– The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether recent stock sales by Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk and his brother Kimbal Musk “violated insider trading rules”, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the report, the investigation began last year after Kimbal sold shares of the electric carmaker valued at $108 million, a day before Musk polled Twitter users asking whether he should offload 10% of his stake in Tesla.

Kimbal Musk did not know about the Twitter poll ahead of it, Elon Musk told the Financial Times in an email, adding that his lawyers were “aware” of the poll.

An earlier settlement with the SEC required his public statements about the company’s finances and other topics to be vetted by its legal counsel.

The SEC issued a subpoena on Nov. 16, ten days after Musk’s poll, seeking information related to some financial data.

The potential probe would escalate Musk’s battle with regulators as they scrutinize his social media posts and Tesla’s treatment of workers, including accusations of discrimination.

Last week, Musk accused the SEC of harassing him and Tesla with an “endless” and “unrelenting” investigation to punish him for being an outspoken critic of the government.

Elon Musk’s share sales in November were automatically executed according to a trading plan he had created on Sept. 14, showed a filing disclosing share sales, including stock options that were supposed to expire in 2022.

Tesla’s stock has fallen about 33% since Musk began selling billions of dollars worth of shares on Nov. 8, few days after the poll where 58% of voters asked him to sell.

Tesla and Kimbal Musk did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

By Christoph Steitz

FRANKFURT -Volkswagen and its top shareholder Porsche SE on Thursday fleshed out details of a possible listing of luxury carmaker Porsche, edging closer to what could become one of the world’s largest stock market debuts.

In case of an initial public offering, the share capital of Porsche AG would be equally split into preferred and ordinary shares and up to a quarter of the preferred stock would be placed on the market, Volkswagen said, confirming an earlier Reuters story.

This implies a potential placement and free float of up to 12.5% of Porsche AG’s total share capital, or more than 10 billion euros ($11.2 billion) when using a valuation of around 90 billion.

Ordinary shares, which would solely be owned by Volkswagen and Porsche SE under the plans, would not be publicly listed, a spokesperson said.

“The automotive industry is changing fundamentally. Volkswagen is determined to play a leading role in a world of zero-emission and autonomous mobility,” Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess said.

“An IPO of Porsche AG would give us additional flexibility to further accelerate the transformation. Porsche AG would gain more entrepreneurial freedom and at the same time continue to benefit from group synergies.”

According to the framework agreement, Porsche SE, which owns a 31.4% equity stake in Volkswagen and 53.3% of the voting rights, would buy 25% plus one share of Porsche AG’s ordinary shares from Volkswagen at a 7.5% premium to the placement price of the preferred shares.

The would give the Porsche and Piech families, which control Porsche SE, a blocking minority in the listed carmaker that was founded by their ancestor Ferdinand Porsche in 1931.

Volkswagen said it would propose that shareholders, which apart from Porsche SE include Qatar and the German state of Lower Saxony, receive 49% of the gross proceeds the carmaker will generate via the sale of preferred and ordinary shares.

Qatar, which owns 14.6% in Volkswagen and 17% of its voting rights, would also become a strategic investor in Porsche AG’s preferred shares in case of an IPO, Volkswagen said.

Stephan Weil, state premier of Lower Saxony, Volkswagen’s third-largest shareholder, said the state was supporting the presented framework agreement.

($1 = 0.8935 euros)

(Reporting by Christoph Steitz; additional reporting by Zuzanna Szymanska; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

By Paul Lienert

– General Motors aims to turbocharge its non-vehicle revenue by introducing dozens of new fee-based digital features by 2026, including one enabling a car to predict when it will need maintenance, a top executive said on Thursday.

“We have 50-some value-added products and services that we’ll be rolling out over the next 36 to 48 months,” Steve Carlisle, president of GM North America, said at an investor conference.

Carlysle said GM’s OnStar unit, which now offers insurance in addition to concierge services to drivers, generates about $32 a month per customer, and its enhanced Super Cruise driver assist feature will further bolster that.

The new digital products, including in-vehicle subscriptions, will be supported by GM’s Ultifi software and connectivity platform. Ultifi also will enable over-the-air software updates, and help drivers and passengers with tasks such as online shopping.

Carlysle said some of the digital features are designed to take advantage of larger displays that GM is installing on the GMC Hummer EV, Chevrolet Silverado EV, Cadillac Lyriq and other future electric vehicles.

“The bigger screens on our EVs will enable us to bring more of the data-oriented software products to the customers,” he said.

He also said GM is considering flexible pricing options for a number of those digital features, including monthly, annual and lifetime subscriptions.

The introduction of more data-driven services and products is part of CEO Mary Barra’s plan, announced last October, to double GM’s annual revenue to around $280 billion by 2030.

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

– Hedge fund Sachem Head Capital Management has taken a stake in Anaplan Inc and may decide to press the business planning software company to make changes, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The position is said to be comprised of common shares and cash settled swaps, putting Sachem Head’s economic exposure in Anaplan at roughly 9%, the sources said.

A representative for Sachem Head did not immediately respond to a request for comment

San Francisco-headquartered Anaplan is valued at roughly $6 billion and counts a number of prominent hedge funds as well as big mutual funds among its investors.

Nine people, including Chief Executive Frank Calderoni, currently serve on Anaplan’s board of directors. It could not be determined whether Sachem Head, run by Scott Ferguson, has had private discussions with the company.

Anaplan’s stock price has tumbled 33% over the last two years while the technology-oriented Nasdaq index climbed 43% between February 2020 and now.

Sachem Head invests roughly $5 billion and last year gained 24%, beating the average activist investment firm’s returns.

The New York-based firm has a history of pushing for changes, and Ferguson currently has seats on the boards of chemical products maker Olin Corp and pharmaceutical company Elanco Animal Health Inc. Sachem Head traditionally invests in roughly two dozen companies.

Sachem Head is currently trying to take control of US Foods Holding Corp’s 10-member board and has nominated seven director candidates, including Ferguson.

News last month that software company Citrix Systems had agreed to be taken private for $16.5 billion including debt by affiliates of hedge fund Elliott Management and private equity firm Vista Equity Partners, has sparked talk that similar deals could be negotiated in the future.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Leslie Adler)

By Peter Frontini

SAO PAULO -Brazilian miner Vale SA on Thursday said it maintained “positive” expectations for the price of iron ore and nickel in the long term, two of its key products, after reporting quarterly earnings that beat analyst expectations.

“Our outlook for iron ore remains positive, given the recovery of the global economy,” Vale said after iron ore prices plunged in late November, hit by over-supply concerns and weaker steel demand. They have since recouped some of those losses.

The company, once the world’s top producer of the steel ingredient, said its fourth-quarter net profit nearly doubled to $5.4 billion. The growth was mainly due to the impact of a reclassification of cumulative foreign exchange gains, the company said.

The financial gains were partially offset by higher expenses related to the Brumadinho dam disaster, such as an additional provision of $1.7 billion related to upstream dams.

Vale’s earnings sustained an impact from last year’s iron ore price drop, but nickel has been on the rise for the past few years and the miner is betting that demand for the metal used in electric vehicles will continue to grow.

“This growth will favour high nickel-content batteries chemistry due to its higher energy density,” the miner said. “The North American supply chain is particularly dependent on this market dynamic.”

The company also said it expects a “slight surplus” in copper supply in the short term.

Vale reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) of $6.96 billion, down 24% from the same quarter of 2020 and also below the $7.10 billion reported in the previous quarter.

That reflects a lower realisation price for iron ore, its main product, the company said. In the quarter, Vale realised $106.8 per tonne of iron ore fines, down from the $126.7 reported in the third quarter.

In a separate filing also on Thursday, Vale announced the distribution of dividends to shareholders of 3.7018 reais per share, which would be equivalent to $3.5 billion, to be paid on March 16.

(Reporting by Peter Frontini, Marcelo Rochabrun and Roberto Samora; Editing by Leslie Adler, Christian Plumb and Kenneth Maxwell)

By David Lawder

WASHINGTON -The World Bank said on Thursday it was preparing options to provide immediate support to Ukraine’s government, as the development lender and the International Monetary Fund assess the economic fallout from the conflict in Ukraine.

“We stand ready to provide immediate support to Ukraine and are preparing options for such support, including fast-disbursing financing,” World Bank President David Malpass said in a statement, adding that the institution was “horrified by the shocking violence and loss of life” in Ukraine.

The statement came after Malpass told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday that the bank was preparing a $350 million disbursement to Ukraine for budget support by the end of March.

It was unclear, however, what resources may be available to aid Ukraine’s people if Zelenskiy’s democratically elected government is deposed by Russian forces.

In recent cases of abrupt shifts of government power by force, including coups in Myanmar and Sudan, the World Bank has suspended dealings with military-installed governments.

But in Afghanistan, which the Taliban took by force last August, the bank is seeking to use around $1 billion in a frozen Afghanistan trust fund for education, agriculture, health and family programs to ease a worsening humanitarian crisis.

NO REFERENCE TO AN “INVASION”

For Ukraine, Malpass said the World Bank was mobilizing a global crisis group to coordinate among its divisions and development partners to work on a rapid response. The bank is also coordinating closely with the IMF to assess the “far-reaching economic and social costs.”

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a tweet https://twitter.com/KGeorgieva/status/1496858061797011456?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet that she was “deeply concerned” about the conflict in Ukraine, which “adds significant economic risk for the region & the world.

“We are assessing the implications & stand ready to support our members as needed,” Georgieva said, echoing comments she made earlier this month.

Neither leader used the term “invasion” in their statements. Russia and Ukraine are members of both institutions, which were created at the end of the last major conflict in Europe, World War Two. The United States holds controlling interests in both organizations.

Malpass said the World Bank was also in active dialogue to support neighboring countries affected by the conflict “and will make additional resources available.”

The IMF and the World Bank also said they were working to keep remaining employees in Ukraine safe. Most of the World Bank’s Ukraine staff have relocated outside the country, though some remained for personal and family reasons.

“We will continue to identify options for those who have decided to not leave the country at this point,” Malpass said in an internal memo to the bank’s nearly 16,000 global employees.

A spokesperson for the IMF said the fund had been in contact with remaining local staff in the country.

(Reporting by David LawderEditing by Chris Reese and Leslie Adler)

By Tim Hepher

PARIS -French jet engine maker Safran said on Thursday it had enough titanium reserves for several months after increasing stocks of the metal since the start of the year as Western aerospace companies brace for fallout from the Ukraine crisis.

Safran, which uses titanium to make landing gear for long-haul jetliners as well as some aero engine parts, depends on Russia for less than half its requirements, although Russia’s VSMPO-AVISMA corporation remains its largest single supplier.

“We have been watching this situation for several weeks and have decided since the start of the year to increase our stocks of titanium especially through distributors in Germany,” Chief Executive Olivier Andries told reporters.

The French company – which together with General Electric co-owns the world’s largest jet engine manufacturer by units sold, CFM International – is also looking to diversify its sources of the metal.

Separately, Boston-based General Electric said it is not concerned about titanium supplies as its current inventory levels are comfortable. The company is also counting on a diversified supply base to address any shortfall.

“We have a lot of diversity in our sourcing across metals, including titanium,” a GE spokesperson said.

British engine maker Rolls-Royce said it was ramping up titanium supplies from outside Russia.

Western aerospace companies that rely heavily on long-term supply contracts with VSMPO-AVISMA have been increasing buffer stocks in case the metal is thrust into a potential trade war between Russia and the West, experts have said.

STRATEGIC SUPPLIER

Industry dependence on Russian supplies of the lightweight but strong metal adds a new strategic dimension to problems already clogging the global supply chain in the wake of the pandemic.

Safran’s boss spelled out the security implications of its decision to buy French supplier Aubert & Duval from mining firm Eramet, in a joint move with Airbus and investment firm Tikehau Ace Capital this week.

The superalloys group is the only Western supplier outside the United States capable of “elaborating” or developing new alloys needed to operate at ever-higher temperatures in an engine for a future Franco-German-led fighter, Andries said.

“For us it was fundamental to preserve these capabilities,” he said.

A&D also represents an alternative source of metal forgings which are currently in short supply. Output of the parts is dominated by companies in the United States where Andries said the aerospace industry’s supply chain pressures are “most acute”.

The A&D purchase does not mean Safran is shifting its overall strategy towards greater vertical integration in which manufacturers buy their own suppliers, but Safran stands ready to step in when strategic interests are at stake, Andries added.

Announcing 2021 results earlier, Safran said it did not exclude further bolt-on acquisitions.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher. Additional reporting by Rajesh Kumar Singh in Chicago and Paul Sandle in London. Editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Jane Merriman and Richard Pullin)

By Sheila Dang

-Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc has set up a special operations center to monitor the conflict in Ukraine, and it launched a feature so users in the country can lock their social media profiles for security, a company official said in Twitter posts on Thursday.

Twitter Inc on Wednesday posted tips on how users can secure their accounts against hacking, make sure their tweets are private and deactivate their accounts. The company tweeted the safety tips in English, Russian and Ukrainian.

Both social media platforms are often used by political activists and researchers to disseminate information during times of crisis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday also raised concerns about the spread of disinformation about the conflict on social media.

With one click, users in Ukraine can lock their profile to prevent users who are not their friends from downloading or sharing their profile picture, or seeing posts on their timeline, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said on Twitter.

On Wednesday, Twitter also shared information on how users can deactivate their account.

As the conflict in Ukraine escalated on Thursday, social media users took to platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter to post videos of evacuation lines, helicopters in the sky and anti-war protests in Russia.

On short-form video app TikTok, the hashtags “Russia” and “Ukraine” had 37.2 billion and 8.5 billion views, respectively.

(Reporting By Jeffrey Dastin in Palo Alto, Calif., Sheila Dang in Dallas and Elizabeth Culliford in New York; Editing by Mark Porter and Cynthia Osterman)

WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS – The United States and the European Union have opted not to cut Russia off from the SWIFT global interbank payments system as part of their sanctions against Moscow for invading Ukraine, but could revisit that issue, U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

Asked why that step was not taken, Biden told reporters the sanctions imposed against Russian banks exceeded the impact of cutting Russia off from SWIFT, and other countries had failed to agree on taking the additional step at this point.

“It is always an option,” Biden said. “But right now, that’s not the position that the rest of Europe wishes to take.”

Several EU sources had told Reuters before the sanctions were announced that the EU was unlikely to agree to the move, despite calls from various quarters to do so.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany – a key trading partner of Russia – opposed cutting off Russia’s access to the payment system at this point, but also suggested such a step could still follow at a later stage.

“It is very important that we agree those measures that have been prepared – and keep everything else for a situation where it may be necessary to go beyond that,” Scholz told reporters, responding to a question on SWIFT, as he arrived to an emergency summit set to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The foreign ministers of the Baltic states, once ruled from Moscow but now members of NATO and the EU, called on Thursday to stop Russia’s access to SWIFT.

Other EU member states are reluctant to make such a move because, while it would hit Russian banks hard, it would make it tough for European creditors to get their money back and Russia has in any case been building up an alternative payment system.

“Urgency and consensus is utmost priority at the moment,” said an EU diplomat, adding that at this stage it meant no move on SWIFT, because doing so would have such wide-ranging consequences, also in Europe.

Another EU diplomat said: “I am not aware of an agreement (on SWIFT sanctions) at this point.”

Data from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) shows that European lenders hold the lion’s share of the nearly $30 billion in foreign banks’ exposure to Russia.

Belgium-based SWIFT, a messaging network widely used by banks to send and receive money transfer orders or information, is overseen by central banks in the United States, Japan and Europe.

(Reporting by Jan Strupczewski, Gabriela Baczynska, John Chalmers, Robin Emmot in Brussels, and Steve Holland, Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose in Washington; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by John Chalmers and Marguerita Choy)

– Morgan Stanley said on Thursday U.S. regulators and prosecutors were probing various aspects of the investment bank’s block trading business.

The disclosure in a regulatory filing follows reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is probing whether financial executives may have broken rules by tipping off hedge funds ahead of large sales of shares, known as “block trades”.

The SEC is investigating Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, along with the U.S. Department of Justice, Reuters reported last week, citing a source with knowledge of the matter.

The bank said on Thursday that since June 2019, it has been responding to requests for information from the SEC related to the investigation of various aspects of the its block trading business.

Morgan Stanley also said since August last year it has been responding to requests for information from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in connection with its investigation.

Broker-dealers frequently buy and sell blocks of shares, either on behalf of clients or as part of a hedging strategy, which are large enough to move a company’s share price.

Block trading tends to increase during times of volatility, as institutional investors rebalance their portfolios.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

By Alun John, Samuel Shen and Dhara Ranasinghe

LONDON -Russia’s attack on Ukraine sparked volatility and fresh uncertainty in markets on Thursday, as investors scrambled to assess the conflict’s longer term implications for asset prices.

After sinking earlier in the session, U.S. stocks surged later in the day while haven assets such as gold and Treasuries unwound some of their earlier gains. Oil prices, which breached $100 for the first time since 2014, also eased.

Markets have already taken investors on a bumpy ride this year, with the S&P 500 down around 10% year-to-date on worries over a more hawkish Federal Reserve and heightened geopolitical strife.

The attack on Ukraine will likely add another layer of uncertainty to markets, increasing the potential for more gyrations, investors said.

“We are going to churn here for a while,” said Ken Polcari, managing partner at Kace Capital Advisors. “We are going to have very volatile days and weeks ahead.”

In the United States, the benchmark S&P 500 reversed earlier losses and closed up nearly 1.5%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 3.3%.

President Joe Biden unveiled harsh new sanctions against Russia on Thursday afternoon, but held back from imposing sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin himself and from disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT international banking system.

“Hard-hitting sanctions would not only punish Russia but also Europe, so the afternoon rebound embraced the not-so-hard second round of sanctions,” said OANDA’s Edward Moya in a note to investors.

The market’s initial knee-jerk reaction was typical of that seen during past geopolitical flare ups. Gold prices jumped to their highest in more than a year and the dollar surged more than 1% against a basket of its peers as investors piled into so-called safe haven assets.

Yields on U.S. Treasuries, another popular destination for nervous investors, initially tumbled more than 10 basis points.

“Heightened volatility on the escalation of the conflict shows markets had not fully priced in the likelihood of deeper conflict,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management, in a Thursday report.

The geopolitical uncertainty and wild asset price gyrations could mitigate expected monetary tightening from the Federal Reserve and other central banks in coming months, some market watchers believe.

OPPORTUNITY?

For some investors, the sharp equity market falls offered a buying opportunity.

“There are a lot of people talking about buying the dip so I’m sure there are a lot of portfolio managers out there with shopping lists,” said Matthew Tuttle, chief investment officer at Tuttle Capital Management.

“We… bought a little more into shippers and dropped more energy but not doing a whole lot beyond that,” said Tuttle, who is bearish on stocks over the longer term.

With price pressures across major economies already at their highest in decades, others dashed for inflation trades.

In addition to the surge in oil prices, wheat futures jumped to their highest since July 2012, soybean futures gained to a nine-year peak, and corn futures hit an eight-month high. [GRA/]

“Whether there will be a full-blown war or not, the simple strategy is to bet on a spike in inflation,” said Yuan Yuwei, a Chinese hedge fund manager at Water Wisdom Asset Management. “That means buying oil and agricultural products, and shorting consumer shares and U.S. growth stocks.”

Some investors were also looking at assets linked to Ukraine and Russia, which have been hit hard in recent days.

One portfolio manager at a U.S-based asset manager, who asked not to be named, reckoned Ukraine’s beaten-down bonds were a bargain “unless Putin fully occupies Ukraine.”

The premium demanded by investors to hold Ukrainian debt relative to U.S. Treasuries soared to 15 percentage points – the widest since the country underwent a debt restructuring in 2015.

Russian assets also took a beating – the dollar-denominated RTS stock index crashed 40% to 489 points, its lowest since 2016, while yields on Russian sovereign bonds soared. But bargain hunters were not expected to rush in.

“Buying the dip may be the right response to geopolitics but it’s not necessarily true for the part of the world where the fire is actually burning,” said Dirk Willer, head of global macro and asset allocation at Citi.

(Reporting by Alun John and Xie Yu in Hong Kong; Samuel Shen in Shanghai; Sujata Rao, Karin Strohecker and Dhara Ranasinghe in London; Devik Jain, Shreyashi Sanyal and Medha Singh in Bengalaru; Chuck Mikolajczak and Ira Iosebashvili in New York; Writing by Vidya Ranganathan, Dhara Ranasinghe and Ira Iosebashvili; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Alistair Bell)

By Daphne Psaledakis, Simon Lewis and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON – The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on Russia in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine, targeting its two biggest banks and members of the elite in new measures as Washington warned more action could come.

Among the targets were five major Russian banks, including state-backed Sberbank and VTB, the country’s two largest lenders, as well as wealthy individuals and their families. The United States also announced new export control measures.

Washington imposed the new sanctions after Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Thursday, assaulting by land, sea and air in the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two.

The U.S. Treasury Department said U.S. banks must sever their correspondent banking ties – which allow banks to make payments between one another and move money around the globe – with Russia’s largest lender, Sberbank, and 25 of its subsidiaries within 30 days.

The restrictions aim to hurt the Russian economy by blocking Sberbank from processing and settling payments within the U.S. financial system.

But Washington stopped short of wielding the U.S. government’s most powerful sanctioning tool against the bank and did not add it to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, which would freeze any of its U.S. assets.

But a senior U.S. administration official warned that the United States could further tighten sanctions against Russia if it escalates its aggression against Ukraine.

“We still have all options on the table. We have room to further escalate as Russia’s aggression escalates,” the official said.

Sberbank said it was operating normally but was studying the implications of sanctions imposed against it.

Reuters first reported correspondent banking restrictions were part of the U.S. sanctions package on Sunday.

Daniel Alter, a former general counsel at New York’s Department of Financial Services, said: “The power of the sanction comes from the fact that most of the world trade at some point is conducted in dollars.”

Washington also added Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB, as well as three others – Otkritie, Novikombank and Sovcombank – to SDN list.

The move effectively kicks the banks out of the U.S. financial system, bans their trade with Americans and freezes their U.S. assets.

Every day Russian banks conduct about $46 billion worth of foreign exchange transactions globally, 80% of which are in U.S. dollars, the Treasury said, adding that “the vast majority of those transactions will now be disrupted.” The Treasury authorized certain transactions related to energy.

VTB said the imposition of Western sanctions on its operations would limit the use of its cards outside Russia.

The other banks did not immediately reply to requests for comment. The Russian embassy in the United States also did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

RUSSIAN ELITES

The Treasury said it was also imposing sanctions on what it called “Russian elites.”

These included Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of Sberbank; Andrey Puchkov and Yuriy Soloviev, high-ranking VTB Bank executives; and Igor Sechin, chief executive officer of oil giant Rosneft and a former deputy prime minister, and his son, deputy head of a department at Rosneft.

After the U.S. government on Tuesday announced it would broaden restrictions on trading of Russian sovereign debt, Washington on Thursday expanded the scope of existing curbs on U.S. persons dealing in the debt and equity of Russian state-owned enterprises.

The debt and equity restrictions will apply to 13 firms, including Sberbank, Gazprombank, and the Russian Agricultural Bank.

The Treasury in Thursday’s move issued eight general licenses related to COVID-19, energy and international organizations, among others, to ensure that the latest sanctions hit their targets and minimize unintended consequences.

“The sanctions and license package has been constructed to account for the challenges high energy prices pose to average citizens” and does not bar energy-related transactions involving certain banks until June 24, the Treasury said.

The Biden administration also leveled sanctions against 24 banks, defense companies and individuals in Belarus, a staging ground from which Russian forces advanced south toward Kyiv after conducting what were cast as military exercises.

(Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis, Simon Lewis, Jonathan Landay, Matt Spetalnick, David Lawder, Doina Chiacu and Alexandra Alper in Washington and Michelle Nichols and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Michelle Price and Daniel Wallis)

By Cassandra Garrison

MEXICO CITY -Grupo Televisa, Mexico’s largest broadcaster, on Thursday reported an 8.6% dip in net profit in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier due to lower operating segment income and fewer customers who renew prepaid packages.

The company posted a fourth-quarter net profit of 3 billion pesos ($148 million), compared with 3.3 billion pesos in the same period in 2020.

Fourth-quarter sales decreased 4.4%. The company said in a filing with the Mexican stock exchange there had been fewer recharges of prepaid packages for Sky, its direct-to-home satellite television unit, as students and workers return to in-person classes and offices.

Meanwhile, operating segment income decreased 13.9% to 1.8 billion pesos a year earlier.

Televisa’s revenue increased 3.7% to 28.8 billion pesos from the year-earlier period.

The company’s advertising revenue jumped 7.2% to 7.1 billion pesos, the company said, boosted by private-sector clients seeking to position their brands and products in front of customers.

But the COVID-19 pandemic continued to negatively impact business, Televisa said, partly because sporting and entertainment events for which it has transmission rights are operating with restrictions.

“The deteriorating conditions of global economies as a result of the pandemic could ultimately reduce the demand for the company’s products through its segments as its customers and users reduce or postpone their spending,” the company said.

Televisa and U.S. broadcaster Univision last month closed a deal to create new Spanish language media company TelevisaUnivision.

“As a result, in the first quarter of 2022, Televisa expects to increase its cash and cash equivalents in the amount of approximately $3.2 billion,” the company said.

TelevisaUnivision’s global streaming platform, ViX, which will take on established rivals including Netflix Inc and Disney Plus, will launch in March, executives said.

($1 = 20.5075 pesos at end-December)

(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison, Valentine Hilaire and Noe Torres in Mexico CityEditing by Lisa Shumaker and Matthew Lewis)

-Dell Technologies Inc said on Thursday it expects PC backlog to balloon in the first quarter due to supply chain constraints and reported a quarterly profit miss, sending its shares down 7% in extended trading.

A pandemic-fueled demand for PCs helped the company draw in billions of dollars in sales over the past year. However, an ongoing global chip shortage and supply chain issues are pinching Dell as longer lead times and parts shortages have led to higher component and freight costs.

The company earned $1.72 per share on an adjusted basis, below Wall Street’s estimate of $1.95, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Shares of Texas-based Dell closed down 1% on Thursday. They were trading at $51.89 in extended trading.

“We expect opex (operating expense) as a percentage of revenue to be slightly higher than FY22 as we invest in the business,” finance chief Tom Sweet said.

Still, revenue surged 16% to $27.99 billion in the fourth quarter to beat analysts’ expectations and the first-quarter forecasts for revenue and profit were above estimates.

In the three months to Jan. 28, revenue jumped by a quarter at Dell’s client solutions group – the business that includes desktop PCs, notebooks and tablets.

In November, the company completed the spin-off of its cloud computing unit VMware Inc in which it owned an 81% stake. Dell had said VMWare would become a standalone public firm.

(Reporting by Richard Rohan Francis and Eva Mathews in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni and Shinjini Ganguli)

By Praveen Paramasivam and Hilary Russ

-Beyond Meat Inc forecast annual revenue below estimates on Thursday, hitting its share price, as it faced stiffer competition amid flat demand for plant-based protein.

The California-based company said it expects revenue of $560 million to $620 million for 2022, compared with estimates of $637.3 million, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Sales to U.S. grocers, convenience stores and other retailers declined 19.5% in the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31.

Rivals including Tyson Foods and Kellogg recently entered the fray with big discounts to get more people to trial their products.

U.S. retail sales in the plant-based meat category fell 0.4% last year versus 45% growth in 2020, Beyond Meat Chief Executive Officer Ethan Brown said during an earnings call.

“We experienced intense increased competition during the period when the size of the prize did not expand,” he said.

Those remarks echoed comments made by rival Maple Leaf Foods Inc, parent of Lightlife Foods, earlier on Thursday.

Maple Leaf Chief Operating Officer Curtis Frank said during an earnings call that many consumers tried plant-based proteins early on but did not repeat purchases.

Beyond Meat posted a larger than expected loss of $1.27 per share in the fourth quarter, versus estimates for a loss of 71 cents, as it spent heavily on marketing and incurred high manufacturing costs due to supply chain disruptions.

Net revenue was $100.7 million in the quarter, compared with $101.9 million a year earlier. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had expected $101.4 million.

Brown said growth should resume this year, in part as Beyond Meat executes on partnerships with McDonald’s Corp and KFC and launches a new product line with PepsiCo Inc in coming weeks – which Brown said he was snacking on during the call.

(Reporting by Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru and Hilary Russ in New York; Editing by Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)