GE Sells Biotech Business for $21bn to Danaher

The unit sold was part of GE's healthcare business and was slated for its own IPO later in the year. GE shares were 8% up in early trading.

The deal was positively received by analysts covering both companies.

Gabelli commented that it addresses the deleveraging challenges of GE, allowing it to focus on turning around the power business.

Others described it as "significant down payment" on $30bn of expected cash proceeds highlighted on 4Q. Janney's pointed to an uptick in DHR's organic growth rate going forward from 4% to 6%.

Danaher publishes a sustainability report yearly - the latest is on their website.

Bob Swan Edges in as CEO of Intel in Semi-Con Rat Race

Bob Swan becomes CEO of Intel after seven months as interim CEO. His previous experience includes 15 years at General Electric and later CEO of Foster City-based online grocery business Webvan (which went bust in 2001 and was folded into Amazon.com).

The Company Formerly Known as Statoil Expands into Electricity Trading

Equinor has bought Danske Commodities ("DC") for 459m EUR, making it a wholly owned subsidiary but not compromising the Danske name. DC CEO Henrik Lind heralded the deal as "an exciting new chapter for both companies".  DC achieved a 50% ROE in 2017.

World Bank Puts Global Growth from 2019 onwards at 2.9% per year

The World Bank revises its estimate down from 3% in its latest report on global growth. The risk of trade disputes escalating has been one explicit concern. As the Fed raises interest rates, the era of easy money is also at risk. Jim Yong Kim recently resigned as President and a successor search is under way.

Graphcore Gifted $200m in Series D Round

Bristol, UK based chipmaker Graphcore has received $200m in Series D funding from the likes of Microsoft and BMW (iVentures arm, based in Mountain View, San Francisco and Munich).

"Patient capital" provider, Sofina was also involved (whose current Chairman is Sir David Verey, CBE, ex Lazard). This investment values the company at $1.7bn. (Note that Sequoia invested $50m at Series C).

Founders are Nigel Toon and Simon Knowles.

Nigel has been CEO of two VC-backed companies before founding Graphcore, one of which was XMOS in which Graphcore was incubated prior to spin-out. Simon is co-founder and CTO, and has founded and exited two fabless semiconductor companies, Element14 and Icera for a combined value of $1bn. Prior to that he headed microprocessor design at ST Micro.

CNNs (convolutional) and RNNs (recurrent neural networks) are among the skills being hired for in their new round of expansion as well as knowledge of PyTorch and Horovod. Horovod uses MPI (Message Passing Interface) to distribute machine learning load across multiple GPUs.

RNNs have been used to analyze temporal dynamical behaviour such as handwriting recognition and speech recognition.

Apple's Big DC Plans - $10bn over 5 Years

Apple is investing big in US DCs.

This includes plans to build a 133 acre campus in Austin, Texas and another build-out in Waukee, Dallas County, Iowa. Tax breaks are helping incentivise investment.

Existing capacity in Maiden, North Carolina; Mesa, Arizona and Sparks, Nevada will be expanded.

Outside of the US, back in July 2017, Apple announced it was building a second DC in Denmark, after their initial one in Viborg (166,000 square metres), with go-live in Q2 2019, shortly after Facebook a similar announcement in January. The DC will be located in Aabenraa in Southern Denmark near the border with Germany and will be powered 100% from renewable energy from day one. The Danish Foreign Ministry was said to have worked with Apple for three years in line with its Invest in Denmark program prior to its investment.

Apple's additional DC capacity will be used to power the iTunes store, Maps, iMessage and Siri.

Interserve PLC in Rescue Talks with Creditors

Interserve, one of the UK's largest providers of public services, has seen its shares plunge by 70%.