 infection by 81% compared with a placebo. (Source: WSJ)

M&A Transactions

• Vox Media will be acquiring Cafe Studios Inc., a publisher of a podcast of the former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara. (Source: WSJ)
• Microsoft will be buying speech-recognition company, Nuance Communications, for $16B to capitalize on the demand for healthcare software. (Source: WSJ)
• France’s Veolia Environnement SA reached a $15B deal to acquire Suez SA, creating a water and waste-management company in the global surge of infrastructure and climate-change spending. (Source: WSJ)

General Finance

• Morgan Stanley sold roughly $5 billion of Archegos’ stock in a fire sale to various small hedge funds to avoid losses. The investment bank did not disclose fully to its buyers what the positions fully entailed. (Source: CNBC)
• Sales in the first quarter of Rolls Royce hit a record high of 1,380 cars (especially for the Cullinan and Ghost models) as more people demand luxury vehicles. (Source: CNBC)
• Investors have invested more money in stocks in the past 5 months than the past 12 years combined. Wild trends of meme stocks such as GameStop and AMC have caused trading volumes to surge. (Source: CNBC)
• CEO pay has increased in 2020, with median pay increasing from $12.8 million 2019 to $13.7 million last year. (Source: WSJ)

Written By:

Director: Jacquline Ruan

Managers: Vaibhavi Bamane, Melissa Chen, Stacy Kim