Business Live: Amazon deal stuns markets

EPACopyright: EPA

Much has been written today about Helmut Kohl, who, among many things, was an architect of European integration.

Kohl, who has died aged 87, gave a rare interview in 2016, just after Britain voted to leave the EU. He urged the bloc's members not to apply too much pressure on London.

The article in Bild, which did not include direct quotes, said he "pleaded for prudence and warned against unnecessary toughness and haste", adding that it "would be an enormous mistake for the EU to close its doors now".

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Home rental site Airbnb is buying a company that does background checks on people in a bid to root out scams.

Fraudulent listings on Airbnb, or people who search the site and then contact home owners directly - usually via social media - to escape fees, has been a growing problem for Airbnb.

Now, Bloomberg reports, the company has bought California-based Trooly, started in 2014.

Trooly's website says it "uses public and permissible digital footprints to understand and predict the trustworthiness of individuals and businesses. Using minimal and non-intrusive identity information as input, we return Instant Trust™ ratings which incorporate verification of the input identity, screening for undesirable past behaviors, and, using robust machine learning, prediction of likely future behaviors."

The Italian government has stepped in help struggling lender Veneto Banca from imminent financial crisis.

The repayment of bonds due to mature next week has been suspended. Reports in Italy this evening say Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's cabinet approved an emergency decree.

The move comes as Italy races against the clock to win EU approval for a bail out of Veneto Banca and rival regional bank Banca Popolare di Vicenza, which together need €6.4bn in new capital while they try to offload bad debts.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster says there can be a "sensible Brexit" that works for Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Her comments came after talks with new Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Leo Varadkar, who is also holding separate talks with Sinn Féin in Dublin later.

Mrs Foster was asked if she expected a deal with the Tories within a week and to be NI first minister in a fortnight.

She replied: "It takes two to tango and we're ready to dance."

She described her meeting with Mr Varadkar as "very useful and pleasant".

"We want to see a Brexit that works for everybody, not just in Northern Ireland from my perspective but in the Republic of Ireland as well, so it is about a sensible Brexit.

"I know people want to talk about soft Brexit, hard Brexit, all of these things but what we want to see is a sensible Brexit and one that works for everybody."

Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov has sold his RBC media to a fellow businessman, Grigory Berezkin,

ESN has bought 65% of RBC shares and its outstanding debt from Prokhorov's holding company, Onexim. Financials details were not been disclosed.

RBC has a reputation for independent journalism, and when an editor was fired last year over articles about President Vladimir Putin there was a mass walk-out of staff.

AMCCopyright: AMC

Apple has hired two senior executives from Sony Pictures Television is a move that underlines the tech giant's ambitions to expand TV operations.

Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg were responsible for hit shows such as Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul and The Crown.

They join Apple in newly created positions that will oversee all aspects of video programming, the company said in a statement.

The pair have been Sony Pictures presidents since 2005.

"Jamie and Zack are two of the most talented TV executives in the world and have been instrumental in making this the golden age of television," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

The main markets are slightly in the red, although that hides some big movers.

Wal-Mart is down 4.4% as investors digest the impact of Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods. And Kroger, the largest US supermarket by store numbers, is down 11%. Whole Foods itself has surged 29%.

Elsewhere, oil-related stocks have moved higher on the back of a rise in crude prices. Chevron was up 1% and Exxon added 0.86%.

AFPCopyright: AFP

An electric boat taxi whose inventor believes it could be an eco-friendly transport solution for cities worldwide was put to the test in Paris for the first time today.

The boat is similar to a hydrofoil, with fibreglass foils that deploy to hoist it into the air, powered by electric batteries, and capable of reaching the maximum allowed speed of 18 kilometres (11 miles) per hour.

The brainchild of French yachtsman Alain Thebault, the aerodynamic Sea Bubble made no noise as it took a star turn on the River Seine with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo aboard.

"It was a perfect flight," Thebault said after putting the prototype through its paces between the Eiffel Tower and the Musee d'Orsay.

"It works like the wings of an airplane in the air. After it reaches a certain speed the Bubble lifts off," Thebault said.

A Sea Bubble means "zero noise, zero waves and zero (carbon) emissions," he added. Thebault said he has received "an avalanche of requests" from cities including Miami and Seattle, Tokyo, Bangkok and no fewer than 15 cities in India.

Katrina BookmanCopyright: Katrina Bookman

A US woman is suing a casino that told her the slot machine displaying a $43m (£34m) jackpot was faulty and offered a steak dinner instead, reports say.

Katrina Bookman took a selfie showing the machine saying "printing cash ticket $42,949,672.76" at the Resorts World Casino in New York last August.

But she was escorted out and was told the next day she could have only $2.25 (£1.76).

Her lawyer, Alan Ripka, says she is entitled to the full amount displayed.

The lawsuit filed at the Queens County Supreme Court said the Sphinx slot machine's "bells, noises and lights" as well as the message on the screen told Ms Bookman she had won the jackpot, Courthouse News reported.

The subsequent disappointment left Ms Bookman anxious and depressed, the report said.

She is seeking damages from the casino for failing to maintain the slot machine as well as two companies that make and operate games machine, reports said.

A Resorts World spokesman said at the time that the machine had suffered an "obvious malfunction".

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The Italian state rescue of Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank faces another hurdle, according to Reuters. The news agency, citing unamed sources, says two US private equity funds have quit talks to buy a mountain of bad loans from ailing lender.

Fortress and Elliott were negotiating to buy some of the €26bn in bonds that Monte dei Paschi, Italy's fourth largest bank and the world's oldest, must sell to private investors as a condition of the bailout.

Reuters says three sources have told it that the two US firms had backed out of the talks in a dispute over sale terms.

Tesco and Sainsbury, down 4.9% and 3.8% respectively, were the main FTSE 100 losers. Marks & Spencer also fell 1.9%. Investors were spooked by Amazon's surprise deal to buy supermarket chain Whole Foods.

Whole Foods, although based mainly in the US, has nine outlets in the UK. Amazon already has a limited partnership with Morrison.

Away from the retail sector, shares in Rolls-Royce rose 1.4% after the engineering group said it had made a good start to 2017, with "all businesses performing in line with expectations".

The company also revealed that the weakness of the pound was set to lift revenues by £400m and profits by £50m. The drop in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote means that Rolls-Royce's dollar earnings are worth more when converted back into sterling.

The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were St James's Place, up 4.2%, and Mondi, up 4.1%. The blue chip index itself closed up 0.6% at 7,463.5 points.

On the currency markets, the pound rose 0.2% against the dollar to $1.2787, but slipped 0.16% against the euro to 1.1424 euros.

• "I think that I would not like to be somebody playing in the grocery space right now." Jan Rogers Kniffen, Retail Consultancy.
• "Amazon doesn’t so much park its tanks on a sector’s lawn as crash them through the store frontage. If we thought the supermarkets in the UK had trouble with the emergence of the German discounters, it is as nothing compared to the ramifications of Amazon’s expansion into grocery." Chris Beauchamp, IG.
• "Implications ripple far beyond the food segment, where dominant players like Wal-Mart, Kroger, Costco, and Target now have to look over their shoulders at the Amazon train coming down the tracks, but also the potential for multi-channel, which Amazon up until now has largely eschewed." Charlie O'Shea, Moody's.
• "This comes at a moment when the sector is very sensitive to bad news." Fernand De Boer, Petercam.
• "Every so often an event occurs that shakes the industry to its core. Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods is one of those." Neil Saunders, GlobalData Retail.
• "Amazon's got its tentacles everywhere and that's another place to go. Amazon sees that industry changing significantly." Bruce Bittles, RW Baird.

BBCCopyright: BBC

The claim: Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says the government should requisition housing if necessary for those made homeless by the Grenfell Tower fire.

Reality Check verdict: Doing so would not be allowed under current rules, and legislation to allow property to be seized in peacetime would be controversial.

Read more.

We mentioned earlier that US supermarket shares have been hit heavily by the Amazon-Whole Foods deal. But what of the rest of the market?

The Nasdaq and Dow Jones are 0.15% down, while the S&P 500 is 0.2% lower.

Four of the 11 major S&P 500 sectors were lower. Technology was a big drag, led by declines in International Business Machines and Apple.

Shares in UK supermarkets have not been unscathed by Amazon's Whole Foods acquisition.

Tesco, already lower after unveiling its first-quarter sales figures, sank after announcement of the Amazon deal. Tesco is down 3.6%. Sainsbury's is down 2.4%.

Why the reaction this side of the Atlantic?

Whole Foods has nine UK outlets - seven in London, one in Glasgow and one in Cheltenham. What's more, Amazon is already trialing a partnership in London with Morrisons of a same day delivery service.

Whole FoodsCopyright: Whole Foods

Here's ETX Capital's verdict on news that online giant Amazon is buying US supermarket chain Whole Foods for $13.7bn.

Analyst Neil Wilson writes: “A big, big play by Amazon... that is leaving rivals quaking. This is a huge development for US retail, yet another signal of the seismic shift in the market caused by the Amazon model.

"Amazon looks set to dominate the food sector now just as much as it does non-food. Amazon brings incredible scale and pricing power that will make life a lot tougher for anyone else. But there are increasingly serious anti-trust concerns - how long until Washington takes note of what’s going on and clamps down?

"It’s caused carnage among retailers. Big US retailers are being smashed. Wal-Mart is down 6% and Target has shipped 10% on the announcement. Costco fell 8% and Kroger plunged 15%. It’s fair to say there will be crisis board meetings at these companies after this move. Amazon shares jumped 3% on the deal, although it remains shy of its all-time peak. Whole Foods has surged 27%."

There's one US supermarket share price that hasn't been hit by the Amazon purchase. Whole Foods has rocketed 28%.

British Airways has issued a response to the planned cabin crew strike.

"As for previous periods when Unite called strikes of Mixed Fleet cabin crew, we will fly all our customers to their destinations.

"This proposed strike action is extreme and completely unnecessary. We had reached a deal on pay, which Unite agreed was acceptable. Unite has already confirmed it is pursuing the non-pay issues in this dispute through the courts.

"We urge Unite to let its members vote on the pay proposals."

Whole FoodsCopyright: Whole Foods

It's a bit of a bloodbath for retail shares on Wall Street.

Amazon's purchase of the trendy supermarket chain Whole Foods has shocked the sector, with retail rivals big and small taking a hit on fears about having a new competitive kid on the block.

A few minutes into trading, Kroger was down 14.5%, Sprouts Farmers Markets fell 13% and Supervalu Inc slide 19%. Even the giant Wal-Mart is 6% down.