Not Good for AirFrance
Scoop: Ricky Waddell is leaving the White House
Trump's deputy National Security Adviser Ricky Waddell will leave the White House, according to two sources briefed on the decision. New National Security Adviser John Bolton wants to bring his own person in, and Waddell was H.R. McMaster's hand-picked deputy.
Why this matters: Bolton is making wholesale changes at the NSC, bringing in his own people and clearing out McMaster's. Senior NSC officials Nadia Schadlow, who authored the Trump administration's National Security Strategy, and Michael Anton, who led the NSC's strategic communications, have already resigned in anticipation of likely being pushed out under Bolton. More NSC departures are expected soon.
*ELLIOTT IS SAID TO TAKE STAKE IN UK SOFTWARE FIRM MICRO FOCUS
*RUSSIA SAYS REBEL CHEMICAL WEAPONS STOCKS FOUND IN SYRIA
SpaceX’s president says we’ll be able to take a rocket to Shanghai — or Mars — ‘within a decade’
Halfway across the globe in about half an hour, Gwynne Shotwell says at TED.
Last year, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk got a lot of attention for a video proposing city-to-city travel — on Earth — using a rocket that’s designed for outer space.
Today, speaking at the TED Conference in Vancouver, SpaceX president and chief operating officer Gwynne Shotwell reiterated the company’s plans, pledging that the technology will be ready and operational “within a decade, for sure.”
“It’s definitely going to happen,” she said, interviewed onstage by TED’s Chris Anderson. The company also hopes to fly to Mars by then.
A lot can (and probably will) change in a decade. But the idea is that a very large rocket, capable of carrying about 100 people, could fly like an aircraft and do point-to-point travel on Earth much faster than a plane — halfway across the globe in about 30 to 40 minutes, Shotwell said, landing on a pad 5 to 10 kilometers outside of a city center.
Shotwell estimated the ticket cost would be somewhere between economy and business class on a plane — so, likely in the thousands of dollars for transoceanic travel. “But you do it in an hour.”
“I’m personally invested in this one,” she said, “because I travel a lot, and I do not love to travel. And I would love to get to see my customers in Riyadh, leave in the morning and be back in time to make dinner.”
How could travel by rocket cost so little? Shotwell said the efficiency would come from being fast enough to be able to operate a route a dozen or so times a day, whereas a long-haul airplane often only does one flight per day.
Reocde : Revolut, the payments startup, will see its valuation jump five times to $1.4 billion after a financing round led by DST
A five-times rise in value isn’t normal — but it’s a hot startup.
The valuation of Revolut, an international payments startup, is set to quintuple in less than a year due to a new fundraising round, according to people familiar with the matter.
DST Global, an investing firm founded by Russian venture capitalist Yuri Milner, is expected to lead a round that values the company at about $1.4 billion, not including the new cash, the people said. Revolut has been pitching investors in recent months on a deal that would raise about $150 million, but the total amount collected could now climb to $250 million. The round is not yet closed.
Just last summer, the London-based company was valued in a round at about 200 million British pounds, according to PitchBook, not including the new cash. That was about $255 million in U.S. dollars at the time.
A five-times rise in value isn’t normal, and it’s a rare spike in what are generally tough times for the financial technology, or fintech, industry. But the company has seen a surge in transaction volume — which the company says now measures $1.5 billion a month.
The hot startup, led by CEO Nikolay Storonsky, functions like a digital bank, allowing users to transfer money across different currencies without transaction fees. It claims 1.7 million users and has about 350 employees.
DST and Revolut declined to comment.
The company, which is only four years old, makes money through other fees and premium offerings. It has said that it broke even for the first time in the month of December. That declaration comes as the company launches new projects that could push profitability further away: Revolut recently unveiled its plans to expand into the United States, and now allows customers to transfer ordinary currency into cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
The Russia-born Storonsky has a reputation in the industry as being particularly hard-charging and brash.
“I can’t see how work-life balance will help you to build a start-up,” he told The Financial Times this winter. “You are competing with bigger players, with better funded start-ups; you’re competing for customers, you don’t have resources. So how are you going to win this game?”
Revolut’s previous backers include Balderton Capital and Index Ventures. It has also raised some money through crowdfunding.
Its top competitor, TransferWise, was last valued at $1.6 billion and is backed by venture capital firms including Andreessen Horowitz.
DST has in recent months focused more and more on the fintech sector; the firm is also leading a $350 milion round at Robinhood, the stock-trading company that caters to millennials, and led a $150 million round in Brazilian startup Nubank earlier this year.
Ahold Delhaize rejects calls for shareholder vote on takeover defense
AMSTERDAM/LONDON (Reuters) - Dutch-Belgian supermarket group Ahold Delhaize (AD.AS) rejected calls on Wednesday for a shareholder vote on whether to retain a “poison pill” defense option against unwanted takeovers, drawing criticism from several of its investors.
At its annual meeting, the company’s boards said the defense mechanism - which is due to expire in December and gives an independent body the right to issue shares to thwart a takeover - could be extended indefinitely, and without investor approval.
Earlier Catherine Berjal, the co-founder of activist hedge fund CIAM, told Reuters that if Ahold Delhaize did not let investors decide, she would ask a judge at Amsterdam’s Enterprise Chamber to call an extraordinary shareholder meeting (EGM) to vote on the matter.
She said that while management had done a good job, there was a risk it would become complacent if it knew it was protected from potential bidders.
Ahold Delhaize’s chief legal officer, Jan Ernst de Groot, told shareholders the permission they gave in 2003 to set up the defense mechanism “knows no limitation in time. That means, the way is free for the parties to extend it.”
The company hasn’t made up its mind yet on whether to extend it, he added, but said: “we are convinced it won’t conflict with the law if we decide to extend” the arrangement.
Following the meeting, CIAM’s Berjal said: “We are disappointed at the board’s attitude and will now consider our options - all avenues to securing the best outcome for all shareholders and other stakeholders remain open.”
Berjal, whose fund holds less than 1 percent of Ahold Delhaize’s shares, said earlier she had the support of investors owning at least 10 percent of the company’s stock, and that they would pool legal costs, if necessary.
One shareholder and several board members including incoming supervisory board Chairman Jan Hommen spoke at the meeting in favor of protection against unwanted takeovers - a hot topic in the Netherlands after paints maker Akzo Nobel (AKZO.AS) fended off an unwanted bid approach from a U.S. rival last year.
However, Dutch shareholders’ association VEB, and a collection of institutional investors led by pension fund APG were more critical.
“In all the years (since 2003) you’ve misled shareholders into believing that they actually had a say in extending the option. We regret this and consider it poor governance,” the VEB’s Jasper Jansen said.
A representative for APG, who said she also represented Robeco and Dutch funds Actiam, De Goudse and MN, asked the company to call an EGM if it does decide to extend the protection, and said any extension should be limited in time.