fortune--2020-12-13--Graphene gets real: Meet the entrepreneurs bringing the wonder substance to market

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Take a piece of adhesive tape and apply it to the “lead” of a pencil. Pull the tape away, and it may still have some thin flakes of graphite attached. Fold the tape in half and unfold it, to split the flakes. Do this 10 or 20 times and, if your technique is good, then congratulations—you’ve just made the thinnest known material, and almost the strongest.
The tape trick is literally how Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov managed to first isolate graphene—an atom-thick and therefore two-dimensional layer of carbon—at the U.K.’s University of Manchester in 2004. Six years later, the physicists won the Nobel Prize for their efforts, and for good reason.
Graphene’s properties are extraordinary, as shown in emerging products that incorporate the material: better-sounding headphones, cooler smartphones, tougher roads, and more environmentally friendly shampoo packaging.
Not only is graphene the world’s thinnest and second-strongest material—a one-dimensional form of carbon called carbyne has overtaken it there—but it’s incredibly light and transparent. It’s also either very flexible or very stiff, depending on how it’s treated. It’s among the best thermal conductors and the fastest electrical conductors, and it’s also great at letting water through while blocking anything else, making it an excellent filter and barrier. And, as Geim and Novoselov demonstrated, graphene can be quite easy to make.
These properties, plus the Nobel laureates’ remarkable story, led to a ton of graphene hype around a decade ago. But a lot of work still needed to be done, such as figuring out how best to make and wrangle graphene; finding applications where it makes economic sense; and slowly constructing new markets. So the hype died down.
Now, however, the wonder substance’s time may be arriving.
Listen up
“I can hear every musical detail with a level of clarity I’ve only ever experienced from the podium in front of an orchestra,” enthused Gustavo Dudamel, the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as he endorsed the world’s first graphene-based headphones—a set called GQ, made by a Canadian startup called Ora—in a statement.
Harnessing graphene’s stiffness, lightness, and damping properties—its ability to stop moving as soon as an electrical current stops passing through it—Ora is using graphene oxide to make membranes for headphones and loudspeakers. Novoselov himself has hailed the firm for ensuring that “graphene is officially out of the lab and into the audio world.”
“For almost two decades now, graphene’s theorized properties have been viewed as the ‘holy grail’ diaphragm material for loudspeakers,” says Ora cofounder Ari Pinkas, explaining that speaker designers usually have to compromise on either stiffness, lightness, or damping.
Pinkas says his company is working with major laptop and smartphone brands on making smaller and louder speakers for their devices, with some designs set to launch in 2022. However, citing nondisclosure agreements, he isn’t naming any names.
“When graphene burst onto the scene, it was a wonder material that would change the world,” says Richard Collins, a principal analyst at the advanced-technology market research firm IDTechEx. “To be honest, if you talk to a lot of graphene people, they still think it will change everything.
“What’s happened is, over that 10-year period, you’ve had a lot of companies trial it. You’ve had a lot of end users explore it. Realistically, only now and over the next couple of years we’re reaching that inflection point.”
Hit the road
From audio to asphalt: Graphene’s strength is stirring up interest in the construction industry.
The industry has a long-standing problem with emissions; as much as 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions come from concrete production. The addition of graphene into the mix could help cut those emissions, because it would allow for stronger concrete, which means being able to use less concrete.
But graphene’s ability to quickly and efficiently conduct heat (a property that has led to its use in some recent Huawei smartphones) is also proving useful.
Remember the deadly highway bridge collapse that occurred a couple of years ago in Genoa, Italy? The asphalt on the bridge’s replacement contains graphene powder made by an Italian startup called Directa Plus. This helps distribute heat through the road surface, so in freezing temperatures there’s less likelihood of cold spots generating cracks that eventually become potholes.
“The most impressive property is that this additive is able to triple the life of the road from six to seven years to 18 to 21 years,” claims Giulio Cesareo, Directa Plus cofounder and CEO. But that’s far from the only use for the company’s graphene nanoplatelets.
Cesareo and his American cofounders—who have since sold their shares to the billionaire surgeon turned investor Patrick Soon-Shiong—are veterans of Union Carbide. The Italian joined the U.S. chemical giant (now owned by Dow) just after the 1984 Bhopal disaster, in which a Union Carbide pesticide plant in India leaked gas and poisoned more than half a million people.
The aftermath of that tragedy fueled Cesareo’s interest in the environment and sustainability, which is now playing out in Directa Plus’s work.
For one thing, Directa Plus’s method of producing graphene is based on physics rather than chemistry—instead of using chemicals to grow the substance on metal, it uses extreme heat and pressure to exfoliate graphene from graphite particles. This, says Cesareo, makes it easier and cheaper to produce graphene-based fabrics that can be safely worn on the skin, in clothing and face masks (both of which are on the market, using Directa Plus’s graphene.)
The company has also been working with Russia’s Lukoil and Austria’s OMV on decontaminating soil and water that has been polluted through oil spills in Romania. Because graphene is able to block most fluids while letting only water through, Directa Plus’s powder is being used in barriers that absorb spilled oil, cleaning up the surround. When saturated, they can effectively be squeezed out and used again.
“We removed 400 tons of crude oil that was sent back to the refinery,” says Cesareo of early deployments.
Greener packaging
Graphene’s utility as a flexible barrier is naturally very handy in the world of packaging—again, with environmental benefits in mind.
This month, a U.K.-based startup called Toraphene unveiled a biopolymer that it says provides the first fully biodegradable, compostable, and commercially viable alternative to plastic packaging. The eponymous material, which combines graphene with natural polymers from plants, is being deployed first in shopping bags.
But the real breakthrough—the one which launched Toraphene’s journey in 2011, when its founders were researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology—will be in packaging for liquids.
CEO Gaute Juliussen says the consumer goods giant Unilever approached Toraphene four years ago, asking for a better shampoo sachet (Unilever confirms the companies had discussions.) Current sachets use a few layers of plastic for strength and one of aluminum oxide, to provide a barrier against the liquid oozing out. Toraphene says its material provides the strength and impermeability that is needed, but in a form that can be easily recycled as it is just organics and carbon.
In any case, the Unilever discussions fell through: After two years of contract negotiations, Juliussen says, Kraft Heinz’s attempted hostile takeover prompted big cost-cutting measures in order to boost dividends, and R&D was hit hard. With Toraphene’s contacts now having been let go, there was no deal, and the startup turned to a just completed (and heavily oversubscribed) round of crowdfunding to get its barrier packaging to market.
“The type of graphene we are looking at for packaging will currently cost in bulk around $200 per kilo,” says Juliussen. That’s high—IDTechEx’s Collins says some companies are selling graphene for under $10 per kilogram these days. But Toraphene’s graphene comes from quarried graphite rather than being synthesized at low cost, an approach which can create an inferior product.
“Because we use so little of it [less than 0.2% of the packaging is graphene] we are able to make economic packaging with it,” says Juliussen. “It adds maybe 10% or so to the cost, but then we add strength to the packaging of more than 20%. Net-net, we are able to confer a benefit.”
Next stop: paper coffee cups, which currently use a plastic lining for impermeability that also makes them difficult to recycle. Toraphene has filed a patent for the use of its material as a lining, and is currently working on approval from U.S. and European food-standards regulators.
According to Collins, it’s this sort of area where graphene could really find success. (IDTechEx reckons the market for various kinds of graphene material will be worth $700 million by 2031, up from under $100 million today.) Yes, there are consumer products that are upsold based on their use of graphene—headphones, tennis rackets, shoes—but “success is having hundreds to thousands of tons of your material being sold,” he says.
“The reality is, if you talk to an automotive company, they’re not going to spend money on a wear-resistant liner, because graphene adds marketing,” Collins says. “It’s the economics over the lifetime of the product—does it make sense? That’s the thrust of that inflection point.”
Charging forward
Which brings us finally to one of the most talked about companies currently operating in the graphene space: Skeleton Technologies.
The Estonian-German firm has contracts with some of Europe’s biggest automotive names—though it’s reluctant to publicize them for now—and not for liner material, but for energy storage in graphene-based batteries.
If you stack normal, flat graphene layers, they clump together and you end up with graphite again. So Skeleton developed a proprietary method of making curved graphene, which overcomes this problem. It uses this curved graphene in ultracapacitors.
That means batteries that can be charged in seconds, a million times over, with no need for scarce materials such as lithium and cobalt. These ultracapacitors are already being used in excavators, in medical equipment, and in transport: In the German cities of Mannheim, Heidelberg, and Ludwigshafen, they are recuperating trams’ braking energy and reusing it for acceleration.
“It’s cheaper and smaller than any type of battery solution,” says Skeleton CEO Taavi Madiberk. However, because these ultracapacitors store less energy than traditional lithium-ion batteries, it’s likely that graphene ultracapacitors will coexist with and complement other technologies.
According to Madiberk, curved graphene’s biggest benefit is in handling the peak loads that cause standard lithium-ion batteries to overheat and to degrade over time; combining the two allows for battery packs that are 30% smaller and twice as long-lasting. He also talks up the potential of Skeleton’s ultracapacitors in maintaining electrical-grid stability as relatively unpredictable renewables become more predominant.
Skeleton has been developing its technology since the early days of graphene, in 2009, but it only started commercializing its ultracapacitors a couple of years ago. With a contract backlog that already exceeds €150 million ($182 million), it raised €41 million in an October investment round to scale up and prepare for its launch of “super-batteries,” for which Madiberk sees a potential €60 billion market.
“Maybe in 2009, if I’d known how long it takes, I’m not sure we would have started the company,” says Madiberk, whose background is in e-commerce. “In terms of graphene and getting to the market, it’s patience, patience, patience.”


fortune--2020-12-13--COVID-era exports are fueling China’s economic recovery. What happens when the pandemic ends?

Google ’ s ouster of a top A.I .
researcher may have come down to this

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The coronavirus pandemic mauled the global economy in 2020, but China is a big exception. The first country to experience a COVID-19 outbreak, China also became the first country to reopen, giving the Chinese economy a head start on recovery.
Global gross domestic product will decline 3.5% this year. The U.S. GDP is expected to shrink 3.5%, while Europe’s will crater 7.2%, according to Morgan Stanley. China, meanwhile, is projected to log positive GDP growth for 2020—2.3% for the year, according to Morgan Stanley—making it an outlier among major economies.
“China has done remarkably well,” Wei Sun Christianson, chief executive of Morgan Stanley China and co-chief executive of Morgan Stanley Asia Pacific, said at the Fortune China Most Powerful Women summit in Shanghai on Thursday.
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In the second quarter of the year, when most countries were still in the thick of quarantines and first big waves of the virus, China’s factories were resuming production and its cities were emerging from lockdown, giving the economy a much-needed boost. After recording a 6.8% GDP contraction in the first quarter year-on-year, China’s economy made a sharp U-turn and returned to 3.2% growth in the second quarter. In the third quarter, China’s GDP surged 4.9%.
Demand for pandemic-related products fueled the exports responsible for much of China’s economic uptick this year. Medical device exports soared 46% in the first six months of 2020, textile exports—including face masks—jumped 32%, and notebook computer exports grew 9.1% in the same period, reflecting a global shift to work from home and remote schooling.
Morgan Stanley expects China’s GDP growth to reach 9% next year and stabilize at 5.4% in 2022, but those years will likely see a drop-off in pandemic-era demand, meaning growth will have to come from elsewhere.
After the pandemic, a trend Morgan Stanley dubs “urbanization 2.0”—the proliferation of regional clusters of cities into “supercities,” like Southern China’s Greater Bay Area, and their widespread use of smart city tech—will be an important economic driver, Christianson said.
This phase of urbanization, Christianson said, will create “bigger and faster and more livable cities, and people are going to consume more, so it will actually impact consumption in the end.”
A growing influx of foreign direct investment will also drive China’s post-pandemic economy, said Christianson. FDI sank at the beginning of 2020 because of the coronavirus, but FDI levels are rebounding alongside the country’s wider economic recovery.
China is loosening its financial market regulations for foreign investors. This week, Goldman Sachs said it was in the process of acquiring 100% ownership of its China joint venture, which would make it the first Wall Street bank with full control of a mainland securities firm.
Morgan Stanley is “a big beneficiary of that opening up,” Christianson said. She called the firm increasing ownership of its China securities and asset management businesses from the current 51% to 100% “a game changer.”


fortune--2020-12-13--This health care magnate wants to fix democracy, starting in Colorado

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In the final weeks before the Nov. 3 election, supporters of a down-in-the-weeds effort to overturn a tax law in Colorado received a cascade of big checks, for a grand total of more than $2 million.
All came from Kent Thiry, the former CEO of DaVita, one of the largest kidney care companies in the country. This was not the first time he donated big to a ballot initiative aimed at tweaking the nitty-gritty details of how Colorado functions. Nor will it be the last.
Thiry has given at least $5.9 million to Colorado ballot measures since 2011—and all of them won, according to a KHN review of Colorado campaign finance data. According to data from the National Institute on Money in Politics, Thiry’s donations to ballot measures in that state are second only to those of billionaire Pat Stryker. Campaign finance records show that before that, he gave to ballot issue committees in California, where he used to live, dating to at least 2007.
It’s the same playbook his former company has successfully used in California. As KHN has reported, in 2018 DaVita was among several companies to break an industry record in campaign spending for a ballot measure by any one side in California. This year, the industry came close to breaking that record to defeat a measure that would have further regulated dialysis clinics and that DaVita said would have limited access to care.
Ballot initiatives, which are allowed in about half of the states, enable individuals and groups to circumvent legislatures and ask voters to decide on a law. And in many states, the campaigns for and against them are bankrolled by the rich: either corporations fighting to preserve their profits or multimillionaires with a political shopping list.
“Wealthy individuals have been pouring money into ballot measures, even seemingly unrelated to their industry, for over a century,” Daniel Smith, a political scientist studying direct democracy at the University of Florida, wrote in an email to KHN.
Given that health care is a $3.6 trillion industry, its top executives are among the ranks of those who can have an enormous impact in ballot measure politics. This year, Kent Thiry and Mike Fernandez, chairman and CEO of private equity firm MBF Healthcare Partners, were among the 19 individuals or couples who spent $1 million or more on ballot issue campaigns this year, according to Bloomberg. In previous elections, medical equipment company owner Loren Parks has also given big money to ballot initiatives.
Overall, those in the health industry have spent more on ballot measures in Colorado than in any other state except Missouri and California, according to data from the National Institute on Money in Politics, and that’s largely due to Thiry.
“He really has become the 800-pound gorilla of the ballot initiative process in Colorado,” said Josh Penry, a Republican campaign strategist in Denver who has worked with Thiry, including on a ballot measure campaign Thiry helped fund. “He wields more power in an informal way than virtually all the elected officials, if you look at the impact he’s had.”
Even though Thiry and his wife, Denise O’Leary, a former venture capitalist on the board of directors of medical device company Medtronic, have made hefty earnings from health care, Thiry’s ballot initiative donations as an individual have nothing to do with the industry.
“I prefer things that have systemic impact,” said Thiry. Measures he has bankrolled have eliminated the caucus system for presidential primaries, brought unaffiliated voters into the primaries and created a system intended to eliminate gerrymandering.
“Democracy is not a spectator sport,” he said.
Thiry previously donated to ballot measure committees in California, to prevent changes to term limits and to create a system for redistricting led jointly by Democrats, Republicans and citizens unaffiliated with a political party.
After moving his company’s headquarters from Los Angeles to Denver in 2010, he began backing ballot measures in his new state, too, with equal success and bigger sums, jumping from the tens of thousands to the millions. He spent more than $2 million backing a pair of measures to allow unaffiliated voters to participate in primaries.
In 2018, while his company was helping break an election spending record to defeat a California measure that would have capped the industry’s profits, Thiry was putting more than $1.2 million toward redistricting efforts in Colorado very similar to the one he backed in his previous home state to help reduce gerrymandering.
His latest donations went to a measure that successfully overturned a tax law from the 1980s that may have helped Colorado homeowners, but which critics said left public services like education and fire districts underfunded in some rural areas.
Thiry doesn’t just shell out cash. As the online newspaper The Colorado Independent has pointed out, Thiry’s offices played a large role in bringing two warring groups with different ideas about redistricting to the same table. His efforts tend to revolve around raising the power of unaffiliated voters, who make up about 40% of Colorado’s active voters, according to state data.
Fernandez, the private equity billionaire, said he has similar motivations. He donated $7.3 million to a Florida initiative to change how primaries work in that state and bring unaffiliated voters like himself into the fold.
“I’ve never spent so much money [on] something that I have no business reason to be in at all,” he said.
The effort was, he said, nearly “a one-man show” in terms of financing. But it still failed, garnering 57% of votes when it needed 60% to pass. Fernandez said he’ll try again in 2022.
“I come from a country where you can see that control of a government by a single party is deadly,” said Fernandez, who was born in Cuba. “Florida has been controlled by the Republican Party for the last three decades. And when I was a Republican, that was great.”
But, he said, it quickly became clear that bringing the issue to legislators was a dead end. That’s expected, according to John Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California. Ballot initiatives are a natural route to tweak electoral machinery, he said, because legislators have a conflict of interest on issues like gerrymandering and term limits.
In fact, Matsusaka thinks the U.S. could use national ballot initiatives, which other democracies have, as a route to restoring confidence in the federal government.
“I don’t look at ballot propositions as a way to drive a progressive agenda or conservative agenda or any sort of agenda,” he said. “I view it as a way to put the people in control. And they can go where they want to go.”
Even if that means eroding their own power a little. One of the first initiatives Thiry donated to in Colorado is something Matsusaka considers “anti-democracy”—an effort called Raise the Bar, a ballot initiative about ballot initiatives. It required petitioners to get signatures from every corner of the state to put an initiative on the ballot. Some view this as problematic.
“You have to now collect signatures in every senate district of Colorado,” said Corrine Rivera Fowler, director of policy and legal advocacy with the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, a national organization that supports progressive ballot initiatives. “That’s a tremendous undertaking for grassroots communities.”
Thiry, meanwhile, intends to take what he’s learned in Colorado and apply it elsewhere. He said he’s getting more involved in several national democracy reform groups including Unite America, an effort to break what’s been called the “doom loop” of partisanship. Thiry said he hopes to help create “a tidal tsunami of political momentum.”
“One of my goals is to have this democracy reform energy in places like Colorado—or elsewhere—move from being an ad hoc collection of activist projects to a true movement,” he said. “Kind of like the civil rights movement, kind of like the gay marriage movement, and like the #MeToo movement or Black Lives Matter.”
He no longer works for DaVita, after stepping down as executive chairman earlier this year.
“I have no title anymore. Just ‘citizen.’ It’s a title I wear with great pride and energy,” he said.
As for the next measure Thiry will back, he’s open to recommendations.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) that is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.


fortune--2020-12-13--AstraZeneca acquires rare-disease specialist Alexion in $39 billion deal

AstraZeneca Plc, one of the drugmakers leading the fight against Covid-19, highlighted where its growth will come from after the pandemic with a $39 billion deal for rare-disease specialist Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.
The proposed cash-and-stock acquisition will add treatments for uncommon blood and immunological disorders to the portfolio of Cambridge, U.K.-based AstraZeneca, which had spent years paring away older and less profitable products to focus on cancer.
While the pandemic smothered economies and AstraZeneca entered a relatively low-return project to develop a Covid-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford, Chief Executive Officer Pascal Soriot kept his eyes downfield. After months of patients avoiding hospitals and clinics for fear of viral exposure, immunizations are coming online that promise to return society, and the drug industry, to some semblance of normal.
The purchase is “an important step in the history of the company,” Soriot said on a call with reporters. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for us to accelerate our development of immunological” therapies.
High-priced medicines for rare diseases can generate billions in sales from relatively few patients. Snapping up drugmakers that focus on them has been a popular way for larger pharmaceutical companies to stimulate sales growth in recent years.
The offer values Alexion at $175 a share, a 45% premium to the closing price on Friday. It’s the largest deal for AstraZeneca since it was founded in a 1999 combination of British and Swedish companies, and would entrench its position among the world’s 10 biggest drugmakers. It’s also the biggest pharmaceutical and biotechnology takeover this year, as well as the fourth-largest transaction globally across all sectors, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Covid Vaccine
The news gives Soriot a chance to focus on something other than the company’s experimental coronavirus vaccine. AstraZeneca has been wrestling with questions surrounding the efficacy of the potential shot and the way the late-stage trials were handled.
Before the pandemic, AstraZeneca was one of the hottest pharmaceutical companies, with some 70% growth in value over the past three years as it churned out cancer drugs like Lynparza, Imfinzi and Tagrisso, its biggest seller. It’s divested rights to older brands like Seroquel for schizophrenia while halting costly development programs that looked unlikely to pan out.
But a takeover attempt from Pfizer Inc. that Soriot fended off six years ago taught the importance of scale. AstraZeneca made a preliminary approach to Gilead Sciences Inc., Bloomberg reported in June.
While those talks went no further, adding Alexion could put the U.K. drugmaker out of an acquirer’s reach. Relatively cash-poor for the past few years, AstraZeneca will also see benefits from gaining Alexion’s lucrative business.
‘Bigger Base’
That will help AstraZeneca pay its dividend and “gives them a much bigger base from which to invest in R&D,” said Sam Fazeli, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst. Chief Financial Officer Marc Dunoyer said this would be the last of AstraZeneca’s big deals for a while.
The new products will also allow Soriot to indulge more in one of his priorities: the China market, which now accounts for roughly a fifth of the company’s revenue. Alexion doesn’t have a footprint in the country, making it the most important market for expanding that company’s reach, he said.
Alexion has specialized in developing drugs that selectively inhibit immune factors to fight diseases that involve the body’s protective system. Soliris, the company’s biggest product with almost $4 billion in 2019 sales, is a monoclonal antibody used to treat rare conditions such as paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria.
Monoclonal antibodies have garnered attention because two such drugs made by Eli Lilly & Co. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. have been given emergency authorization in the U.S. for the treatment of Covid. Alexion announced plans in April to conduct late-stage tests of another monoclonal antibody, Ultomiris, in severely ill patients with the disease.
Alexion has been pressured in the past to put itself on the block. Activist investor Elliott Management Corp. opposed the company’s deal earlier this year to acquire Portola Pharmaceuticals, saying the transaction didn’t make strategic sense and didn’t fit with Alexion’s focus on rare diseases.
Deal Financing
In the sale to AstraZeneca, holders of each Alexion share will receive $60 in cash and 2.1243 AstraZeneca American depositary shares, the U.K. company said in a press release Saturday. The drugmaker will fund the acquisition with a $17.5 billion financing facility from Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Despite the premium, the price is attractive for AstraZeneca, and its agreement with Alexion could draw out other offers, SVB Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges said in a note. Alexion shareholders could hold out for $200 per share or seek a higher cash portion, he said.
“We believe that in the coming days and weeks the debate about this transaction will center on whether this is enough, and whether other bidders might emerge, rather than whether this was too much,” Porges wrote.
The current deal includes a fee of $1.2 billion if Alexion agrees to sell itself to another bidder, while AstraZeneca faces a $1.4 billion breakup penalty. The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2021 and Alexion shareholders would own 15% of the combined companies.
Alexion had $5.9 billion in sales for the 12 months ending with the third quarter of 2020, with a 24% growth rate, AstraZeneca said.
Rare-Disease Headquarters
The U.K. company said it intends to establish its headquarters for rare diseases in Boston. There are no plans for a major reduction in employment, Soriot said. The combined companies should have a dozen blockbuster drugs — those with more than $1 billion in sales — by 2023, up from nine as of 2019, CFO Dunoyer said on a call.
The deal will add to earnings, with annual synergies of about $500 million projected three years after completion, the company said.
Evercore Partners International LLP and Centerview Partners UK LLP are AstraZeneca’s lead financial advisers, while Ondra LLP also gave advice. Bank of America Corp. worked with Alexion.
–With assistance from Emma Court, Tim Loh, Suzi Ring, Stephanie Baker and Aaron Kirchfeld.


fortune--2020-12-13--Suspected Russian-backed hackers breached U.S. Treasury computers

Why Australia just canceled an order for 51 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine

Hackers suspected to be working for the Russian government have been monitoring emails at the U.S. Treasury Department and a U.S. agency responsible for deciding policy around the internet and telecommunications, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
“The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement.
A Commerce Department spokesperson confirmed there was a breach “in one of our bureaus,” which Reuters identified as the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The attacks were so concerning that the National Security Council met at the White House Saturday, Reuters reported.
The cyber-attacks against the U.S. government were part of a broader campaign that involved the recent hack of cybersecurity company FireEye, in which sensitive tools were stolen that are used to find vulnerabilities in clients’ computer networks, according to Reuters. The Washington Post reported that the Russian hacking group known as Cozy Bear, or APT 29, was behind the campaign. That is the same hacking group that was behind the cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee going back to 2015. It was also accused by U.S. and U.K. authorities in July of infiltrating organizations involved in developing a Covid-19 vaccine.
“We have been working closely with our agency partners regarding recently discovered activity on government networks,” said a spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, part of the Department of Homeland Security. “CISA is providing technical assistance to affected entities as they work to identify and mitigate any potential compromises.”
The Treasury had no immediate response to questions.


fortune--2020-12-13--How Biden can avoid China getting its hands on sensitive military technology

What is more important: the corporate profits of a select few American companies, or the U.S.’s long-term economic security, national security, and human rights interests? President-elect Biden will soon have to decide when setting his administration’s China trade policy.
U.S. semiconductor and semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) makers have enjoyed robust demand from China in recent years. While that’s been good for their bottom line, it poses a threat to America’s national security. That’s because China lags behind the U.S. and is using these exports to acquire sensitive dual-use technology for its military. Semiconductors are the coin of the realm in enabling the supercomputing and artificial intelligence needed for future military advantage.
Wall Street is betting that the Biden-Harris White House will capitulate to China and SME makers. Postelection market reports have exclaimed that SME companies have “seen green since the election,” and that Lam Research, Applied Materials, and KLA—the three largest U.S. SME makers—are “the ultimate Biden stocks,” contingent on a change in the China policy. As CNBC’s Jim Cramer put it, these are “the ultimate Biden stocks…Business is going to be very good.”
That policy change refers to impeding the Trump administration’s plans to impose more rigorous export controls. Recognizing that SME “can be tied to indigenous military innovation efforts in China,” the Commerce Department has restricted sales to Chinese companies with known affiliations to the country’s Communist Party and People’s Liberation Army.
The same semiconductor technology that powers a smartphone can be used for missile guidance systems or to surveil citizens. In the wrong hands, these dual-use technologies can be weaponized against American troops and reverse-engineered to reveal vulnerabilities in our national security networks.
China’s chip-making capabilities trail leading countries’, including America’s, but it is working hard to close the gap. The Chinese government invested $200 billion in its semiconductor industry between 2014 and 2018. Its “Made in China 2025” plan commits another $120 billion and aims to achieve parity with the most advanced technology by 2030 by any means necessary—including stealing technology to build up its production abilities.
Export controls on semiconductor equipment are a chokepoint, a limiting factor for China, which relies on foreign suppliers (namely the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands, which produce more than 90% of the world’s SME) for chip-making technology.
The Commerce Department has added over 320 Chinese companies to the Entity List, which prevents U.S. companies from selling to those named. In September, it placed restrictions on China’s largest chip maker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Company (SMIC), citing “an unacceptable risk of diversion to a military end use.”
Even so, those controls have not been enough—and SME makers acknowledge it. “We continue to see no meaningful impact on our business,” Applied Materials’ CEO said recently. The CFO of KLA expressed the same sentiment: “We just don’t see it having a material impact.”
These companies don’t want to thwart China’s ambitions. It would be bad for their profits. China accounted for 31% of Lam Research’s sales in the last fiscal year, 29% of Applied Material’s 2019 revenue, and 25% of KLA’s 2019 sales. “China’s demand…has to be satisfied by somebody,” Lam Research’s CEO argued recently.
So, what needs to happen? First, the Commerce Department should implement tighter export controls on SME makers, including Lam Research, Applied Materials, and KLA.
Second, the department should add more Chinese companies affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army to the Entity List. Companies like Yangtze Memory Technologies Company and ChangXin Memory Technologies—who, like SMIC, have known ties to China’s military—are a good place to start.
The Trump administration appears intent on achieving those goals in its final two months. Recently, senior officials said the administration will seek to cement a series of hard-line export policies against China and installed a new post to lead the effort.
Whatever progress the Trump team makes, the Biden administration should pick up the mantle to sustain America’s competitive edge in the semiconductor market. The U.S. should not aid China’s march to develop its own advanced chip manufacturing capability. To do so would compromise our national security to make a quick buck.
James Marks, a retired major general, served more than 30 years in the U.S. Army, is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and is a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame.
Robert S. Walsh, a retired lieutenant general, completed his 35 years of service as the commanding general of the U.S. Marine Corps Combat Development Command and serves on the advisory board of Academy Securities.


fortune--2020-12-13--How FedEx, UPS, and Amazon prepared for holiday shipping deadlines this year

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Online shopping has been growing steadily for years, and the deluge of packages it generates during the holiday season has been a persistent challenge. But this year, with the coronavirus pandemic pushing many people to shop online instead of in stores, the load on retailers and shipping companies is even heavier.
But the companies insist that they are ready, and experts largely agree that this is the case. Since the pandemic started, shippers have been beefing up their operations, while retailers have been remaking how they process orders, all in preparation for a holiday season like nothing they have ever seen before.
Shippers “have done a remarkable job, quite honestly, of preparing for this peak season,” says Bill Brooks, vice president for transportation at business consulting firm Capgemini. “The volumes are unprecedented. Even with all that, they’re able to handle it.”
E-commerce spending in the quarter ended in September was up 37% from last year, with similar growth expected during the holiday quarter. In another sign of the times: FedEx expects peak holiday package volume to be a whopping 22% higher than last year.
The scale of the effort required to meet the expected holiday crunch is staggering. FedEx has hired 70,000 new workers while UPS has added 139,000 seasonal and permanent staff, in addition to opening 20 new shipping warehouses. Meanwhile, Amazon said it would hire 100,000 seasonal shipping workers, following a 175,000 worker hiring spree in March and April.
Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain at the National Retail Federation, says holiday hiring by retailers themselves has been unusually high as they add staff to provide curbside pickup and warehouse fulfillment.
Part of the effort by retailers has been in their planning, including stocking up early on products. Gold says that 75% of holiday imports had reached the U.S. by late October, nearly a month earlier than normal.
With their inventories high, many retailers also encouraged customers to shop early, including by offering sales earlier in the season. That helped spread the holiday crunch more evenly, thus avoiding a bottleneck close to Christmas.
Additionally, retailers have tried to speed up the “picking” and assembly of online orders, according to Keith Phillips, CEO of warehouse technology provider Voxware. That lets them accept online orders later in the day and still have them ready before shippers’ daily pickup deadlines, a boon to shoppers that Phillips says increases revenues.
Curbside pickup by customers has also seen major growth. Best Buy, for example, expanded its curbside program from 100 stores to 1,200 early in the pandemic, helping reduce the number of packages it ships.
The transformation has hit some limits, however. Merchants Fleet, which manages delivery vans for shippers looking to increase holiday capacity, had 6,000 vehicles on the road this time last year. This year, it has 15,000. “And if we could have found 5,000 more cargo vans, we could have had 20,000 on,” explains CEO Brendan Keegan, who says cargo vans in particular are nearly impossible to buy right now.
Rod Sides, head of retail consulting for Deloitte, says retailers and shippers are facing labor shortages in some markets despite high unemployment levels overall. Another surprising constraint has come from the sharp, pandemic-driven decline in passenger flights, which carry significant amounts of express cargo.
“We have seen a massive shortage of air freight capacity,” DHL CEO Frank Appel said at the Web Summit conference earlier this month. “Prices went through the roof.”
The good news for shoppers is that, despite this perfect storm of challenges, the massive effort to grow shipping capacity and reshape retail seems to be succeeding. For the week of Nov. 15, the most recent available data, on-time deliveries for FedEx, UPS, and USPS were all above 95%, according to tracking firm ShipMatrix.
“Will the service rates be what we’ve seen in the past? Probably not. There will be some misses,” says Sides of Deloitte. “But is the system going to implode? Probably not.”
Sides warns, though, that bad weather could still create major disruptions. And he’s among many warning that mailing items in the few days before Christmas is flirting with disaster.
For retailers that have pushed to adapt, there’s some good news: Online shopping’s growth should stay strong even after the pandemic ends, experts say. Much of the growth, Sides says, has come from older shoppers and in new sectors, such as grocery. While those changes were driven by safety concerns, Sides believes that convenience will keep shoppers online long term.
Merchants Fleet CEO Keegan, citing Geoffrey Moore’s nearly 30-year-old tech-marketing classic, Crossing the Chasm, believes that the coronavirus has finally pushed e-commerce to a tipping point.
“Once 16% or 17% of a population are doing something,” says Keegan, “that’s where it tends to accelerate. COVID moved us from early adopters and into the early majority. That means it’s here to stay.”


fortune--2020-12-13--When Broadway comes back: 5 ways the pandemic will transform the live theater industry

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the global theater industry to a standstill. But 2020 is not the first time that the industry has faced an existential crisis. The theater community has confronted acts of terror such as 9/11 or the London Blitz that shuttered cultural activity; disruptive technologies that shifted consumer behavior, like motion pictures and television; and even prior pandemics dating back to Shakespeare, including AIDS, which ravaged a generation of artists.
In each instance the industry has mourned, innovated, and emerged stronger. Make no mistake: Global theater is hurting right now, with its darkest days still to come. Yet the challenges experienced over this year, and the pivots and adjustments they’ve triggered, allow us to infer what may lie around the corner.
Broadway cast members at a rally to support New York City’s entertainment industry in the wake of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks, on September 28, 2001. David Lefranc—Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Here are five predictions:
Broadway programming will shift its focus
According to the Broadway League, the trade organization that represents theater owners and producers, Broadway audiences during the most recent complete season were made up of 35% local residents and 65% tourists. By the league’s estimates, Broadway will not fully regain its tourist audience until sometime in 2025. Thus, Broadway will need to develop and produce content tailored more towards the 35% of audiences that hail from New York City and its suburbs and rely less on the international tourists (19%) and domestic tourists (46%) that made up the majority of its pre-pandemic audience.
This likely means the shuttering of some tourist-friendly long-running musical productions, which may have exhausted their tristate audiences, in favor of recently opened musicals, star-vehicle plays, and special limited-run and concert events. Producers will also attempt to reduce their cost structure, which currently requires near-capacity ticket sales in order to turn profit. Expect to see tightened budgets leading to smaller companies and production scale. London’s West End, the other traditional global mecca for theater tourism, will most likely see similar changes.
Viable alternatives to New York and London will emerge
Where will theater fans go to get their fix until they are able to safely travel back to New York and London? They will seek out—and find—high-quality professional productions closer to home.
Expect the existing circuits of nonprofit regional theaters in the U.S., and subsidized theaters in the U.K., to lead the recovery. As ticket sales represent only a portion of their annual budgets, these theaters can better weather lower capacities and still thrive. Once audiences experience the high-quality professional theater that they produce, those patrons are more likely to become permanent. In terms of recovery, the regionals will be followed by the commercial touring circuits in the U.S. and U.K. that bring productions from city to city and are presented by local venues, often with large subscriber bases.
Theater tourists from outside the U.S. and U.K. will similarly be looking closer to home. Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, and even emerging theater powerhouses like China will become the global versions of regional theaters, and audiences who’d previously travel to London or New York will travel shorter distances to find what is likely to be increasing quality and quantity of top theater.
The ‘creative class’ will migrate
During the pandemic, many actors, directors, writers, and others have vacated urban cultural centers for locales offering more space and affordability. While away, they’ve learned how to better work and collaborate remotely; from submitting video auditions to doing developmental or preproduction work via Zoom.
In the new reality, many creatives will find they can continue working in this fashion without negatively impacting their careers. Producers and casting directors can no longer expect creatives to live in the most expensive cities when they can easily come in when being paid to do so. Further, if the geographic shift of theater work mentioned in my previous prediction proves true, artists will tend to migrate to where the work is and gravitate towards cities with thriving theater scenes and lower costs of living (I’m looking at you, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Cleveland).
Theater content will increasingly appear on screens—big and small
With the recent successes of Hamilton on Disney+, American Utopia on HBO Max, and What the Constitution Means to Me on Amazon Prime, a business model for streaming currently or recently running theater productions has now become established.
With streaming platforms ever in need of programming, and producers increasingly in need of reducing risk and maximizing revenue, you have an alignment of interests that cannot be denied. To be sure, contractual standards with authors will need to be revisited to allow for screening of live theater productions that are still running onstage, but the existence of a clear mutual benefit should help the idea prevail.
David Lee—HBO
At the same time, cinemas have been experiencing their own disruption. While the exclusive “theatrical” window for cinema exhibition has been tightening for years, the recent Warner Bros. announcement that Wonder Woman 1984 will debut Christmas Day in both cinemas and simultaneously on its sibling platform HBO Max may prove to be the end of the practice altogether. Cinema will remain the preferred consumer choice for “event viewing”—those viewing experiences that are enhanced by being shared communally. But with the output from studios earmarked for cinemas likely to decline, opportunities for others may arise for theater content, both filmed and live-streamed.
Imagine a mix of programming where at any given time a cinema multiplex may be showing the latest Marvel superhero film, the NCAA basketball tournament, a new season of a Netflix series, and the live stream of a Broadway or West End production. These local viewing opportunities could even grow the overall audience for global theater. It would make its product accessible to those who perhaps were previously excluded from the theater, whether by economics (the average ticket price for Broadway is $145, according to the Broadway League), by geography (the highest-profile productions are centered primarily in New York or London), or linguistically (those productions are staged almost exclusively in English).
Performers’ unions will consolidate
As recently as 2012 the clouding of the jurisdictional boundaries between what was considered film versus television resulted in the merger of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists (AFTRA). The pandemic has precipitated a similar blurring of the jurisdictional boundaries between the Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) and SAG/AFTRA when it comes to filmed and live-streamed theater.
The two unions were embroiled in a jurisdictional dispute all summer, with both unions issuing contracts to live-stream and/or film theater. A temporary compromise emerged, but the reality is that when filming and live-streaming theater becomes the norm, every production will need to engage their performers under contracts from two unions. With many AEA members also belonging to SAG/AFTRA and vice versa, a merger of those two unions seems very plausible, even if it isn’t imminent.
While no one can predict the future, what is indisputable is that the best way to ensure that theater will have a bright future is for governments worldwide to acknowledge that the sector has been among the hardest hit by the pandemic and will be among the last to fully recover. In the U.S., this should mean passing another round of small-business relief; ensuring the Save Our Stages Act—which aims to protect independent performing arts venues—is included in the next stimulus package; and most importantly, providing health and economic injury benefits to freelance artists.
If artists get the support they need, the world need only sit back and watch the global theater do what it’s done for centuries; mourn, innovate, and emerge stronger than ever.
Michael Barra is the CEO of Lively McCabe Entertainment, a global media rights packaging and live stage production company.


fortune--2020-12-13--Only 1 in 4 millennials say they’ll get the COVID vaccine right away

The 800-pound, albeit virtual, gorilla in every corporate boardroom is just how fast the U.S. economy will recover and reopen in 2021.
And a lot of that is dependent on the success of looming mass vaccinations: Dr. Anthony Fauci said this month we’d need 75% to 80% of the country to take the vaccine in order to resume normal life by the end of next year.
But will people actually take a COVID-19 vaccine? To find out, Fortune and SurveyMonkey polled 2,247 U.S. adults between November 30 to December 1.
The majority of Americans don’t plan to take the COVID-19 vaccine right away. Among U.S. adults, 40% say they’d want to take the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, our poll finds. While 39% say they’d want to wait a while, and 19% never want to take it.
Americans over 75 years old (Silent Generation) are the most likely to say they’d take the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible at 65%. They’re followed by baby boomers (47%).


fortune--2020-12-13--A national stay-at-home order? Where the public stands

As hospitalizations and deaths continue to rise, some public health officials are calling for a national lockdown to help control the pandemic. That includes Michael Osterholm, a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, who is calling for a six- to eight-week nationwide shutdown.
The short-term consequences would be staggering: Just look at March and April, when the jobless rate soared from 4.4% to 14.7%. Is that something Americans could stomach again? To find out, Fortune and SurveyMonkey polled 2,247 U.S. adults between Nov. 30 and Dec. 1.
We found that among U.S. adults, 58% support a national “stay at home” order, in which everyone in the country is required to remain in their home except for essential services. Meanwhile, 40% of the public opposes such an order.
That support is striking considering the economic damage caused by state-issued shutdowns in the spring. It also speaks to how concerned Americans remain about the pandemic. However, that support level is down from 65% in a Fortune-SurveyMonkey poll in September.
Perhaps not surprisingly, we found a massive political divide. The majority of Democrats (87%) and Independents (67%) support a national stay-at-home order. Meanwhile, only 24% of Republicans would support such an action.
And there is a split among different income groups: While 70% of Americans earning $15,000 to $29,999 would support such a measure, only 50% of U.S. adults earning over $150,000 would back it.
There’s no clear reason for the divide, but some of it could come down to higher-income earners remembering how quickly stocks crashed in March at the onset of the spring lockdowns. And lower-paid workers might be more cautious given the fact that their jobs often involve face-to-face contact with the general public.


fortune--2020-12-14--Why shareholders had a severe adverse reaction to AstraZeneca’s Alexion deal

Graphene gets real : Meet the entrepreneurs bringing the wonder substance to market

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AstraZeneca’s purchase of Alexion in a $39 billion cash-and-stock deal has not impressed AZ’s investors. They sent the company’s shares tumbling sharply in Monday morning trading.
At one stage, AZ’s shares on the London Stock Exchange were down more than 7%, before rebounding slightly.
Investors are worried that AstraZeneca is overpaying for Alexion, offering a 45% premium to the Boston-based company’s current share price, valuing the company at more than 40 times its trailing 12-month earnings.
While some have pointed out that this kind of valuation is not expensive by biotech standards, AZ’s shareholders are suffering from the stock market equivalent of the curse of the empty restaurant—that queasy sensation based on the notion that “if this place is so good, why isn’t anyone else eating here?” Alexion has been actively shopping for a buyer since at least May, when activist hedge fund Elliott Management began publicly agitating for a sale. And AstraZeneca has said that although it took months of wrangling to close the deal, as far as it knows, it was the only bidder in the hunt.
It has not been a great few weeks for AZ’s shares. Unease over the deal comes just weeks after investors pummeled AstraZeneca’s stock because the company’s COVID-19 vaccine results disappointed. While the pharma company, based in Cambridge, England, had jumped to an early lead in the race for a coronavirus vaccine in the spring—a position that sent its shares skyrocketing to all-time highs and made it briefly the most valuable company in London’s benchmark FTSE 100—a series of missteps in how it and its partners at the University of Oxford handled aspects of the clinical trial have resulted in a muddied picture of the vaccine’s effectiveness compared with those produced by rivals Moderna and Pfizer. While the vaccine is still likely to receive approval in the U.K., doubts are now growing over whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve it—at least not without much more clinical trial data.
But, in many ways, the COVID-19 vaccine sweepstakes was always a bit of a distraction. The company, which had little track record in vaccines prior to COVID-19, had promised to take no profit on its inoculation until the pandemic was over. And the chance of the product becoming a blockbuster was always iffy.
The Alexion deal, however, matters far more to the company’s future. And here, the picture is decidedly mixed, which may be why a number of investors bailed out on Monday morning.
In some ways, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot looks smart: The run-up in the company’s shares have handed him a powerful currency with which to make an acquisition; he would look foolish if he wasted the opportunity. Back in 2014, when he fended off a takeover attempt by Pfizer, Soriot had promised AZ’s shareholders that he would double the company’s revenues to about $40 billion by 2023, a target the company was unlikely to meet through organic growth alone. (Its 2019 revenues were just $20 billion.) The Alexion purchase puts AstraZeneca $6 billion closer at least.
In addition, Soriot had invested heavily to reinvigorate the company’s research and development pipeline and expand its footprint in China. Those were good moves strategically. AstraZeneca now has the strongest earnings growth prospects of any of its large competitors. But they were not cheap decisions, and Soriot has had the additional burden of maintaining the company’s rich dividend, a choice he portrays as important for rewarding AZ’s shareholders for sticking with the company throughout his long turnaround of the business (others more cynically point out that dividend growth is one of the metrics to which Soriot’s own pay package is tied). As a result, the company has been perennially cash-poor and has had to sell legacy assets and borrow heavily to fund these moves.
Some analysts think that AstraZeneca is buying Alexion because it basically had to buy someone (anyone!) to shore up its cash flow and avoid missing aggressive earnings growth targets. That’s the view of Naresh Chouhan, an analyst at Intron Health, a boutique health care research firm in London. “We believe there is no strategic rationale other than to buy near-term earnings and cash flow,” Chouhan wrote in a report to his clients on Monday. That helps explain why some investors, unnerved by the whiff of desperation surrounding the deal, reached for the ejection handle on Monday.
Alexion instantly helps shore up the company’s cash position: It threw off $2 billion in free cash flow in 2019, and is on track to produce more this year, and AstraZeneca has said the deal will also immediately boost earnings. Even Chouhan, a skeptic on AstraZeneca, allows that the deal is likely to supercharge earnings growth in the next few years.
The deal also buys AstraZeneca suite of drugs that are potentially complementary to its existing portfolio. While AstraZeneca is especially strong in oncology medicines, Alexion has a focus on rare diseases, particularly those caused by the uncontrolled activation of part of the body’s immune response called the complement system. It has one blockbuster drug in Soliris, which generated almost $4 billion in sales last year. The deal may also prove that some of Alexion’s R&D around the complement system will dovetail with AstraZeneca’s heavy investment into a class of immunotherapy cancer treatments known as PARP inhibitors.
But Chouhan points out that there were probably other ways to gain this expertise than paying a $13 billion premium to Alexion’s stockholders. He also points out that while the deal will likely boost AstraZeneca’s earnings over the next four years, it actually increases the company’s vulnerability to patent expirations from 2024 onwards when three of its own blockbuster drugs—Farxiga, Brilinta, and Lynparza—will lose patent protections. Plus, Soliris will also begin facing competition from generic alternatives.
Of course, by 2024, Soriot, who is 61, may have cashed out and retired. It looks like a lot of investors aren’t sticking around to find out.


fortune--2020-12-14--Electoral College to meet Monday to officially elect Joe Biden, as Trump’s attempts to overturn vote

Electoral College to meet Monday to officially elect Joe Biden, as Trump’s attempts to overturn vote meets the “end of the road”

Members of the Electoral College meet on Monday to officially elect Joe Biden, a moment some Republican lawmakers have targeted as the end of President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results as far as they’re concerned.
The constitutionally mandated procedure across the 50 states and the District of Columbia usually passes with little notice. But this year, it may help conclude a chaotic election season punctuated by by Trump’s refusal to concede and his frequent insistence, without evidence, that the vote was “rigged” against him.
Many prominent Republicans joined the president in declining to recognize Biden’s victory a month ago, saying Trump had a right to pursue legal challenges. That process will have played out once the electors reach a majority of 270 ballots for Biden. Congress will then officially count the Electoral College votes and declare the winner on Jan. 6.
Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, told reporters last week that the election will be “over” once the Electoral College votes.
“The Electoral College obviously brings some finality to this,” Thune said. And Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Trump ally, said when asked whether the president should concede, “I’ll talk to you December the 14th.”
Retiring Republican Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the election should be over after Monday’s vote, and that he hopes Trump then “puts the country first” and congratulates Biden. But asked on “Fox News Sunday” whether he’ll stop contesting the election after Monday, Representative Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, wouldn’t say, and insisted “let the legal process play out.”
Electors, who are generally selected by their political parties, are committed to vote for the winner of the popular vote in each state. Biden won 306 electoral votes from 25 states and the District of Columbia. Trump captured 232 electoral votes from the 25 states he won.
Most electors are meeting in their state capitals with restricted access and social distancing because of the coronavirus pandemic. Arizona isn’t publicly disclosing the location of its gathering to keep it “low key.”
Even though the outcome has been decided and more than 50 post-election lawsuits challenging the results by Trump’s campaign and its allies were rejected, the president and some of his supporters continue to say he won based on groundless claims of widespread fraud.
Trump said he’ll continue with legal challenges even after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected the bid by Texas to nullify the election results in four pivotal states—a case the president had called “the big one.” But he acknowledged that time is running out.
“We’re going to speed it up as much as we can, but you can only go so fast. They give us very little time,” Trump said in an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News. He added that he was “disappointed” in the U.S. Supreme Court, three of whose nine justices he appointed, for not having the “courage” to overturn the election.
The president has pressured Republicans in Congress and at state level to help him overturn the election, including by urging state GOP legislative leaders to ignore the popular vote and appoint rival Trump electors. They’ve declined, saying they don’t have that power.
Rick Bloomingdale, a Biden elector in Pennsylvania, said he’s confident his vote will be counted and that Trump’s efforts to overturn the election will fail.
“At noon on Jan. 20th, Joe Biden’s going to be president of the United States,” said Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. “It’s mind-boggling to me that we have people that are actually trying conduct a coup and take the votes away from the voters.”
There were protests against Trump’s election outside Electoral College meetings in some states in 2016, and there could be this year as well. Trump supporters gathered to protest in Washington on Saturday, at times clashing with counterprotesters and police.
Following armed protests in Michigan and arrests in what the FBI called a foiled kidnapping plot against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, police will escort the state’s 16 electors for Biden from a parking garage to the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, said elector Chris Cracchiolo, chairman of the Grand Traverse Democratic Party in the northwest of the state and vice chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party.
“At the time I volunteered to do this, I thought it was somewhat ceremonial,” Cracchiolo said. “Since Nov. 3, the magnitude and importance of this role seems to magnify every day.”
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, one of Arizona’s 11 Democratic electors for Biden, said she’s not concerned about protesters because there will be security, and not worried about attempts to overturn the results because “I have faith in our courts.”
Biden elector and Savannah Mayor Van Johnson said Georgia could see further attempts to flip the vote even as the Electoral College meets, “given what we have already seen here. At this point, nobody would be surprised at anything.”
When U.S. voters mark ballots in a presidential race every four years, they’re technically voting for a candidate’s slate of electors, who cast that state’s number of electoral votes — one for each U.S. representative and senator. The candidate who gets a majority of electoral votes, 270, wins the presidency.
Beyond Monday, the next step is for Congress to tally the electoral votes from each state in a joint session on Jan. 6 with Vice President Mike Pence presiding. There could be drama if at least one member of both the House and the Senate objects to a state’s slate of electors or votes; it would require each chamber to debate and vote on the objection.
Republican Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama has said he plans to make an objection, but so far no senator has committed to joining him. Seventy-five Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania also sent a letter to the state’s congressional delegation this month urging them to object.
Prior Objections
There were objections raised in the House in 2000 and 2016 that failed for lack of a participating senator. An objection in 2004 to the Ohio results by former Democratic U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer of California and former Democratic U.S. Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio delayed the counting of electoral votes until it was debated and voted down.
Any objection that reached a vote is likely to fail, with Democrats holding a majority in the House and enough Republican senators having acknowledged Biden’s victory, said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University law professor and election-law expert.
Realistically, then, Monday’s meeting of electors is the last step for anyone else waiting for the presidential election process to play out, Persily said.
“Constitutionally, that would be end of the road,” he said.
–With assistance from Margaret Newkirk, David Welch, Amanda Albright and Brenna Goth.


fortune--2020-12-14--Fortune’s list of lists is here

Fortune’s list of lists is here

This is the web version of CEO Daily. To get it delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
Good morning.
You’ve probably noticed this, but at Fortune, we do a lot of lists. We rank companies by size, speed of growth, employee engagement, admiration among peers, leadership, impact on society, orientation toward the future, and more.
Today, as the year comes to an end, we’re unveiling our list of lists—the annual Fortune Blue Ribbon list, honoring companies that have made four or more appearances on our 10 most rigorous rankings.
There were three companies this year that notched seven out of the 10—Amazon, Adobe and Progressive. That’s no small accomplishment. Kudos to them. Another five companies appeared on six of the lists—Alibaba, Alphabet, Bank of America, Facebook and Nvidia. There were 10 companies that made five list appearances, and 35 that made four. You can find them all this morning here.
Not surprisingly tech companies were the biggest category—accounting for 14 of the 53 Blue Ribbon Companies. There were ten financial companies and ten health care companies.
By the way, DoorDash and Airbnb got most of the IPO love last week, but software firm C3.ai was another stellar success, soaring 174% on its first day of public trading. My guess is that’s the first of a long line of AI companies you’ll see coming to market over the next decade. Founder Tom Siebel’s interview with Ellen McGirt and me on our Leadership Next podcast is worth listening to, here.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Vaccines commence
Americans will start receiving Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine jabs today, after the FDA granted it emergency authorization Friday. The U.K. has already started deploying the same vaccine, which is the first in the field to make it to wealthy countries' hospitals. (Side note: A Peruvian trial of China's Sinopharm vaccine was halted due to a participant getting sick.) Fortune
CureVac trial
Germany's CureVac (the biopharma firm that President Trump unsuccessfully tried to pay to make a vaccine for the U.S. only) is beginning large-scale trials of its candidate vaccine. The Phase 2b/3 study will include over 35,000 participants in Europe and Latin America. Financial Times
AstraZeneca buy
AstraZeneca will shell out $39 billion for Alexion Pharmaceuticals, a specialist in treatments for uncommon blood and immunological disorders. CEO Pascal Soriot called the move "an important step in the history of the company," though AstraZeneca's shares fell more than 9% on the news at one point, so investors are clearly skeptical. Fortune
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic's shares wobbled after the company aborted a test flight shortly after takeoff. The SpaceShipTwo Unity mission ended before it could reach space, after a computer failed. The pilots landed the spacecraft safely. Bloomberg
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Graphene's here
Remember a decade ago, when there was a load of hype around graphene, the then-newly-isolated strongest, thinnest, most conductive etc. material in the world? The hype died down but companies are starting to put graphene into real-world products, to great effect: it makes for better-sounding headphones, tougher roads and more environmentally-friendly packaging. Fortune
Brexit talks
Deadlines mean nothing in the post-Brexit trade talks, apparently, except for the end of the Brexit transition on Dec 31. Yesterday's "firm decision" deadline, set in stone last week when the previous deadline turned to dust, itself became meaningless when the U.K. and EU decided to keep talking, despite there being no apparent signs of give on either side. It's likely that both sides want to avoid being blamed in the no-deal scenario. Guardian
Chinese economy
China's done well during the pandemic, with an economy that's holding up thanks to exports of pandemic-related products. So what happens when the disease is under control globally? Morgan Stanley thinks growth will be found in "urbanization 2.0." Fortune
Bitcoin boom
Staff writer Jeff Roberts is the latest in a long list of Fortune journalists to publish a book. Kings of Crypto: One Startup's Quest to Take Cryptocurrency out of Silicon Valley and onto Wall Street is available Tuesday. It's a highly readable account of how crypto is changing the world of finance, telling the story of crypto's controversial flagship company, Coinbase. You can order it here.
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.


fortune--2020-12-14--Fortune’s Blue Ribbon Companies 2021

Fortune’s Blue Ribbon Companies 2021

Making it onto a single Fortune list is impressive. Those that rank on several deserve a list of their very own.
To qualify for Fortune’s annual Blue Ribbon list, a company must appear on at least four of our 10 most rigorous annual rankings: the Fortune 500, Global 500, 100 Best Companies to Work For, Change the World, Future 50, World’s Most Admired Companies, Fastest-Growing Companies, Most Powerful Women, Most Powerful Women International, and Businessperson of the Year.
Three companies tied this year for the top spot: Amazon.com, Adobe, and Progressive each appeared on a total of seven lists. Incidentally, all of their CEOs appear on our Businessperson of the Year list—Jeff Bezos at No. 7, Shantanu Narayen at No. 8, and Tricia Griffith at No. 10.
Five companies landed on a total of six lists, while 10 companies made it onto five. This year’s full Blue Ribbon list is below.
Companies with 7 list appearances
Three companies made a total of seven list appearances:
Adobe (ADBE)
No. 29 on Future 50
No. 8 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 26 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 41 on Change the World
No. 285 on the Fortune 500
No. 35 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Amazon.com (AMZN)
No. 37 on Future 50
No. 7 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 10 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 12 on Most Powerful Women
No. 9 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 2 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Progressive (PGR)
No. 10 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 44 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 19 on Most Powerful Women
No. 323 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 86 on the Fortune 500
No. 49 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Companies with 6 list appearances
Five companies made a total of six list appearances:
Alibaba Group Holding (BABA)
No. 40 on Future 50
No. 17 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 14 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 11 on Most Powerful Women International
No. 2 on Change the World
No. 132 on the Fortune Global 500
Alphabet (GOOGL)
No. 70 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 7 on Most Powerful Women
No. 23 on Change the World
No. 29 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 11 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Bank of America (BAC)
No. 47 on Most Powerful Women
No. 15 on Change the World
No. 58 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 25 on the Fortune 500
No. 77 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Facebook (FB)
No. 50 on Future 50
No. 52 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 8 on Most Powerful Women
No. 144 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 46 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Nvidia (NVDA)
No. 22 on Future 50
No. 3 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 4 on Change the World
No. 292 on the Fortune 500
No. 27 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Companies with 5 list appearances
Ten companies made a total of five list appearances:
Accenture (ACN)
No. 14 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 1 on Most Powerful Women
No. 279 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 41 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
No. 2 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 32 on Most Powerful Women
No. 33 on Change the World
No. 448 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Mastercard (MA)
No. 9 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 71 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 14 on Change the World
No. 191 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Microsoft (MSFT)
No. 17 on Most Powerful Women
No. 16 on Change the World
No. 47 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 21 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Netflix (NFLX)
No. 4 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 5 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 43 on Most Powerful Women
No. 164 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
PayPal Holdings (PYPL)
No. 34 on Future 50
No. 78 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 3 on Change the World
No. 182 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (REGN)
No. 6 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 90 on Fastest-Growing Companies
No. 8 on Change the World
No. 405 on the Fortune 500
No. 67 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
Salesforce (CRM)
No. 25 on Future 50
No. 44 on Change the World
No. 190 on the Fortune 500
No. 6 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
UPS (UPS)
No. 5 on Most Powerful Women
No. 49 on Change the World
No. 129 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 43 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Walmart (WMT)
No. 10 on Most Powerful Women
No. 9 on Change the World
No. 1 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 1 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Companies with 4 list appearances
Thirty-five companies made a total of four list appearances:
Abbott Laboratories (ABT)
No. 24 on Change the World
No. 393 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 104 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
AbbVie (ABBV)
No. 378 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 99 on the Fortune 500
No. 87 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
American Express (AXP)
No. 251 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 67 on the Fortune 500
No. 9 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Anthem (ANTM)
No. 4 on Most Powerful Women
No. 68 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 29 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Apple (AAPL)
No. 29 on Most Powerful Women
No. 12 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 4 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
AT&T (T)
No. 44 on Most Powerful Women
No. 22 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 9 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Best Buy (BBY)
No. 9 on Most Powerful Women
No. 275 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 75 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Capital One Financial (COF)
No. 372 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 97 on the Fortune 500
No. 24 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Centene (CNC)
No. 50 on Change the World
No. 127 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 42 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Cisco Systems (CSCO)
No. 211 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 63 on the Fortune 500
No. 4 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Citigroup (C)
No. 6 on Most Powerful Women
No. 70 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 31 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
CVS Health (CVS)
No. 13 on Most Powerful Women
No. 13 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 5 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Delta Air Lines (DAL)
No. 252 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 68 on the Fortune 500
No. 99 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
General Dynamics (GD)
No. 14 on Most Powerful Women
No. 317 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 83 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
General Motors (GM)
No. 2 on Most Powerful Women
No. 40 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 18 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Goldman Sachs Group (GS)
No. 202 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 60 on the Fortune 500
No. 94 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Home Depot (HD)
No. 15 on Most Powerful Women
No. 59 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 26 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Humana (HUM)
No. 19 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 166 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 52 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Intel (INTC)
No. 40 on Most Powerful Women
No. 138 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 45 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Intuit (INTU)
No. 16 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 445 on the Fortune 500
No. 11 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
No. 34 on Most Powerful Women
No. 104 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 35 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Jones Financial (Edward Jones)
No. 33 on Most Powerful Women
No. 336 on the Fortune 500
No. 7 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
JPMorgan Chase (JPM)
No. 22 on Most Powerful Women
No. 38 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 17 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Merck (MRK)
No. 53 on Change the World
No. 256 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 69 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Morgan Stanley (MS)
No. 47 on Most Powerful Women International
No. 203 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 61 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Northrop Grumman (NOC)
No. 20 on Most Powerful Women
No. 368 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 96 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
PepsiCo (PEP)
No. 41 on Most Powerful Women International
No. 160 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 51 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Pfizer (PFE)
No. 16 on Most Powerful Women
No. 215 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 64 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Procter & Gamble (PG)
No. 33 on Most Powerful Women International
No. 156 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 50 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Publix Super Markets
No. 325 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 87 on the Fortune 500
No. 39 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
SAP (SAP)
No. 32 on Most Powerful Women International
No. 404 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 59 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Starbucks (SBUX)
No. 27 on Most Powerful Women
No. 478 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 114 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
Tesla (TSLA)
No. 18 on Future 50
No. 1 on Businessperson of the Year
No. 124 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
USAA
No. 355 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 94 on the Fortune 500
No. 55 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For
World’s Most Admired Companies
Verizon Communications (VZ)
No. 46 on Most Powerful Women
No. 44 on the Fortune Global 500
No. 20 on the Fortune 500
World’s Most Admired Companies
By sector


fortune--2020-12-14--Trump and other top officials to receive COVID-19 vaccine within days

President Donald Trump and other top U.S. officials will be offered the newly approved coronavirus vaccine within days as part of a plan to ensure continuity in government amid the pandemic, people familiar with the effort said.
The vaccinations will be offered to critical personnel in all three branches of government deemed essential, and could start as soon as Monday. The shots will be staggered over the following 10 days to ensure staff don’t experience possible side effects all at the same time.
Trump said in a tweet on Sunday, following reports about the plan, that he had directed that top government officials would be vaccinated “somewhat later.” He said he personally is not “scheduled” to be vaccinated.
The measure also comes as health officials seek to build public confidence in the treatment. Offering the vaccine to top government members was recommended by public health officials and career national security staff, according to the people.
National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot confirmed the plan in a statement late Sunday.
“The American people should have confidence that they are receiving the same safe and effective vaccine as senior officials of the United States government on the advice of public health professionals and national security leadership,” Ullyot said.
President-elect Joe Biden will follow the guidance of Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, about when to take a coronavirus vaccine and will have it administered in public, a transition official said.
In general, the first people in the U.S. to get the Pfizer Inc./BioNTech SE vaccine approved on Friday will be health-care workers and vulnerable residents of care homes. Various other groups, from airline workers to teachers to meatpackers, are keen for early access too.
U.S. health officials on Sunday warned that skepticism about the vaccines among many Americans may be a barrier to the nation achieving “herd immunity” against the coronavirus.
“The way we get through this is to achieve herd immunity,” U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief Stephen Hahn said on ABC. “And that means we need to vaccinate a significant number of people in this country, including those who are hesitant.”


fortune--2020-12-14--COVID Vaccines are coming—but it might be too late for the housing market

This is the web version of Bull Sheet, a no-nonsense daily newsletter on what’s happening in the markets. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
Good morning, Bull Sheeters. It’s shaping up to be a risk-on Monday as investors cheer the imminent arrival of vaccine doses.
The shipments couldn’t come at a better—or, depending on your perspective, worse—time. COVID cases are spiking just about everywhere and, with less than two weeks before Christmas, new lockdown measures are being mulled, or being rolled out, in some of the world’s biggest economies.
Let’s check in on today’s roundup, where I get into BofA’s analysis of how the pandemic is likely to shake up the housing market. Oh, and I have a bit of a treat for all you gastronomes. Read on.
Markets update
Asia
The major Asia indexes are mostly higher in afternoon trading with Japan’s Nikkei up 0.3% .
are mostly higher in afternoon trading with Japan’s up . China this weekend pledged to slash its 2030 carbon emissions by 65% , a move that, some climate hawks say, could put further pressure on the incoming Biden Administration to reciprocate.
this weekend pledged to slash its , a move that, some climate hawks say, could put further pressure on the incoming Biden Administration to reciprocate. Corporate boards, beware. BlackRock is putting companies on notice, saying it will increasingly vote ‘yes’ on climate-friendly shareholder resolutions, using its $7 trillion assets under management as a kind of cudgel to advance green initiatives.
Europe
The European bourses are higher out of the gates with the DAX up 0.8% despite news over the weekend that Germany , the engine of the Eurozone economy, will enter a tighter lockdown on Wednesday, lasting through early January.
are higher out of the gates with the up despite news over the weekend that , the engine of the Eurozone economy, will enter a on Wednesday, lasting through early January. British businesses and the public won something of a reprieve this weekend after the latest Brexit make-or-break deadline passed with—lucky us—an extension, sending the pound sterling higher; the FTSE is flat. Dear reader, I share your tedium. Brexit trade talks have become that leaky faucet, that slow leak in your front tire, that pebble in your shoe. It’s not going away any time soon.
passed with—lucky us—an extension, sending the higher; the is flat. Dear reader, I share your tedium. Brexit trade talks have become that leaky faucet, that slow leak in your front tire, that pebble in your shoe. It’s not going away any time soon. Shares in AstraZeneca bombed 7.9% lower at the open after the pharma giant disclosed this weekend it was buying rare-disease specialist Alexion Pharmaceuticals in a cash-and-shares deal valued at $39 billion.
U.S.
U.S. futures point to a solid open. That’s after all three major indexes edged lower for the week as—speaking of tedious business stories— stimulus negotiations fizzled out. If Washington is to get stimulus checks into Christmas stockings, Congress has to reach a deal this week.
point to a solid open. That’s after all three major indexes edged lower for the week as—speaking of tedious business stories— stimulus negotiations fizzled out. If Washington is to get stimulus checks into Christmas stockings, Congress has to reach a deal this week. They’re calling it the biggest mass mobilization effort since World War II . Pfizer on Sunday morning began shipping COVID vaccines from its Michigan factory; McKesson will handle distribution.
. Pfizer on Sunday morning began shipping from its Michigan factory; McKesson will handle distribution. Fortune polled Americans, and found that the majority plan to wait to see how the vaccine performs before rolling up their sleeves, and taking a jab.
how the vaccine performs before rolling up their sleeves, and taking a jab. The U.S. COVID death toll is on the brink of 300,000 and the average daily number of infections is above 200,000, so this next data point might not surprise you: 58% of American adults support some kind of national stay-at-home order, a recent Fortune poll found.
Elsewhere
Gold is down, trading below $1,840/ounce .
is down, trading below . As is the dollar .
. Crude is higher on vaccine hopes, with Brent futures trading above $50/barrel .
is higher on vaccine hopes, with futures trading above . Bitcoin is flat, but it’s back above $19,000.
***
Home sweet home
I’m guessing you too have had a brief exchange over coffee that goes something like this:
My wife: Look at this. There’s a house in [X part of the country, or city] for sale. Look at all this space!
Me: I don’t want to move.
Wife: Just take a look.
I usually wiggle out of the conversation by reminding my wife she married the wrong Warner brother, the journalist.
Why am I bringing this up? Last week, a new housing report from BankofAmerica came out that showed Americans are increasingly getting the itch to change homes. Every month, BofA analysts ask Americans if the COVID outbreak is a factor making them “seriously consider moving to a different house or apartment.”
In June, 19% of the panelists said that yes, the pandemic was making them seriously consider a move. Last month, that figure had jumped to 28%.
That’s not exactly an exodus, but it’s still a significant data point. The U.S. housing market accounted for about 15% of GDP in 2018. All those people moving around the country would be a hugely positive jolt for the likes of banks, retailers, appliance makers and select local tax authorities.
Beyond that, it’s hard to determine the big winners and losers from such a potential housing shakeup. For starters, as the BofA table shows, the migration pattern looks to be fairly unambitious. A good chunk of the survey respondents said that if they were to move, it would be likely somewhere else within the city, or within the region.
And, survey respondents said, they’re not looking to bail on the city, prompting BofA to declare the urban exodus is amounting to something of an “urban legend.” (I totally get this point; I too am not mentally ready to move out of the city.)
Still, we could be seeing the start of a fundamental housing shift in the quarters to come, one that’s likely to happen regardless of whether or not the new COVID vaccines do their job.
I hope my wife doesn’t read today’s Bull Sheet.
***
Postscript
While my wife is checking house prices, this time of year I’m typically monitoring the market swings in a certain species of edible, subterranean fungus, the white truffle.
This year has been a particularly volatile one for fans of the mighty tuber magnatum pico, the Italian white truffle.
While on break two weeks ago, I went foraging for truffles with my neighbor, Renzo, his dog, Luna, and my Lagotto pup, Scilla. I wrote about our little adventure, a story that we published this weekend, replete with photos of shaggy dogs, freshly unearthed truffles and a little video explainer of why prices for this exotic dish are soaring.
This is where we went, in the woods behind my place in Amandola.
The elusive white truffle can be found in scattered patches in the hills of Amandola, in central Italy. Original photo: Bernhard Warner Original photo: Bernhard Warner
***
Correction: a previous version of Bull Sheet incorrectly characterized the mood of investors. It was a risk-on day before the opening bell in New York.
Have a nice day, everyone. I’ll see you here tomorrow.
Bernhard Warner
@BernhardWarner
Bernhard.Warner@Fortune.com
As always, you can write to bullsheet@fortune.com or reply to this email with suggestions and feedback.
Today's reads
Bombing on bonds. 2020 has been a humbling one for many a trading legend. Count British billionaire Mark Coombs in that group. The investment firm he built, Ashmore Group, has lost roughly $15 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, betting on bonds from Argentina, Ecuador and Lebanon this year. Clients, to say the least, are not happy.
Is the IPO market running too hot? After the gravity-defying debuts of DoorDash and Airbnb last week, you'd think every tech unicorn would want to push up their listing date. But, instead, we're seeing a surprising bit of hesitation. In recent days, videogame maker Roblox and fintech Affirm Holdings pressed pause on their IPO plans as investors start to rethink the frothiness of the market. Consider this data point: "Investors this year have valued newly public tech companies at a median of 23.9 times the revenue they reported in the 12 months before going public," the Journal reports, citing IPO tracker Jay Ritter.
Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a discount offer for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.
Market candy
$225,000
Last week's data dump detailing who benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program (and who was shut out) is creating all kinds of headaches in Washington. Among the glaring nuggets: "the program cost nearly $225,000 for each job that it saved," writes Fortune's Rey Mashayekhi. That's only the tip of the iceberg.


fortune--2020-12-14--Why workers in India attacked an iPhone factory

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Workers at an iPhone manufacturing plant in southern India smashed windows and set fire to signs at the factory on Saturday over claims they hadn’t received pay and had been forced to work overtime. The Times of India reported that a “majority” of the 2,000 workers at the factory were involved in the episode, which could undermine Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign to boost the country’s manufacturing sector and could tarnish Apple’s effort to relocate some of its supply chain to the subcontinent.
Apple is reportedly looking into whether Wistron Corp., the Taiwanese tech contract manufacturer that runs the factory, violated Apple’s supplier rules, which ask that a manufacturer’s staffing agencies pay workers on time, offer overtime pay, and provide at least the local minimum wage and any other benefits required by law.
M.D. Harigovind, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, a trade union federation, said in a press release that “the brutal exploitation of workers and sweatshop-like conditions” in the factory caused the unrest.
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Local police said on Sunday they had arrested 100 people and had formed “special teams to investigate the incident.”
Wistron and Apple did not immediately reply to Fortune’s requests for comment. A Wistron representative told AFP that “the incident was caused by people of unknown identities from outside who intruded into and damaged its facility with unclear intentions.” Wistron told AFP it would follow local labor regulations and aimed to resume factory operations as soon as possible.
In recent years, the Modi government has pitched India as a manufacturing alternative to China for Apple and other multinational tech firms whose supply chains got tangled in the U.S.-China trade war.
Apple sources 48% of its products’ components from China, but it has increased its stable of contract manufacturers in India of late as the U.S.-China feud threatened to impose tariffs on Apple devices. In addition to Wistron, two other Taiwanese electronics manufacturers—Pegatron and Foxconn—make iPhones in India.
Apple started making iPhones in India in 2017 to comply with local sourcing rules and to establish a bigger foothold in the market. Apple controls just 2% of India’s 500 million–person smartphone market, the second-largest in the world, owing in part to the Indian government’s strict rules for foreign retailers. In August 2019, India relaxed those restrictions—Apple had lobbied it to do so—and the company announced in February that it would open its first physical retail store in India in 2021.
The Wistron factory unrest erupted as India contends with a recession and as workers push back against deregulation that they say the government is pursuing at their expense. In late September, India passed a slew of legislation to deregulate parts of the agricultural industry and reform labor laws, which sparked ongoing nationwide protests.
The three agricultural reform bills that passed in September aim to modernize the sector and boost investment by reducing government oversight of the sale of some crops and easing market regulations on farmers, allowing them to sell directly to commercial buyers.
But many farmers oppose the reforms, which they believe will erase minimum pricing guarantees on some crops and disproportionately benefit big corporations. Hundreds of thousands of farmers and their supporters have participated in ongoing protests against the legislation, blocking highways and trains into New Delhi and calling for strikes to demand the government roll back the laws.
The labor reform laws that passed in the same period will allow more companies to fire workers without government permission and make it harder for workers to unionize and for unions to go on strike.
Business groups largely support the national labor law reforms, believing they will encourage foreign investment and help businesses expand. But labor unions oppose the reforms. In September, when India’s Parliament approved the farm and labor bills, more than 10 major Indian trade unions joined the farmer-led protests against the government.