Kraft Heinz bets on Winfrey to lift sales
Kraft Heinz Co., struggling to ignite sales growth amid punishing grocery-industry competition, is turning to media magnate Oprah Winfrey to break out of a prolonged slump.
Winfrey, pivotal to the turnaround at Weight Watchers International Inc. since she bought a stake in that company and agreed to pitch the brand, is the face of a new line of refrigerated soups and side dishes made without artificial flavors and dyes. The products have begun hitting shelves and will be available nationwide in October, Kraft Heinz said in a statement Wednesday.
The company describes the new products, which will be sold under the "O, That's Good!" brand, as "nutritious twists" on comfort foods such as mashed potatoes and broccoli cheddar soup.
Kraft Heinz hasn't posted sales growth since the company was created in a 2015 merger orchestrated by the private-equity firm 3G Capital and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Its competitors in the packaged-food industry are slumping, too -- the largest food companies in the U.S. have lost almost $16 billion in sales over the past three years amid broad shifts in how consumers eat and shop.
-- Bloomberg News
VW faces resistance to selling Ducati
Volkswagen AG is facing stiffening internal resistance to the sale of its Ducati motorcycle unit, threatening to derail the deal even as the process moves forward with a short list of five bidders set to submit binding offers by the end of September, according to people familiar with the matter.
Persistent opposition from VW's powerful labor unions and doubts within the carmaker's Porsche and Piech owner families about the disposal will test management's resolve to selling a noncore asset to reduce corporate complexity, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the talks are confidential. Executives involved have been puzzled by mixed signals, since the Audi unit, which owns Ducati, only started exploring a deal after parent company leaders urged the division to do so, the people said.
Spokesmen for Volkswagen, Audi and the families' holding company declined to comment. A spokesman for Volkswagen's works council said labor leaders continue to oppose asset sales in general. Employee representatives make up half of Volkswagen's 20-member supervisory board and can veto strategic decisions. The Porsche and Piech billionaire clan has four board seats.
-- Bloomberg News
Cyberattack hits French distiller in U.K.
Pernod Ricard SA suffered a cyberattack this week at its London office, forcing some U.K. employees of the French distiller to turn in their computers to be checked for infection, people familiar with the matter said.
While London appears to have been most affected, other sites may have been targeted as well, said one of the people, who did not want to be identified discussing private information.
The producer of Absolut vodka and Chivas Regal Scotch whisky is the latest of several consumer-goods companies that have been hit by cyberattacks, disrupting operations. Nivea-maker Beiersdorf AG said earlier this month that an information technology disruption caused about $41 million in lost sales in the first half. The same global attack affected thousands of computers at Durex condom-maker Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC, causing an estimated loss of 1 percent of annual sales, or about $117 million.
-- Bloomberg News
GE shifts from Rochester, N.Y., to China
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- General Electric said Wednesday that it will close its manufacturing facility in Rochester next year and the work will be moved to China.
Boston-based GE said its plant in the Rochester Science Park will close by June. The company didn't say how many people work at the facility, but GE officials said the move affects fewer than 100 employees.
The Rochester plant assembles electronic boards. GE officials say the work will be moved to China, where it will be done by a GE partner supplier, St. Petersburg, Fla.-based Jabil.
Company officials say workers losing their jobs will receive severance pay and tuition reimbursement.
-- The Associated Press
Target to buy wind energy for 150 stores
Target Corp. agreed to buy 100 megawatts of output from an Infinity Renewables wind project in Kansas.
Power from the 474-megawatt Solomon Forks wind facility will help offset the energy used at 150 Target stores, Santa Barbara, Calif.-based Infinity said in an emailed statement Wednesday. Terms weren't disclosed.
Construction is expected to begin and be completed next year.
About a year ago, Target announced its first wind deal -- to buy 40 megawatts of capacity from a wind project in Texas to meet the needs of 60 of its stores in the state.
-- Bloomberg News
More airlines find Venezuela dreadful
Airlines are continuing to pull out of Venezuela, and this time it's not just about trapped cash but a whole series of grievances including employees held up at gunpoint, luggage theft, poor runway maintenance and low-quality jet fuel.
United Airlines, Avianca and Delta Air Lines have either stopped flying to Venezuela or said they would leave the country, while three others canceled flights on specific days as the nation descends into chaos. Colombia's pilots' association says its members who have flown to Venezuela have had to deal with contaminated fuel and hourslong delays as the National Guard pulls suitcases off flights to loot them. This week, videos showed an apparent assassination of a man at the check-in desk of a Venezuelan airline at Caracas' international airport.
"Everything that's part of the airport's infrastructure started to get degraded," said Julian Pinzon, the head of security and technical issues at Colombian pilot association Acdac.
The current round of carrier departures comes after routes had stabilized from the previous exodus triggered by the government's halt of dollar payments, and leaves Venezuelans increasingly cut off from the rest of the world. A flight to Miami in coach class can cost about $1,000, in a country where the monthly minimum wage is about $20 at the black market rate.
-- Bloomberg News
Business on 08/10/2017