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Honda and General Motors are teaming up to create a new generation of fully autonomous vehicles. Honda will invest $2 billion over 12 years into GM’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, Cruise.

GM and Cruise have been building and developing self-driving versions of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car with plans to deploy a fleet of them for public use next year. With Honda’s engineering and financial assistance, Cruise will begin developing a new vehicle that is not based on any existing car, the companies said. It will represent the next step in autonomous driving, one in which controls for human operation are entirely absent.

“This is a purpose-built vehicle that will be the first vehicle produced at scale that is freed from the constraints of vehicle design and having a driver at the wheel,” said GM president Donald Amman.

Amman gave no precise timing on when Cruise Automation’s self-driving vehicles will be shuttling members of the general public, either in the Bolt EV or the new car. The cars will be deployed only when it has been decided they are safe enough, Amman enough.

The Japanese tech-focused investment bank Softbank recently invested $2.25 billion in Cruise, and Honda took a $750 million equity stake. Together, the Honda and Softbank investments give Cruise a total value of $14.6 billion.

“Autonomous vehicles are not simply a Silicon Valley-based dream,” said Zo Rahim, Research Manager at the automotive media company Cox Automotive. “Current auto manufacturers are primed to dictate the direction and growth of the future of mass mobility.”

GM’s stock rose 2% on Wednesday.

Honda and GM have been working together on electric car battery technology and hydrogen fuel cells, which extract energy electricity from hydrogen gas. The new partnership with Cruise Automation grew out of the two companies’ previous work.

GM (GM) boasts that, with the self-driving Bolt EV, it is currently the only company building autonomous vehicles on a production line. The companies would not say where or when the new vehicle will be produced.

Aston Martin is joining the ranks of listed automakers with an IPO that values the British company at more than $5 billion. But its first day of trading in London got off to a rocky start.

The favorite carmaker of fictional British secret service agent James Bond priced its shares at £19.00 ($24.70), giving it a valuation of £4.3 billion ($5.6 billion).

The final listing price is 16% below the top of the range that Aston Martin had targeted, reflecting investor doubts about whether the carmaker should be valued in the same league as Italian rival Ferrari.

Shares dipped nearly 5% in London trading.

In going public, the British company is asking investors to overcome fears about US threats to tax foreign autos and the potential for Britain’s planned exit from the European Union to disrupt supply chains and markets.

Aston Martin, which has a history of bankruptcy filings, is now producing healthy profits.

It sold more than 5,000 cars in 2017, its best performance in nine years. That generated record revenue of £876 million ($1.1 billion), an increase of nearly 50% over the previous year.

Earnings for the first half of this year show that momentum has continued. Revenue was up 8% over the same period a year earlier, while profit increased 14%, according to the numbers that were published last month.

Aston Martin has in recent years sought to capitalize on its high-end brand. But analysts at Bernstein see several potential problems.

They argue the Aston Martin brand is not as strong as that of Ferrari (RACE), which is bolstered by decades of racing history and a slew of Formula 1 championships. The British automaker also has much tighter margins than its Italian rival and a worrying history of uneven sales.

With money raised from the IPO earmarked for existing shareholders rather than investment in the company, Aston Martin executives could be pinning too much hope on the success of a planned SUV.

“Given its current financials and apparently rather less robust demand, it’s a big stretch for us to see how it can possibly match Ferrari’s profitability,” analysts at Bernstein wrote recently. “We can’t see it getting anywhere close.”

Aston Martin’s owners include Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler (DDAIF), private equity firm Investindustrial and investors based in Kuwait.

CNNMoney (London) First published October 3, 2018: 4:38 AM ET

Editor’s Note: This story originally published on October 3, 2018.

New York
CNN Business
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Barnes & Noble stock jumped more than 20% after the board said it would consider a sale of the troubled company.

The board said Wednesday it had appointed a special committee to review offers. One came from longtime Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio. He is the company’s largest shareholder, controlling close to 20%.

Barnes & Noble (BKS) also disclosed that a shareholder it could not identify had rapidly built up a stake in the company. To block a hostile takeover, Barnes & Noble’s board of directors approved what’s known as a poison pill.

The poison pill will kick in if the unidentified party accumulates 20% of the stock or more. At that point, shareholders will be allowed to buy Barnes & Noble’s stock at a 50% discount, diluting the value of the shares.

The announcement comes shortly after another investor disclosed a stake of close to 7%, and said he had held talks with Riggio about buying the company.

The board said Riggio would vote his shares in favor of any transaction recommended by the committee.

A potential sale is just the latest twist in the saga of Barnes & Noble, which is looking to replace its fifth chief executive in as many years.

The bookstore fired its most recent CEO, Demos Parneros, in early July, citing unspecified violations of company policy. Barnes & Noble later revealed that claims of sexual harassment and bullying led to Parneros’ termination.

In August, Parneros sued his former employer in federal court for defamation and for firing him without cause.

Barnes & Noble still has more 600 stores and 23,000 employees. Last quarter, same-store sales dropped 6.1% compared with a year ago.

Sales have fallen at Barnes & Noble during each of the past four years. New tactics, such as smaller store formats and a kitchen concept, have struggled to win back shoppers.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, said in September that most of the stores “feel tired, are too large and too cluttered, and do not offer the consumer any compelling reason to visit and buy.”

He believes Barnes & Noble will shutter more stores: “Barnes & Noble needs to slim down in order to survive.”

Barnes & Noble’s problems come as local and independent bookstores are resurgent.

The American Booksellers Association, a trade group, reported that the number of independent locations rose 6% last year to 2,470.

CNN
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It’s time for investors to start making safer bets.

That’s what Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital, told CNNMoney editor-at-large Richard Quest on “Markets Now” on Wednesday.

“Defense is more important than offense” right now, said Marks, the author of “Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side.”

Investors should consider taking a stake in utilities, and decreasing their investments in more volatile tech stocks, he said.

Defense is the name of the game for a few reasons.

Though stocks have been soaring, Marks warned that we may be nearing the end of the bull cycle.

“I’m not saying get out,” he said. “I think that being out of the market is pretty dangerous today, and I think it would be a mistake to raise cash.” But more reliable stocks can protect investors from big losses if the climate changes.

Marks also pointed to the trade war with China as another reason for investors to tread carefully.

“We have a trade battle with China, it’s probably going to get solved, but it may go off the rails,” he said. “And if it goes off the rails, it has very serious consequences for the world economy.”

“Markets Now” streams live from the New York Stock Exchange every Wednesday at 12:45 p.m. ET. Hosted by CNNMoney’s business correspondents, the 15-minute program features incisive commentary from experts.

You can watch “Markets Now” at CNNMoney.com/MarketsNow from your desk or on your phone or tablet. If you can’t catch the show live, check out highlights online and through the Markets Now newsletter, delivered to your inbox every afternoon.

1. The race to driverless cars: SoftBank (SFTBF) and Toyota (TM) are forming a joint venture that will use driverless-car technology to offer new services, such as mobile convenience stores and delivery vehicles in which food is prepared en route.

SoftBank will own just over half of Monet, the new business, while Toyota will hold the rest.

It’s the latest in a series of driverless development partnerships announced by tech companies and carmakers. SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, its tech-focused investment arm, had already committed $2.3 billion to General Motors’ self-driving car unit GM Cruise.

On Wednesday, Honda (HMC) and General Motors (GM) said they were teaming up to create a new generation of fully autonomous vehicles. BMW (BMWYY) has joined the board of Apollo, an autonomous driving project from Chinese internet firm Baidu (BIDU).

2. Facebook under investigation: The Irish Data Protection Commission has launched a formal probe into a Facebook (FB) hack that affected as many as 50 million accounts.

The commission will investigate whether the company complied with its obligations under new European data protection laws that came into effect in May. Facebook said last week that it closed the loophole, but 90 million users were forcefully logged out of their accounts as a precaution.

Irish regulators are investigating because Facebook’s international headquarters is in Dublin.

There are still many unanswered questions about the hack: Who carried it out? And what were they trying to access?

3. Bonds sell-off: The yield on 10-year US Treasuries has spiked to the highest level in seven years following the release of positive economic data.

US hiring data published Wednesday was stronger than expected, and momentum could continue Thursday if initial claims numbers add to the optimism. A strong US economy and the expectation of rate hikes by the Federal Reserve are fueling the trend.

“The underlying message is that the US economy isn’t just in fine fettle, it’s on fire,” said Kit Juckes, strategist at Societe Generale.

4. CNN means business: On Thursday, CNNMoney becomes the all-new CNN Business, covering the companies, personalities, and innovations driving business forward.

This new initiative will focus on the single biggest financial story of our generation: how technology is upending every corner of the global economy, forcing businesses, workers, and society itself to adapt rapidly, or be left behind.

5. Global market overview: US stock futures were lower.

European markets dropped in early trade following a negative trading session in Asia. The Shanghai Composite was closed for a holiday.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed 0.2% higher on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 added 0.1% and the Nasdaq gained 0.3%.

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6. Earnings and economics: Constellation Brands (STZ) will release earnings before the open. Costco (COST) is set to follow after the close.

Shares in Danske Bank (DNKEY) opened 3% lower after the Danish lender said it had received requests for information from the US Department of Justice in connection to its money laundering scandal.

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7. Coming this week:
Thursday — Costco (COST) earnings; CNN Business launches
Friday — US jobs report

CNNMoney (London) First published October 4, 2018: 5:07 AM ET