What we’re reading (6/21)
“Stock Market Jumps After S&P 500’s Worst Week In Two Years” (Wall Street Journal). “Investors’ appetite for riskier assets on Tuesday follows a tumultuous week in the markets, sparked by the Federal Reserve’s approval of a 0.75-percentage-point interest-rate increase, the largest since 1994. Investors scrambled to unload riskier assets amid growing fears that central bankers will plunge the U.S. economy into a recession. The benchmark S&P 500 finished the week 5.8% lower, its largest one-week decline in more than two years.”
“Kellogg Is Spinning Off Its Cereal Business” (CNN Business). “Kellogg is splitting into three different companies in a major shakeup for the 116-year-old company. The first company will include Kellogg’s (K) North America cereal unit, which includes Raisin Bran and Rice Krispies, its snacking unit will become a second company, including Cheez-Its and Pringles. And, lastly, a new “pure-play plant-based foods company” will be anchored by its MorningStar Farms brand.”
“Citi May Lose Half-Billion On Revlon Snafu A Second Time” (Citi). “Less than two years after narrowly avoiding it, cosmetics dinosaur Revlon finally succumbed to the COVID-19 pandemic and bankruptcy. This, of course, is bad news for all holders of Revlon’s $3.31 billion in debt—the company was worth just $123 million before the bankruptcy filing—but it is the worst news for one which may or may not even be a Revlon creditor, that ultimate magnet for bad news banking: Citigroup.”
“JetBlue Raises Offer For Spirit To $33.50 A Share” (CNBC). “JetBlue Airways said Monday it had boosted its takeover offer for Spirit Airlines to $33.50 as it works to convince the ultra-low cost carrier to accept its offer over rival Frontier Airlines’ proposal. Spirit said last week it was in talks with JetBlue over its offer and expected to decide on the proposal by June 30. JetBlue said its proposal represents a 68% premium to the implied value of the Frontier stock and cash transaction.”
“Raiders Of The Looted Assets: Insides The High-Stakes Race To Recover Qaddafi’s Ill-Gotten Billions” (Vanity Fair). “Muammar Qaddafi, of course, was not the first kleptocrat to grace the world stage over the last half century. Ferdinand Marcos, Jean-Claude Duvalier, Mobutu Sese Seko, Saddam Hussein…the list is long and ignominious. But save for Vladimir Putin and his array of oligarchs (who by some estimates may have siphoned off as much as $1 trillion), Qaddafi may well have been the most rapacious. Oil lubricated Libya’s swing toward modernity and underwrote a graft-and-patronage machine that kept him in power for 42 years, enriching those in his orbit in ways that are hard to fathom and may be impervious to an accurate accounting. Now, there is a global endeavor to win some of those riches back.”
