Kansas City Southern courted. A group of investors, including The Blackstone Group and GIP, want to buy the rail operator Kansas City Southern, which weighs $17.5 billion on the stock market, the Wall Street Journal has learned. An offer has been filed, after a first refusal by the carrier. The share was the subject of speculation in recent weeks, after an article in the Wall Street Journal reporting an interest of investment funds in the company.

Facebook will ban new political ads in the week leading up to the U.S. presidential election in November to limit misinformation, the social network announced today.

Campbell Soup expects revenues for the current quarter to be well ahead of expectations after delivering better-than-expected quarterly results.

Altice USA has its eye on Cogeco. Cogeco's majority shareholder is rejecting the unsolicited offer from Altice USA. The proposed takeover aims at separating the assets between Altice USA, which would take over Atlantic Broadband, and Rogers, which would retain the Canadian perimeter. The offer is denominated at CAD 10.3 billion ($7.8 billion), i.e. CAD 106.53 per Cogeco share and CAD 134.22 per Cogeco Communications share.

Verizon Communications and Amazon could invest more than $4 billion in the struggling Indian telecom group Vodafone Idea, according to newspaper Mint.

Narendra hacked. One of the personal Twitter accounts of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been hacked, the U.S. social network confirmed today, saying a series of messages were published asking subscribers to the account to donate to a relief fund with cryptography.

PVH, the fashion group owned by Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger reported an unexpected profit Wednesday and expects a smaller decline in half-year revenues than initially announced.

Curevac praised. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier said the biotech laboratory CureVac is one of the world's most innovative companies, a source told Reuters.

A stimulus package is urgent. United Continental Holdings plans to lay off 16,370 employees in October unless a new aid package is passed by Congress.

In other news. Ford will offer severance packages to reduce its workforce by 1,400 people. MCH Group cancels the Art Basel exhibition in Miami. Saudi Arabian Oil is scaling down its diversification plans because of the fall in oil prices. Siemens Healthineers launches a capital increase of €2.9 billion by way of a private placement to help finance the acquisition of Varian. Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena obtains ECB approval for its transfer of bad debts.