Sonic Automotive, which operates 95 US car dealerships, started laying off and furloughing about a third of its workforce as the coronavirus pandemic crushed its sales. Then, it changed its executives’ pay packages — handing them a multimillion-dollar windfall. On April 10, Sonic’s board gave its top executives stock options to replace performance-based share awards, … Read more
Bill Ackman told investors that his hedge fund has sold its $1 billion stake in Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. The hedge-fund billionaire, a longtime outspoken Buffett acolyte, explained that the move was made to give his fund, Pershing Square Capital Management, the cash it needs to make the kind of investments that the 89-year-old Buffett … Read more
ViacomCBS is slashing an additional 400 jobs as the broadcasting giant continues to search for cost savings from last year’s merger of CBS and Viacom even as it struggles to shore up losses from the coronavirus pandemic. The layoffs, which kicked off this week, primarily took place at CBS’ entertainment, news, studio, sports and local … Read more
Carl Icahn exited Hertz like a stuntman abandoning a burning car — and he suffered some nasty cuts and bruises on his way out. The billionaire investment tycoon took a loss of more than $1.8 billion as he dumped his entire stake in the bankrupt rental-car company in recent days, according to court filings. Icahn, … Read more
Amazon plans to offer permanent jobs to about 70 percent of the US workforce it has hired temporarily to meet consumer demand during the coronavirus pandemic, the company told Reuters on Thursday. The world’s largest online retailer will begin telling 125,000 warehouse employees in June that they can keep their roles longer-term. The remaining 50,000 … Read more
Cineworld, the owner of Regal cinemas in the US, expects to reopen its doors for business in July. The movie-theater giant said late Wednesday it anticipates that government restrictions related to cinemas will be lifted in each of its territories in the coming months and “anticipates the reopening of all of its cinemas in July.” … Read more
The coronavirus crisis has put more than 40 million Americans out of work, according to new federal data showing another 2.1 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week. The workers sidelined by the pandemic in the past 10 weeks now outnumber the entire population of California and account for roughly 26 percent of the … Read more
An Amazon warehouse worker says he was suspended after handing out flyers encouraging colleagues to join a union. John Hopkins’s account of his May 2 suspension from Amazon’s DSF4 facility in California is the latest example of the e-commerce giant allegedly cracking down on critics during the coronavirus pandemic. Amazon told Hopkins he was sidelined … Read more
Struggling retailers like Ethan Allen and Raymour & Flanigan have been skirting Gov. Cuomo’s lockdown rules, The Post has learned. The publicly traded Ethan Allen, for example, has been letting customers meet with dedicated sales people, known as “designers,” to browse New York showrooms on an appointment-only basis for weeks, according to employees. “We don’t … Read more
Quarantined Americans tired of cooking aren’t the only ones getting fat off Papa John’s. Starboard Value, the $6 billion activist hedge fund that swooped in last year to push out the pizza maker’s controversial founder and CEO John Schnatter, is seeing its investment pay off big during the coronavirus. On Wednesday, Papa John’s stock soared … Read more