Vietnamese Warehouse Equipment Maker Sues Amazon, Musk once again sold Tesla shares, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc Has Problems With High Costs
Aa
Share
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc continues to cut costs and expects restructuring costs to increase by up to $1 billion than anticipated less than two months ago. Amazon sued for breach of contract. Once again, Elon Musk decided to sell Tesla shares, leaving himself 13.4%.
Amazon is sued
The Vietnamese warehouse equipment maker says in a lawsuit filed in New York on Tuesday that it has dramatically expanded its operations in eight years to accommodate Amazon's rapid growth. This included setting up more manufacturing facilities, more than doubling the workforce, and cutting ties with other large retail clients such as IKEA, Columbia Sportswear Co. and Decathlon S.A.
Gilimex said Amazon scaled up its purchases in 2020 and 2021, when e-commerce sales were booming as the pandemic shifted consumer behavior, then sharply pulled back orders this year as online sales growth slowed.
Gilimex said the partnership was built on "trust" and Gilimex relied on the accuracy of Amazon's forecasts to make appropriate investments to meet demand, including purchasing materials and arranging capacity and manpower to meet the US company's needs.
The lawsuit, which alleges breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unfair trade practices and negligent misrepresentation, was filed in the New York State Supreme Court.
The lawsuit said the change resulted in "immediate and virtually complete destruction of Gilimex's business."
Gilimex seeks approximately $280 million in damages to recover costs.
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc and cost problems
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc, whose holding companies include film and television studios, CNN and HBO, and Discovery channels such as Food Network and HGTV, said in a statement Wednesday that it expects to incur pre-tax restructuring costs of as much as $5.3 billion by 2024. In October, it said it anticipated as much as $4.3 billion in restructuring fees.
Since the conclusion of the Discovery and WarnerMedia merger earlier this year, there have been significant layoffs, including executives at the major units.
Many high-profile projects and programs have also been killed or cancelled.
Warner Bros. Discovery said it still expects restructuring initiatives to be completed by the end of 2024. Last month, the company raised its cost synergy target to $3.5 billion from $3 billion. It also has debt of about $50 billion.
The company's shares fell 1.1% in Wednesday's after-hours trading.
Musk holds 13.4% of Tesla shares
Musk sold nearly 22 million Tesla shares in the three days ending December 14.
This week's sale means Tesla's CEO has sold more than $39 billion worth of Tesla shares since the company's shares peaked in November 2021. Tesla, still the world's most valued carmaker by value.
Tesla's CEO previously sold the company's shares in April, August and November this year, linking the last two batches of sales to Twitter. This month's sale leaves Musk with about 13.4% of Tesla, meaning he remains by far the company's largest shareholder. Still, the sale of shares could weaken his control over Tesla.
It wasn't clear what prompted Musk to sell the extra Tesla shares.
Mr Musk's focus on Twitter has irked some Tesla investors as the company tracks its worst annual stock price performance ever.
Read next: Given the peculiarities of the US labor market and the high labor mobility, the acceptable unemployment rate is considered to be 5.0%| FXMAG.COM
Tesla shares closed up 2.58% on Wednesday at $156.80, their lowest level in more than two years. The company's stock price drop of around 55% in 2022 overshadowed that of the Nasdaq Composite, which has fallen around 29% since the beginning of the year.
Source: wsj.com, finance.yahoo.com
