Internet

India’s brutal tech churn washes out Paytm

10 Nov 2021

The one-time fintech star has struggled to sell its $2.5 bln IPO, a contrast to beauty shop Nykaa’s red hot offer and 80% first-day pop. The commoditisation of payments makes it harder for Paytm to profit and easy for competitors to rise. Its ragbag of businesses doesn’t help.

Alibaba is better off without Singles’ Day

5 Nov 2021

China's $448 bln e-commerce group wants this year's shopping fest to be greener. It's using less packaging and promoting eco-friendly brands. Still, the annual frenzy looks increasingly at odds with Beijing's environmental goals. Calling it off sends a stronger message.

Funky debt offers SoftBank fix for UK retail hole

3 Nov 2021

Masayoshi Son’s group has an option to buy part of the e-commerce unit of stricken retailer THG, in which it owns a stake. Honouring that would mean big losses, but walking away could amplify the UK group’s woes. Investing in a new convertible bond might buy time for a recovery.

Mark Zuckerberg’s dive into metaverse misses mark

26 Oct 2021

Alongside quarterly results, Facebook said it would start reporting more financial details on its virtual reality initiatives and beyond. Any extra clarity is welcome, but the structural changes sidestep all-important Instagram. It’s a bad time to be hiding behind the headset.

Viewsroom: Oz goes green-ish; “Squid Game”

21 Oct 2021

Australian climate policy is a work in progress, and Antony Currie fears the country’s net-zero plans may yet prove to be a damp squib. On the other hand, the South Korean drama is anything but: Jennifer Saba explains why the show is a major victory for Netflix and its investors.

Capital Calls: WeWork listing, Polish games maker

21 Oct 2021

Concise views on global finance: The battle-scarred office-sharing outfit finally started trading on the NYSE after its deal with a blank-check company closed; CD Projekt delays chunky updates to its flagship “Cyberpunk” video game, avoiding a repeat of last winter.

Russian IPO salad hides some dodgy ingredients

18 Oct 2021

Helped by a global boom, new listings by the country’s companies are at their most active since 2007. Investors are more used to sanctions risk, while Covid-19 has spruced up hopefuls such as real estate website Cian. Others, like St Petersburg’s bourse, may be lumpy leftovers.

Jana Macy’s rejig sounds more like a sales pitch

15 Oct 2021

The agitator that took Whole Foods and Outback to task wants the $7 bln retailer to hive off its e-commerce unit. This Saks-like paper-shuffling could help Macy’s double in value. The idea may work better, though, as a teaser to persuade more lucrative bids for the whole company.

Viewsroom: IMF’s big brouhaha, European retailing

14 Oct 2021

The multilateral lender’s boss, Kristalina Georgieva, rode out data-rigging charges. Now she has got a lot to prove. Swaha Pattanaik ticks through how she can remake her legacy and reform the institution. Aimee Donnellan walks through the aisles of French supermarket finance.

Capital Calls: U.S. inflation, French cloud outage

13 Oct 2021

Concise views on global finance: U.S. consumer prices rose 5.4% in September as the White House weighs the Federal Reserve chief’s re-nomination; OVHCloud’s network went down the day before the cloud-computing group is due to price a 3.6 bln euro Paris listing.

UK fallen web star needs brighter disclosure

12 Oct 2021

Retailer THG’s value fell by a third in one day to just $5 bln. That reflects uncertainty over a core unit that helps companies like Coca-Cola market and ship products. Until CEO Matthew Moulding sheds light on its profitability and contracts, investors will be wary.

Barry Diller’s $2.7 bln deal banks on digital elan

7 Oct 2021

The media mogul’s IAC conglomerate is buying People and other magazines from Meredith. He has excelled at growing and spinning off businesses like dating app Match. Diller is betting big that his digital knack can also make a success of lifestyle brands that still rely on print.

Viewsroom: Electric-car global roundup; Facebook

7 Oct 2021

Rivian drops its IPO prospectus, Volvo readies its public market return, Hertz brings on a car guy and GM gets a thumbs up from Engine No. 1. Antony Currie puts it all together. And what does Facebook’s outage mean for shareholders? Gina Chon and Richard Beales weigh in.

Telefonica can play hard to get in fibre sale

6 Oct 2021

The 23 bln euro Spanish telco may flog a chunk of its super-fast domestic broadband network. With the fibre rollout almost done and debt vaguely in check, Telefonica isn’t desperate for the cash. That means it can wait for a buyer ready to top the reported 15 bln euro valuation.

French cloud IPO is a bet on EU tech sovereignty

5 Oct 2021

OVHcloud is listing in Paris for up to 3.7 bln euros. Slow growth and the tight grip of founder Octave Klaba justify the IT group’s low valuation. But sales could surge if European businesses and governments push to keep data at home rather than with Amazon, Google or Microsoft.

India spotlights Facebook’s ubiquity problem

5 Oct 2021

The social network and its WhatsApp platform are proxies for the internet and phone in the $920 bln company’s biggest market. So their outage had users scrambling. That’s New Delhi’s cue to extend its aggressive effort to curb Facebook’s heft beyond simply policing content.

Facebook outage is dry run for worse web crashes

5 Oct 2021

The $920 bln firm’s eponymous and Instagram social networks, plus messaging platform WhatsApp, just went kaput for hours. People use them for more than cat snaps. But a similar mess at Amazon, say, would have a bigger impact. Some internet services may now be too crucial to fail.

Capital Calls: Pandora, Facebook files pack punch

4 Oct 2021

Concise views on global finance: A leak with rich people’s offshore activities and a Facebook exposé reinforce perceptions with facts; GitLab’s float shows Microsoft’s wise 2018 buy; Volvo IPO aims to supercharge EV plans; BT’s bid to rule UK broadband may face U.S. competition.

Drahi drags satellite M&A into near-earth orbit

4 Oct 2021

France’s Eutelsat rejected the telecom billionaire’s $3.2 bln bid. If a follow-up offer succeeds, Drahi could pursue a cost-saving merger with rival SES, whose TV-signal business is also succumbing to gravity. A chunky spectrum refund from the U.S. government makes a deal easier.

Capital Calls: American healthcare exceptionalism

27 Sep 2021

Concise views on global finance: American male life expectancy at birth dropped over 2 years in 2020, the worst among 29 nations. That raises the stakes in a healthcare crisis among working-age people that even the mightiest U.S. employers have so far failed to solve.