More fun for Facebook, just a day after it revealed a coming FTC fine, with the news on Thursday that Canadian privacy commissioners “violated national and local laws in allowing third parties access to private user information through ‘superficial and ineffective safeguards and consent mechanisms’” – NYTimes and WSJ
And the Canadians aren’t alone – NYTimes
$90 billion. That’s the staggering valuation figure that Uber’s aiming for based on the latest information about its planned IPO price range. If all goes to plan, that could mean $8 to 10 billion in the door when all’s said and done with the offering – Bloomberg and NYTimes
Telecom equipment maker Avaya Holdings announced that it’s in talks to merge with rival Mitel Networks Corp. “in a stock deal worth more than $2 billion” – WSJ
Carlos Ghosn has posted a multimillion-dollar bond for a second time, securing his release from jail in Japan weeks after prosecutors charged him with new aggravated breach of trust counts – NYTimes
Meanwhile, Renault—one of the partners in Ghosn former automaking empire—is shopping plans to propose a 50% partnership with Nissan, the very outcome that likely prompted insiders at Nissan to bring down Ghosn in the first place – WSJ
More than 10 years removed from the financial crisis, Morgan Stanley has agreed to pay $150 million to resolve State of California claims that “it misled investors about the risks” of MBS sold to state pension funds for public employees and teachers. The case was the bank’s last related to crisis-era mortgage-related products – NYTimes and Law360
The beta version of regulators’ Volcker Rule revamp looks much friendlier to Wall Street than the original 2018 effort that many bankers objected to thanks to its requirement that they apply accounting standards to certain transactions. Here are some details of the re-redraft – Bloomberg
A rough Q1 that saw net sales fall 5% thanks to slowing demand in China and other markets pushed 3M to restructure its business and announce plans for job cuts affecting 2,000 workers – WSJ and Bloomberg and MarketWatch
Microsoft, on the other hand, jumped past Apple and Amazon on Thursday to briefly flirt with the $1 trillion valuation mark, the latest sign of a major rally among tech stocks that are again beckoning investors – NYTimes and WSJ
US Q1 GDP estimates are out today as well. Here’s what we’re watching – NYTimes
The American Mall’s big (and unexpected) savior? Bloomberg says it just might be Gen Z – Bloomberg
We’ve got the inside scoop on Paris’s new museum, the $170 million Bourse de Commerce project that’s the baby of French billionaire Francois Pinault, “whose collection consists of about 5,000 works by artists such as Jeff Koons, Cy Twombly, and Cindy Sherman” – NYTimes
Have a great weekend.
