Judge blocks Penguin-Simon & Schuster deal, Delta pilots call for strike, J&J to buy Abiomed
Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman breaks down leading business headlines, including a judge blocking Penguin Random House's acquisition of Simon & Schuster, Delta pilots calling for a strike, Johnson & Johnson buying Abiomed, and the Supreme Court blocking Congress's access to Trump's tax returns.
Video Transcript
JULIE HYMAN: A federal judge has blocked Penguin Random House from buying rival publisher Simon & Schuster. That deal would have been worth $2.18 billion and would have joined together two of the five largest book publishers in the US. The Biden administration had argued that the acquisition would hurt competition for publishing rights to top selling books, and the judge agreed. Penguin Random House owner Bertelsmann says it will appeal the ruling. It's on the hook for a $200 million fee to Simon & Schuster's owner, Paramount Global, if the deal, indeed, ultimately does not go through.
Pilots at Delta Airlines are calling for a strike unless an agreement can be reached between the Pilots Union and Delta. Negotiations are continuing, with the union saying it's still driving to an agreement and the airline saying progress has been made. The news comes as airlines overall struggle with labor negotiations, particularly in the wake of COVID.
And Johnson & Johnson announcing it will buy a biomed which makes heart pumps designed to help treat heart conditions in a $16.6 billion all-cash deal. That buy will add to Johnson & Johnson's medical device portfolio, including contact lenses and implants. All this as the company bulks up its medical device offerings. It plans to eventually separate its consumer-facing brands, like Band-Aid and Tylenol, into a new independent company.
And the Supreme Court temporarily blocked Congress from obtaining former president Trump's income tax returns from the IRS. That decision by Chief Justice John Roberts came a day after Trump's lawyers filed an emergency application seeking that delay. A federal judge had previously ordered the IRS to hand over the tax returns to the committee, which has said it wants them as part of a probe of how the agency audits presidential tax returns.
