Univar announced a definitive agreement under which affiliates of AEA will acquire Univar Solutions' Environmental Sciences business for $195M. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2019 or early 2020. The standalone Environmental Sciences business is expected to announce a new name and brand identity upon close of the transaction.

Royal Gold (RGLD) announced that Teck Resources Limited (TECK) provided an update on the resumption of operations at its Carmen de Andacollo operation in Chile. Teck reported today that the Andacollo Workers Union ratified a new 36-month collective agreement. The benefits of the agreement are effective as of December 5, 2019, and operations at Andacollo have now resumed. As previously reported by Teck, operations, with the exception of essential activities to maintain safety and the environment, were suspended when the Workers' Union commenced strike action on October 14, 2019. Royal Gold owns the right to purchase 100% of the payable gold produced from Andacollo until 900,000 ounces have been delivered, and 50% of the payable gold thereafter, for a cash purchase price of 15% of the monthly average gold price for the month preceding the delivery date. Gold production from Andacollo contributed approximately 55,000 ounces and 16.4% of total revenue, to Royal Gold in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2019. The impact of the strike on Royal Gold is expected to be reflected with the June 2020 quarterly results, as gold deliveries are generally received from Andacollo within six months of concentrate shipment.

Intercept announced that the positive results from the interim analysis of the Phase 3 REGENERATE study of obeticholic acid, or OCA, in patients with fibrosis due to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis have been published in The Lancet. This is the first peer-reviewed publication of positive results from a pivotal study evaluating an investigational therapy for NASH. "The first positive Phase 3 study results in NASH represent a real watershed moment for the hepatology field," said Zobair M. Younossi, M.D., Professor and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Inova Fairfax Medical Campus, Chair of the REGENERATE Steering Committee and a lead author of the publication. "The antifibrotic efficacy observed with just 18 months of OCA treatment in REGENERATE is particularly meaningful because fibrosis is the most important histological predictor of liver failure and death in patients with NASH."

Huntsman announces its agreement to acquire Icynene-Lapolla, a North American manufacturer and distributor of spray polyurethane foam insulation systems for residential and commercial applications, from an affiliate of FFL Partners, LLC. Icynene-Lapolla has annual revenues of approximately $230M with two manufacturing facilities located in Houston, Texas and Mississauga, Ontario. Under terms of the agreement, Huntsman will pay $350M, subject to customary closing adjustments, in an all-cash transaction funded from available liquidity. Based on full year 2019 adjusted EBITDA estimates, the purchase price represents an adjusted EBITDA multiple of approximately 10 times, or approximately 7 times adjusted EBITDA pro forma for synergies. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2020.

Uber released its Safety Report, the first comprehensive publication of its kind to be issued by a company, shares details on Uber's safety progress, processes, and data related to reports of the "most critical safety incidents" on its platform. For the purposes of the report, Uber examined data from 2017 and 2018, a time frime in which an average of over 3.1M trips took place each day in the U.S. The company claimed in the report that the "vast majority," or 99.9%, of Uber trips end without any safety-related issue at all. In terms of sexual assault data, the company reported the following for 2017 and 2018 combined: Non-Consensual Kissing of a Non-Sexual Body Part was reported to occur in about 1 in every 2,000,000 completed trips; attempted Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration was reported to occur in about 1 in 4,000,000 completed trip. This category covers a wide range of reports and includes attempted clothing removal and incident reports that are fragmented or incomplete due to memory loss or lack of event recall; Instances of Non-Consensual Touching of a Sexual Body Part were reported to occur in about 1 in every 800,000 trips; Non-Consensual Kissing of a Sexual Body Part was reported to occur in 1 in every 3,000,000 completed US trips; Non-Consensual Sexual Penetration-the most serious sexual assault category-was reported to occur in about 1 in 5,000,000 US trips, or on approximately 0.00002% of US trips; Across these 5 categories of sexual assault, riders account for nearly half (45%) of accused parties; From 2017 to 2018, Uber saw approximately a 16% decrease in the average incident rate of the 5 most serious sexual assault categories reported. Based on preliminary estimates for the first half of 2019, the same 5 categories of sexual assault currently reflect a 17-20% decrease when compared to the full year of 2018, the company said. However, as Uber invests even more in sexual assault prevention and reporting initiatives, there may be increased reporting of these 5 categories of sexual assault independent of the underlying frequency of occurrence, the company added.

Uber released its Safety Report, the first comprehensive publication of its kind to be issued by a company, shares details on Uber's safety progress, processes, and data related to reports of the "most critical safety incidents" on its platform. For the purposes of the report, Uber examined data from 2017 and 2018, a time frime in which an average of over 3.1M trips took place each day in the U.S. The company claimed in the report that the "vast majority," or 99.9%, of Uber trips end without any safety-related issue at all. In terms of fatal physical assault data, the company reported the following: Fatal physical assault was reported to occur in about 1 in every 122,000,000 US trips, or approximately 0.000001%30 of US trips; among the 19 deceased parties in 2017 and 2018 included in this report, 8 were riders using the Uber platform, 7 were drivers using the Uber platform, and 4 were third parties.

Uber released its Safety Report, the first comprehensive publication of its kind to be issued by a company, shares details on Uber's safety progress, processes, and data related to reports of the "most critical safety incidents" on its platform. "We know most companies would not share publicly much of the information we have included here," the company said. But even though the decision to do so was hard, we have chosen to produce this report because we believe that for too long, companies have not discussed these issues publicly, particularly those relating to sexual violence. And simply put, we don't believe corporate secrecy will make anyone safer." For the purposes of the report, Uber examined data from 2017 and 2018, a time frime in which an average of over 3.1M trips took place each day in the U.S. The company claimed in the report that the "vast majority," or 99.9%, of Uber trips end without any safety-related issue at all. In terms of motor vehicle fatalities data, the company reported the following: 107 total fatalities in 2017 and 2018 across 97 fatal crashes reported in relation to the Uber app; the Uber-related motor vehicle fatality rate for 2017 was 0.59 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled; it was 0.57 fatalities per 100 million miles traveled in 2018. For both years, the Uber data is about half of the national rates. Approximately 90% of Uber-related fatal crashes occurred in urban areas; 21% of the fatalities in this report were drivers using the Uber platform; 21%were riders using the Uber platform, and the rest were third parties; 8 of the drivers and riders using the Uber platform were fatally struck while they were outside the vehicle; 30% of fatal crashes involved a pedestrian, 25% of which were drivers or riders using the Uber platform who were outside the vehicle; across 2017 and 2018, pedalcyclists were the deceased party in 2% of cases.

In an interview on CNBC's Mad Money, Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol said: We've put together a new team... The core of our business is great ingredients... The brand stands for something special... We have a second line that handles digital orders and that is a huge advantage for us... The second line of digital/delivery doesn't interfere with the restaurant experience... We are investing in the young farmer... We don't compromise on food freshness.

The dividend will be paid on January 29, 2020 to the Company's common stockholders of record as of the close of business on January 6, 2020.

Black Hills announced that its South Dakota Electric and Wyoming Electric utilities, doing business as Black Hills Energy, received approval from the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission to increase the offering under its Renewable Ready program by 12.5 megawatts and a determination from the Wyoming Public Service Commission that the proposed increase of the Corriedale Wind Energy Project to 52.5 megawatts is within commission rules. With these actions, Black Hills Energy will install five additional wind turbines, increasing the wind project from 40 megawatts to 52.5 megawatts and the project cost from $57M to $79M.

Primoris Services announced two new pipeline awards with a combined value over $45M. The contracts were secured by Rockford Corporation, part of the Pipeline & Underground segment. The awards are for two natural gas pipeline projects, located in West Texas and northern Virginia, for a combined total of 24 miles. Work is scheduled to commence in 1Q20 and to be completed in 2Q20.

In a regulatory filing, LeMaitre disclosed that CFO Joseph Pellegrino sold 121K shares of common stock on December 3rd-5th. The total transaction size was $4.36M.

Columbia Financial announced that it has expanded its stock repurchase program to acquire an additional 3,000,000 shares of the company's outstanding common stock in addition to the shares remaining under the repurchase program announced on June 11, 2019. Through September 30, 2019, the company has repurchased approximately 2,742,000 shares for approximately $42.1M under its previously announced stock repurchase program. Repurchases under the stock repurchase program may be made in open market transactions or privately negotiated transactions, and pursuant to a trading plan that the company intends to adopt in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Axis Capital has declared a quarterly dividend of 41c per common share, which represents an increase of 2.5%. The common divided will be payable on January 15, 2020, to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 31, 2019. In addition, the Board declared a dividend of $34.375 per Series E 5.50% Preferred Share. The Series E Preferred Share dividend is payable on January 15, 2020, to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 31, 2019.

The Hanover Insurance Group has declared a special cash dividend of $2.50 per share and increased its regular quarterly dividend to 65c per share from 60c per share. Both the regular quarterly dividend and the special cash dividend will be payable on December 27, 2019, to shareholders of record at the close of business on December 16, 2019.