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The Morning Ledger: France Seeks to Fill Void at Renault after Ghosn Arrest |
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Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn was arrested in Japan on allegations of financial misconduct at Nissan. PHOTO: STEVE MARCUS/REUTERS
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Good day. The French government is forcing car maker Renault SA to fill the void and appoint interim leadership after Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn was arrested in Japan on allegations of financial misconduct at Nissan Motor Co., Renault’s Japanese partner, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Taking control: French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday he plans to ask Renault board members to install “interim governance” as quickly as possible because Mr. Ghosn, who was arrested Monday after accusations that he underreported his pay, is unable to carry out his duties. Renault’s board is scheduled to meet Tuesday evening, according to a company spokesman.
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Uncertain outlook: The proposal to replace Mr. Ghosn at Renault—even temporarily—also throws into question the future of the alliance between Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi Corp. The executive has long been seen as the linchpin of that alliance.
Having a say: Mr. Ghosn's current project is to make the alliance permanent, but the task is complicated by the unusual cross-shareholding structure that gives the French auto maker influence over its Japanese partners—even as Nissan has grown larger than Renault and become a major source of the French company’s profit.
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U.S. housing starts for October are due out at 8:30 a.m. ET. Economists surveyed by WSJ predict construction of new homes picked up 1.6% last month to 1.22 million, while building permits rose 2.3% to 1.27 million.
Best Buy Co., Kohl's Corp., Campbell Soup Co. and Barnes & Noble Inc. are among the companies reporting earnings Tuesday.
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L’Oréal Names New CFO in Management Makeover |
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L’Oréal SA appointed Christophe Babule finance chief and executive vice president as part of a management shuffle that also saw the French cosmetics giant name a new leader of its Luxe group on Monday.
Mr. Babule will assume the role in mid-February. He also will join L’Oréal’s executive committee. Mr. Babule started to work at L’Oréal in 1988, serving most recently as the administration and financial director for the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr. Babule succeeds Christian Mulliez, who will leave the company in April 2019 following a transition period. Mr. Mulliez, who has spent 17 years as executive vice president and CFO and 36 years with the company, “expressed his desire to take a step back from his professional activity for personal reasons,” the company said.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks during a press conference in Las Vegas, Jan. 7, 2018. PHOTO: MANDEL NGAN/AFP
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Nvidia Corp. sells lots of artificial-intelligence chips in China. That creates a dilemma as the U.S. company tries to navigate political and trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.
Sears Holdings Corp. is seeking permission to pay its top executives millions of dollars in bonuses over the next two financial quarters.
Saudi Arabian Oil Co. no longer plans to launch what would have been one of the world’s largest-ever corporate-bond sales to fund a roughly $70 billion stake in the kingdom’s national petrochemical firm, looking instead to options requiring less public disclosure.
Some brokers at Merrill Lynch are pushing back against a compensation plan they claim rewards them for increasing debt their clients take on and in some cases can punish them for reducing it.
John Paulson’s hedge fund Paulson & Co. agreed to buy a stake in a $238 billion asset manager from Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co.
L Brands Inc. said Monday it had hired Tory Burch LLC Executive Jan Singer to take over its flagship Victoria’s Secret lingerie business after the chain posted another quarter of declining same-store sales.
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Société Générale’s total in fines and penalties represents the second-largest penalty ever imposed on a financial institution for violations of U.S. sanctions. PHOTO: CHARLES PLATIAU/REUTERS
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French bank Société Générale SA pointed to its cooperation with authorities and enhancements to its corporate compliance programs Monday as reasons the bank received settlements over allegations it had violated U.S. sanctions law.
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Manufacturers of U.S.-made products, hoping to capitalize on President Trump’s aggressive stance on China, are calling for tougher action against companies that make bogus “Made in the USA" claims.
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Randal Quarles, the Fed’s vice chairman for bank supervision, is expected to be named chair of the Financial Stability Board before the term of Bank of England Governor Mark Carney ends on Dec. 1.
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The Bank of England said on Tuesday it would bring forward publication of bank stress tests to Nov. 28 so that it could give analysis of how the central bank would cope with a possible “no deal” Brexit before parliament votes on a deal, Reuters reports.
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U.S. federal prosecutors charged Raúl Gorrín, a prominent Venezuelan media mogul, with foreign corruption and laundering money through U.S. banks and real estate.
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Contractors preparing concrete footings for a new home under construction in Elgin, Ill., in September. PHOTO: DANIEL ACKER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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The National Association of Home Builders on Monday said its housing-market index, a gauge of U.S. home-builder confidence, dropped by eight points to a reading of 60 in November, well below economists’ expectations and the lowest level in more than two years.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May Monday intensified a campaign to get businesses to back her Brexit agreement, trying to build momentum behind her much-maligned plan to extract the U.K. from the European Union.
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Adobe Inc., the San Jose, Calif. based software maker, named Mark Garfield as chief accounting officer and corporate controller, effective Dec. 3. Adobe Chief Financial Officer John Murphy will serve as interim principal accounting officer until Mr. Garfield joins the company.
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Mr. Garfield was most recently vice president of finance at Cloudflare Inc., a role he’s held since November 2017. Prior to that, he served as chief accounting officer at Symantec Corp. from March 2014 to October 2017.
Mr. Garfield’s compensation will include a base salary of $420,000 and a bonus targeted at 50% of his base salary. He will also receive a sign-on bonus of $500,000 upon commencement of his employment at Adobe, as well as a grant of 7,515 restricted stock units. These will vest 25% on each of the first, second, third and fourth anniversaries of his employment commencement date.
Compass, the New York real estate technology company, named Kristen Ankerbrandt chief financial officer, effective Nov. 26. She succeeds Craig Anderson, who left the company in March, according to his LinkedIn page.
Ms. Ankerbrandt was most recently a principal with The Carlyle Group’s U.S. buyout team, focusing on technology, media and telecommunications. Prior to joining Carlyle in 2007, she worked at Amazon.com Inc. in business development. Compensation details were not available.
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