Pepsi dumps OJ 🍊
$HOOD rocks, chip shortages hurt, and dating is back.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day.
Sign up below for free. 👇
Let’s go ahead and get started:
Market summary: 📊
Another solid day in India, as markets draw optimism from a thick IPO roster. US had a meh day, as investors readjusted portfolios in anticipation of a delta-wave.
US:
S&P 500 - down 0.46%
Nasdaq - up 0.15%
India:
Nifty 50 - up 0.79%
Sensex - up 1.02%
What’s brewing hot? ☕
✅ Money heist, Koramangala version — Karan Bajaj, the controversial founder of WhiteHatJr, has apparently left Bjyu’s — barely a year after Byju’s had acquired the business for $300 million! Sweet payout. Meanwhile, later in the evening, Byju made it’s 7th acquisition of the year — buying AR-startup Whodat, that builds immersive apps and experiences.
✅ Do we have enough chips? — auto industry’s recovery isn’t exactly looking promising, with Maruti’s Gujarat plant now capping ops due to semiconductor shortages. The plant which assembles Swift and other popular cars will shut ops every other Saturday, and is also thinking about running just 1 shift a day for the month of August. Markets were counting on strong rebound in unit sales for this quarter and the next, but that party may have to wait a bit longer!
Pepsi dumps orange juice 🍹
What happened — Pepsi is offloading its juice business including Tropicana to private equity company PAI Partners, in a $3.5 billion deal — as the beverage brand prepares for the next lap of growth in the post-COVID world.
Why attac juice though — once a staple at the western family’s breakfast table, OJ is out of love with millennials and GenZ, who aren’t too excited about boomer traditions such as getting a tummy full of sugars to kick off the day.
As a result, OJ sales have flatlined or tanked, and brands across the board are aggressively exiting the business.
Making moves — meanwhile, Pepsi, just like Coke and other competition, will divert resources to functional drinks (health-focused or performance drinks). For example, Pepsi is looking to double down on Gatorade Zero, a zero sugar performance drink, that is increasingly seen moving from sports-locker rooms to office and home fridges.
Meanwhile, Coke had made similar adjustments to its own portfolio during the pandemic.
Big picture — giants like Pepsi and Coke manage to transcend decades primarily because they can keep innovating in these mundane ways, transforming into new avatars with ease. And loyal shareholders love it, ask uncle Warren!
SBI agrees that there’s loan problems 💰
State Bank’s asset quality further worsened during the second quarter, with non-performing assets expanding about 0.4% during the quarter to 5.32% of the loan book.
However, thanks to some payments flowing in from recovery of Kingfisher assets, as well as some non-interest income, profits jumped a nice 55% to ₹6.5K crores.
Other notable call outs — housing loans were up 11% YoY, a sign of demand for real estate, and business and agricultural loans grew a healthy bit.
Bottomline — markets have somewhat learnt to live with the fact that a manageable bad loans problem will be brewing for a while. As long as things don’t spiral out of hands, we good, and SBI stock was trading up 2.5% on relief.
Meanwhile, Square got to Apple, 🍎
Days after Square’s $29B plan to buy Afterpay, Apple accelerated the launch of its own BNPL offering, kicking off a partnership with Affirm to allow customers to buy iPhones without credit cards starting in Canada.
Mainstream analysts have been sure to brush aside BNPL as a millennial fad waiting to blow up in everyone’s face. But post COVID, BNPL is becoming a critical piece of infra powering online credit, capable of bypassing the credit card industry.
Heated activity here now slaps a premium on all existing market participants!
Dating season is here 👩❤️👨
Tinder had a pretty good 2nd quarter — growing its revenue by 26% to $400M for the last three months, as vaccinated folks ease up a bit and go back to fishing in the pond.
What else did we learn from Match Group? (which owns Tinder, and OKCupid, Plenty of Fish, Hinge, and a bunch of other dating properties).
Sales jumped 27% YoY, to $700M+
15M paid users, jump of 15% YoY
Asia-Pacific revenues jumped 31%, hmm...
While we’re on earnings, ☝️
Sony killed it with the launch of the PlayStation 5 — with total revenues jumping 15% YoY, despite semiconductor chip shortages denting the party for a bit there. Sony said by March it can easily sell another 15M of PS5 units!
Closing out — $HOOD is now a meme 🔥
Robinhood naysayers lay dead!
After a rather disappointing rush through the gates for its IPO, Robinhood stock is now up nearly 100% in a matter of days, as meme-stonkers take control of the wheel!
Yesterday alone stock shot up 60% in a single session, forcing the exchange to halt trading for a bit due to volatility.
The narrative was mostly running negative, with redditors upset with the company for its shenanigans during the GameStop fiasco — but a focal point that changed the debate was endorsement of growth-tech investor Cathie Wood, who’s firm ARK jumped in and scooped up a chunk of $HOOD when it hit lows.
Can’t believe this entertainment is free!
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
💰 Beat that TikTok - YouTube officially launched the $100 million Shorts fund for rewarding and luring creators on its short video platform. Payouts will range from $100 to $10,000. Get em dancing shoes!
👋 Hasta la vista - Kumar Mangalam Birla stepped down as non-executive director and chairman from the board of beleaguered telecom, Vodafone Idea.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
You can forward this email or share FC on social media by clicking the button below. Thanks and Ciao! 😀