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The Morning Ledger: U.S., Canada Rush to Meet Nafta-Deadline |
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Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland arrives for a meeting with U.S. trade representatives. PHOTO: JIM WATSON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
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Good morning. Executives at companies doing business in the U.S., Canada and Mexico will pay close attention to developments in Washington today, as negotiators try to strike a last-minute deal to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement, the WSJ's Paul Vieira and Jacob M. Schlesinger report.
Tight deadline: The negotiations come after the Trump administration announced a deal with Mexico earlier this week and set a Friday deadline for Canada to agree to the settlement. President Trump said he was prepared to replace the trilateral agreement with a U.S.-Mexico accord unless Canada joined in quickly.
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Withdrawal threat: Mr. Trump reiterated his longstanding criticism of the World Trade Organization on Thursday, stating, “If they don’t shape up, I would withdraw from the WTO.” So far, there has been no sign that the administration is planning a full pullout from the institution.
An end to car tariffs? Meanwhile, the European Union’s top trade official proposed going beyond a U.S.-EU trade plan agreed at the White House last month and eliminating all car tariffs. Cecilia Malmström said the EU is “willing to bring down even our car tariffs to zero, all tariffs to zero, if the U.S. does the same.”
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President Trump is expected to sign an executive order directing the government to review rules requiring retirees to start taking annual withdrawals from retirement funds after they turn 70½ and to consider making it easier for small businesses to offer employees 401(k) plans.
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Brazil will release second-quarter gross domestic product data at 8 a.m. E.T. amid worsening forecasts. It was the quarter when a truckers strike brought the economy to a near-halt. At 9:30 a.m. E.T., the country's central bank is set to release budget data.
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Dunkin’ Donuts Invests $100 Million in Brand Refresh |
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Dunkin’ Donuts is putting cash in the hands of its franchise owners to equip stores to better serve customers accustomed to ordering on mobile devices. The coffee and doughnut chain plans to unveil 50 U.S. test stores this year that aim to make it easier for customers to grab coffee on the run.
The company will invest about $100 million in the effort, said Katherine Jaspon, the finance chief of parent Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. “We believe this is a unique chapter in our brand’s history,” Ms. Jaspon told CFO Journal's Ezequiel Minaya in an interview. “Which is why we are contributing significant capital alongside our franchisees for the first time.”
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U.K. Recruiter Hays Plans to Raise Capital Expenditures |
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Hays is planning to spend roughly £30 million ($39.06 million) on capital expenditures in the financial year to June 2019. That is up from £25 million in the 2018 financial year and comes on the back of strong growth in core markets such as Germany and Australia.
About half of the firm’s planned capital expenditures will go into systems upgrades and the automation of its back-office functions in Germany. “We are constantly looking for additional efficiencies,” said Chief Financial Officer Paul Venables in an interview Thursday with CFO Journal.
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Coffee cups in a Costa store in London, U.K. PHOTO: CHRIS RATCLIFFE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Coca-Cola Co. on Friday said it would buy British coffee-shop chain Costa for $5.1 billion, marking the latest bet by a major consumer goods company on coffee.
Wells Fargo & Co. is investigating allegations of gender bias at its wealth-management division, and a group of female executives have organized to improve the lot of women there. The company has also fired or suspended more than a dozen employees in its investment bank and is investigating others over alleged violations of the company’s expense policy.
Boeing Co. on Thursday won a major contract to build new drones for the U.S. Navy, the first in a series of Pentagon contests that could stem declining sales at the firm’s defense arm.
Microsoft Corp. will soon require its suppliers and contractors to provide at least 12 weeks of paid time off to new parents, the software giant said Thursday.
Hedge fund King Street Capital Management LP has proposed new independent directors at Toshiba Corp., a sign that foreign funds are becoming dissatisfied with the performance of the Japanese conglomerate.
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A majority of exporting U.K. manufacturers were more concerned about foreign exchange rates in the second quarter than in the previous three months, according to a survey by the British Chambers of Commerce. The number rose to 60%, up from 56% in the first quarter.
This comes as the U.K. pound continues to sag against the euro and highlights the challenges facing U.K. businesses ahead of Britain's exit from the European Union.
“The fall of sterling puts considerable pressure on the cost of imports and the volatility can make it difficult to plan," said Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, in a note. The trade body surveyed more than 2,600 U.K. exporters.
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Jay Clayton, chairman of the SEC, said he wants to open up new options for individual investors. PHOTO: BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS
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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wants to make it easier for individuals to invest in private companies, Jay Clayton, the agency’s chairman, said in an interview.
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President Trump said Allen Weisselberg, the finance chief of the Trump Organization, didn’t betray him when cooperated with prosecutors in an investigation into Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, Bloomberg writes. Mr. Weisselberg is uniquely positioned to answer a variety of financial questions about Trump and the organization, CFO Journal's Tatyana Shumsky reported on Tuesday.
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The Chinese government is tightening its control over videogames, including restricting the number of online games and limiting play time for children, which sent shares of Tencent Holdings Ltd. and NetEase Inc. tumbling.
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Volkswagen AG on Thursday warned earnings could be hit by up to €1 billion ($1.17 billion) because of delays in certifying new vehicles to meet stricter European emissions testing rules.
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China’s ZTE Corp. disclosed a loss of 7.8 billion yuan -- about $1.1 billion -- during the first half of the year, after a ban on purchasing American supplies forced a life-threatening shutdown of the firm.
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San Francisco dealt a blow to large shared-scooter companies including Bird Rides Inc. by awarding two smaller startups exclusive rights to rent the electric-powered vehicles for a year.
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The increase in U.S. household spending reflects higher prices that businesses are charging for their products. PHOTO: ERIC THAYER/REUTERS
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U.S. household spending rose 0.4% in July, the Commerce Department said Thursday, marking another healthy gain after months of strong growth.
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President Trump said Thursday he would invoke his emergency authority to freeze pay for more than 2 million civilian federal workers next year, citing the need to restrain federal spending.
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A gauge of factory activity in China rebounded slightly in August, boosted by accelerated production and government efforts to arrest slowing growth and blunt the impact of the trade fight with the U.S.
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Turkey has raised a tax on foreign-currency accounts and waived another on lira deposits in a bid to help the country’s ailing currency amid mounting concern about the state of the economy, Reuters reports.
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The Central Bank of Argentina sharply raised interest rates in an effort to shore up the peso, which fell to new lows as President Mauricio Macri grapples with a crisis of confidence.
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Signet Jewelers Ltd., a Hamilton, Bermuda-based jewelry retailer, said its Chief Financial Officer Michele Santana will leave the company in 2019 after eight years in the role. The company is searching for a successor.
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Signet said it intends to appoint a new CFO by the end of the company's fiscal year. Ms. Santana will continue as CFO until her successor is appointed and will remain with Signet in an advisory role until next year, the company said in a release.
Sage Group PLC, a U.K. software company, appointed its CFO Steve Hare as interim chief operating officer, effective August 31, 2018. As CFO and interim COO, Mr. Hare will run the business until the company appoints a successor for outgoing CEO Stephen Kelly. Sage has initiated the process to find a new CEO, it said in a filing.
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Every weekend we select a handful of in-depth articles we think are worth a bit of your time, either because they peel back the layers on a compelling business story, or somehow make us look at business in a different light.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed legislation to raise the retirement age up to 67 for women, and 65 for men in a country where average life expectancy for women is 77, and 65 for men. The reform aims to address the cost of the growing retiree population, but is eating into Mr. Putin's approval ratings, writes Bloomberg.
“Can you get that to me by the end of the day?” isn’t a request many employees like to hear. But for many people, having shorter deadlines instead of longer ones might actually help them complete a task and see their work as being less difficult, reports Harvard Business Review.
A U.K. start-up called Abracademy claims that learning tricks boosts creativity -- but is it working, asks the Financial Times.
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