#7 Coffee with milk and sugar, or soda?

The week started off on Monday with news from Keurig Green Mountain. The specialty coffee and coffeemaker company with its headquarters in the US agreed to buy the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group.

Keurig bought the Texas-based soft drink company in an $18.7 billion deal  – by paying  $103.75 per share – and combined coffee and soda in a huge beverage merger by doing so.



#6 EasyJet Flies towards a Reduced Gender Pay Gap

Johan Lundgren – the CEO of the British low-cost airline EasyJet – has taken a pay cut in order to match his salary with the salary of his female predecessor Carolyn McCall.

If you’re wondering exactly how much Lundgren’s salary got cut by: it went from 740 000 GBP to 706 000 GBP. The Chief Executive said he did this to show his commitment to equal pay and opportunity at EasyJet. Go Johan.



#5 Jeff, Warren and Jamie join forces

Big news about a somewhat surprising collaboration perhaps this week. Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan said they will create a new, independent health-care company for their US employees.

The not-for-profit organization is initially meant to focus on technology for ‘simplified, high-quality and transparent healthcare’ for the more than 500 000 US employees of the three companies combined.

As such, this new venture by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan is a good example of the growing interest and investments in products, services, and technologies tailored to the needs of an aging population.

Related: 5 Popular Investment Themes for 2018.



#4 Eurozone inflation rate falls

Data released on Wednesday showed that the inflation in the Eurozone dropped to 1.3% in January, down from 1.4% in December. This means the price growth moves a little further away from the near 2% target from the ECB.



#3 Another Carillion on the horizon?

Capita, the UK outsourcing company that runs the London congestion charge and collects the BBC license fee (among other things) gave a profit warning saying its profits would be considerably lower than was expected.

The business process management (BPO) and outsourcing giant also announced it would suspend its dividend as part of a transformation plan. With the recent Carillion drama still fresh in everybody’s memory, the Capita share price went down over 40% after this announcement.

Related: A hint of scandal.



#2 Samsung and its mining chips

South-Korean technology company Samsung Electronics said it is producing chips for a Chinese company to mine cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. With all the crypto-craziness that’s going on, Samsung hopes to benefit from the cryptocurrency demand increase. 

In case you’re wondering: in order to solve the complex mathematical problems that come with the business of ‘mining’ cryptocurrencies you need powerful computers. And, as it turns out, powerful, specialty chips.

Related: 15 Cryptocurrency Terms You Need to Know



#1  Bitcoin below $9000

To bounce off the previous Tweet and finish this week's article we’ve got Bitcoin. The mother of all crypto coins fell below $9000 on Thursday, its lowest level in more than two months.

According to CNBC, the price went down after reports about increased regulation and potential price manipulation at an important exchange. On a more positive note, some strategists think this could be the biggest buying opportunity for Bitcoin in 2018…  



Alright, so far the first February wrap-up. As always, we’ll keep tracking Twitter and we’ll continue to bring you the top financial micro-messages from the web. See you back here next week! 

Source: www.scoopnest.com