A round up of some of the week’s most significant corporate events and news stories.

JPMorgan’s Dimon warns of threat to biggest US banks

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Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan chief executive

Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, voiced his concerns this week about the issues facing the US financial services industry, writes Ben McLannahan in New York.

In his annual letter to shareholders, Mr Dimon
defended the biggest US banks, saying attempts to undermine them could cost America its global leadership in financial services — most likely to China.

He argued that structures spanning corporate and investment banking allowed big banks such as his to perform “mission-critical services . . . that regional and community banks simply cannot do”. His comments are likely to be targeted by presidential candidates, both sides having talked of cutting big banks down to size, so the US taxpayer is never again on the hook for a bailout.

Mr Dimon said it was tempting, “in today’s heated public dialogue, to frame issues as a winner-take-all fight between opposing interests: big versus small, Main Street versus Wall Street”.

However, he said: “The US financial services industry does not conform to simple narratives. It is a complex ecosystem that depends on diverse business models coexisting because there is no other way to effectively serve America’s vast array of customers and clients.”

If the country’s biggest banks were not allowed to compete, he said, other nations could take advantage. “I do not want any American to look back in 20 years and try to figure out how and why America’s banks lost the leadership position in financial services. If not us, it will be someone else and likely a Chinese bank.”

● Related Lex note: JPMorgan — Vegging out

Facebook and Twitter plan to expand live video output

At first, social networks threatened to replace television, now, they are becoming it. Both Facebook and Twitter laid out plans this week to allow people to watch more live video, writes Hannah Kuchler in San Francisco.

Perched on a slightly perturbed-looking employee’s desk, Mark Zuckerberg announced the expansion of Facebook Live on a live­stream. The founder and chief executive said online video was moving beyond TV and Google’s video platform YouTube, and becoming more about communicating with friends. “We’re entering this new golden age of videos online,” he said.

Facebook has created a new hub for live video, made it easier for people to comment and send emoji reactions responding to a livestream and allowed people to stream only to certain groups or events. Mr Zuckerberg said he believed this was about supporting independent artists trying to find an audience on Facebook, in a hint that the company could, like YouTube, share revenue with video producers.

The social network is also encouraging news publishers from CNN to the New York Times to post more livestreams by giving temporary financial incentives until it begins to show advertising next to the streams.

While Facebook was launching more features to challenge Twitter’s Periscope, Twitter won the rights to show American football games, reportedly beating Facebook and Yahoo bids.

Twitter will show 10 NFL games on Thursday nights, so its audience can watch while they tweet. The company hoped its biggest move into live broadcasting would help new users discover the messaging platform, while the NFL hoped to win digital reach and revenue beyond TV — and potentially outside the US.

The deal for an undisclosed price is not exclusive, as CBS and NBC will still broadcast the games on TV and the NFL will show them on its own channel. But Twitter has the right to sell some of the advertising to be broadcast during the game.

● Related news story: Twitter appoints two new directors

WhatsApp defies snoopers with blanket encryption

A billion people had their messages, calls and photos made more secure this week without lifting a finger, as WhatsApp rolled out end-to-end encryption, writes Hannah Kuchler in San Francisco.

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The messaging app pressed ahead with its plan to protect messages from the snooping eyes of governments and the malicious motives of hackers.

All WhatsApp messages will be decrypted only on the phone itself, so the company will not have access to them on a server. Messages therefore could be provided to law enforcement agencies.

Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s co-founder who grew up in the Soviet Union, said he knew first-hand about wanting to keep information private from an intrusive government.

The company started this process long before Apple’s recent legal battle with the FBI over access to an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, who with his wife carried out the San Bernardino attacks last year.

In late 2014 WhatsApp began encrypting messages, but it took longer to make the encryption work on the wide range of devices owned by the app’s users and ensure it covered group messages, photos and calls.

Although WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, there is little sign that the social network will deploy the same level of encryption to its other apps.

Facebook Messenger, which announced this week that it had 900m monthly active users, is pushing for greater integration with businesses, which could make it hard to roll out end-to-end encryption.

Air France-KLM head quits to take top job at trade body

Alexandre de Juniac stepped down as chief executive of Air France-KLM this week after three years in the job that were beset by profit warnings and clashes with trade unions, writes Michael Stothard in Paris.

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The 53-year-old executive is leaving one of the hardest roles in aviation to become director-general of the International Air Transport Association, the industry’s main trade body. 

His departure raised fears of a power vacuum at the group that could delay further cost-cutting. High fixed costs are the main challenge at both Air France and KLM, which are competing with increasingly aggressive European budget airlines and Gulf carriers. 

Mr de Juniac, who was appointed head of Air France in 2011 and then chief executive of Air France-KLM in 2013, made some headway cutting costs at France’s flag carrier.

He oversaw the removal of 10,000 jobs between 2011 and 2015. 

©Bloomberg

Air France-KLM CEO Alexandre de Juniac

His efforts caused tension with the pilots’ unions, however, prompting a 14-day strike by Air France pilots in 2014 that crippled the airline and ranked as the worst industrial dispute in its history. 

Last year, after a tense employee meeting over 2,900 job cuts at Air France, an angry mob descended on Xavier Broseta, the airline’s human resources director, and tore off his shirt and forced him to flee half-naked over a fence. 

Ruxandra Haradau-Doser, analyst at Kepler Cheuvreux, said this week that following Mr de Juniac’s departure “we expect no more progress with unions in 2016”. 

Glencore sells agribusiness stake in debt-cutting effort

Glencore’s debt reduction plans took a significant step forward when the commodities trading house sold a 40 per cent stake in its agricultural products arm for $2.5bn, writes James Wilson.

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The deal with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is the largest asset sale by Glencore since it stepped up its debt-cutting efforts last year, fighting to maintain investor confidence amid an accelerating downturn in commodity prices.

Ivan Glasenberg, Glencore’s chief executive, hopes the deal with the Canadian pension fund — which will get two seats on the board of the agriculture business and could also buy a further 20 per cent stake — will provide firepower for his group to do further deals in the sector.

The agriculture business, which is largely been built around its $6bn purchase of Viterra in 2012, earned operating profits of $524m in 2015. The deal with the pension fund gives the business an enterprise value of $9.85bn, including debt and working capital.

Since last year, Glencore has announced $11.5bn of measures to cut debt, including asset sales, a dividend suspension and a $2.5bn equity increase carried out in September.

Its net debt, which was $26bn at year end, is now forecast to fall to between $17bn and $18bn by the end of 2016. Shares have rallied this year after a sharp fall in 2015.

In the same week, Glencore also announced the sale of a Kazakh gold project to Polymetal for $100m. It has ambitions to sell infrastructure assets in Australia and two copper mines.