Yum Brands on Tuesday announced it is selling Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital for roughly $1.5 billion.

The deal excludes the pizza chain’s locations in mainland China; Yum China will acquire those in a separate transaction for about $1.2 billion.

The deals cap off years of struggles for Pizza Hut, which has weighed on Yum’s overall financial performance. In the U.S., the pizza chain has transitioned from the sit-down format and salad bars of yore to focus on delivery and carryout — far behind the curve. Rival Domino’s Pizza has gobbled up market share from Pizza Hut for years; third-party delivery apps like DoorDash have further stolen sales from the chain.

Shares of Yum were up nearly 2% in morning trading Tuesday.

In November, Yum said it was exploring strategic options for Pizza Hut. On Tuesday, the company said its leadership team and board determined that selling Pizza Hut would provide “the strongest path” to maximize shareholder value and give the pizza chain an ownership structure “tailored to its distinct markets, competitive strengths and long-term priorities.”

Across both deals, Yum expects to receive about $2.3 billion in net proceeds after taxes, closing adjustments and fees, excluding a possible earnout of $75 million by 2030 from LongRange. Yum also anticipates one-time expenses of about $85 million during the rest of 2026 tied to the transactions.

The company’s management will provide more details about the financial impact of the transactions during Yum’s second-quarter conference call on July 30. Yum expects the sales to close in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval.

Brothers Dan and Frank Carney founded Pizza Hut in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas. A year later, they were franchising the concept.

In 1969, Pizza Hut went public. Just two years later, it was the biggest pizza chain in the world, although it lost that title in 2017 to Domino’s.

The deal severs Pizza Hut’s decades-long ties to Taco Bell and KFC, its sister brands in Yum’s portfolio.

PepsiCo bought Pizza Hut in 1977, marking the beverage giant’s entry into the restaurant business. By 1986, it also owned Taco Bell and KFC. When Pepsi spun off its restaurant unit in 1997, the holding company was dubbed Tricon Global Restaurants — later renamed to Yum.

At the end of 2025, Pizza Hut had nearly 20,000 locations across 108 countries and territories and reported $12.8 billion in annual system sales, according to regulatory filings from Yum. The U.S. is its biggest market, representing about 40% of its system sales, followed by China with roughly 20% of its system sales.

Correction: The headline was updated to reflect that the $2.7 billion sale value includes deals with both LongRange Capital and Yum China.

Spirit Airlines, trying to emerge from its second bankruptcy in less than a year, has sold another 20 of its Airbus planes and is bringing flight attendants back from furlough.

The sale of the 20 aircraft, most of which are not in service, comes as Spirit is attempting to stabilize after years of financial struggles that have executives fighting to keep the carrier alive.

“At this time, natural attrition and voluntary actions are providing flexibility needed to right-size our staffing levels for both Pilots and Flight attendants,” Spirit Chief Operating Officer John Bendoraitis said in a note to employees Wednesday night.

The sales brings Spirit’s fleet to 94 aircraft, and is “consistent with our plan to focus on our strongest routes and the most efficient fleet,” Bendoraitis said. The aircraft will be phased out starting in April, he said.

Deal talks with investment firm Castlelake and fellow budget carrier Frontier Airlines haven’t yielded an agreement that would give Spirit a path forward, though the airline could forge a plan on its own.

The Dania Beach, Florida-based carrier is also calling 500 flight attendants back from furlough, just as it gears up for the spring break travel season.

“Fixing this airline is a shared effort,” Bendoraitis said. “There’s a lot in this moment that crews can’t control, but we do need you to continue giving us the foundation for a strong operation.”

Spirit has slashed its network and fleet and furloughed more than 1,300 flight attendants and hundreds of pilots to save cash.

“This is good news for 500 Flight Attendants and their families and critical to those of us on the line that have faced a grueling operation over the last two months,” the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the union for Spirit flight attendants, said in a message to members Wednesday. “The company’s goal in recalling Flight Attendants is to ease some of the operational issues since the furloughs.”

BEIJING — Xiaomi‘s electric car venture has succeeded in dethroning Tesla in China, at least in January.

The Xiaomi YU7 SUV ranked first in China by sales last month, with 37,869 units sold, twice as many as Tesla’s 16,845 Model Y vehicles, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association.

The Model Y, which was the best-selling model in December, plunged to 20th place in January. Among new energy vehicles, it also fell from the first position to seventh over the same period.

The figures include both electric and gasoline-powered vehicles and were published late Thursday by online car sales platform Autohome.

Xiaomi started selling the YU7, its second electric car model, roughly half a year ago in the summer of 2025.

The Chinese company, best known for its smartphones, hasn’t been shy about its aim to take on Tesla. Xiaomi launched the car at a starting price that was 10,000 yuan ($1,450) below the Model Y in China. The company claimed the model beat Tesla on key metrics such as driving range on a single battery charge.

Analysts last year predicted the YU7 would take market share from the Model Y, Tesla’s best-selling car in China. In December, the Model Y ranked first in monthly sales, ahead of BYD‘s budget-priced Qin Plus car. Xiaomi’s YU7 ranked third.

Monthly sales figures can be volatile. While the YU7 did outsell the Model Y in October, the Xiaomi car did not rank first. Tesla has so far been consistently stronger in sales.

Excluding gasoline-powered cars, Tesla ranked fifth in China sales last year, while Xiaomi placed tenth. For all of 2025, BYD led China’s auto market with over 3 million vehicles sold, followed by Geely at 2.6 million, according to China Passenger Car Association data.

The YU7’s strong sales in January came despite an overall slowdown in China’s electric car market in recent months.

Xiaomi’s earlier SU7 sedan has also faced scrutiny following fatal accidents involving driver-assist features and electrically-powered door handles. Beijing has since banned hidden door handles, while automakers have started installing external lights that indicate when driver-assist is in use.

Like most Chinese electric car companies, Xiaomi also plans to expand overseas, including into Europe next…



Read More: Xiaomi’s electric SUV tops China sales in January, sells twice as many as

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Broadcom’s quarterly results and guidance sailed past Wall Street estimates. It didn’t matter.

The chipmaker’s shares plummeted 11% on Friday, their worst day since January, as investors ran for the exits on the artificial intelligence trade. Oracle dropped 4.5% a day after plunging 10% following its earnings report.

Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, the two leading makers of graphics processing units for AI workloads, slid about 3% and 5%, respectively.

AI has been the driver for the stock market and the broader economy this year, so any negative sentiment has potentially far-reaching consequences. The Nasdaq on Friday fell about 1.69%, and the S&P 500 declined by 1%.

The companies getting hit the hardest are the ones most closely tied to AI infrastructure, which has been booming as hyperscalers build out their data centers to try and meet what they describe as insatiable demand for compute-intensive AI services. Broadcom makes custom chips for many of the the largest tech companies, and saw its market cap about double each of the past two years before rallying again in 2025.

“This stock is up 75-80% year to date. You’re seeing a little bit of a pullback,” Vijay Rakesh, an analyst at Mizuho, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Friday. “We would be buyers on this pullback.”

Mizuho raised its price target on the stock to $450 from $435. It closed on Friday just below $360.

“This is still where the growth is,” Rakesh said. “They are still the big supplier to Google on their entire hardware stack, to Meta, to Anthropic and even OpenAI coming down the road.”

Broadcom reported revenue growth of 28% during the quarter, largely due to a 74% increase in AI chip sales, to a total of $18.02 billion, topping the $17.49 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.95 adjusted topped the $1.86 average estimate.

CEO Hock Tan said Broadcom expects AI chip sales this quarter to double from a year earlier to $8.2 billion, both from custom AI chips as well as semiconductors for AI networking.

One concern among investors is that margins are coming down, at least in the short term, due to higher up-front costs. CFO Kirsten Spears said on the earnings call that “gross margins will be lower” for some of Broadcom’s AI chip systems because the company will have to buy more parts to produce the server racks.

Broadcom also said it had a $73 billion backlog of AI orders over the next 18 months. Part of that is from $21 billion of orders from Anthropic, which the company revealed as a key customer on Thursday.

While OpenAI has been a highly touted customer following a multibillion-dollar agreement announced in October, Tan doused some hope for the deal, telling investors late Thursday that, “We do not expect much in ’26.”

Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said in a note on Friday that “AI angst” was driving Broadcom’s shares lower.

“Frankly we aren’t sure what else one could desire as the…

President Donald Trump‘s decision to let Nvidia sell its advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to China “sells out American national security,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Thursday.

Warren also reiterated her call for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to testify before Congress about the agreement, along with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

The senator’s fiery remarks on the Senate floor came three days after Trump announced on social media that the U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia could sell the chips to “approved customers” in China, so long as the U.S. gets a 25% cut of the revenues.

The announcement drew concerns both from Democrats and some of Trump’s Republican allies, who have been vocal about protecting America’s hardware advantage over China in the race to AI superiority.

An Nvidia spokesperson, in response to Warren, told CNBC that the H200 sales to China will still require a U.S. government license and “at most will be a smaller percentage of the Hopper and Blackwell compute already sold to U.S. customers.”

“We heard the same arguments about the H20, and the administration’s critics had it backwards” the spokesperson said, referring to the less-powerful chips that the White House had previously approved for sale to China.

“Selling H20 was good for America’s economic and national security. After H20 shipments were blocked, America lost billions, and foreign AI chip firms stepped into the gap and grew dramatically,” the spokesperson said.

“America’s foreign competitors and the Administration’s critics are pushing the same end — to force massive commercial markets to support and promote foreign competition,” the spokesperson added.

Warren, in Thursday’s remarks, urged Congress to pass bipartisan legislation that “reins in this administration” by imposing new chip export restrictions. Critics of the bill say it could undermine U.S. chipmakers’ competitiveness.

The Trump administration knows that China gaining access to the chips, which have previously been subject to export restrictions, “poses a serious threat to our technological leadership and national security,” Warren said on the Senate floor.

She noted that shortly before Trump announced his decision on the H200 chips on Monday, the Department of Justice touted a crackdown touted a crackdown on a “major China-linked AI tech smuggling network.”

“So why did the president make this bad deal that sells out the American economy and sells out American national security?” she asked. “It’s simple: In the Trump administration, money talks.”

“Mr. Huang understands that in this administration, being able to cozy up to Donald Trump might be the most…

Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer” sold at Sotheby’s Tuesday night for $236.4 million, making it the second-most expensive painting ever sold at auction — breathing new life into the high-end art market after three years of declines.

The portrait is the most expensive work ever sold at auction at Sotheby’s, blowing past its original estimate of more than $150 million.

While the name of the buyer is unknown, the sale came after 20 minutes of spirited bids between at least six interested parties, according to Sotheby’s. It was sold to an anonymous buyer on the phone with Sotheby’s Vice Chairman and Head of Impressionist and Modern Art Julian Dawes.

“Our evening sales were a resounding success and send a strong signal for the art market,” said Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart.

He said the sale results, combined with the large crowds who came to view the works at Sotheby’s new headquarters at the Breuer building in Manhattan, are a sign of a vibrant market.

The Klimt sales comes during the most important sales week of the year for the art market.

Total sales are expected to exceed $1.4 billion and possibly top $2 billion, which would more than double last year’s total.

Art experts and auction houses say the market is being boosted by a renewed sense of optimism among collectors and by several top collections coming to market, including rare masterpieces by blue-chip artists.

This week’s auctions included an eye-catching piece by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, who gained notoriety for his $6.2 million “Comedian” sculpture of a banana duct taped to a wall. His piece at auction this week, “America,” is a fully functioning, 220-pound solid gold toilet.

The Klimt was part of the collection of Leonard Lauder, the Estee Lauder heir and longtime art collector, that is expected to total over $400 million. Along with the Lederer portrait, the collection included two Klimt landscapes, which sold for $86 million and $68 million.

Sales at Christie’s have topped $747 million so far this week. On Monday, it auctioned a Mark Rothko painting that was part of the Robert F. and Patricia G. Ross Weis collection for $62.2 million. A Picasso that was also part of the collection sold for $45.5 million.

The sales will continue this week with lower-priced day sales and a big evening sale at Phillips.