COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Unilever faces a dilemmaUnilever faces a dilemma after its 50-billion-pound (US$68 billion) offer for GlaxoSmithKline's consumer healthcare assets was rejected.The bid for GSK's assets, including Sensodyne toothpaste and Advil painkillers, comes as Unilever is dealing with steep inflation and sluggish growth in emerging markets, where it derives 60% of its revenues.Chief Executive Alan Jope, in the role since 2019, is also facing shareholder pressure over a languishing stock price, which fell as much as 8% on Monday after its bid became public.Analysts said digesting GSK's consumer health assets at a price of over 50 billion pounds in cash and stock, would nearly triple Unilever's leverage towards 5.6 times in the first year from 2 times net debt to EBITDA currently."The leverage implied by such a deal would make it less likely they turn around their core business," Bernstein analyst Bruno Monteyne said, pointing to Unilever's added balance sheet pressure and limited ability to invest behind brands. -ReutersCitigroup CEO to convince investorsCitigroup Inc Chief Executive Jane Fraser faces a struggle to convince skeptical analysts and investors that she can turn the bank around despite overseeing a radical overhaul in less than a year at the helm.Fraser took over at the helm of the Wall Street bank in February 2021, tasked with transforming a business whose share price had lagged rivals like JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America during her predecessor Michael Corbat's eight years at the helm.Since her appointment, she has sought to simplify the firm, overseeing its biggest revamp since the 2007-09 financial crisis. The bank announced plans to exit non-core businesses, including consumer franchises in 13 markets across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa last April.On Tuesday, it doubled down, saying it planned to sell or spin-off its Mexican consumer business, which Fraser had run as head of the bank's Latin American businesses, prior to becoming CEO.The bank went further still on Thursday, announcing the sale of its consumer businesses in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. -ReutersStarbucks expands delivery servicesStarbucks said on Tuesday it has entered into a partnership with China's Meituan that will allow its Chinese customers to order coffee delivery via the super-app's platform.The move will expand the US coffee chain's delivery footprint in China, which has since 2018 used Alibaba Group's Ele.me as its exclusive delivery partner.The two companies will also launch a service which will allow Meituan users to make private bookings for tasting of coffees and learning to make them at Starbucks stores, it said.Starbucks has 5360 stores in more than 200 Chinese cities, making it the second largest market only after the United States, according to the company's most recent earnings report.The company also said it would utilise Meituan's "super store" feature under the partnership which will see each of its stores have their own unique page on Meituan's platforms by the end of this year, from which customers can book food delivery services or check local events. -ReutersStellantis to tackle Tesla and ChinaIf playing catch up with Tesla is what everyone in the auto industry is about then Stellantis, the company formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, has had a good start its shares have far outpaced its US rival in its inaugural year.Fixing its business in China and overcapacity in Europe are just two areas where analysts want to see Stellantis making progress when Chief Executive Carlos Tavares unveils his detailed business plan on March 1.After all, despite its shares surging more than 60% since their debut on Jan. 18, 2021 compared with a 27% gain for Tesla's, Stellantis' market value of 59 billion euros (US$67 billion) is still just 6% of its US rival's.A strong first year augurs well, though, with Jefferies analysts saying Tavares has shown vision and ambition with a "sustained stream of strategic initiatives."Since forging the world's No. 4 carmaker by production, Tavares has mapped out a 30-billion-euro electrification strategy, and formed alliances with Amazon and iPhone assembler Foxconn to accelerate development of software and semiconductors for future connected vehicles. -ReutersActivision Blizzard fires more peopleActivision Blizzard Inc said on Monday it has fired or pushed out more than three dozen employees and disciplined another 40 since July to address allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct at the videogame company.After completing reviews, "37 employees have exited the company and another 44 received written reprimands, formal warnings or other discipline," the company said, confirming a report in the Wall Street Journal.The maker of the "Call of Duty" game said it was still working on an interim update and had not yet notified employees.But Activision denied Chief Executive Bobby Kotick held back a summary of the information which had been scheduled for release "before the winter holidays," as the Journal reported."An interim update to our employees is still being worked on and the company remains committed to continuing to provide periodic updates on its progress," the company said in a statement to Reuters. -Reuters

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