Briefcase

Emerson to buy National Instruments

Nearly a year after Ferguson, Missouri-based Emerson Electric first launched its campaign to acquire Austin, Texas-based National Instruments, it has struck a deal that values the company at $8.2 billion.

Emerson has been attempting to push National Instruments to the bargaining table for an acquisition since May .

The deal is part of Emerson’s goals to grow the company’s automation solutions business. Emerson CEO Lal Karsanbhai said in a statement Wednesday that it will diversify his company and broaden its customer base.

The deal announced Wednesday values National Instruments at $60 per share, or $8.2 billion. Emerson already owns 2.3 million shares, or about 2% of National Instruments.

The deal is expected to close in the first half of Emerson’s fiscal year. Emerson will finance the transaction, in part, with $8 billion from the sale of its Climate Technologies business to New York-based investment firm Blackstone.

Juul reaches another e-cig settlement

California, New York and several other states announced a $462 million settlement with Juul Labs on Wednesday, resolving lawsuits claiming that the company aggressively marketed its e-cigarettes to young people and fueled the nation’s vaping crisis.

The agreement brings much of the company’s legal woes to a conclusion, with settlements reached with 47 states and territories as well as 5,000 individuals and local governments. Juul is in the middle of a trial in Minnesota, an unusual case in which a settlement was not reached. But the company’s efforts to broker deals over the lawsuits have cost it nearly $3 billion , a massive sum for a company still seeking official regulatory approval to keep selling its products.

The latest settlement resolved the claims of California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico and New York. It follows others that took the company to task for failing to warn young users that the high levels of nicotine in their e-cigarettes would prove addictive.California contended in its lawsuit that for months, Juul did not disclose in its advertising that its devices contained nicotine. It detailed the company’s early marketing efforts, which included handing out free samples of the e-cigarettes in 2015 at trendy events, including one called Nocturnal Wonderland in San Bernardino and a “Movies All Night Slumber Party” in Los Angeles. The New York lawsuit noted that the company embraced the use of social media hashtags like #LightsCameraVapor.

Major banks due to release deposit data

The largest U.S. banks are about to reveal how they fared as customer deposits came under siege in the first quarter.

Deposits at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. are expected to have tumbled $521 billion from a year earlier, the biggest drop in a decade, according to analysts’ estimates. The decline – which includes a $61 billion slide in the first quarter – comes as a late influx of cash following a crisis at regional lenders failed to offset the steady drain of customers to products offering higher rates.

“By far the biggest issue for the banks is around deposits, both for the quarter and for March,” Wells Fargo & Co. analyst Mike Mayo said in an interview. “Nonanswers are a failing grade for this take home exam.”

Western Alliance Bancorp learned that lesson the hard way last week, when it released updated financial information that left out data on deposit levels. Shareholders sent the Phoenix-based firm’s stock tumbling, until it released deposit data later in the day that was better than some analysts had feared.

The coming first-quarter disclosures from the big banks could intensify concerns about deposit-mix and, should lenders miss expectations, set off more inquiries about the health and future of the industry.

From wire reports