The company will launch a voluntary retirement programme by the end of February.

Ariya Banomyong, executive director of BEC World Plc, operator of Channel 3 HD digital TV and several radio stations, said that in 2020 “the company needs to change its strategy and business operation to suit the needs of modern-day viewers which are different from the past. We will mainly focus on adjusting our content in prime time period from 6pm to 10.30pm to attract viewers.”

“Channel 3 is also planning to launch ‘CH3+’, an online platform that connects TV content to online viewers,” he added. “Two new strategies that we will employ are the D2C [direct to consumers] approach, which will help product manufacturers increase their sales by targeting potential consumers who are watching the shows, and the export of Channel 3 content to foreign markets.”

Ariya further added that to maintain the company’s competitiveness in the media market where advertising capital has been decreasing continuously, Channel 3 will need to downsize its workforce. “We have notified employees of a retirement programme which will start by the end of this month,” he said. “This programme is 100 per cent voluntary, and is expected to help BEC World streamline its operations and move forward sustainably in the future.”

In October 2019, Channel 3 had laid off 177 employees as a result of continuous decrease in profit since 2017. The company reported Bt330 million loss in 2018.

“PG&E has fallen so far behind on its own mitigation plan and is not in compliance with the state law and has violated its terms of probation,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup said Wednesday at the start of a hearing in San Francisco.

PG&E remains on probation after it was convicted in 2016 of gas-pipeline safety crimes. Failure to comply with any law is a violation of probation. Alsup is testing how far he can push the utility to prevent its equipment from causing another devastating wildfire as it simultaneously navigates a complicated exit from bankruptcy.

While the company admitted in January to not meeting up to its own vegetation management goals, PG&E is resisting Alsup’s proposals to intervene in its efforts. It said in a filing that being forced to hire more tree trimming crews would be counterproductive because there’s a shortage of qualified workers.

The judge started the hearing on a somber note, reminding lawyers that the company is a “convicted felon” and that he holds it responsible for much of the havoc wrought by wind-whipped firestorms over the last three years.

“In order to pump more dividends out and pay more bonuses, PG&E had neglected the maintenance budgets — even though they won’t admit it,” resulting in trees blowing onto distribution lines and starting fires, he said. “It’s quite simple.”

But the judge also gave the company credit for implementing mandatory power shutoffs across wide swaths of the grid during high fire-danger weather this year.

“During 2019 there was no house burned and no one died in California as a result of trees falling onto the distribution lines of PG&E,” Alsup said.

Kevin Orsini, a lawyer for PG&E, aggressively defended the company from the judge’s harsh criticism of its vegetation management program. An eight-year backlog in cutting back overgrown bushes and trees isn’t due to negligence, Orsini said, but because “the old rules don’t work.”

He told the judge PG&E has “fundamentally realigned” its approach to vegetation management in the era of climate change. It trimmed or cut more than 1 million trees in 2019, he said, adding that another 22,000 trees it identified “are in the workflow right now.” PG&E has committed to cutting a 12-foot radius of vegetation around its equipment instead of four feet, Orsini said, and is going beyond requirements to clear overhanging branches, he said.

“I’m not trying to suggest we’re perfect,” but “strides have been made,” he said.

Alsup asked Orsini to report to the court how many tree cutters it’s hiring.

PG&E shares fell sharply when the judge made his initial comments, then rebounded. The stock was trading at $16.94, up by 5.3% percent, at 12:18 p.m. in New York.

Owners Authentic Brands Group, Simon Property Group Inc. and Brookfield Property Partners LP are talking with other landlords about keeping as many of its 448 U.S. stores in business as possible, Authentic CEO Jamie Salter said in an interview. Forever 21 is interviewing three CEO candidates and will name a new one soon, Salter said.

Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy in September after struggling with large, expensive locations and losses in some international markets, while suffering from the same online competition that has forced U.S. retailers to close thousands of stores in recent years. The new owners agreed to pay $81 million and assume certain liabilities as part of the purchase.

The company is planning to launch or expand wholesale lines in jewelry, footwear and handbags, Salter said. It’s also planning to expand the Riley Rose beauty brand. Salter envisions “multiple” collaborations with other brands, both his own and outside ABG.

“You could do a Juicy collab with Forever 21 in five minutes — it’s a perfect match. You could do Marilyn Monroe with Forever 21, you could do Elvis Presley with Forever 21,” Salter said, referring to other ABG brands.

The new owners plan to keep the headquarters in Los Angeles and say they’ll work with new and existing partners to expand in Europe, South America, China, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. The company is also planning to convert stores in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Philippines from company-owned to licensed partnerships.

Salter said he’s considering opening shops in other retailers outside of the U.S. — a model he’s employed following his purchase of Barneys New York Inc. last year.

“The research we did showed massive passion for the brand all over the world,” Salter said, referring to Forever 21. “They really had a true customer who loves the brand.”

Still, the company’s turnaround faces significant hurdles, according to Greg Portell, lead partner in the global consumer and retail practice of strategy and management consulting firm Kearney.

“They need to change the story and change the narrative, and whether they can get the talent to do that is the big question in everyone’s mind,” Portell said. “They still need to overcome the performance capabilities of the company” such as sourcing and logistics. “The new ownership structure doesn’t solve that problem. They’re still going to have to go out and rebuild those muscles.”

For his part, Salter said he’s not worried about the upheaval that’s fueled record U.S. store closings and a steady march of retail bankruptcy filings, including Pier 1 Imports Inc. just this week.

“Retail’s not hard if you have the right structure,” he said. “We don’t load companies up with debt, so you’re not getting choked with a debt payment every month.”

A flurry of downgrades in recent months pushed analysts’ outlook on the San Francisco-based firm to its worst since the financial crisis. Still, as new Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf conducts a strategic review and works through the bank’s myriad regulatory issues, some see reason to be bullish.

Just six of the 31 analysts tracked by Bloomberg have a buy rating or its equivalent, making it the least popular bullish bet of the largest U.S. banks. Since September 2016, the firm has been reeling from scandals that led to the exits of two CEOs and kept the stock relatively flat while the broader KBW Bank Index gained about 50%.

“It’s not a turnaround story overnight,” said Kyle Sanders, an analyst at Edward Jones who has suggested buying the stock for more than a year. “You’ve got to be a little bit early if you want to catch the rebound, and that’s the bull case.”

Wells Fargo has reported muted results for years as fallout from a series of scandals across the firm drove up legal costs and hampered growth. In recent quarters, the hit to earnings has been compounded by falling interest rates.

The bulls argue this has masked what is still a powerful profit engine amid strong consumer credit quality and a sustained economic expansion. That can shine through as legal costs eventually dip and Scharf finds more expense savings in other areas.

“The opportunity to improve results is quite easy and will be really powerful for them,” Sanders said. “It’s very easy to see them trim a lot of fat around the company. They’re really inefficient compared to their peers.”

Renaissance Macro Research analyst Howard Mason agreed, arguing that the bank’s results are due to improve, following rivals that have set profit records in the past two years, thanks in part to lower tax rates.

“It’s a very strong community bank with a wonderful distribution network,” Mason said. “I would make the case that earnings are meaningfully below normal because of this very inflated efficiency ratio, and that is going to come down.”

The fallout from years of problems at Wells Fargo has dragged into 2020. Former leaders including ex-CEO John Stumpf were hit with civil charges, and Scharf has warned investors that the bank still has a long way to go.

Wells Fargo set aside more than $1 billion for litigation in the fourth quarter, bringing the total for the second half of last year to more than $3 billion. The bank has yet to settle with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission over its fake-accounts scandal, and it faces an array of other open probes and sanctions including a Federal Reserve-ordered growth cap.

“It’s a lot of stuff you already knew,” said Morningstar analyst Eric Compton, who upgraded the stock from hold to buy last month. “Scharf just started, so it’s going to take him some time to turn this around.”

The GEnx turbine could offer airline customers fuel savings and lower costs, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing private deliberations. The discussions are preliminary and no final decision has been made, the people said. The GEnx engine platform is an option on Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner wide-body and is set to be the exclusive power plant for the 777X in development.

Airbus said it was happy with the A330’s Rolls Trent engines and is always in talks with engine makers about new technologies and ways to benefit its customers.

GE said it doesn’t comment on discussions with planemakers. “We continuously work to identify opportunities to add value for our customers and to assess introduction of new technologies,” the company said by email. The GE-Airbus discussions were reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

GE shares were little changed at $12.74 at 9:36 a.m. in New York. The stock had advanced 14% this year through Tuesday, while the S&P 500 climbed 4.3%.

Engine platforms can cost billions of dollars to develop. Manufacturers attempt to broaden the turbines’ use across multiple models as sales of twin-aisle jets lose ground to more-efficient narrow-body planes, such as Airbus’s best-selling A320 family.

Boeing said last month that it would pare output of the Dreamliner early next year to 10 a month from 12. Last week, Airbus said it would cut production of the A330 to 40 in 2020 from 53 last year.

GE, as well as other Boeing suppliers, has also been pinched by the global grounding of the 737 Max following two fatal crashes. The planemaker last month halted output of the jet, for which a GE joint venture supplies the engines, while it awaits approval for the plane’s return to service.

While the company’s cash burn could worsen to as much as $2 billion in the first quarter because of “pressure” from the Max crisis, GE will reap the rewards of a rebound later in the year, Chief Executive Officer Larry Culp said Wednesday at a Barclays conference. GE’s manufacturing businesses will generate as much as $4 billion in free cash this year, he reiterated.

Culp’s sanguine outlook for 2020 offered a measure of relief to investors concerned over the Max’s impact on GE, which makes engines for Boeing’s best-selling jet. The plane has been grounded for almost a year following a pair of deadly crashes.

GE expects to set aside about $100 million in the first quarter related to its old long-term care insurance business, a smaller amount than expected, Culp said. Separately, he cautioned that the virus outbreak in China is a “wild card” for the near-term performance of the Boston-based company, which also makes power equipment and medical scanners.

GE rose 1.2% to $12.90 at 10:32 a.m. in New York. The stock climbed 14% this year though Tuesday, compared with a 3.1% advance for a Standard & Poor’s index of U.S. industrial companies. GE jumped 53% last year, a partial recovery after a share collapse the previous two years.

“Long-term this will not have an impact on our industry and our brand,” Gulden told journalists Wednesday. After sliding 5.5% over the past month, Puma shares rose as much as 9.5% to a record.

The athletics wear maker said it expects operating profit to rise by as much as 18% this year to a range of 500 million euros to 520 million euros ($540 million to $562 million). That’s dependent on reaching the sales target, which has become more difficult since the outbreak, the CEO said.

“Can we reach the guidance or not? We will do everything we can,” Gulden said.

The sportwear brand generates about 13% of its sales from China, where authorities have taken drastic measures to contain an outbreak that has claimed more than 2,000 lives. As many as 70 of the company’s 110 stores there are closed and almost all franchises and partners have shut as well. Most of Puma’s local factories have restarted after a lengthened holiday break for the Lunar New Year, but they aren’t fully staffed yet as travel restrictions prevent workers from returning home, according to Gulden.

Exporting from China has become “dramatically” easier over the past five days and most ports are open, Gulden said. The difficulty is getting permission to get trucks to go from factories to the ports.

“We feel retail February, destroyed,” Gulden said.

Rival Adidas experienced a 85% drop in the weeks since Jan. 25, the company said by email. Puma said sales and earnings have suffered in the first quarter as it forecast weaker-than-expected earnings for the year.

Puma’s revenue outlook implies no major impact from the coronavirus, for the time being, Volker Bosse of Baader Bank said by email.

Chinese employers have encouraged people to stay home, shopping malls and restaurants are empty, and amusement parks and theaters are closed. Non-essential travel is all but forbidden. Many consumer goods companies have said e-commerce in that market will offset the effect of the store closures.

Both companies pointed to weaker performance elsewhere in Asia. Adidas said it had observed some traffic declines in Japan and South Korea, but not “a major business impact.” Puma said a decline in Chinese tourists elsewhere in Asia was hurting demand.

Adidas shares rose as much as 3.2% in Frankfurt. Before the virus hit, business had performed strongly in China, the company said.

Should the move go ahead, Siemens would require the energy business to take on burdens including payments of about 300 million euros ($324 million) for the right to use the company name, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private. In addition, some 200 million euros in costs would fall on the subsidiary for services like portfolio management, investor relations or communications that are now being absorbed by the parent, the people said.

While the transfer would take some weight off Siemens, it threatens to cut into the valuation of the energy unit, leaving it well short of 10 billion euros, one of the people said. Management board member Michael Sen, the chief executive officer-designate of the business, has clashed with CEO Joe Kaeser and Finance Chief Ralf Thomas because he wants to minimize any financial burden on the soon-to-be separated business, they said.

Spokespeople for Siemens declined to comment.

Should Kaeser and Thomas prevail, annual earnings before certain items would take a hit of about 500 million euros, half the amount some analysts estimated, the people said. Discussions are ongoing and no decision has been made regarding the allocation of costs, the people said.

Siemens has earmarked the unit for separation on the stock market scheduled for later this year. It’s likely to be the final act by Kaeser, who has whittled down the once sprawling engineering conglomerate to focus on fewer, less cost-intensive units. Kaeser, whose contract expires next year, has said he may be willing to lead the Munich-based company for longer should the transaction not run as smoothly as hoped.

Unlike at an initial public offering, in which outside investors determine the valuation of a company to be listed, the value in a spin-off is calculated by the company initiating the transaction.

The company started charging former divisions for the use of its brand last year, but Siemens Healthineers AG, which went its separate way in 2018 via an initial public offering, isn’t required to pay. A spokesman for that company said an agreement for the branding rights was reached before the IPO and still stands.

Siemens Energy is made up of a gas-and-power division that builds everything from large turbines to transmission equipment, as well as a stake in a wind turbine maker Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA. Siemens recently acquired an 8% stake in Siemens Gamesa from Iberdrola SA, boosting its holding to 67% and strengthening its grip on the business.

The gas turbine part of the business has suffered from slowing demand caused by a global shift toward renewable energy, and Kaeser has cut about 8,700 jobs in response to the slump.

Hedge fund managers, whose positioning is closely watched as a gauge of market sentiment, have been selling technology shares for a third month, according to prime brokerage data compiled by Goldman Sachs. Over that period, they’ve unwound about half of the inflows that were accumulated during the previous nine months.

While tech stocks remain one of their favorite sectors, the retreat means some foregone profits for an industry that’s been struggling to keep up with the market. Computer and software makers have rallied 17% in the previous three months, beating all other major sectors in the S&P 500 and doubling the benchmark’s gain.

“It appears that hedge funds have been fading the rally in U.S. info tech stocks,” Goldman said in the note to clients, without giving any hints on the rational behind the rising skepticism.

Tech shares have been on a tear lately as investors continue to flock into companies whose sales are perceived as resilient amid a slowing economy. At 29 times earnings, tech stocks were traded at a 28% premium to the S&P 500, the most since the U.S. bull market began in 2009.

But Apple’s warning on missing its quarterly revenue forecast because of the coronavirus outbreak in China showed the group may be more vulnerable to a global slowdown, at least for now. China plays a central role in global manufacturing, especially technology. Just about every major piece of consumer electronics is made in the country, from iPhones and gaming consoles to half the world’s liquid crystal display or LCD screens.

While there is no shortage of reasons for caution, nothing has been able to halt tech’s momentum. Despite Apple’s warning, the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 eked out a gain Tuesday, while the S&P 500 slipped. Tech shares continued their leadership on Wednesday, rising 0.9% as of 10 a.m. in New York amid signs that China may be planning further measures to support its economy.

So much love exists among investors that being long U.S. tech and growth stocks was cited as the most crowded trade for a fourth straight month, according to Bank of America Corp.’s latest survey of money managers. The affection can also be found in exchange-trade funds. About $3 billion has been added to ETFs focusing on tech stocks this month, poised for the biggest inflows since August 2018, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence showed.

While others are piling in, hedge funds are pulling out. Their disposal last week, concentrated in software and technology-services providers, exceeded all other sectors, Goldman’s data showed.

In another piece of evidence about the industry’s growing weariness, tech’s combined value in all hedge funds tracked by Bloomberg stayed little changed during the fourth quarter, when the shares jumped 14%. While it’s not exact science, flat value during a rally could mean some positions were cut.

Missing out on some of the market’s best rallies may be one reason why hedge funds are off to a slow start to the year. Equity funds tracked by Hedge Fund Research are up less than 1% this year, compared with an increase of more than 4% for the S&P 500.

The limited-edition collectors’ items crafted from the aluminum skin of the world’s biggest commercial airliner are on sale for 27.95 euros ($30.19) each through specialist retailer Aviationtag.

Decommissioned aircraft parts have long found their way into the hands of aviation aficionados, from cabin juice trolleys to coffee tables made from wing parts to mini bars complete with windows carved out of fuselage sections. In this case, the hulking A380, with the manufacturer serial number MSN003, made its maiden commercial flight with Singapore Airlines from the city state to Sydney in Oct. 2007.

The Asian carrier removed the aircraft from its fleet last year and transferred it to southern France, where the plane is being dismembered for spare parts like engines and aeronautic components.

In a bid to carve a bit of extra value from the jet, which can seat more than 800 people on two decks, a swathe of the outer skin is also being cut up to create 7,000 luggage tags. Each is engraved with a partial silhouette etching of the aircraft and data including an issue number.

Recycling aircraft is a profitable business because many components are worth more as single parts than the jet as a whole and remain in good working order. Planes are increasingly being broken apart at younger ages because technical advances have convinced airlines to opt for the latest, fuel-efficient models.

Airbus announced last year that it would discontinue production of the A380 because of its lackluster commercial success. While the model, boasting extras like first-class showers or bars where business-class passengers can mingle, is a hit with travelers, airlines have struggled to accommodate the giant four-engine model in their fleets, which are increasingly tilted toward smaller aircraft that can be deployed more flexibly within their networks.

Singapore Airlines was the first commercial operator of the A380. The biggest buyer by far is Emirates, which has ordered 123 A380s in total. Other operators, like Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Malaysian Airlines System Bhd and Air France, have cut back on their initial purchases and are beginning to retire the double-decker.

The last A380s will likely be produced sometime next year.