The world this week--BusinessMeta’s quarterly earnings delighted investors, for a change, as it set out a plan to reduce costs in a “year of efficiency” and announced a $40bn share buy-back.Revenue fell in the last three months of 2022, year on year, but is expected to rise in this quarter.Still, Reality Labs, the division tasked with creating the metaverse, ran up another loss, of $4.3bn, taking its total loss for the year to $13.7bn.After months of sometimes troublesome negotiations, Nissan and Renault announced a restructuring of their two-decade-old alliance, which has been under strain since the fall from grace in 2018 of Carlos Ghosn, who had run both carmakers.The main feature of the agreement is a reduction in Renault’s stake in Nissan to 15% from 43%, with the remainder of Renault’s shares in Nissan to be put into a French trust and the voting rights “neutralised”.Each company will now own a working 15% stake in the other, which tackles a key concern of Nissan that the partnership had been unequal.ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell reported record annual profits of $56bn, $37bn and $40bn respectively.
