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As coronavirus cases began to dwindle and mask mandates, a large Silicon Valley technology company set a date for employees to return to the office.

Google told its employees on Wednesday that the period of voluntary work from home, which was in force two years ago, will end on April 4, a company spokesman told SFGATE.

Employees in the San Francisco Bay Area and some of its other offices in the United States, Britain and the Asia-Pacific region will have to come to work in person three times a week. Employees can have two days of remote work.

“We plan to use the month of March to help employees move to their new routine activities and then strive to be fully functional in our hybrid work approach by April 4,” Google said.

Employees who enter physical workspaces need to be vaccinated, “because that’s one of the most important ways we can keep our workforce safe and keep our services running,” Google said.

Non-vaccinated staff with approved accommodation will need to follow specific protocols, including regular testing and wearing a mask.

The company said last year that it would introduce a hybrid model when it asked employees to return in person.

“I think people get a better balance in model three / two,” CEO Sundar Pichai told The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in October, Business Insider reported.

An email to officials in the San Francisco Bay Area said that “progress in prevention and treatment, the steady decline in the cases we continue to monitor, and the improved safety measures we have implemented … now mean that we can officially start the transition to the hybrid working week, “Reuters reported.

An email from John Casey, Google’s vice president of global benefits, says facilities such as cafes, restaurants, massages and shuttles are reopening at Google’s offices.

Google was one of the first technology companies to send employees home, and a two-year period of remote work has led many people to relocate. More than 14,000 Google employees have relocated or been completely removed during the pandemic, with 85% of applications approved, a company spokesman said.

In recent months, Salesforce has announced it will lure Zoom employees back to face-to-face meetings at a new new campus in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Ranch Trailblazer in the Scotts Valley opens in March for adaptation, training, skills building, talent development and generally for personal connection with colleagues.

SF-based Twitter said their home work policies will continue indefinitely.

Shalanda Young, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, spoke at a February 1 hearing of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in Washington, DC. (Al Drago / Bloomberg / Getty Images)

The White House has asked lawmakers to approve $ 10 billion in lethal and humanitarian aid to Ukraine as part of a $ 32.5 billion emergency funding request sent to Capitol Hill as Russia continues to advance against Ukraine.

The request was followed by weeks of discussions between White House officials and the legislature over the form of any potential emergency request, which was expected to focus heavily on the needs of Covid-19. But the escalating Russian invasion has dramatically increased the size of the demand specifically for Ukraine.

Lawmakers are in the midst of negotiating a long-term financing deal and face a March 11 deadline to reach an agreement.

Ukraine’s funds are expected to be attached to each final deal, but the process remains fluid.

“This request identifies an immediate need for $ 10.0 billion in additional humanitarian, security and economic assistance to Ukraine and Central European partners due to the unjustified and unprovoked invasion of Russia,” the official request was made Wednesday by the acting director of the Office of Management and Shalanda Young’s budget to the Congressional leadership says.

Young suggested that the initial $ 10 billion request for Ukraine would meet “immediate needs” and more funding could be needed.

“Given the rapidly evolving situation in Ukraine, I expect that additional needs may arise over time. “This request for funding is based on the administration’s best information on resource needs so far, and we will stay in touch with Congress in the coming weeks and months as we assess resource needs beyond those immediate needs,” she said.

More about the funding application: The detailed request provides $ 4.8 billion to the Department of Defense, including $ 1.8 billion to support the region as U.S. troops support European Command and the NATO Response Force, $ 1.3 billion for cybersecurity and more. defense support and $ 1.8 billion to replenish DOD stocks. He also called for $ 5 billion for the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), including $ 2.8 billion in humanitarian aid such as food and other support, $ 500 million in military aid through the Foreign Military Funding Program and $ 1 billion. $ 8 billion in economic aid to help “maintain the continuity of government and resilience of the Ukrainian people, as well as the urgent needs of the region.”

The request also provides $ 21 million to the Department of Commerce to strengthen export controls, $ 30 million to the Department of Energy to provide “technical assistance for grid integration,” $ 59 million to the Department of Justice to support the newly announced job. the KleptoCapture group for imposing sanctions on Russia and other funding for the Multinational Working Group and $ 91 million for the Treasury Department to support sanctions and criminal investigations by the IRS, among other expenses.

Jane Fraser, CEO of Latin America at Citigroup Inc., smiles at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, USA, on Monday, April 29, 2019. The conference brings together leaders in business, government, technology, philanthropy, academia and the media to discuss effective and collaborative solutions to some of the most important issues of our time. Photographer: Kyle Grilot / Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser called her first Investors Day conference a success, despite continued skepticism and unconvincing reactions from analysts covering the bank.

Fraser told CNBC’s David Faber in an interview Thursday that while it will take “several years” to achieve its return targets, investors will see revenue growth from its efforts “sooner or later.” The interview was broadcast on “Crackling in the Street”.

Asked how long Citigroup will continue to trade well below its book value, Fraser received the following answer: I realized, “she said.

Fraser, who began as CEO of Citigroup a year ago, held her inaugural investment conference on Wednesday. It was almost a full day in which Fraser and her deputies presented their vision of a simpler, more profitable institution focused on the bank’s strengths in global corporate banking and payments.

But some analysts were disappointed that Fraser had set a medium-term return target of 11% to 12%, saying it was difficult to recommend Citigroup shares because it would take several years to reach even that modest level. Two analysts downgraded the bank after the event.

“ROTCE’s uninspiring 11-12% medium-term target is simply not high enough to deserve a recommendation for overweight in the short term,” John Heigerty of Atlantic Equities said in a note Thursday.

Citigroup, which is traditionally the most global of major US banks, has 200 employees who continue to work in Ukraine despite Russia’s war there, Fraser said. They help customers with wages, supply chains and food, she said.

“I don’t think anyone knows how long it can last,” she said.

Meanwhile, both Citigroup and its customers are working to release their financial exposures to Russia, she said.

“There’s going to be a lot of relaxation,” she said.

This story is evolving. Please check again for updates.

Tesla (TSLA) – Take the report from Tesla Inc and CEO Elon Musk are officially very close to starting car production at the Berlin-based European factory.

After months of uncertainty, a key German regulator has approved a request from the Austin-based electric car maker, according to the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.

Tesla has been waiting for several months for permission from the German authorities to start production of vehicles in this giant factory, which will serve mainly the European market.

The company won final approval from the state environmental service in Brandenburg. Brandenburg Prime Minister Dietmar Voidke will comment on details of the decision to approve a press conference in Potsdam on Friday, Handelsblatt reported.

Tesla is not alone in expanding abroad

This news comes as Lucid Group (LCID) – Get Lucid Group, Inc. Report, one of Tesla’s main competitors, has just announced an agreement with Saudi Arabia to begin construction of its first international factory in the Kingdom in the current first half of the year. The company expects to produce up to 150,000 cars a year at the facility.

Lucid and its luxury electric sedans are considered one of Tesla’s most serious rivals. There is no doubt that with the support of Saudi Arabia, which is also a shareholder, the manufacturer in Newark, California, has the financial means to pursue its ambitions.

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Tesla, which disbanded its communications department last year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from TheStreet.

The State Department of the Environment recently said Tesla would have to meet additional requirements and provide evidence before the plan could take effect, according to the newspaper, which did not provide further details.

Early action is possible if nothing fundamentally speaks against the project and the investor implements it at his own risk.

Objections to the environment and drought

Construction of the gigafactory began two years ago in Grünheide, about an hour southeast of Berlin. Musk had hoped to begin production on July 1 last year, but the approval process dragged on, in part because Tesla expanded its initial plans to include a battery factory. This led to additional hearings.

Until the beginning of February, the timing of the final approval from the state of Brandenburg was still unclear, as conservationists were still objecting, as Tony Owusu of The Street wrote.

Due to prolonged droughts in East Germany – even while there have been floods in the west – Berlin may miss the good old days of excess groundwater, environmentalists say.

Tesla was warned of this dynamic, but when Musk was asked last year if the construction of his factory in Brandenburg would deplete the area’s water supply, he burst out laughing, calling the idea completely wrong.

But with this approval, the last hurdle has already been removed.

Tesla plans to build a Model Y SUV on schedule. Its goal is to produce up to 10,000 cars a week.

The company’s plan to take over part of the European electric vehicle market rests on the shoulders of the Brandenburg plant, and Tesla is spending $ 5.7 billion to increase production.

If the plant reaches its full capacity, the 500,000 cars it will produce annually will double Germany’s electric car production in 2020.

Wall Street analysts have set their high targets for stock prices in part on the success of Tesla’s expansion in Germany.

Credit Suisse last month raised its share price target to $ 1,025 from $ 830 based on optimism about Brandenburg, with analyst Dan Levy writing that the plant “could serve as the most critical source of capacity for Tesla.”

Levy called the German market “the zero place for the global movement of electric cars.”

Tesla produced 930,422 cars in 2021.

• SocGen says it could lose Russian business in “extreme scenario”
• He says he has a $ 20 billion exposure to Russia, but he can handle it
• Intesa Sanpaolo is reviewing its presence in Russia
• The regulators are preparing for the possible closure of VTB Europe – sources
• Russia’s investment in the Norwegian Wealth Fund is useless – CEO

PARIS / FRANKFURT, March 3 – Societe Generale (SOGN.PA) warned on Thursday that Russia could deprive the bank of its local operations, in one of the most serious warnings so far from a Western company about the potential impact of the war in Ukraine.

The French bank, whose $ 20 billion exposure to Russia is one of the largest among foreign creditors, said it was working to reduce risks in the country as European banks reviewed business there amid escalating sanctions against the West.

“The group has more than enough buffer to deal with the consequences of a potential extreme scenario in which the group will be deprived of ownership of its banking assets in Russia,” Societe Generale said. Read more

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Meanwhile, Italy’s largest bank, Intesa Sanpaolo (ISP.MI), is conducting a strategic review of its presence in Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a spokesman said. read more Citigroup also warned of losses.

Bank stocks have been shattered in recent days amid fears of possible write-offs, lower incomes, weaker economies and the effects of sanctions. Their shares traded mostly lower on Thursday.

Regulators are also preparing for the possible closure of Russia’s branch of Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB Bank (VTBR.MM), amid growing concerns about the impact of Western sanctions on the bank, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Read more

If regulators decide to close VTB in Europe, it will mean the second bankruptcy of a major Russian bank in the region as sanctions put pressure on the country’s creditors. Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, said earlier this week that it was closing most of its European operations. Read more

Many investors in recent days are trying to sell their Russian investments.

Russia’s assets of the $ 1.3 trillion Norwegian wealth fund, the world’s largest, have become useless and will take time to sell, according to government instructions, the fund’s chief executive said on Thursday. Read more

Fitch and Moody’s downgraded Russia’s rating by six notches to “junk” status, saying Western sanctions called into question its ability to service its debt and weaken its economy. Read more

A Societe Generale sign is visible in front of a bank building in Paris, France, August 1, 2021. REUTERS / Sarah Meyssonnier

The index of shares of leading European banks (.SX7P) fell 0.2% in afternoon trading, after small gains on Wednesday, which led only to a small depression in the sharp losses earlier in the week.

The trade took place on Thursday, when the invasion of Ukraine entered its second week and a day after Moscow said it had taken over the Black Sea port of Kherson. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation.” Read more

Societe Generale, which earns nearly 3% of its profits in Russia, was one of the banks under pressure as the conflict escalated. Its shares are trading at 1.7% higher, but have fallen by about 20% since the beginning of the year. Read more

“The group conducts its business in Russia with the utmost caution and selectivity, while supporting its historic customers,” the statement said. Read more

The priorities are “to reduce risks and maintain the liquidity of its subsidiary by maintaining a diversified collection of deposits,” he added.

Citigroup Inc (CN) could face billions of dollars in losses in its Russian business and is helping some of its 200 employees in Ukraine leave the country after the Russian invasion, executives said on Wednesday. Read more

The bank’s total exposure to Russia was nearly $ 10 billion at the end of last year, she said on Monday, far higher than previously reported.

The London Stock Exchange Group said the imposition of financial sanctions on Russia would have only a minor impact on its business as it stopped more Russian listings. Read more

LSEG CEO David Schwimmer said the stock exchange had stopped trading 28 listings of Russian companies on Thursday, including energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom, as well as the country’s largest lender, Sberbank.

German bank Helaba said on Thursday that it would refrain from a specific profit forecast for the year, given the uncertainty caused by the situation in Russia.

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Report by Tom Sims, Tasilo Hummel, Gianluca Semeraro, Valentina Za, Frank Siebelt, Hugh Jones and Gwladis Fouche; edited by Mark Potter

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The Google LLC logo is visible at their office in Manhattan, New York, New York, USA, November 17, 2021. REUTERS / Andrew Kelly

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AUCKLAND, Calif., March 2 – Google’s Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) on April 4 will require employees back about three days a week at some of its offices in the United States, the United Kingdom and the Asia-Pacific region, its first step to end policies that allowed remote work due to concerns about COVID-19.

An internal email seen by Reuters on Wednesday told San Francisco Bay Area officials that “progress in prevention and treatment, the steady decline in cases we continue to see, and the improved safety measures we have implemented … now means we can officially start the transition to a hybrid work week. “

Google is joining a wave of technology and finance companies that have begun to demand a return to work. While some large employers have adopted volunteering policies from home permanently, others, including Google, have argued that it is best to encourage personal interactions between colleagues.

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Google expects most employees to be in offices about three days a week, with some differences depending on the team and role.

Everyone who comes to the office must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have an approved exemption, according to an email from John Casey, Google’s vice president of global benefits. Without exception, unvaccinated workers will be given the opportunity to seek one or apply for permanent telecommuting.

Fully vaccinated workers will not have to wear masks in Gulf offices, Casey said.

Google declined to name other locations that will return to normal on April 4, pending official announcements to workers at those sites.

Employees who are not ready to return on April 4 may also seek an extension of remote work, Google said.

Since last June, Google has approved nearly 14,000 employees worldwide to move to a new location or move completely away, Casey said. About 15% of applications were rejected, he added.

Google has largely restored office benefits such as free meals, massages and public transportation. But while business visitors and meetings are allowed, employees are still unable to bring families or children to dinner or attend.

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Report by Paresh Dave Edited by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernard Or

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US stocks rose as oil fell from record highs as investors watched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and how the jump in commodity prices is likely to affect inflation and Federal Reserve monetary policy.

The S&P 500 added 0.5% in morning trading on Thursday after rising sharply on Wednesday. The technology-focused Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.1% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.7%.

U.S. crude oil prices briefly rose above $ 115 a barrel for the first time since 2008 before trading back to $ 110.12 a barrel as refineries refrained from buying Russian oil, reducing global energy supply. . Crude Brent futures, the international benchmark, fell 1.1 percent to $ 111.67. Investors are worried that the continued rise in oil prices could portend a combination of slower growth and higher inflation.

Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine injects instability into wider markets. Investors are trying to assess how avoiding Russian goods, including oil, will lead to already high inflation and how aggressively central banks will raise interest rates when faced with additional price pressures and uncertain economic prospects.

“The inflationary impact of the spikes in oil and natural gas is clear. Inflation will be more sticky. Interest rates will be raised by central banks worried about inflation, and this will have a bad effect on growth, “said Edward Park, chief investment officer at British investment firm Brooks Macdonald. “Stagflation is the big concern for 2023.

Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine injects instability into wider markets.

Photo: Ali Joseph / Associated Press

Natural gas prices in Europe rose 2.1%, based on a jump this week. Investors are worried that natural gas supplies to Europe could be disrupted as a result of the war. According to analysts, about a third of Russian gas exports to Europe pass through Ukraine.

Shares of energy companies, which are likely to benefit from higher oil prices, have been hesitant about prices. ConocoPhillips and Occidental Petroleum fell about 1%.

Shares of Snowflake fell 13% after the company issued weaker-than-expected sales guidelines. Shares of Okta fell 6.4% after the software business provided guidance suggesting that aggressive investment would lead to greater-than-expected short-term losses to the end result. Kroger added more than 9.8% after announcing that its sales and profits rose.

The Pan-Continental Stoxx Europe 600 fell 0.3%. Russia’s stock markets remained closed for the fourth day in a row as the government sought to limit the sell-off while also imposing capital controls on the ruble.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the United States and allies have imposed heavy sanctions on Russia. WSJ’s Shelby Holiday is immersed in how these sanctions affect everyone, from President Vladimir Putin to ordinary Russian citizens. Photo: Pavel Golovkin / Associated Press

The London Stock Exchange has stopped trading more than 50 Russian stocks. MSCI Inc. Index Providers and FTSE Russell said they would cut Russian stocks from their benchmarks next week, and S&P Dow Jones Indices is considering doing the same.

The roll fell 4.6 percent on Thursday against the green dollar to 112 rubles a dollar, according to FactSet. Traders say the reluctance of investors and brokers to touch the currency has limited the ease with which they can trade it. Currencies in nearby countries have also fallen against the dollar as investors worry about economic spillovers. The Polish zloty fell 0.9% and the Hungarian forint 0.6%.

In the US bond markets, yields on benchmark 10-year government securities rose to 1.896% from 1.862% on Wednesday. Profitability and prices are moving backwards.

Major stock indexes in Asia have largely won. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.6 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.7 percent. China’s Shanghai Composite fell 0.1%.

Write to Caitlin Ostroff at [email protected]

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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a dilemma for US investment firms, forcing them to unload Russian securities when the country’s stock market is closed and foreigners are blocked from selling shares there.

In response to sanctions and other steps taken by the United States and other countries to punish Russia, the Moscow Stock Exchange has suspended stock trading every day this week until Thursday. Russia on Monday banned brokers from selling securities owned by foreign investors.

Some US money managers with Russian securities held in funds focused on emerging markets are worried that their investors will withdraw money because of fears of exposing them to Russia. If they cannot sell Russian stocks to meet demand, funds may be forced to run out of cash or sell other assets.

This could deal a double blow to emerging market managers: a reduction in the share of their assets in liquid assets, which coincides with an increase in the weight of their Russian assets.

Some companies are considering asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to release from the ceiling the share of illiquid securities that funds can hold – currently 15% – and the rules governing repurchases, said people familiar with the matter. An SEC spokesman declined to comment.

Conflicts such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine have historically led to lower stock prices and increased the value of some commodities. WSJ’s Dion Rabuin explains the psychology of investors that drives markets. Photo: Justin Lane / EPA / Shutterstock

BlackRock Inc. BLK 1.62% is one of the few money managers who have had informal discussions with SEC staff about the challenges they face and the ways in which pressure can be alleviated.

BlackRock “actively consults with regulators, index providers and other market participants to ensure that our clients can leave their positions in Russian securities when and where regulatory and market conditions allow,” a spokesman for the manager said. fund in a statement. He added that the company “is taking all necessary actions to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations on sanctions related to investments in Russia.”

US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds held more than $ 71 billion in Russian stocks and bonds at the end of January, according to Morningstar Direct.

Clients of some mutual funds that hold Russian stocks and bonds withdrew more money than they added last month. Net outflows from Invesco Ltd. IVZ -1.34% of the Emerging Markets Fund, whose Russian shares accounted for 7.9% of assets at the end of the year, amounted to about $ 348 million in February, according to a preliminary estimate compiled by Morningstar Direct. Harding Loevner’s Portfolio Fund for Institutional Emerging Markets, with more than 8% invested in Russia in early February, had outflows of $ 221.6 million, Morningstar Direct reported.

Mutual funds and ETFs, which can be purchased by individual investors, are subject to additional regulations and disclosure requirements that do not apply to private investment pools, such as hedge funds that are sold to institutions and wealthy families.

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By law, mutual fund investors have the right to receive the closing price of their funds on the day they want to sell their shares. ETFs are traded as separate shares and can be sold at any time at their current market price.

Many managers state in their bid documents that they may relocate to limit or suspend redemption under certain conditions. In practice, however, funds rarely take these steps.

In March 2020, the SEC allowed mutual funds to borrow money from their parent companies to meet the influx of repurchase requests as the market collapsed in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2015, Third Avenue Focused Credit Fund of Third Avenue Management LLC became the first mutual fund to stop redemption without receiving an SEC order authorizing the relocation. The fund did so as it sought to liquidate its assets during a difficult period for unwanted bonds.

The SEC adopted new rules in 2016 requiring funds to review liquidity risks and hold a minimum amount of liquid securities.

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Should regulators provide US investment firms with exemption from fund liquidity and redemption rules to help them cope with the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Join the conversation below.

BlackRock, Van Eck Associates and Franklin Resources Inc. are among the companies that have recently taken steps to tackle steep ETF sales that focus on Russian stocks, changing the way they create new stocks or stopping those creations. Direxion Funds said it would liquidate its leveraged ETF in Russia later this month.

Industry leaders said they expected their challenges to worsen as indexers, including MSCI Inc., sought to exclude Russia from their benchmarks.

MSCI said on Wednesday it would remove Russian stocks from widely followed indices in emerging markets. The company said it had sought feedback from market participants and found an overwhelming majority confirming that the Russian stock market could not be invested at the moment and that Russian securities should be removed from the MSCI Emerging Markets Indices. .

Funds that seek to reflect the performance of popular benchmarks will struggle to match any changes in their Russian ratios if the market remains closed. As a result, the performance of these funds may begin to deviate from that of the indices they are trying to compare.

“If they still own stocks that are not part of the index, that would lead to a tracking error,” said Todd Rosenblut, head of ETF and mutual fund research at CFRA. “The longer this lasts, the greater the risk of not presenting yourself.

-Paul Kiernan contributed to this article.

Write to Justin Baer at [email protected]

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