Business review from the Economist

Business review from the Economist

Nissan investors clash with Renault chief

Tensions in the alliance between Renault and Nissan were on display at the latter's annual shareholders' meeting, the first since the arrest on financial-misconduct charges of Carlos Ghosn, who ran the alliance. Nissan's investors directed most of their ire at Jean-Dominique Senard, Renault's chairman, who has pushed for a full merger with Nissan and had threatened to scupper changes to its governance (Renault owns 43% of Nissan). At the meeting, Senard acknowledged that the relationship between the two companies was in a bad state.

BMW said it would have 25 new fully electric or hybrid models on the market by 2023, two years earlier than expected. Europe's carmakers are accelerating their plans for cleaner vehicles in order to comply with stricter E.U. rules on car emissions.

Eldorado Resorts agreed to buy Caesars Entertainment in a $17.3 billion deal that creates the United States' biggest casino company. Caesars, which counts Caesars Palace, Bally's and the Flamingo, all in Las Vegas, among its assets, is the bigger of the two. It had faced calls from Carl Icahn, an activist investor, to put itself up for sale to cut costs. Eldorado has no properties in Vegas, but it does own the Tropicana in Atlantic City.

The latest blockbuster deal in the drugs industry saw AbbVie offering $63 billion for Allergan, best known for Botox, a skin-smoothing treatment popular with the more mature clientele. AbbVie is hunting for new sources of sales as the patent protection on Humira, its bestselling inflammatory treatment, will expire in the U.S. in 2023. Separately, Bristol-Myers Squibb's merger with Celgene, valued at $90 billion when it was announced in January, was delayed until at least the end of this year as it works to overcome antitrust concerns.

In its first week as a publicly listed company, Slack's share price slipped below the $38.62 at which it closed on the first day of trading. The office-messaging service opted for a direct listing of its existing stock on the New York Stock Exchange rather than an IPO (through which new shares are issued), because it didn't need to raise fresh capital, said to Stewart Butterfield, Slack's chief executive.

Jerome Powell raised concerns about the world economy, warning that the "global risk picture has changed," and that there was "greater uncertainty" over trade. The comments from the chairman of the Federal Reserve bolstered those who are betting on the central bank reducing interest rates in July. Powell also stressed that the Fed won't bow to pressure in its process of making decisions. In his latest outburst President Donald Trump, who wanted the Fed to cut rates this month, tweeted that it "doesn't know what it is doing" and is behaving "like a stubborn child."

Financial regulators responded coolly to Facebook's plan to launch a global digital currency, to be called Libra. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, said that Libra could become "systemic" and would "have to be subject to the highest standards of regulation." Randal Quarles, the head of the Financial Stability Board, which advises the G-20, warned that the use of "cryptoassets" deserves "close scrutiny."

Global politics from the economist

Turks brush back Erdogan maneuver

Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was humiliated by voters, as his attempt to reverse the mayoral election in Istanbul, which his party had lost, backfired spectacularly. At his behest, the electoral board ordered a rerun, but last week the opposition challenger, Ekrem Imamoglu, won by a much larger margin than in March: 54% to 45%.

After three weeks of talks that followed an election, Denmark's Social Democrats won the backing of smaller parties on the left to form a minority government headed by Mette Frederiksen as prime minister. The smaller parties agreed to support Frederiksen only after she promised to water down the hard-line policies on immigration that her party had touted during the election.

Ukraine responded angrily to the decision of the Council of Europe, which is separate from the European Union, to restore Russia's voting rights. But supporters of the move said this would ensure that Russian citizens could lodge claims against their government at the European Court of Human Rights, a body of the council.

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt emerged as the final two in the race to lead Britain's Conservative Party and thus become prime minister. Johnson is the favorite, but his bumbling style seems odd at a time of crisis.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said it would petition the courts to void a warrant that authorized the Australian police to raid its offices and seize documents related to a report it published in 2017 about abuses by Australian special forces in Afghanistan.