Alibaba Group Holding's cloud services business will turn a profit for the first time this year thanks to work-from-home demand driven by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Daniel Zhang, the group's chairman and chief executive.

​He made the announcement during an investor briefing on Wednesday, hours ahead of Alibaba's annual general meeting where Jack Ma, Zhang's predecessor, will officially exit the board of the company he started in a small Hangzhou apartment in 1999.

Last week brought some grim data for small businesses.
Yelp, the popular online review site, revealed that approximately 163,000 of the businesses – mostly restaurants – that listed on their site had disappeared and that, through July, almost 98,000 businesses won’t return. Around that same time a new report issued by the National Restaurant Association warned that more than 100,000 restaurants have permanently closed this year and unless action was taken, more will also fail.
The culprit of all this? Covid-19, of course. But is Covid really to blame? Yes. And no. Let’s dig a little deeper into the numbers.

It’s been a little challenging to get fitness equipment lately, hasn’t it?
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Scammers have noticed too.
That’s why there’s been a proliferation of scammy-looking fitness product ads on Facebook lately. I’ve personally seen literally dozens of ads for fake Bowflex products, often from “stores” with unpronounceable names and obscure but extremely similar websites.
“Scammers are taking advantage of Facebook's advertising options to promote anything they can,” says Molly Borman Heymont, a direct-to-consumer retail entrepreneur. “Facebook does not appear to validate the legitimacy of their advertisers' website or products, so it's more of a buyer beware situation.”

The pandemic recession plunged dozens of large American companies into bankruptcy this summer. Countless more are on their way.
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Brooks Brothers, Hertz (HTZ), California Pizza Kitchen and Chuck E. Cheese are among the mounting number of corporate casualties during the health crisis. And that's just a sampling of Chapter 11 filings since the start of summer.

​Despite unparalleled aid from the Federal Reserve and Congress, large company bankruptcies spiked 244% in July and August from the same period of 2019, according to research from investment bank Jefferies.

That $20 billion fund-raising spree has already met the refining and petrochemicals czar’s goal of making his flagship Reliance Industries Ltd. net-debt-free, giving it enviable financial strength just as the coronavirus pandemic is taking a toll on most other balance sheets. The tycoon wants a repeat performance for another $2 business in his stable: retail. 
He has offered a 40% stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. to Amazon, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. It’s unclear if Jeff Bezos will bite. But others have. Menlo Park, California-based Silver Lake Partners, which bought a stake in Jio, has written a $1 billion check for 1.75%. Another Jio investor, KKR & Co., is also probably coming on board.

​Eight stadiums will host matches during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™. Three of those venues – Khalifa International, Al Janoub and Education City – have already been unveiled, with the remaining five set to be completed long before the tournament kicks off on 21 November 2022.

Since COVID-19 struck, more than 50 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits. Even professionals with “secure” jobs have been forced to question their future: What if my job is threatened by a prolonged downturn? And what can I do to prepare myself now, in the midst of so much tumult?
​For more than 20 years, I’ve studied this question—at first, in a very personal sense when I was laid off the day before 9/11, and later, as I studied best practices and researched my book Reinventing You.