(Reuters) -World Wrestling Entertainment Inc on Wednesday reported a drop in first-quarter revenue and operating income due to a delay in a key event but maintained its full-year earnings forecast.

The sports entertainment company said it continues to target “record revenue” and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) of $395 million to $410 million this year, sending its share up about 2%.

Revenue at WWE, which is in the process of merging with Endeavor Group-owned Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) franchise, declined 11% to $297.6 million in the quarter ended March 31.

The company said revenue fell mainly due to the shifting of a large-scale international event, which occurred in the first quarter of 2022, but this year is expected to occur in the second quarter.

Operating income slumped 43% to $53.1 million dragged by the decrease in revenue. Net income dropped to $36.7 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, from $66.1 million, or $0.77 per diluted share.

Last month, WWE and Endeavor Group signed a deal to combine the wrestling company and mixed martial arts franchise UFC to form a new publicly listed entertainment giant valued at about $21 billion.

As part of the deal, which is expected to close in the second half of this year, Endeavor will own a 51% stake in the resultant company, while WWE investors will own the rest.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; editing by Eileen Soreng)

By Arunima Kumar

(Reuters) -U.S. refiner Phillips 66 beat Wall Street estimate for first-quarter profit on Wednesday, joining rivals in gaining from elevated margins on sustained fuel demand amid tight crude supplies.

The company’s shares rose 1.3% to $95.98 in morning trade.

Profits from turning crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel surged as supplies remained tight due to pandemic-era closure of facilities and a recovery in demand.

Margins were also supported by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year that further tightened supplies.

Realized margins soared 91% to $20.72 per barrel in the first quarter from a year earlier, Phillips 66 said.

Margins jumped nearly 71% at Marathon Petroleum and 84% at Valero Corp, helping the company’s rivals report bumper first-quarter profits that also beat estimates.

Phillips 66’s crude utilization rate was 90% in the reported quarter, marginally higher than last year’s 89%, while total processed input fell to 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) from 1.9 million bpd.

“Refining drove the beat…We expect 2023 to be a lower turnaround year for PSX, with most of the work front-loaded in 1Q,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst TJ Schultz.

U.S. refiners took up major maintenance activities during the first three months of 2023 after running their facilities at almost full capacity last year to keep up with the recovery in demand.

“We ran above industry-average crude utilization, successfully executed major turnarounds and increased market capture to 93%,” Phillips 66’s CEO Mark Lashier said in a statement.

The Houston-based refiner reported adjusted earnings of $4.21 per share for the three months ended March 31, compared with average analyst estimate of $3.56, according to Refinitiv data.

(Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

By Rachna Uppal

DUBAI (Reuters) – Government-led reforms and the growth of private investment in new sectors will help support non-oil economic growth in Saudi Arabia amid an expected sharp slowdown in overall growth this year, a senior IMF official said.

The Saudi economy grew 8.7% last year, as high oil prices boosted revenue and led to the kingdom’s first budget surplus in almost 10 years.

The IMF projects that Saudi GDP growth will more than halve, to 3.1%, this year, in line with the forecast for Middle East oil exporters. The forecast, however, is higher than the 2.6% growth rate that the IMF projected in January.

Several OPEC+ member states, led by Saudi Arabia, the world’s top crude exporter, recently announced surprise cuts to oil production from May, initially driving up global prices, although global worries and an uncertain demand outlook are weighing on prices.

“This year, with the implementation of the new OPEC+ quotas, we expect the oil sector to slow down,” Jihad Azour, director for the Middle East and Central Asia at the IMF, told Reuters, adding that the impact on the kingdom’s budget depended on prices.

“The drop in production will affect growth because output will decline, but revenues could grow and this could have a positive impact on both external accounts, the reserves, and the budget deficit,” he said.

“Clearly, the strategy over the last five to six years has helped the Saudi economy, and also the public finances, to be less dependent on the cycle of oil.”

Saudi Arabia has embarked on an ambitious economic transformation plan known as Vision 2030, investing billions to diversify into sectors such as tourism, launch massive infrastructure projects, and develop the financial and private sectors.

“The size of the non-oil economy is growing and it’s mainly driven by the private sector,” Azour said.

(Reporting by Rachna Uppal; Editing by Leslie Adler)

By Liz Hampton

DENVER (Reuters) -U.S. shale gas producer Chesapeake Energy on Wednesday said it anticipated volatility in natural gas markets to persist, and that it could hold off bringing some wells online if low prices continue.

Chesapeake said it had opted to conduct some maintenance in the Haynesville shale while gas prices were low. It also warned that it was seeing a pullback in third-party well proposals and that it anticipated a slowdown in non-operated activity.

U.S. natural gas prices fell some 50% this year, prompting energy companies to refocus some activity on oilier basins. Henry Hub futures were trading around $2.153 per million British thermal units (mmBTU) on Wednesday morning, down 2.7%, while shares of Chesapeake were down 2.5% to $78.13.

“As we go through the summer months there is going to be plenty of volatility in the market,” Chief Executive Nick Dell’Osso told investors.

The decline in activity was leading to a softening of service costs, which had jumped in the past year amid limited capacity, the company said.

Chesapeake continues to hold talks with third parties about selling the remainder of its Eagle Ford assets in South Texas, it said on Wednesday. Dell’Osso warned, however, that deal-making for gas assets had become “hard” given the weak market.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

By Jörn Poltz

MUNICH (Reuters) – Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler is ready to make a confession about his role in the diesel emissions scandal in exchange for a suspended sentence and a payment of 1.1 million euros ($1.21 million), he and his defence team said on Wednesday.

The former CEO has been on trial for fraud since 2020 over his role in the scandal after parent group Volkswagen and Audi admitted in 2015 to having used illegal software to cheat on emissions tests. Stadler had previously rejected the allegations.

Stadler’s defence team said a statement would be made on May 16, after which the judge will decide whether it amounts to a complete confession and deliver a verdict in June. It was not immediately clear whether Stadler would deliver the statement personally or through his lawyers.

Prosecutors also agreed to the deal. A judge had said the 60-year-old Stadler faced a prison sentence of 1.5-2 years, which would be suspended if Stadler agreed to make a confession.

The trial is one of the most prominent court proceedings in the aftermath of the diesel scandal at Volkswagen and its subsidiary Audi. Revelations that millions of emissions tests had been manipulated emerged in September 2015.

According to prosecutors, engineers manipulated engines in such a way that they complied with legal exhaust emission values on the test bench but not on the road. Stadler was accused of failing to stop the sale of the manipulated cars after the scandal became known.

Stadler has been on trial along with former Audi executive Wolfgang Hatz and an engineer. Hatz and the engineer confessed to having manipulated engines.

Audi declined to comment, saying it was not party to the trial.

Wednesday’s deal follows haggling between Stadler’s defence team, the prosecutors and the court, especially over how much money Stadler would pay in exchange for a suspended sentence.

Prosecutors wanted 2 million euros, citing Stadler’s salaries at Audi and Volkswagen and his financial and real estate assets. Stadler’s team had initially argued that 1.1 million euros was too high, as he had no current income and faced hefty legal costs.

($1 = 0.9063 euros)

(Reporting by Jörn Poltz; additional reporting by Christina Amann; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Friederike Heine, Christina Fincher and Bernadette Baum)

By Tanvi Mehta, Dhanya Skariachan and Chris Thomas

BENGALURU (Reuters) – The owner of Go Airlines (India) has no plans to exit the budget carrier after engine troubles forced it into bankruptcy, the airline’s CEO told Reuters on Wednesday, as frustrated flyers complained of abrupt flight cancellations.

India’s third-largest airline, which recently rebranded as Go First, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, blaming Pratt & Whitney’s “faulty” engines, which it uses on its Airbus 320 neo aircraft.

The collapse of the first Indian airline since Jet Airways in 2019 comes amid fierce competition in the sector led by its largest rival IndiGo and Tata Group-owned Air India, as passenger traffic roars back after the pandemic.

“The Wadia group, in particular Nusli Wadia, has always tried to see that the company and the airline operations go on, on a normal basis, in spite of the fact that we are completely disabled to that extent by Pratt & Whitney,” CEO Kaushik Khona said.

“There is no question of Wadia group having any intention to exit or move out.”

Wadia group, which owns 100% of Go First, pumped 2.90 billion rupees ($35.46 million) into the airline in April alone, bringing the group’s total investment in Go First to 65 billion rupees.

“The Indian government is very keen we should not fail,” Khona said.

GRAPHIC: Where Go First stands https://www.reuters.com/graphics/GOFIRST-CRISIS/zdpxdjjznpx/chart.png

The abrupt flight cancellations after the bankruptcy filing also upset travellers and Khona said the airline was not selling tickets until at least May 15.

“I had to shell out more than double of what I originally paid for a ticket on another flight,” said Mumbai-based advertising executive Timir Roychoudhury, whose Goa-Mumbai flight was cancelled.

ENGINE WOES

In its bankruptcy filing, Go First claimed its failure followed a refusal by the U.S. company to abide by an arbitration order to release spare leased engines, that would have allowed it to return to full operations.

Go First argued in the case that Pratt & Whitney engines had a “serious design flaw” that caused shutdowns and premature failure, which led to the grounding of 28 of its aircraft as of this week.

Pratt said in the arbitration case that Go First’s arguments relied on “fabricated obligations”.

The engine maker, owned by Raytheon, also asked why Go First bought another 156 engines in 2019, three years after it began operating them, if they were defective from the start.

Pratt said Go First could not show it was the “sole or exclusive cause – or any cause at all – of its poor financial condition”.

The Pratt engine has faced problems with durability in hot and dusty climates including India, requiring more frequent maintenance. Gaps in availability have been compounded by a shortage of repair capacity.

In 2019, IndiGo dropped Pratt as a supplier and placed a $20 billion order for CFM International’s LEAP engines for its fleet expansion following some plane groundings. 

REVIVE, NOT SELL

The insolvency proceedings were aimed at reviving the airline and not selling it, CEO Khona said, confirming it had made all required payments to Pratt.

Go First’s market share in India dropped to 7% in October 2022 while its weekly departures fell 39% by March, from their 2021 levels.

On Wednesday, the airline’s CEO said it was looking to dissuade lessors from taking action and confirmed some parties had expressed an interest in taking a stake in the airline.

Pilots have been receiving their salaries with a delay for the past few months, and are already considering moving to bigger rivals, according to three pilots who did not wish to be named.

Go First’s lenders will most likely meet on Wednesday to discuss what to do next after the bankruptcy filing, two bankers aware of the development told Reuters.

The airline owed financial creditors 65.21 billion rupees ($797 million), its bankruptcy filing showed. As of April 30, Go First had not defaulted on any of those loans, it said in the filing seen by Reuters.

Shares of Go First lenders Central Bank of India, Bank of Baroda and IDBI Bank fell on Wednesday, while stocks of the airline’s rivals surged.

($1 = 81.7840 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Tanvi Mehta in New Delhi, Chris Thomas and Dhanya Skariachan in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Siddhi Nayak and Sudipto Ganguly in Mumbai, Arpan Chaturvedi in New Delhi, Tim Hepher in Paris and Kevin Krolicki in Singapore ; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil, Savio D’Souza, Gerry Doyle and Sharon Singleton)