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Paramount Global (PARA) sinks amid reports Shari Redstone ended talks with Skydance. (00:24) Musk drops lawsuit against OpenAI: report. (01:31) U.S. to widen sanctions on chip sales to Russia, targeting resellers in China – report. (02:16)
This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) dropped nearly 8% Tuesday amid a report that Shari Redstone’s National Amusements has stopped talks with bidder Skydance Media.
According to a WSJ report on Tuesday, which cited people familiar with the matter, Redstone is now expected to pursue the sale of just National Amusements without trying to merge Paramount (PARA) into another company.
The sticking point in the negotiations may have been a potential shareholder vote on the transaction, according to the WSJ. While National Amusements was supportive of a vote, Skydance said such a vote was a “nonstarter,” some of the people told the publication.
CNBC’s David Faber separately reported that National Amusements failed to reach an agreement with Skydance. An agreement couldn’t be reached on “non-economic” terms, according to Faber, who cited sources familiar.
National Amusements confirmed that it was unable to reach a deal with Skydance, the Paramount controlling holder told Bloomberg in an emailed statement.
“National Amusements … today announced that they have not been able to reach mutually acceptable terms regarding the potential transaction with Skydance Media for the acquisition of a controlling stake in NAI…” NAI said in a statement on Tuesday. “…NAI is grateful to Skydance for their months of work in pursuing this potential transaction and looks forward to the ongoing, successful production collaboration between Paramount and Skydance…”
Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk has withdrawn his lawsuit against Microsoft-backed (NASDAQ:MSFT) OpenAI and two of the startup’s co-founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman.
According to a report by CNBC, the suit was withdrawn just one day before a hearing was to occur in a San Francisco courtroom on the validity of the case.
Musk first filed the lawsuit in March, claiming OpenAI had abandoned its original mission, and chosen profits over benefiting humanity, due to its partnership with Microsoft.
Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI, but no longer owns a stake in the company. He has since raised billions for a competing venture called xAI.
OpenAI considered the lawsuit frivolous from the start.
The Biden administration is expected to widen sanctions on the sale of semiconductor chips and other goods to Russia, targeting third-party sellers in China and elsewhere.
This is according to a Bloomberg report, citing people familiar with the plan.
The move will broaden the scope of existing export controls to U.S.-branded goods, particularly chips, that are not domestically made. It aims to cut off Russia’s efforts to avert Western sanctions and choke off its war machine in Ukraine.
Russia has been sourcing chips from third-party sellers – often based in China – for use in missiles, sources told Bloomberg. Resellers can apply for a license from the U.S. for selling goods if their purpose is nonmilitary, the people said.
Washington also plans to expand restrictions on enterprise software used in Russia, which would essentially halt any updates for that software.
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Catalyst watch:
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Notable investor events include annual meetings for Target (TGT), Caterpillar (CAT), and Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS).
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H&R Block (HRB), Best Buy (BBY), and Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) are some of the notable companies that will participate at the three-day Oppenheimer Consumer Growth and E-Commerce Conference.
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Merck (MRK), Eli Lilly (LLY), Gilead Sciences (GILD), Biogen (BIIB), and Pfizer (PFE) are some of the notable companies due to present at the Goldman Sachs Global Healthcare Conference. AbbVie’s (ABBV) presentation will also be closely watched, with investors concerned about potential antitrust issues with the planned takeover of Cerevel Therapeutics (CERE).
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American Express (AXP) CFO Christophe Le Caillec will participate in a fireside chat at the Morgan Stanley US Financials, Payments & Commercial Real Estate Conference.
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Birkenstock (BIRK), Walmart (WMT), and Amer Sports (AS) are some of the key companies that will hold fireside chats throughout the day at the Evercore ISI Consumer & Retail Conference.
Now let’s take a look at the markets as of 6 am. Ahead of the opening bell today, Dow, S&P and Nasdaq futures are in the green. Crude oil is up 1.2% at $78 per barrel. Bitcoin is up 0.8% at $67,000.
In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is up 0.6% and the DAX is up 0.5%.
The biggest movers for the day premarket: Casey’s General Stores (NASDAQ:CASY) gained 6% after reporting better-than-expected FQ4 results.
On today’s economic calendar:
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8:30 Consumer Price Index
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2:00 PM FOMC Announcement
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2:30 PM Fed Chair Press Conference
Today’s double whammy of CPI and the FOMC announcement means Wall Street Lunch with Kim Khan will be published a little later than normal to accommodate those updates.
Read the full article here