Replies to post #26315 on The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

WSJ misses the boat vis-à-vis 3M:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-stocks-markets-dow-update-07-26-2022-11658820952

…3M jumped 4.8% after it said it would spin off its healthcare business to create two public companies.

Actually, the impetus for the share-price jump today is the bankruptcy filing of a 3M subsidiary to ring-fence the legal liability from the earplug litigation (#msg-169496455).

[DewDiligence]

3M—Federal judge allows transfer of earplug litigation to bankruptcy court:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-knocks-3m-bankruptcy-strategy-for-military-earplug-lawsuits-11660578963

The bankruptcy court itself must still approve the transfer of jurisdiction, but the decision in the link above was a major hurdle that has now been overcome.

p.s. I can read only the first few sentences of the above article b/c it the full article is available only through a WSJ Pro subscription. Still, I can see enough of the article to understand what it all means.

[DewDiligence]

JNJ’s adverse talc ruling_today—>bearish for 3M, although the two cases are quite different:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/j-js-talc-bankruptcy-case-thrown-out-by-appeals-court-11675096308

A federal appeals court rejected Johnson & Johnson’s plan to use a legal strategy [the “Texas Two-Step”] to push about 38,000 talc lawsuits into bankruptcy court… The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday dismissed the chapter 11 case of J&J subsidiary LTL Management LLC, which the consumer-health-goods giant created in 2021 to move to bankruptcy court the mass lawsuits alleging its talc-based baby powder products caused cancer.

JNJ As I’m typing, JNJ is -3.4% and MMM is -2.0%.