Spirit delays vote to pick buyout bid
NEW YORK — Spirit Airlines, the target of a bidding war, is postponing a Friday shareholder vote on whether to accept one of those buyout offers after a flurry of counter proposals from Frontier Airlines and JetBlue Airways.
Spirit said June 8 that it rescheduled the vote on its preferred offer, from Frontier, until June 30, giving its board another three weeks to speak with Frontier, JetBlue, and its own shareholders.
The decision to postpone the vote comes two days after JetBlue improved its offer. JetBlue said Wednesday that it welcomed the delay “as a necessary first step toward genuine negotiations between the Spirit Board and JetBlue.”
Frontier did not comment immediately.
JetBlue has offered more in cash than Colorado-based Frontier’s stock and cash bid, but Spirit’s board has rebuffed JetBlue, saying that any such tie-up would face a greater likelihood of being shot down by federal antitrust regulators. The bidding war has heated up in the past few days, with JetBlue attempting to allay concerns that the U.S. would block its acquisition.
Amazon says it blocked 4B listings
NEW YORK — Amazon says in its second annual report that it prevented 4 billion bad listings from making it onto its site and got rid of more than 3 million phony products last year.
The results, released June 8, were mixed compared with 2020, when Amazon blocked 10 billion listings and got rid of 2 million phony products.
The Seattle-based e-commerce juggernaut also saw a decrease in complaints of intellectual property infringement in 2021 while growing the number of active brands on its site.
Counterfeit sellers have long plagued Amazon and other e-commerce retailers, including eBay. And Amazon has stepped up efforts to fight it in recent years amid heightened scrutiny from brands and lawmakers pushing for anti-counterfeit legislation.
OECD cuts global economic outlook
LONDON — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Russia’s war in Ukraine and the energy and food crises it worsened will severely drag down global economic growth and push up inflation this year.
The Paris-based group on June 8 said China’s “zero-COVID” policy that has scrambled manufacturing supply chains also is weighing on a world economy that was starting to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the latest institution to slash its growth forecast, underscoring the dimming economic outlook.
The OECD expects the global economy to expand 3 percent in 2022, down from its 4.5 percent prediction in December. Inflation is forecast at nearly 9 percent for the OECD’s 38 member countries, nearly double the previous estimate.
Conventional cars could be banned by EU
BRUSSELS — European Union lawmakers have approved a proposed ban on cars with combustion engines in 2035 to step up the fight against global warming.
The European Parliament voted June 8 to require automakers to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 100 percent by the middle of the next decade.
The mandate would amount to a prohibition on the sale in the 27-nation EU of new cars powered by gasoline or diesel. The lawmakers also endorsed a 55 percent reduction in carbon dioxide output from automobiles in 2030 compared with 2021. Cars account for around 12 percent of European emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.
Senate panel backs Biden’s Fed pick
WASHINGTON — The nomination of Michael Barr, President Joe Biden’s choice to be the top regulator on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, was approved June 8 by a congressional committee and sent on the full Senate.
Barr, who served as a top Treasury Department official in the Obama administration, is considered likely to be confirmed by the full Senate.
A confirmation vote would make him the third of Biden’s nominees to join the Fed’s board and would further solidify Biden’s stamp on the central bank. It would also fill the last of seven seats on the board just as the Fed is grappling with the worst inflation spike in four decades.
Ga. adviser on the run told to pay $12M
ATLANTA — A financial adviser who’s been on the run for nearly two years has been ordered to pay $12 million to his victims in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.
The default judgment was recently entered in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against Christopher Burns and his companies: Investus Advisers LLC, which did business as Dynamic Money; Investus Financial LLC and Peer Connect LLC. And Burns, if he’s ever found, is also liable for a civil penalty of $652,629.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that it’s unclear, how much money, if anything, the victims will see. A federal criminal complaint, charging Burns with mail fraud is also pending.
Amazon exec named to run logistics firm
SEATTLE — An Amazon executive who recently announced his surprising resignation is joining logistics startup Flexport as its new CEO.
Flexport announced June 8 that Dave Clark will begin his new role at the San Francisco-based company on Sept. 1. Clark and Flexport’s current CEO, Ryan Petersen, will serve as co-CEOs for the first six months. After that period, Petersen will transition to serve as the executive chairman of the company.
Clark announced his departure last week from Amazon, where he worked for 23 years. The move signaled the company was looking to make changes to its troubled consumer division.
