FINANCIAL SERVICES One of State Street’s top European executives has been promoted to run its investment services business, State Street’s largest division. The Boston-based financial services giant on Monday announced that chief commercial officer Joerg Ambrosius, who is based in Germany, has been appointed president of investment services. The business provides a range of custody, accounting, and fund administration services to State Street’s asset-management clients.
State Street chief executive Ron O’Hanley had been running that business since January following the retirement of Lou Maiuri. Meanwhile, the company noted that Mostapha Tahiri, who is based in the United Kingdom and took over the COO role from Maiuri, will remain as State Street’s chief operating officer. The two will continue to report directly to O’Hanley.
— JON CHESTO LABOR At least a third of the 70-some employees at a Hadley Trader Joe’s voted last week to decertify its union, reaching the threshold needed to drop it. They allege that union organizers divided workers and championed their own cause at whatever cost. Lee Stratford, the employee who brought the petition, said his colleagues promoted false narratives in union press releases, coerced employees to support them, and excluded workers who did not support Trader Joe’s United — an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
It “sowed division and smeared both our workplace and anyone who dissents from the union’s agenda,” Stratford wrote. “This isn’t what I believe the majority of my coworkers want or deserve.” Representatives for the Trader Joe’s union did not respond to a request for comment, and all parties are now waiting for a decision on the matter from the National Labor Relations Board.
The Hadley storefront was the first freestanding location of the company to unionize alongside a collection of big-box stores in Western Massachusetts. Other Trader Joe’s in Minnesota, Kentucky, and New York have since organized. In December, the NLRB ruled that the company had illegally fired a union worker in Hadley and withheld retirement benefits from organized stores.
— DITI KOHLI CRYPTOCURRENCY Advertisement Crypto startups raised more money but closed fewer deals in the most recent quarter, mirroring the broader slowdown seen in the digital-asset world. Venture capital investment in crypto companies totaled $2.7 billion in the three months ended in June, a 2.
5 percent increase from the first quarter and a 9.8 percent decrease from the year-earlier period, PitchBook data show. The number of deals closed dropped 12.
5 percent from the first quarter. — BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement TRANSPORTATION A US representative wants New Jersey Transit riders to be reimbursed if they experience long delays due to Amtrak service disruptions after commuters in the New York City region this summer were left stranded on trains and platforms for hours. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, is proposing that rail passengers be reimbursed when their trains are delayed or canceled for at least three hours, with Amtrak to repay NJ Transit customers when its system is at fault, the lawmaker announced Monday at a press event in Glen Rock, N.
J. Called the “All Aboard Act,” the planned legislation is a rail-passenger bill of rights similar to what’s been proposed for airline customers. Commuters in the New York City region have been plagued by extreme service disruptions as Amtrak’s aging infrastructure cannot withstand the record heat wave that’s hit the area this summer.
— BLOOMBERG NEWS ENERGY Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. plunged the most in almost a year after issuing a going-concern warning. The utility continues to face fallout from a wildfire last year in Maui that killed dozens of people and destroyed the historic town of Lahaina.
The company said late Friday it’s required to disclose a going-concern risk in its financial statements until it can develop a plan to pay for settlement obligations. It pegged losses from estimated accrual of liabilities stemming from the disaster at $1.7 billion.
— BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement WAGES Maine workers will now benefit from a law that allows the state to order businesses to pay back wages as well as damages from missed wages. The law went into effect Friday and is the latest state-level effort among Democrat-controlled states to give workers more options to seek compensation for lost wages. California amended its labor laws earlier this year to get more businesses to correct such labor violations.
Laws to combat wage theft are common, but Maine’s new laws will give the state Department of Labor more tools to hold businesses accountable for failure to pay, lawmakers said. The law states that the labor department can now order an employer to pay both the unpaid wages as well as damages equal to twice the amount of those wages with interest. — ASSOCIATED PRESS HOUSING US renters are winning concessions when they sign new contracts, an indication that surging apartment construction is easing the supply squeeze, according to a new blog post from Zillow.
Some 60,000 multifamily units were completed nationwide in June, more than any month in the past 50 years, according to Zillow. That’s pushing owners to offer concessions which range from parking privileges to weeks of free rent. Zillow said the share of listings on its platform that offered such concessions topped 33 percent last month, up from 25 percent a year earlier.
— BLOOMBERG NEWS DEBT LL Flooring Holdings Inc., formerly called Lumber Liquidators, has filed Chapter 11 to close several stores while attempting to sell its remaining locations. The flooring retailer sought court protection Sunday in Delaware, carrying nearly $110 million in long-term debt.
The company said it faced a series of challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic, including a drop in home sales and rising interest rates, which have contributed to a decline in consumer spending on home-improvement projects. — BLOOMBERG NEWS Advertisement DEBT Gym chain Blink Fitness filed for bankruptcy protection, becoming the latest chain to succumb to stiff competition and higher costs. The company, a low-cost offshoot owned by luxury gym chain Equinox, filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware.
Blink listed assets and liabilities of between $100 million and $500 million each in its bankruptcy petition. Blink plans to keep operating while it tries to sell itself out of bankruptcy, according to a company statement. It has received $21 million of new financing from its lenders, it said.
Blink positions itself as a gym for everyone. More than 65 percent of its members are younger than 35, chief restructuring officer Steven Shenker said in court papers. Memberships range from $15 to $45 per month, he said.
The company operates separately from Equinox, which itself struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of gyms including 24 Hour Fitness, Gold’s Gym, and Town Sports International went bankrupt in the wake of the virus. — BLOOMBERG NEWS.
