(Reuters) -CoverGirl cosmetics parent Coty is moving forward with its plan to list on the Paris Stock Exchange which could take place as soon as the coming weeks, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

The company has brought on BNP Paribas and Citigroup to work on the deal and is considering raising fresh capital from the listing, the report said.

Coty is aiming to formally announce details of the plans as soon as the next few days and a listing could follow shortly afterward, according to the report.

Coty declined to comment on the report. The company’s shares were up about 1% in afternoon trade.

The cosmetics and fragrance maker said in May it would explore a listing on the Paris Stock Exchange in a bid to bolster its presence in Europe and tap into new investors in the market.

The company on Wednesday raised its annual core sales forecast boosted by higher prices and strong demand, particularly in its high-end segment that houses cosmetics and fragrances from brands such as Hugo Boss, Gucci and Burberry.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

By Milana Vinn, Yuvraj Malik and Aditya Soni

(Reuters) -Cisco Systems on Thursday agreed to buy cybersecurity firm Splunk for about $28 billion in its biggest-ever deal to strengthen its software business and capitalize on the boom in artificial intelligence.

The deal, which is the biggest technology transaction of the year, will help reduce Cisco’s reliance on its massive networking equipment business, which has suffered in recent years from supply chain issues and a post-pandemic slowdown in demand.

“The thing that gives you conviction is we are bringing together two companies around security and observability, which are two of the most important areas for our customers and areas where they are unlikely to cut spending in – just because of the criticality of these threats,” Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told Reuters in an interview.

Under Robbins, Cisco has over the years attempted to reduce its traditional reliance on hardware and doubled down on its bets in software and services through deals.

Splunk is known for its strengths in the area of data observability, which helps companies monitor their systems for cybersecurity risks and other threats. The company operates a subscription-based pricing model for customers.

The two companies have held merger talks in the past, but those discussions fell apart, Reuters has previously reported.

Cisco offered $157 in cash for each share of Splunk, representing a 31% premium to the company’s last closing price.

Splunk’s shares were trading up more than 21% at $145.04, below the offer price of $157, reflecting some uncertainty about regulatory scrutiny. Cisco’s shares were down 4%.

San Jose, California-based Cisco already has a data-security partnership with Splunk, whose more than 15,000 customers include many prominent companies such as Coca-Cola, Intel and Porsche.

After a surge in revenue growth last year to nearly 40%, Splunk has grappled with an industry-wide slowdown in demand in 2023 wrought by rising interest rates and sticky inflation.

Its acquisition will accelerate revenue growth and gross margin expansion at Cisco in the first fiscal year after the deal’s close, according to the companies.

“Cisco bought a good synergistic business at a good price. It’s a win for both parties,” said Thomas Hayes, chair of hedge fund Great Hill Capital. “This will give Cisco an edge in AI-enabled security moving forward.”

While Cisco has pulled off sizable acquisitions in the past, its takeover of Splunk is by far the biggest in its nearly 40-year history. In 2012, Cisco bought TV software company NDS for $5 billion, while in 2017 it bought business software firm AppDynamics Inc for about $3.7 billion.

ANTITRUST SCRUTINY

Some analysts said the overlap in the security business could invite antitrust scrutiny, but Cisco said it was not concerned about the deal facing major regulatory hurdles.

“We don’t have any history of having (antitrust) challenges in the U.S. and the two companies coming together is quite synergistic – in the technology integration there is not a ton of overlap, so there is not a lot of concern about this being some sort of roll up that is going to stop competition,” Robbins told Reuters.

The deal, which was unanimously approved by the boards of both Cisco and Splunk, is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2024, subject to regulatory approvals. It will not require approval from Chinese regulators. The deal is expected to be cash positive and will add $4 billion in annual recurring revenue, Cisco executives said on a conference call with analysts.

If the deal is shelved, Cisco will have to pay Splunk a termination fee of $1.48 billion.

Tidal Partners, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP were advisers to Cisco. Qatalyst Partners, Morgan Stanley, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP advised Splunk.

(Reporting by Milana Vinn in New York and Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Writing by Anirban Sen; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Lisa Shumaker)

By David Morgan and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s attempt to restart his stalled spending agenda failed on Thursday when Republicans for a third time blocked a procedural vote on defense spending, raising the risk of a government shutdown in just 10 days.

The House of Representatives voted 216-212 against beginning debate on an $886 billion defense appropriations bill, with five hardline conservative Republicans joining Democrats to oppose the measure.

It represented a setback for McCarthy the morning after his fractious 221-212 majority met for 2-1/2 hours seeking common ground on legislation to avert the fourth government shutdown in a decade beginning Oct. 1.

As the vote failed, McCarthy told reporters that he will pursue the “same strategy I had from January: just keep working; never give up.”

Federal agencies will begin to shut down on Oct. 1 unless Congress passes either a short-term continuing resolution, known as a CR, or a full-year funding bill. So far House Republicans have failed to unify around either possibility, and the ideas they have considered have only Republican support, making them unlikely to win support in the Democratic-majority Senate or be signed into law by President Joe Biden.

“Instead of decreasing the chance of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that cannot become law in the Senate,” top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said.

The defense bill had been scheduled for a five-minute vote that Republicans kept open for over a half hour in a vain hope of winning additional votes. The defense bill also failed in a similar vote on Tuesday and had to be pulled from consideration earlier this month, all due to hardline opposition.

Representative Dan Bishop, one of Thursday’s five Republican holdouts, cited a lack of trust in McCarthy’s leadership.

“Let’s be honest with each other. How about a little candor, not what you think the people would like to hear,” Bishop told reporters without referring to McCarthy by name.

“Just tell them squarely what you’re going to do. Do that!” the North Carolina Republicans said.

TRUMP WADES IN

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, added to McCarthy’s distractions with a call to shut the government, as occurred three times during his four years in the White House.

“Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government that refuses to close the Border, and treats half the Country as Enemies of the State,” the former president said on his Truth Social platform.

Trump is awaiting four criminal trials, including two brought by federal prosecutors, over charges including his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He has claimed without evidence that all four prosecutions are politically motivated.

Political brinkmanship has begun to attract the attention of Wall Street, with rating agency Fitch citing repeated down-to-the-wire negotiations that threaten the government’s ability to pay its bills when it downgraded U.S. debt rating to AA+ from its top-notch AAA designation earlier this year.

“The unpredictability is sad for the country,” said Representative Rosa DeLauro, top Democrat on the House appropriations panel. “They have stopped our ability to respond to the needs of the American people.”

The Republican spending agenda has run afoul of a small group of Republican hardline conservatives, who want assurances that fiscal 2024 appropriations will not exceed a 2022 top line of $1.47 trillion, $120 billion less than McCarthy and Biden agreed to in May.

Bishop criticized a McCarthy proposal to set a 30-day CR at the 2022 level but a top line for fiscal 2024 appropriations at nearly $1.53 trillion. “The only way that’s possible is if something isn’t genuine,” Bishop said.

A bipartisan group of 64 lawmakers known as the “Problem Solvers Caucus” proposed a measure that would fund the government through Jan. 11, though without McCarthy’s support it is unclear how the measure would advance.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Richard Cowan, additional reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone, Leslie Adler, Mark Porter and Timothy Gardner)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The CEO of internet search engine company DuckDuckGo testified on Thursday that his company struggled to grow its market share because Google was paying key companies billions of dollars to keep its search engine as the default on computers or mobile devices.

THE TAKE: DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg, who was testifying at a trial in Washington to determine if Alphabet’s Google broke US antitrust law, was meant to support the U.S. government’s argument that Google’s big pockets were used to illegally hold back its smaller rivals.

KEY QUOTE:

Weinberg testified that he had pressed particular companies – he did not name them – to use DuckDuckGo as the default and found some interest but ultimately no success because of Google’s contracts with the companies.

“We generally saw a lot of interest,” he said. “We ultimately decided, this was after three years of trying this, that this was a quixotic exercise because of the contracts.”

CONTEXT:

*The government has argued that Google, which has some 90% of the search market, illegally paid $10 billion annually to smartphone makers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T and others to be the default in search on their devices in order to stay on top.

*The clout in search then makes Google a heavy hitter in the lucrative advertising market, boosting its profits.

*DuckDuckGo has around 2.5% of the online search engine market because it has not been able to win a default position on devices made by big companies.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

(Reuters) -The Federal Aviation Administration issued an alert on Thursday warning that unapproved parts might be installed in certain General Electric model CF6 jet engines, telling owners to inspect planes or inventories for the parts.

The FAA says UK-based AOG Technics sold bushings for GE Model CF6 engines without having FAA approval.

Jet engine maker CFM International said Wednesday thousands of engine components may have been sold with forged paperwork by AOG Technics, including a small number of parts for CF6 engines.

The CF6 is used mainly to power cargo planes, including the vast majority of Boeing 767 freighters.

If unapproved CF6 bushings are found, the FAA said aircraft owners and operators should remove and quarantine parts.

General Electric did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Valerie Insinna; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. federal judge on Thursday said American cities may pursue class-action claims accusing eight large banks of driving up interest rates they paid on a popular municipal bond.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan rejected efforts by Bank of America, Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada and Wells Fargo to require cities to pursue claims individually, likely reducing potential recoveries.

Cities led by Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Diego accused the banks of colluding to raise rates on more than 12,000 variable-rate demand obligations (VRDOs) from 2008 to 2016.

They said this reduced available funding for hospitals, power and water supplies, schools and transportation, and likely caused billions of dollars in damages.

Once a more than $400 billion market, VRDOs are long-term bonds with short-term rates that typically reset weekly. Banks must remarket VRDOs that investors redeem at the lowest possible rates.

Cities accused the eight banks of conspiring not to compete for remarketing services, and artificially inflating rates by sharing information about bond inventories and planned rate changes.

In opposing class certification, the banks said differences among the bonds would require many thousands of individualized examinations into whether rate inflation occurred, making a single class-action lawsuit unwieldy.

But in a 33-page decision, Furman said two financial markets specialists who the cities hired as expert witnesses established that the alleged collusion could have a class-wide impact.

“Of course, it remains an open question whether, assuming plaintiffs paid supra-competitive interest, that payment was caused by defendants’ allegedly anti-competitive behavior,” Furman wrote. “Whatever the answer to this question may be, however, it is a common question.”

Barclays, Citigroup and JPMorgan declined to comment. The other banks and their lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Dan Brockett, a lawyer for the cities, said they were gratified by the decision.

The VRDOs market shrank to $72 billion by the end of 2022, according to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.

The case is Philadelphia et al v Bank of America Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 19-01608.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

(Reuters) – More automakers signed up to access Tesla’s electric-vehicle charging infrastructure across the United States, taking the Elon Musk-led company’s superchargers closer to becoming the industry standard.

Texas has approved a plan to require EV charging companies to include Tesla’s plug if they want to be eligible for federal funds.

Tesla’s North American Charging Standard is more widely available and reliable than rival charging network CCS, which is backed by automakers such as Volkswagen and Hyundai Motor.

Here is a list of the companies adopting NACS:

Company Type Announcement

Ford Motor Co Automaker May 2023

General Motors Automaker June 2023

Rivian Automotive Automaker June 2023

Volvo Cars Automaker June 2023

Polestar Automaker June 2023

Mercedez-Benz Automaker July 2023

Nissan Automaker July 2023

Honda Motor Co Automaker Sept 2023

Jaguar Sept 2023

Automaker

SK Signet Charger maker June 2023

ChargePoint Holdings Charger maker June 2023

Blink Charging Charger maker June 2023

Tritium DCFC Charger maker June 2023

EVgo Charger maker June 2023

ABB Inc Charger maker June 2023

Wallbox Charger maker June 2023

Electrify America Charger maker June 2023

Fisker EV developer August 2023

List of U.S. states that have either mandated Tesla’s charging tech or plan to:

U.S. states Approval

Texas Texas approved plans to require

companies to include Tesla’s

technology in EV charging stations

to be eligible for federal funds

despite opposition.

Kentucky Kentucky mandated Tesla’s plug for

state-backed charging stations,

according to documents reviewed by

Reuters.

Washington Washington state plans to require

EV charging companies to include

Tesla’s plug if they want to be

part of a state program to

electrify highways using federal

dollars.

Florida Florida will mandate NACS one year

after standards body SAE

International, which is reviewing

the technology, formally recognizes

it.

(Reporting by Akash Sriram and Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Chavi Mehta; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Arun Koyyur)

By Helen Coster, Aditya Soni, Dawn Chmielewski

(Reuters) -Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as the chairman of Fox Corp and News Corp, ending a more than seven-decade career during which he created a media empire spanning from Australia to the United States.

His son, Lachlan Murdoch, will become the sole chairman of News Corp and continue as the chair and CEO of Fox, the companies said on Thursday. The transition solidifies Lachlan’s role as the leader of the media empire, putting to rest questions of succession within the Murdoch family.

In a memo to staff Thursday, Murdoch wrote: “Our companies are in robust health, as am I.”

The executive transition coincides with the annual meeting of shareholders for Fox and News Corp in mid-November.

It also comes just months after Murdoch, 92, scrapped a plan that would have reunited his media empire by merging Fox and News Corp, after several top shareholders rejected the proposal on the grounds that it would fail to realize the full value of the company.

Murdoch, who has near-controlling stakes in both companies, will be appointed chairman emeritus of both the companies.

Lachlan takes over the Murdoch empire as the media industry is battered by challenges ranging from the decline in traditional television viewership, to news organizations battling tech companies over alleged copyright theft in the age of artificial intelligence.

Fox News continues to be the number one U.S. cable news network, playing an influential role in U.S. politics.

Earlier this year, Fox settled a defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million, averting a trial in which Murdoch, his son Lachlan and Fox executives and hosts were expected to testify.

The trial would have put Fox in the crosshairs over its amplification of false vote-rigging claims in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Legal experts said the settlement was the largest ever struck by an American media company.

Fox still faces a lawsuit from voting technology firm Smartmatic, which in 2021 sued Fox for $2.7 billion over similar claims, as well as shareholder lawsuits accusing Fox Corp officers and directors of breaching their duties by allowing the company to become mired in defamation claims.

“Many of his enterprises still produce a lot of important news which helps keep the world informed in ways that might not have occurred were it not for his leadership,” said Brian Wieser, media analyst at advisory firm Madison & Wall.

“But it’s impossible to ignore the other side of that, where Fox News amplified toxicity in the US political environment, and other properties similarly impacted other territories.”

SUCCESSION

Murdoch, who has six children, has long desired his children to eventually take the reins of the empire. His son James had been CEO of Twenty-First Century Fox before the company’s decision to sell its film and television assets to Walt Disney Co for $71.3 billion, a deal that closed in 2019.

James then channeled proceeds from the deal into a private investment firm, Lupa Systems. Lachlan was appointed CEO of the new Fox Corp.

Upon Murdoch’s death, his other children could challenge Lachlan’s power. Murdoch controls News Corp and Fox Corp through a Reno, Nevada-based family trust that holds a roughly a 40% stake in voting shares of each company. He also holds a small number of shares of the companies outside the trust.

Each of Murdoch’s four adult children has a stake in the trust. However, his youngest daughters Chloe and Grace, from his third wife Wendi Deng, do not have voting rights in the trust.

The transfer of News Corp and Fox Corp voting shares from Murdoch to his four adult children could create a scenario in which three of the children could out-vote a fourth, potentially setting up a battle over the future of the companies, even as Lachlan Murdoch now oversees Fox Corp. and News Corp.

Fox and News Corp have a dual-share system, with non-voting Class A shares and voting Class B shares. The shares in Fox and News Corp owned by Murdoch’s children through the trust are a combination of both classes of shares.

Concerns about Murdoch’s health have dogged him in recent years. In 2018, he suffered a serious back injury after he fell on his son Lachlan’s yacht, according to several employees.

Over the past year, Murdoch has started appearing back at Fox and News Corp’s offices in London and New York, employees say.

Shares of Fox rose 2% after the news of Murdoch stepping down. News Corp shares gained 0.6%.

“It’s the end of the founder-mogul era,” said former News Corp executive Jonathan Miller, who worked alongside the elder Murdoch.

A generation of media titans, including Sumner Redstone, Ted Turner and John Malone, shaped the modern industry, Miller said. Now, the mantle has been passed from founders to executives who have risen through the ranks.

(Reporting by Helen Coster in New York, Aditya Soni in Bengaluru and Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri, Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Nick Zieminski)

By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve’s expectations that the U.S. economy will continue to expand and necessitate additional interest rate hikes to combat inflation prompted HSBC to raise its year-end forecast for 10-year U.S. Treasury yields to 3.5% from 3%, strategists at the bank wrote in a note on Thursday.

“At a time when the Fed remains hawkish with the support of recent GDP data, there is pressure for short-dated bond yields to remain elevated, and this affects the whole curve,” wrote the firm’s analysts, led by Steven Major, the global head of fixed income.

The firm expects 10-year Treasury yields to end 2024 at 3%.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields hit a 16-year high of 4.49% on Thursday, while interest-rate sensitive 2-year yields hit a 17-year high of 5.2%. Bond yields move in the opposite direction of prices.

The U.S. central bank left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday as markets had expected. But policymakers bolstered their hawkish stance with a further rate increase projected by the end of the year and monetary policy forecasts kept significantly tighter through 2024 than markets had anticipated.

Despite the Fed’s hawkishness, there are reasons to believe that global central banks are closer to cutting rates than markets now forecast, strategists at Capital Economics wrote in a note on Thursday. The firm expects to see 21 out of the world’s 30 major central banks cutting interest rates by this time next year.

“Despite all the talk of ‘higher for longer,’ we believe that the global monetary policy tightening cycle is drawing to a close,” the firm wrote.

(Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Mark Porter)

By Yuvraj Malik and Aditya Soni

(Reuters) – Cisco Systems has agreed to buy cybersecurity firm Splunk for about $28 billion in its biggest-ever deal to beef up its software business and capitalize on the rising use of artificial intelligence, the companies said on Thursday.

The deal will help reduce Cisco’s reliance on its massive networking equipment business, which has suffered in recent years from supply chain issues and a post-pandemic slowdown in demand.

Cisco offered $157 in cash for each share of Splunk, representing a 31% premium to the company’s last closing price.

Splunk shares jumped 23% to trade $9 short of the offer price before the opening bell, while Cisco dropped nearly 5%.

“Combined, Cisco and Splunk will become one of the world’s largest software companies and will accelerate Cisco’s business transformation to more recurring revenue,” a joint statement said.

Cisco already has a data-security partnership with Splunk, whose more than 15,000 customers include many prominent companies such as Coca-Cola, Intel and Porsche.

After a surge in revenue growth last year to nearly 40%, Splunk has grappled with an industry-wide slowdown in demand in 2023 wrought by rising interest rates and sticky inflation.

Its acquisition will accelerate revenue growth and gross margin expansion at hardware-reliant Cisco in the first fiscal year after the deal’s close, according to the companies.

Cisco had also made a more than $20 billion approach for Splunk in 2022 but that fell apart, the Wall Street Journal had reported.

“Cisco bought a good synergistic business at a good price. It’s a win for both parties,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman of hedge fund Great Hill Capital. “This will give Cisco an edge in AI-enabled security moving forward.”

The overlap in the security business could, however, invite antitrust scrutiny. One analyst also raised concern about the “underwhelming” transition to the cloud at Splunk.

The deal, which was unanimously approved by the boards of both Cisco and Splunk, is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2024, subject to regulatory approvals. It will not require China’s nod.

If the deal is shelved, Cisco will have to pay a termination fee of $1.48 billion.

Tidal Partners, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Cravath, Swaine & Moore were advisers to Cisco. Qatalyst Partners, Morgan Stanley & Co, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom advised Splunk.

(Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)