New Jersey restaurant owner Chris Clayton told CNBC on Friday that giving businesses the green light to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic does not guarantee their survival.  “Open is a four-letter word,” Clayton said on “Squawk Alley.” “Just being open doesn’t mean that you’re not going to go under. You need to be open enough, especially for […] More

Barbie dolls from the Fashionistas line of the U.S. toy manufacturer Mattel are on display at the company’s stand at the International Toy Fair, January 28, 2020 in Bavaria, Nuremberg. 2020.
Daniel Karmann | picture alliance | Getty Images

Shares of Mattel rose as much as 4% on Wednesday as the company outlined its plans for 2021 and beyond.
As part of the company’s investor day presentation, the toy maker reiterated its expectation for growth this year and laid out its forecasts for 2022 and 2023.

For 2021, Mattel expects adjusted EBITDA to range between $775 million and $800 million. That would be an increase from $719 million last year.
The company added it sees revenue growing in the mid-single digits from the $4.58 billion seen in 2020. Mattel executives noted they see sales growing at a similar pace in 2022 and 2023. The company also sees operating income margin staying in the mid-teens through 2023.
Additionally, Mattel expects cost savings of $250 million by 2023. Mattel cut costs by $1 billion between 2018 and 2020.
Since taking over as CEO in 2018, Ynon Kreiz has set in motion a multiyear strategy aimed at restoring profitability and reigniting topline growth while capturing the value of Mattel’s intellectual properties.
Kreiz’s plans involve implementing an online retail and e-commerce strategy as well as producing films showcasing the different Mattel brands. One of Kreiz’s first moves since joining the company was launching a film and television division; it currently has more than 50 projects in the works. Among the projects are an Uno live-action film, a Whac-A-Mole game show and a Thomas & Friends series.

Mattel’s forecasts come on the back of strong fourth-quarter results, which were released earlier this month.
Excluding items, Mattel earned 40 cents a share, which was higher than a Refinitiv earnings per share forecast of 23 cents. Sales jumped by 10% to $1.63 billion, outpacing the $1.58 billion analysts expected.
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Mattel expects adjusted EBITDA to range between $775 million and $800 million in 2021. A prior version of this story misstated the lower end of the range. More

Workers construct what is believed to be a makeshift morgue behind a hospital during the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New York, March 25, 2020. Carlo Allegri | Reuters New York, Hawaii and North Carolina have requested emergency mortuary assistance from FEMA to handle the coming deaths expected from coronavirus as the pandemic bears […] More

Zhong Shanshan, the chairman of Nongfu Spring Company, attends the Nongfu Spring new product launch conference on February 1, 2015 in Baishan, Jilin Province of China.
Jiang Xin | VCG | Getty Images

BEIJING — Steady gains in the public offerings of two Chinese stocks this year have vaulted their controlling stakeholder to the top of China’s rich list.
As of Thursday, Nongfu Spring founder Zhong Shanshan had a paper net worth of $57.2 billion, topping Tencent’s Pony Ma and Alibaba founder Jack Ma, whose respective holdings were worth $56.3 billion and $50.4 billion, according to Forbes.

The paper gains also mean China’s wealthiest man now ranks 17th in the world, just below Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, according to Forbes’ real-time billionaire list.
Zhong owns 84.4% of the bottled water giant, which is up roughly 77% from its public offering on Sept. 8 in Hong Kong, when the company raised about $1.1 billion in one of the largest public offerings for the exchange so far this year.

Zhong also holds a controlling stake in Wantai Biological, a pharmaceutical firm that claims to be among the several Chinese companies developing a vaccine for Covid-19. Wantai is up more than 2,000% since its public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange in April. More

PITY BEN VAN BEURDEN. The boss of Royal Dutch Shell is an affable man steering a Scylla-and-Charybdis course between oil-loving shareholders on one extreme and carbon-hating ones on the other. His latest task is to convince investors that Shell’s strategy of doubling down on oil and gas production while bulking up on renewables is viable, even as Third Point, a hedge fund, demands it breaks itself up. And for seven years he has run a company with one foot in the Netherlands and the other in Britain—with Brexit in between.On November 15th Shell offered shareholders some badly needed simplification. It asked them to vote next month for a proposal to ditch a dual Anglo-Dutch share structure, haul the headquarters back to Britain, and scrap the Royal Dutch name. It marks a homecoming of sorts. The original moniker dates back to the 19th century, when the company’s forebear, Marcus Samuel, dealt in sea shells along the Thames. But the reaction in parts of the Netherlands has been apoplectic. Some politicians want to impose an exit tax to dissuade Shell from leaving.Simplification looks like the handiwork of Andrew Mackenzie, Shell’s new chairman, who oversaw a restructuring of BHP, the Anglo-Australian miner that he previously ran. But it has a financial logic, too. Under the dual-share structure, Shell’s Dutch A shares were subject to a withholding tax, which meant that only British B shares could be bought back economically. That capped buy-backs at $2.5bn a quarter. Oswald Clint of Bernstein, an investment firm, says the maximum could now rise to $5bn. More buy-backs are a way of increasing cash returns to shareholders while they see how Shell’s energy-transition strategy plays out. They may not guarantee the company wins the argument against Third Point. But they will buy it some time.There are other potential side-effects. The Netherlands has dealt some harsh blows to Shell recently. They include a court judgment in The Hague ordering Shell to reduce its worldwide emissions—part of which the company is appealing against (and which it says the planned move won’t affect). A Dutch pension fund, ABP, stunned Shell last month by saying it would sell its shares in the firm as part of efforts to divest from fossil fuels.The British government cheered the relocation announcement. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, called it “a clear vote of confidence in the British economy”. But the boon to global Britain could come at a cost to global warming. In the coming months the government is expected to decide whether to allow drilling of an oilfield called Cambo off the coast of Scotland—a litmus test for the future of North Sea oil. Cambo is part-owned by Shell.■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, business and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly newsletter.This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “A simple solution” More