Bloomberg Businessweek USA - 09.03.2020

7

TENNESSEE: BRETT CARLSEN/STRINGER. KIM: KCNA/REUTERS. BIDEN: PATRICK T. FALLON/BLOOMBERG. HOT POCKET: COURTESY HOT POCKETS. *QUARTER OVER QUARTER, SEASONALLY ADJUSTED AND ANNUALIZED. DATA: STATISTICS SOUTH AFRICA

 IN BRIEF

By Benedikt Kammel

Bloomberg Businessweek March 9, 2020

○ Since late February,

when Turkey decided to

stop preventing refugees

from crossing into

Europe, more than 10,

migrants have arrived on

its border with Greece.

Turkey hosts more than

4m

refugees, the vast majority

of them from Syria.

○ Globally,

almost

100,

cases of

the novel

coronavirus

have been

reported.

① A growing number of companies

are preparing for the economic fallout

from the outbreak—which the CDC and

WHO say has a fatality rate of 3.4%—

and governments and central banks are

responding with stimulus measures.

② Auto sales in China, the hardest-hit

country and the world’s largest car

market, fell 80% in February from

the year before, the biggest collapse

on record.

③ After the U.S. Federal Reserve cut

overnight rates by 50 basis points in

an emergency move on March 3, the

yield on the 10-year Treasury bond fell

below 1%. It’s the first time in 150 years

that the world’s benchmark bond has

dropped to such levels.

④ The House and Senate agreed on

an $8.3 billion emergency spending

measure to fund the U.S. government’s

response to the outbreak. The

bipartisan bill more than triples the

amount President Trump requested

from Congress last week.

○ North Korea

launched two

short-range

missiles on

March 1.

○ Thermo Fisher agreed

to buy Dutch drug testing

company Qiagen for about

€9b

Qiagen, whose equipment

is used in medical research,

recently started developing

kits to help detect the new

coronavirus.

Former Vice President Joe Biden staged a

comeback on the biggest primary night of the

Democratic presidential campaign, scoring

victories in 10 states, including upsets in Texa

and Massachusetts.  32

○ “I’m here

to report:

We are very

The country’s first weapons test in

three months came around the first

anniversary of the failed summit

between North Korean leader Kim

Jong Un and President Trump.

○ Tornadoes struck Cookeville and other towns in Middle Tennessee just after

midnight on March 3, killing at least 25 people.

○ Michelle Janavs, whose

family made a fortune

creating the Hot Pockets

frozen pizza sandwich, was

sentenced to five months

in prison and ordered to

pay a $250,000 fine. She

admitted to trying to

help two of her

d hters get

college

aying

0,000 to have a proctor

ect their standardized

ssions tests.

○ South Africa’s

economy fell back

into recession.

Among other problems, the continent’s

most industrialized nation continues to

suffer from widespread electricity cuts.

This second recession in two years is a

blemish for President Cyril Ramaphosa,

who came to power two years ago

promising to restore stable growth.

Change in South African GDP*

Q1 ’13 Q4 ’

3%

0

○ Waymo, Alphabet’s

autonomous-vehicle

company, attracted

$2.25 billion from a group of

venture capitalists, private

equity firms, and other

automotive companies.

It’s the first time the

business, which is pushing

to commercialize its self-

driving technology, has

turned to outside investors.

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