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In the race to develop artificial intelligence that communicates the way humans do, OpenAI is preparing to demonstrate technology that talks to people—using sound as well as text—and recognizes objects and images. The ChatGPT developer has shown some of these capabilities, which include better logical reasoning than its current products, to some customers, according to two people who have seen the new AI.

The technology is another step in OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s quest to ultimately develop a highly responsive AI akin to the virtual assistant in the Spike Jonze film “Her,” and to enable existing voice assistants like Apple’s Siri to be more useful. The company could preview the upgraded AI publicly at an event as soon as Monday, which would help it get ahead of a slew of AI announcements from its rival Google later in the week, one of the people said.

The Takeaway

• New OpenAI software has built-in audio and visual understanding

• It could boost the performance of automated customer service agents

• OpenAI could complete GPT-5 and release it publicly by the end of the year

OpenAI sees assistants with visual and audio capabilities as potentially as transformative as the smartphone. The assistant could theoretically do a range of things not possible today, such as acting as a tutor for a student working on a paper or on math problems, or giving people information about their surroundings when they ask for it, like translating signs or explaining how to fix car troubles.

The new tech is too big to run on personal devices today, but customers in the near term could use the cloud-based version to improve features OpenAI’s software already powers, such as automated customer service agents. The audio features of the new software could help such agents better understand the intonation of callers’ voices or whether they’re being sarcastic in making a request, said one of the people with knowledge of it.

OpenAI already has software that can transcribe audio and convert text to speech, but those features are available through separate conversational AI models, whereas the new model brings those features together. That gives the new multimodal model a better understanding of image and audio, as well as making it faster to use than the less-capable models.

Microsoft, which can use OpenAI’s technology at will because it is the company’s top financial backer, could use OpenAI’s new AI to improve its own voice assistant or try to make it compact enough to run on small devices, including wearables with front-facing cameras that can capture the customer’s surroundings.

It isn’t clear when OpenAI will make the new features available to its paying customers, but it eventually plans to make them part of the free version of its chatbot, ChatGPT, said one of the people who has used it. OpenAI aims to make the new AI model powering these features cheaper to run than the most advanced model it sells today, GPT-4 Turbo, this person said. The new model also outperforms GPT-4 Turbo in answering some types of questions, this person said. However, the new model can still make mistakes, known as hallucinations. (Spokespeople for OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.)

GPT-5 Release

Google executives, meanwhile, have long dreamed of using AI to develop powerful assistants. In December, Google showed a video of a conversational AI it had developed, Gemini, that responded to a person’s voice commands in real time and recognized images the person was looking at. However, the company separately explained that these capabilities required researchers to prompt the models with images and text instructions, rather than the simple dialogue the video demonstrated. In the meantime, Gemini has added features that can analyze audio in addition to imagery and text, but it doesn't understand many traditional voice commands or talk to users the way traditional voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant do.

Still image from Google's December demonstration of multimodal features of Gemini AI, via YouTube

OpenAI also is trying to stay ahead of Meta Platforms, which in April released an open-source AI, Llama 3, that surpassed the performance of most conversational AI models available today and received rave reviews from AI app developers.

The upcoming OpenAI model with audio and visual capabilities is one of a number of products under development. The company has been aiming to launch a web search engine, which aims to compete with Google’s. (The Information first reported on it in February.) OpenAI also is developing a type of automation software known as a computer-using agent that could speed up software development and other computer-based tasks, and the company has previewed an AI video generator, Sora, that isn’t available publicly yet but has made waves in Hollywood.

More importantly, OpenAI has been developing GPT-5, which it hopes will represent a significant improvement over GPT-4—a model it released more than a year ago. It could complete GPT-5 and release it publicly by the end of the year, said a person who has discussed it with OpenAI leaders.

The blitz of product and AI model development at OpenAI means some projects previously announced aren’t getting as much attention. For instance, though the startup promised developers that by the first quarter of this year they would be able to make money from building custom chatbots for its store, OpenAI has yet to launch a way for them to do so.

On the other hand, improving visual and audio capabilities could aid OpenAI in getting its conversational AI running on millions or billions of Apple devices. The iPhone maker has held discussions with OpenAI in recent months about how the next iPhone operating system could integrate OpenAI’s models, Bloomberg reported. However, the ChatGPT maker has tough competition: Apple is holding similar talks with Google, Bloomberg reported.

Altman is also working with iPhone developer Jony Ive on a separate AI consumer device, which could raise up to $1 billion in funding from investors including Emerson Collective and Thrive Capital, The Information first reported. In doing so, Altman would be joining the ranks of the big tech companies and startups all racing to release AI-powered devices and wearables that could capture the imaginations—and wallets—of consumers.

However, the large size of the most advanced AI models means they will need to run in the cloud for now and require an internet connection to work. It could take months or even years for complex conversational AI with visual and audio capabilities to become small enough to run on devices.

Tiered Pricing

OpenAI, which could generate billions of dollars in revenue this year, is also planning to release a new pricing model that would offer customers up to a 50% discount if they prepay to reserve tokens (the words large language models process or generate), according to a person who spoke to executives.

Currently, the startup offers mainly on-demand pricing, charging developers anywhere from a few cents to $120 for every million tokens its LLMs generate. Some larger customers receive volume discounts.

Discounts for paying in advance are common in cloud computing—customers of Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services can lower their costs by reserving server capacity ahead of time.

With more-flexible pricing, OpenAI could better compete with rival model developers, as well as the startups that aim to help developers run open-source models more cheaply, known as AI server resellers or inference providers. Their focus on cost efficiency has sometimes driven these startups to offer the same LLMs at lower and lower prices, or even below cost in some cases.

OpenAI has already introduced a way for its developers to lower costs with Batch API, an application programming interface it launched in April that provides developers with cheaper pricing if they upload model queries in bulk and are willing to wait up to 24 hours for responses. For their part, AI-server resellers such as Together AI and Anyscale say that running open-source models on their software is up to six times cheaper than using OpenAI’s models.

The huge gains came both from groundbreaking insights and lots of small innovations. Being way out on Long Island didn’t hurt either.

I spent two years researching a book about Simons and his firm, Renaissance Technologies. I had long conversations with Simons—enduring his chain-smoking for hours at a time. I talked to dozens of his executives, researchers and friends. The response to the book was positive, but the question kept coming: What was really behind perhaps the most successful investment firm of all time?

How did Simons and the crew of academics who ran Renaissance’s Medallion Fund produce more than $100 billion in gains and average annual returns of 39% between 1988 and 2018? Those numbers came after the firm’s enormous investor fees. They dwarf the returns of Warren Buffett, George Soros, Stan Druckenmiller, Steve Cohen and most everyone else.

Simons, who died Friday at age 86, was a pioneering quantitative trader. He and his team relied on artificial intelligence back in the 1980s. But there wasn’t a single algorithm powering Medallion’s gains. Instead, Simons built a series of advantages that put his firm in a dominant position over its competitors.

“People say, ‘What is the secret sauce?’” Simons once said. “It’s a lot of little secrets.”

1- Data Dominance—Renaissance began collecting stock, gold and other pricing data in the early 1980s. Some of it goes back to the 1700s. It was “cleaned,” meaning Simons’s team made sure it was accurate, well before others realized this kind of reliable information could power automated trading algorithms. Rivals have data libraries; Renaissance has the Library of Congress.

2- Management Marvel—Simons was a rare breed, a world-class mathematician who could identify, recruit, manage and motivate brilliant and often quirky scientists and mathematicians. “It’s not his genius,” Robert Frey, a former senior executive, told me. “It’s his ability to manage genius.”

3- Top Talent—Because of its track record, deep contacts in academia, and enduring mystique, Renaissance enjoyed a steady pipeline of talent. Most every firm employs Ph.D.s; Renaissance hires the heads of math and science departments of top universities. Its only rival for top talent: giant tech companies.

4 - Rare Recruits—Renaissance rarely hired employees to meet a need or fill an opening. Instead, Simons recruited star mathematicians and scientists and figured they would discover ways to improve his trading system, a unique approach to hiring.

5- Defections Deficit—Medallion’s performance was so good that few staffers were tempted to bolt for competitors. It helped that the firm was way out on Long Island and filled with former academics with limited contacts in the financial world.

6 - Collaborative Culture—Simons built a flat organization, and employees shared projects, made group presentations and worked closely together. There were no silos, which are popular on Wall Street. Even junior employees could view its top-secret trading code. “The most important thing we did is have an open atmosphere,” Simons told an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. “Everybody knows what everybody else is doing.”

7 - Pay Practices—Renaissance compensated employees based on Medallion’s results and placed less of an emphasis than rivals on individual or group achievement. The message: Staffers needed to work together to earn bigger bonuses. Simons also shared the wealth with his team. “By Wall Street standards, Jim wasn’t greedy,” says Nick Patterson, a former executive. “So senior guys were mostly very happy and didn’t fight with each other.”

8 - Trading Costs and Impact—Early on, employees developed sophisticated models that told Renaissance how its trading would affect the market. These models were perfected, helping the firm determine when and how to make its moves. Renaissance didn’t trade in a lightning-fast fashion like others and never acquired the raw processing power of some rivals, but that didn’t prove an impediment. “I’m not sure we’re the best at trading,” Simons once told a colleague. “But we’re the best at estimating the cost of our trades.”

9 - Fund Cap—Medallion’s size was limited to $10 billion for many years, even as other hedge funds swelled. That reduced the need to invest in less-promising trades, a mistake that felled rival firms.

10 - Trading Tactics—Simons’s trading system focused on relationships among investments. It discovered patterns in prices, even when they couldn’t be readily explained by fundamentals. And it specialized in “hedged trading,” with minimal exposure to the overall market or other factors. That allowed it to score big profits (and avoid deep pain) in volatile markets.

11 - No Hubris—Simons realized that his models were fallible and that markets change. His team worked to discover new trading “signals,” and he sometimes reduced risk in difficult periods. One of Renaissance’s early rivals, Long-Term Capital Management, collapsed in one of those times. A popular quip at Renaissance: “The only perfect hedge is a Japanese garden.”

12 - Leveraging Up—Simons’s trading system is accurate just over half the time. But because returns were steady and strong, the fund could borrow more money at better terms than most rivals to amplify gains from its best trades.

13 - Limited Competition—The universe of quantitative investors is enormous, but relatively few do the so-called medium frequency trades. That meant holding periods of “moments to months,” according to one staffer. Few rivals had the resources to compete in this corner of the market.

Third straight month of price growth points to strengthening consumer demand despite falling factory prices

China’s consumer inflation edged higher in April while factory prices continued to slide, pointing to a continued rocky recovery in the world’s second-largest economy as Beijing battles lagging consumer demand and global trade tensions.

The national consumer price index rose 0.3 per cent year on year in April, official statistics showed on Saturday, ticking up from an 0.1 per cent rise in March, with price increases in areas including energy, education and tourism offsetting falling food costs. 

China’s economy had been beset by flat or falling consumer prices for almost a year, with the country’s 1.4bn consumers widely opting to save instead of spend in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

But a third straight month of consumer inflation in April suggested some stabilisation of domestic demand despite a years long crisis in the important real estate market.

The inflation reading — better than the 0.2 per cent predicted by economists surveyed by Bloomberg — came as President Xi Jinping leans on a manufacturing revival, particularly in high-tech industries, to boost economic growth and offset the property sector slowdown.

The strategy has stoked growing fears among western leaders of cheap Chinese imports flooding their markets, especially as declining prices in the country’s manufacturing sector make Chinese goods cheaper. 

The data from the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday showed prices in China’s industrial sector in April remained mired in negative territory. The producer price index declined by 2.5 per cent on a year earlier last month, after declining 2.8 per cent in March and 2.7 per cent in February.

Analysts said prices in the all-important manufacturing sector may be a better barometer of the true health of the economy.

“Chinese manufacturers have volume but they don’t have prices,” said Chen Long of Plenum, a Beijing-based research firm. 

“GDP growth in real terms looks pretty decent, but then if you look at nominal GDP growth and corporate profits — they produce a lot, but they don’t make a lot of money because prices are falling,” he added. 

Profits at Chinese companies listed on domestic exchanges were down 5 per cent year on year in the first quarter, excluding the financial industry, he noted.

Data released on Thursday showed the value of China’s exports in dollar terms rose 1.5 per cent year on year in April, but analysts said export growth in volume terms has been closer to 10 per cent or higher in recent months. The trend is driving renewed tensions with China’s most important trading partners, including the EU and the US. 

French leader Emmanuel Macron and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen earlier this week warned Xi on a visit to the continent that the EU needed to protect itself from cheap Chinese imports. In the US, the Biden administration is planning to raise tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other green energy imports next week. 

In response, Xi has brushed off western leaders’ concerns. He told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last month that China’s exports were helping to ease global inflation, and this week told European leaders that China did not have an overcapacity problem.

Despite its small base, the market could grow at an annual rate of 15 to 25 percent for the next seven years and reach around 23 billion euros to 38 billion euros by 2030, according to a recent report from Barclays.

India, the world’s most populous country, is on track to become luxury‘s next frontier, according to a recent report from Barclays.

Despite its small base — India only accounts for around 2 percent of global luxury sales — Barclays estimates the market will quickly grow at an annual rate of 15 to 25 percent for the next seven years to reach between 23 billion euros and 38 billion euros, driven by a rising middle class.

Due to the country’s solid manufacturing and service sector growth, India’s gross domestic product is expected to expand by 7.5 percent in 2024, according to the World Bank.

However, various challenges still exist, such as income disparity, limited retail space, and a relatively lower appetite for luxury goods.

“Could India be the next China? Luxury brands, outside cosmetics, don’t seem to think so for now,” wrote the Barclays report. “Comments from brands have been very bearish so far, with LVMH CEO [Bernard Arnault] stating in 2023 that India is not a country where they can have a network of luxury shops due to too high a level of income disparity and too low a level of GDP per capita,” the report noted.

Despite a bearish outlook on China’s luxury growth momentum, Barclays said that country’s domestic luxury market is expected to expand from zero to 5 percent after a February market visit.

After a site visit to India in late November, Barclays noted that Indian shoppers tend to hold a more conservative view on luxury buys. “As a result, they may have a clear preference for watches and jewelry over soft luxury goods, as handbags are rarely seen as a long-term purchase,” the report said.

According to Barclays, Mumbai, New Delhi and Bengaluru are home to around half of India’s affluent population and boast 90 percent of the country’s luxury retail infrastructure.

New Delhi, India’s capital, is where the country’s old money lives and is home to Louis Vuitton‘s first store in the nation, which opened in 2003.

Mumbai is home to Jio World Plaza, India’s largest luxury shopping mall. Officially opened in November, the mall spans 750,000 square feet and is already home to key brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci and Cartier.

The project was conceived by Isha Ambani, the daughter of Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man. The operator of the mall is Reliance Industries Ltd., which is said to be on board to help fund a potentially $3 billion buyout of Neiman Marcus Group.

The tech and IT hub of Bengaluru, in the south of India, is quickly becoming a rising luxury hub. Its most prominent retail project is called Mall of Asia, which opened in October.

Looking ahead, French department store Galeries Lafayette plans to work with developer Aditya Birla to open in Mumbai and New Delhi later this and next year. In December, Christian Louboutin also forged a joint venture with Aditya Birla to enter the market.

In the hard luxury category, luxury watches will continue to enjoy outstanding performance, which has become a value-retaining status symbol for the newly minted tech millionaires. According to data from Ethos, a leading Indian watch retailer, the premium and luxury watch segment is growing at a 12.5 percent annual rate and is expected to reach 1.4 billion euros by 2025.

The fine jewelry segment will remain dominated by local players, with more than 50 percent of the market focused on traditional jewelry purchased for wedding occasions. However, Barclays believes that branded jewelry still has a chance. “We think that products with a strong differentiating factor and that could be seen as a clear social status indicator — including Cartier‘s Love and Just Un Clou products, Van Cleef Arpels‘ Alhambra line, the Bulgari B.zero1 collection — could have more chance to succeed in India,” said the report.

Based on feedback from mall operators, Barclays said Gucci is a brand name with high growth momentum in the Indian market.

“Beyond Gucci, we also hear positive feedback around Saint Laurent and Balenciaga. Outside of Kering, brands like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Dior were also flagged as popular during our discussions,” said the report.

As for beauty, the premium category is expected to grow faster than mass on the back of the increased spending power of the middle class. In late 2023, Sephora forged a partnership with Reliance to run its 26 doors and further expand in India. Major local beauty retailers, such as Nykaa and Shoppers Stop, as well as Tira and Tata Clique, are expected to quickly increase their combined specialty retail footprint to over 500 stores over the next two to three years, compared to around 100 today, according to Barclays.

Discussions between the Czech billionaire’s EP Group and IDS have deepened after rejection of his initial £4.5bn offer

Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s EP Group has intensified talks with the owner of the UK’s Royal Mail about an improved takeover bid, after his initial £4.5bn offer was rejected last month.

Discussions between EP and the board of International Distributions Services, owner of the former British postal monopoly, have deepened in the past couple of weeks, said people familiar with the matter.

It remains unclear if EP and IDS can strike a deal, the people cautioned. EP has until May 15 to make a firm offer for IDS under UK rules governing takeover bids for public companies.

Křetínský, a lawyer-turned-energy tycoon, is the largest shareholder in IDS, with a 27.5 per cent stake.

He has been a prominent dealmaker in the UK, making investments in supermarket chain J Sainsbury and London football club West Ham United.

EP said it had “submitted a non-binding indicative proposal” to IDS on April 9, after his interest in acquiring the business was first reported by the Financial Times.

However, IDS rejected the indicative offer of 320p a share, calling the timing of the bid “opportunistic” and saying it undervalued the business. Other IDS shareholders criticised the proposal.

IDS’s shares have been sliding over the past three years, and the stock last traded at the value of EP’s proposal in May 2022. The shares closed down almost 1 per cent at 280.2p on Friday.

Royal Mail faces challenges relating to the high cost of its comprehensive, UK-wide delivery service while it adjusts to a steep drop in the volume of letters it handles.

EP is contending with scrutiny from UK government officials and a heavily unionised IDS workforce.

The Communication Workers Union has said handing over ownership of “one of the UK’s most prestigious institutions” to a foreign equity investor “cannot be right”.

Křetínský had made clear his intention not to break up IDS by separating the lossmaking Royal Mail from the group’s profitable European logistics business GLS, or touch the group’s pension scheme surplus, some of the people briefed on the situation said.

Křetínský has also said he will maintain IDS’s investment-grade credit rating and will avoid compulsory redundancies.

Representatives for Křetínský and IDS declined to comment.

Officials warned of potential blackouts or interference with navigation and communication systems this weekend, as well as northern lights as far south as Northern California or Alabama.

Dramatic blasts of particles from the surface of the sun have prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue a severe geomagnetic storm warning.

As nuclear reactions occur on the sun, it routinely expels material from its surface. This type of space weather is what creates auroras, also known as the northern and southern lights, depending on the hemisphere in which you live. During the current geomagnetic storm, the aurora or northern lights may extend as far south as Northern California or Alabama.

But when the sun’s activity increases, the emissions it sends through the solar system can affect satellites orbiting close to Earth as well as infrastructure on the ground, leading to disruptions in navigation systems, radio communications and even the power grid.

The latest eruptions were first observed early on Wednesday morning, with at least five heading in the direction of Earth. The ejected material is anticipated to reach the planet’s atmosphere by Friday afternoon or evening. Effects could continue through the weekend.

“What we’re expecting over the next couple of days should be more significant than what we’ve seen, certainly so far,” Mike Bettwy, the operations chief at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, said at a news conference on Friday morning.

How strong is the current geomagnetic storm?

Giant explosions on the surface of the sun, known as coronal mass ejections, send streams of energetic particles into space. But the sun is large, and such outbursts may not cross our planet as it travels around the star. But when these particles create a disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field, it is known as a geomagnetic storm.

NOAA classifies these storms on a “G” scale of 1 to 5, with G1 being minor and G5 being extreme. The most extreme storms can cause widespread blackouts and damage to infrastructure on Earth. Satellites may also have trouble orienting themselves or sending or receiving information during these events.

The current storm is classified as G4, or “severe.” It is caused by a cluster of sunspots — dark, cool regions on the solar surface — that is about 16 times the diameter of Earth. The cluster is flaring and ejecting material every six to 12 hours, with the most recent activity occurring around 3 a.m. Eastern time on Friday.

“We anticipate that we’re going to get one shock after another through the weekend,” said Brent Gordon, chief of the space weather services branch at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

How will the G4 storm affect people on Earth?

Unlike tornado watches and warnings, the target audience for NOAA’s announcements is not the public.

“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

Instead, a geomagnetic storm watch or warning indicates that space weather may affect critical infrastructure on or orbiting near Earth. It may introduce additional current into systems, which could damage pipelines, railroad tracks and power lines.

The goal of the announcements is to give agencies and companies that operate this infrastructure time to put protection measures in place to mitigate any effects.

“If everything is working like it should, the grid will be stable and they’ll be able to go about their daily lives,” Mr. Steenburgh said.

Will I be able to see an aurora?

It is possible that the northern lights may grace the skies over places that don’t usually see them this weekend. Your best bet to see them is in a place outside the bright lights of cities.

But Friday night could pose weather struggles in some places. The Northeast is likely to be blanketed in clouds.

There is a chance the skies may cooperate in the Midwest, but the hour would be closer to sunrise on Saturday. A storm system will be moving through the region, and if it swings through, there will be clear skies behind the storms. Your ability to catch a view will depend on your location and the exact timing of the storm system.

If the aurora reaches as far south as Alabama, which can happen with a G4 storm, night skies will be relatively clear in northern Alabama and Georgia. Areas in the southern Plains and Rockies might have relatively poor viewing conditions.

Farther west, the coastal states will remain relatively cloud-free, which could provide good viewing conditions. There may be high-level clouds in the mountains of Washington, but there is still a chance of clear skies.

If you are in a clear area, even well south of where the aurora is forecast to take place, snap a picture or record a video with your cellphone. The sensor on the camera is more sensitive to the wavelengths produced by the aurora and may produce an image you can't see with the naked eye.

Another opportunity could be viewing sunspots during the daytime, if your skies are clear. As always, do not look directly at the sun without protection. But if you still have your eclipse glasses lying around from the April 8 event, you may try to use them to try to spot the cluster of sunspots causing the activity.

Why is this happening now?

The sun’s activity ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle, and right now, it is approaching a solar maximum. Three other severe geomagnetic storms have been observed so far in the current activity cycle, which began in December 2019, but none were predicted to cause effects strong enough on Earth to warrant a watch or warning announcement.

The cluster of sunspots generating the current storm is the largest seen in this solar cycle, NOAA officials said. They added that the activity in this cycle has outperformed initial predictions.

More flares and expulsions from this cluster are expected, but because of the sun’s rotation the cluster will be oriented in a position less likely to affect Earth. In the coming weeks, the sunspots may appear again on the left side of the sun, but it is difficult for scientists to predict whether this will cause another bout of activity.

“Usually, these don’t come around packing as much of a punch as they did originally,” said Shawn Dahl, a forecaster at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. “But time will tell on that.”

The company has also expressed interest in buying Net-a-porter, sources said, which could allow it bolster its distribution strategy.

Mytheresa is working with investment bankers on two fronts, sources told WWD — pitching investors on a buyout that would take the company private, and looking at acquiring Net-a-porter.

A buyout would let the Munich-based Mytheresa rev up its operations away from the glare of Wall Street. And acquiring Net-a-porter, a possibility first reported by The Financial Times, would bolster the company’s operations significantly as it currently ships out of Germany, while Net-a-porter has a complementary distribution system in the U.S. and Asia.

Mytheresa, which is said to be working with bankers at Morgan Stanley and B. Riley as it explores its options, isn’t the only player interested in Net-a-porter.

Sources said private equity company Bain Capital made a bid to buy Net-a-porter in Geneva recently and that the members-only off-price fashion player BestSecret has expressed interest in Yoox side of the business. Compagnie Financière Richemont plans to sell its long troublesome Yoox Net-a-porter operation this year, after its previous deal to dispose of the business fell apart during Farfetch’s meltdown.

With Yoox Net-a-porter slated for sale, Matches stripped down to IP in administration, and Farfetch tucked into Coupang, Mytheresa is one of the few solid players left standing in the luxury e-commerce space.

And the competition looks to be bulking up, with Saks owner HBC in late-stage talks to buy Neiman Marcus and combine the two businesses.

Fashion loves e-commerce, but digital multibrand luxury has proven to be a particularly treacherous space lately, hampered by both the complexities of selling, shipping and accepting returns online, but also competing with the brands’ own websites.

But Mytheresa, which specializes in pinnacle luxury products, has been successfully navigating the market by sticking to that niche.

The company’s third-quarter results are due out Wednesday and during a sneak peek last month Mytheresa said net sales would increase by 15 to 18 percent to 230 million euros to 235 million euros. The company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margin is slated to rise to 3 to 4 percent, up from 1.6 percent a year earlier.

“We are extremely pleased with the strong performance in a rapidly consolidating marketplace,” said Michael Kliger, Mytheresa’s chief executive officer, in a statement at the time. “The results underscore that Mytheresa is not just a luxury e-commerce platform. We build a community for luxury enthusiasts and create desirability through digital and physical experiences. This makes us the winner in an otherwise still-tough market environment.”

But Mytheresa is still not connecting on Wall Street, which has developed something of an aversion to e-commerce since the company staged its IPO in January 2021. While Mytheresa’s market capitalization neared $3 billion shortly after its offering, that has fallen to about $369 million. The stock traded up 1 percent to $4.35 in midday trading on Friday.

That leaves the business ripe for some kind of a deal, to either pique the interest of traders or exit and and build away from the spotlight of Wall Street.

In a statement to WWD, the company said: “Mytheresa is constantly evaluating opportunities to grow our business, which may include M&A activities from time to time. It is our policy not to comment on potential M&A activities, including whether or not any potential M&A activities are under consideration at all.”

Morgan Stanley, B. Riley, Richemont, Bain and BestSecret all declined to comment.