Trump Apologizes to May and Vows U.K. Trade Deal After Brexit

Theresa May and Donald Trump entered a news conference on Friday holding hands and went out of their way to praise one another's leadership, a day after the U.S. president assailed her Brexit strategy and said one of her political opponents would make a good prime minister.

The two leaders said they'd complete a trade deal between their countries as soon as the U.K. leaves the European Union, after Trump told the Sun newspaper in an interview published Thursday that an accord might not be possible because of her decision to maintain ties with the EU.

The interview, published during a gala dinner May hosted for Trump at Blenheim Palace, appeared to further ratchet up tensions in a relationship that's been fraught since the president assumed office. But Trump tried to make it up to May on Friday, repeating over and over that she was a "tough negotiator," — a high form of praise from the author of "The Art of the Deal."

"I said very good things about her" in the interview, Trump said. "She's a total professional, because when I saw her this morning I said, 'I want to apologize, because I said such good things about you."'

Trump said that the "special relationship" — "the highest level of special" — between the two countries is "a bond that is like no other."

May batted away questions about Boris Johnson, her former foreign minister who resigned last week after she announced her plan for a "soft" Brexit. Trump, whom Johnson has effusively complimented, told the Sun he'd make a good prime minister.

Trump called the Sun story "generally fine" but said that some of his remarks were left out. "We record when we deal with reporters — it's called fake news."

He didn't elaborate. He said that May is "doing a terrific job."

Trade Deal

"We agreed today that as the U.K. leaves the EU we will pursue an ambitious U.S.-U.K. trade deal," May said Friday at a news conference with Trump at Chequers, her country estate.

"The United States looks forward to finalizing a great bilateral trade deal" with the U.K., Trump said. "We want to trade with the U.K. and the U.K. wants to trade with us."

Trump, who had accused May of taking too long to quit the EU in the Sun interview, acknowledged that talks to leave the bloc are "not an easy negotiation to be sure" and said that the deal Britain reached "is OK with me," before adding "just make sure we can trade together."

May hoped to use the talks to explain her plan for Brexit and to outline the complexities involved. Trump's comments suggest she managed to convey to the president a sense of the difficulty of extricating the U.K. from the 27-member trading bloc without a parliamentary majority.

It was clear that the two leaders disagreed on immigration and Iran but stated their own positions without airing their criticisms of the other's position.

Trump said that immigration has been "a very negative thing for Europe" while May responded that "the U.K. has a proud history of welcoming people fleeing persecution" and "immigration has been good for the U.K."

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Kellogg’s Honey Smacks Cereal Linked to 100 Salmonella Infections, CDC Warns

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning the public against eating Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal due to an outbreak of salmonella.

“OUTBREAK Update: 100 Salmonella infections in 33 states linked to Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal,” the CDC said in a tweet on Thursday. “Do not eat this cereal.”

OUTBREAK Update: 100 Salmonella infections in 33 states linked to Kellogg's Honey Smacks cereal. Do not eat this cereal. https://t.co/G5WyEiWp5A pic.twitter.com/Fa8EF3izUu

— CDC (@CDCgov) July 12, 2018

The first illnesses connected with the outbreak were reported in March, and the cereal was recalled on June 14--at the time 73 people had gotten sick. On Thursday, nearly a month after the recall, the CDC said that 27 more people had gotten ill.

“Illnesses started on dates from March 3, 2018, to July 2, 2018,” according to the CDC. “Ill people range in age from less than one year to 95, with a median age of 57. Of ill people, 68% are female. Out of 77 people with information available, 30 (39%) have been hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.”

Salmonella symptoms--which often appear 12 to 72 hours after exposure--include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. The illness can last between four and seven days, and in some cases severe diarrhea may cause hospitalization and in rare cases death, if not treated soon enough.

Overall 30 people have been hospitalized in connection with this outbreak; there have been no reported deaths.

The CDC says that consumers should not eat the cereal, “regardless of package size or best-by date.” The agency is urging consumers to throw the cereal away or return it to the store of purchase--even if they have started eating the cereal. Retailers are also being urged to stop selling Honey Smacks.

The Food and Drug Administration also said on Thursday that it learned that some retailers continued to sell Honey Smacks after the June 14 recall; it is continuing to monitor the situation and work with retailers who are still selling the product.

“Additionally, the public is urged to report any product being offered for sale to the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator in their region,” the FDA said on its website. “More information about the recall can be found at FDA.gov.“

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More Than 100 People Ill From Parasite Possibly Linked to McDonald’s Salads

Health officials are investigating the possibility of a parasite in McDonald’s salads causing more than 100 people to fall ill.

The Illinois and Iowa departments of health this week reported that they’re investigating reports of people contracting cyclosporiasis after eating salads at McDonald’s restaurants. Illinois reported 90 cases of the intestinal illness so far and Iowa has discovered 15 cases. Both departments of health report that a portion of the people who suffered from the illness had eaten a salad at a McDonald’s in the days leading to their sickness.

Cyclosporiasis is an intestinal illness caused by the Cyclospora parasite. According to the Iowa Department of Public Health, the parasite is most commonly found in developing countries, but has been increasingly affecting Americans during the summer months. People often contract the illness after eating fresh produce contaminated with the parasite.

However, unlike many other food-borne illnesses, cyclosporiasis can take a week or more before it starts to affect the body. Its symptoms, which include frequent watery diarrhea, weight loss, nausea, and fever, can last from a few days to more than a month if left untreated. Antibiotics designed to address cyclosporiasis can kick it sooner.

The health departments were quick to note in statements this week that they cannot say for sure that McDonald’s salads are to blame for the recent outbreaks. There is, however, a link between the salads at some restaurants in Illinois and Iowa and the illness. They both encouraged people suffering from cyclosporiasis symptoms to contact the health departments to aid them in their investigations.

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This Is London’s Hottest Property — Thanks to Amazon

Nevermind West End shopfronts and Mayfair offices. The big money in London real estate is chasing small warehouses.

Rents for the dwindling amount of industrial space inside cities are soaring as online retailers like Amazon.com Inc. seek local hubs to cut delivery times. That, in turn, is luring some of the world's largest investors, from Blackstone Group LP to Singapore's GIC Pte.

The Amazon effect first reached big-box warehouses, those located outside of town that can span the size of 15 soccer fields. Now urban warehouse space is succumbing, upending the commercial property market's long-standing hierarchy.

"We bought an industrial estate recently," said Andrew Jones, chief executive officer at LondonMetric Property Plc, a real estate investment trust that made an early bet on smaller warehouses. "I was thinking, wow that's expensive. But then again, we think we can get the rent up 50 percent or maybe more."

In Burlington Arcade, the covered gallery of upscale stores that emerges from Mayfair onto London's Piccadilly, a hand-carved Monopoly set is on sale for 3,500 pounds ($4,604) alongside gentleman's brogues at 640 pounds a pair. Five miles south, in the Balham district, builders driving white Ford vans idle outside the Plumb and Parts Centre on Zennor Road, a 40-minute drive and a world away from the luxury stores of the West End.

Yet when the brick sheds with corrugated metal roofs at the Zennor Tradepark went up for sale, the buyer paid a higher multiple of the rents the property was generating than the investor who purchased the stores of Burlington Arcade.

DTZ Investors, which bought the warehouses for the Strathclyde pension fund, is betting it can jack up rents as leases come due, portfolio manager Sarah Bell said in an interview. Amazon leased two warehouses at Zennor Road at rents about 60 percent higher than those paid by tenants on existing contracts.

The online retailing giant is testing the Amazon Flex service, where local people are paid to make deliveries as self-employed drivers. Amazon alone accounted for a tenth of all of the space in U.K. warehouses leased last year, according to data compiled by Savills Plc.

Blackstone, the world's largest real estate investor, rode the big-box wave, taking just six years to build a business housing large European warehouses before selling it to China Investment Corp. for 12.25 billion euros ($14.3 billion). That success lured other investors, encouraging more development and raising the risk of oversupply given the relative ease with which such structures can be built in out-of-town locations.

Fresh from that sale, Blackstone is betting on smaller warehouses in big European cities, a segment less at risk of over-development. It's already invested about 4 billion euros. Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund is also muscling into the market. GIC's European warehouse unit announced plans to start buying urban industrial properties late last year.

"As consumers increasingly expect same-day delivery of goods, logistics and retail occupiers are shifting their distribution strategies to focus on urban, last mile-relevant locations," said James Seppala, Blackstone's head of European real estate.

"Now that Blackstone has confirmed that light industrial really is the sexiest sector in the world, it may become self-fulfilling"

As in many of the world's biggest cities, politicians in London are under pressure to build more homes to alleviate a shortage of affordable housing. In recent years, that's encouraged local governments to accelerate the sale of urban industrial land for housing development. A report published by property company Segro Plc last year found those policies risked a severe shortage of space for commercial use, particularly given the rise of online retail.

Take the Nine Elms district on the south bank of the River Thames. More than a million square feet of warehouses are being replaced by dozens of luxury apartment towers, the new U.S. embassy, upscale restaurants and stores. London Mayor Sadiq Khan responded to concerns about a loss of commercial employment space with a new draft London Plan that seeks greater protection for industrial land, making it harder to covert to other uses.

Shrinking land and increasing values are spawning new approaches to warehouse development. At Peruvian Wharf, about 2.5 miles east of London's financial district, GLP Pte Ltd.'s Gazeley unit is planning London's first three-story last-mile logistics center. Each floor will have about 140,000 square feet of space, more than double the size of the average soccer field, and be accessible to trucks via a series of platforms.

Gazeley bought the site from a residential developer that abandoned plans to build apartment towers after the city's shift in planning policy. But there are signs that industrial values are rising so fast that in some parts of London land may be more valuable for warehouses than homes, even without government intervention, said Alex Verbeek, Gazeley's U.K. managing director.

"There is a re-weighting" by pension and sovereign wealth funds who have been cutting the number of stores and malls in their property portfolios and buying warehouses, Verbeek said.

That's partly a reflection of Blackstone's record of profitable real estate bets and the fact that urban warehouses are typically small enough that even modestly sized pension funds can compete for them.

"Now that Blackstone has confirmed that light industrial really is the sexiest sector in the world, it may become self-fulfilling," said Richard Croft, chief executive officer of M7 Real Estate LLP, which is partnering with Blackstone in its last-mile logistics strategy.

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8 Things to Know About Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s Newest Richest Man

Move over Jack Ma, Asia has a new richest man. Mukesh Ambani, the 61-year-old force behind Reliance Industries Ltd., the oil-to-telecom behemoth, has eclipsed the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. founder — at least for now. It's the latest landmark for the Indian businessman who constructed himself a 27-story home in Mumbai having lifted his father's textile business to unimaginable heights.

1. How much is Ambani worth?

Ambani's fortune has grown to $44.3 billion, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth derives mainly from Reliance Industries, India's second-biggest company with a market capitalization of more than $100 billion. Ambani is chairman and managing director and, together with his family, controls more than 43 percent. He also receives dividends, a salary and fees as a director, as well as owning a stake in Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Ltd. and holding some valuable private investments, including a gas pipeline.

2. How did Mukesh Ambani get his break?

From his father. Dhirubhai Ambani began his career as a clerk before venturing out on his own to trade spices and yarn. He then set up Reliance Industries to manufacture fabrics and textiles. Mukesh was born 10 years after India's independence from the British in 1947 and trained as a chemical engineer before joining the Reliance board as a 20-year-old, along with his younger brother Anil. Mukesh Ambani earned a reputation for executing large-scale projects and played a crucial role in taking the company into refining and petrochemicals in the 1990s and then telecom and retail in the 2000s. He was instrumental in establishing Reliance's first major manufacturing project at Patalganga followed by the world's largest refining complex at Jamnagar on India's west coast.

3. Why did the brothers fall out?

When Dhirubhai Ambani died in 2002, he didn't leave a will. Mukesh and Anil, now 59, fell into a dispute that lasted for more than a decade. In a settlement brokered by their mother in 2005, the brothers split the family business. Mukesh retained control over refining, petrochemicals, oil and gas and textiles operations. Anil took the construction, telecommunications, asset management, entertainment and power generation businesses. The siblings' financial paths soon began to diverge.

4. What happened to Anil Ambani?

His fortunes dwindled as his power business racked up huge debts and the telecommunications business suffered through over-competition. Mukesh Ambani bailed his brother out this year by agreeing to buy most of the assets of Reliance Communications Ltd.

5. How has the journey been for Mukesh?

He enjoyed a steady rise at Reliance and was trusted by his father, who called him back to India from Stanford University while he was pursuing an MBA. After the split with Anil, Reliance experienced strong and steady growth until the 2008 financial crisis. A period of under-performance followed, especially as investors doubted a strategy to re-enter the telecoms market via the acquisition of a small company that had won an auction for pan-India broadband spectrum. The stock dulled as the new business took longer than expected to launch, but regained its aura after Ambani announced the pricing for telecom services last year. That lifted Reliance's market value beyond $100 billion, for the first time in a decade, on Thursday.

6. What's helping bolster his wealth?

Optimism about his telecom business: Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. "Jio is the biggest driver behind the surge in Reliance shares," said Deven Choksey, managing director at Mumbai-based K.R. Choksey Shares and Securities Pvt. After offering free phone calls and cheap data, Ambani last week announced plans to integrate Reliance's consumer businesses with telecom and media. “With Jio, Ambani has created a highway," Choksey said. "He will also provide you cars and say you drive in my car, on my highway. Just give me toll now. It was not so clearly visible earlier."

7. What's Mukesh Ambani's succession plan?

That's unclear. He has three children. Twenty six year-old twins Isha and Akash have already been inducted into the business, with both holding key executive roles in the telecom business. Younger sibling Anant has also been taking part in some meetings and company events.

8. What does Mukesh Ambani like?

Indian food, Bollywood movies and, naturally, cricket. He loves south Indian cuisine and is a frequent visitor to Mysore Cafe, a popular cafe in central Mumbai that dates back to the 1930s. He's something of a tech geek and likes to keep current with the latest gadgets as well developments in telecoms, digital technology and automation. He watches as many as three Bollywood movies a week. Arguably his biggest extravagance was his tower block in south Mumbai, where he lives with his wife Nita and the three children, and which is worth an estimated $400 million. The billionaire owns the Mumbai Indians professional cricket team.

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