Raphael Stevens

An RS1 rocket booster undergoes acceptance testing.ABL SpaceRocket builder ABL Space closed a $170 million round of funding, the company announced on Thursday, making it the latest private space venture to reach the unicorn valuation mark.ABL raised the funds from T. Rowe Price and Fidelity Management, as well as a third unnamed investment firm and existing investors, at a valuation of $1.3 billion.”We have always prided ourselves on capital efficiency,” ABL CEO Harry O’Hanley told CNBC, noting that the company has spent “well under” $50 million to date.”If you compare us to other companies spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing launch vehicles, you should see how fundamentally differentiated our underlying approach must be to achieve that,” O’Hanley added.The company had previously raised $49 million in venture capital to date, with investors including Venrock, New Science Ventures, Lynett Capital and Lockheed Martin Ventures. ABL had also announced nearly $45 million in contracts from the Air Force Research Laboratory and AFWERX, with the company on Thursday saying it now has contracts from ten “distinct customers,” from a mix of commercial and government customers.”We think the global space economy has significant long-term growth potential,” Jason Adams, portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price’s Global Industrials Fund, said in a statement. “We think ABL has a management team, technology set and product strategy that should enable long-term competitive advantages.”The first stage of the company’s RS1 rocket after completing welding.ABL SpaceABL’s RS1 rocket stands at 88 feet tall, and is designed to launch as much as 1,350 kilograms (or nearly 1½ tons) of payload to low Earth orbit – at a price of $12 million per launch. That puts RS1 in the middle of the commercial launch market, between Rocket Lab’s smaller Electron for $7 million and SpaceX’s heavy Falcon 9 for $62 million.It also pits ABL against several other companies developing “medium-lift” rockets. Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit recently reaching orbit, while ABL is alongside Relativity Space and Firefly Aerospace in aiming for the companies’ first launches later this year.In addition to the economical approach of ABL’s rocket development process, the company also touts the efficiency of its GS0 deployable ground system. It’s essentially the barebones of a launch facility — the erector, fueling, electrical, control center and more — all packed into a few standard-sized shipping containers.One of the shipping containers that holds the GS0 deployable launch system infrastructure.ABL SpaceO’Hanley told CNBC in January that ABL’s rocket program was already “fully funded” through its first mission, and on Thursday said the added $170 million in capital “will give us the opportunity to set up for scaling up launch cadence to meet all the demand we are seeing in 2022 and beyond.””It will also let us carefully start exploring more opportunities both in space tech and other domains,” O’Hanley said.ABL’s new valuation also makes it the latest space venture to pass the unicorn mark of a valuation above $1 billion. The company is now among the most valuable in the growing space industry, which is led by SpaceX with a $74 billion valuation and followed by a variety of companies that have announced SPAC deals in the past six months. Dan Piemont, ABL’s president and CFO, shared his view on the company’s new status.”We don’t see our valuation as an achievement so much as a serious responsibility to deliver value,” Piemont told CNBC. “We’ve never optimized for valuation and we’ve kept most of our achievements private. We know we still have a lot to prove. We’re out to build an enduring company with the best people, customers, and investors in the world.””Hopefully this round shows that there’s something special happening under the hood here at ABL. If you want to learn more about what that is, get in touch,” Piemont added. More

Quibi CEO Meg Whitman speaks during a Quibi keynote address at the 2020 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 8, 2020.Steve Marcus | ReutersDETROIT — General Motors is adding former Hewlett Packard executive Meg Whitman and National Basketball Association Chief Operating Officer Mark Tatum to its board, effective immediately.The elections come at a pivotal time for the automaker, which plans to transition to an all-electric vehicle lineup by 2035. That began last year with GM announcing plans to release 30 new EVs globally by 2025 under a $27 billion investment in electric and autonomous vehicles during that time frame.They bring GM’s board to 13 members, 12 of whom are independent directors. GM CEO and Chairman Mary Barra is the only company representative on the board.”Our diverse Board of Directors is a competitive advantage for GM as we work to deliver a better, safer and more sustainable world,” Barra said in a statement Thursday. “Mark and Meg will bring unique experiences to the board, especially in technology, brand building and customer experience that will help us drive value for shareholders and other GM stakeholders now and into the future.”Whitman, 64, is well-known in Silicon Valley and tech circles. She was most recently president of short-lived streaming platform Quibi. She led HPE from 2015 to 2018, Hewlett-Packard Co. from 2011 to 2015 and eBay from 1998 through 2008. She’s known for turning around eBay and splitting Hewlett-Packard into two companies.”I have tremendous respect for the commitments Mary and her team are making and the culture they have been building,” Whitman said in a release. “GM’s growth strategy has all the elements of a startup but with far greater scale, millions of customers, and a strong underlying business. This makes it a very exciting time to join the board.”Tatum, 51, was appointed COO and deputy commissioner of the NBA in 2014. He is responsible for the NBA’s global business operations.NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum.Jesse D. Garrabrant | NBAE | Getty Images”GM is changing a more than 100-year-old business model and marshalling thousands of people and billions of dollars to drive solutions that matter for the environment ,communities, businesses and investors,” he said in a statement. Joining the board, he said “is an honor and I look forward to working with the GM team and my fellow directors to make it happen.”Whitman and Tatum add to GM’s already-diverse board under Barra. Of the 13 directors, seven are women, one is Hispanic, one is African American and another is Asian/African American. The automaker became the first major industrial corporation with an even gender split on its board, followed by a majority of women directors in 2019.The board will stand for election at the company’s annual shareholders meeting on June 14. More

Moncef Slaoui, the former head of GlaxoSmithKlines vaccines division, listens as U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. Dubbed “Operation Warp Speed,” the Trump administration is announcing plans for an all-out effort to produce and distribute a coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2020.Drew Angerer | Getty ImagesMoncef Slaoui, the Trump administration’s former Covid vaccine chief, is stepping down as chief scientific officer at Centessa Pharmaceuticals following reports of sexual harassment allegations at another company earlier this week.On Wednesday, Slaoui was fired as chairman of Galvani Bioelectronics, a joint venture between GlaxoSmithKline and Verily, after a woman sent a letter saying he sexually harassed her several years ago that the company said were “substantiated.” Slaoui, 61, had spent 30 years at GSK, overseeing vaccine development at that pharmaceutical giant.His dismissal came a month after GSK received a letter “containing allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate conduct towards an employee of GSK by Dr. Slaoui,” GSK said in a statement Wednesday.”The Centessa management team and board of directors were troubled to learn of yesterday’s news regarding Dr. Slaoui,” Centessa Pharmaceuticals CEO Dr. Saurabh Saha said in a statement Thursday.”Centessa is absolutely committed to fostering a culture of respect that is free from harassment and discrimination of any kind and are steadfastly committed to maintaining a work environment that is reflective of our strong values as a company,” Saha said.The company said his departure would be effective immediately.Slaoui joined Centessa Pharmaceuticals in mid-February to advise its drug development programs, which focus on areas including hemophilia, cancer and kidney disease, Reuters reported. He had been a partner at Medicxi, the investment firm that founded Centessa, since 2017.Slaoui apologized Wednesday following the allegations, saying he was “deeply sorry.” He said he would take a leave of absence from roles at other health companies and a venture capital firm to focus on his family.This is a developing story. Please check back later for updates. More

People walk by a H&M store on Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street on March 24, 2021 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Wang Gang/VCG via Getty Images)Wang Gang | Visual China Group | Getty ImagesGUANGZHOU, China — Swedish clothing retailer H&M disappeared from major Chinese shopping sites and mapping apps after resurfaced comments, reportedly from last year, about its concerns over alleged forced labor in China’s western region of Xinjiang.A CNBC search for “H&M” and “hm” in English on Taobao, the e-commerce site run by Alibaba, and JD.com yielded no results. Meanwhile, Alibaba-owned mapping app Amap as well as Baidu Maps did not display any results for the search term “H&M.”JD.com declined to comment when contacted by CNBC. Alibaba and Baidu were not immediately available for comment.Xinjiang is home to the Uyghur Muslims, who have been identified by the United Nations, United States, United Kingdom and others as a repressed ethnic group. In their first coordinated move in response to allegations of forced labor, the U.S., European Union, Britain and Canada jointly imposed sanctions on Chinese officials this week over China’s alleged human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang.H&M faced backlash from Chinese users on Twitter-like service Weibo who responded to a resurfaced statement by the retailer. Reuters said the statement was from last year. CNBC could not ascertain when the H&M statement was first published.At the time, H&M said it was “deeply concerned by reports from civil society organisations and media that include accusations of forced labour” in Xinjiang, a cotton producing region, according to Reuters. The company said it did not source products from there.That statement appears to have been removed from the Swedish retailer’s website. H&M was not immediately available for comment.A joint statement by the U.S., U.K. and Canada this week said that evidence of human rights violations and abuses in Xinjiang, “including from the Chinese Government’s own documents, satellite imagery, and eyewitness testimony is overwhelming.”The countries cited forced labor as one of the features of “China’s extensive program of repression,” along with mass detentions and forced sterilizations.China denies Xinjiang allegationsChina has repeatedly denied allegations of forced labor and other abuses in Xinjiang. The government says that facilities there that the U.S., U.K., Canada and human rights groups have characterized as internment camps are actually vocational training centers.Asked at a press conference on Thursday if the Ministry of Commerce had ordered the e-commerce companies to ban companies like H&M, spokesman Gao Feng said: “Regarding some companies’ so-called business position on some false information, Chinese consumers have already responded with real actions.””(We) hope the relevant companies can respect market rules, adjust their wrong actions and avoid the politicization of business,” he said at the press event, according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.Gao added that foreign companies are welcome to conduct “normal operations” in China and invest and do business in Xinjiang.It’s unclear why the old H&M statement resurfaced. But on Wednesday, a post by China’s Communist Youth League on Twitter-like site Weibo showed a screenshot of the statement. The post accused H&M of spreading rumors about Xinjiang.The hashtag “support Xinjiang cotton” was the top trending topic on Weibo on Thursday.Nike backlash in ChinaH&M was not the only international retailer facing the wrath of Chinese web users. Nike too is facing backlash.The U.S. sportswear giant said in a statement it was “concerned about reports of forced labor in, and connected to” Xinjiang. Nike said it does not source products from the region and “confirmed with our contract suppliers that they are not using textiles or spun yarn from” Xinjiang.It is unclear when Nike’s statement was published.Chinese actor Wang Yi Bo cut ties with Nike after the online backlash, according to his management agency. Chinese actress Tan Songyun also cut ties with the company.Nike was not immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.— CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report. More

Covid vaccinator, Petra Moinar, prepares syringes with the AstraZeneca vaccine before it is administered at Battersea Arts Centre on March 8, 2021 in London, England.Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesHeralded as “the vaccine for the world,” AstraZeneca’s Covid shot has been accompanied by high hopes ever since its inception. But, unlike other coronavirus vaccines, the shot developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has been plagued by problem after problem.AstraZeneca’s troubles started almost as soon as it published interim trial data, and have continued ever since.The drugmaker “seems to have a real PR problem on its hands in the U.S. and in Europe,” Sunaina Sinha Haldea, managing partner of Cebile Capital, told CNBC on Thursday, warning that its “public relations problem risks undermining confidence in the vaccine outside of the U.K.”Here’s a timeline of all the problems that have struck AstraZeneca in the past year:November 2020 – Trial data disputeAstraZeneca published an interim analysis of clinical trials showing that its Covid vaccine had an average efficacy of 70% in protecting against the virus. The result was initially cheered by the global community, already buoyed by positive results for both Moderna’s and Pfizer-BioNTech’s shots.However, after further scrutiny it became clear that the 70% figure came from combining the analyses of two separate dosing regimens within the trials. One dosing regimen showed an effectiveness of 90% when trial participants received a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart. The other showed 62% efficacy when two full doses were given at least one month apart.AstraZeneca admitted the half-dose regime was an error, but described it as “useful mistake” and “serendipity.” It attracted criticism from U.S. experts, however, and AstraZeneca’s haphazard communication surrounding the mistake arguably marked the start of its reputational issues.January 2021 – Supply disputeIn early January, the U.K. started to roll out the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine. It had an added bonus for the country: the majority of its doses would be made in Britain.However, it wasn’t long before an argument over supplies started brewing with the European Union, following reports that the drugmaker was not going to fulfil its contracted deliveries to the bloc.A very public dispute over contracts ensued, starting a saga of acrimonious relations between the EU and both the U.K. and the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker. The EU made waves suggesting that AstraZeneca divert supplies to the bloc from the U.K.January 2021 – Efficacy for over-65s disputeAt the same time as the dispute over supplies was brewing, some European nations started to cast doubt over the AstraZeneca vaccine’s efficacy in the over-65s — arguably those most in need of the shot due to age-related Covid risks.Germany’s vaccine committee recommended that the AstraZeneca vaccine should only be offered to people aged between 18-64, saying there was not enough trial data to assess the efficacy in people aged over 65. Several German newspapers reported that the vaccine had an efficacy rate of less than 10% in the over-65s — described as “completely incorrect” by AstraZeneca — and France’s President Emmanuel Macron poured oil on the fire, saying the vaccine seemed “quasi-ineffective” for the over-65s.Margaret Keenan, 90, is applauded by staff as she returns to her ward after becoming first patient in Britain to receive the Pfizer/BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine at University Hospital, at the start of the largest ever immunisation programme in the British history, in Coventry, Britain December 8, 2020.Jacob King | ReutersLater trial data involving older participants showed that the vaccine was safe and effective for the over-65s, and saved lives, but by then the reputational damage was done — particularly in France where vaccine hesitancy is already rife.  At the end of January, the EU’s drugs regulator approved the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for all adults. France, Germany and other countries then revised their earlier stances, approving the vaccine for the over-65s (with some caveats in France).March 2021 – Blood clots disputeThe problems for AstraZeneca got even worse in March, despite real-world data from the U.K. showing that the shot, alongside Pfizer’s, was having indubitably positive effects with coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths all falling. Meanwhile, the EU’s infection rate was rising as the bloc’s vaccine rollout remained sluggish.Then there were reports of blood clots in some people who had been vaccinated with the AstraZeneca shot, and more than a dozen European countries suspended its use pending a safety review. AstraZeneca defended its shot, saying that the number of blood clots recorded post-vaccination were lower than could be expected to occur naturally.The World Health Organization and European Medicines Agency conducted safety reviews into the vaccine and concluded it was safe and effective and that its benefits outweighed the risks. By then, however, further damage to the AstraZeneca shot’s reputation had been done.Late March 2021 – U.S. data disputeThe woes for AstraZeneca have continued this week — despite it starting on a high note for the drugmaker. On Monday, the findings of a large U.S. trial showed that its vaccine was safe and highly effective, spurring hopes that it could soon seek U.S. clearance for the shot.However, on Tuesday, a U.S. health agency said AstraZeneca may have included “outdated” information in the trial results, potentially casting doubt over published efficacy rates.AstraZeneca responded that the figures published Monday “were based on a pre-specified interim analysis with a data cut-off of 17 February” and said it would share its primary analysis with the most up to date efficacy data within 48 hours.On Wednesday, it issued updated phase three trial data for its Covid-19 vaccine that showed its vaccine to be 76% effective — slightly lower than the 79% rate published on Monday.What next for AstraZeneca?The issues facing AstraZeneca could be set to continue, as EU leaders meet virtually on Thursday to discuss possible vaccine export bans which could hit the drugmaker. The EU and U.K. said on Wednesday, however, that they wanted to find a “win-win” solution to the ongoing supply issue.The ongoing negative coverage of AstraZeneca has led some onlookers (and certainly, the British media) to suggest that the vaccine has become a target for negative sentiment in Europe directed at the U.K. after Brexit. It has also been suggested that the shot could be the victim of vaccine nationalism in the U.S., where rival shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech originate (although BioNTech is a German company).Whatever the underlying causes, AstraZeneca’s reputation has been sorely damaged.As healthcare analysts at Shore Capital wrote on Thursday: “Any confusion about results can be quickly amplified into concerns about the safety and efficacy of vaccines even when those concerns are not based on solid evidence.”The AstraZeneca vaccine, they noted, “has been particularly hard hit by confusion around the data reported. Importantly, such confusion can lead to an erosion of trust in vaccines which are proven, life-saving medicines.”   More

Shoppers line up outside of Ulta Beauty before the 6am opening on Black Friday.Aimee Dilger | LightRocket | Getty ImagesBeauty and bargain retail are poised to be the biggest winners in 2021 as consumers return to brick-and-mortar stores and get comfortable socializing again, according to a new survey by one investment firm.Wells Fargo’s retail team recently polled 1,000 consumers in the United States to get a better sense of their post-pandemic shopping behaviors. When asked which products they are most likely to buy first, post-pandemic, respondents most frequently selected makeup, at 40%. That even surpassed “going-out apparel,” which was chosen by 37%.One of the biggest beneficiaries of this anticipated rebound to beauty could be Ulta, analyst Ike Boruchow said.Ulta Beauty shares are up about 70% over the past 12 months. The company has a market cap of $16.96 billion.Ulta has said it anticipates same-store sales to grow in a range of 15% to 17% this year from 2020 levels. But it has cautioned that its performance will continue to be impacted so long as social-distancing measures remain in place.Wells Fargo expects the consumption rates of sweat-wicking athleisure and home goods to slow this year. Both of these categories have outperformed over the past 12 months, with stuck-at-home consumers stocking up on athletic garb for their fitness routines and redecorating their bedrooms and backyards with new furniture and accessories.In Wells’ survey, only 31% said they expected to buy athleisure in the near term and 33% said the same about home goods.According to Boruchow, other winners in 2021 could be the apparel retailers Urban Outfitters, Ralph Lauren and Gap, along with off-price businesses Burlington Stores, Ross Stores and TJ Maxx owner TJX.The off-price sector was on a tear prior to the pandemic. But its focus on bargain hunting in stores has hampered the performance during the health crisis as many Americans stayed home. These companies have less of a presence online, too.When more shoppers return to stores to refresh their wardrobes, analysts like Boruchow expect that Burlington, Ross and TJX stand to win back market share in apparel.—CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this reporting. More