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Belk department store

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KKR, Blackstone and other major Belk lenders are in talks with the North Carolina-based department store chain to avoid bankruptcy, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The company, its lenders and private equity firm Sycamore Partners are getting closer to an out-of-court deal, the report said, citing people familiar with the discussions.

Representatives from Belk, KKR and Blackstone did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment. Sycamore declined to comment.

A deal is not currently guaranteed, the Journal report warned, but Belk’s lenders have noted that the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process has proven difficult for a number of other retail chains during the Covid pandemic, with some being forced into liquidation.

KKR and Blackstone hope to convert a portion of Belk’s $ 2.6 billion debt into equity, possibly through an out-of-court deal that would allow Sycamore to keep an interest, the Journal said. KKR “is reluctant” to take Belk through bankruptcy proceedings because of the high fees associated with filing it, the report said.

America’s department store operators – including Belk and its nearly 300 stores, mostly in the southeast – are struggling as consumers visit malls less often and buy fewer clothes during the pandemic.

Last year Neiman Marcus, JC Penney, Stage Stores and Lord & Taylor filed for bankruptcy. The latter, the oldest department store chain in the country, eventually liquidated and closed all of its stores. Penney narrowly escaped the same result after US mall owners Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners acquired it.

Sycamore recently acquired womenswear brands Ann Taylor, Loft and Lane Bryant from bankruptcy from Ascena Retail Group. The private equity firm also owns Staples, which last week made an unsolicited tender offer for the parent company of Office Depot ODP.

President-elect Joe Biden has appointed Dr. Anthony Fauci was selected to lead a U.S. delegation to the World Health Organization’s annual meeting this week, undoing outgoing President Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw from the international aid group.

The new government plans to work with WHO on an international Covid Response Plan as one of Biden’s first major policy changes, the transition team said hours before his inauguration on Wednesday.

Biden’s transition team said Fauci will make comments to WHO on Thursday at their annual board meetings.

“Once the United States resumes its relationship with WHO, the Biden Harris Administration will work with WHO and our partners to strengthen and reform the Organization, support and provide COVID-19 health and humanitarian aid advance global health and health security. ” “said the transition team in a statement.

The reintegration into the United Nations Health Organization is one of the most important changes Biden plans to make to combat the global pandemic. He also plans to enact executive ordinance on Wednesday “requiring masks and physical distancing in all federal buildings, in all states, and by federal employees and contractors.”

The changes will fulfill one of Biden’s key campaign promises. He vowed to rejoin the global health agency on his first day in office if he defeated Trump, whose decision to leave the WHO as America faced the worst coronavirus outbreak in any country in the world has received bipartisan criticism from lawmakers.

“WHO looks forward to the delegation from the new US administration attending tomorrow’s board meeting,” said WHO spokesman Andrei Muchnik in a statement.

Trump announced in late May that the country would withdraw from the United Nations Health Department, but the process shouldn’t be completed until July this year. Trump repeatedly criticized the WHO for being too “China-centered” and denounced the disproportionate amount of funding the US had allocated to the agency compared to other countries.

Foreign Secretary-designate Antony Blinken told Senators Tuesday during his confirmation hearing that the United States will also be participating in Covax, the global alliance aimed at providing low-income countries with coronavirus vaccines jointly managed by WHO. The Trump administration previously refused to participate in the program.

In April, Trump said his administration would stop funding the WHO while reviewing the agency’s role in “serious mismanagement and cover-up of the spread of the coronavirus”. The United States was the organization’s largest donor, providing nearly $ 893 million to the agency over the 2018 and 2019 fiscal cycle.

Whether the president was empowered to resign from WHO under US law also came up for debate, according to a June Congressional Research Service report. The answer would likely require a court to “address several complex first impression issues,” the bipartisan organization noted.

However, the Trump administration said in September that the US would “reduce” its commitment to WHO until it officially leaves. The US planned to call back health department personnel from all WHO offices, including its headquarters, and attend some of the organization’s meetings and events on a case-by-case basis, according to the State Department.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in August he hoped the United States would reconsider its decision to leave the organization. The problem is “not the money”, but the lack of cooperation amid the pandemic.

“It is actually the relationship with the US that is more important and its overseas leadership,” he said.

Tedros added that WHO is “very open to any assessment or evaluation” of its performance in response to the pandemic. In an interim review published on Monday, the Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response criticized WHO for waiting until January 30 for an international health emergency to be declared.

“WHO is expected to validate outbreak reports for pandemic potential and deploy support and containment resources, but its powers and resources to carry out its duties are limited,” said panel co-chair and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in a statement.

– CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. and Amanda Macias contributed to this report.

Morgan Stanley posted fourth quarter earnings and revenue on Wednesday that exceeded analysts’ expectations for strong trading, investment banking and wealth management results.

Earnings rose 51% to $ 3.39 billion, or $ 1.81 per share, compared to the estimate of $ 1.27 by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Revenue of $ 13.64 billion was over $ 2 billion above the estimate of $ 11.54 billion.

“The company had a very strong quarter and record results for the full year with excellent performance in all three businesses and regions,” said CEO James Gorman in the press release. “Our unique business model continues to serve us well as we continue to implement our long-term strategy with the acquisitions of E * TRADE and Eaton Vance.”

The bank’s shares fell 1.75% in premarket trading.

Expectations were high after robust trade and investment banking results at rivals Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase helped boost profitability, and Morgan Stanley did not disappoint.

Investment banking had sales of $ 2.3 billion, half a billion dollars more than FactSet’s survey of $ 1.81 billion.

Stock trading generated sales of $ 2.49 billion, $ 350 million more than the estimate of $ 2.14 billion. Fixed income trading grossed $ 1.66 billion, $ 200 million more than analysts expected.

The company’s wealth management division posted $ 5.68 billion in revenue, nearly $ half a billion more than analysts expected, thanks to higher asset levels and fee-generating activity, as well as the impact of the e-trade deal.

Morgan Stanley has the largest wealth management business of the six largest US banks, which typically benefit from rising markets. That business is backed by the bank’s $ 13 billion acquisition of E-Trade, which was announced a year ago. The fourth quarter is the first period in which E-Trade will be integrated into the larger company.

Investment management revenue of $ 1.1 billion exceeded analysts’ estimate of $ 1.02 billion.

Morgan Stanley is the last major US bank to post earnings in the fourth quarter. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs beat analysts’ expectations for sales and earnings aided by trading, while Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America were disappointed with sales as credit margins were squeezed.

The shares of New York-based Morgan Stanley rose 33% in 2020, outperforming the KBW Bank Index’s 4.3% decline.

Here are the numbers:

Earnings of $ 1.81 per share versus $ 1.27 estimate by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.

Revenue of $ 13.64 billion versus an estimate of $ 11.54 billion.

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