Jack Ma to relinquish Ant Group, Allergan settles opioid lawsuit, Shell posts record profits

Notable business headlines include billionaire Jack Ma planning to relinquish control of fintech giant Ant Group, Pharmaceutical company Allergan settling a $2 billion opioid lawsuit, Barclays set to pay $200 million in penalties to U.S. regulators, and Shell continuing to benefit from rising oil and gas prices as the company posts record earnings.

Video Transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: Let's get down to business now and take a look at some of the other headlines that we are watching. Billionaire Jack Ma announcing plans to relinquish control of the Ant Group. That's at least according to the Wall Street Journal. It comes in an effort to move away from affiliate Alibaba, as the Ant Group continues to face pressure from Chinese regulators amid a request to make Ant a financial holding company that would be regulated by China's central bank. Ma is a founder of both Alibaba and Ant. He currently controls more than 50% of the Ant Group shares.

Pharmaceutical company Allergan has agreed to pay more than $2 billion to resolve lawsuits filed by state and local governments over the marketing of its Kadian opioid painkiller. That deal would settle more than 3,000 lawsuits to help those who have been impacted by the US opioid crisis. Allergan has already seen these settlements occur back in December. The company agreed to pay $200 million to settle a case in New York.

And checking in on some European stocks that are out with earnings, as well as all of those that were out in the US, Barclays shares down more than 6 and 1/2% after the company said it's going to pay $200 million in penalties to US regulators to settle issues surrounding unapproved messaging channels used by the staff. It also came out with its numbers. British oil company Shell is down-- ah, a little change, let's call it-- after it posted record profits, continuing to benefit from the soaring prices of oil and natural gas.

And Nestlé among the many food companies that's been raising prices. It reported earnings. It raised its full year sales growth forecast, as price increases boosted its organic sales growth in the first half of 2022. Those shares, though, down a little more than 1%, Brad.