6 Most Important Things in Business Today

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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6 Most Important Things in Business Today

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According to several reports, Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA) has approached Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. (NYSE: FOXA) about buying many of its assets. Comcast owns NBCUniversal, and the deal would give Comcast two major movie studios and several cable properties. There are further rumors Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) may have interest in the same assets.

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) announced it will build a semi truck with a range of as much as 500 miles.

Meredith Cope. (NYSE: MDP) has made an official offer to buy Time Inc. (NYSE: TIME) for between $17 and $20 per share. Part of Meredith’s bid will be backed by the billionaire Koch brothers.

The widely debated Keystone XL pipeline has developed a leak. According to Reuters:

TransCanada Corp shut part of its Keystone oil pipeline system after a 5,000-barrel leak in South Dakota, the company said on Thursday, four days before neighboring Nebraska was set to decide on the company’s long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline.

Opponents of TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline seized on the spill, saying it highlighted the risks posed by the XL project – which has become a symbol for environmentalists of fossil-fuel pollution and global warming.

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The head of Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) diversity program is leaving. According to Fortune:

Apple’s diversity chief is leaving the company after holding the job for only six months.

Denise Young Smith, a 20-year Apple veteran was most recently the company’s vice president of diversity and inclusion, is stepping down, Apple confirmed. TechCrunch first reported on Denise Young Smith’s upcoming departure.

She will be replaced by Christie Smith, a longtime Deloitte human resources executive. Unlike her predecessor, Christie Smith will not directly report to CEO Tim Cook, but rather to Deirdre O’Brien, who is Apple’s human resources chief.

Barnes & Noble Inc. (NYSE: BKS), beaten down by the move to book sales online, may go private. According to the New York Post:

An activist investor has proposed to take Barnes & Noble private in a deal that would value the bookseller at $650 million.

Sandell Asset Management’s surprise move, reported by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, comes nearly four months after the hedge fund made an impassioned plea for the company to go private, arguing that public markets were not fully appreciating the bookseller.

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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