From: bostonglobe.com

Carl Icahn makes $100 million investment in Lyft

A Lyft rider was picked up on Harrison Avenue in Boston.
GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2013

A Lyft rider was picked up on Harrison Avenue in Boston.

NEW YORK — Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn is investing $100 million in on-demand ride-hailing service Lyft. Jonathan Christodoro, a managing director of Icahn Enterprises, will join the San Francisco company’s board of directors. Lyft didn’t comment on any other terms in the investment. Icahn is well known for tangling with the boards of companies like Apple, Yahoo, Hertz, Gannett, and eBay, rather than investing in startups. The privately held Lyft says it brought in $150 million in the new round of fund-raising. Lyft users download its app and use it to request a ride from a nearby driver, and they can also use the app to pay for their rides.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

TECHNOLOGY

Netflix said to be in talks to enter China

MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS/FILE

Netflix Inc. rose above $600 a share for the first time after it was reported to be in talks with a Chinese media company backed by Jack Ma and other possible partners as it seeks entry into China’s $5.9 billion online video market. Netflix has held discussions with companies including Wasu Media Holding Co., according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Netflix plans “to be nearly global by the end of 2016,” Anne Marie Squeo, a spokeswoman, said in response to questions about a possible China partnership. Shares of Netflix climbed 4.5 percent to $613.25.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

HOSPITALITY

Ritz-Carlton GM to lead Bellagio in Las Vegas

MGM Resorts International has poached Olivia C. Brown, general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Boston Common hotel, to run its flagship Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Running the Bellagio, one of the swankiest and best-known properties on the Las Vegas strip, is a prestigious gig even for Brown, a longtime executive at upscale hotels. Brown took the helm of the Boston Ritz-Carlton in April 2014 after years managing hotels in Atlanta, Philadelphia, and White Plains, N.Y., for the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. Before that, she spent 18 years working for the InterContinental Hotels Group. Brown was born in Jamaica and raised in Canada, where she earned a degree in hospitality and tourism administration from the Centennial College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto, MGM Resorts said in a release.

DAN ADAMS

PRIVATE EQUITY

Baupost buys stake in Pioneer Natural Resources

Baupost Group LLC took a new stake in Pioneer Natural Resources Co. in the first quarter as the Boston hedge fund run by Seth Klarman added more beaten-down energy holdings. Baupost acquired 3.17 million shares of Pioneer Natural, valued at $517.8 million at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing. It added 1.5 million shares of Antero Resources Corp. and the value of its stake increased by $11.7 million to $330.2 million at the end of the quarter.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

TECHNOLOGY

FairPoint laying off 260, closing Vermont call center

TOBY TALBOT/ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILE

MONTPELIER — FairPoint Communications says about 60 jobs will be lost when it closes a call center in South Burlington. The Vermont layoffs are part of a package of about 260 FairPoint jobs that will be cut in the 17 states where it operates. The work of the Vermont call center will be done at two other FairPoint call centers. FairPoint provides landline telephone and digital communications services in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

RETAIL

Manhattan FAO Schwarz store to close

The FAO Schwarz toy store in midtown Manhattan will close in July because of rising rents, leaving the 153-year-old brand without a retail outlet. Toys “R” Us Inc., which owns the store in the heart of Fifth Avenue across from the Plaza Hotel, said it’s looking for another Manhattan location for the shop. A new outlet could open in late 2016, a person familiar with the situation said. While the company seeks another location, a line of toys bearing the FAO Schwarz name still will be sold in Toys “R” Us stores and online.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

TOURISM

Convention center authority’s revenue is projected to drop in 2016

The seven new board members at the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority were only on the job for an hour, and they were already hearing some bad news on Friday: There’s a 7.6 percent revenue decline projected for the next fiscal year. The main reason for the drop? Revenue has been stronger than expected in the current fiscal year, with an unexpected surge in food and beverage sales at the sprawling complex. The authority said it deliberately makes conservative projections, and that it’s likely 2016 revenue would exceed the initial estimate. The board also decided to assemble a search committee and hire a headhunting firm to look for a replacement for director James Rooney, who is leaving to head the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce.

JON CHESTO

TRANSPORTATION

Avis soars after Hertz reveals price increases for summer demand

Hertz said it is raising prices by as much as $5 a day in June in expectation of a busy summer travel season.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES/FILE

Hertz said it is raising prices by as much as $5 a day in June in expectation of a busy summer travel season.

Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and Avis Budget Group Inc. rose after Hertz said it is raising prices by as much as $5 a day in June in expectation of a busy summer travel season. Hertz is raising prices $20 a week at airports and $10 a week in its neighborhood locations, starting June 14, because it expects “strong seasonal demand,” the company said in a statement. Hertz has been winnowing and improving its fleet and has increased by 47 percent the number of vehicles with 30,000 miles or less. Hertz said it will buy fewer 2015 vehicles and sell more of the cars and SUVs in its fleet.

BLOOMBERG NEWS

TECHNOLOGY

Hack United Airlines, get frequent flier miles

Feel like trying to hack United Airlines? Now, if you succeed, the company will give you frequent flier miles instead of prosecuting you. The company has started a “bug bounty” program to reward people for finding vulnerabilities on its websites and app. Depending on the severity of the bugs they find, cybersecurity researchers can get between 50,000 frequent flier miles (for discovering a cross-site scripting bug, for example) and 1 million miles (for remote code execution). Bug bounty programs are nothing new. Big companies such as AT&T and Facebook also reward benign hackers for alerting them to vulnerabilities in their systems, according to a list kept by Bugcrowd, a security research website. But it may be the first to pay out in airfare instead of cash.

JACK NEWSHAM

ECONOMY

Consumer sentiment plunges by most in two years

Consumer confidence unexpectedly fell in May by the most in more than two years as Americans’ views on the economy dimmed. The University of Michigan preliminary index of sentiment dropped to 88.6, the lowest since October, from 95.9 in April. The 7.3-point decrease was the largest since December 2012. News that the world’s largest economy stalled last quarter shook Americans’ outlook, while the tick up in fuel costs since early March also contributed to the gloomier perceptions. Households still held relatively upbeat views on incomes, a sign spending will be sustained.