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Phil Mickelson and three other LIV golfers have dropped out of an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour.
Mickelson said he is confident that LIV Golf is adequately pursuing the case against the tour’s practices.
The PGA Tour declined to comment.

Team Captain Phil Mickelson of Hy Flyers GC is seen on the 18th tee during Day Two of the LIV Golf Invitational – Chicago at Rich Harvest Farms on September 17, 2022 in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
Chris Trotman | LIV Golf | Getty Images

Phil Mickelson and three other LIV golfers have dropped out of an antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour.
Mickelson and 10 other LIV-affiliated players had filed a suit against the PGA Tour in August after the tour suspended them for their participation in the rival LIV Golf league. The suit alleged the PGA Tour’s suspensions were anti-competitive.

Jonathan Grella, an LIV Golf representative, said the merits of the suit still stand and LIV will continue to pursue the case.
The PGA Tour declined to comment.
Talor Gooch, Hudson Swafford and Ian Poulter also dismissed their claims against the PGA Tour, according to a court filing Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Mickelson dismissed his claim in a separate filing.
“With LIV’s involvement in these issues, the players’ rights will be protected, and I no longer feel it is necessary for me to be part of the proceedings,” Mickelson said in a statement provided through LIV Golf.
The three other players also signaled their confidence that LIV was adequately pursuing the antitrust claims.

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General Motors is conducting damage control around its return-to-office plans after a Friday afternoon message to employees spurred backlash and confusion.
The company’s senior leadership team on Friday said corporate workers would be required to return to physical locations at least three days a week, beginning later this year.
On Tuesday, a second message walked back that timing and clarified the policy.

General Motors CEO Mary Barra speaks to reporters while she waits for the arrival of President Joe Biden at media day of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, September 14, 2022.
Rebecca Cook | Reuters

DETROIT – General Motors is conducting damage control around its return-to-office plans after a Friday afternoon message to employees spurred backlash and confusion.
The company’s senior leadership team on Friday said corporate workers would be required to return to physical locations at least three days a week, beginning later this year, in what the company called an evolution of its current remote work policies.

On Tuesday, a second message walked back that timing and clarified the company won’t be mandating specific in-office days, instead leaving that decision to individual teams.
“Our plan was always, and still is, collaboratively design the solution that best balances the needs of the enterprise with the needs of each of you,” read the memo, which was signed by CEO Mary Barra and other executives, a copy of which was viewed by CNBC.
The follow-up message says no workers will be required to return to offices sooner than the first quarter of next year.
“While we have maintained a highly collaborative culture over the past two years during a very challenging time, the intangible benefits of in person collaboration are going to be a critical success factor as we move into a period of rapid launches,” the Tuesday message said. “This evolution is about being ready for the next phase of our transformation.”

A GM spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the message, saying it sought to “provide more clarity to help answer some of the questions and concerns that we’ve been receiving.” She said the timing of the return-to-office has shifted, but “the overall plan has not really changed.”

Both messages are a stark change from the automaker’s flexible “work appropriately” rules that were announced by Barra and lauded by the company in April 2021. GM described it as a flexible, evolving policy that will differ depending on the employee, week and project.
GM on Tuesday apologized for the timing of the original message and its vagueness. Leaders said the earlier communication was sent out after some information about the company’s plan was prematurely shared with some departments.
“We elected to communicate enterprise wide before we had the opportunity to collaborate more broadly on the implementation plan. We believe the benefits of being transparent — even with suboptimal timing and partial details — outweighed the risk of creating mistrust by having you hear the information second hand,” the Tuesday message reads.
GM said it will communicate more information at the end of next month, as the company intends to spend the “next few weeks continuing to listen to your feedback so that we incorporate it into our implementation plans.”

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The 10-City composite rose 14.9% year over year, down from 17.4% in June.
The 20-City composite gained 16.1%, down from 18.7% in the previous month.
Tampa, Miami and Dallas saw the highest annual gains among the 20 cities in July, with increases of 31.8%, 31.7% and 24.7%, respectively.

A ‘for sale’ sign is displayed outside a single family home on September 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Allison Dinner | Getty Images

U.S. home prices cooled in July at the fastest rate in the history of the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index, according to a report released Tuesday.
Home prices in July were still higher than they were a year ago, but cooled significantly from June gains. Prices nationally rose 15.8% over July 2021, well below the 18.1% increase in the previous month, according to the report.

The 10-City composite, which tracks prices in major metropolitan areas such as New York and Boston, climbed 14.9% year over year, down from 17.4% in June. The 20-City composite, which adds regions such as the Seattle metro area and greater Detroit, gained 16.1%, down from 18.7% in the previous month. July’s year-over-year gains were lower compared with June in each of the cities covered by the index.

“July’s report reflects a forceful deceleration,” wrote Craig J. Lazzara, managing director at S&P DJI in a release, noting the difference in the annual gains in June and July. The 2.3 percentage point “difference between those two monthly rates of gain is the largest deceleration in the history of the index.”
Tampa, Florida, Miami and Dallas saw the highest annual gains among the 20 cities in July, with increases of 31.8%, 31.7% and 24.7%, respectively. Washington, D.C., Minneapolis and San Francisco saw the smallest gains, but were still well above year-ago levels.
Another recent report from the National Association of Realtors showed home prices softening dramatically from June to July. Prices usually fall during that time, due to the strong seasonality of the housing market, but the decline was three times the average decline historically.
The share of homes with price cuts reached about 20% in August, the same as in 2017, according to Realtor.com.

“For homeowners planning to list, today’s market is significantly different than the one from even 3 weeks ago,” said George Ratiu, senior economist and manager of economic research at Realtor.com.
Home prices are dropping because affordability has weakened dramatically due to fast-rising mortgage rates. The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage started this year around 3%, but by June had briefly surpassed 6%. It remained in the high 5% range throughout July and is now edging toward 7%, making the average monthly payment about 70% higher than it was a year ago.
“As the Federal Reserve continues to move interest rates upward, mortgage financing has become more expensive, a process that continues to this day. Given the prospects for a more challenging macroeconomic environment, home prices may well continue to decelerate,” Lazzara said.

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Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot and Magic Kingdom will be closed Wednesday and Thursday.
Disney has moved guests lodging at its exterior resort locations, such as the campground at Fort Wilderness and treehouse villas at Saratoga Springs, to interior rooms at its other hotels.
Universal Studios Orlando will also close.

Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World.
Roberto Machado Noa | Lightrocket | Getty Images

As Hurricane Ian nears the west coast of Florida, the Walt Disney Company and Comcast’s Universal Studios are preparing to close their Orlando-based theme parks for at least two days.
Disney announced Tuesday that Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot and Magic Kingdom would be shuttered Wednesday and Thursday. According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm is headed toward Tampa and will likely pass over central Florida, where the Disney and Universal parks are located.

Already, Disney has moved guests lodging at its exterior resort locations, such as the campground at Fort Wilderness and treehouse villas at Saratoga Springs, to interior rooms at its other hotels. Additionally, the company has canceled Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser “voyages” set to depart Tuesday and Thursday due to potential impacts on guest experiences.

The company has also said it will not enforce cancellation policies for in-park experiences such as Savi’s Workshop in Galaxy’s Edge in Hollywood Studios or the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Magic Kingdom.
Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon water park will also be closed Wednesday and Thursday and its Blizzard Beach location is already closed.
This is not the first time in Walt Disney World’s 50-year history that it has closed due to hurricanes. Most recently, in September 2019, the parks briefly closed due to the forecast path of Hurricane Dorian. The park reopened a day later when Dorian’s path shifted.
Universal will close its CityWalk on Wednesday and Thursday, with the expectation of reopening Friday, if conditions permit. Its hotels are at full capacity and will remain operational for guests. The company canceled its Halloween Horror Nights events on Wednesday and Thursday, as well.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

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With Hurricane Ian bearing down on Florida, NASA rolled back the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket — set to launch the Artemis I mission — into the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building for protection at Kennedy Space Center.
NASA now sees November as the most likely opportunity for the next Artemis I launch attempt.
NASA associate administrator Jim Free said the agency expects to conduct work on the rocket while it’s in the VAB, replacing “limited life” components.

NASA’s giant Artemis 1 moon rocket is rolled back to the Vehicle Assembly Building off its lauchpad, after postponing the much-anticipated mission a third time due to the arrival of Hurricane Ian and other technical problems, in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. September 27, 2022. 
Michael Weekes Jr | Reuters

NASA’s long-awaited return to the moon is going to be delayed a little longer.
With Hurricane Ian bearing down on Florida, the space agency rolled back the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket — set to launch the Artemis I mission — into the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building for protection at Kennedy Space Center.

The towering rocket, with the Orion capsule stacked on top of it, has been out on the launch pad since mid-August. Multiple technical problems have forced NASA to call off launch attempts over the past month.
NASA now sees November as the most likely opportunity for the next Artemis I launch attempt. In a press briefing on Tuesday, NASA associate administrator Jim Free said the agency expects to conduct work on the rocket while it’s in the VAB, replacing components that are “limited life items.”
“It’s just a challenge to think: ‘Can we get in there, [complete the work], and get back out there for another launch attempt,'” Free said. “We don’t want to go out too fast and then we’re stuck in a situation where maybe we didn’t get to all the limited life items we want to.”
For the rocket and capsule, “limited life” describes items which need to be refreshed or checked periodically, such as batteries or propellant tanks.
The Artemis I mission would mark the debut of the SLS and Orion capsule, for what would be a more than monthlong journey around the moon. It kicks off NASA’s long-awaited return to the moon’s surface, the first mission in the Artemis lunar program. Tentatively, the plan is to land the agency’s astronauts on the moon by its third Artemis mission in 2025.
Notably, this first mission is five years behind schedule and billions over budget. More than $40 billion has already been spent on the Artemis program, much of that toward SLS and Orion development. The system comes with a per-launch price tag of $4.1 billion.

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Federal authorities sought to detain one of the men charged in an alleged multiyear fraud scheme involving a neighborhood deli in a New Jersey town.
The man – Peter Coker Sr., 80 – was arrested Monday in North Carolina and then let go after the government agreed to the conditions surrounding his release.
His son Peter Coker Jr., 53, was also charged. He is based in Hong Kong and remains at large.

Hometown Deli, Paulsboro, N.J.
Mike Calia | CNBC

Federal authorities sought to detain one of the men charged in an alleged multiyear fraud scheme involving a neighborhood deli in a small New Jersey town, according to court records.
The man – Peter Coker Sr., 80 – was arrested Monday in North Carolina and then let go after the government agreed to the conditions surrounding his release. His son Peter Coker Jr., 53, was also charged. He is based in Hong Kong and remains at large.

Authorities also charged another North Carolina resident, James Patten, 63, on Monday. Both he and Coker Sr. are expected to appear in a New Jersey federal court at a yet-to-be-determined date.
The three men are charged with 12 counts, including securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. From 2014, when plans for the deli were first laid out, through this month, authorities say the men orchestrated a scheme to inflate the value of publicly traded companies called Hometown International and E-Waste as they sought merger partners. The Securities and Exchange Commission also sued the men in a parallel case.
Hometown International, which only had the deli and its less than $40,000 in annual sales to its name, and E-Waste, which had no discernible business, both ended up with market values of about $100 million. Both companies merged with other firms. The deli’s new owner, Makamer Holdings, closed the shop earlier this year, selling its remaining inventory for $700.
Coker Jr. was chairman of Hometown International, while Coker Sr. was a major shareholder. Patten had business relationships with them. He also wrestled in high school with the deli company’s one-time CEO, Paul Morina, the high school principal and wrestling coach in Paulsboro, New Jersey, where the deli was located. Attempts to reach Morina have been unsuccessful.
After the Cokers and Patten gained control of Hometown International, authorities said, they transferred shares to family members, friends and associates – including those in China – in a scheme to make it look like the company had more shareholders than it actually had.

The indictment lists two co-conspirators in Hong Kong, but does not name them. Neither Manoj Jain, founder of Maso Capital, a Hong Kong-based investor in the company, nor his colleagues had any contact with the investigators, according to a person familiar with the matter. This person, who declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the matter, also claimed Jain and his colleagues aren’t the co-conspirators mentioned in the indictment. Jain was also “shocked” at the indictment, the person added.

History of trouble

Coker Sr. and Patten both have checkered legal histories.
Coker Sr. has been sued for allegedly hiding money from creditors and business-related fraud. He has denied wrongdoing in those cases, one of which settled out of court in North Carolina. In 1992, he was arrested in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and charged with prostitution and other crimes after he allegedly exposed himself and propositioned three schoolgirls, the local Morning Call newspaper reported at the time.
Patten is barred by broker-dealer regulator FINRA from acting as a stockbroker. He was the subject of repeated disciplinary actions by the regulator, as well. In 2006, he successfully appealed sanctions issued by an SEC judge in a case over accusations of stock manipulation. Patten was defended in that matter by attorney Ira Sorkin, who also represented infamous Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernie Madoff.
Attorneys listed for Coker Sr. and Patten declined to comment on the case’s next steps.
The lawyers who represented the men during their appearances Monday are not expected to keep working for them. It was not immediately clear whom the men would hire next as the case proceeds.
– CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.

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Airlines waived flight change fees for travelers affected by Hurricane Ian.
Tampa International Airport and Orlando International Airport said they would suspend operations on Tuesday.
The hurricane is currently a Category 3 storm, according to federal forecasters.

Local residents fill sandbags, as Hurricane Ian spun toward the state carrying high winds, torrential rains and a powerful storm surge, at Ben T. Davis Beach in Tampa, Florida, U.S., September 26, 2022. 
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters

Major Florida airports on Tuesday prepared to halt flights ahead of Hurricane Ian’s expected landfall overnight.
Orlando International Airport said it would suspend operations at 10:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday. Tampa International Airport said it would suspend operations at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

The Walt Disney Company and Comcast’s Universal Studios also said they will close their Orlando-based theme parks for at least two days.
The Category 3 storm is expected to make landfall on the state’s Gulf Coast early Wednesday.
Delta, Southwest, American, United, Spirit and JetBlue said they are waiving flight change fees or fare differences for travelers affected by the storm at airports throughout Florida.
Officials at Southwest Florida International Airport, which serves the Fort Myers area, are expecting flight cancellations late Tuesday and throughout Wednesday. They will hold a call with carriers and the Federal Aviation Administration at 1 p.m. Tuesday to discuss next steps as Hurricane Ian approaches.
Southwest said that it is suspending operations Tuesday evening through Thursday in Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers.

Airlines generally move their planes out of a storm’s path ahead of its arrival and cancel numerous flights to avoid stranding passengers and crews.
— CNBC’s Sarah Whitten contributed to this article.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

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When investment bankers agreed in January to underwrite the leveraged buy-out of Citrix, a software company, by a group of private-equity firms, returns on safe assets like government bonds were piffling. Yield-hungry investors were desperate to get their hands on any meaningful return, which the $16.5bn Citrix deal promised. Lenders including Bank of America, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs were happy to dole out $15bn to finance the transaction. Inflation was transitory, central bankers insisted. Russia hadn’t invaded Ukraine, energy markets were placid and the world’s economies were growing. Nine months later the banks tried to offload the debt in a market gripped not by greed but by dread—of stubborn inflation, war and recession. Struggling to find takers, they palmed off $8.6bn of the debt at a discount, incurring a $600m loss. They are still nursing the remaining $6.4bn on their balance-sheets.The Citrix fiasco is a particularly egregious example of a broader shift in corporate debt markets. Having rediscovered their inner Volcker, Western central banks are pushing interest rates to levels not seen in 15 years and shrinking their balance sheets. Those that bought corporate bonds during the pandemic in order to stave off a wave of bankruptcies have been selling them or have already done so. All this is draining the market of liquidity as investors abandon riskier assets like corporate debt in favour of safe Treasury bonds, now that these suddenly promise decent return, observes Torsten Slok of Apollo, a private-asset manager. The result is plummeting prices of corporate bonds, especially for less creditworthy businesses: yields on junk paper have soared to 9.1% in America and 7.5% in Europe, up from 4.4% and 2.8%, respectively, in January (see chart 1). All this raises awkward questions about what happens next with the mountain of debt that companies have amassed in recent years (see chart 2). Since 2000 non-financial corporate debt has gone up from 64% of GDP to 81% in America and from 73% to 110% in the euro area. (In Britain the share is a modest 68%, roughly what it was in 2000, a rare spot of relief for an otherwise beleaguered economy.) All told, American, British and euro area public companies now owe creditors almost $19trn, with a further $17trn owed by unlisted firms. Just how wobbly is this pile?The credit crunch will not affect all borrowers equally. Indeed, viewed in aggregate the West’s corporate debt load looks manageable. We calculate that American public companies’ earnings before interest and tax are a healthy 6.7 times the interest due on their debts, up from 3.6 times in 2000. In the euro area, this interest-coverage ratio has risen from 4.4 to seven this century. Moreover, some riskier borrowers loaded up on debt at low rates during the pandemic. Just 16% of the euro area’s junk bonds by value mature before the end of 2024. In America the figure is 8%.Yet the surge in borrowing costs will cause strain, in three areas. The first comprises businesses that have come to rely on less orthodox sources of credit, which are often those with the diciest prospects. The outstanding value of leveraged loans in America, typically provided by a syndicate of banks and non-bank lenders, now matches that of junk bonds, and it has been growing briskly in Europe, too. So has the value of private credit, offered by private-asset managers such as Apollo and Blackstone. Such loans tend to tolerate higher leverage in return for high and, more troubling at the moment, floating interest rates. Borrowers are thus far more exposed to rate rises. Because this sort of debt often comes with fewer strings attached, lenders have limited ability to accelerate repayment once signs of distress emerge.The second area of vulnerability involves so-called zombie firms: uncompetitive enterprises, kept alive by cheap debt and, during the pandemic, government bail-outs. Fortunately, according to our calculations the corporate undead are relatively rare and typically small. We define a zombie company as one that is at least ten years old and whose interest coverage ratio has been one or less for at least three consecutive years, stripping out fast-growing but loss-making tech firms, pre-revenue businesses in sectors like biotechnology, where products take years to get to market, and revenue-less holding companies. On that definition, we identify 443 active zombies that are listed in America, Britain and the euro area (see chart 3). That is up from 155 in 2000, but represents just 5.6% of all listed firms, responsible for 1.9% of total debt and 1.4% of total sales. Their demise could be the economy’s gain, as mismanaged firms with low productivity that binged on bail-outs finally close, although that would be cold comfort to their employees and owners.The third and biggest area of concern involves firms that are merely unfit rather than undead. One way of capturing their prevalence is to look at firms with an interest coverage ratio of less than two times. That gets you to a fifth of the total debt of listed American and European companies—some $4trn-worth (see chart 4). Alternatively consider firms whose debts are rated just above junk status. Some 58% of the investment-grade non-financial corporate bond market is now rated bbb, according to Fitch, a ratings agency. The average yield on such bonds has more than doubled in America in the past 12 months, to 5.6%. Unlike high-yield bonds, many of them come due soon and will need to be refinanced at much higher rates.Ever since the global financial crisis plenty of mature companies with slow sales growth have taken advantage of cheap credit to pile on debt to the precipice of junk status in order to fund shareholder payouts. As profits come under pressure and interest costs rise, they face a squeeze that could lead them to cut employment and investment. And if earnings plummet, which some analysts are beginning to predict as recession fears mount, this financing strategy could push these businesses over the edge into junk territory. Asset managers whose portfolio mandates require them to favour safe assets may then be forced into fire sales, triggering a crash in prices and an even greater surge in borrowing costs. Most of the firms operating just above junk status are still a long way off a downgrade, reckons Lotfi Karoui of Goldman Sachs. Many of the flakiest investment-grade borrowers got downgraded early in the pandemic, so the remaining ones are on average more robust. A nightmare scenario is not, in other words, inevitable. But it is no longer inconceivable, either. ■ More