TechCrunch : Ferrari is using IBM’s AI to create F1 superfans

Ferrari is using IBM’s AI to create F1 superfans

Two years ago, IBM realized there was one glaring omission in its roster of sports partnerships: Formula One.

Formula One has become one of the world’s most popular sports, especially in the U.S., where Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” documented the working lives of F1 drivers and turned them into mainstream celebrities. The tech-centric sport has also become a hot ticket for tech companies like AWS, Oracle, and Anthropic, which partner with teams for sponsorship visibility and to provide data analytics and AI tools that can deliver a competitive edge.

So when IBM went looking for its next major sports partnership, it’s no wonder the company picked F1 and one of its most iconic teams, Scuderia Ferrari HP.

“They’re the winningest team in history,” Kameryn Stanhouse, IBM’s Vice President of Sports and Entertainment Partnerships, told TechCrunch.

At the heart of this partnership, however, is what has led other teams to start working with tech giants: access to more sophisticated tech solutions that can help them make the most of, especially, artificial intelligence. In fact, one of the best parts of sports, Stanhouse said, is how much data is available and can be used to help people get comfortable with AI.

“They actually see how it serves them,” she said of how AI is used in sports storytelling.

The IBM-Ferrari partnership centers on that idea of storytelling, enhancing fan engagement by overhauling the technology powering the Ferrari fan app. To help with this, Ferrari hired Stefano Pallard in the newly titled role “head of fan development,” who said the challenge the team wanted to tackle was not just reaching fans, but “making each of them feel like we know them.”

“That starts with taking the data we get from the track and turning it into content that is easy to follow and engaging,” he told TechCrunch.

Teams process millions of data points per second during each race, capturing every movement of the driver and the car. Turning this into content that fans can engage with is just one way that advanced enterprise AI can help businesses better interact with their consumers.

Among the 11 teams, Ferrari is one of the few (alongside the likes of McLaren and Williams) to have a standalone fan app strategy rather than lean on social media or the official F1 platforms instead, showing how the sport is slowly starting to capitalize on its growing global fandom.

Some of the changes to the Ferrari app were simple, like offering it in Italian. Even though Ferrari is an Italian company and many of its fans are Italian, their fan app was not available in Italian until the IBM partnership.

Stanhouse said the old Ferrari fan app was a place where people went to find race details and then leave. This new app has games where fans can play with others in the app, new AI-written race summaries, more behind-the-scenes stories about the team and the drivers, a place to make predictions, and an AI companion for fans to ask questions.

“There are two drivers, but did you know it takes 24 people working simultaneously in two seconds to change a tire?” Stanhouse said, adding that storytelling helps fans feel closer to the team.

Unlike other sports apps IBM has built, Stanhouse said the Ferrari app’s main focus is storytelling because it wants fans to stay engaged with it all year long, rather than for a few weeks a year, as with tournaments like the Masters. Engagement data for the app has been trending upward since IBM came into the scene, Stanhouse said, citing a 62% increase in engagement over race weekends as an example.

Pallard said the team then uses AI to analyze engagement signals in the app, such as which content people like to read and the sentiment of the messages fans send.

“That helps us understand what resonates most with the Tifosi [the fan nickname for Ferrari] and it directly informs how we shape our storytelling and how we deliver content,” he said.

The team hopes to dive deeper into personalization and create more immersive fan experiences.

The app developers also took into account Ferrari’s fanbase, which is much more diverse than it was even five years ago. F1 released stats last year showing that 75% of new fans were women, many of whom were Gen Z. A particular draw for women is the F1 Academy, an all-female racing series that aims to develop the next generation of women drivers. But these new fans, much like the old, are after one thing — more.

“They are asking for more data, more insight, more features, and we have to be able to deliver that,” Pallard said. “With IBM, the vision for the next five years is to make every fan feel like the experience was built for them, whether they have been with us for 30 years or 30 days. That is how you build loyalty that lasts.”

TechCrunch : Nuclear startup Deep Fission says it’s going public, again, and I

Nuclear startup Deep Fission says it’s going public, again, and I have questions

One news headline this week had a whiff of déjà vu about it. Nuclear startup Deep Fission announced that it was going public, hoping to garner investor support to build subterranean reactors to power AI data centers.

Wait, didn’t I already write that story? I could have sworn that I did.

Oh right, I did. Last September, Deep Fission said that it had gone public via a reverse merger with Surfside Acquisition, a Delaware shell company, a transaction in which a private company acquires an existing publicly listed entity to gain a stock market listing — raising $30 million in a concurrent private placement at $3 a share. Now it’s seeking $157 million in a Nasdaq IPO at $24 to $26 a share. You can see my confusion.

Turns out the previous public listing was public in name only. The reverse merger with Surfside was completed, making Deep Fission a reporting company with SEC obligations, but its stock never actually traded. The company had said it intended to list on the OTCQB, a marketplace for developing companies that don’t meet the listing requirements of major exchanges like the NYSE or Nasdaq. But searches for Deep Fission on OTCQB don’t return any results, and the company, in its S-1, denied that its stock had ever been publicly traded.

In response to questions from TechCrunch, Deep Fission declined to comment, citing the quiet period before its IPO.

Deep Fission’s new public offering on Nasdaq is following the more traditional IPO route, with an offering that would value the company at up to $1.66 billion. It’s a sizable figure for a company that one year ago was struggling to raise a $15 million funding round.

Stranger still, the picture painted in the S-1 filed on May 20 is arguably bleaker than the one outlined in the December filing with the SEC. Its timeline for turning on its first reactor has slipped. Further, back in December, it had hoped to achieve criticality — the point at which a nuclear chain reaction becomes self-sustaining — by July 2026. Now, it won’t provide an estimate.

Deep Fission does point out that it is drilling a test well. It has also lost a lot of money.

One thing that hasn’t changed: The new S-1 statement contains the same “going concern” warning present in December. If Deep Fission doesn’t complete the IPO, it could run out of money in the next 12 months.

In fact, the startup’s financial position has worsened in recent months. As of March, its deficit had grown to $88.1 million from $56.2 million. In the last month and a half, the company’s cash and cash equivalents declined by $6.4 million, or about 7%.

On the technical front, Deep Fission says it is now prioritizing drilling, perhaps a tacit admission that making holes in the ground isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The company says it started drilling the first of three test wells in March. The well will be used to collect data “up to 6,000 feet deep.” At eight inches in diameter, it’s quite a bit smaller than will be needed at commercial scale.

The challenges in moving from a test well to commercial scale are likely to be significant. Deep Fission says it will need boreholes 30 to 50 inches in diameter and a mile deep, though it hasn’t settled on a specific dimension yet. Even at the low end, its boreholes will be larger than what’s typically used in the oil and gas industry. And until Deep Fission knows how large of a hole it can drill, it’ll have a hard time finalizing its reactor design.

So what has changed since December that would spur a bigger offering at a nine-figure valuation? The company did receive an $80 million equity investment, including $20 million from data center developer Blue Owl, which also signed a non-binding MOU for future power plants. Still, that wasn’t enough to stave off the going concern warning. It’s possible that Deep Fission is sitting on some positive information that it omitted from the S-1, though that’s hard to believe given what’s riding on the IPO.

It’s more likely that the company and its backers are seeking to capitalize on investor excitement over fission power. Just last month, nuclear fission startup X-energy went public in an upsized IPO. But unlike Deep Fission, X-energy is generating revenue and is significantly farther along in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing process — a contrast that serves as a useful reminder that in a sector where enthusiasm can run well ahead of technical and regulatory reality, valuation and progress aren’t the same thing.

It isn’t exactly clear what factors are driving Deep Fission toward its IPO, but technological or commercial progress doesn’t seem to be among them.

FT : SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs set to test limits of AI boom

SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs set to test limits of AI boom
Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei battle over who can command Wall Street’s deepest pools of capital

Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei once sparred over how OpenAI could catch Google in AI.

Now, the trio are preparing blockbuster flotations that could mint trillion-dollar companies, revive moribund markets for US initial public offerings and test the ability of public investors to absorb a tidal wave of tech listings.

The rivalry — sharpened by Musk and Amodei’s acrimonious departures from OpenAI in 2018 and 2020 — has also set up a contest over which company can command the deepest pool of capital.

Amodei’s Anthropic, Musk’s SpaceX and Altman’s OpenAI could make 2026 the biggest year for US IPOs. Share sales from all three companies would push such fundraising well beyond the record $156bn raised in 2021, ending four lean years for venture investors and Wall Street bankers.

Investors, bankers and advisers involved in the offerings said executives were weighing how much capital they could raise across the three deals without overstretching the market.

Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Dario Amodei once sparred over how OpenAI could catch Google in AI.

Now, the trio are preparing blockbuster flotations that could mint trillion-dollar companies, revive moribund markets for US initial public offerings and test the ability of public investors to absorb a tidal wave of tech listings.

The rivalry — sharpened by Musk and Amodei’s acrimonious departures from OpenAI in 2018 and 2020 — has also set up a contest over which company can command the deepest pool of capital.

Amodei’s Anthropic, Musk’s SpaceX and Altman’s OpenAI could make 2026 the biggest year for US IPOs. Share sales from all three companies would push such fundraising well beyond the record $156bn raised in 2021, ending four lean years for venture investors and Wall Street bankers.

Investors, bankers and advisers involved in the offerings said executives were weighing how much capital they could raise across the three deals without overstretching the market.

Backers believe the companies can ride a wave of AI enthusiasm among institutional and retail investors alike. SpaceX is aiming to raise about $75bn at a $1.75tn valuation, while OpenAI was recently valued at $852bn and Anthropic is close to sealing a $30bn funding round at a $900bn price tag.

“There is almost $8tn in money market funds today,” said another investor in all three companies. “Absorbing SpaceX’s [expected $75bn] float is just 1 per cent of that. There’s cash on the sidelines ready to put to work.”

Public investors have spent years “trying to get exposure to AI in derivative ways, particularly via semis [semiconductor stocks such as Nvidia]. As soon as they can get access to the labs they will own directly. It won’t be them that has a challenge, it will permeate to the rest of the market,” they added.

Peter Hébert, co-founder of venture capital firm Lux Capital, was also confident public markets could absorb the massive floats. “A $75bn mega raise by SpaceX would not even be the largest primary capital raise announced since the start of 2026, that record is held by OpenAI,” he said, referring to the ChatGPT maker’s $122bn funding round earlier this year.

But the trio remain heavily lossmaking and public investors may prove less tolerant of vast cash burn and unfunded commitments than private backers have been.

At the $1.75tn valuation bankers are targeting, SpaceX would trade at 91 times its $19bn of revenues over the past year, a multiple that eclipses the priciest of its Big Tech peers. Nvidia, the most expensive of the Magnificent 7 stocks on a revenue basis, trades at 21 times trailing sales and is massively profitable.

To pull off the SpaceX flotation, Musk needs investors to buy into his vision as well as the numbers. The prospectus reads as much like a manifesto as a financial disclosure: 14 of its first 16 pages are dominated by images of rockets, satellites and planets.


SpaceX is also welcoming investors to visit its Starbase headquarters in Texas to sell the story, according to people familiar with the matter.

“If you don’t see it, you can’t feel it, and if you can’t feel it, you don’t quite understand,” said Justin Fishner-Wolfson of 137 Ventures, whose firm first invested in SpaceX in 2011.

“What you see is one of the largest buildings in the world manufacturing rockets, at what potentially could be the scale of airplanes and two launch pads and the towers that go with them,” he said.

He noted the fully reusable rockets SpaceX was building would enable the whole business, from satellite-beamed internet and cell service on Earth to data centres in space.

Anthropic’s profitability may prove fleeting as spending increases. The group this month signed on to become SpaceX’s biggest customer, agreeing to spend $15bn a year on data centre capacity and computing power after also making commitments worth hundreds of billions more in deals with Google and Amazon.

OpenAI’s outlay is more ambitious. The company booked almost $6bn in revenue last quarter, driven by ChatGPT and growing use of its coding tool Codex, said a person with knowledge of the matter.

But it has told investors it expects to burn through about $600bn before turning profitable in 2030. It has raised more than any start-up in history, churning through Big Tech and sovereign backers, and is looking to public investors to extend its runway.

Part of OpenAI’s pitch is that it will be first to achieve artificial general intelligence — the vaguely defined point at which AI surpasses human capability — and that the rewards will dwarf today’s spending.

Grand visions that play well in private markets do not always survive contact with public ones.

WeWork’s mission to ‘elevate the world’s consciousness’ by renting offices with ping-pong tables and beer taps was lapped up by private investors including SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, but given short shrift by public funds, leading the company to pull its $47bn listing in 2019.

That episode haunts some private investors.

But others are more sanguine: comparison between the doomed office company and today’s AI darlings “conflates a big company that was a terrible business with three of the best-quality companies ever. These are well run, high-growth businesses,” said Goanna’s Hilmer.

“The last thing I’m concerned with is whether there is capital to invest in them.”

FT : Uber and DoorDash sound out investors for Delivery Hero bid

Uber and DoorDash sound out investors for Delivery Hero bid
American food delivery rivals seek to acquire stake in the German group as they consider a takeover

Uber and DoorDash have held exploratory talks with investors in Delivery Hero ahead of a possible takeover bid, setting up a battle for the German food delivery group.

The two companies have both engaged in discussions about acquiring multiple investors’ stakes in Delivery Hero in recent days, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Several investors have indicated they would seek a price above €40 per share, which would be a 19 per cent premium on Delivery Hero’s closing price on Friday, potentially valuing the company at about €13bn, the people said.

It was not clear what price might ultimately be agreed or the final terms of any deal.

Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi flew into Oslo this week to meet the chair of Delivery Hero’s supervisory board Kristin Skogen Lund, several people said. He is understood to have floated a price of about €33 per share but was rebuffed, they added.

Tony Xu, DoorDash’s chief, has also made contact with Lund, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Uber disclosed on Monday that it owned 19.5 per cent of Delivery Hero and held a further 5.6 per cent in derivatives.

Morgan Stanley is working on Uber’s bid, the people added. The bank disclosed in regulatory filings on Friday that it had a 27 per cent interest in Delivery Hero, primarily through equity swaps.

Delivery Hero’s board is considering a full sale or series of deals that would spin off the group’s Middle East and Korea divisions, the people said.

The company’s founder and chief executive Niklas Östberg said last week that he would leave by March 2027 after years of shareholder pressure for change.

In March activist investor Aspex Management, which holds a 14.6 per cent stake in Delivery Hero, called on the company to streamline operations, speed up asset sales and replace Östberg.

Both suitors may yet decide to abandon their pursuit and any transaction could be blocked by regulators, the people added.

One person said Uber’s talks were exploratory and it had not decided whether to pursue a takeover.

The global food delivery market is consolidating, with DoorDash’s £2.9bn takeover of Deliveroo and the €4.1bn acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway by Prosus last year.

Uber acquired €270mn-worth of shares in Delivery Hero from Prosus in April, giving it a 7 per cent stake. The Dutch investment group was previously Delivery Hero’s largest shareholder but has been reducing its holding to comply with EU antitrust requirements linked to its takeover of Just Eat.

Uber described the deal as “opportunistic” at the time, while Prosus chief executive Fabricio Bloisi previously said the EU was at risk of becoming “irrelevant in terms of technology” due to its antitrust rules.

Prosus, which still holds a 16.8 per cent stake in Delivery Hero, has since criticised European regulators for forcing it to reduce its stake, thereby creating the opportunity for a full American takeover.

DoorDash is primarily interested in the group’s Middle East business which includes Talabat and HungerStation, according to two people familiar with the matter. It is also seeking Delivery Hero’s Turkish arm Yemeksepeti but has not ruled out a bid for the whole company, the people added.

Uber’s existing stake represents an obstacle, giving it influence over capital increases, acquisitions and changes to the company’s constitutional documents.

Uber pointed to disclosures the company had previously made that said it had “no intent to acquire 30 per cent or more of [Delivery Hero’s] voting rights”. A stake of that size would trigger an obligation to make a takeover offer under German rules.

But in its company filings, Uber left open the possibility of increasing or reducing its stake in the future.

Uber is expanding its food delivery reach in Europe, having announced it would enter seven new markets this year.

Uber declined to comment further. DoorDash and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Delivery Hero did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement released after this story was published, Delivery Hero said that it “confirms that Uber Technologies reached out with an indicative proposal of €33 per share in respect of a potential takeover offer to all shareholders”.

“The company remains fully focused on executing its strategic review process. Further updates will be provided as required or appropriate,” Delivery Hero said.

FT : US and Iran move closer to extending ceasefire by 60 days, say mediators

US and Iran move closer to extending ceasefire by 60 days, say mediators
Terms of the deal include the gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz

Mediators believe they are edging closer to a deal to extend the US ceasefire with Iran by 60 days and lay the framework for discussions on the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.

People briefed on the high-stakes talks said it would include a gradual reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a commitment to discuss the diluting or handing over of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

The US would also ease its blockade of Iranian ports and, in phases, agree to sanctions relief and unfreezing Tehran’s assets held overseas.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmael Baghaei said on Saturday that Tehran was discussing a “memorandum of understanding” to end the war as the first phase of a deal, before moving on to thrash out the details of a broader agreement within 30 to 60 days.

“We are now finalising this memorandum of understanding,” he said.

Mediators hope that the terms of the agreement will dissuade US President Donald Trump from resuming strikes on the Islamic republic.

“The deal seems to be going in the right direction. It’s with the Americans now for review,” a diplomat briefed on the talks said. “Iranians are likely ready to give more on nuclear energy but won’t do it while the war is ongoing — this deal helps bridge the gap.”

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said there had been “some progress made”. 

“There is a chance that, whether it’s later today, tomorrow, in a couple of days, we may have something to say,” he told reporters while on a visit to India. “But this issue needs to be solved, as the president said, one way or another.”

He added that Trump’s preference was to deal with it diplomatically.

The signs of progress came after Pakistani and Qatari negotiators held crunch talks with Iranian counterparts on Thursday and Friday.

After Field Marshal Asim Munir, Islamabad’s lead negotiator, left Tehran on Saturday, the Pakistani army said the talks “resulted in encouraging progress towards a final understanding” between the US and Iran.

The mediators were in regular contact with US envoy Steve Witkoff while talking to the Iranian delegation, which was led by Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliamentary speaker, and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.

Ghalibaf, one of Iran’s top wartime civilian leaders, told Munir that Tehran would not step back from its “rights”, especially when dealing with the US, which “has not been sincere and cannot be trusted”.

But he added that Iran would use diplomacy to secure its “legitimate rights and interests”.

Ghalibaf also said Iran had rebuilt its military capabilities during the ceasefire, which began in early April, and was prepared to respond in a more “crushing” manner should the US commit the “folly” of restarting the war, according to Iranian media.

Underscoring the tenuous state of progress, Baghaei said the two sides were both “very far and very close” to an agreement.

“On one hand, we have the experience of the American side’s contradictory statements and shifting positions. They have put forth conflicting stances several times,” Baghaei said. “We cannot be completely certain that this approach will not change.

“On the other hand, the views [of the two sides] are getting closer, not in the sense that we have reached an agreement on such significant issues, but in the sense that we can reach a mutually satisfactory solution based on a set of parameters.”

One of the big stumbling blocks has been Trump’s insistence that Iran must hand over its stockpile of 440kg of uranium enriched close to weapons-grade levels and that the republic must never have the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon.

The US president has also demanded that Iran dismantle its three main nuclear sites — Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan — which the US bombed after joining Israel’s 12-day war against the republic last June.

The highly enriched uranium is believed to be beneath the rubble of those sites, mostly at Isfahan.

The intense push to get an agreement over the line and build on a fragile ceasefire agreed on April 8 comes amid fears that if no deal is reached Trump would resume strikes on the Islamic republic in days, escalating a war that has spread across the Middle East.

Trump on Monday said that the US held off from renewing attacks on Iran — which he said would have been launched the following day — while adding that “serious negotiations” with Tehran were taking place. He said Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE had asked him to suspend the military assault.

Washington’s regional allies fear that a resumption of US-Israeli strikes would cause Iran to retaliate by striking Gulf states, which have borne the brunt of the Islamic republic’s attacks, and exacerbate the worst global energy crisis in decades.

Barron's : Stellantis Announces Turnaround Plans. The Stock Is Still a Buy.

Stellantis Announces Turnaround Plans. The Stock Is Still a Buy.
Stellantis laid out some big goals on Thursday. The market reacted with caution.

First came the write-down, then came the redemption.

Chrysler-parent Stellantis hosted its capital markets day on Thursday, outlining goals for its turnaround plan. The targets are ambitious. But if management executes, the benefits for shareholders will be material.

The stock is down about 30% this year, though roughly flat since Barron’s Investor Circle introduced it as a pick on Feb. 13. The turnaround plan is a good idea, and it supports a much higher stock price down the road. We’re sticking with the pick.

One of the former Detroit-Three wants to grow sales from €154 billion in 2025 to €190 billion by 2030. The operating profit margin target is 7%, in line with other mass-market auto makers. Free cash flow will return in 2027, if all goes to plan, and grow to €6 billion annually by 2030.

That would result in a free cash flow yield of about 30% at current stock levels. Car companies don’t get big valuation multiples. General Motors trades for about 6.5 times estimated 2027 free cash flow, which works out to a 15% yield. (The multiple and yield are inverse to each other.)

Helping make all that happen will be new cost-cutting and platform consolidation programs, which lead to benefits of scale by reducing unique parts. There will also be new models. Car companies are always offering updated or new models.

It’s a very sensible plan. Barclays analyst Dan Levy called the goals hard to achieve. Oxcap analyst Stuart Pearson thought the company did enough to satisfy investors, though.

“Strategy is nothing without execution, but Stellantis’ new ‘FaSTLAne’ plan helps shift the narrative from existential crisis to its right to be in the running to become Europe’s designated survivor in the coming Darwinian automotive battle,” Pearson wrote on Friday.

The car business in Europe is tough right now, amid trade battles with the U.S. and Chinese imports like BYD, Geely Automobile Holdings, or NIO.

Wall Street’s reaction to the event was cautious. The market reaction was OK. Stellantis stock traded to almost $7 a share early on Thursday, down about 50 cents, but recovered to close at $7.56, up 3 cents on the day.

Shares were up another 1.1% in midday trading on Friday, leaving them down 26% over the past 12 months and almost 60% over the past five years. Things have been rocky for the car company lately. Inflated dealer inventories, labor unrest, management turnover, rising quality costs, tariffs, and other issues weighed on profitability.

Stellantis earned an operating profit of almost €34 billion in 2023. In 2025, it lost roughly €1 billion.

Problems culminated on Feb. 6. Shares plunged 24% after the company announced €22 billion in write-downs and suspended its dividend. Barron’s picked Stellantis stock about a week later, believing all the bad news was reflected in the share price.

Now management needs to execute.

WWD : Puig Stock Dives, Lauder’s Spikes After Merger Talks End

Puig Stock Dives, Lauder’s Spikes After Merger Talks End
The groups had been in discussions since March.

Investors are making their thoughts known on the Lauder-Puig deal that is no more.

Puig’s stock dove, while the Estée Lauder Cos.’ shares rose after news broke late Thursday that their merger talks were over.

The Spanish fragrance and beauty company’s shares ended Friday down 13.4 percent at 15.27 euros. Lauder’s stock, meanwhile, closed up 11.9 percent to $88.32.

As previously reported, the two companies late Thursday said they had ended discussions regarding a potential business combination, which would have made the merged group the largest prestige beauty player in the world. Puig and Lauder had first publicly confirmed they were in talks on March 23.

When the deal first came to light, it was Lauder’s stock that tumbled by around 10 percent, while Puig’s soared around 15 percent, insinuating that investors viewed the potential deal as more beneficial to Puig.

It is believed, according to industry sources, that negotiations with Charlotte Tilbury, which generates about 15 percent of Puig’s sales, was an important sticking point in negotiations.

But macro questions had been swirling since March about how the new merged company would be structured and whether a marriage between Lauder and Puig would make sense for either.

“Investor skepticism around a potential Puig transaction has centered on its scale, structural complexity and implications for portfolio strategy,” wrote Jefferies equity analyst Sydney Wagner in a note Thursday. “With [Estée Lauder] already executing a multiyear turnaround under its Beauty Reimagined initiative (aimed at restoring organic sales growth and expanding OM), incremental integration risk paired with a still-challenging macro backdrop (geopolitical risk, uneven regional demand) likely limited investor appetite for the deal’s risk/reward profile.”

Joël Palix, founder of boutique consultancy Palix Unlimited, had longstanding reservations on the culture fit of a Lauder-Puig merger.

“So maybe it’s a good thing that they’re not merging,” he said, adding the operation would have been highly complicated to undertake. “It’s better if they realize this now [rather] than later, and it’s too late. We know that a lot of mega mergers fail because of the complexity. And that was a real mega merger.”

Now that the deal has unraveled, eyes are also on the future.

Barclays on Friday published a note titled “What Now?” with a focus on Lauder. The bank’s analyst Lauren Lieberman had from the outset expressed surprise and confusion about the prospect of Lauder acquiring Puig, regarding the portfolio under consideration and the timing, since she felt there was progress underway with Lauder’s “Beauty Reimagined” strategy.

Lieberman outlined nine questions regarding the potential deal. They include: “Is there a financial and strategic rationale for having much greater scale both as a company and in fragrance specifically? If so, does not acquiring Puig make for a more challenged path ahead, perhaps with less capacity for reinvestment?” “Puig carries significantly higher margins than Estée Lauder. With greater P&L flexibility you would have had in a merger, where would you have incrementally invested?”

In a note published Friday, Jefferies also delved into what might come next.

“We have previously cited potential interest in [Estée Lauder] by its own suitors, including Unilever,” Jefferies equity analyst David Hayes wrote. “The Lauder family voting control demands support for any future partnership, but we could see pressure on the family to engage with third-party interest, if a willingness to partner was declared in the future.”

Deutsche Bank’s research analyst Steve Powers wrote in a note that it’s important the merger outcome does not preclude future activity for Lauder’s portfolio, “but it does suggest a likely recalibration in scope and timing.”

“[Estée Lauder] has long indicated a willingness to pursue smaller, more targeted acquisitions that can be more easily integrated into a streamlined operating model, and we suspect this will again take priority (with larger transactions now more contingent on more evolved performance against Beauty Reimagined and the ‘One ELC’ operating model),” he added.

On what this means for upcoming deals in the sector, one source said: “The M&A world will breathe a sigh of relief because this means that everybody is still active.”

That same source believes Puig will have more options going forward because it is smaller, despite the speculation over Charlotte Tilbury.

As previously reported, Tilbury’s contract negotiations were first reported by the Spanish economic and business publication Expansión earlier this week, which wrote that she was looking to renegotiate her contract with Puig on terms more favorable to her and potentially exit the company she founded before the pre-determined date of 2031.

Nevertheless, another source said: “Lauder feels really good about their future now, because they’ve had a good quarter.”

Indeed, its recent third-quarter organic sales grew by 2 percent, with a 10 percent gain in fragrance; adjusted earnings topped estimates, and the company offered an early forecast on fiscal 2027, projecting stronger growth.

Puig is also in a position of strength. It delivered record first-quarter sales for a solid start to this year. In the three months ended March 31, the company reported net sales of 1.22 billion euros, up 0.8 percent in reported terms and 4.7 percent on a like-for-like basis. The organic gains beat those of the premium beauty market in the period.

TechCrunch : Blue Origin cleared to fly New Glenn mega-rocket after April mishap

Blue Origin cleared to fly New Glenn mega-rocket after April mishap

Blue Origin’s new mega-rocket, New Glenn, is no longer grounded. The company said Friday that the Federal Aviation Administration has cleared the rocket to fly again after the upper stage failed to deliver a commercial payload during an April launch.

Blue Origin didn’t offer much detail but said in a post on X that the New Glenn upper stage “experienced an off-nominal thermal condition” that caused one of the three rocket engines to produce lower-than-expected thrust. As a result, the AST SpaceMobile satellite that Blue Origin was supposed to put into orbit instead burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. (AST SpaceMobile said it had insurance coverage that covered the cost of the lost satellite.) Jeff Bezos’ spaceflight company submitted a report to the FAA and took “corrective measures,” but did not detail what those measures were.


The mishap came on what was New Glenn’s third-ever flight, which otherwise went off without a problem. The company successfully reused the New Glenn booster stage for the first time ever and landed it for a second time on a drone ship in the ocean.

The clearance means Blue Origin can now get back to its aggressive schedule for New Glenn this year. The company has said it plans to launch the rocket as many as 12 times by the end of 2026, though it’s unclear how much of an effect the one-month grounding has had on those ambitions.