Read It And Eat 02/01

Welcome back to ‘Read it and Eat’ — your go-to for bite-sized updates on corporate actions in finance, AI and anything I consider newsworthy. Join me twice a week for quick reads, where I serve up the latest insights that matter in the world of business. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. We wish to start the year by recounting the top 10 biggest news headlines of 2023 in the world of Business. In no particular order:

1. The Trial and Conviction of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried:

The jury’s decision comes exactly one year after Bankman-Fried’s empire first started to crumble when the crypto outlet Coindesk published a leaked balance sheet from Alameda Research. The balance sheet appeared to show that Alameda was in much worse financial shape than it had let on. Fears about FTX’s solvency quickly mounted, with customers withdrawing billions of dollars. But FTX, it turned out, did not have the funds to pay them back, and the company declared bankruptcy less than two weeks later. Since then, Bankman-Fried had consistently denied that he misused customer funds. He pleaded not guilty and testified of his innocence last week in a Manhattan courthouse. But the jury was not convinced. It took them less than five hours for them to find him guilty on all counts. Bankman-Fried faces up to 120 years in prison and will be sentenced by Judge Lewis Kaplan sometime in March of 2024. This was the biggest crypto fraud ever recorded. [https://time.com

2. Bankruptcy Pandemonium:

According to data from Standard and Poor’s Global Intelligence, there were a total of 591 corporate bankruptcies in 2023. This number is more than double the number of bankruptcies in 2022 and it is the highest number of bankruptcies since 2011, with the exclusion of 2020’s 639. Household names such as Bed Bath and Beyond, WeWork and SmileDirectClub. This was unprecedented but was due to the rise of interest rates amongst other things and how expensive funding has gotten. There was also the looming threat of a recession within the economy. [https://www.npr.org]

3. Bankruns and Bankfalls:

The year 2023 saw the run-on and the fall of three massive banks which had their individual for their collapse. The first and fastest was Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) which was the largest bank for startups within the California area and beyond, whenever a startup raised capital through debt or equity they would put that money with SVB. The bank failed after a bank run but also due to a lack of diversification in its investments, this bank collapse also toppled Silvergate Bank and Signature Bank. The second bank collapse was Switzerland’s Credit Suisse Bank which also collapsed in March of 2023 due to successive scandals and poor risk management practices at the bank. The next bank collapse happened to First Republic Bank in May of 2023, this happened due to a high level of uninsured deposits and the rise of interest rates by the U.S. Federal Reserve caused its loans and investment portfolio to become less valuable.

4. The Multi-Billion Dollar Impact of World Tours:

2023 felt like the year your favourite artists went on tour. These tours added incredible value to the economy on the local, federal and even International level. Aside the direct tax on the tour tickets other things that an artist on tour does that generate revenue include airplane tickets, hotel and other forms of accommodation, merchandising, tourism within that city, local restaurants. It is estimated that Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour generated about $5.7Bn in the U.S. alone. According to Forbes, Beyonce’s Tour generated about $4.5Bn to the American economy this is comparable to the numbers generated by the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

5. Barbenheimer:

It is estimated that the Barbenheimer, a portmanteau of the words Barbie and Oppenheimer, cinema bonanza, was predicted to have come at such a wonderful time for the economy as there was a 0.5%. decline in GDP. This movie caused a rise in consumer spending on entertainment. Both movies raked in over $2Bn. This also caused a massive increase in consumer spending on direct merchandise such as toys and indirect merchandising such as pink products and other licensed products. These were the most organically marketed movies as they were direct opposites in screenplay, videography, casting etc. [https://www.reuters.com/]

6. Strikemania:

There were a whole host of strikes among unionised workers who demanded better pay, better working conditions, reinvestments within the business and better hours. Many unions were successful in the strikes that led to an agreement between them and the higher-ups such as UPS workers who were able to negotiate pay and benefits worth about $170,000, United Auto Workers (UAW), Sag-Aftra Union and the Writers Guild of America all successfully went on strike. [https://edition.cnn.com]

7. The OceanGate Saga:

This would have been funny if not that there wasn’t a young boy who had his life taken from him due to an arrogant, stubborn and wannabe eccentric CEO, who took unnecessary and uncalculated risks because he wanted to be known as an innovator. His ego-filled, money-driven, insatiable desire to succeed in the most unethical ways took the life of 4 others including his in a catastrophic implosion due to the water pressure applied to the submersible that it could not contain. Although it is my opinion, I hope that history does not remember Stockton Rush the CEO of OceanGate kindly, and I hope it serves as a warning to wannabe innovators who ignore ethics and manageable risks in regards to forces as powerful as nature.[https://www.outsideonline.com/

8. The Indictment of a former U.S. President:

The former President of the United States, Donald Trump was indicted on 91 charges, most of which had to do with the insurrection and uprising that occurred in January of 2023. If he is convicted of each count he would theoretically spend 100 years in prison They include 44 federal charges and 47 state charges, all of them felonies. Trump has denied wrongdoing in each case. [https://www.bloomberg.com]

9. The Crowning of a King

In 2023 the United Kingdom saw the coronation of a new King, King Charles III, this came about the expected but still unfortunate passing of Queen Elizabeth II in September of 2022 at age 92. Although a figurehead it is the first coronation in Britain since June of 1953 so it was momentous. [https://royalcentral.co.uk]

10. The Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza

Although there have been tensions within the region due to the illegal occupation of Israeli settlers within the country, since what occurred to Israeli citizens on the 7th of October, the Israeli Defence Forces have been levelling the entirety of Gaza and have slaughtered over 100,000 civilians whom the majority of which are under 16 years old. Not only is there a cost to life but the IDF has carpet-bombed major infrastructures such as hospitals, universities, churches, mosques, primary schools and roads that they, the IDF, have declared as safe passages within the area. It is no longer a fight against Hamas terrorists, but the complete eradication of the Palestinian people within Gaza as said by multiple official spokespersons for the state of Israel on numerous occasions.

Gen-Z Word of the Year:

Stand On Business

To “stand on business” means to take care of your responsibilities or put your money where your mouth is. You get done what needs to be done and follow through.