Chicago
ADM investigated: Shares in Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), one of the world’s largest crop traders, fell almost a quarter on Monday after it placed its chief financial officer on leave amid an investigation into accounting practices, say Gerson Freitas Jr and Simon Casey on Bloomberg. The stock’s fall wiped out $8.8bn from ADM’s market value. The US firm also cut its earnings expectations for the year and said it will postpone the release of its fourth-quarter results, which had been scheduled for this week. Ismael Roig (pictured) will become interim CFO, replacing Vikram Luthar, who had been in the role since 2022. ADM says it is cooperating with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US markets regulator, following a voluntary document request. The probe centres on ADM’s nutrition business, its smallest, yet strategically important, unit as it seeks to diversify revenue streams into higher-value processed products. The nutrition business, which has struggled as demand for plant-based products has waned, made $7.6bn in revenue in 2022, 7.5% of the group’s total.
The majority of ADM’s revenue comes from selling raw crop grains, such as corn and soybeans, and producing edible oils, sweeteners and biofuels. But the nutrition division is the least connected to global wholesale agricultural commodities trading, which has actually been the focus for calls for more regulation, says Lex in the Financial Times. A recent UN report said lax oversight meant traders do not record transactions clearly, which could lead to higher prices.
Los Gatos
King of the ring: Streaming giant Netflix added 13.1 million subscribers in the three months to the end of December, its strongest fourth quarter on record and well ahead of analysts’ expectations of nine million, say Jessica Toonkel and Joe Flint in The Wall Street Journal. The platform ended 2023 with 260 million subscribers, up 13% from the previous year. Meanwhile, fourth-quarter revenue rose 12.5% from a year earlier to $8.8bn, thanks to its crackdown on password sharing and the introduction of new advertising subscription tiers. Netflix has also struck a ten-year, $5bn deal to secure US and international rights to broadcast WWE wrestling (wrestler Katana Chance is pictured) in a bid to broaden its content offering and lure in advertisers. The results cement Netflix’s position as the dominant platform as rivals struggle to turn a profit from streaming and deal with ailing networks. Paramount is considering merging with Warner Bros. Discovery,
