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This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
U.S. markets rose, expecting inflation to moderate further. They might be surprised by tomorrow’s consumer price index.

What you need to know today

Ford Motor announced Monday that it will work with a Chinese supplier on a new $3.5 billion battery plant for electric vehicles. The facility will be built in Michigan and is expected to open in 2026.

The bottom line

Months of steadily declining prices have given investors the sense that inflation is on a linear, downward trend. But inflation is more complex than it initially seemed and could surprise markets still.
Economists are expecting January’s consumer price index to rise 0.4% on a monthly basis — that’s a jump from December’s -0.1% figure, which means that prices actually fell. So far, market chatter is that service inflation — the price of travel, dining out and hospitality, for example — has proven more persistent than goods inflation, largely because of an extremely tight labor market.
But logistic managers are warning that the supply chain is clogging up again, which could contribute to higher prices for goods. “Late fees and warehouse fees are passed onto the consumer, which is why we are not seeing products fall as much as they should,” said Paul Brashier, vice president of drayage and intermodal for ITS Logistics.
Nonetheless, markets showed optimism on Monday. The Dow rose 1.11%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.14% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.48%. Investors may have been hoping for a “Goldilocks-like mix of industrial production recovery and falling inflation,” said Ray Farris of Credit Suisse in a Monday note. Time will tell if that comfortable narrative of disinflation — and the defiant optimism in the markets — hold up.
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In a survey last year, Chinese travelers said that they were most interested in visiting Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
But that’s not where they’re going — at least not yet.

Flight restrictions, visa issues and entrance rules aimed only at them are complicating matters for Chinese residents who are ready to travel abroad.
Chinese travelers favored Southeast Asia for trips during the Lunar New Year holidays, which ended in early February, according to Trip.com Group’s Chinese language booking website, Ctrip.
Travel bookings by Chinese residents outside of the mainland grew by 640% from last year’s holiday period — and Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Chiang Mai, Manila and Bali were the top destinations, according to Ctrip’s data. 
Overseas hotel bookings by mainland Chinese travelers quadrupled from last year too, Ctrip said. Yet one place stood out — Bangkok, where “hotels over the holiday increased by more than 33 times,” said Ctrip.

Top spot for tour groups

Thailand is the also the top choice for Chinese tour groups for now, said Thomas Lee, Trip.com Group’s senior director of international business operations.

Ctrip’s first group tour left on Feb. 7, with travelers bound for Bangkok and the nearby beach town of Pattaya, said Lee.
The second-most popular spot for group tours is Maldives, and after that, Egypt, he said.
China resumed group tours organized by travel agencies on Feb. 6. Tours to 20 countries are allowed, including Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Laos, as well as United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Hungary, Cuba and Russia.  
Group tours to Japan, South Korea and Vietnam are not permitted yet.

Why Thailand is popular

A major reason Chinese tourists are choosing to go to Thailand is that it’s easy for them to get in, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said on “Squawk Box Asia” Monday. 
“At the end of the day, we were able to open up our country with very minimum restrictions,” he said.
He said Thailand has tried “all possible ways to make sure that our Chinese tourists, as well as tourists from all over the world, will be able to come to our country to spend their holidays.”
The day after China relaxed its borders in early January, Thailand announced that all incoming visitors must be vaccinated to enter.

But within days, Thai authorities abandoned the rule, amid rising anger from China toward countries imposing new rules on Chinese residents.
Charnvirakul said Thailand’s policy U-turn was related to science, not fears about upsetting Chinese travelers, adding that “more than 75% of our people have [Covid] antibodies both from vaccinations and from being infected.”
He said of the 30 million tourists Thailand is expecting this year, 12 million to 15 million may come from China.
“Chinese tourists have been very vital for our tourism industry,” Charnvirakul said.

The Chinese aren’t the only ones choosing Thailand as a vacation destination.
Russia was Thailand’s seventh-largest tourism market in 2019, but in November 2022, Russian visitors were third in terms of tourism arrivals, after travelers from Malaysia and India, according to Reuters. In late 2022, one in four visitors to Phuket were Russian, said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, according to a Reuters article.
Russians saw their tourism options minimized in 2022, when many countries stopped flying in and out of Russia in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

Top concerns

“At present, top concern for customers are issues with visas,” said Trip.com Group’s Lee.
Chinese travelers have been blocked from obtaining visas to places like South Korea and Japan, after both countries stopped processing them over concerns about China’s recent Covid-19 surge. South Korea announced last week it would resume issuing short-term visas to Chinese travelers, according to Reuters.

In other places, Chinese residents face long waits to obtain visas because of high demand.  Before the pandemic, visa applications to enter the European Union were processed in a matter of days, but now applicants are facing waiting times of up to two months, according to the website SchengenVisaInfo.com.
Visas aside, Chinese travelers are also worried about getting sick, said Lee.
That’s why group tours are mainly being booked by “Post-90s and Post-80s” travelers, he said, referring to Chinese generational terms for those born during the 1990s and 1980s, respectively.  

Price may be no problem

Rising travel prices may be of less concern for some Chinese travelers.
A report published by Morgan Stanley on Feb. 7 shows a growing demand for high-end and luxury hotels among Chinese consumers.
Interest in luxury hotels jumped from 18% to 34% from 2022 to 2023, while “mentions of budget hotels and mid-range hotels fell universally,” according to the report.
More travelers expect their top travel expense to be hotel accommodations too, up from 17% in 2017 to 20% in 2023.
Travelers may have to be willing to open their wallets, even in places like Thailand, which has long been popular with backpackers and budget travelers.
Average hotel booking prices in Bangkok in late January jumped by around 70%, according to Ctrip. More

Ford said it will collaborate with a Chinese supplier on a new $3.5 billion battery plant for electric vehicles in Michigan, despite ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China.
Ford will own the new facility through a wholly owned subsidiary instead of operating it as a joint venture with CATL, which several automakers have done with non-China partners in the U.S.
The plant is expected to open in 2026 and employ about 2,500 people, according to the Detroit automaker.

DETROIT – Ford Motor said Monday it will collaborate with a Chinese supplier on a new $3.5 billion battery plant for electric vehicles in Michigan, despite tensions between the U.S. and China.
The anticipated announcement of the deal between Ford and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., or CATL, follows Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin saying he was withdrawing the state from a competitive process to attract the planned Ford plant over its connection to the Chinese company.

Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president of EV industrialization, said the automaker will own the new facility through a wholly owned subsidiary instead of operating it as a joint venture with CATL, which several automakers, including Ford, have done with non-China partners in the U.S. She said the company will license the technology from CATL, including technical expertise.
“The LFP technology is already here in the U.S. It’s in a lot of consumer electronics devices, it’s actually in another OEM product, but, unfortunately, it’s always imported,” Drake said during a media call. “This project is aimed at de-risking that by actually building out the capacity and the capability to scale this technology in the United States, where Ford has control.”
Ford Chair Bill Ford said CATL will assist in getting the automaker “up to speed so that we can build these batteries ourselves.”
“Manufacturing these new batteries in America will help us build more EVs faster and will ultimately make them more affordable for our customers,” he said Monday during an event announcing the investment.

Read more about electric vehicles from CNBC Pro

Ford declined to comment on the financial details of the licensing agreement with CATL.

The plant is expected to open in 2026 and employ about 2,500 people, according to the Detroit automaker. It will produce new lithium iron phosphate batteries, or LFP, as opposed to pricier nickel cobalt manganese batteries, which the company is currently using. The new batteries are expected to offer different benefits at a lower cost, assisting Ford in increasing EV production and profit margins.
Ford follows EV leader Tesla using LFP batteries in a portion of its vehicles in part to reduce the amount of cobalt needed to procure to make battery cells and high-voltage battery packs.

Ford CEO Jim Farley on Feb. 13, 2023 at a battery lab for the automaker in suburban Detroit, announcing a new $3.5 billion EV battery plant in the state to produce lithium iron phosphate batteries, or LFP, batteries.
Michael Wayland/CNBC

Ford CEO Jim Farley said Monday the batteries will be among the least expensive to produce, citing better pricing for customers and wider profits for the automaker.
Drake said Ford is not necessarily concerned about the Chinese government interfering with the deal, saying the companies “certainly thought through that and those are provisions,” including optionality in the contract.
Ford’s ownership, rather than a joint venture, may assist it in avoiding additional political criticism and potentially qualify for federal EV tax credits.
Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer of Ford’s EV unit, said once production at the Michigan plant begins, the vehicles are expected to qualify for half of the up to $7,500 federal tax incentives for consumers purchasing an EV. They’re expected to meet local production requirements but not material sourcing rules for the batteries, he said.
In August, President Joe Biden signed the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act, which included stricter consumer tax credits of up to $7,500 for the purchase of an EV as well as substantial incentives for companies to produce batteries domestically to wean the U.S. auto industry off its dependency on China for batteries.
Farley said the company has “absolutely” been talking to the Biden administration about the plant, citing the IRA incentives to assist with the American manufacturing of battery cells. He said the “economics in the IRA really made a difference.”
Ford said it expects the production of the battery cells to qualify for federal incentives of $35 per kilowatt hour produced and $10 per module. The plant is expected to be capable of producing 35 gigawatt hours (GWh) of LFP battery capacity
Before the IRA, Ford said it would team with CATL to explore increasing battery packs for the electric Mustang Mach-E crossover this year in North America. It was part of a plan for Ford to establish 40 GWh of battery capacity, capable of powering 400,000 Ford EVs, Drake said.
The new LFP plant is in addition to Ford’s collaborations with LG Energy Solution and South Korea-based SK, including a joint venture for twin lithium-ion battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky. Those plants are expected to come online in 2025 and 2026.
Ford plans to deliver an annual run rate of 600,000 electric vehicles globally by the end of this year and 2 million globally by the end of 2026. The company aims to achieve an 8% adjusted profit margin on its EV business by then.
The automaker said it expects to begin offering the LFP batteries in the Mustang Mach-E later this year, followed by the F-150 Lightning pickup next year. It will source those batteries from CATL, the company said.
With this $3.5 billion investment, Ford says it and its battery partners have announced $17.6 billion in investments in electric vehicle and battery production in the United States since 2019. Ford, citing a “2020 independent study,” said those investments over the next three years are expected to create more than 18,000 direct jobs in Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio and Missouri, and more than 100,000 indirect jobs.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the investment a “big win” for the state, which has moved to attract more battery production after missing out on previous multibillion-dollar investments.
“We’re working together to make Michigan the next Silicon Valley,” she said Monday at the event.
– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.

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NBC Sports is prepared to make an aggressive offer to win back NBA rights after more than 20 years without them.
The NBA can’t begin formal negotiations with companies other than Warner Bros. Discovery and Disney before April 2024 unless they waive their exclusive negotiation rights.
Disney is expected to bid on the NBA to keep games on ESPN and ABC.
Apple and Amazon have already expressed interest in buying rights to the NBA, sources said.

Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum (0) attempts a basket in front of Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) in the second half during game three of the 2022 NBA Finals at TD Garden.
Kyle Terada | USA Today Sports

Cue up John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” – “The NBA on NBC” may be returning, if NBC Sports gets its way.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal is preparing to make a strong bid to win back National Basketball Association broadcast rights more than 20 years after the company lost them to Disney and Turner Sports, according to people familiar with the matter.

NBCUniversal executives have informed the NBA of their interest, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. NBC Sports wants a package that would include playoff games to air on NBC’s broadcast network, two of the people said. Some regular season games could be exclusive to NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. The NBA could also decide to force media companies to simulcast all games on streaming to increase reach, the people said.
Apple and Amazon have also expressed interest to the NBA in buying carved-out streaming packages, said people familiar with the matter. Amazon currently has a deal with the NBA allowing it to stream games in Brazil.
No formal discussions can take place with non-incumbent bidders unless Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns Turner Sports, and Disney agree to waive their exclusive negotiation windows, which end in April 2024, according to people familiar with the matter. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery own the NBA rights until the end of the 2024-2025 season — more than two more years from now. It’s possible the NBA could simply re-up with both existing parties and never open negotiations to outside bidders. That’s what happened in 2014, the league’s most recent renewal.
An NBA spokesperson confirmed no talks have taken place with NBCUniversal at this time over national rights while adding the league has had “a longtime relationship with Comcast/NBA as a previous NBA national TV rightsholder and through many of our teams’ partnerships with NBC Sports regional sports networks.”
But that’s not likely to happen this time as streaming has taken over as the dominant distribution method of TV watching, the people said. The NBA is likely to carve out one or two new packages for bidders, pushing their media rights partners from two to either three or four, two of the people said.

Disney is expected to bid on a package of rights for ESPN, ESPN+ and ABC, said the people.

Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA
Source: NBA on TNT

Warner Bros. Discovery’s interest in the NBA is murkier. CEO David Zaslav said in November, “We don’t have to have the NBA.” Turner’s relationship with the league features the long-running “Inside the NBA” studio show, hosted by Ernie Johnson and former NBA stars Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal. Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery sports head Luis Silberwasser will likely use this year to decide what type of future relationship they want with the NBA, according to a person familiar with their thinking.
Spokespeople for NBCUniversal, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Amazon declined to comment. A spokesperson at Apple couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

NBC’s NBA pitch

It’s possible NBCUniversal will be directly competing with Warner Bros. Discovery to be the league’s second traditional TV partner, along with ESPN. NBCUniversal can offer a broadcast network (NBC) to air NBA games if pay TV providers begin dropping cable networks, such as TNT and TBS, that run mostly reruns of scripted programming when sports aren’t on. Comcast also owns Sky, which could give the NBA another international broadcast outlet.
“What you have today is programmers selling us content at increasingly higher prices and asking us to distribute that to largely all of our customers, and at the same time, selling that exact same content either into streaming platforms or creating a direct-to-consumer product themselves at a much lower cost,” said Chris Winfrey, CEO of Charter, the second largest U.S. cable provider, in comments published by CNBC last week. “Our willingness to continue to fund that for programmers when that content is available for free elsewhere is declining. That means within the linear video construct, you’ll see an increasing number of distributors deciding it no longer makes sense to carry certain content.”
Warner Bros. Discovery can counter with a larger global streaming service — the combined HBO Max/Discovery+ (likely to be called Max) — which launches later this year. Warner Bros. Discovery ended September with about 95 million streaming subscribers, far outpacing Peacock’s 20 million, which are U.S.-only. The NBA has been partners with Turner Sports for nearly 40 years.

Michael Jordan #23 and Scottie Pippen #33
Nathaniel S. Butler

Many NBA fans fondly remember “The NBA on NBC” for its dramatic “Roundball Rock” theme song and era-defining broadcasts of the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls winning six titles during the 1990s. NBC aired its last NBA games during the 2002 finals, when the Los Angeles Lakers swept the New Jersey Nets. Games have been split between Disney’s ESPN and ABC and Turner Sports’ TNT and TBS for the last two decades. ABC airs the NBA Finals.

The NBA’s value

The NBA offers live programming that’s valuable to advertisers and routinely commands millions of viewers. Regular season NBA games across ABC, ESPN and TNT are averaging 1.6 million viewers this season. That’s flat from a year ago, even as the total number of U.S. homes that subscribe to cable TV has fallen from 70 million to 62 million, according to NBA data.
NBA rights are coming up for renewal while global media companies are cutting costs, which could pressure the the league to lower its expectations on the size of a price increase. Warner Bros. Discovery laid off thousands of employees and cut billions in content costs last year. Disney announced last week it plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs and cut $5.5 billion in costs, including $3 billion in non-sports content savings. The NFL obtained 40% to 80% increases for its media rights when it renewed its deal for 11 years in 2021.
It’s too early to say how much the NBA will be able to increase revenue from its new TV deal, but initial suggestions of a 200% increase from about $25 billion to more than $70 billion over nine years are probably too optimistic, according to people familiar with the matter. An annual increase closer to 100% may be more likely, given secular declines in the linear pay TV and streaming businesses that are still losing billions of dollars each year, two of the people said.
WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is CNBC’s parent company.

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An aerial daytime view of a container ship on The Solent Sea, U.K.
Karl Hendon | Moment | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
Inflation is proving more complex than it seemed at first. But markets still believe in a straightforward disinflationary path.

What you need to know today

Ford Motor announced Monday that it will work with a Chinese supplier on a new $3.5 billion battery plant for electric vehicles. The facility will be built in Michigan and is expected to open in 2026.

If Tuesday’s consumer price index report comes hotter than expected, the S&P 500 could plummet up to 3%, according to JPMorgan’s sales and trading desk.

The bottom line

Months of steadily declining prices have given investors the sense that inflation is on a linear, downward trend. But inflation is more complex than it initially seemed.
Economists are expecting January’s consumer price index to rise 0.4% on a monthly basis — that’s a jump from December’s -0.1% figure, which means that prices actually fell. So far, market chatter is that service inflation — the price of travel, dining out and hospitality, for example — has proven more persistent than goods inflation, largely because of an extremely tight labor market.
But logistic managers are warning that the supply chain is clogging up again, which could contribute to higher prices for goods. “Late fees and warehouse fees are passed onto the consumer, which is why we are not seeing products fall as much as they should,” said Paul Brashier, vice president of drayage and intermodal for ITS Logistics.
Nonetheless, markets showed optimism on Monday. The Dow rose 1.11%, the S&P 500 climbed 1.14% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.48%. Investors may have been hoping for a “Goldilocks-like mix of industrial production recovery and falling inflation,” said Ray Farris of Credit Suisse in a Monday note. Time will tell if that comfortable narrative of disinflation — and the defiant optimism in the markets — hold up.
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Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s satellite internet service remains a crucial yet contentious part of the country’s fragile infrastructure as it battles Russian invaders.
Comments by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell last week reignited the debate, leading CEO Elon Musk and high-profile former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly to weigh in.
“Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine,” Musk tweeted before saying that SpaceX “will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.”

Ukrainian forces set up Starlink satellite receivers to provide connection for civilians at Independence Square after the withdrawal of the Russian army from Kherson to the eastern bank of Dnieper River, Ukraine on November 13, 2022.
Metin Atkas | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s satellite internet service remains a crucial yet contentious part of the country’s fragile infrastructure, as Russia’s invasion nears its one-year mark.
Comments by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell last week reignited the debate around how the company’s Starlink hardware and service should be used in the Ukrainian conflict – leading CEO Elon Musk and high-profile former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly to weigh in.

Kelly on Saturday called on Musk to “restore the full functionality of your Starlink satellites.”
“Defense from a genocidal invasion is not an offensive capability. It’s survival,” argued Kelly, whose twin brother, Mark Kelly, is a Democratic U.S. senator from Arizona.
In a pair of replies on Sunday, Musk tweeted that “Starlink is the communication backbone of Ukraine,” before saying that SpaceX “will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3.”
“We have not exercised our right to turn them off,” Musk noted in a separate tweet.
The Twitter exchange came after Shotwell last week said that the company has been “really pleased to be able to provide Ukraine connectivity and help them in their fight for freedom,” but she emphasized that Starlink “was never intended to be weaponized.”

“Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement, so we have to work on that at Starlink,” Shotwell said, speaking at a space conference in Washington, D.C on Feb. 8.

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In a roundtable conversation after her remarks, Shotwell said that Ukraine using Starlink as a communications system “for the military is fine.”
“But our intent was never to have them use it for offensive purposes,” Shotwell said.
She specifically noted reports about Ukraine using Starlink “on drones.” Ukrainian soldiers have described using Starlink to connect drones and identify and destroy enemy targets, the Times of London reported in March 2022.
“I’m not going to go into the details; there are things that we can do to limit their ability to do that … there are things that we can do and have done,” Shotwell said.
SpaceX did not respond to CNBC’s request to clarify what those limitations are or whether they are still in place. A company spokesperson pointed to the Starlink terms of service agreement for the U.S., which describes modifications to the SpaceX equipment or service that would be in violation of U.S. export laws.
“Starlink is not designed or intended for use with or in offensive or defensive weaponry or other comparable end-uses,” the Starlink terms of service document for the U.S. says.

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Ouster and Velodyne have merged into a new company that will retain the Ouster name.
Ouster’s CEO, Angus Pacala, will lead the new company, while Velodyne’s CEO, Ted Tewksbury, will chair its board of directors.
The merger creates a lidar powerhouse with more than 850 customers and about $315 million in cash on hand.

The New York Stock Exchange welcomes Ouster Inc. (NYSE: OUST), today, Friday, March 12, 2021, in celebration of its Initial Listing. To honor the occasion, Ouster CEO Angus Pacala, joined by Chris Taylor, Vice President, NYSE Listings and Services, rings The Opening Bell®.

Lidar makers Ouster and Velodyne said on Monday that they have successfully completed a “merger of equals,” creating a lidar powerhouse.
The combined company will have more than 850 current customers, a deep portfolio of patents and about $315 million in cash on hand, based on year-end figures. That cash is critical in a market that has become much more difficult for not-yet-profitable companies to raise much-needed funds.

related investing news

10 hours ago

The company will retain the Ouster name and will continue to trade under that company’s ticker symbol, “OUST.” Shares of Ouster closed down about 10% on Monday, as investors digested the dilution that will result from the all-stock deal. Velodyne shareholders voted to approve the deal on Friday.
Lidar, short for “light detection and ranging,” is a sensor technology that uses infrared lasers to create a detailed 3D map of the sensor’s surroundings. Lidar units are used in a variety of robotics applications. Of particular interest to investors, lidar sensors are considered important components of nearly all of the autonomous-driving systems currently under development.  
Investors’ interest in the potential of self-driving vehicles led many lidar startups to go public over the past few years. But valuations have fallen sharply in the last year as investor enthusiasm cooled and as some automakers reduced spending on self-driving programs in favor of more limited driver-assist technology.
Those developments helped set the stage for consolidation in the lidar space, Ouster CEO Angus Pacala said when the deal was first announced.
Pacala, who will lead the combined company, told CNBC in an interview on Monday that the merger is “a major step toward profitability for Ouster.”

Ouster’s products have posted positive gross margins for a while, meaning they sell for more than it costs to make them. Pacala noted that after recent changes to Velodyne’s contract-manufacturing arrangements, that company’s gross margins turned positive as well.
“This is huge for the merger and for the strength of the combined business,” Pacala said. “Not only are we increasing the revenue base of the two companies by merging, but it’s all positive margin.”
In November, when the merger was first announced, the companies said they expected annual savings of about $75 million that could be realized within the first nine months after the transaction closed. Pacala said he now expects the total savings to be somewhat higher – but, he noted, that will come at a cost: The merged company will cut between 100 and 200 jobs, he said, mostly in operational roles where the two companies have significant overlap.
Ouster will have about 350 employees once the two companies are integrated, Pacala said.
Some of that integration has already taken place in the executive suite. Velodyne’s CEO, Ted Tewksbury, will chair the combined company’s board of directors, and its chief financial officer, Mark Weinswig, will retain that role with Ouster, while Ouster co-founder Mark Frichtl will serve as the combined company’s chief technology officer.
But Pacala said the combined company has no plans to combine manufacturing.
“Velodyne manufactures with Fabrinet in Thailand, about an hour and a half from the Benchmark manufacturing facility that Ouster has been using,” he said. “We intend to continue to work with both partners.”
Ouster said it will provide a “comprehensive update” on its integration plans during its fourth-quarter earnings presentation on March 23. But investors can expect good news: In a preview of its earnings report, Ouster said it met its full-year 2022 revenue and gross margin guidance. Velodyne exceeded its fourth-quarter billings and revenue targets, Ouster said.
Velodyne shareholders can expect to receive 0.8204 shares of Ouster stock for each Velodyne share they held, representing a premium of about 7.8% based on the respective companies’ share prices when the deal was first announced in November.

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Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Monday’s key moments. Buy CAT on a pullback EL set to rise Watch CRM 1. Buy CAT on a pullback Baird on Monday downgraded construction equipment manufacturer Caterpillar (CAT) to neutral from buy, arguing the stock is approaching a “cyclical pivot point” — a call with which we disagree. Not all of the company’s upcoming construction projects have been factored into its backlog, meaning there’s likely more room for growth. The industrial giant is poised to benefit from the U.S. government’s $1 trillion infrastructure spending law , as funds start to be doled out this year. We would be buyers here if not restricted from trading CAT at the moment, and could look to add to our position this week. Shares of CAT were down roughly 0.35% in midday trading Monday, at $246.79 apiece. 2. EL set to rise Estee Lauder (EL) stock climbed roughly 1.6% Monday, $254.22 a share, after Piper Sandler raised its price target on the cosmetics firm to $298 per share from $290. We expect Estee Lauder’s inventory overhang in U.S. department stores to ease further, while the firm should continue to gain market share in China, a region that accounts for roughly a third of the beauty company’s total revenue. We bought up EL shares last Friday on a pullback on the expectation the stock will continue to rise. 3. Watch CRM Shares of Salesforce (CRM) were up 1.8% on Monday after analysts at Bank of America called the Club holding the next quality “GARP,” or growth at a reasonable price stock. The analysts said the company is on a path to expand its annual margins and raised their price target to $200 a share from $180. The enterprise software giant has restructured its business and gotten serious about cost cuts, as activist investors pressure the company to make changes to unlock shareholder value. If the company is able to deliver annual margin expansion, as BofA analysts predict, we believe the stock could go even higher. (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long CAT, EL & CRM. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED. More