Appaloosa (David Tepper) discloses updated portfolio positions in 13F filing: Exited KSS OXY NFLX DIS
Highlights from 2022 Q3 filing as compared to Q3 2022:
- Maintained positions in: ET (~10.2 mln shares), M (~6 mln shares), GOOG (~2 mln shares), UBER (~1 mln shares), EPD (~0.78 mln shares), AMLP (~0.41 mln shares), UNH (~0.15 mln shares), HCA (~0.08 mln shares)
- Closed positions in: KSS (from ~1.88 mln shares), OXY (from ~0.88 mln), PCG (from ~0.75 mln), MU (from ~0.58 mln), APTV (from ~0.25 mln), CZR (from ~0.15 mln), DIS (from ~0.05 mln), NFLX (from ~0.05 mln)
- Decreased positions in: EQT (to ~2.53 mln shares from ~2.85 mln shares), SYY (to ~0.2 mln from ~0.43 mln), AR (to ~1.25 mln from ~1.43 mln), META (to ~0.88 mln from ~1 mln), MOS (to ~0.13 mln from ~0.25 mln), CEG (to ~2.63 mln from ~2.7 mln), AMZN (to ~1.45 mln from ~1.5 mln), MSFT (to ~0.24 mln from ~0.25 mln), BABA (to ~0.09 mln from ~0.1 mln), CRM (to ~0.19 mln from ~0.2 mln)
Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett) discloses updated portfolio positions in 13F filing: New TSM LPX JEF positions
Highlights from 2022 Q3 filing as compared to Q3 2022:
- New positions in: TSM (~60.06 mln shares), LPX (~5.8 mln), JEF (~0.43 mln)
- Increased positions in: OXY (to ~194.35 mln shares from ~158.55 mln shares), PARA (to ~91.22 mln from ~78.42 mln), CE (to ~9.71 mln from ~9.16 mln), RH (to ~2.36 mln from ~2.17 mln), CVX (to ~165.36 mln from ~161.44 mln)
- Maintained positions in: BAC (~1010.1 mln shares), AAPL (~894.8 mln shares), KO (~400 mln shares), KHC (~325.63 mln shares) AXP (~151.61 mln shares), DVA (~36.1 mln shares), MCO (~24.67 mln shares)
- Closed positions in: BK (from ~72.36 mln shares), VRSN (from ~12.82 mln), STOR (from ~6.93 mln), GL (from ~6.35 mln)
- Decreased positions in: USB (to ~77.79 mln shares from ~119.81 mln shares), ATVI (to ~60.14 mln from ~68.4 mln), GM (to ~50 mln from ~52.88 mln), KR (to ~50.27 mln from ~52.44 mln)
Duquesne (Stanley Druckenmiller) discloses updated portfolio positions in 13F filing: New VRT LW AMZN META positions
Highlights from 2022 Q3 filing as compared to Q3 2022:
- New positions in: VRT (~4.93 mln shares), LW (~0.95 mln), AMZN (~0.91 mln), SE (~0.54 mln), SHOP (~0.49 mln), ENVX (~0.46 mln), NTRA (~0.41 mln), NFE (~0.39 mln), OPCH (~0.31 mln), NET (~0.25 mln), CARR (~0.23 mln), PPG (~0.21 mln), OVV (~0.19 mln), AVTR (~0.19 mln), BLDR (~0.17 mln), META (~0.16 mln), ARCH (~0.15 mln), RUN (~0.14 mln), TXG (~0.12 mln)
- Increased positions in: OPEN (to ~1.54 mln shares from ~0.23 mln shares), RXRX (to ~1.39 mln from ~0.27 mln), KBR (to ~1.82 mln from ~1.3 mln), DDOG (to ~0.79 mln from ~0.3 mln), LLY (to ~0.48 mln from ~0.3 mln) WDAY (to ~0.24 mln from ~0.08 mln), PXD (to ~0.09 mln from ~0.05 mln) TMUS (to ~0.72 mln from ~0.68 mln),
- Maintained positions in: CPNG (~19.43 mln shares), PANW (~0.15 mln)
- Closed positions in: IOT (from ~0.4 mln shares), WLK (from ~0.15 mln), PSX (from ~0.12 mln), ACAD (from ~0.07 mln), PRCT (from ~0.04 mln), GLBE (from ~0.02 mln), BKNG (from ~0.01 mln)
- Decreased positions in: FCX (to ~1.17 mln shares from ~3.23 mln shares), PLTR (to ~2.42 mln from ~4.26 mln), WSC (to ~0.98 mln from ~1.77 mln), AR (to ~0.28 mln from ~1.02 mln), MSFT (to ~0.19 mln from ~0.74 mln), CTRA (to ~1.11 mln from ~1.39 mln), CVE (to ~0.84 mln from ~1.07 mln), MRNA (to ~0.02 mln from ~0.21 mln), CVX (to ~0.69 mln from ~0.83 mln), CRWD (to ~0.15 mln from ~0.23 mln)
Balenciaga Has Left Twitter
Following Elon Musk’s acquisition, advertisers have raised concerns about the risks of loosening content moderation on the site.
Balenciaga removed its Twitter account, becoming the first major fashion brand to leave the social media platform amid mounting concern over new owner Elon Musk’s vision for the site.
Major corporations including General Motors and Dyson have already suspended advertising campaigns, and celebrities including Gigi Hadid have left Twitter following Musk’s acquisition of the company in late October.
Some companies and users have raised concerns that Musk’s plans for mass layoffs and a focus on promoting free speech will lead to looser content moderation on the site, which could make it more difficult for advertisers to avoid being linked with hate speech and misinformation. A September incident in which advertisements appeared on pages promoting links to child pornography highlighted the potential risks of Musk’s strategy, as did a slew of false accounts impersonating brands last week, which were allowed to purchase “verified” labels on the site.
While Twitter’s importance to the fashion industry has waned in recent years, the platform has been a significant source of online buzz for Kering-owned Balenciaga, as creative director Demna sparked conversation with designs including oversized sportswear, sculptural couture and divisive pieces like $1,790 leather trash bags and $950 Crocs. Balenciaga’s account recently had as many as 950,000 followers.
The Paris-based brand declined to comment on the move, but confirmed it had removed its page from the platform.
Adidas Seeks Cash From Rare Bond After Yeezy Split, New CEO
Adidas AG is raising debt from Europe’s bond market for the first time since dropping Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, and just days after slashing profit expectations for a fourth time.
The German sportswear brand is seeking €1 billion ($1 billion) from its debt sale on Monday, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorised to speak about it. It’s the firm’s first dive in to the region’s public debt market since 2020 and before that it hadn’t issued bonds since 2014.
The end of the firm’s partnership with rapper and designer Ye, after years of controversial behaviour that culminated in a recent string of antisemitic statements, is expected to leave a €1.8 billion hole in its income, as nearly half of Adidas’s total profits is estimated to come from the brand, according to analysts. The firm’s profit outlook has deteriorated consistently this year and it now expects a full-year operating margin of 2.5 percent from a previous 4 percent target.
“We do expect still significant concessions to be paid by Adidas,” in Monday’s debt sale, said Shanawaz Bhimji, a fixed-income analyst at ABN Amro Bank NV, referring to the premium that borrowers pay over their existing debt.
In a bid to revive its fortunes, Adidas plans to sell sneakers of the same design as the Yeezy product. Stemming the damage from ending the lucrative line will be a key challenge for newly appointed chief executive officer Bjørn Gulden when he takes over in January.
A spokesperson for Adidas didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment by telephone and email.
The debt sale is a boon for Europe’s market for new issuance after a year of underwhelming activity, particularly from non-financial companies. Adidas is joined in the market on Monday by Telefonica Europe BV and Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, even with issuers having to effectively pay up to compensate investors for the economic uncertainty ahead and impact that may have on future earnings.
The recent pick-up in activity across Europe’s debt market follows easing corporate credit risk amid some optimism that a surge in inflation this year is now starting to moderate. Market wide issuance topped €58 billion in the region last week, to smash through all expectations.
“The market seems to have no issues in well rated names,” ABN Amro’s Bhimji said.
Adidas tightened the spreads on its deal, with the three-year notes at 20 basis points above mid-swaps from 45 and a seven-year tranche at 45 from about 80 basis points above swaps, the person familiar said. Final investor demand for the deal was over €3.4 billion.
Pangaia Takes a Permanent Seat Inside Selfridges
The brand started planning a concession after the success of its 2021 pop-up shop.
LONDON — Pangaia has landed a permanent concession at Selfridges.
The material sciences company is expanding its reach — a collaboration with Timberland was announced on Nov. 3 and the brand is setting up shop with its signature aesthetic inside the luxury department store.
“After opening our first experiential pop-up at Selfridges in 2021, we are thrilled to make our return to the iconic department store with a permanent concession. As a company rooted in innovation and purpose, we look to work with like-minded partners that share similar values to us,” Pangaia Collective told WWD.
The brand is aiming to use the space inside the department store as an educational and entertainment hub for existing and new customers.
“Our goal is to make sustainable innovations the new normal so that people look at brands and ask what they do for the world. We used that as our driving force to create a space that fuses education with entertainment, to deliver an energetic and understandable approach to showcasing the limitless possibilities that can be achieved through materials science and innovation,” the brand said.
Pangaia is working on its positive impact program, which just launched an improved version of their plant-based activewear.
In September, the company passed an important milestone, protecting and restoring 1 million trees, through the Tomorrow Tree Fund.
SoftBank writes down nearly $100 million investment in FTX
Former SoftBank COO expresses regret, cites FOMO
As more details emerge regarding the events that led to FTX’s bankruptcy and stunning collapse, the cryptocurrency exchange’s investors are also being scrutinized.
Namely, many people are asking just how could so many high-profile investment firms pour a collective $2 billion with apparently so little due diligence.
The notorious Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank, for example, is just one of many such firms that backed FTX after the startup raised a $400 million funding round in January, valuing the company at a staggering $32 billion. SoftBank, which invested as part of its Vision Fund 2, revealed days ago that it sunk just under $100 million into the company. That investment is now marked down to zero with SoftBank saying “it would not face a material markdown in the value of its stake,” according to MarketWatch.
Of course it’s not the first time SoftBank has made an, er, error in judgment when it comes to its investment. It (in)famously poured at least $18.5 billion into WeWork, which along with its co-founder Adam Neumann, spectacularly fell from grace.
SoftBank also put money in Katerra, a construction tech startup that also burned through more than $2 billion in funding before shutting down in June 2021. The firm also loaned $100 million to blood testing company Theranos in 2017 through a private equity arm. And it also pumped $500 million into digital mortgage lender Better.com before signing up to co-lead its never materialized SPAC. That company has been the subject of various scandals over the past year and has been struggling in the face of rising mortgage interest rates, a slowed housing market and volatile CEO.
Notably, former SoftBank COO Marcelo Claure, who stepped down in late January after a reported battle over pay, had this to say about the FTX fiasco:
TechCrunch has reached out to SoftBank for comment on its investment in FTX.
On November 12, Nikkei Asia reported that SoftBank Group had “lost all the cumulative investment gains it had made through its Vision Fund business as global rate rises and a weakening economic outlook hammered the valuations of portfolio companies.”
The publication went on to add that the “Vision Funds’ unrealized gains since the start of investment in 2017 fell to negative $1.46 billion in the July-September period, down from positive $8.49 billion three months ago, according to its quarterly earnings presentation.”
SoftBank’s disclosure regarding its FTX investment came soon after Sequoia Capital also marked down to zero the value of its stake in FTX — “a stake that accounted for a minor percentage of Sequoia’s capital but as of last week likely represented among the most sizable unrealized gains* in the venture firm’s 50-year history,” as reported by TC’s Connie Loizos on November 9.
But Sequoia had egg on its face for more than just putting capital into FTX. It also very recently (in late September) published on its website what Bloomberg described as a “ long, meandering profile of Sam Bankman-Fried, a.k.a. SBF, the now-disgraced founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.” Ironically entitled “Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex — And Maybe You Should Too,” the 14,000 (yes, you read that right) piece was apparently “prominently displayed on the Sequoia website, right underneath the dictum, ‘We help the daring build legendary companies,’ ” as reported by Bloomberg. Unsurprisingly, as more details came out around the goings-on within FTX, that piece was taken down. Bankman-Fried stepped down from his role as CEO of FTX on November 10.
The New York Times reported earlier today that “Pantera Capital and Galois became the latest hedge funds to announce losses tied to FTX, $130 million and $40 million, respectively.”
Also among FTX’s long roster of investors are: NEA, IVP, Iconiq Capital, Third Point Ventures, Tiger Global, Altimeter Capital Management, Lux Capital, Mayfield, Insight Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Ribbit Capital, Temasek Holdings, BlackRock and Thoma Bravo.
Soros Capital discloses updated portfolio positions in 13F filing: New TSM UNP positions
Highlights from 2022 Q3 filing as compared to Q3 2022:
- New positions in: TSM (~0.03 mln shares), UNP (~0.01 mln)
- Increased positions in: CZR (to ~0.05 mln shares from ~0.02 mln shares), PDBC (to ~24.4K from ~16K), AMAT (to ~0.03 mln from ~0.02 mln), FIS (to ~0.04 mln from ~0.03 mln), VRT (to ~0.17 mln from ~0.16 mln)
- Maintained positions in: PACK (~4.63 mln shares), EQRX (~4.31 mln shares), AXTA (~0.1 mln shares), PHYS (~0.08 mln shares), ATVI (~0.02 mln shares)
- Closed positions in: SU (from ~0.47 mln shares), EQT (from ~0.3 mln), OXY (from ~0.22 mln), RBLX (from ~0.11 mln), AMKR (from ~0.07 mln), RTX (from ~0.05 mln), ORLY (from ~0.02 mln)
- Decreased positions in: MSFT (to ~0.02 mln shares from ~0.05 mln shares), FISV (to ~0.04 mln from ~0.06 mln), TMUS (to ~0.02 mln from ~0.03 mln), WAB (to ~0.04 mln from ~0.04 mln), TJX (to ~0.02 mln from ~0.03 mln), GDDY (to ~0.07 mln from ~0.08 mln)
Jana Partners (Barry Rosenstein) discloses updated portfolio positions in 13F filing: New FRPT (affirmed) EHAB MNTV positions, Exits CAG
Highlights from 2022 Q3 filing as compared to Q3 2022:
- New positions in: FRPT (~4.27 mln shares), EHAB (~1.96 mln), MNTV (~0.93 mln)
- Increased positions in: MRCY (to ~3.34 mln shares from ~3.24 mln shares), LH (to ~0.92 mln from ~0.85 mln)
- Maintained positions in: NEWR (~3.53 mln shares
- Closed positions in: CAG (from ~1 mln shares)
- Decreased positions in: THS (to ~4.75 mln shares from ~5.13 mln shares), SPY (to ~0.15 mln from ~0.42 mln), EHC (to ~2.63 mln from ~2.85 mln)
Account-to-account payments pose fresh threat to credit card networks
Are account-to-account payments the future?
Card networks, notably Visa and Mastercard, are parts of the modern finance infrastructure that we don’t really think about unless something goes wrong — for example, if Amazon gets into a spat with one of them over credit card fees.
Their dominance has in part relied on their widespread acceptance by banks. Financial institutions collect a cut of the fees that card networks impose, making them quite lucrative.
But in an interview with the FT, Brad Goodall, chief executive and co-founder of Banked, a fintech that offers an alternative to card schemes, said his company had just secured a more than $15mn extension to its Series A funding round led by Insight Partners and supported by Citi and National Australia Bank Ventures. The fresh capital reflects the challenge that account-to-account payments could pose to card networks.
“I think the schemes are scared [of account-to-account payments],” said Rodney Bain, co-founder and US president of payments fintech APEXX Global. “It fundamentally makes sense to be able to push a transaction between two authenticated accounts.”
Account-to-account payments, enabled by open banking — a framework for consumers to consent to share data with third parties — could become an alternative to card-based networks (although both Visa and MasterCard are developing their own account-to-account payments).
Bain of APEXX Global said that account-to-account payments have been successfully rolled-out in some markets, such as Brazil. There, domestic payment system PIX offered a much faster alternative than traditional payments systems, where the standard term for money to settle is 30 days after a transaction.
But progress has been slower in other markets, especially the US, where the average interchange fee banks collect for card transactions is as much 1.4 per cent. JPMorgan’s chief executive Jamie Dimon discovered the resistance to change in his push to build a “pay-by-bank” feature.
When I last spoke to Goodall in February 2022, the company had just raised $20mn in a funding round led by Bank of America and Edenred Capital Partners. He said that account-to-account transfers had only become more relevant since then.
“I believe that with things like inflation, there’s a real focus among merchants on identifying how to reduce the cost of sale,” Goodall said. “We think that Pay by Bank [account-to-account] transactions are cheaper, higher conversion and offers more of a loop between merchants and consumers.”
But for Bain, the general design of account-to-account payments currently lacks the familiar and simplified user experience of paying on card rails for day-to-day spending.
“The cards built these complex systems because they work and they’re needed,” he said, adding that he saw more value in open banking for high transaction value items. “I think [for smaller purchases] you’ll have to associate loyalty or some sort of benefit to get consumers to choose account-to-account payments.”
Goodall, who relocated to Silicon Valley from London six months ago, remains sanguine about the outlook for business.
“We’re looking to scale a number of resources here in the US,” he said. “There’s very much a build and hiring focus right now.”
The last few months have seen a paucity of US fintech deal activity, slowing markedly from the first half of the year — a reflection of rising inflation and a growing wariness around fintech as valuations of some of the biggest players have taken a hit.