Investments and Business

The pandemic created an economic crisis unlike any recession on record. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the aftermath, too, has played out in a way that almost no economists expected.When unemployment soared in the first weeks of the pandemic, many feared a repeat of the long, slow rebound from the Great Recession: years of joblessness that left many workers permanently scarred. Instead, the recovery in the labor market has been, by many measures, the strongest on record.In early 2021, some economists foresaw a surge in inflation. Others were skeptical: Similar predictions in recent years — in some cases…

Bob Moore, the grandfatherly entrepreneur who, with his wife, Charlee, leveraged an image of organic heartiness and wholesome Americana to turn the artisanal grain company Bob’s Red Mill into a $100 million-a-year business, died on Saturday at his home in Milwaukie, Ore. He was 94.His death was announced by the company, which did not cite a cause.Founded in Milwaukie in 1978, Bob’s Red Mill grew from serving the Portland area to become a global natural-foods behemoth, marketing more than 200 products in more than 70 countries. The company’s product line runs a whole-grain gamut, including stone-ground sorghum flour, paleo-style muesli…

Graceful Art Deco buildings towering above Chicago’s key business district report occupancy rates as low as 17 percent.A set of gleaming office towers in Denver that were full of tenants and worth $176 million in 2013 now sit largely empty and were last appraised at just $82 million, according to data provided by Trepp, a research firm that tracks real estate loans. Even famous Los Angeles buildings are fetching roughly half their prepandemic prices.From San Francisco to Washington, D.C., the story is the same. Office buildings remain stuck in a slow-burning crisis. Employees sent to work from home at the…

The history of Las Vegas has been marked by a relentless churn of hotels, casinos, theaters and restaurants. But only recently has the city’s landscape included major professional sports teams.The Golden Knights of the National Hockey League were the first to start play here in 2017. The Aces of the Women’s National Basketball Association started in 2018, and the National Football League’s Raiders arrived from Oakland in 2020. Last year, Major League Baseball’s Athletics were given the go-ahead to make the same Oakland-to-Las Vegas move, and the National Basketball Association is expected to add a team in the coming years.Las…

A congressional investigation has determined that five American venture capital firms invested more than $1 billion in China’s semiconductor industry since 2001, fueling the growth of a sector that the United States government now regards as a national security threat.Funds supplied by the five firms — GGV Capital, GSR Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Walden International — went to more than 150 Chinese companies, according to the report, which was released Thursday by both Republicans and Democrats on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.The investments included roughly $180 million that went to Chinese firms that the…

WeWork’s founder is trying to buy it Adam Neumann shot to fame by turning WeWork into a cultural and business phenomenon, before being ousted from the work space operator in dramatic fashion.But for the past several months, he has been trying to buy the now-bankrupt business — with the help of the hedge fund mogul Dan Loeb, DealBook is the first to report.Neumann’s new real estate company Flow Global is pushing WeWork to consider its takeover approach, according to a letter his lawyers sent to WeWork’s advisers on Monday. Flow which has already raised $350 million from the venture capital…

Before the pandemic brought everyday life to a halt, Joe Kiele supported himself through the industry that dominates Nevada’s economy. He waited tables at a steakhouse inside a casino in Reno.Four years later, Mr. Kiele, 49, remains in Reno, yet he now spends his workday inside a factory. In place of worrying about the doneness of a customer’s rib-eye, he trains people on the proper handling of industrial chemicals.His employer, Redwood Materials, is constructing an enormous complex across a lonely stretch of desert. There, the company has begun recycling batteries harvested from discarded smartphones and other electronics. It extracts critical…