Market Week Fired, Musk Mania and Suspicious Stock Trades – HS Market Summary Repeats Weekly Highlights

Nokia has continued product development in Russia

Nokia, a manufacturer of network devices, has continued its product development in Russia, despite its strong condemnation of the attack on Ukraine. Helsingin Sanomat’s data is based on two independent sources.

The company employs 200 people in St. Petersburg and Moscow in the product development of cloud and network services as well as mobile networks. According to HS, the R & D units have not been shut down at any stage.

Nokia said in early March it would suspend supplies to Russia and comply with all sanctions imposed on the country.

Following the news, Nokia issued a press release saying it did not plan to continue research and development in Russia.

Elon Musk acquired itself as Twitter’s largest shareholder

CEO of the electric car company Tesla Elon Musk owns nearly a 10 percent stake in the social media company Twitter.

Muskin holds 73.5 million Twitter shares, or 9.2 percent of Twitter’s share capital, according to a document filed with the SEC on Monday.

At the closing price of the Twitter share on Friday, Musk’s stake would be worth $ 2.9 billion (about € 2.6 billion). Musk will rise to become Twitter’s largest single shareholder.

The news has gotten Twitter shares up more than 25 percent on pre-trading on New York stock exchanges.

Musk, one of the richest people in the world, is an avid Twitter user with more than 80 million followers on her Twitter account.

However, some of Musk’s Tweets have caused confusion and U.S. financial supervisors have also been investigating Tweets that have affected Tesla’s finances.

VR laid off Lauri Sipponen, President and CEO

President of the railway company VR Group Lauri Sipponen was dismissed on Monday. VR says that the recruitment of a new CEO has started.

Sipponen only managed VR for about eight months, as he started as CEO in August.

The Director of Passenger Transport has been appointed interim CEO Topi Simola.

Valmet’s CFO traded in Neles shares during the merger

CFO of Valmet, known for its paper machines Kari Saarinen traded shares in the valve company Neles at the same time as Neles was merging with Valmet.

Saarinen tells HS that he bought the shares of Neles on February 3, 2022, the same day that Valmet published its financial statements bulletin. Neles published its financial statements bulletin only a day later on February 4, 2022. Saarinen admits to HS that he bought and sold Neles shares twice before during the merger.

As Valmet’s CFO, Saarinen has played a key role in the merger of Necs and Valmet. Thus, his share transactions in Neles shares during the merger can be considered exceptional.

CEO of the company Pasi Laine told HS that Saarinen “should not have done business”.

The US Federal Reserve is planning a fair rate hike

At last month’s meeting, decision-makers at the US Federal Reserve generally agreed that the central bank’s securities holdings should begin to shrink by $ 95 billion (about € 87 billion) a month.

The minutes of the central bank’s interest rate meeting in March show that central bank policymakers are deeply concerned about the spread of inflation to the broad-based U.S. economy.

The minutes of the Fed’s March meeting were published on Wednesday evening Finnish time.

According to the minutes of the meeting, “many” decision-makers were ready to raise the key interest rate by 0.50 percentage points at a forthcoming meeting in March.

Nordea: Many Finns will soon have to pay interest on a mortgage for the first time in their lives

For the first time in a year, many Finnish mortgage borrowers will have to pay interest on their mortgages when the European Central Bank (ECB) tightens its monetary policy, Nordea Bank estimates.

The ECB is trying to curb inflation, which is soaring above 7% in the euro area, by raising the key interest rate and reducing its securities purchase programs.

Expectations of a tightening of the ECB’s policy have led to a rapid rise in the 12-month Euribor, which is widely used as a mortgage rate in Finland, to close to zero in the first half of the year. The interest rate has been negative since February 2016.

Oura, which sold more than a million rings, was worth € 2.3 billion

The smart ring company Oura says that it has achieved two milestones in the new size class. It has sold a total of one million smart rings to date.

And in the new round of financing, investors are already estimating Oura at € 2.3 billion.

The company has therefore raised more growth finance from private equity investors, but does not yet say how much. An incomplete bulletin sent at short notice is particularly scarce.

The point is, however, that the fundraising round is still in progress, a member of Oura’s board of directors and a partner in Lifeline Ventures, a private equity firm. Timo Ahopelto says. More new investors are joining the tour, and the company will tell you more about this later.

Coca-Cola sells cola drinks from recycled plastic bottles in Finland

Coca-Cola, a major producer of plastic bottles, is working to get rid of both a nasty image and a concrete plastic problem. Finland is at the forefront of that change.

From March, all half-liter bottles sold by the company in Finland will be made entirely of recycled plastic, ie recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET). In addition to the name brand Coca-Cola, the same company also includes Fanta, Sprite and Bonaqua.

In Finland, it has been easy to achieve the goal of recycled plastics, because the necessary infrastructure and behavioral culture are already in place here, says Ana Gascón, European Director of Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste program, to HS.