6 Most Important Things in Business Today

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 13, 3:46PM EDT · Published Jan 26, 5:07AM EST

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Former PC maker Dell, which has broadened into a larger tech company, could go public again. According to The Wall Street Journal:

Dell Inc. is considering a range of strategic alternatives that could transform the maker of PCs and data-storage devices, according to people familiar with the matter.

In the review, which is in a preliminary stage, the closely held technology giant is expected to explore options including an initial public offering and a purchase of the rest of VMware Inc., a publicly traded cloud infrastructure company, the people said.

VMware has a market value north of $50 billion. Talks between the companies are at an early stage, one of the people said

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Raider Bill Ackman bought shares in Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE). According to The Wall Street Journal:

William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP has taken a passive stake in Nike Inc. based on a belief in the sneaker giant’s long-term growth prospects.

Mr. Ackman announced the position, accumulated since October, at an event for his investors Thursday evening, according to a person familiar with the matter. It isn’t clear how big the stake is.

Mr. Ackman, one of the best-known activist investors, doesn’t intend to agitate for change at the Beaverton, Ore., company, the person said, believing it is already on the right path.

Some say that Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) has hit trouble producing its new Model 3. According to CNBC:

Tesla’s problems with battery production at the company’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, are worse than the company has acknowledged and could cause further delays and quality issues for the new Model 3, according to a number of current and former Tesla employees. These problems include Tesla needing to make some of the batteries by hand and borrowing scores of employees from one of its suppliers to help with this manual assembly, said these people.

Tesla’s future as a mass-market carmaker hinges on automated production of the Model 3, which more than 400,000 people have already reserved, paying $1,000 refundable fees to do so.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will start to sell e-readers in Japan. According to CNBC:

The big-box retailer is partnering with Rakuten, a Tokyo-based e-commerce business, to sell e-books and audiobooks on Walmart.com, a category that’s never been offered on the website before.

Toronto-based Rakuten Kobo, a subsidiary of Rakuten, will bring its catalog of more than 6 million e-book titles to the retailer’s website, alongside Walmart’s physical books. It will also begin selling its e-readers, similar to Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes & Noble’s Nook, to Walmart customers later this year. The e-books will also be accessible through a Walmart/Kobo co-branded smartphone and desktop app.

A famous country and western singer will become the new face of KFC. According to Fortune:

KFC has appointed its first female Colonel Sanders.

The fried-chicken chain revealed that Reba McEntire will appear as the Colonel in its latest marketing campaign, Business Insider reports.

As the new the face of KFC’s Smoky Mountain BBQ chicken, the country music icon will sing in commercials and swap between roles as herself and Colonel Sanders.

Advertising investments in NFL games dropped last year. According to the New York Post:

Advertisers kept a tighter grip on their wallets when it came to the NFL this season.

Revenue on game-time commercials slid 1.2 percent during the 2017 regular season, to $2.42 billion, from a year ago, according to data from Standard Media Index, which has studied advertiser spending on NFL telecasts for the past four seasons.

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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.