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No Time To Die, the 25th installment in the James Bond franchise, opened in the US last weekend and has now pulled in just shy of $320m globally, according to data from The Numbers. So far, that's a little lower than Craig's previous efforts as Bond, but basically where industry experts expected the numbers to come in, considering the pandemic.
Bezos x Bond
As the third highest grossing franchise in history, behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars (chart here), Bond has always been a box office draw. But its future appeal hasn't always been certain, particularly with younger generations, given that the source material is a series of books first penned in 1952.
So the fact that Bond is still able to pull in a solid enough box office haul, in the aftermath of a pandemic, will be good news to Amazon, which earlier this year spent $8.5bn on acquiring MGM Studios — the production company behind the Bond franchise.
Craig's final outing
Daniel Craig's final outing as 007 is, so far, getting decent reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has marked 84% of the reviews as positive. That puts Craig's average review score at 79%, behind only Sean Connery, who averaged 86%. A tough act to follow.
This week two titans of the finance world, Henry Kravis and George Roberts, called time on their 45 year run at the top of high finance.
Kravis and Roberts were the second "K" and the "R" in KKR — the private equity giant that originally made its name, and their respective fortunes, in aggressive leveraged buyouts during the 80s and 90s.
Most famous of their deals is probably still the $25bn hostile acquisition of RJR Nabisco, a sprawling conglomerate that sold cigarettes and food, in 1989. That deal was immortalized by book Barbarians at the Gate, and was a rare mis-step in the history of KKR, which has otherwise delivered solid returns and has ballooned into a behemoth managing more than $400bn in assets.
Bread & butter
For years KKR's bread and butter was in private equity. Take money from investors, borrow some more from lenders and buy a private company. Try and make it more efficient (read: profitable), pay back the debt you borrowed and sell it on in 7-10 years, for more than you paid. That is a formula that's worked for 45 years, and will probably work for another 45.
But in recent decades KKR has expanded. Into public credit markets, real estate, other alternatives, hedge funds — and most recently insurance with the acquisition of Global Atlantic. The other formula that hasn't changed? Managing more assets = more fees.
Almost 3% of the American workforce, around 4.3 million people, said "I quit" in August — a record high. In the leisure sector specifically, that number was more like 6% of the workforce.
Job buffet
People tend not to quit during times of distress (like 2009, or April last year), and so such a high number of quits is, in some ways, a positive sign for the economy.
The record levels of "I quit" also make sense in the context of the other dataset that's near a record high — job openings. With more than 10 million jobs open, quitters clearly feel confident that they'll be able to move onto greener pastures.
For businesses trying to fill open positions, this news is probably less exciting. There are already labor shortages in a number of industries — most notably in those sectors with lots of public contact and relatively low wages, like retail, leisure and hospitality. With quit rates high in all of those sectors, those shortages probably aren't going anywhere.
1) Great data viz from The Economist showing how Russia's federal election results look slightly unusual when closely inspected.
2) Apple has been hit by the computer chip shortage, slashing its production forecasts for the iPhone by 10 million units.
3) Star Trek icon William Shatner is set to become the oldest person in space, at age 90, when he blasts off for a suborbital Blue Origin flight later today.
4) Gong has analyzed 300,000 sales emails, uncovering everything the data actually tells us about how to write good sales emails. These CTAs are scientifically proven to land more meetings (and fill up your pipeline).**
5) Harper's has compiled a great list of interesting statistics in its latest edition. Our favorite: The portion of Americans who would be interested in living in a colony on Mars for the rest of their lives — 25%.
**This is sponsored content.
