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Investors Chronicle: JD Sports, AstraZeneca, Virgin Money UK

Companies analysis from our sister publication




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Frontier Developments chairman sells down

Share price surges after news breaks of deal with Games Workshop




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Dropping Flynn case turns Barr into Trump’s political sword

Pardoning cronies is offensive but precedented. Using DoJ to go after enemies is Nixonian




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Can companies still afford to care about sustainability?

Will environmental and social initiatives survive Covid-19? Our specialists answered your questions




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Warren Buffett held the wrong stocks as the music stopped

Few investors went into this crisis with a portfolio they were entirely happy with




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Asian governments boost dollar borrowing to fight coronavirus

Countries in region issue debt at close to fastest rate in a decade due to pandemic




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Bain Capital makes $1bn bet on Japan’s nursing homes

Private equity bid for Nichii Gakkan could set a template for future management buyouts




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Private equity managers rebuked over slashing US doctor pay

Row escalates between Elizabeth Warren, Blackstone and KKR after coronavirus crisis prompts cuts




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‘50 cent’ gold fund tops European performance charts

Ruffer precious metal and Baillie Gifford tech vehicles shine during market turbulence




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Schneider Electric warns of €300m hit from coronavirus

French group braced for revenue losses this quarter despite reopening most of its China factories




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VW chief defies sceptics with ambitious plans to overtake Tesla

Herbert Diess wants to sell 26m emission-free vehicles in 9 years, overtaking rivals including Californian electric pioneer




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Porsche chief warns battery costs will hit carmaker profits

Blume says industry faces supply constraints because of production ‘bottleneck’




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GM to boost electric car investment after battery breakthrough

US carmaker raises spending on EV and autonomous vehicles to $20bn by 2025




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PSA and BMW lead race to cut emissions in Europe

Early winners and losers emerge as carmakers scramble to hit tough new targets




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Companies’ supply chains vulnerable to coronavirus shocks

Shortages of components likely to be far worse than expected, warn experts




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Chinese buyer of British Steel to pursue French arm

Jingye to keep close contact with Paris as it completes takeover and saves 3,200 jobs




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Coronavirus puts electric carmakers on alert over lithium supplies

Battery maker Livent says industry is looking to diversify away from China




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VW still aiming for ID.3 electric car rollout by August

Group faces large fines if it fails to sell enough battery-powered vehicles in 2020




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1m car workers in Europe hit by coronavirus shutdowns

Heavy toll on jobs through lay-offs and cuts in pay and hours as one of region’s key industries comes to ‘abrupt halt’




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Continental auto profit margins fall to zero

German supplier scraps outlook and warns smaller contractors could go out of business




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Ventilator standards set out for UK makers ‘of no use’ to Covid patients 

Ministers’ challenge to manufacturers sets basic specifications that are not suitable to task, say experts 




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Ferguson sticks with main listing in UK after sounding out investors

FTSE 100 plumbing supplier runs into opposition from shareholders over switch to US




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Chinese carmakers move into Myanmar to battle Japanese rivals

Soueast Motor and GAC take advantage of rules favouring locally made vehicles




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Co-founder of Chinese carmaker Qoros sells half his stake

Idan Ofer’s Kenon offloads shares to majority owner Baoneng in $237m deal




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Taiwan’s ‘hidden champions’ help coronavirus fightback

Race by machine tool makers to boost mask output underlines importance to economy




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Diet autopilot Thistle raises $5M for health food subscriptions

What if it was easier to eat salad than junk food? Most diet routines take a ton of time, whether you’re cooking from scratch, making a meal kit or seeking a nutritious restaurant. But on-demand prepared food delivery companies like Sprig that tried to eliminate that work have gone bankrupt from poor unit economics. Thistle […]




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Tesla ramps up solar tile roof installations in US, eyes China and Europe expansion

Tesla appears to be ramping up installations of its solar tile roofs in the San Francisco Bay area and will eventually roll out to Europe and China, according to CEO Elon Musk, who, in a series of tweets, provided the first substantial update since the company launched the third iteration of its product in October. […]




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Tesla Model 3 makes Consumer Reports ‘Top Picks’ list for 2020

Tesla’s Model 3 is among the top 10 choices for car buyers in 2020, according to Consumer Reports. The nonprofit organization released its “Top Picks” of the year on Thursday, and it included Tesla’s most affordable vehicle alongside cars from automakers including Toyota, Subaru, Honda, Kia and Lexus. The Model 3 was chosen as one […]




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EV fleet management gets another venture-backed contender as Electriphi raises $3.5 million

Electriphi, a provider of charging management and fleet monitoring software for electric vehicles, has joined the scrum of startups looking to provide services to the growing number of electric vehicle fleets in the U.S. The San Francisco-based company has just raised $3.5 million in seed funding from investors, including Wireframe Ventures, the Urban Innovation Fund […]




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Boom says its supersonic XB-1 aircraft test program will be ‘fully carbon neutral’

Commercial aviation isn’t typically the place to look if you’re after carbon-light initiatives. Jet fuel isn’t generally very green, and airplanes burn a lot of it when traversing the skies. But supersonic flight startup Boom wants to change the perception of commercial aviation as an emissions-costly prospect, starting with their testing development program for the […]




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Citroën introduces a two-seat EV that costs €19.99 a month

The Citroën Ami is a new take on urban mobility. It’s electric, cheap and doesn’t require a license. In short, it’s less of a car and more of an electric scooter with two seats, doors and a heater. Jokes aside, the Citroën Ami could be a glimpse at the future of mobility. The innovation isn’t […]




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Sustainable microgrids are the future of clean energy

Across the U.S., sustainable microgrids are emerging as a vital tool in the fight against climate change and increasingly common natural disasters.





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European lawmakers propose a ‘right to repair’ for mobiles and laptops

The European Commission has set out a plan to move towards a ‘right to repair’ for electronics devices, such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops. More generally it wants to restrict single-use products, tackle “premature obsolescence” and ban the destruction of unsold durable goods — in order to make sustainable products the norm. The proposals […]




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Zume co-founder goes from pizza to climate-friendly food with $2.7 million in funding

Before leaving SoftBank-backed Zume Pizza in November 2018, co-founder Julia Collins knew what her next move would be: climate-friendly food. Today, Collins is announcing Planet FWD’s $2.7 million seed round led by BBG Ventures with participation from Cleo Capital, Cowboy Ventures, Precursor Ventures, Kapor Capital and others. What’s unique about this round, Collins told TechCrunch, […]




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YC graduate Genecis Bioindustries turns food waste into compostable plastics

Unfortunately, the world doesn’t have a constant quantity of problems, and while governments and most private businesses are focused on tackling the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, companies like Genecis Bioindustries are working on technologies to solve another major problem: climate change. For over a decade, sustainability advocates and entrepreneurs have been searching for a way to […]




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Vericool raises $19.1 million for its plant-based packaging replacement for plastic coolers

Vericool, a Livermore, Calif.-based startup that’s replacing plastic coolers and packaging with plant-based products, has raised $19.1 million in a new round of financing. The company’s stated goal is to replace traditional packaging materials like polystyrene with plant-based insulating packaging materials. Its technology uses 100% recycled paper fibers and other plant-based materials, according to the […]




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Microsoft’s new ‘Planetary Computer’ project will use global environmental data to support sustainability

Microsoft is embarking on a new sustainability initiative as part of its overall approach to support environmental protection measures, with a project it calls the “Planetary Computer.” This will actually be a computing endeavor that uses aggregated global environmental data collected from a number of sources as its input, and that will seek to employ […]




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NASA and Planet expand imagery partnership to all NASA-funded Earth science research

NASA and Planet have deemed their pilot partnership a success, and the result is that NASA will extend its contract with Planet to provide the company’s satellite imagery of Earth to all research programs funded by the agency. NASA had signed an initial contract last April with Planet to provide Planet imagery to a team […]




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Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator reboots its incubation program with 16-member cohort

The Los Angeles Cleantch Incubator is rebooting its incubator program and moving from rolling applications to a cohort model beginning with 16 new startups.  Los Angeles’ not-for-profit incubator exchanges sweat equity in the form of services and office space, and the promise of $20,000 in funding for local pilot projects, for a 1.5% to 3% […]




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Google data centers watch the weather to make the most of renewable energy

Google’s data centers run 24/7 and suck up a ton of energy — so it’s in both the company’s and the planet’s interest to make them do so as efficiently as possible. One new method has the facilities keeping an eye on the weather so they know when the best times are to switch to […]




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Our love of the cloud is making a green energy future impossible

Mark Mills Contributor Share on Twitter Mark Mills is the author of the book, “Digital Cathedrals: The Information Infrastructure Era,” and is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Faculty Fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering, and a partner in Cottonwood Venture Partners, an energy-tech venture fund. An epic number of citizens […]




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Is it better to be a private or public company right now?

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Every week we write this post with some opening line akin to wow, what a week, huh? This is yet another one of those weeks. Perhaps this is just life now, and every week will stretch before us, similar to […]




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Microsoft and AWS exchange poisoned pen blog posts in latest Pentagon JEDI contract spat

Microsoft and Amazon are at it again as the fight for the Defense Department JEDI contract continues. In a recent series of increasingly acerbic pronouncements, the two companies continue their ongoing spat over the $10 billion, decade-long JEDI contract spoils. As you may recall (or not), last fall in a surprise move, the DoD selected […]




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Boston Dynamics’ Spot is patrolling a Singapore park to encourage social distancing

Since announcing the commercial availability of Spot, Boston Dynamics has presented a range of different gigs for the robot, from construction to telepresence. Last month, the company announced it was partnering with local hospitals interested in using the platform to perform remote visits for COVID-19 victims. Turns out the global pandemic has spurred all manner […]





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Facebook’s redesign goes live with simplified navigation and dark mode

After months of testing, Facebook’s redesign is finally official. Announced last year at F8, the more minimalist approach to its desktop design has been rolled out in waves. In March, the company added an option to try out the new version. Users could switch back and leave feedback for why they had done so. This […]




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Tesla prepares to bring back 30% of Fremont factory workers in spite of county order

Tesla is aiming to ramp up “limited operations” at its factory in Fremont, Calif., a decision that puts the company and its CEO Elon Musk in direct conflict with a stay-at-home order in Alameda County. Update: On Friday, Alameda County health officials said the automaker was told not to reopen. Employees received two emails — […]




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VCs see opportunities for gaming infrastructure startups and incumbents

As the infrastructure for developing games becomes more advanced, studios have turned to buying best-in-class technology from others instead of building everything from scratch (often with inferior quality). This shift underpinned Unity’s rise as the most popular game engine. The current focus on games as ever-evolving social hubs that can remain popular for a decade […]




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Google’s Duo video chat app gets a family mode with doodles and masks

Google today launched an update to its Duo video chat app (which you definitely shouldn’t confuse with Hangouts or Google Meet, Google’s other video, audio and text chat apps). There are plenty of jokes to be made about Google’s plethora of chat options, but Duo is trying to be a bit different from Hangouts and […]