Business

By Nora Eckert DETROIT (Reuters) – About half the middle managers at Ford Motor will not get stock bonuses this year in what is seen internally as CEO Jim Farley’s latest attempt to cut the automaker’s bloated costs, according to six people familiar with the matter. The stock awards are usually paid in March, but senior managers have been told to select which half of their middle management staff will receive them, four of the sources … Read more…

BEIJING (Reuters) – President Xi Jinping held a rare meeting on Monday with some of the biggest names in China’s technology sector, such as Alibaba founder Jack Ma, urging them to “show their talent” and be confident in the power of China’s model and market. The tightly choreographed pro-business rally, a turnaround in Beijing’s approach to its tech giants from a regulatory clampdown four years ago, reflected policymakers’ concern about a slowdown in growth and … Read more…

WARSAW (Reuters) -Microsoft plans to invest an additional 700 million dollars in Poland to improve Polish cybersecurity in cooperation with the country’s armed forces, the company’s president said on Monday without elaborating. In a joint press conference with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Microsoft President Smith said the investment would be for a second phase of the already completed $1 billion Polish data centre project announced in 2020. The data centre was opened in 2023, … Read more…

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Nokia is set to secure unconditional EU antitrust clearance for its $2.3 billion acquisition of U.S. optical semiconductors and networking equipment maker Infinera, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Friday. Nokia announced the deal in June last year, a move that would make it the second largest vendor in the optical networking market with a 20% share, behind Huawei, which is benefiting from the minimal … Read more…

(Reuters) -Dell Technologies is nearing a deal worth more than $5 billion to provide Elon Musk’s xAI with servers optimized for artificial intelligence work, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Shares of the company gained 4% after the report, which said Dell would sell servers containing Nvidia’s GB200 semiconductors to the AI startup for delivery this year. Details are still being discussed and may change, the report added. The AI … Read more…

By Shankar Ramakrishnan (Reuters) -Banks led by Morgan Stanley have sold to investors another chunky portion of loans that formed the $13 billion debt supporting Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now X, in 2022, a source with knowledge of the deal said. On Thursday, they completed the secondary sale of $4.74 billion of secured loans which mature in October 2029. The loans paid a fixed rate yield of 9.5% and priced at par … Read more…

By Davide Barbuscia NEW YORK (Reuters) – Top asset manager BlackRock said on Friday it has changed the way Chairman and CEO Larry Fink will be compensated to reflect the company’s recent expansion into private markets, which Fink spearheaded last year. BlackRock, whose assets grew to $11.6 trillion last year, said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing it has included “carried interest” in Fink’s compensation, an executive incentive paid in the alternative asset … Read more…

By Niket Nishant and Manya Saini (Reuters) -JPMorgan Chase started informing some employees of job cuts last week, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday, as it begins one of several planned reductions this year. Fewer than 1,000 employees are going to be laid off in February, according to Barron’s, which first reported the news. The layoffs are a part of the “regular management of the business”, a spokesperson said, adding that … Read more…