Business

WASHINGTON — Amazon announced plans on Tuesday to expand its technology hub in the Boston area, creating some 3,000 jobs in the next few years.

The Boston hub will add teams working on the Alexa digital assistant, robotics, Amazon Pharmacy and the giant's web services unit.

The company, which already employs some 3,700 people in the Boston area, has leased a new 17-story office tower which is part of the Boston Seaport project. 

Set for completion in 2024, the complex will include a community dog park, retail space and a new performing arts centre.

Rohit Prasad, vice president and head scientist for Alexa at Amazon, said the new hub will expand research and development for the artificial intelligence system.

"Much of the technology that makes Alexa smarter every day is invented in Boston," Prasad said.

"Our teams here play a key role in driving Amazon's innovations."

Amazon's workforce has been surging in recent years and includes some 800,000 in the United States, as the company expands its e-commerce, web services, streaming and other projects while at the same time drawing heightened scrutiny from antitrust enforcers.

AMMAN — Arab Bank Group concluded 2020 reporting net income after tax of $195.3 million compared to $846.5 million in 2019, recording a drop of 77 per cent, according to a statement of the Arab Bank Group. 

 The group’s equity grew to reach $9.4 billion, said the statement, adding that the board of directors recommended the distribution of 12 per cent in cash dividends for the financial year 2020.

The year 2020 was challenging for global and regional banking sectors due to economic contraction, higher cost of risk, and lower interest rates, in addition to the plunge in oil prices since the outbreak of the pandemic, the group said in its statement.

Customer deposits grew by 7 per cent to reach $38.7billion compared to $36.2billion, while loans grew by 1 per cent to reach $26.5 billion as compared to $26.1 billion. 

The group maintained its robust capital base with an equity of $9.4 billion and a capital adequacy ratio of 16.8 per cent, calculated in accordance with Basel III regulations.

The group enjoys high liquidity with a loan-to-deposit ratio of 68.4 per cent, while credit provisions held against non-performing loans continue to exceed 100 per cent.

Sabih Masri, chairman of the board of directors said the COVID-19 pandemic impacted businesses around the world and the economic environments in which they operate. 

“In an effort on safeguard their economies, governments and regulatory authorities launched various programmes to mitigate the impact of the crisis,” he said in the statement.  “The bank dealt with these challenges while maintaining its strong liquidity and capital positions,” he noted.

Nemeh Sabbagh, chief executive officer, said the group took several initiatives to help mitigate these unprecedented economic and market conditions, safeguarding its healthy liquidity and capital ratios, maintainingresilient asset quality metrics, and scaling up digital banking initiatives and channels across the Group.

The increased provisions taken across the group are in accordance with the guidelines of International Financial Reporting Standard # 9, and as per the bank’s internal expected credit loss model, and include general provisions built due to the current economic situation in Lebanon, he added.

The 2020 financial statements require the approval of the Central Bank of Jordan.

LONDON — UK department store chain Debenhams is to shut all its outlets, administrators for the collapsed group said Monday, with the loss of around 12,000 jobs.

Debenhams, which has long struggled with fierce online competition, will see its brand live on, however, after British online fashion group Boohoo bought the group's intellectual property assets.

Meanwhile, Boohoo-rival ASOS announced it was in exclusive discussions with the administrators of Arcadia about purchasing some of its brands, including Topshop. 

Arcadia and Debenhams collapsed last month — together risking the loss of 25,000 jobs — having struggled to transition from a bricks-and-mortar business long before the coronavirus pandemic forced shoppers online. 

Arcadia owner Philip Green — once dubbed "the king of the high street" — saw his reputation severely hit by the high-profile collapse of UK retailer BHS in 2016.

"The importance of the bricks-and-mortar traditionally associated with retail brands has now fully waned," noted Gordon Fletcher at the University of Salford Business School. 

"This is not a new realisation that has only been discovered during the pandemic. 

"However, the current lockdown situation has forced us to cut the final ties between our favourite brands and the physical high street," Fletcher added.

Debenhams' stores will reopen following the lifting of the UK lockdown solely to liquidate stock, administrators FRP Advisory, brought in to salvage parts of the business, said in a statement on Monday.

"Regrettably, all the UK stores will then be permanently closed," it added.

A source close to the company said this meant that around 12,000 jobs would disappear.

Debenhams, whose history dates back to the late eighteenth century, had hoped to sell some of its 124 stores, whose staff have been paid by the British government's furlough scheme during the pandemic.

It is unclear whether British retail group Frasers, which has been in talks with the administrators, will still snap up some Debenhams stores.

Frasers is headed by Mike Ashley, owner of English Premier League football club Newcastle United and renowned for purchasing major retailers that have fallen from great heights.

'Strong brands' 

Boohoo said its acquisition of Debenhams' assets, including customer data, will cost it £55 million ($75 million, 62 million euros).

It plans to relaunch Debenhams' online platform, as Boohoo looks to lead the fashion e-commerce market by entering new areas including beauty, sports and homeware.

"Debenhams is a long-standing and leading UK fashion and beauty retailer with high brand awareness, and an established online platform with approximately 300 million UK website visits per annum," Boohoo said in a statement. 

"This makes it a top 10 retail website in the UK by traffic."

With an increasing shift to online, main shopping streets in England's towns and cities could lose another 400,000-plus jobs after coronavirus passes, according to a recent survey by accountants KPMG.

While COVID-19 has ravaged the UK retail sector, with tens of thousands of jobs being lost owing to other big-name bankruptcies, supermarkets have boomed.

Arcadia, one of Britain's biggest clothing retailers, fell into administration ahead of Christmas, putting at risk a further 13,000 roles.

Arcadia, whose brands sold also in Debenhams' stores, blamed its own demise largely on coronavirus fallout.

However like Debenhams, Arcadia also struggled to make the transition into a leading online company.

ASOS on Monday said it was looking at buying the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands from Arcadia. 

"The board believes this would represent a compelling opportunity to acquire strong brands that resonate well with its customer base."

SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla has sued a former employee for allegedly stealing about 26,000 confidential files in his first week of working at the company, according to a court filing seen by AFP. 

The company said on Friday that within three days of being hired, software engineer Alex Khatilov “brazenly stole thousands of trade computer scripts that took Tesla years to develop” and transferred them to his personal Dropbox, a cloud storage service. 

Tesla said that when confronted by Tesla’s security team, Khatilov claimed he had only transferred “a couple of personal administrative documents”, whilst trying to delete the evidence. 

Khatilov told The New York Post the software files ended up in his Dropbox by mistake when he had been trying to make a backup copy of a folder on his computer. 

Tesla said the files, which represented “200 man-years of work”, were extremely valuable to both the company and its competitors, as they could provide “a roadmap to copy Tesla’s innovation”. 

It said Khatilov’s team made up the handful of Tesla employees — 40 out of 50,000 — that had access to the scripts, but that they “had nothing to do with his responsibilities”. 

Tesla’s security team detected the file downloads on January 6, after Khatilov was hired on December 28, and confronted him via videocall as he was working from home, according to the court filing. 

Tesla said during this call, Khatilov delayed sharing his screen with the team, during which time “he could be seen on videochat hurriedly deleting information from his computer”.

However, investigators were still able to view thousands of confidential files uploaded to his Dropbox, which Khatilov “claimed he somehow ‘forgot’”. 

Khatilov, who told The New York Post that he was unaware he was being sued until the newspaper called him on Friday, was fired the same day.

“When it happened, I was shocked,” he was quoted as saying. “I didn’t lie [about] anything.”

NEW YORK — California-based EVgo is set to join the parade of companies jumping on public equity markets following a transaction announced on Friday to raise $575 million to accelerate the build-out of electric charging stations in the US.

The transaction with Climate Real Impact Solutions will provide capital to EVgo to build thousands of new fuelling stations as major automakers market more electric models and newly-installed President Joe Biden ramps up the focus on climate change.

The transaction comes on the heels of deals that have seen electric automakers such as Lordstown Motors and Fisker listed on US stock markets, while Tesla has become the biggest car company by market value. 

Conventional automakers are racing to bring more electric autos to market to compete with Tesla, with General Motors unveiling a new corporate logo earlier this month to communicate its focus on an electric future.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden promised to build 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations.

"Just a few years ago, electric vehicles were considered niche," said Cathy Zoi, chief executive of EVgo.

She noted that public charging stations are needed for the vast market of users who cannot fuel up at home.

"Time is precious for all of us, so a public fast charging option with an expanding footprint like EVgo is essential to meet the rapidly growing needs of EV drivers of all types," she said.

The 11-year-old EVgo, which now has more than 800 charging locations in 34 states, has struck partnerships with GM, Uber and Lyft, as well as supermarket chains like Kroger and Whole Foods that have charging stations in suburban parking lots.

The initial public offering (IPO) -like transaction is the latest involving a special purpose acquisition company, an increasingly popular vehicle for introducing companies to public markets. 

The new company will have an implied value of $2.6 billion, EVgo and Climate Real Impact Solutions said in a press release.

Climate Real Impact Solutions, which is affiliated with Pacific Investment Management Company, went public last fall and trades under the ticker, "CRIS". 

Upon closing of the transaction, expected in the second quarter, the new company will trade under the ticker "EVGO".

"Starting from our IPO in September, we set out looking for a purpose-driven company making a meaningful contribution in the fight against climate change that was best in class in its sector," said David Crane, chief executive of CRIS. "We are excited to have found that company in EVgo."

Shares of Climate Real Impact Solutions were up 52.3 per cent at $20.36 in early afternoon trading.

WASHINGTON — Government data released the day after Joe Biden entered the White House made clear the scale of the employment crisis facing the new US president as the country struggles to make it through the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The United States saw 900,000 new filings for unemployment benefits last week, the Labour Department said Thursday, a massive number that remains well above the single worst week of the 2008-2010 global financial crisis, during which Biden served as vice president under Barack Obama.

Economists had been expecting a sharper drop in seasonally adjusted claims in the week ended January 16, but instead they fell just 26,000 from the prior week, underscoring the toll taken by the renewed onslaught of Covid-19 in the United States.

The government also reported 423,734 new filings made under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programme for self-employed people not normally eligible for benefits.

That was nearly double the week prior after that programme lapsed briefly amid a standoff in Washington over extending it and other aid.

All told, nearly 16 million people were receiving some form of aid from the government as of January 2 -- a figure that's expected to rise.

"Layoffs are ongoing at an elevated pace, reflecting the impact of containment measures," Rubeela Farooqi of High Frequency Economics said in an analysis.

"Conditions are unlikely to improve until infections can be curbed, and the economy can reopen more completely."

Turning it around 

New jobless filings skyrocketed after states and cities restricted business across the country when Covid-19 broke out in March, and though they've come down from the millions initially reported each week as businesses shed employees en masse, they remain at very high levels.

The unemployment rate has seen a similar trajectory, shooting up to 14.7 per cent in April but declining in subsequent months to its current 6.7 per cent.

Biden, who took office on Wednesday, has proposed a $1.9 trillion spending measure aimed both at revitalising the economy and improving the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines.

However, Lydia Boussour of Oxford Economics warned the country is in for rough times to come.

"Fiscal stimulus prospects, along with broader vaccine diffusion, are pointing to a brightening labour market outlook but with the pandemic still raging, claims are poised to remain elevated in the near-term," she said.

With his Democrats only narrowly controlling both houses of Congress, it's unclear what degree of support Biden's package will get from Republicans.

Michael Feroli of JP Morgan predicted Congress could pare the president's plan down to the $900 billion range, matching a separate measure approved last month. 

Even the smaller amount would boost GDP growth this year to 5.3 per cent and in 2022 to 2.6 per cent, he said, a "remarkable expected turnaround" aided also by negligible inflation and the Federal Reserve's maintenance of low borrowing rates.

Sectors of the economy have nonetheless prospered during the pandemic, with the Commerce Department reporting on Thursday homebuilding projects jumped 5.8 per cent in December from the month prior.

That was 12 per cent higher than December 2019, despite the toll of Covid-19.

VELIZY- VILLACOUBLAY, France — Stellantis, the world's newest major automobile group, laid out on Tuesday a roadmap for its development, notably in electric vehicles.

Chief Executive Carlos Tavares, who was already head of the French automaker PSA, said the 14 brands that make up Stellantis, now the world's fourth biggest carmaker, would all offer electric vehicles by 2025.

He also pledged to draw up a strategy for development in China by the end of the year, without providing details.

Stellantis was created from the merger of PSA — and its Peugeot and Citroen brands in particular — with the Italian carmaker Fiat, which also owns Chrysler, Jeep, Alfa Romeo and Maserati, among others.

Tavares told a press conference that every brand, including those which currently post weak sales, would have a chance to prove itself.

"We want to support those brands, even those facing difficulties," he said. "We are car addicts. We like the brands, we like their history.

The group also plans to "make electric vehicles affordable for the middle class" in the near future, he said.

Stellantis already has 29 electric models for sale and plans to launch 10 more by the end of the year.

With respect to the Chinese market, Tavares said that neither PSA nor Fiat had been satisfied with their results, and pledged "a complete overhaul of the group's strategy".

Tavares said the group was pleased that Britain and the European Union had hammered out a deal on trade relations now that Britain is no longer an EU member.

He added that decisions regarding future investments in Britain, home to the group's Vauxhall brand, "will be made within the next two weeks".

PARIS — The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) plans to clear the Boeing 737 MAX to fly again next week, 22 months after the plane was grounded following two fatal crashes.

"For us, the MAX will be able to fly again starting next week," after publication of a directive, EASA Director Patrick Ky said in a video conference.

"We have reached the point where our four main demands have been fulfilled," Ky said during the conference, organised by the German association of aviation journalists.

The MAX was grounded in March 2019 after two crashes that together killed 346 people — the 2018 Lion Air disaster in Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines crash the following year.

Investigators said a main cause of both crashes was a faulty flight handling system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.

Meant to keep the aircraft from stalling as it ascends, the automated system instead forced the nose of the plane downward.

The findings plunged Boeing into crisis, with more than 650 orders for the 737 MAX cancelled since last year.

The US Federal Aviation Administration ordered Boeing to revamp the jet and implement new pilot training protocols, before finally approving the plane for a return to service in November.

Ky had already indicated in October that EU approval was likely after Boeing promised a new sensor would be added to prevent the type of problems that caused the crashes.

 'We fell short' 

EASA approval means airlines worldwide will again be able to start using the 737 MAX for flights to and from Europe.

Brazil has also cleared the plane for flights, and Canadian authorities said this week that approval was likely as soon as Wednesday.

The 737 MAX crisis, combined with the decimation of air travel after the COVID-19 outbreak, prompted Boeing to cut tens of thousands of jobs and also sparked a leadership shake-up.

The plane was meant to be Boeing's fuel-efficient flagship in the highly competitive market for narrow-body jets, where its European rival Airbus has been highly successful with its A320 family of planes for short- to medium-haul flights.

This month, new Boeing CEO David Calhoun acknowledged that "we fell short of our values and expectations", after the company agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle US criminal charges that it defrauded regulators.

Boeing also got a boost in December when Ireland's Ryanair said it had ordered 75 more of the jets, the first major order since they were grounded.

The company is hoping COVID-19 vaccination drives will help improve its fortunes this year, after Boeing delivered just 157 planes last year, a 59 per cent slump.

"In 2021, we'll continue taking the right actions to enhance our safety culture, preserve liquidity and transform our business for the future," Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith said earlier this month.