Category: Stock Market News

AMC Entertainment Holding Inc. announced Monday a deal to buy Stockholm-based Nordic Cinema Group Holding AB for the equivalent of $292 million in cash. The deal comes one-month after the movie theater operator completed its $1.1 billion buyout of Carmike Cinemas. Buying Nordic would give AMC the largest theater operator in Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and the second largest in Norway. Nordic will keep its headquarters in Stockholm, but will operate as a subsidiary of London-based Odeon Cinemas Group, which AMC acquired in November 2016. “For the third time in the past twelve months, we believe we have discovered a substantial acquisition that gives AMC yet another opportunity to further expand and diversify our geographic reach and more firmly establish AMC as the undisputed leader in movie exhibition worldwide,” said AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron. The deal is expected to close in June 2017. AMC’s stock, which was still inactive in premarket trade, has rallied 70% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 19%.

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Forbes Energy Services Ltd. said Monday it has filed for bankruptcy, in the southern district of Texas-Corpus Christi. The oilfield services contractor said it has ample liquidity to support its business during the chapter 11 reorganization, which provides for a facility of $50 million to be funded by certain bondholders to ensure working capital. The stock, which traded on the OTC Pink Sheets, had tumbled 58% over the past three months.

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A unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is buying a German maker of pipe components, Willhelm Schulz GmBH, according to a report in the Handelsbatt newspaper on Monday. In a comment to the newspaper, Mark Donegan, the chief executive officer of Berkshire’s Precision Castparts, said the company doesn’t comment on individual transactions, “but PCC has negotiated an agreement to take over the Schulz Group.” There was no immediate response from an email inquiry to Precision Castparts and a spokesperson from Willhelm Schulz could not immediately be reached for comment.

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All United Airlines domestic flights were grounded for about two hours Sunday night due to a computer glitch. “We have issued a ground stop for all domestic mainline flights due to an IT issue,” United Continental spokeswoman Maddie King said in a statement. The “ground stop” was lifted just after 9 p.m. Eastern, according to a tweet from the airline, and “we’re working to get flights on their way.” While United planes flying within the U.S. could not take off, the grounding did not apply to United sub-carriers. United did not immediately say how many flights were affected, nor what exactly the problem was.

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A group of ethics experts and constitutional scholars plans to file a lawsuit against President Donald Trump on Monday morning, claiming that Trump is breaking the law by allowing his hotels and other businesses to profit from foreign governments. Trump was pressed to divest his business holdings before he took office, but did not, instead passing day-to-day operations to his two adult sons. The group, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, claims that Trump is breaking the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause. “His Constitutional violations are immediate and serious, so we were forced to take legal action,” said CREW in a statement late Sunday. CREW is not seeking monetary damages, but will ask a federal court to block Trump’s businesses from accepting payments from foreign governments.

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Merck & Co. Inc. will pay $625 million and royalties to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Ono Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to settle patent litigation over Merck’s cancer drug Keytruda, the companies said Friday afternoon. As part of the settlement all patent litigation will be dismissed, and the companies have granted certain patent rights to each other. Merck will pay royalties on global Keytruda sales of 6.5% between 2017 and the end of 2023 and 2.5% between 2024 and 2026, with the royalties being split 75/25 between Bristol-Myers and Ono. Merck said the $625 million payment would be recorded in its fourth-quarter and full-year 2016 results, but excluded from its non-GAAP results. In their lawsuit against Merck, Bristol-Myers and Ono, which made cancer drug Opdivo, said its Keytruda sales infringed on various of its global patents. Bristol-Myers shares slumped 2.2% over the last three months, compared with a 1.0% rise in Merck shares and a 6.1% rise in the S&P 500 .

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U.S. stocks closed higher Friday after coming off intraday highs as Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the U.S. In his inauguration speech, the new president reiterated his protectionist stance but did not offer details on how he would go about pursuing his agenda. The S&P 500 rose 7 points, or 0.3%, to close at 2,271 for a weekly decline of 0.2%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 92 points, or 0.5%, to finish at 19,824, falling 0.3% for the week. The Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 15 points, or 0.3%, to close at 5,555, down shed 0.3% on the week.

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Moody’s Investors Service on Friday downgraded ratings on Sears Holdings to Caa2 from Caa1, sending the credit further into speculative, or “junk” territory. The action reflects the retailer’s steadily deteriorating performance after it said holiday same-store sales fell 12% to 13% from the year-earlier period. “Although Sears has been able to fund its continued cash shortfalls through planned asset monetization, and additional financings, a meaningful business turnaround in fiscal 2017 is critical given the continued reduction of its asset base”, Moody’s Vice President, Christina Boni said in a statement. “We expect operating cash flow to approach a disappointing loss of $1.5 billion for fiscal 2016.” Sear’s most active bonds, the 6.625% notes due October 2018 were trading at 93 cents on the dollar, according to MarketAxess.

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The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the federal agency that oversees the commodity futures, options and swaps industry, named J. Christopher Giancarlo acting chairman on Friday. Giancarlo succeeds Timothy Massad, a Democrat, who was appointed by former President Obama in June 2014 and resigned in early January. Giancarlo, a Republican, joined the CFTC as a commissioner in June 2014.

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AutoZone Inc. said Friday that it will hire more than 12,000 part-tme and full-time workers through April. The most hiring will occur in New York City, Oakland, CA, Cincinnati and Columbus, OH, New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas and Pittsburgh. The company will hire across a number of positions, including sales representatives and store managers. Applications must be submitted online at autozone.com/careers. AutoZone shares are nearly flat in Friday trading, and are up nearly 8% for the last year. The S&P 500 index is up 22% for the past 12 months.

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