Corporate

Heineken’s £403million takeover of Punch Taverns received the grreen light by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) after the competition watchdog accepted plans to sell off some the almost 1,900 newly-acquired pubs to allay fears it could reduce competition.

Heineken announced last December that it was teaming up with Patron Capital, the private equity firm, to buy Punch for £409m (€305m), or £1.78bn once Punch’s debt is taken into account.

Swiss Life on Wednesday posted a larger-than-expected rise in half-year profit despite trimming back business in its core life insurance operations. Insurer Group reported that its first-half net profit increased 5% from last year to 524 million Swiss francs.

Swiss Life said net profit rose 5 percent to 524 million Swiss francs ($538.8 million), ahead of expectations for 514 million francs in a Reuters poll of eight analysts.

Facebook announced “Watch,” the long-awaited update to its video section where people can go watch short, episodic video shows. You’ll also be able to watch some live video here, including live sports that the social network has the rights to stream, like Major League Baseball games.

Facebook already had a video tab. But now that tab has been redesigned, and will include short episodic “shows” that Facebook didn’t have before. Facebook is paying publishers like BuzzFeed, ATTN and Group Nine Media to make these shows, and will retain the rights to some of them. The majority of the shows, though, will be posted on Facebook free of charge. Some publishers plan to run mid-roll video ads, à la commercials, during the shows to make money.

Zurich Insurance posted a 21 percent rise in second-quarter net earnings as the group made strides in enacting a turnaround plan set out last year.
The Swiss insurer’s net profit for April through June rose to $896 million, beating even the highest estimate in Reuters poll of analysts that on average expected $790 million.

Apple is poised to be the first company to reach a $1 trillion market cap, RBC Capital analysts said Wednesday. Apple shares have been on a tear, with the stock gaining $56 billion in market capitalization a week after it reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings expectations.

Amit Daryanani at RBC Capital Markets says Apple’s share price would have to rise from its current level to about $192 to $195, depending on the rate of the company’s stock buybacks, to reach the $1 trillion value. With Apple trading at 16 times its estimated next year’s per share profits, profits would need to increase from an estimated $9 or so in 2017 to $12 in 2019, Daryanani calculates.

RBS reported a half-year profit for the first time in three years as the largely taxpayer-owned bank revealed plans to use Amsterdam as its EU hub post-Brexit.

The bailed-out lender made £939m in the first half of 2017, up from a £2bn loss a year ago. Despite the results, chief executive Ross McEwan warned that a full-year loss was likely. The bank has not made a full-year profit since it was rescued by the Government in 2008.

Booster Fuels, which operates a mobile gas station that functions via smartphone, on Tuesday announced a $20 million round from existing investors like Conversion Capital, which led the round, along with Maveron, Madrona Venture Group, Version One, Perot Jain LP, and RRE Ventures. New investors include Stanford’s StartX Fund, BADR Investments, and U.S. Venture Inc. Total funding to date is now $32 million.

Globally, the number of women working at Facebook has risen to 35 percent, up from 33 percent in 2016 while their number in the technical department has risen by two per cent in the past year to 19 percent, the company said.

According to a Facebook blog post on Wednesday, women now make up 27 percent of all new graduate hires in engineering and 21 percent of all new technical hires at Facebook.