Tag: may 26 2020

Major Bankruptcies Accelerating. Through 22 May, 90 major U.S. corporations have gone bankrupt, Bloomberg reported, including Hertz, J.C. Penney, and Neiman Marcus. The current pace would yield 233 major corporate bankruptcies this year, a pace 68 percent above last year’s and 97 percent greater than in 2018. The trend is young and accelerating, Bloomberg noted,...

Oil Prices Rise with Returning Economic Activity. Oil prices are steadily, if slowly, rising again, due to fundamental market forces instead of speculation. China’s factories are back at work and its economy is gradually turning toward growth. Lockdowns in several nations are being cautiously lifted, putting more people back in their cars and more commercial...

The global economic shutdown is ravaging the developing world with a humanitarian disaster unlikely to begin to abate until advanced economies have reopened, said World Bank president David Malpass. The shutdown will cast 60 million more people into poverty, the bank says, defining poverty as living on $1.90 or less a day. Hundreds of millions...

In its bid to spread its economic tentacles around the globe, China has loaned at least $520 billion to developing countries to boost their economies. The countries put up mines, airports, and other property as collateral for the loans. The loans left China as the world’s biggest lender, passing the World Bank and the International...

CEOs Say Economic Recovery Will Be Slow. Europe’s recovery from the economic shutdown will take at least a year and as many as three, according to a majority of the 56 CEOs and board chairs belonging to the European Round Table for Industry. About 53 percent expect recovery to take one to two years and...

WeWork Wants Rent Break – and So Do Its Tenants WeWork, the multi-billion-dollar landlord that rents about 11 million square feet of workspace to gig workers and young companies, is finding almost a third of its tenants are unable to pay their rent. As a result, WeWork can’t either. WeWork does not own the space...

Tech Giants Plan for Shopping Spree As the economic shutdown and its aftermath persist, well-heeled tech companies are shopping for smaller, struggling enterprises. The giants will use the opportunity to expand into new markets, fill gaps in product lines, or quash competition, analysts say. On 19 May, Microsoft announced its purchase of Softmotive, a robotics...

HERTZ GOES BUST It comes as no surprise to Trends Journal subscribers. We had warned this would happen in our 12 May issue. The car rental giant, in business since 1918 and owner of the Dollar and Thrifty rental lines, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after incurring $18.8 billion in debt and having only $1...

Restaurants, most of which remain shut to public traffic, made up about 70 percent of the U.S. seafood industry’s market. Although consumers are buying more fish at grocery stores to eat at home during the lockdowns – an increase of 40 percent, to $1.4 billion from early April through early May – it makes up...

Harley Davidson, the Milwaukee motorcycle maker, has restarted its factories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania but will make only its most popular models for the rest of this year and offer only a limited range of options. It also has told about 70 percent of its 698 dealers they will not receive any new bikes from...