Sudanese refugees pour into Chad

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Sudanese refugees pour into Chad’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, April 26th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Alphabet just reported a bounce-back quarter. The violence in Sudan is putting pressure on its neighbour to the west, and one US regional bank is still watching its shares sink. Plus, the CEO of General Motors announced the company is going to stop producing its first mass-market all-electric vehicle.

Claire Bushey
Mary Barra just kind of split it right in there on the earnings call. One of those cases, you’re like, “Wait, did she just say what I thought she said?”

Marc Filippino
I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Google kicked off the first quarter of the year with surprisingly solid advertising revenue. Its parent company, Alphabet, reported first-quarter earnings yesterday, and the results beat Wall Street expectations. This is good news for the company after two straight quarters of disappointing earnings. Microsoft reported quarterly earnings yesterday, too, and said the company’s cloud division continued to drive strong revenues. The tech giant also beat expectations. The tech sector as a whole has had a rough go of it recently. Digital advertisers are cutting back as rising interest rates force companies to get frugal. We’ll see how other big tech companies are holding up. Meta reports its earnings today, and Amazon is up to bat on Thursday.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The UK yesterday began evacuating British nationals trapped in Sudan. Ongoing fighting there between two military leaders has killed almost 500 people. Meanwhile, Sudanese nationals are fleeing to neighbouring Chad. Aid groups say about 20,000 people have crossed over Sudan’s western border into Chad. Our west Africa correspondent, Aanu Adeoye, says it’s easy for people to get across and the two countries have many links.

Aanu Adeoye
One of the key actors, for example, in this current conflict in Sudan, a man named General Dagalo, also known as Hemeti, is of Chadian origin. Some of his fighters are of Chadian origin, right? So there’s always been this interconnectedness of the communities in that part of Sudan and that part of Chad. So it’s always been fairly easy for people to move across borders. And this is not the first time that people are going to Chad from Sudan. When the Darfur crisis broke out two decades ago, people fled from Sudan into Chad. And right now, there are about 400,000 Sudanese refugees living in Chad as a result of the Darfur crisis.

Marc Filippino
But right now, Chad is in the middle of its own power vacuum. So it’s politically unstable and not in a position to provide this new wave of refugees with shelter and food and water.

Aanu Adeoye
I think most Chadians now already themselves face malnutrition and food insecurity. It’s a country that has been affected by climate change, so that has also fed into food insecurity, for example. Right? So you have this country that is already not stable financially, economically and also politically that now has to aid people coming into it. But that will also mean that aid groups and international organisations will be the ones to almost certainly fill the gap to assist these people. And then, as I said earlier, there are already about 400,000 Sudanese refugees already based in camps in Chad. And we’ve seen reports that many of these people, these previous refugees, they lack access to water, to healthcare, to sanitation. And there will be these new arrivals who will also need the same thing and will need just as much as the people who were there already.

Marc Filippino
Aanu Adeoye is the FT’s west Africa correspondent.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The banking turmoil that started with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank isn’t over, at least for one regional lender that was hit hard during last month’s panic. First Republic Bank is the California lender that has seen its shares lose over 90 per cent of their value this year. Yesterday, the shares plunged even further, down 50 per cent, after the bank reported first-quarter earnings and revealed that customers withdrew $100bn in deposits during last month’s panic. FT sources say that officials in Washington are on high alert and in recent days held talks with First Republic. Though one source says that the government is not concerned about contagion beyond First Republic.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

General Motors is teaming up with Samsung to build a new $3bn electric car battery plant in the US. It’s the first time GM has worked with Samsung to make batteries. Here to talk more about that and other big news out of GM is the FT’s Claire Bushey. Hi, Claire.

Claire Bushey
Hi.

Marc Filippino
So Claire, how big a deal is this partnership between GM and Samsung’s battery manufacturer, Samsung SDI? I mean, GM’s already been working with another big Korean conglomerate, right?

Claire Bushey
Well, General Motors already has three battery plants that it operates and owns through a joint venture with Samsung SDI competitor LG Chem. And General Motors chief executive Mary Barra says that by going with a different battery supplier for this particular factory, they will improve the resiliency of their supply chain and also the cost of it. And that will allow them to scale up their EV production faster. General Motors had some difficulties with their supplier LG Chem in the last few years. They made batteries that caught on fire and forced a recall of 140,000 Chevrolet Bolts and LG Chem actually ended up paying GM 1.9bn, close to all of the cost of the recall that GM had to do.

Marc Filippino
OK. So GM wants to diversify its supply chain and scale up its electric vehicle production. But at the same time, GM raised some eyebrows with the announcement that it’s going to stop making the Chevy Bolt. Was that because of the battery issues or is there something else going on, too?

Claire Bushey
I don’t think it has anything to do with the problems that the battery had on some of the models. Really, the Bolt is just an old model of electric vehicles. And it’s kind of from this previous generation when carmakers were making EVs that they didn’t really expect to sell, and they were just doing it to meet federal regulations for the fuel emissions for their fleet as a whole. And they weren’t trying to build something that consumers actually wanted to buy. And that’s changing now. General Motors, like, wants to build something that people are going to buy. And what American consumers like to buy is trucks. And so by focusing on building an electric Silverado and an electric Sierra, GM is trying to appeal to those customers.

Marc Filippino
So all this news came out of GM’s quarterly report yesterday. What’s the bigger picture at GM? How’s the company doing overall?

Claire Bushey
They’ve . . . they had a good quarter. Their . . . had first quarter operating earnings of 3.8bn. And while that is less than the same period last year, it’s a lot better than they were expected to do by, you know, Wall Street analysts. Basically, they were reporting continued strong consumer demand. And also, they’ve been saying they’re going to have 2bn in cost reductions, and they offered a buyout to a lot of their managerial employees. And those cost reductions have been dropping to their bottom line faster than they expected.

Marc Filippino
Claire Bushey is the FT’s Chicago correspondent. Thanks, Claire.

Claire Bushey
Thank you very much.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Marc Filippino
Before we go, a quick correction. In yesterday’s show, we said that LVMH owns the luxury fashion house Gucci. Gucci is actually owned by the French luxury group Kering. Kering was out with its quarterly earnings report yesterday. They were not as sparkling as its competitors. Sales of Kering’s biggest brand, Gucci, were flat.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

[MUSIC PLAYING]