eBay Matches Amazon With Logistics Option

eBay has unveiled a logistics service aimed at enabling sellers to deliver products more quickly to customers, matching Amazon’s in-house shipping option.With eBay’s Managed Delivery service, merchants who sell on its platform will no longer have to ship goods to customers on their own but instea...

By Matthew Heller • July 25, 2019

Alibaba Seeks Share of U.S. B2B E-Commerce

Alibaba is going toe-to-toe with Amazon in a high-stakes move to grab a share of the U.S. business-to-business e-commerce market.Alibaba’s platform has previously been available for U.S. merchants to source goods. But the Chinese e-commerce giant is now inviting its buyers to become sellers, offe...

By Matthew Heller • July 23, 2019

Explore the Trendline➔

Tax policy shifts: What CFOs need to know to stay ahead

Discover how evolving tax policies are creating new opportunities and challenges for CFOs.

By CFO.com staff

Moody’s, Fitch Downgrade Boeing Credit Outlook

In the latest financial fallout from the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX planes, two of the three credit ratings agencies downgraded the company’s credit outlook.Both Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings affirmed Boeing’s current ratings at A2 and A/F1, respectively. But they lowered their o...

By Matthew Heller • July 23, 2019

Coal Bankruptcies Continue With Blackhawk Filing

In the latest bankruptcy in the coal industry, Blackhawk Mining has filed Chapter 11 to reduce a $1 billion debt load resulting from acquisitions of the assets of distressed mining companies.Blackhawk operates 25 active mines at ten different mining complexes in Kentucky, West Virginia, and India...

By Matthew Heller • July 22, 2019

AB InBev Sells Australian Business for $11.3B

Moving swiftly to raise cash after scrapping an IPO of its Asian unit, Anheuser-Busch InBev has agreed to sell its Australian operations to Japan’s Asahi for an enterprise value of $11.3 billion.The announcement on Friday of the sale of Carlton & United Breweries, which makes such beers as Fo...

By Matthew Heller • July 19, 2019

Uber’s IPO: Better Than You Thought

Was the Uber IPO a success? It depends on who you ask.If you listen to the media, it was a failure. To them, a successful initial public offering has to feel like July 4th fireworks. The stock opens 30% above the set IPO price and finishes the day up 100%. That’s a newsworthy IPO that (according ...

By David McCann • July 19, 2019

Gilead to Invest $5B in Galapagos Partnership

Gilead Sciences is beefing up its investment in Belgian-Dutch biotech firm Galapagos NV as it seeks to add drugs for treating inflammatory and autoimmune conditions to its portfolio.Under a $5.1 billion deal announced on Sunday, Gilead will provide Galapagos with $3.95 billion in research funding...

By Matthew Heller • July 15, 2019

U.S. Trade Policy Fails to Reshore Manufacturing

Significant changes to U.S. trade policy, aimed at bringing manufacturing back to America, are not having the desired impact, according to a new report from A.T. Kearney.In fact, the consulting firm’s sixth annual Reshoring Index showed that manufactured goods imports to the United States from th...

By David McCann • July 15, 2019

Core Inflation Posts Biggest Jump in 17 Months

U.S. underlying inflation rose at the highest rate in nearly 1-1/2 years in June, possibly easing some of the pressure on the Federal Reserve to take aggressive monetary action.The Labor Department reported Thursday that so-called core CPI — the consumer price index excluding the volatile food an...

By Matthew Heller • July 11, 2019

Piper Jaffray to Buy Sandler Boutique for $485M

Piper Jaffray has agreed to acquire boutique investment bank Sandler O’Neill for $485 million in a move that could boost its M&A business.Sandler O’Neill is a leader in advising small and midsize banks on deals, participating in 498 financial services transactions with an aggregate deal value...

By Matthew Heller • July 9, 2019

Alarm Firm Monitronics Files Chapter 11 Petition

Alarm system provider Monitronics has filed bankruptcy to implement a restructuring plan that would reduce its $1.8 billion debt burden by nearly half.The plan negotiated with creditors would eliminate $885 million of debt, including the $585 million principal amount of senior unsecured notes, wh...

By Matthew Heller • July 2, 2019

Performance Food to Buy Rival Reinhart for $2B

Performance Food Group said Monday it will acquire rival Reinhart Foodservice for $2 billion in a move that reflects consolidation pressures on food distributors amid rising transportation costs.The acquisition of Reinhart, the second-largest privately held food distributor in the U.S., will crea...

By Matthew Heller • July 1, 2019

Big Health Care Companies Are Undervalued

My investment management firm’s portfolio has a large position in the health care sector, and with AbbVie’s $63 billion takeover bid for Allergan last week, it’s timely to review why we bought into this sector.Without commenting on Allergan, whose shares we own, or AbbVie, whose we don’t, health ...

By David McCann • July 1, 2019

IPO Market Has Busiest Quarter in Four Years

IPO filings in the second quarter hit the highest level in four years as the market remained on track for a banner year.Investment adviser Renaissance Capital said 62 companies went public in the latest quarter, raising a total of $25 billion of which nearly one third came from Uber’s IPO. The am...

By Matthew Heller • June 28, 2019

Consumer Confidence Drops Sharply in June

The Conference Board’s consumer confidence measure dropped in June to its lowest level in nearly two years, reflecting concerns over escalating trade tensions.The Consumer Confidence Index declined to 121.5 in June from 131.3 in May, snapping a three-month streak of improvements and missing conse...

By Matthew Heller • June 25, 2019

UnitedHealth to Acquire Equian Payments Firm

Health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group has reportedly agreed to acquire Equian for about $3.2 billion in a move to expand ts healthcare services business.Equian processes more than $500 billion in healthcare claims a year, serving nine of the 10 largest healthcare payers. The parent of the lar...

By Matthew Heller • June 24, 2019

S&P Cuts Kraft Heinz Rating to Near Junk Grade

S&P Global has cut Kraft Heinz’s credit rating to one notch above junk status, citing concerns over the packaged food giant’s profitability amid “significant” competition from other manufacturers.S&P’s move to downgrade Kraft to the lowest investment grade — BBB-/A-3 — from BBB/A-2 brings...

By Matthew Heller • June 21, 2019

Ten States Sue to Block T-Mobile, Sprint Merger

Ten states have thrown a potential roadblock in the way of the mega-merger of T-Mobile and Sprint, arguing in an antitrust lawsuit that the $26 billion deal would cause “irreparable harm.”The merger, which would combine two of the four largest national mobile network operators, is awaiting approv...

By Matthew Heller • June 12, 2019

Canon, Toshiba Fined Over Antitrust Violations

Canon and Toshiba have agreed to pay $2.5 million each to settle charges that they structured a deal so it would not be delayed by U.S. pre-merger notification laws.Toshiba sold its medical systems subsidiary to Canon for $6.1 billion in March 2016 amid a financial crisis caused by an accounting ...

By Matthew Heller • June 11, 2019

Salesforce to Buy Tableau in $15B Analytics Move

Salesforce said Monday it had agreed to acquire Tableau for $15.7 billion, making a major bet on data analytics as it continues to diversify away from its core CRM software business.Salesforce’s existing data tools include its Einstein platform, which delivers AI-powered analytics for sales and m...

By Matthew Heller • June 10, 2019

ECB Leaves Rates Unchanged, Hints at Easing

The European Central Bank on Thursday pushed back the timing of its first post-crisis interest rate hike and its president hinted at more radical monetary stimulus if economic growth in the eurozone remains weak.After meeting in Lithuania, the bank left its benchmark main refinancing rate unchang...

By Matthew Heller • June 6, 2019

U.S. Factory Orders Decline 0.8% in April

U.S. factory orders fell sharply in April for the second time in three months and economists expect “further bumps” ahead for the manufacturing sector amid rising trade tensions.The Commerce Department said factory goods orders declined 0.8% month to month, reflecting softening demand for transpo...

By Matthew Heller • June 4, 2019

U.S. Home-Price Growth Slows to 3.7% in March

U.S. home-price growth slowed in March to the lowest annual rate since August 2012, another indication that the housing market is cooling off despite the overall strength of the economy.According to the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index from S&P Dow Jones Indices and CoreLogic, home prices...

By Matthew Heller • May 28, 2019

Avon in ‘Advanced’ Sale Talks With Brazilian Firm

Avon Products shares jumped on Wednesday on strong indications that the ailing cosmetics company will agree to be acquired by the Brazilian owner of the Body Shop.While a deal had not been confirmed, both Avon and Natura Cosméticos said they were in “advanced discussions” about an acquisition tha...

By Matthew Heller • May 22, 2019

Finance Fails to Get Full Value from Shared Services

If finance departments aren’t getting what they want from their company’s shared services organization, they might want to be careful about pointing the finger of blame.So suggests new research from Gartner, in which less than half (49%) of the 1,500 surveyed finance officials reported being acti...

By David McCann • May 22, 2019