The daily business briefing: October 21, 2016

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1. British American Tobacco makes Reynolds American takeover offer
2. Regulators confirm 11th U.S. death from faulty Takata airbag inflators
3. Microsoft gets big boost from cloud computing sales
4. Theresa May promises close post-Brexit cooperation with E.U.
5. MetLife fires Snoopy

last updated 21 October 2016

1. British American Tobacco makes Reynolds American takeover offer

British American Tobacco announced Friday that it was offering $47 billion to buy the 58 percent of U.S. tobacco company Reynolds American it doesn't already own. The bid valued Reynolds shares at $56.50, representing a 20 percent premium on the stock's Thursday closing price. The offer of $20 billion in cash and $27 billion in BAT shares sent Reynolds shares soaring. They were up by 18 percent in pre-market trading on Friday. A deal would bring together such cigarette brands as Camel, Newport, Kent, and Pall Mall in what would be the world's biggest listed tobacco company.

Federal safety regulators on Thursday confirmed that the death of a 50-year-old woman in a Sept. 30 crash in California was linked to a ruptured Takata Corp. airbag inflator. The fatality in Riverside County was the 11th in the U.S. attributed to the Takata inflators, which have led more than a dozen automakers to recall a total of nearly 100 million vehicles worldwide. The woman's 2001 Honda Civic, first recalled in 2008, was never repaired.

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Microsoft shares rose to an all-time high ahead of the opening bell on Friday after the software giant reported quarterly earnings that beat analysts' expectations thanks to a surge in revenue from cloud computing services. Sales of Microsoft's Azure service more than doubled, helping the company's overall revenue grow after sliding in the five straight previous quarters. Microsoft shares jumped up by 6 percent before the start of trading on Friday.

Theresa May said Thursday at her first European Union summit as British prime minister that her country would continue to "work closely" with the 28-member trading bloc even after the U.K. exits the E.U., and that she expected her country to participate in E.U. decision making after Brexit. Earlier, French President Francois Hollande warned May that negotiations on the U.K.'s departure and new status would be contentious if she pushed for a "hard Brexit" that would give the U.K. full control over its own budget, law-making, and immigration.

MetLife said Thursday that it was launching a new global brand platform, and for the first time in more than three decades Peanuts cartoon beagle Snoopy won't be in the giant U.S. insurer's ads. "We brought in Snoopy over 30 years ago to make our company more friendly and approachable during a time when insurance companies were seen as cold and distant," said Esther Lee, MetLife's global chief marketing officer. "Snoopy helped drive our business and served an important role at the time."

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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.