News

Johnson & Johnson is to spin off its consumer products division, best known for Band-Aid plasters and baby shampoo, as the world’s largest healthcare company seeks to focus on pharmaceuticals and medical devices. The division, which generated $14bn in sales last year, will be split off in 18 to 24 months, most likely via a
0 Comments
US consumer prices are expected to have surged in October at their fastest pace in three decades, as bottlenecks and other supply-chain disruptions intensify and inflationary pressures broaden. Consensus forecasts compiled by Bloomberg indicate that the consumer price index to be published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday rose 5.9 per cent in
0 Comments
US industrial group General Electric is to split itself into three public companies from 2023, a big step in chief executive Larry Culp’s plan to streamline the sprawling conglomerate. The companies will focus on healthcare, energy and aviation. GE Healthcare will be spun off in 2023, with GE retaining a 19.9 per cent stake in
0 Comments
China reported dozens of new local coronavirus infections on Saturday, a day after the government reaffirmed its commitment to strict measures designed to limit the pandemic’s spread within its borders. The country’s National Health Commission on Sunday reported 74 new cases for the previous day, of which 50 were locally transmitted. A wave of cases
0 Comments
Nancy Pelosi stared down progressives in her own party on Friday, vowing to press ahead with a vote on a $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill while delaying consideration of a separate, larger social spending package popular with the leftwing of the Democratic party. The move breaks a longstanding promise to move the two bills through Congress
0 Comments
US jobs growth picked up after two straight months of disappointing gains as Covid-related concerns that have kept workers on the sidelines eased. Employers in the world’s largest economy added 531,000 jobs in October, above the upwardly-revised 312,000 positions created the previous month and closer to the roughly 560,000 monthly average seen since the start
0 Comments
One of Austria’s most senior military officials has been removed from a sensitive government position amid concerns over his links to Jan Marsalek, the former chief operating officer of fraudulent payment company Wirecard. Brigadier Gustav Gustenau was until recently head of the office of security policy within the Austrian ministry of defence — which provides
0 Comments
The eurozone’s economic rebound gathered pace with growth of 2.2 per cent in the third quarter, closing the gap with the US and Chinese recoveries and keeping the bloc on track to regain its pre-pandemic level of output later this year. However, there was a mixed picture between the four largest eurozone countries that reported
0 Comments
US economic growth slowed considerably in the third quarter due to supply-chain disruptions, a resurgence of Covid-19 and slower consumer spending. The world’s largest economy expanded 2 per cent on an annualised basis in the three months to the end of September, according to data from the commerce department on Thursday, marking the weakest quarterly
0 Comments
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and Microsoft both posted strong revenue growth in the third quarter, while Twitter swung to a loss, as the three tech companies released results late on Tuesday. Alphabet Alphabet smashed Wall Street’s profit expectations in the third quarter, thanks to stronger-than-expected ad sales, though the Google parent fell short of expectations
0 Comments
Tesla has become the first carmaker to be valued at $1tn after rental group Hertz said it had ordered 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans to electrify its fleet. Tesla shares rose 9.84 per cent in mid-day trading on Monday to $998.74, bringing year-to-date gains above 40 per cent and lifting the company’s market cap to
0 Comments
Facebook’s senior executives interfered to allow US politicians and celebrities to post whatever they wanted on its social network, overriding rules designed to curb misinformation and harmful content, leaked internal documents suggest. In particular, employees claim in the documents that while Facebook has long insisted that it is politically neutral, it allowed rightwing figures to
0 Comments