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Coming up.
Netflix makes a big push into live events with a five billion dollar deal for WWE Raw. Full details ahead and we stick with Netflix pushing ahead to results after the bell and get a read on what to expect from tech earnings this season. Plus Samsung exploring the development of a non invasive blood sugar monitor to compete with tech giants like Apple in the race for wearable dominance. All that and so much more coming up up. There is one main big story this morning, and it is
the Netflix deal with TKO, parent of WWE. Sources telling us it is a five billion dollar deal over ten years Monday Night Raw Live on the platform starting in January of twenty twenty five, but outside of the US, exclusivity on a number of WWE brands and pay per view events in new markets meaning new eyeballs. Just last hour, I sat down with ww president Nick Kahan.
Listen to this.
We're pleased with the deal.
And we love the fact that Netflix was willing to take a bet on us, as we know they had said previously that they were.
Not into sports rights.
The good thing about WWE, it's sports entertainment, as you said before the quick break there, so we're an entertainment property as much as we are a sports property. Fifty two weeks a year, live, consistent programming, an audience that is actually quite global if you look at India. In India is not part of this deal, but if you look at India with the second most popular sport in India.
If you look at the United Kingdom, we're the fourth most popular sport there.
This deal will take effect in the UK, so in addition to the United States, it allows us to gain even a greater global.
Footprint as we look to expand the business.
Well, Nick, I want to talk a little bit more about the decision to go with Netflix, go with a streamer versus staying with a Comcast for example. Did this purely come down to numbers where you were going to get the better deal or is this in effect a bet on where the future eyeballs are going to be.
Well, look, we continue to love NBCU. We have SmackDown on USA, premiering this October. There we have our premium live events formerly our pay per views like WrestleMania on Peacock exclusively in the United States.
They've been tremendous for us.
With Raw, it was yet another test of someone new in the space, obviously an established streaming entity, the streaming entity, if you will.
It was a good beat by us, and we think a good bet by them.
Let's talk about ad pricing a little bit more here. Does this give you greater ad pricing power this deal?
We think so.
Look, you've seen what Amazon's been able to do on their ads supported tier. Netflix is going to have great success in that space. Wwe again, three hours a week on Raw every week allows Netflix to monetize this deal in the advertising space in a way that has not been seen before.
And Nick Raw has this kind of super loyal and sizeable audience. But there must be a part of this deal where you're like, Okay, we need to think about the future and growing a new audience. And I wondered if there's any terms in the deal. When Netflix goes away and produces a behind the scenes kind of documentary exclusive to Netflix that introduces WWE to that new audience.
Think about, like, what am I thinking of Drive to Survive and Formula one and the success that that had bringing a sport to a new audience.
Would be a mistake by us at WWE to not do that with Netflix. So assume that what you said is exactly what we're all thinking, we being Netflix and WWE. You saw we Drive to Survive did for Formula One. As you just mentioned, we think the WWE audience, already big on a global level, only gets bigger with a show like that.
Okay, that was WWE President Nick Kahn just in the last hour and my friend Bloomber's Katie Greifeld. For more on this, I'm going to bring in Hang Media CEO John Klein, who also served as a former president of CNN, and John, you know, live Entertainment, Live Sports.
This is very interesting.
I don't think anyone saw this coming, this structure of deal, nor the duration of it, all the properties themselves, just your reaction to what Netflix has done here.
Netflix has to do things like this, They have to do more of them too, and that's because what is dry streaming use among consumers is not those high end, expensive dramas that Netflix is famous for it is free or low cost ads supported television. Basically, it's the same shows you used to watch on your cable system. People are now streaming in droves and what is driving that behavior is predominantly sports and also news programming. So they
had to get into this space. I mean, I run as you said, Hang is a sports streaming platform that lets fans watch games on TV alongside famous athletes and celebrities, and we drive ridiculously high numbers of viewers, like six hundred and fifty thousand per event, plus sixty percent of them are eighteen to forty four, exactly the Gen Z and young millennials who all sports advertisers and teams and leagues want to reach. That's who Netflix is trying to reach.
Now you know there. Netflix is trying to launch an ad supported tier. They had a bumpy going at the beginning. It seems to have at least stabilized now They have something like twenty three million monthly subscribers now to the AD supported tier, which is like six ninety nine per month, and that represents about thirty percent of their new sign up.
So that's good. But it hasn't been easy and if you're going to be in the ad supported business, you have got to have sports look for that to try to do something in news as well, because news drives streaming behavior as well.
Well.
John, let's just take a look at the shares. Netflix is now hire three tenths of a percent. TKO is off its session highs, but is up seventeen percent. So we use that to ask who got the better deal?
Right?
We are reporting, citing sources that it's five billion over ten years. So let's say it's five hundred million dollars a year when Comcast paid two hundred and sixty five million a year.
For the rights.
Uh, it wasn't seen as a very good deal in this instance.
Who got the better of it?
I think they're both winners here. You know it brands WWE is forward thinking, Mate puts them smack in the middle of the streaming conversation, gets their their their hot property raw out of the cable world. It's going to hurt USA Network as the number one show on that cable channel, and so it's it's great for them and for the future growth possibilities. As Nick referred to. I've known Nick for a long long time and he's a
very savvy deal maker thinker about media. At the same time, it's great for Netflix because it just pumps them with some very current product that is hugely popular across a lot of demos, but certainly among younger A lot of LATINX viewers you know, are driven to WWE programming as well, and as you had alluded in your earlier interview, the programming possibilities around all the characters, you know, just imagine being able to do the you know, to do their
version of the Last Dance dot Com entry with those characters.
Hey, John, sorry to interrupt. You're talking about the winners. I just want to talk about a potential loser. I'm looking at shares of Disney that are down one point four percent, and it raises the.
Question, where is Disney?
Where's ESPN in this idea that live events call it sports or live entertainment is going to go to streaming platforms.
And they've been very vague about their streaming plans right They've said, look, we're working on a pivot from linear cable delivery into streaming, but we're not going to have an answer on that until twenty twenty five, which is like saying forever in the world of digital I mean Moore's law, everything accelerates exponentially, and so they've got to be scratching their heads and trying to come up with a strategy that's going to work. Now. What puts all
of these players in jeopardy? But Netflix included is the runaway behemoth that is YouTube. YouTube is by far the biggest TV network on Earth. They have something like one hundred and twenty two million daily users two point seven billion monthly users. And that just dwarfs a couple hundred million here, one hundred million there for the other streamers. And you know where YouTube they give you the product
for free. For the most part. You can subscribe to premium, but the vast majority of users are just accessing it for free. And you know, here's Netflix, It's still going to charge you six dollars a month for the over seven dollars a month for the ad supported tier. It's not free. And so what all other streaming platforms have to do is figure out a way to take share from YouTube or borrow from their model better than they have been.
John Klein of the sports streaming platform Hang Media Great industry quick reaction to what is a big story Now, look, the news came out this morning and you may have forgotten, but after the bell, Netflix posts is quarterly earning. So let's get to that with Bloomberg Intelligence and Lisquita Ang and Nathan. Let's park wwe for a moment, because we came into this quarter or the quarter gone saying Netflix could post some big overall numbers here.
Oh.
Absolutely, I think expectations coming into this quarter ed are really high, and that's because management themselves during the last earning Skulls said, you know, expect pretty strong growth on the back of those two initiatives. I mean we were just speaking about the advertising tiers, so that's obviously a huge initiative for them, as well as the you know, the passwords share crackdown, what they call Paige sharing. And
so we are seeing pretty good subscriber numbers. We saw that in the third quarter, we were expecting another nine to ten million new subscriber ads. And so then if you look at the whole ear of twenty twenty three, Netflix would have basically gained twenty five million subscribers. That puts them back in kind of that pre pandemic level. I mean last year twenty twenty two, it was eight
or nine million new subscriber ads. That's when we had that great Netflix correction, and then now in twenty twenty three, they're kind of right back on track. The question is, of course, what's next, right, what is the next big growth catalyst for the stock?
Well, let's ask that question.
I mean, I watched Rebel Moon Part one, a child Afar over the holidays. I won't give my opinion, but look at IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. So then go back to WWE. You know, the content pipeline is important, but this is a deal that doesn't kick untill twenty twenty five, and news overnight that the film chiefs leaving to go out swear.
Yeah, that's a really interesting point that you bring up, ed because what we've seen so Netflix, as you know, a few weeks ago, Netflix kind of released this first really detailed what they call what we watched an engagement report, where they basically said who watched what over the first six months in twenty twenty three, And what we kind of learned from that report was that only about you know, fifty five percent of the top titles were really their originals,
forty five percent is licensed content. And so as we kind of think about Scott Stubert leaving. You know, it goes to show that licensed content can still play a huge, huge role for Netflix, and that's exactly what we've been seeing. I mean, we saw that massive phenomenon with Suits, which kind of had you know, this huge audience based kind of come back and bring interest to a show that was that old and was you know, airing on a
rival TV network. And we've seen so many of these other titles, you know, whether their movies from from the Max service, whether there's some of the older Max shows, all kind of finding this huge audience space and Netflix. So one thing that we've learned is that, you know, just for them, licensing old content can also work really well. So they don't necessarily need to make huge bets right now in the original show space, but they do need to get into diverse content to really kind of attract
the advertising basin. That's exactly what this deal with TKO is all about.
Oh.
Suits is a fan favorite of everyone on Team Bloomberg Technology, according to the chat on My screen, and they gave it a second life. Guitarang Nathan Bloomberg Intelligence and lists standby Netflix earnings after the Bell will catch up tomorrow. Now coming up, we're going to get the big picture outlook for tech earnings overall with melag and Asino Wee Family Offices CEO, and in the earnings context, we're looking at shares of both Verizon and Texas Instruments. Remember Textas
Instruments after the bell, very analog focused semiconductor maker. So many end markets. We have questions about Verizon interesting performance, added the most mobile customers in two years. It seems that this kind of turnaround plan the carrier is working. Those shares up more than five percent. My goodness, what a start to a Tuesday. This is Bloomberg technology.
Okay, it's kind of like this.
Tiptoe Tuesday when it comes to financial markets, equities kind of stuck within narrow ranges. Earnings is a really big factor now this week technology in particular. Verizon was out this morning, Next up Texas Instruments. Later in the week Tesla, Intel,
and after the Bell. The big one we've been talking about is Netflix and so at an index level, nothing crazy in terms of movement, and in the back of our minds we're thinking about the FED and what they will or won't do over the course of twenty twenty four. Delighted to say that joining us now to get through these markets is Melagamassino. We Family Offices CEO, joining us out of Miami.
We went into this.
Week on Bloomberg focused very much on the Magnificence seven, right, this idea that they were where you wanted to be in twenty twenty three. But if you look at the earning season ahead, the expectation is that that bucket of seven will have EPs growth of forty six percent, and it doesn't seem to be any earnings growth elsewhere other than maybe utilities. Do you have to be in the Magnificent seven for the rest of twenty twenty four.
No, I think that actually we're heading into kind of a Goldilog scenario with inflation coming down.
You know.
GDP growth for the third quarter was four point nine percent. They estimate that it's going to be about two percent for the fourth quarter. Unemployment is low, wages have risen higher than inflation. Two thirds of the US economy is consumer consumer lead. So actually I'm very bullish for the S and P five hundred, not just for the Magnificent seven.
Every time that you and I have talked over the last twelve months, you actually go a little bit deeper on the technology sector, you know, into sub sectors that you say, okay, I have a thesis here. Let's take, for example, semiconductors. What is the twenty twenty four semiconductor call from melag A Mesino.
Oh.
I think semiconductors will continue to be strong. I think the whole healthcare sector can have huge profitability and efficiency from the use of artificial intelligence. So I think what we're going to start to see it is how different sectors are going to start applying artificial intelligence, not just in terms of research and innovation, but the ability to empower their employees at their desk. And so I think that it's going to be much more croub based than
the tech stocks. I think it's regular companies, industrial companies, consumer staples companies, et cetera.
Have the potential to have.
Much more productivity as a result of these team tools.
I think we're in the beginning.
We're in the beginning stages of what's going to be a transformational technology for all of industry.
How do you use AI every day?
You know, there's the investing side and where you can allocate capital, and then there's you wake up and think, how do I use AI today?
Well, if you.
Think about it, in our own work, we're using more and more AI tools to actually take care of a lot of administrative tasks that are very talented people were doing and now you can really leverage them so that they can use their full talents instead of spending on a lot of administrative tasks. So I think that's just a small sample of what AI can do to just leverage every single company and the way that they use
their talent. I mean, I don't think. I don't I'm not one of those people that worries about white collar workers losing their jobs. I think AI is going to empower and lift white collar workers to do a much better job.
Mel there are certain sections of the technology sector that are sensitive to rates. Higher rates discount the present value of future cashflows is what I say on the show all the time. And right now the market seems to be shrugging off a pretty constant stream of FED speak that is warning us about our anticipation at the timing and depth of rate cuts. Why is the market not listening to the FED?
Well, I think we've been in this tube of war because I between what the market says and what the FED is saying for months now, and that's what caused volatility in the market. But I personally listen to the FED. I think in spite of what the market would like, I think the FED is taking its time. It's making sure that the data that the lag effect of the interest rate rises, that they put in place, that they're really un stand what the data is saying before they.
Start lowering rates.
But they will lower rates, it just might not be as fast as the market expects.
For this year.
How top of mind is geopolitical risk, and you know, knowing that you look so closely at the chip sector, I go straight to China in my mind when we think about both the supply chain but also demand side of that industry.
Well, China is I mean, China's economy is really not doing well. And I even think the latest stimulus that you know, the Chinese government tried to do to sort of stabilize the stock market, it's not going to work because there's fundamentally fundamental economic issues in China, starting with the real estate sector but also the finance sector. And I think the interference of the government in the business sector has really chased away a lot of the foreign investors.
The lack of the kind of governance that were used to seeing has chased away foreign investors, and they played a pretty big role in China. So I think it's different with China. The geo political issue that I think most people worry about is actually what's going to happen
with the US election. Having said that, we just did a study of what happens with every shock in the stock market starting from World War Two all the way through you know, the Israel Hamas situation, and the stock market reacts emotionally initially, and then six months later, a year later, it's up.
So now I'm sorry to interrupt with a short on time, but before I lose you, I got a question from.
Our audience that's tuned in right now.
If AI will help white collar workers in the US, as you said, what are the implications for those industries that outsource a lot of work to workforces in India, for example, I think.
Some of that work's going to come home.
I don't think we need to outsource. I think it's actually going to be a huge boon for the US economy and for our friends that are closer to US. I think gonna We're gonna focus more on resilience.
I just cost mel Lagamassino. We family offices, sere. We always go so broad when you join me on the program, I really appreciate it your time today out of Miami, time for talking tech and first Up by Jew's, once considered one of the most valuable startups in the world, is seeking to raise one hundred billion dollars in funds at evaluation of less than two billion dollars to ease its financial problems. That's down from twenty two billion dollars
in its last round in late twenty twenty two. Plus EV sales growth may be slowing, but investor enthusiasm in the technology is not. Danish EV charging software startup Monta raised eighty seven million dollars in bench capital to expand its business across Europe and the US, and a doctored audio message of President Joe Biden urging voters in New Hampshire not to cast their ballots in today's democratic primary
circulated over the weekend. The deep Fake alarmed the world's disinformation experts very quick check in on the markets and a's that one hundred not doing a great deal in this current session, but the context this week is earnings. Think about Netflix after the bell, Tesla's have come in twenty four hours, Intel later in the week. It's becoming more of a consideration for the market broadly, and there
are high hopes of the Magnificent seven. The real big question is do we see earning's growth and do we see key metrics beat when it comes to the much broader name list of names that we have in the technology sector.
Another name that.
I've been watching closely but we've talked about less in the last week or so is Amazon. The stock actually flatters a pancake in the current session, but a story breaking overnight in Europe. The French regulator or a watchdog is looking at Amazon and basically concerned about a system it's put in place over employee surveillance monitoring the work activities and work performance of those employees. It was a
thirty four million dollar fine. It open lower, but you can see we've pair those losses and we're now back with the e commerce giant trading down a tenth of one percent. Now another story in the e commerce context. TIMU is known as a destination for younger consumers, but new research paints a different picture. Actually, the Chinese e commerce app is attracting hordes of boomer and Gen X shoppers. Let's bring in Bloomberg's boomer in chief spencer Sopa. Now
I'm that's unkind spencer. Let's bring in Bloomberg's e commerce chief spencer Soper. I mean, this is surprising when I hear about Timu, I hear about it from all kinds of people. But like we suggested a younger audience. What is the data set you got hold of and what does it tell you?
Yeah, basically Grandma is addicted to Timus.
So that was a surprise for us too. You think that allowed these these.
App especially mobile centered e commerce platforms like Timu, would attract younger shoppers who are glued to their phones, But it turns out you're seeing the most loyal shoppers in the in the boomer category fifty nine and older. That's data from a tain that that monitors credit card transactions and so it and then when you think about it and peel back a little bit, you do see that. You know, there are a lot of gaming aspects. When you open the app, you almost feel like you walked
into a Las Vegas casino or something. So it does make sense that older shoppers are drawn to it.
What's interesting is that Timu has been operating in the US for not that long, I think like twelve months or so, right, Spencer. And one of the reasons I love your reporting in the context of all these e commerce companies is you go out into the real world and you speak to people using the platform.
What did you find out there and who did you speak to?
Yeah, we spoke to one woman in her fifties from Spokane, Washington, out here on the West coast, and she, you know, she said she was actually introduced to introduced to it by your mother, who's in her seventies. So again it reinforced that older shopper. And you know, basically she just said, hey, look there's there's great deals on here, I can spend freely.
She'd made like thirty.
Purchases, buying all kinds of things, vases, home goods, you know, like winter hats for her children, and she also bought some soap dispenser and even part of the fun was that she knows some of the stuff was going to show up, you know and just be absolute garbage, you know, and that's what she mentioned about about her the soap Dispenser, that a lot of things she bought are quite nice, but one thing that looked nice on the image, when it got to her house, it was just a piece
of junk and all she could do was laugh because she didn't spend that much money on it.
All right, Bobo, Spenser Sofa just terrific reporting out there in.
The real world, but also a key grasp of the data.
And let's stick with that data from Attain and bring in Brian Mendelbaum, CEO of the Chicago research firm Attain, which minds credit card data from a panel of around six point five million consumers, and again Attained, the firm behind the report that Spencer was just outlining. Brian, it's an interesting finding, right that for ages well. For twelve months, we believe that tea was a hit with younger generations.
You found the opposite.
Let's start by explaining the methodology of how you brought the data.
About Yeah sure a TAIN is a commerce data platform that enables outcomes, both driving outcomes and measuring outcomes for brands and advertisers. And unlike retailers who can only see really inside of their four walls or on their shopping experiences.
Attain has over six and a half million consumers that are with their consent, sharing over a half a billion dollars a day in sales behavior, credit card, debit cards, basket level information, and with that data, it gives us an unrivaled view of how consumers are actually spending their money and their behaviors in real time across retail in every sector of the US economy, including social commerce channels, which are what we're talking about today.
So get me wrong, Brian.
I'm a young man, and you know sometimes when I go onto an e commerce platform, I look at the basket size and I say stop to stop. But if you look at the data, the transaction size difference between somebody that in a category I fall into and the boomers that Spencer was talking about, it's not that different in terms of the dollar spend.
Yeah, it's not that different terms in terms of the dollar spent.
It's the frequency in which these boomers and gen xers are spending on the platform. I mean, what's really surprising, if you really think about it, is that you would think that this would be for the gen Z economy because they're anchored in social media, it's their primary source
of content consumption. But in this retail e commerce environment that's been evolving, we're going through somewhat of a renaissance, and that our data suggests that digital is nuanced when it comes down to it, and that it's every facet of the economy has a different market and a different niche and advertisers need to rethink their engagement strategies if they want to capture more market share outside of the gen Z economy.
Brian, the data helps us understand TEAMU, But in isolation, have you guys got any data that helps us to understand better Team Who's performance in this market, at least against other players like Amazon, but also Sheen is an example.
Well, our research looked at last year Amazon Prime Days and how Amazon was doing during the holiday season.
We saw the.
Initial get gos of the holiday kickoff that Amazon sales were relatively flat, and arguably we're talking about a small base, but Team has been around for a year, year and a half and their growth has been explosive over that period of time. Again, it's off of a small base, but we're seeing what is the remarkable points around Are retailers going to have the strangle like Amazon, Target Walmart have the strangle on US consumers when it comes to quick commerce.
Or are new entrants going to enter the be in.
The market and solve a unique need for different segments in this fractured retail economy that started to come about.
Brian, what does the real time day to tell you about the direction for Timu as we move past the holidays in this early part of the new year.
Well, let's take a step back.
The interesting impact here is that companies like Timu and Chien will have on US retail like Walmart and Amazon. Will they will consumers lean on quality and brand equity and fast shipping, or will we see a race to the bottom so retailers like Chian will the low price. This is really compel consumers to test this market and
the gamification that Spencer was talking about earlier. It's too soon to tell, but I will tell you from our data in real time, we are seeing massive impacts of Chian and Timu entering the US market and stealing share from all parts of the generational spectrum in the US academy right now.
Brian Mandelbaum, CEO of attained with their own data on how Timu's doing in its first twelve months in the US.
Thank you very much.
Coming up here on Bloomberg Technology, we're going to take a look at investing in Europe with Plural Platform. That conversation coming up next. This is Bloomberg Technology. Okay, let's dive into the venture industry in Europe with our next VEC spotlight. Guest Taveet Henricus, one of the co founders of tech companies Wise and partner at Plural Platform, which just raised a new four hundred million euro fund just eighteen months after its debut fund. And the timing of
a second fund is interesting. The venture industry had mixed fortunes in twenty twenty three, but just explain the rationale to raise a new fund so quickly after the last.
So we have spent the past eighteen months busy investing. We made twenty six investments in some of the most ambitious European firms and as such we were getting ready to raise the next fund. So for us, it made complete temps to go back on the market then raise a new fund which will continue on the same strategy. And really what we're doing is we're looking for the most ambitious European founders.
Tat talk to me about the LPs. You know, your europe based fund four hundred million euros is sizable.
Where did the money come from?
Most of our money came from institutional investors, A lot of them means the US university and downs pension funds, So the classic tier one LPs.
And what do you think is their motivation for wanting to put capital into a venture fund right now?
So what we are building is quite new for Europe. In Europe, there are very few venture funds where all of the partners are ex company builders. So I do believe that the fact that the five partners say have all built businesses is a key reason why people are interested in investing. And also, I think we're coming to a point where Europe is really punching at its real weight. You know, we are now at a point where it's a number of new companies started in Europe has surpassed
a number of companies started in the US. So I think investors are very excited to see a lot of companies coming from Europe. You know, if we look at what's come from here in the past, add em Spotify, why is Klarna? Lots of very big companies have come in the past decade.
So where's the next big European name? You know that list? Those are kind of the of Europe right Spotify is a unique example. Many of them focused on fintech, though thematically, what areas do you see opportunity in?
Europe is a large continent and I think there is going to be a lot of different verticals that will be built here. We're seeing lots in climate and energy. We've invested in a company called Field which is building brid scale batteries. It then Sarah's lots in deep tech. We have a company proxim of Fusion building a usion reactor. And obviously we can't get done without mentioning AI and
the way that AI is attacking different verticals. Robbin Ai is one of our companies helping lawyers get away from the dodgery and do more productive work, and similarly Teton in healthcare sector helping nurses be more productive. So I think we'll see successes come from a variety of industries it, but I think what kind of combines them all is ambitious founders looking to build consequential businesses.
Robin Ai is a company known to us. The CEO has been on the program with US quite recently. It's interesting because robin Ai is an example of a startup that's taking on a giant right. They think of the integration of their technology into existing Microsoft Office. But here in the United States it is Microsoft, Amazon Aws and open Ai leading the charge.
I always think about it as.
Kind of little and large, and I just asked if you could assess the chances that Europe has of bringing a big AI player to the four.
I think there is a lot of AI talent in Europe. You can look at some of the past geared announcements from coming from France, for example about all alone technology, and certainly if you look at vertical applications, you know, I do not believe that open ai can do something in every vertical. So what we're looking to back is companies in a vertical and how as a proprietary data and in these verticals. I am convin so that Europe can build some of the champions.
Tavit.
I'm really interested in plural platforms. You have personnel in London, you have personnel in talent. What is it like running a venture firm that's kind of pan European. How do you operate day to day.
Since the nature of Europe is that it's a number of different ecosystems. So if you look at the bigger clusters in Europe, we have UK, we have Germany, we have Estonia, we have some Nordic city. So it's really a question of being in touch with people in all of these different ecosystems and making sure that the most ambitious founders knows that the Plural is a place to come looking for capital.
Right now, is there one particular city that you visited recently in Europe and you thought there's something here in terms of technology, talent or what's being built.
We have done two deals in Amsterdam recently. I think that's something which I would not have a year ago. So I put taps as a rising star and.
Really quick, what were those deals? Tell me about the technology companies?
So one of the mess particle, which is a particle printer and a company has not yet been announced, but we'll talk about it very soon.
Okay, Well you leave us with that that tease, and you have to come back on the program when it is announced. Tab Henricus partner a Plural platform.
Thank you so much.
Today's going viral Oscars nominations are out and trending online. I see it trending on X in the United States. I see real time Google trends. The OSCARS nominations top of the tree. But there are some major names getting snubbed after going viral all summer. Barbie missed some big nods. Director Greta Gerwig did not receive a nomination for directing The Billion Dollar Film, and Margo Robbie also missed out
for Best Actress. However, the movie is contended for Best Picture and Ken actor Ryan Gosling did get nominated for Best Supporting Actor. But I'm also looking on social media, and I'm looking on Google and many of you making your views known on some of those Oscars snubs. Today's going viral.
Okay.
The ninety six FORCADME Awards will be held on March tenth at seven pm, live on ABC and hosted for a fourth time by Jimmy Kimmel. Another big story that we're watching, Ali barber Schez jumped after The New York Times reported that founder Jack mar and Ali barbera chairman Josie have both been buying up shares in the company Bloomberg's Isabelle Lee joins me for more in New York. That is a kind of story as old as time.
Executives buying up shares of company gives confidence. But in Jack mars case, that's interesting given his current and historic relationship with the company.
Definitely interesting and a lot of layers here. So we have the duo snapping up shares in the fourth quarter. Ever since the stocks price has plunged. We have Time buying around one hundred and fifty one worth of Ali Baba's US traded shares through his family's investment vehicle, that's Bluepool Management. And we have Ma buying around fifty million worth of shares in the fourth quarter. So recall that Ma gave up his executive chairman role in twenty nineteen,
but he is still a major stockholder. And to your point, this is kind of complex because what does this mean too many investors, It means that really it just reflects the belief of Ma inside that maybe Ali Baba share is still undervalued. Recall that its shares fell sharply from
its twenty twenty peak as sharp as eighty percent. At Ali Baba's market cap right now is harving around one seventy five million billion rather and in twenty twenty it was hovering around eight hundred and fifty billions, So that's really a huge trim there.
It's worth reminding the Bluebot Technology audience that what we're talking about right now is a seven percent gain on the US listed shares of Ali Barber or the ADR's American Depository receipts. But it is the China tech darling, or at least that's up for debate. It has been, and behind the scenes there has been this executive shuffle that you and I have talked about over the last few months on the show.
Yes, so this gain today is the most we'b scene since August, but zooming out. The stock has fallen over forty three percent in the past twelve months, and again this isn't good news because Ali Baba used to be the darling, used to be the crown jewel of China, but now it's fallen behind rivals like ten Cent and PDD. And this is why I'm in a rare public intervention last year posted on their public forum in his company that Alibaba should maybe course correct and he praised PDD
for a job well done. And it just really goes to show that this is kind of like a nudge in the shoulder for Ali Baba to probably do better. But Mad did end on a good note and he said Ali Baba could be successful again with hard work.
Yeah.
I was reading the New York Times report and there is a rationale behind the current buying.
What is it is about? According to that report?
The New York Times report is saying that it's really just not Ali Baba because overall, if you look at the benchmark index of China, this USI index hit its slowest in five years this week, and this is why Chinese authorities are muling a package to stabilize and to arrest the stock market route. They're looking at around two hundred and seventy eight billion ED, so that's really a significant amount, and they're looking to buy mainly from offshore
accounts of Chinese state owned companies. But if you ask investors, some of them are kind of this illusion. They're not feeling as optimistic because they said, Okay, this may spark a little rebound, but it's the fundamentals that need fixing.
Okay.
Bloomberg's Isabelle Lee there on Ali Barber's US listed shares, which as Isabelle said, are currently up around seven percent, on track for their biggest jump since August of twenty twenty three August last year. That does it for what was a packed edition of Bloomberg Technology.
A big thank you to everyone that's checking out the podcast.
I know many of you listen on your way into work on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and just as a reminder, we are posting the podcast to all of the Bloomberg platforms as well. Two days in into what is quickly becoming a week all about technology earnings, and that is what the conversation will be on this program from San Francisco, This is Bloomberg Technology.