Month: June 2016

The supplier of metal packaging products, Ball Corporation BLL , confirmed that it has received a conditional approval of Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regarding its proposed acquisition of Rexam PLC REXMY . This clears the final regulatory clearance for the merger deal. Shares of Ball Corp […]

Multinational engineering firm AECOM ACM recently announced that it has been chosen as the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (“EPC”) contractor for the Alliant Energy’s Riverside Energy Center expansion project. This contract, valued at $700 million, will be booked in the company’s backlog for fiscal third quarter. […]

On the day when the peer-to-peer online lender, LendingClub Corporation LC tried to alleviate investors’ concerns by making organizational changes, new revelations indicated more troubles down the road for the company. Organizational Changes: CEO Appointment & Job Cuts LendingClub announced the appointment of Scott Sanborn as its CEO and President and Hans Morris was named the Chairman. Earlier, Morris was assigned the role of Executive Chairman on a temporary basis following the sudden resignation of the company’s founder Renaud Laplanche as the chairman and CEO in May […]

McKesson Corporation MCK announced that it will collaborate with Change Healthcare Holdings to create a new healthcare information technology company. We note that Change Healthcare is a leading provider of software and analytics, network solutions and technology-enabled services, with Blackstone Group as its largest stockholder. Structure of the New Entity As per the terms of the agreement, McKesson will offer majority of its Technology Solutions businesses […]

Post-Brexit — Great Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) — the global market is in a roller coaster ride due to a spike in volatility. Market analysts believe that Brexit would lead to a weaker currency, owing to worries about Britain's trade with the EU, which could suffer if new trade barriers are raised. This would lead to a negative impact on Britain’s Gross Domestic Product, further hitting several sectors like retail and financial services among others and therefore have an unfavorable impact on British equities. […]

On Jun 28, 2016, the Zacks Investment Research upgraded Washington-based HomeStreet Inc. HMST to a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). Acquisition & Projection of Improved Q2 Earnings Drive Upgrade HomeStreet has been witnessing rising earnings estimates driven by the announcement of an acquisition and the company’s expectations of growth in the second quarter earnings […]

Shares of Xencor, Inc . XNCR rallied 32.06% after the company announced that it has entered into a collaboration and license agreement with Swiss major, Novartis AG NVS . Terms of the Agreement As per the agreement terms, the companies will collaborate to develop and commercialize two pipeline candidates – XmAb14045 (expected to enter clinical development for acute myeloid leukemia in 2016) and XmAb13676 (to enter clinical development for B-cell malignancies in 2016) […]

Nordstrom Inc. JWN seems to be doing well with its Trunk Club business, a personalized clothing service line acquired in 2014. After witnessing the growth in this business and seeing significant opportunities ahead, the company has decided to shutdown the Trunk Club fulfillment center in Goose Island in Chicago, IL, and integrate the same into the Nordstrom network of fulfillment and distribution centers, across the U.S. […]

FLIR Systems Inc. FLIR announced the acquisition of Armasight, Inc., a dominant developer of military optics products, precision sporting and hunting, for roughly $41 million in cash. The buyout will boost FLIR Systems’ ability to offer advanced day and night capabilities to law enforcement, military customers, hunters and wildlife enthusiasts. […]

Western Union Co. WU has entered into a tie-up with Drive Wealth a provider of easy-to-use U.S. equities investing platform to individuals worldwide. […]

Air Products and Chemicals APD has taken another step towards the separation of its Materials Technologies' Electronic Materials Division (“EMD”), which will become Versum Materials. The company announced that the standalone company, Versum Materials, will be headquartered at Tempe, AZ. Co-locating Versum Materials’ headquarters near its customer companies is in accordance with Air Products’ strategy of getting closer to the consumer market through the spin-off […]

On Jun 29, Zacks Investment Research updated the research report on waste management services provider, Republic Services, Inc. RSG . Republic Services Inc […]

Swiss-based manufacturer of electronics and sensors, TE Connectivity Ltd. TEL announced that its LGA (land grid array) 3647 Socket would be used in Intel Corporation’s INTC new processors per specifications under their new server platforms. The new socket will provide consistent connectivity for CPUs in high performance computing (“HPC”) and server platforms. […]

On Jun 28, we issued an updated research report on TCF Financial Corporation TCB . This Minnesota-based various retail and commercial banking products and services provider’s growth has been aided by steady improvement in deposits, enhanced capital deployment activities and balance sheet streamlining. […]

Riding high on its strong cloud business, enterprise application provider SAP SE SAP recently came up with two new cloud offerings, SAP Hybris Service Engagement Center and SAP Geographical Enablement Framework. This came close on the heels of a string of launches last week at the SAPinsider, where the company rolled out products like SAP Cloud Identity Access Governance, SAP HANA smart data integration, SAP HANA smart data quality, SAP Data Services, SAP Information Steward software and the SAP Agile Data Preparation application. […]