Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-11-23)

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KISSINGER:

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◼INBRIEF

●Airbnbfiled

fora December

IPOthatcould

beamongthe

biggestthisyear.

● Globally, 56 millionpeople

havetestedpositiveforthe

coronavirus,andmorethan

1.3m

havedied.A particularly

explosiveresurgencein the

U.S.—whichhasrecorded

1 millionnewcasessincethe

beginningofNovember—is

forcingmanystatesto

tightencurbs.

●S&PDowJoneswill

includeTeslain the

S&P 500 in December.

ElonMusk’sEVpioneer,

valuedatmorethan

$390b

wouldbethelargest

companyeveraddedto

theindex.

● BioNTechand

Pfizerareseeking

emergencyFDA

authorizationfor

theirvaccine.

● “Unless

there is

some basis

for some

cooperative

action, the

world will

slide into a

catastrophe

comparable

to World

War I.” 

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry

Kissinger, who laid the groundwork

for Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 trip

to China, urged President-elect Biden

to repair ties with the country that

were badly frayed during the Trump

administration.

BloombergBusinessweek By Benedikt Kammel

● In the first commercial crew transport in NASA’s history, a SpaceX Dragon

capsule carrying four astronauts docked at the International Space Station on

Nov. 16. The scientists are on a six-month mission aboard the orbiting lab.

● The U.S. FAA

cleared Boeing’s

737 Max to return

to the skies with a

package of fixes.

The 20-month grounding of the

company’s bestselling model followed

two fatal crashes. European regulators

have already signaled they see the

plane as fit to reenter service; Chinese

authorities, who were among the first to

withdraw the Max’s operating license,

have yet to give their blessing.

Bookings for the home-sharing

company tumbled 40%, to $18 billion,

in the first nine months of 2020, as

pandemic restrictions curbed travel.

But Airbnb projected a rebound when

the economy recovers.

● Oil giant Saudi Aramco

kicked off a jumbo bond sale

on Nov. 17 to help fund a

$75b

dividend. The payout will

go almost entirely to the

Saudi Arabian government,

which needs the money to

plug a budget deficit and

prop up the economy.

● Companies announced deals worth

more than $30 billion on Nov. 15 and 16.

PNC agreed to buy BBVA’s U.S.

banking operations for

$11.6b

Home Depot will reunite with distributor

HD Supply, in a deal valued at about

$8.7b

Italian payments processor Nexi will

acquire Danish rival Nets AS for

$9.2b

Endeavour Mining plans to buy

Teranga Gold for about

$1.9b

Final results from late-stage trials

reported on Nov. 18 suggest the

Covid-19 shot is 95% effective. On

Nov. 16, Moderna released preliminary

results from the late-stage clinical trials

of its vaccine—which would be easier to

distribute—showing 94.5% efficacy.