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THE HEADLINES

 

GOD’S WORK

Finally some socioeconomic justice for the people who deserve it most: the coastal elite. No longer will they have to deal with peasants showing up in Uber Pools mistaking Whole Foods for Aldi.

Jeff Bezos is planning a supermarket for commoners. This yet-to-be-named food store will feature more moderately priced goods than Whole Foods, and more importantly, allow preservatives, artificial dyes and the like on its shelves. You know, only the good stuff.

The first brick and mortar could open in LA before the end of 2019 with other locations in other major metropolises including San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia on the horizon. Jeffrey Commerce and Co. have inked leases in multiple locations and have not ruled out snatching up regional chains to more quickly facilitate supermark-pocalypse.

But why?

“Why not? Am I right?” – Jeff Bezos, probably

Amazon has long had brick and mortar ambitions. In fact, rumors in 2016 indicated a network of more than 2k stores of differing sizes and formats. The Seattle-based e-tailer is also hoping that more “boots on the ground” will buoy its fledgling grocery delivery biz.

And shocker … supermarkets may be a profit play. Apparently selling things online and offering free 2-day shipping isn’t terribly lucrative. Amazon is seeking to break its dependence on Amazon Web Services as its major profit center.

 

WE HAVE LYFT OFF

It’s about time.

Uber’s less problematic competitor, Lyft, has filed for an IPO with plans to list on the Nasdaq this month. The company filed its paperwork on Friday in an effort to raise as much as $100M. The move is expected to kick off a year full of unicorn startups going public, including the anticipated initial offerings of Uber, Slack, Airbnb, and Postmates.

According to Lyft, it brought in roughly $2.16B in 2018. That figure doubles its revenue haul for 2017, showing promising signs of growth, especially given the 3x uptick in ridership when compared to 2016. With Lyft’s growth in revenue and ridership comes a growth in losses, however. In 2018 Lyft saw a net loss of $911.3M, up from $688.3M in 2017.

Ryde or die

Given that Lyft’s business model relies pretty heavily on its drivers (who definitely, are 100%, not employees) it plans to reward the “OGs” when the company goes public. Drivers that have completed 10k rides or more by February 25th stand to receive a $1k cash bonus that can be used to purchase stock at the company’s IPO price. Drivers with 20k rides could see up to $10K.

 

STEP ASIDE

“You should find yourself a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while.”

Vale’s CEO Fabio Schvartsman requested a temporary leave from the metal and mining company’s board on Friday following one of the worst mining disasters in recent history.

In November of 2015, the Mariana dam, which was co-owned by Vale, burst and resulted in 19 people losing their lives. Schvartsman started his tenure at Vale in 2017 with the slogan ‘Mariana never again’.

Fast forward two years, and Brumadinho dam, which is fully owned by Vale, collapsed resulting in 186 casualties. More than 120 people are STILL missing, roughly a month after the incident.

So what’s next?

Eduardo Bartolomeo will take over as executive director and interim CEO while Fabio is “away,” presumably going all ‘Get Hard’ in preparation for jail time. Directors Peter Poppinga, Lucio Cavalli and Silmar Magalhaes are also jumping ship and leaving temporarily.

Under Brazilian anti-corruption law, Vale could face upwards of $7B in fines if convicted of colluding with safety auditors.

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IN OTHER NEWS

• If we had to describe the current state of the US-China trade war like only The Water Coolest could? Edging. The trade war is thisss close to the climax, but can’t quite get over the hump. According to insiders, the US is close to lifting all tariffs in exchange for China’s continued purchase of US goods at an alarming rate and adherence to intellectual property. Stay tuned …

 

• Have yourself a week, Elon. SpaceX’s latest mission was meant to show NASA that the company was capable of shuttling humans to the International Space Station. With one dummy on board, the capsule successfully docked on the ISS yesterday. This historic event is the first step in NASA privatizing space travel in the US. God, I love free market capitalism.

 

• Color me shocked … said no one ever. “Bond King” Bill Gross has diagnosed himself with Aspergers, a higher functioning form of autism. I guess you have a lot of time on your hands when you’ve failed miserably at living up to your moniker. You might remember that the King recently left Janus Henderson. The most shocking revelation? It wasn’t until Gross read Michael Lewis’ ‘The Big Short’ which features a character with the syndrome that the Bond King had his lightbulb moment. The self-diagnosis has since been confirmed by a real doctor.

 

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