Live Updated Sept. 9, 2020, 11:56 a.m. ET Sept. 9, 2020, 11:56 a.m. ET Luxury Giant LVMH Pulls Out of $16 Billion Tiffany Deal: Live Updates The latest economic and business news during the coronavirus pandemic. RIGHT NOW Amazon announces another hiring spree.

LVMH says it is pulling out of its $16 billion takeover of Tiffany. LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company, announced in November that it had reached an agreement to buy Tiffany in a $16.2 billion deal. Credit... Katherine Marks for The New York Times The $16.2 billion deal that would have brought together LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Company, which would have been the biggest acquisition ever in the luxury sector, is cratering. On Wednesday LVMH said it was withdrawing its offer to buy Tiffany, while Tiffany said it had filed a lawsuit to force the luxury giant to move forward with its offer. There has been concern for months that LVMH would seek to renegotiate the deal, which was announced last November, in light of the stress the pandemic has put on the jewelry business. LVMH said in statement Wednesday that it couldn’t complete the deal “as it stands,” citing a request from the French government to delay the deal beyond Jan. 6, 2021, because of the threat of U.S. tariffs on French goods. In a filing with the securities exchange commission, Tiffany said that while LVMH had informed the jeweler that it had received a letter from the French government to delay the deal, the company had not yet seen a copy of that letter. Tiffany’s lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Wednesday, claims that LVMH is in breach of its contract relating to obtaining antitrust clearance. It rejects the idea that LVMH can avoid the deal by claiming that Tiffany has undergone a “material adverse effect” that would have breached its deal obligations. The lawsuit also says that LVMH cannot avoid completing the deal because it is inconsistent with its patriotic duties as a French company. Tiffany decided to sue LVMH over frustration that 10 months after the agreement, it had not yet filed for antitrust approval in the European Union, a person familiar with the deal said. The proposed acquisition appeared to be a savvy move by LVMH, the world’s largest luxury goods company by sales. The group is dominant in the fashion, leather goods, and wines and spirits sectors, with brands like Dior, Givenchy, Fendi, Château d’Yquem and Dom Pérignon. The acquisition of Tiffany would have made LVMH a major player in the so-called hard luxury sector (the industry label given to watches and jewelry products), adding to its purchase of Bulgari in 2011, as well as its most significant beachhead in the American market. That was before the coronavirus pandemic caused demand for luxury goods to plummet. According to estimates by the Boston Consulting Group, global luxury sales are set to contract anywhere between 25 percent to 45 percent in 2020, with a slow recovery that could take up to three years. — Lauren Hirsch and

Amazon announces another hiring spree. Amazon reported record sales and profits last quarter, as the number of products it sold jumped by 57 percent compared to the year earlier. Credit... Ruth Fremson/The New York Times Amazon said Wednesday that it has 33,000 salaried job openings across its business, from cloud computing engineers to managers in its warehouses, the strongest sign yet that the pandemic created a surge in e-commerce that accelerated Amazon’s already rapid growth. The company is offering to have 20,000 prospective employees meet with Amazon recruiters on Sept. 16 at a national job fair, which will be held virtually this year. The new jobs are separate from the hourly warehouse jobs Amazon often announces in advance of the holiday shopping season. Amazon reported record sales and profits last quarter, as the number of products it sold jumped by 57 percent compared to the year earlier. It spent more than $9 billion on capital expenses and leases, largely to build facilities in its logistics network that would open this quarter. The managers, safety staff and human resources employees who run the new warehouses would be part of the new hiring blitz, which is not limited to its logistics operations. While the pandemic has wreaked havoc with traditional retailers, Amazon’s growth has accelerated, with consumers shopping online and companies with remote work turning to cloud computing. Around this time last year, Amazon announced a similar hiring milestone, with 30,000 open roles. Last month, Amazon said in the next few years it would hire 3,500 white-collar employees at several tech hubs across the country, including 2,000 in New York, a sign the company was not abandoning the corporate growth plans it had in place before the pandemic. Last quarter, Amazon had 876,800 employees globally. —

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‘Postpone, adjourn and delay’: Demand for Manhattan office space slumps. Less than 10 percent of workers had returned to New York’s skyscrapers as of last month, according to a survey by the Partnership for New York. Credit... Vincent Tullo for The New York Times Even as the coronavirus pandemic appears to recede in New York, corporations have been reluctant to call their workers back to their skyscrapers and are showing even more reticence about committing to the city long term. According to a new survey: Fewer than 10 percent of the New York’s office workers had returned as of last month.

Only a quarter of major employers expect to bring their people back by the end of the year.

Only 54 percent of these companies say they will return by July 2021. Lease signings in the first eight months of the year were about half of what they were a year earlier. That is putting the office market on track for a 20-year low for the full year. When companies do sign, many are opting for short-term contracts. At stake is New York’s financial health and its status as the world’s corporate headquarters. There is more square feet of work space in the city than in London and San Francisco combined, according to Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate brokerage firm. Office work makes up the cornerstone of New York’s economy and property taxes from office buildings account for nearly 10 percent of the city’s total annual tax revenue. What is most unnerving is that a recovery could unfold much more slowly than it did after the Sept. 11 attacks and the financial crisis of 2008. That’s largely because the pandemic has prompted companies to fundamentally rethink their real estate needs. “When it comes to making decisions about office leases, the words are postpone, adjourn and delay,” said Ruth Colp-Haber, the chief executive of Wharton Property Advisors, a real estate brokerage firm. Elected officials, real estate tycoons and even Jerry Seinfeld have issued paeans to New York’s resilience, arguing that city has a history of bouncing back. But pessimists see dark days ahead. They contend that companies will tell most employees to stay away until a vaccine is widely distributed and perhaps for much longer. “I think the New York office market is going to be generally challenged for the next three to five years,” said Jonathan Litt, the founder of hedge fund Land & Buildings. — Julie Creswell and

Catch up: UPS plans to hire 100,000 seasonal workers, United plans new flights. UPS plans to hire 100,000 seasonal workers — the same number as in 2019 and 2018 — ahead of what it expects to be a record holiday season, with package volumes picking up from October through January. UPS said Wednesday that over the past three years, nearly one-third of seasonal workers moved on to permanent jobs with the company.

United Airlines plans to launch nonstop flights to Ghana, India, Nigeria and Hawaii from its mainland hubs this winter and spring, including one between San Francisco and Bangalore, two global technology hubs. But despite “moderate improvement” to bookings in recent weeks, United said it expects quarterly revenue to fall 85 percent compared to last year, slightly more than the 83 percent decline it had previously forecast.

The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca halted global trials of its coronavirus vaccine on Tuesday because of a serious and unexpected adverse reaction in a participant, the company said. How long the hold will last is unclear, but it will allow the British-Swedish company to conduct a safety review. In a statement, the company described the halt as a “routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”

Lululemon, the athletic apparel retailer known for its $100 yoga pants, managed to eke out an increase in sales during a grim environment for clothing companies. The retailer said on Tuesday that net revenue in the three months that ended Aug. 2 rose 2 percent to $903 million, from the same period the year before, even as sales at company-operated stores plummeted by about 51 percent. Direct-to-consumer revenue more than doubled in the second quarter, helping Lululemon post a net profit of about $87 million. Net revenue had declined 17 percent in the first quarter, as the company grappled with temporary store closures.

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Wall Street rebounds from tech selloff. Wall Street rallied on Wednesday, following gains in European markets, as investors looked beyond a series of rough days led by a tech sell-off and the suspension of one of the major coronavirus vaccine trials because of an unexplained illness.

The S&P 500 rose more than 2 percent, as did the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite — which had dropped 10 percent over just three days. Microsoft and Apple were among the best performing stocks in the S&P 500.

European indexes were broadly higher . Asian markets finished lower.

Oil futures were also higher . Brent crude rose to about $40 a barrel, up 1.2 percent, and West Texas Intermediate crude rose 1.9 percent. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes rose slightly.

AstraZeneca , the British pharmaceutical company that announced it would pause trials of a coronavirus vaccine because of a participant’s unexpected adverse reaction, slipped. The British government, responding to a surge in infections, was expected to announce tightened restrictions on social gatherings, limiting get-togethers to six people.

Tesla recovered on Wednesday after plunging 21 percent the previous day, capping a recent downturn in the company’s stock. The tumble started after Tesla announced on Sept. 1 that it would raise up to $5 billion in capital by selling new shares “from time to time” at market prices. That figure represented barely 1 percent of Tesla’s market capitalization, but shares fell nearly 5 percent. Then, on Friday, Tesla was bypassed when the S&P 500 components were shuffled. Sentiment may also have been influenced by the recent broader swoon in technology stocks.

The Labor Department said on Wednesday that the number of job openings in the United States increased in July, for the third-consecutive month. There were 6.6 million job openings in July. The government said last week that U.S. employers added 1.4 million jobs in August. —

Source: New York Times

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