PHOTONICS
Waltham company to move headquarters to Pittsburgh
Waltham-based photonics firm Excelitas Technologies Corp. has decided to relocate its headquarters to Pittsburgh after landing a $2.3 million state grant from Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration. The company will lease space in Pittsburgh’s Strip District neighborhood, and is committed to creating at least 250 jobs in that city over the next four years. The economic impact in Massachusetts, though, will be negligible. A spokesman for Excelitas, which specializes in photonics technology, said the company employs about 30 people in Waltham. Those employees will move to an existing Excelitas facility in Billerica in the coming weeks, and there will be no job cuts here. Several company leaders, including CEO Ron Keating, already live in the Pittsburgh area. The spokesman said the 11,000-square-foot Waltham office had no room to expand, while Excelitas will have the ability to expand to 45,000 square feet in Pittsburgh. Excelitas, owned by private equity firm AEA Investors, makes a variety of laser, optical, and sensor products. — JON CHESTO
MEDIA
Merida resigns as LA Times editor
Kevin Merida, who has served as executive editor of The Los Angeles Times since June 2021, announced that he will leave his role at the end of this week, an abrupt end to a short tenure. He did not specify the reason for his departure, but said his decision was made in consultation with Patrick Soon-Shiong, who has owned the publication since 2018, “after considerable soul-searching about my career at this stage and how best to be of value to the profession I love.” In his memo to employees on Tuesday afternoon, he wrote that he was “grateful to Patrick and the Soon-Shiong family for the opportunity to help transform The Times into a modern, innovative news media company for a new generation of consumers. We’ve made tremendous progress toward that goal, and I am hopeful that progress will continue.” Merida joined the publication from ESPN, where served as an executive and top editor of the culture website The Undefeated. But he spent most of his career at The Washington Post, where he rose to the level of managing editor before departing in 2015. Merida had been considered a potential successor to then-executive editor Martin Baron, and he recruited several Post employees to his new company following his departure. — WASHINGTON POST
INTERNATIONAL
Former head of British Post Office to return royal honor over postmaster prosecutions
The former head of Britain’s state-owned Post Office said Tuesday she will hand back a royal honor in response to mounting fury over a miscarriage of justice that saw hundreds of postmasters wrongfully accused of theft because of a faulty computer system. The British government is considering whether to offer a mass amnesty to more than 700 branch managers convicted of theft or fraud between 1999 and 2015, because Post Office computers wrongly showed that money was missing from their shops. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
STREAMING
Amazon launches feature that mimics Apple AirPlay
Amazon introduced a new feature that mimics Apple’s AirPlay while working across different platforms, setting the stage for iPhone and Android users to wirelessly stream video to its TV hardware. The feature, called Matter Casting, is part of a push by Amazon to create interoperable services — an alternative to the propriety technology developed by Apple and Google. It will make it easier for iOS and Android phones to send video to Amazon devices, such as its Fire TV boxes and sticks, as well as the Echo Show 15 smart display. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
DATING SITES
Match stock rises on report of Elliott investment
Match Group Inc., the owner of Tinder and other dating platforms, is on track for its biggest gain since November 2022 after a Wall Street Journal report said that Elliott Investment Management has built a stake of about $1 billion in the company. The activist investor plans to push the online dating company to take steps to boost its stock price, the newspaper reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
AUTOMOTIVE
Goodyear to make tires for EVs
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. is developing a product for electric vehicles that it says will help ease something that’s hampered their competitiveness against gas-powered vehicles: tire duration. EVs weigh more than their internal combustion counterparts owing to their heavy battery packs, putting more wear and tear on tires. The first iteration of the tire came with a 60,000-mile warranty. The average EV tire typically needs to be replaced after 30,000 to 40,000 miles, according to Kelley Blue Book. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
INTERNATIONAL
EU unemployment at record low
Unemployment in the euro area matched its lowest level on record in November, despite worries that the 20-nation bloc succumbed to a recession in the second half of last year. The jobless rate dropped to 6.4 percent from 6.5 percent in October, Eurostat said Tuesday, equivalent to almost 11 million people out of work in the region of more than 300 million. The data underscore why the European Central Bank has no plans to start cutting interest rates any time soon. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
TECHNOLOGY
Samsung continues to struggle
Samsung posted its sixth straight quarter of declining operating profit, reflecting weak consumer demand and stoking uncertainty over the timing of a broader tech recovery. South Korea’s largest company reported a 35 percent fall in operating income to 2.8 trillion won ($2.1 billion), about 24 percent shy of estimates. For all of 2023, Samsung reported its slimmest operating profit in 15 years. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
COFFEE
Starbucks to double stores in India
Starbucks plans to more than double its stores in India in four years, opening the equivalent of one new shop front every three days, as the country’s growing middle class fuels a boom in coffee consumption. The global coffee giant wants to operate 1,000 stores in India by 2028, and the focus will be in so-called tier-2 and tier-3 cities — those outside of its biggest metropolises, it said in a statement Tuesday. It will also expand drive-throughs, airports, and 24-hour cafes, and expects its Indian workforce to double to 8,600. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
