Category: Semafor

by Philip Hensher. In this historical telling of an art form that’s seen a slow decline in popularity, Hensher details the evolutionary scramble that motivated writers and publishers to do justice to the medium’s name: find something . Hensher rehashes centuries of publishing-house drama with an investigative eye, evaluating famous ...

The News A fresh cash injection from the World Bank’s private investment arm will help Africa’s largest ecommerce vendor absorb shocks spurred by ongoing geopolitical crises in the Middle East and meet profit targets over the next year, the company’s chief executive told Semafor. New York-listed Jumia raised $50 million ...

Liz’s view There’s always money in the sports team. Mark Walter controls a vast financial empire and is under federal investigation for undisclosed related-party transactions between its interlocking parts. Unwinding those transactions will require him to raise billions of dollars. Most people in that situation would look to sell their ...

The Scoop AstraZeneca’s planned $400 billion deal with Bristol Myers Squibb triggered worries at the UK government’s highest levels, prompting outreach that helped contribute to the collapse of the deal, according to people briefed on the deal. Varun Chandra, the UK’s top business envoy and an adviser to Prime Minister ...

Netflix co-founder and former CEO Reed Hastings says AI could unleash a new wave of “creative destruction” as companies use rapidly improving technology not just to cut costs, but to challenge competitors and build new businesses. In this episode of , Hastings notes that AI has been getting “roughly twice ...

The Scoop Saudi Arabia’s stock market regulator is investigating the poor performance of recent initial public offerings, according to people familiar with the matter, and questioning the advice given by investment banks to companies selling stock. The investigation has been underway for several months and covers IPOs going back to ...

College students who identify as Republicans are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to trust their school to act in their best interests — even as confidence in higher education among conservatives sinks. Sixty-two percent of Republican students said their college’s leadership mostly acts in students’ best interests, compared with ...

The News Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Čović has tapped Trump-linked firm Mercury Public Affairs to lobby for his party, according to Justice Department filings, in a first step toward competing with the country’s Serbian politicians who’ve continued to ply K Street with money. Bosnia’s Republika Srpska has signed lobbying contracts ...

The News DP World weathered a near-collapse in traffic at its flagship Jebel Ali port in the first half of the year, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz forced it to reroute cargo overland through other ports in the UAE and neighboring countries. Container throughput at Jebel Ali ...

US President Donald Trump said this week the US effectively “owns” the Strait of Hormuz, but it might be more accurate to say that in practice, it belongs to the loose cohort of oil tankers that have established what could be a new status quo. While hourly headlines send the ...