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In a deal that hands a huge victory to shareholders of bankrupt Hertz Global Holdings Inc., the car rental company picked Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management to buy the company out of chapter 11, capping a dramatic tussle for control of the company, Bloomberg News reported. The deal, which gives a reorganized Hertz an enterprise value of $7.43 billion, was picked over an offer from a competing group led by Centerbridge Partners, Warburg Pincus and Dundon Capital Partners. The Knighthead-Certares plan would give equity holders a recovery of about $8 a share -- a package that’s made up of about $240 million in cash and warrants for nearly 20% of the reorganized company. Hertz shares -- which up until two months ago were faced with the prospect of being completely wiped out under an earlier plan -- soared as much as 41% Wednesday to as high as $5.19. That approached a high of $6.25 last June, when traders snapping up penny stocks on the popular Robinhood app sought to defy decades of convention and make money on a bankrupt company.

Celebrity chef Chloe Coscarelli is suing investors in the vegan restaurant chain that bears her name for alleged trademark infringement, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Coscarelli and her affiliate companies filed the lawsuit on Monday in federal court in New York against private-equity firm Bain Capital LP’s social impact fund and other investors in By Chloe. Most of the defendants are part of the investor group that bought By Chloe out of bankruptcy earlier this month. However, the lawsuit covers past use of the trademark, before the bankruptcy sale. By Chloe’s then-parent company, BC Hospitality Group Inc., filed for chapter 11 protection in December to ease a sale of the restaurant business. Coscarelli gained fame in 2010 after winning first prize on the Food Network show “Cupcake Wars” at age 22. She co-founded By Chloe, which opened its first location in 2015, but left the chain in 2017, after a dispute with shareholder ESquared Hospitality LLC. For years, she has litigated claims of trademark infringement against the restaurant chain. She has also pursued claims against ESquared Hospitality, but that company wasn’t named as a defendant in Monday’s lawsuit. Coscarelli had agreed to license rights to her name with ESquared Hospitality, subject to certain conditions. She terminated the chain’s license to her name in March 2018. But the chain’s then-parent company, BC Hospitality, continued operating restaurants, websites and social media accounts under the By Chloe brand name, even after it and Ms. Coscarelli parted ways, according to court documents. The investors together contributed more than $30 million that was used for the expansion of By Chloe restaurants, allegedly continuing the infringement of Coscarelli’s trademark rights, according to the complaint.

U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in nearly 12 years in April as booming demand amid a reopening economy pushed against supply constraints, which could add fuel to financial market fears of a lengthy period of higher inflation, Reuters reported. The report from the Labor Department on Wednesday also showed a strong buildup of underlying price pressures, extending a stock selloff on Wall Street. Most economists were, however, unwavering in their belief that the surge in prices would be temporary, noting that the main drivers of the bigger-than-expected inflation increase were hotels and airlines, industries that were hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Bottlenecks in the supply chain, which led to a record jump in prices of used cars and trucks last month, were expected to ease. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has similar views. "This is not a sign of an inflation problem," said Robert Barbera, director of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Financial Economics. "We have the capacity to produce this stuff, we simply need time to get things back on line." The consumer price index jumped 0.8% last month, the largest gain since June 2009. The CPI rose 0.6% in March. A 10.0% surge in prices of used cars and trucks, the most since the series started in 1953, accounted for over a third of the increase in the CPI last month. That followed a 0.5% rise in March. Motor vehicle production has been hampered by a global semiconductor chip shortage, boosting demand for used automobiles.

A growing number of Republican-led states are rejecting enhanced federal COVID-19 pandemic unemployment payments, saying the extra $300-a-week supplement is providing an incentive for some people to avoid work at a time when employers are struggling to find labor, the Wall Street Journal reported. Iowa and Tennessee yesterday joined the list of at least nine states that are moving toward the elimination of the extra benefits ahead of the program’s scheduled expiration in September. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also called for an end to the bonus. “Federal pandemic-related unemployment benefit programs initially provided displaced Iowans with crucial assistance when the pandemic began,” Iowa Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement that called for the pandemic-related benefit to end June 12. “But now that our businesses and schools have reopened, these payments are discouraging people from returning to work.” President Biden on Monday defended the enhanced benefits and said that his administration would make clear that people can’t turn down suitable jobs and keep collecting benefits, except in specific circumstances. His Democratic administration has said that other factors are keeping workers on the sidelines, such as fear of getting sick during the pandemic and a lack of full-time child care.

The U.S. Treasury Department is sending a message to states and cities that the billions in aid from the American Rescue Plan should provide relief to residents, not their governments’ debt burdens, Bloomberg News reported. The department on Monday released guidance on how state and local governments can use $350 billion in funding from President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue package. The funds are intended to help states and local governments make up for lost revenue, curb the pandemic, bolster economic recoveries, and support industries hit by COVID-19 restrictions. In a surprise to some, these funds can’t be used for debt payments, a potential complication for fiscally stressed governments that had already etched out plans to pay off loans. Biden’s rescue package seeks to shore up the finances of states and municipalities that have been on the front lines of the government response to the outbreak. While municipal tax collections initially plunged at the start of the pandemic, the majority of U.S. states have seen revenue recover to pre-pandemic levels. That’s left governors and mayors grappling with how to best spend the aid. Several officials, including leaders in Illinois, Chicago and New Jersey, had considered using the funds to pay back loans, but this week’s guidance muddles those plans. States and cities stepped up borrowing as pandemic raged. “Expenses related to financing, including servicing or redeeming notes, would not address the needs of pandemic response or its negative economic impacts,” according to a document from the Treasury. “Such expenses would also not be considered provision of government services, as these financing expenses do not directly provide services or aid to citizens.”

Job openings reached a record level of 8.1 million at the end of March, reflecting a widening gap between open positions and workers willing and able to take those roles, the Wall Street Journal reported. Available jobs rose by a seasonally adjusted 600,000 in March to exceed the prior record of 7.6 million set in November 2018, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Data from job search site Indeed.com separately showed job posting continued to rise in April, ending the month 24% higher than February 2020’s pre-pandemic level. The Labor Department said the highest rate of open jobs was in the South, while the strongest growth in openings was in the Northeast. Government and private data showed increasing openings in construction, manufacturing and hospitality. The growth in available jobs came as hiring cooled to a seasonally adjusted 266,000 in April from a gain of 770,000 the prior month, the Labor Department said last week.

Large card issuers that cater to borrowers ranging from the affluent to the subprime say that overall card balances — and thus the firms’ interest income — are falling, the Wall Street Journal reported. To make up for it, issuers are spending more on marketing and loosening their underwriting standards. Discover Financial Services said on its earnings call last month that the share of card balances that were paid off at the end of the first quarter were at the highest level since 2000. Capital One Financial Corp. said that nearly half of the credit-card balances it had at the beginning of March were paid off by the end of the month, which the company described as historically high. The companies’ calculations are based on the credit-card balances that they packaged into securities and sold to investors. Synchrony Financial, the largest issuer of store credit cards in the U.S., said payment rates have been higher than they averaged before the pandemic. Card balances at the three companies were down 9%, 17% and 7% in the first quarter from a year prior, respectively.

If the coronavirus pandemic produced its own brand of anxiety for American workers trying to stay healthy while balancing job and family demands, the coming return to "normal" will pose a new set of challenges, Reuters reported. Like whether to first try to claw back all the free hours of labor donated to companies during the crisis, or shift to a "future-proof" occupation to insure against the next one, or figure out how to compete with the robots being deployed more widely because of the pandemic. Some industries are recovering faster than others, with the worst-hit sectors continuing to lag. Even though U.S. gross domestic product is near its pre-pandemic peak, jobs are rebounding more slowly, suggesting a potentially prolonged period of adaptation ahead for both workers and companies. Payroll processor ADP set a baseline of sorts in a recent survey of more than 32,000 workers globally that showed just how unsettled the landscape is as the pandemic, at least in the major developed economies, reaches its endgame. Over the past year, for example, workers often said they benefited from the flexibility of working from home and wanted it to continue. Companies and their employees have both reported improved productivity. But it turns out some of that "flexibility" was consumed by a substantial increase in unpaid overtime, according to the ADP survey, which was conducted last fall. That means the higher productivity may be something of a mirage, not the outcome of better work-life balance but value donated to firms by workers worried about staying employed. Workers globally reported unpaid hours rose about 25%, from 7.2 to 9.3 per week. In the United States, it more than doubled from 4.1 to 9.

Mall owner Simon Property Group Inc. increased its full-year earnings guidance as retail sales and shopper traffic pick up across the U.S., Bloomberg News reported. “Our business has substantially improved after addressing the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic,” Chief Executive Officer David Simon said in the company’s first-quarter earnings statement yesterday. Profitability, cash flow and customer traffic have grown, increasing tenants’ sales. Leasing momentum is also on the rise, he said. The company now sees funds from operations of $9.70 to $9.80 a share for the year, up from its forecast in February of $9.50 to $9.75, according to the statement. Like other retail landlords, Indianapolis-based Simon Property took a hit in the past year as malls shuttered during local lockdowns and consumers shifted more purchases to the internet. Rent collections dropped and many big chains filed for bankruptcy. Simon was also embroiled in a legal battle for months over its agreement to acquire rival mall owner Taubman Centers Inc. just before the pandemic hit. Simon reached a deal in November to purchase Taubman at a lower price. In the past few months, the nation’s retail business has been rebounding as vaccination rates accelerate and cities expand reopening plans. The Taubman portfolio is also seeing signs of growth, Simon said.