TheChek News Flow

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Eur$ 1.2078 CNH 6.4948 CNY 4.4870 JPY 103.73 GBP 1.3573 CHF 0.8914 RUB 73.9929 TRY 7.4690 WTI$ 52.03 -0.61%

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Macro :

- Biden May Cancel Keystone Pipeline Permit on First Day: CBC

- Signal Says Tech Issues Due to Skyrocketing Demand

- Italy Debt to Soar to Post-War Record of 158.5% of GDP: Reuters

- EU Quants Build Earth Simulation to Game Out Major Climate Risks

SPAC :

- Z Capital’s SPAC Files for IPO, to Merge With Affinity Gaming

- The world's youngest self-made billionaire hopes to power every future self-driving car with a technology that Elon Musk says is

- Cryptocurrencies and SPACs show signs of 'irrational exuberance,' but the stock market is not in a bubble, says UBS

- Why Clover Health Chose a SPAC, Not an IPO, to Go Public -- Barrons.com

Keep an eye on :

- ARL GY : Aareal Bank Expects to Report Operating Loss for FY 2020

- AIR FP : Airbus to Take Over Some German Logistics From Kuehne, Welt Says

- AF FP : New Air France-KLM Govt Aid Delayed, Financieele Dagblad Says

- AKZA NA : AkzoNobel NV: AkzoNobel proposes to acquire Tikkurila for €31.25 per share, to create superior and sustainable value for all

- ATO FP : Atos Is Said to Lobby Its Top Shareholders to Back DXC Takeover

- BAYN GY : Bayer Mulls Helping CureVac Produce Its Covid-Vaccine: Welt

- BMPS IM : Monte Paschi Plan Envisages Profitability, Hundreds of Job Cuts

- BT/A LN : BT Faces Lawsuit and $815 Million Fine Over Overcharging Claims

- CARLB DC ; Carlsberg Sees Danish Jump in Alcohol-Free Beer: Berlingske

- CA FP : Couche-Tard, Carrefour Said to Abandon Takeover Talks

- CLNX SM : Alinda, Cellnex Are Among Interested in Polkomtel Towers: PB

- CTXS US : Citrix Is Said in Talks to Buy Vista’s Wrike for $2 Billion-Plus

- CSGN SW ;Credit Suisse Hires for New Stock Underwriting Team in Japan

- DELIVEROO IPO : Deliveroo Funding Round Values Firm at Over $7 Billion

- DBAN GY : Deutsche Beteiligungs Prelim 1Q Results Above Year Ago

- DNO NO : DNO 2020 Net Output 95,100 Boepd; Tawke Passes Output Milestone

- DR.MARTENS IPO : Dr. Martens IPO May Yield 3b-4b Pound Valuation: Financial Times

- EDF FP : *EDF WORKING WITH BARCLAYS FOR AN IPO OF POD POINT: SKY NEWS

- ERICB SS : Ericsson Piles on Samsung With New Patent-Infringement Suit

- FCA IM : Fiat-PSA in Talks With Chinese Car Makers for Tie Up, Yicai Says

- FSKRS FH : Fiskars Prelim 2020 Net Sales About EU 1.12B

- FORN SW : Forbo Prelim FY Sales About CHF1.12B

- GAM SW : GAM Holding Sees FY IFRS Loss About CHF380M

- G IM : Aviva France Attracts 4 Bidders Incl. Generali, Eurazeo: Figaro

- KESKOB FH : Kesko Dec. Comparable Sales +10.7%

- KNIN SW :! Airbus to Take Over Some German Logistics From Kuehne, Welt Says

- MAERSKB DC : Record Kidnappings Draw Maersk Call for Action in Gulf of Guinea

- DRLCO DC : Maersk Drilling Says $100 Million Suriname Contract Now Firm

- MOWI NO : Mowi Prelim 4Q Ebit About EU49M

- NXT LN : Next, U.S. Fund Tipped to Lead Topshop Bid, Sunday Times Says

- PHIA NA : Royal Philips Files Six Lawsuits Over Telecommunications Patents

- SALM NO : Salmar Aims to Invest $1.7 Billion in Offshore Farm, E24 Reports

- SYDB DC : Sydbank to Charge Its Least Lucrative Customers, Borsen Reports

- SSP US : Berkshire Hathaway Reports E.W. Scripps Warrant Holdings in 13G

- SEV FP : Suez Gets Proposal From Ardian, GIP for Friendly Takeover

- FP FP : Total Inks $2.5 Billion Deal to Add 20% Stake in Adani Green

- VIE FP : Suez Gets $13.7 Billion Proposal in Challenge to Veolia

- VIE FP : Veolia refuse la «main tendue» de Suez

- VOW3 GY : Audi Delays Output, Idles 10,000 Staff on Chip Shortage, FT Says

Startup deploys tiny satellites into orbit in successful demonstration flight

A venture to launch small satellites using a rocket fired from a converted jumbo jet deployed 10 tiny ones into orbit for the first time Sunday, providing a big boost for the startup founded by entrepreneur Richard Branson.

The successful demonstration flight by Southern-California-based Virgin Orbit, nearly eight months after a botched test, lifts the company into the select group of small-satellite launch providers able to offer flight-proven hardware.

With the proliferation of small-satellite manufacturers across the U.S. and other regions, specialized launch providers are rushing to fill the demand to blast their products into space. They include Rocket Lab, a U.S.-New Zealand company that has a flight-proven rocket; Texas-based Firefly Aerospace; and Relativity Space, which plans to launch 3-D manufactured rockets. But only a few of the startups can claim the distinction of blasting out of the atmosphere, a goal Mr. Branson and his team have pursued for years, even as more-conventional rocket designs grabbed most of the public attention.

Virgin Orbit’s novel airborne platform, a specially outfitted Boeing Co. 747 jet named Cosmic Girl, climbed to an altitude of roughly 6 miles above the Pacific Ocean and released a slender, 70-foot rocket slung under its left wing. The booster’s main liquid-fueled engine roared to life, transporting the cluster of cubesats, or miniature satellites, built by universities and sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, into low-Earth orbit.

Mr. Branson said the company’s LauncherOne rocket would encourage “a whole new generation of innovators on the path to orbit.” Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said the company managed to demonstrate every element of its launch system. The next mission is slated to begin commercial operations, with customers including the U.K.’s Air Force and low-cost communications provider Swarm Technologies Inc.

It is a fraught time for the host of launch companies world-wide seeking to cash in on the exponential growth of small satellites designed for tasks including earth observation, industrial uses and climate studies. Dozens of other companies targeting the same expanding market have suffered funding problems or delays getting launchers airborne in the past year, partly as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to U.S. government and industry officials.

Commercial customers and the U.S. military are looking more to benefit from the lower costs and increased flexibility of small rockets able to put satellites weighing from a few pounds to a few hundred pounds into tailored orbits. Placing such satellites as secondary payloads on larger boosters—essentially piggybacking them on larger satellites—often means customers can’t depend on optimum schedules or orbital locations. The result can fray business plans and reduce the useful life of satellites

Despite the small-satellite trend, some industry players see some rockets carrying many at a time and, therefore, potentially producing a glut of launch providers. “I don’t see that demand is going to increase dramatically over the next few years,” said George Stafford, a co-founder of small-satellite maker Blue Canyon Technologies, recently acquired by Raytheon Technologies Corp.

Regardless of industry expansion, it will take time for Virgin Orbit’s approach to shake up the launch business. The sister company of Virgin Galactic, SPCE -7.87% a space-tourism venture also founded by Mr. Branson, has said it expects to increase launches slowly, with only a few likely for all of 2021. Virgin Orbit initially marketed a price of $12 million for a launch, versus roughly five times that much for significantly larger rockets, such as the Falcon 9 operated by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.

Controversial pipeline would be powered by renewables, built by union labor in bid to avoid ax from Biden

WASHINGTON—The Keystone oil pipeline’s developer plans to announce a series of overhauls—including a pledge to use only renewable energy—in a bid to win President-elect Joe Biden’s support for the controversial project.

Aides to Mr. Biden have previously said he plans to revoke the permit, and Canada’s CBC News reported late Sunday that Mr. Biden plans to do so in one of his first actions after taking office this week.

Mr. Biden’s team declined to discuss that report, but has said his position on the pipeline hasn’t changed.

In a bid to save the project, Canada’s TC Energy Corp. TRP 0.29% is committing to spend $1.7 billion on solar, wind and battery power to operate the partially completed 2,000-mile pipeline system between Alberta, in western Canada, and Texas, company officials say. They also are pledging to hire a union workforce and eliminate all greenhouse-gas emissions from operations by 2030.

The company’s plans reflect new realities at a time when Democrats are taking commanding positions in Washington, and in an era of growing environmental and social concerns.

“In our view, this is the most sustainable and environmentally friendly pipeline project that is ever been built,” Richard Prior, president of TC Energy’s Keystone XL expansion project, said in an interview. “This is groundbreaking stuff for an energy infrastructure project of the size and scale of Keystone XL.”

A company spokesman said Keystone will announce the new measures this week.

Construction of the expansion, long delayed by legal and permitting challenges, started last year under a permit President Trump awarded to sidestep an order by a federal judge blocking construction in the U.S., pending a supplemental environmental review.

Keystone executives hope to keep the $8 billion project alive by making it a showcase for how fossil-fuel projects can still be environmentally friendly and generate good-paying union jobs.

In August, the company struck a deal with four labor unions to build the line itself. And it followed that up in mid-November with a deal for five indigenous tribes to take a roughly $785 million ownership stake. A new labor deal led by North America’s Building Trades Unions gives priority to union workers for the renewable power buildout, too.

Other pipelines and megaprojects for oil, natural gas and minerals have started dying under pressure from financiers and environmental activists troubled by climate change and safety risks.

The promises by TC Energy present an early test to Mr. Biden’s intentions. During his campaign, Mr. Biden joined with the progressive Democrats calling for a transition away from oil to address climate change concerns, more support for labor unions and better protection from pollution for minority and poor communities.

Mr. Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, could face questions on the pipeline at his confirmation hearing Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The U.S. State Department issues the project’s presidential permit.

Canadian government officials continue to press the case for Keystone with Mr. Biden’s team. They want to get more bottlenecked Canadian crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast, one of the world’s biggest centers for refining oil. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mentioned the pipeline among his top priorities during his first call with Mr. Biden after the election.

“Not only has the project itself changed significantly since it was first proposed, but Canada’s oil sands production has also changed significantly,” Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Kirsten Hillman, said in a statement. She said Canadian oil emissions per barrel have dropped by almost a third since 2000. “Innovation will continue to drive progress.”

Keystone’s initial proposal became a flashpoint for climate activists. It led many to fight pipelines as a way to combat growing oil production and instead push investment to alternative energy projects that wouldn’t contribute to climate change.

They especially object to the Keystone pipeline because the Canadian crude it carries comes from oil sands, which generate more pollution than other types of oil.

To address those concerns, Keystone is promising to fund new renewable energy infrastructure to generate 1.6 gigawatts of power. That amount would rival the country’s biggest corporate renewables purchases by companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google that have become common in recent years, and further boost a burgeoning wind and solar market.

Keystone executives see Mr. Biden as pivotal. In a 13-page presentation they have recently been sharing with business partners, there are columns for “promises made” by Mr. Biden’s campaign and “promises delivered” detailing how the revamped Keystone XL would help fulfill Mr. Biden’s pledges on the environment, the economy and union employment.

Some oil producers and refiners, including Keystone’s business partners, also are moving in the same direction, with efforts to reduce or even eliminate the carbon-dioxide emissions from their operations that contribute to climate change.

Keystone XL is a 1,210-mile expansion to a larger pipeline network. It must connect to the power grid to run pump stations that help push oil through the line. Those stations sit about every 50 miles along the pipelines, driven by electric motors.

Executives are pledging to acquire renewable power for the entire network, a development which may take until 2030 to finish. Until then the company plans to buy credits funding emissions-reduction projects to offset all the emissions caused by their operations.

Union leaders, many of whom endorsed Mr. Biden, have made it clear they are willing to push back if Mr. Biden rejects these types of projects. The oil industry has a long history of solid wages and commitment to union workers, which labor leaders trust more than the new wind and solar companies that have yet to build the same track record, said Sean McGarvey, president of North America’s Building Trades Unions.

They have major concerns about whether big infrastructure projects can still be developed reasonably in the U.S. after so many have faced repeated delays. Expediting them will be critical for industries far beyond just conventional energy.

Scientists say the country also needs a massive buildup of low- and zero-emissions transportation and energy projects to address climate change. Mr. Biden’s climate and economic plan relies on trillions of dollars of spending for this new infrastructure.

“If we want to maintain our place as the economic superpower in the world, we need to figure this stuff out, and figure it out pretty quick,” Mr. McGarvey said. “The changes they have made could be a model that this administration pushes for other industries.”

Luca de Meo claims technological edge over VW as he charts turnround after Carlos Ghosn

When Luca de Meo became chief executive at Renault last summer he took over a business that was in a mess.

But there was one critical part of the company that brought a smile to the ex-Volkswagen executive’s face: the electric vehicle technology he had just inherited.

Coming from a business that had spent €1bn developing a much-heralded battery car system, he was surprised to find the French company’s technology was superior.

“I drove the [Renault] car and I know the other [VW] one, and I can tell you that this thing, it’s the killer application,” Mr de Meo told the Financial Times in an interview.

Renault’s “EV platform has nothing to envy to the one of VW,” he said.

It was a rare bright spot in a company beset by chronically low morale and dire financial results, which had only worsened as Covid-19 rocked the entire car industry. 

“The context is difficult, the starting point of Renault is very low, we are coming from hell,” he admitted to the FT after the ructions and fallout from the arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn.

A turnround plan launched last week called “Renaulution” aims to cut €3bn of costs and lobotomise the previous mindset of generating sales above all else.

The “entire system” of the company was set to grow volume and needs to be changed, he announced last Thursday, standing in front of a giant screen where arty graphics flashed the detailed new ambitions that include cutting production capacity and generating €6bn of cash by 2025.

Mr de Meo is trying to force the carmaker to shift from, as he puts it, “volume to value” and, in doing so, banish the legacy of Mr Ghosn, Renault's totemic former leader.

Mr Ghosn, who ran Renault and Nissan for close to two decades, forged bold plans to make the pair the world’s largest carmakers, growing market share and sales aggressively.

His arrest in Japan in 2018 left the French carmaker rudderless, beset by infighting with its Tokyo partner and meddling from Paris that controls a third of its shareholder voting rights.

Repairing the relationship with Nissan is key to restoring peace within the alliance, something that has been made more difficult by the pandemic halting all business travel.

“I have to admit with the Covid thing we never had the chance to sit together, eat sushi together, drink sake,” said Mr de Meo, who nevertheless believes the relationship is healing.

“I don't make it a science fiction discussion or you know, things that have nothing to do with the business. I just put it on practical things. I speak business. I tell them the things straight away.”

Last Wednesday Mr de Meo unveiled the revival of the Renault 5 as an electric model, a project that was not in the company’s official product pipeline when he joined in July. “We created that together in the last six months,” he said proudly.

Renault’s electric cars, such as the Zoe, already make as much profit as their petrol equivalents such as the Clio, while the business hopes to make more money from its hybrid cars than its pure petrol models within 18 months, he told the FT.

Mr de Meo expects 70 per cent of its sales to be electric or hybrid by the middle of the decade, with the group selling its final internal combustion engine vehicle in Europe between 2030 and 2035.

Their margins also hold out hope for the revival of Renault’s poorly performing but hard-to-shut French plants. “They have to find a solution for France, where we have a lot of suboptimal utilisation of our industrial footprint,” he said.

French plants drag down margins compared with other manufacturing operations based in the more cost efficient emerging market locations of Morocco, Romania, Spain and Turkey.

Transforming its Douai plant in northern France into the largest battery car facility in Europe, producing hydrogen in the country and repurposing its Flins facility outside Paris as a recycling centre will help, he said.

The only thing he has ruled out is shutting the French factories. “I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who laid off 50,000 people at Renault,” he said.

Investors are proving adept at overlooking signs of the extraordinary

Markets have a whiff of simmering frog about them. Investors are growing adept at ignoring the warning signs like the proverbial amphibian in a pot of slowly heated water, not recognising the dangers until too late.

But on a near daily basis, something extraordinary crops up to remind us that the whizz-bang rush into risky bets may be getting out of hand. 

The more cautious investors out there have been wringing their hands for nearly 10 months now, and they have been thoroughly beaten up in the process. Global stocks have climbed 74 per cent since last March.

Betting that asset valuations will fall back to meet the dire global economic picture has proven to be a fool’s errand in the face of overwhelming support from central banks. Fund managers have largely mentally moved on from the coronavirus crisis that is still jamming up hospitals and locking down economic activity around the world. Faith in vaccines has taken over.

Optimists quite reasonably point out that once we all have jabs in our arms, those of us lucky enough to have amassed savings over the past year are itching to go out for a meal, catch up with friends in a bar, splash out on a holiday, or fill the wardrobe with clothes that fit our slightly more padded lockdown physiques. Companies are going to have to work fast to meet demand, and central banks are in no hurry to spoil any recovery, as US Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell reminded us this week. 

Still, what Mr Powell's predecessor Alan Greenspan might have referred to as pockets of “froth” merit close attention.

One is the surge in stock market speculation among retail investors, particularly in the US. The explosion in this space drew most attention last summer, when the “stocks only go up” crowd demonstrated more bravery (or foresight) in buying the coronavirus dip than many more sober professional fund managers.

But they have not gone away. Far from it. Data tracked by Vanda Research shows that retail buying of US stocks has kicked off the new year in rude health. The first two weeks of 2021 can rival even the most exuberant weeks of last year, its figures show, and that is before the next stimulus cheques land in Americans’ bank accounts.

Buying is focused on a tiny clutch of stocks, particularly in the electric vehicles sector. Tesla remains a favoured pick. Its scorching 900 per cent rally since the start of last year may not be entirely down to retail punters putting their stimulus cheques to work on a bet, but it is hard to imagine the army of fans has not helped. Similarly, penny stocks popular with have-a-go investors are in hot demand. Analysis by Themis Trading shows that trading in stocks valued at less than $1 accounted for almost a fifth of all equity trading in the US on January 11.

The screaming rally in bitcoin — 300 per cent last year and a further 35 per cent in the opening days of 2021 — is another symptom of a powerful wave of retail enthusiasm, despite increasingly noisy protests from policymakers. Christine Lagarde, who heads the European Central Bank, has railed against “funny business” in cryptocurrencies and UK regulators have reiterated their advice that anyone betting on them must be prepared to lose everything. But one 22-year-old TikTok influencer has built up a million-strong following partly by divining the next steps in bitcoin’s wild ride based on astrology. 

Does that add up to a reason for professional fund managers to bet on a pullback now? No. But if and when a reckoning comes, we will look back on it as a bizarre fever. As Jeremy Grantham, the famed founder of GMO, warned in his widely read new year note, “really crazy investor behaviour” especially on the part of individuals” is one of the more reliable signs of unsustainable bubbles.

Lively risk-seeking behaviour is not confined to individual investors, of course. Drawing together two of the frothiest aspects of 2021, a blank-cheque company, or Spac, this week announced plans to launch Bakkt Holdings on to public equity markets. Bakkt, a cryptocurrency platform, had zero customers last year, its regulatory filings show. It is hoping to get that tally up to 30m in five years. It will boast an enterprise value of more than $2bn when it lists, according to current owner Intercontinental Exchange.

Fund managers are desperate for places to park their cash. Low-cost European airline Wizz Air, fresh from recording an 80 per cent slide in passenger numbers in the year to December, this week issued three-year debt for a coupon a little over 1 per cent. Bankers say borrowers have never had it so good.

Again, this is no reason to bet the farm on a crash. But complacency is a clear danger.

Proposal means French waste and water group is ‘willing to open a dialogue’ with rival

Suez has agreed to open discussions with rival French waste and water group Veolia, after receiving an alternative proposal in one of the most vicious takeover battles France has seen for years. 

Late on Sunday evening the board of Suez said it had received a letter of intent from two funds, France’s Ardian and Global Infrastructure Partners, that could lead to an offer at €18 a share “which would facilitate the emergence, and in a short timeframe, of an amicable solution”.

With the offer on the table, Suez added that it was now “willing to open a dialogue with Veolia with the aim of building a solution in the interest of all concerned parties, which would reinforce both of the two French leaders in environmental services”.

Bertrand Camus, Suez chief executive, said the offer could be for up to 100 per cent of Suez but that there was no fixed goal in mind ahead of negotiations with Veolia.

“We have a solution on the table and we are extending our hand so that we can engage in a discussion,” Mr Camus told the Financial Times.

The Suez counter-offer comes more than three months after Veolia bought 29.9 per cent of its rival, kicking off a fight which has dragged both sides through the courts and divided investors in Paris into opposing camps. 

Veolia bought its stake from French energy group Engie. Earlier this month it outlined the plan for the takeover it intends to submit for the rest of Suez’s capital — also at €18 a share, valuing the bid at over €11bn.

The two companies have been at each other’s throats since Veolia made its intent to take over Suez public at the end of August. Mr Camus has so far refused to engage with Antoine Frérot, Veolia’s chief executive.

To win leverage, Suez created a poison pill in September, putting its French water assets into a Dutch foundation mandated to protect them for four years unless the Suez board decides otherwise. Veolia had intended to sell those assets to meet competition concerns.

While Veolia has been gearing up to put its propositions to Suez shareholders this summer — and while the war of words continues in public, alongside legal challenges and antitrust reviews — advisers on both sides have said that the door remains open to finding a friendly solution. 

The last time there was anything close to a deal acceptable to Suez was early October, when Veolia put an expanded carve-out of Suez’s French water business on the table, worth about €5bn in annual revenues and which could be run by the current management. 

One option, in light of Sunday’s counter-offer, said people close to Suez, would be for Veolia to accept some assets in exchange for walking away.

While refusing to be drawn on what a deal could look like, Mr Camus said there were limits on how far he could go: “Suez in the future has to have a coherent industrial project. It has to be a company that can grow, that can compete in the market. It cannot be just a sum of things that cannot be kept by Veolia.”

However, Veolia responded quickly on Sunday to say that the shares in Suez it owns “are not and will not be for sale”.

The stake constitutes, said Veolia, “the first step in the inevitable construction, and under French control, of the world champion of ecological transformation; they are not an element of financial strategy”.

Mathias Burghardt, head of Ardian Infrastructure, underlined that its letter of intent was not a counter-offer but a way “to allow a negotiation to take place” and is predicated on a friendly solution.

“We are trying to say that, with GIP, that if you, Suez, find an agreement with Veolia, then we will back that agreement,” he added.