Good morning.
Some breaking news: Fortune has a new editor-in-chief. Alyson Shontell, who since 2016 has been editor-in-chief of Business Insider, is taking over editorial leadership of our 92-year old brand, effective Oct. 6. In her new role, she will oversee all the content on Fortune’s multimedia platforms—including the magazine, the website, our newsletters, our executive conferences, video, podcasts, and our new Fortune Connect platform for next-generation leaders.
Alyson is the perfect person to position Fortune for its second century. She has a deep love of great journalism and storytelling. She has overseen award-winning coverage of some of the most important business stories of our time. She is rooted in the tech world, which is the fundamental driver of almost everything happening in business today. And she is a true digital native. As employee number six at Business Insider, she helped shape and build the most successful pure play digital business journalism franchise of our time.
Like most media companies, Fortune has been changing rapidly in recent years, propelled by the changing ways our readers consume content. With Alyson at the helm, the editorial team will have a proven innovator, ready to ensure that we serve our readers world class content, wherever, whenever and however they want it.
You can read more about Alyson here. And my grateful thanks to her predecessor, Clifton Leaf, who stepped down in June after four years of journalistic excellence, as well as deputy editor Brian O’Keefe, who has been serving skillfully as acting editor-in-chief since then.
Other news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
Lufthansa surge
Shares in Germany's Lufthansa were up as much as 9% yesterday (and rose more than 4% more today) on two pieces of news: the U.S. letting Europeans in again, and the airline starting to repay (via rights issue) its pandemic debt to the German government. CEO Carsten Spohr: "We have always made it clear that we will only retain the stabilization package for as long as it is necessary." (Bonus read: Airlines in general are now finding it hard to find pilots.) Fortune
Permian retreat
Shell just sold its Permian Basin oil and gas field, which it bought from Chesapeake Energy nine years ago, to ConocoPhilips for $9.5 billion. The deal underlines Shell's own move to cleaner energy, and firms up Conoco's Permian position. Fortune
Coinbase retreat
Under intense pressure from the SEC, Coinbase has scrapped its plan to launch a new product where users would get interest for lending out their cryptocurrency tokens. The agency had told the company that the Lend feature would be a security, and therefore under its purview; Coinbase maintained a defiant public stance that has now crumbled. Fortune
Climate investments
American Airlines, ArcelorMittal, Bank of America, BlackRock, Boston Consulting Group, GM and Microsoft have collectively invested a reported $1 billion-plus in Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, Bill Gates's clean energy outfit. Catalyst will use the cash to launch capital-intensive projects in areas including green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuel, battery storage and carbon capture. Bloomberg
2021 Climate Check In observance of Climate Week, explore Deloitte’s climate report featuring recommendations on how businesses can incorporate sustainability into their core operations and move from commitment to action. Read the report
Mental health
A whopping 84% of U.S. employees rarely mean it when they tell their managers that they're "fine" or "good", and two-thirds have clinically measurable mental health symptoms of anxiety or depression. That's according to a new report by SilverCloud Health. Fortune
Evergrande prospects
Analysts are not betting on a total, uncontrolled collapse of the stricken Chinese property giant Evergrande, writes Fortune's Grady McGregor: "The most likely outcome, they say, is a sort of managed collapse in which the government allows the firm to restructure some of its debt and carry out fire-sales to raise capital." Fortune
Activision probe
The SEC is reportedly investigating workplace practices at Activision, which is already the subject of a federal labor board complaint and a lawsuit by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Workers also walked out in July over an alleged "frat boy" culture of sexual harassment, pay inequality and retaliation. Activision's share price tumbled 4.3% on the SEC-probe report. Fortune
Sky TVs
The U.K.-based broadcasting giant Sky, which is owned by Comcast, reportedly plans to launch its own smart TV. The move may give Sky more leverage in its talks with content providers such as Netflix, whose programs are already aggregated in Sky's set-top boxes. Financial Times
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
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