FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 The Boston Globe Business B
TALKING POINTS
INDUSTRY Agenda
GE TO BUY
BACK AS
MUCH AS $5B
IN BONDS
General Electric Co. plans to buy back as much as $5 billion of bonds as the
manufacturer seeks to cut its debt load as part of its turnaround. The company said that
it would repurchase up to $2.5 billion of dollar debt and the equivalent of $2.5 billion of
euro-denominated notes. GE said in its statement on Thursday that it won’t expand the
size of the buyback plan. GE chief executive Larry Culp is overhauling a company that
suffered from one of its worst slumps in its 127-year history. Profits have dropped amid
high costs and flagging demand for gas turbines. — BLOOMBERG NEWSMORTGAGES
RATES RISE,
BUT STILL LOW
Long-term mortgage rates rose this week but remained at historically low levels. Mortgage
buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the rate on the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage increased to
3.56 percent from 3.49 percent last week. Average rates on the benchmark loan have
remained below 3.6 percent for four straight weeks — the first time that’s happened since
the fourth quarter of 2016. A year ago, the 30-year rate stood at 4.6 percent. The average
rate for 15-year, fixed-rate home loans rose to 3.09 percent from 3 percent last week.
— ASSOCIATED PRESSAUTOMOTIVE
US INVESTIGATES
COMPLAINTS ABOUT
EMERGENCY BRAKING
ON NISSAN ROGUES
The US government’s road safety agency is investigating
complaints that the automatic emergency braking on the
Nissan Rogue can turn on for no apparent reason. The
probe covers about 554,000 Rogue small SUVs from the
2017 and 2018 model years. The National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration says 843 owners have complained to
the agency and to Nissan about the problem. Owners re-
ported 14 crashes and five injuries. The agency says Nissan
has issued a technical service bulletin and two customer
service actions related to the problem. It will try to find a cause and determine how often
the false braking happens, and could seek a recall. — ASSOCIATED PRESSINTERNATIONAL
JAPANESE WORKER
SAYS HE WAS
HARASSED FOR
TAKING PATERNITY
LEAVE
A worker at major Japanese sportswear maker Asics told a Tokyo court Thursday that he is
suing the company to counter the idea that a man’s place is at work and a woman’s is in the
home. The father of two bowed and stood before three judges at a hearing in the Tokyo
District Court, which is handling the case on ‘‘pata-hara,’’ or paternity harassment. He is
requesting anonymity for fear of further retribution. His lawsuit is one of the first of its kind
in Japan. The man, whose sons are now 4 and 1, was initially assigned to a sales-marketing
section at Asics, where he rubbed shoulders with athletes. After his first paternity leave, in
2015, he was assigned to a warehouse, according to his lawsuit. After he hurt his shoulder,
he was assigned to his current job where he says he is forced to sit and do little. Asics denies
any wrongdoing, arguing it changed the man’s job to best suit what it characterized as a
difficult employee. Japanese corporate culture tends to value loyalty to the company and
long hours, especially from male employees. But the country’s declining birthrate has led
the government to consider making parental leave mandatory for both parents to try to
counter that tendency. Data show very few Japanese fathers take paternity leave, although
the law provides for that option. — ASSOCIATED PRESSFRANCE
OFFICIAL
CRITICIZED FOR
SAYING SHE WOULD
TAKE CHAUFFEURED
CAR DURING
TRANSIT STRIKE
Sympathy can only take you so far. That’s what the French government
spokeswoman is finding out after she said she would sympathize with Paris
commuters facing a metro strike on Friday — from the comfort of her
chauffeur-driven official car. Sibeth NDiaye told BFM TV she’s going to use her
‘‘official car like every day’’ and that her ‘‘heart will be with Paris region people
who will struggle in the metro corridors.’’ Paris public transport company RATP
has warned that ten metro lines will be closed. Several others and the RER
suburb train will be severely disrupted, in what may be the biggest interruption
since 2007. RATP workers are protesting a government’s planned pension
reform that is expected to make them work longer. — ASSOCIATED PRESSTECHNOLOGY
IBM LAUNCHES
SERVER GEARED
TO COMBATING
CYBERCRIME
International Business Machines Corp. is introducing a revamped mainframe server geared
to combating cybercrime across public and private cloud services. Mainframes are the
world’s most powerful computers and one of IBM’s signature hardware products. The latest
model, called z15, launched Thursday and was designed with extra-secure privacy
capabilities to help businesses shift critical data on to multiple cloud networks, known as
hybrid cloud. — BLOOMBERG NEWSECONOMY
CONSUMER PRICES
SLOWED IN AUGUST
Consumer prices slowed in August, rising by a slight
0.1 percent, reflecting a big drop in the cost of
gasoline and other energy products. The tiny
increase in the consumer price index followed a
much bigger 0.3 percent rise in July which had been
driven by a jump in energy prices, the Labor
Department reported Thursday. With energy costs
falling in August for a third month out of the past
four, the overall price increase slowed leaving consumer prices rising a modest 1.7 percent
over the past year. The Federal Reserve has been worried that inflation has been rising too
slowly, citing this issue as one of the reasons it cut interest rates in July. The central bank
will meet again next week and investors are looking for another quarter-point rate cut as
the central bank continues to battle various headwinds from a slowing global economy to
the fallout from President Trump’s trade war. — ASSOCIATED PRESSTECHNOLOGY
GOOGLE PAYS MORE
THAN $1B TO SETTLE
FRENCH TAX DISPUTE
Tech giant Google says it has paid over one billion dollars to French authorities to settle a
years-long dispute over allegations of tax fraud. A Paris court Thursday approved a fine of
500 million euros ($551 million) from the digital giant over charges of tax evasion, and
Google said it paid a further 465 million euros ($513 million) in ‘‘additional taxes.’’ French
investigators have since 2015 been investigating Google for declaring profits from activities
in France in Ireland instead, where taxes are much lower. — ASSOCIATED PRESSECONOMY
UNEMPLOYMENT
CLAIMS AT A
FIVE-MONTH LOW
The fewest Americans in almost five months filed for unemploy-
ment benefits last week, signaling the broad labor market
remains healthy despite cooling in some parts of the economy.
Jobless claims dropped by 15,000 to 204,000 in the week ended
Sept. 7, according to Labor Department figures released Thurs-
day that were below all estimates in Bloomberg’s survey of econo-
mists. The four-week average, a less-volatile measure, decreased
to 212,500, the lowest since late July. — BLOOMBERG NEWSDIGITAL CURRENCY
FACEBOOK’S LIBRA
WOULD BE BLOCKED
IN EUROPE, FRENCH
MINISTER SAYS
Facebook’s Libra would be blocked in Europe because the digital currency is too risky and
threatens sovereignty, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Thursday as he urged
governments to work on their own public version. Libra, as currently proposed by the tech
giant, would raise concerns about market dominance, threaten the sovereignty of states,
increase risks for consumers and business, and could even cause significant global financial
disruption, Le Maire said at Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in
Paris. — BLOOMBERG NEWSSaturdayNETWORKING
Celebrate diversity
Meet tech professionals at this annual
conference highlighting women and non-
binary individuals in technology at Tufts
University. There will be speakers,
demonstrations, and opportunities to
network. The event is open to high school
and college students. Saturday, 9 a.m. to
5 p.m., 574 Boston Ave., Medford. Free.
Register online or go to the business
agenda at bostonglobe.com.WORKSHOP
Budget like a boss
Learn the basics of maintaining a budget
for your business at this training for
professionals and entrepreneurs from S.
David Tax Consultants. Saturday, 11 a.m.
to 12:30 p.m., 500 Victory Road, Suite
400, Quincy. $50. Register online or go
to the business agenda at
bostonglobe.com.SundaySEMINAR
Find your dream home
Learn the ins and outs of local real estate
over brews at this home buying seminar
from Keller Williams Realty. Food and
drinks will be available for purchase.
Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Dorchester
Brewing Company, 1250 Massachusetts
Ave., Boston. Free. Register online or go to
the business agenda at bostonglobe.com.BUSINESS COMPETITION
Take in some pitches
Collaborate with other entrepreneurial
women at this combination networking-
brainstorming event from Techstars
Startup Weekend. Attendees will get to
pitch their business idea and get
feedback from their peers on Friday.
Teams will then form around the ideas
they like most and spend the next two
days preparing for a live demo on Sunday
in front of judges. The winning team will
get to participate in a global version of
this competition. This event is aimed at
women, but men are welcome to
participate. Friday, 6 p.m., to Sunday, 9
p.m. GSVlabs Boston, 2 Ave. de Lafayette,
Boston. $99 for general public, $55 for
students. Register online or go to the
business agenda at bostonglobe.com.Eventsofnote?E-mailusat
[email protected]