The shock waves of tech stocks crashing are headed straight for startups
Companies are seeing their valuations fall, to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway's quote on bankruptcy, in two ways: Gradually, and all at once.
The inside story of how Elon Musk won Twitter—and could still lose it
Musk is putting everything on the table in his bid to buy Twitter. For sheer entertainment value, the saga of how the iconic billionaire tweeted his way to what would be the third-biggest tech takeover deal of all time is about as jaw-droppingly exciting as business ever gets. But look past the audaciousness of Musk’s gambit and there are some serious questions to consider.
Startups and VCs should be preparing for the possibility of stagflation
The last time stagflation hit the U.S., “startup” was a niche term and VC an obscure cottage industry. How stagflation hurt small business in the 70s and early 80s can tell us now startups may need to respond to this looming threat.
Tech M&A’s surprising acceleration despite a sputtering economy
Merger and acquisition spending, like most other areas of finance, tends to cool off during economic downturns as corporate executives and boards get skittish about big deals and private equity firms grow more choosy. But so far this year, the tech industry is providing an intriguing exception to this rule. Last week, Amazon announced a $3.5 billion purchase of primary care company One Medical. That follows other big-ticket acquisitions during 2022’s turbulent markets.
Alpine Investors finds its edge—cultivating CEOs for its portfolio companies
Graham Weaver founded San Francisco-based Alpine Investors in 2001, but it wasn’t until the depths of the financial crisis that the firm discovered its edge.
With several portfolio companies struggling, Weaver was jetting from city to city putting out fires. When he canceled a weekly meeting with executive coach JP Flaum, the coach pushed back and peppered Weaver on the challenges facing his companies, including one led by a 25-year veteran CEO who was missing his projections during the market
With several portfolio companies struggling, Weaver was jetting from city to city putting out fires. When he canceled a weekly meeting with executive coach JP Flaum, the coach pushed back and peppered Weaver on the challenges facing his companies, including one led by a 25-year veteran CEO who was missing his projections during the market
U.S. companies are hoarding more and more cash overseas
A good cash stockpile has always provided companies with a strong insurance policy in uncertain times. But many multinationals are stuffing cash an increasingly bloated piggy bank for a different reason: to keep tax bills low. Cash held by U.S. companies has mushroomed from $1.6 trillion at the turn of the century to about $5.8 trillion this year.
CalPERS gives an early indication of what 2022 has in store for pension funds
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) has long stood heads and shoulders above its fellow pension funds. And because its fiscal year ends on June 30, its annual net investment reports are both a bellwether and a harbinger of pension fund performance for the full year. So what does CalPERS have to tell us about pension funds in 2022? The news isn’t good.
Cybersecurity looks like a safe haven in private finance
“A good half of the art of living is resilience,” the philosopher Alain de Botton once said. For private companies, the same could be said about the art of survival in down markets.
Top finance execs often self-sabotage their success. A coach to top CFOs explains how to avoid it
In these uncertain times, CFOs and other corporate leaders are increasingly turning to Edith Hamilton and her peers in the $14 billion executive-coaching industry. Last year, more than 70% of organizations offered some form of leadership coaching. After all, it’s easy for CFO’s to feel overwhelmed these days. Inflation and business automation present new challenges. CFO tenures are shorter, and turnover rates are higher.
Buybacks vs dividends? In market downturns, the rules may change
CFOs have two common levers to pull when returning cash to shareholders: dividends and buybacks. Both can present challenges when market selloffs signal a recession may be coming.
Unicorns are finding it harder to run with the pack as valuations tumble
Unicorns—private startups valued above $1 billion, so called because they seemed once a rare and magical beast—have become a ho-hum, run-of-the-mill breed. Agile and quick enough to win races, perhaps. But unique? Not so much in 2022.
An Awkward 'Employment Situation'
Catholics aren't alone in greeting the first Friday of the month with a longstanding ritual. On 8:30 a.m. on that date, economists gather to await a sort of monthly revelation from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The two headline numbers in the “Employment Situation” report are the unemployment rate and the change in nonfarm jobless payrolls. They remain the two most closely watched economic stats in the U.S. Last Friday, the jobs report for August threw something of a curveball.
Airbnb and the $2 Million Pigeon
To understand Airbnb's planned IPO, unveiled through a Form S-1 that the company filed on Monday, it helps to consider the story of the $2 million pigeon.
Low Rates Are Changing the Rules of Retirement
Millions of investors have heard the same two pieces of retirement advice: your portfolio should be split 60/40 between stocks and bonds, and you should plan on withdrawing no more than 4% of your savings annually after leaving work. Following those rules may have been wise in the past, but experts say they don’t hold up in today’s world of staggeringly low interest rates.
How to Rethink Your Investments When COVID-19 Uncertainty Reigns
Every three months, publicly traded companies report both their actual financial earnings and their expected prospects over the near future. Investors closely watch these reports for signs of promise or trouble, in a ritual not unlike reading tea leaves. But with the COVID-19 crisis upending business plans left and right, interpreting those leaves is more challenging than ever.
Rebranding Refurbished: How Big Retail Is Finding New Growth In Used Goods
For retailers, old is, increasingly, becoming the new new. With retail industry revenue growing at a modest 4% a year, some brands are finding triple-digit growth by selling used goods that appeal to bargain hunters and eco-friendly consumers alike.
Bond market turbulence: Why it matters and what to do about it
For decades, bonds have offered a kind of fallout shelter for jittery investors in uncertain times. But recently, the bond market has looked more like the tip of a warhead aimed at their portfolios.
Why Investors Are Shrugging Off Warnings of an Index-Fund Bubble
A funny thing has happened since Vanguard set up its first index fund in 1976: Most active mutual funds have underperformed the broader market over the past 20 years, while continuing to charge investors high fees for the privilege. Meanwhile, the Vanguard 500 Index Fund how has nearly half a trillion dollars in assets under management.
What does it take to turn around a Web company? A look inside the only two we've ever seen
Every time a has-been startup like Myspace or Digg or a big public company like Yahoo or AOL attempts a Web turnaround, the tech media is quick to remind them that Web turnarounds never work. Technically, we can't say that anymore. Two companies-- Priceline and eBay-- have quietly proven that truism wrong, at least from a financial point of view.
The Drug Pipeline Flows Again Tachi Yamada wrote up the ultimate Rx for GlaxoSmithKline: Making entrepreneurs out of 15,000 scientists. - April 1, 2004
January 2000 still seemed like a blue-sky dream for most of the business world. But a dark cloud had already settled over the heads of Tachi Yamada and Jean-Pierre Garnier, two top executives at SmithKline Beecham, the world's ninth-largest pharmaceutical firm. Product pipelines were running on empty.
California Businesses Confront an Uncertain Future as PG&E Says Power Outages Aren't Going Away
The aggregate cost of the outage on northern California businesses has yet to be tallied. But the final tally could be far different: many populated areas were in the dark for less than half that time; and that figure does not include costs of, for example, spoiled foods at restaurants and grocery stores.
Wall Street giants find low interest rates eating into their core business
Banks are especially sensitive to interest rates because they collect higher interest from loans, while offering lower interest for deposits. With interest rates overall falling, it's gotten harder for banks to eke out significant profits from their interest-dependent business lines. That's the bad news for shareholders. The good news is that some of the conglomerate banks are finding other ways to make money.
2019 was the year of the CEO exodus
CEO departures rose 12% year-on-year to 1,480, only four exits shy of the record set in 2008, during the turmoil of the global financial crisis. But unlike 2008, this isn’t a period of economic turbulence.
What a $1,000 Investment in Netflix and 9 Other Top Stocks a Decade Ago Would Be Worth Today
In a decade when FOMO became a widely acknowledged malady, there's always this uncomfortable itch that needs to be scratched—the perverse knowledge of what we could have earned had we been gifted ten years ago a magic crystal ball that revealed what the ten best performing stocks of the decade would be trading at today.
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