The CEOs of US oil companies Chevron and ExxonMobil, Mike Wirth and Darren Woods, were in talks about a possible merger because of the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing sources. They noted that the talks were tentative but that company representatives may revisit them in the future. The capitalisation of the combined company could exceed...

China's second-largest short video service Kuaishou Technology has raised $5.4bn during an IPO in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reports. The offering was the largest for the Hong Kong stock exchange since November 2019, when Alibaba Group floated its shares on the exchange, managing to raise about $13bn. The service, backed by Tencent Holdings, sold 365 million of its shares to investors at a price of...

MasterCard published its financial report for the fourth quarter and the entire year 2020. The company managed to beat analysts' expectations and its shares rose by 3% immediately after the release. The COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on consumer activity, especially spending abroad, as most countries were closed for travel for most of the year.  As a result, this figure fell by...

Douglas, one of Europe's largest cosmetics and perfumery chains headquartered in Germany, announced Thursday that it is closing 500 outlets. It’s just under 20% of Douglas' entire branch network, which includes some 2,400 shops in 26 countries across Europe. The company announced this on Thursday when it published its financial statements for the 2019/2020 financial year, which ended at the end...

Microsoft's revenues reached $43.1 billion in the latest quarter, up 17% from the same period last fiscal year. Net income was up 33% ($15.5bn) and operating income – up 29% ($17.9bn). "Growing demand for our wide range of products drove cloud revenue up 34 percent year over year to $16.7 billion," Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said in a press release. Satya Nadella, chief executive...

Shares in plant-based meat producer Beyond Meat were up more than 36% at the opening of trading, triggered by the news that the company has agreed a deal with PepsiCo to develop new snacks and drinks based on plant-based protein. Shares in plant-based meat producer Beyond Meat jumped more than 36% after the opening of trading on January 26. By mid-afternoon, the securities were worth about $216,...

Net profit at Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the world's largest manufacturer of health products, fell by 2.7% year-on-year to $14.714 billion in 2020, the company said in a press release. On a per-share basis, diluted earnings were $5.51 compared to $5.63 in 2019. The company's revenue for the period rose by 0.6 per cent to $82.584 billion. J&J reported fourth-quarter net profit of $1.738...

A court in South Korea has sentenced the head and heir to the Samsung Group business, Lee Jae-yong, to 2.5 years in prison, Reuters reports. He was found guilty of bribery and embezzlement of about 8.7 billion won ($7.8 million) in connection with the scandal that toppled the country's first female president, Park Geun-hye. Mr. Lee was charged with bribery as part of a corruption investigation...

Delta Airlines published its financial report for the year 2020, according to which the airline's net loss was $12.4 billion, the worst figure in the history of the company. Despite an increase in traffic in the fourth quarter due to the Christmas holiday, the company's operating revenue fell $7.47 billion (65%) from a year ago. Annual revenue in 2020 was $29.9 billion (64%) lower than in 2019....