Business and Economy News: Latest Updates
Daily Business Briefing
Aug. 26, 2021, 12:05 p.m. ET
Aug. 26, 2021, 12:05 p.m. ET
Across Britain, a slow-burning problem has ignited into a supply chain crisis in recent weeks as restaurants, supermarkets and food manufacturers warned customers that some popular products may be temporarily unavailable because of a shortage of truck drivers.
McDonald’s milkshakes, Nando’s chicken, Haribo sweets and supermarket milk are among the items that have become scarce in Britain over the summer. But it goes far beyond food: Nearly every industry is complaining about delivery problems. And already organizations are warning that logistics issues could upend the arrival of Christmas toys and the trimmings crucial to family holiday meals.
A long-running shortage of truck drivers has been exacerbated by a post-Brexit exodus of European Union workers. Adding to the problem are disruptions to new driver training because of the pandemic. And for years, the trucking industry has struggled to attract new workers to a job that has traditionally been low paid and required long, grueling hours.
“Ninety-five percent of everything we get in Britain comes on the back of a truck,” said Rod McKenzie, the director of policy at Road Haulage Association, which represents the British road transport industry, and estimates that there is a shortfall of 100,000 drivers. “So if there are not enough trucks to go around — and we’ve got reports of big companies with a hundred trucks parked up at any one time — there simply is less stuff being delivered.”
Earlier in the summer, the German candy company Haribo said it was struggling to get its sweets into British shops. Arla, a large dairy producer, said it was having to skip up to a quarter of its deliveries. Last week, Nando’s, the popular restaurant chain, had to close about 50 of its restaurants because of a shortage of its famed peri-peri chicken.
The delivery problems are forcing other companies to triage what they sell. McDonald’s took milkshakes and bottled drinks off the menu this week, allowing it to focus on serving burgers and fries.
British shoppers should expect to see even more companies reduce their product options and prioritize their best-selling items, Mr. McKenzie said.
The United States also faces a shortage of truck drivers. Britain’s crisis is similar in that it’s been years in the making, as trucking companies have failed to attract younger workers. The average age of a truck driver in Britain is nearly 50. Six years ago, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport said that just 2 percent of drivers were under the age of 25 and that by 2022 the industry would need 1.2 million more workers.
Then, after the 2016 Brexit referendum, the value of the British pound plummeted, making it less lucrative for continental Europeans — truck drivers included — to work in Britain, prompting some to return to their home countries. That trend was exacerbated by the pandemic, when many wanted to be closer to their families.
When Britain took the final step of leaving the European Union at the end of last year, it meant drivers from continental Europe could no longer be employed at short notice and with ease in Britain.
“Until December there was never going to be a labor shortage because, as soon as there was a sign of one, a company could talk to their agency in Poland or elsewhere and get them to send some people over,” said David Henig, a trade expert at the European Center for International Political Economy, a research institute.
Efforts to fill those jobs with new British drivers have been stymied because over much of the last year, pandemic lockdowns prevented driving exams from taking place. The Road Haulage Association estimates that as many as 40,000 tests were not conducted. Training a new driver takes up to six months.
“It’s getting worse,” Mr. McKenzie said. “No doubt, no question. It’s getting worse week on week.”
Politico, the Washington news site that has prospered for years as Beltway professionals gobbled up its scoops and inside-baseball-style reporting, will have a new owner.
The German publishing giant Axel Springer agreed to buy Politico in a deal announced on Thursday that could shake up the Washington media scene.
Springer will take control of Politico and its sister site, Politico Europe, as well as Politico’s tech news site, Protocol, a relatively new venture, the companies said. The deal, expected to close by the end of the year, is valued at more than $1 billion, two people familiar with the matter said. The New York Times reported last week that Politico’s owner, Robert Allbritton, was seeking $1 billion for the deal. The companies did not disclose financial terms.
Mathias Döpfner, the chief executive of Springer, described Politico as an “outstanding media company” that has “disrupted digital political journalism.” He added the importance of maintaining Politico’s “editorial independence and nonpartisan reporting.”
Mr. Allbritton, who helped found Politico in 2007, will remain publisher of the site and it will operate separately from Springer. “I reach this milestone with a sense of satisfaction that I hope is shared by every Politico,” he said in a statement. He also took a jab at others in the digital media space: “We have put the emphasis on doing rather than boasting, and what multiple competitors have aspired to — a consistently profitable publication that supports true journalistic excellence — we have achieved.”
Mr. Allbritton and Springer had been in talks for several months over a possible acquisition, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private. Politico, which generates about $200 million a year in revenue, has been consistently profitable. The site is free, and its flagship newsletter, Playbook, is widely read among Washington’s power brokers. It also has a high-end subscription service, Politico Pro, that generates more than half of the company’s annual revenue.
With a value of more than $1 billion, the deal is one of the most expensive media mergers in recent memory, the equivalent of five times Politico’s yearly sales. BuzzFeed, one of the largest digital publishers in the country, recently announced a financial transaction that would take it public at a valuation of $1.5 billion, or about three times its annual revenue.
Springer has been actively pursuing deals in the United States as a way to expand its portfolio. The publisher has become particularly attracted to subscription-based news businesses. After Springer acquired Business Insider for around $500 million in 2015, it remade the company to become a subscription-based news outlet and put its scoops behind a paywall. (For that deal, Springer paid almost nine times Business Insider’s revenue.) Last year, the company acquired a controlling stake in Morning Brew, a newsletter publisher.
Politico’s subscription business made it an even more attractive target for Springer. The German publisher already had a partnership with Politico as a joint owner in Politico Europe. Springer had been looking to expand Politico Europe, but it couldn’t do so without Mr. Allbritton’s consent.
The Politico deal is expected to quash Springer’s talks to acquire Axios, a competing news start-up founded by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen and Roy Schwartz, all early veterans of Politico. (Mr. VandeHei and John F. Harris started Politico in 2006 after they left The Washington Post.)
Mr. Allbritton has lost some of his biggest-name journalists in recent years, either to rivals or to upstarts. The media landscape has shifted substantially, and the so-called talent economy has allowed big-name journalists to start their own ventures. This year, three of Politico’s top staff members — Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer and John Bresnahan — left to start Punchbowl News, a competing news site. Mr. Sherman and Ms. Palmer were the well-known hands behind the Playbook newsletter.
In February, Politico’s chief executive announced he would depart, and in June, Carrie Budoff Brown, a longtime editor at Politico, said she would be leaving to join NBC News. Politico’s nearly 400 journalists are also in the throes of a unionizing effort that could severely add to the cost of the business. It’s unclear how Springer will manage the mounting labor issues.
For Mr. Allbritton, the deal means a huge personal payday. His family already netted about $500 million after Mr. Allbritton sold their television empire to Sinclair Broadcast Group in 2013.
Forbes announced on Thursday that it planned to go public through a deal with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
The venerable business publication, owned by Integrated Whale Media and the Forbes family, said in a news release that it had reached an agreement to merge with Magnum Opus Acquisition, a publicly traded blank-check firm.
The deal, which values the combined company at $630 million, is expected to close by the end of the year or early 2022. If it goes through, Forbes will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FRBS.
Forbes is the latest media company to use the once obscure, but increasingly popular SPAC maneuver to go public, rather than an initial public offering, which comes with regulatory hassles. In June, BuzzFeed said it would merge with the publicly listed shell company 890 Fifth Avenue Partners. Group Nine Media, the publisher of PopSugar and Thrillist, formed its own SPAC in December with the aim of going public.
Forbes, known for its rankings of wealthy businesspeople, said it had an audience of more than 150 million through its journalism, events and marketing programs. Founded as a magazine in 1917, it still publishes a print edition eight times a year in the United States. It also has 45 licensed local versions that cover 76 countries.
In 2014, the Forbes family sold a majority stake in the company to Integrated Whale Media.
TC Yam, the executive chairman of Integrated Whale Media, said in a statement on Thursday that the SPAC deal was “the next exciting chapter in the Forbes narrative.”
“It has been exciting to watch the Forbes management team successfully complete a digital transformation since we have been involved, and then deliver record annual returns,” Mr. Yam said.
Cettire, a website offering discounts of up to 30 percent on the latest fashion styles, is part of the fast-growing, multibillion-dollar luxury “gray” market.
Unlike the illegal counterfeit goods often found on the black market, the gray market sells authentic luxury products — but at a significant discount, and with no contact with the brands, Elizabeth Paton reports for The New York Times.
Through a practice sometimes known as parallel importing, gray market sellers tend to take advantage of the varying pricing strategies and taxation requirements for luxury products across different regions in order to get certain hot products to those who want them for less.
The price differences between markets can be striking. According to research recently published by Money.co.uk, a customer in Europe will pay a little over $2,800 for an Yves Saint Laurent sac de jour, but the same bag will cost more than $3,700 in South Korea. A shopper can purchase a white Fendi canvas baguette bag for roughly $2,620 in continental Europe. That same item will cost about $3,350 if bought in mainland China.
Taking advantage of such disparities has become big business. Last year, the gray market was estimated to be worth up to 8 percent of the $257 billion personal luxury goods market, said Luca Solca, an analyst at the research firm Sanford C. Bernstein.
“The Cettire business model isn’t illegal — it’s just very good at exploiting legal loopholes in trade regulations,” said Tommy Mathew, a fashion e-commerce veteran. He noted that shipments valued less than $800 can generally be shipped free of import duties to the United States, where two-thirds of Cettire’s customers are. China, Cettire’s second-largest market, has a similar exemption.
“The main reason authorized retailers don’t exploit these sorts of loopholes is because they would likely lose access to products by openly undercutting the brands,” Mr. Mathew said. “Cettire obscures its suppliers to ensure their access to luxury goods while providing plausible deniability to suppliers who engage in this type of practice.”
Now, many brands are working with consultants and local governments to develop new ways to combat the gray market after previous attempts to control the practice — like buying back and destroying unsold stock — led to backlash over sustainability issues.
Growing companies have struggled during the pandemic to find ways to make new hires feel they’re a part of the business when they can’t meet in person, Amy Haimerl reports for The New York Times. Without clues from the office setting and existing systems, how do you learn the company’s culture?
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Siete Family Foods developed a game. New hires get a bingo card listing current employees’ hidden talents and stories, and are asked to set up video calls with those workers until they hit “bingo.” “It is just fun. It’s even fun for people who are already on the team,” Miguel Garza, the chief executive, said.
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Standardized offer letters, clear payroll and benefits information, and a robust employee handbook are important, said Tolithia Kornweibel, chief revenue officer for Gusto, a payroll and benefits company that serves small and midsize businesses. But those things are not enough, especially in a tight labor market, she said. “You have to really make sure that the experience is warm and very human.”
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Adam Bry, chief executive and a co-founder of the drone-maker Skydio, wanted to find ways to keep the team connected. In the early days of the pandemic, that meant trying to have some fun. He rented a drive-in theater near their Redwood City, Calif., office and showed the 2013 sci-fi movie “Gravity.” “We love things that fly, so we watched an aviation movie,” Mr. Bry said.
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The board of Lordstown Motors, the electric vehicle start-up, appointed Daniel A. Ninivaggi as the new chief executive, the company announced on Thursday. Mr. Ninivaggi, the former chief executive of Icahn Enterprises, a holding company controlled by the billionaire investor Carl C. Icahn, takes the reins of troubled automaker trying to win back the confidence of investors after a turbulent year that started with a deal with a blank-check company to take the business public. Its fortunes turned in March after a research firm released a report critical of the company’s production claims. The company has since disclosed that it is being investigated by federal prosecutors in New York and by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Facebook has approached academics and policy experts about forming a commission to advise it on global election-related matters, five people with knowledge of the discussions told The New York Times, a move that would allow the social network to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body. The proposed commission could decide on matters such as the viability of political ads and what to do about election-related misinformation, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential.
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A producer at the ABC News program “Good Morning America” accused Michael Corn, a former senior executive producer of the show, of sexually assaulting her and creating a toxic work environment in a lawsuit filed Wednesday against Mr. Corn and ABC. Kirstyn Crawford said in the lawsuit that Mr. Corn sexually assaulted her in 2015 during a work trip to Los Angeles to cover the Academy Awards. Mr. Corn denied the allegations in a statement on Wednesday.
Delta Air Lines’ plan to charge unvaccinated employees more for health insurance is an idea that has been widely discussed but is mired in legal uncertainty.
Starting Nov. 1, employees who have not received the vaccine will have to pay an additional $200 per month to remain on the company’s health plan. It is part of a series of requirements that unvaccinated workers will face in the months to come, the airline’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, said in a memo to staff.
“We’ve always known that vaccinations are the most effective tool to keep our people safe and healthy in the face of this global health crisis,” he said. “That’s why we’re taking additional, robust actions to increase our vaccination rate.”
Every Delta employee who has been hospitalized because of the coronavirus in recent weeks was not yet fully vaccinated, with hospital stays costing the company an average of about $50,000. Like most large employers, Delta insures its own work force, meaning it pays health costs directly and hires an insurance company to administer its plans.
Insurance surcharges may appeal to companies that are seeking a less coercive means to increase vaccination rates, said Wade Symons, a partner at Mercer, a benefits consulting firm. He has had conversations with about 50 large companies that are considering imposing such fees, he added.
Legally speaking, insurance surcharges are more complicated than simple employment mandates, which are widely considered legally sound. Federal law bars employers and insurers from charging higher prices to people with pre-existing health conditions. But the vaccine surcharges are being structured as employer “wellness” incentive programs, which are permitted under the Affordable Care Act. Such programs must be voluntary but can involve rewards or penalties as large as 30 percent of an employee’s health insurance premium.
Under federal law, employers must provide accommodations for workers who cannot receive a vaccine for health reasons or sincerely held religious beliefs.
“This is not rocket science, but it is not easy,” said Rob Duston, a lawyer with Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr in Washington, D.C., whose focus includes employment and disability issues.
“You are dealing with the overlap of at least three different laws,” he added, referring to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, the Affordable Care Act, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s wellness plan, as well as Covid-19 guidelines. The companies would have to abide by the Americans With Disabilities Act and health privacy laws, too.
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U.S. stocks fluctuated in early trading on Thursday after climbing further into record territory on Wednesday. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq composite were little changed.
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Initial jobless claims rose slightly last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, increasing to 353,000 from 349,000.
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The Commerce Department revised higher its estimate of gross domestic product for the second quarter to 6.6 percent from 6.5 percent. G.D.P., the broadest measure of economic output, grew 6.3 percent in the first three months of the year.
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European stocks fell on Thursday, with the Stoxx Europe 600 dipping 0.3 percent. Asian stocks closed lower after. South Korea’s central bank raised its interest rate on Thursday, becoming the first Asian country to do so amid the pandemic.
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Oil prices dropped. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, was down 1.5 percent to $67.34 a barrel.
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Shares for Salesforce.com rose after the software company reported revenue rose 23 percent in its latest quarter, compared with last year. During the quarter ending July 31, the company acquired the business communication platform Slack.
