PepsiCo stock rises after strong third-quarter earnings

Drinks and snacks giant PepsiCo posted strong third-quarter earnings driven by Frito Lay North American and strong overseas sales.

Revenue nosed higher to $17.1 billion from $16.9 billion and organic revenue, a key metric for the company, rose 4.3 percent. Core earnings came in at $1.56 a share versus $1.50 the year earlier.

The Purchase-N.Y.-based company’s stock rose Thursday on the news, up by nearly 4 percent in early trading.

Chief Executive Officer Ramon Laguarta, who took the helm last October, said in a statement the solid numbers will allow PepsiCo to meet or exceed its full-year organic revenue growth target of 4 percent for the full year.

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay North America division saw revenue pop 5 percent. The North American beverage business grew sales by 3 percent.

Sales in Latin America were up 4 percent. AMENA (African, the Middle East, Asia and Australasia) saw a 9 percent surge.

Laguarta said PepsiCo is “making good progress” against strategic priorities and investment in brands and manufacturing capacity to propel future growth.

Advertising and marketing spend grew 12% so far this year as the company pushed its trademark colas, Mountain Dew and Gatorade drinks, including a campaign centering around the National Football League’s 100th anniversary, Reuters reported.

It has partnered with celebrities like model Chrissy Teigen and ramped up manufacturing capacity for smaller cans to drive demand for sodas.

Drag Is Exploding. What Does It Cost to Look Like Royalty?

Julia Rothman is an illustrator. Shaina Feinberg is a writer and filmmaker. They both live in Brooklyn.

Pennsylvania ranks No. 4 for emissions, but governor seeks to join greenhouse-gas consortium

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is taking a big step in his effort to fight climate change in the nation’s fourth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

The Democratic governor on Thursday ordered his administration to start working on regulations to bring Pennsylvania into a nine-state consortium that sets a price and limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants.

Joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative could face pushback from the Republican-controlled legislature and the state’s influential coal and natural-gas industries.

Pennsylvania is the nation’s No. 3 electric-power state, and its energy sector is its largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Its dozens of power plants fueled by coal, oil and natural gas could be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to the state annually under the program.

Microsoft showcases an Android Surface ‘phone’ and dual-screen Windows PC

NEW YORK – Microsoft is coming out with a “phone” based on Google’s Android operating system. And a dual-screen mobile Windows PC, to boot.

But what look to be innovative, if unproved, products won’t be released until holiday 2020. And at a New York City showcase where Microsoft unveiled its latest Surface PC lineup, the Surface Duo – that’s the Android phone/communicator – and the Surface Neo – that’s the computer – were roped off and kept at a safe distance from the media, as if Microsoft was showing off the Mona Lisa.

We’re a long way from determining whether Microsoft will eventually deliver masterpieces with these unfinished and not-yet-priced prototypes, but the company appears bent on reshaping what you think about Windows and the company’s hardware and the buzz in the room was largely positive. And it wanted to show off the products early to get developers busy designing for the new hardware.

Scooter startup Bird raises $275 million in latest funding round

Oct 3 (Reuters) – Scooter company Bird has raised $275 million in a funding round led by CDPQ and Sequoia Capital, it said on Thursday, in a deal valuing the firm at $2.5 billion before the investment.

Santa Monica, California-based Bird is an electric scooter service providing dockless scooters that users can locate and unlock through a smartphone app. (bit.ly/31W0P1q) (Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee in San Francisco and Neha Malara in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

GZERO VIDEO: China's nationwide social credit scoring system

NEW YORK (GZERO MEDIA) – China is poised to roll out a nationwide social credit scoring system by next year.

American foreign policy expert Ian Bremmer talks about how people’s actions and behaviour will be tracked, logged and scored – to discourage what authorities consider anti-social behaviour.

This video is made available to The Straits Times under a partnership with GZERO Media, a subsidiary of the Eurasia Group.

Lazard cuts investment staff, others

Lazard Ltd.LAZ, +0.99%  is cutting up to 7% of its employees in its asset-management division and closing some investment funds by year’s end, people familiar with the matter said, amid a tougher climate for money managers.

Lazard Asset Management, which employs more than 850 people globally and oversees $213.6 billion in assets, told staffers of the cuts last week, one of the people said. The staff reductions, along with the decisions to shutter some investment strategies, follow a review of the business.

While Lazard takes a look at the business’s direction annually, this year’s review ended with the firm making steeper cuts than usual. Lazard is culling funds in several regions, and across multiple asset classes.

An expanded version of this story is available at WSJ.com.

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