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Gandalf from “The Lord of the Rings”, Yoda in “Star Wars” or M in Ian Fleming’s early James Bond novels all act as mentors, providing sage advice and guidance to the less worldly-wise. In real life, as in fiction, the value of imparting wisdom gained through experience and age (Yoda is 900 years old, Gandalf is in his 1,000s) is becoming ever more important. It is in a company’s interest to keep its employees happy and loyal even if the jobs-market upheavals of the pandemic-induced “great resignation” are fizzling out. A good mentoring scheme can serve this purpose. Listen to this story. Enjoy more audio and podcasts on More

The company said that fastener holes on some 737 Max aft pressure bulkheads were improperly drilled.
The issue is the latest to slow airplane deliveries at Boeing.
Boeing said the issue was not related to flight safety.

A person with an umbrella walks by a Boeing 737 Max fuselage parked outside the company’s production facility in Renton, Washington, January 10, 2020.
Lindsey Wasson | Reuters

Boeing said a new manufacturing flaw on its 737 Max will delay deliveries of its bestselling aircraft, the latest setback as the company tries to hand over more planes.
The company said it found that fastener holes on the aft pressure bulkhead on some 737 planes were improperly drilled. Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselages, said that because it “uses multiple suppliers for the aft pressure bulkhead, only some units are affected.”

“This issue will impact near-term 737 deliveries as we conduct inspections to determine the number of airplanes affected, and complete required rework on those airplanes,” Boeing said. It will continue delivering 737 Maxes that are not affected by the issue.
The defect is the latest in a string of manufacturing flaws Boeing has disclosed on the Max and in other programs while it tries to ramp up production to meet strong demand from airlines short on planes during a travel boom. Last month, the company said it is transitioning to a production rate of 38 a month from 31.
Boeing didn’t say whether the new issue would change its forecast to deliver between 400 and 450 Max jets this year.
Spirit AeroSystems said it would continue to deliver fuselages to Boeing.
“We are working closely with our customer to address any impacted units within the production system and address any needed rework,” Spirit AeroSystems said in a statement. “Based upon what we know now, we believe there will not be a material impact to our delivery range for the year related to this issue.”

This year through July, Boeing handed over 309 planes to customers, behind the 381 planes rival Airbus delivered in the same period.
The company said that the issue, reported earlier by The Air Current, was not related to flight safety and that airlines can continue flying the planes. Boeing added that it has notified the Federal Aviation Administration.
Boeing shares were down more than 2% in premarket trading Thursday. More

No matter how wild the party, it is a rare hangover that lingers into its second year. Yet after a record-smashing rave in 2021, investors in initial public offerings (ipos) are still nursing sore heads. Over the course of a year-long binge, they ploughed some $600bn into stockmarket listings around the world in 2021, according to Dealogic, a data firm. That is more than double the figure for 2007, in the mad gallop preceding the financial crisis, and nearly triple that for 2000, as the dotcom bubble swelled. But then soaring inflation, the end of cheap money and cratering markets put paid to the celebrations. In some places flotations all but disappeared: proceeds from American ipos in 2022 fell by more than 90% compared with the previous year. So far in 2023, the sombre mood has continued (see chart).The music may soon start up again. On August 21st Arm, a British chip designer, at last filed a preliminary prospectus for a hotly awaited listing on the Nasdaq exchange, expected to take place in the first half of September. A likely valuation of between $60bn and $70bn would mark the biggest American float in nearly two years.It is not just Arm. Notwithstanding an August wobble, stockmarkets have been rising for almost a year: the s&p 500 index of large American firms is up by 24% from a trough in October. msci’s broadest index of global stocks has also risen by 24%. Such a bull run offers inevitable temptations to the bosses of private firms. With prices having risen so much, perhaps now is the time to sell a chunk of the company’s shares to public investors and get a healthy slug of capital in return.Importantly, says James Palmer of Bank of America, volatility has also been subdued for months. That lowers the likelihood of would-be floaters kicking off a weeks-long listing process only to see the market plunge and the value of their soon-to-be minted shares fall with it. Aloke Gupte of JPMorgan Chase, another bank, is more bullish still. The pace of work at firms using his team’s help to go public, he says, has “gone from second gear to fifth” in recent weeks.Meanwhile, the listings that have already taken place suggest a market that is hungry for more. Oddity Tech, a beauty outfit that perhaps inevitably uses artificial intelligence (ai) to develop its products, listed on the Nasdaq on July 19th. It saw demand for its offering vastly outstrip supply. The firm sold $424m-worth of its shares, while investors placed orders for over $10bn. After Arm’s ipo, Instacart, a grocery-delivery group, Databricks, a software firm, and Socure, an identity-verification company, are all likely to follow up with their own flotations.If this steady drip is to become a rush, it will require three developments in its favour. The first is a clearer picture of where interest rates are heading. One senior banker cites confusion over this as the main reason that listings, as well as other deals such as mergers and acquisitions, were so slow to return in the first half of 2023. With the Federal Reserve’s fastest tightening cycle in decades still under way and a clutch of American regional banks teetering close to collapse, guessing where long-term rates would end up felt like taking a shot in the dark, she argues. As well as determining firms’ funding costs, this is the ultimate benchmark against which ipo investors measure their potential returns. And so without much idea of where the “risk-free rate” will settle, pricing a new tranche of shares with any confidence becomes impossible.There is now a growing sense, both in markets and among economists, that the Fed’s rate rises are at or near an end. Yet uncertainty over how long rates will stay high persists, largely due to the surprising resilience of America’s economy. Mostly as a result of this, the yield on ten-year Treasuries—possibly the most important benchmark for investors—has risen by 0.8 percentage points since early May, to 4.2%. Until this measure begins to settle, ipos will remain hard to price and, as a result, sparse.A second factor required for listings to resume in earnest is for firms themselves to grow in confidence. “I’ve thought for some time that market readiness would come before company readiness,” says Bank of America’s Mr Palmer. A successful flotation, he says, involves the businesses making a series of reassurances: to regulators, investors and research analysts. The firm will offer guidance on its financial performance not just over the next quarter, but probably over the coming year.For as long as geopolitical tensions, especially between America and China, are running high, companies that rely heavily on cross-border trade will find such reassurances fiendishly hard to offer. Virtually all, meanwhile, are hampered by uncertainty over where inflation will settle and whether the world’s big economies have avoided, rather than merely delayed, recessions. Some firms, such as those owned by private-equity funds with limited lifespans, may have few options but to make the jump and list despite the fog of uncertainty. But those with the freedom to choose are more likely to wait until it lifts.A final, if obvious, requirement for a new ipo boom is that the firms now preparing to float manage to do so successfully. Crucially, says Rachel Gerring of ey, a consultancy, that means their shares end up being sold at around the price investors have been led to expect and then rise from there. That the opposite happened for many of 2021’s floaters was the death knell of the previous boom: few ipo investors want to open their chequebooks without benefiting from the share-price “pop” associated with new listings. In this sense, Arm’s flotation has acquired totemic importance. Should its share price leap, others will be quick to follow; should it flop, they may not.Whenever it materialises, the next cohort of ipos is likely to look substantially different to the class of 2021. With the heady days of rock-bottom interest rates firmly in the past, investors will prize “safer” prospects. This means big firms over small, profits over revenue growth, seasoned executives over newbies, and easy-to-model business plans over more speculative ventures. JPMorgan’s Mr Gupte sees these preferences reflected in a much more diverse group of companies now preparing to go public than did in 2021. Whereas the last wave was dominated by tech firms, he says, the next will involve many more industrial, energy-transition, consumer-focused and health-care outfits.All agree that a return to the breakneck pace of dealmaking that preceded the current drought is unlikely. Central banks are no longer flooding markets with liquidity, the rate rises of the past 18 months could yet tip many economies into recession, and an American stockmarket that is at its most expensive in decades could yet crash. But “if nothing upsets the apple cart”, says Mr Gupte, then a reasonable number of firms should be looking to go public in 2024. All eyes on Arm, then, to see if the apple cart can stay on the road. ■For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, finance and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. More

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of India’s moon landing is the shoestring budget — by government standards — the country spent to achieve the mission.
The country’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is the first vehicle to land near the moon’s south pole.
The mission’s price tag is on par with the lowest-cost private lunar lander projects in the U.S.

The shadow of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft is seen on the moon’s surface.

The list is grim reading: Stuck, failed, missed, failed, failed, stuck, failed, crashed, missed, crashed, crashed.
Those were the fate of the Soviet Union’s first 11 attempts before successfully landing a spacecraft on the moon, according to a database compiled by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who catalogs space missions.

Even in the modern era — with nine lunar landing attempts since 2013 — the track record is still shaky. Before India’s success Wednesday, missions by China, India, Israel, Japan and Russia were three for eight in the past decade.
McDowell’s database showcases the monumental challenge undertaken by the 50 attempts to land on the moon, with a cheeky scoreboard that reads: Earthlings 23, Gravity 27.
India chocked up its first W against Gravity on Wednesday, after the country’s Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft safely landed on the lunar surface. The feat makes India the fourth country to successfully land on the moon, and the first to touch down near the lunar south pole.

School students watching the live telecast of Chandrayaan-3 landing on the Moon at Sector 20 Brahmananda Public School on August 23, 2023 in Noida, India.
Sunil Ghosh | Hindustan Times | Getty Images

“They should feel very proud of this accomplishment,” Jim Bridenstine, who led NASA as administrator from 2018 to 2021, told CNBC.

Sign up here to receive weekly editions of CNBC’s Investing in Space newsletter.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of India’s moon landing is the shoestring budget — by government standards — with which the country achieved the mission. In 2020, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) estimated the Chandrayaan-3 mission would cost about $75 million. The launch was delayed two years, which likely increased the overall mission’s cost. ISRO has not responded to CNBC’s request for an updated cost figure.

But that rivals the lowest-cost lunar lander missions in development in the U.S. NASA in recent years turned to having companies compete for fixed-price contracts to build moon landers, under a program it calls Commercial Lunar Payload Services. The CLPS program has a maximum budget of $2.6 billion over 10 years, with 14 companies vying for mission contracts typically worth upwards of $70 million each.
Overall, NASA’s annual budget dwarfs that of its Indian counterpart. In 2023, the U.S. agency received $25.4 billion in funding, compared to the ISRO’s budget of about $1.6 billion. Bridenstine stressed that NASA’s much larger budget is a reflection of the “different level of capability” that the U.S. agency offers, with everything from a continuous astronaut presence in orbit to missions targeting planets, asteroids and more.
As a percentage of gross domestic product, the U.S. spends the most on space — although it still amounts to just 0.28% of GDP.  That ranks well ahead of India’s 0.04% of GDP, according to a July report on the global space economy by the Space Foundation.
“India should have in its ambitions the desire to invest more and more and develop the capabilities that are more on par with the United States,” Bridenstine said.

Arrows pointing outwards

India is increasingly seen as a top player in space geopolitically. While China has succeeded Russia as the most significant rival to U.S. influence and capabilities in space, India may yet take that third spot in the space superpower hierarchy.
“I would hope that they use [Chandrayaan-3] as an opportunity to capitalize on the success,” Bridenstine said. “They’ve got a big economy and they’re going to be able to put money into space exploration.”
“Costs are going to continue to go down, which is a very positive development for everybody who’s interested in space exploration,” he added. “And costs to get to the moon are going to go down, especially as we have more and more companies doing more and more missions.” More

CVS Health is partnering with drugmaker Sandoz to produce a near identical version of the blockbuster arthritis treatment Humira.
It will be priced more than 80% lower than the current list price of Humira, which is made by drugmaker Abbvie.
CVS is looking to strengthen its foothold in the biosimilars market, which is expected to grow to $100 billion over the next six years.

Rafael Henrique | Lightrocket | Getty Images

CVS Health is partnering with drugmaker Sandoz to produce a near identical version of the blockbuster arthritis treatment Humira that will sell for 80% below the price of the brand-named drug.
The move is part of the company’s new venture focused on securing, and in some cases co-producing, biosimilar drugs, which are the equivalent of generic versions of complex gene or protein-based therapies known as biologics.

“We’ve invested in committing to certain volumes for the U.S. marketplace so that we have a durable supply of product. We want to ensure that once we bring this into the U.S. marketplace, we don’t have any supply issues, we have a high-quality biosimilar product available, and it’ll be launched at a much lower … price than the originator molecule that exists,” said Prem Shah, CVS Health EVP and chief of pharmacy.
CVS is already one of the leading players when it comes to sourcing generic drugs through Red Oak, its joint venture with Cardinal Health. But it’s looking to strengthen its foothold in the biosimilars market, which is expected to grow to $100 billion over the next six years.
The company said Wednesday it’s launching a new subsidiary called Cordavis, which will specialize in securing supply of the new biosimilar drugs and will partner with Novartis Pharmaceuticals’ generic manufacturing unit, Sandoz.
Sandoz, currently a unit of Novartis, is expected to be spun off as an independent publicly traded firm later this year.
CVS did not disclose the terms of the agreement for the new biosimilar, trademarked Hyromiz.

The company pledges that the list price of Cordavis Hyromiz will be more than 80% lower than the current list price of Humira, which is made by drugmaker Abbvie. It will launch in the first quarter of 2024.
The first FDA-approved biosimilar for Humira, Amgen’s Amjevita, went on sale in January. Eight more biosimilars are expected to come online within the next year, including Hyromiz.
Amgen executives have said demand for the company’s biologic appears to be growing, but that securing coverage from health insurers has posed a challenge.
“We’re obviously very early innings still in this biosimilar market with Amjevita. And we’re seeing clearly what is new payer behavior in light of such a large product having biosimilar competition,” said Murdo Gordon, Amgen EVP of commercial operations, on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “The clarity of how pharmacy benefit works with biosimilar uptake, or lack thereof, is becoming clear to us and to other biosimilar manufacturers and other onlookers.”
Abbvie reported more than $4 billion in Humira sales in its most recent quarter, which was slightly better than expected. The company says it continues to be offered on health insurer plans at parity with the new biosimilars.
The launch of Cordavis has long been in the works, before the news last week from Blue Shield of California that it was dropping CVS as its pharmacy benefits manager and switching to Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drug Company, Amazon Pharmacy and others in an effort to save on drug costs.
The news sent CVS shares plunging, but analysts like John Ransom of Raymond James say the selloff was overblown. 
At this point, the potential threat from upstarts is not as big as some might fear, especially when it comes to the current biosimilar market for drugs like Humira, Ransom said.
“They either get a big rebate from Abbvie, or they get a big discount from one of the competing biosimilar manufacturers. And that’s really where they have the advantage,” said Ransom.
Cuban’s Cost Plus doesn’t have the scale to buy generic or enough shelf space from the manufacturers, he said.
Correction: CVS Health subsidiary Cordavis will partner with Sandoz on biosimilar drugs. An earlier version mischaracterized the relationship. More

Nike’s stock fell for the 10th straight day as a slowdown in the footwear sector and China’s uneven recovery weigh on its stock.
Shares of the sneaker giant dropped about 2.7% on Wednesday after Foot Locker, one of its primary wholesale partners, posted another quarter of losses and lowered its guidance.
Consumers have been more selective in recent months when it comes to shoes and clothes and have focused their dollars more on services.

People walk past a Nike sporting goods store at a shopping complex in Beijing, China, March 25, 2021.
Florence Lo | Reuters

Nike’s stock tumbled Wednesday for the 10th day in a row after Foot Locker reported dismal quarterly results and consumers continue to pull back from the footwear sector. 
The sneaker giant’s shares closed about 2.7% lower. The 10-day losing streak is the longest in Nike’s history as a public company since its IPO in 1980.

Nike, which is expected to report earnings late next month, is widely considered a best-in-class retailer. Its bread and butter is the footwear business, which has faced pressure for several months. 
Consumers, especially millennial shoppers who are preparing to resume student loan payments, have pulled back their spending on soft goods such as clothes and shoes in recent months and used their dollars on services and experiences. 
“The U.S. consumer is becoming increasingly selective with spend. We’ve heard companies talk about wallet share shifting towards services and experiences and away from discretionary where they’re becoming a lot more selective,” Rick Patel, a retail analyst for Raymond James, told CNBC.
“There’s also an increasing amount of caution when it comes to what back half demand looks like when student loan payments resume in October. We’re talking about a consumer that’s already under pressure due to inflation that will go through even more pressure in the fall,” he said.
Commentary on slow activewear sales from department stores, athletic apparel retailers and two of Nike’s key wholesale partners, Foot Locker and Dick’s Sporting Goods, could also be weighing on its stock, said Patel.

Foot Locker on Wednesday reported another quarter of declining sales and reduced its outlook for the second time this year, just five months after introducing it. The company attributed the poor results to a slowdown in consumer spending, particularly among its lower- to middle-income target customer base. 
“Looking back to March when we outlined our Lace Up plan and our longer term targets, we were coming off a strong holiday and had not yet seen the full weight of the macro environment on our lower income consumer,” CEO Mary Dillon said on an analyst call. 
“This became much more evident through the second quarter including a weaker start to back to school. The store traffic and conversion challenges we began to see in late Q1 persisted through the second quarter as our customer remained cautious with their discretionary dollars,” she said.
Still, Dick’s Sporting Goods, which reported its first top- and bottom-line misses in three years on Tuesday, is still seeing strong footwear sales. What the company called “tremendous growth” in the category was a bright spot in an otherwise disappointing report. 
China’s uneven recovery could also be weighing on Nike’s stock. The retailer does about a third of its business there — and its business could suffer if the economy slows.
“The investors we speak to are increasingly concerned about the outlook in China given the negative macro data points coming out of that market,” said Patel.
Data released in July indicated China’s economy, the world’s second-largest, is slowing. It reported a modest 2.5% year-over-year increase in retail sales, and youth unemployment has skyrocketed. 
When Nike reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings for the period ended May 31, it posted a 16% sales jump in the region to $1.81 billion, ahead of Wall Street’s estimates of $1.68 billion, according to StreetAccount.
Nike CEO John Donahoe told analysts at the time it’s “clear” that consumers are back in China and the Nike and Jordan brands are strong in the region.
However, it’s unclear if that growth is continuing and what the results will look like when Nike next reports earnings. More

Juul is cutting roughly 30% of its staff in an effort to reduce its operating costs.
The vaping giant is awaiting a decision from U.S. regulators on whether its current products can remain on the market.
Last year, Juul nearly filed for bankruptcy after the FDA ordered its products off shelves. Juul appealed the decision and the ban was reversed for the time being.

Juul Labs signage is seen in the window of a store in San Francisco, June 25, 2019.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Juul Labs said Wednesday it’s planning to cut about 30% of its workforce as it looks to cut costs and boost profits.
The layoffs will affect about 250 people, reducing the company’s headcount to about 650, a company spokesperson said.

This will reduce operating expenses by $225 million, the Juul spokesperson added.
Juul, which is seeking federal authorization to keep its e-cigarette products on the market, said the cuts will improve its margins and free up cash for litigation settlements.
“Today, Juul Labs is announcing a company restructuring aimed at reducing our operating costs and positioning us to continue to advance our mission during a period of regulatory and marketplace uncertainty,” the company said in a news release.
Last year, the vaping giant had its products ordered off the market by the Food and Drug Administration. Juul appealed the decision and the ban was reversed for the time being.
The company later secured enough financing from early investors to avoid bankruptcy. It also announced plans at the time to lay off nearly a third of staff.

Since then, Juul has been trying to raise more capital from investors as it awaits a decision from U.S. regulators on whether its current products can remain on the market, a company spokesperson said.
The company has also been embroiled in costly legal battles, paying over $1 billion worth of settlements to 45 states for its role in sparking a national surge in teen vaping.
Earlier this week, Juul was sued by Marlboro maker Altria Group, which previously held significant stake in Juul, for alleged patent infringement over certain e-vapor products owned by subsidiary NJOY.
In response to the suit, a Juul spokesperson told CNBC, “We stand behind our intellectual property and will continue to pursue our infringement claims.” More

Hollywood producers publicly revealed their latest contract proposal as talks between the studios and writers union remain heated.
The offer addresses residuals and compensation, artificial intelligence and increased transparency regarding the streaming business.
Soon after the proposal was made public, the writers union released its latest update and said the parties have engaged in further discussions since the Aug. 11 offer.

Members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild walk the picket line outside of Netflix in Hollywood, California, on August 9, 2023.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Hollywood producers are taking their latest contract proposal public as talks between the studios and writers union remain heated.
The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers overnight publicly revealed the latest proposal, which they delivered to the writers on Aug. 11. The offer addresses residuals and compensation, artificial intelligence, and increased transparency regarding the streaming business — the top issues for the writers.

Writers Guild of America union members have been striking for more than 100 days — with the actors’ union also going on strike in July — halting Hollywood’s production of TV shows and movies during a moment when media companies are trying to make their streaming strategies profitable and pushing consumers back into theaters.
The latest proposal from the studios came days after producers asked the writers for a meeting and includes the highest wage increase proposed for the WGA in 35 years, according to the AMPTP — “a compounded 13% increase over the three-year contract, with an increase of 5% in year one; 4% in year two; and 3.5% in year three.”
The proposal also raises residuals, provides for a new compensation structure, protections regarding the use of AI, “data transparency” regarding streaming viewership data and to train writers to become showrunners.
“Our priority is to end the strike so that valued members of the creative community can return to what they do best and to end the hardships that so many people and businesses that service the industry are experiencing,” said AMPTP President Carol Lombardini in a statement. “We have come to the table with an offer that meets the priority concerns the writers have expressed. We are deeply committed to ending the strike and are hopeful that the WGA will work toward the same resolution.”
Still, the negotiations appear far from over: Soon after the proposal was made public, the writers union released its latest update and said the parties have engaged in further discussions since the Aug. 11 offer.

The discussions included a sit-down with top media honchos including Disney CEO Bob Iger, NBCUniversal film head Donna Langley, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav.
The writers said that rather than good faith talks, they were “met with a lecture about how good their single and only counteroffer was.” The union said the studios’ latest offer still includes “limitations and loopholes and omissions” that fail to protect Hollywood writers.
“This wasn’t a meeting to make a deal. This was a meeting to get us to cave, which is why, not 20 minutes after we left the meeting, the AMPTP released its summary of their proposals,” the writers said in a statement.
Representatives for the AMPTP didn’t immediately respond to comment on Wednesday.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. More