Fall kills a leading Chinese executive
The co-chairman and cofounder of HNA Group, a Chinese conglomerate that spent heavily in recent years to build a global profile but that has since grappled with high debt, died from an accidental fall in France, the company said Wednesday.
The death of Wang Jian, a former civil aviation official who became one of China’s richest men, comes as the company has been trying to tame its debt of more than $90 billion. It could also cast further doubt on HNA’s murky ownership, which has prompted some Wall Street banks to stop doing business with it. Wang owned a 15 percent stake of the company.
Wang, 57, was on a business trip to France but had taken a detour Tuesday to go sightseeing when the fall happened, according to HNA and the French police. The police said they were treating his death as an accident.
Wang was visiting Bonnieux, a village with a church atop a rocky outcrop in the southern French region of Provence, when the fall occurred Tuesday morning.
Trump says OPEC ‘doing little to help’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump says OPEC is “doing little to help” rising gas prices and claims “if anything, they are driving prices higher.”
Trump tweeted Wednesday: “The OPEC Monopoly must remember that gas prices are up & they are doing little to help. If anything, they are driv- ing prices higher as the United States defends many of their members for very little $’s. This must be a two way street. REDUCE PRICING NOW!”
Last month, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel agreed to pump 1 million barrels more crude oil daily, a move that should help contain the recent rise in global energy prices. However, summer months in the U.S. usually lead to increased demand for oil, boosting the price of gasoline in a midterm election year.
GE executive arrested in Brazil
General Electric Co.’s chief executive officer for Latin America was arrested in Brazil as part of a corruption probe into an alleged health-care cartel that operated for more than two decades.
Daurio Speranzini Jr. was served an arrest warrant in a sweep early Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro along with eight other people. Police are allowed to hold him for five days. Thirteen so-called preventative arrest warrants, which have no set time for release, and 44 search warrants were also issued, Brazil’s Federal Police said in a statement.
GE’s press office in Brazil confirmed the arrest Wednesday, but said GE is not the target of the investigations.
“The company believes that the facts will be clarified by the Justice and is available to collaborate with the authorities,” GE said in an e-mailed statement.
ConocoPhillips, BP swap some assets
ConocoPhillips is acquiring much of BP’s acreage in northern Alaska, while the British oil major will take more of the Houston energy producer’s position in the United Kingdom’s North Sea.
ConocoPhillips is buying BP’s 39.2 percent interest in the greater Kuparuk area in northern Alaska as ConocoPhillips continues to expand along Alaska’s Northern Slope. The deal also includes BP’s 38 percent interest in the Kuparuk Transportation Co. BP is selling the entirety of its position in the region.
On the other side of the pond, BP is growing its stake in the Clair oil field that sits west of Scotland’s Shetland Islands by buying ConocoPhillips’ 16.5 percent interest in the field. ConocoPhillips will still retain a 7.5 percent stake. The deal gives BP a 45.1 percent ownership interest in the offshore oilfield.
These are separate deals and are not considered a traditional acreage swap. However, the companies aren’t disclosing the sales prices.
Renault, Nissan working on merger
Renault and Nissan have given themselves two years to decide on a possible merger between the two automakers or find an alternative mechanism to enhance their partnership, people familiar with the matter said Wednesday.
A solution to cement ties would be found before Carlos Ghosn, the chairman of both the automakers, is due to step down as the chief executive officer of Renault in 2022, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.
Ghosn, currently serving a four-year CEO term at Renault, had previously said he may step down before his tenure ends.
The carmakers are in talks about options including setting up a holding company and putting Renault and Nissan under that umbrella, according to the people. Bloomberg News reported in March that Renault and Nissan are in talks to merge under a single stock, a move that could help them pool resources better in the new age of electrified vehicles and autonomous driving.
Ghosn has since pared down expectations of a quick deal to combine the companies, saying the specter of failed mergers in his industry loomed large.
Air taxi parking at train station?
A group of city counselors in Munich say they want the southern German city’s main train station to have a landing pad for flying taxis.
Five city council members from the Christian Social Union party submitted a motion Wednesday calling on rail company Deutsche Bahn to consider the space needed for the small, drone-like passenger aircraft in its plans for a future redesign of the station.
In their motion, they write that “it is to be expected that within a few years technology will have advanced so far that flying taxis can be used to transport people.”