News Stream – 00s’ High Tech Giants

Walmart-owned Flipkart will sell groceries online in more Indian cities, as it seeks to compete better with Amazon and Reliance in an e-commerce market that has grown rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Flipkart has already expanded online grocery sales to more than 50 Indian cities and intends to reach over 70 locations in the next six months, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. "Grocery continues to be one of the fastest-growing categories," said Manish Kumar, senior vice president at Flipkart, adding that the company had seen increased demand for the service from smaller cities in 2020.

Alibaba and Ant Group founder Jack Ma has lost the title of China's richest man, a list published on Tuesday showed, as his peers prospered while his empire was put under heavy scrutiny by Chinese regulators. Ma and his family had held the top spot for China's richest in the Hurun Global Rich List in 2020 and 2019 but now trail in fourth place behind bottled water maker Nongfu Spring's Zhong Shanshan, Tencent Holding's Pony Ma and e-commerce upstart Pinduoduo's Collin Huang, the latest list showed.

One of the most influential names in the investing world tweeted about SPACs on Monday. The question is what could the tweet ...

‘He was a generous man and financially stable, or so I thought.’

(Bloomberg) -- Ant Group Co. told employees it would eventually go public and promised to help those who need to monetize their shares sooner, seeking to boost morale four months after Chinese regulators torpedoed the fintech giant’s blockbuster listing.A “short-term liquidity solution” for employees will take effect in April, Ant Chairman Eric Jing said in a recent posting on the company’s internal website, according to people familiar with the matter.Ant suspended a share buyback program for current and departing staff in July to prepare for the IPO, people familiar with the decision said, but has thus far struggled to revive it in part because of uncertainty over how to value the company.The moves underscore two intertwined challenges facing Ant: The fintech giant’s future is still shrouded in doubt due to an ongoing lack of regulatory clarity, and the risk of employee discontent is rising. Ant is bracing for departures after it pays bonuses in April, people familiar said, asking not to be named discussing private information.Few doubt that the company’s prospects have worsened dramatically since China began tightening regulations on the fintech sector, but the opacity surrounding the new rules has made it difficult to put a number on the damage. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Francis Chan, for instance, has lowered his estimate for Ant’s valuation three times since the IPO was scuttled. He now pegs the company’s net worth at less than $108 billion, about 60% lower than the level implied by Ant’s listing plan in November.Meanwhile, several Chinese tech giants that compete with Jack Ma’s businesses for talent have seen their shares soar in recent months, generating big gains for employees with stock options. Arch-rival Tencent Holdings Ltd. has climbed about 16% in Hong Kong trading over the past four months, while E-commerce giant Meituan has jumped 25%. Kuaishou Technology has surged 173% since its February listing.Some Ant employees who joined the company in the run-up to the planned IPO have quit rather than hold out for a revival of the listing, people familiar with the matter said. Others are stressing over their personal finances after buying cars or paying down payments on new homes in anticipation that the IPO would be a success, one person said.While employee holdings would have been subject to a three-year lockup had Ant’s listing gone ahead in November, many anticipated the stock’s value would continue climbing after the IPO. That view is now far less prevalent.In one sign that Ant has yet to resolve its issues with regulators, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday that China’s central bank is unhappy with the company’s progress on requests to share more consumer data with the government.Ant declined to comment.The company’s solution for employees will likely be to buy back some of their shares, Dow Jones reported on Tuesday, citing people close to Ant. Dow Jones was the first to report Jing’s comments.Many of Ant’s 16,000-plus employees have been granted restricted stock options known as Share Economic Rights (SERs), each representing 5.53 shares.The awards, which account for a significant portion of total compensation for some employees, are usually subject to a four-year vesting schedule, with 25% free from the lockup upon the first anniversary and 25% every year thereafter.Before Ant’s buyback program was halted, departing employees would sell shares back to the company at a valuation in line with the company’s most-recent funding round, while existing employees could participate in periodic buyback rounds, people familiar with the matter said. Ant was valued at $150 billion in a 2018 financing.Outstanding SERs totaled 114 million at the end of June, according to the latest data disclosed by Ant. If valued at the company’s planned IPO price in November, they would have been worth a combined 43 billion yuan ($6.7 billion).Given the ongoing regulatory clampdown, it’s unclear how long it might take for authorities to sign off on a revival of Ant’s listing. In any case, employees are likely looking at a substantially reduced payout when they’re eventually allowed to cash in.That will make it tougher for Ant to retain talent, though for the opposite reason envisioned by the company in its IPO prospectus last year.“We have a number of employees, including many members of management, whose economic interests in our company could give them a substantial amount of personal wealth,” Ant said on the eve of what it expected to be a blockbuster listing. “If we are unable to motivate or retain these employees, our business may be severely disrupted and our prospects could suffer.”(Recasts with comments by Ant chairman from first paragraph, adds FT report in 9th paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) -- Bukalapak.com, an Indonesian e-commerce company backed by Microsoft Corp., is weighing a U.S. listing via a special purpose acquisition company, according to people familiar with the matter.The company is working with investment banks on the plan and is in preliminary talks with several blank-check companies, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Bukalapak could be valued at $4 billion to $5 billion in a potential SPAC merger, the people said. The startup could consider listing a small part of its business in Jakarta before doing a U.S. SPAC deal, they added.Deliberations are preliminary and no final decision has been made, the people said. A representative for Bukalapak declined to comment.Bukalapak, which means “open a stall” in Bahasa Indonesia, is an online marketplace that sells products from grapes and shoes to cars and televisions. Founded in 2010, the startup’s platform hosts 13.5 million online sellers and 100 million users.In November last year, Microsoft formed a strategic partnership with the Indonesian firm and made an investment as part of the deal. Other investors in Bukalapak include Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co., Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, Naver Corp. and Standard Chartered Plc. Bukalapak is valued at $3.5 billion, according to CB Insights.The coronavirus pandemic has boosted demand for e-commerce in the world’s fourth most populous country, where Bukalapak competes with rivals such as SoftBank Group Corp.-backed Tokopedia, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Lazada Group and Shopee, a unit of Singapore-based Sea Ltd.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Subscriptions for the Disney+ streaming service have grownbeyond expectations thanks to surprisingly strong interest from adults ...

Dow Jones futures were lower Tuesday following Monday's stock market surge. Tesla rebounded, while Zoom stock soared on earnings. Nio earnings miss.

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. and Australia’s air force carried out a test flight of an unmanned fighter-like aircraft designed to team up with crewed planes in combat.The Loyal Wingman plane was flown at various speeds and altitudes by a pilot at a ground-control station in the South Australian Outback, Boeing said in a statement.More flights are planned for later this year. The autonomous aircraft can be fitted with a variety of payloads and sensors depending on the mission, according to Boeing.“Boeing and Australia are pioneering fully integrated combat operations by crewed and uncrewed aircraft,” Boeing Defense, Space & Security President Leanne Caret said in the statement.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Each of the company's 270 retail outlets is currently open for business.

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced the launch of a second full region in Japan, the AWS Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region. The region is an expansion of the existing AWS Osaka Local Region, which opened to select customers in February 2018. The new region consists of three Availability Zones (AZs) and joins the existing 25 Availability Zones in eight AWS Regions across Asia Pacific in Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Ningxia, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo. Globally, AWS has 80 Availability Zones across 25 geographic regions, with plans to launch 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Australia, India, Indonesia, Spain, and Switzerland. Starting today, developers, startups, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organizations can leverage the new AWS Asia Pacific (Osaka) Region to run their applications locally, serve end-users across Asia with lower latency, and access the broadest and deepest suite of services available in the cloud. For more information on AWS’s global infrastructure, go to: https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/.

As of Monday, all 270 Apple stores in the U.S. were open in some capacity, though some still have restrictions, such as being appointment-only.

A manager at Amazon.com Inc sued the online retailer for discrimination on Monday, saying it hires Black people for lower positions and promotes them more slowly than white workers, and that she was subjected to harassment. The lawsuit from Charlotte Newman, a business development head at Amazon Web Services who is Black, said the company suffers from a "systemic pattern of insurmountable discrimination," despite its pledge to fight racism and statements of solidarity from Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos. Seattle-based Amazon said it was investigating the claims.

From February 8 through February 26, fundamentally strong stocks seemed to underperform stocks with weaker fundamental ratings. The selloff in the stocks with strong fundamentals is presenting a buying opportunity on Advanced Micro Devices.

Twitter says it has begun labeling tweets that include misleading information about COVID-19 vaccines and using a “strike system” to eventually remove accounts that repeatedly violate its rules.

The Nasdaq and SP500 have slightly different wave counts. If the market is going to be bullish, then we need strategies to be long.

United Parcel Service is the world’s biggest express carrier and package delivery company. Is UPS stock a buy as the coronavirus e-commerce boom fuels growth?

Amazon.com Inc. was sued for allegedly discriminating against Black and female workers in hiring employees for its corporate offices.

A congressional delegation will visit an Amazon.com Inc facility in Alabama on Friday to show their support for workers who will vote on whether to unionize. Amazon, America's second-biggest private employer behind Walmart Inc, does not have any union labor in the United States, and workers at its fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, would be the first to join if they vote in favor. The delegation will include U.S. Representatives Andy Levin, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Terri Sewell and Nikema Williams among others, said a spokeswoman for the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, which is supporting the workers' effort to unionize.

Investors who have owned stocks since 2016 generally have experienced some big gains. In fact, the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE: SPY) total ...