- Futures rise as investors count down to jobs report (Reuters)
- Individuals Tiptoe Further Into Long-Running Stock Rally (WSJ)
- American Diplomats’ Comfort With Tillerson Gives Way to Unease (BBG)
- EU leaders grope for unity as Britain walks out (Reuters)
- Trump’s disputes with local governments could create fresh conflicts of interest (Reuters)
- May Hears Hard Truths About Brexit as EU Prepares for Talks (BBG)
- South Korean President Ousted Amid Bribery Accusations (WSJ)
- Park’s Ouster Raises Prospect of Reset With China, Kim Jong Un (BBG)
- Americans Aren’t Filing Their Taxes This Year (BBG)
- Italy prosecutors probe editor, ex-managers at top financial daily (Reuters)
- It’s Not Just America—the Rent Is High Everywhere (BBG)
- Oil Traders Are Having Some Fun Again (BBG)
- AIG CEO Quits Mid-Board Meeting (WSJ)
- Loaded With Cash, Brazilians Are Urged to Forget About Austerity (BBG)
- A World Without Wi-Fi Looks Possible as Unlimited Plans Rise (BBG)
- Fukushima Mysteries Rattle Japan’s Nuclear Industry (WSJ)
- China defends its Trump trademark approvals as in line with law (Reuters)
- Are There Taxes in Your Tax-Free Retirement Account? (WSJ)
Overnight Media Digest
WSJ
– Royal Dutch Shell Plc is selling nearly all of its Canadian oil-sands developments in deals worth $7.25 billion, deserting a region that has come to symbolize the risks for energy companies in high-cost, carbon-intensive sources of oil. http://on.wsj.com/2n5YcK3
– Dutch paints and chemicals maker Akzo Nobel NV said it had rejected a 20.9 billion euros ($22.15 billion) offer from U.S. peer PPG Industries Inc, setting up a trans-Atlantic standoff between two long-lived industrial giants amid a wave of consolidation in the sector. http://on.wsj.com/2n5Lyub
– Americans now officially drink more bottled water than soda. It’s a shift that decades ago might have seemed unthinkable—that consumers would buy a packaged version of something they could get free from a tap. But bottled-water sales have been growing in the U.S. ever since the arrival of Perrier in the 1970s. The gains accelerated in recent years amid concerns about the health effects of sugary drinks and the safety of public-water supplies. http://on.wsj.com/2n5Ht9m
– After almost a decade of double-digit sales growth, Lego A/S said revenue rose just 6 percent world-wide in 2016, after a big marketing push in the U.S. failed to lift stalled sales there. The world’s second-largest toy maker said U.S. sales were flat for the year. http://on.wsj.com/2n5Nrae
– In its quest to prove Airbnb Inc is more than a casual home-sharing service, the hotel industry issued a stinging analysis of the website that casts the company more like a professional short-term rental operation. http://on.wsj.com/2n5JT8i
– Grocery heavyweights including Wal-Mart Stores, Inc , Kroger Co and Meijer Inc are broadening delivery areas across the country and the ways in which customers get their groceries. http://on.wsj.com/2n5Nz9I
– A group that includes Jahm Najafi, chief executive of private investment firm Najafi Cos, and private-equity firm Pamplona Capital Management has emerged as a bidder for Time Inc , according to people familiar with the matter. http://on.wsj.com/2n5JkuX
– The Samsung conglomerate’s de facto leader, Lee Jae-yong, and four top lieutenants formally denied all charges against them as a South Korean court opened a trial into a corruption scandal that has led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. http://on.wsj.com/2n5Dxpf
– American International Group Inc Chief Executive Peter Hancock, apparently having lost the faith of the insurer’s directors, quit at a board meeting Wednesday where his future was being discussed, according to people familiar with the matter. http://on.wsj.com/2n5JW3V
NYT
– Stephen A. Ross, a seminal theorist whose work over three decades reshaped the field of financial economics, died on March 3 at his home in Old Lyme, Connecticut. He was 73. http://nyti.ms/2m8rZO4
– Airbnb has raised an additional $1 billion, expanding its war chest at a time of increased investor interest in fast-growing businesses. The company, which disclosed the funding in a securities filing on Thursday, raised the money in a financing round that began last summer and that valued the business at $30 billion. http://nyti.ms/2lJAse6
– Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Thursday that carbon dioxide was not a primary contributor to global warming, a statement at odds with the established scientific consensus on climate change. http://nyti.ms/2m6fSjH
– Peter Hancock, the current chief executive of American International Group, said on Thursday that he would resign after shareholders had lost faith in his two-and-half-year effort to turn the company around. A.I.G. said Hancock, 58, would stay until a successor had been chosen in a “comprehensive” search by its board. http://nyti.ms/2mrOGiw
Canada
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
** Finance Minister Charles Sousa said on Thursday he was looking at the tax as one of a number of options to control aggressive growth in home prices, after rejecting such a measure last year. https://tgam.ca/2nbSHWD
** The Canadian Securities Administrators issued new guidelines on Thursday for social media usage, telling companies they must continue to report material information with traditional press releases but can use social media to further disseminate the news. https://tgam.ca/2m70ZhA
** As the U.S. border tightens for both political and bureaucratic reasons, the federal government is launching a new stream of its temporary foreign worker program to entice highly skilled workers to come to Canada. https://tgam.ca/2mnSQGy
NATIONAL POST
** Google Inc is building its first cloud region in Canada, which it says will allow businesses to keep sensitive data within the country while also speeding up services like machine learning that helps better analyze information. http://bit.ly/2lKnmxa
** Canada’s biggest banks and insurance companies have launched a private-sector fund of up to $1 billion to provide long-term financing to burgeoning high-growth businesses, the firms announced on Thursday. http://bit.ly/2m3YGeD
Britain
The Times
Annual bonuses at the John Lewis Partnership have been cut for the fourth consecutive year to their lowest level since 1954 as the retailer warned of an increasingly uncertain market. http://bit.ly/2nc5B75
Martin Sorrell could find himself at the centre of a fresh row over boardroom pay after the chief executive of WPP Plc collected a 42 million pound ($51.08 million) share award under the final tranche of one of the City’s most contentious executive reward schemes. http://bit.ly/2nbNeiF
The Guardian
Theresa May and Philip Hammond are facing a growing rebellion among Tory MPs over the decision to increase national insurance contributions for the self-employed in Wednesday’s budget. http://bit.ly/2nc5WGT
Property tycoon Christian Candy’s key adviser was a director of a detective agency which made payments to the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko and to the former KGB officer accused of murdering him. http://bit.ly/2nbTWFA
The Telegraph
UK government measures to ease the burden of business rates are “small beer” and will do nothing to prevent future bill shocks, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. http://bit.ly/2nbIbPc
Stricken Co-operative Bank Plc has warned that it may have to raise as much as 750 million pounds ($912.08 million) from investors if it fails in its attempt to find a buyer for the business. http://bit.ly/2nbQivg
Sky News
Britain’s biggest employers’ group is to seek Privy Council approval to extend the term of its president as it grapples with the challenges of UK’s impending exit from the European Union. http://bit.ly/2nb3Oz7
Tesco Plc says 140,000 workers are to be compensated after a payroll blunder meant they were paid below the National Living Wage.
The Independent
Theresa May should refuse to pay the money the European Union says Britain owes it in legally binding liabilities, Boris Johnson has said. http://ind.pn/2nbMgCX
UK workers took fewer sick days in 2016 than at any time since comparable records began almost 25 years ago. Days lost through illness fell to just 4.3 per worker last year, compared to 7.2 days in 1993, the Office of National Statistics revealed. http://ind.pn/2nbSUJA
via http://ift.tt/2mt4GRu Tyler Durden