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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced yesterday that he would be stepping down as C.E.O. after building the company into a $1.7 trillion behemoth that sells so many different items online it became known as “the everything store,” the New York Times reported. In the process, he upended the retail industry, turned Amazon into a logistics giant, and expanded into cloud computing, streaming entertainment and artificial intelligence-powered devices. For a time, he was the world’s richest person. As Amazon reported its latest set of blockbuster financial results, Bezos said that he planned to hand over the reins this summer and transition into the role of executive chairman. Andy Jassy, the chief executive of Amazon’s cloud computing division, will be promoted to run the entire company. The change will be effective in the third quarter, which starts in July.

West Virginia became the 12th state to accept the bankruptcy reorganization plan from Frontier Communications, even though lawmakers still have concerns whether Frontier can live up to its promises to expand broadband service across the state, the Parkersburg (W.Va.). News and Sentinel reported. The state Public Service Commission released two orders Friday: one accepting a proposed settlement agreement between Frontier, PSC attorneys, the PSC’s Consumer Advocate Division and the Communication Workers of America union and the other accepting the results from a long-anticipated focused management audit of the company. The two orders impose strict conditions on Frontier to improve its copper-line phone and internet services, as well as expand its fiber broadband internet service. Under the joint stipulation agreement approved by the PSC, Frontier agreed to spend $200 million on capital improvements by Dec. 31, 2023, and to deploy fiber high-speed internet to at least 150,000 locations in the state by Dec. 31, 2027.

Quibi is in advanced talks to sell its content catalog to Roku Inc. as the short-form streaming service winds down its operations following an unsuccessful run, the Wall Street Journal reported. Quibi, which was founded by the movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, raised $1.75 billion with an ambitious plan to develop high-end content for mobile phones. But the service, which launched in April, never gained traction and Quibi said in October that it was shutting down. Roku, which sells the most popular streaming-media player in the U.S., is pushing aggressively into content with its own ad-supported app, the Roku Channel, which offers movies and shows produced by other companies. A deal with Quibi would give Roku a roster of exclusive programming. Under the terms the companies have discussed, Roku would acquire rights to Quibi’s library. Financial terms of the proposed deal couldn’t be learned, and the deal talks could still fall apart. Quibi has struck deals with producers that allow Quibi to exhibit their shows on its service for seven years. Some of the contracts suggest that the content can’t be aired on other platforms, some people familiar with the deal terms said. One person familiar with Roku’s view said the contract terms wouldn’t prevent the company from showing the content on its service.

A disgruntled creditor of Speedcast International Ltd., which opposed a financial restructuring of the satellite-communications company, has obtained clearance to submit a late takeover offer to buy the company out of bankruptcy, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. “We want to bid as soon as we can,” said Al Hogan, a lawyer for creditor Black Diamond Capital Management LLC, during a hearing Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. Subject to outstanding due diligence, Hogan said that “Black Diamond would absolutely prefer to own this asset than to see it sold to Centerbridge at the price under the current plan.” Black Diamond’s emergence as Speedcast’s potential acquirer is an unexpected twist that arose during a multiday trial over a plan backed by private-equity firm Centerbridge Partners LP. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Marvin Isgur is allowing Black Diamond to bid for Speedcast and formulate an alternative transaction to get the company out of chapter 11 protection, after he expressed concerns about approving the Centerbridge-backed plan. Speedcast came to bankruptcy carrying about $689 million in long-term debt, which the company intends to cut through a financial restructuring. The company anticipates emerging from chapter 11 in the first quarter of 2021.

OneWeb, the satellite firm rescued by the British government and India’s Bharti Group, resumed flights on Friday in its push to provide global broadband coverage as 36 of its satellites blasted off into orbit from Russia’s Far East, Reuters reported. The launch carried out by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate was the first fully commercial flight from Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome, Russia’s Roscosmos space corporation said. “The Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle together with a Fregat booster and 36 @OneWeb communication satellites lifted off from the #Vostochny cosmodrome,” it tweeted. The launch will expand OneWeb’s number of in-orbit satellites to 110, part of a low earth orbit fleet of 648 designed to establish a high-speed, low-latency global connectivity, the satellite operator said.

Frontier Communications Corp. is looking to sell $2.8 billion of junk bonds to help finance its emergence from bankruptcy, its second such sale in two months, Bloomberg News reported. The telecommunications company is sounding out investors for a new $1.8 billion first-lien bond at a yield of around 5.25 percent. The company is also marketing $1 billion of second-lien notes, which have a more junior claim on its assets, at a yield between 7 percent and 7.25 percent. The new bonds, which are being offered in conjunction with an increase to an existing term loan, will help Frontier repay debt maturing in 2024 and 2026, according to a statement. Frontier filed for bankruptcy in April after months of negotiations with creditors over how to best restructure its $17 billion of debt. It was the biggest telecom filing since Worldcom Inc. in 2002, reflecting years of decline in its business providing internet, TV and phone service in 29 states. The company’s restructuring plan to cut more than $10 billion of debt was approved by a bankruptcy court in August, and it aims to exit chapter 11 by the first quarter of 2021. The company sold $1.65 billion of debt in early October as part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy.

Satellite megaconstellation company OneWeb should emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy “any day now,” a company executive said Nov. 18, its business plan validated by a growing demand for broadband connectivity, SpaceNews.com reported. During a Washington Space Business Roundtable webinar, Ruth Pritchard-Kelly, vice president for regulatory affairs at OneWeb, said that the company was wrapping up paperwork to allow it to formally exit the bankruptcy protection it filed for in March. A federal court approved last month the sale of the company to an ownership group led by Bharti Global and the British government. Since the Oct. 2 decision by a federal court approving the sale, OneWeb has been wrapping up paperwork to close the sale and formally exit chapter 11. That included an Oct. 27 approval by the Federal Communications Commission to transfer OneWeb’s satellite and ground station licenses to its new owners. OneWeb is preparing to resume satellite launches. The company this week flew a set of 36 satellites from its factory near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia. Those satellites will launch on a Soyuz rocket there in December as part of a revised launch contract with Arianespace announced in September.