Business

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Krystal Hu

(Reuters) – Gaming equipment provider Inspired Entertainment has made a $370 million offer to acquire slot machine maker PlayAGS Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. Inspired has offered $10 per share in cash to acquire PlayAGS, the sources said. PlayAGS shares had ended trading on Thursday at $6. They jumped on the news on Friday and closed up 25% at $7.52.

PlayAGS confirmed in a statement that it had received a proposal. It added that it did not accept it but remained in preliminary discussions about a potential deal. It cautioned that no transaction was certain.

Inspired Entertainment declined to comment. Las Vegas-based PlayAGS makes gaming tables and interactive solutions for gaming houses. Backed by private equity firm Apollo Global Management Inc, it went public in 2018. The casino gaming industry and its vendors have been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with PlayAGS now worth a fifth of what the market valued it at in 2019. However the company is on the mend as gaming activities and travel rebound, reporting $76.6 million in quarterly revenue this week, beating analyst estimates. Inspired Entertainment supplies gaming solutions, including virtual sports and mobile gaming, in casinos and bars in more than 35 jurisdictions, according to its website. It has a market value of close to $400 million. The New York-based firm reported a 72% jump in quarterly revenue to $71.3 million this week, as its business rebounds from pandemic lockdowns. On an analyst call on Wednesday, Inspired Entertainment Chief Financial Officer Stewart Baker said the firm was actively looking at a number of M&A activities. “We are certainly willing to use capital for M&A if it’s something that strategically fits with what we are trying to do. And there seem to be a lot of things around right now presenting themselves as possibilities,” said Baker.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss in Boston and Krystal Hu in New York; Additional reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York; Editing by David Holmes and Josie Kao)

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s top internet watchdog said on Friday tech giants such as Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group have submitted details of algorithms used in some of their products, complying with a drive by authorities to tighten oversight of platform algorithms.

The rules are part of a broad regulatory crackdown by Beijing against its once free-wheeling technology sector. State media had accused internet platforms of using algorithms to invade user privacy and influencing their choices.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) published a list of 30 algorithms used in some of the country’s most popular apps, including Alibaba’s Taobao，Tencent’s Wechat，Meituan and ByteDance’s Douyin, with brief descriptions of their use and gave them classification numbers.

It was the first list it published since China in March passed new regulations for algorithm recommendation services and launched a filing system requiring firms to companies to disclose they used in their apps.

The CAC’s list, for instance, said the Taobao app had logged with it a recommendation algorithm that crunched each user’s visit and search history to recommend them products and services, while Meituan had provided details of the algorithm it used to estimate delivery times and match riders.

Other companies on the list included Chinese online search giant Baidu, short video platform Kuaishou and microblogging site Sina’s Weibo.

(Reporting by Josh Ye and Brenda Goh; editing by David Evans)

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — What takes four years to make and costs more than $20,000? A trash can in San Francisco.

That costly, boxy bin is among six trash cans hitting San Francisco’s streets this summer in the city’s long saga in search of the perfect can. Overflowing trash cans are a common sight in the Northern California city, along with piles of used clothes, shoes, furniture and other items strewn about on sometimes-impassable sidewalks.

City officials hired a Bay Area industrial firm to custom-design the pricey trash can along with two other prototypes that cost taxpayers $19,000 and $11,000 each. This summer, residents have the opportunity to evaluate them along with three off-the-shelf options added to the pilot program after officials faced criticism.

Last month, the city deployed 15 custom-made trash cans and 11 off-the-shelf trash cans — each of those costing from $630 to $2,800 — with QR codes affixed to them asking residents to fill out a survey. City officials said they intend to pay no more than $3,000 per can.

San Francisco began its search for the perfect trash can in 2018 when officials decided it was time to replace the more than 3,000 public bins that have been on the streets for almost 20 years.

Officials say the current bins have too big a hole that allows for easy rummaging. The bins also have hinges that need constant repair and locks that are easy to breach. Some people also topple them over, cover them in graffiti, or set them on fire.

The city is so serious about the endeavor it has created interactive maps so residents can track and test the different designs, which include the Soft Square, the priciest prototype at $20,900. The boxy stainless steel receptacle has openings for trash and for can and bottle recycling and includes a foot pedal. The Slim Silhouette, at $18,800 per prototype, is made of stainless steel bars that give would-be graffiti artists less space to tag.

If one of the custom-designed bins is chosen, the cost to mass produce it will be $2,000 to $3,000 per piece, said Beth Rubenstein, a spokeswoman for San Francisco’s Department of Public Works.

“We live in a beautiful city, and we want (the trash can) to be functional and cost-effective, but it needs to be beautiful,” she said.

But the good looks of the shiny new trash cans have not protected them from vandalism and disrespect. Three weeks after being unveiled, several have already been tagged with orange and white graffiti. Others already show the drip stains of inconsiderate coffee drinkers or have attracted dumping, with people leaving dilapidated bathroom cabinets and plastic bags full of empty wine bottles next to them.

Trash on San Francisco city streets has been an issue for decades. In 2007, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom eliminated about 1,500 of the city’s 4,500 trash cans because he said they were not helping keep streets clean and were becoming magnets for more trash. Officials couldn’t say how many receptacles are currently on the curb, but the city plans to replace at least 3,000.

“A trash can is one of the most basic functions of city governance and if the city can’t do something as simple as this, how can they solve the bigger issues of homelessness and safety and poverty?” asked Matt Haney, a former supervisor who lives in the Tenderloin neighborhood and now represents the area in the California Assembly.

New trash cans will be the latest addition to the city’s arsenal against its dirty streets. In 2014, San Francisco launched its “Pit Stop” program in the Tenderloin neighborhood, the epicenter of drug dealing and homelessness in the city, setting up portable public toilets. In 2018, the city created a six-person “poop patrol” team amid demand to power wash sidewalks.

Haney said that as a supervisor he reluctantly agreed last year to approve the pilot program despite the high prices to avoid delays.

“I think most people, including me, would say just replace the damn cans with cans that we know work in other cities, just do it,” he said.

Haney said the “whole trash can saga has this stench of corruption,” referring to disgraced former Department of Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru, who pleaded guilty in January to federal wire fraud charges. Nuru awarded the contract to maintain San Francisco’s trash cans to a company owned by a relative of a developer who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and is cooperating with federal authorities in the case against Nuru.

On top of the corruption, the city has long been the butt of jokes for how long it takes to complete public works projects of all kinds.

A bus rapid transit system along Van Ness Avenue, one of the city’s main arteries, finally opened this year after 27 years of construction. A new subway line connecting Chinatown with other areas of the city that started construction in 2010 is four years behind schedule. In 2017, the city completed the Transbay Transit Center only a year late, but the $2 billion terminal abruptly shut down six weeks later after crews discovered two cracked steel girders.

Ultimately, what trash can the city gets will depend on feedback from sanitation employees, and the surveys completed by the end of September, Rubenstein said. The new cans are not expected on the streets until the end of 2023.

Diane Torkelson, who often picks up trash in her Inner Richmond neighborhood with other volunteers, recently trekked 5 miles (8 kilometers) with a dozen other civic-minded San Franciscans to examine three of the cans.

The two prototypes were already full when the group arrived to check them out, she said.

“If the trash can is full, it’s of no use, no matter how well it was designed,” she said.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Anshu Jain, a former co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, has died, his family said in a statement Saturday. He was 59.

Jain died after a battle with duodenal cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2017.

Jain was Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank from 2012 to 2015, where he helped build the firm’s global capital markets business. As Co-CEO along with Jürgen Fitschen, he was the first ever non-European to lead the German bank. Before that, he was appointed to Deutsche Bank’s Management Board in 2009 and ran the corporate and investment bank division from 2010.

“Anshu Jain played a key role in expanding Deutsche Bank’s position in our global business with companies and institutional investors,” said Alexander Wynaendts, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Bank. “Today, this is of strategic importance not just for Deutsche Bank, but for Europe as a financial center.”

After leaving Deutsche Bank, Jain served as president of New York-based financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald from 2017 until his death.

Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick said Jain “was the consummate professional who brought a wealth of experience and wisdom to his role as president.”

He began his career as an analyst in derivatives research at Kidder, Peabody & Co., then moved to Merrill Lynch, where he spent seven years setting up and then running the firm’s global hedge fund coverage group.

Jain was born in Jaipur, India, in January 1963. He received an MBA at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was a lifelong vegetarian and loved wildlife photography, cricket and golf, according to his family’s statement.

He is survived by his wife, Geetika, his mother, and two children.

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BERLIN (AP) — German businesses and public institutions should heat their offices no higher than 19 degrees Celsius (66.2 degrees Fahrenheit) this winter to help reduce the country’s consumption of natural gas, Germany’s economy minister said Saturday.

Germany, the European Union’s biggest economy, is quickly trying to wean itself off using natural gas from Russia in response to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine. However Germany uses more Russian gas imports than many other EU nations. Russia has already cut off gas exports to several EU nations, and officials fear Moscow will use the gas exports as a political weapon to get sanctions against Russia reduced — or even cut the exports to Europe off altogether in the winter, when demand is the highest.

Economy Minister Robert Habeck said while the EU’s 27 countries have pledged to cut their gas use by 15% from August compared to the previous five-year average, Germany needs to reduce its consumption by 20%.

Habeck is also proposing banning the heating of non-commercial private pools; switching off heating in common areas of public buildings, such as foyers; and switching off the lights on public billboards between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

___

Follow all AP stories on developments related to the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

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(Reuters) – Brazilian power company Eletrobras on Friday reported its second-quarter net income fell 45%, hit by the provision for losses in investments.

In the first earnings report since its privatization, Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, as the company is formally known, posted a net income of 1.4 billion reais ($276.03 million).

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 6% to 4.861 billion reais from the previous year.

Net operating revenue reached 8.856 billion reais, up 19%.

In June, Brazil’s government diluted its stake in Eletrobras, Latin America’s largest utility, through a share offering that raised about $6 billion and lured global investors.

($1 = 5.0719 reais)

(Reporting by Peter Frontini)

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(Reuters) -Net profit at Grupo SURA, Colombia’s largest investment company, rose 30.3% in the second quarter from the year-earlier period, boosted by higher financial income and lower COVID claims, the company said in a statement on Friday.

The firm’s net profit for the three-month period climbed to 557.6 billion pesos ($132 million).

Grupo SURA’s revenue for the quarter hit 7.5 trillion pesos, up 23.1% from the year before, being the quarter with the highest revenues in the company’s history, according to the statement.

The company said its net income reflected an uptrend with its different lines of insurance, and that COVID claims declined

by 97% compared to the same period last year.

Grupo SURA operates in more than 10 countries via holdings in financial services, foodstuffs, cement, energy and infrastructure, as well as investment firms.

($1= 4,231.45 Colombian pesos)

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire)

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By Ahmed Aboulenein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Big Pharma spent more than any other industry to lobby Congress and federal agencies this year, a Reuters analysis shows, but still suffered a major defeat after failing to stop a bill that allows the government to negotiate prices on select drugs.

Despite the pharmaceutical industry’s spending at least $142 million on lobbying efforts, the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act to change climate, health and tax policies will become law. It cleared its largest hurdle last week with passage in the Senate, without any Republicans joining Democrats in voting for the bill, followed by passage by the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday. [nL1N2ZO2OV]

President Joe Biden will sign it into law next week.

The bill’s imminent enactment represents a rare legislative defeat for the pharmaceutical industry and sets a precedent for curbing drug prices in the world’s most lucrative market for medicines, according to congressional and industry officials.

“This is a major first step forward,” Democratic Senator Patty Murray, chair of the Senate’s health committee, told Reuters. “It is the first time we’ve been able to make this kind of step to lower prices on pharmaceuticals … which will set the stage for us to do more.” Health policy experts say the bill reflects the pharma industry’s weakening influence on the Democratic Party and that its main argument against price negotiation — that it stifles innovation — is no longer persuasive for the public.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll in October found that 83% of Americans, including 95% of Democrats and 71% of Republicans, want the federal Medicare health plan for seniors to negotiate prices, a provision of the bill.

“The pharma guys upped the ante in throwing everything but the kitchen sink against this,” said Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat who chairs the finance committee.

The industry’s powerful trade association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), urged senators in a public letter to reject the bill. Its president, Stephen Ubl, told Politico that lawmakers who vote for it would not “get a free pass.”

“Few associations have all the tools of modern political advocacy at their disposal in the way that PhRMA does,” he said.

A PhRMA spokesperson said the group would continue to work with all lawmakers. He did not address Ubl’s comments about holding lawmakers accountable.

“We may not agree on every issue, but we believe engagement and dialogue is important to promoting a policy environment that supports innovation, a highly-skilled workforce and access to life-saving medicines for patients,” said spokesperson Brian Newell in an email.

PHARMA’S PLAN A Reuters analysis of lobbying and campaign contribution data from OpenSecrets shows that the pharmaceutical industry spent at least $142.6 million on lobbying Congress and federal agencies in the first half of 2022, more than any industry, and at least $16.1 million on campaign contributions during the current mid-term election cycle that started in January 2021.

Almost two-thirds of the money spent on lobbying, around $93 million, came from PhRMA and its member companies.

The pharma campaign argued that prescription drugs do not contribute to inflation, citing an average 2.5% rise in drug prices in the past year compared with a 17% rise in health insurance prices.

Critics say the figures combine high-priced brand name drugs with much lower-cost generics, masking the impact on patients’ costs. A KFF study estimated that prices increased faster than inflation for half of all drugs covered by Medicare in 2020.

The industry has long warned that price curbs in the U.S. market would hamper companies’ ability to invest in developing new drugs.

With help from Democrats backed by the industry, the bill’s provision for drug price negotiations was scaled back in November, allowing Medicare to focus on an annual maximum of 20 of the costliest medicines by 2029, instead of an initial proposal to help reduce prices for 250 treatments.

Opponents to the more dramatic curbs included Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Representative Scott Peters, two of the biggest recipients of industry donations, at more than $201,000 and $320,000, respectively, according to OpenSecrets data.

“We created a good space for investors to be able to recoup their investment which continuously has set out to develop new drugs,” Peters told Reuters.

“I still think they came out okay on this.”

WHAT NOW?

Democratic staffers, industry executives and policy experts said that the bill’s broad popularity, combined with pressure on Democrats to pass meaningful legislation ahead of midterm elections in November, helped overcome the pharma industry campaigning.

“With this vote I would imagine Pharma realizes they do not have a lot of friends left among Democrats,” said Larry Levitt, vice president for health policy at KFF. “Pharma sees this as the camel’s nose under the tent, and it probably is.”

The industry will likely try to mitigate the effects of the bill as much as possible, policy experts said.

“They will prosecute this through the courts. And they will, I suspect, try and alter the legislation” in the future, said Mark Miller, a former government health policy official who is now executive vice president of healthcare at Arnold Ventures.

The extent to which the bill might stoke fear for investors remains to be seen, given that many view pharmaceutical stocks as among the safer bets during an economic downturn.

“Sentiment is at a multi-year high for the US Pharma and we do not view the IRA drug reform as significantly changing investor positioning,” a note from JPMorgan analysts said.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan in Washington and Lewis Krauskopf in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Deepa Babington and Leslie Adler)

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(Reuters) – Global equity funds saw inflows in the week to Aug. 10 after six straight weeks of withdrawals, as investors took the view that the Federal Reserve might not be too aggressive with its interest rate hikes amid receding inflation worries.

According to Refinitiv Lipper, global equity funds lured $2.75 billion in their first weekly net purchase since June 22.

GRAPHIC: Fund flows: Global equities, bonds and money market (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/dwpkrwkykvm/Fund%20flows-%20Global%20equities%20bonds%20and%20money%20market.jpg)

The data released on Wednesday showed U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in July, which has raised expectations of a 50 bps hike by the Federal Reserve in its September meeting, rather than a 75 bps which was widely anticipated earlier.

A report showing a pick-up in the U.S. services industry also bolstered sentiment.

U.S. and Asian equity funds received $4.21 billion and $0.69 billion respectively, although European funds had outflows of $2.52 billion.

Among sector funds, consumer staples and healthcare gained $535 million and $389 million respectively, but tech and financials lost $412 million and $386 million respectively.

GRAPHIC: Fund flows: Global equity sector funds (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/zjvqkbnmavx/Fund%20flows-%20Global%20equity%20sector%20funds.jpg)

Investors purchased about $5 billion of global bond funds, marking a second weekly inflow in a row.

Government bond funds attracted a net $2.25 billion in a second weekly inflow, however, investors sold short- & medium-term, and high yield funds of $1.66 billion and $47 million respectively.

GRAPHIC: Global bond fund flows in the week ended Aug 10 (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/gkvlgobkkpb/Global%20bond%20fund%20flows%20in%20the%20week%20ended%20Aug%2010.jpg)

Money market funds recorded outflows of $12.51 billion, the biggest in six weeks.

Data for commodities funds showed energy funds attracted $101 million in net buying, the first weekly inflow in seven weeks, but precious metal funds lost $394 million.

An analysis of 24,438 emerging market funds showed bond funds attracted purchases worth $766 million while equities notched up a fourth weekly capital outflow of $488 million.

GRAPHIC: Fund flows: EM equities and bonds (https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/xmvjombyepr/Fund%20flows-%20EM%20equities%20and%20bonds.jpg)

(Reporting by Gaurav Dogra and Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

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By Manoj Kumar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India’s consumer inflation dipped to 6.71% in July, easing for the third month in a row, helped by a slower increase in food and fuel prices and adding to expectations that the central bank may rein in the pace of its policy rate hikes next month.

The year-on-year figure, published on Friday by the National Statistics Office, was marginally lower than the 6.78% forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. But it remained above the central bank’s 2-6% tolerance band for a seventh month in a row.

After months of eye-watering inflation readings across much of the world, policymakers are wondering if they may have seen the peak of price pressures given recent evidence of moderation in Japan, China and the United States.

However, few are willing to make definitive calls with the Ukraine war and pandemic continuing to tie up supply lines.

“Inflationary pressures have eased,” a government source said on Thursday, adding that the government and central bank would continue to take steps to bring retail inflation below 6%.

Economists said they expect the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to raise policy rate by at least 25 basis points next month as real interest rates are still negative.

The RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee has lifted the key repo rate by 140 basis points since May, including by 50 bps this month, while the government imposed restrictions on export of crops including wheat and sugar while cutting fuel taxes.

Food inflation, which accounts for nearly half the CPI basket, was 6.75% in July, also easing for the third month in a row. Prices of edible oil and some metals fell.

Core inflation, excluding volatile food and energy prices, was estimated at 5.79-5.80% in July, lower than 5.96- 6.2% estimates in June, said two economists, after the data release.

India does not release core inflation data.

(Reporting by Manoj Kumar; Editing by Mark Heinrich and John Stonestreet)

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