The Shortlist for August 2, 2019: Interest Rates, Impossible Burgers and Big Mergers

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter-percentage point on Wednesday, its first reduction in 11 years. However, this is no indictment on the state of the U.S. economy. Here’s how Whittier Trust CIO Sandip Bhagat broke down the news in an interview with Yahoo Finance.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank did not see the move as the beginning of a long series of rate cuts, but did not rule it out.

There is plenty of interest in the meat alternative market recently and Burger King is set to capitalize on it. BK’s parent company, Restaurant Brands International, said Thursday it has reached a agreement with Impossible Foods to begin selling plant-based Impossible Whoppers starting August 8th.

Burger King is the largest restaurant chain to roll out a meat alternative on its menu in the US, and here’s what McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook told CNBC in May about the complications behind such an addition.

Burger King is still undecided whether this move will be permanent or not.
While the impossible burger may only cost a few bucks, SnapAV just spent approximately $680 million to acquire Control 4.

The latter is a provider of automation and network systems for homes and businesses that allow users to control lighting, sound, security, communications and more.
Snap AV CEO John Heyman had this to say about the thinking behind the merger.

The announcement signals a further push of AV applications into the smart home space.
That’s the B2B Shortlist for this week, I’m MarketScale Digital Editor Geoffrey Short.

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