Good morning! Here’s what you need to know in markets on Tuesday.
1. Paul Allen, who cofounded Microsoft with Bill Gates, died Monday afternoon after a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, his family confirmed to Business Insider. He was 65. Allen, a tech billionaire, was a philanthropist and the owner of the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers. He operated Vulcan Ventures, a venture-capital fund.
2. Asian stocks rose modestly on Tuesday, gaining a firmer footing after a week of heavy losses, although cooling factory-gate inflation in China and increasing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the West have capped gains. European stocks are expected to open slightly higher.
3. Twilio, the $7.4 billion company that helps apps and websites send texts and make calls, is acquiring SendGrid in an all stock deal valued around $2 billion. The transaction, which was announcedMonday, is expected to close in the first half of 2019. SendGrid, which is based in Denver, sells an email marketing platform that enables its customers to send newsletters, marketing and email confirmations en masse.
4. Activist investor Carl Icahn reported an increased 8.3% stake in Dell tracking stock on Monday, as he looks to block a proposed plan by the computer maker to return to the public market without an IPO. Dell Technologies in July said it would pay $21.7 billion in cash and stock to buy back shares tied to its interest in software company VMware. Icahn and other hedge fund investors have resisted the plan, saying the proposed deal massively undervalues the tracking stock.
5. Thousands of Google employees participated in an internal protest against the company's participation in a high-tech military project earlier this year, but the unprecedented revolt at the company had little influence on management's decision-making, according to CEO Sundar Pichai. "Throughout Google's history we've given our employees a lot of voice and say in it, but we don't run the company by holding referendums," Pichai said.
6. China's third-quarter growth will slow to its weakest pace since the global financial crisis, according to a Reuters poll of 68 economists. Analysts said more support measures will be needed as risks to China's growth outlook have increased since the second half of the year. GDP likely grew 6.6% in July-September from a year earlier, slowing from the previous quarter's 6.7% and hitting the weakest pace since the first quarter of 2009.
7. Volvo warned on Tuesday that an emissions control component used in its trucks was degrading more quickly than expected, which could cause engines to exceed emission limits for nitrogen oxides. The company said that costs to fix the problem could be large and that it was in the process of informing authorities in various markets.
8. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has opened an office in Dublin, it said on Tuesday, joining the growing ranks of banks and financial firms with major British businesses developing European Union outposts as Britain's exit from the bloc looms. San Francisco-based Coinbase, one of the biggest US exchanges, said the Dublin office would let it keep rights to sell services in EU countries even after Brexit. Its non-US headquarters will remain in London, it added.
9. Germany's carmakers only have a 50% chance of surviving as leading players in the auto industry unless they transform to meet new regulations and adapt their supply chains, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said on Tuesday. The need to produce batteries and electric cars, rather than combustion engines, and the emergence of new geopolitical threats, is forcing automakers to accelerate deep-seated reforms which pose an existential threat to some players, he said.
10. Fourteen Iranian border guards were kidnapped on the border with Pakistan on Tuesday, an official was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA. The official said the kidnappers were members of a terrorist group, but gave no more details.