Wobbly Bank Fondue

Plus: Ryan Reynolds has a commercial cure for everything ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

March 16, 2023

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TOGETHER WITH

Good morning.

Marvel has a really big (or depending on the Pym Particles involved, small) problem with Google and Reddit.

In a lawsuit filed in California this week, the superhero powerhouse is demanding that the two platforms identify who leaked Disney’s latest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, as the script appeared on Reddit message boards and was saved in a Google doc prior to the film’s release. Both companies have been subpoenaed to comply. But Marvel should know better than anyone that MCU spoilers on Reddit are a lot like its new big villain, Kang the Conqueror: You stop one, and another will just take its place.

Morning Brief

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Before there was SVB there was CS.

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Ryan Reynolds cells out.

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BuzzFeed News says do more with less.

Banks

Credit Suisse Getting The SVB Treatment From Investors AND Regulators

After spending a few days dealing with the banking disaster almost no one saw coming, investors and regulators on Wednesday turned their attention to the slow-motion banking disaster almost everyone saw coming.

In the wake of US regulators moving quickly to contain the contagion of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse by backstopping its deposits, their European counterparts were forced to confront a similar reality with perpetually-troubled lender Credit Suisse before coming to a similar conclusion. Credit Suisse announced Thursday morning it would borrow up to $54 billion from the Swiss central bank.

A Swiss Miss

Credit Suisse has been ravaged by its roles in a litany of disastrous financial scandals ranging from fraudulent loans in Mozambique to the collapse of Greensill Capital to skirting Russian sanctions to the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, prompting the Zurich-based financial services giant to undertake a dramatic overhaul. But when CS delayed the release of its most recent results Tuesday, admitting that it had found some “material weaknesses” in its reporting of recent results, its balance sheet was perceived as Swiss cheese (with extra-large holes).

Investors woke up sensing Credit Suisse’s SVB moment on Wednesday, sending the bank’s stock into a nosedive. Noting the resemblance to Silicon Valley Bank, the Swiss National Bank announced late Wednesday that although it believes Credit Suisse is well-capitalized, it would provide additional liquidity if necessary.

If that sounds panicky and familiar, that’s because it is:

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Credit Suisse shares fell almost 30% at the open on Wednesday after its biggest backer, the Saudi National Bank, declared it had decided against giving further financial support in light of recent events — though it regained much of that ground on Thursday morning.

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Like SVB, Credit Suisse has seen deposits flow out like a strong tide, but unlike SVB, Credit Suisse’s drain has occurred over months instead of hours. In its most recent quarter, the bank saw a startling 37% rate of outflows.

But the Swiss are maintaining their sangfroid and not freaking out entirely. “There are no indications of a direct risk of contagion for Swiss institutions due to the current turmoil in the US banking market,” the country’s chief regulator said in a statement.

SVB Tees, So Hot Right Now: As for SVB, the failed bank is still without a buyer despite increasingly desperate matchmaking from the FDIC, which has tried everything short of Tinder. But while the bank’s remaining assets are still objectively unappealing, its swag is hotter than ever. According to The Wall Street Journal, SVB apparel and tchotchkes are killing it on eBay, where SVB-branded cheeseboards are selling for $200. That’s dark cheddar, bro.

– Thornton McEnery

Telecoms

T-Mobile Buys Ryan Reynolds’ Mint Mobile

(Photo credit: Mike Mozart/Flickr)

As if being a Hollywood heartthrob and a gin baron wasn’t enough, the guy who plays Deadpool just sold his mobile phone company for more than $1 billion.

T-Mobile agreed to purchase the famously affordable and Ryan Reynolds-backed wireless operator Mint Mobile for roughly $1.35 billion Wednesday.

Minty Fresh

Mint Mobile receives plenty of praise for its uniquely stripped-down advertisements, which have Reynolds standing in front of a green screen, cracking self-deprecating jokes with customers and family members. One commercial even featured legendary and reclusive comedian Rick Moranis for no reason other than Reynolds is a fan and persuaded him to do it. In a Twitter post, Reynolds and T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert assured fans that Mint’s marketing style will remain untouched.

But beyond the unconventional ads, Mint is even better known for its budget phone plans that range in price from just $15 for 4 gigs of data a month to $30 for unlimited data. Comparable plans with AT&T and Verizon start at $50 and $70, respectively, for solo phone subscriptions. The acquisition will add boatloads of lower-income clients who use pay-as-you-go phones to T-Mobile’s customer base, which today stands at roughly 21 million prepaid subscribers. With Mint under its belt, the company expects to gain about 3 million more customers:

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With a combination of 39% cash and 61% stock, T-Mobile plans to buy Mint’s parent company Ka-ena Corp. The final purchase price, which should be finalized later this year, will be based on Mint reaching certain performance goals before and after the transaction, Bloomberg reported. The acquisition likely won’t face many technical hurdles as Mint already operates off T-Mobile cell phone towers.

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Mint’s co-founder, David Glickman, told Bloomberg the cellular company’s annual subscriber growth over the past four years has been 50% and revenue growth has been 70% or more each year.

Man About Town: Reynolds has become quite the entrepreneur in recent years. In addition to owning an undisclosed but “significant” stake in Mint, the merc with a mouth co-owns Welsh soccer team Wrexham AFC alongside It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Rob McElhenney, and in 2020, his distillery, Aviation American Gin, sold to Diageo for $610 million. As Deadpool would say, Chimichangas indeed!

– Griffin Kelly

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The magical bottomless kitchen bin: You can keep filling and filling (and filling) for weeks. Your bin will dry, shrink, and de-stink everything nightly. No weird smells. No slimy bags. No wasted food.

Feed farms, not landfills: Most of us toss our scraps in the trash, which is how roughly 40 million tons of food end up in landfills each year. And those millions of tons of food waste in landfills? They emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. With Mill, you can turn food into well… food. For chickens!

For ~$1/day, a Mill Membership includes:

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The food-shrinking, de-stinking Mill kitchen bin

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On-demand Food Grounds pickup via USPS

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Personal impact tracking for your household

To get started, go to Mill.com today. Your kitchen (and the planet) will thank you.

Media

BuzzFeed News’ Plan to Boost Revenue is So Simple It Just Might Not Work

Whoa! What a concept!

To boost traffic and bring in more ad revenue for her money-losing newsroom, BuzzFeed News editor-in-chief Karolina Waclawiak had a bold suggestion for her journalists during a recent staff meeting: Write more. This is high on our list of the 37 funniest moments in media so far this year.

Writer’s Block

While BuzzFeed is widely known for its clickbait listicles and quizzes that determine if you’re more like Salt or Pepa, — or the secret third option, Spinderella — it has also been known to produce highly-praised and thoroughly-reported news pieces. Just two years ago, the digital publication won its first Pulitzer for a series exposing China’s mass detention of Muslims for forced labor in the nation’s Xinjiang region. Never mind that hard news was a money-loser and has been significantly scaled back.

However, traffic is down across the board. In the past, much of BuzzFeed’s clicks came by way of deals with Facebook, but in a recent earnings report it said people were spending less time on the social media platform. And when traffic is down, ad revenue is down:

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Ad revenue for Q4 2022 was $51 million, a 27% decline from the same time a year prior. Buzzfeed’s stock is now worth about $1 a share, and for Q1 2023, it expects to generate $61 million to $67 million in revenue, much less than the $91 million it saw the same time last year.

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While Waclawiak’s vision for more content is not inherently bad, it means a heavier workload on a smaller pool of writers. Last March, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said the outlet was looking to boost profitability in its news division by cutting staff and shifting focus from long-form investigative pieces to “coverage of the biggest news of the day, culture and entertainment, celebrity and life on the internet.”

“There are so many things outside of our control — the advertising market, the economy, a recession,” Waclawiak told the newsroom, according to the WSJ. “But what we can control is how many stories we publish each day.”

A Writer’s Take: Waclawiak’s plan is nothing new. Every journalist has experienced this: You finally finish a piece that you’ve been working on for days, maybe weeks. It has great quotes and solid reporting not found in any other outlet. You wrote it, re-wrote it, and re-re-wrote it to perfection. When everything is done, your editor looks you in the eyes (or likely GChats you these days) and immediately asks, “What else you got?” Happy Thursday, everyone.

– Griffin Kelly

Extra Upside

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Who wants a slice: Shoppers are going nuts for Costco’s 5-pound peanut butter chocolate pie.

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Just $27,000: Could Volkswagen be the home of the affordable electric vehicle?

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Just For Fun

Maestro.

Needs a helmet.

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