WEATHER
Storms caused $170 billion in damage this year
Ten of this year’s most destructive weather events cost a combined $170 billion in damages, according to a new study. Hurricane Ida, a tropical storm that pummeled much of the Eastern United States with lashing rain in August, killed at least 95 people, and cost the economy $65 billion. A month earlier, floods in Europe caused 240 deaths and an economic loss of $43 billion, according to research published by the UK charity Christian Aid. Floods in China’s Henan province in July killed more than 300 and cost in excess of $17 billion. ‘’The costs of climate change have been grave this year,’’ said Kat Kramer, Christian Aid’s climate policy lead and author of the report. ‘’It is clear that the world is not on track to ensure a safe and prosperous world.’’ This year is expected to be the sixth time global natural disasters have cost more than $100 billion, the report stated, citing insurer Aon. All six of those years have happened since 2011. — BLOOMBERG
AUTOMOTIVE
US regulators to probe engine fires in Hyundai, Kia vehicles
DETROIT — US auto safety regulators have stepped up a series of investigations into engine fires that have plagued Hyundai and Kia vehicles for more than six years. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says a new engineering analysis investigation covers more than 3 million vehicles from the 2011 through 2016 model years. The agency has received 161 complaints of engine fires, some of which occurred in vehicles that had already been recalled. Engine failures and fires have dogged the Korean automakers’ vehicles since September 2015, when the company issued an engine failure recall. Since then it has issued at least eight more recalls for a host of engine problems, according to NHTSA documents posted on its website Monday. The agency says it is opening the engineering analysis to evaluate whether previous recalls covered enough vehicles. It also will monitor the effectiveness of previous recalls “as well as the long-term viability of related programs and non-safety field actions being conducted by Hyundai and Kia.” — ASSOCIATED PRESS
CORPORATE
More than 70 percent of CEOs fear losing their jobs in 2022, survey finds
The C-suite is a bundle of nerves this winter. A new survey shows that 72 percent of chief executive officers are worried about losing their jobs in 2022 because of business disruptions, tracking closely with the 94 percent of bosses who say their corporate models need to be overhauled within three years. “That’s eye-poppingly high,” says Simon Freakley, the CEO of management consulting firm AlixPartners, the source of the survey. “Disruptive forces like the supply chain and labor market are all playing out simultaneously.” Big bosses are always worried about losing their jobs, especially at public companies, where the potential for a sudden adios comes with the cushy chair. But the fear-of-imminent-firing figure surged from 52 percent in 2020, which itself was a high-anxiety year. AlixPartners took the pulse of 3,000 CEOs and executives at the director level and above across 10 industries, half with revenues of more than $1 billion. The pool was dispersed across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. Supply chain, labor market, and digitalization topped the executives’ lists of concerns. While the global pandemic exacerbated the situation, COVID-19 itself was notably missing from the top 10 concerns for 2022. Only 3 percent of executives cited the virus as their main worry. — BLOOMBERG
AVIATION
Ethiopian Airlines to resume flying 737 Max jets three years after fatal crash
Ethiopian Airlines Group, Africa’s largest carrier, will resume flying Boeing’s 737 Max jets beginning Feb. 1, three years after a crash that killed 157 people triggered a worldwide grounding of the aircraft. The rectification by regulators in the United States and Europe provides confidence to put the plane back into service, chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam said in a statement posted on Ethiopian Airlines’ Facebook page. The carrier has four Max jets. Many other airlines already have the model back in service. China was the latest to approve the resumption of the Max jets for commercial flights. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa in March 2019, five months after a similar incident in Indonesia, triggering a grounding of the Max worldwide. Boeing reached a $2.5 billion agreement earlier this year to settle a criminal charge that it defrauded the US government by concealing information about the jet. That included almost $1.8 billion to reimburse Max customers. Tewolde in September said Ethiopian Airlines had reached a separate settlement with Boeing. — BLOOMBERG
MARKETS
Chase strategists don’t see an end to market boom
There’s no reason to fear that the rally that catapulted US stocks to successive records this year will end soon, according to JPMorgan Chase strategists. In fact, more investors may soon join. While the S&P 500 climbed to yet another record high last week, the rally has been increasingly driven by a narrow group of mega-cap companies, which is reminiscent of the bubble in tech stocks at the turn of the century. With the economic rebound following the pandemic-induced slump now past its peak, some fund managers have warned that the next stage in the cycle is a correction, as central banks and governments wind down stimulus measures to tame surging inflation. For JPMorgan strategists, however, the “extreme stock dispersion and record concentration within equities” is an indicator of an abundance of caution, not a looming selloff. Investors have been treating mega caps as safe havens, or “pseudo-bonds,” the strategists wrote. — BLOOMBERG
INTERNATIONAL
Troubled Evergrande resumes building housing
(Bloomberg) — China Evergrande Group said it has resumed construction at most of its housing projects as authorities push the debt-laden developer to pay migrant workers and deliver apartments. Nearly 92 percent of Evergrande’s property projects have so far restarted, compared with just about 50 percent at the beginning of September, according to a company statement released Sunday night. The number of workers involved in the projects that have resumed building has risen 31 percent from September, to 89,000. Evergrande is struggling with more than $300 billion in liabilities as a government campaign to deleverage developers and curb years of housing speculation takes a toll. — BLOOMBERG
TAXES
Rules issued for global minimum tax
A global minimum tax came closer to becoming a reality as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development published model rules that governments can use to make the world’s largest corporations pay at least 15 percent on their profits. The Paris-based organization drafted the rules after about 140 countries agreed to a sweeping rethink of taxation in October. The first of two so-called pillars of that deal would reallocate profits to be taxed in places where multinationals operate, while the second concerns minimum tax. Still, there are fresh question marks over whether new rules will ever be fully adopted after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said Sunday he would vote against a package that includes Washington’s version of the minimum tax. The global deal was essentially a fine balance of US and European interests and both sides have threatened not to follow through if the other stumbles. — BLOOMBERG