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Morning Agenda: Toshiba Edges Closer to Selling Chip Unit

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The Japanese conglomerate has been trying to unload the business as a way to strengthen its balance sheet.
Toshiba’s monthslong effort to sell its memory chip business may finally be nearing an end.
The Japanese conglomerate said on Wednesday that it had signed a memorandum to accelerate talks to sell its memory chip unit to a group led by Bain Capital.
The group, which also includes Apple, Seagate Technology and Dell, bid more than $18 billion for the chip business, The Wall Street Journal reported .
A goal, Toshiba says, is to sign a contract this month, but other bidders are still not excluded from talks (Toshiba had also been in discussions with bidders led by the American company Western Digital and Foxconn of Taiwan) .
The company has been trying to unload its chip business as part of efforts to strengthen its balance sheet after huge losses at Westinghouse, its American nuclear unit, which filed for bankruptcy in March.
Efforts to repeal the estate tax and to introduce deductions for state and local levies will face a fight.
Senate Democrats have said they would try to block any rewrite of the tax code that included these measures, arguing that they would make a mockery of Republican promises to provide relief for the middle class. And Republicans have to overcome their own disagreements before they can introduce their framework.
President Trump has been dining with senators from both parties, reaching across the aisle out of concern that it will be impossible to pass a tax bill with only Republican votes.
There are several issues still to resolve:
• Congressional Republicans and the White House want to scrap the tax on inheritances. Democrats say that change only helps the wealthiest Americans.
• Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump and Speaker Paul D. Ryan have not yet agreed on the corporate tax rate, and conceded that Mr. Trump’s preferred 15 percent rate would be difficult to push through: “I don’ t know if we will be able to achieve that, given the budget issues.”
• There is no resolution on the special tax treatment given to fees reaped by hedge fund managers and private equity executives, known as “carried interest.”
• There also appeared to be a divide over the lower tax rate for “pass through” businesses, those small businesses that can pay personal income tax instead of corporate tax.
The activists spoke and the chemicals giant (eventually) responded.
DowDuPont will still break itself into three businesses — an agricultural company, a materials science specialist and a specialty products business — but the allocation will be different .
It won’ t be the six businesses that the hedge fund Third Point had pushed for in May, but it will take into account its warnings about units being “stranded” in the new materials science company. DowDuPont had faced a barrage of challenges from activists that also included Jana Partners, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Shares rose and three activist investors that pushed for changes — Third Point, Glenview Capital Management and Trian Partners — hailed the move.
The company also promised details of plans for share buybacks and dividend payments, The Financial Times reported.
Mike Cagney, the Social Finance chief executive who announced on Monday that he would step down, had always had the support of SoFi’s board, even as his behavior raised questions.
That backing allowed him to build the fast-growing start-up, now valued at more than $4 billion.
But there were costs. Among them were the complaints we detailed on Tuesday, and employees who spoke to The Times said that Mr. Cagney would brag about his genitalia and his sexual conquests at late-night, wine-soaked gatherings.
Other executives around him behaved in a similar manner:
• Nino Fanlo, the chief financial officer and a former executive at Goldman Sachs and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, is said to have talked openly about women’s breasts and once offered female employees bonuses for losing weight. He also said that women would be happier as homemakers. (Mr. Fanlo said it was “patently false” that he did not respect women and said that his team included women who had received promotions and professional accolades.)
• Employees said they caught colleagues having sex with supervisors at SoFi’s office in Healdsburg, Calif. Yulia Zamora, who worked as an underwriter at SoFi from 2015 to 2016, described the company as a frat house: “You would find people having sex in their cars and in the parking lot. It was a free-for-all.”
Mr. Cagney has also been accused by colleagues of being too aggressive with the business.
He once decided to put customer service representatives in charge of lending determinations, despite their lack of experience in the area. SoFi also did not have enough money to fund all the loans it was making and employees who dealt with customers were told to lie and say that people would get the money within 72 hours.
SoFi, in a news release, has disputed the reporting by The Times.
Now the board of the company, which includes representatives from SoftBank and Third Point Capital, faces questions about its checks and balances.
There is also a cloud over the company’s growth plans after the departure of several executives in recent months, including Mr. Fanlo, The Wall Street Journal reported.
You may have heard that Apple has a new iPhone coming. Here’s what you need to know about the iPhone X:
• The X is pronounced 10, not ex.
• It will be the most expensive iPhone ever, at $999.
• The screen is larger, there is no home button and it includes infrared scanning to unlock the phone with your face.
For more details and updates on other products like Apple TV and the new Apple Watch, check out our rundown .
Got questions about the new phone? You’ re not alone. But Brian X. Chen has some answers.
There is one small point that has disappointed Wall Street, CNBC reports. The new phone will not ship until November, which means analysts may have to revise their sales expectations for the quarter that ends Dec.

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