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THE HEADLINES

 

THE FALLOUT

Thousands of bankers across the globe had a major case of the Mondays following Deutsche Bank’s Sunday announcement that some 18k employees, mostly in the firm’s doomed equities division, would be shown the door.

Let the pity party begin

The fat-trimming began Monday in Asia (because, you know, time zones) and the blood bath continued in London, a hub for DB’s investment bank. There were reports of grown ass men crying and others heading to Balls Brothers for a pint … and a double shot of deep introspection.

US employees have reportedly been MIA for weeks, but that didn’t stop shameless reporters (not us, surprisingly) from posting up outside of 60 Wall St. hoping for a Lehman Brothers moment.

In Frankfurt employees, who are presumably equally as dead inside, are holding on for dear life (think: Jack clinging to the door at the end of ‘Titanic’) as the bank has vowed to return to its roots, servicing German companies.

So what’s the good news?

There is no good news, this is a Deutsche bank story …

Layoffs in banking couldn’t come at a worse time. Investment banking jobs, especially those in London due in large part to Brexit, have become few and far between. So much so that sh*t-out-of-luck DB’ers have gone as far as to say they’d interview with Nomura *gasp*. The summer doldrums certainly don’t help candidate’s causes.

Bottom line

DB shares took a digger on Monday falling more than 6% on news that things may turn around at the lender … just not in our lifetimes.

 

“USA, USA!”

– the chants coming from Nike’s offices on Monday morning, probably

Less than a week after the Betsy Ross Flag “fiasco” had people accusing Nike of being ISIS, the shoe slingers are showing that they’re indeed USA all the way.

Nike wasted no time celebrating the USWNT’s historic World Cup repeat by releasing a special ad spot minutes after it happened and a special version of the ladies’ home jersey featuring a new star on the crest to symbolize the team’s newest hardware later that night. That jersey has sold out in many sizes for men, women, and children.

It makes sense that the jerseys were selling like hotcakes after the win, but fans of the USWNT have been buying its jerseys all tournament long. In fact, during the 2019 World Cup, the team’s jerseys were the highest selling soccer jersey, for both men and women, ever sold on Nike’s site over the course of one season. For reference, compared with the 2015 World Cup, jersey sales for the American women surged more than 200%. And people call US soccer fans “fair-weather” …

It’s not just the Americans that helped give Nike a boost during the World Cup, either. According to Nike, more than two-thirds of the teams playing were wearing Nike kits (non-Queens English translation: jerseys), while half the players in the tournament rocked Nike cleats.

The exposure for Nike’s support of the women’s game is a nice change of pace for the house that Phil built, as it’s come under fire as of late for its treatment of female sponsored athletes.

 

COMING DOWN FROM A HIGH

We’ve officially identified the “Deutsche Bank of cannabis firms.”

Shares of CannTrust (more like Can’t Trust, amirite?) dropped 22% Monday after regulators at Health Canada found that the company grew wacky tobaccy in five unlicensed rooms. The pot, amounting to 5,200 kilograms (or roughly 11,500 pounds for those of us living in the civilized world), has since been quarantined and cannot be sold until released. In an effort of goodwill, the pot peddlers voluntarily put an additional 7,500 kilograms on hold, as it was produced in the same room.

To put this in perspective, CEO Peter Aceto announced in May that the company set a production goal of 50k kilogram of annual capacity by the third quarter. Q1 2019 was its most productive quarter to date, producing 9,400 kilograms of cannabis.

CannTrust has announced there will temporarily be shortages (well, no sh*t) for customers and medical patients, who will now have to sink to hitting up their local high schools and friendly neighborhood drug dealers for weed.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have cut price targets for the devil’s lettuce grower from C$9 to C$4.50 and downgraded the stock from buy to underperform, citing uncertain financials. The stock has dropped 60% since March.

 

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IN OTHER NEWS

• Prime time! Amazon’s annual “Prime Day” is around the corner and workers announced yesterday that they are celebrating … by planning a strike. I love the smell of an angsty proletariat in the AM. While workers across the Atlantic have gone on strike before, this is the first time that US workers will stage a walkout on a big sales day. Amazon recently pledged to pay workers a minimum of $15 per hour for their services, likely because the company is planning to replace them with robots who don’t have families to feed and payday loans coming due.

 

• Piper Jaffray is finalizing a deal to purchase boutique investment bank Sandler O’Neill for $485M. With the acquisition, Piper Jaffray will add “advising banking customers” to its LinkedIn profile. The combined company, Piper Sandler, will be run by the current CEO of Piper Jaffray, Chad Abraham. Because of course, a guy named Chad runs Piper Jaffray.

 

• People in the UK are petitioning McDonald’s, claiming that the plastic used to create the linchpin of young children’s happiness, Happy Meal toys, doesn’t have enough of a lasting effect to outweigh the negative environmental impact. Mickey D’s is exploring ways to create the toys using a different type of plastic in hopes of limiting the environmental damage (read: getting the tree huggers off their back). If you look up “fun police” in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of the people who signed this petition.

 

• GDPR risks are real for more than just American tech companies, apparently. Failing to protect customer information from data breaches in the EU can cost companies big time. And British Airways is learning that the hard way. The aviation company is facing a $230M fine from the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office stemming from a hack in 2018 which allowed hackers access to 500k customer’s credit cards. The company plans to appeal the fine.

 

• Instagram is going all “I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.” The Zuck owned operation is implementing an anti-bullying policy for users posting on its platform. The social media giant will use artificial intelligence to monitor posts and make sure that language is not offensive. Sooo, most stuff on the internet? Another feature, Restrict, identifies users who target others to make sure they are not being to mean to the other kids on the virtual playground.

 

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