2024-07-12 21:12

July 11 (Reuters) - Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said on Thursday Enhabit (EHAB.N) New Tab, opens new tab shareholders should elect three AREX Capital Management director candidates to the nine-member board, saying the company needs more expertise in home health, hospice and public company financial reporting. The prominent proxy advisory firm, whose recommendations often guide shareholder votes on proposed mergers and who serves on a board, said AREX made a convincing case that new directors are needed. But the hedge fund did not persuade ISS that a majority of the two-year-old company's directors should be ousted, according to the report reviewed by Reuters. AREX is asking investors to replace seven directors to help reverse poor financial performance. It has also been pushing the home health and hospice provider to put itself up for a sale. Investors will vote on July 25 unless the two sides reach an agreement before the meeting date. "The company's significant underperformance, both from a TSR (total shareholder return) and operational standpoint, indicate that a degree of change is needed at the board level," ISS wrote. Enhabit's stock price has tumbled nearly 60% since it was spun off of post-acute healthcare services provider Encompass Health (EHC.N) New Tab, opens new tab in July 2022. The stock climbed 2.7% to close trading at $9.48 on Friday. ISS recommended votes for AREX candidates Gregory Sheff, who has home health operations experience, Anna-Gene O'Neal, who has hospice experience, and Mark Ohlendorf, who has public company chief financial officer experience. ISS also wrote that a more limited number of new directors could provide "effective oversight of management without implementing drastic changes that could jeopardize what appear to be the early signs of a turnaround." Enhabit on Friday urged stockholders to vote for all its nine nominees, adding that it disagrees with ISS's recommendation as critical experience would be lost by replacing the directors. "We are pleased that ISS recognizes our performance over the last two quarters and agrees with the company that shifting course now and handing control of the board to AREX is not in the best interests of the company's stockholders," Enhabit said in a statement. AREX said it is "pleased that a leading independent proxy advisory firm has recognized the lack of home health and hospice industry expertise on Enhabit's board and validated our case for meaningful boardroom change." AREX, which owns a 4.9% stake in Enhabit, is backing CEO Barbara Jacobsmeyer and director Barry Schochet for re-election. Schochet joined the board last year when the company reached an agreement with investors Cruiser Capital and Harbour Point Capital Management in March 2023. AREX told Enhabit last year it wanted the company to commit to immediately start a strategic review before the end of 2023. Enhabit in May decided to continue as an independent, public company after having evaluated a range of strategic options. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/iss-suggest-enhabit-shareholders-elect-three-arex-capital-nominees-board-2024-07-12/

2024-07-12 20:31

WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - AT&T (T.N) New Tab, opens new tab said on Friday the company suffered a massive hacking incident as data from about 109 million customer accounts containing records of calls and texts from 2022 was illegally downloaded in April. The U.S. telecom company said the FBI is investigating and at least one person has been arrested after AT&T call logs were copied from its workspace on a third-party cloud platform, in a significant breach of consumer communication records. AT&T's breach is the latest big hack to hit a wide swath of Americans, coming on the heels of a ransomware attack on UnitedHealth Group's (UNH.N) New Tab, opens new tab Change Healthcare unit in February that hit an estimated one-third of the country whose private data may have been exposed. AT&T said the compromised data includes files containing AT&T records of calls and texts of nearly all of AT&T's cellular and AT&T's landline customers interacting with those cellular numbers between May and October 2022. The data does not contain the content of calls or texts or personal information such as social security numbers. AT&T shares were down 1.2% in early trading. AT&T had delayed public disclosure of the hack at the request of the Justice Department. The FBI did not identify any suspects on Friday but said it worked with AT&T and the Justice Department "collaboratively through the first and second delay process, all while sharing key threat intelligence to bolster FBI investigative equities and to assist AT&T's incident-response work." The Federal Communications Commission said it also has an ongoing investigation. The compromised data also includes records from Jan. 2, 2023 for a small number of customers. AT&T said it first learned on April 19 that a hacker had claimed to have unlawfully accessed and copied AT&T call logs. The company said its investigation found hackers had between April 14 and 25 unlawfully exfiltrated files containing AT&T records of customer call and text interactions. The records also include AT&T customers of mobile virtual network operators using AT&T's wireless network. These records identify telephone numbers with which a wireless number interacted during these periods and aggregate call duration. A subset of records includes one or more cell site identification number. AT&T said it has closed off the point of unlawful access and does not believe the data is publicly available. In March, AT&T said it was investigating a data set released on the "dark web" and said its preliminary analysis showed it affected approximately 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders. The company said the data set appeared to be from 2019 or earlier. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/att-says-data-around-109-mln-us-customer-accounts-illegally-downloaded-2024-07-12/

2024-07-12 19:54

TORONTO/NEW YORK, July 12 (Reuters) - Canada's Lundin Mining Corp (LUN.TO) New Tab, opens new tab and mining giant BHP Group (BHP.AX) New Tab, opens new tab are weighing a potential joint bid for Filo Corp (FIL.TO) New Tab, opens new tab, people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. The talks between Lundin and BHP are at an early stage, the sources said, adding that there is no guarantee that the two companies will team up on a bid for Filo. Canada-listed shares of Filo jumped as much as 12% on the news on Friday. The shares pared some gains and closed at C$27.98, giving the company a market capitalization of C$3.44 billion ($2.52 billion). The consideration for a possible takeover comes as there is ongoing work to merge the Josemaria project that belongs to Lundin Mining with the Filo del Sol project, one of the sources said, adding that combining the infrastructure between the mines would cost between $5 billion to $8 billion. The sources requested anonymity as the discussions are confidential. The Lundin family holds a 32% stake in copper miner Filo Corp, while BHP holds a 6% stake in the company, according to recent regulatory filings and LSEG data. Filo is focussed on building the Filo del Sol project in the Chile-Argentina border. Lundin, BHP and Filo Corp did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The deal deliberations come weeks after BHP walked away from a blockbuster $49 billion bid to take over Anglo American (AAL.L) New Tab, opens new tab, which rejected three proposed offers from its bigger rival over the course of six weeks. The world's biggest miners are increasingly preferring to buy instead of building assets to grow, given rising costs for developing new mines and a blow-out in timelines for regulatory approvals. The copper industry is expected to witness consolidation in the near term, as the world's biggest miners are attempting to increase access to a metal central to the global shift towards clean energy and electric vehicles, according to analysts. Bloomberg News reported earlier on Friday that Lundin had pitched BHP on a joint bid for Filo. ($1 = 1.3634 Canadian dollars) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/bhp-lundin-make-joint-bid-filo-corp-sources-say-2024-07-12/

2024-07-12 19:48

HOUSTON, July 12 (Reuters) - Nearly a million homes and businesses in Texas remained without power on Friday, five days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall with fierce winds and rain that knocked down trees and electricity infrastructure. CenterPoint Energy , the largest power provider in Texas, said about 860,000 of its customers remained affected. It has restored power for over 1.4 million customers in the days since Beryl, according to its website. Utility Entergy said Texas restoration crews had turned the lights back on for about 183,000 of 252,460 customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl as of Friday afternoon. Entergy said it expects all customers impacted by Hurricane Beryl to be restored no later than Monday, adding about 75% of customer impacted should be restored by the end of Friday. Frustrations mounted among residents as temperatures in Houston rose and the Heat Index topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius). Some businesses remained closed due to lack of power, while residents were forced to discard hundreds of dollars' worth of groceries. "The recent hurricane was only a Category 1. We will likely face more hurricanes, and they could be stronger. Are we going to have the same problems? Will the company in charge of repairing the country be ready this time?" Soonkack Kook, founder of a coffee shop in midtown Houston, said in an Instagram post. Meteorologists at Colorado State University this week raised their forecast for the severity of the 2024 hurricanes and called Beryl a harbinger of what could be a very active season. They now anticipate six major storms, categorized by winds over 111 miles per hour, up from an earlier forecast of five. Beryl was the earliest Category 5 storm on record when it developed over a week ago, but hit the Texas coast as a Category 1 storm with winds around 80 miles per hour (130 kilometers per hour). Kook's coffee shop has opened a pop-up outside as it has not had power for five days and cannot afford to be closed for that long. CenterPoint has said it continues to work day and night and expects to restore 80% of impacted customers by the end of the day on Sunday, adding that since Monday, crews have replaced over 2,000 poles and addressed damage from more than 6,000 trees impacting lines and other electrical equipment. Local residents without power looked for hotels and bookings on vacation rental platforms like Airbnb (ABNB.O) New Tab, opens new tab, but few options were available, many at high price points. Some said they were considering traveling out of town for the weekend, unable to cope with the lack of power and heat. The median home in Houston would be habitable for four days during a heat event without power, a study last year by the U.S. Department of Energy and some national labs showed. "When you lose air conditioning, the temperatures indoors get dangerous much more quickly in homes that are not well-insulated," said Lowell Ungar, director of federal policy for research organization American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. ENERGY RECOVERY Beryl made landfall on Monday near Matagorda Bay in South Texas, only about 40 miles (64 km) from Freeport, Texas, which houses the country's third largest liquefied natural gas facility as well as numerous chemical facilities. Freeport LNG, the third largest liquefied natural gas facility in the U.S., powered down on Saturday in preparation for Hurricane Beryl and has not yet resumed production of the superchilled gas, LSEG data showed. The company declined to comment on a time frame for the resumption of operations. Chemical maker Dow (DOW.N) New Tab, opens new tab had a process instability due to Hurricane Beryl and plant production rates were reduced, the company said in a filing to regulators. Dow said its Texas sites were running with some limitations due to power infrastructure issues in Freeport. Olin , another chemical company, declared a force majeure on Wednesday for some product and aromatic shipments after Beryl caused damage to its Freeport facilities. Chemical maker BASF (BASFn.DE) New Tab, opens new tab said its facilities in Texas experienced minimal impact from Hurricane Beryl and the site was working to resume normal operations. Formosa Plastics, which temporarily shut down operations at its Point Comfort plant after a malfunction with a gas compressor system, expects operations to be back to normal by the end of next week as it did not sustain any severe damage from Beryl. Ports along the Gulf Coast, which had closed ahead of the hurricane, largely resumed operations and vessel traffic. Repair to a navigational aid at the port of Freeport was expected to be completed on Saturday, a notice from a shipping agent showed. The impact on refineries and offshore production platforms were limited. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/nearly-million-texas-still-without-power-after-hurricane-beryl-2024-07-12/

2024-07-12 19:41

CAIRO, July 12 (Reuters) - Yemen's Houthis targeted "vessel Charysalis" twice in both the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait with a number of ballistic and naval missiles and drones, the Iran-aligned group's military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Friday. The Houthi militia, which controls the most populous parts of Yemen, has staged attacks on ships in the waters off the country for months in solidarity with Palestinians fighting Israel in Gaza. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-target-vessel-twice-red-sea-bab-al-mandab-strait-2024-07-12/

2024-07-12 19:22

July 12 (Reuters) - U.S. natural gas futures rose more than 2% on Friday after touching their lowest in close to two-months during in the session, boosted by forecasts for hotter weather over the next two weeks that should boost air-conditioning demand. Front-month gas futures for August delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled about 2.7% higher at $2.329 per million British thermal units (mmBtu). During the session, the contract dropped to its lowest since May 13. "We are trying to rebound on the expectations that the outlook going forward is going to be better," said Phil Flynn, an analyst at Price Futures Group, adding that, because of the potential demand destruction due to the storm Beryl and a bearish weekly inventory report that showed that production and supplies came in the higher than anticipated it's almost amazing that the market is holding up as well. "On the flip side of that, there are some people that are calling for a return to some hot weather in the coming weeks and that may give the market some support." Financial firm LSEG estimated 257 cooling degree days (CDDs) over the next two weeks in the Lower 48 U.S. states, slightly higher from the 252 CDDs estimated on Thursday. The normal is 204 CDDs for this time of year. LSEG forecast average gas demand in the Lower 48, including exports, at 107.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) this week, before easing to 106.2 bcfd next week. LSEG said gas output in the Lower 48 has risen to an average of 102.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) in July, up from an average of 100.2 bcfd in June and a 17-month low of 99.5 bcfd in May. U.S. output hit a monthly record high of 105.5 bcfd in December 2023. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Wednesday indicated that utilities added 65 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas into storage during the week ended July 5. That was more than the 55-bcf build analysts forecast in a Reuters poll and compares with an increase of 57 bcf in the same week last year and a five-year (2019-2023) average rise of 57 bcf for this time of year. That build boosted the amount of gas in storage to around 19% above normal levels for this time of year. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-natgas-prices-settle-up-over-2-hot-weather-forecasts-2024-07-12/