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Cranberry Journal

Friday, October 16, 2026

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At the close · Oct 16

Business

Tagged stories

A row of new dark SUVs parked on a dealership lot at dusk.
Business

Penske Automotive Agreed to Be Taken Private at $212 a Share, a $16.3 Billion Enterprise Value. The Premium Is 8.8 Per Cent, and Its Two Buyers Are Also Its Two Largest Holders.

Penske Automotive Group said on Thursday 15 October that it will be acquired by Penske Corporation and Japan's Mitsui & Co. for $212.00 a share in cash, an enterprise value of about $16.3 billion. The price is 8.84 per cent above Wednesday's close and $2 above the $210 the buyers proposed in July. The deal needs regulatory approval and two shareholder votes, and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027.

By Margaret Holloway  

Rows of industrial machinery under overhead pipework on a factory floor.
Business

Philadelphia Factories Fell to 20.9 in October From 37.8, but Prices Received Hit a 17-Month High. 52.2 Per Cent of Firms Plan to Spend More Next Year and None Plan to Spend Less.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said on Thursday 15 October that its manufacturing index fell to 20.9 from 37.8, the second monthly decline, though it remains positive. New orders fell to 4.3 from 29.2. The prices-received index rose to 40.1, its highest since May 2025.

By Daniel Okafor  

Two machined metal flanges resting on engineering drawings.
Business

New York Factories Posted Their Best Reading Since December 2021, 25.5. Delivery Times Are Lengthening, Supply Is the Scarcest Since 2022, and Hiring Is Only Modest.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said on Thursday 15 October that its Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business conditions index rose 18 points to 25.5 in October, the highest since December 2021. New orders rose 21 points to 23.2, while the employment index held at 10.3, pointing to modest hiring, and supply availability fell to its lowest since June 2022.

By Margaret Holloway  

White fuel storage tanks at a riverside terminal under a blue sky, seen from the water.
Business

Agility Bought Tristar for About $7 Million in 2003. It Is Selling It at a $1.5 Billion Enterprise Value, and Says the Bet Returned More Than $1 Billion.

Agility Global said on 13 October that it will sell its entire stake in Tristar, a fuel logistics business, to India's Aegis Logistics at an enterprise value of $1.5 billion and an equity value of $882 million, about 6.0 times 2025 EBITDA. Closing is expected before the end of March 2027, subject to regulatory approvals. Agility has not said how much of that it receives.

By Thomas Gutierrez  

A single-storey Bank of America branch with its red, white and blue sign, seen across a road junction under traffic lights at State Road 520 and A1A.
Business

Bank of America Took a $1.2 Billion Treasury Penalty the Day Before It Reported. The Charge Cost 17 Cents a Share, and Earnings Still Missed Without It.

Treasury announced more than $1.21 billion in anti-money-laundering and sanctions penalties against Bank of America on Tuesday 13 October, and the bank reported third-quarter results the next morning. The bank says the penalty is a non-deductible charge of about 17 cents a share. The bank earned 91 cents a share, or $1.08 excluding the charge, below the $1.12 analysts had expected.

By Margaret Holloway  

A hand holds a smartphone whose screen shows a pink heart pierced by an arrow, against a green textured fabric.
Business

Bumble Agreed to a $1.3 Billion Cash Buyout at $6.05 a Share, a 138 Per Cent Premium. Its Public Shareholders Will Not Get a Vote.

Bumble said on Tuesday 13 October that it will be acquired by Ithaca Holdings for $6.05 a share in cash, a deal it values at $1.3 billion. The price is about 138 per cent above the stock's close on 9 October. Affiliates of Blackstone and founder Whitney Wolfe Herd approved the deal by written consent after it was signed, so public shareholders will not vote; regulatory approvals are still required.

By Alison Acosta  

The granite entrance of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street, with its name in gold letters above bronze doors and bollards along the pavement.
Business

The FTC Says Martin Shkreli Traded Shares in at Least 60 Drug Companies Despite a Lifetime Ban. It Wants His Profits, With No Offset for Losses.

The Federal Trade Commission and seven states asked a federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday 13 October to hold Martin Shkreli in civil contempt of the 2022 order banning him from the pharmaceutical industry for life. They allege he has traded shares in more than 60 drug companies since leaving prison and promoted short positions on livestreams. The court has not ruled, and no response from Shkreli or his lawyers had been reported.

By Daniel Okafor  

A single-storey Wells Fargo bank branch with the company's gold lettering above the entrance, under a clear blue sky.
Business

Wells Fargo Beat on Earnings and Missed on Revenue. Its Capital Ratio Fell to 10.0 Per Cent as Its Unrealised Losses Doubled.

Wells Fargo earned $5.95 billion, or $1.87 a share, in the third quarter, above the $1.85 average estimate, but revenue of $21.87 billion was below the $22.15 billion analysts expected, according to the Associated Press. Its CET1 ratio fell to 10.0 per cent from 10.3 per cent in three months, as its accumulated other comprehensive loss rose from $8.3 billion to $16.5 billion.

By Daniel Okafor  

The entrance to Meta's headquarters campus at 1 Hacker Way in Menlo Park, California, with the Meta logo sign beside the road, office buildings and flowering trees under a cloudy blue sky.
Business

Meta Priced Its First Frontier Model at $4 per Million Tokens, Level With Anthropic's Opus 5.5. Its Shares Closed Up 3.4 Per Cent.

Meta released Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full on Monday, its first frontier AI models since it rebuilt its AI effort 14 months ago. Muse Wonder costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens on the Meta Model API; Muse Wonder Full is sold only inside Muse Code plans of $50 and $200 a month. Meta's shares closed up 3.4 per cent. The benchmark claims are Meta's, and independent testing has only just begun.

By Alison Acosta  

An oil pump jack with an orange horsehead standing in a green field, with a river valley and farmland behind it.
Business

Cenovus Will Pay C$12 a Share for Athabasca Oil, a 14 Per Cent Premium. Athabasca's Shares Ended the Week Above the Offer.

Cenovus Energy agreed on 5 October to buy Athabasca Oil for C$12.00 a share in cash and Cenovus stock, an implied enterprise value of C$5.7 billion. Athabasca puts the equity value at about C$5.8 billion and the premium at 14 per cent to its 20-day average price. Athabasca shareholders vote in late November, and the deal is not expected to close until December.

By Thomas Gutierrez  

The Lower Manhattan skyline seen across the water under a blue sky.
Business

JPMorgan Reports Tuesday After a Quarter With $5.6 Billion of One-Off Gains. Analysts Expect Revenue of About $51 Billion.

JPMorgan Chase will report third-quarter results at about 7:00 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday 13 October, opening bank earnings season. Analysts expect revenue of about $51.2 billion and earnings of $5.93 a share, according to MarketBeat. The second quarter's $58.0 billion of revenue included a $4.6 billion Visa gain and $1.0 billion of other equity gains, and nothing has been reported yet.

By Cory Chamberlain  

A black-and-white photograph of a Manhattan newsstand in 1935, its racks and awning covered with newspapers and magazines, beneath signs for cigars and malted milk.
Media

The News Business Is Cutting Again. The Reasons Have Not Changed.

McClatchy laid off more than ninety journalists across thirteen papers in September. The Associated Press completed a US restructuring with twenty layoffs in May. Dow Jones merged two editorial units and cut ten positions in June. The pattern is the same one that has defined the industry for a decade, and consumer revenue at McClatchy fell forty-one percent over five years.

By Margaret Holloway  

Construction workers on a building site
National News

The Workforce Shrank. The Jobs Did Not.

A 596,000 decline in foreign-born workers since January 2026, combined with a parallel drop in labor force participation among US-born workers, has left employers in construction, healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing unable to fill open positions. The labor shortage the crackdown was supposed to solve has deepened.

By Daniel Okafor  

A white Tesla Model 3 parked on a mountain road
Business

Tesla Beat Deliveries and Still Sold Fewer Cars

Tesla delivered 486,532 vehicles in the third quarter, beating Wall Street's estimate by 5.3 percent. It also delivered 2.1 percent fewer cars than a year ago. At 340 times trailing earnings, the stock is priced for a future the car business cannot deliver alone.

By Cory Chamberlain  

A corner shop with a dark blue Boots fascia reading Pharmacy and Health, on a street in Saltash, Cornwall.
Business

The Westons Are Buying Boots for $8.9 Billion. An Insurance Group Is Set to Own Half of It.

Wittington Investments, the holding company of Canada's Weston family, agreed on Wednesday to buy Boots from Sycamore Partners and the Pessina family for $8.9 billion including debt. Fairfax Financial, a Toronto insurance and investment group, has agreed to put up as much as $2.3 billion and is expected to own half of the equity. The family gets operational control.

By Margaret Holloway  

Publishers' stands and visitors beneath the arched glass roof of a large exhibition hall.
Business

Informa Is Paying £2.24 Billion for More Trade Shows. It Plans to Separate the Academic Publisher It Has Owned Since 2004.

Informa, the London-listed events and publishing group, agreed on Tuesday to buy Clarion Events from Blackstone for an enterprise value of £2.24 billion, and launched a process to separate Taylor & Francis, its academic publisher. It raised about £940 million by selling new shares at 860p and paused its share buyback to pay for the deal.

By Cory Chamberlain  

A calculator, a pair of glasses and printed charts on a desk.
Business

Two Investment Firms Are Selling the Company That Keeps Private Funds' Books. KKR Is Paying $5.1 Billion for It.

KKR has agreed to buy Gen II Fund Services, which does the accounting, tax and reporting work for more than 275 private investment managers, for an enterprise value of $5.1 billion. The sellers are Hg and General Atlantic, which invested in 2020, along with other minority investors. Gen II says its revenue and earnings have roughly quadrupled since.

By Alison Acosta  

A bag of blood with a drip chamber and tubing hanging from a stand in a clinical setting.
The Long View

McKesson Is Paying $1.4 Billion for Half of Option Care. The Deal Sets Up a Framework for It to Buy the Rest.

Clayton Dubilier & Rice and McKesson agreed on Monday to take Option Care Health, the largest independent home infusion company in the United States, private for $32.05 a share. McKesson is putting in about $1.4 billion for 49 per cent, and the agreement sets out a framework for it to buy the private equity firm's majority later. Lenders have committed more money to the deal than the two buyers have.

By Margaret Holloway  

A steel electricity transmission tower standing in a grassy field.
Business

The Southern Family Has Controlled Canadian Utilities Since 1980. It Is Trading It for Shares in Emera.

Emera and Canadian Utilities agreed on Tuesday to combine in an all-share deal that the companies say is the largest merger ever between two Canadian companies, with a combined enterprise value of about C$72 billion. ATCO, the family-controlled group that has held Canadian Utilities since 1980, will give up that control and spin its housing, defence and ports businesses into a new company.

By Daniel Okafor  

Cardboard catering boxes of focaccia sandwiches and salads on a white table, with croissants in the foreground.
Business

Uber Is Paying $2.3 Billion for ezCater, a Business Built on $400 Lunch Orders That Nearly Vanished in 2020

Uber agreed on Tuesday to buy ezCater, the Boston workplace catering marketplace, for $2.3 billion in cash. The company handled more than $2.5 billion of orders over the past year, at an average of more than $400 each. Six years ago its sales fell 85 per cent when offices emptied, and it rebuilt around workplaces where people still had to turn up.

By Thomas Gutierrez  

A basket of french fries on a wooden table.
Business

Fast-Food Traffic Fell. Lamb Weston Sold 7 Per Cent More Fries in North America, Helped by the Chicken Chains.

Lamb Weston, a leading supplier of frozen fries to restaurant chains, grew North American sales volume for a seventh consecutive quarter even as fast-food traffic fell. Its executives credit chicken chains, whose traffic rose 4 per cent, for part of the gain. In Europe, where it says the industry had too much capacity, it has stopped making fries at a Dutch plant.

By Cory Chamberlain  

A container ship stacked high with shipping containers sails on the Savannah River at sunset, with a cable-stayed bridge and port cranes in the background.
The Numbers

America Imported a Record $421 Billion in August. Without Computers, Chips and Telecom Gear, Imports Are Down This Year.

The United States imported $420.8 billion of goods and services in August, the most in any month on record, and the trade deficit widened to $105.6 billion, the largest since March 2025. The last record was set by consumer goods rushed in ahead of tariffs. This one is made of capital goods. Four lines of hardware account for more than the whole rise in goods imports this year.

By Daniel Okafor  

Empty dark leather booths and tables set for service in a restaurant dining room lined with large potted plants and pendant lamps.
Business

True Food Kitchen Raised $100 Million in 2022. It Entered Bankruptcy With Two Weeks of Cash.

True Food Kitchen, the health-food restaurant chain backed by Oprah Winfrey, filed for Chapter 11 on Sunday and closed 12 of its 46 restaurants. It had about $1.6 million of unrestricted cash, enough for roughly two weeks, and $42.1 million of funded debt, including merchant cash advances. The investor that led its $100 million round in 2022 is now lending it $20 million to stay open while it looks for a buyer.

By Thomas Gutierrez  

A white truck cab stands between two empty flatbed trailers in a gravel yard in front of a long warehouse with loading bays, under a blue evening sky.
Business

C.H. Robinson Is Paying $5.8 Billion for RXO. The Price Rests on $300 Million of Savings.

C.H. Robinson agreed on Sunday to buy RXO, the truck broker spun out of XPO in 2022, for about $5.8 billion including debt. Its own slides value the deal at 13.2 times RXO's expected earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, but only after $300 million of annual cost savings. Without them the multiple is about 42. C.H. Robinson's shares fell 10.8 per cent on Monday.

By Margaret Holloway  

A worker stands at the open back of a delivery truck stacked with boxes of produce in a narrow city alley between brick walls, while another man hoses down the pavement.
The Numbers

Half of America's Service Companies Paid More for Supplies Last Month. Fuel Came Up Twice as Often as Anything Else.

The Institute for Supply Management's services survey slipped to 54.9 in September, still comfortably in growth. Its prices index rose to 74, the highest since July 2022. Half of the purchasing managers surveyed paid more for what they buy; 2.2 per cent paid less. All 17 industries that reported a change in prices reported an increase.

By Cory Chamberlain  

An engineer wearing glasses, seen from behind and out of focus, looks at a monitor showing a computer-aided design drawing of a wheeled agricultural robot, in a bright office.
The Deal

Schneider Is Paying a 42% Premium for PTC. The Price Is Still Below Where PTC Traded a Year Ago.

Schneider Electric agreed on Sunday to buy PTC, the Boston maker of design and product-lifecycle software, for $205 a share in cash, valuing its equity at about $22.6 billion. That is 42.3 per cent above Friday's close, and 5 per cent below PTC's peak close in August 2025. The French group will borrow most of the money, sell up to €6 billion of new shares and pause its buyback for two years. Its shares fell about 10 per cent in Paris.

By Alison Acosta  

Stacks of shipping containers from several lines at a container terminal in the Port of Los Angeles, with blue ship-to-shore cranes against a pink and blue evening sky.
The Numbers

Customs Took In $333 Billion in Fiscal 2026. Refunds Sent About $147 Billion Back Out.

The fiscal year closed on Wednesday with a record $332.6 billion of customs deposits, according to the Treasury's daily cash statement. It also closed with $157.8 billion paid out through Customs and Border Protection, against about $10.5 billion in each of the two previous years. Net of those payments, the border raised less than it did in fiscal 2025. Since May, it has paid out $17.5 billion more than it took in.

By Cory Chamberlain  

A row of new red compact SUVs parked on a dealership lot under an overcast sky, with trees and power lines behind.
Business

Toyota Came Within 38,000 Cars of GM Last Quarter. Hybrids and Sedans Closed Most of the Gap.

General Motors sold 670,974 vehicles in the US in the third quarter, down 5.5 per cent. Toyota sold 633,223, up 0.6 per cent, and more than half of them were hybrids or other electrified models. Hyundai Motor Group finished 1,195 vehicles behind Ford. The automakers gaining share are the ones with cheap cars and hybrids, in a quarter when gasoline cost $1.35 more than a year earlier.

By Margaret Holloway  

Two American semi-trucks with refrigerated trailers parked side by side in Arizona, seen from the front.
Business

The Trucking Companies Going Bankrupt Are Small. Diesel Is Paid in Days, Freight in Months.

At least 16 trucking and delivery companies entered bankruptcy between late August and 21 September, FreightWaves found. Seven of them ran six trucks or fewer. Diesel hit a record $6.53 a gallon in the same weeks, but spot freight rates have also risen, from about $2.40 a mile a year ago to $3.42. The squeeze on small carriers is less about the price of fuel than about when they have to pay for it.

By Cory Chamberlain  

Container cranes lit up along the Port of Los Angeles waterfront at sunrise, seen across the water from San Pedro, with palm trees and a street in the foreground.
Business

Shipping a Container From Asia to America Costs Four Times What It Did in February. To Europe, the Price Is Falling.

Spot rates for a 40-foot container from the Far East to the US West Coast were $8,346 on 1 October, Xeneta said, up 344 per cent since 28 February. To the East Coast they were $11,523. The same box to northern Europe cost $3,726, and that price has been falling since July. Xeneta's chief analyst says the US rates have now peaked, but will not collapse.

By Cory Chamberlain  

The Great American Insurance Group tower in Cincinnati, a stone-clad skyscraper topped by an open steel lattice crown, seen from below against a blue sky with white clouds.
The Numbers

Insurers Keep Telling Surveys They Will Hire. Payrolls Show 90,000 Fewer Jobs.

The September jobs report added 29,000 jobs and cut 60,000 from the two months before. Inside it, insurance carriers and the businesses around them lost jobs for the 11th month running. They now employ about 90,000 fewer people than in May 2025, a faster fall than in any comparable stretch in data going back to 1990. In the industry's own hiring survey, carriers keep saying the opposite.

By Daniel Okafor  

A yellow Cat 924K wheel loader parked at the kerb of a tree-lined street in front of a brick building.
Business

Caterpillar Will Spend $1 Billion on a New Plant in Sanford. Its Workforce There Will Not Grow.

Caterpillar said on Wednesday it will invest about $1 billion in a new plant in Sanford, North Carolina, to build more compact track loaders and telehandlers. Lee County and the City of Sanford have approved up to $85.5 million in incentives. The condition is that the company keeps at least 1,950 full-time jobs. It will not add any beyond the 600 hired this year.

By Cory Chamberlain  

A white sign reading HELP WANTED in black capitals hangs by suction cups inside a shop's glass door, with blurred reflections of the street and people behind it.
The Long View

Hiring Has Been Stuck for 30 Months. In August, Americans Spent as if It Wasn't.

The hires rate has sat between 3.1 and 3.5 per cent every month since March 2024, a pace last seen outside the pandemic in 2013. Quits are at 1.9 per cent. Yet real consumer spending rose 0.6 per cent in August while real disposable income did not grow, and the saving rate fell to 4.1 per cent. This week's data describe a labour market that has stopped moving and households that have kept spending anyway.

By Daniel Okafor  

Five people seated and standing around a white table in a glass-walled meeting room with an orange feature wall, seen from the corridor outside through two panes of glass, laptops open and a chart on the screen at the head of the table.
The Numbers

Thirty-Three Hours, Then a Board of Four. Automattic's Control Structure Was Never in Doubt.

Four Automattic directors formed a special committee on 9 September and voted to place chief executive Matt Mullenweg on a paid leave of absence. He was out of the chair, by the company's own count, for 33 hours and 20 minutes. On 25 September the company told staff it has a new board: four directors, none of whom were on it three weeks ago, and none of whom can outvote him.

By Margaret Holloway  

A welder in a helmet leans over a length of steel pipework in a metal fabrication shop, sparks and a bright blue arc flaring from the seam, with welding sets, gas bottles and overhead ducting filling the workshop behind him.
The Numbers

Claims Fell to 197,000 While Tech Announced 155,126 Cuts. Check the Denominator.

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 197,000 in the week ending 19 September, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, with the insured unemployment rate at 1.1 per cent. Challenger, Gray & Christmas counts 155,126 announced job cuts in technology through August, up 52 per cent on last year and 29 per cent of every cut announced in the United States. Both numbers are correct, and the reason they do not collide is the denominator.

By Daniel Okafor  

The Warner Bros. Studios water tower rising behind the perimeter wall of the studio lot in Burbank.
The Numbers

Paramount Settles With the States Nine Days Before the Meter Starts

Paramount Skydance has settled the antitrust suit twelve states brought against its $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. The remedies are promises about behaviour: thirty films a year in cinemas, with $30 million owed for each one short. The number that explains the timing is a different one. From 1 October, every day the deal stays open costs Paramount about $7 million.

By Cory Chamberlain  

Empty seats at an airport departure gate in silhouette against a floor-to-ceiling window at dusk.
The Long View

Twenty-Five Years Later, One Rule Has Been Given Back

From this week, TSA PreCheck members without a ticket can apply to pass through security and wait at the gate, at thirteen airports to start. It is a small programme with an application form attached. It is also the first piece of the September 2001 security settlement to be handed back rather than added to.

By Alison Acosta  

A person signing a contract with a ballpoint pen.
The Long View

The Deal Was Structured to Avoid a Filing. The Filing Is Now the Investigation.

The Justice Department has issued Nvidia a formal demand for information over its licensing arrangement with Groq, in which Groq's chief executive and chief operating officer moved across. The question is whether a licence plus a mass talent transfer is an acquisition that should have been reported. It is the first formal test of a structure the whole industry has been using.

By Alison Acosta  

A blue industrial robot arm working alongside automated tooling on a factory production line.
The Numbers

Four Thousand Jobs, and None of Them on the Line

Jaguar Land Rover confirmed the cuts on Monday. They are voluntary, they are salaried and management, and they are non-production. This paper said on Saturday that the thing to watch was which functions. That is the answer, and it is not the one the week's reporting had prepared people for.

By Alison Acosta  

Rows of new cars parked in a distribution lot.
The Long View

The Complexity Was Supposed to Be the Advantage

Porsche's operating margin went from 14.5 percent to 0.3 in a year. Volkswagen Group deliveries in China fell 37 percent in a quarter, in a market down 20 percent overall. Some investors have concluded the group is not fixable, and the interesting question is what fixing it would require.

By Alison Acosta  

Appliances moving along a factory assembly line.
Business

The Word in the Announcement Is Secures, Not Creates

GE Appliances is putting a billion dollars into Appliance Park in Louisville, moving dryer production from Mexico and, in an earlier tranche, washer production from China. The company says the investment secures 4,700 manufacturing jobs. The announcement was made jointly with the union.

By Alison Acosta  

Central Billet Yard at Scranton Army Ammunition Plant
Field Notes

The Gun Is Not the Constraint. The Chemistry Behind the Shell Is.

The US Army's acquisition chief spent a day in August on a howitzer production line in Changwon. The more consequential arrangement is in Arkansas, where a Korean firm has a preliminary lease at a US arsenal to build a $1.3bn plant making nitrocellulose and nitroguanidine — the chemistry every artillery shell is built on, and the part America stopped making.

By Cory Chamberlain  

Rooftop view of apartment buildings and hvac units
Business

The Rollup Comes for the Plumbing Business

Private capital has spent three years buying HVAC, plumbing and electrical contractors at multiples the trades have never seen. The thesis is sound, the integration is harder than the model assumed, and the second wave is arriving at higher prices.

By Cory Chamberlain