LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Bill Ackman may bag a financial smash hit in the upcoming listing of Universal Music, which is being spun off by Vivendi (VIV.PA). Taylor Swift’s label boasts superior profitability to rival Warner Music (WMG.O), making a valuation of 47 billion euros including debt plausible. That would represent a chart-topping return for the hedge fund manager who bought a stake on the cheap earlier this year.

Vivendi will finally list the label behind Eminem and Lady Gaga in Amsterdam later this month, having mulled it over for years. Last year the group controlled by Vincent Bolloré sold a 20% stake to a consortium led by Tencent (0700.HK). Earlier this year Bolloré sold a further 10% stake to Ackman’s Pershing Square, which valued the group at 35 billion euros including debt, and its equity at around 33 billion euros.

A comparison with U.S.-listed rival Warner should ensure both investors a handsome return. It is valued currently at 24...

MILAN, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - At this fall’s United Nations climate summit, world leaders will seek to take concrete steps to fight global warming. Green hydrogen could help, but it’s still too expensive. Snam CEO Marco Alvera tells Lisa Jucca why the hydrogen energy revolution is likely to surprise us all.

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Follow @LJucca on Twitter

Vivendi, run by Vincent Bolloré, is listing Taylor Swift’s label shortly after selling a stake to the hedgie. Rapid streaming growth and better margins than rival Warner make a valuation of 47 bln euros plausible. That would net a return of over 30% for Ackman’s Pershing Square.

MILAN, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - At this fall’s United Nations climate summit, world leaders will seek to take concrete steps to fight global warming. Green hydrogen could help, but it’s still too expensive. Snam CEO Marco Alvera tells Lisa Jucca why the hydrogen energy revolution is likely to surprise us all.

Listen to the podcast

Follow @LJucca on Twitter

MILAN, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - At this fall’s United Nations climate summit, world leaders will seek to take concrete steps to fight global warming. Green hydrogen could help, but it’s still too expensive. Snam CEO Marco Alvera tells Lisa Jucca why the hydrogen energy revolution is likely to surprise us all.

Listen to the podcast

Follow @LJucca on Twitter

MILAN, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - At this fall’s United Nations climate summit, world leaders will seek to take concrete steps to fight global warming. Green hydrogen could help, but it’s still too expensive. Snam CEO Marco Alvera tells Lisa Jucca why the hydrogen energy revolution is likely to surprise us all.

Listen to the podcast

Follow @LJucca on Twitter

MILAN, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - At this fall’s United Nations climate summit, world leaders will seek to take concrete steps to fight global warming. Green hydrogen could help, but it’s still too expensive. Snam CEO Marco Alvera tells Lisa Jucca why the hydrogen energy revolution is likely to surprise us all.

Listen to the podcast

Follow @LJucca on Twitter

Hellman & Friedman offered 18% more for Zooplus a month after the German retailer backed a $3.5 bln takeover. Blackstone and CD&R also paid more for listed targets than initially intended. Recommending a bid can flush out rival suitors. But boards should be negotiating harder.

MILAN, Sept 14 (Reuters Breakingviews) - At this fall’s United Nations climate summit, world leaders will seek to take concrete steps to fight global warming. Green hydrogen could help, but it’s still too expensive. Snam CEO Marco Alvera tells Lisa Jucca why the hydrogen energy revolution is likely to surprise us all.

Listen to the podcast

Follow @LJucca on Twitter

Hellman & Friedman offered 18% more for Zooplus a month after the German retailer backed a $3.5 bln takeover. Blackstone and CD&R also paid more for listed targets than initially intended. Recommending a bid can flush out rival suitors. But boards should be negotiating harder.

NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Dollar stores can only be so thrifty. On Thursday two U.S. discount retailers, Dollar Tree(DLTR.O) and Dollar General(DG.N), warned that surging costs in supply chains could cut into profit. The $25 billion Dollar Tree said its regular carriers would only be able to fulfill up to 65% of their commitments. Spot prices for ocean freight from China have increased 20% since May, the company said. Its shares fell some 10%.

Ultra-discount retailers do well when the economy and shoppers are struggling, thanks to their low prices, as advertised by their names. But that business model leaves them little room to pass on rising costs even if consumers can afford them at the time.

Analysts are expecting American retail giant Walmart’s (WMT.N) revenue to grow just 1% this fiscal year. But its EBITDA margin should clock in at 8%, according to data from Refinitiv. At Dollar Tree, top-line growth is forecast at 3%, but the margin at just...

New CEO Sue Nabi, who spent 20 years at L’Oreal, has cut the $7 bln U.S. beauty firm’s costs and revamped management. Pivoting CoverGirl to middle America also looks smart. Yet shrinking sales and $5 bln of net debt suggest Coty’s chunky discount to its French rival will persist.

WASHINGTON, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - A calming prairie landscape would be a good Zoom backdrop for Jerome Powell’s virtual speech on Friday. The annual Federal Reserve confab, once again forced online from its traditional Jackson Hole, Wyoming, location, is usually a place to make news, as the U.S. central bank chair did in 2020. Now amid a Covid-19 resurgence, it's an occasion to avoid surprises.

Powell made a big splash at the Kansas City Fed-sponsored conference last year. He announced that the Fed had adopted “average inflation targeting,” meaning it will allow prices to run moderately above its 2% goal for some time. So even if the unemployment rate falls, the central bank may not raise interest rates as long as inflation remains controlled, a policy that Powell acknowledged may be counterintuitive.

This year, Powell has to pull off a balancing act. The Fed has been buying $120 billion of bonds each month to support the U.S. economy through the...

The German asset manager’s shares slumped 12% amid a U.S. investigation into alleged overstatement of its green credentials. A lack of consistent ESG metrics and terminology is a long-running, sector-wide problem. The desire to avoid similar attention could fast-track a cleanup.

The German asset manager’s shares slumped 12% amid a U.S. investigation into alleged overstatement of its green credentials. A lack of consistent ESG metrics and terminology is a long-running, sector-wide problem. The desire to avoid similar attention could fast-track a cleanup.

LONDON, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - A.P. Moller-Maersk’s (MAERSKb.CO) laudable environmental haste could land the Danish shipping giant with a first-mover disadvantage. The $53 billion firm is splurging $1.4 billion on eight container vessels powered by “carbon-neutral” methanol. Customers like Amazon.com (AMZN.O) may well absorb the elevated costs, yet rivals who hold off could sail away with cheaper and greener halos.

Chief Executive Soren Skou’s initiative is undeniably brave – the eight ships in question cost up to 15% more than normal ones, and methanol is at least twice the price of the gloopy bunker oil currently moving the world’s shipping fleet. But it’s necessary. Shipping accounts for nearly 3% of global emissions, roughly the same as aviation, and Maersk is its biggest player. Last year it chucked out 34 million tonnes of climate-warming gases like carbon dioxide.

On the first point, Skou has a safety net. If Maersk’s entire fleet had run on...

LONDON, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Delivery Hero (DHER.DE) Chief Executive Niklas Oestberg may be having more luck as a stock picker than boss of a profitable food delivery outfit. The 31 billion euro company said on Thursday that revenue in the first six months of the year surged 157% to 2.5 billion euros. However, net losses for the period more than doubled to 918 million euros, within touching distance of the 1 billion-plus euros it lost in the whole of last year.

Rather than focusing on turning this around, Oestberg has been distracted by dabbling in his rivals. This month, he revealed a 5.1% stake in Britain’s Deliveroo (ROO.L), on top of stakes in listed competitors Just Eat Takeaway.com (TKWY.AS), India’s Zomato (ZOMT.NS) and other startups. Deliveroo shares are now up a quarter from the average 270 pence price that Oestberg says he paid for the stock. His own investors are less impressed. Delivery Hero shares are down 4% since the stake was announced. If his...

HONG KONG, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Japan’s Shiseido (4911.T) is going for a simpler aesthetic. The $25 billion cosmetics and beauty group said on Thursday that it will sell American makeup brands bareMinerals, BUXOM and Laura Mercier for $700 million to private equity firm Advent International. The deal is part of the company’s broader pivot to high-end skincare.

On the face of it, not much will change. The three brands’ combined sales totalled 45 billion yen ($407 million) in the fiscal year ended December, or about 5% of Japanese group’s total top line. But the Americas region, while recovering quickly, remains a financial drag. In the first half of 2021, the division posted an operating loss of 9.1 billion yen.

Refocusing its vast portfolio should help. Earlier this year, the company said it will sell its personal care unit and partially end its licensing contract for its Dolce & Gabbana beauty products. But others are also keen to tap into the...

The $53 bln container giant is buying eight vessels powered by carbon-neutral methanol. Maersk gets a green halo, and customers could shoulder its increase in costs. The catch is that clean fuel alternatives currently in development are likely to be cheaper, and greener.

The $53 bln container giant is buying eight vessels powered by carbon-neutral methanol. Maersk gets a green halo, and customers could shoulder its increase in costs. The catch is that clean fuel alternatives currently in development are likely to be cheaper, and greener.

HONG KONG, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Xiaomi’s (1810.HK) wiring is nearly ready to include microchips. The $82 billion Chinese company shipped 53 million smartphones in the second quarter, overtaking Apple (AAPL.O) to become the world’s second-largest producer. With greater heft and official support from Beijing, boss Lei Jun should be closer to fulfilling his microchip dreams.

Financial results released on Wednesday underscore how quickly the company has capitalised on the woes of rival Huawei, which has been crippled by U.S. sanctions. Xiaomi, by contrast, is booming. Revenue from the handset division surged 87% in the three months ending June 30 from a year earlier, to $9 billion. Momentum from overseas markets, particularly in Europe where it is now the top-selling brand, has helped Xiaomi gain ground on Samsung Electronics (005930.KS). Lei wants to be the world’s biggest smartphone maker within three years.

To overtake the South Korean giant, Xiaomi will...

HONG KONG, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Markets have been hit by a series of crackdowns in private tutoring, data security and more. Underlying this is Beijing’s effort to limit rich excesses and boost middle-class wealth, which could curb the performance of the country’s biggest and best-known private companies.

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HONG KONG, Aug 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Markets have been hit by a series of crackdowns in private tutoring, data security and more. Underlying this is Beijing’s effort to limit rich excesses and boost middle-class wealth, which could curb the performance of the country’s biggest and best-known private companies.

Listen to the podcast

Follow @petesweeneypro on Twitter