
Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times, Chief executive officers have exited from U.S. companies in 2024 at a greater pace than ever before, with businesses increasingly opting to appoint interim leaders as replacements, according to global outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. As of November, 1,991 CEOs have departed from their companies, “the highest total on record,” according to a Dec. 20 report from the company. “It has surpassed the previous record of 1,914 CEO exits that occurred in all of 2023. It is up 16% from the 1,710 exits that occurred during the same period last year.” Amid a jump in executive departures, companies were found to be appointing more interim leaders. Last year, interim replacements for CEOs were at seven percent, this year it has gone up to 13 percent. “ The current landscape has a lot of uncertainty baked in, and companies are responding by putting temporary leaders in place. This can act as a trial run to see how the leader navigates current challenges,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas Senior Vice President Andrew Challenger said. “It’s much less disruptive to replace an interim head if things do not appear to be working out, not only the company and its employees, but also to analysts and shareholders.” Entities in the government/non-profit sector saw the highest number of exits year-to-date at 438 departures, followed by health care/products, technology, entertainment/leisure, financial, services, and hospitals. State-wise, California topped the list with 223 CEOs departing, followed by New York, Texas, and Florida. Besides stepping down, some of the top reasons executives gave for leaving their positions included retirement, pursuing new opportunities, or transitioning to a different position within the company. Back in September, Andrew Challenger suggested that economic changes were a key factor for the rising number of exits. “Economic uncertainty tends to drive leadership decisions and several indicators suggest not only is the labor marketing softening, but the market overall may be heading for a downturn,” he said. “Companies are cutting costs across the board, as well as pivoting to new procedures, operations, and in some cases products, in light of new technologies. It’s an ideal time for new leaders to ascend.” The Challenger report comes as Pat Gelsinger, the chief executive of Intel, resigned from his post earlier this month after leading the tech giant for four years. Under his tenure, the company saw several quarters of revenue declines as well as net losses. Intel also failed to create any significant impact in the AI chip space during these years. Following Gelsinger’s exit from the company, Intel’s shares surged. Earlier in March, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun stepped down after the company got entangled in a scandal over quality issues. A door panel of a Boeing plane blew off mid-air during a flight in January, triggering concerns about safety regulations followed by the company. This also attracted increased government scrutiny. In addition to Calhoun, two more senior Boeing executives resigned from their posts at the time. In January, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares left his post following disappointing sales numbers in North America. According to a report by leadership advisory company Russell Reynolds Associates, more companies are appointing CEOs from within their business than from outside. The report analyzed data from leading global stock indexes. “Globally, of the 178 CEOs appointed in 2023, 77 percent were internal hires,” it said while adding that such appointments had hit an “all-time high” last year. The trend is driven by several factors, including views that an internal candidate is lower risk and lower cost and that such promotions are “more likely to inspire and encourage current staff.” “Additionally, boards want to send a message that they have been doing their job by constantly and effectively planning for successions. This means unplanned emergencies as well as systemic future planning have been effectively prepared for.” Internally appointed executives were found to have served 1.4 years longer on average. In addition, external hires were more likely to be fired from their posts, the report said.ITV I'm A Celeb star Dean McCullough 'replaced' as viewers beg 'please' after reactionDickey's Barbecue Pit Brings Back Kids Eat Free Promotion Starting December 26
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel unleashed its largest wave of airstrikes across Lebanon since agreeing to a ceasefire with Hezbollah last week, killing at least 11 people on Monday after the Lebanese militant group fired a volley of projectiles as a warning over what it said were Israeli truce violations . The projectiles were apparently the first time that Hezbollah took aim at Israeli forces after the 60-day ceasefire went into effect last Wednesday. The increasingly fragile truce aimed to end more than a year of war between Hezbollah and Israel — part of a wider regional conflict sparked by the devastating Israel-Hamas war in Gaza . In the United States, President-elect Donald Trump demanded the immediate release of Israeli hostages held by the Palestinian militant Hamas group in Gaza, saying on social media that if they are not freed before he takes office in January there would be “HELL TO PAY.” It was not immediately clear whether Trump was threatening to directly involve the U.S. military in Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. The U.S. has given Israel crucial military and diplomatic support throughout the nearly 15-month conflict. A new exchange of fire threatens Lebanon ceasefire Lebanon’s Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on the southern village of Haris killed five people and wounded two while another airstrike on the village of Tallousa killed four and also wounded two. Israel's military carried out a string of airstrikes late Monday against what it said were Hezbollah fighters, infrastructure and rocket launchers across Lebanon, in response to Hezbollah firing two projectiles toward Mount Dov — a disputed Israeli-held territory known as Shebaa Farms in Lebanon where the borders of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel meet. Israel said the projectiles fell in open areas and no injuries were reported. Hezbollah said in a statement that it fired on an Israeli military position in the area as a “defensive and warning response” after what it called “repeated violations” of the ceasefire deal by Israel. It said complaints to mediators tasked with monitoring the ceasefire “were futile in stopping these violations.” Before the Hezbollah projectiles, Israeli carried out at least four airstrikes and an artillery barrage in southern Lebanon, including a drone strike that killed a person on a motorcycle, according to Lebanese state media. Another strike killed a corporal in the Lebanese security services. Israel has said its strikes are in response to unspecified Hezbollah violations, and that under the ceasefire deal it reserves the right to retaliate. Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, accused Israel of violating the truce more than 50 times in recent days by launching airstrikes, demolishing homes near the border and violating Lebanon's airspace. Officials in the U.S. — which along with France helped broker the truce and heads a commission meant to monitor adherence to the deal — played down the significance of Israeli strikes. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “Largely speaking, the ceasefire is holding.” “We’ve gone from dozens of strikes down to one a day maybe two a day,” Kirby told reporters, referring to Israeli strikes. “We’re going to keep trying and see what we can do to get it down to zero.” Under the deal, Iran-backed Hezbollah has 60 days to withdraw its fighters and infrastructure from southern Lebanon. During that time, Israeli troops are also to withdraw to their side of the border. ‘RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!’ In a post on his Truth Social site, Trump called for Palestinian militants to free all of the roughly 100 Israeli hostages still held inside Gaza , around two-thirds of whom are believed to be alive. If not, Trump said, “Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!” Hours earlier, the Israeli government confirmed the death of Omer Neutra, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, whose body is still believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza, according to the Israeli government. The Biden administration is mounting a last-ditch effort to try to restart talks between Israel and Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on Trump's post though President Isaac Herzog welcomed it. Fears of hunger mount in Gaza In Gaza, meanwhile, alarm is mounting over increasing hunger. The amount of food allowed in by Israel has plunged over the past two months, compounded by a decision Sunday by the United Nations to halt aid deliveries from the main crossing into the territory because of the threat of armed gangs looting convoys. Experts have already warned of famine in the northernmost part of Gaza , which Israeli forces have almost completely isolated since early October, saying they're fighting regrouped Hamas militants there. Displaced families have set up tents surrounded by piles of garbage on the streets of Gaza City. Bilal Marouf, 55, said he and 11 family members fled the Israeli offensive “barefoot and naked.” “We had nothing. Hunger and thirst killed us, and we did not have a single shekel, nor clothes, nor a mattress, nor a blanket,” he said, speaking near his tent. Israel’s campaign in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ Oct 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, has driven almost the entire population of the territory from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians now live in squalid tent camps, relying on international aid. The Israeli military said it allowed 40 trucks carrying 600 tons of flour for the World Food Program to enter the southern Gaza Strip on Sunday night, as well as 16 other food trucks. Israel has said it is working to increase the flow of aid. November saw an increase in the average number of humanitarian trucks it let into Gaza, up to 77 daily from 57 the month before, according to official Israeli figures. But the levels are still nearly the lowest of the entire 15-month war. And the U.N. says less than half of that actually reaches Palestinians because Israeli military restrictions, fighting and robberies make it too dangerous to deliver the aid. The World Food Program was able to only deliver aid to some 300,000 Palestinians in November across the Gaza Strip due to ongoing Israeli military offensives and the looting of convoys, Carl Skau, WFP’s deputy executive director, said Monday. In a tent camp in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, Palestinians lined up at makeshift mud ovens trying to buy a few loaves of flatbread for their families. With the price of flour mounting because of scarcity, the bakers — women displaced from further north — said they could bake less bread, and families could afford far less. “They divide them to their children, one loaf every day,” said one woman baker, Wafaa al-Attar. Abou AlJoud reported from Beirut. Associated Press writer Fatma Khalid in Cairo contributed to this report. Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/mideast-wars
Germany's Merkel recalls Putin's 'power games' and contrasting US presidents in her memoirsWILMINGTON, Delaware >> A Delaware judge ruled on Monday that Tesla CEO Elon Musk still is not entitled to receive a $56 billion compensation package despite shareholders of the electric vehicle company voting to reinstate it. The ruling by the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Court of Chancery, follows her January decision that called the pay package excessive and rescinded it, surprising investors, and cast uncertainty over Musk’s future at the world’s most valuable carmaker. Musk did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. Tesla has said in court filings that the judge should recognize a subsequent June vote by its shareholders in favor of the pay package for Musk, the company’s driving force who is responsible for many of its advances, and reinstate his compensation. McCormick said Tesla’s board was not entitled to hit “reset” to restore Musk’s pay package. “Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable,” she said in her 101-page opinion. She also said Tesla made multiple material misstatements in its proxy statement regarding the vote, and could not claim the vote was a “cure-all” to justify restoring Musk’s pay. “Taken together,” the problems with Tesla’s arguments “pack a powerful punch,” she wrote. Tesla shares fell 1.4% in after hours trade, after the ruling. McCormick also ordered Tesla to pay the attorneys who brought the case $345 million, well short of the $6 billion they initially requested. She said the fee could be paid in cash or Tesla stock. “We are pleased with Chancellor McCormick’s ruling, which declined Tesla’s invitation to inject continued uncertainty into Court proceedings,” said a statement from Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, one of the three law firms for the plaintiff. The law firm also said it looked forward to defending the court’s opinion if Musk and Tesla appealed. Musk and Tesla can appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court as soon as McCormick enters a final order, which could come as soon as this week. The appeal could take a year to play out. After the January ruling, Tesla shareholders flooded the court with thousands of letters arguing that rescinding Musk’s pay increased the possibility he would leave Tesla or develop some products like artificial intelligence at ventures other than Tesla. Attorneys for shareholder Richard Tornetta, who sued in 2018 to challenge Musk’s compensation package, had argued that Delaware law does not permit a company to use a ratification vote to essentially overturn the ruling from a trial. McCormick in January found that Musk improperly controlled the 2018 board process to negotiate the pay package. The board had said that Musk deserved the package because he hit all the ambitious targets on market value, revenue and profitability. But the judge criticized Tesla’s board as “beholden” to Musk, saying the compensation plan was proposed by a board whose members had conflicts of interest due to close personal and financial ties to him. After the January ruling, Musk criticized the judge on his social media platform X and encouraged other companies to follow the lead of Tesla and reincorporate in Texas from Delaware, although it is unclear if any companies did so. The judge in her January ruling called the pay package the “biggest compensation plan ever – an unfathomable sum.” It was 33 times larger than the next biggest executive compensation package, which was Musk’s 2012 pay plan. As of Monday, the pay package was worth $101.4 billion, according to Equilar, a compensation consulting firm. Musk’s 2018 pay package gave him stock grants worth around 1% of Tesla’s equity each time the company achieved one of 12 tranches of escalating operational and financial goals. Musk did not receive any guaranteed salary. Tornetta argued that shareholders were not told how easily the goals would be achieved when they voted on the package.
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Charged of alleged $265 mn bribe plot New Delhi: The combined market valuation of all ten listed Adani Group firms fell sharply by Rs 2.19 lakh crore on Thursday, more than double of what the conglomerate had lost when the US short seller Hindenburg brought out a damning report in January 2023. Shares of Adani Group firms fell sharply as billionaire Gautam Adani was charged by US prosecutors for allegedly being part of a scheme to pay $265 million (about Rs 2,200 crore) bribe to Indian officials in exchange for favourable terms for solar power contracts. Adani, India’s second-richest man, and seven others including his nephew Sagar have been charged with paying bribes to unidentified officials of state governments in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to buy expensive solar power, potentially earning more than $2 billion profit over 20 years. Adani Group denied charges of paying bribes, saying the allegations by US prosecutors are baseless. The group said it is compliant with all laws. It said all possible legal recourse will be sought. “The allegations made by the US Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission against directors of Adani Green are baseless and denied,” the group spokesperson said in a statement. The stock of the group’s flagship firm, Adani Enterprises, plunged 22.61%, Adani Energy Solutions tanked 20%, Adani Green Energy plummeted 18.80%, Adani Ports dived 13.53%, Ambuja Cements cracked 11.98% and Adani Total Gas tumbled 10.40% on the BSE. Shares of Adani Wilmar declined 9.98%, Adani Power slumped 9.15%, ACC fell 7.29% and NDTV dipped 0.06%. Meanwhile, Kenya’s President William Ruto said on Thursday that he has cancelled multimillion-dollar airport expansion and energy deals with Gautam Adani after the US bribery and fraud indictments. Ruto said in a state of the nation address the decision was made “based on new information provided by our investigative agencies and partner nations”, without naming the United States. The Adani Group had been in the process of signing an agreement that would modernise Kenya’s main airport in the capital, Nairobi, with an additional runway and terminal constructed, in exchange for the group running the airport for 30 years. The widely criticised deal had sparked anti-Adani protests in Kenya and a strike by airport workers, who said it would lead to degraded working conditions and job losses in some cases. The Adani Group had also been awarded a deal to construct power transmission lines in Kenya, East Africa’s business hub.
By MICHAEL R. SISAK NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Sean “Diddy” Combs tried for a third time Friday to persuade a judge to let him leave jail while he awaits his sex trafficking trial, but a decision won’t come until next week. Judge Arun Subramanian said at a hearing that he will release his decision on Combs’ latest request for bail after Combs’ lawyers and federal prosecutors file letters addressing outstanding issues. Those letters are due at noon on Monday, Subramanian said. Combs’ lawyers pitched having him await trial under around-the-clock surveillance either his mansion on an island near Miami Beach or — after the judge scoffed at that location — an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Their plan essentially amounts to putting Combs on house arrest, with strict limits on who he has contact with. But prosecutors argue that Combs has routinely flouted jail rules and can’t be trusted not to interfere with witnesses or the judicial process. “The argument that he’s a lawless person who doesn’t follow instructions isn’t factually accurate,” Combs lawyer Anthony Ricco argued. “The idea that he’s an out-of-control individual who has to be detained isn’t factually accurate.” Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he coerced and abused women for years with help from a network of associates and employees while silencing victims through blackmail and violence, including kidnapping, arson and physical beatings. His trial is slated to begin May 5. The Bad Boy Records founder remains locked up at a Brooklyn federal jail, where he spent his Nov. 4 birthday. Two other judges previously concluded that Combs would be a danger to the community if he is released and an appeals court judge last month denied Combs’ immediate release while a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals weighs his bail request. Friday’s hearing was the second time Combs was in court this week. On Tuesday, a judge blocked prosecutors from using as evidence papers that were seized from his cell during jail-wide sweep for contraband and weapons at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Related Articles As he entered through a side door, Combs waved to relatives including his mother and several of his children in the courtroom gallery, tapping his hand to his heart and blowing kisses at them. He then hugged his lead attorney, Marc Agnifilo, before taking a seat at the defense table. He was not handcuffed or shackled and wore a beige jail uniform, occasionally pulling a pair of reading glasses from his pocket as he peered at papers in front of him. Prosecutors maintain that no bail conditions will mitigate the “risk of obstruction and dangerousness to others” of releasing Combs from jail. Prosecutors contend that while locked up the “I’ll Be Missing You” artist has orchestrated social media campaigns aimed at tainting the jury pool. They allege that he has also attempted to publicly leak materials he thinks would be helpful to his case and is contacting potential witnesses via third parties. “Simply put, the defendant cannot be trusted,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik argued. Combs’ lawyer Teny Geragos countered that, given the strict release conditions proposed, “it would be impossible for him not to follow rules.”