Just days after U.S. corporate titan General Electric announced that it would divide itself into three companies, another storied American brand—Johnson & Johnson—laid out plans to “break itself up into two publicly traded companies, in the latest instance of corporate giants shrinking themselves to please shareholders.” J&J will spin off its consumer products division (think “Tylenol, Band-Aid, Neutrogena beauty products and more”) from its pharma and medical device division - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
And rather than let the Americans have all the splitsville fun, Toshiba is following suit, too - WSJ and Bloomberg
Singles Day closed in China with a mixed bag for Alibaba, which revolutionized the shopping festival in 2009. The Jack Ma-founded e-commerce giant saw $84.5 billion in merch sold on its platforms, an “8.5 percent increase over last year and an indication that Beijing’s campaign to tighten regulation of internet companies has not dimmed consumers’ enthusiasm for buying stuff online.” Yet overall sales growth was down compared to years before, even with this year’s totals accounting for a 10-day vs. 24-hour period, and a chastened Alibaba meant the entire event was a more mundane affair - NYTimes and WSJ and Bloomberg
New info from the European Commission suggests that inflation isn’t just hitting the U.S. economy but is also putting a damper on the economic recovery in the EU as well. Add in supply chain bottlenecks, labor shortages, and ongoing pandemic-related lockdowns, and you’ve got a pretty dismal picture of growth prospects across the pond - NYTimes
Brexit, by the by, hasn’t spared Boris and friends from a similar fate. Instead, it’s likely exacerbated existing “port and transport challenges” - NYTimes and Bloomberg
The Times digs deeper into the recent pair of rulings questioning the “public nuisance” legal strategy undergirding many of the lawsuits targeting the widespread damage the pharmaceutical industry caused as part of the opioid crisis in America - NYTimes
Binance now stands atop not only the crypto exchange world but finds itself the “world’s fastest-growing major financial exchange,” despite lacking a “head office or formal address” as well as “licenses in countries where it operates.” All that looks likely to soon change, however, as financial regulators around the globe are belatedly taking note of the outfit thanks largely to its outsized success: it now processes some $76 billion worth of crypto trades each day - WSJ
Elsewhere in the crypto world, we’re saying goodbye to Bitwise Asset Management’s proposed bitcoin ETF, a product the company ultimately deemed “too costly for many investors” - WSJ
Polling top bosses for their latest take on the future of the office—namely, how to bring workers “relishing their newfound autonomy” back there without losing them to the Great Resignation - NYTimes
Banking regulators at both the state and federal levels are ending their pandemic-era approach to residential mortgage services that afforded them wiggle room “under Regulation X for reaching out to and dealing with distressed borrowers.” The policy was “pitched as a way to take some regulatory pressure off so services could focus on fielding a wave of homeowner requests for mortgage assistance” – Law360
Some thoughts on GE’s recent split announcement, and what new CEO Larry Culp may be on to in making the move to divide up the “house that Jack (Welch) built” - Bloomberg
A second strong day of public trading for e-truck upstart Rivian drew the attention of Tesla’s Elon Musk, who couldn’t resist taking to Twitter in an attempt to subtweet the buzzy rival - Bloomberg
Is the Times perhaps reaching a bit on this “ancient roots of TikTok hair” piece? Perhaps. Will we allow it in order to help “Gen Z navigate[ ] the pandemic world”? We will - NYTimes
Stay safe, get vaxxed, and have a great weekend,
MDR
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