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Vice President of Equatorial Guinea Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue.
Li Auto Shares Gain on Strong L6 Orders
Shares of the plug-in hybrid specialist were 8.1% higher
Li Auto LI -3.38%decrease; red down pointing triangle shares rose sharply after the Chinese electric-vehicle maker posted strong orders for its first model priced under 300,000 yuan, or the equivalent of nearly $41,452.
Shares of the plug-in hybrid specialist were 8.1% higher at 119.90 Hong Kong dollars (US$15.35) early Monday, marking a sixth consecutive session of gains.
The rise came after Li Auto said Saturday that orders for its L6 model reached 30,000 units since its launch on April 18. Sentiment was further buoyed by a midmorning update Monday that the number had risen further to 41,000.
The orders for the L6, Li Auto’s newest model, helped investors look past the company’s lackluster April deliveries, which expanded at the lowest rate in almost two years, analysts said.
Citi analyst Jeff Chung described the May order numbers as strong, with orders so far setting the stage for a potential acceleration in demand this month. He kept a buy rating on the shares.
Huawei-backed Seres Group 601127 0.90%increase; green up pointing triangle, one of Li Auto’s main rivals, over the weekend reported April sales of 27,868 units of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars. Among them, 24,878 were Seres-branded cars, fewer than Li Auto’s 25,787 vehicles. Seres shares were 2.0% higher in Shanghai trading.
Boeing’s Big Space Test: Using Starliner to Ferry NASA Astronauts
The spacecraft is set to take a crewed flight to the International Space Station after years of delays and falling behind SpaceX
A new Boeing BA 0.53%increase; green up pointing triangle spacecraft is set to carry astronauts for the first time this week, a major test of whether the much-delayed project is ready to handle NASA missions.
Starliner, the name of Boeing’s gumdrop-shaped ship, is scheduled to blast off Monday at 10:34 p.m. ET, ferrying astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore to the International Space Station. The vehicle is slated to return them to Earth about a week after docking with the facility, landing in the western U.S. under parachutes.
Boeing has developed rockets, spacecraft and other vehicles for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for decades, including hardware for the Apollo moon missions. But the aerospace company has tripped up with Starliner, struggling at times with software, a communications system, valves, parachutes and even a type of tape used in the vehicle. The project has led to $1.4 billion in accounting losses for Boeing.
Monday’s planned mission comes as Boeing faces intense scrutiny over its bread-and-butter airplane business. Lawmakers and airline executives have blasted the company’s manufacturing failures after a segment on one of its planes blew out midair earlier this year, threatening passengers and crew on board. Air-safety regulators have ratcheted up oversight of the company’s operations.
“Spaceflight is risky. It is unforgiving of mistakes,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in an interview. “NASA is integrated with Boeing to make sure that this flight is as safe as possible.”
Mark Nappi, a Boeing vice president, said the company’s spacecraft is ready to carry astronauts. Since taking over management of Starliner about two years ago, Nappi said he has focused his team on shifting from design and development to operations. Around 500 people are working on the program.
“We’ve been very disciplined, following the process. NASA is right there with us and that makes me feel comfortable,” he said during an interview in March.
A successful mission and NASA’s subsequent certification of Starliner are the final milestones that Boeing needs to meet before the spacecraft makes regular crew rotations. Starliner’s problems have left the agency dependent on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for those flights from the U.S., prompting concern at the agency about relying too heavily on one supplier. SpaceX didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Leaders at both Boeing and NASA have said they won’t hesitate to again postpone Starliner’s flight, should any safety risks emerge in the run-up to the launch.
Starliner will blast off from Florida, propelled by an Atlas V rocket, a proven booster that rocket operator United Launch Alliance has flown for years. After Starliner separates from the rocket, it will take about a day to reach the space station, where it is designed to autonomously dock with the lab.
The astronauts Starliner will carry—Williams, 58 years old, and Wilmore, 61—are retired Navy aviators who have been in orbit before. Each traveled to the space station on both NASA’s former space shuttle and Russian Soyuz vehicles.
Williams said the team working on Starliner, including herself and Wilmore, rigorously analyzed problems that emerged with the vehicle earlier, including the stuck valves and software challenges.
“We all pushed on it,” she said in a recent interview. “We feel very confident that we’re at a point that we’re good with how the spacecraft is going to operate.”
Boeing’s work on Starliner goes back more than a decade. NASA in 2014 awarded the company and SpaceX contracts to create new vehicles to fly crews to and from the space station, seeking two distinct spacecraft from U.S. aerospace companies. At the time, the agency depended on Russia for crew rotations, following the retirement of its shuttle fleet.
NASA rated Boeing as better prepared than the Musk-led company for technical maturity, management and other categories used to evaluate the bids. At SpaceX, which had been transporting cargo to the space station, some former employees said the company took it as a challenge to beat Boeing in astronaut missions.
In late 2019, Boeing launched the first Starliner mission, an uncrewed operation designed to test the vehicle under flight conditions without astronauts on board. The mission went poorly, dogged by software coding errors and the unexpected loss of a communications system. Starliner didn’t attempt one of its major goals for the mission—docking with the space station.
After the flight, NASA officials increased oversight of Boeing’s Starliner efforts, saying the agency had relied too much on the company’s internal engineering decisions. A review team analyzing the botched 2019 mission recommended Boeing make dozens of changes, including more testing of how hardware and software on the vehicle are integrated.
François Pinault makes waves in Paris and Venice
Two remarkable shows display the 87-year-old billionaire’s collecting genius undimmed
Voitures électriques : la France veut tripler ses ventes en quatre ans
Cet objectif vise à écouler 800.000 véhicules par an dès 2027 et atteindre une part de marché de 45%. Il s'est vendu près de 300.000 voitures électriques en 2023.
Le gouvernement français s'est accordé avec l'industrie automobile pour viser 800.000 ventes de voitures électriques dès 2027, dans le cadre d'un contrat de filière publié dimanche. Cet objectif revient presque à multiplier par trois les ventes en quatre ans et atteindre 45% de parts de marché. Il s'est vendu près de 300.000 voitures électriques en 2023.
Il s'agit de préparer le virage européen de 2035 vers des ventes de voitures neuves 100% électriques. Le gouvernement et la filière automobile français réaffirment leur confiance dans cette transition énergétique, alors que le marché des voitures électriques a ralenti sa croissance en Europe début 2024. «Nous maintiendrons cette politique, confirmant les choix stratégiques qui ont été faits, et répondrons aux difficultés qui peuvent se poser ici ou là, sans varier de cap», a souligné le ministre de l'Économie Bruno Le Maire.
Le contrat de filière mentionne également un objectif ambitieux concernant les camionnettes, qui commencent tout juste leur transition. Le secteur compte multiplier par 6 d'ici 2027 les ventes d'utilitaires légers 100% électriques ou à hydrogène, pour passer de 16.500 véhicules vendus en 2022 à plus de 100.000 fin 2027. Pour tenir les objectifs, les pouvoirs publics s'engagent à «poursuivre les dispositifs de soutien à l'achat et à la location longue durée de véhicules neufs à zéro émission», via le bonus écologique à l'achat ou le leasing de voitures électriques.
400.000 points de recharge en 2030
«Le principal défi pour atteindre les objectifs fixés concerne l'accessibilité des véhicules à zéro émission au plus grand nombre», soulignent les signataires du contrat, présentant un double enjeu: «permettre à ceux qui le peuvent d'acquérir un véhicule à zéro émission neuf, et créer un marché du véhicule d'occasion» électrique, encore balbutiant.
Le montant des subventions attribué à chaque véhicule devrait pourtant continuer à être «ajusté» à mesure que le marché grandit, puisque l'enveloppe de 1,5 milliard d'euros consacrée à ces dispositifs en 2024 ne va pas augmenter. Pour que ces voitures électriques puissent se brancher, l'État a également confirmé son objectif de 400.000 points de recharge en 2030. Le programme Advenir qui soutient leur construction sera reconduit et doté de 200 millions d'euros supplémentaires.
Il s'agit aussi de «faire en sorte que ces véhicules électriques soient produits en France», a souligné Bruno Le Maire, réaffirmant l'objectif annoncé par Emmanuel Macron de produire en 2030 deux millions de voitures «électrifiées» (électriques et hybrides). Ce plan de filière 2023-2027 doit être signé officiellement lundi matin.
Tod’s Group to Delist on May 8
The voluntary tender offer has reached an aggregate stake greater than 90 percent of the share capital, the threshold necessary for the delisting.
MILAN — Mission accomplished. Tod’s will delist from the Milan Stock Exchange at the end of trading on Wednesday.
On May 3, the Italian luxury group reported that the voluntary totalitarian tender offer of Tod’s shares promoted by Crown Bidco Srl, an L Catterton affiliate, had reached an aggregate stake greater than 90 percent of the share capital, the threshold necessary for the delisting.
As reported, Italy’s Bourse watchdog Consob in March gave the green light to the tender offer, which began March 25.
Crown Bidco in February revealed it was looking to acquire 36 percent of Tod’s SpA, or almost 13 million shares, at 43 euros a share, for about 512 million euros. L Catterton is backed by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The voluntary tender offer was then launched for 27.9 percent of the group because L Catterton in the meantime had acquired additional shares, raising its stake to 7.9 percent of Tod’s. As a result, the value of the offer is now expected to amount to 398 million euros.
Minority shareholder Delphine SAS, a fully owned subsidiary of LVMH, has agreed not to tender its 10 percent of shares on the date of the delisting, and will be granted governance and exit rights. Tod’s chief executive officer Diego Della Valle and LVMH chief Bernard Arnault have built a years-long relationship and the former is a member of the board of LVMH.
Tod’s is expected to maintain 54 percent of the capital, L Catterton will indirectly own 36 percent and Delphine 10 percent.
Tod’s has said that the delisting is seen as “a precondition to ensure the pursuit of [Tod’s] future growth programs and consolidation,” allowing the group “to pursue its objectives in a market environment and legal framework characterized by greater management and organizational flexibility, with faster decision-making and execution times and also benefiting from reduced management and listing costs.”
The group controls the Tod’s, Roger Vivier, Hogan and Fay brands.
Last year, group revenues totaled 1.12 billion euros, rising 11.9 percent compared with 2022. At constant exchange rates, sales were up 14 percent.
This is the second time Della Valle aimed to delist the group, after a failed tender offer in 2022, which did not fulfill the 90 percent threshold.
Last month, L Catterton acquired a majority stake in beauty powerhouse Kiko Milano.
The funds managed or advised by L Catterton Management represent approximately $35 billion of investments through three multiproduct platforms: private equity, credit and real estate. Founded in 1989, the group has made approximately 275 investments in some of the world’s most iconic consumer brands. L Catterton, for example, in 2021 took a majority stake in Etro, and holds stakes in A.P.C., Ganni and Birkenstock.
‘Accessible Luxury’ on Trial: Tapestry Pushes FTC to Define the Term
Tapestry is looking to defend its $8.5 billion takeover of Capri, but doesn’t fully know the grounds the deal is being challenged on
In pushing to stop Tapestry Inc.’s $8.5 billion takeover of Capri Holdings, the Federal Trade Commission is arguing that, if combined, Coach, Kate Spade and Michael Kors would hold too much sway over the “‘accessible luxury’ handbag market.”
It’s a case that promises to, eventually, define “accessible luxury” — a marketing term coined by Coach — in legal terms.
But Tapestry is asking the court to compel the government to define that market up front so it can defend the deal over the course of an expedited trial schedule.
“Defendants do not know if the FTC’s ‘accessible luxury handbag’ market is defined around certain brands, is bounded by price points, or is defined by the consumer’s household income,” Tapestry’s lawyers argued to the court in papers filed Friday.
“There is no simple definition. What is in the market and what is out?” they said.
Tapestry, for instance, says it does not know if the FTC’s definition of “handbag” includes “backpacks, duffel bags, crossbody bags, business bags and other small bags” or not.
Exactly where “accessible luxury” sits on the spectrum between the mass market and true luxury is also nebulous.
“The FTC offers that at least one Tapestry document opines that ‘mass-market’ handbags ‘typically fall’ below $100, and that luxury handbags have ‘entry points of $1,000+,’” the court papers note. “But that same discussion in the complaint also cites to a different Tapestry document indicating a ‘product focus’ in North America ‘between $150 to $500.’
“Those are very different ways to slice the pie, and could lead to different sets of competitors, different sets of third-party discovery, and of course different market shares,” the papers said.
Tapestry said it and Capri have “produced to the FTC millions of documents, troves of data, and offered multiple witnesses to answer questions as part of the FTC’s internal, pre-complaint investigation.”
The company has also asked, repeatedly, for the FTC to give its definition of the market and says it must have one as it gave a redacted reading of just how much of the market Tapestry would control after the deal.
“Defendants presently intend to show, among other things, that the FTC’s market is inconsistent with commercial realities because it does not accurately reflect how competition occurs in 2024,” Tapestry’s lawyers said, referring to their own efforts. “But defendants simply cannot do that effectively without knowing the basic contours of the FTC’s alleged product market.”
Tapestry underscored that it was not trying to dictate how the FTC defined the market, but just to understand the definition so they could defend against it.
While such definitions can come to light during the discovery process, Tapestry said the pace of the case — the company wants to close the deal this year — doesn’t make that workable.
“Defendants therefore ask, in the alternative, that the court order the FTC to respond to one interrogatory, within seven days of the court’s ruling: ‘Define the product market you intend to prove at trial,’” Tapestry said.
The two sides had a preliminary meeting with the judge already and are due to meet for an evidentiary hearing Sept. 9.