The investment company Harris Associates doubles its stake in Credit Suisse.
tsf. The largest Credit Suisse shareholder, the investment company Harris Associates, is significantly increasing its stake in Credit Suisse. The Americans are doubling their stake in the major Swiss bank to 10.1 percent, according to a statement on Wednesday evening to the American Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Harris is keeping the bank going – despite the turbulence and the significant price losses. It may well be that Harris increased its share significantly precisely because of the favorable price. The Chicago-based company did not disclose the reason for the expansion.
Previously (since November 2013), Harris Associates held a 5.2 percent stake in Credit Suisse. In total, the company now owns 266.4 million Credit Suisse shares. With a stake of over 10 percent, Harris is now well ahead of the other major Credit Suisse shareholders Qatar Investment Authority and Blackrock, each with just over 5 percent.
Financially, the commitment to Harris since 2013 has not paid off so far. At that time, the Credit Suisse share was worth around 22 francs. The stock fell to a record low last month and is still trading at a very low price of CHF 5.35. In the nine years since 2013, the bank’s share price has fallen 78 percent. The loss is twice as strong as the average for European banks.
Harris hasn’t always been a patient and management-comfortable investor over the past several years. Investment boss David Herro had repeatedly sharply criticized. “If we come to the conclusion that the management team is not able to create value in the future, then we sell the title,” Herro said, for example, after the Archegos debacle was blown. He specifically targeted the then CS President Urs Rohner. The major shareholder asked him to waive the additional salary. In the affair surrounding CEO Thiam, Harris even threatened to launch a campaign against Rohner.
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Write-downs on Energy and Russia push Siemens deep into the red
(dpa) For the first time in almost 12 years, Siemens is in the red – even though business is going well. The Munich group made a loss of 1.5 billion euros in the third business quarter, as it announced on Thursday. The reasons for this are a high depreciation on the remaining share in the former energy division Siemens Energy and burdens in connection with Russia, since Siemens is withdrawing from there because of the Ukraine war.
The Energy write-down, which Siemens had already announced at the end of June, puts pressure on the result with 2.7 billion euros – Russia with 0.6 billion. That was too much for the otherwise solid ongoing business of the Munich company to be able to compensate for this. Sales grew by a nominal 11 percent to 17.9 billion, and earnings in the industrial business by 27 percent to 2.9 billion. In the case of the latter, however, a profit of 0.7 billion from the sale of Yunex Traffic was also noticeable.
For the current year, the massive burdens from the third quarter are also costing Siemens the earnings forecast, which is now lower by the amount of the Energy depreciation. On the other hand, other signs for the future are good: After an increase in incoming orders of 22 billion euros, the order backlog is now at a record value of 99 billion euros, according to Siemens. “We have the right offer and the right strategy to be successful even in uncertain times,” emphasized Siemens CEO Roland Busch.
Disney is catching up with Netflix on streaming services
(dpa) Entertainment giant Walt Disney has seen rapid growth with its streaming services in the most recent fiscal quarter. The on-demand services Disney +, Hulu and ESPN + together had a total of 221 million subscriptions at the end of June, as the group announced on Wednesday after the US stock market closed. Disney has thus caught up with the previous market leader Netflix, which recently lost customers and also ended the past quarter with 221 million user accounts. “We had an excellent quarter,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek.
Disney+ and ESPN+ in particular flourished with annual growth rates of 31 and 53 percent, respectively, to a good 152 million and almost 23 million subscribers, respectively. Disney’s third streaming service Hulu increased the number of subscriptions by 8 percent to 46 million users. The Disney+ streaming service, which was only launched in November 2019 as a Netflix hunter, gained 14.4 million customers in three months – significantly more than experts expected. With the “Star Wars” series “Obi-Wan Kenobi” and Marvel’s “Ms. Marvel” he landed two big hits.
Disney immediately used the strong demand to introduce strong price increases. For example, the price for the standard ad-free subscription to Disney+ for customers in the US will increase by $3 to $10.99 per month on December 8th. However, like Netflix, Disney wants to introduce a cheaper version with commercial breaks. This offer is said to cost $7.99 a month – as much as the ad-free subscription used to be. With Hulu, the price goes up by $1 to $2 per month, depending on the subscription model. ESPN+ also recently announced a price increase in the US.
Financially, too, things were going well for the entertainment empire, which also includes the classic TV cable division as well as film studios, theme parks, holiday resorts and cruise ships. Sales grew 26 percent year-on-year to $21.5 billion. Profit increased by 53 percent to 1.4 billion dollars (1.36 billion euros).
The quarterly figures significantly exceeded analysts’ expectations. The stock reacted after hours with a price increase of more than 4 percent. Disney recently had a difficult time on Wall Street – the share has been down 28 percent since the beginning of the year.