That's how much industrial giant Honeywell is said to be offering private equity firm New Mountain Capital to acquire the industry's largest best of breed supply chain software company JDA, in news broken by Reuters late last week. Reports then were that the deal could be announced as soon as this past Monday – but Monday came and went without any news. Then Tuesday, news that giant private equity firm Blackstone had stepped in and was offering a deal to restructure JDA's some $2 billion debt, nearly twice its annual sales, by in effect swapping debt for equity. And just this morning, JDA announced that it is indeed going to do a deal with Blackstone, and will not be acquired by Honeywell after all. The deal brings $570 million into JDA, which will be used to payoff existing debt and reduce annual interest expense by $70 million a year, the company says. This move will have far less impact on JDA and its customers than a Honeywell acquisition would have had, so good news for some there.

That's how many years outdoor sports apparel brand Patagonia had been developing a promising new line of wool long underwear when the planned launch had to be delayed – due to a lack of wool suppliers. That according to a story in the Wall Street Journal this week that detailed how Patagonia, an acknowledged and early leader in supply chain transparency and social responsibility, nevertheless got burned when in 2015 when the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) released a video showing significant abuse of sheep at a South American ranch that provided wool to Patagonia. That led Patagonia to stop buying wool from the network of farms on the continent that provided the majority of wool for the company, and ultimately then canceled the product launch. Patagonia soon rewrote its rules for sourcing wool and had to find suppliers which met the new criteria. Sourcing team members travelled to remote farms across the globe to see ranches, animal treatment and shearing processes first hand.