$CVII $HNHPF $MDT $DIS $DHI
TOP 5 WEEKEND STORIES:
1. Churchill Capital Corp VII (CVII), a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company, and CorpAcq Holdings, a corporate compounder with a proven track record of acquiring and supporting founder-led businesses, announced that they have mutually agreed to terminate their previously announced merger agreement due to IPO market conditions, effective today.
2. Foxconn's (HNHPF) chairman on Saturday defended its hiring practices after New Delhi ordered investigations following a Reuters report that the Apple (AAPL) supplier rejects married women from iPhone assembly jobs, Reuters' Praveen Paramasivam reports. "Foxconn hires regardless of gender, but women make up a big part of our workforce here," Young Liu said during the opening ceremony for a hostel complex for its workers near Chennai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. "I emphasize married women greatly contribute to the efforts of what we're doing here," he added, making his first comments since the Reuters investigation. The Reuters investigation published in June found that Foxconn systematically excluded married women from jobs at its main India iPhone assembly plant on the grounds they have more family responsibilities than their unmarried counterparts.
3. Shares of Medtronic (MDT), at a recent $81.74, are down slightly this year as investors express concerns that weight-loss drugs may reduce demand for some Medtronic's diabetes and cardiovascular products, as well as equipment the company makes for bariatric weight loss surgical procedures for obese patients, Paul R. La Monica writes in this week's edition of Barron's. But Medtronic has been adamant that the GLP-1 drugs won't hurt it over the long haul. There are other potential catalysts. The world's aging population is a clear tailwind for Medtronic, the author notes. Medtronic could also get a boost from using generative artificial intelligence to develop even more effective treatments and equipment.
4. In busy weekend, Disney (DIS) and 20th Century's "Alien: Romulus" won the North American box office with a $45.1M debut, which was well ahead of the expected $20M range. Overseas, the movie grossed an estimated $66.7M for a worldwide tally of $108.2M. The eighth installment in the Alien franchise, which is set between the events of Ridley Scott's 1979 "Alien" and James Cameron's 1986 sequel "Aliens," sports an 82% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and received a B+ CinemaScore. "Romulus" was originally expected to go straight to streaming and debut on Disney-owned Hulu.
5. D.R. Horton (DHI) saw a positive mention in this week's edition of Barron's.
