San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
If you missed it ...
In a week when lots of famous people promised to give away money — or at least their tweets did — this actually happened (probably):
A $17.3 billion buyout creating the world’s biggest casino company won final approval, with New Jersey gambling regulators agreeing to let Eldorado Resorts Inc. acquire Caesars Entertainment Corp. It comes after an antitrust analyst had assured the New Jersey Casino Control Commission that the deal affecting four of the nine casinoresorts in Atlantic City would not concentrate too much of its gambling economy in one company’s hands. Eldorado is expected to close the deal in the coming days, giving it 52 properties in 16 states, including the Caesars Palace, Paris Las Vegas, Planet Hollywood, Flamingo and Linq casino-resorts on the Las Vegas Strip.
L.L. Bean said it is expanding from its original business model of catalog and retail store sales with wholesale agreements to sell products in Nordstrom,
Staples and sporting goods chain Scheels. The first phase started with L.L. Bean backpacks and water bottles that went on
sale in more than 1,000 Staples stores two weeks ago.
The Federal Reserve has opened one of its lending programs to nonprofit groups, including hospitals, educational institutions and social service organizations. The Fed said that its Main Street Lending Program, which is geared to midsize businesses, will now extend credit to nonprofits with at least 10 employees and endowments of less than $3 billion.
An annual study of the U.S. podcasting industry cut its growth forecasts in half as companies pulled or paused advertising campaigns in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Podcasts are now expected to generate nearly $1 billion in 2020 advertising revenue, with an expected growth rate of 14.7%, according to an ad revenue report prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Before the pandemic, it was more than double that.
Daily Briefing is compiled from San Francisco Chronicle staff and news services. For more items and links, subscribe to the Tech Chronicle newsletter at www.sfchronicle.com/newsletters/techchronicle. Twitter: @techchronicle