TheChek News Flow

Pitango, Tel Aviv University, General Electric, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Tata and HNA Ecotech have set up a JV to invest in firms in Israel, according to a report in Globes. The report noted, based on an official announcement, that the investment vehicle JV, named Israel IoT Innovations - i3 Equity Partners, was launched with USD 20m investment. Eran Wagner, and Noga Kap, Israeli entrepreneurs are going to manage the funds allocated under the JV.

Interjet, a Mexico-based passenger airline, could consider selling up to a 49% company stake to a US or Europe-based strategic partner and subsequently conducting an IPO, according to a CNNExpansion video interview of Interjet President Miguel Aleman Magnani.

Interjet is open to inviting a US or European partner to acquire a company stake, but has not identified any specific investor, Aleman was cited as saying in the Spanish-language interview.

Aleman acknowledged United Airlines and American Airlines have been mentioned as potential Interjet investors and that there may be one or two additional potential suitors in Europe. Aleman noted Interjet has also signed confidentiality agreements with additional companies the executive said he was not permitted to identify.

The company would prefer to first take on a strategic partner before conducting an IPO, but could proceed to list its shares on a securities exchange without a partnership investment in the event such an investment failed to materialize, Aleman added.

Aleman was cited in a 27 October newswire report as saying Interjet plans to form a partnership with a foreign peer and is in talks with American and United.

Interjet will begin to operate routes connecting Toronto and Vancouver with Mexico City in 2017, later adding additional Mexican cities Guadalajara and Cancun, and plans to roughly double its current fleet of 90 planes by 2018, Aleman was cited as saying.

Warren E. Buffett beats up on few industries with the regularity he reserves for American airlines.

In a 2007 investor letter, Mr. Buffett, still smarting from an errant $358 million investment in USAir two decades earlier, called the industry a “bottomless pit” for capital. He quipped that investors would have been better served if the aviation pioneer Orville Wright had been shot down at Kitty Hawk.

Now, his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, is sinking more than $1.3 billion into the four largest American airlines. What gives? It is simple: Mr. Buffett’s love of competitive moats has overridden his fear of flying.

Mr. Buffett inspired a generation of value investors to seek out companies with defensible advantages that could help protect profit — or “moats” in his investment argot. For years, airlines did not fit that definition. They were burdened by high fixed costs, yet prone to price warfare as established carriers and new entrants like Richard Branson and others, abetted by cheap credit from leasing companies, jockeyed for business from fickle fliers.

That is no longer the case. America’s airlines have cut costs, slashed debt (mainly through the bankruptcy courts) and squelched rivals, mostly thanks to a string of mergers that turned a free-for-all into something like an oligopoly. The four companies Berkshire invested in — American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Continental and Southwest Airlines — control about two-thirds of the market and posted a $22 billion combined profit in 2015. As Mr. Buffett may now attest, the Wright brothers were not the problem — a competitive marketplace was.

The Waldorf Astoria hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., was built under a program meant to encourage wealthy foreigners to invest in depressed areas of the United States, Credit Tanveer Badal for The New York Times

A federal program meant to encourage investment in the United States from wealthy foreigners is increasingly supporting large luxury real estate projects, not the development in the rural and downtrodden districts that some say were the original targets of the program.

With billions of dollars flowing in, mostly from wealthy Chinese, the program faces an uncertain future. In September, Congress reset the expiration date on parts of the so-called EB-5 program to Dec. 9.

The program grants permanent residency in the United States to those who are willing to immigrate and invest $500,000 in a business that creates at least 10 jobs. Many of the projects that have received money have been in real estate, though investments have also gone to charter schools, medical centers and manufacturing plants. Some $15 billion of investments have been made through the program since 2005, according to the EB-5 Coalition, an industry group in Washington.

Critics have derided the program as essentially a legal way for immigrants to buy their way into the country.

Donald J. Trump’s election adds a new wrinkle. He campaigned heavily on immigration reform, pledging to build a wall on the Mexican border and increase the deportation of criminal noncitizens. He also said he wanted to reduce legal immigration and ensure jobs are offered to Americans first.

“Whether President-elect Trump will actually follow through on these pledges remains to be seen,” said Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, a law professor at Cornell University and an immigration lawyer. “It is always difficult for Congress to enact significant immigration changes because immigration is so complex and controversial.”

The United States is not alone in offering residence for investment. Germany, Australia and Canada have versions of the program, as do several small countries. Competition among Caribbean nations is rising for their citizenship-by-investment programs, with St. Lucia being the most recent to revamp its program.

Foreign interest is growing. According to an analysis by professors at New York University, investments in the program are increasingly financing large-scale, luxury or entertainment-oriented real estate developments. Among them: nearly $1 billion gathered in the last year from 2,000 investors to build a Chinese-style casino in Las Vegas, $600 million from 1,200 investors for New York’s mixed-use Hudson Yards project and $150 million from 300 investors to construct the Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria.

The program was intended to reward people for putting money into the United States. Projects that raised more than $1 billion were practically nonexistent in the program before 2010, Prof. Jeanne Calderon of New York University’s Stern School of Business wrote in a March report on the program. But when banks turned off the credit spigot around the 2008 financial crisis, developers started getting more creative in finding alternative financing.

N.Y.U. tracks 27 projects across the United States that have raised more than $5.6 billion from foreign investors.

Views west from 10 Hudson Yards, which attracted $600 million from foreign investors. Credit Pablo Enriquez for The New York Times

Many of these projects are run by large commercial developers who could proceed without any foreign investment but are reaching out to foreign investors for cheaper financing than they would receive from banks.

Reformers from both political parties are calling for a much tighter definition of the areas eligible for investment through the program to remove the tracts in prosperous urban areas and get money to underserved ones. They are also looking at raising the investment minimum to $800,000.

In addition, they hope to make the projects more accountable by requiring better disclosures to protect potentially vulnerable immigrants from fraudulent schemes. Federal securities regulators have filed several enforcement actions against people committing fraud through the program in recent years.

The issue has friends and foes on either side of the political aisle. Senators from rural parts of the country want more development dollars coming to their districts, while those from large cities want to maintain the status quo. As for the immigrants themselves, they are entering the program mostly in an effort to gain permanent residency in the United States, which gives project developers more power.

“Like so many things, there are a lot of people who are adversely affected but only by a little, and there are a very small group of developers who benefit — they win,” said David North, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington.

The Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria is being developed by Beny Alagem, an Israeli-born American entrepreneur who also owns the Beverly Hilton. It has nine acres and 12 stories and includes a hotel and a residential condominium tower. Three hundred investors contributed $150 million to the project in the form of a loan. It is estimated to create 3,629 jobs.

The Wanda Group, which is the largest commercial developer in China and is owned by the nation’s richest man, is said to be seeking foreign investment program financing for its Wanda Vista Hotel in Chicago. The city approved the project last November. The Wanda Group is also developing One Beverly Hills Hotel next to the new Waldorf in that city.

The Genting Group, a global development conglomerate based in Malaysia, is developing Resorts World Las Vegas with nearly $1 billion of program money. The $4 billion project includes 3,100 rooms and 100,000 square feet of gambling space, restaurants, shops, a panda habitat and a 4,000-seat theater.

Jeffrey Berkowitz is developing SkyRise Miami, a 100,000-square-foot multipurpose entertainment complex and observation tower along Biscayne Bay that will be the city’s highest building when completed. Foreign program investors are contributing 63 percent of the financing through a $270 million loan. About 540 investors are involved in the project, which is expected to create more than 6,000 jobs.

And 350 foreign program investors put up $175 million for Empire Outlets, a mall and hotel complex planned for Staten Island. Goldman Sachs is a partner in the project, which aims to create 4,500 jobs.

All of this investing has created a backlog of uncertain futures. Currently, 22,000 petitions are pending with the Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is directed under the Department of Homeland Security.

The messaging app Snapchat allows motorists to post photos that record the speed of the vehicle. The navigation app Waze rewards drivers with points when they report traffic jams and accidents. Even the game Pokémon Go has drivers searching for virtual creatures on the nation’s highways.

When distracted driving entered the national consciousness a decade ago, the problem was mainly people who made calls or sent texts from their cellphones. The solution then was to introduce new technologies to keep drivers’ hands on the wheel. Innovations since then — car Wi-Fi and a host of new apps — have led to a boom in internet use in vehicles that safety experts say is contributing to a surge in highway deaths.

After steady declines over the last four decades, highway fatalities last year recorded the largest annual percentage increase in 50 years. And the numbers so far this year are even worse. In the first six months of 2016, highway deaths jumped 10.4 percent, to 17,775, from the comparable period of 2015, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“This is a crisis that needs to be addressed now,” Mark R. Rosekind, the head of the agency, said in an interview.

The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating an Oct. 26 crash near Tampa that killed five people. A passenger in one car, a teenager, recorded a Snapchat video showing her vehicle traveling at 115 m.p.h. just before the collision.

A lawsuit filed in a Georgia court claims a teenage driver who was in a September 2015 crash near Atlanta was using Snapchat while driving more than 100 m.p.h., according to court records. The car collided with the car of an Uber driver, who was seriously injured.

Alarmed by the statistics, the Department of Transportation in October outlined a plan to work with the National Safety Council and other advocacy groups to devise a “Road to Zero” strategy, with the ambitious goal of eliminating roadway fatalities within 30 years.

The Obama administration’s transportation secretary, Anthony Foxx, said that the near-term effort would involve identifying changes in regulations, laws and standards that could help reduce fatalities. That might include pushing for all states to tighten and enforce laws requiring use of seatbelts in cars and helmets on motorcycles, while cracking down on distracted or drunken driving. The effort might also include tougher regulation of heavy trucks, Mr. Foxx said.

A second, related effort would focus on setting longer-term goals and speeding the introduction of autonomous-driving technologies that many safety experts say have the potential to prevent accidents by removing distracted humans from the driving equation.

One concern so far, though, is that current generations of automated driver-assistance systems, like the Autopilot feature offered by Tesla Motors, may be lulling some drivers into a false sense of security that can contribute to distracted driving.

Whether highway safety officials in the Trump administration will have the same priorities, though, is too soon to say. The names of candidates for transportation secretary have not yet been publicly floated.

Most new vehicles sold today have software that connects to a smartphone and allows drivers to place phone calls, dictate texts and use apps hands-free. Ford Motor has its Sync system, for example. Others, including Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz, offer their own interfaces as well as Apple’s CarPlay and Google’s Android Auto.

Automakers say these systems enable customers to concentrate on driving even while interacting with their smartphones.

“The whole principle is to bring voice recognition to customers so they can keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel,” said Alan Hall, a spokesman for Ford, which began installing Sync in cars in 2007.

Since then, the company has added features to reduce distractions, like a “do not disturb button” that lets drivers block incoming calls and texts.

CarPlay allows use of the iPhone’s Siri virtual assistant to answer phone calls, dictate texts and control apps like Spotify and Pandora. Both Sync and CarPlay present simplified menus on a car’s in-dash display to reduce driver distraction and turn off the phone’s screen, eliminating the temptation to use the device itself.

But Deborah Hersman, president of the nonprofit National Safety Council and a former chairwoman of the federal National Transportation Safety Board, said it was not clear how much those various technologies reduced distraction — or, instead, encouraged people to use even more functions on their phones while driving. And freeing the drivers’ hands does not necessarily clear their heads.

“It’s the cognitive workload on your brain that’s the problem,” Ms. Hersman said.

Technology in some new cars is meant to reduce driver distractions or compensate for them.

Dr. William Chandler, a retired neurosurgeon in Ann Arbor, Mich., just bought a 2017 BMW X5 sport utility vehicle that warns him if he drifts out of his lane on the highway or if a car is in his blind spot. His favorite feature is a heads-up display on the windshield in front of him that projects his speed, the speed limit and navigation information.

“It puts all the directions and turns right there in my field of vision,” he said. “That’s a real safety factor for distracted driving, because I’m never looking at the map on the screen in the console.”

But new cars make up only a small portion of the 260 million vehicles on the road in the United States. Digital diversion is harder to address in older models.

Brett Hudson, 26, a teacher at a charter school in Jackson, Mich., said his iPhone 6 Plus had become essential to his daily commute in his 2002 Chevrolet TrailBlazer. He uses Apple Maps for navigation, listens to music via Pandora and gets his favorite Michigan football call-in show on iHeart Radio.

To reduce the time he looks at the phone, Mr. Hudson installed an aftermarket Bluetooth system for hands-free phone calls. He mounts the iPhone on a clip attached to an air vent, enabling him to see the screen while still keeping the road in his field of vision.

Mr. Hudson concedes that the setup is not risk-free.

“I’ve noticed that when I do have to touch the phone,’’ he said, ‘‘my brain becomes so totally focused, even in that short period of time, and I don’t really remember what’s happening on the road in those four or five seconds.”

Insurance companies, which closely track auto accidents, are convinced that the increasing use of electronic devices while driving is the biggest cause of the rise in road fatalities, according to Robert Gordon, a senior vice president of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America.

“This is a serious public safety concern for the nation,” Mr. Gordon said at a recent conference in Washington held by the National Transportation Safety Board. “We are all trying to figure out to what extent this is the new normal.”

- The notes will be issued at par with a coupon of 5.625% per annum.

- The minimum conversion price has been set at €90.

- The maximum conversion price has been set at €108, representing a maximum conversion premium of 20%.

- The notes will mature on 22-Nov-19.

Supersonic Passenger Jet Edges Closer to Reality

Demonstrator vehicle, called Baby Boom, slated to take to the air in 2017

Honeywell International Inc. has agreed to supply avionics for a proposed supersonic jetliner—intended to carry only premium passengers—that could slash transcontinental travel times in half.

The concept of a three-engine aircraft featuring fewer than four dozen seats, previously announced by closely held startup Boom Technology Inc., also is expected to take another step forward Tuesday with the unveiling of a one-third scale flying prototype.

The demonstrator vehicle, called Baby Boom, is slated to take to the air in 2017. If development goes as planned, the full-size version, including cockpit systems from Honeywell and engines manufactured by General Electric Co., could start carrying passengers early in the next decade.

With its needlelike nose, sweptback wings and tapered carbon-fiber body, the XB-1 demonstrator resembles the contours of an experimental jet fighter. It has room for a single pilot, plus an optional flight-test engineer.

A cabin mock-up of the ultimate aircraft, also shown for the first time Tuesday, features large oval windows, almost like portholes, and a single row of seats on each side of the fuselage.

The project, which could cost more than $1 billion, has initial support from several venture funds and is taking an unusual approach by adopting various technologies already certified by regulators. Still, future funding remains uncertain, daunting regulatory hurdles remain and the tight test schedule, aiming to certify a jetliner able to cruise 10% faster than the now-mothballed Concorde, could stretch due to unexpected challenges.

While engineers have leveraged the latest aerodynamic research and computer design tools, the company’s bare-bones technical staff must rely on Virgin Galactic LLC, British entrepreneur Richard Branson’s budding space tourism company, for manufacturing and flight-test support. When the actual jetliner starts flying, Boom technology may have no more than 50 full-time employees.

But Blake Scholl, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview that rolling out the prototype highlights the company’s novel strategy. The driving principle, he said, is “not just to sit around and study” supersonic technologies, adding that “we are much closer to flight than anyone else” seeking to break the sound barrier for travelers.

A number of other companies with deeper pockets are pursuing business jets with similar goals, and some have estimated much higher overall development costs. But Mr. Scholl said Boom is the only major project envisioning passengers, without access to corporate jets, paying fares comparable to today’s first-class tickets for a supersonic experience.

Designed to fly twice as fast as today’s most-advanced airliners, the XB-1 is intended to offer travelers greatly expanded options, particularly for swift transcontinental round-trips.

As currently conceived, according to Mr. Scholl, the proposed jet would allow passengers to fly from the West Coast to Singapore, for example, have a full day of meetings there, and return home on a red-eye flight. The entire trip would take slightly more than 24 hours. Existing airline schedules require three days.

Increased interest in supersonic travel comes as members of Congress and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration step up efforts to study ways to significantly reduce sonic booms that traditionally have restricted commercial flights over the U.S.

Messaging company, now called Snap, could be valued at $20 billion to $25 billion

Snap Inc. has confidentially filed paperwork for an initial public offering that may value the popular messaging platform at as much as $25 billion, a major step toward what would be one of the highest-profile stock debuts in recent years.

The company, formerly known as Snapchat, made the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.

An IPO, expected as early as March, could value Snap at between $20 billion and $25 billion, one of the people said. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the valuation could be $25 billion or more. The reason for the discrepancy isn’t clear.

If Snap pursues an IPO at the currently expected valuation, it would still be the largest U.S.-listed technology offering since Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. made its debut at a $168 billion valuation in 2014.

ENLARGE

That could provide a boost for the IPO market, which has had a dismal year. Just 103 companies have listed their shares in the U.S. in 2016, raising $21.8 billion, according to data provider Dealogic. That is down from 165 deals raising $34.6 billion at the same juncture last year and marks the lowest year-to-date level for deals since 2009 and proceeds since 2010. Technology IPOs have experienced similar weakness.

But bankers and investors are optimistic that a successful debut for Snap would convince other bellwether tech companies to tap the IPO market.

The recent strong performance of the few tech-company shares that have started trading this year has given market participants confidence that the new-issue market is due for a rebound next year.

Snap would become the first of a small batch of highly valued and closely watched venture-backed companies, such as Uber Technologies Inc., to test the public markets.

The four-year-old company, whose Snapchat app lets users send disappearing messages from their smartphones, was eligible to file its IPO paperwork confidentially because it expects to have less than $1 billion in revenue this year. Under the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, companies with annual revenue below $1 billion have the option to file an initial draft of their IPO prospectus with regulators and make adjustments before unveiling it publicly.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. would be lead underwriters of a Snap IPO, according to people familiar with the matter. Snap executives plan to be relatively conservative in pricing the offering, the people said.

Recent tech offerings have generally been priced conservatively. The average multiple of total company value to expected sales for tech companies at their debut this year was three times, compared with 3.6 times last year and 4.9 times in 2014, according to a recent report from Deutsche Bank’s equity-capital-markets group.

There is no guarantee that Snap, based in Venice, Calif., will proceed with a share sale in the time frame it currently envisions, or that it will achieve the valuation contemplated.

Snap’s main source of revenue is selling ads on Snapchat that are slotted in between stories contributed by media partners and video diaries posted by the app’s users. Marketers also can buy location-based or event-based geofilters and “lenses” that add quirky characteristics to photos and videos.

Snap has been working hard to win over Madison Avenue ahead of the IPO. Advertisers are intrigued by the Snapchat app, which reaches more than 150 million users daily, including 41% of 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S., according to Nielsen.

But marketers and ad agencies have been frustrated with Snap’s tight controls on ad content and the long wait times some have experience getting ads approved by the platform. Others say those problems amount to growing pains.

Snap has been taking some steps to make life easier for advertisers. It released an “application programming interface” that helps advertisers buy ads through a more automated process. And it has lifted some previous restrictions, allowing marketers to target customers using email databases and other data sources.

The company’s revenue has grown quickly since it started running ads in 2014. Snap told investors earlier this year that it expected revenue of between $250 million and $350 million in 2016 and as much as $1 billion in 2017.

It is already ahead of the top end of its 2016 forecast, people familiar with the matter have said. In 2015, the company generated just $60 million in revenue. Snapchat loses money, according to people familiar with the matter, as it focuses on revenue growth and finding ways to make money off its big user base.

In September, the company renamed itself Snap in a bid to show that its ambitions extend beyond Snapchat. As part of the change it unveiled camera-equipped sunglasses, called Spectacles, that can record video in short bursts. The foray into hardware potentially gives Snap another source of revenue, but poses new challenges such as managing inventory.