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The too-elite club of female Fortune 500 CEOs will get a new member next year when Otis Elevator spins out of United Technologies: Judy Marks, who came on as president of Otis and is now chief executive of the world’s leading elevator company, with $13 billion in revenue and 17% of the global market.
Marks visited Fortune’s new offices yesterday. She says Otis elevators touch an estimated 2 billion people a day, giving the company a pretty good view of the global economy. And right now, the signals they are getting from the U.S. and from China—which accounts for roughly half of all new elevator installations—remain strong.
“We are still seeing growth in the U.S. We haven’t seen a slowdown…and China is still a high growth market,” she said.
And for history buffs, here’s an interesting factoid: the first passenger elevator, with a safety brake, was exhibited by Elijah Otis at the 1854 New York World’s Fair.
I’m on my way to Paris this morning, where I will be reporting on the Fortune Global Forum next week. More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Amazon Cloud
Amazon is formally protesting the Pentagon's award of the decade-long, up-to-$10-billion JEDI cloud contract to Microsoft, on the basis that "numerous aspects of the JEDI evaluation process contained clear deficiencies, errors, and unmistakable bias." CNBC
Trade Warning
Shipping giant Maersk sees only slight growth in container traffic next year, thanks to the dampening effect of ongoing trade wars. Maersk: "The continued weakening of global sentiment, above all in the manufacturing sector, reduces the likelihood of a growth pick-up in 2020." Bloomberg
Fossil Funding
The European Investment Bank—the EU's nonprofit lending arm—will stop funding most fossil fuel projects by the end of 2021. This will have a huge impact on traditional gas-burning power plants. Energy projects applying for funding will need to be able to produce 1kWh of energy with emissions of less than 250 grams of CO2, so gas projects must use carbon capture and storage, or mix in renewable gases. Reuters
Google Privacy
Google is making a concession to the EU's data protection laws: its real-time bidding system is going to stop telling advertisers the categories of websites that its users are visiting. This information can be classified as sensitive if it, for example, shows the user's religion or sexual preferences—and sensitive data can only be shared with the user's consent. Wall Street Journal
AROUND THE WATER COOLER
Free Broadband
The U.K.'s opposition Labour Party, which has already expressed a desire to renationalize energy utilities, the railways and postal services, is now also planning to renationalize BT's national broadband network if it wins next month's election. It would then roll out full-fiber broadband across the country and give people connectivity for free—upfront costs would come from a "green transformation fund" and the likes of Amazon, Google and Facebook would pay for operational costs through higher taxes. Guardian
Troop Costs
The U.S. wants South Korea to pay more of the costs of hosting American troops in the country—five times more, to be precise. Defense Secretary Mark Esper: "This is a very strong alliance that we have, but Korea is a wealthy country and could and should pay more to offset the cost of defense." Financial Times
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is in its first recession in a decade. Its economy shrank 3.2% last quarter, as pro-democracy protests kept tourists away and customers shopped less. The protests continue to become more violent, with some deaths now being reported. BBC
Houlihan's Bid
Billionaire Tilman Fertitta has offered $40 million, plus the assumption of some liabilities, for Houlihan's Restaurants, which has filed for Chapter 11 protection. Houlihan's operates restaurants such as J. Gilbert's and Bristol Seafood Grill, and is currently owned by affiliates of York Capital Management. Fortune
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.
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