Groupon co-founder out as company CEO

CHICAGO – Groupon has replaced co-founder Eric Lefkofsky as CEO, putting chief operating officer Rich Williams in the top spot as the company battles fundamental challenges and a steadily falling stock price.

Lefkofsky will return to his role as chairman of the board of the Chicago-based company. He had been CEO since 2013, after co-founder Andrew Mason left that role.

Williams had been in the COO role since June.

Xi says China needs

6.5 percent growth

BEIJING – President Xi Jinping said Tuesday that China needs at least 6.5 percent economic growth in coming years to become “moderately prosperous.” The ruling Communist Party also announced plans to let the country’s tightly controlled currency trade freely by 2020.

The announcements follow a high-level planning meeting last week at which ruling party leaders promised to make the world’s second-largest economy more productive and to raise living standards.

Automakers post

big October gains

DETROIT – The U.S. is speeding toward what could be a record year for auto sales.

Sales of new cars and trucks rose by double-digit percentages at most major automakers in October, and companies are raising their expectations for the rest of the year. U.S. sales rose 14 percent to nearly 1.5 million, according to Autodata Corp.

It was the best October since 2001.

General Motors’s U.S. sales rose almost 16 percent over last October. Ford and Toyota reported 13 percent gains. Nissan sales rose 12.5 percent over a year ago, and Fiat Chrysler’s were up nearly 15 percent. Honda sales rose 8.6 percent. Volkswagen, mired in an emissions-cheating scandal, posted a small gain.

McDonald’s fries

return to Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela – Fast food lovers in shortage-plagued Venezuela are enjoying greasy French fries at McDonald’s franchises once again after the side dish went missing last winter.

McDonald’s rolled out the fries’ comeback on Monday with an ad campaign including a countdown on social media and large banners inviting customers to swap their fried yuca, a root crop also known as cassava, for the real thing.

Office workers in line to buy lunch at a franchise in downtown Caracas eagerly asked one another if the fries were really back as they waited to make their orders.

While fries used to cost the same as any other side, they’re now about 20 percent more expensive than the starchy yuca alternative. And ordered on their own rather than in a combo, they cost nearly as much as a basic McDonald’s hamburger here. The fries cost 64 cents at Venezuela’s black market rate, but $79 at the strongest of the country’s several official rates.

Venezuela’s widespread and worsening shortages are driven in part by the country’s tight currency controls, which make it hard to get dollars for imports. Potato imports fell 85 percent in 2014, before McDonald’s took fries off the menu at its more than 100 Venezuela locations in January.

The company was able to bring the fries back this month by sourcing potatoes locally, according to Sonia Ruseler, an Argentina-based spokeswoman for Arcos Dorados, which runs McDonald’s restaurants in Latin America.