Featured Articles in National Business News

FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years

(The Center Square) – A judge sentenced FTX founder Samuel Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison on Thursday, marking the long fall of the onetime cryptocurrency star. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan also sentenced Samuel Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, to three years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay $11 billion for orchestrating a massive fraud. Bankman-Fried, Read More…

Realtors group ends commission model; biggest ‘jolt’ in housing in 100 years

(The Center Square) – The National Association of REALTORS announced Friday an agreement where it will end the 6% commission that is routine in home sales. In the settlement with homeowners, the association will pay $418 million in damages and end litigation on the matter. Experts say that Americans pay $100 billion a year in Read More…

Senators concerned over growing agricultural trade deficit

(The Center Square) — U.S. agricultural trade exports declined by $17 billion in fiscal year 2023, raising concerns from U.S. senators about how the Biden administration will address the issue. The deficit is growing and will decline by another $8 billion in fiscal year 2023, the senators said in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Read More…

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More than 6 million unemployment claims were made last week, Labor Department says

Unemployment claims have spiked to 6.65 million across the country, the Department of Labor said in a press release on Thursday. Unemployment claims have doubled since last week when the Labor Department reported that about 3 million people were seeking unemployment. That figure was already by far the highest number of unemployment claims the department had ever seen. READ Read More…

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes to face trial separate from ex-lover

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes will head to trial apart from fellow C-suite exec and one-time lover, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, according to a report. Holmes, who served as the company’s CEO, will head to trial starting Aug. 4 with a separate jury from Balwani, who will be tried following the conclusion of Holmes’ case, Bloomberg reported. The judge did not provide any Read More…

SoftBank strategy shifts from long-term domination to short-term survival as Vision Fund prepares for global downturn

About 10 years ago, SoftBank released a slideshow presentation on the company’s 300-year plan. “Unknown virus” got one reference, on slide 69 of 133. Perhaps coronavirus will just be a blip in the company’s long-term plan for world domination. Perhaps SoftBank’s vision of investing in artificial intelligence and other dominant technology companies will pay off in the long run, Read More…

Warren Buffett sold more than $800 million worth of Apple stock last quarter

Warren Buffett sold more than $800 million worth of Apple stock last quarter, according to SEC filings published on Friday. That might seem like a massive sale, but it’s closer to a rounding error for the billionaire investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO. Berkshire is Apple’s biggest shareholder with a 5.4% stake worth $72 billion, according to Bloomberg data. Read More…

Kobe Bryant left huge impact on business off the court

NBA legend Kobe Bryant, 41, died in a helicopter crash on Sunday morning in Calabasas, Calif., along with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. Seven other people were on board Bryant’s helicopter and were all killed in the tragic accident. Bryant’s impact on basketball is obvious: five-time NBA champion; two-time NBA Finals MVP; league Read More…

Jeffrey Epstein scandal: MIT professor put on leave, he ‘failed to inform’ college that sex offender made donations

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday that it had placed one of its tenured professors on paid administrative leave after finding that he “purposefully failed to inform MIT” that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was source of two donations in 2012 to support the professor’s research, and that the professor got a $60,000 personal gift from Epstein. Read More…

Boeing CEO resigns amid 737 Max crisis

Dennis Muilenburg, the CEO of Boeing, resigned Monday morning after a string of malfunctions in Boeing’s 737 Max airliner led to the worst year on record for the plane-maker. Boeing has struggled to rectify issues related to its 737 Max, which President Trump grounded in March after two crashes took the lives of more than 300 people. Read More…

How—and Why—the Owner of Jameson and Absolut Has Been Aggressively Expanding Its Portfolio of U.S. Alcohol Brands

Pernod Ricard, France’s largest spirits maker, is busy raiding America’s liquor cabinet. In 2019, the purveyor of Absolut vodka and Jameson Irish whiskey has bought Jefferson’s Bourbon, Firestone & Robertson Distilling, and a majority share of Rabbit Hole Distillery, all bets on America’s whiskey boom. This comes on top of recent new vodka distillery openings Read More…

It’s the bulls’ game to lose as the stock market heads for its final act of 2019

Wall Street’s final act of 2019 will hinge on whether investors should believe the messages being sent by corporate credit, crowd consensus and the calendar characteristics. The broad market has been a sloppy stalemate between supportive and antagonistic forces for many months: The S&P 500 is hovering around the 3000 level it first reached in Read More…

Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor looks to raise more than $600 million in IPO

Ari Emanuel’s company Endeavor detailed its plans Monday to go public, listing 19.4 million Class A shares, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The global entertainment, sports and content company expects to price its initial public offering at $30 to $32 a share, hoping to raise more than $600 million. Endeavor is planning Read More…

Small US banks are merging to pursue greater scale and cost efficiencies

A sizable group of community banks are in various stages of consolidation, highlighting how the industry-wide merger and acquisition (M&A) trend is extending down market, as community and regional banks pursue greater scale and cost efficiencies. M&A fever has already gripped the nation’s super-regionals and top banks. BB&T announced in February that it was acquiring SunTrust for Read More…

Struggling Nordstrom is banking on exclusivity to compete with Amazon and overcome sales woes

Though the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale officially opened to the public on Friday, July 19, the bargain hunting had already been well underway for an exclusive group of people — Nordstrom card holders. For several years, the department store has granted its most loyal shoppers special access to the annual sale, an effort to generate buzz and clout Read More…

Walmart announces executive shuffle to further integrate stores and digital

Walmart is making further organizational changes as it continues to integrate its store and digital operations and leadership, according to a memo obtained by CNBC that was sent by CEO Doug McMillon to the retailer’s employees. “Our customers want one, seamless Walmart experience,” McMillon wrote to employees. “Earning more of our customers’ business in food and Read More…

Saas Management startup Intello scores $2.5 million extended seed – TechCrunch

Intello, the New York City-based Saas management platform, announced a $2.5 million extended seed round today, along with some product enhancements. The round was led by Resolute Ventures . Harrison Metal and Magnetico Ventures also participated along with various individual angel investors including Zane Lackey from Signal Sciences, Chris Smoak from Atrium and Zach Sherman Read More…

A 10-year-old boy asked Qantas for advice on how to set up an airline — its CEO responded with a follow-up meeting

It’s not unusual for companies to be inundated with messages from people looking for answers — what is rare, however, is for a CEO to personally respond to one. Yet one 10-year-old schoolboy appears to have succeeded, grabbing the attention of the boss behind one of Australia’s largest airlines. Alex Jacquot recently penned a letter Read More…

High-Speed Rail in the U.S. Remains Elusive: Illinois Shows Why

799 Comments By Shayndi Raice and Shayndi Raice The Wall Street Journal Biography @Shayndi www.facebook.com/shayndi Shayndi.Raice@wsj.com Paul Overberg | Photographs by Paul Overberg The Wall Street Journal Biography @poverberg paul.overberg@wsj.com Daniel Acker for The Wall Street Journal March 4, 2019 10:29 a.m. ET An Amtrak train from St. Louis to Chicago hurtles past Dwight, Ill. Read More…

Cheniere Deal With China Signals Country's Key Role in LNG Exports

Cheniere Energy’s liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas, in October 2018. Photo: Eddie Seal/Bloomberg News 2 Comments By Christopher M. Matthews Christopher M. Matthews The Wall Street Journal Biography Updated March 4, 2019 6:33 p.m. ET Cheniere Energy Inc.’s LNG 1.56% expected $18 billion deal to supply natural gas to China signals the company’s Read More…

Venezuelan Opposition Seeks U.S. Court's Help Protecting Citgo

Venezuela’s U.S.-backed opposition leaders asked a federal appeals court to refrain from carving up the country’s foreign assets, saying their loss would hurt the chances of political change in Caracas. The opposition’s parallel government filed papers Friday urging the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to support the Trump administration’s push for regime change in Read More…