Bloomberg Businessweek-Europe Edition November 1, 2021

● Worldwide, coronavirus cases are approaching 245m and almost 5 million people have died. More than 6.9 billion vaccine shots have been given. Frequent outbreaks of the highly contagious delta variant are making it harder for China to commit to its “Covidzero” strategy of eliminating all cases. ● Activist investor Dan Loeb has built a $750 million position in Shell. He’s pushing for the breakup of the energy giant, which is valued at about $190 billion. Loeb argues that spinning off its LNG, renewables, and marketing businesses into a standalone company would help Shell survive the transition to a lower-carbon world. ● Tesla received a landmark order of 100,000 vehicles from car‑rental company Hertz. The move ignited a stock rally for both companies, pushing the value of Tesla beyond $1t ● The Sudanese military…

The idea that trillions of dollars of ports, coal mines, oil deposits, and more might be rendered worthless by efforts to address climate change certainly isn’t new. Concerns had been mounting for years before Mark Carney, then governor of the Bank of England, drew attention in 2015 to the risks that “stranded assets” might pose to the financial system. The more the world invested in foresight, he said, the less would be regretted in hindsight. Six years later, too little has been done. The approaching COP26 climate talks have a broader agenda, but the danger that action on climate change might cause financial and economic instability shouldn’t be sidelined. Granted, there’s been progress since Carney’s intervention. More companies are trying to measure their emissions, set targets for abatement, and monitor their climate-endangered…

▶ OPEC meets on Nov. 4 to consider its output policy. Oil prices are at a three-year peak, and most banks now see crude trading higher for a longer period as demand recovers. ▶ The Federal Reserve is expected to announce on Nov. 3 that it’s scaling back asset purchases from $120 billion a month, a step toward the exit from pandemic monetary support. ▶ Credit Suisse presents earnings on Nov. 4. Banks are enjoying a very strong quarter, but investors will look for signs that the Swiss bank has left its scandals behind. ▶ The Aspen Security Forum takes place Nov. 2-4 in Washington. Global leaders will gather in person to discuss national security issues. ▶ The 4th China International Import Expo will be Nov. 5-10 in Shanghai. It’s a forum for companies…

It’s a delicate time to be in charge in China. Every five years a big meeting rumbles around in the world’s second-largest economy. While China isn’t a democracy, the Communist Party leadership meeting next year will be an election of sorts. President Xi Jinping, having coalesced power around himself and secured a constitutional rewrite to bust presidential term limits, is going for an unprecedented third term. To secure it, he’ll need the endorsement of the powerful Central Committee and the more than 2,000 officials who will attend the 20th National Party Congress in 2022, likely late in the year. “Elite politics in China have always been high-stakes and high-competition,” says Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Winning…

For millenniums the Chinese have turned to tea as their beverage of choice, typically jasmine or green varietals sipped from small porcelain cups. Then in 1999, Starbucks Corp. opened a Beijing beachhead that spawned thousands of other outlets across the country over the next two decades and got locals hooked on U.S.-style coffee concoctions, from nitro cold brew to pumpkin spice latte. Now one of the biggest names in Italian coffee culture says it wants to serve up the real thing. Lavazza Group has big ambitions for its Chinese foray. By 2025 the Italian family-owned company wants to have 1,000 outlets in China. Lavazza opened a flagship outpost in Shanghai last year and has since added more coffee shops across the country. With design features including wall murals, traditional mocha machines,…

Amid all the droughts, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes that have battered America this year, Rupert Murdoch sees an opportunity to make it rain. On Oct. 25 his media empire introduced Fox Weather, a 24-hour streaming service to take on meteorological incumbents such as the Weather Channel and capitalize on the increasingly frightening state of Earth’s daily forecasts. As weather events grow more intense, Fox Corp. executives are betting that consumers are hungry for more than just an iPhone app that tells them the temperature and whether to carry an umbrella. “We’re looking to make weather more than just this utility,” says Sharri Berg, president of Fox Weather. The service’s studio on the 12th floor of Fox’s Manhattan headquarters boasts a battery of meteorological innovations, including something called the “The Sky…