Read It And HeartBeat 14/02

Welcome to ‘Read it and Heartbeat’ — your rendezvous for delectable updates on corporate affairs in finance, AI, and all things that make our hearts flutter. Join me for a Valentine’s Day special edition, twice a week, where I’ll be dishing out the freshest insights that set our pulses racing in the realm of business. Let’s fall in love with the latest happenings together! 💕

Major Headlines:

• ‘New Year, New Me’ didn’t hit as much this year, according to Gym forecasts:

  • There’s typically an influx of new signups at the beginning of each year, indicative of people who are choosing to take their fitness and health goals seriously, commonly known as “New Year, New Me”. This typically means busy gyms at the beginning of the year and sometimes well into early March, and more importantly, accounting for as much as a quarter of gyms’ annual growth, however, despite hopes of an explosive recovery, January 2024 delivers a very sobering reality check for the fitness industry. According to Placer.ai, foot traffic failed to register any significant increase to January 2023. This contrasts with the substantial growth experienced in the preceding two years, with January visits surging by over 40% during that period. [https://www.bloomberg.com]
    

• Jeff Bezos is Dumping Amazon? Shares, he’s dumping Amazon Shares:

  • According to a statement filed with federal regulators, Jeff Bezos, founder, and former CEO of Amazon has sold nearly 12 million Amazon shares, worth more than $2 Billion. He also has proposed the sale of 50 million more Amazon shares with an estimated market value of $8.4 Billion. [https://www.cnbc.com]
    

• Evri, the courier service that no one wants, is also not wanted by its owners:

  • The Private Equity firm that are the owners of Evri, Advent International is working with Rothschild advisers to explore a sale for the company. They are seeking around £2 billion. The company doesn’t have the best reputation for reliability and consistency in delivery but one thing they are known for is price, they are the cheapest courier service and have big brands for clients such as Asos, Shein and Boohoo. [https://www.bloomberg.com]
    

• Sam Altman wants $7 Trillion Dollars:

  • Sam Altman, commonly known for his founding of OpenAi, the company that built ChatGPT, has reinvented and commercialized the development and proliferation of human-level AI. Now, ever the ambitious entrepreneur, he wishes to boost the world’s chip-building capacity in order to expand its ability to power AI. He is in talks with investors such as the Saudi Sovereign Investment Fund. His fundraising is aimed at solving the constraints to OpenAI’s growth which is inclusive of the scarcity of pricey AI chips required to train large language learning models. [https://www.wsj.com/]
    

Minor Headlines

• Senate passes $95.3 billion aid package. Which $48.43 Billion is going to Ukraine, and $12 Billion to Israel. [https://www.wsj.com]

• Jim Ratcliffe’s $1.3 Billion acquisition for 25% of Manchester United football club is approved by the Premier League. [https://www.reuters.com/]

• Barclays to buy most of Tesco’s banking arm for $757 million. [https://www.reuters.com] BlackRock and Fidelity Bitcoin ETF gain liquidity edge over others in the Market such as Greyscale according to JP Morgan. [https://www.bloomberg.com]

• Saudi Arabia lines up Goldman, Citi and others for Aramco secondary sale, seeking to raise a further $20 Billion. [https://www.bloomberg.com]

• Elon Must testify in SEC probe of his Twitter takeover, court mandates. [https://www.cnbc.com]

• Hyundai Motors is set to hire banks including Citigorup and JP Morgan Chase for an IPO of its Indian unit that may raise ~$2.5 billion. [https://www.bloomberg.com]

• Flight attendants are pushing airlines for higher wages. [https://www.cnbc.com]

NEWS OF THE DAY:

Kansas City Chiefs win Super Bowl 2024 against the 49ers

Super Bowl Sunday was as explosive and unpredictable as it was star-studded. It is common for the Super Bowl to be where the most famous, wealthiest, and most connected were in the crowd. The likes of Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Jack Dorsey and Adele were all in attendance. Tickets were sold out months in advance and the most basic ticket was about $10,000.

There were about 59 ads that were 30 seconds long. If all companies paid the reported $7 million for the 30-second ad spot, that means, on ads alone, the NFL made over $400 million in advertising payments alone. It could be argued that between ticket sales, ad revenues and licensing of the game, the NFL made over $1 Billion, that night alone, maybe even more now that it has been reported that this year’s Super Bowl is the most viewed Super Bowl since the moonwalk broadcast.

In the first few quarters, the 49ers had a ten-point lead and held tightly to it until the Chiefs finally got their head in the game and won 25–22 in overtime. This is their 3rd Super Bowl win in 5 years and their second win back-to-back. As a KC Chiefs fan, I am incredibly proud of this win and wish them the very best as they came to win. [https://www.espn.com]

Gen-Z WORD OF THE DAY

“LET HIM COOK”

This is a slang or catchphrase used as a callout to give someone the space to plot, strategize or hone their craft.