Business

In business there is no surer sign of distress than when a firm delays its financial results. That also appears to be true of business schools. Around Christmas—and in many cases behind their usual schedules—America’s top business schools published their equivalent of annual reports, which include data on the new jobs of graduates from their Master of Business Administration (MBA) programmes, typically two-year courses for students with professional experience. We have crunched the numbers. At the top 15 business schools, the share of students in 2024 who sought and accepted a job offer within three months of graduating, a standard measure of career outcomes, fell by six percentage points, to 84%. Compared with the average over the past five years, that share declined by eight points. More

Boeing’s 2024 deliveries fell by about a third from a year earlier to 348 airplanes.
The company’s delivery gap with rival Airbus widened as the European plane maker handed over 766 jetliners.
Boeing struggled to ramp up production and deliveries due to a midair door plug blowout in January 2024 and then a machinist strike in the fall.

Boeing 737 Max planes sit at the airport in Renton, Washington.
Leslie Josephs | CNBC

Boeing handed over 348 airplanes in 2024, about a third fewer than it did a year earlier as the aerospace giant struggled with a crisis after a midair door panel blowout a year ago and a machinist strike in the fall that halted production.
The tally widened the delivery gap with Boeing’s chief rival, Airbus, which gave 766 jetliners to customers last year, the most since 2019, though both companies are facing supply chain strains that have slowed production and fulfillment of their otherwise robust backlogs.

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In December, Boeing delivered 30 airplanes as it restarted production of its bestselling 737 Max planes after the nearly eight-week machinist strike ended the month before. Deliveries are key for manufacturers because it is when customers pay the bulk of an airplane’s price.
A shortage of aircraft from suppliers has driven up lease rates, with rentals expected to hit records this year, aviation data firm IBA said in a report this month.

Boeing logged 142 gross orders in December for new planes, including 100 737 Maxes for Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines and 30 787s for flydubai, whose intention to purchase was first unveiled at the Dubai Air Show in late 2023. Boeing also took more than 130 orders off its books for India’s now-defunct carrier Jet Airways.
Boeing’s gross orders for the year stood at 569, while net orders were 377 airplanes — 317 including accounting adjustments. Airbus, which released its December and full-year tally last week, said it logged 878 gross orders last year and 826 net orders.
Boeing is scheduled to report fourth-quarter and full-year results before the market opens on Jan. 28, when CEO Kelly Ortberg and other Boeing leaders will face investor questions about their plans to ramp up production and restore the aerospace giant’s profitability.

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Southwest is pausing most of its summer internships as well as noncontract hiring.
Southwest CEO Bob Jordan outlined the cost cuts in a staff memo.
The carrier had been under pressure from an activist investor to improve returns.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 passenger plane taxis along the tarmac at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia on December 13, 2024.
Daniel Slim | Afp | Getty Images

Southwest Airlines is pausing corporate hiring and promotions, suspending most of its summer internships and going without some employee team-building events that date back to the 1980s in order to cut costs and improve margins, CEO Bob Jordan told staff.
“Every single dollar matters as we continue to fight to return to excellent financial performance,” Jordan said in the note Monday, which was seen by CNBC.

He said the company will delay other activities “when it makes sense.”
A Southwest spokeswoman confirmed the changes.
“We’ll continue to evaluate hiring needs on an ongoing basis to determine when it makes sense for the business to resume hiring,” she said in an email.

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As part of the cost cuts, Southwest is pausing its employee “rallies,” a company team-building tradition that dates back to 1985 in which staff hear from the airline’s leaders about the year’s goals and are treated to food and entertainment.
Southwest spent months last year under pressure from activist Elliott Investment Management, which called for a CEO change at the carrier. The two sides settled in October with Elliott winning five Southwest board seats, short of control, and Jordan remaining in the top job.

“We made a lot of progress in 2024, and we have a lot of tangible momentum … but we’re still far from our goal of returning to industry-leading profit margins,” Jordan wrote. “A key risk in 2025 is acting as if the urgency has passed and therefore not sustaining the focus and energy from 2024.”
The airline last year charted out a plan to increase profits that includes ditching its more than 50-year-old open seating model in favor of assigned seats and creating a section with extra legroom, flying overnight flights, and more aggressively cutting back unprofitable routes.
In September, the company slashed its flights from Atlanta, eliminating jobs, though staff were able to apply to work out of other bases.
Southwest is scheduled to report fourth-quarter results on Jan. 30. The carrier’s shares are up 14% over the past 12 months, while United’s are up more than 160% and shares in Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have gained about 70% and 33%, respectively.

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Corporations have pledged millions in donations to Los Angeles fire relief efforts.
Media companies, sports teams and actors are among those donating to funds.
The donations come as the fires continue to burn.

Evacuees from the Eaton fire look through boxes of clothes at a donation center in Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California, Jan. 13, 2025.
Etienne Laurent | AFP | Getty Images

As Los Angeles continues to battle wildfires that have destroyed parts of the city and killed at least 24 people, companies are pledging millions in donations to aid in relief efforts.
On Monday, Netflix and Comcast each announced $10 million donations, split between groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, World Central Kitchen and the American Red Cross. Both companies also said they are assisting employees directly impacted by the fires.

“The next few years will be a rebuilding time for many of us and it will require creativity, vision, grit and perseverance. Looking around at some of the hardest hit neighborhoods, it is hard to imagine rebuilding — but we will, and we will come back stronger than before,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos wrote.
Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which has a big footprint in Los Angeles with its studios.
“We extend our deep appreciation to the first responders for their tireless and courageous efforts,” Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts said in the announcement.

Firefighters work as smoke rises above the growing Palisades fire in Los Angeles, Jan. 11, 2025.
Ali Matin | AFP | Getty Images

Other media and entertainment corporations, many of which have prominent presences in the Los Angeles area, had previously pledged to donate to relief efforts. The Walt Disney Company announced Saturday that it was committing $15 million to fire response and rebuilding. Fox News reported that its parent company, Fox Corporation, donated $1 million to the American Red Cross.
Gambling platform FanDuel and its parent company, Flutter Entertainment, donated $250,000 to disaster relief organization Americares and the LA Fire Department Foundation, they announced.

The NFL — which relocated a playoff game from SoFi Stadium in a suburb of Los Angeles to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, due to the fires — said its teams and ownership groups were providing a collective $5 million to relief efforts. Twelve Los Angeles sports teams, including the Lakers and the Dodgers, separately announced a donation of over $8 million to fire relief groups.
Grocers Kroger and Walmart pledged $1 million and $2.5 million, respectively, toward relief efforts. Health insurer Anthem Blue Cross announced a $10 million donation.
Reuters reported Monday that JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are also providing some payment relief to mortgage customers affected by the wildfires.

Patrick O’Neal sifts through the remains of his home after it was destroyed by the Palisades wildfire, in Malibu, California, Jan. 13, 2025.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Hollywood stars and entertainment figures have also said they are financially supporting fire relief.
Actor Jamie Lee Curtis, a Los Angeles resident, announced on Instagram that her family pledged $1 million to relief funds, while singer Beyoncé’s BeyGood Foundation committed $2.5 million to its own fire relief fund. Socialite Paris Hilton said she would launch an emergency fund to assist displaced families and committed $200,000 to it, while actor Halle Berry said she donated clothes to victims of the fires.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. More

Eli Lilly expects its experimental weight loss pill, orforglipron, to be approved as soon as early next year, CEO David Ricks told Bloomberg.
Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, which dominate the market with their obesity injections Zepbound and Wegovy, respectively, are both looking to develop next-generation versions.
A weight loss pill would offer more convenience to patients and would be easier to manufacture.

David Ricks, CEO, Eli Lilly
Scott Mlyn | CNBC

Eli Lilly expects its experimental weight loss pill will get approved as soon as early next year, CEO David Ricks told Bloomberg TV on Monday.
The company is set to release key late-stage trial data on the drug, orforglipron, by the middle of this year.

Eli Lilly is pushing to get the pill to market as it competes with Novo Nordisk and smaller rivals for a major share of the booming weight loss drug market. Eli Lilly’s Zepbound and Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy dominate the space, but the drugmakers and their competitors have been working to develop improved versions of the drugs.

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Pills would be more convenient for patients than the current injectable forms. They would also be easier to manufacture at a time when Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have struggled to make enough drugs to keep up with spiking demand.
Eli Lilly has said orforglipron helped patients lose up to 14.7% of their weight in a mid-stage trial, compared with 2.3% among people who took a placebo.
Eli Lilly shares dipped slightly on Monday.

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Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and Comcast are teaming up to build a new arena in south Philadelphia.
They will also revitalize Market East, the original proposed location for a new arena.
The deal will give Comcast a minority stake in the NBA’s 76ers and naming rights to the future arena.

Joe Daniel Price | Moment | Getty Images

Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment announced on Monday a joint venture with Comcast Spectacor to build a new arena in South Philadelphia for the NBA’s 76ers and the NHL’s Flyers.
The deal represents a reversal from previous plans to build an arena in the Center City district of Philadelphia.

Harris Blitzer and Comcast Spectacor have entered into a binding agreement for a 50-50 stake in the project at South Philadelphia’s Sports Complex, which is slated to open in 2031. It will include the revitalization of Market East in Center City, the original proposed location for an arena. In December, the Philadelphia 76ers received approval to build a $1.3 billion arena downtown after more than two years of contentious negotiations.
The deal announced Monday will give Comcast a minority stake in the 76ers and naming rights to the arena. The Philadelphia-based company will also join HBSE’s bid to bring a WNBA team to the Liberty City.
Comcast Spectacor is already majority owner of the Philadelphia Flyers.
“From the start, we envisioned a project that would be transformative for our city and deliver the type of experience our fans deserve,” said HBSE’s Josh Harris, David Blitzer and David Adelman in a statement. “By coming together with [Comcast CEO Brian Roberts] and Comcast, this partnership ensures Philadelphia will have two developments instead of one, creating more jobs and real, sustainable economic opportunity.”
In committing to both investments, the companies say they will create thousands of jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic activity for the region.

“This has the potential to benefit our city for generations to come,” said Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker during a news conference Monday.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of CNBC.

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Moderna lowered its 2025 sales guidance by roughly $1 billion, as it continues to cut costs. 
The biotech company now expects 2025 revenue to come in between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, most of which will come in the second half of the year.
The announcement comes as Moderna charts a path forward after the rapid decline in demand for its Covid vaccine.

The Moderna Inc. headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, on Tuesday, March 26, 2024. 
Adam Glanzman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Moderna on Monday lowered its 2025 sales guidance by roughly $1 billion due to a few potential headwinds later this year, as the biotech company continues to cut costs and expand its portfolio.
Moderna now expects 2025 revenue to come in between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion, most of which will come in the second half of the year. The majority of those sales will come from Moderna’s Covid shot and newly launched vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, according to a release.

The guidance is down from a prior forecast range of $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion issued in September. At the time, the company said it expects to break even on an operating cash basis in 2028 — pushed back from 2026 — with $6 billion in revenue.
Shares of Moderna plunged 18% in premarket trading Monday.
“As we head into 2025, there are a handful of uncertainties that we are planning for,” Moderna CFO Jamey Mock told CNBC. “As of this time period, we are planning for them to be headwinds. They could be tailwinds, but right now we’re seeing them as headwinds.” 
Mock pointed to four factors that could weigh on sales, including increased competition in the Covid market. He said Moderna’s share of the U.S. retail market for Covid shots fell to 40% at the end of 2024 from 48% in 2023, and the company is preparing for another decline this year. 
He noted Sanofi will co-commercialize Novavax’s Covid vaccine worldwide under a new agreement, which could potentially make that shot more competitive. 

Mock said the second factor is falling vaccination rates, which were down around 7% overall in the U.S. retail market in fall 2024 compared to the same time in 2023. The last two factors are timing around manufacturing contracts with a handful of countries, and uncertainty around what advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will recommend for RSV revaccination. 
But Mock noted that the company expects to reduce 2025 cash cost expenses by $1 billion, with plans for additional 2026 cost reductions of $500 million. 
“We are taking the right amount of cost to preserve our cash,” Mock said. “We’re excited to invest and diversify our portfolio.” 
The announcement comes as Moderna charts a path forward after the rapid decline in demand for its Covid vaccine, its only commercially available product until its RSV shot entered the market last year. It also comes ahead of Moderna’s presentation at the annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, one of the largest gatherings of health-care executives in the world and a hotbed for deals activity for the industry. 
Revenue from Moderna’s two shots met its forecast for 2024, coming in at around $3 billion to $3.1 billion. In November, the company said its updated Covid shot benefitted from gaining approval in the U.S. three weeks earlier than the previous iteration of the shot did in 2023. 
Still, those sales represent a steep drop off from the $6.7 billion that Moderna’s Covid shot booked in 2023 and the $18 billion it generated in 2022, as fewer people rolled up their sleeves for updated jabs. 
Moderna plans to beef up its portfolio with 10 new product approvals over the next three years, including a combination shot targeting Covid and the flu and a “next-generation” Covid shot. The company on Monday said it could see three approvals in 2025 alone. 
The company is betting on a pipeline built around its messenger RNA platform, which is the technology used in its Covid vaccine and RSV shot. More

Lululemon raised its fourth quarter earnings and revenue guidance after striking a cautious tone in the lead up to the holiday shopping season.
Abercrombie & Fitch also raised its guidance but only slightly, sending shares lower.
Early reads have shown the holiday shopping season may have been better than expected, but was far from the blowout seen in previous years.

A shopping bag from Abercrombie & Fitch (L), and the logo of Lululemon (R).

ORLANDO, Fla. — Lululemon and Abercrombie & Fitch raised their fourth quarter outlooks on Monday after seeing a strong response from shoppers during the all-important holiday season. 
Lululemon’s new outlook went over well with investors, leading shares to rise about 3% in premarket trading. But Abercrombie shares dropped about 8% as investors wonder if its rapid growth is coming to an end.

Lululemon now expects sales to grow between 11% and 12% to between $3.56 billion and $3.58 billion, up from a previous range of $3.48 billion and $3.51 billion. 
Excluding an additional fiscal week the company will have in the fourth quarter of 2024, Lululemon expects sales growth of between 6% and 7%. 
The company also hiked its profit outlook. Lululemon is now forecasting fourth-quarter earnings per share to be between $5.81 and $5.85, compared to previous guidance of between $5.56 and $5.64. It expects gross margins to grow by 0.3 percentage points after previously forecasting they would decline between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points. 
“During the holiday season, our guests responded well to our product offering, enabling us to increase our fourth quarter guidance,” finance chief Meghan Frank said in a statement. 
Meanwhile, Abercrombie also expects its holiday quarter to be slightly better than anticipated. The apparel company nudged up its net sales growth outlook to a range of between 7% and 8%, compared to previous guidance of between 5% and 7%. 

Abercrombie now expects full-year sales to grow 15%. It previously expected sales to rise between 14% and 15% for the period.
The outlook is a far cry from the blockbuster numbers that Abercrombie put out last year, when holiday sales jumped by a staggering 21% compared to the year-ago period. 
Investors bullish on Abercrombie would say that it makes sense to see the company’s growth start to slow down as it matures and laps tougher comparisons from the year-ago period, but following about two years of explosive stock growth, some could be turning bearish. 
Still, Abercrombie’s full year-sales guidance is close to what it put out last year, when revenue grew by 16%. 
In a news release, Abercrombie CEO Fran Horowitz signaled that moving forward, the company will be more focused on boosting profits than sales as it looks to “drive long-term shareholder value.” 
“Following an expected two years of double-digit top and bottom-line growth, I am as confident as ever in the power of our brands and operating model as we move forward, supported by the outstanding capabilities we’ve built,” said Horowitz. “In 2025, we will look to continue sustainable, profitable growth through the execution of our playbooks to win and retain customers around the world. Our goal is to leverage our healthy margin structure and balance sheet to grow operating income dollars and earnings per share at rates faster than sales.” 
The retailers released their guidance ahead of the annual ICR conference in Orlando when some of the most prominent U.S. retailers are expected to announce early holiday results and meet with investors and analysts about their performance. The conference brings together Wall Street’s biggest banks, law firms, private equity firms and investors and is known to set the tone for consumer deal making and retailer performance at the start of the year. 
Macy’s, which is expected to present at the conference, also released early results but didn’t have good news to share like some of its competitors. The department store is now expecting sales to be at, or slightly below, its previously issued range of between $7.8 billion to $8.0 billion. Shares fell more than 3% in premarket trading.
Urban Outfitters also released early holiday results and said net sales for the two months ended Dec. 31 grew 10% compared to the year-ago period. Comparable retail segment sales rose 6%, driven by strong online sales.
Urban’s namesake banner saw comparable sales fall 4% as the chain continued to underperform Anthropologie and Free People, where comparable sales grew 10% and 9%, respectively.
Meanwhile, sales soared 55% at Urban’s rental service Nuuly, driven by a 53% increase in average active subscribers.
Shares moved slightly higher in premarket trading.
Overall, the holiday shopping season wasn’t expected to produce the blowout numbers that became common in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. The National Retail Federation said it was expecting sales to grow between 2.5% and 3.5%. When inflation is taken into account, real growth was expected to be minimal.
Still, some early reads have signaled that the holiday season may be a bit better than expected. 
Retail sales for the holiday season in the U.S., excluding automotive sales, rose 3.8% year over year between Nov. 1 through Dec. 24, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online sales across payment types. More