Media

6 Most Important Business Stories Today

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: July 11, 2017 5:15 am

Last Updated: March 13, 2020 3:20 pm

Reuters reports that activist investor Daniel Loeb continues to pressure Nestle to improve its stock and financial performance. His actions have been viewed as a reason the company has started to buy back shares.

Elliott Management, the largest creditor of bankrupt energy company Oncor Electric, will bid $18.5 billion for the company. The deal includes the assumption of debt. Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B) recently made a bid.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) plans to bring broadband to rural areas with the “white space” in TV signals. According to Bloomberg:

The software giant on Tuesday is calling for a national strategy that eliminates the rural broadband gap over the next five years. It’s starting by funding projects to bring access to less-populated areas in 12 U.S. states in the next year, and will share the new technology with other companies that want to do the same. By 2022, the Redmond, Washington-based company plans to provide fast internet to 2 million people, using so-called white-spaces spectrum — the unused frequencies between TV channels. It will face some hurdles, including opposition from broadcasters reluctant to surrender airwaves.

The global investment in energy dropped sharply again in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In its report on last year, its researchers wrote:

Global energy investment fell by 12% in 2016, the second consecutive year of decline, as increased spending on energy efficiency and electricity networks was more than offset by a continued drop in upstream oil and gas spending, according to the International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Investment report.

Global energy investment amounted to USD 1.7 trillion in 2016, or 2.2% of global GDP. For the first time, spending on the electricity sector around the world exceeded the combined spending on oil, gas and coal supply. The share of clean-energy spending reached 43% of total supply investment, a record high.

A new report from the Annals of Internal Medicine says drinking coffee can prolong life. According to CNBC, the study:

…the largest of its kind, looked at the correlation between coffee drinking and mortality among 450,000 participants in 10 European countries. Over the course of the 16-year study, researchers found that men who drank three or more cups of coffee per day lowered their risk of death by 18 percent, compared to those who didn’t. For women, the risk was lowered by 8 percent.

China tech company Xiaomi will build 2,000 stores across the world in the next three years, one of its executives told CNBC:

Half of those shops will be opened overseas with partners and the other half will be owned and operated by Xiaomi in China, and it’s all part of the company’s big ambitions to keep growing abroad, said senior vice president Wang Xiang, who oversees the firm’s global strategy. In the next few years, “we will definitely be a global player,” he said.