Hi, we've got 3 charts for you today:
Europe doesn't have a big tech sector. It doesn't have an enormously cheap manufacturing industry. What it does have is huge luxury goods companies — and this week the biggest of them all, LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), saw its share price hit an all-time high. That also meant that Bernard Arnault, LVMH's CEO, became the world's wealthiest individual — unseating Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos thanks to a $186bn fortune, mostly in LVMH stock.
An eye for a bargain
Across its 75 brands, which LVMH calls "houses", you'd be hard pressed to find any products that could be considered cheap. Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Loro Piana, Bulgari, Tag Heuer, Tiffany & Co. and Hublot are just some of the bigger brands in the LVMH stable, and all are expensive. So it's ironic then that Bernard Arnault has built LVMH with an eye for a bargain, acquiring numerous brands — that have often been family-owned for years and years — and adding them to the LVMH stable.
LVMH's most recent acquisition, Tiffany & Co., will add more than $4bn of revenue to its Watches & Jewelry division when it is fully accounted for next year and will increase LVMH's sales in the US. But, just like every acquisition before it, Arnault isn't sitting on his laurels after the Tiffany deal. Last month LVMH invested €75m ($92m) into struggling Italian shoemaker Tod's, fuelling speculation of a larger deal. Tod's, which is still majority owned by descendants of the Italian founder, would be a textbook LVMH target. The dealmaker Arnault isn't done yet.
Tomorrow the first Friends reunion since the show ended in 2004 is set to air. Even if you're part of the group of people that hates Friends, and thinks it's not funny, it's hard not to be impressed by the cultural impact a single TV show has had.
So sure of its continuing longevity, executives at HBO Max were willing to shell out $85m per year for the streaming rights to Friends, more than 15 years since the show ended. The show has even found a fanbase among Gen-Z, who usually aren't a fan of millennial (or older) culture.
So, if you are a Friends fan who wants to re-watch a few episodes before the reunion tomorrow we've dug out one of the earliest charts we ever made, plotting the IMDB rating of every single episode of Friends to find you the highest rated episode.
If you want to remember how it all ended you can watch the obvious choice which would be the finale, "The Last One", which notches up a 9.7 out of 10 on IMDB. Another good option is to go back to season 5 episode 14 and watch "The One Where Everybody Finds Out" — a classic in which Chandler and Monica's relationship is revealed. The reality though is that if you plucked for any random episode you'll probably be fairly happy, the lowest rated episode is a 7.3 / 10 on IMDB — a testament to how consistently Friends delivered for its fans.
The New York Times is reportedly looking to acquire The Athletic, the subscription sports news site. The Athletic has raised more than $139m from investors and has spent aggressively on acquiring sports writing talent since its launch back in 2016, amassing more than 1 million paying subscribers along the way (some of whom are on discounted trial offers).
The Athletic has channelled the adage "move fast and break things" in its short life. The company has used data to feedback quickly to writers about what stories are doing well, and have even financially incentivised writers to write articles that bring in as many new Athletic subscribers as possible. The company's move into the UK, where it paid up to get a number of well-regarded football (soccer) writers onto their team, coupled with aggressive marketing and discounts, was a classic example of The Athletic's strategy.
Paywalls everywhere
So far, that strategy has worked. Getting over 1 million paying subscribers for a news product is pretty rarefied air in the world of English speaking news. Only the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Game Informer, the Financial Times and the New York Times itself have broken through that milestone according to data from FIPP.
As consumers increasingly get comfortable with paying for news and insight, more publishers are putting content behind a paywall. Stuck between a rock (advertising) and a hard place (convincing readers to get their credit card out), many news publishers are increasingly choosing the latter.
1) Fintech company Square saw its share price rise 5% on Monday on news that it might begin to offer bank accounts — but there was no press release — instead someone found code within a Square app update that revealed the company's intentions.
2) It's been more than 365 days since George Floyd was murdered. Analysis from The Economist reveals how Floyd's death has changed, or not changed, how police operate in Minneapolis.
3) Some interesting numbers from the CEO of property website Redfin on the US housing market. The average house is selling in 17 days, a record low, and a survey of 2,000 homebuyers found that 63% had bid on a property without seeing it in person. Across the pond in Wales in the UK, a similar phenomenon has been playing out.
4) Recently Masterworks sold their first Banksy work for a 32% return for investors. Explore Masterworks and skip the 17,000 person waitlist today.**
5) Interesting data and analysis from the Pew Research Center on the gender pay gap in the US — which has remained relatively stable over the last 15 years.
6) Amazon is being sued for potential antitrust violations. It also, incidentally, just acquired MGM studio for $8.45bn.
**This is a sponsored snack.
