This is what the flucks.
I'm justin and I'm harsh Deep and it's Monday, the tenth of June Achi.
The merge between the physical and the digital world is getting more real every single day. Oh yeah, get this. Ikia is opening a digital store on Robelosts. Okay, they're actually looking for staff and they're actually looking to pay those stuff sixteen bucks an hour. Wow, sitting on your computer not fair head, Fluxpam.
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Great article. HD three informative stories Today, let's get into it for our first virtual gaming world. The Australian social gaming giant has delivered a massive three hundred and sixty million dollar dividend to investors in it's third mega payout for the financial year.
The biggest company that you've never heard of tell me more.
Literally, Virtual Gaming Old is an absolutely monstrous estliing company, but it keeps pretty low key.
It was founded back in twenty ten with its online poker machines and casino games.
It's the owner of companies Chumber Casino and Lucky Land Slots, which you may or may not have heard of Andazz.
VGW has kept a low profile for a good reason. It operates in the gray zone of sweet Steaks.
That effectively allows them to run gambling operations in the US when casinos are banned in many states.
Get this. By September twenty twenty two, VGW was the sixth biggest private company in the whole of Australia.
It generated more than two point eight billion dollars in revenue in the six months ending December last year. And now VGW has dishouted dividend worth around three hundred and sixty million dollars to a shareholder.
And that's nearly nine hundred million dollars in dividends just for the last financial year.
And while vgw's investors would be pretty happy with those dividend returns, the real payday will happen when VGW is sold all goes public.
But there's a real liquidity risk for those investors.
True, So what is the key learning here?
Private market and is a complex dance of higher risk but also high reward and a she.
This is particularly relevant for VGW, which faces a significant liquidity risk for investors.
You see Jazz. Traditional liquidity pathways are kind of limited for VGW and Jazz. Why can't VGW just list on the public stock exchange.
Well, it's previously tried to list on the ASX and it was rejected because the ASEX wasn't clear on the legality of vgw's operations.
And what about another company buying VGW.
Well, it's worth more than four billion dollars, so it needs to be a pretty big company willing to take on a regulatory risk.
So right now, VGW investors are just happy to take their dividends, but.
They've got to be wondering what their long term options really are.
For our second story, robin Hood, the stock trading app, has announced a two hundred million US dollar acquisition of cryptocurrency exchange bitstamp.
Robin Hood's getting deeper into the crypto action. Very interesting, So tell me what's going on here.
Well, Jazz. Robinhood is a US based financial services company that's been around since twenty thirteen.
It's most well known for its app, which allows users to trade stocks and ETFs and even some cryptocurrencies, mainly without brokerage fees.
And now robin Hood has just announced that it will be acquiring cryptocurrency exchange a bitstamp for two hundred million US dollars.
And a bitstamp isn't just any old exchange, hg. It's the world's oldest crypto exchange, been around since twenty eleven.
It's now the sixteenth largest crypto exchange actually based on trading volume, and offers access to over eighty five different cryptocurrencies.
But that is not what makes it steel super lucrative for robin Hood.
Okay, tell me more.
Well, bitstam has fifty active licenses worldwide, meaning it's done the hard yards to meet regulatory standards across the world.
No wonder robin Hood's shelled out the cash to buy this.
So what is the key learning?
Why reinvent the wheel when you can just acquire itch.
When companies want to expand their operations, either into a new area or location, they often need to meet regulatory requirements first.
Planning to open a new store location got to get a permit.
Expanding overseas into a new country, particularly in a regulated industry, you got to get their approval.
Obtaining the licenses and regulatory approvals can be extremely time consuming and expensive for companies, but.
There's a shortcut acquiring a company that already has those licenses.
You see Jazz. Not only is Robinhood buying Bitstamp, but it's also buying access to new markets.
And bypassing the licensing process.
So if Robinhood's acquisition gets approved by competition watchdogs, we could be seeing it dominate the crypto space rapidly.
For our third and final story, Lululemon has seen a big jump in a share price after it raised its profit forecast and announced a one billion US dollar share buy bout.
Investors got to love those shared by bats, tell.
Me more so. Lululemon Athletica, as it's formerly known, is the yoga and active word company founded back in nineteen ninety eight.
And wilet started with yoga clothing, it's effectively created the athleisure category.
We're talking legging, shorts, jackets, bags, yoga mats. They got it all and just.
Many clothing companies have struggled with slow sales over the past twelve months, but not Lululemon.
In fact, its first quarter, revenue in the US was pretty much flight in a plank position, but it's international sales jumped twenty five percent.
Not only were these sales up, but they were also selling more profitable items.
And if that wasn't ENOUGHHD Lululemon has also announced that increased their share by Back program by one billion US dollars.
Investors like the sound of that, pushing lula Lemon's shares higher than a box jump berbie aka eleven percent.
Very good. So what is the key learning here?
When you fully saturated one market, it's time to move on to another HG.
Lululemon's at leisure popularity peaked in the US during the COVID.
Years, but since then, Lululemon's share price and financial results have been in downward dog position.
This year, its share price has dropped more than thirty six percent since the beginning of twenty twenty four, and it's.
Been seeing slow growth, particularly in the US market.
But by detecting these trends early, you can help a company respond before these trends become fully entrenched.
Does. The women's ath leisure space has become extremely crowded with popular brands like a Loo, Yoga and fabletics.
So Lululemon has diversified into men's clothing and corporate clothing.
As well as pushing as ran into global markets.
In fact, overseas revenue now accounts for around twenty one percent of Lululemon's revenue, but they see it reaching fifty percent in the long term and it's these.
New growth channels that will help grow the Lululemon brand into the future.
It's tough to say the word Luther Lemon fluxam. Most people don't give their superannuation much thought. But if you're deciding to come around and try to understand what a benchmark could look like in terms of your age and your super we've got it covered in the Flux app, so make sure to check it out. With HG's latest article, it's a cracker.
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on Wednesday.