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Japanese tech investor held an approximately 50% stake in the office-leasing company that announced bankruptcy on Tuesday

TOKYO—SoftBank 9984 1.07%increase; green up pointing triangle Group sank deeper into the red in the July-September period as it reported write-downs related to the bankruptcy of office-sharing company WeWork and technology shares stayed under pressure amid rising interest rates in the U.S.

The Japanese technology investor posted a net loss of 931.1 billion yen, equivalent to $6.2 billion, for the quarter ended Sept. 30. That is compared with a 477.6 billion yen loss in the April-June quarter and 3.034 trillion yen profit a year earlier, when it unwound its stake in Alibaba Group Holding.

Its Vision Funds investment unit posted a 258.9 billion yen loss after it returned to profitability in the April-June period for the first time in six quarters. The loss reflects softness in technology shares in the July-September quarter. The MSCI World Information Technology Index fell about 6% during the quarter.

SoftBank also said it has recorded a total of 234.4 billion yen in losses related to WeWork WEWKQ 91.96%increase; green up pointing triangle, which earlier this week filed for chapter 11 protection in the U.S. because of weakness in the office market. SoftBank holds about a 50% stake in WeWork.

SoftBank has been WeWork’s biggest backer since it started investing in 2017. The Japanese company stepped in with a $9.5 billion bailout in 2019, following WeWork’s failed attempt to go public and spiraling losses.

At an annual shareholder meeting held in June, Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of SoftBank Group, said his judgment on WeWork was “a stain on my life.”

SoftBank had been defensive in making new investments because of mounting losses. But Son has said the company was getting ready to go on the counteroffensive.

Declining birthrates and higher death rates are making the U.S. more reliant on immigration for growth

America’s long streak of population growth is expected to come to an end.

Census Bureau projections released Thursday show that, under the most likely scenario, the U.S. will stop growing by 2080 and shrink slightly by 2100.

It is the first time that the bureau has projected a population decline as part of its main outlook for the coming decades. The only time the U.S. has recorded a population decline was in 1918, when the flu pandemic and deployment abroad of more than one million troops produced a small drop in the estimated population.

Slowing growth would produce a peak U.S. population of almost 370 million before an ebb to 366 million in the final years of the century, according to the bureau. The projections—the first issued since 2018—reflect years of declining birthrates, higher death rates because of an aging population, and increased reliance on immigration for population growth.

The shift will weigh on the U.S. economy and its geopolitical standing. With fewer young workers to support the elderly, entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare would face greater strains. Population decline could broadly reorient a society that grew explosively well into the 20th century.

The projections outline a nation growing slowly compared with recent decades. Annual growth rates have fallen from 1.2% in the 1990s to 0.5% today and would fall to 0.2% by 2040. Small differences add up through compounding: The projected U.S. population in 2040 is 355 million, 25 million fewer than projected for that date in 2015. The difference is more than the current population of Florida.

In 2022, preliminary data showed the U.S. birthrate was about 19% lower than in 2007. Death rates remain about 9% higher than 2019, the last year before the pandemic. By 2038, deaths would exceed births under the most likely scenario.

The convergence of birth and death rates has boosted the role of immigration, and with it uncertainty about population growth. Immigration is affected by changing laws, wars, natural disasters and economic shifts.

After slowing during the pandemic, immigration has rebounded, according to government estimates. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in January that 1.3 million people, 500,000 of them lacking legal status, became U.S. immigrants or were here and became legal permanent residents last year. Over the five years that preceded the pandemic, it estimated that immigration averaged 1.1 million people a year. By comparison, about 490,000 more Americans were born than died in the year that ended with June, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

The Census projections show that the share of the population born abroad will grow from current near-record levels. Projections include all immigrants and were calculated from other countries’ own growth trends and recent net migration rates with the U.S. Those rates in turn were based on responses to the American Community Survey, the bureau’s annual survey of two million U.S. households.

To account for the uncertainty, the bureau produced three alternate immigration scenarios. Only the one with the high immigration rate—50% higher than the most likely scenario—would keep the population rising until 2100 if birth and death rates continue as envisioned.

By 2060, the scenarios envision a population—now 335 million—that could range from 299 million to 397 million. Another measure of the uncertainty around such efforts: The United Nations projects that the U.S. will grow slowly through the century, reaching 394 million.

The projections anticipate that the aging of the population will accelerate with historically low birthrates and movement of the large millennial generation into old age. Rising life expectancy at birth—from 79.8 now to 87.8 by 2100—would also contribute to the aging trend.

The prime working-age population—ages 25 to 54—would begin to shrink by the mid-2040s as millennials age out of that bracket. Economists and demographers track this group because its members have high rates of employment and pay, the source of payroll taxes that fund much of Social Security and Medicare. In its own projection this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that this group would grow 0.2% a year, a quarter of its growth rate since the mid-1980s.

The census projections show that the racial makeup of the country would continue to diversify. By one measure of race and ethnicity, no group will form a majority by the late 2040s. By a more holistic measure, the transition won’t occur until a decade later.

Unlike many developed nations, the U.S. is expected to continue growing at least until midcentury. A 2022 United Nations projection shows some have already begun losing population, and more will do so in the next generation. It says even some developing nations such as Mexico will see their populations peak by midcentury.

Although it is expected to grow, the U.S. could be topped by Nigeria and Pakistan by midcentury as the third-largest nation, behind India and China, according to recent projections by the U.N. As the world’s population climbs toward 10 billion by midcentury, growth is shifting to the global south. Africa’s population is expected to more than double by 2060, reaching almost three billion.

Deal, which still has to be ratified by members, would restart entertainment industry’s content engine

Striking Hollywood actors reached a tentative agreement with major studios and streamers Wednesday that could clear the way for the entertainment industry to restart its content factory after six months of labor strife.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists said its TV and theatrical committee approved a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in a unanimous vote Wednesday afternoon. The strike is set to end at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

The end of the 118-day standoff means work can restart on new TV shows and films, restocking the pipeline of new fare headed to streaming platforms and the big screen. Actors can return to promoting their upcoming projects online and on the red carpet, bringing Hollywood glitz back to premieres.

The agreement follows weeks of tense negotiations between the union and the coalition representing studios and streamers such as Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery WBD -19.04%decrease; red down pointing triangle and Amazon.com.

The tentative deal “represents a new paradigm,” the coalition of studios and streamers said Wednesday. It includes the largest increase in minimum wages in 40 years, a new residual for streaming programs, and “extensive consent and compensation protections” from the use of artificial intelligence, the AMPTP said.

Terms of the actors’ agreement weren’t immediately available, though the union said the contract is valued at more than $1 billion and includes the creation of a “streaming participation bonus” as well as other wins such as “outsize compensation increases for background performers.” SAG’s national board is scheduled to review the tentative deal Nov. 10, and the union said additional details will be released following that meeting.

“We have arrived at a contract that will enable SAG-AFTRA members from every category to build sustainable careers,” the union told members Wednesday evening.

Television and movie writers, who began picketing in May, ended their own strike against entertainment industry giants in September. The dual strikes halted production of films and TV shows such as “Stranger Things” and “Abbott Elementary,” disrupting fall TV schedules, and postponing planned releases of major motion pictures from Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” to the next installment of “Mission: Impossible” from Paramount.

The strikes meant months without work for many of the crews, costume designers, hair stylists and others involved in productions and took a toll on the Los Angeles economy. Other states such as Georgia and New Mexico that are home to major productions also felt the pinch.

The Hollywood labor disputes were the culmination of years of frustration among writers and actors about the direction of the entertainment business amid a frenetic transition to streaming. That shift created new opportunities for talent and offered plenty of artistic freedom, but for many didn’t provide the same financial security as the traditional TV and movie businesses. Eventually, the workers decided Hollywood needed new labor rules to go with its new economics.

Among the actors’ demands were higher pay, more financial upside from shows and films that are successful on streaming platforms and protections from the use of artificial intelligence in the creative process.

As the labor dispute dragged on, major movie releases including Sony Pictures’ “Kraven the Hunter” were pushed from a 2023 release to next year. Disney’s much anticipated new take on Snow White has also been bumped to 2025 from next year.

In television, the broadcast networks have been relying on unscripted fare and acquisitions from overseas to fill the void left by the strike. CBS started to air old episodes of the Paramount Network hit “Yellowstone.”

The end of the strikes ushers in a new era for studios and streamers that were already ordering fewer TV shows and films. Many streamers are struggling with profitability and industry executives expect consolidation of studios in the coming years as well as continued price increases for subscribers.

When the writers union resolved its strike, there was broad optimism in the industry that a deal between actors and studios would be close behind.

Negotiations between the AMPTP and the actors union resumed in late September but fell apart soon after. The union’s demand for a share of streaming revenue for a bonus pool led to a stalemate with studios and the AMPTP walked away.

Some high-profile SAG members including George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Emma Stone have pressured the union’s leaders in recent weeks to come to an agreement with AMPTP that would let the industry return to work. Both sides resumed talks later in October.

The AMPTP previously indicated that if an agreement wasn’t reached by the end of October there would be little chance of salvaging a 2023 to 2024 television season.

Wednesday’s tentative deal—more than a week after that deadline—will likely result in fewer shows starting production, studio executives said. Some studios might give priority to new episodes of series already on air, while new shows might have to wait until the 2024-25 season.

The expected return to work could also create a rush on sound stages and crews, which will be a factor in determining which television shows will go into production and which ones will continue to be sidelined.

An Agnes Martin set an artist's record for $18.7 million

Over 102 years of life, noted art patron Emily Fisher Landau acquired around 1,200 works of art. This evening (November 8), Sotheby’s presented 31 of them during an evening auction (which will later be complimented by a day sale of another 82 works) that managed sturdy results amid a precarious time for the art market.

While last night’s auction at Christie’s reminded us that the choppy waters of the art market this summer and fall have not exactly calmed, this has been a markedly more stable period for single-owner sales, as indicated by the recent London auction season (you’ll recall that the Sam Josefowitz collection accounted for $63.2 million of Christies’ net earnings this season across the pond.)

The white-glove Fisher Landau sale continued this trend, netting out as the most valuable auction dedicated to a female collector in auction history, bringing in $406.4 million. Its pre-sale estimate was $344.5 million to $430.1 million.

The most anticipated lot of the evening was Pablo Picasso’s Femme à la montre, a canonical cubist portrait of his muse Marie-Thérèse Walter from 1932 from the artist’s annus mirabilis. The piece was estimated to sell “in excess of $120 million,” and had remained in Landau’s collection since 1968, when she acquired it from Pace Gallery in New York.

Femme à la montre was teed up to perhaps become the most expensive Picasso work ever sold at auction, but came in short at $139 million, making it the second-most expensive piece by the modernist master to ever trade via the auction block (the current record still stands at $179 million). That said, Femme à la montre still achieved the highest sales price of any work to come to auction all year.

While the Picasso’s fate may have been a bit deflating to the mood, Agnes Martin became the star of the show—her moody, gold leaf-speckled minimalist abstraction Grey Stone II sold to French art dealer and collector Phillipe Ségalot for $18.7 million, which tripled its low estimate of $6 million, and trumped her previous auction record of $17.7 million for Untitled #44 | 《無題 #44》(1974).

Meanwhile, Mark Tansey set his personal record for Triumph Over Mastery II, at $11.8 million, surpassing his previous record of $7.5 million for SOURCE OF THE LOU (1988). And a record was set for one of 26 flag pieces created by Jasper Johns for a 1986 piece titled Flags which went for a healthy $41 million on its estimate of $35 million to $45 million.

The audience was replete with engaged dealers: Dominique Lévy with business partner Amalia Dayan, Amy Cappelazzo, Loic Gouzer, Larry Gagosian, to name a few. Outside of the room and over the phones, Asia-based bidders were making their presence known, most notably with an untitled chalkboard work by Cy Twombly, which went to a collector in Asia for $26.76 million.

Another high point of the evening was the sale of three works by Ed Ruscha, who has a career retrospective a few streets over at the Museum of Modern Art and was a personal favorite of Landau. Securing the Last Letter (Boss) sold for $39.4 million, coming in dead center of its $35 million to $45 million estimate. Another text-based painting, Mint (Green), surpassed its high estimate of $10 million, netting $12.9 million, and another painting with his American flag motif, Ruscha’s Plenty Big Hotel Room (Painting for the American Indian), was estimated for $5 million to $7 million and sold for $6.1 million.

The sale ended with a portrait of Landau herself by Andy Warhol.

Landau, who famously used the settlement from a jewelry heist out of her own home to kickstart her own art collection, stares off defiantly into the distance in Warhol’s regal looking rendering of her. The piece sold for just over half a million dollars, reminding those in the room before they took off for the evening of her famous ethos on collecting: “If a person is a true collector, nothing will stop them from getting what they want.”

The painting depicts Picasso's 'golden muse' Marie-Thérèse Walter.

A painting by the famed cubist Pablo Picasso of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter was sold with a hammer price of $121 million at Sotheby’s highly anticipated Emily Fisher Landau sale, who considered it the jewel of her collection and hung it over the mantle in her home.

Sotheby’s won the honor of handling the estate of Landau, a longtime member of the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art who also had a private museum, earlier this year. With an estimate of $120 million, Picasso’s Femme à la montre was the cornerstone of the blockbuster sale.

Bidding started at $95 million and quickly went to $115 million, meeting its $120 million estimate after a two minute stand-off between three phone bidders, including at least one from Asia. Ultimately, Brooke Lampley—the house’s head of global fine art bidding on behalf of client—won with a $139,363,500 price after taxes and fees, a rather anticlimactic result that met polite if muted applause from the audience.

“At the end of the day, this is an exceptional price and an exceptional result with real competition,” Julian Dawes, the head of impressionism to modern art for the Americas at Sotheby’s, told Artnet after the auction.

The painting depicts Walter, known as Picasso’s “golden muse,” and was created soon after the end of the secrecy around their affair. The pair first met in 1927 outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris when Walter was just 17 years old and Picasso, then 45, was still married to the Ukrainian dancer Olga Khokhlova, the mother of his son Paulo.

“It’s just this love affair collectors around the world have with Marie-Thérèse Walter as the subject that elicits the most romantic, kind of delirious, effect on people,” Dawes said. “That was obviously how Picasso felt and I think that comes across in his work. For some reason, that is what resonates with audiences more than any of these other, other, other women.”

Ahead of the sale, Sotheby’s heralded the work as one of the most significant of the artist’s to go up for auction since 2010, though two other paintings from the same year depicting Walter have sold in recent years. His Femme nue couchée sold for $67.5 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2022 while Femme assise près d’une fenêtre fetched $103.4 million at Christie’s New York in 2021.

“The sharpness of this, the intensity of the colors and the overall purposefulness of the composition, I think is just like a world apart. The price that that work achieved is a testament to the iconic nature [of Picasso’s works in 1932],” Dawes said.

Scholars consider 1932 a highly creative year for Picasso and his numerous paintings of Walter from that period even sparked a 2017 show at the Tate Modern.

A 1937 portrait of Walter by Picasso was sold by the auction house in 2018. Estimated before that sale at £36 million, it ultimately sold for £49.8 million ($69.2 million) after fees.

But Sotheby’s considered Landau’s Picasso of special note, featuring it prominently with delicate lighting at the entrance to the preview exhibit ahead of the sale.

“If I’m willing to spend $140 million, what could I get that’s better than this?” Dawes said, putting himself in the minds of the collectors. “Nothing that’s available. Nothing that’s barely anything that’s even in private collections, let alone for sale, let alone ever going to trade at a price that is near this this year.”

Two arrested in São Paulo after Hizbollah cell was alleged to have been planning an attack on Jewish targets

Israel claimed to have helped foil an attack on Jewish targets allegedly planned by Hizbollah in Brazil, where authorities arrested two people on terror charges.

Police in Brasília on Wednesday said the arrests in São Paulo were part of an operation to “interrupt preparatory acts of terrorism” and obtain evidence about the possible recruitment of Brazilians to carry out extremist acts in the country. 

They also served 11 search and seizure warrants in the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and the Federal District. The suspects were not named. 

The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a post on its website that spy agency Mossad was involved in thwarting an alleged plot in the South American nation and named Iran-backed Lebanese paramilitary group Hizbollah as behind it. 

“The Brazilian security services, together with the Mossad and its partners in the Israeli security community, alongside additional international security and enforcement agencies, have foiled a terrorist attack in Brazil, which had been planned by the Hizbollah terrorist organization, directed and financed by the Iranian regime,” the statement said.

Mossad thanked Brazil’s law enforcement for arresting what it called a “terrorist cell that was operated by Hizbollah in order to carry out an attack on Israeli and Jewish targets in Brazil”, in the statement from the prime minister’s office.

Brazilian authorities declined to comment on the alleged Hizbollah connection or the intended targets.

“The recruiters and those recruited must respond to the crimes of forming or joining a terrorist organisation and carrying out preparatory acts of terrorism, whose maximum penalties, if added together, reach 15 years and 6 months in prison,” the federal police said.

Security and intelligence agencies in a number of countries have been on alert to the threat of potential terror attacks following the outbreak of war last month between Israel and Hamas militants based in the Gaza strip. 

Brazil is home to Latin America’s second-largest Jewish population, after Argentina, numbering 120,000 people, according to the Confederação Israelita do Brasil, which represents the community there.

It also has 3.2mn inhabitants of Lebanese origin or ancestry, according to a survey commissioned by the Arab-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce.  

“We have known for a while that Hizbollah has people here in the northern area, closer to Venezuela, and in the triple border in Foz do Iguaçu [region with large waterfalls]. We have heard for a long time that there is a presence there,” Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, Daniel Zonshine, told CNN. “But we didn’t know they had activity here.”

US and UK regulators say diabetes medication showed ‘significant’ weight loss benefits

Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have cleared Eli Lilly’s injectable diabetes medication for use as a weight loss treatment, creating the first direct rival to Wegovy, Novo Nordisk’s obesity drug.

The US Food and Drug Administration and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency said patients in clinical trials of Lilly’s tirzepatide had seen “significant” weight loss compared with those given a placebo. At the highest dose, patients had lost nearly 50lbs on average, Lilly said.

The regulators cleared the drug for weight-loss use for obese and overweight adults in conjunction with a lower-calorie diet and increased exercise. Tirzepatide is already sold under the name Mounjaro as a diabetes treatment in both countries. It will keep that brand name in the UK as an obesity treatment but will be sold in the US as Zepbound for weight loss.

About 70 per cent of adults in the US and 64 per cent in the UK are obese or overweight, according to the FDA and the House of Commons library. It contributes to some of the most common causes of death, such as heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

“Today’s approval addresses an unmet medical need,” said John Sharretts, director of the diabetes and obesity division in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research in a statement. 

Steve Barclay, the UK health and social care secretary, hailed Mounjaro’s potential to help cut waiting lists and save the National Health Service “billions of pounds”.

Tirzepatide will compete head on with Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy, which has come to dominate the market for so-called GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes management drugs with a 54.3 per cent global market share. 

Tirzepatide is the first approved treatment that uses two agents, called dual agonists, including both GLP-1 and GIP. That made it more potent than Wegovy, said Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity medicine physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. 

“This new agent is the most efficacious of the [weight-loss drugs] we have seen so far,” she said.

Beverly Tchang, an obesity medicine physician at Weill Cornell Medicine and diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine, said the medical community was “extremely excited to have the official FDA approval of tirzepatide for the treatment of obesity”.  

“The only people more excited than we are my patients,” she said.

The side effects of Eli Lilly’s and Novo Nordisk’s obesity treatments are very similar, and patients could switch from one to the other, Stanford said. Studies show that, as with Wegovy, patients who stop taking tirzepatide see a quick rebound in weight. 

Lilly expects to sell the new jab at a list price of nearly $1,060, but said this would be 20 per cent lower than Wegovy. David Risinger, a Leerink analyst, said in a note on Wednesday that the company had designed its pricing to encourage coverage in employers’ health insurance plans.

Novo Nordisk has struggled to meet the demand for Wegovy, leaving many patients facing supply issues that have interrupted their treatment for a month at a time in some cases, said Tchang. Interruptions led to weight gain and psychological challenges for patients who were meant to take the drug continuously, she said.

Chief executive says studios will make less content but concentrate on quality after ‘losing focus’

Walt Disney reported stronger-than-expected earnings for its most recent quarter and forecast that it would cut another $2bn from its costs while generating higher levels of cash in the coming year.

The results come almost a year after Bob Iger returned to Disney as chief executive to replace his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek. They reflected “significant progress” over the past year, Iger said, which had allowed the company “to move beyond the period of fixing and begin building our businesses again”.

Iger said he was personally working to improve the content coming out of Disney’s studios, which he said had suffered in part because of the pandemic. “Performance from a quality perspective has not been up to the standard we set for ourselves,” he said. “We lost our focus.”

The studios would now “make less and focus more on quality”, Iger said.    

The group’s earnings of 82 cents a share in the fourth quarter exceeded Wall Street forecasts of 70 cents, thanks in part to a 31 per cent increase in operating income at its theme parks and experiences business. It raised its target for annualised cost cuts from $5.5bn to $7.5bn.

Iger said his priorities included achieving profitability in Disney’s streaming business, transforming the ESPN network into the “pre-eminent digital sports platform”, reigniting the creative spark at its film studios and stoking growth at its theme parks.

Disney’s shares have fallen more than 15 per cent over the past year, prompting a new challenge from activist investor Nelson Peltz of Trian Partners, who is seeking three board seats. The shares were up 3 per cent in after-hours trade.

In a call with investors, Disney said it had cut 8,000 jobs, reduced its content spending and made plans to reduce costs further — steps it said would lead to free cash flow of about $8bn in fiscal 2024.

Investors have been focused on Disney’s cash position as it prepares to acquire Comcast’s 33 per cent stake in Hulu. Disney will pay an initial $8.6bn for the stake in December, but the final sum will depend on an appraisal process which is expected to conclude next year.

Disney said its improved outlook for cash flow would let it reinstate a small dividend, having suspended payments to shareholders during the pandemic. Kevin Lansberry, interim chief financial officer, also floated the idea of a share buyback programme.

Those plans come as Disney is moving aggressively to cut its losses in streaming. Disney’s streaming business lost $387mn in the quarter, down sharply from the $1.47bn loss a year ago that shocked the markets and contributed to Chapek’s dismissal. The company held to its target of reaching profitability in streaming by the fiscal fourth quarter of 2024.

The Disney+ streaming service added nearly 7mn subscribers, helped by the addition of Elemental, Little Mermaid and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which were released in cinemas earlier in the year.

However, subscriptions fell 7 per cent at Disney+ Hotstar, the group’s streaming service in India, where Iger is examining whether to sell stakes in its Disney Star businesses or potentially shed its entire holding.

“We’re considering our options there,” Iger said on Wednesday. “We’d like to stay in that market but we also are looking to see whether we can strengthen our hand.”

Disney’s traditional television networks, including ABC, reported a 9 per cent revenue decline in the fourth quarter due to a weak advertising market. But programming and production costs fell in part due to the Hollywood strikes.

Despite the decline in TV, Iger said he was optimistic about the prospects of transforming ESPN into a digital sports business. A full-service ESPN streaming service would ultimately be included in a bundle with Disney+ and Hulu, he added. “If you think about the portfolio of streaming assets that we will have, Hulu, Disney+ and ESPN, that’s a very, very strong hand.”