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THE HEADLINES

SATURDAYS ARE FOR THE EARNINGS

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before … a legendary comedian and a billionaire walk into an ice cream shop.

Bill Murray and Warren Buffett shared a corner booth at an Omaha ice cream shop (not a DQ for the record), bullsh*tting over some froyo. Why? The real question is ‘why not?’

But seriously, unfortunately, we have no idea why they got together …

Now, back to business

Berkshire Hathaway reported Q2 earnings Saturday … because money never sleeps. Second-quarter net earnings were up $2B from the year prior, coming in at $14B, due largely to unrealized investment gains.

While Berkshire did buy back $400M of its shares in Q2, it still held a literal f*ck ton (roughly$122B) of cash at the end of the quarter. That said, earnings for the first half of 2019 do not include Kraft Heinz, as it has not provided its earnings to Berkshire.

The last time Kraft’s earnings were reported, in Q4 2018, it pummelled Berkshire’s performance thanks to a $15.4B writedown. The ketchup maker, if you recall, has had issues with its accounting practices. We’re talking major issues. Both an internal investigation and an SEC probe occurred during the previous quarter. The internal investigation has since closed but the SEC’s is ongoing.

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Tokyo-based news aggregator, SmartNews, closed a funding round that brings its valuation to $1.1B. The startup is the first news-related service to hit unicorn status since Buzzfeed and Vox did so four years ago. And they did it without shameless listicles.

The $28M Series E round that put SmartNews over the billion-dollar threshold was led by Japan Post Capital, a fund managed by Japan Post, obviously. Investors already involved with SmartNews include Development Bank of Japan, SMBC Venture Capital, and Japan Co-Invest.

Now what?

SmartNews currently employs 200 people, none of whom are journalists. Most of them are software developers, and SmartNews plans to hire more. The bearer of bad (read: all) news, uses a custom news feed that works with more than 400 publishers to curate stories from sources across the internet. Hence, no journalists needed.

The company, founded in 2012, says it has more than 20M monthly active users, across the US and Japan, and is growing at a clip of more than 500% per year. It will have to keep that pace if it hopes to continue competing with the likes of Google and Apple.

IN OTHER NEWS

iStockphoto

It’s not you, it’s me. HSBC’s CEO John Flint has been ousted after only 18 months of working for the bank. Flint came up through the ranks and was approved by the board but it turns out his management style didn’t quite jive with the rest of the execs. Flint, 51 has been with HSBC since college and his performance doesn’t seem to be an issue. The company announced a $4.37B quarterly net profit, up from $4.1B.

As trade talks with China continue to flounder, President Trump announced a new trade deal with the European Union. The deal is focused on the US beef market and will ensure that the stars and stripes will have a share of the 45k ton demand to supply beef products to Europe. It’s been a yearlong debate between the two western powerhouses. In a shared statement, the parties had this to say” “f*ck you, Beyond Meat.”

Who did this? Facebook, which owns Instagram and WhatsApp, is inexplicably putting its name on the apps. So now every time you look through your phone to creep on someone’s Insta, you’ll be reminded that Zuck is illegally selling your data. Fear not … the rebranding isn’t expected to impact the 0% response rate of your DM slides.

CBS and Viacom apparently have a deal in the works after several years of attempted mergers of the sister companies (both are owned by National Amusements). How far along are they? The two companies have been talking about who will be the CEO of the new company. So you could say it’s getting pretty serious. The powers that be determined that Bob Bakish, the current CEO of Viacom would run the show. The deal could be announced by the end of the month. Stay tuned …

I bought my MacBook on loan for 0% interest. There, I said it. But now I’ve got to burn the Barclays card that came with the computer. Apple and Barclays have ended their relationship as the tech company looks to try its hand with a credit card of its own … with the help of Goldman Sachs.

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