Two weeks ago, the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, Fla., collapsed. Fifty-four people are confirmed to have died, while 86 remain missing. The collapse has begun to spark a broader conversation about aging condo buildings, which house roughly one of every five Americans.
Axios Re:Cap talks to Peter Coy of Bloomberg Businessweek about the fundamental flaws of condo management and conflict surrounding owners and maintenance.
Toyota has announced it will cease donations to Republicans who objected to the certification of President Biden's electoral college victory.
Driving the news: The company revealed its decision, first reported by the Detroit News, in a statement on Thursday, saying it understood that its PAC's donations to those objectors, which far outpaced those of any other company, "troubled some stakeholders."
The share price of AMC — currently at about $45, up from around $7 pre-pandemic — makes very little sense when viewed through a classical corporate-finance lens. But meta-game theory might help.
Why it matters: AMC CEO Adam Aron has embraced the Reddit army that has rocketed his stock to the moon — at least up to a point. But he has also tried to take advantage of them by selling as much new equity as he can.
Nearly all financial innovation involves some kind of regulatory arbitrage, but cryptocurrency was conceived as an anarcho-libertarian dream of trustless, decentralized finance.
Why it matters: Crypto exchange Binance has emerged as the biggest player in the game, and so far it has successfully managed to exist in a kind of regulatory limbo.
Show me a fast-growing fintech, whether in crypto or anywhere else, and I'll show you a company struggling to scale its compliance operation.
Driving the news: Robinhood, fresh off last week's $70 million FINRA fine, is planning to pay another eight-figure fine to the New York State Department of Financial Services, for violating cybersecurity and anti-money-laundering regulations.
China's leadership is deeply suspicious of the international financial system, and wants to ensure that the Chinese Communist Party remains the absolute power in the land, unthreatened by fast-growing corporate giants.
What's new: That lesson was learned the hard way this week by Didi, but the repercussions are likely to be much larger. Already, Chinese fitness app Keep has decided to scrap its planned $500 million IPO in New York.
Venture capitalists invested $288 billion in the first half of 2021, an all-time record, per Crunchbase.
By the numbers: Venture capitalists invested $140 billion into U.S.-based startups in the first half of 2021, anall-time record, per Ernst & Young. At that pace, the 2020 total should be surpassed in a matter of days.
European regulators on Thursday announced a $1 billion fine against the Volkswagen Group and BMW for running afoul of antitrust rules by "colluding on technical development in the area of nitrogen oxide cleaning."
Driving the news: The European Commission's Margrethe Vestager, the top antitrust official, said the settlement is about "how legitimate technical cooperation went wrong."
Talk about tapering just got interesting. New details about the Federal Open Market Committee's June meeting provide a glimpse into the debate over scaling back the central bank's quantitative easing program.
Why it matters: QE is an emergency monetary policy tool that involves large-scale purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in an effort to keep the bond markets liquid and functional.
Americans workingin leisure and hospitality are quitting their jobs at a record pace.
Why it matters: Labor shortages have been affecting numerous industries. But it's been particularly acute in leisure and hospitality as increasingly vaccinated consumers take their delayed vacations and rush back to restaurants, bars and live events.
The union workers who build the nation's internet networks have a huge stake in how Congress decides to divvy up infrastructure funding— and they want strings attached to make sure they're not left on the sidelines.
Why it matters: The telecom workers' union sees an ally in President Joe Biden for its pressure campaign to ensure union members will play a role in infrastructure-funded jobs.
Clearco, which provides non-dilutive, revenue-based financing to internet startups, has raised $215 million in a Series C extension from SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
Why it matters: This isn't the first time SoftBank is backing a business banking on the startup economy—WeWork's early popularity was also driven by a new boom in startups.
Heart medications Vyndaqel and Vyndamax generated $1.3 billion of global revenue last year for Pfizer and already brought in $453 million in the first quarter of this year.
Why it matters: The blockbuster drugs could grow significantly more if Pfizer wins its pending lawsuit and is allowed to pay the out-of-pocket expenses of Medicare patients who are prescribed the $225,000-a-year treatment.
A federal judge will soon determine whether Pfizer can pay Medicare patients' out-of-pocket expenses for one of its heart medications that is priced at $225,000 per year.
Why it matters: A ruling in Pfizer's favor would legalize something that is viewed as a kickback under current law, and would jeopardize taxpayer coffers by spurring a "gold rush" of pharmaceutical companies to cover Medicare copays for expensive drugs.
Fort Lauderdale officials have accepted a proposal from Elon Musk's The Boring Company to build a tunnel between the Florida city's downtown area and the beach.
Driving the news: Mayor Dean Trantalis (D) said in a statement announcing the agreement Tuesday night that the venture would be "a truly innovative way to reduce traffic congestion."
