Business

Private Equity Is Starting to Share With Workers, Without Taking a Financial Hit

Private Equity Is Starting to Share With Workers, Without Taking a Financial Hit

In 2018, Anna-Lisa Miller was working with agricultural cooperatives in Hawaii, helping them reinvest in their communities through shared ownership.Ms. Miller, who had gone to law school and had planned to do civil rights litigation, loved the principle of workers partaking in the financial success of their employers, and the next year joined Project Equity, a nonprofit that helps small businesses transition to worker ownership. But it was slow going, with each transaction requiring customized assistance.Then she came across an investor presentation from a different universe: KKR, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. In it, a KKR executive,…
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Edward E. Crutchfield, 82, Dies; Banker’s Deals Reshaped the Industry

Edward E. Crutchfield, 82, Dies; Banker’s Deals Reshaped the Industry

Edward E. Crutchfield, a banker who grew a small North Carolina bank into one of the nation’s largest through a deal-making spree that earned him the nickname Fast Eddie and helped establish Charlotte, N.C., as a national financial hub, died on Jan. 2 at his home in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 82.His death was confirmed by his son, Elliott, who said his father had dementia.When Mr. Crutchfield graduated from business school in 1965, he took a job as a credit analyst at the First Union bank in Charlotte. It was the lowest-paying job he was offered, but he thought…
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Taking on Trump, Biden Promotes ‘Infrastructure Decade’ in Wisconsin

Taking on Trump, Biden Promotes ‘Infrastructure Decade’ in Wisconsin

Consumer confidence is up. Fears of a recession are abating. The economy is growing. And a corroded bridge in Wisconsin is receiving more funding.It is a wintry mix of positive news for President Biden, who traveled to the shores of a bay near Lake Superior on Thursday to stand at the foot of the Blatnik Bridge, a structure that his administration said would have failed by 2030 without a $1 billion infusion provided by the bipartisan infrastructure law that Mr. Biden championed.The president was there to talk infrastructure and the economy, and to contrast his performance with that of his…
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Netflix is Said to License ‘Sex and the City’ From HBO

Netflix is Said to License ‘Sex and the City’ From HBO

HBO is renting out one of its most valuable series to Netflix.Every season of “Sex and the City,” the HBO comedy that aired from 1998 to 2004, will begin streaming on Netflix for the first time in early April, according to three people familiar with the deal.HBO had a longstanding policy of not licensing its shows to Netflix until last year, when it sent over titles including “Six Feet Under,” “Insecure,” “Band of Brothers,” “The Pacific” and “Ballers.” Several of these older series quickly leaped into Top 10 most-watched streaming lists after they began appearing on Netflix.Now “Sex and the…
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War Has Already Hurt the Economies of Israel’s Nearest Neighbors

War Has Already Hurt the Economies of Israel’s Nearest Neighbors

In the Red Sea, attacks by Iranian-backed Houthi militants on commercial ships continue to disrupt a crucial trade route and raise shipping costs. The threat of escalation there and around flash points in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and now Iran and Pakistan ratchets up every day.Despite the staggering death toll and wrenching misery of the violence in the Middle East, the broader economic impact so far has been mostly contained. Oil production and prices, a critical driver of worldwide economic activity and inflation, have returned to pre-crisis levels. International tourists are still flying into other countries in the Middle East…
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The U.S. Seems to Be Dodging a Recession. What Could Go Wrong?

The U.S. Seems to Be Dodging a Recession. What Could Go Wrong?

With inflation falling, unemployment low and the Federal Reserve signaling it could soon begin cutting interest rates, forecasters are becoming increasingly optimistic that the U.S. economy could avoid a recession.Wells Fargo last week became the latest big bank to predict that the economy will achieve a soft landing, gently slowing rather than screeching to a halt. The bank’s economists had been forecasting a recession since the middle of 2022.Yet if forecasters were wrong when they predicted a recession last year, they could be wrong again, this time in the opposite direction. The risks that economists highlighted in 2023 haven’t gone…
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A Fed Governor Reiterates That Rate Cuts Are Coming

A Fed Governor Reiterates That Rate Cuts Are Coming

A prominent Federal Reserve official on Tuesday laid out a case for lowering interest rates methodically at some point this year as the economy comes into balance and inflation cools — although he acknowledged that the timing of those cuts remained uncertain.Christopher Waller, one of the Fed’s seven Washington-based officials and one of the 12 policymakers who get to vote at its meetings, said during a speech at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday that he saw a case for cutting interest rates in 2024.“The data we have received the last few months is allowing the committee to consider cutting the…
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Tesla Drivers in Chicago Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

Tesla Drivers in Chicago Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

Charging stations in Norway see longer lines in the winter than summer, since vehicles are slower to charge in colder weather, but that has become less of an issue in recent years since Norway has built more charging ports, Mr. Godbolt said, citing a recent survey of members. Also, the majority of people in Norway live in houses, not apartments, and nearly 90 percent of electric vehicle owners have their own charging stations at home, he said.Around the world, 14 percent of all new cars sold in 2022 were electric, up from 9 percent in 2021 and less than 5…
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New U.S. Solar and Electric Car Factories Face Familiar Challenge: China

New U.S. Solar and Electric Car Factories Face Familiar Challenge: China

The Biden administration has begun pumping more than $2 trillion into U.S. factories and infrastructure, investing huge sums to try to strengthen American industry and fight climate change.But the effort is facing a familiar threat: a surge of low-priced products from China. That is drawing the attention of President Biden and his aides, who are considering new protectionist measures to make sure American industry can compete against Beijing.As U.S. factories spin up to produce electric vehicles, semiconductors and solar panels, China is flooding the market with similar goods, often at significantly lower prices than American competitors. A similar influx is…
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D.E.I. Goes Quiet – The New York Times

D.E.I. Goes Quiet – The New York Times

Joelle Emerson’s D.E.I. consultancy, Paradigm, works with more than 500 companies. The growing backlash against D.E.I., she said, “is usually the first agenda item on every call.”Critics of D.E.I., or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, have tried to scapegoat it for everything from regional bank failures to a panel’s ripping off a Boeing plane in flight last week. That debate gathered pace this month as three famous billionaires clashed over D.E.I.’s merits on social media: Elon Musk and Pershing Square’s chief executive, Bill Ackman, have attacked D.E.I. efforts as “racist,” while the investor Mark Cuban argued that they were “good…
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