Company news in brief
Qatar Airways swoops for RwandAir stake
Qatar Airways is in talks to buy a 49% stake in Africa's RwandAir and is interested in doubling its holding in LATAM Airlines Group to 20%, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
A stake in an African airline would widen its reach in one of the world's fastest-growing aviation regions and potentially help it to bypass restrictions imposed on it by some Arab states.
"We are very tough negotiators ... we will take our time to negotiate," CEO Akbar al-Baker told reporters in Doha.
State-owned Qatar Airways already owns stakes in British Airways parent International Airlines Group, China Southern, Cathay Pacific and LATAM.
RwandAir flies to 29 destinations, mostly in Africa, but also to Dubai, Mumbai and Brussels.
Its CEO, Yvonne Manzi Makolo, confirmed to Reuters that talks to sell a stake were under way but declined to comment further.
Qatar Airways agreed in December to take a 60% stake in a new airport in Rwanda. – Nampa/Reuters
Nokia posts surprise profit rise
Finnish telecom network equipment maker Nokia yesterday reported a surprise rise in October-December underlying profit, driven by cost cuts, and said most of its 2020 profit will be generated in the fourth quarter.
Nokia said October-December underlying earnings rose to 0.15 euro per share from 0.13 euro per share a year ago, beating the 0.13 euro consensus in a Refinitiv poll.
Nokia repeated its forecast for 2020 underlying earnings per share of 0.20 euro to 0.30 euro.
Nokia cut its outlook in October and halted dividend payouts, blaming it on its need to step up investments in 5G - news that knocked more than a fifth from its value.
Nokia, which battles with Ericsson and Huawei for new 5G network deals, said it expects competitive intensity to continue at a high level in 2020, as some competitors seek to take share in the early stage of 5G.
Nokia said its board would not propose a dividend for 2019. – Nampa/Reuters
AB InBev CFO Dutra to step down
Belgium-based beer maker Anheuser-Busch InBev said yesterday that chief financial officer Felipe Dutra would step down and be replaced by Fernando Tennenbaum, the CFO of its Brazilian unit, Ambev SA.
Brazil was AB InBev's second-largest market behind the United States as of late last year and the company saw its volume drop by 3% in that market in the third quarter.
The company has been selling assets and listed its Asian business in Hong Kong in September.
It also named David Almeida as chief strategy and technology officer and Nelson Jamel as chief people officer. – Nampa/Reuters
GM forecasts flat 2020 profit
General Motors Co on Wednesday forecast flat profits for 2020 and reported a better-than-expected fourth quarter result as it kicked off a new effort to win over investors stampeding into shares of electric car rival Tesla Inc.
GM said it expects earnings per share for 2020 in a range from $5.75 to $6.25, excluding one-time items, taxes and interest.
The automaker forecast US$6 billion to US$7.5 billion of automotive free cash flow this year, a range that extends above the US$6.5 billion GM's auto operations could have generated in 2019 excluding the costs of the 40-day United Auto Workers strike last fall.
GM's fourth quarter profits took a US$3.6 billion hit from the strike that shut down the automaker's profitable US operations. Profits from its operations in China also fell.
Including restructuring costs, GM had a fourth quarter net loss of US$194 million, or 16 US cents a share. Revenue in the quarter fell nearly 20% to US$30.8 billion.
GM expects US car and light truck sales to fall by about 500 000 vehicles from last year's 17.1 million. – Nampa/Reuters
GSK to lay off workers in Belgium
British pharmaceutical giant GSK plans to cut up to 720 mainly senior jobs from its vaccine division in Belgium and not renew 215 temporary contracts, it said Wednesday.
The global company is the biggest private employer in Belgium's French-speaking region, with 9 000 staff in three production plants and its vaccine operations centre.
GlaxoSmithKline's global headquarters reported lower than expected earnings on Wednesday, along with a two-year plan to split the company in two.
One part of the new structure is to focus on research and development, particularly on the science of the human immune system, and another on public healthcare. – Nampa/AFP
Spotify widens net loss in 2019
Music streaming service Spotify Wednesday reported a bigger net loss in 2019, driven by aggressive investing, but said it had more active users and paying subscribers.
At the end of 2019 Spotify's number of monthly active users had grown to 271 million, a 31% increase from a year earlier. The number of premium subscribers rose by 29% to 124 million.
Spotify also said it had seen exponential growth when it came to podcasts and the hours streamed had increased by around 200% year-on-year.
But with aggressive investments in both research and marketing the company also reported a net loss of 186 million euro for 2019, more than double that of the year before when the company posted a loss of 78 million. – Nampa/AFP
Qatar Airways is in talks to buy a 49% stake in Africa's RwandAir and is interested in doubling its holding in LATAM Airlines Group to 20%, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
A stake in an African airline would widen its reach in one of the world's fastest-growing aviation regions and potentially help it to bypass restrictions imposed on it by some Arab states.
"We are very tough negotiators ... we will take our time to negotiate," CEO Akbar al-Baker told reporters in Doha.
State-owned Qatar Airways already owns stakes in British Airways parent International Airlines Group, China Southern, Cathay Pacific and LATAM.
RwandAir flies to 29 destinations, mostly in Africa, but also to Dubai, Mumbai and Brussels.
Its CEO, Yvonne Manzi Makolo, confirmed to Reuters that talks to sell a stake were under way but declined to comment further.
Qatar Airways agreed in December to take a 60% stake in a new airport in Rwanda. – Nampa/Reuters
Nokia posts surprise profit rise
Finnish telecom network equipment maker Nokia yesterday reported a surprise rise in October-December underlying profit, driven by cost cuts, and said most of its 2020 profit will be generated in the fourth quarter.
Nokia said October-December underlying earnings rose to 0.15 euro per share from 0.13 euro per share a year ago, beating the 0.13 euro consensus in a Refinitiv poll.
Nokia repeated its forecast for 2020 underlying earnings per share of 0.20 euro to 0.30 euro.
Nokia cut its outlook in October and halted dividend payouts, blaming it on its need to step up investments in 5G - news that knocked more than a fifth from its value.
Nokia, which battles with Ericsson and Huawei for new 5G network deals, said it expects competitive intensity to continue at a high level in 2020, as some competitors seek to take share in the early stage of 5G.
Nokia said its board would not propose a dividend for 2019. – Nampa/Reuters
AB InBev CFO Dutra to step down
Belgium-based beer maker Anheuser-Busch InBev said yesterday that chief financial officer Felipe Dutra would step down and be replaced by Fernando Tennenbaum, the CFO of its Brazilian unit, Ambev SA.
Brazil was AB InBev's second-largest market behind the United States as of late last year and the company saw its volume drop by 3% in that market in the third quarter.
The company has been selling assets and listed its Asian business in Hong Kong in September.
It also named David Almeida as chief strategy and technology officer and Nelson Jamel as chief people officer. – Nampa/Reuters
GM forecasts flat 2020 profit
General Motors Co on Wednesday forecast flat profits for 2020 and reported a better-than-expected fourth quarter result as it kicked off a new effort to win over investors stampeding into shares of electric car rival Tesla Inc.
GM said it expects earnings per share for 2020 in a range from $5.75 to $6.25, excluding one-time items, taxes and interest.
The automaker forecast US$6 billion to US$7.5 billion of automotive free cash flow this year, a range that extends above the US$6.5 billion GM's auto operations could have generated in 2019 excluding the costs of the 40-day United Auto Workers strike last fall.
GM's fourth quarter profits took a US$3.6 billion hit from the strike that shut down the automaker's profitable US operations. Profits from its operations in China also fell.
Including restructuring costs, GM had a fourth quarter net loss of US$194 million, or 16 US cents a share. Revenue in the quarter fell nearly 20% to US$30.8 billion.
GM expects US car and light truck sales to fall by about 500 000 vehicles from last year's 17.1 million. – Nampa/Reuters
GSK to lay off workers in Belgium
British pharmaceutical giant GSK plans to cut up to 720 mainly senior jobs from its vaccine division in Belgium and not renew 215 temporary contracts, it said Wednesday.
The global company is the biggest private employer in Belgium's French-speaking region, with 9 000 staff in three production plants and its vaccine operations centre.
GlaxoSmithKline's global headquarters reported lower than expected earnings on Wednesday, along with a two-year plan to split the company in two.
One part of the new structure is to focus on research and development, particularly on the science of the human immune system, and another on public healthcare. – Nampa/AFP
Spotify widens net loss in 2019
Music streaming service Spotify Wednesday reported a bigger net loss in 2019, driven by aggressive investing, but said it had more active users and paying subscribers.
At the end of 2019 Spotify's number of monthly active users had grown to 271 million, a 31% increase from a year earlier. The number of premium subscribers rose by 29% to 124 million.
Spotify also said it had seen exponential growth when it came to podcasts and the hours streamed had increased by around 200% year-on-year.
But with aggressive investments in both research and marketing the company also reported a net loss of 186 million euro for 2019, more than double that of the year before when the company posted a loss of 78 million. – Nampa/AFP
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